the rain was relentless, each drop like needles against skin, serving as a reminder of how alive he still feels even in death. the hunger burns away at his stomach — it's been three days? four? since he last fed. he lost count. weeks since he slept without waking up in coldness, thirst clawing at his throat. and yet here he is, stupid and pathetic, footsteps dragging himself along the road to nowhere in particular. logic screams at him to turn and go back because this isn't a place for someone like him: newly turned, still unable to control himself fully, still unable to accept it all.
then impact. a body collides against his and for a second, his world stops.
familiarity's the first thing he feels. he knows. doesn't even have to look. that scent, warmth, cedar and faint metallic ... the very scent that still clings to his sheets, his clothes, his apartment, the ghost of it that still lingers in the hollow space beneath his ribs. emery. he doesn't have to look but he does anyway, head snapping up, rain streaking down his cheeks as vision wavers. "... what the fuck?" the words hit like knife, and perhaps jude wishes that this was another hallucination, another cruel trick of hunger because that would hurt less than this — than him standing here after leaving jude to drown in this stupid shithole of a life alone. silence stretches, then a hollow laugh tears out.
"that's all you have to say, after everything? 'you shouldn't be here'?" the memories surge like a tide and comes crashing in all at once. lover's hand in his hair, tangled bodies and whispered promises in the dark. the way he looked at jude like he was, for once, something precious and loved. lips against his pulse like a prayer. then the searing pain, betrayal, waking up alone with the sort of hunger that felt like dying all over again.
but the worst part? is that beneath the rage and anger, he still loves him. and it's the kind of love that's stubborn as the echo of a heartbeat that'll never sound again. his hands shake with the urge to scream, bleed him dry, make him feel half the agony jude's endured, or drag him close and never let go. but he doesn't. just stands there, soaked and trembling, too aware of how his dead heart still stutters at the sight of emery. when he finally speaks though, his voice comes laced with poison, meant to wound. "you don't get to tell me where i should or shouldn't be. not after you walked away that night."
romaincrisis
andulkaphoto
discoholicmusic
annaxmalina
