Broken Boulder aaaaaaaaaaa

He didn't really— want to hear any of that, actually. He listened quietly, gaze averting from Delight the moment he said love; something twisted and scathing writhed in his chest at the word, at hearing it about her. Alarian swallowed hard as the transition was made to the topic of the pups, then Mato, then— fuck, fuck, why was he still talking?
Questions bubbled to the surface, biting ones; how would having pups with someone else bring anyone back to you? Why do that if the pack was already falling apart, if you already had too much responsibility? Why come here and make this hurt me too?
But the last was his own fault— just Ali being stupid again, as usual. He couldn't blame Delight for the fact that he'd agreed to it, or for his own feelings— he was admitting those now, fully, because boy did getting whacked on the head that hard really put things in perspective; at least, to himself. He could definitely never tell Delight (hey, I know I have a pretty intense rivalry going with the mother of your children and also I almost die every other Tuesday but, wanna go on a date?).

No. None of this was supposed to matter to him— but it did, and he didn't think he could handle it. When he registered that Delight had finished, he glanced up and nodded; he'd never been very good at acting, but he knew, at least, how to shut down. So he did. His gaze flitted back to the ground, and no more words came. "I love Queenie" replayed in his head, and though Delight had already acknowledged Alarian's authority in this, all he could think was— I can never compete with that.
He kind of hated himself for wanting to at all.