i am HOWLING WITH GRIEF IN MY GRAVE



I’m with you now. As soon as she said it, Kier pressed his forehead harder against her cheek, a quiet, desperate sound forming in his throat, a denial. I can’t, I —. He knew that tone, knew when Eris was panicking, was pulling into herself, and Kier quickly drew back, eyes miserable with a fear just as panicked, just as pleading, because he expected her to push him back and rush out, or to turn to insults like she had the last time he’d torn at the delicate edges of her delusions. When she went on speaking, as close to babbling as Eris came, he felt his heart thrum with tense relief, because she wasn’t getting up, she wasn’t shutting down, she was talking — at least she was talking. And then she said it: I’m not allowed. Before he could reply, before he could do anything about the bewildered horror that bloomed in his chest beyond opening his mouth, she was leaning back into him. His eyes followed her as she did it, as she shifted, still wide and startled and silent, like a deer in the headlights, because he kept expecting every movement to be the prologue to her leaving. When she didn’t, he didn’t say a thing; he was so focused on her, as he always was, that he’d forgotten he was crying. Now instead the only thing he could think was an insane thing — is she comfortable? He worried that the stone floor would hurt her, that it was too hard and too unyielding.

But that only lasted for a few moments. After that, as she stilled, as it became clear she wasn’t leaving, the grief came back, welled back up out of the pit it was always crammed down into when looking after Eris was more important. And it was always more important. He never came first, not with her. But now, with her leaning against his shoulder with that quiet, weighted solace — the steely, repressed encouragement, the permission, that said cry, Kier. You can cry; and for Eris to allow it, to allow him to not only cry around her, against her, but to cry about their kits… it was more than he could have asked for — he could feel it. He could open the pit and feel it. It was an awkward angle — but then he realised that it was only awkward because he couldn’t be the one holding her. He had to give in. And the part of Kier that was just the broken, too-young boy who’d never had anyone to hold him — and it was a vast part of him; that part of him was what finally gave in, with a feeling like embarrassed guilt, and leaned against her. And Kier began to cry. Truly cry. He’d done it before — he’d done it during the miscarriage, but that had been a desperate, terrified thing, the tears of a confused adolescent who didn’t know what was happening. He’d cried under the blanket of stars the first time he’d broached it with Eris — but that had dissolved into placating fear and frantic smiles, bottled up so quickly to ensure she didn’t step over the edge that he inadvertently pushed it down twice as deep. He’d cried in private, once or twice — but that had been so quiet, and he had been so consumed with the idea that someone would find him that the tears had given all of the grief and none of the relief. But now, for the first time since the miscarriage, he cried — he cried for their kits, who he had buried alone, without their mother, in an empty grave; but mostly, he cried because the one thing he hadn’t truly addressed was this: the terror he’d felt when he’d thought he would lose Eris. And that was the reality of that awful night — it had never really been about the kits. It had always been about her. And he had never gotten the chance to lay it to rest — there was no grave he could put his fear into, no place he could put away the fear that had clung to him since that night. He turned his head, and he lowered it into his paws upturned upon the stone, and he leaned his temple against Eris’ shoulder, and he cried. It wasn’t the wailing, mourning sort of weeping; it wasn’t sobbing. It was the painful, choked sort, the sort that started with a drawn out, panicked, thin sound and then dissolved into a raw throat and shoulders shuddering so violently he felt sick with it; it was the sort that was interspersed with frantic, inexplicable, non-sensical oh my god’s, because every so often it hit him all over again, or he thought he would never be able to breathe again, or he remembered the way she had looked, the way she was lying against him now, the way she was alive. He cried, and for the first time since the miscarriage, he felt some of everything lift. The anger, the promise, the revenge — that would stay. But this insanity he had been gripped with since that night; lying cradled against his mate, it choked out into the stone.

As she went on, he quietened to hear it. I. . . don't want to face it, Kier, I don't think I can. He nodded, turning his tear-stained face slightly to look not at her, but at the hint of her brown fur; he needed the reassurance that she was really here, and in that state not only would he have given her anything, but he also, for the first time, in a moment of complete clarity that came of brokenness and openness and raw tears, raw emotion, understood. As she continued, he made a quiet sound, a quiet, high sort of disbelief that was half a wail, and finally shifted to pull her down to him. He wanted to say everything he was feeling — that nothing, not a thing, was her fault and never had been; that she didn’t need to be stronger or better; that none of this was because of her or what she could have done more; that her body wasn’t wrong or weak because it had been hurt by Kate; that she wasn’t and had never been a failure because bad things happened to her, or responsible because of what other people did to her; that they were both the broken things that had been left upon the earth by bad parents and survived; that he loved her, that he loved her, that he loved her — but instead he just held her to him, nodding against her bones. I miss them, the kits. It was the closest she had ever come to saying it. I just want them back, I want to believe it's possible, and I don't want that to be impossible. And that was even closer. It was all he’d wanted — because just as she had clouded herself in her delusions, he had started to think himself crazy for grieving at all. Was there anything to be sad about? he’d found himself wondering, in moments when he doubted his own right to grief. Kier nodded, frantically, emphatically, holding her closer and burying his nose into the fur of her neck. “Yes,” he told her, and his own voice sounded so foreign to him, so raw and open and real. She suddenly felt so small — small, and warm, but not weak. Not fragile. “Yes, yes — of course.”

But I don't think I can stop hurting people or ruining things. He closed his eyes, muzzle still buried in her fur. “Eris…” The grief that bloomed through his chest like cold water at that felt like it would burst his chest — because he could say such cruel, unthinkable things, but to hear the true extent of Eris’ self-violence hidden beneath all that haughtiness, to hear said outright the things she only ever hinted at with a jibe here and there, was a pain like no other. Still, Kier was the more open about his feelings, the good and the bad — and to hear Eris say what he’d thought he’d always wanted her to, to hear her be honest, was the most crushing despair he’d ever known, because all he could think was how unthinkable it was. All he could think was how desperately he wished she could see herself as he did. He couldn’t argue — she was so unspeakably stubborn — and that inability, that knowledge that anything he said wouldn’t be believed, would be dismissed, filled his ribs to shattering — because how could it be; how could it be that he held her as the most exquisite thing to ever walk the earth, and she held herself as no better than the worms she so loved? And when should a wretched thing get to grieve? He smiled, the whisper of one, and drew back just enough to look her in the eye, just enough to brush his paw over her cheek. He laughed, so softly. “I’m just as wretched as you, my love.” The smile stayed on his face; his paw brushed down her cheek again. This was all he’d wanted, for her to acknowledge the truth of it, even if for only a second. And she had. For just a few minutes more, she was here. She’d be gone again in the morning, but it wouldn’t be as painful as before. He could go on living, because they’d had this truth.

“Eris,” he breathed gently — and it filled him, that understanding that for the first time in moons, when he said her name, she — all of her — truly heard it. For just a few minutes more, she heard it. “For the seconds that you can remember, I just want you to know this: you never hurt me. You have not ruined a single, tiny thing. It was not your fault,” he made sure she was looking him in the eye, held her gaze unblinkingly, “that our kits died. You have never disappointed me. You have never been unwanted by me, not even for a second. I will always want you. You are the brightest part of my life. There is no one else for me. Ever. You’re it, Mousey, like it or not. I’ll always be that annoying trainee in love with you ten minutes after meeting you.” He gave a gentle-browed little grin; it gave way back to stream of consciousness honesty a heartbeat later. “You don’t have to do a thing to keep my love because you have it, forever. Everything you are, every wonderful thing, I knew when I asked you to be my mate. And I will never regret my decision, I will never think I made the wrong choice, I will never think you’re too much or too little, because I love it all. Every day anew. You have never needed to be forgiven, because you have never done anything wrong. It was an accident — a horrible accident — and it was nothing to do with you. Do you understand, Eris? What Kate did, it was her — it was never you. It was never the strength of your body. You healed, and you are brave, and there is never a second in any universe where I am not in awe of you. I buried them, and they are loved, and they are safe under the earth, and nothing can touch them ever again. I know where they are. I visit them, and I tell them their mother loves them. They're never alone. They're never lonely. And you can go on pretending, my love,” he drew her head closer, touching their brows together, “for the rest of our lives, and you will never have let me down. You will never be anything but the one I will choose over, and over, and over, every single day. And you can call me stupid,” he laughed, “and incompetent, and irritating, and you can roll your eyes like you do when I make a move on your beautiful body, your strong body, that body that has brought you through your whole life," his voice grew sombre again, warmer and gentle, "and I will never love you any less.” He closed his eyes and pressed closer, touching the bridges of their noses together as well as their brows. He breathed in the warmth of her air. In it, the final breath of grief, of letting go, of closing a door, drifted out. “And you would have been a wonderful mother to our kits,” he whispered.

After a long, long moment, with a final, lingering kiss to her forehead, to the forehead of this she-cat who was whole, who he loved, he drew back. A little grin spread across his face — and though there was pain in it, it was welcoming as well. It was accepting. It was grief; it was permission. It’s alright. I’ll be alright. “So,” he told her from around that grin, and though there was a tease in his tone to cope with the pain of it, there was love as well. “The other Eris can come back now if she wants to.”