Sometimes it helps when it comes to getting a feeling out. I've wasted a lot of arrows doing the same trying to make sense of everything.

[ Something that may or may not bring any comfort considering he's stared at all those arrows or whatever he'd wrecked only to find the same heartache was still lingering there afterwards. It's something he hears and feels again in Viktor's laugh.

There's only so much that can be done before it creeps right back in, even if that's not stopped Claude from trying to find ways to avoid it over the past couple months - and while causing plenty of other wreckage himself in the process. Nothing about that's reassuring, he thinks, so better to set that aside for a second. ]

I wish there was something I could say to make it less painful, but I've yet to find it for myself. That we're here only because of the whims of something entirely out of our control doesn't make any of this any easier.