I FEEL LIKE AN ASTRONAUT IN THE OCEAN
Bothering your soul? If that was the case, Quill was surprised she'd called his aura murky and not 'a pool of tar' or something equally as dark and soffocating. Then again, if honesty were worth anything in that moment, things had been better since joining Skyclan. He wasn't always on the cusp of boiling over, wasn't constantly swimming in an ocean of resentment and shame. Sure, his thoughts always caught up with him eventually, but what was that saying? Out of sight, out of mind. It was easier to keep himself from focusing on the shitty things when he had so many other things to focus on instead; training with Thistle, hunting for the clan, keeping up with his chores (including the extra ones int he nursery and elders den), and the thirty other random things that would happen in a day.
"You're a smart cat, Youngblood. Very smart, so I won't lecture you about keeping things bottled up."
A paw on his own would cause him to tense, not because he was afraid or upset with the new proximity, but simple because he wasn't sure what to do in that moment. Parenting was like putting down the foundation to a house that their child would later finish building, and within that foundation, things like affection, trust, and physical reassurance were load-baring walls- if they weren't structurally sound, the entire building could collapse in on itself. Quills foundation, was nothing short of faulty. The wooden beams were either as dry and brittle as kindling for a fire, or soaked through and rotted by something sickly and spreading.
He wished he knew how to respond like a normal cat in that moment, because Deersong didn't deserve to put up with something like him.
But he didn't know how a normal cat would respond to such a gesture, and so he did the only thing he could do, which was absolutely nothing. He didn't bristle, he didn't pull away, he simply sat there and let it happen, and he hated that the only affection he could show her in return was a mere toleration of her own.
"But I am here if you ever need to talk. No judgments, no worries. Ok?"
He swallowed past the dry feeling in his throat and nodded wordlessly, not knowing what else to say. He didn't want to talk about those things with anyone, but if there was ever a moment that he'd been tempted to, it was now. Despite every experience in his past telling him it would be a bad idea, a part of him felt like it wouldn't be the end of the world to share certain parts of himself with the molly. In her own words, she just had that 'vibe', you know?
She was what a mother was supposed to be.
The tension slipped from his shoulders as she turned back to the meal, and Quill was greatful for the easy transition back into safer conversation. He was the kind of pretending things had never happened in the first place, and it was the safest way for him to accept something so personal. The other apprentices were a far safer topic, and at the mention of Titchpaw he gave a little shrug.
"I guess." he replied, figuring that it wasn't untrue. He saw a lot of Twitchpaw these days, and he didn't hate it, so... Were they friends though? He wasn't sure about that. They didn't really know anything about each other, or go looking for one another specifically. "He's not the worst."
Not by a long shot, actually. Twitchpaw was actually kind of fun- weird as hell, but not in a bad way. In fact, the more Quill thought about it the more he realized the more favored of his memories included the twitchy tomcat; Titchpaw biting Crimsonbite, Twitchpaw smiling and yelling down to him from the top of a tree during a thunderstorm, Hell, even the look on the other cats face that one time Quill faceplanted and bit his tongue came to mind, when he'd assured the other he hadn't knocked out any teeth by flashing them a toothy, bloody grin that had Titchpaw torn somewhere between horrified, disgusted, and amused.
"Sometimes we practice in the training hollow together- alone, I mean." he offered, because talking about Twitchpaw was much easier than dwelling on the demons of his past. "He doesn't like to look bad in front of Daisyflight when he's having trouble with something. And I don't like being bossed around, so I just go when nobody else is there." he explained. No mentors, no distractions from other apprentices, just them figuring their shit out without having to deal with anyone elses criticism.
skyclan - male - 8 months - bisexual - homoromantic - single - very tall tabby tomcat with broad shoulders 
