That bad type

[Reagan Ryang]

"Then what are you here for?"

If not to save him, what brought Alva here, now? That inferior side of him thought it was to gloat and laugh at how far Rae had fallen without him. But he knew that wasn't true. There were too many clouds dusted out of his eyes now for him to even let the lies corrode the truths he knew all along. The ones he didn't want to admit to because they didn't align with his idea of what strength was, and who he was, as a person.

Turned out, Rae didn't even know himself all along. It took the events of last night for him to realize that this whole time, he was standing on his own the whole time. He thought he was surrounded by friends, by family but he wasn't and it was all his own doing. Somehow, he managed to push every single person that mattered away. Even Josh got shoved away but maybe Josh just never wanted to stick close anyway. Any excuse he had to find somebody else, he grabbed onto it. Rae thought it was just to rile him up but he was starting to see that maybe he was never as important to Josh as he thought that he was.

He misunderstood every single person he knew in his life. Including himself. What a riot. It was almost hysterically hilarious, if he could find a sense of humor again.

"Why?" He fought to keep standing, even though Alva split into two and then four and then back again. He pressed up against the cage, too. And even though he knew he didn't deserve it, he still moved his good hand over the chain links to the curled up fingers in the bars. Just to feel something other than concrete and metal. It was just his fingers over Alva's fingers. For some reason, it caused a swell of emotion to rise up in his tired, pockmarked soul. He was too tired to pull back, to shroud his emotions when his eyes misted over and his throat grew tight.

"Why?" he repeated but the weakness spilled over and just that one word, that one syllable cracked, the mist blurring his vision, the taste of salt dripping down to meet his upper lip. He was too tired and the tender nerve was numbed. Anger was nowhere to be found; his favorite emotion to hide everything else behind.

[Alva Ren]

"I want to help you."

Alva wondered if he sounded as tired as he felt. Suddenly that was all he was. Tired. Exhausted. Every cell in his body was spent, he was crashing, emotionally drained. He was empty now, as though someone had come along and pulled the plug and everything that he'd been keeping bottled up inside suddenly found an outlet. Down the drain. Swirling, surging, spilling out of him as soon as Rae's hand touched his and he lifted his fingers so that Rae's could slide between them and intertwine.

Somebody said to him, once, that the person who felt the least had the most power in a relationship. The one who loved the most had the most to lose, and it was never going to be an equal relationship. There was no equality. There was the one who loved and the one who let themselves be loved. Alva didn't believe it at first, when they were strong and their emotions were blinding them to their own faults. Passion overrode everything. Desire clouded his judgment. When things were going right, it was hard to see all the things that went wrong.

Rae cheated and Alva set himself up for this fall. Set them up. He saw that now, more clearly than ever. It took two to argue, two to cause hurt. It was no one's fault and everyone's fault all at the same time.

So here they were. Why? Why what? Why was he here? Why did they end up this way? Why couldn't Alva just admit that he was human too, that he needed as much help as Rae, instead of trying to be... strong? They had that in common at least. Neither of them wanted to be weak but it was okay to be weak. It was always okay to lean on someone else when they weren't strong enough to stay on their feet.

He looked up at Rae, leaned against the cage door without any fight in him. So tired that he could barely stand, much less find it in him to stop the tears from falling. Old Rae would have gouged his own eyes out before he dared to let anyone see him being emotional. He would've bitten off his own tongue just to spite his own mouth. Was that the Rae that Alva fell in love with? No. Not that Rae.

This Rae.

It felt like his heart was breaking all over again and that... was new to Alva when he already thought that his heart was in pieces. He didn't think it could shatter any more, into even smaller pieces, the way it was doing at that moment.

Alva's eyes stung too and he couldn't breathe right. He tried to speak and the words wouldn't come out right. "I—" He breathed in deep, sniffled to clear his nose and let some air in to replace the stale air in his lungs. He ached so badly, not for himself and not because he felt sorry for himself, but because Rae was hurting, inside and out, so much that the hurt spilled over.

"I'm..." sorry. "My chair... it won't... it won't fit in the cage and... and you have to come out here because I c-can't go in there Rae." The words, like his emotions, flooded out crazily. His voice broke mid-way as he clung to the cage, to Rae's fingers. "Come out Rae." He wanted Rae to come out—not just out of the cage but out of himself, out of the shell that he hid behind.

[Reagan Ryang]

But it was too late. Didn't he tell him that already? It was too late to fix Rae now. Something irreplaceable had broken last night, snapped like a twig underfoot and no amount of gluing it back together was going to make it the same ever again. Rae had an epiphany and it consumed him until there was nothing left now but this hollow shell.

If it weren't for those fingertips that touched his, he would have believed that he was still all alone, the ignorant lone wolf that thought he was some kind of leader all along. But time had been showing him how wrong he was, with every day it marched forward. He told Aldon once he was more the leading type and he meant it. Rae didn't normally concede to such things but...

Rae didn't think it was possible to hurt more but he hated that Alva was struggling. Once, he would have made sure that everybody knew it wasn't his fault that Alva was in pain. Now he felt like maybe all that had transpired was meant to lead Alva somewhere he could actually bloom. Rae was just holding on too tight, especially towards the end, when he knew that he was losing Alva. Or thought he was. As if holding tighter and choking him was the way to keep him. Now he knew more than ever that it was the last thing that could have kept him by his side.

If there was anything he hated more than seeing pity in Alva's eyes, it was the tears welled up in his eyes. It was the way he heard Alva's voice hitch as he tried to maintain some semblance of control over his emotions. Maybe they were both bad at it this whole time.

The fight in him having disappeared, Rae made no attempts at following up his instinctual attempts to show off his nonexistent strength this time. He only grasped Alva's hand for one long desperate moment before sliding his hand back out and opening the gate with a gentle creak. The world still swam before him, worse than ever as he stepped out. Nothing changed and yet it felt like he stepped from one dimension into a new one where he couldn't breathe, where his head hurt so much that he could barely think. Slowly, he reached out a shivering hand to touch Alva's temple. Only briefly, then he tore his hand away.

It wasn't all bad. Once, it had been good. Despite all the taunting, something in Rae wouldn't let Alva go. He should have let the spark throw Alva away in the beginning but he was so stubborn. Besides, nobody knew what it felt like to be with Alva. All the saw were the weaknesses, the ones that turned out to be strengths. Rae used to laugh genuinely in his presence. He used to be able to tell him anything. He used to listen to Alva, too. He used to actually think about somebody other than himself. They used to whisper silly nothings, they had inside jokes. They could look at one another with a certain Look and know they were thinking the same thing. All of it was gone, flitting away in the stormy winds that followed messy breakups.

[Alva Ren]

There was no laughter left in them. No more secret smiles, no whispered secrets, no loving embraces with the lights off and all that they could see, hear, taste, feel was each other. There was no more Rae-and-Alva. Only Rae and Alva, face-to-face but separated by much more than a metal cage door. Alva didn't know if Rae would even come outside but he seemed to make up his mind after a long breathless moment. The cage door creaked rustily and Rae came stumbling out, looking more zombie-like than ever in the light.

Alva didn't even have a chance to lift a hand to touch his arm, the good one that rose, before Rae tore himself away. "No!" The word tore itself from Alva's throat. He grasped onto Rae's hand tightly, afraid that Rae would... bolt. Or do something equally foolish and hurt himself more.

"Rae, you need help," he pleaded, hanging on for dear life. What was Rae going to do? Drag Alva and his chair down the entire length of the kennels and then outside? Rae barely looked strong enough to keep himself on his own two feet. Alva drew closer, pulling himself up, both hands latched onto Rae's arm. He needed to help. That was all that sustained Alva these days, helping someone, doing something, anything, to keep himself stitched together. Having a purpose kept him from delving too deeply into his own sense of helplessness.

"You need to get to a hospital or... or at least let me take a look at your arm."

[Reagan Ryang]

The sudden No! caused Rae's heart to leap into his throat. For a few seconds, adrenaline coursed through his tired body and he could actually feel the throbbing beat of his heart again. Why... why was Alva shouting that way? Grasping onto him like he thought Rae was about to sprint out of the kennel and... what? Run into the nearest lake? Jump off the closest bridge? Rae wasn't suicidal. At least... not as far as he thought of the term. Wanting to die in a fight was different than just giving up and letting himself put a gun to his lips.

I know, he almost said out of frustration. Alva kept saying that, that Rae needed help. He got it. He needed help. Although need was kind of a hard word for it. From the outside looking in, sure, that was what he needed. But Rae thought what he really needed was the End. Or maybe a hundred days of sleep before he could wake up out of hibernation, viewing the world anew with fresh eyes.

"Just take me," he said, his tone as bone weary as his body felt. Take him to the damned hospital, let them do what they had to do. Wake him up from this nightmare. Afterward, maybe he would be in a better place, a place where his eyes didn't burn and his throat didn't threaten to choke him.

It was easier to just go with it. Go with Alva, let him feel fulfilled, like he was doing the right thing. And then when he was alone again... He could allow himself to think about what really happened last night.

"Do you think it would be better?" he asked, "If I erased everything? If I forgot everything? Who would I be then?"

[Alva Ren]

Just like that? Just take him?

Alva scarcely believed his ears. He still hung on to Rae, though, not fully trusting that if he let go, Rae wouldn't run away. Was it better or worse that Rae was acting like this? On the one hand it made him easier to deal with, but Alva was so accustomed to the one with the fighting spirit that he was, if possible, more alarmed than ever.

Maybe he was tired. Beaten. Maybe after a good night's sleep in a real bed, he'd bounce back. Alva took heart in the fact that Rae wasn't trying to push off his hand and started to lead him away from the cage and back into the office area. There had to be a room inside where they could wait for a taxi to arrive and take Rae to the hospital to be checked over. Alva pushed the wheel of his chair with one hand while the other one curled securely around Rae's good hand. It brought him some measure of comfort, too, simply holding on to him and having him there.

But it also hurt. Everything hurt.

Rae asked him a strange question and Alva didn't know how to answer it—mostly because with a stab of guilt, he realized that Rae might have been affected by Susumu's protective curse too. He looked away for a minute. "Maybe. If it made you... happy." Alva looked up again, searching his bruised, swollen face. Even that hurt, knowing that Rae thought he might be better off without any trace of Alva in his life.

Had they fallen so far?

"If it could make you happier to forget... us. If that's what you really want. Maybe."

It wouldn't make Alva happy though. It would only feel the way he felt under the curse—lost, empty, confused. Sad. A piece of him would always be missing because five years of his life and a very important part of him would be gone. The love that grew from a chance encounter would no longer be there and the loss of that special spark would be so much more devastating than paving over the inconvenient pothole of a break-up in the road of life.

Who would Rae be without Alva? Who would Alva be without Rae? Were the parts now more than the sum of the whole?

"I... wouldn't."

[Reagan Ryang]

This was weird. Walking hand in hand, like they were even friends at this point. So much happened and so much time had come between them that Rae felt like he was in some kind of fever dream. Maybe he was; he lost a lot of blood and he didn't let anybody come near him. But somebody had; enough to hose him off, enough to give him that shot of whatever in the shoulder.

Happy.

Happy wasn't what Rae would describe himself. But he hadn't been happy in a long time. Long before they ever broke up. There was a reason that Rae became so attached to holding Alva close. There was something in him, ready to snap. Some people could really live with just a certain type of... sex life. Rae had done it for so, so long. But there was a weak point in his armor that nobody had been able to pull through until Josh. Rae lowered his gaze and nearly stumbled on a crumbled piece of concrete in the process. Shit. He felt so fucking weak and he still couldn't muster up the anger to snap about it.

Would he be happier without a memory of Alva, a single memory? It was hard to know. But it was true that having five years taken from him... that wouldn't make anybody happier. And it wasn't as if all their memories together were bad ones. There were just certain ones he wished he could erase. Every time he thought about them, they only brought him pain. He was sure Alva had the same kind of memories living in him, too. But the way Alva was talking, it seemed like he thought that Rae was asking for some kind of memory wipe, some kind of potion, magic, to make it all just go away. He set his jaw for a moment, then winced. His jaw didn't like that.

"...you wouldn't?" But there was some fuckery with memories before. Was it really better to hold onto the poison of the past or would it be easier to just let a chunk of time go? Wouldn't it always tickle the back of the mind? Human nature was to suss out what was missing; he was sure he would go looking for the lost time, without memory of why he'd lost it in the first place. Rae stared down at his bare feet, barely registering the chill of the concrete.

He didn't deserve Alva. Not even like this, like friends. Again, his veins seemed to shiver for him or maybe it was his heart and the rest of him was just reacting. He let the emotion choke him as he stayed silent, entering an office area with an old landline phone perched on a desk and that musty sort of smell of an old building. Rae slowly turned toward Alva, sinking into one of the chairs that dotted the room. His hand remained in Alva's, his good hand. The other one was useless, tucked tightly in the too-snug sweater.

"...sorry," he said, voice a ghost of a whisper in the quiet of the office. He was staring at Alva's hand but he made himself look up, briefly tightening his grip. "Sorry, Alva." Then he loosened his grip, moving his hand back. "You should just leave. I'll go. On my own, to the doctor's. But you shouldn't have come."

[Alva Ren]

Alva shook his head. No. There wasn't a single area of his life that would be improved by erasing Rae. Not even the painful days that stretched into weeks when he had no idea what was happening to them. Watching their relationship slowly falling apart killed him on the inside. It deadened the joy, blotted out the light that always strove to shine through.

Even so, he wouldn't erase Rae because Rae was also the highlight of his life.

Meeting Rae and falling in love with him changed everything for Alva. Everything. Even if Alva would always remember the turbulent period in their lives, in time the pain might fade. In a few years, he might not feel the stabbing knives in his chest whenever he thought of Rae or saw something that reminded him of Rae. The negative emotions would go away but the positive ones would always stand out in his mind. Positivity didn't fade; happy memories didn't become any less happy with the advent of time.

He remained largely silent throughout their short journey into an old office, offering physical support for Rae when it looked like he might falter. Alva didn't let go. He held on even while he was gently pushing the door closed, while he pushed his chair over to a row of seats so that Rae could sink into one and Alva could realign himself to stay close.

Something really was different in Rae. Broken. People thought of being broken in a bad way but Alva didn't know. An apology? Rae was avoiding his searching gaze, looking uncomfortable and unhappy. Emotional. The tough-guy facade broke and a rare and vulnerable Rae was forced to show himself now. Alva's hand chased after his.

"I'm not leaving, dummy," he said as he grasped Rae's hand tightly. "I'm not leaving you alone." Alva lifted his other hand and gently smoothed back Rae's hair. He looked disheveled; blood stains were on him, in his matted hair and clotting around the wounds that those other shifters had inflicted. Rae really did it this time; he got tangled up with people he shouldn't have. Alva couldn't help but think that if Rae had been with him, this wouldn't have happened. Every time he ran out with Josh, he came back bloodied and bruised and hurt. That never happened with Alva; he didn't goad people into getting themselves killed.

"You shouldn't be alone." His fingertips drifted, tracing a line down Rae's temple, over his cheek and jaw. Alva's eyes were soft; he didn't smile but he wasn't frowning either. He was... sad. Down to the marrows of his bones, just sad. Above all, he was... "Sorry."

[Reagan Ryang]

Sorry wasn't in his vocabulary. He was pretty sure he'd even said that at some point in his life, probably when he was younger and stupider, puffing out his chest and being so Cool. But it came out now, because he was too tired to play at some misguided sense of machismo. He was well beyond that. And he couldn't even talk about it with Alva or anybody else because... because he didn't know how to put it into words, what he felt, what broke last night, why it broke, why he couldn't seem to pull up all the pieces when he used to be able to, no problem.

And he couldn't talk about where the anger went because it was gone, like that little red core broke, shattered like a light bulb under too much pressure. How the anger sustained him, made up such a big part of his personality somehow. Without it, who was Reagan Ryang, anyway? Just... this. A whelp who lost his father, who had no place in his pack, whose friends had better things to think about, whose boyfriend(?) couldn't even say the words he needed to hear, whose ex was a last resort. The big guns, as he said himself. Rae wanted to rub his face; it burned, it itched. He wanted to lean forward and let the tight band around his chest go, to let the burn behind his eyes fall.

Fuck, his head ached so much.

He shook it--not hard--at Alva's refusal to leave, at the hands that held his steady and wouldn't let him retreat. Why? Why not just leave him alone? I'm not going to kill myself, he wanted to say. He would just... go. Let the doctors do what doctors do. Maybe some time in their facility would give him a better perspective. Maybe being alone would let the things in his mind turn over and maybe things would start mending themselves.

"Don't." His bad hand wanted to move up, to swipe at Alva, to stop his fingertips from trailing over his face like an old lover. It didn't move, not at all. Not even a little bit. Not even the fingers. That should have alarmed him. It didn't. Why? Why was Alva looking at him like that? Not so much pity just... something else. Now Rae did tear his gaze away, blinking away that irritating heat. He tried to scoff but it sounded more like the start of a strangled sob.

"You got nothing to be sorry about," he said roughly, blinking, blinking, blinking back the sting.

[Alva Ren]

He just needed to say it. Sorry. To put them back on even footing because he knew that he wasn't blameless in all of this. When Rae tried to keep him close, Alva felt stifled. He was a fox, after all; he needed his freedom as much as the next shifter. Even humans needed their own space and they didn't have a whole other identity to them. Being clutched to someone's chest, being held in a vice-like grip, chafed him. Alva could have done better. Rae could have done better. It was too late to change the past but it was never too late to say sorry.

Alva's throat was closing at the sight of Rae struggling to hold back tears. Rae could barely speak now, eyes flickering rapidly to chase away the sting and the wetness behind his eyelids. Alva wanted to say something to soothe him, to make the hurt go away, but he didn't know what that was. Nothing. He couldn't make the pain go away when he caused it and that thought chipped away at his broken heart a little bit more.

"Rae..." Miserable and helpless, Alva leaned in and slipped his arms around Rae's shoulders. He hugged Rae close, tight, pressing his lips together until it hurt so that he wouldn't start crying too. His tears wouldn't help. The tears he already shed didn't help. Alva wasn't the crying type normally, not because he was ashamed but because he tried so hard to be optimistic. Just... this time, there wasn't much to be optimistic about.

But his shoulder was there for Rae to cry on, if he wanted it. If he needed it.

[Reagan Ryang]

Alva certainly had nothing to be sorry about. Maybe he didn't think so but Rae definitely didn't see any reason for him to apologize. Even the bullshit with that magic witch guy, it turned out to be Rae who did the pushing. He was kind of an idiot, see, and at the time, all he saw was what he wanted to see. He was guilty so he wanted Alva to be guilty too. They could both be terrible people and that would somehow make what he did better.

Of course, it didn't. That wasn't how it worked; none of it worked that way. And the more Rae got angry, the more he tried to strangle Alva, like he was his to keep on a leash. Wolves weren't even like that with their mates. Rae was just... crazy. With something. Torn emotions, not knowing what he wanted, not knowing what he needed. Maybe he needed all of this, to go crazy, to start a fight he couldn't finish, to end up here.

But he wished it wasn't true, that he wasn't here, that he wasn't at the lowest low he'd ever been in his entire life. Fuck, even his father's death didn't tear him up to this point. Maybe it was a part of it, though. Maybe it was just one more little stone that got piled onto him until they all came rolling down and separating, breaking what Rae thought of himself, as himself, into so many little stones that no longer made up his identity. So what was left, he had to wonder.

Much as he tried, there was no stopping those ugly floodgates from opening once the arms were around him. It felt like just the thing he needed without knowing it; a hug. So simple a thing. A normal physical contact that normally meant little, that usually was some kind of perfunctory thing between family when they said goodbye for the night or whatever. But at the moment, it felt like the final straw. Rae, he couldn't stop it even if he tried.

He had no idea what he was even so utterly broken up about. Again, it was all the little things that scattered around him. Memories of good things that he no longer had, memories of shitty things that forced him into this corner in the first place. Floods of emotions that were gated so securely behind red-hot anger and irritation and the righteous need to feel constantly strong, on top, number one. The best. But for the moment, at least, he could admit to himself, if nobody else, that he was weak. His eyes shut tight, like he could close out the barrage of past thoughts and conversations, of arguments and jokes, of harsh words and soft eyes, love and hate and the weird grey area in between.

Time passed without acknowledgment. Rae couldn't tell if he had been sitting with Alva for five minutes or an hour but it felt like a whole, ragged lifetime. And in that time, he knew he said it again: sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry. For all the accusations and all the lies, for all the false bluster and the mistrust, for loving badly and hating blindly.

God, he was so tired. With everything purged, he felt emptier than ever, his head lying on Alva's shoulder, his eyes closing. He thought he would be fine if they never opened again, that was just how exhausted he was.

[Alva Ren]

It was hard to listen to Rae cry.

It was hard to have known him at his best, at the peak of happiness, when he was proud and strong and brave and bold, and then to know him now at his lowest, broken apart and unable to keep it all together. Alva rocked him gently as he held him, stroking through his hair, silently offering all of the support that he could through the strength of his arms alone. No words could do justice to the way he felt, how regretful he was and how much he wished that he could take on even a fraction of Rae's pain, just to have him whole again.

It's okay, he repeated for every one of Rae's sorries, blinking through his own tears. It's okay, he whispered into Rae's ear as he held him, waiting for the tears to abate and for the sobs to slow and eventually taper down to a few soft sniffles. It was going to be okay. They weren't going to hurt this way forever. Alva knew that not everything could be solved through the power of positive thinking but he knew that he and Rae were stronger than this.

"It's going to be okay," he murmured one last time with Rae's head resting on his shoulder. He continued to stroke Rae's hair. Alva turned and pressed his lips lightly to the side of Rae's head and closed his eyes, too. Time had no meaning. The goings-on of the world around them didn't matter. The only person that mattered to Alva right now was Rae, and making sure that Rae was okay. If that meant sitting there and holding him in silence and letting him work his way through those turbulent emotions, then Alva was more than up to the task.

He couldn't help Rae come to terms with himself. Only Rae could do that. Alva could only offer him forgiveness but the rest was up to him, to find the strength that he needed to get back on his feet and carry on.

[Reagan Ryang]

"This is so stupid," Rae snorted, reaching for the television remote so that he could turn off the television. It was playing some food network competition show and they tried to make the stakes seem more important than they were with crescendoes of music and some kind of weird sense of urgency. With the TV off, Rae tossed the remote out of Alva's reach (he hoped) and turned toward him in the bed.

"Why do you even watch this shit?" he asked as he shifted his weight and lowered his head to bury his face in the crook of Alva's shoulder and his neck. "You don't even get to taste it!"

Because that was how his mind worked. Food was for tasting. Not for watching.

Rae's eyes half opened, bleary and still burning from all the crying. Cringe. But even his inward, innate cringe was barely there, a residual emotion of some snake who shed that old skin.

[Josh] Frankly, Reagan, whether or not I love you doesn't change anything between us.
[Rae] Yeah it kinda does though.
[Josh] In what way?
[Rae] Because it changes things for me.
[Josh] What things?
[Rae] Like being together.

He closed his eyes again and he could smell Alva and a hint of rain. Rae turned his face inward, against the throat that he remembered kissing so many times. Nuzzling. Cuddling. Kissing a pretty jawline, kissing soft lips. Now he just breathed, as if his scent alone carried some kind of answer to the nothing-questions in his head. Tilting his head just so, he could place his lips right where the thrum of Alva's heart beat was most alive. And he almost did, except a door creaked open and he heard the girl from earlier stumbling over an apology.

"S-sorry! I thought you, you'd left already!"

[Alva Ren]

What do you even see in him, Alva?

He could remember everyone and their dog's breakfast asking him that, from the beginning.

What did Alva see in Rae that others didn't? The first time someone asked him, Alva was taken aback. How could he describe all of the wonderful things about Rae that made him Rae? At first his response was predictably—everything. Everything about Rae, Alva loved it all. He explained away the rumors about Rae's temper and he told himself that he could help Rae. He didn't want to change Rae; he wanted to reform him.

Now, his definition had changed. He loved Rae because Rae needed to be loved. Rae needed someone to hold out their arms and claim him, press him to their chest and tell him that things were going to work out even if the situation was so terrible, so bleak, that it seemed as if nothing would ever be okay ever again. He needed someone to give him hope, above all else, if not as a lover then at least as a friend. They didn't need to be in a relationship for Alva to be there for him; his support wasn't contingent on them being lovers.

Alva felt Rae shifting against him but he didn't move. Silence now, except for the muffled babble of voices and the blurred figures of people walking to and fro. Alva's heart beat expectantly to ghosts of memories. Lips on his throat, and the soft laugh that he felt through them. Words whispered only to him, that made his entire body flush. He held so still that he almost stopped breathing, anticipating, wondering if Rae would... if he was going to...

And then the door sprang open and Lizzie's startled face was right there. Alva jerked but not away—just up, to look at the sudden intruder. "It's okay," he repeated, though obviously not in the same tone with which he'd whispered it into Rae's ear. "We're waiting for a taxi to come and take him to a hospital. Can we... stay here for a little while longer?"

"O-oh! Yeah sure, um. I'll just. I'll let the others know. You know, that this room is occupied." She pushed her glasses up higher along the bridge of her nose and gave them a nervous smile. "S-sorry about. Um. You know. I'll just—I'll... yeah." And then the door closed and it was just them again.

[Reagan Ryang]

Shit.

Reality snapped Rae back into the moment. The girl was stumbling over her words yet again and Rae expected irritation to rile him up but it still wasn't there. He was still too tired, he told himself. He was just exhausted, mentally and physically, from the night before--the argument, the fight, the feelings he couldn't handle on his own anymore. Being able to hand off some of that onto somebody else... it did surprisingly lift some of the weight. Maybe he didn't feel much of anything but at least he did feel lighter.

He waited for the girl to leave before he reached up and swiped at his face with his good hand. Although he still felt that strange greyness, there was also the tiniest hint of amusement as the door closed securely behind the nosy girl.

"You'd think she walked in on something else, the way she's acting."

Never mind that if she hadn't walked in on them, he might have done something completely and stupidly inappropriate. Maybe it was a good thing. Rae didn't even know where he stood anymore, relationship-wise. He hadn't stalked Alva to know where he was, either. Swallowing hard, he finally moved back, into his own chair, so that he wasn't leaning into Alva anymore. I'm sorry, he almost said again. It was as if the words, never spoken before, had been loosed into his vocabulary for the rest of time.

For a moment, he watched Alva. Really studied him. Not just the way he looked but the kindness in his dark eyes and the expression on his face. Good thing his arm wasn't working or he might have lifted it up and used it. His best arm, too. Right arm. The one that he would have use to reach out. The one he used to write, to eat. For the first time since the fight, he wondered if it was going to be okay. But there was no real anxiety because Alva was still here and he said it would be okay. Whatever ended up happening next... It would be okay.

"...I'm glad you're here." Even though he told him he should leave, that he could do it on his own. Maybe... just maybe... it wasn't so bad to just let somebody else take the lead for once.