hlance stops the moment the doors swing open, doing absolutely nothing but looking as the cause of the commotion steps out into the open.

he's insightful enough to recognize her frustrations.

"sorry."

he takes a step closer, reaching out for her shoulder.

"are you okay?"

Remi Cassel

☉

Her fingers dig into her scalp, messing up her silver hair. She grips so tight she stifles pain, and she appears ready to crumble to her knees.

But a familiar voice asks her if she's okay, and she pulls her face out of her hands to stare. There is fire behind slate-coloured eyes, a rage unbridled, raw, and distinct.

"Oh, fuck me."

Rather than answer him, her face flushes red, redder than it had been in her grief, and she walks quickly away from him.

LANCE VOLLANS

☉

it takes him a second.

"remi?"

a face he recognizes, a face he knows, and so the decision to follow after her is only natural. it doesn't take him much to catch up to her side.

"you good? why are you crying? and why are you here?"

Remi Cassel

☉

Feelings long since left behind, buried beneath distraction after distraction rise to the surface quickly and violently. Though he doesn't touch her, he might as well have.

Remi turns at the sound of her name, eyes wide as they take him in. He is exactly the same as she remembers him, tall and kind and just as impossibly far away.

But his questions leave her exasperated and confused. For a moment, she has to wonder if he even remembers her at all.

"I'm here because my brother is dead."

She keeps her distance, one hand held out to stop him from coming any closer.

"Are you telling me that you didn't know? You were supposed to protect him."

LANCE VOLLANS

☉

the revelation hits like a truck. she doesn't need her hand to stop him from coming closer because it leaves him rooted in his spot, unable to approach any further.

roman.

"...is he?"

dead.

"i didn't know."

he's been bound to a bed the past few months, so how could he have known? even if he did, how could he have stopped it from happening?

"i swear i didn't."

Remi Cassel

☉

It has been a long time since she last cried. Since she last felt that impossible weakness in her legs, the heaviness in her chest. It brings her down, knees crashing against the stone.

Sobs wrack her body and her hand falls where she's held it up to stop him. She isn't strong enough to compose herself. The reality of the situation and the magnitude of her admittance bears too much weight and hurts too much.

"How could you have not? How could you not protect him? You were supposed to protect him."

The last sentence comes out as a whisper, a hiss through her teeth. Her fingers bite into her upper arms as she curls in on herself.

"He's gone, Lance. He's gone and-- and--"

LANCE VOLLANS

☉

"i—"

but she's right. he was supposed to protect him, and he failed.

guilt washes over his shoulders, weighing him down. despite that, he takes a step closer, reaching out to hold her in an embrace.

"i'm sorry, remi. i really am."

Remi Cassel

☉

When he approaches, arms reaching for her to console, she doesn't move. If he hugs her, he would feel the pain wracking her body. She trembles against him, unable to stop the tears that overflow and the foreign noises that leave her.

She hasn't cried in years, and never in front of him.

"I was supposed to protect him."

But instead, she had run because she was afraid. Because the man holding onto her now had been married, had had a life bigger than her own. He had a future where she had been grasping at straws and pretending to stay afloat.

"I don't know what to do."

LANCE VOLLANS

☉

he hugs her, and he feels pain, understands it all too well. hurt that stems from loss, from guilt, from doing absolutely nothing, they all resurface, forcing him to exhale a shaky breath to steady himself.

"i know...so was i."

he was supposed to protect others during the war, too, but he had failed at that.

"we do what we can to cope, to process, and to heal."

the words sound recited, as though he's remembering them from somewhere else.

"but it'll suck for a while, believe me."

Remi Cassel

☉

His shaky breathing falls into rhythm with her own, and although she doesn't reciprocate his hug, the strength shared between them slows her hyperventilating. He speaks against the curve of her ear and the words and the weight seem to topple in his favour more than her own.

They both come from the same place, her pain is his own, just newer and fresher.

"What if-- what if I can't.."

What if she can't heal? What if the pain stays with her and grips her as tight as it was now, forever? It was as if a piece of her had died along with him. She had felt dread the moment his phone number had gone to voicemail. A part of her had known something was wrong, and she had waited.

She had waited because she was selfish.

"I should have been here."

LANCE VOLLANS

☉

what if she can't heal?

"then you learn to live with it."

it's all they can do.

his words are delivered with a sigh, breathed out only to drown in the sorrow between them. he holds her just a bit tighter, leaning into her rosy skin.

"and i should've protected him."

but he didn't. he couldn't. he failed.

Remi Cassel

☉

The pain is intense, the grief an endless pit of toxin that swallows her whole. It burns all the way through and she sobs until no more tears float to the surface. Until her eyes burn just as much as her chest does from the heaving sobs that had wracked her body.

She eventually quiets, like a small child being coddled by a parent. It is humiliating.

But his hug tightens and she can feel the thud of his heartbeat alongside her own. Slowly, her fingers slide up his back to hold him in return, and feelings of sorrow are slowly, gently replaced with feelings of warmth. He doesn't replace her grief, but mutes it in some capacity to make it bearable.

She presses her cheek to his, the eyepatch she wears foreign now given how it hadn't been there when she'd first been held like this.

LANCE VOLLANS

☉

when she eventually stills, he breathes a sigh of relief, pressing his cheek a bit more into hers before pulling away.

"let's go for a walk."

he was headed into the office but plans change, and he's more than willing to change his for her sake. and his own, too, for it's been too long since he's last seen her.

too much has happened since.

Remi Cassel

☉