Duck Lake are you worth your weight in gold, cause you're behind my eyelids when i'm all alone

He suspected it was unintentional, but he felt deeply the subtle cruelty in Mahler's actions. His pulse increased first with apprehension, expression growing confused and faintly hurt. The only reason he could fathom for the shift in demeanor was that the man was displeased with his reticence; that could not be helped. It wasn't this, ultimately, that tormented him.
The emotion rending his chest in two stemmed from what he saw as a complete and total 180. Mahler's approach had been met with further confusion, a tinge of fear to it, but the end result cut more deeply than anything he might have expected. Despite his exhaustion, his mind's determination to be little but dull and detached, the lilac-eyed man effortlessly drew feeling from him.
He was tense for the first beat as he took in the feeling of their fur mingling. Almost involuntarily, he relaxed into the touch. He sighed, then, as if relieved of some burden; in a way, it was rather opposite. Nothing could have stopped him from taking some solace in this, however. Not even the lingering confusion over Mahler's seemingly mixed messages— not even the unfairness of it all.

Alarian lowered his head to the ground, daring to shift closer by fractions. In that moment, his existence was centered on their point of contact. Few things existed outside of it; there was little room for thought. He let the silence stretch between them, but something had shifted within him, and perhaps it was obvious. The heavy fog had abated, at least temporarily; in its place sat a strange and somehow equally heavy rawness, a vulnerability he had not been eager to expose. It was a feeling he found not entirely negative— or unwanted.