Maybe he hadn't entirely meant that kind of hurt. He looks away at nothing, contemplative, with his hands stuffed into his pockets and his shoulders a little hunched. He has to accept it because it's beyond his powers to change, but it also doesn't feel real yet. An abstract threat right there on the horizon. Its lurking is almost the most dreadful of all, at least when it finally did touch him, the momentum of the inevitable would numb him over.

"So it doesn't really take that long at all."