COMM: shifted_prompts - the fewness of these colors
WORD COUNT: 386



He can feel things starting to fall apart. He's fraying at the edges; his band is fraying at the edges. Months ago he was so certain everything was fine again, that their lives as they were would remain constant. Charles had returned to them from death- that alone should have made the world shudder under their bond. But it wasn't good enough, was it? Things were straining, tightening on him. Strings pulled too taut and about to snap.

Like many other nights when he's struck with insight, he lays in his bed. He sweats despite the cold sheets clinging to him; despite the air conditioning that keeps the room tolerable. The smell of dust and cobwebs and abandoned guilty things in the corner. These things should comfort him as they do other nights, but for now they leave him empty.

He's not even sure what he's done.

They told him he destroyed the record: Seething Vortex pulled to the bottom of the sea; the master cleft in two by his axe. Those aren't things he remembers, but he accepts them as truths. Still, he doesn't understand the difference. He's destroyed countless albums before on whim. What makes this one so different?

He can't apologize for that. He won't. There's good reason behind it, he's certain, he's always destroyed with purpose. But the smell of abandoned things in his room turns his stomach- though he's certain his thoughts are no help. He can't stay here tonight. He needs some fresh air, some fresh scenery; a few moments away from the darkness pooling around him. A day. Two. A week. There are distant rooms in Mordhaus he can languish in until this foul mood passes him, and so he makes that decision.

Legs swung carelessly out of bed almost knock over a half filled beer bottle. He grabs the bottle and pulls it up to his lips. It doesn't taste as good as it did when he laid down, but he's pretty sure that's in his head too. But he downs it regardless and throws the empty bottle into a corner.

He stumbles out of his bedroom in just his underwear and turns down a hall he seldom uses. One that takes him far from the direction of Pickles' room.

He can't apologize for that.

And he won't.