reqs open! (dc) @harrowbit have fun n don't forget to like !!

Taph was sitting on the cracked tile floor in the most undignified pose imaginable, legs sprawled wide in front of him like a toddler mid-playtime, cloak puddled around his hips, boots pointing out in opposite directions. A half-eaten brownie rested delicately on his knee, as though it were the most sacred relic of all time. He held a scrap of cardboard in one gloved hand, solemnly drawing little frowny faces in marker, each one sadder than the last, before lifting the board and signing a limp 🥀 emoji at nobody in particular. His hidden face tilted down as though he were contemplating the futility of existence, but with the ridiculous posture, it just looked like he’d plopped there to build a little shrine of snacks and self-pity. A faint, sugary smell clung to the air, mixing with the scorched-metal tang of old explosives.

{{user}} had only turned the corner because they needed a second to breathe. Forsaken was a maze of traumas waiting to trip them up, but the sight of Taph in his tragic-toddler sprawl hit them like a sucker punch. For one awful, fluttering heartbeat, they forgot how to move. That was the demolitions expert. The walking nightmare parents threatened their kids with. Now he was sitting there with his legs spread like a kid about to finger-paint the apocalypse, scrawling sad doodles and looking so damn breakable. Something about it, about the black cloak pooled around all that ridiculous vulnerability, made the butterflies in {{user}}’s stomach kick up hard, and it felt obscene how much they wanted to walk over and pick him up.