The tears clinging to the dip of her nose were what did him in.
Not the crawling bruise, spreading out and laying out its wings, with blackened feathers, along her cheeks and swollen shut eye; not the blood stained knuckles and their messy bruises. Nor the raggedly torn off fingernails - which had turned the top of her fingers to nothing more than centimeters of thick dried blood – not the splotchy, tipped white and centered crimson, burn marks on her wrists – though those all still broke him down; ripped and clawed at him, and tore him apart bit by bit.
It was the unshed tears, smeared and tinted red; tucked away in the valley and curve of her nose, beside her eye, that broke him – shattered, and crushed him completely.
It was the tears that did him in.
He's left breathless, watching as her bleary eyes swim in them, fending off the light that dances along her shining skin – searching, searching, and unsure; and he shifts in his spot, ignoring the way his wounds howl and rattle - throb in protest – scooting closer to her. With the friction on the floor, the brush of his heels against the dust covered cement floor, her eyes flick up to his; wide and large, and completely, utterly unhinged.
He waits – and then, doesn't have too; because it just clicks. Just like that.
She's seen all his faces – knows them by heart; knows their causes and why they left; knows their faults, and pleasures, the companions of their time. He has no doubt she could pick them out in a line up in seconds flat; and she has died, time and time again for them, all of them.
Of course she'd be able to recognize a new one – and welcome it.
"Oh God." Her lips crack open – the bottom one stunted and pressing out more so than the other, the words slide up and out, coated in a mixture of blood and saliva; falling limp and useless into the air – her eyes flick around his face; taking in the left over wounds; those too deep for regeneration even to heal completely.
And of course, she would know how it was caused – how this one came to be.
Her mouth remains open; slack jawed and bruised, bloody; the skin is tinged purple and cracked, smeared with a vivid assortment of color, thousands of shades of blue and red – broken apart by the tiny peek of a vein. The skin directly around her lips blossoming shades of green and yellow, her teeth – from what he can see – are chipped, tinged a deep red, almost black, in the space between each tooth.
She sniffles; her eyes flutter, and a trapped tear slowly attempts to crawl down her cheek; and fails, remaining stuck to the side of her nose, heading for the curve of a shadow stained nostril. A hand flutters up to meet it, only to have her fingers delicate shaking turn to snarling, sharp spasms, and almost instantly, that arm is cradled against her chest; eyes sharp and wide with the fear sparked by the uncontrollable movement, glossed with the fear of the unknown – of the extent of the damage that has been done to her body – and mind.
He shifts – the glass and grime, and just utterly disgusting things underneath his feet poke and drag along his flesh, trying to draw fresh blood from the dirt blackened skin. He doesn't speak, well he might of allowed a few things to slip out; if anything her name, a few prayers and damn's, as he undoes the binds that hold her captive – unties the rope around her still captured wrist, before moving onto the crook of her elbow and biceps; keeping a careful on the ripe, raw; flaming red skin revealed in its removal.
He's silent as he lifts her from the stained pine chair – she's incredibly light - or maybe it's just the new body, but either way, he doesn't care, and the latter isn't important, not with the woman – reduced now to something like an injured baby bird - not with his best friend, his savior,his l– dancing on the brink of Death within his arms.
She isn't silent.
Her eyes flutter and her head rolls and she babbles; she whines and moans, she doesn't cry – but she does squirm, and he's careful to allow the adjustments, the ones that he can manage, and the ones that suit her best – where he can still apply pressure to the seeping blood, slipping out from underneath her clothes, from wounds he has not yet seen and dreads but also needs too. As he walks from the cell – the darkened place, reeking of dried blood and decay and the vile, sour scent of Death; the rotting, burned, caved in bodies of her captors – the voices in the back of his mind begin to stir; standing up one by one, like a rising chorus.
Shouting out the truths, threading the lies and beading them – this is all his fault, truth.
She'll probably never forgive him, false façade.
She won't even live long enough to consider it.
Truth.
The voices die down, tucking their tails between their legs and returning like abused animals back to the shadows where they came from, limping away and fleeing from his roaring thoughts; which howl and scream and blossom into storm as he steps out into the hall way; into the sauntering, splashed out along the walls, sunlight, peeping in from the thick iron bars above.
They're nothing more than distant echoes by the time that light seeps into his back; pressing against his skin and slicing into it. Warming up the blood stained, cotton shirt – which is really nothing more than ribbons - he wears. With the exception of his bare feet smacking against the filthy, hellish concrete, in a quick, rabbit-hearted pace; because he can't afford to run; and Clara's occasional string of noises; it's all nothing but silence.
Because the corpses that line those walls have nothing more to say.
He had warned them – back when blood thrilled and vibrated and pulsed in their veins, and before new, fresh blood pumped through his – that he would bring their never ending silence.
And he did, with the searing heat retreating on his face.
With the speckles of a golden yellow fire fading from his eyes to reveal the familiar, throbbing walls of his cage, and the new refreshing burned faces of his captors.
Oh, he did.