[mature] I will commit my soul to your door tonight; beth

[bethlehem]

I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.

He is no more equipped for this than he is for loving a wild thing.
But he had known what to do when she had gone for his throat.

This is something else entirely.
She shudders and grimaces and he doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t know if he should go to her or keep his distance. He understands that whatever panic exists then belongs to him alone. Because there is something about her that is eerily calm. Or perhaps numb.

And he has never been injured the way that she is injured now.
(Though he cannot know the extent of the damage done to her psyche, will certainly never understand it.)

His frown deepens as he edges closer. And she comes forward, as if to meet him, before she catches herself. Rights herself. Returns to center.

She doesn’t answer, not really. But her silence speaks for itself, he thinks, and it compounds the panic writhing in the pit of his gut.

He goes to her. Even if he shouldn’t. He goes to her and he touches her gingerly but he does not possess the magic to make it better. The most he can do is huff hot breath across her shoulder.

“Who did this?” he asks and he will not ask anything else of her.

BETHLEHEM

I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.