tell me you love me (peterick)

xii.

patrick was bleeding choruses and drums and guitars and colors. he was dreaming in different worlds, in tongues that weren't his own. he was running on a machine of memories, dreaming of something he had looked forward to since he had met his best friend.

that was until he had realized that it had been three days and they hadn't said a word to each other.

patrick was bleeding choruses and drums and guitars and colors. but they weren't happy. they were indecipherable tongues and machines that were made to destroy, not create. the opposite of love isn't hate, it's destruction.

and patrick was self-destructing; crumbling from inside out, burning through the layers of muscle and fat and organs and skin.

he and pete weren't talking anymore, and he didn't know what to do.

it hurt. it hurt and it burned and it was a scalding hot cup of coffee that had taken off the top layer of skin on his tongue. patrick was falling apart. he was pieces of iron in a collapsing star, bottled up and thrown into an ocean to fend for himself among the weightier stones.

he and pete weren't talking anymore, and it was because of the one thing that patrick had craved for years.

he had wanted it so badly, so badly that it was clawing away at his insides, so badly that every time pete spoke, patrick's heart was tracing the outline of his lips in the air, so badly that when pete smiled, patrick's lungs deflated just a little bit. he wanted it so badly, he was shooting pictures of pete laughing into his mind, like he could upload the taste of love directly onto his taste buds.

he was alone in his room at night sometimes, buried under blankets that held secrets like the ones exposed during games of truth or dare. he was alone at night, and he was crying, but he was choking on his own sobs. and this was kind of pathetic, wasn't it, crying over your best friend not loving you back when it had been years and years and you had always known he wouldn't.

but he was shaking under layers of loose clothes and fingers that had traced the outline of a skinned knee and a rip in holy jeans. his tears fell on his pillowcase like the oceans of aching that were soaking some muscle in patrick's fragile heart. he was crying until he couldn't anymore, until his eyes were dry, like fingerprints and chlorine summers. he was crying until he was gasping for air, like a captured genie being set free.

he and pete weren't talking anymore, and patrick didn't know how to breathe.