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My feelings for you haven't changed, and no, you have not done anything wrong. I just think we are better off as friends, vinur. I don't think I am ready for a relationship. I'm sorry.
Elliott stared at the message for probably the tenth time that morning, eyes rubbed raw. He thought himself to be rather smart, at least with some things, but he couldn't wrap his mind around it. It made no sense. Just days ago they'd been curled up on the couch, laughing, Hound's mask laying forgotten on the floor. Elliott had been talking about home, how hot Solace was in summer, how much he loved the beach, his mother. How someday he wanted to take Hound there. They had seemed excited, despite the fact they hated the heat and sand. He knew that they did. But they had agreed, seemed happy, and Elliott had gone to sleep that night picturing the two of them in the kitchen, sitting with his mother, drinking coffee or tea or whatever the hell they felt like. It was a pretty thought. He still cherished it, even now.
We were good friends before this. We still can be. That has not changed.
Bullshit. He wanted to be their friend still, of course he did - he wanted them however he could have them. His clockwork heart had spun for them long before he had realized Hound wanted him too, and it still did now. Perhaps the cogs were a bit rusted now, dented and desperately needing oil, but that wasn't anyone's fault, was it? It was the nature of the beast. If this was what Hound believed would make them happiest, it's what he wanted them to do. He wasn't upset - at least, not at them. Despite the bitter taste in his mouth when he realized they no longer used the same nicknames for him they once did. Once, they had said their favorite was elskandúkkuna - babydoll. It was cute. Elliott had loved it. He knew for a fact it wasn't his name in their phone anymore.
In the back of his mind, he wondered what he'd done to make them change their mind. They said they weren't ready, but they had seemed so happy. He knew he had been. What had changed? He'd noticed them being distant the day before, but sometimes people just needed space. He tried not to overthink it.
Had he been too needy? Lord only knows how vulnerable he really was, how often he asked them for comfort over something trivial, how many times they'd had little bickering matches when he'd been unreasonable. Elliott always apologized, and they never stayed mad. Unless maybe they had, and he was too washed up in the idea of being loved that he hadn't even noticed. But if their feelings hadn't changed, and they swore he hadn't done something, what was the problem? Why, all of the sudden, were they happier without him? He wished they would have come to him and told him something felt off - they could have worked something out. Tried to fix it. Elliott was no expert with romance, but he had an engineer's heart. He would have solved it. He was almost bored by things he couldn't fix up. They could have tried a different approach to their relationship. Maybe they could have even decided for it to be more casual, especially considering they'd moved rather fast. Playful flirting, inside jokes, cuddling when they wanted to but no pressure to make any promises. He could do that. He was good at that. But that wasn't what they wanted. They didn't want him at all. He supposed he could respect that - he didn't really want himself, either. He wasn't Mirage - cocky, confident, skilled. He was Elliott, and he was confused, and he was devastated.
He longed to stand up and scream, to shout his questions and his heart to the void and pray to get an answer. Half of him wanted to call and beg for a reason, a way to make it make sense. But he wouldn't do that. He'd give them space. Selfish as it was, he wanted to believe they were having a hard time with things too. To believe he'd at least had some impact on their heart.
--
Elliott kept an old leatherbound journal by his bed. It had so few entries, perhaps two or three - but his mother had bought it for him. Insisted that he try and keep it, so he could work through his tangled mess of a mind. Fresh from the shower and running a tissue under his eyes again, he pulled it out, read the old entries. The first was happy, a rant about getting into the games and how excited he was. The second was dated a year later, and waxed poetic about his unrequited love for a certain hunter. He laughed at that now. Turning the page and marking the date only three weeks later - what a short rise and fall they'd shared -, Elliott clicked his pen and began to write. It was in his first language, and it made hardly any sense, but he wrote and wrote and wrote until his fingers were numb. He wrote about his confusion, about how desperately he wanted answers but how unwilling to burden them with answering he was, about how he wanted to wait for them to be ready but they had told he matter of factly it would be a waste of time. He wrote about how he had no idea how to tell his mother, no way to explain to Wraith why she had found him curled up on her couch at two am only to leave the instant she found him. His eyes had been red, but he was sober. Just unraveled. Elliott wrote about his mechanical heart, and how much of it Hound knew - more than any of his friends. They knew why sometimes he struggled to speak, how fidgeting in public made him feel guilty when it really shouldn't, about the way his brothers had died and how fucking badly he missed them. His eldest hadn't died in the war. He'd died of a birth defect that he couldn't run from anymore. Hound and his mother were perhaps the only souls in the world to know that. The way his ex lover had spoken to him, too; only Hound knew of that. Knew how he still felt like he'd deserved the things they'd said.
They had asked him once why he didn't take better care of himself. Why he prioritized everyone over his own well being. And if he was honest? It's because he never wanted anyone to feel the way he did right then. Unwanted. Left behind. Unloved.
Elliott bitterly laughed as he noted they hadn't even had time to really call it love. Oh, what they'd done to him. Less than a month, and somehow their leaving had taken a hammer to the workings of his heart.
His mind was stone, but his heart was glass, and he was ruled by his emotions. He knew he should get out of the house, go see Wraith and let his best friend support him. He shouldn't be tearing out his journal pages and addressing them as a letter he'd never send.
He hoped they never read it. But if they did, he was so sorry for whatever he'd done. And he hoped they knew that for the first time in a long time he had prayed. He'd asked whatever God was listening to ease the hurt in his heart, and to do the same for Hound. He'd asked they both fall into happiness, however it was meant to be. And he prayed that Hound live a good life, and that they remained friends. Elliott was sure he'd completely fall apart if he lost all of them.
Tomorrow, he'd try and pick up their friendship where it had left off. Send Hound one of those dumb Icelandic memes that always made them laugh, even when he didn't understand. Text them to ask about their birds. He loved their birds, even when Bloodhound jokingly mocked them. Little bastards, they would say lovingly. Elliott always protested. They were lovely little creatures. Perhaps they'd keep him updated. Send him back those jokes they knew he liked. They were both adults, and their romance had been so short lived - surely they could truly make friends work.
However he could have them, even if it hurt.
Tomorrow, he promised himself. He'd be good, go see a friend, extend an olive branch to Hound. He'd work on prioritizing himself and not giving a damn what other people thought, because they'd want him to, and because he'd be so much happier that way.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
For tonight, he put on a sad song his mother hated, stuffed the letter into the very back of his desk drawer, crawled under his blankets and tried not to cry.