This was written in about five minutes after watching Joodiff's Waterloo inspired songvid on Tumblr. No idea how or why, it just happened.


Hurting

He can't breathe.

The tears that were so thick and fast and heavy and all-encompassing are gone. Now there's only a breathlessness that isn't related and has nothing to do with exercise.

It's fear, pure and simple. Fear, and grief.

So many lives, so much heartache.

If he could do it all again, he thinks, he'd find a way to make it right, to do it better. To prevent all of this. This loss. This horror. This agony.

He remembers it all. Everything. The images are burned into the back of his mind, the scenes and memories playing over and over in a loop inside his mind, taunting him, reminding him. But he doesn't know how he got here, how it all went so wrong.

His lungs tighten, chest burns. The air vanishes.

A rustle of cloth, a presence beside him. Her thigh pressed against his, her palm resting on his cheek. "You're hurt," she murmurs, seeing the gash, the blood.

Splinters adorn his knuckles, blood is dried on his hands. His head aches, his eyes burn. His heart is lost.

He is lost.

"Everyone I know goes away in the end," he tells her, staring straight into her, his pain and confusion bared and utterly raw.

A gentle thumb on his eyebrow, tender fingertips on his cheek. A steady glow of warm, quiet light in the darkness. A soft, sincere promise.

"Not me."

His hand is in hers, fingers squeezing, being squeezed.

"Never me," she repeats, and this time he believes her.