His typical verbosity isn't an option; the back of his throat has closed. He has a long and intimate relationship with the concept of the end, primarily because his experience with it disallowed a definition that was easily categorized. It never happened in one panicked instant. It happened gradually and over an aching, protracted period of time, broken up in the periodic snatches of optimism and the fragility of hope, in an erratic, inexorable downward pull, and once it happened Daniel couldn't even wrestle at the ridges of his own distorted grief because that grief expended itself, had been expending itself since the end began.
Years ago. It was years ago.
And Daniel shouldn't be tangling with those memories right now.
"Yeah," is all he can say a second time, uselessly, and his hands clench in their pockets. He can see his own muted regret mirrored in the slope of Seth's shoulders and the slant of his head, and takes comfort in that there's very little he can say to alleviate that for either of them. One can't fix the damaged space the mind exists in after that collision with the mindlessness of grief. One just learns to live there.
no subject
"Yeah," whispers Daniel.
His typical verbosity isn't an option; the back of his throat has closed. He has a long and intimate relationship with the concept of the end, primarily because his experience with it disallowed a definition that was easily categorized. It never happened in one panicked instant. It happened gradually and over an aching, protracted period of time, broken up in the periodic snatches of optimism and the fragility of hope, in an erratic, inexorable downward pull, and once it happened Daniel couldn't even wrestle at the ridges of his own distorted grief because that grief expended itself, had been expending itself since the end began.
Years ago. It was years ago.
And Daniel shouldn't be tangling with those memories right now.
"Yeah," is all he can say a second time, uselessly, and his hands clench in their pockets. He can see his own muted regret mirrored in the slope of Seth's shoulders and the slant of his head, and takes comfort in that there's very little he can say to alleviate that for either of them. One can't fix the damaged space the mind exists in after that collision with the mindlessness of grief. One just learns to live there.