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The world seems to be at its calmest like this. Time has seemingly halted, content to allow Garroth this time to rest. It’s the most kindness the universe has allowed him in a long time.
He’s somewhere floating between awake and asleep, numb to the sensations around him. The cold draft from the window mingles with the dampness of his hair, but it doesn’t send a shiver down his spine. The rest of his body is too flushed - the water he used to wash himself almost boiled him alive. His skin feels raw with the effort which he scrubbed himself with, and he thinks he must’ve damaged his nerve endings in the process.
He doesn’t feel any cleaner. Garroth’s skin is tainted, he realises. He can wash away the physical evidence, the red marks left can fade, but he’ll still feel the ghosting touches and how wrong they felt.
His musings are cut short by a soft rapping on his door. The short pauses between the knocks are his indication, but he already knows who it is. Nobody else would be bothering him.
Garroth ignores it, tries closing his eyes. Laurance will leave eventually. They’ve been playing this game for a week or so now, however one-sided it is. The door always stays locked.
Except, in his exhaustion, Garroth must’ve forgotten to click the lock when he returned from the washroom. He watches through bleary eyes as the handle is pushed down, not getting stuck where it normally would. What a traitorous thing.
The door doesn’t open right away. The handle is pressed down once, twice more, and Garroth can picture Laurance thinking he’s being tricked. He holds it down for a long while, as if he’s hesitating, second-guessing himself. But Laurance Zvahl is nothing if not self-assured, and soon he’s stepping inside as if the room is his own, shutting the door behind him intentionally softly. There’s a click.
“Hey,” comes the soft greeting he expected. Garroth doesn’t open his eyes. It helps to ignore the way something ugly curls in his chest at the idea of another person being in close proximity to him. One would think Laurance would’ve gotten the hint by now.
The room falls into an uncomfortable silence, something unnameable hanging in the stale air between them. There’s only the sound of Garroth’s own, steady breathing in his ears and the slight shuffling at the other end of the room. He almost wishes Laurance would say something else, a soft alright, I’ll leave you alone, or a simple bye. He longs to hear the door be shut behind him, whether it’s as soft as it was before or slammed so hard it knocks the frame containing Levin and Malachi’s drawing off the wall.
But he rarely gets what he wants. Garroth cracks open his eyes, pleasantly surprised at how heavy his eyelids have become. Whatever was in the rancid-tasting tea that sits half-drank and lukewarm on his bedside table must’ve lulled him into a restful state. Lillian must’ve noticed how dark the bags under his eyes had become.
Laurance isn’t in his armour, but an older set of clothes that Garroth recognises as the ones he wears before bed. His white tunic is thin and threadbare, and he fiddles with the hem of its just-too-long sleeve with his opposite hand. He’s staring at the ground too intensely for the lateness of the evening, like a guilty child about to be scolded or a depressed dog being told he can’t eat something that will poison him. If he had ears, they’d be flat against his head; if he had a tail, it’d be tucked between his legs. It would be laughable if it weren’t so harrowing a sight - Laurance usually looks so proud. Vulnerability doesn’t suit him.
It’s the first time Garroth has laid eyes on him since the incident, since that’s what he’s apparently calling it now. He’d expected to feel angry, to scream and shout and hit the man that had betrayed his trust in such a cruel way, or at the very least sad, to be fighting back tears and the urge to ask him why, why would you do this to me? But Garroth feels nothing of the sort - just some slight annoyance at the intrusion, and a bone-deep exhaustion.
Laurance meets his eyes, his own a little wider when he realises he’s being looked at. His expression shifts from shocked to a soft smile. “Hey,” he repeats himself, seemingly stuck for other words. “It’s been a while.”
Garroth doesn’t answer. Instead he expends the last of his energy to roll himself over to face the wall. Slowly, he brings his knees close to his chest, trying to take up less space in the room. It’s in hopes he’ll disappear, pop out of existence as small as he entered it.
The mattress dips with Laurance’s weight, and the sigh he breathes settles in Garroth’s chest heavily. “You’re still sick, eh? ‘Denza said she trusts this Lillian to heal you, but I don’t know…” His words trail off, pensive. “Maybe I should send for Dr. Doctor.” He’s talking to himself now, in the low voice he reserves for muttering his thoughts aloud. It helps him process things easier, apparently. Garroth’s always found it slightly irritating.
What Laurance doesn’t understand is that Lillian has been doing her best to make Garroth feel better. She listened to his pathetic woes, gave him advice he can’t bring himself to follow, and even offered physical distractions from the problem. But all her efforts leave him as miserable as he was before. Garroth is afraid it’s too late for him. His ‘sickness’ is terminal, and no doctor or healer can find a cure for such a disease.
What can medicine do for a broken heart? Healing magicks are useless to him. The tender hands and gentle words of a healer cannot take back what he’d seen, what had been going on behind his back.
Time, he thinks, might be his best chance at survival. But there’s a severe lack of it nowadays, with the war pending and the two very people he wishes he could hide away from lurking around every corner.
So Garroth is wallowing in his own pity, like some lovesick little girl who discovered her crush flirting with someone else. It’s pathetic, and he knows it. But the feeling is so all-consuming, something too akin to grief, that he can’t muster the motivation to get out of bed.
“Everyone’s concerned about you,” Laurance continues, the bed rattling as he moves to sit in another position. His kneecap digs uncomfortably into Garroth’s back. “Even Logan asked where you were today. Can you believe that?” he chuckles, but there’s little humour in it. “Logan, of all people.”
Garroth doesn’t respond, only shifting slightly further towards the wall. A hand cards through his damp hair, and he fights the instinctive urge to lean into the touch. He won’t allow himself to miss Laurance’s gentle, easy touches. It isn’t fair on any of them.
“I’m concerned about you, Garroth. I wish you’d tell me what’s on your mind.”
It’s unfair - it’s so unfair how sad Laurance sounds when he says it. As if he truly cares what’s going on inside Garroth’s mind.
He feels foolish now, that he’d almost let himself believe that perhaps someone did care. Laurance had spent months digging away at his walls, slowly forcing Garroth to let his guard down and almost become comfortable. He’d gotten him to talk - to share secrets he’d never told anyone else. Secrets he thought he would never tell anyone else. In the darkness of the night it almost seemed simple to talk about these things; they’d slip out of his mouth like honey, and Laurance lapped it all up like a bear.
Now, Garroth can’t help but wonder if it was all an exercise in embarrassing him. Had Laurance been playing the long game, getting close to him, just to break him down from the inside? How long had he been sneaking behind his back with their Lady? He must’ve been amusing himself when he’d encourage Garroth to confess his feelings, knowing if he ever worked up the courage, he’d be rejected.
Was it some form of petty revenge? Had Garroth wronged Laurance in some way?
The worst part of it all is that Garroth would’ve been happy for them. He is happy for them, in some twisted way. He’d do anything to see his Lady settled down with someone she loves, to be supported by someone who deserves her. And Garroth couldn’t think of anyone else better than Laurance to fill that role in her life - he’s kind and strong and funny. He’s a good father to Malachi. He’s perfect for her.
Garroth knows he never deserved her. It’s why he agreed with himself never to tell her, to avoid the awkward conversations and pitying looks that would follow a rejected confession.
He just can’t understand why they wouldn’t tell him. Laurance knows how he feels, has known since day one, but he doesn’t seem to feel the need to allow Garroth an easy let down.
A lump forms in his throat, and Garroth swallows it down. He bites his tongue, willing away the stinging behind his eyes and the wobbling of his bottom lip. Do not cry, the words of Lillian ring in his mind, clear as a bell, it is unbecoming of a man. His sigh is shaky and wet.
Laurance rests a hand on his hunched shoulder, putting some pressure behind the touch as he leans his face in close. Garroth keeps his bleary eyes trained on the wooden panels of the wall, tracing the patterns he’s recently come to know very intimately. He counts the dots of darker brown as he tries to ignore the tickle of hot breaths on his skin.
The kiss he leaves on the shell of Garroth’s ear is familiar and comforting. Garroth wants to be sick. “Hey, can I…?”
Knowing he won’t be dignified with an answer, Laurance does what he wants. He gets himself comfortable, pressing his chest to Garroth’s back. The arm he slings over Garroth’s waist burns through the thin cotton of his tunic despite the lack of heat radiating from him. It’s like a restraint, preventing Garroth from escaping this torturous situation.
Then Laurance’s hand is sliding under his shirt, fingers splaying on his stomach. A shiver runs down his spine at the cold pressed firmly against his skin. There’s no ill-intent behind the touch, Garroth knows this well - Laurance has a habit of seeking warmth whenever he can grab it - but it still feels as though the same spiders that leave the cobwebs he’s been studying whenever he’s been staring at his ceiling for hours have now chosen their home beneath his skin, crawling, itching.
“You’re too hot,” Laurance says softly, almost a mumble. “Do you have a fever?”
It’s wrong. Laurance shouldn’t be touching him this way anymore. Not when Garroth can still so clearly picture the way he held Aphmau in that clearing, one arm snaked around her waist and the other tangled in her long black hair and he can still remember the feeling of Laurance’s hand in his hair, the softeness of lips against his and damn him, how is it fair that he get to do this to Aphmau?
How is it fair that Garroth is doing this to his Lady?
And the guilt of that hits him like slow lightning. His breath hitches, barely audible, but of course Laurance catches it anyway. Pulls him a little closer.
“Alright?”
“Fine,” Garroth mutters. “Back twinge.”
Laurance hums in acknowledgement. He presses a firm kiss to the base of his neck, as if it will heal the fictitious ache. Garroth hates that he wishes it would. He wished Lillian could heal him in such a way too, but none of it ever does. Physical love is never the same as matters of the heart.
It hurts. It feels like it’s always going to hurt, though he knows logically it will get better. But he thinks there’s a crack in the glass now, to join the others there. It’s only a matter of time until it shatters into pieces.
Who will be there to pick them up? Will anyone be willing to cut their fingers and bleed on his sharp edges, or will he be left alone again?
Garroth isn’t sure how much more he can take; he doesn’t like admitting to his own fragility, but in moments like this he’s forced to acknowledge it. Somehow in this very moment, it doesn’t feel so daunting (and he refuses to divulge that thought any further for his own sake).
If Laurance recognises the slight shaking of his shoulders, he doesn’t mention anything. At least he affords him that kindness.