there was a moment there where blue had forgotten where he was. for a moment, he was not in a kitchen — but an unforgiving abyss. his body coasted along a thickening void, expanding at his ankles and he felt himself swayed by the hollowness in his heart. he felt the ground beneath him, but knew it could crumble at any moment. he could see the cluttered bench tops, a table with a fruit bowl scarce of fruit, and even a man he could once have said was his best friend staring at him from the opposite end of the room. but blue wasn’t sure what was an illusion anymore, what visual contortions were caused by the caustic liquid slithering down his throat, and what more of his grief was demanded as a price to mend his bleeding heart. he had not the faintest idea, and all he could see where multiple sets of those brown eyes he had spent nearly his entire life dipping into. he was nothing without holden woods. he would not be a fibre of the person he was today were it not for the man standing before him. of what he could make out in his metamorphised state, there was a hand floating between them. a bridge, in which it was begging to be crossed, the taste of forgiveness salivating on his tongue. blue knew what that hand meant. it’s all he’d dreamed about for weeks, and there is almost nothing he wouldn’t do to take it.
but blue continued to look up; his head scrunched into his shoulder, his eyes tethered to the chocolate brown he knew as home, and his hands… remaining at his side.
“f-f-forgiveness is earned. i h-haven’t earned it.” the blond stuttered out, an unpleasant expulsion of gas erupting through his lips as the bottle in his hand is placed back to the ground. his fingers clasped around the bottled neck like a noose. “you obviously. know what’s h-happened.” the words meagerly tumbling from blue’s mouth are the most words he’d spoken to anyone that wasn’t a police officer. upon being struck by the news, all blue could do was drink himself into a stupor and try to quell the tears from falling evermore. dehydrated, his head throbbing, his throat aching, and his heart tearing in two, blue felt as though he were about to fall apart. this was never more true than when he looked back up to holden, seeing the unequivocal hurt at his refusal of his gesture. but with everything else going on, the weights that blue had carried up until this point, the last thing he felt obliged to do was accept holden’s pity. and so he didn’t.
instead, tainted with a shade of harrow blue had never touched before, he stumbled upwards as he held onto the kitchen counter. hoisting up his weight as his body wobbled, blue didn’t cease until he found himself on his feet once more (albeit shaky at best), looking holden in the eyes. the tremor of his body was not lessened by his whitened knuckles that held onto the counter for stability, and blue bit his lip so hard that blood was excavated. the colour matched his tortured eyes. “it’s n-not your job to tell me it’s g-going to be okay.” blue warbled, a cry caught in his esophagus as his eyes once again began to well up. as such, the well of any water in his body was soon to be dried up, his every sorrow expelled in the hours preceding them. “there’s… a killer-r. daisey’s fucking dead. rosa, nate and d-danny could be fucking dead too, who the f-fuck knows ? and libby, my… libby, i… if i hadn’t hurt you like i have things could be different. but they can’t.” blue pressed one palm against holden’s chest, tears now flowing freely, and with his inhibited strength tried to push his best friend away. he couldn’t bear to look at him now, as he wiped away the disgusting discharge of his sorrow onto his sleeve. it was clear that blue was falling apart - and holden had no reason to be part of it. blue had betrayed the person he saw as his brother. their years bonded together over family christmases, stolen drinks from mr wood’s liquor cabinet, riding their bikes through the neighbourhood late at night because they felt unstoppable. all those memories meant nothing now after the hurt he’d instilled into holden’s heart. he hadn’t earned back the love of that holden yet. and he couldn’t accept it. not when he knew how holden really felt. “so you h-have to. leave. be t-there for your family. i can’t h-hurt you again. so go. i’m not your mess to deal with anymore. you must be in so much fucking pain. you g-gotta look after yourself first.”
holden and blue’s friendship had been forged in grief. both of them running far away from the horrors of their own realities, stealing away little pleasures to show one another in the form of legos and skateboards snuck into hospital hallways. they were masters of distraction, of sweeping their maladies under the rug and coaxing smiles out of each other instead. it was all they had known… until real tragedy strikes. holden had only seen blue this miserable once in his life, the days in which the boy’s mother had been yanked out of his life by disease and death. the weeks in which the young boy’s whole life was packed away into a box, and every bright and innocent thing in his world was snuffed out with the last breath of his mother’s life. first there were tears, none of which holden knew how to quell. after all, they hadn’t known each other too well in those days, teetering on precipice of a deep friendship, but even still his mother had stuffed him into a pair of black dress pants and a button down, pity in her gaze as she carefully tied the silk tie around his neck. it was the first funeral he’d ever attended, finally understand the fragility of life. blue had worn a similar look of complete and utter hopelessness then, blue eyes void of that vigor for life he so often harbored. suddenly it was as though holden was staring into the face of the very same young boy, in a suit far too large for him, mourning the loss of something that could never be replaced. any anger, and hurt that lived on within holden had melted away into nothingness, watching the shaking breathes fall past blues lips as tears formed at his eyes.
there was no doubt a profound sadness dwelling within holden’s own core, a panicky meandering that made its presence known every time he drew in a breath, all too aware that it was possible that the missing students didn’t have the luxury of air in their lungs. but now was not the time for solo sorrow. heaving himself off the ground, holden allowed the blond to speak, staggered word, the shards of his broken heart embellishing his words as he spoke, a hand poised at holden’s chest to quite literally push him away. quietly, holden peeled the hand of off his chest, allowing it to fall back at blue’s sides, eyes searching the face of his best friend. "shut up, dude,” holden mumbled softly, reaching out to pull the other into his arms into an embrace. “i am with my family. you are my family, okay? you're my brother, blue. so just… let me there for you. i’m not going to leave you, i promise. i’m here," her reassured, a keeping the boy close as his own tears now threatened at his own eyes. “i'm sorry i made you feel like… like that changes between us, fuck-- i, could never not be in your life. i’m always going to be here for you. no matter what, alright? especially now,” holden pledged, a hand reaching up to wipe at his eyes, arms still encircled around the only person who could understand the depth of his hurt, of his panic. “i love you. even when i’m upset with you i still do, so stop fucking… don’t ever imply what you just did, again,” he finally pulled away, hands still fussing at his eyes. he was unsure if his sadness was stemming from the anxieties he had about the abductions, the pain in his best friend’s heart, or the fact that he’d made blue believe that his life could ever be lead away from their friendship. unsure of what to do next, holden found himself shelving the bottle of vodka blue had previously clutched in his grip before turning his eyes back onto his teammate. “no more of that. it’s not… she wouldn’t want that, y’know? and you can bet your ass she’ll give you hell for it when he comes back, because she is going to be back. i promise, we’ll find her,” at this point holden was unsure if he was offering comfort to blue or to himself, blanketing best case scenarios over them as if maybe if he talked about it enough, they would be rendered infallible truths. “she’s gonna come back and things are gonna be different. i’ll be different.” he'd never been so helpless. usually skilled in to conjure up the cures to blue’s sadness, either via smile or a joint, sometimes more crafty ideas would have to be executed but he was ill-prepared for this. nothing would cure this. the only person that could, may never return.