@exmcrtis / cole location: her place
He feels exhaustion in his bones, the heavy weight of brittle vulnerability in the shadow of their inevitability to act quicker in humanity’s defense against the cicadas is all but overwhelming, but now his shifting priorities bite at the skin of his ankles. Noah has never been able to swallow the guilt without feeling it mar up the flesh of his throat, a thick toxin that climbs up his spine when his priority becomes more than family. It’s the life he’s chosen - the life he believes he was built for, and no matter how many times the lives of others have become a greater priority in the moment, than that of his siblings, it’s like peeling skin from his bones and he does it without question. Administers the antidote to the toxin, patches up wounds and lacerations, checks the vitals of each incoming patient, signs the time of death along the dotted line before the foyer empties and leaves him hollow. Unlike so many others, he’s always found it difficult to detach, to remove himself from the realms of compassion. Medically speaking, he can cut into sinew like it’s nothing at all, however, finding it in himself to forget the person it belongs to, simply to move on has never been his forte.
Even perched at his little sister’s doorstep, it takes a moment for him to breathe out the clinical ache in his chest before he lets himself in and settles into the skin which carries the weight of adoration and concern for her wellbeing - for all of them. “Cole?” It feels jagged, fear that perhaps she won’t call out, that she might not be here that captures the air in his lungs and scratches the inside of his throat all over again. Sight didn’t shatter it the way he’d hoped it would, laying eyes upon her would always send his heart racing, uncertain of what lay beneath the surface; the truth never quite notable enough to the naked eye. “Hey,” it’s offhanded as fingertips gently grab at her chin, turning her head slightly back and forth as if to inspect her features, “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner.” Did she understand? “Are you okay?” He hadn’t heard anything of her during the chaos that followed the swarm and could have determined that she was okay, but hearing it from her own mouth was necessary for his own sanity. “Can I do anything?”
