happy to be in your shadow // tim wright x reader

Daydreams

I opened the car door and staggered out and into the faint morning glow, the light blinding my glazed-over eyes as I groggily shuffled down the overgrown sidewalk leading towards my house. I could feel Tim's eyes on my back, the pressure of his worried attention. The energy surrounding him, the swirling black expanse, tugged at my hair and coaxed me gently, yet needily, to stay— stay, not to go. I wavered briefly, stealing a glance back at him. His warm brown eyes were smoldering, burning through the cold suffocating morning fog, and setting fire to my chest. A deep red-brick fireplace kind of scorching— a star in the night, a lit match in the dark. I realized that there was something in fact there, something bright and burning inside of him. Something obscured by smoke and smothered in ash. That you could only catch the faintest glimpse of when squinting at it just right. It called to me more than the pressure, the intrusive and heavy weight of the air surrounding him. 

I felt sickly sweet forgiveness rise in my throat. Tim was a mystery for sure, one that I could never hope to solve, but rather admire the complicated intricacies from which he was made up. My thoughts were stuck like a record, sappy and sentimental. Looping and spinning and feeling. Maybe it was the exhaustion, maybe this was just who I was. I nodded at Tim and he shifted his eyes away, their glassy complexions filled to the brim with a mixture of anger and shame.

In my current state, I felt indifference... It was unusual, but for some reason I didn't hold anything against him. My sleep-deprived mind had bent to my own foolish curiosity. I felt like Icarus, and for the moment I only choked down an undeniable longing to know more.

I unlocked my house's front door, thankful for the spare house key that I had stowed away under my welcome mat for an instance such as this. It felt odd, to have a time that was so long ago, one with a different me, converge on the path of me now. I shook hands with the smudged vision of the me of the past as I handled the key, the rusty lock making a metal clunk as I turned it in the lock. I heard the squeal of water under tires as I stepped through the doorway and into my cold and lonely house.

I lived alone, and I appreciated the space that this offered me— it was a privilege to come home after a long day and not have to talk to anybody but myself, but sometimes I felt as if the house didn't belong to me. I was renting it, but it was in the way that people always talk about, when a house isn't a home without love, family, maybe a house cat— the tender feelings that could be derived from these things. This house to me just felt like a place to rest my head or to take a warm shower. It felt cold and unfilled. I wondered if I was at fault, maybe the fire in MY chest was far too small and weak to sufficiently fill it up. Maybe it was lopsided, its flame curling awkwardly to one side, or maybe the kindling giving birth to the flame was too damp... Maybe I would just never be able to fill it up, no matter how hard or how consistently I tried. My couch in the living room, although indented by frequent use, looked abandoned and untouched. I wonder if that was how I appeared when somebody looked at me.

I flicked on the lights, dissolving the cool blues seeping in from the windows and instead replacing them with dim and dingy artificial yellows. I was exhausted, physically and mentally, and my head still buzzed and hummed. A light yet agitating droning noise that continued on, unceasing, like a river.

I peeled my mud-caked clothes off and stared at my face in the bathroom mirror. I looked terrible, my skin sickly pale, my under-eyes purple and gray; splotchy— like a bruise. My hair was everywhere. Some clumps were sticking up, there were strands encrusted with dirt, as well as a couple tangled up leaves mixed in. I turned on the water, its full warm sound temporarily subduing the sharp and persistent pin-pricks of static in my head. I stepped into the shower, allowing the hot water to consume me and letting it wash everything away. Steam drifted up and in front of my eyes, I breathed in, and let my eyelids droop gently.

The feeling of steam filling up the whole space, the air no longer cold and empty, was comforting. White airy clouds, though my eyes were closed, constantly moved and changed shape around me, I could feel them— twisting and turning and disappearing. Through the clouds, I felt as if he was almost there with me... Tim. I felt the hot dryness of his cigarette smoke on my face, the weighty presence of his warm, soft body standing only a few footsteps away. I believed that I may be able to reach out and touch him at any moment. His brown eyes narrowly pinned on me, him offering me a hand, maybe a cigarette. Maybe just him standing there, in front of me. Cobwebs of hairs scrawled over his forearms, his bare chest, his stomach, laid out in front of me. His breathing; slow, relaxed. I reached out a hand, believingly, and pressed through the clouds of fantasy. Pushing through the pressure of the hot steam clouds, pushing through him, to find that... nothing was there.

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note:

thanks for reading! sorry it's late! i will be taking a break from posting for the month of april and may start posting inconsistently for a bit after that. but don't worry! it is always being worked on behind the scenes and will eventually make its way onto here. :) love ya!