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He was a delicate thing that was entwined in his arms, something fragile, something breakable. Yet Vinnie trusted him, trusted him to cradle the back of his neck with one hand, his right cheek with the other. Trusted him to keep him safe, trusted him to not hurt him, never hurt him.
But how could he, when Evan couldn’t even trust himself? Dangerous, awful, terrifying--this is how he saw himself. He couldn’t see the difference between him and it, not after it had hit them like a hurricane, catching the few people he cared about in the storm. A war between himself and it, with Jeff, Steph, Vinnie in the crossfire.
Vinnie looks at him like he knows what he’s thinking, knows how he’s feeling, and he hates it. Hates how easily he can be read. He doesn’t want anyone to worry about him, to care about him, he didn’t deserve it, he doesn’t deserve it--
Vinnie snaps him out of his thoughts with a gentle caress, cupping Evan’s face in his hands. He whispers a gentle shh, and pulls him into a gentle hug that comforts him and breaks him more at the same time. The things he had done, the blood on his hands, how could Vinnie look past it?
Yet he did, yet he does.
The people he had hurt in the past weighs heavy on his mind, the things it (he? it? he?) had done. And Vinnie still looks into his eyes and saw him, not the awful being that had controlled him, had hurt, had killed, hurt Vinnie.
He didn’t even see himself when he looked in the mirror, how does Vinnie do it? How did Vinnie trust him when he couldn’t even, didn’t even trust himself? He feels so much like at any moment, he’d hurt him somehow, become that monster that once was every fiber of his being--except for him, trapped in the back of his own mind while it ravaged everyone he loved.
Loved.
Love is a powerful emotion, one that he feels tangled into the guilt he feels when he looks at Vinnie. The one he sees in Vinnie’s eyes when he brings him in for another tender kiss.
Maybe, just maybe, love will fix him.