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— ☁︎ —
In for four, hold for half, out for four, rest for one.
He blinks up at the top of the tent, chest rising and falling, in for four, hold for half, out for four, rest for one. If he breathes slow enough, maybe he’ll be able to convince himself that he’s asleep.
He’s not— he hasn’t been. It was still dark when he opened his eyes, dark enough to where he wasn’t sure if he’d even opened them at all. It was only when he felt the burn of nausea in his throat, familiar and aching, that he knew he was awake. It’s a relief— every blink plunges him back into the same dream he’d had before. He doesn’t remember the details; yet he wakes up feeling sick and guilty, shame crawling up his throat. He shivers from the cold, the snowflakes behind his eyes. He picks at his nails, pockets the scraps, because he knows Torch hates the feeling of sand in the bed, and his nails would be close enough.
Disgusting, he thinks, bringing his hand back to his chest. He can barely see the dried blood from where he ripped off a particularly nasty hangnail. It doesn’t sting anymore. He thinks it should.
He hasn’t woken up like this in a while— not since the day of the fight, he remembers tiredly. Not since he’d opened his eyes thinking he’d never do it again, turned to face Torchbearer to memorize every detail, every star-dotted freckle, so he was sure he would remember it. His stomach had turned to a rock, his throat closed. He’d choked down his breakfast so Torch wouldn’t worry, said ”it’s only nerves”, but he couldn’t promise, because he’d already broken it when he lurched and sobbed and threw up behind a rock when Torchbearer wasn’t paying attention.
Slowly, he rolls onto his side and presses himself closer to where Torchbearer lies, feels his heart thud against his cheek. Torch makes a small noise, but doesn’t stir— not enough to wake up.
”Light sleeper,” Torch had always claimed. But he knows it’s a lie— now that there is nothing to wake up for, Torch sleeps later than he does, on good days. The others know to let them rest. He’s sure Jenna and Dev are to thank. He hasn’t, yet. He will soon, if he can bring himself to stand, to bother them, to burden someone else with his sickness.
There’s nothing they could do. Nothing anyone could do, really. The rot in his chest will consume him, one day. For now, he just lays and waits. He presses his face into Torchbearer’s chest, lets his arms slide around his waist, focuses on the thump of the heart he’s claimed as his. His eyes flutter, closed, briefly. Torch’s breath— in for five, hold for half, out for four, rest for one— is what lulls him back into the silence, and he fades into a— thankfully— silent void of sleep.
—
The next time he allows his eyes to open, it’s lighter, the sunlight barely filtering in through the cloth of the tent. The past fades in with it— the dream barely echoing behind his eyelids. He blinks, eyes stinging from the brightness, and it fades as the empty space next to him registers. How, he wonders, as his hand pats the space where Torchbearer is supposed to lie, can there still be light without him there? How has it not left with him?
Voices filter in from outside— soft, hushed— and he realizes, he didn’t leave. But it’s too quiet to catch, and he knows, suddenly, that they’re counting on him still being asleep. He takes in a deep breath, longer than the others— in for three, out for five, rest for one. It hurts his chest. His throat burns.
He groans, shifting slightly as he rolls onto his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. The urge to throw up is there, but he doesn’t move— just lies there and focuses on trying to breathe through his nose. In for four, hold for half, out for four, rest for one. He’s not sure if he trusts himself to open his mouth. He’s not sure if everything will stay down if he does.
Footsteps, approaching, and his heart leaps into his throat. He rolls onto his side, again, hopes it’s a similar position as the one he was left in. His breath catches and he forces it to slow down. In for four, hold for half, out for four, rest for one.
The tent flaps open, shuts. The footsteps stop, abruptly. It’s a conscious effort for his breath not to hitch. In for four, hold for half, our for four, rest for one.
“Oh,” Torch breathes, soft and gentle. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Clancy hums, low and soft, noncommittal, eyes barely fluttering open. Relief builds in his chest, guilt quickly flooding it away, and he can’t even feel proud that his poor impression of sleep had passed. He’s lying, and it makes him sicker. It’s all he’s good at.
“Y’didn’t,” he murmurs, and it’s enough of the truth to make his stomach settle. It’s not all of it. He can’t give that. I faked being asleep for hours so you didn’t worry. How can he say that?
Slowly, he shifts onto his back, propping himself up on his elbows. His stomach rolls and his vision goes blurry around the edges, but he smiles a little anyway at the look on Torch’s face; the crinkle at the corner of his eyes, the softness of his smile, the tiny bit of skin on his dried lips. Clancy sits up, holds out a hand, and Torch takes it, kneeling in front of him, hand finding his cheek. Their lips meet, briefly. Torch smiles into it, and Clancy mimics it best he can. His stomach rolls.
“Come back to bed,” he breathes, weak, selfish, lazy. Yet the words have already left his lips.
Torch shakes his head, smile turning apologetic. “I can’t,” he whispers. “Today’s busy.”
Busy could mean a lot of things. Torch doesn’t elaborate, and Clancy doesn’t ask— can’t, over the lump of guilt continuing to build in his throat. It’s his fault. Torch has hardly left his side since Nico went down. There’s so much to do and he hasn’t done any of it, yet.
“Sounds exciting,” he croaks, clears his throat to clear the sleep. It hurts and he nearly winces. He doesn’t. Barely.
Torch huffs, faintly. “Should be,” he says, eyes sparkling just a little. “You wanna come?” His eyes are soft, hopeful. He can’t bear to crush it.
He can’t bear to go. His limbs ache and everything feels like it hurts. His mouth opens. Nothing comes out. Slowly, he shakes his head. “No,” he whispers. “You go.”
If Torch is disappointed— which he is, because Clancy is being ridiculous— he doesn’t show it. If anything, his smile just softens, like he knows. Maybe he does. Clancy wouldn’t put it past him.
“That’s perfectly fine,” he whispers, nodding ever so slightly as if to further his point. Clancy almost believes him, though— Torchbearer could tell him the sky was green and he would nod without looking up, because why would he lie? “You’ll be okay by yourself for a bit?”
No. He can’t say it. He simply nods, forces his lips to make a wobbly, forced little smile. “I’ll be fine,” he promises, quietly. His fingers twitch, cross. An admission. It should hardly count.
Torch just presses closer, another faint kiss. The nausea recedes, just a little. He tastes sweet. Clancy wonders if he’s already eaten. How long he’d been up while he lay in bed, rotting?
“Bye, my love,” Torch murmurs, lips against his, barely a breath between them. He pulls back and Clancy’s lips part, but he doesn’t want to say it. He doesn’t want to say goodbye— the word feels foreign. He’s only said it once, staring down at the bottomless pit of the strait, a breath on the water.
He just nods, closing his eyes as the lump builds in his throat. The tent flap closes with a swish. His eyes open and Torchbearer is gone, and only then does he realize he never said anything back.
His breath catches but it’s far too late to chase him down. The warmth recedes, and he’s frozen, shaking. A cloud passes over and the tent turns gray. He shivers, hands reaching out, but no one is there. He sits, alone, struck dumb by the silence pounding in his head.
He lurches, once— from nausea or the sob building in his throat, he doesn’t know, but he folds with it, flops back onto his side and curls into himself, tugging his knees to his chest. His hands scrabble for purchase, landing on Torch’s hoodie, left abandoned in the hot weather. He presses it to his nose, and it smells like pine and smoke, and a dry sob wrenches itself free into the fabric. Tears well in his eyes, but don’t spill— just wet under his eyes, barely, hardly enough to count them as tears. He shudders with counterfeit sobs, choked whimpers muffling themself as they leave.
Pathetic, his brain whispers, and he’s half-inclined to agree. He’s shaking, convulsing, but he can’t bring the tears to spill, and it makes him want to smack himself. His hands clench further around the fabric, and he swears he hears it rip. His grip loosens despite himself, arms wrapping around the bunched fabric, hands digging into bare skin.
Something’s wrong. It’s him. Blurry is chuckling in his head, Nico’s ghost wrapping around his throat and squeezing. His own hands mimic the motion, tugging at the collar of his shirt to rip himself open. Not again, not again, not again.
His nails scratch his collarbone, just a little, and he buries them in the fabric of his shirt, tugging, tugging, tugging, until his arms give out and they flop down, worn out from even that much, useless, exhausted, weak. He’s frozen, still. Near-paralyzed at his own decision. The sickness washes over him like a wave. He doesn’t remember a day without it. He knows there was one.
His eyes close and tries to remember. It hurts. His throat is raw and his stomach gurgles and he curls further in on himself and shudders until cracks form. The pieces of him scatter across their bed. He’ll clean it up before Torch comes back, press himself together and pray it’s in the right order.
He doesn’t know if he believes, as his lips move. “Alive,” he whispers, “I’m alive,” but God does not turn. He cannot say it— cannot bring himself to whisper, “God, I’m alive,” because he knows the words won’t mean a thing. God hasn’t fixed him yet.
Nothing has fixed him yet. Torchbearer is the closest he has gotten to healing, to the higher power— he walks like Trench herself is in the room, watching over the both of them. He is an angel, part of Her. And even that isn’t enough to stop the bile building in his throat. Even that isn’t enough to keep him from crying— sobbing, really, because the tears won’t fall, and he can’t make them.
He’s broken. He knows it. Something fundamental in him has cracked to pieces— or maybe it was never whole. The only thing holding him together is the other fundamental truth he knows, the “I love you”s he’ll whisper to his angel in the dead of night.
His thoughts blur into a hum of static, and he gasps out another sob. It hurts as he curls further, further, as small as he can. Can he even fix this? He doesn’t know. How do you fix a person?
His stomach growls, as if answer him, tell him what he already knows to be true:
He needs to get up.
That won’t fix it, he thinks bitterly. But it’s the only thought in his head: he has to move. He has to get up.
He knows it, but his body feels like lead. His fingers twitch, but hardly lift from the fabric. His stomach makes another angry noise, a low rumble, and he whines.
”Shut up,” he sobs. It’s dry. It hurts. ”Shut up.”
Torch’s voice rings in his head. “You’ll be okay by yourself for a bit?”
No, he wants to scream, no, I’m not alright. Nothing is alright. Everything is alright.
But everything is alright. Nothing is happening. He is alone, and he was given permission to be. Yet it’s silent, and he’s too alone. Everything is quiet. Too quiet.
“I’ll be fine.”
Torchbearer had smiled, and he sighs, a strangled whimper leaving his lips. He can’t bear for it to be a lie. He can’t lay here and know he’d lied to his love.
He sighs, shoulders slumping. His knees ache as he crouches, forcing himself upright. His vision blurs hard, the world encompassed in static. Bile creeps up his throat.
Food, he thinks, blearily, through the fog, through the ringing. He needs to eat something. But he shakes as he stands, stepping on the pieces of himself that he’d scattered everywhere, and he’s in yesterday’s shirt. He tugs Torchbearer’s hoodie over his head. It’s too hot for it, but he doesn’t care. The heat is no worse than the ache. Maybe if he hides his stomach, he can pretend it doesn’t exist.
He tucks a notebook in the pocket, a pen tucked between the pages. Maybe he can at least be productive. Maybe he can get something done, instead of being useless.
He pokes his head out of the tent, blinking as the light hits, truly. It’s quiet there too, the kitchen area fairly abandoned. He’s quiet as he slips over, pours himself a small bowl of the soup, leftovers from the night before left out in the night. It’s cold.
No one comes over. No one says anything. Dev and Jenna are sitting at the fire, leaning in, whispering, hushed tones, gentle, sweet. He can’t bring himself to interrupt.
Pathetic, scared, foolish.
He turns around, grip tightening on the bowl. He nearly stumbles in his haste to get away. He has to run, he has to go. He has to get away before he makes them sick too, before the rot spreads.
He makes it out of camp before his knees give out, before he collapses, sloshes a little soup onto his hand. It doesn’t even sting— it’s too cold. He wipes it on his leg and sniffs, hard. The scent wafts in and his throat burns. It smells hot. He doesn’t know how, but it does, and it makes his stomach churn.
He sets the bowl down next to him as he sits in the clearing, flips open the notebook, finds the pen, a rubber band wrapped around it. He remembers snapping it against his skin, the sting. Part of him wants to put it on, snap it once, twice, three times, until the nausea is a distant memory. Until he feels something other than numb.
Do it.
But he can’t. Torchbearer will notice, and then he will ask. And he can’t bear to have the conversation. He’s fine. He’s being dramatic.
He rips another hangnail off instead and smooths out the page, wipes the blood on the edge so it doesn’t stain Torchbearer’s hoodie. He’s ruined enough of his clothes.
He takes in a deep breath— in for four, hold for half, out for four, rest for one— and picks up the pen.
—
He hasn’t written a single word down.
The pen trembles in his hands, not even touching the paper. He doesn’t know how long he’s sat there, staring at the page. There’s still dried blood at the corner. More blood than ink. The soup sits untouched at his feet, but he got food. That’s something, isn’t it? He tried.
But it’s not enough. He failed, again. Pathetic and useless. He can’t even eat stew that he got himself.
Try, he thinks, and he does. He lifts the bowl to his lips, but the scent hits him again, harder, and he can’t do it. He sets it down, chokes out another dry sob into it.
Useless.
He looks at the notebook, blank, empty.
Pathetic.
He swallows back the lump in his throat and knows he won’t eat. His stomach lining will eat itself.
Idiot.
He looks at the rubber band, wrapped around the pen.
Lazy.
He reaches for it.
Weak.
“Clancy?”
Fuck. Torchbearer’s voice has him stiffening, setting the bowl down to turn around, glancing over his shoulder.
“There you are,” Torch breathes, and he’s relieved, and it does something to Clancy’s chest. His entire body lurches and his hand finds his mouth, eyes watering, and it’s the worst time. It’s the best time.
“Hey,” he manages. It doesn’t sound right, even to him. He can’t see, but he imagines Torchbearer’s worried face— brows furrowed, eyes narrow, lips downturned.
His vision doesn’t have to be clear to know. Torchbearer is knelt in front of him in an instant, “Love?” He breathes, soft and concerned. “Love, what’s wrong?”
He shakes his head. Nothing. Everything. Fuck.
He opens his mouth and tries for the truth. “I can’t do this,” he chokes out, and it’s the worst thing he could’ve said. Torchbearer freezes like he’d punched him— like he’d dragged a rock against his wrist, bled out in his arms all over again.
“Clancy,” Torch whispers, and he’s already shaking his head, more, enough to make him motion sick. He’s shaking, he can’t do it.
“Not like that,” he manages. “I’m— not like that. Never like that.” He sniffs, hard, blinks a few times. The tears don’t fall and he just sobs. “God, I’m just exhausted.”
Torch laughs, shaky and borderline hysterical. “That doesn’t sound much better,” he whispers, bringing a hand to Clancy’s cheek. He didn’t realize he’d still been shaking his head, side to side, side to side, until he stopped him. A single touch halts his brain, freezes him in his tracks. He obeys, a kicked dog. He always will.
“But,” Torchbearer says, eyes darting from the notebook— still blank, still bloodied— to the full bowl of soup, “I think I know what you’re talking about.”
He smiles, too gently. “Rough day?”
He almost denies it, but there’s something in Torch’s voice that reaches into his chest. He nods, slower this time, to keep himself from throwing up. “Yeah,” he whispers. His voice wobbles.
“Oh,” Torch breathes, “honey,” and then he stops. “Sorry. Food probably isn’t helping, is it?”
It’s such an absurd thing to worry about, yet so familiar. He laughs— it bursts from him without permission, shaking him for a whole other reason. He folds forward. “Honey’s fine so long as I’m not eating it,” he says. “And…I guess I wouldn’t know.” His head bows. It is a confession. “I haven’t eaten anything.”
He stills, waits for the reaction, but Torch doesn’t even flinch. He’d expected anger, surprise, something. Not this— gentle acceptance, hands cradling him in a way he doesn’t deserve.
“I figured,” he says instead, and that’s what breaks him. “You seemed…off, this morning. I just didn’t want to push it.”
That does it. The tears overflow, and his shoulders shudder, and he gasps. It burns. It’s a relief. Torch wraps him in his arms, burying Clancy’s face in his neck.
He knows. He knows. And he’d tried to lie.
“Sorry,” he chokes, shudders apart. His chest hurts, feels like he’s been set aflame. “I should’ve— I should’ve gone with you, should’ve helped, shouldn’t have been lazy, should’ve said bye—“
Torch shushes him, enough to shut him up, but not rude. A soft hum, a gentle rhythm. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “You don’t have to apologize. For any of that. Just…breathe.”
He does. He tries. In for four, hold for two— the rhythm escapes him and he sobs harder, until he’s worn out, the tears finally spilling down into Torchbearer’s neck. He doesn’t complain. Just…stays. Breathes, his easy in for five, hold for half, out for four, rest for one, until Clancy is following.
They sit like that until he stops shaking, until his breaths come without sobs. Until the static in his mind fades away. “Let’s go get you some food, yeah?”
He nods, barely lifting his head. Torch stands, helping lift him up. He doesn’t move from his hold. Just stands there.
“It’ll be okay,” Torch whispers, letting go, crouching to gather his bowl, left abandoned. Wasteful. “I’ve got you.”
A hand finds his, lips press to his temple.
“C’mon,” he whispers, starting forward.
He doesn’t want to— not really. But he can’t deny Torchbearer anything. His heart burns with the thought. So he goes, limbs lighter with every step, fire raging in his chest.
—
The bowl of soup is warm in his hands. His eyes water as the smell hits him.
Torch’s hand finds the small of his back. Here. He’s here.
He closes his eyes and takes a bite, swallows it back. He shudders, involuntarily, as it hits his stomach. But he doesn’t cry. He doesn’t vomit. That is something to be proud of.
His exhale comes soft, uncounted. He opens his eyes to look at Torch, and he’s beaming like he did something great. He smiles, and he breathes. The scent wafts in, warm and savory. He could choke on it.
He doesn’t. Instead, he breathes, slow, steady, warm, until the count slips his mind.
— ☁︎ —