Slow down, my brother, your life is passing fast...

[m_pinocchio]

It's become One of Those Days, somehow, with just one event. He's still got sand under his fingernails as he piles firewood under the little shelter he's made for it, trying to use the very last of the daylight for something useful, working to keep his mind occupied. He's a liar and a shitheel, and he's afraid that this one sin will spread and

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[little_moons]

It's almost dark by the time I make it back here. My legs feel heavy. Tired. It's the first time in a while that I've been truly reluctant to make my way into the clearing around his hut. The first time in a while that I've wondered if maybe I should just stay away.

Without a word, I drop down onto one of the logs around the fire pit, cigarette in hand, and just watch him. I feel like shit. I don't expect that to change anytime soon.

[m_pinocchio]

He hears Neil coming a minute or so before he gets there, but he finishes the stack he's working on before he turns and straightens up, dusting off his hands. Neil looks pretty much like he'd expected him to, like he had when he'd left him. Some things you get over easy. Some things you don't.

He picks up his canteen off the roof of the wood shelter and sinks down onto the log next to Neil's, uncapping and draining half the thing in one go. And then he caps it and just looks at Neil.

"You holding up?"

[little_moons]

"No," I snort, pushing a hand through my hair, voice hoarse and somehow distant. I can't quite meet his eyes. It wasn't much easier today on the beach, but at least we could still pretend it was.

"No. No, I think I fucked up," I say quietly, 'cause I know we said we'd tell her, that it wasn't a secret, but I feel like I did it wrong, somehow. I feel like I've done everything wrong lately. "I told her. Eostre, I mean. I- I had to." There, no beatin' around the fuckin' bush.

[m_pinocchio]

Just for an instant, his mind goes completely blank. So it's done, then. He'd just about guilted himself out of his cowardice and it's... taken out of his hands. Out of Tom's hands.

Where it maybe never should have been to begin with, with how they've handled it.

"I know," he says finally. He says it in an exhale, a long sigh. "I'm sorry. We fucked this up. We said you weren't a secret and then that's exactly what we fucking made you." He reaches up, rubs both hands down his face and then leaves them there for a few seconds before dropping them again.

"You're more of a man than either of us."