[ Vanessa had cracked over time, in her own way; little cracks and shards that grew into fault lines, painful and destructive.
Avery's transformation, if it can be called that, is much more sudden.
Two, now. Two people he loved, in different ways (one in a way he'll never say, and probably will never get the chance to say), breaking apart, in a way he can't fix, and maybe it was inevitable. Maybe there was nothing he could do, and that hurts worst of all.
It breaks something in him too (finally part of him rumbles, waiting to be released). It's not as if he'd been happy before this, just pretending to be.
He just leans against the wall and watches him, eyes half-closed, entirely silent. (He's too much of a coward to take his eyes off him, to just sleep. He doesn't want the last thing he remembers, the last thing in his life, to be darkness.)
He hopes for one small mercy, if there is anything left of it here;
he hopes that when he stops breathing, Avery will be too busy to notice.
He slips away quietly, in the end.
Talented in unobtrusive exits, in death as he was in life.
(His soul clings; it remains, stubbornly. It lights up the dungeon better than a torch.) ]
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Avery's transformation, if it can be called that, is much more sudden.
Two, now. Two people he loved, in different ways (one in a way he'll never say, and probably will never get the chance to say), breaking apart, in a way he can't fix, and maybe it was inevitable. Maybe there was nothing he could do, and that hurts worst of all.
It breaks something in him too (finally part of him rumbles, waiting to be released). It's not as if he'd been happy before this, just pretending to be.
He just leans against the wall and watches him, eyes half-closed, entirely silent. (He's too much of a coward to take his eyes off him, to just sleep. He doesn't want the last thing he remembers, the last thing in his life, to be darkness.)
He hopes for one small mercy, if there is anything left of it here;
he hopes that when he stops breathing, Avery will be too busy to notice.
He slips away quietly, in the end.
Talented in unobtrusive exits, in death as he was in life.
(His soul clings; it remains, stubbornly. It lights up the dungeon better than a torch.) ]