Work Text:
1
When truth is the goal, it takes violence sometimes. Shit. It takes violence most of the time. Trust me, I hate that it does, but that's just how things work for now.
Haven't saved the world yet.
2
I am outside myself.
I am without myself.
In little pieces, I fall away until I become nothingness. I am nothing. I'm
It's not working.
Tyrell's carefully shined shoe connects with my back and the way it spreads through my side in a hot sting flips my stomach. I arch away from the blow and he sends another right into the same spot.
No. Try again. I am far from here. It's not working. IT'S NOT WORKING. I'm getting my ass kicked.
It's not the fucking time for it, but my newly reliable memory digs out the time when my dad took me one of Darlene's T-ball games and I dislocated my arm when I slipped off the back of the bleachers and tried to grasp onto the side to stop myself from falling. I still fell. I can still clearly remember the pain.
I still fell.
3
"I need to know, Elliot," Tyrell says.
I believe it. He looks like shit. His eyes are rubbed red from crying and his hair's hanging in his face.
"Alright."
4
Surprisingly, Tyrell doesn't have a car, so we take the train out to the arcade.
If he's said anything to me in the last ten minutes, I haven't heard it. I'm too busy sucking at the taste of blood on my teeth from the nosebleed I mostly wiped off on the sleeve of my shirt. I can feel his eyes when he glances at me occasionally and I wonder if he feels self-conscious about the stares we're getting. I wonder if my face is bruised. I wonder if the people stealing curious glances think the man sitting next to me did this to my face. Probably.
Seeing a streak of my blood on one of his bright blue rubber gloves sticks out in my mind and the image suits him very well.
5
I tell him everything. Now he knows. Now he wants into the computer to look it all over. I enter the pass. Go ahead. Fine. Okay. Sure.
(I know some of you are still rooting for me, so please, keep it up, cause I need all the encoragement I can get.)
The popcorn machine turns on and it starts to fill the room with the smell of fake butter. I'm not hungry, but something makes me want to drift over to the machine and reach in for a handful.
6
i'm so tired i'm so tired i'm so tired
"you should sleep, elliot," tyrell says, his back to me and his eyes on the cpu and i agree fuck
fuck im so tired
so
i find the sofa at the back of the
arcade and
let myslf drft off
and
7
When I wake, Tyrell is at the door, eyes dark from lack of sleep and when I stand, he steps closer and his hands move to my face.
"It's beautiful," he's saying, "it's all so.. possible."
(He's even got the single tear going. Jesus christ. Are you seeing this too?)
I'm not surprised when he leans in and kisses me because nothing is ever going to be surprising to me again. I'm not even surprised when I kiss him back because sometimes it just feels so fucking good for someone to want this from you that you just can't help but let yourself dissolve inside of that feeling. I just want to dissolve into nothing. I want to be someplace else at least for a little while.
(That's not so unreasonable, is it?)
The spiteful part of me wonders if he can taste blood when he deepens the kiss.