Out

I wouldn't do that to you.

After Irina had died, Dmitri stopped caring about a lot of things. He began to smoke cigarettes, and take one too many pills when he was sick. He would butcher his skin frequently, never quite ready to leave for good. He wouldn't think of himself as suicidal, but he often wished that something terrible would happen to him- it wasn't as if his existence did anyone any good any how. He would leap down from his bedroom window while Vadim was asleep, and he would sit down on the train tracks behind the trailer, waiting for the train that passed by every couple nights. He would sit in the near complete silence and listen for the deafening honk of the train, as he smoked as many cigarettes as he could. Tinny always told him that he should quit, he should quit, he should quit.

'It's so bad for your health,' she'd tell him, 'Dmitri, you need to stop smoking before it kills you.'

'I'm not lucky enough for that.' He'd retort back. But he wished he was, he wished that he would get some horrible type of cancer and he'd turn yellow and his teeth would rot and it would slowly eat away at his body. He wanted to look as sick as he felt inside. He wanted everyone to know, he just didn't want to tell them, because telling people how much he wanted to die, was vulnerable, and he didn't want to be vulnerable. So he would show people the skin he hid with clothes, but he'd never show them anything deeper. He'd use them to feel better, and he'd leave them before the sun came up. Sometimes he wondered if he would feel this way forever, sick and sad, because he knew with his entire heart, that nobody could ever love every part of him, but maybe he only thought that because he himself could never love every part of himself. He wanted to be loved but he didn't even know what love really was, love wasn't a father who hurt you, love wasn't a mother who let him. The only love he'd ever known was Tinny, but he couldn't even make himself love her back. There would always be a part of him that wished he loved her back- how easy life would be, but his life wasn't designed to be easy, and he didn't want a wife.
**********************************************
The second night the boys spent in a cheap hotel was no better than the first. They were tired, and beginning to grow paranoid, wondering if Vadim would stay true to his character and come looking for Dmitri, but neither one wanted to bring it up, to speak it into existence. Nicodemus watched Dmitri as he got dressed in the morning. He looked at how smooth his untouched skin was, how soft the colour of his hands were. The way his brown hair fell roughly in front of his hazel green eyes. He watched Dmitri's thin hands do up the buttons on his shirt, and Dmitri turned to smirk
"What are you looking at?"

"Just you." Nicodemus smiled gently.

"Why? I'm nothing special." Dmitri laughed.

Nicodemus grabbed him and rolled him onto the bed, softly kissing his face all over
"I wish you could see yourself how I see you."

"I wish I could too, because I don't get the appeal."

"You know how you call me dipshit?"

"...Yeah?"

"Yeah, well, maybe you are."

"Oh fuck you." Dmitri grinned

Nicodemus smiled cheekily "Fuck me?"

"You heard me."

Nicodemus sat up on the bed and Dmitri put his arms around Nicodemus neck
"Hey, what do you want to do for dinner?"

"I don't know, I'm not really hungry."

"Dmitri all you've eaten are bags of chips from the vending machine, you should have real food."

Dmitri loosened his grip around Nicodemus' neck and got down from the bed throwing on the windbreaker he had hung in the closet.

"Wait, what's the plan?" Nicodemus asked in confusion.