Mr.Carlile ~Cashby~ Collab with @BandShipper

Chapter 21

Hey guys, just quickly, this will probably be the last update before xmas and new years, so just incase, just wanted to say a Merry xmas and happy new year to all you awesome people on behalf of faith and myself :) Dasiy xoxo

Alan's POV

The second my lips touched Austin's, I knew I made the right choice. The second they touched, it was like everything was okay again, all the running questions in my head, all the misery, all the anger, fustration, pain, hurt, torment just...vanished.

See that was the thing with Austin, he would be the one causing all this chaos, all the anger, fustration, confusion, all of it, but the second he held me, kissed me, or was even within touching distance of me...it was like he was enchanted with a spell to make you forget it all. Well, that was at least until you went back home, or left the house, or he did, or basically he wasn't all up in the personal bubble area. Even still, I wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing...probably bad, in fact, more then likely, it felt like no matter what he did, or said, I would just...forget it, until I was back home without him, and then I'd sit there, my mind a mess, a foggy, clouded, jumbled haze, wearing myself thin. Then I could talk myself up, into saying this, that, saying no, even ending it if I had too, but the second I would see him, it would be all down the shitter. Although to be frank right now, I really didn't care. He said he would try, he said he's changed, or at least changing, old habits die hard after all, he's human, I can't expect him not to fuck up along the way, so the least I can do is try too, and if it ever got to the point I had to walk away, I'd just have to find away to make sure I don't end up falling under the spell of Austin the second he invaded my personal bubble.

"W-What are you doing here?" Austin finally pulled away, his hands resting softly against my now flushed cheeks, looking at me as if he wasn't quite sure whether to believe I was actually here or not.

"To see you, thought that was obvious." I chuckled, light heartedly.

"Bu-but why, I think I'd convinced myself next time I heard or saw you, it would be for you to tell me we where done for good...for me to...completly loose you." Austin's face, and voice dropped with those last three words, a small layer of water covering his eyes.

"I'm not ready to give up on you...not yet. I know I have a thousand reasons to do that, a thousand reasons to walk away for good...but I just can't...not yet."

"You...you should give up on me...I-I hurt you in so many more ways then one...h-how I treated you, how I-How I spoke to you...w-what I did...it was unforgivable. I-I always read stories, o-of how people stay w-with people who treat them as I did you, who did what I did to you...a-and I can only think how those people are idiots, to keep going back. I-I know in most cases it isn't that simple, trust me I know...b-but in some, they have the means to escape...l-like you, y-you moved back home, well away from me, b-but here you are forgiving me, g-giving me another chance, when I don't deserve it." In that moment, never had I seen Austin look so...broken, so vunerable, lost.

"But Austin...in those cases...those people don't change, they only say they have to lure them back in...but...I believe you have, and you want too, and you're trying. And I'm not here, to say I forgive you, or to say it can all go back to how it was...that isn't possible Austin. We're...we're going to have to treat this as an entirely new thing, like we're meeting for the first time all over again. We're going to have to completely start over, wipe the slate clean. My trust in you...that is still hanging on by a thread, and there is no way you can promise me you won't slip up, or old habits won't surface...that's just not possible when it was your entire life style for years, when you have so many trust issues, abandoment issues and self doubt. We are going to have to go right back, build things up, slowly, fight, together...but what I am here to say...is I'm not going to give up on you, on us, not yet, not until I know there is no hope at all. I'm not all those other people Austin who've turned away from you, given up on you, like it was the easiest thing in the world, you need to understand that, because honestly, walking away from you was thee hardest thing I've ever done and it killed me every day."