𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭

7 | three's a crowd

4 years ago

He can breathe. Yates's hand trembles as he slumps to the ground, feeling the rough brick of the club rasp behind him, a new thrum in his bones. His mouth still echoes the aftertaste of whatever drug Dafne had slipped in his mouth, sweet and gummy. He licks his lips, his tongue feeling like a cinder brick in her mouth. Yates's whole body felt fumbly and awkward, like they had been detached from his body and were flailing around with a mind of their own.

Oh.

His mind.

It wasn't the same- it would never be the same. He felt dizzy with the sheer breadth of it, his vision flooded with colors he'd never seen and the peals of invisible bells. The air seemed to part for his fingers, a thorny buzz of static. He was in the hospital all over again, flushed with fever and his mother standing over him like a hawk- no, a vulture, her lips curled into a peckish smile, ready to pick the flesh from his skin. And then, he was at his father's funeral, burns pricking his forearms and thick plumes of cigarette smoke making an ashy home to his lungs. He was in a flood, but the water just wouldn't stop coming. It kept pouring into his mouth, gritty and salty and so, so, so cold he almost forgot what warmth felt like.

His hands wouldn't stop shaking.

Oh god, make it stop

"You proud of yourself, Yates?" his father would hiss. And then Yates would feel the bite of his belt. He would feel empty, locked in his room with nothing but the whisper of the trees to keep him company. He would watch the years pass him slowly by in that room, clutching nothing but a frayed blanket to his chest and the love of many lifetimes past to his watery eyes.

"You are ruining us, you good for nothing," his mother would murmur. And it hurt. It hurt more than when she yelled, than when she sent him to his room without dinner, than when Yates realized he was an accident, a pockmark on the face of this earth, and a jagged ugly scar in the midst of their family. The world seemed to crumble underneath him, giving him a gaping smile of nothing but darkness, the chasm's merciful grin.

He wanted nothing more than to tumble down it, let the ground close above him, and fall.

"Hey, are you okay?"

That wasn't his mother. No- it was softer..kinder, a voice you could sink into and call home. The static had parted for her, morphing into a woolen darkness that curled over her shoulders like a cloak. She let it drag behind her, staring at him with beautiful [eye color] eyes that Yates decided he'd drown in instead.

Oh, she was beautiful.

She radiated divinity, a crooked, perfect imperfection that coiled through her face and spun through her skin. Her smile was off kilter, and her shirt slipped off of one shoulder, exposing soft skin Yates would like nothing more than to take for himself. She was offering him a hand, her eyes narrowed in concern, a purse on her lips as she watched him with the patience of an angel.

"Hey? Can you hear me? Sir-"

Her voice pooled on him like honey, leaving a flowery residue in his mind that he never wanted to forget, never wanted to wash away. He wouldn't let this flood sweep her away- not when she saved him. No, he had to hold on, hold onto her, hold her hand so close, she'd become his.

"[name], what are you doing? Ugh..he looks high as balls. Let's go, we have to get back before curfew. Come...on..ugh!"

And then she was gone.

It was like lightning, striking into his core and leaving him split and smoldering, there for a second and gone the next. He could still feel her radiance like a glow, letting it push him up, finally floating. The ocean was still now, and he could see the moon, giving him a benevolent smile like it was waiting for him to join her. "Do you like my gift?" it asked. Yates nodded. The air nuzzled up against him, and he could feel her absence so keenly it was like a knife etched at his side, carving her name into his skin. He tested it out on his mouth, savoring the rightness of her, the way she made the world click into place, a vision. [name].