Those wide, distrustful eyes scan across the world so slowly it's painful, focus on me. They draw me in. Every time. Because where else could I look, with those eyes so ready to swallow me whole? There's so much depth, and I'm sure I'm going to drown, the weight of this stare dragging me down into the water so deep where blue becomes black. Blending chaos with bruises, suffocating me. I try to choke out a word, a sentence, anything to get those eyes off me, but words seem so meaningless here. So I don't say anything.
I'm so used to seeing that look. That mistrust, that fear, and panic, and lostness. But not like this. Not when it's directed at me. Turning me into the one who isn't trusted. The thing to fear. The cause of the panic. I'm a monster. The sole cause of this terror, because who else is here to take the blame? To take this spotlight off of me and put me back in the dark that's so horrible and familiar.
I like it better when he's screaming. I like it better when he's breaking down and shaking and crashing from too much of that fucking poison he's killing himself with, eyes bloodshot and swollen from too many nights without the sleep his body seems to refuse. Never sleeping, the threat of dreams spilling over and keeping him awake. It's when it's like this that I lose my edge. The silence, the fucking silence! Those beautiful grey green eyes so big and so wild, but glazed over with some kind of twisted calmness. But it's not calmness. It's calamity. Like a cornered animal, caught in the state of paralysis. Feral, frozen, scared.
I need something. A sign that he's still in there. Just a flicker of light in those eyes, knowing that he recognizes me. It's in these moments that my defenses crash down. An instant of seeing my insecurities and fears that I keep so well hidden, flash across his face. When those eyes meet mine, and there's no trust in them. I suddenly become everything he's afraid of. The reason for these sleepless nights, and it's staring me in the mirror, laughing at me. Cold and uncaring.
I don't want to be a stranger. Stop this. You know me. You need me. Don't do this to me. Don't leave me here by myself.
I am utterly destroyed, but I can't show it. I can't collapse and break down, turn my back on him the way I turned my back on the world.
Damn it! I'm supposed to be the one who takes care of you! So snap back! Don't look at me like I'm one of them!
He blinks, and my heart stops. His breath hitches slightly, shoulders jerking up in a way that's so sickly familiar. The fear and pain and uncertainty is as clear as ever inside that cloudy green, but that distrust that cut into my heart is gone. I let the breath I didn't know I was holding slide out.
A strangled noise escapes his throat, and suddenly we're smashing together, his arms locking around my neck, his small, too skinny body fitting right where it belongs. I pull him in, closer than I could imagine, but not as close as I wish I could. My fingers gently brush the softness of his hair, feel the frailness of his bones beneath his skin. Quivering against me, muffled sobs choked out against my shoulder, I let my eyes slip closed. I don't need the world right now, forcing itself upon me. I only need the sounds of our uneven breathing, matching up so imperfectly.
It's like every nerve in his body is electrified. Loosening my grip on him, I can feel his fingers tightening their grip on me. Such long, slender, pale fingers that wrap around me, digging their nails into my skin, never holding still, and never wanting to let go. I manage to pry him off me, letting my eyes scan over his body so I don't have to face the heartbroken, abandoned look he gets in his eyes every time I let go. Settling my hands on his narrow hips, I steer him towards the couch, where he sits down obediently. I'm always so scared to touch him. There's no substance to his body, and he feels like a bird, nothing but bones and feathers beneath a thin layer of translucent skin. I'm half expecting him to fly away at any moment. And I'm so automatic and harsh, I'm terrified he's going to break in my hands, laying there all broken, before slipping through my fingers and crashing to the ground. Lying in the dirt, twisted, betrayed.
I risk a glance at his face, and come so close to passing out from sheer relief. There's a hopeful look in his eyes now, and I can't say no to him. Not after coming down from nearly losing him again. Shock is still eating away at my body, but I ignore it.
His fingers are reaching up, skimming my surface. But I'm so sick of him reaching out. I wish I could convince him that he doesn't have to grope blindly through the darkness. That I would always be there beside him to cradle his quiet hands in mine.
His wrists fit so perfectly in my hands, and I push them to his sides. But he's still reaching out, those swirls of grey and green burning a hole in my eyes. But I like it like this. When that disgusting silence stops, and I can listen to the simple humming of his body so close to mine.
A freak gust of wind blows a tree branch into the window, and shatters the spell we had cast over each other. His body is suddenly a mass of tightened muscles, breathing instantly erratic. Eyes wide with terror, flashing from the outside to me, but too panicked for me to contain.
And what can I do? I let my eyes follow his and gaze out into the world, so uncaring towards it all, angered oh so slightly that I had to pry my eyes of off him to do so. All I can do is flip off the world, staring apathetically at everything and anyone that isn't him.
Turning back, he aches himself up, and our lips collide. He tastes like the coffee I wish he wasn't addicted to, but it's a taste I'm so completely addicted to myself. He's always so eager to push for some kind of escape from the things he's so terrified of, and bites down too hard just like he always does. An acrid taste fills my mouth, and his body starts shaking again, just like it always does, so scared that I care. But he should know by now that I'm never going to care, and I push back fiercely, sharing the metallic taste between our lips, blending a taste that is so us it makes me forget the rest of it, if only for a second. His body relaxes, but arches up again almost instantly, desperately trying to keep us together, as unwilling to break contact as I am.
His heart is still racing, pounding so frantically next to mine. But it's not from fear like it was before. His body is a quivering mess. Running my hands over him, the movement stops for an instant, before returning when my fingers move on to a new spot. I so wish I could cover him completely, stop the tremors that consume his body entirely. But as he kisses me, his soft lips brushing against my bruised and bleeding ones, all I can concentrate on is kissing him back.
Pressed so tightly against him is the one place where I belong. Keeping the demons that plague him at bay. Keeping everything else tucked away inside. There's no one else to stay beside him when those lovely eyes are glazed over with fear, staring at things I don't want to imagine. No other arms to hold him when he passes out after five days awake. No one else to suffocate his screams with things whispered at three a.m.
And fuck the world. Fuck them all. I don't care what anyone else does outside these walls. I only care about the emotion and pain trapped behind those eyes. Everything else is a blanket of grey. Everything else is monotone. Apathy. Meaningless.
He finally falls asleep. I hold him so possessively, daring any nightmare to try to fight past my defenses. The purple skin beneath his closed eyes looks like bruises, and my stomach cringes. I wish I could take it all away. Take it into myself. Anything. Anything to stop it from gnawing away at him like this.
His breathing is so rhythmic and perfect, chest gently rising up, then falling back down. No sign of movement. Eyes still behind closed lids, fingers softly laced between my own.
I finally close my own eyes, feeling his heart beat quietly against me. My arms stay wrapped around him, where they belong, holding him closely in the place that he fits. My tongue moves out over my lips, and as I let myself slip into the state he's already in, all I taste is blood and coffee.