Bearclaw Valley they served you venison and morphine

He can feel his heart beating through his skull, can hear the steady pounding in his ears, and he can hardly hear his own racing thoughts over the sound but somehow he hears Outlander's words anyway. What if I want you to? echoes through his mind, and he can't make sense of it. He's heard so many arguments before — assurances that they can't be hurt, that they're sure he'd never do it, that they can work through anything together. But no one has ever asked him to hurt them. He sucks in a sharp, cold breath and it catches in his throat. His heart seems to stop, just for a moment, and in that moment he feels suffocated under his own silence.
But then his heart is stuttering out some faltering rhythm, and he's taking in a ragged, halting breath, and his thoughts are swirling too fast to track just one. Are you — His voice breaks and dies in his throat and he suddenly feels so fragile, so exposed. He tries again, and this time it comes more quietly, voice wavering: Are you sure? He wants nothing more than to close the remaining distance between them, to rush forward and crumble into Outlander and let his pieces scatter to the winds, but something keeps him rooted to the spot. The same thing that's always holding him back, maybe — fear.