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──˖‧ ✦☾☼ ✦ ‧˖──
The glowing eyes were back.
But he knew better than to fear them now. Despite the familiar darkness of the room, there was no reason for him to flee. He was no longer the helpless boy he used to be. Everything was different now. Now he had him.
He could still remember falling asleep with his hand in his ; he was there, he kept his heart warm, even as the world grew cold. So no, there really was no reason to flee.
He let out a mental sigh and let himself dream.
──˖‧ ✦☾☼ ✦ ‧˖──
It used to destroy him, how one of the things he wanted to forget like no other, never left him alone for longer than an instant. For so long, nothing was more familiar than the eery ambiance of that room. The squeaky floors, the mattress that didn’t seem to know of the color white. It had been since the very first day a weird mix of gray and yellow and it always smelled like sweat and cheese and something almost chemical.
What a weird thing to remember.
Oh how he wished he didn’t.
Sometimes he was given a sheet to cover it with, most of the time he wasn’t. The pillow, the one and only he had, was just as bare. More often than not, he didn’t even lay his head on it, instead choosing to hold it against his chest, like his mother used to hold him when he was little, when she cared, when the comfort of her only son was still on her mind, when she didn’t have more important things to take care of.
Thinking of her always made him feel hollow, for so long he had waited for her to come back, he had hated her for just as long. Weirdly enough, the two very contradicting feelings, one might say, used to coexist peacefully somewhere inside his chest. A painful peace, but nonetheless, a peace. He knew better now. Nothing was left but regret and indifference, if she wanted to come back, if she cared enough to check whether he was still alive – she would have done it already. But she didn’t, and Keith wasn’t delusional enough to wait forever, not anymore.
Weirdly enough, thinking about the basement was better than thinking about his mother. About the way her eyes were of a color he could no longer remember, about facial features that were probably so very similar to his own, but that he couldn’t for the life of him picture all together. Standing in front of a mirror, he used to search for every piece of himself that he might have taken from her, but despite knowing he had her forehead, her eyebrows, her pointy chin and turned up nose, her face remained a blur. Or it used to be just turned up, a smooth swoop following the bone and cartilage all the way to a soft pointy tip. Now a small bump was there, in the middle, bone permanently displaced, nose broken one too many times in his teenage years. Somehow, while it hurt so much in the moment, he grew to love the way his nose was now his own, there was no more need to search for something that would only hurt him in the end.
Anyways, back to the basement. Squeaky floors, and an even squeakier bed frame, an old mattress, a pillow and a blanket. A lonely sight. The blanket was something he was told he could keep, coming into their house, one of the only memories he had of the days when everything was still okay, when he was just a little boy, and not a case in a thick folder. The blanket was a purple, fluffy thing, too small for a figure that grew too fast, one of the corners slightly burnt from the tragedy. He loved it like no other, until one day it just disappeared, never to be seen again. He had blamed his bunk mate, even punched him in the face, taking an alarming amount of pleasure in the way it had cracked under his knuckles, it wasn’t just about the blanket. But no one cared about a lousy blanket, they did however care about his anger issues. Back then, he though they were over-complicating things, he thought he didn’t have any, he thought everyone was out to get him. Now, he knows he did have anger issues, maybe he still does, and while some were truly out to get him, most simply didn’t care enough to do anything about it.
The room had only one light bulb, colorful wires exposed, hanging by sheer willpower rather than anything else. What a weird thing to say, isn’t it? But that had to be true, because otherwise it wouldn’t have survived the loneliness, the sorrow, the desolation. It worked most of the time, even though at some point the light grew dimmer, the issue was elsewhere. The light switch was – for whatever reason – outside the door, and even when they didn’t switch the light off to punish him for whatever sin he had committed by breathing in their presence or something, it would still sometimes go off ; their children had always loved to play, after all.
The wooden stairs – just as squeaky as everything else in that basement, as it seemed – had always looked endless, and yet he would climb them every day, more then once and sit by the door. The first few weeks he had banged on the door, crying and screaming his lungs out, those that followed he learned to beg. Keeping his pride didn’t help him any if he had no food in his stomach. He learned to bite it down, to swallow the humiliation along with the leftovers from whatever it was that the kids from upstairs didn’t want anymore. After a few more weeks, however, the begging stopped. It didn’t do anything, after all. As long as he kept quiet, he would get food, but begging got him the same amount in exchange for their sadistic pleasure. So instead he just sat there, listening to the barely audible chatter somewhere in the house, comfortable conversations and laughter. Things he had never even dared to wish for.
At some point the door opened, they didn’t have the choice, he had missed far too many months already, he had to go back to school. He was around fourteen at the time. Even opened, it remained an invisible barrier between him and the outside world, him and them. Each morning he went to school, then he would try to keep up in class, avoid people, and eat his thin sandwich in silence. On the walk “home”, word that never felt right for the place he inhabited, he would spend as much time as he could in the park, just breathing. He used to let his eyes flutter shut and just stand in the cold.
For some reason, he never tried to flee. Instead, after his walk, he would always go back to the hell he lived in. No one ever cared if he came in late, or if he didn’t come before morning, not that Keith needed them to, not anymore.
He used to see the basement every night, nightmare upon nightmare, but nowadays, it was a rare occurrence and it was because of him – because of course it was – every single positive thing in his life was now somehow related to him, after all.
Ever since their worlds collided on that rainy day, his skies went from gray to blue and the angry, dark clouds made way for fluffy white ones that took many forms and didn’t hide the sun all that much. The blue-eyed boy made him feel alive again, something he hadn’t felt for years.
His own little sunshine.
Since the day they met, Keith’s life became so exponentially better that even waking up in the morning wasn’t a chore anymore, and yet, something was still amiss, lacking, not quite there yet. A new type of nightmare began plaguing his nights. The basement. A monster. Glowing eyes. Every night was the same, he would go down those damned stairs, see the eyes, hear the steps and either wake up, or wait until the monster tried to touch him. Afterwards, he would end up walking around the block for hours, or just laying there motionlessly, not daring to look at the warm body slumbering near. More often his sunshine would wake up alone, in a cold bed and Keith would have to pretend he couldn’t see the disappointment in his eyes, promptly replaced by resignation, couldn’t see that he too was pretending, because of course it bothered him, who wouldn’t be bothered by their partner disappearing every night? And yet his smile never waned, eyes never lost their spark.
Things had to change, he knew that much. Because those eyes, the soul behind them deserved so much more than his half-assed attempts at being anything better than mediocre, than the lukewarm affection he could give on the best of his days. Than him.
But he was a selfish man, and that meant that he couldn’t let Lance go. He wasn’t ready to go back to the way things were before him. Now that he knew how it felt to be wanted, to be loved, he wasn’t sure if he even could go back to the way things used to be, to the cold indifference of the world.
If he wanted the sun to still shine in his sky, he needed the clouds to clear up and that meant things had to change.
This time, everything would be different, it had to be.
It was destroying Lance, he could see it on his face as plain as day.
He knew that sooner or later, the day would come and he would leave. Maybe not right now. Maybe not tomorrow. Lance has always been patient with him. And yet, it wouldn’t last, it never did. Because people leave, and they have every right to. No one wants to wait forever, for something that may never come. For someone that may never be ready. For a shadow too scared of the light.
Lance was different. He didn’t scream, didn’t cry, didn’t leave, and yet, Keith knew that something had to change, he had to change. Because even if he wouldn’t leave, he would die trying to water something dead, something rotting slowly under the desert sun.
And Keith? Keith couldn’t do that to him. He wouldn’t.
Despite not being able to voice it, to say it loud and proud, it was when he was near that he was the happiest. When those beautiful tan hands were in his, when he could pepper the endless number of stars covering his shoulders and back with kisses, creating his own constellations. When he would smile at him as if Keith’s eyes were the only ones he wanted to gaze over every curve and dip of his body.
His own little sunshine.
He brought light into a room where the curtains had been closed for too long. Just came in marching, his bare feet thumping uncharacteristically loud against the cold tiles. He walked in and opened those heavy curtains, dark and opaque and hiding him from everyone who had ever cared about him. He tugged at them with all his might, as if his life depended on it. Maybe it did. He tore open the window, letting fresh air in. It was like an explosion of color on a black canvas. Reds and blues and yellows.
Keith always knew something was different about him, and yet, he never seemed to know why. Because, sure, he knew his childhood years were… abnormal to say the least, and so were his years as a teenager, but he wasn’t the only one and if they could find their place in world – why couldn’t he? If they could love loudly, proudly – why couldn’t he?
He was but an empty shell with no voice of its own, not even an echo coming from within its walls. Hollow and empty, discarded somewhere between the sharp edges of the rocks, left to fend for itself, against the incoming storm.
But he, he was no storm ; he was a gentle wave caressing his surface and whispering sweet nothings into his ears.
The first time those three little words left his beautiful lips, he felt like a blind man seeing for the very first time.
He could tell Lance meant it. Even though he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why he ever would. Maybe, just maybe – it was because he felt it too.
He knew that he loved him, and yet those words never left his lips. In the gloomiest parts of his heart, bloomed something long forgotten, akin to hope. Hope that those he loves the most wouldn’t leave him alone in the darkness. And yet darkness was the only thing he ever knew. Ever since… ever since his father died, since his mother left, since those that were supposed to keep him close as his little world crumbled, closed the basement door shut behind him.
The memory – of the squeaky floors, of the faces that were so very different from his own, of the voices behind the door, barely there, and yet, unapologetically joyful, laughing as if he wasn’t wasting away in the darkness – kept him up every night.
The loneliness broke him. It truly did. But he wasn’t about to let it break the only soul that had been trying to glue the pieces back together. He wouldn’t let the sharp edges of his heart cut the fingers that had so many cuts of their own, and nevertheless kept trying to bandage his wounds, to shed light into the empty halls of his heart. The tiniest cracks in the walls of his mind letting sunlight bleed through, created shadows. Shadows that weirdly enough, didn’t scare him as much as the darkness did.
That had to stop, he knew that much. To heal, he had to actually want it, and with Lance’s hand in his – he did.
──˖‧ ✦☾☼ ✦ ‧˖──
As Keith opened his eyes and saw the same basement that haunted every day and every night of his life, saw the same yellow eyes glowing in the dark, he knew not to fear, not to run away. Instead, he sat down at the bottom of the stairs and let the creature… no, it was no creature. Instead, a boy stood in front of him. He let the boy come to him.
The steps that followed were slow and sloppy, bare, injured feet making their way to him. The child looked uncanny, black spots, white ones, purple, red, blue, green and many others swirling on the surface of his skin, and yet, Keith felt no fear. Not when he could still remember the touch of Lance’s hand. His eyes searching for his own.
For so many years, he ran, but now, he knew what it felt like to have someone that wanted him to stay. That actually wanted him. The him he thought had died so long ago.
Keith felt the touch before he saw the tiny hand clasp his hand. It was cold and so very careful. Tentative.
There were tears on those soft baby cheeks, and scratches on his neck. Some more on his forearms and legs. Nails bloody and torn.
He could still remember clawing at the wooden door. The features of the face that used to be so innocent and soft, were now distorted and not quite the right color.
This time was like so many others, but instead of trying to get away, Keith opened his arms and let the boy in. The second his arms closed around the child in a tight embrace, the basement disappeared, as did everything else. The last thing he heard was a watery thank you.
Opening his eyes wasn’t any easier than usual, but he felt lighter, as if the dove, the one he had tried to cage for so long, was now flying freely in the blue sky. He turned over, the bed squeaking unpleasantly, and saw him. This time, he didn’t get up hurriedly, he didn’t turn away, he didn’t even lie there in silence, letting all the love – he wasn’t going to hide away from that word no longer – flow up and down his tortured mind and body. He let it take over, like a tide in a storm. Instead he got closer and whispered softly, “I love you”.
He didn’t hear him, but that didn’t matter. This one was for him, just to make sure he could. Next time he would make sure the words made it to him. He would make sure he knew that he meant every one of them.
His own little sunshine.