Chapter Text
Heart curls his wings in. Attempts to.
(He hates Soul, he really does.)
(Protests rise in his throat. He says none of them. What’s the point?)
Soul’s hands pin them. They flutter, weakly. Weak, like everything they say about him is true. Weak, like Heart can’t escape Soul, like no matter how hard he tries, no matter how desperately his wings beat against his back, he will be stuck in Soul’s grip. Weak.
His hands are soft, and maybe that’s what always gets him. Maybe he would do anything for it, even if Soul’s fingers were pressing against his throat. Maybe Mind is right, and it’s pathetic, and Heart should be better than this, and it’s going to get him hurt one of these days. (Maybe Soul is right, and when Heart looks up at him, it’s with the eyes of the lamb before the slaughter.)
Maybe Heart just wants to get out of here.
Maybe Heart just doesn’t want Soul to hurt him, which is reasonable, because of course it is, and he just wants to go home except this is his home, with all of its bloodstains, and sure he could escape without escaping, sit outside and wait until he got bored, but then he’d have to go back, like always-
-he scrabbles. He scrabbles and then when that’s not enough, he bites down on Soul’s precise careful fingers and gets out, wings finally curling in all safe. For now. The door he ends up opening is Mind’s. He closes the door behind himself and sits by it. His wings barely touch the wood and after they had Soul on them it’s revolting and it burns and he can’t stand it.
“(Mind?)” Heart sounds like prey. Is it enough, will Mind deem him hurt enough to be worthy of his aid, desperate enough for him to entertain, to be entertained? Heart looks up at him. Up, on the floor, victim, at Mind, sitting up on the edge of his bed and looking down at him and deciding, memorizing, analyzing, cold. Does he have the eyes of a lamb?
Heart’s gaze meets the floor.
“[Heart? What is it?]”
What did Soul do- is the real question.
“(I’m tired,)” Heart says, and he means more than that.
(And he hopes Mind will help him.)
“[Come here.]”
Heart isn’t something to be commanded- like a dog- but if Heart waited for Mind and Soul to treat him with respect he would be left waiting. So Heart follows like Mind told him to, sits next to Mind on his bed, shoulder to shoulder, doesn’t press the point. His dominant hand rests at his side, where he would draw his gun. Would, because there’s no point. There’s never any point, really. Even his gun isn’t enough.
(Nothing is enough.
Heart keeps his mouth shut and waits for his time to speak as if it’s not something he has to steal every time.)
Heart clenches his fists. His nails dig into his palms.
He leans into Mind.
Mind says nothing. There’s not much to say. He begins to brush his fingers through Heart’s hair, gentle, more gentle than he usually is- Mind has decided to be gentle, in this moment, and that’s something. It’s not everything and it doesn’t fix anything and when this is over Mind will laugh at both of them for ever allowing it, maybe. It’s still something.
Heart wraps his arm around Mind, resting his palm in the middle of his back. It’s in between where wings would be if he grew them. It’s the same spot Heart’s hand lingers on, when they sit on the roof together and when he thinks about pushing him down, down onto the ground and his body breaking and blue blood staining that grass. But there’s no power, no leverage about it now. It’s just touch.
Just…
Heart sighs.
“(Do you think it’s ever going to stop?)” And he can taste the words and their edges, pleading, useless even though Heart’s not the one that values that metric above all others, and it cuts. All of it cuts.
Mind laughs, and it’s not really a laugh, the jagged thing, Heart’s sure it scraped his throat on the way out. “[No.]” Mind laughs again, higher, more desperate. “[No, I don’t think so. We’re going to be here forever, and it’s going to be hell, and I’ll have you.]”
“(And you’ll have me.)” Question- repetition like some sort of game: you move, I send.
“[And I’ll have you.]”
He says it like a promise.
“(It’s not like Whole will come to save us.)”
The angel, invoking its God’s name in vain. What would Soul think about that?
“(It’s not like Soul is on our side.)”
Heart reaches for Mind. (You move, I send.)
Mind takes his hand and they interlock.