Oneshot Collection

Shredded Hearts: Tam and Linh

How have I never written this before??? Tam and Linh's relationship has so much angst potential smh

TW: de/th, gr//f, sc/ssors (no cutting, no s/lf h/rm), tell me if I should add more!

Linh didn't cry, couldn't cry.

She saw it happen. She watched her friends react. Felt their arms encircle her, felt the scream ripping from her throat, heard the sobs and knew that her knees would sting from the impact as she collapsed onto the ground. Even though she didn't feel the pain.

As if her internal suffering had canceled out her physical reaction.

But her eyes stayed dry.

She rocked back and forth on her bed at night, whimpering against the nightmares. She blocked out the world with water in her ears. She sought comfort in her friends' arms, and found none.

She wasn't whole anymore, and everyone knew it.

Linh knew there were seven stages of grief, but she didn't see herself reaching acceptance anytime soon.

(they told her it would get better, but she was getting worse)

An imposter in her own body, the remaining shreds of her heart that had been torn into two, her silver-tipped hair an endless weight on her scalp. It reminded her of him.

Everything did.

She hadn't cried, and her eyes were as dry as a desert, as Exillium when Linh had learned how to feel cold all the time.

Maybe there was something wrong with her.

Maybe what her parents, what the Neverseen had done had finally broken her.

Or maybe she'd been broken all along.

...

Linh's hands shook as she laid them on the closet handles.

His closet.

His. His, not hers.

It was his, it should still be his, she had no right to look through his belongings like they were hers, to set her fingers all over his clothes-

A strangled whimper escaped Linh's throat, and she reminded herself to take deep breaths.

Deep, calming, shuddering gulps of air.

She swung open the doors, blinking in surprise as scraps of paper showered down over her. Once they settled, she glimpsed the inside of the small room, uncharacteristically messy.

(this wasn't right, couldn't be right, this wasn't him, she knew him and this wasn't him-)

Tam had always folded and hung up his clothes neatly, organized his notes, arranged his possessions with care.

But there were heaps of notes scattered over the floor, wrinkled clothes shoved on hangers or just crumpled on the ground, notebooks with torn pages and absent doodles and spilled ink and errant figurines scattered on the floor.

(this wasn't right, but the notes had Tam's handwriting and the clothes were his and maybe this was the real him, the one he locked away even from her)

Linh felt the impact, but she didn't register the pain in her knees as she collapsed on the floor.

Her mouth formed words, but she wasn't sure what she wanted to say.