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[shadowglitter]

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12.24 | jk it's not as gay as you'd hope (or is it?)

[quickfingers]

[Continued from here]

[Peter shuffles closer to Odin when he pulls him in, making a pitiful mewling noise as he fights to free his hands from the sweater sleeves (you seriously haven't been any help with this,) managing only one while the other hand remains pinned with his sweater pinned under his own weight.

He might not remember exactly how this conversation went tomorrow, but he'll remember the peace it brings him. The peace that comes from a sympathetic friend, a cozy touch. He's been longing for the latter since the day his girlfriend disappeared, shaking his world and prepping him for a steeper fall once his sister passed as well. Neither have returned and he still feels like he's walking on cracked ice with every step he takes.

The next breath Peter sucks in makes his voice thick, something lodging in his throat.] I just - I don't want to feel shitty anymore? I wanna feel... feel anything else. Just any fucking thing else.

ill maKE IT GAY

[shadowglitter]

[ Odin continues to not give even the slightest of fucks about Peter's stupid sleeves. He just slips his hand over Peter's back and rubs soft, soothing circles over his spine, mumbling something comforting but not exactly coherent. He's more concerned with keeping his eyes trained on Peter's, far too close, far too fucking serious, searching for any sign of hurt or sadness or grief in them that he can jump on and try to chase away. ]

... I know. Me too.

[ It's why he's been doing half the shit he's done, since coming back from space. Hooking up with friends from the show. Getting blitzed with natives. Drinking way too much. He doesn't want Peter to do the same stupid, naive bullshit he's been throwing himself into, and he takes a long time to think through what he wants to say before he says it. ]

Do you have anything left that makes you feel - warm? People or things or places you can be around that make you strictly happy. You need to-- surround yourself. I think. With things like that. To ease as much as the hurt as they'll allow.

[quickfingers]

[Peter feels like there's an ache in him he can't get rid of; every time he thinks about what he's lost or what he's missing, it tightens the vice on his chest. And whenever he begins to think it's loosening up, something happens again to drive it all that much tighter. He hears her voice when he dreams and it's why he hates sleeping now, hates laying in an empty bed listening to the silence blare at him. Music dulls the roar but now he has to weave around songs he used to love, feeling like he's driven straight into a roadblock any time they come on accidentally.

He doesn't know how to cope with these feelings, they're new and part of the shitty chrysalis he pushed himself into by leaving his mother's basement months ago. He's got to get through this by getting used to it, by experiencing shitty things he always held himself back from. Like falling in love with someone for the first real time - he's had experiences before but nothing like falling head over heels for someone. His mom always joked about puppy love being the worst and he hates to call it that, hates to think it only hurts so much because it's the first time he let his guard down enough to feel it.

Trying to explain his feelings to his father just made him frustrated, they've been working at closing the gap but it still stands. Lorna, the only other shred of family in this place, he's not that close with either - they shared grief over Wanda but he's not secure enough to pool all of his feelings on her. The only friends he has he's already over burdening; Alex and Magnus, whose hospitality and open door made him feel like he had a home. Odin, who was always there to reach out.

This grief wouldn't have felt as bad if he hadn't lost two of the most significant women in his life within a week of each other. The supports fell out but a few people have caught him and it's them who make him feel happy. They ease the hurt. Like they do right now, yet again, with Odin here taking care of his sloppy disgusting mess of a self as it hits the bottom of the barrel.]

You do. [Hoarse, he contemplates before continuing.] Fauxhalla, too. It's just... I don't...

[Stop complaining, Peter. Stop apologizing too, while you're at it.] I dunno. Fuck.

[He rubs his hand over his face, dipping his fingertips in to clear a bit of wetness from the inner corners of his eyes.]

[shadowglitter]

[ Odin grits his teeth tight, clenching his jaw and shutting his eyes. It should feel-- kind, maybe, on some level, for Peter to say that about him. Reassuring and soft, a reminder that this relationship isn't like so many others of Odin's - a reminder that this isn't one-sided, and that Peter genuinely cares about him. But the hoarseness in Peter's voice, the fact that his very best friend is this fucking sad, all of it is a little too much for him to handle, and the warmth he might have felt at knowing he brings some kind of positivity to Peter's life doesn't really mean much right now. ]

It's not the same. We're not her. We can't make things better, when she's what you need to heal.

[ He might have gotten up and left, if he'd known what he was about to say. Spared himself the countless nights he'll live through starting tomorrow, staring up at the ceiling and feeling like a selfish piece of shit for where this conversation is about to go, hating himself for always finding a way to turn everything into a show about him. But the words he next speaks slip out of him like a tidal wave, like he finally found an opportunity to just say them to someone and that alone is enough to break the damn. ]

I feel--

I feel the same way. All the time. I feel the same as you do. Every waking moment of my life, I feel-- terrible. There's never any relief? There never is. Every drop of my blood, every ache of my bones, every beat of my heart, all of it tears me apart. It just hurts? It's always hurting. I'm always hurting. I don't know how to make it stop.

[ He curls up against Peter's side, breathing in his smell. It's familiar, already. Like home, even though there was never anything like Peter in Ylisse. ]

I've just - been trying to surround myself in the things that make it ease, a little. And that's what you need to do. There's nothing else that'll help you get through the day, when - when anything that might fix you for good is gone. Like Jean. Poe, for me. [ he swallows. ] Even back home - everything that has ever mattered to me has crumbled and turned to dust in my hands. Because-- because those things were already dying, when I found them, or - or they weren't, but I held onto them too tightly, and I ruined them. Everything I love would rather go than be with me.

[ Except for you. He breathes out. ]

Sorry. I know that's not good advice. It's just - this is all we've got. Distractions. All we have are distractions and the hope that maybe one day - somehow - all of this will fade.

[quickfingers]

[Peter hears Odin speak and each word sort of settles in with this fucked up kinship in the moment - it's not selfish when they're both drowning in the same pit of strangled feelings and aching hearts. He cinches his grip on Odin tighter, since they know words only help so much.

He meets his gaze and for a moment doesn't move, barely breathes, and just stares in to his eyes. If he were drunker, if they weren't friends, maybe a terrible decision would've been made in the here and now on the topic of distraction but it's not. He looks away, but takes a deep breath and rests his chin against the nook of Odin's neck and exhales slowly.]

One day it has to get better. I don't think it can feel worse than this... do you?