[It's when Lycka collides with the back of the couch and sends Lazarus toppling towards him, when Paul's nail catches glancingly at friction-tugged skin, when the open wound at the end of Lazarus' arm strikes the floor and sends a mirroring agony lancing up from Paul's closed wrist - it's then, and only then, that Paul understands what he was so carefully not thinking of. The soft, throttled noise in the back of his throat has little to do with pain as he catches Lazarus' weight slightly too late, the hand near his face slipping forward to curve around the nape of his neck.
The afterimage of Lazarus' fear-flooded eyes is burned into the rapid-firing neurons of new memory formation. Paul presses their foreheads together as if by urgent necessity, pressured reassurance of living flesh-over-bone. His voice, when it comes back to him, is no longer soft, only quiet, a plaintive scratching whisper.]
I'm not supposed to let anything happen to you.
[He'd never hurt Lazarus. Lazarus is his friend, his teacher, an anchor in uncertain waters. Whatever impulse hid in his hands isn't him. The dark, throbbing resentment of the past moments dissipates into a wild shame when dredged to light, and that's how it should be.]
I want you to apologize for taking the book. [He doesn't ask; he confesses, in an low, ugly gush.] I need you to be sorry. Please. For me?
no subject
The afterimage of Lazarus' fear-flooded eyes is burned into the rapid-firing neurons of new memory formation. Paul presses their foreheads together as if by urgent necessity, pressured reassurance of living flesh-over-bone. His voice, when it comes back to him, is no longer soft, only quiet, a plaintive scratching whisper.]
I'm not supposed to let anything happen to you.
[He'd never hurt Lazarus. Lazarus is his friend, his teacher, an anchor in uncertain waters. Whatever impulse hid in his hands isn't him. The dark, throbbing resentment of the past moments dissipates into a wild shame when dredged to light, and that's how it should be.]
I want you to apologize for taking the book. [He doesn't ask; he confesses, in an low, ugly gush.] I need you to be sorry. Please. For me?