#morefinesse

          Some scars take longer to heal than others. Physical scars, although painful in their own right, often had a set time for how long they took to become better again. A black eye? Give it a week or so. Broken bone? Months at the very least.

          A gash across the throat? Well, Mitch doesn’t have the answer to that one just yet. Neither does Ruby, not for certain, though he can safely say it no longer feels as if a HOT IRON is being shoved down his throat as time carries on. Surely that counts for something.

          Mental scars, however, proved to be an entirely different story. There was no time limit for those, no predicted date of recovery. For some, they lasted forever, never quite healing completely, potentially reopening all over again at even the slightest disturbance. Memories, dreams... Nightmares… A single, seemingly trivial word uttered by someone else that triggers an entire PLETHORA of demons. It’s complicated, and sometimes, Mitch can’t decide if it’s worse to experience that himself, or have to watch someone he cares about go through it without there being anything he can do to stop it.

          Louis... Although well on the mend from the outside, cannot yet say the same for what’s occurring on the inside. While his ribs have healed enough to allow him to sit up without an abundance of pain, his busted up face only bearing the faintest trace of harm, he still jumps every time someone approaches him too quickly, flinches at any and all loud noises whether he’s expecting them or not. Perhaps worst of all, at least for Mitch, is the heart wrenching recoiling he occasionally does when he reaches out to touch him.

          Of course, it’s nothing personal. Mitch could never hold it against him, not if he wanted to. Those psychological scars run deep, after all. Louis had been rendered to a mere shell of his former self once they’d made it off the boat, and even then, only a fraction of the battle had truly been won. Yet bit by bit, day by day, he’s improved. Small victories in the big picture, perhaps, but victories all the same.

          Today, Mitch finds him in the courtyard, seated by himself at one of the picnic tables. He’d been somewhat surprised to wake up without him by his side underneath the covers, and had wasted all of two seconds before beginning his search. Mitch makes sure he’s able to see him clearly before walking over to sit next to him, green eyes half squinting in the late morning sun peering over the school’s grand walls.

          “Hey...” he rasps, thankful to only feel a mild, mostly ignorable stinging in his throat as of late. Vocal chord paralysis - Aasim had looked it up. Odds are he’ll never have his voice back to the way it used to be. “Didn’t hear you get up. You been out here long?”

          ` — In his own defense, he really can’t help it. There’s been a plethora of issues - which were mostly all admittedly small in the long run, though incredibly irksome all the same - that’s been bothering him lately, all of which have done a fine job of building up inside his brain until they had no choice but to come FLYING back out in a dramatic display of rambling and, if he’s being truthful, downright bitching. It just so happened that it was Louis who was there when he finally blew his top, left to take the brunt of his endless ranting, Aasim not even thinking twice about how annoying he surely must be coming off as.

                      And so it comes as a mild surprise to feel himself being stopped along their trek down the beaten hunting trail, a fleeting thought passing that a walker or a rabbit has probably been spotted. Though it’s nothing compared to the utter, blinding SHOCK that follows when Louis suddenly grabs him by the face, and without saying so much as one word or giving him any time to question his actions, leans forward and kisses him. It’s enough for Aasim to drop his bow, his entire body going rigid as his mind struggles to catch up with what’s happening, unable to believe or understand where such an extreme turn of events had come from.

                     When Louis pulls away and says that - and only that before walking away as if nothing that even happened - all Aasim can do is blink in his newly achieved stupor. It takes a solid half a minute for his brain to begin functioning enough to get his limbs moving again, and he nearly forgets to pick up his bow as he surges forward on shaky knees to hastily catch up with the other. “I- wha- you- what? W-What the fuck was THAT!?”

he wasn't a c o m p l e t e stick in the mud, despite popular opinion.

                  “ hey, man, you ready to do this thing or are you bailin' on me?                    we should go soon if we don't want to be walking back in the dark. ”

god i loved this fljsdfsdfdsf. louis marries clem and starts calling lee “dad”

   RECORD SCRATCH SOUND EFFECT.