Who: Dietre [Solo] Where: The Abendroth household. When: Wednesday night. What: Dietre makes a friend. Rating: PG.
The hazy gray blue light of twilight spilled weakly through the windows, seeming to only to add to the gloom around him. The room was filled with odd shadows, deep dark places, his reflection in the gloss of his piano a featureless, barely human shape. He wasn't playing, only sitting, a part of the stillness, lost in the lonely sensation that he was a hollow thing with a brittle casing, liable to shatter so that all that would be left of him would be dust. So real, so in the realm of possibility this felt, that he couldn't bring himself to move.
Hours passed. There was a movement out of the corner of his eye that came and went, tantalizing and frightening all at once. If he turned his head, what would he see? A very real, very innocent flock of starlings foraging before the roost? Or something else? Some dark, warped thing from a poisoned corner of his mind?
The movement stopped, now it was a dark smudge on the edge of his vision, growing larger. The more he thought of it, the more definite it seemed, and the less able to ignore it he became. He couldn't stand it anymore. He didn't dare to move, only let his gaze shift...
The dog.
He blinked, but it remained sitting in the yard as he turned his head. It stared back at him in a way no real animal could. Dietre stood, moving close to the glass. It was just a hallucination. It wasn't real. But it had distracted him from his morbid ideas, and for that D was grateful. He wanted to see it up close. Was it waiting for him? Calling him? Unconsciously, he mouthed the word, 'stay'.
A moment later he was outside. The dog was still there. It was so black that it looked as though it was just the outline of a dog, a hole punched in the fabric of reality. Its eyes seemed to float in all that darkness, but Dietre wasn't scared. Not really.
The two regarded each other for a long while, as still as statues. Suddenly, Dietre reached out, moving slowly, as if underwater, overcome with the urge to touch his vision. Somehow, he was not shocked when his fingers didn't pass through empty air, but brushed against fur that was not fur. There was a hazy, solid but not feeling there. An indescribable sensation. He felt that if he pressed too hard, his hand would burst through with no more resistance offered than the thin shell of a rotted pumpkin. But the longer his hand remained between the dog's ears, the more concrete it felt. There was no change in temperature, no real texture, but he was touching something, he had no doubt.
He felt something shift inside him, a clicking into place.
"...I think I'll keep you."
Dietre lifted his hand. The dog faded, losing its shape like a wisp of smoke. It had vanished, but it was not gone. It was with him. Inside him. It would always be there when he wanted it. He'd make sure of it.
That night, like every night, dinner ended with a glass of water and medication. But..when his mother's back was turned, Dietre slipped a finger into his mouth, fishing out the small round pill he had hidden beneath his tongue.