log: dietre & liam Who: Liam & Dietre What: A meeting Where: Shore of the lake When: Recent Warnings/Rating: Ghost violence-ish?
Fractured. That was the best way to describe how he was feeling. It was as though he was falling to pieces, with some very essential bits missing and forgotten. Even his memories were falling apart, moments of existence where he had problems remembering who he was. What had happened.
Time passed strangely during those periods when his memory faltered, minutes stretching into his and days before anything clicked into place again. And tonight was one of those. How long he had been standing at the edge of the lake, water lapping at his feet, was hard to say.
Dietre couldn’t sleep. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling, deeply troubled by what he read on the forums. He knew the puddles were Liam, what else could they be? For a while he had fooled himself into thinking the man had moved on, but now that fantasy was shattered and he was reminded of his old friend’s suffering and the promise he made.
A few hours later found Dietre on the way to the lake. He wasn’t sure exactly what he meant to do. The likelihood of finding Liam there felt slim, and he doubted any ghost would deign to appear at his beck and call. Even so, Dietre felt compelled to check. Maybe Liam would want to talk, though talking with spirits never seemed to go anywhere.
Sieglinde was left at home, Dietre walked to the lake shore alone. He stared out over the dark water with a frown, brow furrowed. A moment of hesitation, then, in a soft voice he spoke his friend’s name. “...Liam?”
In the quiet of the night his voice still carried, traveling far across the water’s surface.
He was here and he was not, and he didn't always remember his own name these days. So though he heard Dietre's voice, Liam didn't initially respond. Just a silent spirit trapped in this world.
Finally, finally, he turned, blues eyes pale, clouded. "Are you talking to me?" His head canted to the side, a flicker of his form, and then he vanished, appearing again only feet away. His gaze was intense, searching over Dietre's face, his own being furrowed in thought. "I… you're… familiar." A pause, a moment of thought.
"I think?"
Dietre’s jaw stiffened as Liam reappeared closer in an attempt to steel himself against the emotions seeing the man’s spirit produced in him. It was terrible to see that confusion in his spectral face. Liam looked as lost as ever.
“I-It’s Dietre…” A shaky breath before he stepped closer. “Don’t you remember me?” Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that Liam had difficulty recognizing him, Dietre had changed quite a bit in the last few months. He looked healthier than Liam had ever seen him while living, not so skinny, properly rested, and his eyes were no longer haunted and hopeless. The fact that life was going good for him made the guilt at seeing Liam still suffering all the more sharp.
“We were friends.” A beat. “Are friends,” he corrected.
“I came to see you…” he trailed off, at a loss for words. Now that Liam was here in front of him Dietre was even less sure of what he was supposed to do.
It was difficult to focus, to parse the words that were said, and confusion was clear on his face. Dietre indeed was familiar, but he couldn't immediately place him, though the memory was on the tip of his thoughts. He didn't say anything, his image flickering for a moment before it solidified again, some of the confusion draining from his face only to be replaced by a smile. "Dietre. It's been a while, hasn't it?" Time was hard to keep track of, minutes and hours blending into days and weeks. "It's really good - good to see you. You…"
Liam trailed off, his gaze growing distant again as his image faded, nearly gone before it strengthened again. If Liam was aware of the instability, he didn't mention it. "-look good," he continued, picking up where he left off as though he had never trailed off to begin with. "Happy. You look happy."
A smile, soft and sad, appeared on Dietre’s lips as Liam seemed to eventually recognize him, though the concern never left his eyes. “It has.” He nodded encouragingly, hoping that the spirit’s memory would ignite and pull him out of his fog.
“...I suppose I am.” Funny, he never thought he’d be able to truthfully admit to being happy. Hugh had changed things for him dramatically. “But you-- I’m worried about you.”
“I still want to help you.” Dietre took another step closer, a part of him itching to reach out and try to touch Liam, to offer some kind of comfort. “People have been talking about finding puddles around town… Was that you?”
"The puddles?" Liam echoed, and it took him a moment before he nodded in response, though his answer was hardly as sure as his gesture. "I think so. I was trying to… to find someone. I think." Again with the brow furrowing as he looked back towards the lake. A breeze swept through, but it didn't touch him, hair and clothing left still. Was that what he had been doing? Looking for someone? Even he wasn't sure about that anymore.
Slowly, his arms came up to wind around his chest, and he turned back towards Dietre, expression cloudy with emotion. "I'm scared. I'm really scared, Dietre." He had told Seven the same thing, and as bad as things had been then, they felt worse now. "I don't think I can do this anymore. It's hard." He paused, his arms tightening around himself, fingers digging in to his upper arms. "It hurts." The breath he let out was shuddered, a ghostly breath that failed to reach the world, though the smell of the lake, all earth and vegetation, increased around him. He met Dietre's gaze, and there was desperation there, fear, a terror that filled him nearly completely.
"I don't want to disappear. I don't want to disappear, Dietre." The words were barely whispered, a confession of fear.
Whoever Liam was looking for, Dietre didn’t think it was him. Though the memory of the painful cold he felt the last time Dietre touched Liam’s spirit flared up in his mind, he couldn’t ignore the fear in his friend’s eyes. Fingers brushed what should have been the skin of Liam’s cheek, Dietre was willing to suffer some discomfort, and maybe pain, if it could lessen Liam’s suffering. “It’ll be okay, Liam.” He didn’t quite believe that, but sometimes white lies were better than nothing.
“Are you-- Are you sure it’s disappearing? And not… moving on?” Dietre asked this carefully, not wanting to add to Liam’s fears. Again he was reminded of how little he knew of the spirit world. He could see them, but aside from that, he knew barely nothing. He wished he could tell Liam with some certainty what was going to happen to him.
“Can you remember who you were looking for?” He thought maybe he could try to take Liam’s mind off of disappearing.
Liam was a lot of things right then, and starved for touch, for a connection with anyone, was near the top of that list. So when Dietre reached out, he was quick to respond, leaning in towards those questing fingers. He was cold, ice cold, the temperature of death and the dead, and maybe he wasn't as solid as a person should have been, but there was substance to him, at least for that moment. Storm-coloured eyes fell shut and his lips parted with an exhaled breath, a hand loosening from the self-hug he had been giving himself to instead touch the other man's wrist, a second point of contact from a starving man.
But whatever comfort he might have been gaining from that moment slipped away with Dietre's suggestion that the fading he was feeling might have been 'moving on', whatever that entailed. If it was at all possible, the cold grew fiercer and eyes shot open, and instead of holding on to Dietre's wrist like he had been, it seemed as though his hand was moving deeper, holding onto something beneath the skin. "I don't- I don't want to move on," he stated in clipped tones, his words full of ice. Liam, when he had been alive, wasn't known to anger, wasn't known to feel the sort of rage that filled him then. But that Liam was dead, wasn't he? This was just a ghost, an after-image of a life carelessly spent, and the suggestion that he might have been moving on was infuriating.
Dietre had experienced that cold before, yet it still took him by surprise, and made him suck in a sharp breath. He bore it uncomplainingly, making no attempt to pull his hand away. Liam’s sudden anger was another shock, however, and he grimaced at the biting freeze that was the ghost’s grip. Apparently he had made a mistake. He’d only been trying to help, but, like usual when it came to Liam, Dietre had somehow made things worse.
“B-but Liam, what can I do for you?” He asked, full of dismay. He’d begun to shiver and he grit his teeth against it. It hurt, that cold, he could barely stand it.
“What if-- What if the lake were dredged?” Dietre suggested, desperate to hit on an idea that would soothe Liam. “What if they found your body, and put it to rest? Would that help?”
Those words weren't enough to placate that growing anger, and in truth, there was probably very little that Dietre could say that would bring him any comfort. Anger and regret were the two things he knew the best in this afterlife, and neither seemed to be something that would be solved any time soon.
The cold crackled, ice crystals forming around where he gripped Dietre's arm. At this point, Liam was nearly unrecognizable from who he had been in life, not a single iota of warmth or kindness remained. For a brief moment, the temperature dropped further, a deadly point of cold, and then the ghost shattered, ice crystals splintering in the air into a fog that dispersed, the cold dissipating into the warmth of summer air.
“Liam…” Dietre’s voice wavered as the cold around his wrist grew icier and icier. It went beyond cold, and he began to feel as though he were being burned instead. He bore it until it was impossible not to react and he began to try to pull away. “Liam. Stop.”
At first, that anger baffled him. Despite all of his guilt, Dietre did not understand what he’d done to deserve this level of response. Then, as if Liam’s anger was infectious, he felt it rise up in himself at how unfair the ghost was being. All Dietre ever wanted was Liam’s friendship, and at one point, he had hoped for his love. That hadn’t changed since the man’s death, Dietre wanted so much to help and comfort him. Yet he was rejected again and again. Liam rejected him in life, and continued to reject him in death. Why? And now Liam’s ghost had the gall to lash out at him.
Dietre’s pale eyes flashed brightly, bitterness and hurt, the softness of sympathy gone, replaced by hard, indignant anger. He swallowed a sound of pain, gritting his teeth. “Let me go!” A tirade was on the tip of his tongue, ready to air out all his grievances, only, Liam seemed to explode, disappearing into the night.
“Liam!!” He shouted the ghost’s name in that same demanding tone one uses when attempting to call back an opponent who’s walked away from a fight before it’s begun. He glared into the empty air around him, cradling his aching wrist to his chest, breathing hard, and waited.
The air was still, warming back to balmy summer, and it was some moments before the ghost reappeared. He was crouched feet away, hands clasped behind his neck, hiding his head in the cave of his arms. Nothing was said, not at first, just the sounds of the water lapping at the shore of the lake.
And then, a whisper.
"I'm sorry, Dietre. I-" Liam broke off, unsure and regretful. "I don't- I don't know what came over me." That anger had been so cold, so encompassing, blotting out every other emotion to the point where it felt as though he could experience nothing else. But Dietre hadn't deserved that.
There was a time when seeing Liam curled up on himself like that would have broken Dietre’s heart from sympathy. Not so at the moment. Now he was the angry one, but he lacked the ability to cause a spirit any sort of damage, he had no way to pay Liam back save for a tongue lashing.
“Right.” He began in clipped tones, bitter and sarcastic “You don’t know.” Dietre continued to glare, his gaze the same burning cold that Liam’s hand had been on his wrist. It was the moments when Dietre was angry that he looked most like his father.
“Well I don’t know either. But there is one thing I do know. This is the last time I ever let you hurt me, Liam.” For a second his expression wavered, a glimpse of pain showing through. It was the same pain that he’d felt over Liam for years, ever since that first time the man disappeared on him. Anger swallowed it back up and hid it again.
“If you want to wander around town leaving puddles forever, so be it."
Liam didn't say anything in response, but he did lift his head to look over at Dietre as he spoke. Every word cut through him like a hot knife, that glare inescapable. What had happened here? How could he have gone and destroyed this relationship? Death didn't seem to be an excuse with any sort of weight to it.
There was so much he wanted to say, but none of the words would come to life. So he closed his mouth around the silence and ducked his head again, shoulders in a slump as he rose from his crouch.
"I'm sorry, Dietre. I… I won't bother you again. I'm sorry." He looked towards the other man again, swallowing against the lump that had risen in his throat. The half-smile didn't reach his eyes, and then the man was gone. There were no theatrics in his disappearance this time. He was simply there one moment and then not.
Jaw clenched, Dietre stared, silent. Liam’s apology renewed that ever flowing spring of guilt within him, but he grit his teeth and said nothing. What could even be said? It was tempting to offer an apology of his own, though he knew better than to try that again. An apology had caused a rift between them before, that last time they talked while Liam was alive. Dietre had tried to apologize for not being a good enough friend only for Liam to cut him off and suggest they shouldn’t speak anymore. Remembering that made it easier to keep his mouth shut now.
Dietre blinked and Liam was gone. He remained still, wary, breath held for a moment or two. When nothing happened, he breathed a heavy sigh. “Scheisse...”
He backed away from the lake, wrist still held protectively against his chest as he pulled out his phone, texting Hugh one handed as he hurried toward the refuge of his house. This was something he knew he couldn’t deal with on his own. And it was time to deal with it. Seriously.