OH WARM, DISTANT JUNE
- Oneshot
- Vessel and Sleep (not a pairing.)
- Word count: 3.7K
- Warnings: Mentions/implications of past abuse, self harm (NOT GRAPHIC.), body dysmorphia
- Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53180854
Vessel awakes in the void – the nothing that is not really nothing. The cold, daunting emptiness that manages to leave a perturbed feeling in his hollowed-out chest.
Small lights dance like lovers in the endless landscape. They flicker and glow with the warmth of stars; gaseous balls of Hydrogen and Helium that shine like new silver. For all the hope they represent, they do nothing to illuminate the darkness; they stay far out of his reach, like the fireflies that appear in June. Oh warm, distant June when the heat burns his pale and peeling skin. Warm, distant June when everything is in full bloom.
Warm, distant June where the sun traced its warm hands over his face, drawing curious patterns across his skin as he rested under the ancient canopies. Canopies that will be long gone in a month’s time.
They are good memories, kind ones that bring a pleasant feeling to his chest; a pulsating warmth that rests in the nook between his heart and his diaphragm.
But it isn’t summer anymore, and he is far from those old memories that grow fuzzier with each depraved night he spends here.
He knows he’s asleep, yet, the vivid hold of the void’s frigid fingers tells something inside him, something primal and far past his age, that this is real. That he truly is standing in the nothing that is not usually nothing and he is being watched. It’s not a new feeling, the eerie paranoia that has begun to follow him outside of his dreams like a hound that hunts a wounded fawn, but it still unnerves him.
This whole place, this whole situation unsettles him because the void is not usually just a void. Sometimes it is the bottom of the ocean, and he’ll feel the pressure of eleven thousand metres of water on his shoulders. Other times it is the woods, and he’ll feel like a prey item all over again. But no matter what, this place is always something; a scene he will never see outside of his dreams or an old memory that leaves him in a layer of sweat by the time he wakes up, completely unsure why he is halfway to cardiac arrest.
No matter the experience, it always ends the same. He wakes up and forgets it all. All he’s left with is a stabbing feeling in his chest that grows as each night passes, each night that he spends trying to avoid this place. Something is taken from him each time he is here that leaves him empty.
He loses a piece of himself to here, wherever Sleep decides Here will be, and it stares right back at him as a dull-eyed ghost each time he comes back. And each time he does, he feels whole again. At least until the morning comes, anyways.
Even so, The Nothing is new, and, just as he’s sure Sleep intends it to do, it scares him.
The floor of the void is damp beneath his bare feet. With each step he wills himself to take forward, he descends a little further into it before the tepid liquid is up to his ankles, and he no longer sinks. He can’t be bothered to walk, or do much of anything, really. Sleep deprivation is a heavy crown he wears with despair; his head hangs low with the weight of it. Either way, what is there to walk, to run to anyway? More nothing? More void that delicately wraps its cold arms around his torso? More darkness that traces its inky fingers and bitten-down nails in between the shortened strands of his hair? Why bother to run when there is nothing ahead of him, when there’s nothing to look forward to?
So, he stays still. But, eventually, he grows bored, as all humans do, and swishes his feet back and forth, and watches with surprise as tiny creatures in the liquid, plankton, he guesses, begin to glow excitedly with his movement. He feels as the water seems to buzz with the glowing creature’s movement. It leaves him with an odd feeling crawling up his leg; something like pins and needles.
Gently, he draws patterns in the liquid with his movements, creating swirling galaxies of blues, greens and yellows that rotate like great water mill wheels. It’s mesmerising. Both the movement of the colours and the little glowing creatures themselves. They glow to the point of creating patterns in his rolled-up pants leg; little fireflies glimmering in his skin with each movement of his foot.
A small smile finds its way onto his now ashen skin. The white, sharpened canines of a walking corpse peak through, and for just a moment he isn’t afraid. He feels like a kid splashing water around just for the sake of it.
Nevertheless, the small, childish joy he temporarily entertains himself with turns cold when the small animals in the water rush away from his movement, fading into the gloom of the liquid he barely stands upon. The heavy darkness makes its presence known again with the twinkling of the lights dimming in the distance.
Covertly, he flicks his pairs of eyes around the space, twisting his torso around to check behind, beside and above him. He doesn’t dare look down.
Eventually, a smell of rot reaches his nose. The back of his throat itches and he almost wants to gag with how strong it is. A muffled sloshing of water, like waves against a shore, finally greets his ears, and he is now much more afraid of what he stands upon. Quickly, he turns just in time to see what he thinks is the tip of a rotting fin dip carefully beneath the surface.
He doesn’t want to think about how deep the water is.
With an inhale of stifling air, an attempt to calm himself, he glances downwards to see his God appear in the muck. Sleep appears to him in a bioluminescent rainbow of colours; glowing viscera ebbing in the cage of a rotting shark’s corpse, somehow fitting for the God.
"Good evening, Vessel.” Sleep’s dulcet, dreamy voice, well, voices, echos loudly in the dark.
Vessel. Just Vessel. His friends are Vessel Two, Three and Four, respectively, but he is just Vessel. Not one, nor five. Patient zero; Cain at ground level. At least, that’s what he likes to believe. He prays silently in his mind that there has not been more before him. For the sake of their suffering, or his possessiveness over Sleep’s attention, he is unsure.
And, in those three words, there is a tinge of annoyance there. A layer of exasperation hidden under formal greetings and the flick of a bony tail.
“Evening.” He mumbles back, following Sleep like a lost dog as it swims, slowly, forwards; just underneath his feet. Its innards squirm like a dying insect and he feels the fear seeping back into his bones. The liquid sticks to his feet like tar.
Then, there is quiet. A quiet that Sleep decides to fill.
“You look tired.” Sleep mocks, a sarcastic lilt in its tone; there’s not even a crumb of worry there. He spots an eye, or what’s left of one, roll upwards towards his form. It’s a misty grey; blind with age and rot and Vessel knows Sleep cannot see him through that eye, but it still sends a shiver up his spine.
“I am tired.” He replies with the same sarcastic lilt.
Sleep lets out a bemused laugh at his answer, the taunt echoing from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Sleep dips further into the gloom again, out of his reach, and begins to speak again. “You knew what you were sacrificing.”
He looks down at himself: his changed body that he didn’t ask for (what did he ask for?), the scarred skin of his flesh that he has had to crawl out of, bloody and bruised, more times he can count. The dark wisp of his cloke, the stitching on his robes that he picks at after each ritual. He looks down at himself and replies, “I don’t think I knew anything when I shook your hand.”
"You knew. You were just desperate. And naive.” Sleep adds the last part on as an afterthought, another jab at him.
“Are you calling yourself two-faced, then?” What God calls its acolytes naive for following them, after all?
“Perhaps. But that’s how you like your friends and lovers, is it not?”
He scoffs, irritated and tired beyond belief. He kicks at the liquid beneath him like an angry child, as if it’ll do anything to harm his God. As he does so, mumbling words in tongues even he doesn’t understand, Sleep surfaces again, as per usual in a different form. Underneath the tension he stands on a mass of tentacles emerges. Long strips of black, almost purple in the dark lighting, velvet wave with each slow movement Sleep makes, followed by the head of a jellyfish; a warm orange light glowing within its centre. It's like a small fire, a kindling of sorts, within the black mass of velvet and tentacles. When Sleep speaks again, it glows brighter, pulsing with each word like a heart.
“Was that too far?” It chuckles out, tone devoid of any particular emotion now. Vessel doesn’t reply and doesn’t feel the need to give Sleep the satisfaction of truly getting a proper dig at him. He doesn’t mind the silence, he craves it like water hunger for the cavities of people’s lungs, but he’s found that Sleep is fond of noise, conversation; no matter how trivial.
“You’ve been ignoring me.” It begins.
“You don’t say.”
It laughs again, a broken thing that is more filler than amusement, and he realises exactly why Sleep has chosen the void for this conversation. He wants to dial his sarcastic responses back, to save himself from the inevitable reprehending he will receive, but he’s too tired. Too fed up with it all. He knows the consequences, he’s learnt his lessons well in fire and blood and anguish, but he still pushes. That is his flaw, after all. Not knowing when too much is too much.
“You’ve always been the more interesting one,” again, Sleep fills the silence. “You’re not afraid to be defiant, at least, most of the time.” It drowsily comments. With it, a low humming noise fills The Nothing and Vessel wonders if it is Sleep singing a tune. It’s calming, one a mother would sing to a child. Disarming, almost. It puts Vessel more on edge than anything.
“Less afraid to talk back than iii?”
“Oh, good argument. But you know he isn’t fond of the dark; of being alone. Cries like a youngling if I leave him alone for too long.”
“That’s vitriolic.” Anger seeps into his tone again.
“Watch your tongue.” Sleep puts exasperated emphasis on each word, tone dipping deeper with each statement it makes.
“You know,” He begins, his mouth moving faster than his brain as he follows Sleep’s movements aimlessly, “I’d be more pliable if I could sleep properly each night without having to visit you.” Even as he says the words, he feels oddly ungrateful. Like a child who’s been given all they want but still shouts and screams for the thing they can’t have. Immediately, he can tell he’s struck a chord of some kind. He’s plucked the string too hard and has ended on a bad note. He’s unsure exactly what, but, by the strained silence that greets him, he knows he’s done something wrong.
Sleep again pipes up, beginning Its sentence with a loud sigh that leaves his heart thumping.
“I’ve taken pity upon your ugly human soul, and you spend your divinity ignoring me and trying to deny what you asked for?” Its voice is eerily calm.
“I didn’t ask for this.” He breathes out.
“Oh, sad little human. What was it you said?” The warm red of Sleep’s head throbs and glows brightly with each word. Sleep is mocking him, talking to him like an unknowing child who does not how to take care of themselves.
A memory forms in the murky waters of The Nothing. A blurry one; an incomplete watercolour where Vessel can tell each shade is just slightly different from how it should be. A voice, his own but so different, answers Sleep for him; “Please. Anything; all I want is to be someone new. Don’t let me be broken like this, I beg of you.” The sentence ends with a malicious chuckle as it slowly fades back into Sleep’s voice. It mocks and it copies Vessel’s pain with infuriating accuracy as the watercolour bleeds back into darkness.
Sleep’s velvet tentacles gently break the surface of the water he walks on, coming close to his legs. His chest aches with lack of oxygen. When did he stop breathing? When did it become so hard to do so? Shaking, his hands find their way up to his neck, as if scraping into the skin will remove the lump in his airways. The Nothing suddenly feels like a small black box that he’s trapped in. Maybe this isn’t a dream.
“That certainly got a rise out of you. Calm your panicked breathing, Thing, you sound like an angry animal.”
His eyes dart around his claustrophobic enclosure as he attempts to calm himself. Through a gritted maw he replies, “That is what you have made of me.”
“You are much more than an animal. I made you more than that.”
“You made me into a hollow corpse.”
“I made you into a God. I have given you all you have ever wanted, have I not? I have made you into someone new, I have given you friends, I have shown you love: and this is how you repay me?” Sleep’s loud voice booms like the cracking of the Earth. He’s only half sure it’s the first time It has raised its voice at him. Thousands of whispers accompany the reprimanding, some of which he recognises. Some that he knows by the lilt of their accent that make him want to cover his ears and curl into a small ball. Some that he knows that makes him want to be nothing again.
“You should have known that to touch divinity was to forgo your humanity, mouthpiece.”
That's not what he wanted, he wants to scream, but he doesn't.
He hates it when he feels warm tears trickle down how tired face. They fall from each set of eyes and create a small stream of saline solution, collecting in a puddle in the crook of his collarbone. He wishes with all his might they’d rub the ash of his skin and reveal the once peachy, now probably pale, human skin underneath.
He looks down at himself and sees what is left of him as a reflection in the glassy waters of The Nothing. He wants to ask his past self, a man he barely remembers, if this is what he truly asked for. If this is what he expected when he asked to become someone new.
Calloused and clawed fingers dig into his skin and scratch at his pairs of eyes. He wants to dig each one out with a finger until he is bleeding and blind; until he doesn’t have to see this place or himself ever again. He scratches and digs at the new scars that he didn’t ask for; opening wounds he told himself he would let close.
He doesn’t think even Sleep knows what he would give to go back to it all. Go back to the past where he hadn’t broken the bough. Go back to the past; go back to warm, distant June and lay under the ancient canopies. Go back to warm, distant June where the night did not belong to God.
And Sleep, in the midst of his cracking and drowning, sinks away into the dark again, and he prays that it is time for him to wake up. For him to forget all of this if only to feel hollow and remember it when he falls prey to slumber again.
Yet, as luck never seems to be on his side, he does not sink and awake in his bed. Instead, in the blurred vision of his eyes, something, or someone surfaces from the liquid.
A woman. Or, at least, what’s left of her. Sleep emerges out of the darkness draped in moonlight and glittering stars with skin as pale as sea foam. Long, greasy, black hair wraps across Its’ shoulders and cascades like a murky waterfall. Three sets of eyes have been clawed out; black holes resting in their place, oozing puss and blood that drips onto the midnight of its cloak, decorated with rusting rose gold chains and ripped lace. However, one eye remains in the middle of Sleep’s forehead that glows a crimson red. It is human in shape, if not for how tall It presents Itself as, but not in aura. He knows he’s in the presence of a God. He can feel the eleven thousand metres of water on his shoulders and he feels like a prey item again. Yet, oddly, with Sleep’s appearance, he feels comforted. He wants to run, towards or away from it, he is unsure.
He is always unsure.
The singular eye watches him with a mixture of affection and pity that brings back the fearful feeling in his chest.
Slowly, as if It is afraid to startle him, Sleep opens Its’ arms and beckons him with the words “Come forth.”
He does so hesitantly, slowly finding his way to Its cold arms as It wraps them gently around him, petting his hair and back in an act of trying to calm him like he’s some type of wounded animal.
“You are truly naive, Vessel.” The calming dulcet, dreamy tone is back, and he feels a warmth spill into his chest as he sobs into Its’ cloak.
“I’m sorry.” he weeps, stumbling over his words as his hands grasps at the velvet fabric, trying to bury himself into the comforting darkness.
“And what are you sorry for?” Sleep pauses in Its comforting rubs, and one of his hands finds its way to the crumbling bone and muscle that’s left of Sleep’s; holding Its wrist.
“For not listening.”
“Mm.” It begins Its comforting pats again, a reward for doing something right in his life, and he leans into the touch. But he can tell Sleep expects more of him.
“For not…for not being grateful.” His crying only picks up, and he feels embarrassed to be reduced to such a state. He’s sure he would fall to his knees if he wasn’t holding on so tightly to Sleep’s cloak.
“Good.” Sleep releases a pleased hum.
They stand there in the dark, intertwined, his tears staining the dark of its aged robes. The sacred silence is only broken by his damming sobs. Intently, he watches as his tears drip from his cheeks to the dark waters of The Nothing below him.
Out of nowhere, Sleep begins speaking again, and the sudden sound of Its’ voice causes him to jump slightly in its hold. “Modern humans have no will to dedicate themselves, to lose themselves, in worship anymore. But not like you, Vessel. I know you can be different and will be different; you will be better than them all. Better than those before you.” He ignores the last part, conscious of keeping himself in the patient-zero mentality. Even so, he finds himself enraptured by the touch, a thing so rarely afforded to him, that he mistakes Sleep for another warm body, another human, and he wants so badly to bury himself in it.
He mistakes the mandatory touch of his God, who knows exactly what to give for him to stop with his ‘childish temper tantrums’, as true affection. It's a mistake he’s made before, and it’s a mistake he never learns from. But who could argue with him, when the faux feeling of being loved, of being wanted, is so sweet? It tastes like sugar on the muscle of his tongue, and he’d break his kneecaps just to taste more of it.
“The question is, Vessel, will you be better?” It is an easy question with an easy answer. However, knowing Sleep’s standards, it is easier said than done, as well. The caressing has stopped again, and Sleep’s voice has grown distant.
His answer is almost instant; “Yes.”
Sleep breathes out another pleased sigh, and answers him, “Good.”
Slowly, Sleep begins to melt away into a viscous liquid and, startled at the sudden loss of contact, he grasps desperately at the darkness for more of it; for more of Its’ touch and comforting words.
He thinks he hears a malicious laugh echo in The Nothing as he splashes around in the shallow waters for the one person, the one God, who is able to give him what he needs. But his actions are fruitless. As per usual.
And then? Then he is alone again. As per usual.
In the midst of his sleep-deprived panicking, at what he thinks is the loss of the one person who can give him what he needs, he begins to sink into the cold depths of The Nothing.
The water tastes of pondweed and diluted beer.
With his lungs full of water, legs and arms thrashing like a dying thing because that is what he is, he is led downwards to the other side.
Waking up has never been so painful.
Vessel awakes in his bed. His cold bed covered in a layer of sweat with tears running down his face.
The light filters in, softly, through his thinning blinds that he’s had since forever.
There are people downstairs, laughing loudly at some joke he isn’t in on. At first, it feels malicious, like the echo of a dream he’s trying to remember, but then his delirious mind concludes it's just his friends; up early as usual. He rubs his eyes as he tries, feels the odd scars that have slowly formed over the months under and above them, like every night, to remember what dream has left him in this state, but he comes up empty.
In the corner of his eye, he swears he spots a shadow flickering its way out of his window; into the misty morning of another winter’s day that leaves him yearning for warm, distant June.
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First oneshot of the year! Pretty damn happy with it. I may or may not have projected a bit with this, but oh well; what's done is done.
I wanted to experiment a bit with the ever-changing forms of our least favorite God, so I hope I got what I wanted to across in this! I will note, that on the odd occasion Sleep is actually mentioned by Sleep Token, they are given male pronouns. I decided to go against this a little bit and use It instead. I hope I didn't throw anybody off with it!
I made a post a while back asking everybody what their presentations of Sleep look like, so thank everybody who reblogged that for the descriptions of Sleep's forms (other than my favourite rotting fish thing lmao).
Further, this is my first time writing for Sleep Token, so, if anybody has any constructive criticism, I'd be glad to hear it! Thank you to anybody who sat down and read this, I hope you all sleep well tonight <33
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My Favorite SpongeBob SquarePants Episodes!
1. Help Wanted, Reef Blower, Tea At The Treedome, Bubblestand, Ripped Pants, Jellyfishing, Plankton, Boating School (to an extent), Pizza Delivery, Home Sweet Pineapple, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, Pickles, Hall Monitor, Jellyfish Jam, Squeaky Boots, Nature Pants, Opposite Day, Culture Shock, F.U.N., MuscleBob BuffPants, SB-129, Karate Choppers, Sleepy Time, The Paper, Arrgh!, Rock Bottom, Texas, Walking Small, Fools In April, Neptune’s Spatula & Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy II
2. Your Shoe’s Untied, Squid’s Day Off, Something Smells, Big Pink Loser, Bubble Buddy, Dying For Pie, Wormy, Patty Hype, Squidville, I’m Your Biggest Fanatic, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy III, The Smoking Peanut, Shanghaied, Gary Takes A Bath, Welcome To The Chum Bucket, Frankendoodle, Band Geeks, Graveyard Shift, Krusty Love, Procrastination, Sailor Mouth, Artist Unknown, Jellyfish Hunter & The Fry Cook Games
3. The Algae’s Always Greener, SpongeGuard On Duty, Club SpongeBob, My Pretty Seahorse, Just One Bite, Nasty Patty, Idiot Box, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy IV, Snowball Effect, As Seen On TV (only the first half), No Weenies Allowed, Wet Painters, Krusty Krab Training Video, Chocolate With Nuts, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V, Ugh, The Camping Episode, Plankton’s Army, SpongeBob Meets The Strangler & Pranks A Lot
4. Fear Of A Krabby Patty, Shell Of A Man, Have You Seen This Snail?, Skill Crane, Dunces and Dragons, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy VI The Motion Picture, Krusty Towers (to an extent), Patrick SmartPants, Ghost Host, Wishing You Well, Squid Wood & Best Day Ever
5. Friend Or Foe, Night Light, Rise and Shine, Spy Buddies, Rollar Cowards, The Donut Of Shame, Atlantis SquarePantis (To an extent), Mermaid Man vs SpongeBob, Pest Of The West & The Two Faces Of Squidward
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
The SpongeBob Movie Sponge Out Of Water
9B. Lost In Bikini Bottom, Tutor Sauce, Squid Plus One, The Executive Treatment, Company Picnic, Pull Up A Barrel, Sanctuary, What’s Eating Patrick?, Patrick The Game, SpongeBob LongPants, Larry’s Gym, The Fish Bowl (to an extent), Married To Money, Mall Girl Pearl, Two Thumbs Down, Sharks vs Pods, CopyBob DittoPants, Sold, Lame and Fortune, Goodbye Krabby Patty?, Sandy’s Nutmare, Snail Mail, Pineapple Invasion, Salsa Imbecilicus & The Whole Tooth
10. Whirly Brains, Mermaid Pants, Unreal Estate, Code Yellow, Mimic Madness, Krusty Katering, SpongeBob’s Place, Life Insurance, Burst Your Bubble, Plankton Retires, Trident Trouble, The Incredible Shrinking Sponge, Sportz?, The Getaway, Lost and Found, Out Of The Picture, Feral Friends & Don’t Wake Patrick
11. Plankton’s Color Nullifier, Cave Dwelling Sponge, The Clam Whisperer, The Check Up, Spin The Bottle, There’s A Sponge In My Soup, Man Ray Returns, Larry The Floor Manager, No Pictures Please, Stuck On The Roof, Krabby Patty Creature Feature, Sanitation Insanity, Bunny Hunt, Squid Noir, Scavenger Pants, Pat The Horse, Chatterbox Gary, Don’t Feed The Clowns, Drive Happy, Old Man Patrick, Fun Sized Friends, Doodle Dimension, Moving Bubble Bass, High Sea Diving, Bottle Burglars, My Leg!, Ink Lemonade (FIGHT ME), Mustard O Mine, Shopping List, Whale Watching, Krusty Kleaners, Patnocchio, ChefBob, Plankton Paranoia, Library Cards, Call The Cops, Surf N Turf, Goons On The Moon/SpongeBob MerryPants, Appointment TV, Karen’s Virus, The Grill Is Gone, The Night Patty, Bubbletown, Girls’ Night Out, Squirrel Jelly & The String
12. FarmerBob, Gary & Spot, The Nitwitting, The Krusty Slammer, Pineapple RV, Gary’s Got Legs, King Plankton, Plankton’s Old Chum, Stormy Weather, Swamp Mates, One Trick Sponge, The Krusty Bucket, Squid’s On A Bus, Sandy’s Nutty Nieces, Insecurity Guards, Karen’s Baby, Shell Games, Senior Discount, Mind The Gap, Dirty Bubble Returns, Jolly Lodgers, Biddy Sitting, SpongeBob In RandomLand, SpongeBob’s Bad Habit, Handemonium, Breakin, Boss For A Day, The Goofy Newbie, The Ghost Of Plankton, My Two Krabses, Knock Knock Who’s There?, Pat Hearts Squid, Lighthouse Louie, Hiccup Plague, A Cabin In The Kelp, The Hankering, Who R Zoo, Kwarantined Krab (To an extent), Plankton’s Intern, Patrick’s Tantrum, Bubble Bass’s Tab, Kooky Cooks, Escape From Glove World, Krusty Koncessionaires, Dream Hoppers & SpongeBob’s Big Birthday Blowout
The SpongeBob Movie Sponge On The Run (To an extent)
The Sandy Cheeks Movie (To an extent)
The Search For SquarePants Movie (To an extent)
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