We all deserve closure [TW, CW]

She stepped closer, which made him look away. He felt ashamed that he had done the things he had done. He had nothing under control, not when I came to his emotions – his anger. He took a deep breath in before she asked what had happened. He closed his eyes shaking his head a bit, before he looked at her “What happened?” he repeated but hearing how his own voice sounded so broken made him shut his eyes tight, pressing his lips together. “How long-” he didn’t know if it was future sobs that prevented him from speaking, but he had to try again, feeling how the tears started to wet his eyes. “How long have you been with someone else?” he asked and looked directly at her, but before she could answer, he added, “Because you’ve been awfully great at hiding that old man, and I…. I just don’t get it,” he said shaking his head. He had been jumping to conclusions, but who was he to blame?

She denied. Her voice was crumbling just like his. He closed his eyes hard and turned his head to rest his forehead on the boxing bag. Her voice was convincing, just as much as his mind and it pained him. We has a relationship. For a short moment, the corners of his mouth turned downwards only to be stretched from each other as he pressed his lips together.
Nothing happened. Eight years ago. She just needed… What had she been in need of? He didn’t really know if he wanted to know. Keeping his head on the boxing bag, he turned his head to look at her as she started begging. He shook her head, not wanting to believe her, but he did. He didn’t want to confess to it yet, because wasn’t it a weak trait to trust someone so easily? He gave himself a mental slap on the fingers, telling him not to think of emotions and trust as being weak.
“I believe you,” he exhaled. He lifted his wounded arm to point in the direction of the kitchen, “There’s food in the fridge if you haven’t eaten… And we need a new mirror in the bathroom,” he said as he let his arm fall down onto the side. He needed a new bath, now that he was soaked in sweat, making the tank top he had been wearing stick to his body. “I’m sorry, Honey… For everything,” he said, trying to keep eye contact. He had noticed how her shirt seemed to be tainted by blood, which somehow confirmed that she hadn’t had enough to eat, and that he had indeed pushed her to the edge just before she had left.

It felt like electricity through his whole body as Letha’s hands found their way around his neck. A pleasurable electricity. She reassured him that she’d always come home, no matter what. It made him pull on a slight smile, just for a moment. He enjoyed just standing there with her, and to him that could be more than enough to reassure him. But she spoke.
As she pulled him close, he let his arms wrap around her torso, not wanting to let go and not really minding how sweaty he was. It was also here he noticed that she smelled differently, which made him frown. This smell wasn’t any he recognized. He tried to listen to her words, not to focus on the smell of the soap she had used while she had been gone for these hours, and even though, he wondered if there was anything that would explain why she smelled differently. Had she bought a new soap without him noticing? No… He had just taken a bath earlier and there had been no new soap.
I had a really bad day. He tightened his grip around her. He didn’t want to let go of her, because he knew that, that would force him try and express his feelings – he didn’t want to do that when everything was just going back on track. Being there, holding her close he could feel himself tremble by the smell of the soap. He couldn’t really determine if his grip was getting tighter or looser, since his body started to shake a little. He tried to swallow the giant stone in his throat before he felt something run down his cheek. Was it sweat? Probably not.

She tried to look at him, which just made him try and burry his face in her neck. Zadkiel? He felt her cold fingers glide over his wet skin and he pinched his eyes together hard, making him sob. Even her fingers smelled wrong. With the mindset he was in right now, he wasn’t able to think about how Letha must be feeling every day, when he had been with friends and smelled of them. Sooner or later, he would realize that.
What is happening? A couple of sobs left him and he tried to tighten his grip around her. “Don’t,” was the only thing he could say. It felt like the lump continued to come back everytime he got rid of it, blocking his way to speak. He tried to collect words, but it was terribly hard. He wanted her to know what was going on, he truly did. But he didn’t know what to say, how to describe it and he was afraid of what the truth might be. Had he let his heart believe her, when she had said nothing had happened, when in fact his mind had known it from the start? Had he just been foolishly stupid to believe her just like that? It was truly breaking him, that the only person who he felt he truly could ‘open up to’ might’ve betrayed him and denied it when confronted.

Her arms fell down, and he could feel how something in him was so close to just push her away. She begged. “I just…” he stammered trying to overpower the thought of pushing her away, trying to pull her closer. This isn’t helping anything. She was right, but it could drag time so he could process it. She started to push him a little away, and he could feel how it was pushing him to what he hoped he could resist. He closed his eyes even tighter, wincing before he quickly let go of her and pushed her away from him.
It relieved some tension, but built up another. He turned away, facing his boxing bag. He dried his face from any sweat or tears, even though the tears reappeared on his cheeks, making him repeat the motion with the bloody bandaged hand.

It didn’t sound like she fell, luckily. He didn’t mean to push her – he just wanted to hold her. But it was too late now, she had pushed him away, making him push her even further away. He couldn’t go back, could he?
Completely occupied with his feelings, trying to manage them like he had been told to, this was really bad. He had no control of the wagon of feeling. The reins were lost and it was heading directly to impulsive behaviors. He believed that from the last explosive episode of feelings when his mom died, Letha would know to leave him be, just for a moment – but she didn’t.
She placed her hand on his back, and just like a mousetrap his bandaged hand flew around as he turned around himself. “Stop!” He didn’t want to hit her, but he needed distance now that he couldn’t have her close. The problem was that the back of his hand came too close to her face.
It felt like needles against his hand as it passed her face. His face went from pained, wincing and frowning to soft, worrying and apologizing. “I didn’t mean to,” he apologized and didn’t know if she wanted him near now that he had hit her. He would understand why she wouldn’t want him nearby. He had been in the same situation, plenty of times.

“No it’s not,” he yelped, frowning. He didn’t know what to do. He felt betrayed, wrong, violent, hurt – broken. “No, stop,” he begged. He didn’t want her to know better. Because it was impossible for her to know better. She didn’t know what was going on inside his head and he clearly hadn’t been clear enough earlier that he had a hard time with showing feelings, telling people how he actually felt and, as she knew, violence. Before all of this, he could just use his boxing bag to burn out surpressed feelings, but this month had just been too intense that anything he could get his hands on was a target for his feelings. It defeated him, that when he had no control that his only outlet was violence. He didn’t wish for this. He wanted to be able to express his feelings, just like everyone else.
Not this.
She turned around to get something to drink, but he didn’t reply her question. He was too shocked by his own movement that he couldn’t reply to something so different. He watched her leave the room and it felt like his heart dropped to the floor, bleeding out. Dying.
He wailed and turned to his boxing bag to punch it with his wounded hand. The hand was numb now, he didn’t feel a thing though the bag flew higher than it usually did. He walked away from the bag, just before it would swing back. He leaned up against the wall and let the tears run down his cheeks. Free to pass.

Even though he was feeling broken, it didn’t take more than five minutes before he collected himself, drying his tears and got back up. Slowly, with week footsteps he entered the kitchen where she said she would be. He found her standing in front of the fridge, staring into it. He closed his eyes shortly, swallowing the lump in his throat. “You said nothing happened,” he said, standing far enough away from her so she wasn’t near arms reach.

He shook his head lightly as she replied that yes, nothing had happened. He couldn’t believe her right now. You said you believed me? He felt the tears press onto his eyes again, his eyes getting shinier. “I did,” he sobbed. He covered his eyes, pressing his fingers on his eyebrows for a short moment before he crossed his arms looking at her. He was so sure that he had found all the right words. But he clearly hadn’t since he needed extra time – again. “But why do you smell like that?” he questioned, shrugging his shoulders in disbelief.

He saw how tears ran down her cheeks. He couldn’t believe it being fake, he couldn’t. But for some reason, he still didn’t believe. The corners of his mouth was pulled down as she said he couldn’t take back his words. We went to a hotel room. I needed a bath.
He pinched his eyes shut. It was hurting. Aching. Had she been bathing with this Killian? Just like how they did occasionally? And why had the old man said they were trying to get some rest? Had she been about to sleep with him?
“And he didn’t join you?” he asked slightly out of breath, letting his arms fall down to the side of his body. “I’m sorry, but going to a hotel room with someone you used to have a relationship with just seems a little risky to me,” he confessed not knowing what to do with his body, just standing there.

She broke down and Zadkiel could just feel how bad he felt for thinking she was guilty of something like that. She started to explain the situation, and everything seemed to fall into place. He definitely felt like the villain here. Laying with his girlfriend in his arms, begging her to stay afterwards, breaking multiple things in her apartment, questioning whether or not she was faithful, hitting her and now doubting her words. Why was she even with him? He shut her out all the time, having a messed-up family and just… Nothing was as it should be!
He felt so bad, that he felt like he shrunk. He lost eye contact, ashamed of all the things he had done. He simply couldn’t do anything right to her. No matter what he did, he ended up hurting her. “I’m sorry…” he mumbled, “I’m sorry that I didn’t believe you… I-” Slowly, he approached her, kneeling down as he got closer, so he wouldn’t seem that intimidating. “It made me uneasy… That you smelled different... I-” he let his bum fall to the ground completely. “It was stupid… I’m sorry… I just…”

She fell onto her knees and wrapped her arms around him telling him to stop apologizing. And he did. He was overwhelmed that she wanted to touch him, when he had just hit her – it had never been his intention, but he knew how he didn’t want to be touched by people who had been hitting on him. Slowly he let his arms find their way around her as they had earlier. “It’s okay,” he mumbled before he sobbed, this time just because he was glad that things seemed to be pieced back together. His sob had a completely different sound than the broken ones. She pulled back reassuring him that she would be better. He shook his head with a slight smile. She didn’t have to change a thing. Everything she had done was understandable. He just had to speak up. The smile he had trembled a bit as she said nothing he did would make her stop loving him. It made him glad, but it also scared him to know that. But he didn’t want to put that much weight into it. It was probably just a saying. As tears glided from her eyes, he let one of his hands find its way to her cheek. He placed it gently there to dry away her tears. “I know,” he mumbled, when she reassured him that she would never do that to him. “I promise you, I would never do that too,” he said swallowing a small lump. “I love you,” he said, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against hers before he slowly leaned in to give her a kiss.

She kissed him back. He had no way of expressing the joy he felt spread in all of his body. Nothing could ever compare. Nothing. She let go of the kiss, reminding him of the smell and his wound. Yes his wounds. Multiple. Hurting him quite a lot. “I need a bath too,” he replied. There was no way he was going to bed this sticky. The hand which wasn’t on her cheek, slid from her back to her outer thigh. “Let’s go,” he said, waiting for her to get up, so he could right after. He would slowly unravel his hand and approach the nearest bin so he could throw out the bloody bandage. As more and more of his and got visible he could see how it was slightly swollen and red. He hadn’t broken any bones, had he? He tried to press onto his hand multiple places to determine any fractures, but everything hurt, so maybe it was just some inflammation from the cuts. “I think it might be best to bandage this after bathing,” he said with a low voice. He turned to one of the cabinets and found a jar of painkillers, just to pop a few for the night, so he hopefully could sleep well through the night, even though he had slept away most of the day.