Naseer can count on one paw the amount of times he's seen Corrigan break. Once when they were both very young, Naseer had suffered a panic attack, caught in an anxious spiral of memories from his childhood years with the human family that took him from his pack. Corrigan had been beside himself, struggling to understand how to help the Beta of his newly formed pack. The discovery of what Miles had been doing to Benji behind everyone's backs had also shaken the Alpha to his core, leaving him inconsolable for days after banishing the traitor. He'd only just started recovering from that before they lost Kurt.
It's never been as bad as this. The agony of losing their mate has crushed all of them, leaving the pack fractured and hollow, barely held together. And Corrigan's pain is worst of all. Naseer can feel as much as see what losing Kurt has done to him, the howling cavernous void they'd left behind and how hard it's been for the Alpha to exist within it. The center of his universe is gone. There's nothing Naseer or anyone can do to ease that pain.
Except be there for each other, as he is now. "I don't know either," he says shakily, tentatively running a hand up and down Corrigan's back. His ribs are more pronounced now, the notches of his spine against the Beta's palm making him sick with worry. "But we have to keep going, somehow. We have to, Cor. For them. When they come back to us," when, Naseer always says when, even though every day it feels more and more like an if, "they'll need us to be strong for them."
Easier said than done. Naseer can feel himself cracking under the pressure of being strong for everyone, terrified beyond words that what he's doing will be for naught, that it's hurting more than helping. But this is what a leader does. "We don't have a choice, my love. Kurt needs us, and we need each other."
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FREEDOM!!!
Date: 2023-12-30 07:00 pm (UTC)It's never been as bad as this. The agony of losing their mate has crushed all of them, leaving the pack fractured and hollow, barely held together. And Corrigan's pain is worst of all. Naseer can feel as much as see what losing Kurt has done to him, the howling cavernous void they'd left behind and how hard it's been for the Alpha to exist within it. The center of his universe is gone. There's nothing Naseer or anyone can do to ease that pain.
Except be there for each other, as he is now. "I don't know either," he says shakily, tentatively running a hand up and down Corrigan's back. His ribs are more pronounced now, the notches of his spine against the Beta's palm making him sick with worry. "But we have to keep going, somehow. We have to, Cor. For them. When they come back to us," when, Naseer always says when, even though every day it feels more and more like an if, "they'll need us to be strong for them."
Easier said than done. Naseer can feel himself cracking under the pressure of being strong for everyone, terrified beyond words that what he's doing will be for naught, that it's hurting more than helping. But this is what a leader does. "We don't have a choice, my love. Kurt needs us, and we need each other."