bliss 🖤 imagines

1. jealousy 🖤 brad renfro

(For Tay. Obviously. ♡

Warnings: referenced drug/alcohol use

...and angst, angst, angst.)

When Brad's with you, he turns into a cliche. A living, breathing, jealous-wannabe-boyfriend stereotype, complete with boyishly modest good looks and pent-up emotional damage.

Hell, this could just be another movie.

But it's not. He looks at you, and he really feels something; you make him dizzy when you smile, weak in the knees when you laugh, -- no, weak everywhere.

It feels like lightning strikes his heart when you're near him; hell, you're electrifying. It might feel good, if these emotions of his didn't come with such a great amount of guilt. Because, lately, when you smile or laugh, it usually isn't because of him.

It's the other guy, -- so different from Brad, yet so perfect for you.

Brad hates himself for hating him, but that doesn't keep the animosity from sticking around. It just deepens his personal troubles, turning the stormy feeling inside of him into a full-blown hurricane.

He knows he's only worsening the downpour right now, knocking back drink after drink on one of the far ends of your beat-up couch. He knows by now that alcohol does nothing to quell the rage, but everything to drown out the pain. And he'd much rather be pissed than feel that deep, widespread hurt, gnawing right through his laboriously-crafted exterior, down to the bone.

At this point, he kind of figures he has the right to be pissed.

It didn't used to be like this; when he'd call you, seeking solace at your place for the night, there was never anyone there. When he walked through your door, he finally felt it was safe to let his guard down. Blitzed, high, or stone-cold sober, he was always safe with you; free to be weak, afraid. He could wrap his arms around you without fear of judgement, drown in the comfort of your warmth, lost and vulnerable and unlike himself, -- or at least, what everybody else saw. You'd always hug him right back, the only person who could ever show him so much genuine care with a single wordless gesture.

Then you'd lead him inside, pour him a glass of cold water, toss him a blanket, and listen attentively as he poured his heart out or absentmindedly hummed a tune, trying to tell himself that none of the things that made him so miserable had ever really happened at all. Even when he went completely silent, you stayed by his side, just as solemn as you would be if he hunkered down to tell you his entire life story in a single evening. You never pushed him any further, not even once; you just reached your hand out to him, closing whatever space there was between you.

You were there then. And now, you aren't.

Not with Brad, at least. He feels like little more than a bystander as you fawn over your new companion. Hell, with the way you keep touching each other, he figures his presence is practically voyeuristic.

He can't find comfort in your company anymore. Just the light of the TV, the ticking of the clock, and his loneliness.

He sighs, looking back up at the aforementioned clock on the wall. It's well past midnight already; he thinks he best leave you alone, go back to his shitty trailer and his empty bed, where he'd try and try to resist his stash but never work up the guts to flush it all down the toilet.

Resigned and exhausted, he rises to his feet.

Surprising as it might be to him, you notice.

"Where are you going?"

He shrugs. Nonchalant. Cold.

"Home." He spits that word out bitterly, like the nastiest medicine in the world. He reaches for his jacket on your coat rack, not wanting to risk turning around to look at you. Even if the two of you are growing apart, he's still afraid that you'd be able to see right through him.