Among Us (boyxboy) [ON HOLD]

Chapter 79 - Brother

After getting back from the bird cage, as I'd taken to calling the winter garden, all the nightmares and paranoia came right back. The genuine want to be with Matthew transformed right back into a basic, instinctive need. I needed him.

We lay snuggled in his bed, it was the middle of the night, and I could not stop shaking. I hadn't had a nightmare, but that was only because I refused to go to sleep. And because Matthew was Matthew, he did too then. He stayed awake, just to make sure to either wake me up when needed or just to not let his arm around my shoulders go slack.

I knew he needed sleep and realistically, I did too, but the fear was so overwhelming, so omnipresent, that it kept my eyes wide open.

I was trying to focus on his chest, rising and falling with every breath, and on his fingers lightly caressing my arm and maybe it worked to some extent. I was distracted enough and in enough of a trance to make the fear and incessant paranoia a back beat.

There was a knocking on the door and Matthew's first reaction was to get it, but I clung to his body, making him pause a second.

"Please, just stay." I mumbled. I didn't look at him, ashamed at my own incapability to be my own person. I hadn't realised how much I had gotten used to these crippling emotions. But now, right after experiencing bliss for a day, being thrown right back into what felt like the deep end reverted me back entirely.

Matthew complied and slowly laid back down on the pillows stacked in front of the head board.

I draped my body over his in a desperate attempt to keep him where he was. Rather than being afraid of what I couldn't defend myself against, it had almost turned into a fear of being alone. Or more accurately, a fear of being without Matthew.

It was a few hours later, close to sunrise, when the knocking returned. Only this time, it seemed systematic. It was a tune, a rhythm. One I would recognise everywhere.

I screamed.

It didn't matter that it didn't come from the window. It didn't matter that whoever was on the door might have just decided to knock differently for a change. It didn't matter that I didn't see his face and incessant grin. It was the knocking, the pattern, that kept repeating in my head now.

I screamed.

My eyes were locked roughly where the door would be, but I had moved my body as far away as I could. It resulted in me falling of the bed backwards, hitting my back and head, which would probably be painful, but I didn't even register the pain. I just continued scooting back, desperately trying to push my body back with my hands and feet, slipping every so often in my haste.

I didn't hear Matthew over my own screams, even though he was right next to me. He didn't dare touch me either. But once I was in the farthest corner I could physically move to, he hid my body with his and hugged me to him. I was crowded between Matthew and the wall and it was as close to safety as I could get at this moment. My eyes were still trained on the door, dreading what lay behind it.

"Knock..." I whispered, eyes burning now from not closing them in case something came at me.

"Knock..." I said again, hands shakily holding on to Matthew's back.

"Kno-"

"Come in!" I hear Matthew shout, never letting me go though. And I almost wish he had because in that moment, just in that one small part of a second, I thought he had betrayed me.

But who came in was not the face of my nightmares.

It was a stranger and that calmed me down more than anything else.