where: Athos :: Mansion — Front Parlor when: Returning from Russia who: @lostghcst
He’s beaten. Tired, too. In a city of ice, snowing falling in his hair, he finally got his answers. And the weight of those answers splintered him into thousands of pieces. All the hope he carried was expended. The fears he fought devoured him. He was theirs. He will always be theirs. Even when he thought he got out, Bratva found a way to bring him back in. And for what? To protect all he held so dear by leaving them in the past.
Could he even say it was worth it? All he saw was slivers of himself dissipating as those harden lines return to his face. All those mornings of gentle laughter with soft light pouring along smooth skin was replaced by a chattering teeth and fresh scars. And now, standing here in the parlor, the door creaking behind him the only noise filling a space once full of chatter spikes a jolt of discomfort in him. He did this. He stole the joy from every crevice of this house, and now he can’t even take another step in. He stays rooted by the door, the breeze blasting against his back from the small crack of a door still not fully closed. He should just go. He almost does; turning back to face the door and curl calloused fingers around the edge of the door, its jerky movements from the wind ceasing. But he finds himself caught between going and staying. From escaping back under the pale moon or snaking his way back under the warmth of his bed sheets. That is, if he still had a bed.