Broken Boulder spin for you like your favorite records used to

SOBS OVER DEL

Life was really cruel, wasn't it? He had been watching, of course, too closely to miss the shifts in Delight's expression, one after the other. He'd secretly hoped for such a reaction, and— receiving it made his heart drop. Even as his friend shut down, all Alarian could see was that moment of surprise written across his face. There had been something else, too— something he hadn't expected, but had thought he'd wanted.
He had been wrong.
At once he thought of Queenie, of the pups. In another life, another universe, one in which Delight was not newly a father and/or his baby mama didn't totally hate Alarian's guts, he might have pressed the subject further in his own indirect way. This was not that universe. The children's existence stung to begin with, but to have it waved in his face in so many cruel ways? He couldn't— he couldn't. No— Alarian could never be part of that, wouldn't ever expect to, but he could not give himself to someone so thoroughly claimed (at least for now), either.

Assuming he wasn't misreading the situation entirely. That would have been just like him— but he supposed it didn't matter, in the end. He offered Delight a smile, feeling his own nerves relax in the face of this new hurt. A cruel idea struck him, then; not intentionally cruel, but an idea born of a tendency to put self-preservation above all else. Sorry, Delight.
Ah, what'd you say — 'please tell me more of your problems' ? If you insist, His tone was obviously playful, but as he spoke the smile faded. Actually, I have got this other problem— and no amount of advice is going to fix it, but holy shit I need to tell someone. It wasn't— untrue. In fact, if he were oblivious to what was going on between them, he'd have told Delight much sooner about many related-slash-similar things; there was no one else he could tell, really.