@yagaymi sent: please don’t do this.
he’s always hated watching blair cry, ever since they were kids.
it’s always caused a tightness to form in his chest, the kind that makes it just a little hard to breathe – and that’s sort of the worst part, really. that it’s just a little hard to breathe. not impossible, not even painfully difficult. it would almost be better if he couldn’t catch his breath – if the panic of not being able to find air caused him to hyperventilate, gasp for oxygen as the frame around him grew tighter and tighter until his fright was all that’s left in the shot, but instead it’s just enough to make him want to readjust his collar, massage his lungs like they’re something chilled that he can warm back up again.
it’s the kind of luke-warm empathy that almost kind of scares him, though he couldn’t explain why. he tries to interact with it, to feel his heart hurt for her the way it must for a lifetime of knowing and loving her even if it wasn’t in the way he was supposed to, but mostly he thinks of his mother crying, and that eliciting nearly the same feeling. that same friction in the muscles meant to swell and detract to grant him oxygen. where he should feel tenderness he feels tension, hardness building in his jaw that isn’t anger or apathy but confusion and remorse because he’s never wanted to hurt her and he thinks it should hurt him more than it does to know that’s exactly what he’s done.
blair’s been enough of a constant to him to justify grief – sharp splitting pain up his side and a world stripped of color, but he mostly just aches a little, and it’s the dull kind.
“ i’m sorry, blair, ” he has the good sense to say and just enough feeling in his arms to know it’s necessary, but that’s just about all.