Chapter Text
This person calls me by a name, a name that seems familiar. I do not know him, and yet I think I do. Feelings and emotions linger at the edges of my mind, barely formed because the memories aren’t there with them. Instead there are holes, gaps, vacant spots that are only filled with dried up dirt and burnt ashes, the soil for what used to be there.
He touches my face, brushes my hair back and guides me gently around the house. His eyes are blue, and sad and begging, the skin puffy and red though he hides the tears from me. I do not know what they cry for, I do not know why.
My body is numb but sometimes there’s a tingling sensation, above my ribs, around my neck, the echo of metal touching skin.
I can leave, leave this apartment where he keeps me, but I do not think I will. Not again. Tonight was the first and last. He had found me straight away, surrounded by these men that had spoken words of filth at me and tried to touch where only he has touched. They’d thought me weak, prey, another piece of rubbish in an alley called ‘Crime.’ He’d dropped from the sky, landed in front of me and stopped me from getting rid of them (because they were bad and bad men should die.) He had used cuffs, to tie the bad men up and then dropped to his knees in front of me. He’d been wearing odd clothes, tight and black and blue (so blue, pretty blue eyes, but in the black void of sleep they change to green and the green eyes wake me up) and he’d held me tight, pulled me against that strong, lean chest. I’d stared at the wall, heard the distant sound of cars on the main roads, the scuttle of nearby rats scurrying around the bins and all the while his warmth had tried to fill me up. But this body is cold, and dark. His bright warmth cannot reach me.
He had asked if I was okay and I had looked at him. That familiar but not-familiar face hidden behind a black mask (it was like the other side of a coin that you forget about, lose an exact memory of the particulars until you look at it again.)
I hadn’t said anything, my tongue always fat and heavy in my mouth and words scrambled funny in my head, but after a moment I’d inclined my head to the side.
It was a movement of curiousity, of not-understanding I think, but he took it as a yes. Though maybe it was a yes, I do not know, it has not been long since I have progressed to thinking in yes’s and no’s rather than exist and fight and move.
Survive.
He’d pressed a callused finger to his ear, spoken to someone in quick short words that wasn’t me (he does this often, but usually in the privacy of another room, his smile strained when he talks to someone called ‘B’) and then he’d taken me home.
I’d followed, hand in his, flowing from one roof to another with ease. We’d gone in through the window, the one I see him come in through late at night while I lay straight-legged in bed, eyes wide at the ceiling. He had put me in the shower, slid off the heavy pants and oversized shirt that went to my thighs, taking off his own clothes - his suit, as well.
He’d washed the blood from my cut and bruised knuckles quietly, not speaking at all except to murmur sounds that made me close my eyes and tip my head under the water at his behest. After, he had wiped me down and put me into soft, thick clothes with funny little patterns in blue, taken me to bed and wrapped me in his blanket and arms.
I could leave, I can leave, but he is the one who: guides me gently, feeds me, clothes me, speaks words of kindness to me.
Of love.
I left because I am wrong and something is not right but the outside is even more wrong than the quiet darkness of his room, than the sweetness of his laughter when I frown at something silly he does, than the vibrancy of his voice when he speaks of his friends. There is no him out there to hold me, no him to try to make sense of the words and thoughts in my head, there is only bad men and bad men should die.
He is not a bad man, he should not die. I will not let him die.
So I will stay here, eyes open, unseeing deep into the early hours of the night. He thinks I am sleeping, for I make sure he thinks so, but I will stay awake and keep watch.
I do not sleep; a symbol burns in the sky out the window and my body tingles, sweats cold and aches bone-deep. The arms around me squeeze tighter and I feel him shake behind me.
He sobs, buries his nose into my hair, splays his hands across the marks, the scars that decorate my body and the wounds that are still healing after all these months (how many months I do not know, but he would know the exact time.)
And I hear him cry,
"Jason."