Title: Parasite
Rating: R
Summary: Will thinks through his draining day.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Outside.
He feels like he is not here anymore; like he's standing outside himself, watching everything fall apart, things, everything, everyone, one. That one. The one.
Perhaps he is floating on air, trying to sweep up the mess that he made, Gabi's tears like sharp glass breaking into powder, waterfalls of blinding white hate, so much anger everywhere, he feels it against his tongue. He reaches out to touch, fingertips brushing against coats, mink and leather, pretentious people, so many of them, but he only misses the one. The important one.
Inside.
This cannot be right. He's watching his life slip by; eyes blurred, aching and swollen, trying to find a face in the crowd, trying to say I'm sorry with a gaze, head bent low, like a sorry dog, tail between legs, forever sorry, forever and always.
No more of this, he just wants to crash and burn into the ground, set fire to the sky, engulf himself in smoke so he doesn't have to be inside this broken, damaged, body that wants to self-destruct at every turn in the corner. He wants to hide in the dark and feel the cold ground against his numb cheek, rewind the day back to when he was loved and wanted, back to when he belonged somewhere, back to when he liked himself enough that he allowed happiness to flounder.
No more of this, just silence within a howling echo inside his head, just a dry winter in his core, his skin crackles a mocking song, betraying him, his tongue thick and useless, his eyes dead like the startled ones of lifeless fish. A joke. Always the one scraping at walls, trying to climb out of the hollow well.
Sonny.
Sonny left, didn't he?
No, Sonny didn't leave. He chased Sonny away. He took all of Sonny's time and love, cheated him of effort, money and sex, and left him in the dumps. That's the kind of person he has become. A liar, a cheat, a thief. Sonny could have loved someone else, could have been happier, but instead, Sonny was stuck with him. Stuck with mending his broken shell, stuck with the hand-me-down that he is, stuck with the baggage that he carries.
Fault.
It was all his fault. For being so stupid that fateful night. So what if Brian and Sonny hooked up? He used Gabi for his own selfish reasons and now it's come back in full force; the gravity of his error, the enormity of his lies, the monster of his secrets, all ganged up against him, eating and clawing out of him like parasites; done with him for the night, done with him for the rest of his life.
Massacre.
He is not ready for this. Being a father scares the lifeblood out of him, but not having any rights over his own child frightens him exponentially more. The tangled web that he and Gabi and Nick weaved has unravelled, and despite all the horrors of the night, relief, that the truth had finally come out, is a satin sheet gently layering the knives and wounds that make up his soul.
Blind.
His eyes are sticky with tears, red with fear, swollen with shame. He can barely look anyone in the eye, especially not Sonny. Yet, he had to see for himself. And in Sonny's eyes, he saw nothing but bleakness ahead of them.
He is half-dragging himself into bed, still dirty from the sweat of running around, skin damp from the chilly night, a rag doll that suddenly misses the structure of a spine and the beat of a heart. As he crawls achingly into his bed and lies against his pillows, the strangeness of being distinctly alone sinks in.
Hours and hours pass, and he doesn't sleep a wink.