Absent Changes
Part of - The Weight of Worlds AU
Prompt; Forgotten.
Characters; Garvin, Marcus, and Ivy. Briar, Andi, Michelle, Rose, and Devery are all in it as well but do not speak at all. Rest of GRAIN, other victims of Andi, and other ghosts in general are mentioned to varying degrees too.
Word Count; 5,040.
TWs; Swearing, self-hatred, severe self worth issues, self-esteem issues, somehow suicidal ideation, varying degrees of dissociation, severe depression, internalized ableism, self-depreciation, self-dehumanization, blood, (past?) character death, derealization/depersonalization, lots of downplaying things, hints at trauma/lots of horrible implications, and messy writing/ending. And probably more, honestly.
Notes; Welcome to the dead snippets, Garvin’s not doing very well. At all. Anyways, welcome to him proving what Sol said in one of their first posts wrong. Enjoy the mental breakdowns!
*~*~*~*
Garvin hadn’t taken it well, seeing himself lying on the floor in a pool of blood hadn’t been something he would’ve ever thought to prepare for. Not from the angle he’d been looking at it from, at least. He’d picked himself up from plenty of bloody pools before, after all. But staring at his own back, unmoving, lying in a pool of blood… Tucana had been speaking still, he hadn’t really thought to listen to figure out what was being said, he just… The realization that he’d died, that he was dead, had hit him far slower than he would’ve expected it to. Andi hadn’t even been in the basement for it. He’d walked off, gone upstairs to… Do something or other. He hadn’t– He hadn’t done anything that Andi waited for though. He hadn’t. He had still been dead.
-
He’d overreacted a little, maybe, when it fully set in. When Tucana even seemed to realize it. He’d backed up, stumbling, and then had thought better of it and got closer to his body instead. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. The blood from his head had made sense, the blood pouring from his nose was… A little weird given how much there was, but Andi had broken his nose. It was the blood pouring from his mouth and left eye that he hadn’t been expecting at all. The slight bit coming from his right eye had seemed wrong too. He’d stared, and then he’d realized, remembered, that he hadn’t been wearing his trench coat. That he didn’t have it. That Andi had taken it from him before he’d woken up in the basement for the second-first time.
-
He’d waited against the wall, staring at the growing pool of blood, until the sound of the basement door opening had caught his attention. He’d stared a little longer, took a moment of realization that he’d died, that Tucana was still in Andi’s basement, and stood before he choked. Andi made his way down the stairs at the same time that he’d made his way up. Someone followed Andi, stared at him, and then they had kept walking to where Tucana was waiting. It wasn’t hard to assume what the staring at him had meant.
-
He hadn’t been sure what to do. Where to go. He never had been though. The thought that nothing had really changed crossed his mind when he’d reached the top of the stairs. He had ended up sitting down then, fumbling to the ground and letting that thought sink in. Because nothing had changed. Not really. He’d just gotten a way out of the basement. Someone had walked over to him, stared and crouched and looked just as badly injured as he probably did. Their mouth had opened, they had said something, offered a hand. He hadn’t been able to do much more than stare past them.
-
It’d taken him… A while to move again. To process anything again. Others had shown up, tried to talk to him. Other victims of Andi, probably. He hadn’t paid attention. He hadn’t been able to. One of them had been waiting next to him when he had finally managed to blink, to lift his head up, to get himself working again. They had looked at him and he’d managed to hear what they said to him that time. Their voice had been deep, thick with something he hadn’t been able to put a name to. “Hey, you back with us?”
-
He’d stared at them, trying to get his hands to stop shaking as he blinked. They’d taken that as all the confirmation they needed to continue. “Yeah… It can be hard to wrap your head around at first. I’m Marcus.”
-
He’d found that hilarious when he’d heard it. He hadn’t thought about it. He had laughed, a choked sound as he’d taken it in, Marcus had stared at him, as if confused, as if surprised. He’d ended up putting his head against his knees, letting himself hit his forehead as if it could kill him a second time and he’d finally just get to sleep. To not do anything. He’d laughed for a while, his laughter getting more choked as he did. He had probably seemed unhinged, unstable. He hadn’t cared at that moment. He’d looked up when he’d stopped, looked at Marcus and asked the thought that had started his laughter– “Y’kept ya name?”
-
Marcus hadn’t said anything at first, had simply stared at him. “Yeah.”
-
He had found that answer even funnier than the fact Marcus had kept the name at all. He had spoken in between laughter, “Yer fuckin’ dead– Y’really think ya need a name? Who’s eve’ usin’ it?”
-
Marcus hadn’t found it as funny as he did. When he’d finally managed to stop laughing at it and meet some of the others, none of them had found it funny either. They had all kept the names that had never really belonged to them. He’d pointed that out to them, when one asked why it was funny. Rose had seemed mortified. He’d asked if they hadn’t realized that. He would have thought they had, if their lives had been similar enough to his to make Andi lock them in his basement at all. He’d gotten concerned looks. He hadn’t bothered with trying to explain himself, with trying to get them not to worry. There hadn’t been a point to it. It hadn’t really mattered. He had waved them off when they asked, and told them just that. That it didn’t matter.
-
When the subject had changed to being about Tucana, to being about bonding to them, whatever that had meant, he had quickly tuned it out and started towards the front door. Ivy had stopped him, stared him down, glaringly upset. “Where are you going?”
-
He had moved past her, shrugging and continuing towards the door. “‘M leavin’.” None of them had liked that. He hadn’t cared. They asked him about where he’d go instead. Who he had to see, to bond to, instead of Tucana. He had told them the truth, there hadn’t been any reason to lie to them. So he’d told them that it didn’t matter where he went. That he didn’t have anyone that he wanted to watch as they forgot him, if they hadn’t already. They had still fought against him leaving.
-
He had left anyway. He hadn’t looked back at the house, hadn’t seen any reason to. It probably made him a shitty friend, leaving Tucana behind. They had a better chance than he had ever had when it came to someone finding them and getting them out though. He hadn’t wanted to be there when they got out. He hadn’t wanted to be there when they forgot him. He hadn’t wanted to be there when they died.
---
He hadn’t known where to go, but he never really had in life either. He’d let himself wander, walk aimlessly for a while. There hadn’t been any reason not to, a small change from while alive. Kind of. He had wandered then too. He’d had a goal though. He’d died though, so what would be the point of a goal? What kind of a goal could he even have? He hadn’t seen any point or any sort of goal he could have, so he let himself wander aimlessly.
-
Up until he realized he’d been making his way towards where the rebellion’s base was. He’d stopped when he’d realized it, stayed standing there for a moment, and then had turned into the next alley that’d be going away from the base. He knew who he’d been in life. What he’d been. He knew what he hadn’t been even more though. He hadn’t seen any need to see it proven, to find out that he’d already been forgotten by everyone.
---
He kept to back alleys, mostly. He didn’t see any reason not to. He’d kept to them in life too, mostly. Back alleys and freight trains and abandoned buildings and rooftops. A forest every once in a while. Not much had changed from his life. He didn’t stay in abandoned buildings anymore. There wasn’t any reason to, not really. And, well, the other dead seemed to group up in places like those. Some had tried to talk to him, the first and only time he’d gone into one. They’d used names too. It hadn’t felt right to give them a name that had never really been his though.
-
He hadn’t been in any talking mood either. He rarely was now. He never was now. He hadn’t spoken since he’d left Andi’s house. He hadn’t cared to do so. There wasn’t any reason to. He was dead. There wasn’t much reason for anything.
-
He was moving more often than not, it was familiar. He’d always been on the move while alive. It was something he knew how to do. It was all he really knew how to do. Nothing else he’d done in life mattered anymore. Moving was all there really was for him. He would’ve been moving constantly but he kept having moments where he just…
-
Stopped.
-
He ended up sitting down for them, usually. He’d be in an alley and something would… Shift or click or twist. He didn’t really know, maybe it changed every time. Either way, he’d end up sitting down in whatever alley he’d been in and time would pass with him unable to do… Anything. He’d sit there and stare and… It didn’t really make sense. He didn’t think he was really aware during it, whatever it was. He didn’t question it. He didn’t really care enough to do so. He didn’t think it mattered. He assumed it was the same thing that’d happened at the top of the stairs at Andi’s house and that was enough thinking it through for him. He was dead. Figuring things out didn’t matter. It wouldn’t do anything for him.
-
He’d ended up standing for a few of them. It’d come on too quickly for him to stumble into sitting down and he’d get stuck. He didn’t dwell on it. It didn’t really matter. He was still dead every time he came back to himself, every time he managed to get himself working again. He was never too sure on how much time had passed by the time they ended. He didn’t think it mattered. He’d keep walking when they ended anyway.
-
He’d stuck to the same city, avoiding anywhere he thought he’d might see anyone he’d known in life. He didn’t let himself think about any of them much. He tried not to let himself think about them at all. He’d always been worse at forgetting people he cared about than they were at forgetting him though. He sat down and let himself stare whenever they found a way to worm into his thoughts. He wondered about Tucana the most. If they’d died yet or not. If they’d gotten out yet or not. If they’d found out how terrible of a friend he’d been yet. If they’d forgotten about him yet. He always decided that the last one depended on whether or not Andi had gotten rid of his body yet. He doubted that Andi hadn’t yet.
---
He ended up visiting Levy’s apartment. He wasn’t sure how long it’d been since he’d died. He wasn’t sure how long it’d been since he’d last seen him. He hadn’t been planning on visiting anyone. He knew Levy though. He knew what he’d find. He also knew that it’d be the same thing he always found though.
-
So he ended up watching Levy for a bit, for what was really just a small check in. He found him drinking, sitting in the chair in the living room area of the apartment, watching something on the TV just as interested as he usually was with everything. Not interested at all. It was what he’d been expecting to find.
-
He sat down, watched his oldest friend, and could almost pretend that nothing had changed. That nothing had happened. The slight taste of blood in his mouth that never seemed to leave was the only thing that really stopped him from fully forgetting about his own death. Nothing had really changed. He’d already known that. The thought still followed him to no end. He couldn’t drink anymore. He couldn’t smoke either. He couldn’t do most of the things he used to do when a thought wouldn’t leave him alone.
-
Levy had probably already moved on. Had probably already forgotten him. Sticking around him didn’t seem as bad as sticking around anyone else. Sticking around him meant he’d probably end up seeing the others though and that… He couldn’t deal with that. He knew. He knew they’d already moved on. He knew they’d already forgotten him. He still didn’t want to see that fact in action.
-
He stayed long enough to see Levy go through a few bottles, watching him check his phone and switching the channel on the TV every once in a while. It was hard not to fall into the old routine he’d had whenever he’d crashed at Levy’s apartment while alive.
-
He still couldn’t stay. He wasn’t really welcome anymore. He’d never really done anything to deserve to get to stay either. He’d never really done anything to deserve to be remembered. He’d never really done anything to deserve Levy letting him crash on his couch. He’d never really deserved to think of Levy as a friend. They hadn’t been, not really. He knew who he had been, what he had been, what he hadn’t been in life.
-
He got up, the same way he always had, and only stopped when he got to the door. He hadn’t spoken since he’d left Andi’s house. He hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t had any reason to. He still didn’t, not really, he wouldn’t be heard. Any words he had to say didn’t really matter. But that just meant that nothing had really changed. So he spoke, staring at the door. He wasn’t sure what his tone was. He wasn’t sure if he had one. He’d always been bad at goodbyes. “I… Thanks fo’ lettin’ m’crash ‘ere fo’ a bit, Cygnus.”
-
He left. He wondered if Devery had poured one out for him before moving on and forgetting him. He doubted it. There wasn’t any real way to know. It didn’t matter anyway. He was dead, after all. Nothing really mattered. Nothing had really changed. He went back to walking through the alleys and avoiding anywhere that he thought the people he’d known in life would be for him to see.
-
He didn’t visit Devery again.
---
When he’d still been alive, he’d talk to himself a lot while on the move, he’d never known when he’d have the chance to talk to someone else next, after all. At first, it’d been simple, repeating the same words over and over to not forget them. Mostly, he’d been repeating the name that wasn’t even really his. He hadn’t wanted to forget him. It’d been all he had back then. He’d added more as he went, words he had to remember to make it more likely that he could find something to do for food or money or anything else he needed. A name that wasn’t really his, an offer to work any hours, an offer to work for less than half what others were paid, an offer of a worker that didn’t have to be counted in how many workers there were. Of a worker that wouldn’t take any breaks. Of a worker that wouldn’t complain about the work or the treatment or hours or pay or– Anything, really.
-
It’d worked well enough for his purposes. After he was dropped off at the docks, he’d started repeating everything he’d learned about gambling, everything he’d learned about sewing, and everything he’d learned about the stars and playing the twelve string banjo he’d been given. He’d kept repeating his other lines too. He had still had to find work, after all. He used different names sometimes, when the people he’d started pitching himself to seemed to just get shadier and shadier. None of the names had really ever been his though, none of them had ever had a chance at being his.
-
He thought about names a lot now that he was dead. He didn’t need one given that, well, he was dead. No name would have ever really been his anyway. There wasn’t a name that could have really belonged to him. Dead or alive. It was just another thing that hadn’t changed. He still thought about them a lot. He wasn’t really sure why. He didn’t think it mattered enough to figure out why. Maybe he just had nothing better to do.
-
He didn’t have anything better to do. He walked, he stopped and stared, and he thought. He thought about a lot of things now, really. He didn’t have anything else to do but think, if he was being honest. He didn’t really have any reason to lie anymore either. Being dead and not talking to any of the other dead people kind of made it seem pointless. Being dead in general made it seem pointless.
-
He thought about a lot of things now, really. He tried not to think about the people he’d known while alive, which meant he ended up thinking about names more often than not. It was easier to think about names than any of the thoughts that tried to catch his attention about anyone he’d known.
-
He thought about Briar most, whenever he did end up thinking about the people he’d known. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been dead for. He wasn’t sure if they were dead or if they’d gotten out or if they were just still alive in Andi’s basement. He thought about Akira a lot too. He tried not to. He tried even harder to not think about the others though. His thoughts always circled back to wondering if they’d forgotten about him yet. The answer was always the same. There weren’t many arguments he could make against the fact that they had already forgotten him. There weren’t any he could make when it came to most of them, really. Briar and Akira were the easiest to argue. He didn’t hold it against any of them. He couldn’t. He barely managed to remember what name he’d been called while alive. He had barely managed to remember it when he was alive. He’d never been someone to be remembered. That wasn’t their fault. He still couldn’t fathom facing any of them. Visiting Devery had been enough.
-
He’d been thinking about names for a while though. It passed the time better than thinking about people he’d known in life. It was something to do while moving. It was something to do to force his mind back into working after his staring spells. He felt like he was running out of names to think about though, mostly because all he could really do when it came to thinking about names was comparing them. There wasn’t much he could use to compare them with either. Not beyond which ones sounded better and which ones were easier to think of nicknames for. He wasn’t even sure why he’d started doing it. It was something to do. It passed the time and made sure he didn’t think about worse things. Or, at least, things that he didn’t want to think about.
-
He didn’t think what he thought about names really mattered. He knew it didn’t, actually. He was dead, and even if he hadn’t been it wasn’t like anything would come from him thinking about names. They weren’t his. No name would have ever been his. Could have ever been his. He ranked and compared names anyways. Longer names tended to have more nicknames, shorter names tended to be ones that would’ve rolled off the tongue easier. Longer names tended to have a nickname that would’ve rolled off the tongue easier though too. Not that it mattered too much what would have rolled off the tongue easier, he wasn’t actually saying any of them. He wasn’t ever going to be saying any of them either. How much he spoke was probably one of the only things that had changed. He didn’t talk much anymore. He didn’t talk at all anymore, actually. He didn’t have any reason to. He was dead.
-
He thought about that too, what it meant. Sometimes. When he couldn’t seem to keep himself focused on names. When he couldn’t even seem to get distracted by thoughts of people he used to know when he was alive. It was probably his least favorite thing to think about. Which didn’t even really matter because he was fucking dead.
-
It wasn’t a hard topic, it wasn’t hard to know what it meant. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t like thinking about it. He didn’t think it really mattered. He was dead. No matter what, he was dead. Nothing was changing that.
-
He wasn’t sure what he was anymore. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever really known. He was dead. There wasn’t anything else. Not really, at least. He wasn’t sure if he could really call himself human still. Looking back though, he wasn’t sure if he ever really could have either. He wasn’t sure if what he’d had before really counted as a life. He’d never been too sure about that. How much of him that’d been real had always been… Muddy. Vague. Nothing about that had really changed since he’d died. Nothing about anything had really changed since he’d died.
-
One thing was still obvious enough, at least. Being dead was easier than the life that probably hadn’t ever been real. He wasn’t sure what he was beyond… Dead. That was more than he’d known before though. It was a simple thing to grasp, really. He didn’t need to know anything else. He was dead, and even that didn’t really matter. Not when nothing was going to change that. He didn’t think he’d want anything to change that though, even if there was something that could. He’d been tired. He was still tired. It was another thing that hadn’t changed.
-
He’d been dead a long time before he became… Whatever it was that he was now. He hadn’t been getting out of that basement alive. He’d known that. He’d given up before that though. Before even the first time he’d woken up in that fucking basement. He didn’t think it really mattered to pinpoint when he’d given up or really died or whatever it was that caused death to not change anything. He didn’t really care. He was dead. There wasn’t any reason to care about much of anything. Or about anything at all. It probably would’ve been a nice change, if he actually cared enough to enjoy it. Instead, he was just… Tired. There wasn’t really anything else beyond that. He was dead, he was tired, and he was still just as worthless as he had always been.
---
The episodes where he just seemed to stop had been getting longer. He didn’t care to think about why. It didn’t matter why. It wouldn’t change anything whether he knew or not.
-
He was tired. He wasn’t sure why he was still walking. There wasn’t really any reason to do so. Maybe he just didn’t have anything better to do. It didn’t really matter anyway. He was still tired. Tired of walking, of thinking, of just— Fucking everything, really. He was tired.
-
Maybe it was a good thing the episodes were getting longer. Maybe eventually they’d be long enough that he’d finally get to stop forever. He didn’t really care enough to hope that’d be the case. He didn’t really care about anything at this point. There wasn’t any point to caring. He wasn’t sure if there ever had been. He didn’t care what the answer to that was either. He was tired of walking. He didn’t have anywhere to go. He’d never had anywhere to go. Nothing had changed. It seemed like he was only doing anything because he’d done it before. He was tired of it.
-
He’d even managed to find his way to the train station he’d used before. He hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t meant not to either though. There wasn’t any reason for him to stay in the city. There wasn’t any reason for him to leave the city either. He didn’t have a reason for anything anymore. He didn’t think he ever really had a reason for anything. He didn’t think it really mattered. He was tired. He didn’t want to keep walking. He didn’t want to be doing anything.
-
He walked along the tracks anyways. He wasn’t sure why. He didn’t care why. He was tired. The tracks were familiar, almost as familiar as the back alleys of the city. They were calmer too. There were less people, dead or alive. He knew where he’d end up if he followed the tracks he was on long enough, and if he followed them for even longer than that. He’d managed to commit their routes to memory. He couldn’t see the reason for doing so anymore. It hadn’t really helped him much. It hadn’t really mattered. It still didn’t. It probably mattered less now, really. He still knew which route he was following.
-
They weren’t the tracks to a passenger train. Well, they weren’t supposed to be. He’d used the freight trains that used the tracks as his own passenger train before. He probably would’ve been closer to freight than a passenger anyway though. He wouldn’t count as either now. He wasn’t really planning on catching a ride on a freight train anyway. He wasn’t sure how well that would work. He didn’t really care to find out. He was really just tired. Following the tracks wasn’t really any different than wandering the city’s back alleys and streets. He hadn’t expected it to be. It hadn’t been any different before.
-
The sun was still bright in the sky when he’d stopped, fumbling and then staring ahead at the tracks stretching on for miles. He was tired. It was hard to think past that. It always was when he stopped. He was tired. He was so fucking tired. He didn’t want to walk anymore, he didn’t want to keep going. He was tired. There wasn’t any point to keep going. He was tired.
-
The sky was dark when he came back, when he managed to actually hold a thought beyond his exhaustion, blinking and trying to reorient himself enough to decide whether he should keep walking or not. He didn’t want to. He didn’t have anything better to do. He still didn’t want to. What he wanted had never really mattered before, there wasn’t any reason for it to matter now. But he was tired, and he didn’t want to keep going, and there wasn’t any reason for him to keep going. It was pointless. It didn’t matter whether he kept going or not. It probably never had.
-
The sky was dark. The sun wasn’t out. The stars were brighter on the tracks than they’d ever been in any city. He wasn’t sure when he’d sat down. Maybe the exhaustion had caught up to him. He didn’t really care. It didn’t really matter. He stared at the stars and almost wished that he’d be swept under another one of the stopping episodes, where thinking was like trying to hold water in his hands. Instead, he stared at the stars looking down at him, trying to pull a trench coat he wasn’t wearing on tighter.
-
He shifted so he was lying down on the tracks, stared at the stars, and tried not to let his mind wander past how bright they seemed. He still recognized the constellations in the sky faster than he wanted to. Baidam was the easiest one to find. It always was. It still took him a moment after finding it to make his eyes adjust to the idea that it wasn’t really Baidam, that it was part of Ursa Major. Ursa Minor was easy to find after his eyes adjusted to that idea. The Summer Triangle was in the sky too already, which meant it was probably June or July or some fucking summer month that he really didn’t care about figuring out. He was tired.
-
He wondered if Navis knew he was dead.
-
He wasn’t sure what answer would be better. He wasn’t sure what answer would be easier to handle. He stared at the stars.
-
He hadn’t expected death to be like this. He hadn’t expected nothing to change. He’d never really been religious. It’d never really been for him. He’d only been in one church before, he was fairly sure, and that hadn’t gone over well for him. Still, he had expected something. Maybe not becoming one with the stars like Navis had used to talk about. Even if it’d been true, he wouldn’t have deserved that. But he hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t expected death being the exact fucking same as everything else had been. He would’ve sooner expected to end up in the hell the priest in that church had claimed was waiting for him than this. He should’ve spat in the fucker’s face. Maybe he would’ve, if he’d expected this. He probably would have, he probably would have done a lot of things different that night if he’d expected this.
-
He didn’t really want to think about it. There wasn’t really any going back anyways. There wasn’t anything different to do. He was already dead. It didn’t really matter anyway, he’d gotten a bed and meal out of that night. That was all that had ever really mattered before his death. Not that even that shit mattered now that he was dead.
-
When the stars had disappeared and a new day had started, he still hadn’t gotten back up to keep walking. He didn’t really feel like getting back up to keep walking. He didn’t feel like doing anything. It didn’t matter whether he did anything or not anyway. He was just tired.
Winter Month: 3 
Day 
