This is not a game

Game Over: Don't sit alone

When Eli comes to, they're lying on his bed, and Silver is absentmindedly running his fingers through his sweat-sticky hair. When Eli comes to, his scalp and throat hurt. He shifts and hisses — his ass hurts pretty badly, too.

"You could've at least used lube," Eli mutters. He isn't accusing, merely stating a fact. "I haven't had anyone for three months."

"I could have," Silver replies, flatly. "But I wanted to remind you who you belong to."

Eli rolls his eyes, snorts, and curls up contentedly against his chest. He closes his eyes. He thinks: it was all one big misunderstanding — a bad September, bad timing, bad communication. He thinks: he made a mistake, but everything is going to be okay. Eli is better. Silver is by his side. He thinks: Silver looked for him. Missed him. Worried about him. Eli wants to say, "I missed you, too," but Silver breaks the brief silence first.

"I'm glad we cleared everything up," he says. "I'll send over a new contract tonight. I won't hold the past against you, but..."

He says something else, but Eli doesn't hear. Eli is falling. Falling. Falling. And then he forces his uncooperative body to sit up and looks at his lover with dead eyes.

"Get out."

"What? Eli, what's wro..."

"Deadpool. Red. Get out! Out of my bed, out of my apartment, out of my life! Before I call the police."

"You're not thinking clearly," Silver says.

"Go fuck yourself," Eli replies.

He retreats into the bathroom and takes a shower, furiously trying to scrub off the lingering touches of the other man, but it doesn't work: the echoes of those touches burn on his skin as bruises, hickeys, bites, memories — they remind about themselves with pain on every movement. He comes out about twenty minutes later — having deliberately stalled so he wouldn't have to see the captain of the Guardians again. There is nothing on the coat hangers in the hallway. The apartment feels cold and empty. Eli looks at those damned hangers, and he starts shaking. He can't think straight; there's nothing but white noise in his head, and all he can manage is the realization that he's still falling. He needs to get warm, hydrate, eat something, and wait out the crash. He's only had one drop this bad before: when Silver got a call from someone important closer to the end of their session and left Eli alone, shut away in another room to take the call. It was just fifteen minutes, but it felt like an eternity, full of nothing but the coldness and the feeling that he was utterly alone, and that it was his fault...

"Don't sit alone," he remembers the kind words from what feels like forever ago even though it has only been a few hours.

Eli grabs his phone from the table, collapses on the floor by the bed and calls Reggie. He hangs up before the first ring and, without thinking, calls Qi Yi instead, not giving himself time to change his mind.

"Can you come over?" he almost whispers instead of a greeting when Qi Yi picks up. Eli doesn't recognize his own voice. "To just sit with me. Please."

"No," he answers the obvious question, "No, I'm not okay."

He texts his address and waits, clutching the phone in his hands, thinking of nothing except the process of waiting. If he doesn't move, doesn't think, and breathes as little as possible, it feels like time collapses into a single point. He can sink into that point like a piece of amber and surface when the era of waiting is over.

When there's a knock at the door, Eli jumps to his feet and opens it as he is, dressed only in boxers and a weared down old t-shirt. Eli sees Qi Yi's worried face, steps forward him and latches on to him desperately, hugging him over the heavy winter jacket (scratchy), knocking his bare feet into his boots (hard and cold), inhaling the scent of hot sauce and the chill of New York's winter on his collar. And when he feels the warmth of hands on his shoulders, he starts shaking again, this time from relief.

"Sorry," Eli mutters, "for the whole mess. Thank you for coming."

He tears himself away to let Qi Yi inside and grabs his own wrist to stop himself from clinging to his guest again.

"My ex," he manages to answer the unasked question of what happened.

The word burns like acid inside — but not as much as a name would. This way, it almost feels like it was someone else. Like it wasn't Silver who betrayed his trust. Like those months when he thought... when Eli trusted him, loved and felt loved — like maybe those can remain untouched. Of course, they can't, but he's not ready to say goodbye to the past just yet. He's only just said goodbye to the future.

Qi Yi studies him with a sharp gaze, frowns, and Eli suddenly wants to hide. He realizes now how this must look. What Qi Yi must be thinking. But he isn't sure the truth is much better. He scolds himself: of course, it's better than rape; he signed up for all of this, he had a choice; didn't he? He's too drained to even attempt to untangle it all now. Also, what if Qi Yi, learning that it was all him, that he's this messed up in the head, this bad at drawing his boundaries... what if Qi Yi decides this is too much, turns around, and leaves? The thought is terrifying.

"Should I call the police?" Qi Yi's voice is serious, and Eli shakes his head, struggling to focus.

"I made a mistake. Don't ask me anything right now," he pleads, squeezing his wrist tighter. "Just stay with me. I just need to not be alone right now."

Qi Yi sighs and nods. He steps forward, gently uncurls Eli's fingers from his wrist, rubs the marked skin soothingly, and pulls him into an embrace. Eli breathes shallowly and doesn't move for the first minute, but Qi Yi doesn't ask any questions, doesn't rush him. He just holds him gently, silently — and slowly, Eli relaxes and hugs him back.

"It's a subdrop, I..." he whispers after a couple of minutes, trails off, inhales, exhales, thinks that explaining all of this will be too hard. He simplifies, distills it down to the core. "I need contact, warmth, and to feel safe. Just until it passes. Please."