@melodire asked: ❛ You can’t blame yourself. ❜
He could, was the thing. He really, really could. It was remarkably easy. If not out loud then in the silence of his dire mind, the guilt and self-pity fracturing dreamless horizons. It started with Krueger and only aggravated with time and fog.
Quentin picked at a thread in the fray of his jeans, "Can't help it," he muttered, "I mean, Dwight wouldn't have been...if I hadn't just..."
Getting sacrificed was one thing--getting personally gutted or flayed or garroted or skinned was another. Quentin, via a series of poor decisions and exhausted inattentiveness, had inadvertently subjected Dwight to a death via violent enucleation. And all Quentin could do was watch, white-faced from the other side of the pallet, as the Skull Merchant hooked her nails deep into the corner of Dwight's eyes.
Dwight said he didn't hold anything against Quentin, but Quentin wagered it had more to do with the fact that it didn't really matter in the long run. They all died. They all lived. The dichotomy of life and death meant nothing here, so it was pointless to get petty over it.
Still. Quentin felt awful. But at least Kate was one of the best people to indulge in for comfort. He leaned his head against her shoulder, light as a sigh.
"It doesn't get easier, does it?"