Stellarlune

“Fidelis.”

It was the what, seventh week, now? Nothing but agonizing moments of awkward silence between strangers, and snarky quips between friends, when we were lucky enough to be paired together. Some therapy this was.

Either we talked, or we didn’t. That little shiver of apprehension that I originally had had long since dissipated into sheer boredom.

I think that even the professors were beginning to have their doubts about the effectiveness of a clearly hastily developed attempt at rebuilding the empathic walls of the students.

“Draconis.”

It was Ginny. I grimaced.
I hadn’t talked to her at all, apart from hellos here and there. Our last encounter left us on rocky roads, so to speak.

Luckily, she didn’t seem to be in the mood to talk either. I breathed a soft sigh of relief, changing the uncomfortable position I was sitting in to a more comfortable cross legged one on the floor, even as I heard the distinct thud of her head hitting the wall.

She sounded vexed.

I decided to extend an olive leaf in the form of meager chitchat.

“Rough night?”

A huff tore itself from her throat, wry and sardonic.

“You were there, you tell me, mate.”

Even before the words had left her lips, I froze.

Not her, his.

His voice came in soft syllables, like each word caused him pain, echoing slightly from the stone walls of the room, and filling it with fading rumbles and whispers. My muscles went rigid, and fingers clutched my dragon heartstring wand tightly as I realized I had no clue who the boy in front of me was.

He, apparently, had not noticed the difference yet. He kept talking.

“It’s getting worse, you know. Firewhiskey’s not going to cut it anymore, it doesn’t do a fucking thing to dull the raging firestorm in my head when I shift.”

My eyebrows, raised nearly up to my hairline when he mentioned Firewhiskey, now drew together in confusion. What the hell?
He mistook my internal monologue for silence and continued.

“Out of all the depraved, desperate idiots in the world who would want to be like me, and yet I’m the only one complaining.” He huffed a laugh, somewhat depraved and desperately himself. “The potions do nothing, the drugs do nothing, and when I come back I always have blood on me. I never get to know whether it’s my own or someone else’s, you know that?

He was talking to himself as much as he was to me. And somehow, even though I had no idea what in Merlin’s blazes he was on about, I felt him.

“Believe me, I know,” I murmured.

And although few they were, those words were enough for him to hear the feminine lilt in my voice. That I was a girl, and not his mate.

His reaction, I think, was much more visceral than mine. Even though I couldn’t see him, I could hear it in the sudden scrambling of his body for purchase against the wall, in harsh breaths and in his thudding heartbeat, clearly heard in the silence of the room.

I could almost imagine a vague outline of eyes blown wide with panic and shock.

“Theo?”

At my silence, he panics further.

“Who…who the fuck are you?”

I rolled my eyes. Despite talking about such deep shit, he sure was dumb.

“If I tell you my name, it negates the whole point of this exercise, you know.”

I could practically feel the weight of his heavy gaze of suspicion. Nevertheless, I continued. What harm could it do?

“If you want to, you know, you could… let it all out. …confess.” Merlin, even my voice sounded weak, fragile in my ears.

He scoffed. “To whom, you?”
“Yeah, me. Strangers to strangers.” The offer was hesitant, but… maybe I needed something like that too. “I’ll tell you something about myself as well, if you’d like.”

“Go on then.” He waits.

His foot taps impatiently, nervously, against the floor.

I inhale, slowly, flitting to all the things I’ve wanted to say to people but never have, because I’m afraid of snapping the already worn threads of our relationships.

My mouth opens hesitantly, unsure and lips trembling.

“I want to be free again. I want… I want the freedom to walk away from who I was and I want the freedom to walk away from who I’m expected to be. I want…”  I want to be a wolf again.

His silence was the least of my worries. Saying that…saying it had unleashed this longing, this want inside me that dug its roots and crawled across by body like a rictus from the ache within my belly once I properly acknowledged it. I closed my eyes, almost shivering.

I was scared.
Scared to death of this little word, so inconsequential.

“Your turn, now.”

I listened to the way his breaths shuttered, how the shape and syllables of the words were ragged and forced out, like it was taking all of his willpower to voice them aloud.
A little like me, I think.

“I...I…want to stop feeling. I want… want my fury, my anger, my sorrow, , my guilt, my despair, my grief, my pain,” at this his voice broke, and I sniffed slightly, a tear trickling from my eyes slowly, uncontrollably. What had the war done to us? “I want this turmoil inside me to just fucking stop.”

Neither of us dared to speak for those two minutes after that.

I huffed out a weary laugh, sniffing slightly. “That wasn’t so bad now, was it? Acceptable.”

The reply was immediate, ringed with sadness, and yet, and yet, snark. “Well, wouldn’t she like a fucking gold star.”

The rest of my day, weirdly enough, was not as horrifyingly lonely as the others. I didn’t feel isolated from my friends; I laughed; I talked; I felt.

And all the while I remembered the boy who didn’t want to.