Until Iris grabs his shoulders, and Wilhelm's eyes flutter open to meet his again, he doesn't realize that anything out of the ordinary is happening. He didn't understand why ghosts of Iris' scars seemed to be rising from his skin, but that was displaced in his concerns by his friend's sobs. He couldn't feel the pull of his connection to the Singularity, like an invisible web of threads, underneath the suffocating swell of sadness.
"I don't...I don't know."
But then the tide pulls out, and in the numbing calm that follows, he realizes that he has been here before. Two years ago, Wilhelm had stumbled upon the strange power to push his anxiety out of himself by pouring it into somebody else instead. It happened quite by accident. One moment, he struggled to breathe as he felt the heat prickling in his palms, and he wondered who he would hurt this time. The next, he felt...nothing. Light, airy nothing.
It's the same stillness Kelson could impart by taking his hand when nightmares stalked him and splintered his sleep. Like he was smoothing his fear away as easily as smoothing his hair, thanks to the ancient power singing in his blood. He remembers thinking how unfair it was that Kelson could pare away everyone's pain but his own.
Wilhelm curls his hand over Iris' where he still holds onto his shoulder. His fingers trace his knuckles, the knob of his wrist.
"Suddenly, I was...sad," he tries to explain. "I guess I started thinking about my mom too." An embarrassing thing to admit when you're naked in a pool of magma with a painfully cute boy, but he feels safe sharing it with Iris. "Then...it all just went away."
A pause thickens as he tries to measure if any of this makes sense to Iris. He waits to share his hypothesis on what the hell just happened, even as his certainty of it hardens.
no subject
"I don't...I don't know."
But then the tide pulls out, and in the numbing calm that follows, he realizes that he has been here before. Two years ago, Wilhelm had stumbled upon the strange power to push his anxiety out of himself by pouring it into somebody else instead. It happened quite by accident. One moment, he struggled to breathe as he felt the heat prickling in his palms, and he wondered who he would hurt this time. The next, he felt...nothing. Light, airy nothing.
It's the same stillness Kelson could impart by taking his hand when nightmares stalked him and splintered his sleep. Like he was smoothing his fear away as easily as smoothing his hair, thanks to the ancient power singing in his blood. He remembers thinking how unfair it was that Kelson could pare away everyone's pain but his own.
Wilhelm curls his hand over Iris' where he still holds onto his shoulder. His fingers trace his knuckles, the knob of his wrist.
"Suddenly, I was...sad," he tries to explain. "I guess I started thinking about my mom too." An embarrassing thing to admit when you're naked in a pool of magma with a painfully cute boy, but he feels safe sharing it with Iris. "Then...it all just went away."
A pause thickens as he tries to measure if any of this makes sense to Iris. He waits to share his hypothesis on what the hell just happened, even as his certainty of it hardens.