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A broken heart is all that's left
I'm still fixing all the cracks
Lost a couple of pieces when
I carried it, carried it, carried it home
Kit woke up, face warm and drenched in sweat. Or maybe tears. Was he crying? He could shove thoughts of him out of his mind during the day, but couldn’t yet control what he dreamt of at night. The memories just kept coming back.
The same night, over and over. The feeling of his heart wrenching in two. The weight of unsaid words on his tongue. Saying goodbye would have meant staying. And he couldn’t stay. Trying to heal himself everyday hurt, but the open wound of living with Ty would have bled him out.
“There is nothing if you’re not there”.
Ty had made it clear his feelings hadn’t been reciprocated, and he was only an added burden to the Blackthorns anyway. Julian already had so much to deal with without all the complications Kit brought with him.
Jem and Tessa had been looking for him for years, even if only for his heritage. They’d asked him to go to Devon with them. Promised him safety and a home. Leaving with them had been his best option; his only option, and so he’d gone. And yet. He’d left a piece of himself behind. A piece in the shape of a boy who wore headphones and soft sweaters and extraordinary smiles.
I'm afraid of all I am
My mind feels like a foreign land
Silence ringing inside my head
Please, carry me, carry me, carry me home
His father hadn’t raised him to be a good or honorable person. He hadn’t been loved or cherished or needed. He’d been raised by a crook to be a crook. He’d been raised to hide and survive. And then his father had gotten himself ripped apart by demons.
Ty had held a dagger to his throat that day, gleaming silver like the glint in his eyes. How beautiful, he’d thought. He’d been right. Ty was beautiful and sharp and delicate and deadly. Ty had seen right through him, befriended him and trusted him. Perhaps with too much.
He had never had anyone make him feel the way Ty had made him feel. Ty made him feel like he belonged. Ty had wanted him. Ty had believed in him, and made him more than he had ever allowed himself to want to be.
Kit wanted nothing more than to go back to be Ty’s shadow, his moon, his Watson.
I've spent all of the love I saved
We were always a losing game
Small-town boy in a big arcade
I got addicted to a losing game
Kit didn’t know he was capable of feeling this way. Sitting up at night, thinking of long inky lashes and soft hands, and the burn of his first rune.
He had not thought he had much love to give. Until Ty. Then he had wanted to give Ty everything. Happiness, comfort, his lost sister back. He’d known it was a terrible idea, but had gone along with it anyway. He had probably known all along that it was the start to the end.
But that hadn’t been enough of a reason to try and stop him. Stopping Ty would have meant giving so much more than he had. Stopping Ty would have meant letting himself be hated by him. And so Kit had let Ty rig his game; a balance of life and death and love- until they were both in way too over their heads, unwilling to stop, unprepared for the outcome.
How many pennies in the slot?
Giving us up didn't take a lot
I saw the end 'fore it begun
Still I carried, I carried, I carried on
The last and only time he’d tried to stop Ty, he had dragged up all the care and love and devotion one could have for another person and placed it before him as an offering and a confession. Hoping Ty would see he hadn’t lost everything yet.
He lost everything anyway. In the end, it all came crashing down. The game failed, and his belated pleas went unheard. It hadn’t taken much to feel unwanted again.
To be pushed aside, to feel a failure- those feelings were familiar. But the rush of warmth and the sting like fire that came with the memory of pretty words was not. Glass, twin, apple, whisper, shadow, lilt. Blackthorn.
He had loved Ty Blackthorn once. Perhaps he always would, damned be the consequences.