“I know.” Stryker agreed “and I think it’s best that you calm down.”
“Ican’t.” I grabbed his arm tightly “Freaks, Stryker. He’s dead because some freaksthoughthe was gay. I- I…”
Stryker held me for ages. Let me sob and shake against him until I was too exhausted to anymore and simply shivered in his arms.
“Let’s get you to bed.” Stryker murmured, lifting me off the floor. I staggered to my feet but leant against him heavily.
I had no recollection of getting back to the base, or of getting into bed with Stryker beside me.
It became a habit after that.
“Stryker.”
He awoke to me shaking his shoulder. He moaned, rolling over and away from me “fuck off dude. Don’t wake me uptwice.”
I’d already awoken him because he’d stolen my blankets.
“Stryker” I repeated “can we go for a walk?”
“Are youmad?” he hissed back, keeping his voice low to avoid waking anyone else. He rolled over to face me and squinted up at me. “Are youcrying?”
“No…maybe.”
Stryker frowned and slowly sat up “nightmare?”
“Kind of.”
I’d dreamt of Matt. He’d been there, and he’d felt so real, and he’d been talking to me and telling me how much he loved me and he’d moved in to kiss me and then I’d woken up and hewasn’tthere and hewasn’ttelling me he loved me and hewasn’tkissing me because he wasdead.And I was going crazy. I wassureI was going crazy.
Stryker’s frown deepened. I swallowed and sat beside him, wrapping my arms around him in a hug. Stryker blinked, surprised, then slowly hugged me back.
“What’s going on, Theo?”
“I- I don’t know. Something weird, and I- I’m scared-“ I was panicking, and it must have shown because Stryker sat up straighter and soft ‘hey’s began falling from his lips. “Relax, yeah?” He said, and I swallowed. Hard. “Talk to me, okay? You want to go for a walk, yeah? Let’s go.”
He gently pushed me away so he could get up. He picked up a random sweatshirt hanging over his chair and pulled it on, then grabbed a pair of shoes by the door and gestured for me to follow.
“What’s going on?” He repeated once we were outside.
“I…god, S. I dreamt about him.” I said slowly “and- and I woke up and I just really needed a drink. But- but there wasn’t anythingto drink.” I ran a shaky hand through my hair “but Ireally reallyneeded a drink, S.” I had tears in my eyes “so I drank loads and loads of water u-until I got sick. Stryker, I was t-trying to get drunk onwater.”
I’d developed a very bad alcohol problem this past month.
Stryker fell silent for a long moment “are you taking anything?”
“N-no.”
Stryker nodded slowly. He sighed “you know…I…when dad died I was bad.”
“I know.”
“But you don’t.” Stryker sighed again “Jack stayed with me, remember? When I…took time off. And he swore he’d never speak about it.”
“…yeah?” This was knew information to me.
“I was going crazy, Theo.” He chewed his lip “I was off mumbling in the shower about how much I wanted to kill myself because I deserved it and I’d let my own dad die. Jack couldn’t sleep at night because he was so worried he’d wake up to find I’d hung myself. When he did sleep, I was waking him up screaming. I was so…stuck into my own head that I can’t even remember half of it.” He swallowed “if…I’d drink a lot, yeah. Jack banned the alcohol in the house. He stayed with me at night, and during the day. Made sure I ate because I wanted to starve myself. I was horrible to him, I wanted him to go away so I could just get it over with. He never did.”
He glanced over at a very quiet me “he encouraged me to take some meds, and to…to talk about it.”
