It doesn’t matter that it was only a question. Hearing those words in his voice again, something goes furious and rabid in his chest, thrashing against the inside of his ribs. Hawkeye’s blood materializes in the droplets in the sink, and he shuts the water off so it sounds less like a scream.
“Yes.”
It feels like a body blow.
“I—I loved you too, but not in the way you wanted. The way you needed. Selfishly, I could never distance myself, but the proximity was unbearable for you. I would have made both of us miserable if I tried to reject you, but we were already miserable together. You sought me at every turn. Sometimes we would sing at the piano bar together, and you… that was the closest we could ever come to what you wanted.”
They were the sweetest songs he’d ever heard, and he hopes Hawkeye never serenades him again.
His hands grip the edge of the sink, white-knuckled, his pitch climbing slowly higher. “We started to argue. One day, you cursed me for withholding. You said something cruel. I had deserved it, but I walked away from you. I didn’t turn around. After that day, I never saw you again; you’d been swallowed into the engine of the ship to be burned as fuel because you had become less than a shade. You…”
Breathe. Breathe. Please breathe. “You loved me, and I killed you. I killed you with grief. Oh, God, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I killed you, I—I killed you—I killed you—“
(Peter, noticing this, zips into the kitchen with a worried chirp. He jangles insistently and splays himself and his keys across Mulcahy’s neck for something of weight and coldness. It isn’t much to try and ground him, but it is so much better than nothing.)
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Date: 2024-09-27 04:19 am (UTC)“Yes.”
It feels like a body blow.
“I—I loved you too, but not in the way you wanted. The way you needed. Selfishly, I could never distance myself, but the proximity was unbearable for you. I would have made both of us miserable if I tried to reject you, but we were already miserable together. You sought me at every turn. Sometimes we would sing at the piano bar together, and you… that was the closest we could ever come to what you wanted.”
They were the sweetest songs he’d ever heard, and he hopes Hawkeye never serenades him again.
His hands grip the edge of the sink, white-knuckled, his pitch climbing slowly higher. “We started to argue. One day, you cursed me for withholding. You said something cruel. I had deserved it, but I walked away from you. I didn’t turn around. After that day, I never saw you again; you’d been swallowed into the engine of the ship to be burned as fuel because you had become less than a shade. You…”
Breathe. Breathe. Please breathe. “You loved me, and I killed you. I killed you with grief. Oh, God, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I killed you, I—I killed you—I killed you—“
(Peter, noticing this, zips into the kitchen with a worried chirp. He jangles insistently and splays himself and his keys across Mulcahy’s neck for something of weight and coldness. It isn’t much to try and ground him, but it is so much better than nothing.)