LONELY HEART.
━━━━━━ paracosm

NO ONE WAS EVER ABLE to tell Cullen Bradshaw what was wrong with him. No doctor or specialist could ever pinpoint anything that would cause the boy's vivid dreams, and none could ever tell him how to get rid of them. The dreams had started when he was a young boy, and his parents brushed it off to little kid fantasies, but as the years go on the effects of these dreams had started to eat at the boy, and his parents realized that maybe there was something more to it. They had brought him to a number of doctors, had gotten referrals to outside sleep specialists that kept him overnight to do sleep studies, but no matter how many people Cullen saw, no one had any answers.

No scans showed any abnormalities, and his brain waves showed he was dreaming, but didn't indicate anything abnormal occurring even when he would wake up shaking from whatever he saw. Physically, the young boy was fine, just a little shaken. Doctors told his parents that hopefully he would just grow out of it.

By the time Cullen turned ten, he started to accept that this was his life. He accepted that every time he closed his eyes he would be brought to a world that would only exist in his head, and nothing would be able to stop it. No sleep medication or therapy would help ease Cullen's dreams, and the bags under his eyes would be permanent. And it seemed his parents started to understand this too, because they stopped scolding him when they would find him awake in the living room at three in the morning watching tv, and had learned to stop hassling him with a bed time like all the other kids parents. Most children his age would be thrilled to be able to stay up late and wake up whenever they wanted, but Cullen Bradshaw knew it was a curse when he woke up shaking and drenched in sweat, unable to fall asleep again once he woke up.

In the end, the only comfort he could find was his mother. His father was always supportive and wanted the best for his son, but his mother was the only one to try and understand exactly what these dreams were, and sought out any way to ease her son in any way. Instead of ignoring them, she made it routine of asking what he had dreamed of the night before. Cullen was hesitant at first, knowing that talk of shadow creatures and werewolves would be laughed at and brushed aside as children's stories, but his mother never laughed at him, only listened. After a few weeks, Cullen realized how much it actually helped to talk about it. Being able to put his dreams into words made it easier to breathe, and encouraged him to not feel as hopeless and insane.

His mother saw it too, and even if it only brought minimal relief, she didn't care. She would continue to ask him about it every morning until eventually he grew tired of trying to explain something only he could see, and started to draw it out for her instead. It wasn't the best at first, him only being eleven brought a lot of stick figures and dark blobs to the paper, but Cullen needed to be able to show everything he needed to, and had asked to enroll in art classes so he could learn. His parents signed him up as fast as they could, knowing how little he showed interest in any activities and almost shouted in excitement when he had finally asked to join something. Only a few months later, and Cullen was able to at least sketch simple images to show to his parents at breakfast every morning. At first it had been fascinating, being able to finally see what has been going on in their sons head all this time, but as the years went on, the drawings had become more detailed, and much, much darker.

It frightened both the adults, but Cullen continued doing it because of the relief it brought him in waking up and immediately bringing what he saw in his head to life. He never understood why it had helped the way it did, but the boy would take whatever he could get. He started to keep away the more dark ones with creatures that made his skin crawl, and only showed his parents the ones of nature and buildings, even occasionally sketching out small fairy like creatures as they didn't seem as scary as the shadows with tentacles and red eyes.

Another thing he started to draw out often were the various amount of symbols he would see in his dreams. Even to this day, he had no idea what they were, and he guessed he probably never would. Cullen tried looking them up to see if they were some sort of dead language that had somehow founds its way in his head, but the boy was never able to figure out what they were, not even when he started dreaming of the symbols on a boys skin. On the days he would show his parents the drawings of the symbols, neither of them had known anything of it either. With make believe creatures, and now make believe symbols seemingly tattooed on skin, his mother had finally come up with a word for what she felt her son was going through.

"It seems like you're living in your own paracosm," she had whispered one morning as she went through all the new drawings.

"What does that mean?" Cullen had asked her.

"A paracosm is a vivid imaginary world. Oftentimes they are created by children, and they are so detailed that real world things can be incorporated into them. So like these symbols, even if you don't really know what they are, you still could have seen them somewhere and brought them into this world of yours. The same with the werewolves and vampires and fairies you draw, you could have read or watched something with them and they added themselves into your paracosm with all the other creatures already there. You truly have just created an entire world in your head, and it seems to show itself in your dreams."

Even though his mother's theory had made him feel crazy, it also seemed to be the only explanation he would ever get. And Cullen guessed it was better than nothing.

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

           WHEN CULLEN'S PENCIL BROKE for the third time that day he contemplated ditching the interview and getting chinese takeout. He had a rough dream the night before that was filled with black ink symbols on skin, and glowing white swords disintegrating demons to gold dust. After waking up startled at four in the morning, he had stayed up for hours painting the scene on a new canvas and got so caught up in it that he completely forgot about the interview he had that morning. If that wasn't bad enough, he also failed to finish his assigned work that was supposed to be shown in this said interview, and here he was sitting on a stiff wooden chair in a waiting room just trying to finish drawing a stupid tree that continued to break all of his pencils.

"How hard is it to draw a stupid goddamn tree," Cullen whispered to himself as he threw yet another broken pencil in his bag and traded it for a new one.

A laugh caught his attention, and with sudden humiliation he realized he wasn't the only one in the waiting room anymore. Cullen sighed at the sight of a girl sitting two chairs down on his left who seemed to find his situation very entertaining. Her hair was a bright red, practically orange as the sunlight coming through the window hit it. He almost ditched his assignment just to try and put the vision on paper.

"Don't worry," the girl said between laughter. "I was up all night trying to draw this landscape and it still doesn't feel right. I redrew this one rock, like, fifteen times."

A smile quirked up on Cullen's lips, glad that he wasn't the only sleep deprived struggling artist getting interviewed today. The Brooklyn Academy of Art was the best art school in New York, and the boy had been hitting himself for actually believing he could ever get in, but the sight of someone his age that didn't seem to be a rich brat eased a lot of his nerves. "Right? I mean, if you need someone to draw a perfectly detailed demon I'm your guy, or even a self portrait. But a landscape? And this tree? I might as well walk out of this academy right now with the look of this stupid tree."

The girl smiled again and stood from her to seat to sit next to him instead. "Let's see this monstrosity then, it can't be that bad."

Cullen groaned and slid his paper that was nearly finished to the red haired girl. It wasn't the worst thing he had ever done, and the rest of it seemed to be worthy of at least a second interview, but the center of the picture was based on a large oak tree that's leaves didn't want to be drawn correctly. She glanced at it and immediately scoffed, which had caused the boy to stiffen. God, he really was over his head wasn't he?

"Seriously? You're worrying about the tree? This is amazing, holy shit!"

Cullen's muscles unwound when he realized he wasn't about to get insulted, and huffed out a laugh at how anxious he was. He had been drawing and taking art lessons for eight years, he really needed to start having more faith in himself.

"Really? I mean, I was just worried about the leaves blend in too much with the shadows and—"

"It's really good, I promise," the girl answered back. "Look at mine, you'll feel way better about yours."

Cullen shook his head and looked down to her assignment and he scoffed just like she had done. Her drawing was a perfect image of a water landscape, and he would never have been able to tell she had redrawn it so many times. "You're crazy! The detail on the water is perfect, I might as well leave now," he told her.

"Shut up!" She laughed, shoving his shoulder and putting her assignment carefully back into her art folder. The girl was about to put the folder in her bag but at the sight of the drawings on the front caused him to quickly grab her wrist. Cullen hadn't even meant to grab her, but the sight of a large symbol drawn next to some demon like creatures had his heart jumping up to his throat.

"What's that?" Cullen asked. He really tried to level his voice in order to not scare the girl off, but the symbol that was drawn there was one that he had seen in his dreams so many times, and seeing it anywhere else besides his head and his art room at home had him panicking.

"Oh, this?" The girl asked as she looked down at the sketches on her folder. Thankfully, she wasn't too put off by his sudden grip, and Cullen quickly pulled his hand away from her wrist. "This is for a graphic novel my friend and I are drawing. These are just a couple ideas we had."

"What about the symbol?" He asked as he traced his finger over it. The one drawn on the folder was the exact same one he had painted just the night before when it appeared on the skin of the boy that always seemed to appear in his dreams. He never knew what it was, or what it meant, but now here he was seeing it outside the space of his own head.

"I actually have no idea," she whispered. "I know I drew it, but I don't even remember doing it. It's been happening a lot lately, to be honest. They just show up in my head, and I draw them."

Silence follows her words as Cullen tried to come up with a response. What was he supposed to say? That the same thing happened to him too, but in the form of some sort of crazy vivid dream?

"That probably sounds crazy, sorry," the girl said.

Cullen let out a shaky laugh, knowing the girl had absolutely no idea how crazy it actually was. He knew it was going to be a mistake, but seeing the symbol on the folder, and seeing how awkward the girl got when talking about it had Cullen pulling out his personal sketch pad. It didn't include any of his canvases or paintings, but he had drawn enough to try and show the girl.

"You wanna see crazy, look at this," Cullen whispered to her before reluctantly passing over his sketch pad. It took her a minute as she flicked through all the pages, but slowly she started to sit up straighter at the sight of all the different symbols sketched on the pages, and when she reached a page with the same symbol on her folder she looked up at him with wide eyes.

"Wait, you've drawn them too?" She asked.

"Uh, yeah. All the time actually. I see them in my dreams," Cullen replied. He slowly started to sink in his chair to avoid her gaze, not liking the startled look she gave him. She finished going through all of the drawing of different demons, tarot cards, pentagrams, arrows, and a bunch of these same symbols.

"These are some dreams," she said before handing it back to him. "Do you know what the symbols are?"

"No clue. My parents think it might be some sort of language, but I could never tell you which one."

"Weird," the girl said furrowing her eyebrows.

"Yeah," Cullen agreed. "Really weird."

They didn't say anything else as they both thought about the strange symbols, and even though the silence was awkward, Cullen didn't necessarily feel awkward around the girl.

"Clary Fray?" A voice called out. The red haired girl, who's name appeared to be Clary, looked up startled, realizing it was time for her interview. She briefly smiled at the boy before walking out of the room, hands tight around the straps of her bag to try and calm her nerves.

Cullen drug his hands down his face trying to catch a breath. How much of a coincidence did this have to be to not only see a symbol in the real world, but to know that there was someone else that seemed to see them too. The boys head started to ache and he wished he could just go home and forgot everything that happened today. It had to be some crazy one in a million chance encounter, and he was stuck between trying to figure out if he was glad it happened, or wishing he had never met Clary Fray.

He spent the next fifteen minutes finishing all the minor details on the tree he was struggling on, which seemed to be at the back of his mind now. The sound of her heels was the only thing that brought him out of his thoughts, and seeing a smile plastered on her face when she walked out made him feel a little better. Clary showed him her acceptance letter, and Cullen smiled and congratulated the girl.

"Now all you have to do is get in, and we can spend the next two years drawing weird symbols together," Clary said with a laugh. She was about to walk out of the building, but she slowed to a stop and glanced over her shoulder back at him. "Oh, by the way. They will love your assigned work, but make sure your personally sketch pad falls out of your bag so they can see it."

Cullen smiled and nodded his head at the advice. "I think I'll do that, thank you."

"No problem. It was nice to meet you. . ." Clary trailed off, and Cullen realized that she had never gotten his name.

"Cullen," he answered.

"How very Twilight of you. It was nice to meet you, Cullen," Clary replied with a laugh and closed the door behind her. He laughed at her comment, and waited for his name to be called. The boys hands were shaking in anticipation for the interview, and the adrenaline of meeting Clary Fray.

If he wasn't so wired up and distracted, maybe Cullen would have even realized that Clary's red hair looked exactly like the hair of a girl he had painted just that morning.

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hello, and welcome to the start of
lonely heart. i am so excited for
my soft gay boys to meet 🥺🥺

obviously this chapter starts at the
beginning of the pilot, but cullen
actually won't be introduced into
the show plot line until around
episode five, and it'll be a chaotic
ride from there so stay tuned!

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