WHERE TO NOW? (M/M) 18+

Chapter 49

Okay so I've made a small YouTube playlist of all the songs I listened to while writing+editing this chapter. I've added the playlist into the External Link feature in Wattpad, which can be found all the way at the bottom of this chapter, just above the comment section (if I remember correctly)

I did try adding it to the banner above to make the listening experience a little smoother for all of you but it doesn't want to work unfortunately. 

Also, some songs I used for specific sections of this chapter so they won't suit other scenes outside of the one I listened to them with. If you're wondering why a song doesn't suit the vibe, that would be because I wasn't listening to it for that particular section.

Now that that's out of the way.

On to the chapter😝

Damien.

I keep thinking maybe if I press hard enough, I'll disappear.

Maybe if I collapse myself small enough, if I squeeze into the cracks between my own ribs and hold my breath, I'll vanish. That maybe the thing inside me will forget I exist and go dormant. And this cursed flesh will just... come undone.

If I curl small enough, bleed long enough, hate myself thoroughly enough—maybe I'll hollow out this thing that lives inside me and there'll be nothing left to fight. No instinct. No voice. No fucking pulse.

Because fighting it didn't stop me. Fear didn't stop me. Care didn't stop me. Not even him—his voice, his closeness, that look on his face—none of it mattered. The thing still moved through me like I was a marionette.

The pain in my hand isn't sharp anymore. It's deep. Hot. Sickening. Every beat of my heart pushes more of it out—my punishment, staining the cloth, my palm, the inside of my fucking head.

It's not enough. It'll never be enough. I could gut myself open and bleed rivers and it still wouldn't pay for the fact that I put my hands on him. That I almost hurt him. That I did hurt him. Not enough to leave a mark this time, maybe—but enough to make his breath catch. Enough to make him look at me like I wasn't me.

I should've let it take me. I should've kept the knife in. Driven it deeper. Ripped it up my arm until the muscle split. Until I couldn't move. Until the poison poured out along with the blood.

Because at least then, I would've been harmless. At least then, the monster would've been pinned in flesh and pain. At least then, I wouldn't still be here, aching for someone I should've never touched to begin with.

Because what I did—what I almost did—had left me feeling worse, more hollow and sickened than all the other fucked up shit I'd done combined. I'd broken bones, carved screams out of men, watched life bleed from their eyes and felt nothing but the steady calm of survival. I'd killed women in the dark and told myself it was mercy, forced myself not to look at their faces after, not to see what I'd done.

But this—laying hands on him in a way that wasn't about blood or war, letting myself want him when I knew I shouldn't—was different. It was filthier than torture, sicker than murder. Because it wasn't about them. It was about him. About me. About crossing a line I had no right to cross. And that shame—knowing I put that weight on him—was worse than every violent sin I've ever stacked up.