Dents

[+] Friday 13th

I held 2D in my arms for an indefinite span of time.

He clung to me like a child at the end of his tether. His breathing was uneven and sporadic. His lungs rattled within his ribcage. I pet the top of his head in slow, methodical motions. His hair had the texture of silk and smelled sweetly of strawberries. He stretched over me, enveloping me in his touch, intertwining his legs with mine until I was rendered immobile in his grasp.

2D nudged my chest. His face was hidden from my line of sight. His breath hitched; his shoulders trembled. A nearly inaudible sob escaped from somewhere deep within him. I felt a wet patch forming on my clothes where he buried his head in to me. I tightened my hold on him. 

It was the first time in a very long stretch that he depended on me fully, without restraint or shame. I was relieved that he was finally willing to do so.

After maybe an hour or two, his quiet whimpers dwindled to steady, repetitive breaths. He had fallen asleep. I was unable to move. I didn't really want to either. I took my captivity as an opportunity to digest everything that had happened.

I was dealing with a mixed bag of emotions. It ranged widely from pride, to sorrow, to happiness, to terror. I shut my eyes. They raced so wildly behind my eyelids that I began to picture them shaving away like sandpaper. I abandoned any attempt at rest. I resolved my gaze to the window, watching the rain drizzle tacitly upon the glass.

I chewed over the events of the past day.

The fear I felt when the demon cornered me against the wall was paralyzing. It was able to dig up all of the pain I spent years burying with ease. I hated that it used my single salvation as a resource for tormenting me. I realized that I was not angry at myself, but at my own helplessness to stop it. It was an out of control situation.

Yet, in the end, I had taken control of it. I had gotten away.

I started to consider that maybe I wasn't as powerless as I had always told myself I was.

My mind drifted to Noodle and the rest of the band. I wondered about how their conversation fleshed out. I wanted to know what our next measure would be now that we were all on the same page.

Noodle had said that the discussion between the two of them was tense. I was curious how much they put together without being present for 2D's confessional a couple of hours ago. It was possible that they may have already known that we weren't dealing with a simple possession. 

Russel and 2D had always been very secretive about their sessions. It doubtlessly had to do with 2D insisting on a strong façade in the face of danger to spare me fear. I had never so much as met Father Merrin before. I couldn't say how much they figured out.

2D gasped, a delayed hic resulting from his earlier fragility.

I resumed my patient stroking of his head. His heart quieted in my embrace.

I learned that there was a lot more going on with him than what he'd been willing to share with me. His constant battles of feigned confidence shone with new clarity now that I understood how weak and powerless he truly felt. I wondered if he had even felt that way since Plastic Beach. Regardless, he was fighting desperately to dismiss or conceal his own distress in an effort to maintain my happiness.

When he explained to me what was eating him up inside, I realized just how much he had grown in the time I was with him. While the demon housed in his body was certainly a living nightmare, it had also sparked a change.

He was stronger. He carried himself with a newfangled conviction, a self assuredness that he didn't have when I first met him beneath the waves of the plastic landfill all those years ago.