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"You're not very pretty, are you?"
I hear his voice slide through the fog. I must be dreaming.
"I mean, your nose is kind of squashy and your hair's thin."
Maybe this is a nightmare?
"I've never really noticed before. It's like your real face is asleep right now. There's no personality here at all."
His finger, lightly tracing the side of my face, feels distant, too - like his voice. He's just barely whispering, and his fingers are ghosting over me. I'm not asleep but I can't seem to move at all. It's like every part of me is so heavy, even my brain.
"I love to look at you. Your eyes are so pretty. I'm always afraid that you'll catch me staring at them. I almost want to touch. Are they as deep as they look? There are so many different shades of blue-gray; I want to slide inside of them, to see if they'd be cool against my skin."
Okay. Maybe I *am* asleep. Though, I can feel his breath ghost across my face as he talks to himself.
"And that little spot, right between your eyebrows. When you're thinking about something, or nothing at all, the soft skin folds and wrinkles in the most gorgeous way. I always want to smooth it out."
He's not touching me there, but I can feel the heat from his hand hovering above before he finally, with just the tip of one finger, touches my eyebrow. How much stranger can this get?
"Your eyebrows are so perfect; so perfectly you. They're bold and present, they don't follow all the rules, and yet they're perfect. The best frame for your pretty eyes."
If he knew that I heard him, would he be embarrassed? My brain is still so weighed down by sleep; I don't know if I'll remember this in the morning. His finger comes back to the center and I feel it hovering, moving down to the end of my nose.
"This stupid nose. All by itself, it looks funny. But when you're talking and laughing, it's so - so you. It's the perfect Merry nose, the perfect Dom nose. I want to kiss it. But I don't think I'd stop there."
Oh. Oh! I can feel a lump rising in my throat. My breath is still steady, though. Like I have no control over it, even the involuntary control of slight panic. His whispering touch settles under my nose, just above my mouth.
"I laughed at you, the first time you didn't shave. Do you remember that? Said that I didn't know who you were trying to fool. But really, I wanted to touch it, to see if it's as bristly as it looks. And it is.
"This divot, underneath your nose, is so deep - so pronounced, like the one on your chin. Only it always looked softer. I wonder what the bristles would taste like. Would they scratch my tongue? Or would they lie flat for me?"
The feel of his finger, slipping back and forth over my unshaven upper lip, is waking me up a little more. I want him to stop so badly. I don't want to hear this. I don't want to know.
"And your mouth - your little bow mouth. I love to see you smile; to watch you smile. Or when your lips stretch wide around a laugh. I imagine rushing in, after the sound. I want to fall in to you, through your tiny, little mouth."
My breath is starting to hitch now, just a little. I hope he doesn't notice. This could ruin everything, if he knows that I know. If we don't have to acknowledge anything, then I can pretend that I never noticed his hands shaking when I talked about getting my cock sucked. That his breath never hitched when I hugged him, incidentally rubbing our bare chests together.
He's silent for awhile, and I almost start to drift again, hoping that he's falling asleep. Then I hear it; the distinctive sniff. The watery kind you get when you're eyes are tearing and you don't want to cry. God, please don't.
"But you don't laugh for me anymore, do you? Your smiles, the ones that turn my insides out, don't look at me."
I feel him roll back, falling away from me to the other side of the mattress. And I resist the urge to make my own wet sniff.
"God, Dom. When did I turn into such a sap? And why didn't someone give me a right beating before I was this far gone?"
I feel the bed shift again, and remember how we got here. Some time last night we must have passed out, one by one, across the bed. All of us exhausted from the long trip. Good thing the rooms all came with a king, or we wouldn't fit. I wonder who is still here, who fell asleep after me.
When I'm sure that Elijah is back asleep, I'll slip out and go to one of the other's rooms. I'm sure there are keys where I'll find them, even if I have to search pockets. But he's still moving. I feel him - shit. Cuddling up to me.
"It's all of you, Dom. I miss all of you. I didn't know what changed, at first. But now I do. All of this, all of you, you save it for someone else. Your smiles, that make all the rough edges soft again. The way your eyebrows draw together, then smooth when you've figured something out. The perfect laugh, that shudders through my body until I feel it all the way inside of me. It's not mine. I thought maybe, a long time ago..."
Jesus. He sounds so - pathetic. He's just - Fuck! Maybe once, when we first met, I thought about it. But he was so different from anyone I'd ever known. He's like a cousin that I never knew I had. Someone I can tell anything to, do anything with. One of the few people that I *never* had to worry about messing things up with, because everything was simple.
"Just once. Just one."
His hand is in my hair. Not a whisper touch, like before. His fingers are carding through, stopping to touch my ears and neck.
"Your hair, too. Even your hair is always perfect to me. So fuckin' sappy. Just one little one."
And then he's kissing me. I don't even know what to do. He's there, and I almost want to kiss him back, but I can't. I'm too angry with this, at him. And as nice as his lips feel, as soft and slick as his tongue is, I will not do this.
If only my arms felt attached to my body, I would shove him away and run. If only the pain in the middle of my chest didn't make it feel like my soul has been crushed. Why did he have to go and ruin everything? It was all so perfect - my life was finally getting together. I had someone I could share everything with - everything. He's my friend, my brother. And now it will all change.
"I know. I'm sorry."
He's pulling away. He's getting up off the bed and walking away from me. Now. After he's ripped it all out. Taken the security I thought I had and fucking shredded it.
"I love you."
The small sharp click of the door might as well be a knife, separating me from my secure world.