och jag växte upp snabbt, från min barndom var det allt—jag föddes redan slagen

då tänker du tyst och skriker högt, memorerar hela jävla monologen som skrevs för din inre röst,

He's getting used to it—the fragility of joy, its beauty in the split-second moment when it is frozen into something resembling glass, and the sound of it breaking as it falls to the floor.. moments crystallizing with near-perfection, like panels in stained glass windows, burning into his mind before shattering into a thousand, or more, pieces. It hurt, and it defied any kind of putting back together, and in many ways the shock itself was enough to write an ending to whatever chapter it was that he had nosed his way into.

He could barely see her for the darkness rising in him, reducing her to a two-toned ghost lumbering his way, and as she said his name again he could barely hear her for that keening in his ears, and the wild pounding of his wounded heart. It was a beast caged in his chest, trying to outrun the pain, trying to escape the prismatic hail of shards coming down all around him as something—he didn't even know what—broke inside of him.

But you can't run from a storm when it's blowing inside of you.

It was.. “I’m so sorry. I’m the worst kind of friend,” and he could only hear her as if at a great distance, her words slow and drawn-out, devoid of meaning because he could not comprehend them at that moment. It was.. how sudden it was, he didn't love her, and—

It was just, somehow.. his mind sought for words he could not find, sought for something more tangible than emotion to shore up his existence and structure the pain, so he could return to the present, and listen to her, because her voice was sad and she did not deserve to be sad, but—

It was (partially—he doesn't want to consider what he may or may not have felt, for her), he finally realized, a feeling of having been wrong.. about them, about her, that someone who seemed so innocent and young, (naive and gullible), so much a child in a woman's body...

That she was an adult, who made her own choices. That she seemed ..pure, yes, childlike, but she was a woman grown and she had every damn right to sleep with a man if she wanted to.

It wasn't that she'd slept with someone who was't him—to be frank, it had never crossed his mind, he'd never wanted to, he wasn't.. physical like that—it was the fact that she'd slept with someone at all. It was just.. it felt like she turned out to not be who he had thought she was.

And beneath it all was another sound—a soft exhalation, rattling a little through a tired throat as it left the lungs empty.

It was the sound of a future dying.

He was used to doors closing all around him, simply because he never dared to go through them. He was used to leaning on the door frames and peering through the slowly narrowing gaps, until he heard the soft click of the lock mechanism.

He was less used to having stuck his nose halfway in, only to have it rather rapidly swing shut in his face and leave him stranded in the darkness on the other side.

Suddenly, out of fucking nowhere, she had barreled into his chest, so fiercely he grunted and had to check his balance. A roar went through his head, through his ears, heart flipping madly in his chest as a moment's sucking, nauseating vertigo rocked his world—his return, drawn from his trembling thoughts and the sea in which he had threatened to drown. And, as she asked for his forgiveness, he realized he had not heard a single word of what she had said.

But the owls had.

For a moment longer he just stood there, heart throbbing painfully in his chest and every nerve screaming as if he'd taken the worst battering of his life—just, trying to find some ounce of life again, some reason, something that was still whole in the mess of his heart. And, finally, he sighed. Shed the stone skin. Blinked the tears from the corners of his eyes and laid his head to rest upon her back. "I already have," he murmured, glad he could blame the thickness of his voice on the fact that her spine jutted into his throat. There was more he wanted to say—give me benefit of the doubt next time, how hard is it to just ask a question?, it fucking hurt you bastard—but no words found themselves on his tongue. He felt exhausted; spent. Too tired to even notice the rhythmic digging of her hoof, until she pulled away, and let the cold darkness swim back in.

He was tired of never knowing where he stood. Tired of everything shifting on a whim. He swallowed, and let his gaze drop, looking at what she did—digging, pulling up a small rock, and staring at it intently.. on top of everything else he was tired of, he was also tired of guessing what everyone did when they stared at inanimate objects, or did weird rituals, or whatever else Helovians did to pass their time, so he just watched and waited. There was nothing else he could do.

But just as he was about to give up on it as being just another quirk of her personality—staring at rocks to avoid uncomfortable conversations—it began to glow, gently at first, warm and golden, until it spread, slowly chasing the oncoming darkness of night away.

The moon was pale and cold and harsh, the same kind of distant and unforgiving light as stars, but this was a little piece of her—the sun. A small sun.. “You can have it, if you want it,” she was saying, and for a single breath he kept looking at it, its nondescript little form, and its soul-warming, marvelous glow.

You can have it.

It was beautiful. It was so simple, just a small, fucking rock emanating the most peaceful, soothing light he'd seen since forever, and she'd made it for him.

He couldn't handle it. He couldn't handle it. Tears welled in his blue eyes as his mind fell apart again, and he pushed his head against her side, low, by the crook of her elbow, and just cried.