“You’re the light, you’re the sun.I don’t feel cold with you.I don’t even feel like a fucking monster.I feel like your Romeo, and you feel like my Chad.”
Romeo flinched at the touch to his face.He opened his eyes, looking down on Chad’s pale face.His eyes were closed, but his hand...It had cupped Romeo’s face, and his thumb smudged an escaping tear.
“I love you, I do, but I’m terrified of losing you.I have to do this so I won’t have to live with that fear.”
Chad’s hand dropped.It hit Chad’s chest with a dull thud, completely boneless.
He’d fallen unconscious.
Romeo stopped smothering and pinching and closed his right hand on Chad’s throat to finish the job.
It hurt.
His palm throbbed with fire, but he persisted.
He wouldn’t fear losing Chad.
It would’ve happened.
He would’ve taken the control from him.
The darkness would be his choice.
Being cold and lonely would too.
And his heart would die, and he’d never have to feel it be broken again.
Stop it.
Those were Chad’s words.
Not stop ‘this’ or stop ‘that’ but stopit.
The monster.
It growled and gnashed its teeth in encouragement.
It told him he was doing the right thing.
But he didn’t want to do it.
He’d stopped before, when he’d attacked Chad in the outhouse soon after they’d moved to Bardhum, but back then he hadn’t been full of anger, fear, and despair.The emotions were potent, easy for the monstrous side of himself to exploit.He’d never known them in their entirety until he’d met Chad.He’d turned the dial right up.
But he hadn’t known happiness or love until he met Chad either.
Those emotions had grown within him because of Chad.
And he wanted to keep hold of them for as long as he could.
What was the point of existing without them?
Which meant he had to put the monster in its place once and for all.
“Stop.”He pressed his teeth together until his gums ached.“Enough!”
Romeo curled over, resting his forehead to Chad’s chest.“I won’t let you take him from me.You don’t get to use my hands or my strength.He’s ours, and I can be mad at him, I can be confused and hurt but it doesn’t have to lead to this.”
His hold weakened on Chad’s throat.
