Wreck • NBADURK

003: Tender Moments

Kentrell

Gently pushing Durk's legs away from the edge of the bed so he could take a seat beside him. Funny, how many words the simple action conveyed.

"N-No! No! No! NO!" Durk screams out before he starts to weep, shaking his head because deep down he already knows. Because when you love someone that much... you can feel the emptiness. It starts in your chest, right around where your heart should be. And the pain echoes dully throughout your entire body with each breath you take. Until suddenly... are you even human anymore? Or just a walking talking example of pain that's been personified. Durk woke up last night with that hollowness in his chest. Every time he asked Nardo and Nardo just changed the subject or told him Von was okay, his belief grew and grew. One thing about Kentrell, he will never lie to him like that... or play him for a fool.

"Please-" Durk hiccups as Kentrell grabs a tissue from the box on the bedside table and starts to pat his eyes dry with it.

"I know.." He whispers, a tear trailing down his cheek. In a way, he's glad that it was him who told him. There's a part of him deep down that's just glad this interaction is between the three of them; him, Durk, and Von watching down from Heaven. "I know..."

"W-what.. what h-happened?" Durk whimpered, throwing his head back into the pillows as tears flooded his face.

Kentrell quickly slid a hand behind his head to support it and keep him from injuring himself further. "Durk... deep breathes, okay? Hey... guess who's he's with nah." A weak smile that looks so out of place on a face that drips with tears. He hates seeing Durk cry, whenever a real trench nigga breaks down and cries like a jit you know that nothing is right in this world.

Durk's entire mind is spinning at this point. All he can do is try and get his brain to remember something... anything... He can remember nothing. His last memory before waking up after the crash is him and Von laughing and talking as they make their way over to his parked Hellcat. Muwop and Booka were going to ride with them but at the last minute, they didn't get in the car. He doesn't remember why though. And now this! Now he wakes up to discover he barely survived but what does any of that matter if Von didn't? "I.. I wanna die!" He wails!

"No!" Kentrell hisses, crawling up and sitting beside him, with one shaky hand he gently guides his face down against his chest. "N-no! No! D-don't say dat!" He weeps. It doesn't matter how they fell out or how deep Kentrell's pain truly runs, there was a time that he loved this man more than he did himself and he craved his presence more completely than his lungs craved air. When you love someone like that, those feelings never completely disappear; no matter how many times Kentrell tells himself. Durk's accident was a wake up call to how much he still loves him.

And that thought is scary. Being this close to Durk is scary. Feeling his tears seep through the fabric of his shirt is scary. Hearing his breath hitch one second only to hyperventilate the next is scary. If he closes his eyes right now he could zone in enough to hear Durk's heartbeat. That's scary.

Kentrell jumps as Durk suddenly reaches out to hug him. Somehow he's turned himself and is almost completely on top of him. But his touch isn't why Kentrell jumped, he jumped because of how quick and strong his grip was. For a second the lines of love lost and love found blurred and Naujour's cologne validated his nose.

'It's okay, he ain't here. Miles away. He's miles away. I'm in a hospital. I'm safe here.'

And as much as he hated himself for thinking this...

'Durk is right here with me. He wouldn't let anybody hurt me.'

The most vile part of that thought isn't more natural it seemed in his head but how quickly and fully it calmed him.

"B-baby!" Durk wheezed in his shirt. Kentrell snaps out his trance and rubs his back, the simple action acting as a means to keep him grounded. Never mind the pet name.

"Deep bre-"

Durk's eyes swim with waters. His light brown skin glows red. His lips quiver and his cheeks are slick from tears. He looks up at Kentrell, mouth ajar and eyebrows knitted.

Kentrell's breath momentarily hitches as their eyes meet. His heart flutters and his skin grows uncomfortably warm with emotion long thought to have vanished.

It this moment Durk is so small and fragile. He wants to be big. Big enough to block out the world. Big enough to make him feel safe and protected for all those times he swelled big enough to protect him. He wants to be strong. Strong enough to push his pain away for all those moments he pushed away his. He wants to be tender and loving and supporting. He wants so many things simply never to be.

His locks fall in his face. Kentrell doesn't have to think. His hands know the routine, his fingers know how to gently guide them back out of his eyes. His body hasn't forgotten how to love him any less than his heart has.

And that thought is scary.

Durk

"B-ba... Kentrell... did- did I kill him?" Durk's voice is a raw whisper. A desperate plea for reassurance in the midst of his darker hour. He is glad Kentrell is here with him. He is glad Kentrell told him and not Nardo. He would've fronted if Horace told him; he would have reacted in anger and hurt himself in the process. But for Kentrell he can be brave enough to be weak. Even now when their future together seems never to be, he knows he can still be weak because the other will rise to be strong enough to support him.

He's a fucking idiot for ever letting anything or anyone get in between them. The world hinted at it then but really slammed it in his face now. When he woke up and asked Nardo to call India... he couldn't. Cause she had blocked his number and social medias. On his own account, Nardo was able to show him the new nigga she's flaunting all over Instagram. Temptation can be so hard to resist when you're constantly being swarmed with it. Knowing their favorite rapper is in a committed relationship seems to be an aphrodisiac, it seems to make the mission to have sex all the more alluring to them. India played on the worse kinds of weaknesses- the insecurities he thought he had already defeated. The ghostly whispers that chewed on his psyche at night. The ones he wasn't even man enough to confide in Kentrell about. Perhaps if he had- if he only had found the courage to tell him. Then maybe.. just maybe.

Atlas.

Yet, one cannot deny their souls are still linked. Their hearts are still in sync, their breaths still synchronize, and the tears seem to drip from their eyes at the same time.

They are still one. United by a love Durk was never deserving of.

Kentrell coos, he shakes his head. The word is firm and powerful, a resounding no with an exclamation point behind it. This as his arms wrap so carefully around his upper back.

Durk lets out a breath, one born from both relief and comfort. One he's been holding since the evening Kentrell threw down his ring and walked out the door.

A shaky breath. He's exhausted. His head weights more than the limits of his neck to carry. He slumps on top of Kentrell in a medically induced haze and yawns, as his eyes bat the left over tears squeeze out of his lids. A deep breath, a slow release as he drifts to sleep. The medicine really doing a number on his ability to function.