Worthy

For everyone who reviewed Signs: Sorry I haven't written anything new in so long. This is just a short drabble from Grin's point of view until I get my act together and write something a but more substantial.

Dumbledore/Grindelwald slash. If you don't like it, well, tough, it's canon!

It's all J.K.'s and I got nothing from this.

Enjoy!

--

Sometimes, when he's sitting there: on his own, surrounded by other people. He'll suddenly think of him. Sometimes it's just the smell of his hair, the sound of his voice, the way he turned his head to look up at him, the last thing he ever said to him.

He'll find himself staring out of windows that aren't even there. Some speck of nothing will catch his eyes and mind and before he realises it it's been an hour and he's just been sitting there. And every time he asks himself: was it worth it? Half expecting a reply, from the voice that he can barely remember but hears every time he closes his eyes.

Every other morning he'll wake up with an empty pit in his stomach. Every other morning he wakes up, so sure for a moment he can still feel the hazy warmth of him beside him. It's not that he minds the cold – everything seems cold now and you rather get used to it.

He'll find old pieces of paper they'd both scrawled over. He'll shift through his robes for a clean shirt and find one, fine, fair hair on a sleeve. Sometimes he'll catch a reflection in a mirror and beg it wasn't a horribly recognisable one that stared back. There are moments when he is so sure he'll just give up and go back, begging for forgiveness, then there are moments when he is so very angry he is too scared of himself to even let his thoughts wander that way.

The other day he caught his hand on a loose nail and let it bleed. He stood and watched the beautifully red blood slowly drip down and pool on the floorboards; still human, still there, and he can't believe it.

He asks himself what he's doing occasionally, as if it's still just a childish dream he concocted in a fleeting moment of adolescent foolishness. Where did the rational free thinker go? When did the radical replace him?

He was never worthy of this ideas. He wasn't worthy of a lot of things and most of them have caused nothing but pain for more than just himself.

-

He gets up today. It's a long day already. This was one of those absent heartbeat mornings and he's not looking forward to another day of routinely accepting that. He stands at the window, looking out but not really seeing. Does up his buttons one by one because there's no other way. Picks up his wand, without the zealous twirl of earlier years, and looks at it again, knowing it has all the answers he could want if he were coward enough to take them, brave enough to let go. He pockets the elder branch and runs his fingers through his hair. And, like every morning, he breathes without thinking, lives without wanting, and he asks himself: was it worth it?

And as usual, there is no answer.