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'That's never bothered me before.'
Before you can stop yourself a devilish smirk, laughter meant for only him to hear for all those things that the two of you have done leaving too many bad taste on others tongues (not that either of you have ever cared, ever given it more than a half-satisfied thought), the misadventures and the silly arguments in between, the hurtful things that the both of you have and will likely always say, that you will always forgive him for, bursts from you despite the weight of the world on your chest, the frustrations laced with feverish desire, promises, ideas of gallantry on his.
And still you sober in seconds, shaking your head just once as your smile fades. “Don't be silly, it isn't that.” It was never about how he would take it, about whether or not he would reject you or see you in a different light; your faith in him, in the unshakable loyalty to his friends is too strong to question him with any level of seriousness outside of the self-doubting pieces of yourself always telling you you're never good enough, that you do not deserve (for what have you done?). It was never about that, because he could set fire to the entire world and you would watch it burn, loving him all the same as you do now. Because you know that at least part of him will be happy for what you've done.
It is only your guilt, the stupid fear that saying it aloud will make it real, will make it more of a reality than it already is to you. That there should be consequences for monsters, and a monster is what you feel you are. 'What did you do?'
You turn to look at him over your shoulder and from the corner of your eye for just a moment, not entirely surprised by the way he looks at you, offering you a strength you didn't know you needed. “I hurt him.” It comes as an utterance, a rush of breath as your lungs painfully deflate, your eyes closing against the blur of memories. “I hurt him, trying to get away. He was over me, touching me, and I—” Your body trembles along your spine, along the sunken flesh of teeth marks, the torn sinew from when you had fallen underneath his seemingly immense weight.
“I could smell his blood, and when I looked up his face was just in pieces.” Even for you in all that you've seen as a Mender, as someone who fought with others against gods and tended to them in the aftermath, who has seen things die when they were too far gone to save, it had been a shock. Perhaps it is because that destruction had been left in your wake.
“When he turned from me, left me, he could hardly even walk, he’d lost so much...” so much of his blood, so much of his strength, of his coward's pride. You breathe quietly for moments, your heart tormented by the possibility that he'd lost too much to survive, that, if he couldn't help himself he wouldn't find someone who could in time when you had had the ability all along. That he could have perished by now, all because you valued yourself, your safety, over him and his. “You ask me to let you give him what he deserves, but what if he’s already dead? What if I killed him?”
It is only a murmur as you once again angle your face away from him so that he may not see—only feel—your shame. You hope, in the differences between you, that he can understand that you are not made for violence, that he can grasp the way all of these what ifs wound you so deeply, even if not why when he has pursued a physical, real sense of justice from the moment a brute took a piece of him when he had murdered his child friend.
“I know I should be angry, that I should want for someone like him to be gone, maybe I do, but it’s all I can think about.” A quiet confession, one that knocks stones from your heart and into your churning stomach.
“I didn’t even look for him.” To help, to laugh or cry—you do not know what you would have done.
And it haunts you so.
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