05-25-2025, 09:52 PM
Jay’s hands stayed in his coat pockets, fingers tightening around the bruised bones of his hand. The pain hadn’t left. It was still there, not sharp, not screaming, but settled deep beneath the skin like something half-buried in the river. Dull. Persistent.
He said nothing for a while, eyes fixed on the slow churn of black water below. His breath fogged the air in steady, cold ribbons, and the apology hung between them like the echo of a scream thrown across an empty canyon. It didn’t land. It just circled back, unanswered.
“You talk too much,” he muttered eventually, voice low and worn. He didn’t look at Nox.
Then. Just a shift. A turn of the head. His eyes found the man beside him.
Same face. But the eyes… They were wrong now. Hollower. Detached. Like something had been carved out and never filled back in. Maybe that was what had always drawn Jay to him in the first place. Not the man, but the void inside him. A flicker of pain dressed up as calm. A familiar kind of ruin.
The silence stretched. The river rolled like a broken mirror. Dark, distorted, reflecting nothing but the rot of the city bleeding in from the banks.
“All that talking,” Jay said, quieter now. But not calmer. “And you still never said the one thing that fucking mattered.”
His voice cracked like a bottle under pressure, loud enough to punch through the cold. “The one fucking thing, Nox!”
He hadn’t meant to raise his voice. But it was out now, and there was no pulling it back.
He shifted his weight, jaw tight, breath misting sharp in the space between them. It would’ve been easier. So much easier. If Nox had come out swinging. If he’d snapped back with something sharp or cruel, given Jay something solid to grip. Something to hit. Something to blame.
Instead, there was just... this.
This silence. This numbness. This ghost. This damn knife in his gut.
Without realizing, his hands slipped from his coat pockets. He gripped the railing hard enough that pain lanced up his arm, bright and familiar, even with the drug still in his bloodstream.
Dammit, he thought, jaw twitching as he flexed his aching fingers. Now I want another one.
His eyes flicked back down the street. The path he’d wandered to get here.
He said nothing for a while, eyes fixed on the slow churn of black water below. His breath fogged the air in steady, cold ribbons, and the apology hung between them like the echo of a scream thrown across an empty canyon. It didn’t land. It just circled back, unanswered.
“You talk too much,” he muttered eventually, voice low and worn. He didn’t look at Nox.
Then. Just a shift. A turn of the head. His eyes found the man beside him.
Same face. But the eyes… They were wrong now. Hollower. Detached. Like something had been carved out and never filled back in. Maybe that was what had always drawn Jay to him in the first place. Not the man, but the void inside him. A flicker of pain dressed up as calm. A familiar kind of ruin.
The silence stretched. The river rolled like a broken mirror. Dark, distorted, reflecting nothing but the rot of the city bleeding in from the banks.
“All that talking,” Jay said, quieter now. But not calmer. “And you still never said the one thing that fucking mattered.”
His voice cracked like a bottle under pressure, loud enough to punch through the cold. “The one fucking thing, Nox!”
He hadn’t meant to raise his voice. But it was out now, and there was no pulling it back.
He shifted his weight, jaw tight, breath misting sharp in the space between them. It would’ve been easier. So much easier. If Nox had come out swinging. If he’d snapped back with something sharp or cruel, given Jay something solid to grip. Something to hit. Something to blame.
Instead, there was just... this.
This silence. This numbness. This ghost. This damn knife in his gut.
Without realizing, his hands slipped from his coat pockets. He gripped the railing hard enough that pain lanced up his arm, bright and familiar, even with the drug still in his bloodstream.
Dammit, he thought, jaw twitching as he flexed his aching fingers. Now I want another one.
His eyes flicked back down the street. The path he’d wandered to get here.
Only darkness shows you the light.