"I had to..." This will be difficult. He can't make last, or he knows he won't be able to let go.
"Get out, you know? I just- it hurt and they wouldn't stop touching me and my guts were bleeding. Are, bleeding. So, I just, I had to, it-" He doesn't want to cry, but he's shaking, hands twisting the bottom of his sweater as he looks down and tries to breath slower. "It was- I couldn't stay there and not be able to take care of you, not be- somewhere I could help, and I just- I needed to tell you something, before I forgot, because I fucking know I will and it's the most important thing I never told you, so it matters."
He closes his eyes. "Ever since- that place, where I met you, it's been like- you're the one thing I never could fuck up and I know I'm not making, um, a lot of sense, but this is all pretty new to me, so-" He's starting to sound almost sane again, if on the verge of tears. "I worry about you, and you just- you break so easy, Claire, and that matters, and I know- I know what breaking feels like, and you- you're just so..."
"...I mean, you're...wonderful. And you're not perfect, I know that," he says, quietly, voice steadying as he talks to her feet. "Of course I know that. And I used to think, you know, you were different, like...you were better, than other people, but you're...like everybody else. You don't get it. You don't. And sometimes you act like you do and you just fucking don't."
"Because-" He looks back up at her, almost defiantly. "You're just- you're shallow, and you don't pay attention, you don't- you don't actually know what's been going on because sometimes it's like the only thing you care about is what makes you feel good, what looks nice, what isn't actually anything but all in your head, and I- I know why you'd be like that, and I don't- I don't even care! I don't care if you're like everybody else, it doesn't matter!" He runs his hands through his hair, steeping closer. "And they just- keep telling me it does but they fucking lie. I know you're wonderful. I know I- I know you mea something, you're empty inside but you're- you're still you and you matter anyway and I'm not- do you get it, now? What I'm telling you?"
Claire flinches a little; shallow, empty, things she doesn't want to be, but i afraid she is, anyway. She listens with her brow furrowed, with a look of something like guarded scrutiny.
"I don't know--just--Todd, I'm sorry if--I hurt you. I never, ever meant to." That much is sincere, as she desperately attempts to make sense of what he's telling her. That he's hurt people, she understands, and is fairly horrified by it.
"I'm glad I mean something. You mean a lot to me, too."
He doesn't want her to look at him like that. He does. It's important she know he's not trustworthy. He needs her to trust him more than anything. These decisions hurt; they snarl and interweave and tie themselves up until he chokes in them, feet kicking in midair like a twitching fly.
"Oh, Claire-" His heart must be breaking, right now, it pours out of his eyes and voice and into him stepping closer, drawing her into the lightest, most fragile embrace, mouth buried in her hair and fingers curled on her back, on the curve of her neck. "I know. I know you care. You care about everything. Don't think I forgot that because I haven't and I won't, I promise I'll try."
This close, he smells like old blood, and rustles in a scratchy, crinkling way.
"I need you to know it's not your fault," he says, and he knows that he was crazy a minute ago and in a minute he'll be back to that, but now, now he's not, and he's got a minute to make sense, to know what he's doing. "This was going to happen, and it was always going to happen, but you couldn't fix me. And you still- you still tried, and nobody ever- nobody ever tried before you, so you- you helped, you keep helping, it's better because of you. I can- I can think of you and sometimes it's not so bad and I remember and you made me happy and I know I've hurt you and I'm not going to stop, either. I can't- it's not going to stop, but I..."
She fits soright sogood sosunshine in his skinny, trembling arms, and his mouth moves against the top of her head like a kiss as he closes his eyes.
"I think I love you as much as I can love anything because there's something wrong with me, and I don't really know what love is supposed to- to feel like, because I feel things and it just...hurts all the time, but- I want you to know it's okay and to feel safe and you need to know that I will never, ever like hurting you, and I'm not- I'm leaving you alone so you'll be okay and maybe somebody can make you happy, someday, and you'll just- forget me, or maybe it won't hurt so much, but I don't want to give you nightmares and I don't want to make things harder for you because you already- it's just so much, and it's not right, and it's good that you're- not like me. You're clean and you can warm up, you're like a- a puddle, when the sun's been out for a few hours, and you're like other people so sometimes you can be happy, and your smile is the prettiest thing anybody ever gave me and I don't want to break it so I'm giving it back, okay? Because I'm pretty sure I love you and before I just- just stop being me I need to try to help you better. That's...that's, uh, about all I have to say."
For a moment or so, he almost feels relieved. Those words were really fucking heavy to carry around so long.
The way he looks at her--it's almost like he's come back, in a way, like whatever bone snapped inside him has flipped back where it's supposed to be. Somewhere around 'I'm not going to stop,' she starts crying a little, because that's not allowed, it's not supposed to be like this.
Except for how it is like this.
She takes a deep breath, maybe deeper than any she's ever taken before, and hugs him tight. Part of her is still concerned with breaking him because he's so thin, for all the talk of her breakable nature. "You don't have to do this," she tells him, sort of plaintive, "You don't have to--go away."
He shushes her, stroking her hair like he's afraid he could break it all apart under his hands. He doesn't want her to cry, but he kind of expected she would anyway, one way or another.
After a while, he pulls back a bit, coaxing her to look up at him with the hand on the back of her head. He bites his lip, searching her expression, and lowers his head to touch his forehead to hers.
"It's okay, Claire. It's- better like this, I promise, I wouldn't do it if wasn't better like this. I don't want to leave you, either, but if I love you - and I do, I really, really love you - then I can't be, mm, selfish, I can't- take you and break you just to make you fit- it's not- I wouldn't love you if you weren't you, I wouldn't love you if I'd just hurt you because I was scared. It's not like that, and I know that now."
Somewhere in that, his knuckles came around to brush over her cheek, slow and uncertain. He keeps his nails tucked away because they're broken and ugly, and he couldn't stand the idea of them touching her. But this is all right. This is more than all right.
To be honest, he never planned on kissing her, today. It just happens, and he's as surprised as anyone to find his mouth brushing against hers, settling there, and staying. And if he'd planned it, he'd have made it quick, so he wouldn't have to wait for her to push him away because he knows she will, she'll grimace and shove him off and yell at him again for even thinking he could do that, but now that he's started he doesn't have the will to stop just yet. It's not a good kiss, light and close mouthed with his eyes wide open and hands frozen on the curve of her back and cheek, but it's lasting, and he's afraid to breathe.
Don't hurt me, please don't hurt me, I love you I love you I love you don't make me stop, please, don't hurt more me than you have to don't hate me for this right now where I can see you-
He's tensed like he's waiting for a bullet, but he can't stop watching for the shock, the horror, the disgust that'll be in her eyes any second now, even while he's amazed by how soft their mouths feel together like this, like if they (he) pushed harder they'd break open like overripe berries.
Surprise comes to her softly, because as much as she cares about Todd and as tightly as they were bound together by Hell, kissing him isn't something that had ever occurred to her--and she isn't, really. He's kissing her. She lets him, for a moment or two, because in that time she's formulating what to say, how best to keep her voice gentle and steady when she pulls away. And she does, carefully.
"You're my best friend," she says, quietly, because while in the scheme of his ultimate breakdown one kiss isn't important, not compared to what else has happened. So she maybe shouldn't have let this happen, should've seen it before it occurred, but she didn't, and she won't hate him for putting her in this position.
It's better than he expected and that's so much worse that it rips a tiny, wounded gasp out of him, the hand on her back closing into a spasmodic fist around her shirt before twitching open again. How can she possibly forgive him for that, how could she not hate him like anybody else would and keep being so much better than he is and making it so hard to leave her again-
"Nngh-" His eyes screw shut for a moment, and he hugs her tightly, his hand sliding back over her face to touch her hair again, to curl inside of it, and he's not crying. "But not like I- you shouldn't, Claire, how could you-"
This has to stop, and he has to stop it.
"I have to- I have to go, Claire, but just- be okay, for me, just be okay, please." He never, ever wants to let go, so he makes himself think of it quick, like a bandaid, and gets ready. He knows where to run.
There's a sort of plaintive, useless noise, because even as she hugs him back she knows she might never see him again. They'll try--Elizabeth will try--they'll all do their best to bring him back until they can't anymore, but the monsters in his head will do their best to make sure that never, ever happens.
Todd, not so long ago, would have thought it'd kill him to feel like this. He's learned better. Just knowing you should die won't ever, ever kill you, and you keep living long past when it does you or anybody else any good and wake up every day faced with being this for the rest of your miserable life and somehow having to figure out how to wrap your stupid little head around that handful of hell.
"Good. And, um, don't- don't let mom make cupcakes, okay?" He pulls back and wipes his eyes with his stolen sleeve. "She can do the icing, but everything else sucks, and just- I know you can be okay. I believe in you. And I'm so- you know I'm sorry, I am so, so sorry for doing this to you, I c-" His voice breaks, and his words won't come except in a shaking he feels as a scream waiting to be. The moment where he just panics, finally, is marked by a second kiss, hard, fast, and so much more needier than the first. He kisses her with that scream he won't voice, and then abruptly breaks away.
He stares at her for the space of two heartbeats, chest heaving, and then bolts.
He won't stay to keep going. Not like that. A clean break, except no break is clean and it bleeds and it bleeds and it never heals right.
Oh, god, the cupcakes--this is sort of breaking her heart, but she knows, she knows it's not even one tenth of how bad it must be for him, so she tries not to let it show. She's not that great at hiding how she feels without a little time to calm down, first, but...she has to, for his sake.
"I w--"
The second kiss actually startles her, leaving her wide-eyed and trying to understand for that short pause before he bolts. Once he's gone, she stays there for a good ten minutes, and instead of heading to work, she just goes home.
"Get out, you know? I just- it hurt and they wouldn't stop touching me and my guts were bleeding. Are, bleeding. So, I just, I had to, it-" He doesn't want to cry, but he's shaking, hands twisting the bottom of his sweater as he looks down and tries to breath slower. "It was- I couldn't stay there and not be able to take care of you, not be- somewhere I could help, and I just- I needed to tell you something, before I forgot, because I fucking know I will and it's the most important thing I never told you, so it matters."
He closes his eyes. "Ever since- that place, where I met you, it's been like- you're the one thing I never could fuck up and I know I'm not making, um, a lot of sense, but this is all pretty new to me, so-" He's starting to sound almost sane again, if on the verge of tears. "I worry about you, and you just- you break so easy, Claire, and that matters, and I know- I know what breaking feels like, and you- you're just so..."
"...I mean, you're...wonderful. And you're not perfect, I know that," he says, quietly, voice steadying as he talks to her feet. "Of course I know that. And I used to think, you know, you were different, like...you were better, than other people, but you're...like everybody else. You don't get it. You don't. And sometimes you act like you do and you just fucking don't."
"Because-" He looks back up at her, almost defiantly. "You're just- you're shallow, and you don't pay attention, you don't- you don't actually know what's been going on because sometimes it's like the only thing you care about is what makes you feel good, what looks nice, what isn't actually anything but all in your head, and I- I know why you'd be like that, and I don't- I don't even care! I don't care if you're like everybody else, it doesn't matter!" He runs his hands through his hair, steeping closer. "And they just- keep telling me it does but they fucking lie. I know you're wonderful. I know I- I know you mea something, you're empty inside but you're- you're still you and you matter anyway and I'm not- do you get it, now? What I'm telling you?"
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"I don't know--just--Todd, I'm sorry if--I hurt you. I never, ever meant to." That much is sincere, as she desperately attempts to make sense of what he's telling her. That he's hurt people, she understands, and is fairly horrified by it.
"I'm glad I mean something. You mean a lot to me, too."
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"Oh, Claire-" His heart must be breaking, right now, it pours out of his eyes and voice and into him stepping closer, drawing her into the lightest, most fragile embrace, mouth buried in her hair and fingers curled on her back, on the curve of her neck. "I know. I know you care. You care about everything. Don't think I forgot that because I haven't and I won't, I promise I'll try."
This close, he smells like old blood, and rustles in a scratchy, crinkling way.
"I need you to know it's not your fault," he says, and he knows that he was crazy a minute ago and in a minute he'll be back to that, but now, now he's not, and he's got a minute to make sense, to know what he's doing. "This was going to happen, and it was always going to happen, but you couldn't fix me. And you still- you still tried, and nobody ever- nobody ever tried before you, so you- you helped, you keep helping, it's better because of you. I can- I can think of you and sometimes it's not so bad and I remember and you made me happy and I know I've hurt you and I'm not going to stop, either. I can't- it's not going to stop, but I..."
She fits soright sogood sosunshine in his skinny, trembling arms, and his mouth moves against the top of her head like a kiss as he closes his eyes.
"I think I love you as much as I can love anything because there's something wrong with me, and I don't really know what love is supposed to- to feel like, because I feel things and it just...hurts all the time, but- I want you to know it's okay and to feel safe and you need to know that I will never, ever like hurting you, and I'm not- I'm leaving you alone so you'll be okay and maybe somebody can make you happy, someday, and you'll just- forget me, or maybe it won't hurt so much, but I don't want to give you nightmares and I don't want to make things harder for you because you already- it's just so much, and it's not right, and it's good that you're- not like me. You're clean and you can warm up, you're like a- a puddle, when the sun's been out for a few hours, and you're like other people so sometimes you can be happy, and your smile is the prettiest thing anybody ever gave me and I don't want to break it so I'm giving it back, okay? Because I'm pretty sure I love you and before I just- just stop being me I need to try to help you better. That's...that's, uh, about all I have to say."
For a moment or so, he almost feels relieved. Those words were really fucking heavy to carry around so long.
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Except for how it is like this.
She takes a deep breath, maybe deeper than any she's ever taken before, and hugs him tight. Part of her is still concerned with breaking him because he's so thin, for all the talk of her breakable nature. "You don't have to do this," she tells him, sort of plaintive, "You don't have to--go away."
Maybe if she believes it, it'll happen.
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After a while, he pulls back a bit, coaxing her to look up at him with the hand on the back of her head. He bites his lip, searching her expression, and lowers his head to touch his forehead to hers.
"It's okay, Claire. It's- better like this, I promise, I wouldn't do it if wasn't better like this. I don't want to leave you, either, but if I love you - and I do, I really, really love you - then I can't be, mm, selfish, I can't- take you and break you just to make you fit- it's not- I wouldn't love you if you weren't you, I wouldn't love you if I'd just hurt you because I was scared. It's not like that, and I know that now."
Somewhere in that, his knuckles came around to brush over her cheek, slow and uncertain. He keeps his nails tucked away because they're broken and ugly, and he couldn't stand the idea of them touching her. But this is all right. This is more than all right.
To be honest, he never planned on kissing her, today. It just happens, and he's as surprised as anyone to find his mouth brushing against hers, settling there, and staying. And if he'd planned it, he'd have made it quick, so he wouldn't have to wait for her to push him away because he knows she will, she'll grimace and shove him off and yell at him again for even thinking he could do that, but now that he's started he doesn't have the will to stop just yet. It's not a good kiss, light and close mouthed with his eyes wide open and hands frozen on the curve of her back and cheek, but it's lasting, and he's afraid to breathe.
Don't hurt me, please don't hurt me, I love you I love you I love you don't make me stop, please, don't hurt more me than you have to don't hate me for this right now where I can see you-
He's tensed like he's waiting for a bullet, but he can't stop watching for the shock, the horror, the disgust that'll be in her eyes any second now, even while he's amazed by how soft their mouths feel together like this, like if they (he) pushed harder they'd break open like overripe berries.
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"You're my best friend," she says, quietly, because while in the scheme of his ultimate breakdown one kiss isn't important, not compared to what else has happened. So she maybe shouldn't have let this happen, should've seen it before it occurred, but she didn't, and she won't hate him for putting her in this position.
"I love you. Okay?"
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"Nngh-" His eyes screw shut for a moment, and he hugs her tightly, his hand sliding back over her face to touch her hair again, to curl inside of it, and he's not crying. "But not like I- you shouldn't, Claire, how could you-"
This has to stop, and he has to stop it.
"I have to- I have to go, Claire, but just- be okay, for me, just be okay, please." He never, ever wants to let go, so he makes himself think of it quick, like a bandaid, and gets ready. He knows where to run.
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She'd kill those monsters if she could.
"I will," she says, unsteadily, "I will."
Maybe she should have predicted this, too.
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"Good. And, um, don't- don't let mom make cupcakes, okay?" He pulls back and wipes his eyes with his stolen sleeve. "She can do the icing, but everything else sucks, and just- I know you can be okay. I believe in you. And I'm so- you know I'm sorry, I am so, so sorry for doing this to you, I c-" His voice breaks, and his words won't come except in a shaking he feels as a scream waiting to be. The moment where he just panics, finally, is marked by a second kiss, hard, fast, and so much more needier than the first. He kisses her with that scream he won't voice, and then abruptly breaks away.
He stares at her for the space of two heartbeats, chest heaving, and then bolts.
He won't stay to keep going. Not like that. A clean break, except no break is clean and it bleeds and it bleeds and it never heals right.
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"I w--"
The second kiss actually startles her, leaving her wide-eyed and trying to understand for that short pause before he bolts. Once he's gone, she stays there for a good ten minutes, and instead of heading to work, she just goes home.
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