Momentum
by athens7 as Jack (font: Courier New)
and mazaher as Patrick (font: Verdana)

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3. Needing, wanting, searching

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Patrick leaves, Patrick goes to Jack (Jack’s POV)

The ceiling remains unanswering.
I stand. I leave.
Walking the space dividing our lodgings, I think I can smell hyacinths, a delicate trail coming from a distance.
The waiting begins.

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I was looking for something to protect.
I wanted to be what the parents I never had could not have been for me.
Home. Shelter. Support.
I wanted someone to need me, trust me, seek me.
I wanted to belong to someone.
So, in a way, it was only natural that when I caught those bloody ruffians thrashing that blue-eyed student, my first thought was “I don’t want something like this to ever happen to him again.”
Unfortunately, many other brawls followed after that first one.
But at least, I was there with him, catching as many fists as I could. I supposed (I hoped) that it was better than nothing.

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Maybe it is an indication of how deranged I am already, that I do not wonder at all about my own impassivity in all this disaster.
But is it really impassivity? Or rather, it is the natural response my mind cannot refuse to provide, just like the tide obeys the lunar phases?
Man is defined by his choices.
This devotion... feels too right to be questioned.

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Then the unimaginable happens.
He comes to me.
And for the first time in weeks, I wake up.

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Reunion:
Tearing down the barrier,
one layer at a time