Chapter Text
Pau Cubarsí was an ordinary kid.
Until one day, he wasn't. It really was as simple as that.
And he didn't even know how it happened.
On Monday, he left for school as usual, backpack slung over one shoulder and breakfast bar in his free hand. He met with Lamine at the end of his street where the local corner shop faced the beaten-down barber shop they'd spent countless hours in and handed him a spare bar, as usual. Together they started their leisurely walk to school, steps falling in tandem and shoulders brushing. They made it to the gates right before the first bell echoed through the corridors, as usual, and took to their respective desks just as their balding teacher started their maths lesson. The same routine they'd followed since the beginning of the school year, and the last three years.
By Friday, Pau had left for school, met with Lamine, and barely made it to class before the second bell started the school day, sliding into his seat just in time. Same as always. The only routine he'd ever followed.
Only this time, something was off.
Pau had somehow gained superpowers.
Pau woke with a start, a thin sheen of sweat coating his forehead and dampening his pillow. He probably would've found that strange, if he was even capable of forming a full thought. He wasn't the type to have nightmares, and he definitely didn't have them severe enough to the point where he woke up shaking.
A noise thudded heavily in his skull like a thunderclap sounding the end of Summer. He couldn't help but groan weakly. His fingers fumbled desperately, finding the lamp switch, light flooding the room.
It was too bright. He cursed under his breath, the noise escaping softly but echoing in his ears like a scream.
God, what happened to him?
Blinking rapidly against the harsh light, Pau pulled himself up onto his elbows, the movement alone exhausting him. He grabbed his phone, almost crushing the power button as the screen flickered to life. A single crack laced its way across the centre of the screen, but he couldn't even bring himself to care.
7:54AM.
Fuck, he'd overslept. He was going to be late - and he was never late to meet Lamine.
A small part of him considered skipping school all together. Then he squashed the idea seconds later. He wasn't that weak. He could power on through - being sick never stopped anyone. (And an even smaller part of his brain couldn't help but imagine Lamine's disappointed face at the corner of the street waiting for a boy who never showed up).
His muscles screamed in protest as he threw his bedsheets to the side and shuffled upright. Panting harshly, Pau tried to haul himself to his feet, stabilising himself with a hand out against the wall: the action took longer than he ever would have guessed, and left him more exhausted than he'd felt in years.
Blood rushed to his head and it took all of his effort to not fall back down again. He could feel the muscles in his torso crying out as he shifted his weight. Gingerly, he pressed two fingers to his ribcage, wincing when he felt sharp twinges of pain lacing the skin there. He couldn't see any bruises, and it didn't feel anything like pulling a muscle - this pain was different. But how?
A thousand thoughts flooded through his head, the loudest ones screaming at the forefront of his mind. They all seemed to carry the same message - what's wrong with me?
Pau looked over at the small pile of clothes lay strewn beneath his window, clean enough to pass as acceptable. A weary smile graced his face as he tried to tug his shirt on overhead, stitches at the seams crying out with the stretch as he tugged it down with more force than necessary.
There was a tight ache in his shoulder blades as he struggled to pull his jeans on, but he grit his teeth and swallowed back a whine of despair. Did his trousers somehow get shorter? Or did he get taller? The fabric pinched his skin, and he squirmed uncomfortably. There was no use crying about the pain when he had places to be.
He didn't have enough time to make lunch or pack his bag - he just grabbed his breakfast bar and fought with his shoe laces, thankful that his parents had already left for work. If they heard the shaky swears leaving his mouth, he wasn't sure if they'd yell at him or send him back to bed. Or both probably, at this rate.
Smoothing his hair away from the sweat beading on his forehead, Pau exhaled sharply. Nausea pooled in his guts as he took one final look at himself in the mirror. To say he looked sick would be an understatement - his eyes were sunken like he hadn't slept for days, the skin around them dark and hollow. His face held a deathlike pallor, waxy and clammy to the touch. It made his stomach curdle.
He tried to tell himself that it couldn't possibly be that bad - it was probably just a trick of the light, or a bad night's sleep. Something reasonable like that. Whatever. He yanked the door open with maybe a bit more force than necessary, tripping over his own ankles in his hurry to leave.
Despite his best efforts, Pau was late.
Lamine was already waiting for him at their corner, head tilted back against the bricks to expose the soft skin under his jaw as he counted down the seconds. Usually, it was the other way around. Annoyance rested on his face as he spotted Pau, but that quickly faded into concern as he took in his friend's condition.
Pau's chest heaved, lungs burning from half running, half stumbling the same route he'd taken everyday since they were ten. He felt as though his organs were about to jump straight out of his chest, unable to keep a lid on his heart rate as it spiked with every step he took.
However bad he felt, he didn't doubt that he looked worse.
"Hey," He barely managed to wheeze out. "How are you doing?"
"I think I should be the one asking you that."
Concern didn't suit his friend's face. Lamine's eyes weren't meant to shine with such nerves. The skin between his eyebrows wasn't supposed to scrunch with worry. His lips weren't meant to curve downwards in such a small frown...
Don't think about your friends lips when you're going to be late to first period!, the voice at the forefront of his head screamed. Woah - the voice in his head was louder than usual. And more direct. Usually, he just made Pau feel sick with worry until he addressed whatever thoughts were bothering him most.
Lamine reached out a hand to steady him, his hand finding the sweet spot between his shoulders. Pau couldn't help but lean back into the touch, whimpering gently. He hadn't even realised that he was unstable despite knees shaking and threatening to buckle.
"Hey, let's get the bus this morning, yeah?" Lamine's voice remained steady, despite the look in his eyes betraying how he really felt. "Can you walk to the bus stop?"
Lamine was being too loud. His voice was rocking Pau's head, but he couldn't voice these thoughts out loud, opting for a shaky nod instead, unable to do anything other than wheeze out a faint "yeah".
Getting on the bus was an ordeal in itself. Trying to sit down without collapsing against another passenger was even harder. Pau barely even noticed the looks they were giving him, a mixture of worried glances and annoyed glares that all seemed to blur into one unidentifiable expression.
They're all looking at you, whispered the voice, and they're judging you.
If Pau had any semblance of self-awareness, he would've been a blushing mess, spluttering apologies and trying to crawl into the ground and just die or something. As it stood, however, all he could think about was about how the presence of Lamine just over his shoulder felt like his very own guardian angel.
The look didn't leave his friend's face, even after they found spare seats at the back of the bus, not even an inch left between them as their thighs brushed together. Heat radiated off Lamine like campfire, and Pau couldn't tell if he wanted to shove the boy away or grab him by the scruff and press their bodies even closer together. He settled for resting his head against the window, cool glass providing little relief as sweat ran in little beads down his forehead.
Lamine pressed the back of his hand to Pau's clammy skin, worry setting itself further into his features. "You're burning up. Pau, are you sure you're okay?"
His concern was touching. It made his lisp more pronounced, emphasised by his braces. The corner of Pau's mouth flickered upwards into a little grin completely against his will, the muscles moving with a mind of their own.
"I'm okay." He murmured breathily.
"You don't sound it. Do you need me to take you home?"
Lamine tried to pull his arm away, as if reaching for his phone to call his mother. Pau didn't let him though, grabbing his wrist with more force than necessary and leaning into his body, siphoning his warmth. "Just need you."
If Pau was thinking clearly, he would've been able to see the faint blush dusting Lamine's cheeks. Actually - if Pau was thinking clearly he wouldn't have said anything at all. But whatever illness he had succumbed to must've numbed his brain and made him lose his mind.
"Okay." Lamine whispered into the top of Pau's hair, breath ghosting down the back of his neck. Pau shuddered at the contact, muscles in his shoulders finally relaxing as the thoughts racing through his head slowed to a stop. Lamine seemed to pick up on this, arm snaking around his shoulders and pulling him closer, closing the final shred of distance between them.
They stayed like that for as long as they could, the minutes ticking down until the bus made it's way to the stop nearest to school. Lamine thanked the driver absent-mindedly, hands steadying Pau as he stepped down onto the pavement without so much as a wobble.
Having spent the last fifteen minutes tucked into the safety of Lamine's elbow, Pau had forgotten how overwhelming and chaotic it was to exist separately from him. Whatever he was expecting, it certainly hadn't been... whatever this was.
The noise hit Pau first.
It was a cacophony, hitting him like a solid brick wall at full force and reverberating around his head. From his left he could hear screeches and shouts. On his right, calls and curses. It left him speechless. Who even knew a thousand kids could make so much noise at half eight on a Friday morning? How had they got so much energy? And better yet - how had he managed to put up with this for the last three years?
Next came the bright lights, the strong smells and the complete assault on the rest of his senses. It was like the slightest stimuli sent him into overdrive, every nerve in his body firing up at once.
Most of all - no one had ever warned him how much teenage boys stunk before.
You smell like that too. You're not better than the rest of them.
Shoulders bumped his, bound to leave to bruise as they raced past him and knocked him out of own thoughts. It made him stumble, almost tripping over his own two feet as he attempted to take another step forward.
"Woah, hey." Lamine slowed to a gentler pace, hand coming out to stabilise him. He stayed like that until the throbbing in his head ceased to thump quite as hard, and he could trust his legs not to buckle out from under his (quite frankly) feeble body.
Pau was able to stand on his own two feet without swaying too much, yet Lamine's hand didn't stray far from his shoulder. He was grateful for that, in some regard.
The pair had never been ones to shy away from physical affection and casual touches, like any other pair of teenage boys. It started with childish hugs when they were kids, clinging to each other like the world was ending whenever one of them fell over when they played. It then progressed to a clap on the back here as they grew older, a sideways hug there. A proper hug, even, when Pau did particularly well in training and Lamine went to congratulate him. Sometimes they even held hands, when Lamine would drag Pau behind him as he sprinted to the park after training, but the touches never lasted for long (never for long), and were always fleeting. It always left Pau craving more, whatever 'more' might be.
'More' wasn't like what Lamine had with his past girlfriends - never like that. The pair just couldn't have something like that, all loving looks and gentle gestures. Their relationship wasn't one like that at all. They had been best friends since they were old enough to understand the concept of 'best friends'. Pau just enjoyed the touches they shared - they served as a physical reminder that his friend would always have his back.
Pau hadn't even realised that Lamine had pretty much steered him towards their classroom as his mind drifted, feet moving as if on autopilot whilst his mind strayed to somewhere it really shouldn't be going.
Before making his way to his desk, Lamine grasped his friend's jaw, firmly but not too tight, turning his head towards him to force them to make eye contact. The steady trickle of people entering the room seemed to fade away to nothing, a haze falling over Pau's mind as he focused on the shape of his mouth.
"If you feel yourself getting any worse, tell me." Pau couldn't remember the last time he heard his friend so serious before. "Tell me, and I'll get the nurse. I'll get you out of there, okay?"
Unable to trust his voice, Pau nodded. The pain in his head ebbed and flowed, but the only thing he could truly focus on was the words directed right at him. Lamine stood there, searching his face for any hint of a lie. Satisfied with what he found, he nodded once in return, movement sharp. Then his eyes softened and the haziness in Pau's head cleared by a fraction.
Pau fell backwards into his chair once Lamine let go, the legs audibly creaking with the motion. It didn't seem to help ease his friend's anxiety, and Pau didn't seem to feel any more solid with the ground under his feet. His head fell forward onto to the wood of the desk, throbbing like the bassline of a song he didn't know the words to.
He didn't register the clatter of chairs scraping against the floor as the final members of the class took to their seats. He didn't lift his head when the class suddenly fell silent, signalling the start to their lesson. He didn't even respond when his balding teacher called out his name.
Instead, he drifted into a fitful sleep - if it could even be called that. It was nothing more than a burst of cloudy images, of colours that bled like wet ink and faces that blurred together into one. He dreamt of a Summer's day spent playing with Lamine in the sun, passing the football through his legs and into their makeshift goal. He dreamt of their first day of school, of meeting in the lunch queue and tackling each other in gym class. He dreamt of the future, of crowds chanting his name and grinning for him, with him.
Before long though, the dreams morphed into something... more. He also dreamt of creatures lurking in the shadows, preying on his downfall. He dreamt of spiders scuttling over his skin, fangs puncturing the surface and drawing up something dark and deep from within. He dreamt of power running through his veins and pounding in his chest, then his head, his heart.
He couldn't take it anymore.
He awoke with a sharp gulp of air, pain splicing down his forearms and all the way through his shins. It twisted in on itself and gnawed on the bone, his limbs burning with a pain unlike any he'd ever faced before. Tears welled in his eyes, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out.
"-rsí? Cubarsí!"
Pau felt the shaky hand on his shoulder, looking up to find Lamine crouched in front of him, their teacher stood just beyond. They wore identical looks of panic, and it made Lamine look so much older. Pau tried to stifle a grin at the thought, but all that tore it's way out of his throat was a ragged gasp for air.
"I don't feel so good." He finally admitted, voice quiet, ducking his head to avoid meeting Lamine's eyes. It was childish, he knew, but staring into those brown eyes made him feel a sense of shame that he'd rather not feel.
The rest of the class seemed to have disappeared. Pau must've slept through the entire lesson. How very unlike him.
They all saw you. They know there's something wrong with you. The voice crooned, sluggish and drowsy.
His spine straightened, vertebrae popping with the effort. His head swam and he tried his best not to dry heave, attempting to push the words out of his head.
"I'll - I'll go find the nurse." Pau slurred, blinking rapidly.
Lamine looked hesitant, clearly torn between needing to be there for his friend and wanting to avoid a detention for being late to his next lesson yet again. He bit his bottom lip, pinching it hard enough between his canines that a drop of red appeared. Pau had the inexplicable urge to reach out and wipe it away.
"Okay. Yeah, that's a good idea." He finally sighed, the words weighing heavy on his chest. "Text me when you get home safe?"
Something close to adoration blossomed in Pau's chest - as if ignoring Lamine was ever going to be an option.
"Yeah." Pau grinned like an idiot. "Of course I will."
His smile didn't do anything to alleviate Lamine's worries. In fact, it probably made them worse - as well as being feverish, Pau probably looked as though he was delusional as well. He forced himself to his feet, gripping his desk beneath his fingertips like a lifeline. Lamine passed him his backpack, which he received with a small smile.
"Promise I'll be okay." He murmured once more for reassurance. Lamine gave him one final pat him on the back before they split off their separate ways as the corridor forked.
The halls were pretty much empty, his footsteps echoing loudly in the space. The quiet did nothing to ease the noise in his head. It clouded his thoughts and fogged up his brain to the point where he struggled to take another step. All it was was one step. One foot in front of the other. Why was his head making such a big deal about it?
Just one step.
And then another.
Well done Cubarsí! You can do something toddlers learn to do.
He tried to shake off the internal criticism. Instead he focused on one foot in front of the other. He just had to keep walking, right? Past his old English classroom, past the head of year's office, and then past the toilets that stunk no better than mouldy piss. Everything here was familiar - he was safe. It wasn't that hard. It didn't have to be hard, if he just stopped making it such a big deal; if the voice in his head would just shut up and leave him alone for once.
He pulled the door at the end of the corridor open with a huff, the hinges creaking as he pulled the screws loose. And - oh.
Oh my God.
Pau had pulled the door clear off the wall.
He - he didn't even know how he managed that one.
In fact, he didn't even know how that was physically possible. And now he was stood like a moron in the middle of a crime scene with the offending item still in his hand and since when was he this strong?
Panic rose in his chest, overriding the pain and the confusion. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't prise his fingers from the door handle. He considered just putting it back, but obviously he couldn't do that and why couldn't he just think straight and not get into trouble?
To make a bad situation even worse, the lights were still too damn bright. He could hear the buzzing of the current running through the bulbs, making the veins under his skin itch like he was burning alive.
And he would burn alive, too, if any of the teachers saw him standing there with incriminating items still in his hand. The thought was enough to spur him into action, setting the door down on the floor as quietly as possible. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he tried to relax enough to release his grip. Hands still trembling (through nerves or sickness he couldn't tell), the joints loosened one by one until eventually he could pry his fingertips off.
Okay. Okay. It was fine - everything was completely fine. It wasn't like anyone was going to trace this back to him and no one had caught him. All he had to do was just play it cool. Easy enough.
Or maybe easier said than done. Pau took the executive decision to bypass the school nurse completely, making a beeline straight for the school gates. He couldn't even remember the leaving school grounds or making his way home. He could only remember the fear rising within him, making his hands shake and throat close up. What if they called the police? He was too young to go to prison right? Maybe they'd send him to a corrective facility or a psych ward instead - one of the places for crazy kids like him who acted like they were high and ripped doors off of walls.
Exhaustion dragged at his bones. He tripped and stumbled at the corner of Lamine's street, holding a hand out to catch himself on the wall of the barbers' shop.
They're going to hunt you down. They're going to find you and send you away.
Freak.
"No. No, they won't. I won't let them." Pau trembled feverishly, murmuring harshly under his breath as he leant against the brickwork. "I can fix this. I can."
All he had to do was just make it home, tell Lamine everything was going to be alright, and then make sure that everything really was going to be alright.
He had managed to do the impossible before - like that time when he was playing an U-15's Championship quarter-final with one player down for the best part of half an hour, and he had to single-handedly defend his half of the pitch. They'd gone on to win that match in the 97th minute, somehow. Granted, his team had then went on to lose the semi-final of the tournament quite spectacularly, but Pau wasn't thinking quite that far in the future yet. He was still thinking about small, baby steps for now.
Firstly, he had to make sure that no one could trace the broken door back to him. How to do that? He genuinely didn't have a clue.
God, you're useless. How could anyone ever rely on you?
No, scratch that: the first step was to make it home safely, without letting the nausea win and making him throw up all over himself in the middle of the street. Then, he could figure the rest out from there.
With his new, half-baked disaster of a plan in mind (if it could even really be called that), Pau stumbled the rest of his way home, a thousand worst-case scenarios flooding his head. He couldn't think of a single situation in which he didn't end up expelled, in prison, or getting kicked off of his football team. Bile rose in his throat, and he had to choke back a sob.
Home. Get home. That's all he needed to do.
But if the police did coming look for you, home would be the most obvious place in the world. Think this through. You'll be taken away. Bye bye everyone!
It was like the voice inside of his head was at war within any common sense that still lingered, competing with each other over the back drop of canon fire and gunshots that seemed to ricochet around his head.
In the end, he settled on slipping around the rear of his house through the back alleys, away from the prying eyes of his nosey neighbours. Any one of them would sell him out to anyone asking after him.
Good. They have no loyalty to you.
Pau shivered, the thought crawling down his spine. Not for the first time that day, he wished for the voice to shut up and leave him alone. He could feel the paranoia setting in like a stifling blanket, and having someone point it out for him would only feed into his delusions and drive him even more insane than he already was.
The back door failed to give under his weight, and he refused to press too hard in case he broke something else down this time. In the end he opted to just stay there: to turn around to press the hard wood against the small of his back, leaning back and feeling every groove through his thin shirt. His knees trembled, giving way, and he collapsed to the ground, head in his hands. Thin lines of blood ran down his back where his shirt had caught on the textured wood, but he couldn't even bring himself to care. The pain wasn't comparable to the ache in his bones.
Pau didn't even bother to shrug his shoes off before collapsing into a little heap, limbs filled with molten lead. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. His phone lay abandoned by his side, and he thought briefly about keeping his promise to Lamine and texting him to let him know that he was home safe.
But that would be a lie, wouldn't it? Because here he was, laying on the ground outside of his house without enough strength to sit up right, out in the open and sick to death.
He wasn't home safe. He was barely even home at all - home was the room in which he'd spent countless of nights staying up late playing FIFA with Lamine, or on the bus tucked into the crook of his friend's elbow. Home was somewhere where he felt safe enough to truly relax. Home wasn't a stony step to be left shivering in the cold.
A lone tear traced his cheeks: Pau hadn't even realised that his eyes had begun to well up. He drew in a ragged breath, pinching his nose between his thumb and forefinger as his shoulders heaved with the effort of moving his muscles.
He couldn't even begin to guess how long he was sat there outside for, choking on stifled sobs and repressed tears. It was long enough for sadness to give way to sleep at least, as it started to cloud his vision slowly but surely. Seriously? Was his nap earlier not enough?
Sobs subsiding, Pau drifted off with his back to the door, stony step underneath him. The last thing he saw before sleep took him was the intermittent brightness of his phone screen flashing gently to alert him to an incoming call. He could just about make out Lamine's profile picture centred.
Oh right - he promised to text when he got home.
Typical. He promised his friend one thing, and couldn't even stick to that.
Pau awoke to the sound of voices yelling.
It took him a while to come to his senses.
He was on the couch. Definitely in his house. Someone must have carried him inside. The voices belonged to his mother and his father - they were easy to pick out. And then there was a third one - a deeper one. A man then. But who?
Groggily, Pau raised his head, blinking away sleep with the back of his hand. At least his headache had calmed down, and the pain his bones. In fact, not be too optimistic, but he felt like he could function like a normal human again. Like he had been reborn, almost.
He wiggled his feet to encourage the blood flow. They felt further away than usual. What the fuck? Why was that something he noticed? And why had the voice in his head not quietened down yet?
"Pau? Pau!" His mother's panicked voice cut through his train of thought. He looked up at her through his eyelashes, eyes close to rolling to the back of his head as the last dregs of exhaustion rolled over him.
"Yeah?" He croaked out, voice sore from disuse. He greedily accepted the glass of water she held out, fingers closing against cool glass as he chugged it all in one big sip.
"Oh thank goodness!" She cried out, choking back a sob. Pau's brows furrowed in confusion, unsure of what could've warranted her reaction. He pushed himself upright, leaning back on his elbows to ease some of the tension out of his neck. The joints let out a satisfying pop and he sagged back. God, that nap had did him a world of wonders.
His mother enveloped him in a hug, teary eyes dampening his shoulder. He tensed under her touch, wary and uncertain.
"We were so worried about you. You looked so - so pale!" She spoke fast-pace, words blurring and stumbling over each other in their rush to leave. "You weren't waking up and I was so scared that you might have died or something - "
"Woah - " Pau held a hand up to cut off her rambling. "You - what? What happened?"
"Pau, don't give me that."
"No, tell me." He grasped her forearm, urgency clear in his movements. "Before I blacked out, what happened?"
That cut her off quickly. Her face fell, uncertainty twisting at her lips. "We don't know. We were hoping that you would be able to tell us."
Pau's hand creeped up to his forehead, massaging his temple as he tried to order his thoughts. Okay, so it seemed like no one knew what was wrong with him then. He twisted around, catching sight of the man arguing in hushed tones with his father. His uniform gave him away quickly - a police officer.
I told you. They were always going to find you.
His heart dropped to his stomach. He had to get out of there, before something happened that he couldn't control.
"I need to find Lamine." Pau stumbled to his feet, legs tangled in the blanket. His mother reached out, urging him to sit back down, but he swatted her hands away - gently, of course, but still with enough ill intent to seriously worry her. "Just - uh. I'm fine. Okay?"
Pau made his way to the kitchen and faced the row of cabinets, fishing out a half-empty box of cereal from the back. He hadn't realised how ravenous the sickness left him. He tipped a handful of cornflakes into his palm, eating them dry. His back still faced his mother as she followed him into the room, unable to look her in the eyes. Her voice broke when she spoke again, tears welling in her eyes.
"Lamine called. He - he said that you were sick and acting strange, and so you went to see the nurse. You promised to text him, he said, but when he heard nothing from you, and the nurse claimed she hadn't seen you either, he panicked. He called us."
Pau hung his head in shame, still facing away from her. "I was overreacting. Just a stomach bug. I promise I feel fine now."
And truth be told, he did feel fine. Better than fine, even. He felt taller, stronger, faster than he'd ever felt before. it was like his sickness changed him and thankfully for the better. He leant forward on the countertop; not for support, but rather to hide his shame.
"I don't care, Pau. A stomach bug doesn't leave you curled up on death's doorstep! You certainly didn't look fine, all shivering and feverish." Her face softened and she bit back her sharp retorts. "You're my son. I'll always worry about you."
"If that's true, then what's he doing here?" Pau nodded in the police officer's general direction, suspicion in his eyes and voice low enough to not attract his attention.
"No one knew where you were. The school filed a missing persons report, and then they found out that someone defaced school property. They don't know who - at first they tried to say you did it, and that's why you ran away, but Lamine vouched for how sick you were. Then they said that it was a madman and he kidnapped you? I don't know, Pau, but I'm just so glad that you're safe."
Shoulders slumping, Pau turned towards his mother, taking in her tear-stained cheeks and anxious demeanour. It made him feel a guilt unlike any he'd ever felt before as he opened his mouth to lie.
"Honestly, I don't remember what happened. It was all a blur. I felt sick, and now I'm fine. I don't know anything about defaced property and I didn't mean to scare anyone."
Concern gave way to pure motherly affection, and the way she looked at him made something within his chest loosen - it made the guilt and the shame lessen somewhat.
"I know, love. We're just happy you're safe." She reiterated, closing the gap between them and drawing him close. His head tucked onto her shoulder, and he caught a scent of lavender and honey, the calmness that always reminded him of the safety he felt as a kid.
It made the guilt so much worse. He didn't deserve this kindness or this safety. He was a liar and a criminal, and it dredged up all sorts of nasty emotions.
Despite feeling fine, Pau knew that there was something very wrong with him inside.