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“You know I’ll always be here to protect you no matter what,” Christian sighs, an almost smug and relaxed smirk on his lips.
His arm hung loosely around Micah, speaking without even really looking at him, “Because I care about you, so much. I love you.” He hums.
It sounds almost casual, like the type of thing you’d hear from him on a daily basis.
And in reality, Micah does. Christian was never short of reminders of how much he loved and cared for him, the words he spent sleepless nights dreaming of hearing. The times he’s sobbed to any one who would listen, whether it be God or the universe to just let him have… someone.
Someone to ground him, to love him. That would hold him simply to hold him.
Christian is all that and more.
Micah grunts in surprise as he’s pulled in, feeling Christian’s warmth against him, an arm around him, simply… protecting him.
From the world, from himself. But there’s one little thing Christian never could protect him from.
Reality.
“Chris-“ Micah chokes, grasping for him, his hand wrapping around his finger and squeezing until his knuckles go white.
“Micah?” Christian frowns, looking down, but it’s too late.
A sob wrecks his body, he can’t even look Christian in the eye, the sounds caught in his throat, his voice captured.
I love you too, so much…
He thinks and it only makes him sob harder.
Why him? Why did it have to be him ?
Why couldn’t Micah just stay satisfied with what was given to him?
Isn’t this what he wanted, someone to love him?
And Christian did love him… or at least a part of him did.
But the truth was, no matter how hard he tried, Christian could never love Micah. A wail passes through Micah’s lips and he buries himself against Christian who scrambles to reassure him, holding him, rubbing his back, it just made it worse.
Why can’t Christian love Micah, it can be asked.
But there’s an easy answer. You can’t love others if you can’t even love yourself.
You may think you can, you may believe in your whole heart and mind and soul and body that your love is a never ending river.
But the problem is that water is tainted. Tainted with the things Christian wouldn’t speak of, tainted of the things the man wouldn’t confront.
And those parts hurt Micah.
Not physically, of course, the knives could do that for him. But in a much deeper way.
His pain flows through Micah, it’s the old saying you can’t pour from an empty bucket. But that simply wasn’t true, no one’s bucket could ever be empty.
It had to be filled with something, and Christian’s is filled with guilt and hurt and trauma and a lot of other unfathomable pains.
Pouring into Micah.
The affection was… more than nice. It was heavenly to feel someone who cared, wrap his arms around him, make the world fade away, if only for a moment.
But every moment he stays with Christian hurts him more and more.
He was so… angry. At Christian, for the job he works and the sacrifices he’s made, the choices he’ll continue to make. At himself for hating Christian, the only man who ever cared, and yet every day a part of him grows more and more tired.
It was always another thing. Micah couldn’t help Christian and deep down, Christian couldn’t help Micah.
They both know it. So why, why are they still seen together, every day?
Christian really was like a drug. He takes away so much pain, blinding him from reality, but slowly his insides turn black and die.
Christian had done so much for him, so so much. How could Micah possibly hate him? It wasn’t fair.
Wasn’t fair to him, wasn’t fair to Christian.
But he just wanted it all to end. He wanted Christian to for once open his eyes and realize what everyone wanted, what Micah wanted, was for him to stop. To just love himself.
Then he could love everyone else.
Then the hellish nightmare Micah lived could stop.
But that wouldn’t happen, not in this universe.
So instead, Micah cries, clinging to Christian. The source of almost all his issues and the source of all his comfort.