❛ i killed your family, niki. i killed your son.
how was i supposed to tell you that? ❜
his voice cracks in the middle of his sentence, eyes brimming with tears that he doesn’t bother blinking away for once. they tumble over his cheekbones and cool his heated skin. they plop onto the fabric of his shirt and add to the weight of the burden he carries. they remind him that losing niki would only be the universe’s way of getting back at him for the wrong he’s done. he glances to the ground, forcing the image of her shrinking away from him out of his mind, hating d.l. for making her feel the need to.
or was it not just a reflex? was it a genuine reaction to him coming near her? he doesn’t move again except to run a hand through his hair for what seems like the hundredth time. he doesn’t want to find out.
❛ how was i supposed to tell the woman i love,
the woman who i’d protect with every ounce
of me that i’m the reason she needs
protection in the first place? the thought of
you HATING me for what i’d done… ❜
peter trails off, not able to finish his sentence on account of the way his mouth has gone dry—and the fact that he’s not sure that she doesn’t hate him right now. the selfish part of him wants her to stay, needs her to stay; but the overriding selfless part knows that he can’t make her stay with him. it’s a choice she’ll have to make by herself.
a lump is cleared from his throat.
❛ but i couldn’t keep it from you anymore. it was
eating away at me. you had a right to know. ❜
she stands at a distance, torn between the mirage-like past and the slightly tear-blurred, panic-dizzied present. hands curled into fists at her sides, she regards him with a furrowed brow and tense muscles as if she’s debating whether to run or approach him. something in her wants to reach out and wipe away his tears like she once had her son’s, but instead she steps back again, heart rate raising higher in her chest.
❛ you don’t lie to people you love, peter.
you tell the truth and hope they’ll accept it.
i NEVER lied to you. ❜
her chest feels like it’s constricting around her lungs and heart, trying to crush her. maybe that wouldn’t be so bad right now. i love you. she wants to say, but it sticks in her throat before it ever finds its way to her tongue. she swallows, and the words go with it, washed back down to somewhere deep inside of her where all the things she’s never said lay rotting and spoiled, broken.
she wishes she could put his confession back inside of him, make him take it back and pretend he never said it, but she learned long ago that the world doesn’t work like that. you can’t put toothpaste back into a tube, can’t put a fallen leaf back onto a tree, or ashes back into what they once were.
but her gaze softens as she looks at him, her hands unfurl. she feels the loss fully, as if it’s pulled away from her on a tide roughly - the stage of grief she’s been stuck in like a rut finally slips from her grasp. denial, anger, bargaining, depression... acceptance. she lets go. something that’s been hanging over her heavy and dark dissipates, her gaze softens. the sadness doesn’t go away, but something else does.
she reaches out from where she stands, doesn’t close the distance between them but presses a thumb to his cheek and pushes the tear away. her skin comes away warm and damp, it leaves a shining trail on his face. she keeps her distance, but a formerly harsh raised tone is lowered to something soft and muffled.
❛ i could never hate you, though.
all of us have done things we regret.
god knows that i have
i love you no matter what you did. ❜
she pulls her hand back into her own space, doesn’t wipe away the salty substance before she lets her hand fall back to her side. she’s quiet for a moment, jaw set and chest rising and falling with her breaths as her eyes flick back and forth over him, and then drop to somewhere off to her side. she exhales slowly;
and she’s lied more times than she cares to admit.
and she’s kept things from her very own son.
and she has so much blood on her hands, impure.
and she knows what it’s like to feel out of control.
to make a mistake.
to hurt someone else.
to feel guilty and weighted.
and no matter if he’s lied to her or not,
no matter if it’s all true, if it was his fault, his doing,
if it was a tragic accident with cataclysmic consequences...
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