Haunted

Twenty Two

It feels borderline bizarre to be held while eating...

To be touched so familiarly at all... 

To have someone other than Kore actually want to be near me...

To know that it wasn't a matter of Liam simply sitting just a touch to close...

He wants to be near me...

He wants to have his arm around my waist this way...

Liam very much wants to offer the comfort that he's allowing me to take in him, and if he didn't care he wouldn't be here right now...

He wouldn't have gone through the effort to come over and do his best to soothe me...

My wonderful mate, while still heeding my warning to stay away from my bad leg, somehow managed to get himself into a position where we can lean against each other with me not quite entirely on his lap, and even though I know he can't possibly be as comfortable as he says he is while watching me push bite after bite of cheesy goodness into my mouth...

I feel cherished, and I find myself unwilling to slip back down onto the cushion that had originally been supporting me while we let the television continue to play on whatever sports channel it had been left on from my previous sitter...

I didn't realize how badly I needed to be close to someone... To sit with someone other than Kore willing to give me a type of affection that I've never received and did not know I needed.. 

I never once in my long life ever think that I would be privy to what such soft touches feel like...

I never dreamed to allow myself to hope I would be held like this by someone who knows how awful I am and doesn't want to walk away from me because of it.

He knows I've got blood on my hands that will never be able to be wiped clean and yet he sits here with me and stares at me as though I have been cast as a shell of a person, my glass walls so thin that they might shatter if he even looks at me with anything other than kindness in his wonderful eyes.  

...

Liam

...

Watching Cassie eat makes my heart feel so full I almost can't stand it, even if its only chicken nuggets and mac and cheese... 

I know it isn't the healthiest thing...

But holding him I had wondered how many times he's gone through periods of not eating like he was doing before I got here...

And his family did nothing simply because they knew he wouldn't die from it...

How many years did they simply look the other way over so many different things that weren't healthy or good for him simply because they knew he wouldn't die from it...

But never thought to check on the mental health of my Bean...

No one had thought to check on the witch who had literally made one of the biggest self-sacrifices a witch can make to spare one of their other ancestors from the same fate... Even if it was under false pretenses at the time and forced on him...

None of them ever thought to say Thank you... 

They all still write him off as an antique that just won't rust and fade away like they want him to and it infuriates me that they've treated his life so casually just because it's cursed to be longer than theirs... The only one who truly seems to care is Kore, and as far as I'm concerned...

The rest of them should burn.

Even as an immortal... I should have never stumbled upon being able to count Cassie's ribs through his shirt by holding him...

I shouldn't think to myself that his normal leg looks almost as thin as the cursed one...

Or that even being fussy in my lap he wasn't physically strong enough to push himself off of my lap even when I wasn't trying to hold him still to help him calm down... He may not be able to die from natural causes... But he sure as hell hasn't been living...

Just surviving because he can't die...

I shouldn't be able to feel how hard his soul is screaming every time he meets my eyes which is not often... Because he still carries around the shame they never bothered to tell him he shouldn't have to carry...

They never thought to try and take some of the baggage that shouldn't be his in the first fucking place... 

I wonder if any of them ever noticed that when he starts to feel safe... He hums when he eats his nuggets. Or if he has never felt safe enough with them to let his guard down... Or the way he grunts when he takes bites of mac and cheese because its still just a little bit too hot but he's so hungry that he can't wait... 

Thinking about him being neglected for so long...

Being left to rot like he has...

It rips my heart into the smallest pieces and leaves me pulling him closer so he can't see the tears in my eyes while he continues to munch to his hearts content just like he should be, a gentle kiss being pressed to his temple as he squirms to make sure he keeps his bad leg away from me without having to actually pull himself away. 

Once I made it clear that I do want him near me, even with the danger of his leg... It seems as though my sweet Baby can't help himself, affection having been withheld from him for much too long.

I may be the one pulling him closer but its him who leans his head on my shoulder every time he has to take a few extra moments to chew his food in the most adorable way... As if he's trying to return some of my affection to me even though his hands are busy assisting in the very important task of getting some nutrition into his system even if that nutrition is processed cheese and elbow macaroni.