HE CAN COUNT THE MISTAKES HE’S MADE ON ONE HAND. the true, senseless acts that deserve nothing but bitter admonition-- the few events in his life that continue to plague him despite the most passionate intent of the steely faces in the white coats employed the agency he left behind. the first was letting them take that little boy off the streets with the promise of change. the second, letting them turn him into the hollow grave he is now. anything between THEN and NOW is lost within the shrapnel that’s made a home out of his head, sliding through his nerve fiber after nerve fiber until he woke up in the hospital and knew that something was very, very wrong. a gap of his life missing, never to be recovered. but the best part-- the hook, line, and sinker-- is that he didn’t care. couldn’t. rehab had quickly become an opportunity to harness what was wrong and make it worse, the tremble of his finger on the trigger eviscerated by impulse after impulse. it wasn’t ALL gone-- the good, the bad, the ugly-- but what little that managed to survive is suppressed by sheer willpower only. no matter how bad the man, how awful, proud, and cruel he can be-- there’s always a d o w n f a l l. and with mistake number three, this is griffith carlisle’s. oh what a tricky, tricky thing neural plasticity can be. between barbed words and acerbic assertions hissed through clenched teeth, there’s no time to explain that this had been brought up by nothing but a fucking nightmare. it’s fitting, after all, that his own mind ( what’s left of it ) is his greatest enemy. vera’s angry, beyond that, and in tumultuous blue he can see himself burn, burn, burn until there’s nothing left of his facade and he’s stranded with the darkest parts of himself. trembling ( that same, damn tremble ) hands find anger-flushed cheeks, and he hopes to god that the perpetual fear of something that isn’t even there never finds its way into her heart. the shift in her expression is only a beat too late, but all rationale is already out the window as his lips crash to hers with the desperation of a man lost at sea. for the first time in years, the ringing in his ears whites out, and he wonders, naively, if his heart stops, too, but no. this is all still very, very real. she is r e a l. this isn’t a love story. there’s nothing storybook about the realization that crashes over him and the crushing guilt that settles onto his chest like iron. vera is very much real, alive, and breathing, and this is a MISTAKE. ( i don’t want to do this. ) his hands fall away from her like he’s just been burned, but the apology forms on the edge of his iron-stained tongue only a fraction too late. the resounding slap echoes through the room as if it had been played on loudspeaker, but the weight in his chest leaves him numb enough that the pain doesn’t even register. there’s no explanation for what he’s done, no excuse for the way he betrayed what little trust she put in him. his own demons are NOT her cross to bear. not now, not ever. he’ll never forget the emptiness in her eyes as he utters a bleak, ‘ i’m sorry. ’