A tightening pain around my abdomen caused me to groan awake.
My face contorted as the pain grew worse and worse.
My eyes jolted open when I realized that the pain was coming from Clare.
His grip around me was tight, too tight, completely unbearable and I felt like I was being crushed.
"Clare." I spoke, shaking his bicep.
No response.
He was clearly asleep, but he was squeezing me half to death.
"Clare," I repeated, trying my best to slip from his arms.
My attempts were futile, as I clawed at his arms nothing was happening.
The pain tightening around me was only getting worse and before I knew it, tears welled in my eyes.
I went from calling him calmly to full on yelling his name, clawing as his arms desperately.
"Clarence!" I cried out, thankfully this time he jolted awake.
His eyes grew wide when he saw my state, his arms immediately unraveling from me.
Immediately I curled up in pain, hugging myself as I gasped for air.
"B-Ba—"
Clare looked on at me in shock, his mouth wide and his eyes the same.
"I-I'm sorry, I ain't, I d-didn't..."
I stayed quiet as he walked over to the light and flicked it on before quickly walking back over to me.
As he attempted to touch me I instinctively flinched causing him to halt his movements.
He looked down at me with a ghostly expression, his face drained of color.
"I-it's okay.." I coughed.
He didn't respond, and instead slowly moved his hands to the bottom of my shirt, watching me closely to see if I was uncomfortable.
I watched him shakily, heart pounding against my chest as he lifted my shirt, showing the bruises.
When his eyes met those he looked as if the life had been drained from him. Like he'd just received a strong punch to the gut.
"I-I—"
"it's fine..." I said lowly, "you didn't mean to."
I attempted to hug him but he backed up immediately, "d-don't touch me right now.."
I watched him with an astonished expression as he backed from me, his eyes never leaving the bruises.
He stood like that, completely still, eyes glued to me.
"C-Clarence..." I questioned, cautiously walking up to him.
He didn't respond, instead he walked over to the bathroom and shut the door, locking it.
My eyes moved from the bathroom door, to the mirror. I looked at my reflection and the discolored skin on my abdomen area.
There was something more going on with him than what he was telling me.
Him hiding it was only making this worse.
I sat on the bed thinking to myself for about 5 minutes.
Then 5 minutes turned into 10, then 15, then 20.
Still Clarence hadn't exited the bathroom which worried me. I know he was blaming himself, and me flinching from his initial touch definitely didn't help.
"Clare..." I said softly, turning at the locked knob.
I received no response, but instead he opened the door.
As he came into view he stood in the mirror, his eyes stained red but his expression was dead. He just stared at himself in the mirror, emotionless.
"I-I ain't mean to do that..." he spoke lowly, looking at my reflection in the mirror.
"I know, it's okay." I spoke.
"But we have to talk, whatever it is that's doing this, we have to talk about it, or it's gonna keep happening..." I frowned.
"I hurt you, the bruises, I-I ain't mean to—"
Rather than say anything I hugged his back, resting my head against him.
I'd never seen him so shaken up, sure angry and sad. But never completely shaken like this.
"It's okay..." I repeated.
"It's not..." he spoke.
He turned around and softly pushed me back.
"I-I can't even touch you...." he said lowly.
"Clare this isn't your fault, this is a product of what you're putting yourself through when you leave. It's a product of you refusing to talk to me about everything. I don't care if you're sworn into some stupid oath. You can't hold all this in, you're gonna implode.." I spoke.
He looked down at me with a sad expression.
I grabbed his hand and led him over to the bed where we both sat.
"Please, just talk...." I begged.
He again decided on silence.
But to surprise his deep baritone spoke up randomly.
"Where's your phone?" He questioned.
I pointed to it on the nightstand causing him to walk over to it.
He turned it off, before doing the same to his own.
"That first week after I left, they told me I was in charge. We'd only done small shit with me leading but not something serious." He started.
I wanted to ask why the phone theatrics were necessary, but I chose not to scare myself.
"We had a mission over in Berlin, something simple, a quick assassination. That's all." He sighed.
"And we did it, we dealt with our target, but what I didn't know is some of the other guys had separate orders, they were told to take a hostage."
He paused for a second and stared at the ground, completely silent, completely still.
"It was my job, whatever information we needed, it was up to me..." he spoke
"I had to torture that kid for a month, one month, beating.Constant abuse, constant beating." He shook his head.
"He was like 22, and they had me do shit to him that I you wouldn't even think of..."
"Jay, remember yesterday I told you that I met somebody, somebody that I actually considered a friend..." he questioned.
I nodded as I watched him.
"He was the hostage..."he said lowly, a lone tear falling from his left eye.
My mouth fell agape as the words left his mouth.
"T-they made you, why?"
"he tried to leave, he wanted to be with his family more so he tried to leave the country." He explained.
"They found out about that, and wanted him dealt with.." he shook his head.
"So why didn't they make you do it, they didn't need any information.."
"The info they wanted was if somebody else was in on it." He explained.
"I had to do it because I'm the new leader, according to them, I gotta set an example. I gotta instill fear or they won't listen to me.." he spoke.
"I killed and tortured the one person there that was actually a friend to me. I took away somebodies boyfriend and father because of some fuckin' orders." He ranted, his tone and voice low.
His face was still cold and still, but the tears were flowing.
"Every time I close my eyes, I see his face, every time I go to sleep, I hear him begging for me to stop." He spoke.
"I can't fuckin' sleep because I can't get him out of my head."
"I'm not different than Rodrigo, we're one and the same.." he shook his head.
"That's not true and you know it!" I said quickly.
"You have no choice, he does!" I retorted.
"You say that because of who you are. If you didn't love me you could see that I'm the same. I killed him to protect myself. It was either me or him and I chose myself like I always do, Like Rodrigo does...."
"He begged me Jay, everyday, he begged me." He whispered.
"He compared himself to Jave, and André, and explained how he was no different, and I still did what I did." He continued, his head hanging low.
"With his final breath, he looked at me with so much hurt, so much heartbreak. He only wanted what was best for his family, and I punished him for that.."
" I was his Rodrigo."
I wiped his tears with my wrist as I spoke, "the fact that you're feeling all this pain and guilt should show you that you're not Rodrigo. You hate what you did, and yes I hate what you did. But I don't hate you and you shouldn't hate yourself." I spoke.
"The bruises I have will go away, but this guilt you have won't unless you forgive yourself. Clare who's to say that if you'd have disobeyed their orders they wouldn't have killed you too." I frowned.
"stop..." he said simply.
"what?" I questioned.
"Stop justifying what I did..." he said simply.
"If I was in the other position, you wouldn't care about the guilt of the person that tortured and killed me. Nobody would care because at the end of the day, I'm alive..."
He spoke.
"I just gotta man up—"
"Don't do that, don't dismiss your trauma because you're a man." I spoke.
"Dismissing your trauma is what got us here, and I don't care how long it takes, we're gonna talk, we're gonna talk until you can forgive yourself." I said seriously.
"Then we ain't gon ever stop talkin, what I did doesn't deserve forgiveness from anybody.."he sighed.
"I'm sleepin on the couch tonight." He spoke, standing up.
"No." I dismissed , standing up to block his path.
Again I wiped his tears with my wrist, "talk to me." I demanded.
"what chu' you want me say Joshua, I can't fuckin sleep' I can't fuckin' touch you, I can't fuckin' find Rodrigo. I can't do none of this shit!" He snapped.
"Javier is in the other room and I have to figure out how to be somebody he can look to and I can't do that cause I don't even know what that looks like. I ain't have a older brother to look up to, I was the damn older brother. My pops was a fuckin addict and my last memory of him was with a needle in his arm. There ain't no male figure I've ever had..."
"Every time I look at you I see somebody that gets hurt by my love more than they benefit from it." He shook his head.
"What we have ain't good and I'm too selfish to let you go. Jay I drove you into a damn depression and you still took me back..."
"I ruined Andrés life the moment I came back into it and now he stuck with all these problems that he has no business with." He ranted.
"My daughter don't have a moms right now, why—cause of me." He shook his head.
"Everything I touch I fuckin' ruin! Everybody I come across either dies or gets the life torn in two and I don't know why."
"Seems like I've been fuckin people up since birth. I ruined my parents by being born, burdenin them with a kid they won't ready for, causing them to work their asked to the bone. They stressed themselves to drugs cause of me." He cried, pointing to himself.
"I can't do anything right Joshua, no matter how much I try, I can't do shit...." he spoke lowly.
I looked at him sadly, completely unsure of what to say, I never even realized how much he burdened himself with, even when I was his doctor, we never got to dive deep into his trauma.
"You could still be working at the institute right now, you could be dating somebody else, living somewhere else...." he continued.
"But I broke you, just like everyone else..."
He backed up against the wall and sat down, resting his head against it, exhausted by his own emotions.
"This what you wanted, for me to let it all out right, there you go." He closed his eyes.
I walked up to him slowly before sliding down next him. I grabbed his head and pulled it against my chest, hugging him tightly.
"no matter how bad you try and convince me that you're the worst person alive. No matter how bad you hate yourself, it's not gonna change anything Clarence."
"Everything isn't your fault, being dealt bad cards upon birth, isn't your fault." I spoke.
"You can't take the blame for everything because you feel like you're the cause of it. André's here because he wants to be here, I'm here because I love you. Yeah we may all be young, but Javier has the three of us and we're figuring it out."
"It's easy for you to blame yourself because you despise yourself the most.." I whispered.
"You loathe the heart that beats inside you and it's because of that, that you feel like you're breaking everyone else's."
"I'm not Perfect Clare, and the truth is, yes I could have a different life. But I know for a fact that a life without you in it is a life where I'm truly not happy."
"A life without me in it is an easier one..." he replied.
"stop it." I frowned.
"If you want to truly forgive yourself, then you're gonna have to love yourself.." I explained.
With that he stayed silent and we sat in our position for a couple minutes longer before getting back in bed.
I'd convinced him to stay, but he refused to hold me. I settled for just laying on his chest, listening to his light breathing.
"teach me." He spoke abruptly.
"teach you what?" I asked, looking up at him.
"teach me how to love myself..."
I frowned at his words not because they were sad.
But because I wasn't sure I even knew how to do that myself...
•RUIN 🥀US•
Excuse any errors :)