#stone:threads

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Ever. I don’t need to know about it if it hurts you to talk about,” Riley murmured, never one to push Stone into anything that made him uncomfortable, especially when it came to anything even remotely traumatic.

It took a moment for his brain to catch up and process the exact wording of what Stone had said, though, and it had him pausing, unsure if he should ask for clarification since Stone didn’t seem to have realised what he said, but it would eat Riley alive later trying to second-guess it if he didn’t.

“Wait, you... love me?”

It wasn’t so much that it was traumatic as it was Stone just didn’t want to hurt Riley more than he already had. He already felt more than shitty enough about it without adding salt to the wound.

Still, he hadn’t realized his own word choice until Riley had asked, leaving Stone freezing on the spot, instinct screaming at him to just say it was true but how much of it was him and how much was the animal he had become left something to be debated.

“I...fuck.”

There was no way to brush it off, pretend it meant something different when even before, Stone had never been exactly casual with things like that.

He had known Riley lived in the area, but couldn’t remember exactly where. It had been years since Peri had dragged him along with her when she “needed a break” from their dad and “his bullshit”. Still, it was almost startling to cross paths with anyone he had known before he “died”.