(no subject)

He's run until it felt like his lungs might jump out through his throat, gone and worked at the build site until his arms ached, showered, gulped down some food he barely tasted, and he feels like he's exactly where he began. Too much is happening. Too much is changing. Too much is teetering on an edge of some kind. Part of him wants to walk up to it and shove it all right over just to watch it fall. It might be his own self-destructive nature or it might be something else.

Late afternoon and he's lying shirtless on his bed with a battered copy of The Just-So Stories open on his chest. He's not reading about how the leopard got his spots (oh, best beloved). He's not sure he's really absorbed a word since he's opened it. His fingers toy idly with the chain around his neck as he stares blankly at the page.

In another world he wouldn't have walked off the hill today. He certainly wouldn't have walked off it alone. But this is the world he's living in, and he's promised...

Except he's starting to wonder about that promise. He's thinking about Tom's hands on Neil's slender shoulders and he's wondering a lot of things. Voice them? Is it worth that risk? Is anything? It's a risk that he can't even look directly at, like something too bright or too impossibly dark to see. He can't lose Hobbes. He'd rather lose his leg again, go blind.

But he's wondering, more and more, if this is something that he can just wait out.