Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’ll be okay.

Time heals wounds.

Distance becomes better, distance no longer matters. The Pain…it goes away.

It doesn’t.

The pain does not go away.

{{Sometimes….sometimes, that pain, it gets worse. The gut wrenching, tight throat, eye burning, stifling sort of pain that sometimes can’t be described, because it’s hollow, like a hollow empty nothingness inside}}

He can’t describe it, how he feels.

It’s hard to forget what you don’t want to forget, and that, is what makes time, the worst of it all.

It gets worse, not better.

He’s not sure what triggers it.

Maybe it was his friends.

{{It was his doing, he knew it as well as they did.}}

But all of a sudden he’s biting his lip as he rocks back and forth, though it wasn’t like he wasn’t the only teary eyed one in the room.

{{”We’re getting married!”, he says, his voice full from the unfiltered joy. “And it’s about damn time”, his fiancé adds with a chaste kiss on his cheek.}}

It isn’t that he’s not happy. He sees the way Sophie’s face glows as she looks at him as though he was her world and the way that they both would dissolve into their own happy cocoon, blissful against the dangers of their world, perfect and complete in their sphere. He loves the way that he’s finally found a home with all of them, how Linh has a complete and stable family and he too has a safe space wherever he goes, regardless if it’s the forbidden cities or if it’s just somewhere close like Alluvettere.

But there’s the ache too, of nostalgia. Of bittersweet nostalgia. Of cold. Cold memories hidden deep in his chest that no matter how hard he digs he can’t get it out. He sees it in Keefe’s blond eyes and perfect smile, in the way his eyes crinkle whenever he saw something that made him happy, when they talk and chat together, when he lets Sophie runs her fingers along his neck and shoulder, lacing them with butterfly kisses and a dimpled grin which he hates because he knows it’s finally real-

{{And he can’t remember a moment with him where it wasn’t.}}

His fingers are cold in the night, the rain pouring around him, a charred cigarette lit and burnt away without him even touching it.  He forgot his jacket inside, and he’s tired from tears and sweat and belting out what voice was left in him from the karaoke Sophie had insisted on singing, but he doesn’t want to move. Biana comes outside after a while, sporting her brand new undercut as she too stares at the stars in the sky, burdened by wishes never fulfilled. 

He has his hands stuffed into his scruffy jean pockets, lips dry, cheeks pale and stained, and he says nothing, passing her what’s left of the cigarette, and shivers.

He lets the cold eat at his cheeks.

{{the cold helps freeze the broken lines into something more jagged, something better than the utter blunder he was-}}

Biana looks at him one last time, giving him a bear hug that threatens to spill the tears he knows are coming, and she presses his body close, for warmth, for love, for comfort in their mutual pining. 

His imparter is buzzing in his pocket, and he doesn’t have to pick up to know that it’s Linh calling to find out where he’s gone.

He’d find them sooner or later.

{{He knows them too well to abandon them.}}

His blank canvases are against the wall, all lined up and ready for him to paint, to create. But there are no brushstrokes and colours in his mind, and his fingers feel empty.

He cannot paint. 

{{Maybe cause it brings back so many memories of him.}}

Tam remembers the feeling filling him up, the high that came with inspiration, with fulfilment, with love for creation and him. But his mind is blank, and he drinks too many cups of coffee now, sleeps too little, stays too long in his mind when there’s nothing there for him.

{{“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to pour espresso in your Red Bull,” Biana mutters as she hands the flask back to Tam, eyes concerned as she looks at the mess of the room left in his ex’s wake. “You might get a heart attack.” Tam laughs, “I hope I do.”

Heart attacks are better than broken hearts, and that’s all you get when you fall in love with a mistake.}}

But now he doesn’t even know if he needs his art anymore, and it’s tearing him apart, slowly, like the tide takes little bits of sand from the shore but instead never returning what it took. It’s so slow that he doesn’t notice until one day he’s too confused to do either, and everytime he picks up a brush to press against his canvas, what comes out isn’t anything beautiful. It’s plain colours that makes his heart sink even deeper, and even when he tries and tries it’s no longer beautiful when he looks at it. 

{{He remembers coming here, when they first made it outside of the lost cities, eager chattering mouths and eager for success in their orchestrated chaos. He and Keefe had sneaked out, itching for something exciting and something to wash away the stain of fear, with the way things were panning out. 

Keefe ended up taking him to this very same painting studio, and guiding his hands along the edges of the canvas, slowly and softly guiding his strokes along the paper, the colours blurring and tears shining because he’s never felt so happy-}}