spotlight :: malum

: forty four :

The sun wasn't even rising when Michael feels himself get stirred awake by a very worried Calum, their bodies underneath the sheets of the maori's big bed with white covers, a very relaxing mattress that made him sleep like a baby but that didn't last long.

He had heard and felt everything before he actually opened his eyes. He could hear the soft sniffling and felt those gentle shoves to his non-bruised arm, the sound of Calum whispering his name so urgently yet so quietly was what made him actually bring his eyes to open.

It's not like he was irritated that he was woken up at some untimely hour, because he saw tears shining on the boy's face in front of him and instantly let his aggravation subside to cup the boy's face and process the fact Calum's crying at four in the morning with a quivering lip and trembling hands.

"I'm so scared." The boy's brown eyes were welling again, his nose stuffed and his cheeks bright red even in the dark room, the moon's rays were shining through the windows so softly it casted a whole gleam behind his silhouette. But Michael only focused on what he was saying, shushing him softly as he sat up in the bed to get a better leverage and view of the maori who was breaking at the seams.

"Oh my God, what's wrong?" The blonde's voice was still very rough from just waking up and it was a bit inaudible since he's very quiet. Calum's skin was burning it was so hot, and the room is tepid and cold with a ceiling fan whirring above him.

"I don't deserve you." The brunette let out his sentence with a sob, "I've been up since two and I can't fucking breathe, I'm not good for you." His ebony eyes blinked over to Michael in desperate brokenness.

He looked like an utter mess, but in an angelic way that was almost surreal. Sure, he was congested and his whole body was sheer with sweat but he looked so helplessly lost that in some ways he looked human. He was feeling, he was sensitive and sometimes people forget he has those feelings but he never shows them to people. He only shows this side to Michael.

Because Michael listens and he's always there, being sincere and using his own thoughts to soothe Calum's chaotic ones. His mind is a storm and Michael's the only one who knows how to calm it.

"Don't say that." The blonde was at a loss of words, speechless that Calum would even think such a thing. "Never say that, okay?" He had his much colder hands hold onto Calum's to try and get his attention back on him. Those onyx eyes only looked at his lap and shook his head, tears still falling as he gave a cracked out response, "It's true, I don't." His words shook his entire body as he broke down onto the boy's lap.

The brunette looked so fragile. His eyelashes caught some tears in them and his hair was all strewn and messy with soft wisps of curls that mixed into the thick tendrils. All of his shaky breaths fell in soft wheezes and he hiccuped through his tears. Nothing about it was normal, it's all foreign to Michael but that won't stop him from helping.

He never even fathomed a response when the maori started rambling off on a tangent again, "I'm not a good person, Michael. Everyone says I'm not and you're gonna say the same thing because it's true. I'm a horrible fucking person."

"You're lying." The blonde let his cold hand brush his knuckles over the boy's forehead, "That's what the media thinks, you're not what they label you as." He's getting his thoughts twisted and the saddest part is that Calum's the complete opposite of what they label him to be. "Never believe any of the shit they say about you, you're none of the things they call you."

"I'm an asshole and it's true, Michael. Before I met you I was so fucking rude and I hate myself so much because now that's all they see me as." Calum had to cling onto Michael's cold hands like his life depended on it, "I would be so rude to the fans and I'd never smile in the pictures unless I was drunk and now they all hate me, th-they mob me and it used to give me panic attacks. I'd be scared to leave my tour bus because they'd all be out there yelling and pushing and they'd never let go of me but I can't push them, the fucking management told me I can't so I'd have to suck it up and distanced myself from them for so long I just-"