Broken Boulder the end should be a good one

He's been so numb; the days have blended together and he's not sure anymore why he's still here. Each day he gets up, avoids the cats, gathers herbs and tends to the sick — it breaks his heart to see @Delight getting sick, but there's painfully little he can do except treat the symptoms. When there's no grief or dread, he feels void. Pointless. The situation with Zamael looms over him like a ticking time bomb, and more often than not he wishes he'd died that day.
It'd have been easier.
He's easy to find, at least; he's tucked himself in his den, trying and failing to sleep off the exhaustion that has settled over him. His brother's arrival startles him. For a beat he can only look at him — he wants to reach out, to greet him with an affectionate nose to his cheek, but something in his expression stops him. He swallows hard and waits, silent.