Cold Blooded

hey. some cycles where the torchbearer does everything he can to hide them from the pattern. he takes clancy from the car and travels for days into the continent to an old abandoned city. it’s colder but it’s safer. they spend their days alone and together, watching the local wildlife, hunting, making food. when it’s so cold it snows they go out and make snow angels, clancy the strange angel immortalized in the ground. they sleep in one bed, it’s warmer with body heat is their excuse but there’s no one to explain themselves to. they think they’re happy. in solitude. clancy has horrible nightmares, migraines, sudden blurring of vision, but he has the torchbearer so it isn’t that bad. they both know it’s from resisting the cycle but it isn’t too bad to endure. some days when it gets worse clancy’s body and mind don’t belong to him for minutes at a time, the bishops trying to get him to come home. when it passes they sit outside under the stars, two bodies, one mind, under the stars. clancy stays out longer and the torchbearer walks over to him, come to bed, night owl. he’s looking in the constellations for a divine sign that maybe he can have a different ending. they try to stay out here forever, to carve their own cycle, their own separate life, but keons always finds his child, and the torchbearer weeps bitterly. over and over and over again. just figured you were keeping track this time.

would u still love me if i were stuck in a cycle i've never been able to break