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Would it be different? If I wasn't him? If I was me?
But he is himself, isn't he? Deep down. Under the mask, the hair graying from stress.
Hands clutch fistfuls of fabric, a simple shirt doubling as an unbearable weight.
He is not himself. He does not speak. His mouth opens, his knuckles are turning white.
And he knows better than to try and find love. Doesn't he? Don't you, kid?
Timothy feels like he's being choked, nothing is touching his throat. He knows that Rhys knows who he is.
So maybe Rhys could tell him. Tell him what he sees, tell him why he tries so hard to stop him from drowning; Why he tries when-
When he looks like that man, that awful, awful man.
When both of their lives have been ruined because of that man.
Oh, god.
He wails like he's dying. Maybe he, as a whole, is not; His heart is.
His heart continues to beat as he slams a fist against a pillow. Once, twice- Again, again, again, again.
It doesn't help.
He's in love with Rhys. He loves that man more than he's ever loved anything else in his life.
That's why he tries to stay away.
He knows what Jack did. The effect that man has on people- Even now, Timothy feels haunted. Hunted.
With a face twisted to resemble that demon. How could he bring himself to be close to Rhys?
After everything, after how hard Rhys had to fight to have control of his own mind?
How could he think so selfishly?
Timothy has his eyes squeezed shut, he can barely hear his own breaths over his heart. His heart.
His heart. It feels like the only thing that belongs to him, now. His heart.
Odd patches of freckles glisten as tears run over them, but that's not enough to differentiate him from the monster.
And, god, he wants love. He does.
But he's too scared to reach out and take Rhys's hands, so lovingly offered.
His whole body shudders; And he shivers like it's cold. He's got the shivers, yeah, that's it.
Definitely not shaking from the product of years of anxiety, trauma- The product of being so afraid of himself he's become selectively mute.
No, no that's not it.
He curls into a tight ball. So tight his knees creak.
Both body and mind are a prison. An awful, unbearable prison.
And there he stays, unaware of about a dozen missed calls.
He stays- He stays still. He doesn't know that miles away, Rhys sits with shaking hands; A chest tight with anxiety.
Timothy's latest ruin. The cherry on top.
The two of them ache, separately, and Timothy tumbles further into the abyss of his own mind.