It's easier to run.
WARNING: Dark themes of a sensitive nature beneath the cut.
Disgusting. Useless. Hypocritical. Waste of space. Pointless. Stupid. Selfish. What is the point of you even being here? You don't do anything?! You don't help anyone. You just make other people hurt. Always have and always will. Disgusting. Useless. Hypocritical. Waste of space. Pointless. Stupid. Selfish. None of them love you, they only say that they do to your face so that you'll shut up. Really they can't wait to get away from you. It's true isn't it. Everyone you care about leaves in the end, why are they going to be any different. You should just go before they do. Disgusting. Useless. Hypocritical. Waste of space. Pointless. Stupid. Selfish.
--
He's meant to be writing a letter to his Mama back home but instead he's been scribbling words down furiously and then screwing up the wasted paper. Fingers smeared with black ink Ric stares at his latest attempt at a letter before shoving it away.
Like a running commentary in his mind Ric can hear his own voice of self doubt and loathing picking at his already crumbling walls of sanity and strength. For years and years he told himself that things would be alright as long as he didn't confront them, just put them away in a box, somewhere in the back of his mind and then he could get on with his life. Okay, so there were the nightmares, the unresolved issues, the need for alcohol and cigarettes to help numb the pain and his deep-rooted fear that everyone will go... but he's doing pretty good considering all of this.
Apart from a few hiccups along the way, like Japan.
The thing is though that Ric has always relied on others to ground him, his connection to the earth is just one aspect of his personal life but the rest? Well he clings tightly to his friends, most of them he considers to be more like family than just people you socialise with. Not to mention he has the terrible sense of self-loathing and no value for his own life.
Pushing Rogue away, hurting her and then, of all people to walk in on him doing something... well to be witnessed by Rogue as he is kissing someone else. A harmless, platonic kiss that meant nothing and it was about to end everything. And then there was the incident where he got drunk on the assessment day, kissed Emma to see if he felt the same way as when he kissed Martini. He didn't. There was nothing there, no spark, no fluttering of his heart and if anything that made matters worse.
Ric has betrayed the man he loved and he can't see anyway of making things better.
Well there is one way.
One way that he's tried a couple of times before in his youth but never quite managed to succeed with. This time though? He knows better and he's got more options. This time he can at least do it properly and make everything better for everyone else.