TW: Sensitive Content Territory You keep on turning pages for people who don't care || Amethyst, Timber

[Amethystpaw]

CW for feelings of abandonment, negative self-talk, etc

AND STILL IT TAKES YOU AGES TO SEE THAT NO ONE'S THERE

meow

What else is he supposed to do?

Amethystpaw sighs as he exits the ShadowClan camp, the place he's called home all his life. After his fight with Crowpaw, he did not return for the night, he just found an old bramble bush to sleep under, too lost in his self-loathing to come back. The blackberry thorns kept him company. He came back in the morning, he didn't want to explain to Jadethorn why he had not been there, so instead, he showed up, did his duties and followed orders. Successfully avoided Crowpaw. And when the stars started to appear and the sun had set, Amethystpaw slipped out once again.

He cannot imagine sleeping in his nest, right next to Crowpaw's, so close their bodies could touch. So close they could feel each others' breaths. So close they could share body heat. So close one's claws could pierce the other's flesh.

"It's not like you belong in there anyway." the apprentice speaks to his own reflection in a puddle. "It's not like they want you there." After all, who could love someone like himself? The copper eye in his reflection glints with joy for a moment, with warmth and love - perhaps still thinking of the Crowpaw from before. His copper eye has always been slow after all. But his lilac eye knows better, reflecting only coldness. It knows the Crowpaw from now. The Crowpaw that had drawn blood.

And he had been warned, hadn't he? He had been warned this would happen, yet he trusted his friend not to do anything so reckless. Not to do something just because a dream said that they would. And Amethystpaw was wrong to trust, wasn't he? Perhaps he is wrong to love Crowpaw after all. Perhaps he is wrong to love Blacktree as well.

"They're never going to love me back, are they?" his reflection asks back, ears pressed to the back of his skull. "So why don't I just leave? What's keeping me here?"

What else is he supposed to do?

✧ OOC:

@Timberfrost

 

[Timberfrost]

—————————————————— 'Till I can't run no more ✦

Long walks became a staple to him after the sickness. Well, they always had, but now they served a different purpose. Strength had left his bones, left him weary and tired, and so he slowly began to chip away at that strange exhaustion. His mother had always told him—and Dog had always agreed—that anything could be worked through with enough grit, and so he simply gritted his teeth and continued on, even as the long days wore him to bits.

It was the end of one such long day now, and so the tom trekked his familiar paths through the pocosin. The muck stuck to his paws as it did, as it always had, but he didn't mind evermuch—it was a distraction, something to focus on other than the flits in the corners of his vision, those bodies he never quite recognized and he could never quite focus on, those strange whispers he never wanted to heed... and he nearly startled as a voice broke that void, one strangely sturdy. For just a brief moment, the caretaker thought it was another one of those cats he had been seeing... but no, this was solid, this was warm, and this was familiar.... and broken?

Timber followed the noise silently, sneaking his way through the familiar landscape until a scent filled his nose and a body came into view. It was Amethystpaw—a cat who he had, admittedly, not been able to interact with much (sick cats never made for very good company to the younger ones, anyway...), but he recognized them as one of the cats Blacktree had been tasked to look after. The tom watched the other speak to himself for a while, awfully cruel words as they were, and considered his options... before he began to pad forward into the clearing.

"... I don't think he's going to respond." Timber interjected softly, gently to the apprentice staring into the pool. He shook his head as he did this, sidling up next to the other in a contemplative silence. He was not here to get the apprentice in trouble for being out of the camp so late—that was not his duty anyway. "Not in the way you want him to, anyway." Timber hummed for a moment, glancing at Amethystpaw before looking away, instead staring at his own reflection that now appeared in the water. "Mine never did."

It's true, I want to be with you tonight

But I'm a little too late

• 
  Timberfrost
  ✦—Shadowclan Caregiver | 31 Moons
  ✦—He/Him
  ✦—"SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  ✦—A large chocolate tabby with pale gold eyes
  #9A775A

 

[Amethystpaw]

๋࣭ ⭑✶⋆.˚ AMETHYSTPAW ๋࣭ ⭑✶⋆.˚

meow

For a while, Amethystpaw simply stares at his reflection, unfamiliar features looking back at him. One eye that barely listens to his commands and another full of anger and pain. Just what is he becoming? What is ShadowClan shaping him out to be?

Tears pool at the corners of his vision and his reflection blurs - a welcome disturbance, for Amethystpaw can't stand looking at the face reflected back at him anymore. A sob threatens to erupt from his lungs and he wants to let it, when... a voice. Amethystpaw quickly wipes his tears and turns his head towards the approaching cat. "Timberfrost?" he whispers, his voice hoarse. Is Timberfrost here to scold him for not being back in camp, not sleeping in his nest?

But the caregiver does nothing of the sorts. Instead he sits next to Amethystpaw and stares at the puddle reflecting the two of them, yet not. Not entirely. He speaks softly, gently, but Amethystpaw doubts a cat like Timberfrost can understand the things he's going through. Sure, there are struggles Timber must be dealing with himself, with his own children and the sickness plaguing him, but... at least he's needed.

Amethystpaw looks into the other's eyes, but not directly, instead his eye contact is done through the puddle's reflection only. For anything direct is too much, too personal, too honest, and Amethystpaw fears it might break him. "Respectfully, sir,..." he starts. "You can't understand. You're important to the clan. ShadowClan needs you, to take care of the young, to raise and protect them." Just like Blacktree is, but her duties don't go beyond that. Don't touch on love. "Me? I'm not needed."

His tail lashes slightly, his good eye looks away - but his copper eye lingers on Timberfrost a little longer, still holding onto hope. Finally, it catches up to the rest of Amethystpaw's body. "Nobody would miss me if I didn't come back."

I've already not come back in the night. And no one noticed. No one cared.

✧ OOC:

n/a