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Vessel stumbles through the darkness.
What exists here, he couldn’t say, except for the wet rippling sound of the water up to his ankles. He tries to move forward, but there’s no real way to tell which direction is forward. He walks and has no sense of time nor being here in this place.
The ground gives out underneath him and he falls.
He falls through the void until the void disappears, and then he crashes with a splash into shallow water. His wrists and knees jolt unbearably with the force of hitting the solid surface, a ground so clear he can see through it. His ears ring. He sucks in a breath but only manages to inhale saltwater, which sets off a round of coughing as he chokes and coughs and chokes again. He coughs until he feels his ribs shifting against each other; he feels the ligaments and tissue holding them in place twisting, straining, burning.
Something crawls below him in the brackish, roiling water. He forgets to cough, and then to breathe, and then he focuses on the shapes in the water below him: the flash of an elbow beneath the waves, a rolling shoulder, the curve of a spinal cord, the nape of a neck.
As soon as he recognizes it as a body, it pushes to its knees and looks up at Vessel desperately and it’s – it’s him.
It’s Vessel as he was before he was a vessel.
Vessel looks down on his former body, watches it suck its bottom lip into its mouth nervously, the flashing sweep of a pink tongue. There’s confusion in its eyes and Vessel wonders if his reflect the same; it reaches up toward him, presses its hand flat against the base of whatever surface Vessel lies on as a jumble of limbs. Its body is pale but reddens as it looks up toward him; its mouth moves in a series of shapes that Vessel can’t decipher, doesn’t want to—and that’s when Vessel realizes that they’re both bare.
Vessel panics as its wriggling, worming hand shifts along the surface toward his face. There’s a gap between its hand and his body, but if it were missing, if the ground were to disappear, to drop out from beneath him, that seeking hand would press against his face.
He would be able to feel the whorls of its fingerprints against his mouth, his cheek, the bridge of his nose—
Vessel scrabbles against the ground, tries to get away from the offending limb, he bares his teeth—
The dream he wakes up from unsettles him.
He thought he was in good standing with Sleep: reaching records with their albums and playing sold-out stadium shows. He thought they had been sharing Sleep’s wants and whims in a way that pleased the creature.
Vessel sits up in bed, the covers pooling at his waist. To his right, II lays still deep in slumber, unburdened by the messages a bored god sends Vessel in the nighttime. Vessel watches the movement of his chest rise and fall with his steady breathing.
He’s being unfair.
A glance toward the window lets him know they’re still deep within the night. Snowflakes gently drift down from the heavens.
He should go back to bed, as much as the thought twists his stomach into knots. He doesn’t want to go back to that dream but tomorrow brings a ritual that will require his full focus.
Still, he retreats from the warmth of the bed, mouth curving into a frown.
He haunts the periphery of the hallways until they lead him to the altar room. He makes the requisite niceness: he lights incense, he marks sigils, he says prayers, as they were. He lets the curling scent cradle him as he settles down on his knees.
He prostrates himself before Sleep here and lets his mind out into the dreaming as he seeks out an explanation, a reason, for the stranger dream.
His forehead dips until it touches the wooden floor. He falls into a lull, and eventually Sleep uncurls itself from wherever it stays in the dreaming when it isn’t sending him incomprehensible messages.
Vessel can feel Sleep’s consternation, Sleep’s incredulity, Sleep scoffing. He feels Sleep’s disappointment deep in his bones. It anchors him to the ground like a deadweight anchor tucked to his sternum.
Sleep vacates him with a sluicing sound and a sensation of bitterness that lingers heavily in Vessel’s shoulders. Vessel pulls himself from the dreaming carefully, like a wounded animal, and digs his forehead against the floor to try and feel anything else at all.
It doesn’t work. It never works the way he wants it to.
Vessel flinches when a hand presses flat against his back. He pushes himself up to his knees and then rests his hands on them loosely. When it feels like he might catch his breath, he peers back over his shoulder to see III standing behind him with a creased mouth.
III rounds him with light steps, and when he’s within reach, Vessel presses his forehead against III’s hip.
III runs his long fingers through his hair.
“You should be in bed,” III says carefully.
Vessel presses harder against the sharp line of III’s hip until III pulls him back gently by the hair.
“Don’t do that, Ves,” III murmurs. “Don’t use me to hurt yourself.”
Vessel pulls himself away from III and rests heavily on his heels.
III sighs, a soft thing that Vessel hears anyway, and reaches down to catch him around the elbow. He pulls him to his feet. Vessel stands there unsteadily.
“Come back to bed,” III mutters as he leads Vessel from the altar room.
His bed has gained an additional fellow in his absence. IV sits on the edge of the bed and blinks drowsily as III nudges Vessel into the room.
“I got him,” III says tiredly over Vessel’s shoulder.
“Where’d you go?” II asks before he realizes that Vessel can’t answer him. “It doesn’t matter. Come back.”
Vessel slinks toward the bed. He slides back underneath the covers and lets II gather him up into his arms.
III knocks his hand against IV’s side, prompting IV to crawl into the bed behind Vessel. When Vessel is as surrounded by his partners as III would like him to be, III slides behind IV.
He leans over IV’s body and presses his hand against Vessel’s shoulder.
“Go back to sleep, love,” III murmurs. “You’ve a big day tomorrow.”
Vessel hitches his shoulder underneath III’s hand in response and lets the warmth from their combined bodies lure him down.
Vessel wakes to the uncharacteristic sensation of warmth and light on his face. He blinks himself awake as he hears the shower running.
He had no more dreams after falling asleep the second time, but he can’t help like the reason for that was the lingering feeling of Sleep’s disappointment in him.
Who sends dreams to someone who can’t parse them?
II isn’t in bed anymore, but that makes sense. Today is an important day; II has his own preparations.
He still fee someone pressed up along his back, so he turns in the curl of their arms so he can face them.
IV quirks a smile at him when their eyes meet.
“Good morning,” he murmurs quietly into the space between their bodies.
Vessel presses up against him in response.
IV slides his hands up Vessel’s bare back and Vessel pushes his arms low around IV’s waist. He likes how sturdy IV feels here between his arms.
IV’s not so new anymore; he’s used to their idiosyncrasies now. He’s used to Vessel’s silence in the wintertime, understands the reasoning behind it, comprehends the underpinnings of how they function around it.
He’s participated in enough rituals and been accepted by Sleep in turn. Each time that Vessel thought IV might decide that all of this was too much and leave them, IV’s surprised him with his easy acceptance and ability to roll with the choppy waves of Sleep’s demands.
Vessel tucks his cheek against IV’s jaw and rubs against the prickly stubble he feels growing there.
IV huffs a laugh.
The shower cuts off.
III stumbles out of the bathroom a few minutes later with damp hair and dark joggers on that sit low on his hips.
“There you are,” he drawls lowly when he sees that Vessel is awake. “Did you sleep any better?”
Vessel’s first instinct is to shrug, but he considers the question carefully. He nods against IV’s shoulder; despite a lack of dreams the second time around, he does feel surprisingly well rested.
IV thumps him lightly on the back and then pulls back.
Vessel only mourns his loss of warmth until III settles cross-legged on the bed near him. Vessel shifts so he can drop his head into the cradle of III’s knee.
His face must do something erroneous, because III drags his fingers through his hair and says, “None of that, now.”
III continues petting through his hair long enough for the toilet to flush and the shower to turn on again, signaling IV getting ready for the day. Vessel should get up too, but the bed is warm and the slightest shiver of dread has made its way into his stomach.
He’s never gone into a solstice ritual not knowing what would happen. Even if he hasn’t always known the full scope of Sleep’s intentions, he usually has an inkling of what the ritual would entail.
He’s never been unable to parse a dream Sleep sent him in preparation.
This solstice is an important time, too.
The nights will start becoming short; his connection to Sleep more tenuous. Summer will come after a time with its long days and bring more touring, if only so their concerts can act as an amplifier during the season when the days stretch out and their god’s grip on him loosens.
He’s been glutted by Sleep during these winter months, and now it’s time to start shedding layers.
III hums and says, “Get in the shower with IV. II will be ready for you soon.”
Vessel thinks about how gently III treats him in these periods of darkness. He thinks it means something.
The catch is, of course, that Vessel doesn’t need a heart in these long, dark wintery months. It takes up too much room, of course, and he needs all the space he can give up being a container to a god, of course.
That’s what Sleep imparted to him so many years ago before he had the others. That’s what Sleep whispered to him through the dreaming as it sunk its talons into his chest and split his ribcage and pulled out the offending organ with a sickening squelch.
There was no reason for him to have it, there is no reason for him to have one, there will be no reason for him to have his heart. It only brings him pain, and doesn’t he feel so much better without it there?
And there, in the darkest time of his life, it had been a relief.
Vessel doesn’t see II for the remainder of the morning, despite what III says.
He showers with IV, he lets III dress him in simple but comforting clothing. He drinks a cup of tea but can’t bear the thought of eating so he ignores IV’s plaintive stare and retreats to the place where the rituals always happen. The room is different from their altar space; there, they venerate Sleep, but here, they worship.
The air feels charged here already, like Sleep has sucked in a great breath and holds it in anticipation.
Sigils are already marked out onto the floor—II’s careful penmanship—and the space already prepared. All Vessel has to do is light the candles, which he does, and when the room is lit with the glow, he takes off his shirt and lays down in the center of the array.
He’s been in this position many times before. He thinks it felt different in the beginning, when Sleep gave him gifts in exchange for taking out his heart in the wintertime.
He was more eager then.
This has been a hard season, though, and he’s unsure why. The nights seem colder, the environment drearier, his mood heavier. He thinks he should be able to summon some sort of excitement at the prospect of his heart being placed back in his chest; all he manages to feel is staticky fear.
The door swings open a handful of minutes later, and with it comes II.
Vessel’s never been sure when Sleep gives Vessel’s heart to II. In the winter season, he doesn’t bother to ask, and in the gently shooting tendrils of spring, he’s too glad to have it back that he forgets to question.
Somehow, still, in the fog of himself, Vessel recognizes II as the brightest shining star. He rolls his head so he can watch II’s path toward him, and when II stands with his feet together near Vessel’s shoulder, Vessel tips his chin upward so he can stare at him.
II smiles at him, something warm in his soft expression. “Hello, Ves,” he says. “You ready?”
This is the part that has never been easy.
What he wants is on the other side of a gaping chasm, one that feels too insurmountable to pass. In the beginning, before II, he’d had to do this part himself, had to pry apart his ribcage and dig into the viscera and place his own heart back himself. The process left him bloodied and weary.
Then along came II, and his burden was lifted ever so.
Vessel nods. He knows that II would like to hear him say it, but he can’t do that without a heart.
“It’s going to be different this time,” II says quietly, “you know that, right?”
Vessel slants his gaze away from II. He looks toward the glowing flames of the candles to his right and then shrugs one shoulder discontentedly.
He hears II’s gentle exhalation. II takes two careful steps and then straddles Vessel around the hips.
Vessel’s hands lift from the floor to fit around his thighs, like they always do, but he can’t bring himself to look at II.
“Vessel,” II says, a single pleading note in his voice. “It has to be different.”
II leans forward and plants his hand on the floor next to Vessel’s head, blocking his stare. Vessel’s gaze flickers toward his face and then away.
“Tell me you know that,” II says. “Vessel, please.”
He can’t very well tell him anything, and II knows that. Besides, this has worked out fine so far. He doesn’t understand why II wants to change it up now, nor why Sleep would allow it.
II drops down to his elbow and places his ear against Vessel’s chest, where his heart doesn’t beat. After a moment of quiet that stretches on far too long, II begins to speak, voice hushed.
“I know this worked for you in the beginning, and I’ll always be grateful for that,” II says. “I know that it let you last long enough so we could meet. I won’t ever begrudge you that, Vessel, but there are four of us now. Let us help you carry the load.”
Vessel slides a hand from II’s hip up the cord of his back and hangs on. Doesn’t II know what he’s asking? He squeezes his eyes shut and he feels the moisture gather there.
II pushes back up to his knees and cradles Vessel’s jaw in two hands.
He waits until Vessel opens his eyes and looks at him to say, “I’m asking you to trust me.”
This is what standing on a precipice feels like. This is the sensation of feeling the bottom fall out. Of course, he trusts II. He wonders what he did that made II think he didn’t.
II smooths away the wrinkle to his eyebrows and kisses him. When he pulls back, he whispers against Vessel’s mouth, “I’m putting your heart back in and I’m not taking it back out again. Okay?”
Vessel shuts his eyes and nods to the illusion of choice given to him by a person he loves.
He feels it when II cracks his ribcage open, splaying them to either side like insect wings. He watches from a place outside his body as II moves viscera out of the way; he watches his blood soak up the length of II’s strong forearms. He must slip in and out of the moment because soon II cradles Vessel’s heart in his hands, and he doesn’t know from where it came.
The organ thumps there, cradled in II’s hands, a waning, sickly noise and yet one that persists despite its detachment from its body.
II lowers his heart gently, like it’s something to be loved, and places it in the pericardial cavity. Vessel tries not to squirm, although it’s difficult. II hushes him gently. He has to place it correctly, so he can reattach the veins and arteries—this is a grueling process made infinitely easier with the addition of a second person.
Vessel doesn’t know how much time passes, but eventually, II tucks his lungs back into place around his heart and folds his ribcage back into his torso. II leans back and presses the layers of his fat and skin gently back into place as Sleep closes up the incision from bellybutton to throat.
II presses a kiss to the hollow of Vessel’s throat, and there Vessel can feel the fluttering of his heartbeat start up again—slowly, like it has to figure out how to work within the confines of a body again, and then stronger and steadier.
Vessel breathes against the familiar heaviness in his chest—different from the anchorage of winter, of the cold, of the lowing of despair.
He sits up as soon as he’s able and relishes the feeling of II’s curious fingers pressing against his jaw, his cheek, his temple.
When Vessel speaks for the first time in months, his voice croaks over II's name, rusty with disuse.
When he smiles back at II, he can feel the warmth bubbling out of the expression for the first time all winter long.
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars aparti carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
e.e. cummings