When he wakes up on the bridge, the first question is whether it was real; it's a question that he doesn't need to know the answer to, one that he knows the answer to, but that his mind forces him to ask all the same.
He doesn't need to feel the dampness on his cheeks or the shaking in his hands to know the answer, one hand closing around the railing of the bridge and pulling him up onto shaky legs. His gaze falls, of course, onto the spot, the spot where his son had been standing before he jumped.
There was one benefit to the fainting, at least, and that was the he hadn't heard him hit the ground.
It's light by the time he leaves the bridge, the first rays of the new morning creeping across the horizon, illuminating the gaunt face of the once-dead man. Worn boots tread a familiar past as he walks, before he stops; standing and looking upon a crater in place of a familiar home. All at once, in the ruins of that home that had once been his sons, the tears find their way to his eyes and it's not long before heaving sobs are wracking his frame, doubled over and clutching his chest where an old scar still stings, knowing that he'd never see him again.
When that downy wing cradles his form, he doesn't know how much time has passed; everyone knows when someone's life is lost. It's a snap in the web that holds up the world; a rip in the tapestry. The older man's face is tired, but it carries with it an understanding that no other could bear.
When the dead man grips his hand and their gazes meet, there's a pain in both their eyes.
i’ve read so much tradcath bullshit the last two years. i can confidently say tradcath men fit into one of two categories:
“protestant-raised and converted to catholicism because of his crippling porn addiction and racist tendencies. reposts crusader and conquistador memes. is hated in his local parish.” tradcath
“catholic-raised band kid who ate his lunches with the religion teacher. smells like mildew. cut off all his friends that came out as gay after high school. now larps as an aquinian scholar and cries after jerking off.” tradcath
the concept of the dream smp is completely mad like are we sure that wasn't a two year collective fever dream. a bunch of the biggest streamers in the m'necraft sphere on a server where it took one afternoon of breaking bad references to kick-start a two year sprawling in-game roleplay involving geo-political tensions, nations, one of the most accurate depictions of abuse in anything, necromancy, possession, a giant red egg, ghosts, a live suicide attempt and coming to terms with how sh't your dad was. all streamed on youtube and twitch. peak viewership on a single day was like 1.4 million people, involving some of the biggest names in the online gaming sphere, mr beast would log on every now and again and stop everyone role-playing to hunt for a bunch of gift cards that never got used, they were all gay all of the time for some reason, lil nas x logged on one time and built a tree house?? are we sure that was real like sure there were plenty of news articles on it for some reason but are we all totally sure that happened
salbur is so in their failing marriage thought selling all their things and going on the road and becoming a van lifer would give them a reset and reignite their passion for life but dragged fundy with them and deprived him of a proper childhood and caused permanent damage to his mental health with a lack of privacy and education and social structure and it didn't fix their marriage and made it worse but they can no longer afford a house because of gas prices coded