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L’manburg has his soul, it was as simple as that. He’d helped make it what it was, and it was amazing, it was worth everything. Even when he fought and lost and died and hurt and-
He slips slightly as he stumbles downhill, the wet of the previous rain sinks further into the tattered ends of his jeans as the long grass grasps at his legs. The dusk sun cuts beams through the trees that land at his back; they feel like searchlights, like eyes.
Tommy was exiled.
There were and are people in L’manburg, who’s absences are an active ache in his heart. Worse than the ache that his ribs scream at him, and the swirl of his head as he runs.
He can't really see where he is.
There are people who make him ache and then, there's Dream, whispering in ears and threatening violence.
Dream is a snake in the grass at every person's foot as they try to move forward. And the pressure wrapped around every person's throat when they try to fix the past.
Dream is his friend.
He wishes he had food, he would want something from Niki’s if he were home. He wonders if it would all taste like ash. He wonders if Niki would let him in her bakery at all.
He had tried to make one of her simpler bread recipes, it had tasted no different from anything else. But he thought about the day she taught him how to make it.
That day he had stared at the ocean until he couldn't anymore, the tears had stung.
He never made it again.
He never tried to do anything like that again.
Sometimes he wishes that he had cried more. He feels like there would never be enough tears for his failures.
His shoulder smacks into a tree, and he hisses in pain, veering to the right as his own weight tries to take him to the ground.
He chokes down another burning sob when it succeeds.
He lays gasping on his back, blood and tears falling to the dirt. He places one hand to his chest as he prays for more air, and the other to his side. He can feel the ground, solid, beneath that hand, the little rocks pressing into his palm as he slowly sets himself upright.
Wood shrapnel is still sticking out of the arm he props himself up on, it shakes with the effort of holding up just his torso.
He looks towards where the sun should be but it isn't there, the warmth no longer hitting him as the shadow of the hill chills his wounds.
Then, stiff and sore and with arms so blooded by his friend (not-friend) that he can't even see the scars he got from war, he moves his hand.
He smells gunpowder still.
He feels the grass underneath his head when he falls again.
He is not done yet. He is not. hurt. enough. yet. The end of his rope is caught in his hand and he tightens his grip.
He lays there, knowing he will get up, wanting it to be now, wanting the strength to run further. He shuts his burning eyes.
The earth is rough.
It won't be the last time he feels it.