A/N: What is this? I haven't written fic in four years. Not to mention, I haven't written a single fic for this fandom. What am I doing here? No idea, I just know I was trying to sleep this morning, and this just wouldn't leave me alone. I don't know where it came from or how it got in my head, but there it was, far be it from me to ignore, am I right?
Warning: Angst, and spoilers for the end of the movie. But really, if you're still prone to spoiling, why are you here? Haha.
He wonders what's wrong with him, wonders why his chest feels tight and his fingertips tingle. He wonders why his first instinct is to run outside in the snow, when he knows he shouldn't be out there. The society is dead, it died with Neil, and there's no other reason to risk getting in any more trouble than they all know they'll be in. But they follow him nonetheless, worried about what he might do, how he might react.
But then he just stops, his shoulders slumped, gazing purposefully through the wide expanse of white. And for a moment he feels at peace, and there's a smile on his face. They just watch him silently. Waiting. Worried.
"It's so beautiful."
And suddenly, he's on his knees, the dinner from that night burning holes in the snow in front of him, and his entire body has this frozen numbness that spreads from his chest to his tongue. He's trying to scream, trying to yell, but only accomplishing awkward, unintelligible mutters and anguished cries, and Charlie's beside him, wiping his face clean with a handful of fresh snow, but even that burns, and Knox is clinging to Todd's back, trying desperately to control the shaking, and the way Todd's body is rocking back and forth. They're all trying to calm him down, and everything is just wrong. Why is he the only one who's reacting like this? This shouldn't be happening, not to him, and certainly not to the rest of them.
He wishes he weren't so weak, wishes he were stronger, wishes he could've somehow prevented this all from happening and then maybe when he had woken up earlier, he would have seen Neil in the bed across the room and not Charlie with tears in his eyes.
He wishes he could just form a damn sentence without stuttering or giving up, so that maybe they could, for once, understand him, and what he was trying so hard to tell them.
He's trying to tell them—to tell them it wasn't Neil who did this, it was his father—his father who killed him, his father was the one responsible, but they just won't listen. They're too busy focusing on his actions, and not his words, trying to hold him back, to silence him—him and his unbelievable, ridiculous accusations.
If they won't listen, why won't they just leave him alone? He's pulling away and they're gripping at his arms, tugging on his coat, but he manages and runs. He wishes just for a moment that he could be graceful, avoid every painfully cold crash into the snow, but he manages, he manages. He wobbles on his feet as he runs down across the snow covered field, screaming Neil's name, every inch of the sound drenched in heartbreak and betrayal for leaving them like this.
A/N: So...?