//TW: rape, abuse, suicide, PTSD and trauma, graphic violence, swearing\\

Alexander

The light blurred my vision as I stared down at the impossibly blank piece of paper, its numerous empty lines mocking me. Forced to listen only to the whirlwind of my thoughts accompanied by the beating of my heart, I lost the ability to think. It hurt to breathe, to listen, to watch as the world spun and spun around me, fully aware I could do absolutely nothing to stop it, to prevent it. All I could really do was sit back and watch, and let it toss me around in the perpetual hurricane my life had become without that one, solid, burst of light that had faded just as quickly as it had come.

God, I missed him. I missed his smile, his presence, his being. I missed waking up every morning to find him firmly curled around my body.

Two dots of water stained the page, and I glanced upwards at the monochromatic, dull ceiling to chase away those traitorous tears. Tonight wasn't the night for this, and my mind was so tired of allowing those thousands of thoughts to occupy the voices within my head. More than anything, I wanted to cave and allow those thoughts to consume me, as long as it meant I didn't have to spend one more moment dreading what awaits me as soon as I close my eyes, as soon as sleep catches up to me.

You already know what haunts me as soon as I close my eyes and let my mind drift off. You already know that I dream about the one person I care about more than anything laying lifeless in my arms. And I can't take comfort in waking up, as he isn't curled up besides me anymore, and so he could really be dead and I wouldn't know.

I dread falling asleep. I dread witnessing his death over and over. And every single fucking time, it gets worse. I don't know how, but it always descends, always ends with my useless sobbing. My arms might as well be chained to a stone floor, my body forever lost to an empty room, as I stand there and stare at the lifeless corpse of the person I would steal the moon and the stars for, if it meant seeing him happy within my arms.

Some of the things I've seen, the bursts of violence forever burned into my memory, chase me out of the dreams and into the waking world and taunt my every moment where I haven't thrown myself into writing. They are scenes far more gruesome than I thought my mind was ever capable of dreaming up, forcing me to wonder if I truly am as good as I had always hoped to be. They seem more like prophetic visions then they do the mindless wandering of my brain as my body rests, and that single possibility terrifies me to no end.

What do I do when I wake up, only to find that it is true? What do I do when the world around me crumbles into fine grains of sand light enough to be carried away by an unforgiving wind? What do I do when Thomas's name becomes a memory, a distant whisper in my ears as his soul fades, his life once more unreachable.

More tears dotted the page. I shook them away, forced myself to breathe. Breathing is the hardest thing in the world, sometimes. And yet it's all that we're told, the only word of comfort we get and give some times. How fucked up is that? That something so natural can be so fucking difficult?

So I try not to sleep. I try to stay awake. I try not to let myself drift off. I don't want to fall asleep only to wake up drenched in a cold sweat. There's no point.

It's an endless cycle that I simply cannot fall into anymore. A game I just do not have the strength to play.

Unfortunately, I can't always just stay awake.

Sometimes my brain just lets go of reality, desperate to find a world where everything makes sense, desperate go create a place where the inconsistencies fade away and there is nothing but me and my Thomas and the eternal starlight beaming down upon us. I hunger for this parallel universe, the one where our lives and our paths joined together, instead of crossing once in a brilliant forest filled with life, only to have them veer off, leading us down paths where the sun can never reach us and the starlight can never shine.

I do not want to be one of those people who was so close to having everything he ever wanted, so close to securing his heart, offering it to one person and one person only, only to have it shatter amongst the floor. I do not want to be one of those people who met their soulmate at the wrong time, the wrong place, and lost them because of it. I do not want to be one of those people who could never find them again.

So I do not sleep. I write. Because when I write, I do not have to embrace that crushing reality that becomes more and more truthful with every single fucking second that passed. I write and I pour myself into it, because I can control my writing and I can create my own truths, and I do not have to face those dreams.

I write, and there is no Thomas. There is no James. There is no cruel destiny laughing at me as it pulls the strings connected go my feet, guiding me down its path like a sad, little puppet. I write and there is no me, no anything.

So I write, and do my best not to succumb to sleep.

~•~

Across the room, waited the door.

It tugged at my heart. It pulled me close with its murmured jeers. It drew me towards it like a collapsing star, sucking everything into its nebula as it erupted.

And, bound to my fate as I was, there was no avoiding it. No escaping.

I walked towards the door.

I didn't want it to open.

It always did.

I always had to look inside.

I always had to see him laying on the floor.

Dead.

Blood. There was so much blood. Blood everywhere, in places blood should not be. Coating the floor, sprayed against the walls, dripping from the ceiling. Constellations of those red dots forever staining a pristine marble bathroom that is not mine but far more familiar to me than my own, anyway.

There is blood plastered to his lifeless face, trickling out from his mouth, still fixed in that sad smile he offers up as he accepts the world and all of its horribleness. There is blood pooling on the ground, seeping from the rupture in his chest right where his heart should be. Was.

The sight of the blood stays with me. The irony, bitter scent of it, even if it is not real, corrupts my senses.

The whispers were always there; disembodied voices belonging to those who never existed, swirling through the air like a blinding fog.

I could scream. I could cry. I could yell out.

Nothing ever changed.

The only person who matters to me anymore, dead.

I let out a bloodcurdling scream, just like I always did.

And I heard the three words I hated hearing more than anything else whispered into my ear by the voice I loved.

"You failed me."

~•~

I shot up, hitting my leg against the desk. My panting was frantic as I tried desperately get my breath back.

The only thing I could picture was my Thomas, dead. I hated it. I hated it so fucking much and it's all Madison's fault.

I fucking lost him and there is nothing I can do about it. Nothing at all, except dream and wait and wait and dream and visualize his death a thousand times in a thousand different ways and dread the day that the phone call comes, assuming I even get that much. The phone call where a lifeless, neutral entity tells me the being I had waited my entire fucking life to find is dead and never once looked back and offered no explanation.

Nope! He fucking leaves again and again and again, and I am left behind to pick up the pieces of the broken world that he shattered as he disappeared into the mist.

I let out a frustrated scream and buried my face into my hands. I stayed there for a couple of minutes, breathing heavily before straightening back up.

Crying does no good. Screaming does no good. But neither does wishing, laughing, hoping for him to notice the way he hurts me every time he returns to that dorm room halfway across the city. But he never does, and he leaves me behind every time, and I never know which goodbye is going to be my last.

I reached for my phone, its hazy glow illuminating the room. My hands shook as I picked it up, typed out a quick text desperate for an answer. Just a hello, just a confirmation he is alive. Just a reminder that I love him and that he loves me and just a prayer that no matter what, I will always wake up and he will be there, and one day, I won't have these dreams. These nightmares.

I will wake up and he will be free and I will be dancing in the grass alongside him, breathing in the scent of his perfume, savoring the taste of his lips against mine.

Tears streamed down my face. I wiped them away with my hand and picked up the pen I had dropped before returning to my essays.

Just keep writing, I told myself.

At this point, it's all I know how to do.

~•~

Thomas

I expect an escape.

I do not know why, yet I constantly expect an escape. Mercy. A chance to find the freedom I cannot find in the waking world. You would think after so long of being forced to hear those endless thoughts on repeat day in and day out, my brain would be tired of torturing myself, of forcing me to witness the world once again through blurry vision and white-hot pain.

And yet, I keep looking. I keep searching, desperate to find that one blotch of color in a sea of absolute blackness, that one moment in time where it seems like everything is okay. The dreams filled with starlight and laughter, with uninterrupted singing and unabashed dancing, with happiness and love. I hunger for those experiences, wishing with every part of me that if I cannot have them in reality, perhaps I can fall back on them when the rest of the world is dark.

But those are daydreams. And I must face nightmares.

They are a constant reminder that I cannot escape this. Because even when I fall asleep, the one time I used to rely on being able to let go of it all, I'm reminded of pain and hurt.

But I try to sleep.

I try to sleep because I love to dream, and when I eventually open that one door that leads to a navy sky and a beautiful face twirling me around in a wordless dance, it will have been worth it.

It will have been worth the fear, the pain, the cold. It will have been worth opening my eyes to a darkened room, tears pooling down my face, sweat glistening on my forehead. It will have been worth retreating to the city lights, searching for the stars to comfort me and remembering that they are not there. It will have been worth it all.

Even the worst of the nightmares, the ones that are so fundamentally wrong that it sickens me, for they have touched the one sacred thing in this world, the purest, most unchanging, safest thing. They have taken it and they have corrupted it and bent it to fit their needs.

The pain is not that new when it comes from James, and although it hurts, it is predictable. Manageable, I suppose.

But sometimes, it's Alexander who's hurting me.

And those are the most terrifying. The most scarring. Those are the ones that leave me sobbing as I wake up, rushing for the bathroom to wretch up bile and water and hopefully, the memory of those dreams.

Sometimes I dream of the best thing I have ever had, being turned against me. Hurting me endlessly, sneering as he does so. I dream of Alexander, but a version of Alexander that is so incomplete, so ruined.

And there is nothing I can do but tremble and know that it is my fault, that I caused his suffering, that I should be dead.

I know this sounds bad, but I'm glad he isn't there when I wake up. The first reason is he'll demand what's wrong when I wake up screaming, and I can't look him in the eyes and tell him exactly what I dreamt about. The second reason, is that for a split moment after I wake up, I become afraid of him.

In the small hours of dawn, when the world is not yet lit by the sunlight creeping over the horizon, when everything seems slightly shifted a bit and changed, I stare at the ceiling, wishing I didn't feel so empty. I pray to whatever resided above us, omniscient or not, that somehow, one day, I will find my happiness again.

That one day, I can be with Alexander and everything that that encompasses. That I can live with his laughter and his smile and never have to fear the night again.

I pray that one day, I will finally be free.

~•~

"You know how much happier I would be without you."

I pause, the words sending fractals of ice through my veins, spreading and consuming and rendering me defenseless against the barrage of his voice, of the weapons he constructs in mere seconds.

"Alexander," I whisper, but the name is wrong. For the creature standing before me is clearly not the boy I love, the boy to which I have opened up every door to my poor, insignificant soul. The being before me, his fingers sharpened into claws, digging into the tender skin of my chin and my face so I have no choice but to stare into his eyes, this being is not Alexander. It is a rough imitation, a fraud.

But that does not make it hurt any less.

"Please," I beg, despising the word in everything that it means. I cling to the sleeves of his shirt, searching for some semblance of him, but there is nothing left to remind me of the boy I once knew. He had been thoroughly, utterly poisoned by me and what my love does.

It didn't matter if I pleaded or begged; I could never stop him from hurting me.

"Worthless. Useless. Stupid. Fucking kill yourself, Thomas. I'd be much happier without you. We all would be much happier without you."

With every last word, the ground splits open. They are not roots that snake their way out of the crevices, for roots are semblances of life and determination and the struggle to survive regardless of what it takes. What emerges to pull me under the ground, to drag me under the surface so far away from light and love and the happiness I once had hugged tight to my chest is something dead. They are tendrils, bones, unliving and unloving. They grip my limbs, pull me under. They tear at nonexistent wings.

"Alexander—"

"Shut up, Thomas!"

"Please, help!" I cry out, ripping my arm away as I reach for him. Hoping he can save me, hoping he will end the torture and the agony and free me from these ungodly tethers.

"You deserve this," he spat, stepping out of my reach. He retreats as the earth attempts to swallow me whole, end my days of gazing up at the stars and wondering about all that we have left to accomplish. My days of dreaming, of hoping, of living unburdened of the past, are long over.

"Please—"

"God, you're lucky you have me, because I don't know anyone else who would ever love you."

Dirt fills my lungs. Dirt and worms and maggots, and I am buried alive under his hatred, his unwavering grip, the rotting smell of his breath against my face. I have been torn right from out of the sky, my feathers ripped clean off, and sentenced to this eternal resting place to suffocate on the dirt. I will be returned to the earth, I will become unknown once more. The sky will be closed off to me just as it was so long ago, and I will see nothing but the hazy darkness uninterrupted by those glimmering, gleaming stars.

Alexander retreats as the dead things secure me under the ground, imprisoning me in that endless tomb. The last thing I see is him walking away, deaf to my screams, blind to my panic, and then the darkness and the hysteria sets im. The dirt swarms around me, fills my lungs, becomes synonymous with my name. I do not even get to cry, the moisture absorbed the second it reaches my eyes. I am going to die here, forever alone.

~•~

The sound of sobs woke me up. And after a long minute, a shameful minute, I realized they were mine. I sat up, the blood rushing to my head, and I paused long enough to whisper platitudes to myself, the only source of comfort I'm ever going to get. Nobody is here for me now, nobody is left to save me.

Nobody is going to chase away those dreams or hug me or hold me or promise that everything's going to be okay because I'm alive, and being alive is enough.

I could feel the burning feeling in the back of my throat, the feeling of fighting back sobs. The feeling of the dirt blocking my lungs. I tried to control my breathing. I tried not to break down into tears. I tried to gather myself together and remember that it was nothing more than another dream.

I failed.

Two seconds later, I was hugging my body and sobbing into my hands, doing my best to muffle myself. Somehow, I managed to stir the bird sleeping soundly in his cage, and his soft twitters of worry filled the air. A dull aching tore through my body, its own punishment for crimes I did not remember committing. I pressed my back against the wall, curled in on myself, trying to fight against the confinement, the loneliness.

What I suffer regularly doesn't erase the pain of that dream, no matter how much I try to pretend that it does.

Fear doesn't go away simply because you want it to.

Trust me, I know.

~•~

James

I have never felt so alone before, in an empty bed. I have never felt so cold, so adrift, so lost in space with no hope of ever returning to the safety I had carved for myself. No amount of turning from side to side could chase away the seeds of doubt that slowly settled in my stomach. No amount of closing my eyes and forcing my mind to drift off could vanquish the sudden blooming desire to wrap my arms around the waist of somebody else.

But he does not deserve comfort, not now. He abandoned me so quick, relegating his promises to nothing more than shards of glass, easily broken and incredibly trivial. He deserves to suffer in his silence, in his empty, lonely room. He deserves to be separated from all that he loves. It is the perfect punishment.

At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

I turned onto my side, staring at the bright red strokes of the digital clock, their glow filling the room. No amount of staring at those numbers could convince them to change. They left my silent questions unanswered, allowing me to fantasize of the things that had crept through my mind whenever I managed to drift off. The things I couldn't take. The things I'd rather die than face again.

Whenever I dreamt, they used to be about Thomas leaving me.

Keywords: used to.

I don't know when exactly it changed, or why, or what made it happen, but recently, they've become much darker.

Recently, they've been about losing him, actually losing him.

About tragedy, about the tears glittering in his eyes, about his deep gasping for breath as his lungs struggle to maintain their synchronized breathing, about my hand and its perfectly fitting grip around his neck. My dreams have become flashes of violence and agony whispered in the darkest shadows of night, like an ode to death that has never fully reached its completion.

I kill him. Every time. Every single fucking time, I am the one who releases the wild gleam in his eyes. I am the one who turns his name into a memory, a dying song not quite remembered. I am the one who watches as his eyes dull, his head lolls, his life drains out onto the sand and the marble.

And every moment afterwards, chased into the even more unsettling reality as I process the dream, the darkness-turned-malevolence, is a moment where I wish my fingers had something to hold, somebody's face to caress, somebody's lips to touch and feel as their gentle breathing prickles my skin.

But no. I am alone, as self-imposed as it is. I am alone with those awful, unending thoughts and their horrible implications. And the worst part is the wondering: where did they come from, who is responsible for them, and will they ever come into fruition?

I don't know which question I want answered least.

I won't go into detail, mostly because it makes my insides do flips when I think about it. It makes me want to vomit. It makes me want to hide from the world, locked away in my own sort of paradise, forever protected from this chilling wind that sweeps through the dorm room as long as I am separated from Thomas.

I don't want to think about it, so I might as well just drop it.

I stared up at the ceiling, my heart pounding in my chest like a beating drum playing out a haunting melody, the kind exclusively heard at a funeral. I tried to think about other things, dogs, Star Wars, hockey, anything else besides a flickering star, overstaying its welcome for a bit too long, illuminance fading and hope running dry. But no matter what fantasy I crafted, no matter what world I spun, my mind continued to return to that singular sight of a dying Thomas and the sound of my own weeping echoing through a chamber so far removed from even a hint of civilization.

Well this fucking sucks.

I sighed, my throat burning with what felt like an oncoming scream. It threatened to tear straight through my vocal chords, to render me forever silent and forever wondering. I only barely managed to suppress it with the promises I tried to whisper to myself to ward off this pressing, unending darkness.

It didn't work.

So, I caved. I did the one thing I had promised myself I was not going to do. I did the one thing I wanted to do more than anything else in the world, only proving how weak, how pathetic I am.

I fell in love with him for the warmth he provided no matter what. And once more, I found myself in need of it. So I fell again, but this time for his trickery, his games.

I slipped out of bed and made my way to Thomas's room, opening the door slightly.

To my surprise, he was curled up into a ball on his bed, sobbing into his hands.

I paused in the doorway, knowing he was too absorbed in himself to notice me. I could always leave, pretend I had never been here. But I lingered all the same, watching him as his body silently shook, his sobs pressed down by the hand covering his mouth as he cried, without comfort, without somebody to be there for him when he needed it most of all. I winced as I watched him, pulled my strength together, and perhaps did the dumbest thing I've done in quite some time.

I offered him the same warmth he has showed me practically all our lives.

"Thomas?"

He looked up. It was too dark to see his face, but I could hear the breathing catch in his throat and I knew instantly he was afraid.

The walls pressed in on me all of a sudden, silently judging and analyzing every action I made. God, I wanted to escape their gazes, but there was nowhere to go but forward. Swallowing, I stepped into the room, allowing the door to stay open.

"You alright?"

"I-I'm sorry, d-did I w-w-wake you up-p?"

"No, no. I couldn't sleep anyway." I walked over to the bed and sat down next to him. I placed my hand on his, and he visibly flinched away, which made me frown. "What's wrong?"

"Just a nightmare." He seemed to be telling that to himself more than to me.

"About?"

"It's...it's nothing," he mumbled, ducking his head. I slid my fingers under his chin, forcing him to look at me. I drank in the sight of his tears, of his wild eyes, all illuminated by the moonlight that streamed in through the window.

"You don't have to lie to me," I said softly, offering him what I hoped counted as a smile. "It's okay, you know. I'd understand."

Thomas shook his head, sliding away from my touch as though it burned him.

I sighed, to which he flinched away.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "So, uh, if I didn't wake you up... what did ya come in here for?"

"Oh! Uh..." God, it sounded so stupid now. "I was wondering if I could sleep with you." My gaze dropped down to the blanket while I said it, then I looked back up at him.

Fucking idiot, I cursed myself, especially as he hesitated.

Thomas blinked. Then, he smiled. "Sure." He scooted over and I slipped under the blankets and curled up besides him.

I paused, waiting for him to readjust himself until he was comfortable. He slid his head against my chest and let out a breath, his body decompressing against mine.

A moment passed. "W-what's wrong?" he whispered, his voice hardly louder than the darkness.

"Uh, nothing. It's just, I...uh..." Heat rushed into my face as I struggled under his curious gaze. "Wh-what am I supp—supposed to do again?"

Thomas smiled softly, his breathless laughter carried by intangible wings that fluttered in the moonlight. It was still tainted by tears, but that didn't make it any less real. "Here," he said. Thomas gently took my hands in his and guided them to his body, so they wrapped around his waist. He pressed his head against my chest, allowing himself to be vulnerable, to be small, and sighed softly.

"If you want," he whispered after a moment. "You can play with my hair. I know how much you used to love doing that."

My mouth went dry, though for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why. I pulled him closer to me, erasing any hint of distance left between us, and pressed the softest kiss I could manage to his forehead. Thomas let out a soft sigh.

"Thank you sweetheart."

He stopped, his eyes widening.

"What?"

He grinned. A full, wide, beautiful grin. "You haven't called me that in so long."

"Oh, shut up," I said, slightly embarrassed.

It felt... nice to have him against my body again, especially after so long. I held him gently and smiled, allowing the peace to wash over me. His skin was so soft, and his body fit against mine rather perfectly. I dragged a finger through his hair lazily, listening to his breathing, listening to his soft humming. Any other day and it would have annoyed me but now? It was no different than a lullaby.

I could have stayed there forever, if the chance presented itself.

"I can't sleep," he said suddenly.

I hated myself for asking, but I had already opened my doors, and so the rest came flooding out that much easier.

"Think Alexander wants to go look at the stars?"

"Lemme text 'im."

Seconds passed, and then he said, "Yeah, he's down."

"Come on, let's go."

"Can I bring Dick?"

I paused for a second, then remembered he was talking about his bird. "I swear, you need to pick out a better name for that thing. Yeah, sure. Let's go."