AGALMATOPHILIA

_-:25:-_

The silhouette of a thin male is painted out against a moonlit canvas of glass, a petite hand pressed against said window, half steaming up around the warm flesh.

Brendon is perched against the doorframe, watching the weary boy as he sways silently in exhaustion, lack of sleep and food slowly catching up to the already frail frame.

He had watched him get up, pace around his bed a few times, sit at the foot of the bed and cry, and now he was staring out the window, a blank, unreadable expression upon his face.

Brendon wanders further into the room, moving slow in hopes of not startling the kid.

"Can't sleep?"

Tyler turns from the window, peering over his shoulder with curiosity, but no response.

"Yeah, can't blame you kid," a soft glow from a cigarette quickly being burnt up illuminates Brendon face, his cheekbones particularly sharp under such harsh lighting.

Sucking in a horrid toxic breath, Brendon steps further into the room.

"I can't either,"

"It's just one of those nights," Tyler moves his gaze back out of the window, Brendon joining his side.

There's a longing-ness to his expression, a silent hope filled sparkle in his eye as he ganders from the window sill.

"What do you miss?" The question, soft and inviting, lures Tyler to turn and focus on the brunette, staring at him, by his side.

Tyler swallows, searching for an answer inside his raging mind.

He could claim he missed his father, and though part of that was true, he wasn't missing that right now.

Boys would be the correct answer but even still it wouldn't be the entire truth.

Tyler did yearn for something, a swell within his chest told his he was empty and something had been stolen from inside him.

Perhaps freedom was the answer, perhaps the answer was being carried on the winds kissing the dying leaves of fall, a breeze Tyler longed to feel against his burning skin once again.

No, it wasn't freedom.

He knew exactly what it was, and he closes his eyes for a brief moment, inhaling deep.

Brendon eyes him intently as he sucks in a cloudy breath.

"Tyler?" The small puff of smoke wafting his way brings him back for a moment, yet reminds him of his therapist, constantly calling his name to bring him back to the land of the living.

"Sanity," he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose he turns away from the reminder of an outside world beyond four walls.

"I miss my sanity. I miss not being paranoid, as, paranoid... I miss the feeling of comfort and warmth. All that's here is death and cold, such cold hands that punish my every move, I miss a normal life, and I miss my brother,"

"Don't let him get to you, stay strong, I'm sorry things are like this right now," Brendon sighs, seating himself next to Tyler who had pulled his knees up to his chest, cuddling his own shins tight. "He's difficult to live with, I know,"

Brendon crosses his legs over eachother, fishing the packet of cigarettes from his pocket as to not crush them, pulling another thin one from the pack and lighting it with the smouldering butt of the previous still pinched between his lips.

Offering it over to Tyler, the boy tiredly accepts.

"Don't think I've ever seen you smoke," the more sane of the deadly duo chuckles, Tyler sucking in a breath yet chocking despite how hard he had tried to be cool.