Fixing Nico [boyxboy / yaoi]

Ch 3 - Sleep: Lack of or Excess of?

~NICO~

I face-planted into my bed for the second time today - and both times I was thinking of the same person. I forced a long, deep breath from my nose; the rush of air tickled the top of my lip and warmed the cotton sheets against my cheek. Christian's face - his brilliant, bright blue eyes and multicoloured hair - seemed almost branded behind my eyelids. Every time I blinked, his angelic face flashed in the darkness… it almost made my want to blink more.

I had no clue what was going on - the only thing I could process in my head was that Christian Matthews was the most beautiful person I had ever seen in my life… and I couldn't stop thinking about him.

I groan into my sheet. Great. Just great. You know that feeling when your worst suspicions are finally confirmed? It's like the whole world just stops for that one instant, that one moment, and every worry that you've stored in that deep pocket in the back of your mind suddenly becomes clear. And it sucks.

'This is torture,' I moaned, heaving a sigh and clenching my fists. I squeezed my eyes shut but his face only became clearer behind my eyelids - like I'd been staring at the sun too long and now it was the only thing I could see. An imprint of his face - a face I'd only known for an hour but still couldn't escape from…

What the hell was I going to do for the next three weeks?

It'd aways been a nagging suspicion in the back of my brain - something that I'd stored away since I was fourteen. I still remembered my first crush… he'd been in my class. Jason. Jason Layton. 

He'd had blonde hair and green eyes, and he was missing his left incisor. I'd never actually found out why - the rumours had circulated, the most popular being that a member of the Bra Boys had punched it out when he was crashing their party at Maroubra. The second-most popular was that he'd knocked it out when he was joyriding in a stolen car. 

I didn't think any of those theories were true, though - I knew they weren't. Jason Layton lived three houses down from me, and on the occasion, I could hear the screams of pain echo through the suburban streets, the slur of his drunken father as he beat him. He'd come to school, bruised black and blue, and tell his friends all about the made-up mischief he'd gotten into that had branded him a juvenile delinquent. 

He'd caught me staring at him once, at the beginning of the year, and snapped. He'd thought I was a freak - it wasn't as if he was far off the mark. He used to drag me to the back alleys of the school and beat me up. Beat me just like his own father did to him.

But as much as it hurt, I couldn't bring myself to hate him. I could never hate him… even thought it hurt, I wanted him to hurt me. Because I just wanted him to be better. Happier. I thought, somehow, that if he hurt me… I could make him happy.

I would never have stopped him, either. He could've killed me and I'd never have stopped him, I'd never have told anyone. I wanted to stay there with him, too, but my parents had noticed the bruises. They'd gotten suspicious. I'd put it down to sporting accidents, but by the time I'd broken three ribs they moved me to Sydney Boy's High when they found out I'd been accepted. I never saw Jason Layton again… I wasn't even sure if he still lived on my street.

After that, I'm not sure what happened. I shut it all into the back of my mind - denied the fact that I'd ever liked Jason, that I'd ever let him hurt me. I tried to forget it ever happened, I guess. 

But now it was all clear. Everything in my mind was clear. The emotions I'd pushed back into the corner of my brain were bleeding through the barriers like a leaking dam. As the thoughts invaded me, I realised that for the first time since Year Seven, someone had moved something in me. Someone had made me care.