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You can’t sleep.
You don’t even know why, but when you lie in your bed, you just can’t seem to fall asleep. You don’t even try to cover yourself with a comforter, merely lying on top of your neatly made bed.
As you toss and turn restlessly for the hundredth times, you hear the sound of the doorknob turning.
You don’t even try to open your eyes. You think you know who it is. You attempt to convince yourself that the reason you can’t fall asleep is not because you are waiting for him, but you fail miserably.
You feel his hesitation at the door, so you open your eyes to stare at him until he sighs and finally enters the room. The door shuts behind him with a soft sound.
He’s wearing that t-shirt you gave him for his last birthday and a loosely-fit pajama bottom. Messy inky hair and the dark circles under his blue eyes make him seem like he has been losing sleep.
Huh. Even he loses sleep? You think for a moment and pout slightly, glaring at him approaching your bed.
Oh god, this bed is small enough, you complain in a low voice, but you don’t keep him from lying down face to face with you, allowing his weight to press his side of the mattress down a little. You will not admit that you actually like the proximity of the heat emanating from his body. You want him holding your back and pulling you into a tight hug, but he doesn't.
The gap in between the curtains leaks in a chink of soft moonlight, lighting up his features. His lips are firmly pressed together, and he tilts his head to bury his nose in your pillow and breathes deeply like he wants to catch your faintest scent.
You resist the urge to roll your eyes at him. You only want to lie here with him for a little while, so you close your eyes again, listening to the way his breaths evening out.
You think he is probably asleep, but you can’t help to peek to make sure. Just when you crack open your eyes ever so covertly, you realize that he is not asleep at all; a pair of pale blue eyes stares into yours in the dim moonlight.
You are a bit surprised. Because you have never seen such blatant grief and sadness in those eyes. He has always been good at hiding those emotions from you, until now. His eyelashes tremble so slightly, and there’s something glistening in his eyes. Then, you see his tears rolling across his nose bridge from his left eye to his right eye and, at last, disappearing into your pillow.
I miss you so much, Damian, you hear him saying. His voice, so tired and broken, sounds so different from the way he had always spoken to you.
You idiot, you whisper. But he doesn’t hear it. You know he doesn’t. You despise weaknesses, and tear is a sign of weakness, but you think you will let him slip this time.
You only want to lie here with him for a little while.
You see him closing his eyes, not even raising a hand to erase those tears. So you close your eyes as well, body unconsciously shifting toward him a little.
You can’t sleep.
So you count his heartbeat in silent. One, two, three…
As you count to the hundredth time, you open your eyes again.
You quietly stare at him for some time, and you press a kiss on his forehead at the end.
Goodbye, Grayson, you say.
He does not move at all. You feel your body is getting lighter and lighter, and you blink in puzzlement, a sip of surprise comes with the fact that you can still blink. Right now, no tear is streaming down your face. Never was, and never will be.
You want to take a deep breath, feeling the air filling in your lungs for one more time, but you can't.
You wide open your eyes and look at him for the very last time. You see him stiffly curling up in your small bed, but you know for sure that he is deeply asleep.
And then, you slowly, gently melt away in the moonlight shining on him.