He remembers being... Angry.

Afraid he'd outlived his usefulness. He hadn't said so.

It was raining during that conversation too.

"I don't know how to help you." He remembers saying over a nasal sigh. Sounding aloof. All he knew is he felt like falling at the time. Like he was falling. Wanted to fall.

They'd been sinking apart for weeks and he knew he was simply helping to dig the hole. It was easier that way.

"If you hate me, maybe you should come out and say it." He'd said through a wry sneer.

Hawkin felt far away by the time they spoke last and every time Blanchard opened his fucking mouth, he can hear himself through his teeth making it worse.

Knew it was him as much as it was Hawkin. But his pride.

Could he have--? Stopped him? Was it him? Was he the reason?

Hawkin chose to do it. Wanted to end things. With him. With him. With life. With him.

Blanchard hangs on the thought. Hangs on it like he hangs his fingers over the keys when getting no work done at work. When they surface again. The memories. Anger. Fear.

God, the anger. The fury. Enough to ring his ears and--

You were part of his suffering. Because, on god, you really will just grasp and tear and bite and maul for those little feelings of power, won't you?

In kindness to yourself, you know why power is precious to us. But he wasn't able to measure it in time to stop himself from. Committing.

And if Frank V. Blanchard ever half-assed a thing in his life, well. If anyone cared to know, they'd be asking what you've done with the real Blanch.

But, as usual, it was easy for them all to forget he had a heart. Black as... Black as it is. No one cared to know.

He chased them away. Long ago. To have Hawkin to himself in the big black space of his mind. To devour him in joy and selfish gluttony. And chased him right over the edge, too.

Is our... heart so unpalatable?

Even in his cruelty he hoped it would be like on television. Hawkin would ask who hurt him and he'd tell him. About all the thorns buried in his paw. Why he roared with every step. Bared his teeth at every hand.

Hawkin. Never did ask. He was the quiet type. Blanchard waited until blackest resentment to consider telling him. And then waited more. Waited until he knew they'd passed into the 'just an excuse' part of the collapsing timeline.

Did he ever tell him about the rainbow bridge he crossed when they met? Or was that another of our created memories. The ones that you wish and mutate into existence. Perhaps he imagined that bifrost too.

That thought just now, he surmises, was another attempt to make it hurt less. Blanchard's head impends over the glow of his smoke, as his lips curl into a wicked old wince. Irascible. His eyes narrow as he hates the thorns behind his face threatening tears.

It was easy to morph pain into anger. The easiest chemistry since theirs last blended. The byproduct of which was iron and blood.

Lightning makes his eyes gleam in the dark of his patio space.

One. Two. Three.

Far away, he thinks. Coming or going, however? His expression softens, breaking the stasis of his tears and he wept easy.

Too tired to sneer into the dark.

The wild and twisted part of him wondered if he should throw himself over the rail now. His shoulders lift casually as he leaned forward over it. Taking a drag and letting the ruby light have a last chance at joy, he flicks it out into the rain.

Watches it fall down however many stories the apartment complex was. Enough to leave little of himself at the bottom were he to follow. Too far to see it land.

"Heheh." He bares his teeth in a lopsided giggle. Would mom find out? Would she sigh and say 'saw that coming'?

... Was she still alive?

He presses his fingers over his lips in practised motion, remembering his smoke just took the hoistless elevator one way but commits anyway. Makes the sound of a kiss.

"Mmh."

He blinks slow. But at the very least, he had escaped fantasy land again tonight. And probably tomorrow.

He didn't want to die. Only wished to. Spineless. Spineless.