Kill Me, Kiss Me

THIRTY FOUR

    Warning: Verbal abuse, childhood trauma, mention of suicide

    "WHY?"

    Theo turned his head to look at his own splayed hand across the sheets, "You tell me why."

    "Why?" Keir repeated, standing by the edge of the bed, a dark ghost that threatened to devour him at the slightest movement.

    The music had long since sparkled into non-existence and with it, the damp blue melancholy of deep dusk, the solitary glow of the moon. It no longer seemed to exist in this space - behind its clouds, the veil that obscured it, perhaps it did, but not here. Here, there were shadows, monster darknesses that streaked the wall in forms too quick to catch.

    Here, there was this Keir. This Keir that knew only how to stand in the dark, his face distorted by the moving shadows, to stare down and ask, again, again "Why?", "Why", "Why?", wHY, WHY?

    "Why?"

    So patient, so mindless, if it were not for the tremble in Keir's baritone voice, Theo could've dismissed him as a machine. But here Keir was, so vulnerable, standing there like an obedient doll, asking HIM why?

    He laughed, propped an elbow up and glanced towards that shadow, "Go back to bashing your keys, why have you stopped?"

    The man looked at him aghast, "And if I play for you, will you finally answer my question?"

    Theo sat up and studied Keir's face. Drawn brows, red tinged eyes, tight-pressed lips, why, this was the perfect face of sorrow! Where had all that anger gone? Where had all that pride gone? Was it the alcohol? One mention of Murray and here was this obedient dog. This animal who'd run round in circles and bite down its anger, because it was scared. Oh, how quick he was to change!

    A strange hate spiralled through Theo's veins, red hot and sluggish. He knew it was strange, it did not burn as acutely, did not, like the anger before seize the muscles of his limbs in frenzy. This thing, this thing grew and pressed against his stomach with every passing second that Keir stared down at him with those sorry eyes. Those eyes, those eyes—

    "Bad boy." He said.

    Keir flinched and took a step back.

    "Bad. Boy." Theo shouted, rising from the bed.

    "Please." Keir said, falling backwards, shaking his head, "Please."

    Theo laughed mockingly, that molten hotness mounting and mounting without an end, "You disappoint me."

    A half gasp tore wretchedly through Keir's throat as he withdrew, further and further into the shadows, "Please, I'm good."

    "Good?" Theo swept a hand through the air, "If you're good, than everyone else are saints! Don't delude yourself Keir, you're just a selfish child who knows nothing of other people's pain."

    Keir bit into his lip, hands taunt and shaking by his side.

    "Tell me," Theo pressed forwards, "What do you know? What do you know other than getting what you want, how you want?"

    Chest heaving, the man panted in choked gasps, back crashing against the wall with a thud that reverberated straight through Theo's spine. Red and that man shaking as if the whole world was shattering around him, he could see nothing else. Those eyes, those eyes, how dared they look at him as if they were suffering? He was the one who was suffering, he was the one who had no place to go, who had to depend on this person for survival. He was the one who had been killed time and time again, he was the one who was treated like a substitute. Was what he was doing wrong?