my fault | justin + alex

chapter four

Justin couldn't bare the thought of leaving Alex alone. It might have just been his guilt, or his rocky friendship with the boy, but that didn't matter because he decided to stay, and that was all that mattered right now.

The term stay was not given a definite meaning and had an indefinite amount of time attached to it, Justin was in no rush to promise his time or life to this boy by any means, but he knew that he didn't have any other choice right now than to stay.

Time, Justin thought. It was just a small amount of time.

It was only a matter of time before someone better came along, a real friend of Alex's. They would relieve Justin of his nightly duties in the hospital where he sat slumped in the unkind hospital chair, they would visit the bleach blonde boy and promise to be there for him through his recovery, then Justin could leave.

Justin was here for Alex, not for himself. He was sat in this room so that Alex had the company, just in case he woke up.

Right?

He had sat in this room for the last few weeks because he wanted to make sure that if no one else showed up, Alex would have at least one person that wasn't family who cared.

Justin wasn't here because he was painfully alone.

Justin wasn't here because he wanted someone to stop him or give him a reason not to kill himself.

Justin wasn't here because he had nowhere else to go.

Well, maybe he was. Alex was the only person to give him safety when he had no one else. This safety had once been in the boy's bedroom, now it was in his hospital room. He had to admit he much preferred Alex's bedroom because it was warmer and less depressing but he didn't think Alex's room would be the same without hearing the boy tossing and turning amidst the sheets of the bed. He had a lot of time to think as he sat beside Alex's hospital bed, unable to sleep until late into the night because he hoped that if he stayed up long enough then Alex might wake up, he was afraid he'd miss it. He had once had the thought of whether or not Alex's moving in bed that night was from insomnia or his stomach pain. Justin knew Alex hadn't been sleeping but never cared to ask why. He cared, he just didn't ask.

The boy wondered if it was his own begging, a very out of character action, to have persuaded the boy to let him stay that night, or maybe it was just the kindness Alex managed to still have despite the horrible things Justin did in the past. There was one thing that Alex said to him when they woke up that he hadn't forgotten, something that gave him hope he could move on from all of this. Almost all of that hope was gone now but the slight flicker of life inside of Alex Standall was keeping that hope alive. At least he wasn't completely gone, because with he came that hope that things could always get better.

•••

"Are you awake?" Alex asked as he stared up at his blank ceiling. Sometimes the blankness of the ceiling comforted him, but he could never stare at the nothingness for long before he needed to see the familiar things around his room to stay sane. They were all things of little importance but it was better than nothing. With nothing, the mind wandered and his mind often went to dark places now, never good.

After what seemed like a long time he concluded that no, Justin was not awake, but then a voice not as full of sleep as he expected replied to him in the darkness. It was still dark enough to suggest night time but light enough to suggest the break of morning peaking through. It was early, very early, but morning none the less. Alex realised he had missed sunrise, but then he found himself not caring anyway.