Burn Out Bright (3/8)
The day had brutalized him. Spectral burns from the runes left his torso raw and ablaze and every heartbeat was pulsing magic-tainted blood slowly through his veins. This time, “I’m okay” meant being doubled over on hands and knees on the shower floor retching black and toxic until his insides heaved dry. It meant sitting back in the blood-swirled water with knees pulled to his chest, sobbing silently for the overwhelming pain. It meant shaking for just a little longer than usual under the scalding water because in five years no one else had seen his scars but Doc Worth.
Now too suddenly there are these probing, insistent questions and concerned, unblinking orange stares over secrets he’s never had to divulge. And even though someone now sits at the foot of his bed every night and makes him breakfast every morning, he still feels so, so alone. It’s his pain and his memories and no one can make those things go away, and no one has the right or responsibility to share that burden. So he smiles large and false and evasive, and {…} knows he’s lying (Hanna can tell) but he lies anyway, keeping his constant companion at arm’s length. “I’m fine” is an abrupt wall between Hanna and the things he wants, in a space he’s never had to fill with lies.
It was better when no one knew; when his loneliness was less isolating, less confusing.
*~*
We were young and the world was clear
But young ambition disappears
I swore it would never come to this
The average, the obvious
One
Two
Now too suddenly there are these probing, insistent questions and concerned, unblinking orange stares over secrets he’s never had to divulge. And even though someone now sits at the foot of his bed every night and makes him breakfast every morning, he still feels so, so alone. It’s his pain and his memories and no one can make those things go away, and no one has the right or responsibility to share that burden. So he smiles large and false and evasive, and {…} knows he’s lying (Hanna can tell) but he lies anyway, keeping his constant companion at arm’s length. “I’m fine” is an abrupt wall between Hanna and the things he wants, in a space he’s never had to fill with lies.
It was better when no one knew; when his loneliness was less isolating, less confusing.
*~*
We were young and the world was clear
But young ambition disappears
I swore it would never come to this
The average, the obvious
One
Two