Phosphenes [Larry Stylinson Fan Fiction] EDITING

Chapter Twelve: Jaaneman

Jaaneman (n.) (phr.) जानेमन Hindi, جان ِ من Urdu. lit. "soul of me"; Gender neutral word for sweet heart or darling.

(Harry's POV)

At least some people can do something about it.

Those words kept repeating on my mind. How she said it.. it hurts me so much and coming out of her lips. My sister's lips, tortured me inside. I drank another glass of whiskey as I let my thoughts ponder over the sound of the night. I can hear the crickets and the trees move as I stand at our backyard. I lit a stick of cigarette, failed to keep my promise of quitting to smoke. Lexi and Louis are at Charlie's room, soothing away her pain.. doing my job. At least they're doing a better job than I am, right?

Take care of your sister for me, alright?

Sweetheart, always take care of Charlie, okay?

Those were the last words I heard from my father and mother after they got killed. Take care of Charlie. Take care of your sister. But who is ever going to take care of me? 

But that was never a valid question. I don't need anyone to take care of me because I made myself unbreakable and unvulnerable, for her. But she is both the band aid and the blade. I love Charlie so much that it hurts to see her in pain, it probably hurts more than her agony. I feel like I'm actually useless to her these days. I feel like I can no longer defend her from any harm than she will encounter. I feel so expired. I let my dad down. I let my mother down. 

My thoughts were disturbed by Lexi's hands crawling to my back and massaging my shoulders like she did before. It was always relaxing, her effect on me never faded away.

"Stop ovethinking" She said.

"I'm not" I exhaled the cloud of smoke and let the stick rest on my mouth. I loved how the smoke intoxiacated my lungs and sent comfort to my brain.

I sighed "How is she?"

"She's almost asleep. I sedated her. Her mind thought her nightmares were real so it kinda just malfunctioned a bit.. but don't worry, it wont happen again, I gave her pills." She continued to massage my back, I let out silent moans as his magic hands soften out my tensed body easily

We stood there in silence and later a while her hand grabbed mine as she pulled me towards the hammock that was between the two tall trees in our back yard.

"Its dark there" I complained.

"So what? Since when where you ever afraid of the dark?" She teased. I followed her as she lead me to the hammock, we sat down and I only saw the lit terrace of the flat and the end of my cigarette and the moon that was partly hidden by the clouds and branches above us.

"I thought you stopped smoking?" She asked. 

"Its only for now" i sighed as I let out another puff of smoke.

"Give me that" She grabbed the stick that was between my thumb and index finger. 

"Hey-" I thought she was going to light it out but she put it in between her lips and inhaled. She exhaled the smoke out.

"I thought you stopped smoking?" I returned her question. A bit surprised that she still smoked but it was kinda expected.

"Its only for now" She raised a brow as she copied my answer and continued smoking.

For a while we sat there in the darkness, passing on the stick as we admired the silence and the poorly lit area. When the cigarette ran out, I threw it away and just sat there, tired and dissapointed with myself. She looked at me a few times and stole glances.. after a while, she put my arm up and scooted closer to me and wrapped my arm around her as her head rested on my shoulder.

"Uhmm.. what are you doing?" I asked as I watched her.

"Shh.. Im comforting you" She said nonchalantly.

Silence grew again as I let her. I hugged her even more and let her legs rest on my thighs as she embraced me, it looked like I was the one comforting her but she does have this effect of calming my nerves by her touch, some super power some people only can affect me.

"I hate how I wasn't the person who motivated you to stop smoking" She said.

"hmm?"

"Like I was hoping you'd find someone that would love you harder that you wouldn't need smoke anymore to dissolve your lungs and penetrate your dark thoughts away" She said looking up to me.

"You know, sometimes I worry about you" She shifted into a position that she could fully see my face. "Like.. that's why I still wanted to be friends with you.. because after the romance and redamancy we felt, we had a strong bond of friendship. I used to be your sister and I wouldn't want to waste that privilege of having someone like you" She said.

"I haven't told you before but I knew that there will come a time that a storm would hit us by and I will crawl to you and try to kiss you but you'll avoid kissing me and I'll look at you in the eye and you will look away and whisper that  you think don't love me anymore. But then I promised myself, when that day comes, I would always want to shadow you and I wouldn't delete you from my life and hope that you wont too because I'd want you to have me as one of your choices in who to call when you're broken because I promise that I would fix you up. And I am.. Thank you" She hugged me, for the first time in a long time, I felt something so sincere from her. I hugged her back and kissed her head.

"But haven't you forgotten, sweat heart? I'm invincible" I mumbled to her hair, she could barely hear it. She let go of the hug and sighed.

"You do know this isn't your fault, right?" She said looking into my eyes, do I have to answer if she knows the answer to that already?

She tilted her head to the side a bit "There are some things that are inevitable, Harry and you know that. You can't stop everything from hurting her."

"But I could've stopped the guy from hitting her. I could've helped ease the pain a while ago but I didn't-"

"Because you can't. You were drunk and now you can't ease the pain because its inevitable. She just had her history for god saken test for 7 hours straight that she's been studying for since she got out of the hospital, all the information sunk in her brain for 7 days, Harry. Seven days, then she bumped her head on her locker do-"

"What?"

"That doesn't matter. And then you told her about being gay with Louis-" 

"First of all, It was my choice to be drunk that time. You're going to tell me about ear head bumping on the door and don't blame this on me and Louis comming out"

"I'm not! Jesus, Harry why do you always have to blame it on yourself! Blame it for your goddammed parents for god sake for telling you to take care of her before the moment they died" She sighed. "its not your fault, okay?" 

I sighed "whatever"