( the world will eat you up. )
you just have to bite back.
+
ARCHIVED.
( INACTIVE )
When he felt her move there was no relief in his chest. In fact, there was only guilt. She shouldn’t have had to deal with his problems—he was a big boy, he could calm himself down from another night’s panic attack. They were getting more and more common as he got older and in turn, Jon was learning quickly how to fix them. Well, attempt to fix them. Whether his little ‘rituals’ actually worked or not seemed to be near impossible to gauge and even less possible to separate from compulsions now. Maybe that’s why he’d had the nightmares, maybe if he would have followed his schedule like the intelligent human fucking being he’d tried to think he was he could have actually slept. Instead, he was looking like a damn idiot in front of Selina. Surely, she’d take it as a weakness.Weakness makes people leave.
Her touch, the same touch that had so recently been the best comfort he’d ever received, made him jump. Thankfully he’d held the gasp back. Now that would have just pushed it over the edge, made him look like a complete fool. Well. More of one. He gulped hard and not even a moment later sucked in a weak breath. One, two three, four, with each number he breathed in so deep it showed just how prominent his ribs were, and out as slow as he could manage. He was trying his very hardest to get his heart rate back to normal. If he did that, the feeling in his chest might go away. It took him a moment but he did turn round to look in her direction.
"Sorry. I’m sorry.“
For what exactly, he didn’t seem so sure. For waking her up? For making it seem like he didn’t want her to be there, trying to help? Whatever it was, he didn’t seem to be able to say it. His eyes were too busy following the crinkles of the bed sheets, hoping to distract his overworked mind from the nausea and the fact that his heart felt as though it’d burst out of his chest if it beat any faster than it already was. He let out a breath shakier than his bony hands and looked away again.
Teeth raked over his bottom lip, catching on the already chapped patches. If he were in his right mind in that moment he would have worried about drawing blood. Sometimes it helped—really, it did.. Sometimes it helped him get his mind off of the actual problem and focus on something easier to tackle. But if he did it here she’d know and no one could know. Jonny had heard the stories of kids getting caught by the teachers and he didn’t want that. Not at all…
She restrained the urge to snatch her hand back as if she’d been burned by the mere touch of her fingers against his flesh, purely because she felt like she’d done something wrong by reaching out. But with effort, she slowly started tracing circles methodically on his skin in an attempt to make him focus only on that feeling and think less; all the while watching the edges of his ribs press against his paper-thin skin like they longed to burst forth into the cool night air. When he spoke, it was a raspy whisper that grated against the smooth feel of his back beneath her fingers. She opened her mouth to speak, but found it lacking for a moment. Instead, she pressed a kiss to his shoulder blade – eyes reading the alarm clock on her nightstand that read 2:09 in the morning. “There’s nothing to be sorry for,” was her quiet murmur, breath causing a swath of gooseflesh to rise where her lips brushed.
Another pause fell upon the two, and the clock flashed 2:10. Slowly, as if tending to a wounded animal and trying not to scare it, Selina slid off the edge of the bed till she was on her knees before the edge of her mattress, solemn and still as she settled in front of her… lover? Boyfriend? They were beyond friendship now, but she had no words to conform them to. Two broken people finding solace in the hands of the other, hoping beyond hope that they could find something worth it in each others’ cracked ribs and tenderly bruised lips. Selina reached up, her small hands coming to cradle Jonathan’s face, thumbs brushing along the sharp lines of his cheekbones, smoothing over the gauntness of his face. She brushed a sweaty tendril of hair away from the clump it had become on his forehead, fingers feathering in their touch. She gently turned his face to meet hers, until there was no other choice but to look into her eyes. And she understood, she really did.
She saw the fear lurking behind the eyes of the boy sitting on her bed. Perhaps she knew not the reason behind that fear; but she could try, couldn’t she? She understood how hard it was to hide weakness. Weakness was something to be exploited: a message that had been pounded into her very bones from the moment she had been born. Weakness couldn’t be tolerated, couldn’t be seen or else you would face the consequences. She knew. He knew. Selina said nothing, but she compelled him to come back to the present, away from the demons that lurked in the corners of his mind though the reverent way she cradled his face now. She met his gaze with hers solidly, refusing to break the contact.
If she had a way to say that she understood what it was like to wake up screaming and feeling that agonizing panic bubbling up in your chest, she hoped he could see it in the haunted shadows that cast its hold over her too. She couldn’t say anything about her own demons. It was against everything about her to willingly divulge something so terrifyingly close to the soul that made her Selina Kyle to say such a thing. And she expected nothing from Jonathan. If he spoke, he spoke. If he didn’t, she only hoped that he would let her – broken as she was – to at least bring him out of the hell that currently inhabited his mind.
societydxrling-archive-blog reblogged this from martyrtosolitarycause-blog and added: She restrained the urge to snatch her hand back as if she’d been burned by the mere touch of her fingers against his...
martyrtosolitarycause-blog reblogged this from societydxrling-archive-blog and added: When he felt her move there was no relief in his chest. In fact, there was only guilt. She shouldn’t have had to deal...