Chapter Text
Her skin was surprisingly soft.
Despite the fact that Diego was suffocating, he noticed that she had a very odd, very peculiar scent about her. Just before he had lost his ability to inhale, he had gotten his attacker's scent, and it lingered faintly in his senses. It was something that he knew, but could not recall. It was soft, if you could say that about a scent, and there was some strength deep within it as well, a strength that he could almost remember longing for. It was something that made him want to go back-- go back to a long time ago, to a much simpler time.
For only a moment he completely lost himself in the scent, letting himself drown in it, feeling what memories it brought on, and it brought him to a time where his loneliness didn’t consume him and the emptiness he felt was only a small fleck on his fragile, porcelain soul. It was before he wore his pride like a weapon to conceal his own vulnerable past and before his desire for revenge engulfed his better self like a helpless animal drowning in a turbulent river of raging black rapids.
It was when fighting just to live meant that there was a reason to live and it was when that reason was a person he could depend on. It was when that person was someone whom he loved. And it was when that person loved him back.