Hal’s head tilted to the side very slowly, whispers in the dark rising to an incoherent cacophony as he tried to catch their words, knowing that the anger within him was what was stirring up their attentions. He focused on them for too long – silence reigned in the outside world as he pinned Flint with an unseeing stare, listening to voices disembodied and vicious as the violence inside of him.
“And I did?” He wondered too softly, as if by keeping his words quiet it would encourage the thunderous roar of the shadows to dull itself in his mind. “This is what we have now – you have no position to be bitching about it,” Hal could no longer tolerate the howling. Reaching up, he turned the noise into action, using the shadows in order to silence them.
With uncanny force, Flint’s chair shot forward, knocking into the man’s knees and forcing him to sit down. Wordlessly, Hal crossed over and set his palms down on the desk, the noise fading now to the usual soft and meaningless background chatter. “So how about you do us both a favor and start thinking about what we’re going to do about it.”
We. That was the power word in his statement, for though he spoke forcefully – if quietly, unwilling to stir the shadows into chaos again – there was no questioning the fact he remained – for better or worse – Flint’s man. Changed, and questionably a man at all, but his to command and direct if he willed it. Yet with that came a heavy weight as well – a responsibility to do right this time, because there would surely be no third opportunity presented.
Ocean Archive 