Disclaimer: Sadly, I own & profit from none of it…
His hair falls from a center part, framing his face and tapering back into a neat collection of heavy strands, the ends of which just brush against the rounded bone at the top of his spine. Aside from his eyes, it's his hair that physically draws me to him the most. His hair, after all, serves as my anchor time and again.
Tonight is another one of those nights. When the walls press in too close, stealing the air, turning it stale and causing foulness to creeping into my mouth and stretch over my teeth. When dark, death, and doom make their bed upon my tongue and sing songs, which float down and into my lungs, choking me with their foul violations…
Demons can be fought. They can be banished. But how do you fight your own mind? The corruption that flows through your veins, traveling the tunnels and channels that allow your existence, your sustenance, your life?
We have a routine now; these episodes are so common. When left to my own devices, when left alone without a project or entertainment. The thoughts come knocking.
When a certain song fans across space to nestle itself in the caverns of my ears or when a long-forgotten scent is caught as I inhale – just trying to breath, ever so innocently in my own right – the thoughts come pounding.
We've yet to figure out how to keep them away. But we can stop them, we can send them packing, make them release me from their grasps. I can't do it alone, it takes the 'we' of he and me.
He comes in from work. I can hear the familiar rise of flames as he Floos home. The sounds of him dusting his robes off, setting his things down on the side table in the living room, calling my name once, twice, and the worry creeps into the tone. That quickly he knows. Sounds that drift to me through a tunnel constructed by my own self destructive mind and yet I can still hear them and they let me know safety is coming, the nightmare is drawing to an end, and that it takes him less than one and one half minutes to know that I need him.
Then he's there, pulling me to him. Warmth seeps from his touches; his hands constructing bridges back to reality from whatever place it is I get sucked into during these episodes. Before long I'll be walking upon them, back to him.
He pulls me upright, my body resting against his. His hand closes over my own, guiding it up his chest, over the erratic pounding of his heart, past his shoulder, and his fingers twine with my own as he weaves my digits into the strands of his hair.
I find the strength to cling to him myself then. One bridge crossed. Every time my body shifts, my hands go with the movement and the thick silk of his tresses teases between the sensitive sides of my fingers. They're reminders of reality, of the real world, of everything waiting for me there.
He pulls my other hand to the small of his back where the fingers move of their own accord, crushing his robes into a ball amidst their grasp. Grounded. Second bridge crossed.
His voice grows louder as he speaks, though he whispers the entire time. He gentle, coaxing, encouraging, calling… the thoughts can't stand the presence of his voice. He destroys everything they stand for and represent. They hiss in their retreat, but they go. Third bridge crossed.
His arms are strong without crushing me. They cradle my body to his, tight enough to remind me that he's there, lose enough to allow me space and breath. His hands never stop moving. They card through my hair, tease along my neck, trace over my lips and travel my back. Stars, circles, strokes, random patters, words… he draws them all over me in his movements.
He can tell. He knows when they've begun to release me because his actions always end the same way. His fingers trace over my closed eyelids, so carefully that it's barely atoms brushing against atoms let alone flesh touching flesh. This always releases me and I cross the fourth bridge, stepping back home; for when I open my eyes I can see his.
Gray… with streaks of blue and dapples done in honey and ebony. There is no wonder why his eyes are my favorite physical feature of his. They shift, their design, shade, the colours, they all tilt with his mood or to match his clothing. But always, always, always, they remain my home.
He kisses me softly and pulls me more firmly against him. I blink slowly, coming to, while teasing his hair, which remains tied up in my fingers. I catch sight of us in the mirror opposite. Green and gray, black and silver, pale and paler… and I can smile.
Between my home and my anchor, I will always return, no matter which Hell I am forced to visit… I will always return.