writing_shadows

For

akonken, also with reference to

sl4irl and

faerierhona's characters. :D

I have a problem. I… don’t know if I’m ready to admit it out loud, but in the quiet of this room, where I can talk but you can’t hear me, I can say it.

I have a problem with pain. I crave it and I resent it. I induce one kind to mask another. I also have a problem with drinking. I drink to numb the feeling. I go home to it most nights.

Saturday night I drank. And when Sam came back to Rose, it didn’t matter that he was a shadow. I know about those. I know about wanting, needing to have that moment. I wanted her to have that. To be left alone. To have him back, even just for a little while. It is not unusual for Snaggle and I to argue about Rose. I think when I stepped in, he in anger, me in tears - I think that was a more public fight than either of us had intended.

And there was Astraea, who I hardly knew, who did not need to care. And she held me, and the intoxicating, lingering scent of her blood, that beautiful open wound, filled my lungs. We have both sworn not to love, she and I. And we have both loved, and lost. My world turned grey under a flutter of eyelashes and a foggy film of unshed tears and I held her back. And when I opened my eyes again, there was Rose: wide eyed, full to the brim with sadness and hope, uttering quiet words that no one stopped to hear.

And in that moment, I couldn’t help but wonder… how have I not been moved so greatly by these things before?