07-23-2018, 11:32 PM
[align=center][table]
[tr][td]![[Image: 2NB1bDh]](https://bit.ly/2NB1bDh)
[/td][td]![[Image: 2LFVCD6]](https://bit.ly/2LFVCD6)
[/td][td]![[Image: ru8sUY1.png]](https://i.imgur.com/ru8sUY1.png)
[/td][td]![[Image: 2LLq52q]](https://bit.ly/2LLq52q)
[/td][/tr][/table]
[tr][td]
BASTILLEPRISONER AURELIUS
BY THE GRACE OF THE FIRE AND THE FLAMES
Bastille had done his best not to think about Cooper. He couldn't afford to. There was too much fucking going on for him to let himself slip up, and each day the number of lives at his paws went up by the masses, it seemed like: the pressure of knowing that when he crashed and burned he would be taking even more people down with him was weighing on him. He could feel the tension of his souls festering, budding and crackling under the surface, shooting up his spine -- they were restless, rolling, jostling together more and more as his stress rose. In the past few days, he could feel the fine grasp of his control loosening and unraveling, and it was the best he could do to fucking ignore it.
So, he ignored it all. Ignored the burning of anger in his gut every time he saw Suiteheart, letting cold apathy towards her rush through his veins instead. Ignored the nausea when he looked at Hazel and forced himself to pretend he didn't care, to look past her and distance himself. Ignored the worry gnawing at him the longer Cooper stayed under the Clerics' care. He couldn't afford to think about losing Cooper -- not when all it did was remind him of Starry. Not when he saw how sick he was and could feel the budding memories rising to the front of his thoughts, the murmur of whispered words and softly spoken stories, the hushed, "That's him, that's Death's Echo, he'll kill us all." Maybe it was too much to assume that Echo's legacy had caught up to him, but he then he remembered his mother and realized that he could never be certain.
He couldn't risk getting to close, couldn't risk losing someone else because he was a fucking plague.
Bastille had visited Cooper once, and as much as it killed him, he couldn't go back. He could only let Rin and her new Clerics do their jobs and hope for the fucking best, which was awful, but he was nothing if not great at ignoring the world and powering through with vicious apathy. And so he did. He might have carried on that way, ignoring Suiteheart's presence entirely, if he hadn't noticed that Cooper was there, too.
[b]"Coop," he said as he came to a stop, not even sparing Suiteheart a glance, "What're you-- Hey." The greeting came out awkward, edged with something like anticipation, like he was waiting for a catch. He was. "Why are you all the way out here?"
So, he ignored it all. Ignored the burning of anger in his gut every time he saw Suiteheart, letting cold apathy towards her rush through his veins instead. Ignored the nausea when he looked at Hazel and forced himself to pretend he didn't care, to look past her and distance himself. Ignored the worry gnawing at him the longer Cooper stayed under the Clerics' care. He couldn't afford to think about losing Cooper -- not when all it did was remind him of Starry. Not when he saw how sick he was and could feel the budding memories rising to the front of his thoughts, the murmur of whispered words and softly spoken stories, the hushed, "That's him, that's Death's Echo, he'll kill us all." Maybe it was too much to assume that Echo's legacy had caught up to him, but he then he remembered his mother and realized that he could never be certain.
He couldn't risk getting to close, couldn't risk losing someone else because he was a fucking plague.
Bastille had visited Cooper once, and as much as it killed him, he couldn't go back. He could only let Rin and her new Clerics do their jobs and hope for the fucking best, which was awful, but he was nothing if not great at ignoring the world and powering through with vicious apathy. And so he did. He might have carried on that way, ignoring Suiteheart's presence entirely, if he hadn't noticed that Cooper was there, too.
[b]"Coop," he said as he came to a stop, not even sparing Suiteheart a glance, "What're you-- Hey." The greeting came out awkward, edged with something like anticipation, like he was waiting for a catch. He was. "Why are you all the way out here?"
[B]ASTRAL SERAPH — THE ASCENDANTS — [color=#e2e2e2]TAGS — [color=#e2e2e2]MOODBOARD — [color=#e2e2e2]PLAYLIST
Honey, you're familiar, like my mirror years ago, Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on his sword, Innocence died screaming; honey, ask me, I should know, I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door. [b][sup]▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃[/sup][/b]