He would never know how close he had come to rejection, to violence, to cracking like the ice on the Sea had less than a day before. He was brittle, was the gruff young bleeding heart, fragile in places that would break if he ever so much as acknowledged them, and he had handed Hotaru the mirror that could undo him a season and more past.
But it was not a knife that twisted against his back. Talons sharp as blades cut through his skin, unbleeding, to prick his heart through fur and cloth and he welcomed the pain as he hugged her hard and fierce and didn't let go. They were two shadows in the night, wraiths whose only substance existed on exhaled smoke and frozen tears.
"Only you could say 'only' two," he mumbled, face scrunched into her hair. "We were... it was..." The words caught in his throat, any attempt at brushing off the brutality of the Banshees choked away by the memory of the men they had cut down as casually as he swatted ningyos. They didn't even s-scratch me," he managed at last, tongue thick with a bitter, irrational guilt. Why he had been unscathed when so many others had paid the ultimate price. The tar she bled was no thicker nor blacker than that which had soaked his skin from the Banshee's wounds, or the survivor's guilt he didn't even know he was drowning in.
"Were... did they hurt you?" A tremulous question, a sudden realization of how tight he was holding her and the beginnings of a loosening of his grip--
And then a tightening once more, unwilling to relax even that far, in case she vanished into smoke the moment he let go.
But it was not a knife that twisted against his back. Talons sharp as blades cut through his skin, unbleeding, to prick his heart through fur and cloth and he welcomed the pain as he hugged her hard and fierce and didn't let go. They were two shadows in the night, wraiths whose only substance existed on exhaled smoke and frozen tears.
"Only you could say 'only' two," he mumbled, face scrunched into her hair. "We were... it was..." The words caught in his throat, any attempt at brushing off the brutality of the Banshees choked away by the memory of the men they had cut down as casually as he swatted ningyos. They didn't even s-scratch me," he managed at last, tongue thick with a bitter, irrational guilt. Why he had been unscathed when so many others had paid the ultimate price. The tar she bled was no thicker nor blacker than that which had soaked his skin from the Banshee's wounds, or the survivor's guilt he didn't even know he was drowning in.
"Were... did they hurt you?" A tremulous question, a sudden realization of how tight he was holding her and the beginnings of a loosening of his grip--
And then a tightening once more, unwilling to relax even that far, in case she vanished into smoke the moment he let go.
