He sends them to sleep in a caricature of caring, loving, with a false smile on his bitten lips and almost maniacal need to be alone in his eyes, and they don't say anything because he can hide it underneath his skin and veins and store it deep down into his core, right next to his need to run, to move. It's a little crowded dark place, but no one sees it and that's important.
Maybe when Piper doesn't need him he can run, run away from reality where he's supposed to take care of people –
(but of course Piper needs him, a voice whispers, when Jason's gone)
– maybe he can just convince her that she doesn't need him, for a little time, that she has her cabin. She has her cabin but his cabin has him, wrapped in shadows and fire and chained to the ship, bunker and strangers smiling at him.
So he is sitting in the bunker under a desk with his back pressed against wood, curled up in his made up crisis room, small and cozy and dark, and his breath is coming out in shallow bursts from his burning lungs. He's shaking and quite convinced that he could die there, drown in his own melting mind and he cannot breathe –
There's a voice at the door but he can't make out who it is. There's a hummingbird heart inside his chest, fragile and fast and scared, and it's beating a Morse code for help me.
A/N: This is the only part of a longer fic I will probably never write.