Work Text:
He had promised. He had promised even though he knew she was lying. It didn't matter. He wouldn't have broken his word either ways. She had known.
If only he had known too. If only, he had been more observant. If only he had refused. Oh, but how could he? What if it made her hate him? What if it made her never wanted to see him again instead of just a week? What then?
He had carefully put himself together piece-by-piece, to create a caricature that would obey her every word. No matter what they were. He had made sure never to upset her because, deep down, he had always been afraid. Afraid that some day she would have had enough and drive him away and never wish to see him again. Afraid that she would resent him.
And yet she didn't. Lacie was kind. But he wasn't.
He resented her. Oh how he resented her. How deep the resentment ran, penetrating his skin and interweaving with the blood flowing through his veins. It clawed and tore at him and ate him up from the inside. Carving a hole that was once occupied by her.
Oh how he resented her, but did he really? What else could the budding sensation that threatened to overflow and engulf him whole be called?
Lacie was beautiful and hopeful and buoyant. And cruel. So, so cruel. She had pulled him into her bright world when he was being consumed by his grief, only to abandon it herself.
It struck him again. The unfairness of it all. Lacie, who loved the world so, to be ripped away from it this cruelly. And he himself, who had no strings attached, who hated the world and everything in it till he met her, who lived on borrowed light from she who shone so bright, it was he who was allowed to live and gaze upon clear and sunny days. The kind she loved best. The kind when her voice would ring out clear like the lake where the clouds were reflected.
He had given it his all to find her again, clutching hard at the few clues she had left him. He had done everything she had asked of him. All to be reunited with her. To meet those eyes that were believed to be harbringers off ill omen, the same ones that saved him when he was all but ready to tip over the edge. He hadn't even expected her to remember him. And yet she did. Was it because of the earring? He was glad he had kept it.
Lacie was fickle. He knew he was but a toy that she had just happened to take a liking to and he was happy to be treated as such. He was after all, one not used to having hope. He had seen his mother hope and hope till it drove her to madness. He didn't want to end up like her. Like either of them. He had given up on life entirely when that hand had reached out to him. It was cold, colder than his, and yet it was comforting. He missed the touch of those cold hands that reached out to him on that chilly day and the warmth of the body that stubbornly snuggled against his.
He remembered the way she had admonished him for lacking the resolve to live. She had become his resolve that day. Her lively song his motivation. And then, she was torn away from him, just when he had allowed himself to hope again. The colours from that day still danced in front of his eyes. The crimson rain the same shade as her eyes, followed by the white blanket of snow she left in her wake.
So, he had told himself, that he wouldn't hope anymore. She had asked him to find her. And that was exactly what he did, having no plans for anything further. That's why, he was surprised that he was allowed to keep meeting her. That she even wanted to see him again. But, he was also secretly glad. Those four months he got to spend alongside her, were the best of his life.
After those gruelling eight years he spent looking for her, never wanted to be left behind again. And yet she had slipped out of his life just as easily as she had slipped in. All that remained of her now was the little weight tugging at his ears and the breath that caught in his throat.
He leaned against the glass of the closed window. It was snowing outside. Like the day he met her. Like the day she left him for the first time and the day she left him for the last. How long had it been since then? A month? Two? Three? The days just seemed to flow by. Bleak, muddled, uneventful. Sometimes it would snow, as if to make sure he didn't forget the words Oswald muttered to him that day.
He gingerly reached up to feel his recently pierced ear. It stung.
His other ear was sore from being in contact with the cold glass. It was the same ear she had slashed at when he had expressed his disillusionment at the world. The corners of his lips tugged up thinking about it.
He missed her. So much that it was crushing. He missed hearing the ruffles of her dress flutter in the wind. The way her eyes crinkled up when it was too bright outside. The way the room smelled when she was in it. The way the wind carried her voice. Like it revelled in it as much as he did.
She had seemed so surreal, out of the world. Like she would scatter into a million pieces if he got too close. He had maintained his distance accordingly. He was content watching her from afar; taking in every word, every movement, every little detail like it was a need. And yet, he recalled so little of that now. The harder he tried, the more she evaded his grasp. The precious memories slipped through his fingers like quicksand.
He reached out trying to grab at it. His hands came back empty.