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Seven's eyes are gold. There's no softness to them, no warmth. The firebright of his hair used to make your chest flare with heat anytime you saw it and it still does but now its painful. You are walking on eggshells today just like you were yesterday and it hasn't gotten any easier. Your eyes are heavy, stinging with each slow blink. Your fingers are numb as you scroll through past chats, shrinking back under a thin blanket on the couch and holding back shivers.
At least you and Seven are matching, you think, swallowing down the painful lump in your throat, shoving 606&707 and was it real is it real now all the way deep down into the part of mind you never examine. There are dark rings under both of your eyes because neither of you have slept. The sound of rapid typing buzzes inside your skull.
"Seven," you try, speaking as clear as you possibly can. You close your eyes before you can get hurt. "Seven."
You think you hear a shuffle but when you open your eyes again nothing has changed. He's still here, sure. Stuck to the screen, lights bouncing off the shadows of his face. He needs to eat more, you think. You should make him something. But you don't get up. You're stuck too. Nothing like the threat of impending death to put you back in your place, huh. Couldn't even get a fun death or an easy one. Of course not.
What you're getting is violent and painful, a death that will hurt all of your friends, without even the courtesy of suffering alone. You swallow and it still hurts because your throat is tender from where cold hands wrapped around it, squeezing. Grimly, you wonder if that man had killed you, would Seven be safe now? You'd said your last words already by then. It would have been a better death than this, sitting here on a hard sofa feeling like you're already inside your grave.
The phone screen is too bright but you keep looking at it because you have nothing better to do, tapping into your messages where you've drafted up a series of scheduled texts. They won't send if you're alive to cancel them and at least they're something because don't they deserve at least this much, these people who have built homes inside your empty heart?
Seven's message is longer than the rest. You have so much to say to him and it's all been bottled up in the glass container inside your chest, pressurized and waiting to shatter. You spill out as much you can here so you don't explode, unwilling to add more shrapnel to the wreckage you're already living in. The last message is unscheduled because you've been typing and retyping it for close to ten minutes now.
Have you eaten?
"Seven," you want to say, with a smile that's real. "I'm hungry and you've been working for a while. Let's eat together."
Maybe you would have, if you weren't a coward. Maybe you would have added a laugh, a joke, a sly "I'll feed you" wondering if you'd get the soft rasp of his laughter filling you up with bubbly warmth as a response. But you know you won't now and so you don't say anything. Still, you want to make sure he eats. So you get up as quiet as can, shivering with a cold that isn't real but is bitter and biting nonetheless.
The corner store is still open and maybe they'll have some of those chips that he likes. You turn your mind to the task of getting ready, flinching away from the idea of sharing snacks (the smile in his voice that time over the phone, it was real wasn't it? this is real isn't it?) and thinking instead of what you'll need to add to the cart for nutrition. You don't want Seven to get sick.
The heavy door opens without any reaction from him and you wonder what you were waiting for, wonder at the fact that you're still waiting. The sun is setting outside and it's so beautiful it's ugly and maybe that's because your eyes are all scrunched up because before, you could have snapped a picture for him and sent it with a grin. Whatever. You can't handle this right now. You speedwalk to the corner store without looking up again.
You're overwhelmed and your head is alternating between being made of cotton-fluff and floating off towards the sky or sloshing with rainwater, weighing you down as you tip it to one side to stare at the colorful packaging. The water is coming out of your eyes for no reason at all. When you walk you keep lurching forward, one foot in front of the other in a line so the aisles don't spin. It's a miracle you hear the phone ringing at all. Fumbling through your pockets for it clumsier than usual, you squint when you finally pull it out and then your heart stutters.
Shock flashes through you so fast you almost drop it.
You scramble to take the call, hands steady only because you're shaking all over. Your voice cracks on the line but that's fine. It's fine because Seven's voice cracks too.
"Where are you?"
You listen to him speak, dazed. Something is happening. Something has been broken open and the cold is leaving in one slow breath, white fog lifting from your body. Something is opening, only a little bit at a time but that's okay, that's more than okay because the door is real and you can reach out the rest of the way. You go to the checkout counter and the clerk avoids looking at whatever expression is on your face. The shopping bags cut into your palm, too heavy to hold in one hand and you notice, but you don't want to put the phone down yet. Your knuckles have paled.
When Seven stops speaking you know, you know this time when you talk he'll hear you.
He's listening.
"Okay," you say as clear as you can. Your eyes are wide open. "I'll come home, Seven."
And as fast as you can, you do. He's waiting at the door and his eyes are gold and you can see yourself in them, see the way his figure reflects in your own eyes, mirroring each other. He reaches out for the bags and the hands that brush yours as he takes them are warm and he's real.
You look up once before you enter the apartment and notice the sunset, almost gone.
It's gorgeous.