A/N: Another installment in my continuing Luckless Romance series. Go to my profile to find the rest containing the rest of the pieces.
He's fracturing, falling apart, shattering even as he holds himself together. His throat is too tight, his chest too full, and he can't breathe. He's trying, oh how he's trying, but his lungs will only expand so far, squeezed tight and out it comes again in a rush. Too fast, too full, too tight and it's too much. It's all too much, spinning free from his grip and he can't stop it, can't catch it and force it still.
It's her. Her sent away. Her blood on her forehead and staining her dress. Her kiss that sears his lips, her finger s wrapped tight around his throat. He broke her down, mechanically, and her left pieces in dust, drifting through his fingers like so much desert sand. He thought he could put her back together, assemble her to love him, and he was wrong, so very wrong. His fault she cries out in her sleep. His fault she hates him and he tries to blame everyone else but it's his fault, he tainted her, corrupted her, and then stitched the infection inside, her body suppurating beneath his fingers, and it's all still too tight, too much.
His fault she wanted to die. His fault and his fault and His. Fault. And he's not strong enough to hold himself together, skin sloughing off beneath his touch, the too muchness of it all bursting to get out. But he can't let it out because then he'll fall apart and he's falling apart anyway and he has to at least try, dammit. He has to try.
And it's cold, so very cold he trembles though there's no draft. And if he died now, ceased to exist, he could not object. Would not permit himself the right of objection. Let him die. Let him fall down and not rise and the beating of this traitorous heart cease. His mother was right. He is an abomination, destroying all he touches. Perhaps he'd help God to strike him down, if he had not promised her that he would not do that. Pride is all he has left and if he doesn't try -
But his admirable knife. His vial of poison. He could. It would be so easy. He could just lie down, and slip away, and nobody need be any the wiser. They won't come looking for him now. Why would they? He could just…let…go…
No! He cannot break that promise to her. He's broken her enough as it is, he cannot betray her now at the last, cannot draw forth more tears from those innocent eyes. And his own eyes prickle, burn, a tear spilling forth, face a grimace, teeth clenched. The tightness in his heart comes to a head, that damnable swelling and he thinks he might faint from the pain of it, and it bursts and he sucks in a breath against the pain, deep and full, tears cascading a moment, drying. And he can breathe, and it's hollow, and he slumps to the floor, heavy to his very bones, willing that eternal sleep to wrap him in its embrace, seven tons of glass and metalwork chandelier shattering on the ground.