Heart of Glass [manxman]

Chapter Twenty-Two

The year Louis came... I never connected it, but that was the year I finally felt like I was home, like, well, maybe not like I belonged there, but like I was serving a purpose. It felt comfortable and right. That was why I'd stayed so long, it had become my home.

Whenever it was that we came together; wherever it was we found one another, we were home.

Louis was my home. Ups and downs aside, hate and love and lust aside, that man, standing right in front of me on the brink of tears and so desperate it made my chest ache, I loved him. I wanted the absolute best for him, nothing less. So, it would hurt for a while. Of course it would. It might always hurt. But in time, as the wound scabbed and healed, the skin would grow back over it. Eventually, there would belittle more than a faint scar where the wound was, but that would be it. It wouldn't hurt anymore, it wouldn't be a nuisance, just a distant memory to look back at briefly before returning to the present to forget again.

I'd be his scar. It would be okay.

That was the best thing I could do for him.

Louis shoved his phone into his pocket and wiped his hands down his face, turning away from us. The back of his neck was flushed red and his shoulders pulled taut. He sniffed, taking a few audible, trembling breaths. "Half of the buildings won't talk to me. They don't want to talk about who they're voting for." He ran his hands through his hair again. "The other half have chosen Alexei. I don't know what that means."

"It means it's me. We've talked about—"

Louis turned around, eyes bloodshot with pink outlining the rims. The tip of his nose was red. He was a mess.

I shut my mouth and relaxed, looking at the others. "I need a minute with him."

They all understood and left with a few muttered words of encouragement and a few supportive squeezes of my shoulder. They trickled out of the room, leaving Louis and I alone. Louis was falling apart fast. If it was this hard for him now... Gods, why did this feel harder than it did one-hundred years ago?

"Alexei..."

"We still have no new information," I said, reciting the facts of the case again. "Recon found strange smoke signals, the appearance of a humanoid figure, power shifts that don't align with what we typically expect from average Aquireign demons."

"Alexei, I know, I—"

"The status of the admissions building hasn't changed—it's still silent there. Half of the buildings have chosen to surrender me; the other half refuse to voice their decision."

Louis put his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut. "Will you just fucking stop—"

"Those are the facts. In addition to those is that everything is going to be just fi—"

"Don't fucking say it—"

"The students, faculty, everyone is going to walk out of this. It's going to be okay."

Louis slammed his hands against the table in front of him. "For the love of the gods, will you shut your goddamn mouth? Everything is not fine, Alexei. Everything is falling apart. Everything." He clenched his fists. "I just fucking got you back. I just saw your face. I just made peace with this whole fucking mess that we're in. It's not fair."

"Life is never fair."

"Don't you give a shit? Aren't you scared?" He looked back at me. His hazel eyes desperately examined my face, looking for something, anything, to give him answers.

I sighed and scratched the back of my head. "I'm scared shitless," I said. "But we both can't fall apart right now, and I sure as hell can't, not when I'm the one that—" I cut myself off, stopping the words before they were out in the open, before Louis could latch onto them and really go into panic mode.