[Every part of him that's not trembling in the aftershocks that still blister at the contours of his skull - every part of him that's not still screaming at the blinding unnaturalness of what he just said - is howling to get away.]
[He can't.]
[He can't do anything but tremble like some weak little shell of a person (You'll just be a shell of a person, just like Brian!) and hate himself for being as fragile as he is.]
[Always running scared to someone else's skirts. Like Brian could, or should, be the one to shield him from the monsters that have dogged his shadow all his life.]
You were just a shell.
[The words are low, rasping, like the grind of stone on stone.]
You weren't supposed to still be there. You weren't supposed to be alive.
[He'd grieved the man who was trapped in a hospital, who coughed and yelled and was doomed by his own compassion for his friend, even then.]
[He'd grieved him. He was - he'd thought he was dead.]
no subject
[He can't.]
[He can't do anything but tremble like some weak little shell of a person (You'll just be a shell of a person, just like Brian!) and hate himself for being as fragile as he is.]
[Always running scared to someone else's skirts. Like Brian could, or should, be the one to shield him from the monsters that have dogged his shadow all his life.]
You were just a shell.
[The words are low, rasping, like the grind of stone on stone.]
You weren't supposed to still be there. You weren't supposed to be alive.
[He'd grieved the man who was trapped in a hospital, who coughed and yelled and was doomed by his own compassion for his friend, even then.]
[He'd grieved him. He was - he'd thought he was dead.]
[It isn't fair.]