#elethin

Mod Mom Friend Here! I promise that I didn’t intend to write more angst for my pure bean but I put Love Songs Radio on Pandora on shuffle to get songfic inspiration and it spewed out “Nothing” by The Script, so here’s a fic based on that song for my poor bard boi.

Elethin knew it was a bad idea to go out drinking.

Alcohol had never been his strong suit. Elves had a high tolerance for liquor, but he definitely took after his human father rather than his Elven mother in that respect. A few drinks and Elethin was absolutely gone. He knew this.

But a few days after she left, the pain was too bad, it was overwhelming, and Elethin was willing to try just about anything to make it all go away. So when Aeron, his only friend (and even then he could be more counted as an acquaintance than anything), proposed going out drinking one night, Elethin took him up on it. A few drinks would hopefully help him forget her. He’d never liked going to bars, especially since he worked in one and saw too much of them, but the call of alcohol was too alluring and he just wanted all the pain to go away. So, despite the fact that he couldn’t stand being around people, he went.

It couldn’t be worse than sitting at home, pining for something that couldn’t be.

So they went into the bar, Elethin took a shot. And then another. He’d requested the hardest liquor that they had, and it was working quickly, but all that Elethin wanted was to not be able to feel anymore. He just wanted all the pain to go away. And at first it seemed to work. He felt warm, happy, not afraid or alone anymore. Everything just felt a little bit better. Elethin felt like he could manage, like he’d finally, finally be okay. Aeron kept saying that he was better off now than he ever was with her, and Elethin had to agree. He was so much happier now.

But then the buzz wore off with a few more drinks, and it mutated into sheer loss of inhibitions. The liquor could only lie to him so much, he could only insist that he was fine for so long. Deep down, when you took away his guarding, his fear, he missed her. He felt like he was better off dead now that she was gone. He had to get her back. He had to tell her how he felt. Elethin knew that he didn’t have his stutter when he was drunk, so maybe with that gone, he could recite to her one of the poems he’d written, tell her a beautiful ballad, or even just be candid, tell her how much he loved her. At that moment, he didn’t care that she’d said she didn’t love him, he just knew that, with the help of the alcohol, he could convince him, it would work. She’d come to her senses.  If she saw how much she’d hurt him, she’d surely take him back.

“Elethin, where’re you going?!” Aeron asked, but Elethin was out the door, every drunken step taking him closer to her home on the outskirts of town. It was a small journey, especially considering that Elethin couldn’t even walk straight, but he did his best. Aeron ran after him, trying to get him to stop, but all Elethin responded with was her name, and Aeron eventually gave up on reasoning, opting instead to just follow and try and make sure that Elethin didn’t do anything exceedingly stupid.

Finally, he got to her door, knocked over and over. “Elethin, this is stupid, you have to stop! She’s not gonna take you back!” Aeron shouted, but Elethin ignored him. The alcohol made him brave, for once in his life. His words would be steady, the anxiety that constantly accompanied him was gone, he was ready to do this. And the minute she opened up the door, Elethin was ready.

“I love you,” Elethin said simply, the tears beginning to run down his face. He soldiered on, barely even realizing that he was crying. “I’d compare you to the sun but looking at it brings pain, while looking at you brings more joy than I could possibly imagine. I’d compare you to the moon, its beautiful, gentle shine bringing light in darkness, but your beauty surpasses even that. There is nothing of this world, no comparison that could do justice to you. My heart sings for you. Everything I want is you. Please.” He didn’t notice the slight slur to his words from the alcohol, but the look on her face showed that she did. He waited for her to respond, waited to hear the words.

Nothing.

She stood there, bit her lower lip, sadness in her eyes as she shut the door.

Nothing.

“Elethin, we’ve gotta get you home. I’m sorry but we’ve gotta get you home.” Elethin didn’t move. He just stood on her doorstep. Nothing. He’d wanted something, anything, some words to reassure him that he wasn’t a complete and utter failure, but nothing. She’d just slammed the door. Inhibitions gone, Elethin just collapsed on her doorstep, curling up into a ball, sobbing. He felt Aeron’s touch on his shoulder but he didn’t respond. Everything hurt and going home wouldn’t fix it, nothing would fix it.

Eventually, Elethin allowed Aeron to pull him out of his fetal position, help him up, get him home, but it was only so Aeron would leave. Elethin didn’t even have the self-preservation at that point to care about what would happen if he’d just stayed there, sobbing the night away. When he got home, he just laid on the bed, and Aeron left, hoping he’d sleep it off. But Elethin didn’t sleep. He just stared at the ceiling, feeling too much pain to even write it away. He just laid there.

Hi all, Mod Mom Friend reporting in! on this fine day I present to you the destruction of my purest character, Elethin Nunael! The prompt for today was “Nah, don’t worry, I saw it coming. I prepared myself well.” with a side order of “I know you love me, but I’m sick of lying when I say it back.” Prompts are from @gxxnas​ here and @prompt-bank​ here! So let’s relish the destruction of my pure darling half elf boy.

Tears streamed down the human’s face as she looked up at Elethin. She bit her lip and took a deep, shuddering breath. "I’m sorry. I’m sorry I have to do this. I know you love me, but I'm sick of lying when I say it back." Elethin smiled at her, a smile that just barely didn’t reach his eyes. But it didn’t seem like there was any malice. Just pure resignation.

“Nah, d-d-d...don’t worry, I saw it c-coming. I p-p-p-p...p-p...prepared myself well.” Elethin took a few deep breaths to calm his stutter. There were no tears. His smile didn’t waver.

“I’m…”

“Sssh. I just want you to be happy.” In their whole relationship, this was the first sentence that Elethin had managed without a stutter. She grabbed his hand. Their eyes met, hers overflowing with tears and his dry.

“I’m so glad you understand.” Elethin nodded. Didn’t speak. “I...I suppose I’ll go then.” Again, silence. She let out one small gasping sob. Turned away. And walked off.

Elethin didn’t let the tears come until he was sure she was gone.

He turned on his heel, biting his lip so hard he begun to taste blood as he headed back to his apartment, the shitty apartment that he was forced into because he couldn’t hold a job because he was so goddamn worthless. So. Goddamn. Worthless. So. Goddamn. Worthless. The words repeated in his head like a mantra, punctuated by every step he took. Elethin vaguely noticed that he was attracting stares, and the anxiety started bubbling up until it was crushed by a tidal wave of sheer anger, anger at himself and everything that he was. Gods! Couldn’t he even walk home without feeling terror?! Could he even leave the house without anxiety? Probably not, Elethin reflected, because he was broken, broken beyond repair, and who would ever want that?!

Who would want a broken half-elf bard who can’t even stutter his way through a sentence, much less a song?

Elethin reached out to open his door, and fell short. He’d lost his right hand fairly recently, in a bar accident. Anyone else would have quit. But then again, just about anyone else had an option. Reaching his left hand out this time, he yanked open his apartment’s door much more harshly than necessary, making it almost fall off its hinges. It only served to solidify that his meager job in a bar wouldn’t be enough, it would never be enough. He’d never be enough. He’d never be enough for anyone.

As Elethin moved over to the lone table, sitting in a corner of the barren room, he saw the love poems he’d written her, the early drafts. With shaking hands, he lit a fire in the hearth, and one by one, let the letters flutter in. Watching their corners curl as the flames licked at the words, the words that couldn’t compensate, was oddly therapeutic. The flames, reflected in his eyes, rose up angrily, but once they ran out of paper to burn, they started to die. And as the flames died, so did his self-loathing. Now Elethin was accompanied by a steady stream of tears, slow yet hot as they trailed down his cheeks, as he did exactly what he always did: sat down to write.

Writing was all Elethin knew, all he could do. And he knew he wasn’t good--once he managed to save enough money to study at the bard’s college, he’d be able to improve, but for now his ballads and poems helped pay the bills when his wages at the bar weren’t enough. But more importantly, he wrote to survive. Too often, his voice failed him, the words couldn’t make their way past his lips. They died on his tongue. But somehow, the path from pen to paper was smoother, easier, and the words that felt clunky and heavy in Elethin’s throat flowed like a beautiful river onto the paper. The moment they were written, they gained beauty, and even without the use of his dominant hand, writing was infinitely quicker than trying to cope with his goddamned stutter.

And sure enough, his pen didn’t stutter as he wrote, his penmanship suffering as he wrote more and more quickly, the words begging to be written, his feelings begging to be released. The tears came faster now, messy, dripping onto the paper and making the ink run, but Elethin didn’t notice, he kept writing, because everything he’d held in was being released and nothing could stop him now. His shoulders shook with sobs, sobs that he’d stifled out of pure instinct, and the writing soon took up the page. Left hand shaking, curling in and out of a fist, he read over the poem. Not his best work. But no one needed to see it. He titled it “My Love” in Sylvan, the language closest to his heart, and set it aside.