Edens Sleep Token one shots collection

Forsaken

IV and Sleep don't get along anymore... why?Content warnings: manipulative behavior, trauma, non-descriptive panic attack, implications of murder, mentions of death, suffering
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"If you loved me, you would do what I asked." The eldritch being towered over his smaller form, though IV didn't hold back to glare at the god he had come to loathe from the floor beneath it.

"Well maybe I stopped loving you." He spat back, reaching to snuff out one of the candles.

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Those hushed whispers were something IV had always been used to since meeting Sleep the first time, whispers that compelled him to do things he had never wanted to. Whispers that pulled him to the graves of those he once knew, graves of those he used to love. Whispers that reminded him just how hopelessly bound to it he was.

"IV?" A familiar voice outside of his door, III.

"It's open." IV reached over and snuffed out the candle that had been burning, getting up to turn on an actual light. He brushed the ash off his thumb and first finger, leaving a small darker streak on his pants.

"You weren't at dinner." The underlying question didn't need to be asked, and IV didn't need to answer it. The taller of the two walked over and wrapped up the shorter in his arms, tension in them that he tried to hide regardless.

"Why do you still do this?" III spoke quietly, rubbing IV's back gently as he held him.

"She isn't good for you. Any of you." This opinion had been made very clear a long time ago, something III never let the others forget. He had left Sleep's faith, forsaken the god of his own will, yet still sticks around for the others. He rejects her still, his concern for the other 3 growing by the day.

"I know." IV followed the tone III had set, a whisper as the other held him together, stopping the shattered pieces of his heart from shattering completely. It was heartbreaking for any to see, something IV had done his best since the beginning to hide. It felt like a responsibility as the oldest of them to caretake the younger vessels, yet he himself hardly understood still what that meant. Even then, III had stepped forward to take on some of that responsibility, taking care of IV when he refused to present his agony otherwise. It was forced sometimes, a fight between them, but never a violence.

"What did she say?" III picked up the conversation again despite the silence, refusing to let go. Maybe it's because he didn't want to, or maybe it was fear. A fear that IV may fall apart if he let go, a selfish desire to never see that happen again.

"Sleep is wary of you being around me." It was an unspoken truth by many untrusting eyes on the outside, other vessels watching III with that same careful look that Vessel had watched him with early on. The same careful look Vessel watched all of them with early on.

"They don't..." IV trailed off in his words, unable to finish what he said. Even then, he didn't have to. The same had been said many times before, to be so unwelcome in a place III had called home by a god he had been so devoted to once before.

"Please don't leave me." IV's grip grew a bit tighter, his voice barely a whisper when he spoke. III could tell he was on the verge of crying without seeing him properly, his hold growing a bit tighter as well.

"I won't, I promise." III felt his heart break a little as IV curled into him, that burning desire to keep him safe keeping III on edge. His distrust for their mutual god pushed him to almost say something more harsh, though he kept the thought to himself. To see someone so strong be so broken, to know the stories and the blood on his hands... How could any god that forced its vessel to do things like that truly love them?