fleue-scent
𝐉𝐎𝐄𝐘 𝐋𝐘𝐍𝐂𝐇 has nothing. Somehow, he still manages to feel everything. Every thought comes too loudly, every memory leaves its fingerprints, and every wound he has spent years pretending doesn't hurt seems to find a way back to the surface. He grew up too quickly, learned too young that loving people sometimes means protecting them from the things they should never have had to survive, and somewhere along the way, forgot that he was allowed to be a boy instead of a shield. There is always something waiting to break inside him, and Joey has become very good at breaking himself first. So when the noise becomes unbearable, he reaches for the one thing that knows how to make it stop - 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯.
𝐂𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐘 has everything. Somehow, he still manages to feel nothing. At least, that's what he tells himself. He has learned how to disappear inside his own skin, how to smile when he wants to scream, how to make everyone believe he is fine because being honest would mean admitting just how badly he isn't. When numbness becomes too much to bear, he searches for something that will remind him he is still alive, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘧 𝘪𝘵 𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘴.
They share more than either of them would ever willingly admit: self-destructive tendencies, an almost suffocating protectiveness over the people they love, families that taught them how easily love can become responsibility, parents who left wounds where safety was supposed to be, and a darkness that has spent years eating them alive from the inside out. They know what it is like to carry everyone else's pain while pretending their own doesn't exist. They know what it is like to be young and already exhausted. They know what it is like to look at yourself and wonder how much of you is still there beneath everything that has happened.
Caden isn't going to save Joey, and Joey isn't going to save Caden. They are far too