Sleepy Fox Hollow Gain the weight of you, then lose it

wylla said nothing, only descended into tears.
mahler felt himself corrode beneath them. he curved like a helpless shadow, feeling her grief tug at his own, until he was forced to turn his eyes away lest they grow dreary with salt as well.
but he could not for long ignore the look and sight of her; against all remembered recollection of her anger and teeth turned against him many times, mahler lay near, silently willing his body closer until he drifted like charcoal around all her edges, cupping her feeble frame in the larger arc of his own.
ready to be driven off by a word or a snarl;
mahler drew her close, and lay his head down alongside her own. unwilling to let her grieve alone — some logical part of him subdued for now insistent that he not allow her to weep long, for the aforementioned lack of water. 
but that was only the unempathetic tic of a doktor's mind. 
nothing more to be said, only mahler cautious and watchful and wondering and desperate, perhaps, for the smallest connection between them not rife with hatred or anger or his own glut of unsaid and bitter things.
existence beside wylla for as long as she might allow.