Shadows and Bones
One hundred Skulduggery Pleasant drabbles.
Nothing is owned by me.
The soundtrack for this chapter will take you longer to listen to than this will take you to read. Go look up The Court of the Crimson King, by King Crimson
Spoilers for the end of Death Bringer!
Chapter thirty-three-Pain
...
He thought that the hurt had faded.
As Skulduggery walked away from China and Eliza Scorn, it was pain, not anger, that clouded his mind. Pain gnawed at him, dug into his chest and squeezed at the empty space where his heart used to be. Each step was more of a fight than the last, and it was all he could do not to collapse, or scream, or turn back around and kill Scorn for ever telling him this, or kill China for ever doing such a thing.
As soon as he got back to the car, he slumped to his seat. He didn't wait for Valkyrie, but she didn't seem to mind. If she had minded, she would have been furiously calling his cell phone and leaving him angry messages. She wasn't, so she didn't.
The initial heartbreaking agony of his family's death had long since dulled from agony, to a mere wound, and eventually to a steady, easily-ignored ache. Three hundred years was a long time to hurt, and Skulduggery had better things to do.
Or so he'd thought.
The thought that he had been friends, or something nearly, with the person responsible for taking his family away from him tore at his mind, revolted him. He should have known. He should have been able to tell.
He should have been able to smell the blood on China's hands. All of this, everything, was her fault. Perhaps not entirely, but the fault still rested on her head. Her fault that Machination was no longer by his side. Her fault that he had never seen his daughter grow up. Her fault that he could no longer recall what it was to be truly alive.
Her fault that he could no longer remember his family.
He couldn't remember going home, but he must have. He ended up there somehow.
Skulduggery wandered through his house, feeling aimless and lost. He supposed that later, when the pain faded again, he would be angry, but for now his heart hurt, and he didn't know when it would stop.
He desperately wanted to talk to someone, but he knew there was no one. The only people who came close were Valkyrie and Ghastly. Ghastly had lost sight of his old friend many years ago, and they had long since become strangers to each other. Skulduggery refused to unload his pain on to Valkyrie's shoulders. If nothing else, he would spare her that.
He wanted so many things. He wanted to hear Machination's voice again. He couldn't remember what she sounded like. He wanted to see Anza smile again, see her run and play like little girls were supposed to. He wanted to forget the overwhelming stench of blood.
He wanted to see China's throat under his hands. He wanted to be able to forgive her.
He wanted these things with a fervor that he had no longer believed himself to be capable of. Wanting the world to change just for him was something for young men to fuss over, and he was by no means a young man. Not anymore.
He did not rest that night, nor the any of the nights after. When the pain finally subsided again, it was instead cold fury that snapped at his heels.
...
This was so freaking hard to write. It was like pulling teeth. Arrgh. Sorry for the shortness, there's only so much angst I can write.
Feedback is appreciated.