He came home and he hates himself for it. He hates the way you look at him as if you don't recognize him, he hates the way Darry tries to smile at him and the way Pony doesn't even try to hide the disappointment on his face. He hates himself for not dying, he hates himself because he knows some part of you wishes he did die out there.
You don't hate him. You never could. But part of you knows maybe everything would be easier if he hadn't returned. If he hadn't come back, you could pretend he'd never been broken. If he never came back, you could mourn the dead instead of still mourning the living.
He's not dead, but he's not alive either. He's a dead man walking. He has a pulse, but half the time he's unaware that his breaths aren't coming out, and he has to force himself to breathe again.
And he feels terrible. He feels terrible for all the shots he fired, he feels terrible for all the lives he took, and he feels terrible for hurting you and helplessly watching as you fall apart all the same.
At the funeral, people said he didn't care. They said he didn't care because he wasn't crying. He wasn't crying as much as everyone thought he should have been. They didn't realize the hells he was going through.
They didn't see all the memories flashing through his mind. They didn't have death tattooed in their eyelids and swimming in their veins.
Sometimes he prayed for mercy.
Sometimes he felt how lonely it was to be the grim reaper.
You could feel him slipping away from you, you could feel him leaving you. You could feel the cold spot in the bed where your skin used to meet, you could feel it everywhere you went, everywhere you looked. You were losing him and there was nothing you could do.
And he was losing you too.
YOU ARE READING
The Outsiders Headcannons
FanficThe Outsiders Headcannons with occasional other things.
