fic: etherworld, discursive repetition

324 words. (Why are my drabbles always around 300 words? Huh.) This one probably won't make any sense without any context, all of which unfortunately resides in my head. Sorry!

Also, yay for pretentious musical titles.

Discursive Repetition

Lucas is dreaming again. He's standing on the street, wind at his cheeks and hands, the road stone-cold against his bare feet. He's staring at Methis' back.

"Please don't leave," he begs, and feels eight years old again, clutching at the impossible and watching his mother leave.

This is how he knows he's dreaming: Methis turns around, and looks long and hard at Lucas, and doesn't leave. "Al right," he acquiesces.

Lucas wakes up. It's seven and the alarm is screaming in his ear. It's been eight days since Methis left, and it's absurdly unfair that the world is rolling on, that he has an essay due today and a party to attend this Friday, that no one but Lucas cares that Methis is gone.

Methis burst into his life and changed it utterly, tore it out by its roots and flung everything upside down. Now he's gone, except the foundations Methis tore are still broken. The roots don't fit anymore.

Lucas gets up. His backpack sits at the foot of his bed, homework sticking out and rumpled by the weight of his MP3 player.

He goes to school.

-

That night, he dreams again. It's yet another permutation of that night: on the street, cold and barefoot, and he's begging.

Only this time, before he can speak, Methis says: "You really should stop doing this."

Methis doesn't turn around. He doesn't go back. And this is how Lucas knows he isn't dreaming. Except if this isn't a dream, then what is it?

"You shouldn't have left," Lucas retorts, stubborn as always.

"I had to," Methis says. It's almost an apology. "Ise is waiting for me."

"I'm waiting for you," Lucas says, but this time, he doesn't beg as Methis starts walking, each step taking him just that much further. Lucas watches him disappear, and then he wakes up. It's seven, and the alarm's going off. It's been nine days since Methis left. The world keeps turning, and Lucas goes to school.

Labels: _fiction, c: lucas caine devisser, c: methis, verse: etherworld