IT had never been about keeping score; he couldn't even have said what was running through his head the day he had walked into her home for the last time- the home they were going to share, with the life they were going to build together- but it hadn't been one of his more lucid moments. Definitely not one of his better or smarter decisions. There were no words for the world he'd been in at that point. Nothing had made sense and yet at the same time everything had made sense but in a twisted, skewed way. He had broken her heart and his own to protect her from him or what he might bring down on her, in the shape of Raymond, in the shape of himself at his worst. She had been the love of his life. Perhaps she even still was. But his heart couldn't think like that, not now that he was here and she was here and they were standing against each other rather than with one another. It ached and it panged and it was making him nauseous.

He'd left when the stakes were at their highest. At the precipice where they both needed each other to hold the other together because they weren't doing it for themselves, and he had broken instead of bending. He couldn't take the pressure. And Colemet needed someone who could and who wouldn't run away like a coward because of what was on the line. It was in the top three worst moments of his entire life, that day. It was the day he had lost everything he loved, and had nearly lost Oriel on top of it. Would he still be here if Oriel had died that day? If he hadn't found him and stayed with him and willed him to fight on? He couldn't say. It was a hard situation to put himself back into for the sake of hypothesise. But his mind was running away, while his heart was tearing itself apart again, and it was grabbing onto anything that wasn't immediate to keep him grounded.

His breath caught and nearly died in his throat as she finally spoke again, and he looked ceilingward as he tried to string some semblance of sensical words together. Where to begin; where could he begin right now when the last thing he wanted to do was revisit what he'd done to them both? If he could take it back, he would. In a heartbeat. Because while things hadn't been easy they had also been the easiest thing in his life. And she had fit perfectly with him, in his arms, and had always been so in tune that half the time they didn't even need to speak. This... seeing Cole like this was like a boggart in the flesh, except no amount of laughing was going to help this. "I know it won't make a blind bit of difference, but I'll try. I'll..." He took a deep breath and moved further away from the bustle of the shop and more into their alcove that he'd accidentally herded her into, "I don't know where my head was at. I panicked. Raymond had just been released from prison- everything I have been dreading since he was put in there- and you... I wanted to keep you safe so badly that I didn't stop and think about what I was doing. I thought... I thought you'd be better off without me. Without everything that came with me. And I didn't want to chance him finding you. And I know now I could have handled it better and I was a top grade wanker but at the time... I was falling apart and I couldn't even see it. Just him. Just what was coming. So I broke us."

And he flinched as she raised her voice but he didn't shy away become damn it he deserved this. He deserved worse than this. He was expecting more; for her to lash out properly, just like he'd been brought up to expect when he fucked up. Make her mark and add to the repertoire he already had. If anyone deserved to hurt him now it was her, because Merlin knew how much he had hurt her psychologically let alone mentally. There was little doubt in his mind that she would never trust him again and honestly he knew he didn't even deserve a shred of her trust. The fact that she was still here and talking to him just about had him reeling. "Maybe initially, but then I expected hatred and loathing to take its place because of what I did. I don't deserve you missing me. And I... I wish I could show you just how much I regret every single moment during that day and since." His voice cracked and he looked away, his hands knotting and releasing as he struggled to breathe.

Colemet usually couldn’t tell her negative emotions apart. They all manifested themselves as anger. Anger at others, at herself, at the world. And yet in all of that, there never seemed to be enough places for it to go, to diffuse. She had once heard that anger wasn’t a true emotion; it was simply a pseudo emotion masking other forms of hurt. She could believe it, she thought, but knowing that was the emotion she experienced the easiest, it made her feel like she was sub-human since it was only a mask for hurt.

It was the bitter truth, though. She was sub-human, and she would be until the day that she died. Considering her track record with creatures, she thought that day might come far sooner than she anticipated. But those were things Damion would never know. He knew of the first attack she had undergone, but he didn’t know how much more there was now. He had left and the pain had only increased from psychological to mental and then to physical. He didn’t know what she was now, and he would never know now. What they had was gone, and like her humanity, it was never coming back.

Colemet was hurt, and Damion wasn’t stupid enough not to realize it. She listened to his explanation as promised, but she felt the tension in her bones, like she was ready to snap at any moment. She was the predator and he was the prey, and she knew that was how it had been stacked here. Raymond… She knew he had always worried about Raymond. “Your head was in your ass, that’s where it was,” she said poisonously. Her arms were crossed over her chest tightly. She took a moment to calm herself down a bit, at least to speak reasonably. “You did to me exactly what I did to you back in school,” she said quietly. “So maybe I just deserved this.” Maybe deep down, even below his fear of Raymond, he wanted to settle the score. She shook her head. “I would have been there, you know. I would have helped you if you had just told me the truth.” She was the pot calling the kettle black, because this is what she should have done years ago.

Colemet remained rigid in her stance as she looked Damion over, fighting off every predatory instinct she had. She shook her head again. “I don’t hate you. I loved you. That can’t just turn to hate.” She felt her fingernails digging into her skin. “You were good to me, Damion. I miss you. I’m hurt. But I don’t hate you.” How could she when she was a hypocrite?

The End Of  The Story

Is Not In Fact The End

But The Beginning

The fact of the matter was that Damion had always put people in front of his own interests, even if it ended up hurting them, because in the long run they would be safer than if he didn't. He couldn't take anymore guilt borne of not doing the right thing, of putting people in harm's way. There was already enough on his conscience, already pinning it down so that he could hardly breathe from the weight he was carrying around these days, and with no way to relieve them or unburden himself. Every mistake was a nail in a specific coffin and he had long come to terms with the truth that he had already sealed things between Colemet and him on that day and they had been buried, never to be seen again. But that didn't make it any easier to bear when she was standing right in front of him, angry or not. It was hard to swallow that he'd really fucked up this time, that things weren't reparable, and though there was a very slim chance that one day they would be talking again, he would never hold her like he had before. He would never see her slippers in his living room, or her mug beside his next to the sink. Her smile would never be because of him again simply because he had hurt her so much. Hurt them both. Torn everything that they had together into such tatters that he couldn't even think or see where to begin in trying to repair it. The things that weighed on him more than his conscience were his regrets, and what he had done on that day... was probably the biggest of them all.

It had been different in school. They'd both still been kids, still finding their feet and their way in life, when he had originally believed they'd found each other. Love was... different, back then. It was a shiny, new kind of feeling that had him bounding out of bed each morning and making sure he looked nice so she could be proud to have him around. She had become his life, then, for she was all he had going for him. And then... then she had abruptly turned around out of nowhere and decimated everything that he was. But they had still been kids! This time, they had both been adults. Old enough to know and understand what they were doing and how they were feeling, what they wanted from life and what they wanted from and with each other. It had been stronger, fierce, all-encompassing. And this time it had been him who had turned around out of nowhere and burned everything to the ground. Out of fear. Impulse. The urge to protect her, because he had loved her so ardently, from the dark storm that was coming. And in doing so, he had destroyed them both. Psychologically as well as emotionally. This time there had been more at stake and things had been more serious. It had been real. He had heard wedding bells every time he had looked at her and he had gone out and bought a ring for her, planning on taking her to one of the places she wanted to see most in the world and then putting forward his proposal. His promise. And he thought that she had known that, on some level. That she had instinctively known what he had been thinking though he had never mentioned it. The notion killed him inside, forcing him to stop looking at what could have been so he could see what was. And what was, was heart-wrenching and he could barely breathe as it started to crush his chest.

Her voice was like a red hot whip and it hit straight home, yet he took it. He didn't try and protest or make up any excused to derail the statement simply because it was true and there was nothing he could do or say that would stop it from being the truth. His eyes held hers almost desperately, willing her to understand, and so he wasn't prepared for what she said next. His head was already shaking in response before he could formulate any words, his heart breaking anew hearing her thoughts. She couldn't have been further wrong about his intentions. He had never wanted to even the field. Had never wished her any ill. The fact that she believed that cut deeper than any of Raymond's enchanted knives. "No, no, Cole... you didn't deserve any part of it. Not one bit. Don't go believing that for even a second... I never once intended it like that. I never wanted to hurt you, even though that's exactly what I did." His voice became rough with pent up emotion but he just tried to clear his throat around the pain forming inside it. And then, again, she was right. She had always managed that, regardless of what was wrong. "... I know that, now. Hindsight is a double edged sword," he murmured, biting the inside of his cheek, "I just... I just couldn't bear the idea or the possibility that he could get to you. Fear got the best of me, and I let it." And at the time, how could he not have? Diagon Alley had been blown up, dozens had died, then his worst nightmare had come true. The world had seemed set against him and so he had panicked, acting without fully thinking things through. Knowing now that had he taken the time to see the situation clearer that Cole and he wouldn't necessarily be standing against each other rather than with each other was all that he could think, even though she was tearing strips off of him. Even though now he had no right.

Fuck, he could feel his eyes starting to burn as tears threatened to form and he ducked his head, pressing his hand against his mouth and the bottom part of his jaw. This hurt worse than a cruciatus curse; And Merlin knew he'd bore a few of them in his life. "I always strove to do better by you, everyday, because that's how much you meant to me," he whispered, unable to look back up at her anymore, "And I'll never be able to apologise enough for what I did," 'Crying is the worst thing you could possibly do right now, you arsehole-' "Gods, Cole, I've missed you so much..."

TAG: @ Colemet | WORDS: 1079 | NOTES: </3

MEL @ ADOXOGRAPHY

Colemet had felt pain in her life. She had been through so much of it. Between the physical pain of a werewolf attack and monthly transformations, she knew pain. She knew emotional pain, the pain that was like ripping off a scab off a wound that you could only feel, not see. She knew what it was like to be distant. She knew what it was like to push everyone away. She knew what it was like to be alone. But even worse than that, even more brutal than all of that, was to know what it was to be loved, to be cherished, to be cared for, and then have it ripped away. Sometimes it was by her own hand, and sometimes it was by others. This...this bloody situation she was in with Damion, the one that had been searing her heart for years… They were both culprits here. She had broken his heart years ago, back before they even knew what love really was. And once they had it, once they were old enough to know it and see it and feel it, he had broken hers. There were no two ways about it.

Colemet couldn’t help but look at the two of them, each of them shells of what they were when they were with each other. She had been so full of life, and he as well, and now they were simply animated corpses. All the life they had gotten from each other was drained, and it seemed as if there was no possible way in this life that either of them would ever get it back. At least not in the same way. Perhaps there was hope; Colemet wasn’t so doom and gloom to think this was her end all be all. She had survived far too much to think a breakup was the end of her. But that didn’t stop the fact that it was more painful than she would have ever guessed. It was exactly because of this that she didn’t let herself get close. It was why she stayed distant. The only person she was certain of at this point was Sophia. She couldn’t truly trust anyone else.

Colemet hated it, but somewhere inside of her, the feral part of her that was hell bent on destruction, wanted to hurt Damion. It was as if she could feel Jekyll and Hyde pulling inside of her. Sometimes Jekyll spoke and sometimes Hyde did, and neither one could seem to totally rule the other. She supposed that was good, because her suspicion was that if one of them was going to win, it would certainly be Hyde. She couldn’t imagine how confused Damion must be. One moment she was tightening the noose around his neck, and the next, she could speak...not kindly, but at least not viciously. Still, she couldn’t go on like this. Things would get out of hand if she wasn’t careful. She needed to get out of this situation.

She was barely listening to Damion’s words, trying to keep her head on straight, but there was no denying the brokenness. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, he said. Revenge had never been on his mind, he said. “Then what the hell were you expecting to happen, Damion?” she asked dangerously. “That I would be fine? That this would go over perfectly well and I would just move the hell on? It doesn’t work like that.” Right now, she was struggling to be understanding. Logically, she knew what he had been trying to do, but that didn’t change what had happened. And it certainly didn’t change how she felt about it. “Next time, think about the fact that trying to protect someone at all costs could end up hurting them worse than whatever you were trying to protect them from to begin with.”

Colemet couldn’t take this anymore. She had to leave before she said more things she would regret. Colemet shook her head. “I told you. I’ve missed you too. But that doesn’t matter anymore.” Maybe she was putting the final nail in the coffin, or maybe this was the best she could do to spare him. Perhaps it was death by euthanization. She didn’t know. She swallowed the lump in her throat and stepped forward to move past Damion. “I need to go,” she said. Need to go before this is worse. “I’ll see you around.”

***END OF THE HEARTBREAKING***