Chapter Text
As the waves fall and crash, the sea beckons Jean in, enchanting him into an all-devouring embrace. The crisp air around him wafts through his hair, sending a chill down his spine whenever he looks up from the mostly vacant pages in his lap.
His pen scrapes fruitlessly at the canvas in his hands, the dark lines of the ink illuminated by the moon’s glow. The page is dotted with small circles where he keeps tapping against, his eyes fixated on the starless waters before him, his mind empty in a strange state he isn't quite used to.
Usually, he isn't this uninspired, his hands filling a page after another with ease, especially when he's in his favorite spot at the beach. The sea never failed to awaken tens of ideas in him, the gentle sounds of the waves and the salty air around him pulling him into the perfect headspace of imperturbabtion, his head stilling for a moment to enjoy the peace and quiet as his pen works on his sketch book with a mind of its own.
A problem has been posing itself for the past week though, and he finds his brain coming to a half whenever he visits the beach, the sketchbook barely touched as it sits next to him in the sand. Forcing himself to draw proves to be futile, a disgruntled sound of dissatisfaction leaving him whenever he rips the page out, stuffing it in his bag to throw in the bin at his apartment later.
Jean is not sure what is the cause of the wall in front of his head, the one that makes itself apparent whenever he tries to sit down and fill the pages with what's been rankling through his days, an attempt at quelling the accumulation of anger and frustration down through splattering his ink in random lines that come together in a piece of a perfect mess.
Even on good days, where he wants to just pass time and relax through painting, his mind still supplies him with nothing, the blank pages glaring back at him as he sits in the library or the cafe he frequents near his campus.
Jean never had to deal with artist’s block that much throughout his life, even in the throes of struggling through the days of his finals where he barely had time to eat, or in the worst states of being where dragging his feet to the bathroom seemed to be the hardest chore of his life, he still managed to find an opportunity to bring the papers to life, so crushing down the bricks that surround his brain as of now is not something he's sure he knows how to deal with.
Still, much like everyone else, he still had his own blunders of days where scribbling down his ideas was a rigorous challenge, the pen in his hand trying to work against the hindrances in his head, only to fall down before the big blockade most of the time.
However, a trick that always worked whenever he found himself unable to create is to visit the sea at night. The seemingly infinite expanse of the water conjured up a sense of connection, the sunless stretch before him a mirror to his murky mind. The longer he stared, the more he was able to translate his thoughts into the paper.
Well, that trick almost always worked.
A heavy sigh leaves him as he shifts on the rock he's sitting on, his forefinger tapping against his other hand where he has both clasped in his lap. His eyes roam over the sea, his mind drifting into an empty frame of thoughtless waves.
It was of no avail to come here, yet he still did in the hopes of having something–anything igniting his inspiration once more, if even for a little bit.
Whatever. Might as well enjoy his solitude here before he has to go back home and deal with the piling up assignments he is yet to attend to.
The time treads by as he basks in the tranquility of the empty beach. For how long he sits there, Jean is not sure, maybe five to ten minutes while he lets the sounds of the crashing waves rock him around as he idles against the rock he sits on.
While he's lost in the maze of his own mind, the wind starts to pick up moments later, his bag knocking softly against the rock, his supplies and sketchbooks rustling together on the sand.
Letting out a shaky breath, he pulls the zipper of his jacket up after a shiver goes through his body, the goosebumps trickling down his arms in tiny shudders. He reaches for his phone next to the bag, the time reading a little past 2AM on the dim screen.
No use wasting more time here when he has lectures in the morning. The unproductivity he's been experiencing is nothing but a sign to his creativity diminishing, and it's not worth moping around the beach at ungodly hours for.
He shakes his head, swallowing down the disappointment that spreads through him. It's fine. So what if he hasn't drawn in what seems like ages? It's a hobby, not a job. He keeps telling himself over and over again as he kneels besides his bag, opening it with a frown on his face.
It's not like his talents were anything to write home about, anyway.
When he reaches his hand for his sketchbooks and pencils, the air whips around him, his nose scrunching as he turns his head to the side, his pencils sliding through the sand and towards the waters. He grumbles under his breath, standing up to chase after them before they get swept by the waves.
Another strong gust of wind hits his face, catching one of his sketchbooks flying in the corner of his eye. He gasps, his eyes widening as he starts running after it. The pages flail in the air, dropping a few torn ones and tiny pictures–pictures of his mother. His throat tightens, his breath becoming shorter as he collects what he can from the sand and shoves them into his pockets with trembling hands.
His head whips around as he searches his surroundings, his eyes roaming over the sands before they land on the sketchbook, watching it fall on the surface of the sea, swaying with the waves. He groans, striding in hurried steps that almost send him tumbling down, his pants soaking through as he tries to drag his weight in the waters.
His heart starts to hammer against his ribcage as panic settles within him, his lips shaking, the color turning blue as the water level reaches his torso. His hands push through, ragged breaths shaking their way out of his throat as he tries to swim closer, his eyebrows furrowed as his mouth twists with every exhale.
Pictures, sketches, polaroids, paintings and random tiny pins his mother gave him were all in that one book, compressed between the yellowed pages. The ones he managed to shove in his pockets will be ruined by the water, but it's nothing he can't salvage. He doesn't mind them being roughed up, but he absolutely cannot afford to lose them.
He curses under his breath, his eyes burning with hot tears as his body swims with newfound desperation to reach the small relic of memories.
He can't lose it, not like this, not now, not ever.
The waves only push the book further away, his legs starting to kick to chase after it as the water envelopes his throat. Spitting what gets in his mouth with a loud grunt, he stretches his arms further, his chest heaving up and down under the surface of the sea.
“Shit, shit, shit,” He cries out, his thighs straining as he tries to keep himself up, his throat contrasting as water keeps filling his mouth. His limbs swat and thrash, his breaths cut short as he trembles in violent tremors in the dim sea.
As his fingers reach out to the sketchbook, a harsh waves causes him to knock his hand against the cover, the pages sinking down with the impact. “Fuck!” A gutteral scream leaves him, his eyes stinging from the tears and the salty water.
Without much thought, he takes in a shaky breath before he dives his head down, his eyes fighting to stay open against the throbbing pain. He ignores it, turning around as he tries to search for the book. The lack of light only adds another layer of difficulty, his vision struggling to spot anything in the dark that surrounds him.
When he turns his head around, he notices something that seems to be sinking, and immediately jolts towards it, swallowing down as his heart drones in his ears, his lungs tightening with the little air left inside him.
His body tenses agaisnt the heavy pull of the sea, his face scrunching up as he tries to keep his mouth closed. He stretches his arms out, kicking his feet as he dives deeper, his whole nerves fraying as he squints his eyes against the burn.
The sketchbook only seems to get further away from him, and a cry wrenches itself out of his mouth, choking on the water that gets inside his lungs. His eyes close shut, his arms lashing around him. He wants to scream out some more, to dig through the water further, but his body refuses to budge down, unable to continue the harrowing journey that will assure his demise.
His mother’s face flashes in his head, and another sort of sickness fills his body, making it heavier to pull up. Extending his arms out, he tries to swim to the top again, but his legs give up on him, the muscles too weak to move as the water holds his neck in a strong chokehold, the lack of oxygen making him lightheaded.
He reaches his hands out one more time, a helpless attempt at defying the pull of the water around him, his body sinking in the dark chasm beneath him. As Jean's mother's face comes into his head again, a paralyzing thought shackles him down, wrapping him in grievous suffocation.
“I should have been a better son to her.”
While his body slowly loses its tension and his limbs give out on him, his eyes open one last time, his mind dimming down bit by bit while he descends with the lost pages underneath him and the pictures that swim out of his pockets, the moon light penetrating through the waters and painting him in a cold glow.
A million thought goes through his head, and none at all. He never thought his end would come like this, but strangely enough, he doesn't seem to mind it much. His mother always loved the sea, dying while blanketed with the thing his mom loved most, surrounded by the pictures he has of her doesn't seem like a bad place to have his eternal sleep in, he believes.
As his eyes start to close again, luminous green spheres come into his vision, the color striking despite its dark shade when it gets closer to him. His mind barely registers or processes the scene before him, everything else a blurry mess save for the light that hits the slanted rims of the emeralds in front of him, the black spots within them akin to ink splattered across grass.
It's strange, but the scene before him caresses amenity over his body and pacifies him into an odd state of solace, the pull of the waters more of a hypnotic rocking, putting him to sleep.
The last thing his eyes capture is the divine viridescent ellipses that flare with the…fins(?) surrounding it, before his mind succumbs to the abyssal void.