Comfort

Hey, just look at me. Breathe

T.W.
Domestic violence show through physical abuse
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Stephen was running. He didn't run much, not anymore, because his legs didn't work as well as they used to, but he needed to get there. He needed to already be there. Stephen had chosen to hang out with the guys, that being Ben, Gerard, and Teddy, while Gray went home to prepare. He would go there later and they would have a movie date, maybe even go get snacks at the convenience store by his apartment, but that probably wasn't going to happen now.

Since he had woken up from his coma he had to relearn many things. Learn to walk again, learn to do equations again, learn how much he truly loved Gray again, and learn about his past again. He hadn't enjoyed most of those things, learning about Gray was a joy and he liked knowing who he was and who he would be, but some of the knowledge would come in handy. For example, it was good to know how to solve equations in math, know what happened to him so he could mentally recover, and know about Gray's mother.

Now, Stephen had never met Gray's mother, she was often out, but he knew of her. Knew of her parenting ways and of Gray's childhood. He knew of the strict ways she insisted everything to be. He also knew that she preferred to raise her hand against her own child rather than punishing him the way a mother should. Why would she ground him from watching television when she could lock him in a closet? Why would she take away his video games when she could give him a black eye? It took a long time for Gray to even realize what she doing was wrong because it was all he had ever know. It took him even longer to learn that not everyone was like that. Stephen learned rather quickly that Gray had been abused by someone, thought it took him a while to figure out who. It was easy to tell that your boyfriend had been beaten when he flinched at every unpredictable movement. During their first fight, Stephen had been striving to get better at far too fast of a pace, Stephen had moved to make a gesture with his hand and Gray's arms had flung up to protect his face, eyes squeezing shut.

Stephen took more precaution when they talked now.

With the Eujang guys, Gray had begun to loosen up. He had more people in his life to prove that not everyone was cruel, but that trauma was still instilled deep in his mind. It was why Stephen felt so desperate to get to Grays' apartment. He knew that She would be coming over today, it was why he cleared out of there and told the guys to not text Gray for a while, but he wasn't expecting everything to go wrong. He wasn't sure what had happened, after all he had only received a single word.

'Help.'

Stephen had paused what he was doing, his legs stopping the slow peaceful rhythm that they had been moving at. It truly amazed him how relaxed he could be after that incident. He was amazed how easy he found making friends to be after the disaster known as Bryce Oh. It was nice, walking side by side with Ben Park on his right and Gerard Jin on his left. That peace had been shattered though by that single word. Both Ben and Gerard stopped, asking him what was wrong, but he only shook his head and started running. They followed, at first asking questions, but falling silent when they saw the panic etched in Stephen's idol-like features.

It took a little, nearly 20 minutes of sprinting, to get to Grays. The others had never been there, Gray liked his privacy, but Stephen knew exactly where to go. Pushing open the heavy door of the building and rushing to the stairs, taking two at a time, he climbed to the third floor. Taking long strides after bursting through the stairwell door he made his way quickly to Grays door. While fumbling through his pockets for his keys, Gerard finally spoke up.

"Stephen, what the hell is going on?!"

"Yeah," Ben placed a steady and gentle hand on Stephen's shoulder, "where are we?"

Stephen pulled out his keys and quickly found the one to Grays apartment. "Gray."

The boys went quiet and an equally panicked expression crossed Ben's face. "What happened?"