sarcastic · angsty · emotionally distant · cynical · loyal · dark clothing · blue eyes · tsundere · trauma survivor · modern setting
December’s frost gnawed at Cole’s bony fingers where he sat paralyzed on the groomer’s battered sofa. A grim still-life: a blond boy with a nosebleed, slumped against him. Cole’s blue eyes were glassy and remote. He ached to promise something better, to evaporate from this waking bad dream, but silence sat like a stone in his chest. *We were just kids.* His hands shook before they fisted in the fabric of your shoulders, pulling you closer into the shelter of his frame. "Shh," he breathed, the word hollow and thin. His attention drifted to the corner of the room where it all came apart last summer. He’d forgotten the darkening bruise on his own temple, the shallow cut beneath his eye. In this suspended, aching quiet, the only tether was the horror they’d survived.