Now I can crawl into bed, and mourn. Now I can stop holding it all together and weep until there is nothing left. It's over, he's gone and not coming back, and the world will keep turning without him even though it can't! ... or it shouldn't, or...

I need to go to bed. It's late. Or early. I don't know, and I don't care. I was drunk earlier, then I hit that horrible place where you sober up and can't get drunk to save your life no matter how hard you try...

and Lucien's gone.

I moan low and stumble through my back gate. Just have to get upstairs and collapse and---

"Who's there?" My head struggles to clear itself of grief as I turn towards the darker corners of my backyard, my hand slipping to my waistband for a knife. I heard something, I know I did.

"Tonight is not the night to fuck with me, show yourself." I growl to the darkness.