Torch coming home. Alone. This time vastly different from the last. He’s begun to unravel, the flame flickering, threatening to be snuffed out. The walk back, was like a dream, a nightmare actually, one moment he was faced with that look Clancy left him with, his eyes forgetting entirely who he was in that moment. Now, he sits in their tent alone, in the dark. His eyes glassy and chest cold and empty. He’s sat on his cot, legs spread and arms on his thighs with limp hands. Just blinking into the darkness.
Torch is not a violent man but something in him snaps. He begins to tear down every note Clancy wrote him, with I love yous and sweet words, all lies to him now. Tearing apart their photographs. Crushing dried petals he gifted him. The deep setting sorrow overtakes him, he flips furniture and screams while destroying everything they had built together. It was betrayal in the highest form. Darkness licks up his spine and thoughts threatening to consume. His mind was breaking, he was tired of being strong, tired of being the Torchbearer. Always the strongest, the chosen one. But never the one to truly be chosen, they always left him in the end. They always chose themselves. So why couldn’t he as well? Always one for the people, for Clancy. He would be lying if he said he never considered it. But his heart was too pure, his intentions and moral compass like iron.
He sits, chest heaving, in the middle of his own destruction. The floor littered with scraps of his favorite lifetime. His tear stained face hushing once again as he lays down among the memories he so desperately wanted to keep. But as the times before, he will push on through come morning.