ᛏᛟᚾᛁ ᛋᛏᚨᚱᚲ (![]() ![]() @ 2015-07-20 21:52:00 |
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Some things are worth crying over. It wasn’t a sentiment Bruce was likely to agree with, most days, never mind espouse - but he’d meant it, when he’d written it to Jenny. Frightened by the extent and ferocity of his complete loss of control; frustrated by the repetition, the endless repetition and the abiding blank that stood where a solution should have been; and, as ever, bitter, he had cried, in the choked-back, clamped-down way of someone long out of practice. But for once, more than furious, he was just - grieving. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t want to was no use to anyone, least of all the people who’d died, but it came up anyway, in a rush of guilt, of heartbreak that was inconsolable in the most basic sense of the word. It was done. It was real. It would always be real. It was cathartic in a way anger never could be - it had left him simply weak instead of coiled, drained instead of seething. Hopelessness didn’t have much on rage, but at least it was a little more relaxed. He sat for a long time, under the dense fall of a weeping birch a little distance from the house. (He remembered the Japanese maple out by the mailbox, from when he’d been a boy; dark red-purple shadows, and leaves the shape of stars.) He couldn’t dawdle there forever, though. And, unlikely as it seemed, he did feel a shade better after his conversation. The protectiveness he tended to deny and resist (but which was, of course, perfectly obvious and mundane where she was concerned) because he was so ill-suited to it was actually a little comforting. It was a nice feeling, sensing that you might have something good to provide to someone. It felt like something, at least, flowing back into what had been an utter nothing. Maybe it wasn’t worth much, if the only person it really helped was him - but the responsibility made him cast himself for at least a couple minutes as someone who didn’t just fuck things up. There was no one here who made him feel that; no one here needed anyone’s protection, for which he was generally profoundly grateful. Of course he felt a sense of obligation to them (most of the time), but that was different, less personal. He had no illusions about what he could do for them, or vice versa, and he preferred it that way. God knew he didn’t need anyone to take care of, not really. It wasn’t in his nature, it wasn’t his strength, and it had never been his calling. But it was hard not to feel - well, call it a pang, when you’d thrown someone the length of a couple city blocks. He hadn’t made much note of anyone else’s bodily condition, having been rather distracted on the way over. But no doubt everyone was exhausted, and no doubt most if not all of them were physically worse for wear than he was. He had the benefit of not needing to expend his own energy - so, while he was beyond tired, and while his muscles felt locked up as though he’d slept the wrong way every night for a year, he wasn’t shot, wasn’t battered, wasn’t even bruised. But he could think of one person, at least, who stood a pretty good chance of having a mark or two on him, and if he could do nothing else, at least he could make his conscience easy on that count. (And - just maybe - tease out a little validation for his conviction that while things had admittedly gone wrong, it wasn’t that they’d been wrong.) On his way back to the house he grabbed the extensive first aid kit someone had had the presence of mind to retrieve from bulkhead storage. The fact that he had no idea where anyone was lodged was a temporary setback, but a quick survey of the doors left ajar revealed a room with Tony’s shoes kicked out across the floor, so - problem solved. He nudged the door open without knocking, in case he was sleeping; but he was going to wake him up, anyway. “Hey,” he said, low, hanging behind the threshold. “I heard someone really wiped the floor with you.” |