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His movements echo in the darkness. You do not look up. His feet clip against the stone ridden of snow from the warmth of the springs, ringing nearly painfully in your ears, you do not look up. His weight shifts to the hard earth, he apologizes, and still you do not look up, afraid to see his eyes echoing the emptiness of the word, scared that he will look too and see the remnants of an anger that still smolders just under the surface of your skin.
Instead you simply look at everything besides him and nothing at all, trying to distract yourself (as if you could) from the need to forgive him for things you never saw as his fault in the first place, from the itch that began in your chest and has slowly spread through your body, the instinct to comfort him, to keep him from the parts of you that would make him mean what he said for throwing your beliefs, your attempts of protection (from himself, from everyone else, from the entire fucking world), back in your face without so much as considering them for even a moment; for leaving you because his anger (pride?) had meant too much more.
“Sorry,” you mumble finally (bitter in his absence, that only now has he decided to come to you, though you suppose you should be happy that he has come back at all), more to yourself than the boy of satin and ink, your brows furrowing as you blink the last of your tears away, not wanting for him to know, to see, though you are certain he already does. Your bitterness begins to wane with your tears, your desperate (stubborn) hurt from being abandoned (as you had abandoned him, refusing to give him the only things he's ever asked of you: a name, a face, the smell of pine and sea, only the chance to prove himself to you, as if he hasn't a thousand times over) dissipating in his company.
“I think I’ve done something terrible.”
Think because of all the things he had said about retaliation, punishment, and how it made sense as it echoed thoughts, feelings, that you have suppressed for too, too long; think because there is still a smothering doubt within your tender heart, bound with too many morals, think because of the way it made you feel to make him bleed for everything he tried to take from you. Think because, for all you know, he could have died somewhere, alone, and no one would know. Your face scrunches as another wave of tears presses hotly against your skin and you turn from him further, hiding your shame, your hurt, until your lips rest against the edge of the pool near to your chest.
“Erebos,” it is as soft as ever as you breathe his name, as strangled as your voice is among the words, the confessions, that hang heavy on your tongue, the lump uncomfortably wedged within your throat. But nothing else comes. How can it? How do you tell someone of the things that you’ve seen in the span of only minutes dragged into hours, days, along your skull, through every dream, every breath a reminder of a man’s greed and your carelessness, of everything you almost lost? How do you make them understand?
You sit in silence for seconds, moments punctuated by the dripping of water along the walls, the quiet of his breaths next to the subtly choked sound of yours. You cannot help but to remember the things that he has seen, how it must have felt to think history was only repeating itself and that he had lost someone else when he had found you, and you sigh quietly, watching the tendrils of steam rise. Maybe he is the only one that would, even in his vengeful ways, the only one that could have a hope of burying the ocean of your (misguided) regret.
“I,” but you can’t.
You can’t, and so it only sits, only lingers, continuing to consume.
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