Clancy will get distracted by Torch doing mundane things. Like helping wash camp dishes. The way his biceps flex, his comfortable demeanor as he hands a dish over for someone to dry. Or building a new shelter, a more permanent one, his back rippling as he holds a wood plank over his shoulder, the sweat dripping down his back. His energy never wavering, until it’s finished. What usually takes him over the edge is when he is playful with the children of Trench. That pointed perfect smiled and carefree laugh as he runs and picks up a child, spinning them around. It seizes Clancy’s heart. Visions of a small cabin on the edge of the woods, next to a grassy field taunt him. It’s Torchbearer and his shared home. Making meals together, folding laundry side by side, late nights tracing the colors on his skin. It’s playing outside in the field, Torch’s strong arms carrying their child, somehow, a spitting image of them both. Torch gentle and kind, teaching their baby the way of living with nature.
Some days it’s too much for Clancy, his mind taunting him into such a spiral he lashes out to everyone and everything. He will get himself lost in the thick brush, his chest aching with everything that could be if he was just strong enough. Strong enough to say something, strong enough to fight the darkness within himself. Or at least come to an understanding.
But that’s what it all is. Clancy being weak, plunged so far down he can’t claw his way out. The only relief being his dreams, that in turn become nightmares once again. Everything that could be, but will never become. At least not in this lifetime.
