This fact has been set down with the facts of everyone else who is gone, that brutal excising euphemism. Palamedes is gone, and there is nothing anyone can do about that except to say it fucking sucks and roll forth the rock over him.
Palamedes is gone, and he has to live with that, like everything else.
Paul stands very still in the doorway, except for the tremble at the tips of his fingers that resonates improbably in the back of his throat, except for the bleached paper crumple of the corners of his eyes. He opens his mouth, closes it. Opens it again, with a breath that catches.]
Wait. [He swallows, once, twice.] Just - wait.
[He turns on his shocked heel and disappears to the left of the doorframe, his footsteps not falling far. He presses his forehead against cool, worn wallpaper and closes his eyes, digs shivering fingers into the soft giving curve of his inner occipital arches until light burns under his eyelids.
He stays there until he has his resolve. It takes almost five seconds, a near eternity, and he's no closer to inner resolution about what he's doing to do (how he's going to feel) when he steps back into view, except for this: he cannot keep fucking up.]
I had my ears pierced. Harrow did it.
[A shade too brightly tense, vulnerability like the still red, wounded edges around the two small bone studs in each ear, but it's better. It's closer to right, as he stands in the doorway a second time and still doesn't know if he believes this yet.]
Anything new with you? [He attempts a smile; it doesn't go well.] Besides the four limbs?
no subject
This fact has been set down with the facts of everyone else who is gone, that brutal excising euphemism. Palamedes is gone, and there is nothing anyone can do about that except to say it fucking sucks and roll forth the rock over him.
Palamedes is gone, and he has to live with that, like everything else.
Paul stands very still in the doorway, except for the tremble at the tips of his fingers that resonates improbably in the back of his throat, except for the bleached paper crumple of the corners of his eyes. He opens his mouth, closes it. Opens it again, with a breath that catches.]
Wait. [He swallows, once, twice.] Just - wait.
[He turns on his shocked heel and disappears to the left of the doorframe, his footsteps not falling far. He presses his forehead against cool, worn wallpaper and closes his eyes, digs shivering fingers into the soft giving curve of his inner occipital arches until light burns under his eyelids.
He stays there until he has his resolve. It takes almost five seconds, a near eternity, and he's no closer to inner resolution about what he's doing to do (how he's going to feel) when he steps back into view, except for this: he cannot keep fucking up.]
I had my ears pierced. Harrow did it.
[A shade too brightly tense, vulnerability like the still red, wounded edges around the two small bone studs in each ear, but it's better. It's closer to right, as he stands in the doorway a second time and still doesn't know if he believes this yet.]
Anything new with you? [He attempts a smile; it doesn't go well.] Besides the four limbs?