drabble number two, for day two

[redthedragon]

slapping a big 'ol content warning on this one for [drumroll please] voices in the character's head telling him to die! please avoid reading this if that would be a problem for you.
(This particular character would be a lot more worried if he weren't under what amounts to a spell that literally makes it impossible for him to kill himself, but as it is, they're just annoying and make him sad.)

Haven liked to imagine his people had never really left him. It was kind of nice to imagine that they were still trudging along somewhere on some immortal, unseen plane, following him around and watching him carry out the rest of his life without them.

Of course, he had the niggling sense this wasn’t accurate, aided by the five gaping holes in his consciousness. At least on some level he knew that they weren’t going anywhere.

Still, it was nice to imagine sometimes.

Like now.

Haven didn’t like to acknowledge it when he went temporarily insane. He made lapses in judgment, sure, but he could always call it something else, like, like, grief, or something; calling it a “temporary traumatic bond induced breakdown” sounded kind of clinical to his ears. Besides, he was—well, he wasn’t fine, but like, he was fine, he was doing just fine, so what if he hadn’t slept in a week, fuck off; he didn’t need it to be classified or anything. He was fine. He was doing his job.

If he had started imagining—hallucinating, really—thoughts from his long-long-long dead clade, well, it wasn’t like that was hurting anyone else.

It’s cold.

Whatever. Haven ignored it and moved on. He had a map to look over.

Haven, please. It’s so cold.

Something something troop formation, what the hell did H’zar want him to do here? Probably something dumb—

Haven, let us in. It’s so cold out here.

Haven mentally shied away from the dead voice a little more. Not like he could get all that far. It was inside his head. Troop formations, troop formations, I have work to do. Gotta focus.

Haven, what’s wrong with you? Let us in.

Just gotta focus.

Haven, we’re your clade.
Just let us in.
It’ll only hurt a little.
And then you can be with us.

He pulled up the maps—when had he closed them? He felt like the world had spun out of focus a little. His computer was acting funny, when had that started? The maps weren’t— he was on the wrong program, okay, okay, nothing was wrong, this was fine—

Stop ignoring us.

You’ve ignored us for so long.

We’ve gotten tired of waiting for you.

Just let us in.

You can feel us. We’re right here. Just let us in.

Okay, okay, cool. He wasn’t getting anything done today, okay. Cool. Cool. Maybe he would stop by the lab and see if Brainstorm had anything particularly clever that would take the edge off for today. Or he could start looking for a new person, that should help.

Haven. You’re not listening to us. Why aren’t you listening to us. We’re your clade. We love you. You don’t need some stopgap measure. Just be with us.

You’re dead, Haven finally thought back, and tried not to grit his teeth when it jarred against the dead voids where his real clademates’ presences had used to be. I’m not listening to you because you’re not really here. You died. I didn’t.

The voices fell silent.

You could.

Haven scoffed and pulled his shoes on. He had a mad science laboratory to stop by.

And words to get out of his head.