Falling Fast (v2.0) - P

[Hornetstripe]

When you have no one

you are no one

[[  Sorry this took me way too long omfg, just taking me a while to get back into Hornetstripe's mentality, she's a confusing soul. Well I've got a week left of school, so I should be much more active after that. This thread will just continue right where the last one left off, sorry if I'm a lil rusty ]]

Hornetstripe felt her ears pin back on her head as a silence rang out after her proclamation, holding her breath as she sent a silent prayer to CloudClan for him to not push her obviously blatant lie. She was silently kicking herself for being so careless, and sucking on her lip to dissipate the scent of blood didn't seem to be working as fast as she would have liked. The quiet was finally broken when she head him crack open his mouth, and in a split second her eyes shot up in worry, her brain formulating a million different excuses to combat her already dying argument. However, he said nothing, and thus the silence returned, crackling in the air and roaring in her ears like static.

It was killing her to know that she'd so quickly tried to cover up the truth in the sense that the issue was still hurting her physically and mentally, especially with his concern that shredded her heart in its claws. In the midst of her mental battle against her own decisions, she subconsciously noticed his paws shifting where he stood, and she pelt a faint pang of curiosity to know what exactly was going through his head. Despite the haze over her conscious, she still felt compelled to dig into his head and figure out his exact thought process regarding the situation, but instead she kept her eyes fixated on the trees behind him and didn't move a muscle. 
She'd been a big enough of a bother, anyway. They didn't need anymore of her own problems slipping into a issue that should regard him, and him alone. 

She couldn't bring herself to react as he squeezed in his own proclamations in between her words, although she could feel her heart beating tenfold the longer they went on in a match of back-and-forth comments. One particular sentence got her however, and she felt her throat constrict and cut her off mid-sentence, her brow furrowing as her jaw locked up and caused her bottom lip to wobble in confusion. He...was here, and willing to listen? But all of this -everything- was her doing, all of it. All the heartache and reminiscence on past memories and tears spilt, all her doing because her lack of control over her own emotions or mind or anything she did and it all screwed this up and him up and they couldn't work it out because of her-
stop, he just said it was okay. You're okay, he's here, you'll be fine.

She lowered her head, unsure of what to say for a moment, before sighing quietly and murmuring, "Thank you, Foxstrike, really. I, uh, really don't know where I'd be, if you weren't here that is. You're too good to me, honestly." She chuckled quietly, before she looked up again and for once allowed her gaze to wander back over to his, for a moment feeling herself get lost in the milky depths of his eyes, and she forgot the world around her.
"I...don't know what I'd do without you." She managed to choke out the few words, her voice breaking, and she once again looked away. Was she going too far? The statement was bold, too bold in a sense, and she could practically feel her mind collapsing in on itself. It scared her to think about such a thing; was he her lifeline - the only thing holding her together and keeping her from completely loosing her mind in self deprecation and the weariness accompanying her own existence.
She didn't ask him these things out loud of course; he didn't need to hear her stupidity. She was grateful when he dropped the subject.

His reaction to her example scared her quite a bit, caught herself as her teeth felt for her lip again. The shocked expression on his face brought on of unsaid regret to her own, and she felt her muscles contract where she stood. The silence returned faster than she would have liked, and the tension was heavy in the air. She regretted her words almost immediately as she had expected she would, and silently prepared a flurry of excuses to use for her obviously inappropriate analogy.

However, before she could excuse herself to go die in the forest somewhere, he broke the silence, and she allowed her steadily opening mouth to slam shut. He...agreed? She felt more than taken aback, and for a moment her brain refused to work as she processed his words. But she'd been so insensitive in believing he'd ever consider such a thing, yet he agreed? She had no idea how he came to that conclusion, but she didn't question his decision. "I'm...glad to hear that, honestly. It's only logical I suppose, with the maternal instinct to want to be there, but you just can't. It'd eat you up on the inside; strangling your mind in jaws as lethal a badger's, if you would, and you had no means of escape other than begging for mercy."
She felt her mind wandering on the verge of a tangent, and stopped herself before she could continue. The stammer in his voice caused her to glance over to him in question, and she wondered what in CloudClan he'd stopped himself from saying. From what she could gather, had it possibly been an agreement to her hypothetical example? Well, no, that wasn't right, or even possible for that matter. 

"I'm glad you could bring yourself to forgive him, I know that must have been hard, but I'm proud of you for taking a stand despite your own mental conflicts and doing that. It's quite admirable. No, very admirable." She smiled softly, before shaking her head and letting go a quiet sigh, her eyes flicking back and forth from the ground to his face.

And it takes no one to know one

words: 1027 - tags: Foxstrike - notes: fINALLY

made by Wolf of GS

[Foxstrike]

[[ Ack, I know this is so late, sorry! The last week of school took a lot more out of me than I thought it would, and it was harder to get back into this thread than I thought it would be. Also if I switch to present tense at any point, rip oops, it's just been happening lately. ]]

The silence that remained for a few beats after Foxstrike had very nearly accidentally confessed weighed down on him more than he should have. For a moment, he feared he had spoken too much, even though he had left things unsaid. Had it been...unfitting for him to have offered to listen? No- it couldn't have been, and he had wanted to convey that he was there if she ever needed anything. Still, he paid more attention to her reaction in the seconds that followed. His words seemed to have surprised her, but he didn't have time to determine whether it had been in a bad way or not before she spoke again.

Too good for her? After he had caused this? No, that wasn't possible. He scoffed at the thought. He couldn't think of anyway that he could have been treating Hornetstripe as well as she deserved, even if she thought it was too much. "I don't think it's possible for anyone to be too good to-" he had started, but he cut himself off when he found that she was about to speak again, realizing a moment too late that he had said too much. Foxstrike didn't have long to dwell on that, though, since what Hornetstripe said next left him reeling.

He found himself unable to hide his surprise at her words. He visibly faltered, cloudy eyes widening, mouth still open to respond, though he couldn't remember how to speak. What? His mind reeled. She didn't know what she'd do without him? Yet, time and time again, he'd fallen apart right in front of her, and she'd always been the one to fix him. What had he done? They'd shared words, and worlds, even, but she could listen to a river without his help. Him? Before her, he hadn't even known what stars were. She'd shown him the sky, and when he was around her, he felt like he might even be able to reach it.

She had been the one to keep him grounded- it couldn't be the other way around. Could it?

He tried to leave the thought behind when they moved on to a different subject. It had ended up being no less personal and awkward than the former, but even so it had been a distraction from his racing thoughts. "That's a rather...dramatic way to put it-" Foxstrike mentioned after she responded to his thoughts about his father, trying to be less serious in an attempt to get rid of any remaining tension between them. "-with the badger jaws, I mean, but no less true. I imagine it would feel something like that." He managed a small smile at that, marvelling her imagination for a moment. Maybe the metaphor was a little graphic, but Foxstrike still couldn't help but think it was impressive how quickly she had come up with it.

"It...was only the right thing to do," Foxstrike insisted, though he still nodded with another small to show his thanks. And yet, even with the conflict that had started all of this now resolved, he still couldn't help but feel like something was wrong. Hornetstripe had sighed, and maybe it was only him being paranoid, reading too much into things that truly meant nothing, but he was still worried for her. He couldn't help but feel that something else was being left unsaid.

Of course, he was the one who wasn't saying anything. He was the one who had been holding back this whole time, and for all that he revealed to Hornetstripe, Foxstrike felt like he was keeping that much more hidden from her. The way his thoughts always seemed to linger on her, on things she said, the way that when they were together the rest of the world seemed to just fade away, the way he felt around her- those were things that he was afraid to admit to her, and even to himself. He was afraid to admit that he cared for her, likely as more than a friend. It put everything at risk- she was the only one he truly felt close to and he feared that if he revealed how he felt, she might think of him differently. He was afraid that, somehow, if she knew, they wouldn't be able to be friends anymore.

He couldn't lose that. He couldn't lose her. Without her, he'd be lost.

"...thank you," he said, after the silence stretched on for too long. "For listening, I mean. It...means a lot to me...that you were willing to." CloudClan, he was a mess. "Is there...something you'd like to talk about?" he asked, more hesitantly. Was she tense, or was it just him? "I know I said it before, but I'm here if there's anything you need to say." He paused, doing his best to meet her eyes. This time, he wouldn't leave anything out. "I'll always be here for you, if you need me."

[[ Oh goodness that was...very very long. I may have gotten emotional and carried away. does that help make up for how long it took for me to reply? ahahaha- You'll notice that Foxstrike didn't leave out the 'for you' like he did the last version of this thread. It's not a confession, but it's a step in the right direction! He'll get there, someday... ]]