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

I have no trust in Mother Nature. I look around, and what I see is a slaughterhouse. But for this one time I had reason to be thankful.
I willed my heart to stop, there in the cold morning, surrounded by the scent of hyacinths-- but I didn’t die.
And then, one day when Spring felt just around the corner, Jack came to look for me.

Boldly he came to me in the darkest hole I knew, where I believed myself safe within the circle of six dozen silent men and a baker's dozen wardens of doors. But he pushed through them all, and whispered in my ear, and called me out, out of the closed room smelling of old leather armchairs and fresh smoke of cigars, out in the open air where life and love are a permanent clear and present danger, and I couldn't but follow.
Even to the scaffold I'd follow him, and that's how it felt, as he pulled on my forearm and asked me to walk with him.
This, this is a death I die willingly.

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