#shield bearers

I should have been asleep by now. It’s too late to be awake. I’m too exhausted to keep going on like I have been. 

On this particular night, however, like the many nights before it, I found myself unable to sleep. I was wide awake, sitting in bed, staring at the wall. White spots danced across my vision, creating stars in the dark of the room.

I heard Shiro’s breathing beside me. Peaceful, calm, like there wasn’t a worry in his mind. I knew it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t help but be envious of his quiet sleep. I wished I could banish the worries from my mind, so I could lay down beside him and slip into my dreams.

Instead, I pulled my knees closer to my chest, head resting on my folded arms. I felt nervous and uneasy in the silent repetition of the nothingness in the air. The stars in my vision flickered in and out of existence. I thought I could catch them in my hands, but I didn’t have the strength to try. My broken heartbeat sapped all my energy from me. It was like my own body was somehow violating me.

I jumped, head whipping back when I felt a touch on my back. Shiro’s sleepy brown eyes met mine, his hand rubbing gently along the curve of my spine.

“You’re supposed to be asleep.” My voice broke the silence like a hammer on glass, too loud for this reserved moment. But Shiro didn’t mind.

“So are you.” Shiro’s voice was heavy with slumber, and his eyes were the same. He pushed himself into a sitting position beside me before going back to rubbing gently up and down my back. “What’s eating at you?”

Of course he knew. I couldn’t hide my emotions from my Paladin. Shiro saw through me, and I was sure he even knew what bothered me this late at night. He was too good at that, knowing me, like I was a book no one else could open, yet Shiro turned my pages and drank in every symbol scribbled down. 

“I guess I’m just lonely,” I responded, my head falling back to my arms, my gaze returning to the wall. In the dark, it was as void as space. My eyes filled it in with more stars than I bothered to count, as their existence became null. 

“Is it about...?” Shiro’s hesitance held him back from saying her name. I understood why. The Castle dare not utter the three syllables, dare not bring to light the truth of the missing Shield. 

“When isn’t it?” I muttered bitterly. I felt my eyes sting as they filled with tears, my chest tightening, my throat burning, as I desperately wanted to cry, holding back only to save myself the embarrassment. “It’s fucking always been about her, about her fucking feelings, about her dumb fucking bullshit-”

I choked on my own bitterness. Bitterness, anger, fury, all a well crafted mask to hide the hurt, the betrayal, the insistent need to apologize to a void. I felt like I was breaking apart. I was losing myself in the grief of losing her, and it was like my own sadness was crushing me. 

Shiro could tell when I was drowning, when it was too much. His arms wrapped around me, scooting closer so he could hold me, his head resting on my shoulder. There wasn’t much he could say to make it better, nothing the two of us haven’t said already. There were no more comforting truths that could cure me of my suffering. 

So our room returned to the quiet. Except it was no longer crying. It was pathetic sniffles as my nose felt crushed at the bridge. You could hear my breathing shake as I tried to control the fire in my lungs. But I just couldn’t. I’d been holding back the agony too long, controlling my mask, using it as the lid on the overflowing garbage can of emotions. Now it was out of control and the problem had to be addressed. 

I wasn’t sure where to start. I needed a road map to figure out where my emotions twisted, where the narrative turned, what I needed to stop on and what I could skip.

Suddenly, the words tumbled out of my mouth, shaking and breaking like fragile glass on the pavement. “I wanted to apologize.” I could barely hold back the sob threatening to come. “I wanted to tell her, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t t-try hard enough-I-I could have... I could have listened, or...’” It broke out of me, the most pathetic and pained sob I think I’d cried in awhile. “I couldn’t have done anything! I tried-I tried, Sh-Shiro, I did.... God, I just... Jesus. I tried... to tell her what was wrong-how I felt, you know? I fucking tried. But I lectured her. She said I lectured her! I tried-I tried to fix things and I lectured. I don’t get it! I couldn’t try any harder!” 

Shiro’s hold on me loosened, and I appreciated the space as I hit my thighs with my fists, over and over, angrily stomping my feet on the bed and shaking my head. I was filled with hysterics. I wanted to get on a hoverbike and drive. I wanted to jump in a pod and fly through the galaxies. I just wanted to go somewhere until I had a handle on my emotions. I wanted to drive or fly until I collapsed, or I found a place that I finally belonged. I wanted to find her and get on my knees, and I wanted to go in the opposite direction of where she’d ever be.

“I tried to understand!” My voice rose in frustration. “I tried to listen to her!” Tears streamed down my cheeks, and my eyes burned. “I just wanted to be what she needed! She fucking left! And I would have said sorry if she didn’t call me her- her abuser! I wanted her to know I loved her and-and I cared-but-but it wasn’t-it wasn’t enough!”

I collapsed back onto the bed, my arms pressed into my chest, my fingers digging into my palms as my fists shook. I cried out pathetic sobs, feeling as though my body was ripping itself apart from my very heart. 

Part of me expected Shiro to leave, too. I thought he would turn his back, and tell me the same things she said. I must have somehow abused him. With no intention to do so, I must have torn something out of Shiro, something he could never take back. I swam in regrets with no reason. I assumed I’d done the worst.

Instead, he laid down with me, wrapping an arm around me, resting his head on my shoulder. His weight was a heaviness I was used to, and one I found comforting. My head leaned to the side, resting against his. My sobs turned into cries, and my cries turned into sniffles, tears running new trails down my cheeks, my nose a running mess, yet dry as desert air. 

For the first time that night, the silence was comforting. I wasn’t drowning in misery. Instead, finally, I felt reassurance. Shiro wasn’t leaving. He was laying beside me, holding me while I cried. Even with the mistakes I made he stayed put. I felt a promise behind his silence, and that was enough for tonight.

When I’d settled down, my hand resting on Shiro’s arm, feeling tired from the crying, he finally started to talk.

“I know you did things wrong,” he said, his voice a gentle rumble. “I know you made mistakes. I know she did, too, though. I know neither of you are faultless.” His arm tightened around me for a moment. “I know it’s been hard losing your friend like that. But in the end, I also know it wasn’t good for you to stay. I doubt it was for her, either.”

My voice was raspy when I spoke, raw from sobbing. “I want to apologize. I want to crawl back so fucking bad, I want her to forgive me, but still...”

“Nothing would change,” he whispered. “You’d love each other still, and yet you’d never stop hurting each other. You’d always get stuck in a cycle. You say something that hurts her and she never addresses it. You get hurt and get chastised for telling her. You’re both angry and upset and scared to talk to each other...” He gave a weak smile. “And you could never stand for her...” He searched for a word, and I knew he was trying to put it lightly. “You couldn’t stand her peaceful nature.”

“That’s one way to put it,” I mumbled bitterly. 

Shiro kissed my temple. “I know it hurts, Asher. I can see you tearing yourself apart over it. But in the end this is going to be better.”

I sighed, falling back into the silence. I could feel the exhaustion drown me, as I finally started to let the pieces heal, instead of wearing the mask. Yes, there was anger, there was bitterness, but there was an ocean of sadness that needed to be calmed and reassured. 

The stars still danced in the darkness, white static coming into existence and fading away into a memory. The silence was replaced by two pairs of lungs breathing, breaths turning deeper as sleep began to claim them.

I spoke into the quiet, a whisper that, instead of breaking the silence, flowed into it, like it belonged there. “Shiro? Does it ever stop hurting?”

Shiro was silent, and for a long moment, I thought he fell asleep. But then he sighed, his breath tickling over my shoulders and face. “Maybe. Maybe not.” He sleepily pressed a sloppy kiss to my cheek. “But you have memories, and you have a whole lifetime ahead of you.”

It hurt. It was going to hurt for a long time. Some days I wouldn’t remember we ever had a Blue Shield. Other days, I would be drowned in grief and agony and anger and pain.

I wasn’t going to let that drown me, not when I had others like Kya, like Renz, like Shiro who depended on me, who did truly love me. I wouldn’t let her break me, not like this.