When Noble started to dry him off, his eyes closed, but they snapped right back open when the man finished and proceeded to pick his ass up and shift him onto one hip, like one would carry a child.
“Noble, put me down!” he demanded tiredly, struggling fiercely to keep his eyes open.
“It’s fine. I’m holding you with my left arm.”
He had a thought about breaking free, but didn’t when he realized he would likely cause more damage doing that than if he just let Noble carry him to bed.
“You can’t tell me you don’t feel any sort of tugging, even just holding me this way. Everythingisconnected, you know!?”
The man just chuckled in response.
“You are a bad patient,” Ollie grumbled weakly, a yawn overtaking him as Noble tugged back the covers and laid him in bed.
Staring up tiredly, his eyes were almost shut when he frowned on noticing the man’s wound was partly uncovered now. The tape on the upper side of the bandage had lifted up, and just the tail end of the man’s stitches were showing. Staring hazily at them, a wayward thought floated through his mind that made no sense. Yet, whether it made sense or not, the idea that the man’s wound looked almost too healed, for how new it was, still continued to cling on, until the moment his lids finally fell shut and he drifted to sleep.
Ollie awoke as the urgent need to pee made itself known, and he’d just been about to tug roughly from Noble’s hold when he remembered the man’s injury. Taking a calming breath, so he didn’t wet himself, he carefully moved Noble’s right arm off him, before slipping from the bed, only to stand there, his irritation growing when he realized his bad patient of a boyfriend had put pajamas on him while he’d been asleep.
Huffing, Ollie decided he needed to pee too much to care at the moment, as he snagged his glasses off the nightstand before putting them on while hurrying to the bathroom.
Quickly using the restroom and washing his hands, Ollie was about to head back to bed, but he slowed down as he neared the other door along the same wall as the bathroom, when hespotted a glow coming from its upper seams. The glow was easy to notice in the pitch-black room, and it grew brighter the closer he got, as if reacting to his heartbeat, which had already begun to speed up and fill his ears.
Staring at the closed door, Ollie hesitated, taking a shuddered breath in an attempt to calm down, before turning the knob. The door made no sound as he pulled it open, and inside was about as non-threatening as can be.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Ha—what was there even to fear!? It was just a small closet! A closet with shoe boxes on the floor, with coats and other things hanging inside…
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Unthreatening, it was completely unassuming, and normal. At least…it had been until he looked up at the shelves above, and a wave of trepidation washed over him at what he saw.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Swallowing hard, he eyed the thin jewelry box sitting on top of a stack of other boxes, a brilliant light emanating from the cracks. As he struggled to hold back the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, he took another shuddering breath as he continued to stare.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
He hadn’t opened it, hadn’t even touched it yet…but Ollie still knew what was inside. Heknew.
Thump, thump, thump!
Despite knowing… Despite knowing with all his being that it would ruineverything, Ollie couldn’t stop himself from stretching on his tippy toes and shakily grabbing the velvet box from the top shelf. While his mind screamed that he didn’t need to see, for him to put it back, to close the door, to look away and forget it was there, Ollie…opened it.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!
The box shook in his unsteady hands as he stared down, tears falling helplessly. An odd numbness began to spread through him, while ringing began in his ears, as a sharp, piercing pain stabbed into his chest.
Grinding his teeth to hold back a sob, Ollie looked down at the bright, glowing teardrop gem held in delicate, intricate filigree, and felt as if the ground had fallen out from under him. The truth was…each swirl of the setting was forgettable, yet unforgettable, in that it was the SAME!
Ollie choked down another sob, gasping as he hunched over in an attempt to slow down the increasing agony radiating from his chest, as his heart now seemed to squeeze painfully with each beat.
Tracing the swirls with his gaze, again and again, he willed it to change, to be different, but it wouldn’t, and it wasn’t. Nothing would fix the reality that it was thesame. Clear as can be, every single line that had been sketched, down to the very last one in the book he’d read only days ago.
Taking in a gasping breath as more tears fell, Ollie stared down at the amulet…as that was what it was, and just knew that nothing would ever be right again. And it wouldn’t…because Ollie couldn’t lie to himself anymore.
Noble had known…he thought with a silent sob, barely holding back the sound in the dark, dark room. The very person who had been his everything just minutes ago, now felt as if he was the very shadow who had been haunting his dreams.
And the worst part was…that he was… Ha… Noble was… His tears fell faster as a sob forced its way out.
