a/u: hi guys. sorry, my ideas have been shit lately. let me know what you think of this one, please, and happy reading!
There were days when he was okay.
The cases would still be fresh on his tongue, the chases still pumping through the map work of his veins, and he'd come home and stand in the middle of the flat- long fingers dangling next to his thighs and his hair tousled. He was whole, even if he was never wholehearted. That's okay- nobody ever expected him to be that, anyway. I could watch him function. His gaze would be fully his; he was never un-tormented, but in those fleeting hours, he was almost calm.
I would imagine him creasing those seemingly meaningless hours and minutes and seconds and slipping them into the pocket of his coat.
These were the good days- the best days.
Rest, for him, would come in sudden intervals. Single digit catnaps, folded up on the couch, with the sound of keys bouncing off the walls and imbedding itself in our skin. Even in sleep, he was restless. I would watch him sigh, irritable, and then wake half way- half in one world, half in the other. Part of me wanted (needed) to know which one he would prefer to inhabit.
Then came the days where the hours washed over him in layers. It was if a thick blanket of snow fell over him. Sleep would steal him for countless hours, but I heard him scream himself awake; he wouldn't (couldn't?) eat. His steps heavy, weary, forced- words stuck to his tongue.
I couldn't help him when the words wouldn't come, and I couldn't help him when they came too fast for me to do anything with them. They would spill over my hands, lifeless once escaped from the roof of his mouth, and I'd watch them shudder for a second at my feet before I looked up.
It felt like I had known him for years.
I had never seen him cry. He was stone. Meanwhile, I was starting to wonder which one of us was the war victim.
That first night, when I found him at 5:46 a.m. in the bathroom, almost-sunrise bleeding through the windows and onto his skin, I thought he was the most beautiful person I'd ever seen- and he was the most broken, too. I peeled his trench-filled forearms away from where he had it pressed against his naked chest. Blood swirled onto the skin of my hand. His pulse pounded against my thumb- weak, defiant.
I think I loved him, right then.
"I'm sorry." He was quiet.
"It's okay."
"It's not okay."
It wasn't okay.