It was agonizing. The pain of it all was excruciating, and Evan could feel it in his blood, eating away at him, destroying him from within.
It was such a painful sight, so heart-wrenching and so tormenting that he could not look any longer. He turned away from the person he loved (and still did) once and for all, unable to bear the burden. What he saw in the pool of blood was a broken bird, a rose with all its petals shed and thrown forcefully and brutally into the fires. The pieces and fragments of what was once a flower never drifted gracefully and was never scattered into the wind – it simply burnt up into ash in the fires of pain and hatred.
He was a flower from the start – a delicate, gentle flower, of such a genteel nature and unusually refined appearances. At their first meeting, he was so polite and so graceful that it shocked Evan. He had always thought of him as the man who had a crazy laugh, the man who was crazy enough to laugh at burning corpses and murderous acts. His character had always been the psychopathic killer, the insane clown, the delirious one. It was what everybody liked about him – his sheer insanity that was ridiculous to the point of comedy. It was that aspect of him that he had enjoyed exaggerating and portraying so much that so many thought it was real – even though everybody in the group knew it was all an act. Still – watching the man that he had always pictured as a foul-mouthed and crazed fool act with such gentility and courtesy caught Evan off guard and sent him reeling in his direction, drawing them closer and closer.
But even then, he was a flower, a wonderful flower. He was insane at times, and he was as comically crazy as he portrayed himself to be at times. At the same time, he was soft, and he was beautiful. From the same mouth that had cussed numerous times, came a slew of adorable sounds and cheesy phrases that he had tried to use to no fruition. From the same mouth that had little more to say other than screams of amused horror and simple 'fuck you's came possibly the cutest and the most romantic-sounding speeches that he swore he had ever heard. From the very person that had pretended that he was a crazed clown and a killer for years and adopted it as his persona, came possibly the sweetest and kindest actions and the most generous gifts. The dichotomy that came with this flower was absolutely stunning and wonderful.
He was a flower, a wild one at that. When they finally met for the very first time, both speechless at first from the experience and the awkwardness, it was apparent that whilst he was shy and delicate, there was a wildness that reflected his background. It was in his nature and it was in his blood, an inherent part of him that he could not possibly shake off – but it was perfectly all right. He isn't perfect, nobody can be, he told himself. Countless times he had responded to his surroundings with such thoughtless instinct that it was absolutely silly – yet he had to allow the man that he loved to be wild, to act insane, to be ferociously primal and act upon his instinct at times. It's love, he told himself, I'll let him be. The wildness of the man showed up even more ferociously in bed – the passionate, heated moments that they had eventually gotten to share together were completely uncontrollable and completely mind-blowing that almost nothing could top the experience.
And everything that had been said about wild flowers – they were all right. Never pick wild flowers, they had emphasized, and it was that advice that had always been disregarded. Evan allowed him to be wild, to be instinctive, to be emotional and to be physical, but he had made a fatal error – he picked the wild flower. He had taken him as his own, and he had sought to conquer the man's favor. He had sought his love, and when offered to him, took it so eagerly and so enthusiastically he had failed to consider the consequences of his own actions. He had picked a wild flower. He wasn't able to leave the wild flower alone in its place, and he had picked it and taken him for his own. He decided that he wasn't able to admire the wild flower from a distance, and that he couldn't bear not having the wild flower in his possession. And so Evan took Jonathan into his arms, into his bed, and eventually away from the place that he had grown up in, away from the place he had called home.
And he hated himself for that.
The first months were wonderful. They settled into their new place together, spent every waking moment together – making love to each other in the morning, enjoying a delicious breakfast made with his insane love together, playing games with each other throughout the day, sneaking up on each other and planting kisses throughout the day, going out hand-in-hand for meals and coming back all giggly and happy because they had seen something funny occur whilst they were out. When night fell, they would share a steaming hot shower with each other – an event that usually led to more passionate lovemaking in the large soft bed that they shared together, before Evan embraced him tightly, both of them content and ready to drift off into a deep slumber in each other's arms.
It was a beautiful time, and many lovely moments had been shared between them. It was all so tender and all so perfect – every single time when Evan would enter his lover, pushing himself deeper and deeper into his lover's body, feeling the musculature and the insides of his wet little pucker, there would be that soft little pleading whine that was followed up with a groan of absolute satisfaction that came from his lover's slightly parted lips. Jonathan's eyes – once closed – would soon flutter open, a flame now set alight within him, and with the ferocity of a lion, push Evan down onto the bed. Jonathan would be the one to hold the reins, to drive Evan crazy with his perfect little hole. Jonathan would be the one to ride Evan and himself to their highs, and he would be the one to tighten around Evan, clasping his member as his insides pulsed, and he would be the one to make Evan empty himself into him, spilling every drop of his seed just as he spilled his own onto Evan's bare body. He would be the one to bend down onto Evan and kiss him tenderly, and all Evan had to do was to say –
"I love you."
The beauty of it all – even the three magical words that Evan had repeated constantly – shifted as time passed. The wild flower was beginning to wilt, and he could see that. He had tried his best and showered him with all the love that he could possibly summon, and he had tried to make it all last. He had feared that it would happen, that the wild flower would wilt regardless of all the care that he had tried to take of it, but the wonder and the happiness that came with having Jonathan by his side clouded his senses, bit by bit, until he could no longer remember what he was even worried about. It wasn't long before this became carelessness, and with carelessness came loss.
It soon became obvious that simply living and re-living their honeymoon period wasn't quite going to cut it. They had lives to attend to, work to do. Evan had fans to please as well as corporates to appease, and Jonathan had his own troubles to deal with. They had to work – and they began to work, taking more and more time off each other as they tried to tend to all these aspects of their lives. They were different people, after all, and they had to do some things independently. It made perfect sense, right to the very end. After all, they had their mornings and their nights together – whatever happened in between was the only thing that changed, from afternoons of couple time to responsibilities and work.
But there was more to Evan's life that just all that. As time passed, even more responsibilities caught up to him. He had his own friends to deal with, and he had a company full of colleagues waiting for him and his ideas. And so his time with Jonathan became much less – from longer evenings away from his lover to late night outings that left Jonathan alone at home until the sun began to shine again. He hated how he had to promise time and again that he would return earlier the next day, and he hated how he had to come home to Jonathan sleeping in Evan's spot on the bed, holding Evan's pillow tightly as if it were his only possession in the whole world. He hated watching the tears escape his lover's face as Jonathan held Evan's pillow closer to his face, a pained attempt to hide his pain from the world. He hated seeing Jonathan miserable. After all, he was just a delicate, wonderful wild flower.
The misery only became worse over time. Jonathan spent more and more time alone, and Evan chided himself every time he came back home to Jonathan simply curled up on the couch, attempting to while away his time.
"Go take a walk or something, or do some shopping or go watch a movie," he told him. "Doing something will make you feel better, sweetie."
"I've seen everything." Jonathan replied miserably, and turned away from his lover. Evan swore he glimpsed tears in his sad blue eyes as he turned away, and it pained him to see his lover in agony.
It wasn't that he didn't know what he was going through. He knew that Jonathan was lonely. He knew that he was displaced and that he was upset at that fact. He knew he had made a mistake in taking Jonathan away from home, and he knew that Jonathan was far from used to his new home. He knew that he was upset at his lack of social life and understanding of the new place he found himself in, and he knew that simply whiling his time away with video games and other activities wasn't quite going to cut it or solve his problems. He knew exactly what he was going through, and he knew how Jonathan felt. Yet, there was very little that he could do to solve it. He had two choices, both of which would break them. He could bring the wild flower back home and leave him be, in hopes that the wild flower would continue its life without any further interference, or he could insist that the wild flower make a new home out of where he was, in hopes that the wild flower would settle into his new life without any further struggles.
But he couldn't. And so he let the issue be, torn between leaving his lover and forcing his lover to comply. He knew where he had went wrong – he had picked the wild flower.
And one day, their home was empty. There was no wild flower, no lover, no Jonathan. He had a final call from Jonathan, begging for Evan to go see him at the train station one final time before he left. It was there at the train station that he watched the wild flower reel itself into its ultimate destruction, it was there that he watched his own lover die.
He was there on the platform, facing the tracks. Evan called out to him, pleading him to come back. Jonathan turned back, a look of finality in his wet blue eyes, and as a tear slipped out and down his cheeks, the rattling that was once distant grew louder and louder. He smiled a forlorn smile, and simply said –
"Goodbye, my love."
In an instant, as the rattling became deafening, Jonathan jumped onto the tracks just as a train passed in front of him, and what was blue became crimson red, red with the blood of Evan's lover. Instinctively, his hand shot up to his mouth, queasiness growing steadily within him and tears burning in his eyes as he realized what had happened. He had plucked the wild flower, and now it was gone.