Chapter Text
Something’s wrong with Edward.
Thursday evening. Summer. The last summer of high school, before Edward dropped out once he turned 18.
A cliff top view, Gotham in the distance. Some people call it a Lover’s Lane, but you swear you’re just friends. You both recline on the front window of your brother’s hand-me-down Nissan, because it’s not like that dent on the hood’s getting any bigger, and you didn’t think to bring any chairs. The air is sticky with humidity, smelling of bug spray and perfume: one, an acidic attempt to ward off the mosquitos, the other, a vanilla-scented appeal to that barista you briefly liked - both unsuccessful. The bare side of your arm presses into the flannel of his.
There’s a lukewarm beer balanced between your thighs, not enough to get tipsy but enough to feel adult; to feel important. Probably purchased from one of the older kids that hangs around the 24/7 convenience store — but you don’t ask. As the sun descends behind the curtain of earth and immeasurable distance, stars emerge, floating to the surface like marshmallows. So different from the light-stained skies of the city, and you’re only a 20 minute drive away. You pass time by pointing out the few constellations you know to one another; once you run out, you start making them up.
That one next to the Gemini constellation? You explain, unraveling the story in your head. That’s actually Castor and Pollux’s sibling, Daniel, who was forced to join the twins in the family constellation. In some sects, he’s considered the patron saint of second child syndrome.
Beats being the patron saint of stomach problems. Poor Saint Erasmus. When he shakes his head and laughs, in that high, airy way; you smile.
You see that one big star, with the little star next to it?
That’s practically all of them, you reply.
He grins, pushing the too-long bangs from his eyes. Oh, well. Then choose your favorite.
You choose, and he continues.
You remember how they used to shoot people from cannons? Like, at the circus? Well, before daredevils got the idea, some guy — a scientist, or something — wanted to see the sky from above. And they didn’t have planes yet, you know. So he jumps into this old cannon, planning to shoot himself just high enough to hit the stratosphere, if he’s lucky. But he shoots the cannon well — too well. He flies straight past the stratosphere, entirely.
You roll your eyes at the silly scenario. And the constellation? You ask. He smirks conspiratorially.
That isn’t a star, it’s just a hole in the universe from his bad shot.
You tilt your head. What’s the small one, then?
He laughs. That’s the cannonball he was holding on to.
You snort at the story, elbowing him in bemused exasperation. The following silence is comfortable. Staring into the void, you feel the back of your hand touching his, and suddenly his fingers are slipping between yours.
It’d be nice to fly.
You turn your head to look at him. What, you itching to poke a hole in the sky? Leave your mark on the universe?
To leave a mark on anything.
You'd be up so high. What if you fall?
That's what makes it worth doing.
His glasses reflect the stars; he has galaxies in his eyes. You wonder what he sees when he looks in yours.
Something’s wrong with Edward.
Snow falls outside the window, blanketing Gotham in white; the cleanest you’ve ever seen it. You’re certain that tomorrow, the fresh layer of cold will be gray, piled along the street like dirty mountains beside asphalt valleys. But, for now, the snow is pure, and the city is quiet.
Your heating is still broken, but Edward’s place is even draftier, so you both make do, bundled up in your living room. Your aged portable heater stands vigilant: the last bastion against the encroaching cold.
You take up most of the couch—it’s your apartment, anyway—with your body perpendicular to Edward’s. He crosses his legs, elbow resting on the arm of the soda. His straight-backed posture is a remnant of his time at the orphanage and Catholic high school you both attended, where appearances were more valued than happiness. Among other things, the nuns were sure to beat at least that into him. After the years, no matter how much he tried to hide into himself, he could never mask that perfect pose.
After some protest, you’ve shoved your socked-feet underneath his legs. Your fault for hogging all the warmth, you joke, wiggling your toes beneath him. He rolls his eyes and flicks your leg, but doesn’t make you move. The softness in his eyes betrays any possible irritation, and so you sit like that, together.
You read books side by side— you struggle to remember which one he brought: maybe non-fiction, something with all the big words that made him feel smart? Or was it something Le Guin? He had always preferred fantasy to the real world —and sit in a comfortable silence that can only accompany a long, storied friendship.
When he’s not looking, you move your gaze from the novel in your hands, to him. He was more interesting to read, anyway. After seeing his face almost every week since high school, a solid six years, you would think that it’d be imprinted on your mind, gone stale. But something about the way Edward carried himself made you feel he could disappear at any moment. That it was vital to check him daily, for cracks, or else—like the jigsaw puzzle you once had hanging in your bedroom—he'd fall to pieces entirely.
You notice his cheeks, flushed from the cold, his glasses pressing into the soft contours. You notice his nose, its sharp incline holding up heavy frames, the tip blush-pink against pale skin. Every so often, you catch his lips twitch, almost imperceptibly, his eyebrows knitting together in silent conversation with the characters between the pages. You notice how long his hair is getting - how his bangs fall into his glasses and the ends curl at the nape of his neck. You’ll have to bring your scissors by, you think, next time.
When he catches you staring, you don’t look away. The blush on his nose spreads, fanning out to his cheeks, more from embarrassment than chill.
What? He asks, green eyes squinting in self-conscious suspicion.
Nothing. You pause, tilting your head. You need a haircut.
His smile is faint, amused: the small corners of his lips rising imperceptibly. He turns back to his book. You’ll have to cut it, next time.
You grin to yourself. Yeah. I will.
Something’s wrong with Edward.
You used to blush when your other friends teased you that boys and girls could never be friends. You used to insist, no, seriously, it’s not like that. He’s my best friend.
And you stood by that. Even when past partners left you because he’s clearly into you, and it’s weird how close you two are ; when friends mumbled under harsh breaths that he’s a creep, a lost cause, you stood by it. You stood by him. Those relationships were temporary; you and Edward felt like a once-in-a-lifetime connection. Partners in crime, one of the nuns used to call you, though you never did anything particularly rebellious.
It’s true, though; He may not have been your lover, but he was your partner. That was enough.
So, when he surprises you by bashfully sharing that he’s started seeing a psychiatrist, you practically jump for joy. Not in front of him, of course—no need to spoil good progress. You had been gently prodding at him for years to finally seek out real help, someone who could actually do something for his night terrors, his depressive episodes, his self-loathing. But, since he never had any other friends, you were careful to not taint every moment together with a conversation about his mental health—and that choice was as much for you, as it was for him.
It takes awhile to find the right medications—or, at least, a combination whose positives outweighed the side effects—but the cocktail’s effects are startling.
He starts reaching out first, asking to see a new film or go on a walk, unprompted. When he drinks, the color rising in his cheeks is no longer accompanied by frustrated tears. He makes his bed in the morning, and some days, he even starts his day before you. He texts you brain teasers, news articles, pictures of the things he sees, the things he’s doing.
He gets a job—some online freelance gig, so he can work from home, but it's a job, nonetheless. From what he tells you, his work and efforts are appreciated. He’s valued by people other than yourself. The feelings of jealousy in your heart are stamped out by the greater feeling of pride.
He stops shying away from your touch, he hugs you before you part. He surprises you at work during your lunch breaks.
Your other friends comment how he’s changed, that “he’s like a different person”, now; but you disagree. He’s always been Edward—your Edward, through the ups and downs. This is the person he always was, he just needed a little help to reach it.
Some days are worse than others—moments where Edward feels reverted, rebooted back into some earlier build where he’s restless and exhausted and frustrated and angry. But it’s always temporary: unlike before, where the bad days went on for weeks, it only takes him a day or two to return to the new “normal”. But you can’t help the way your heart hammers when you come to see him the morning after a bad day - the way your breath freezes when you wonder if he’s still in bed, hiding in the dark, and unresponsive. Wonder if you’ll have to spend the day convincing him to keep going, to not give up.
And when you open the door, there he is, sitting at his computer, saying your name in greeting and smiling at you and you feel yourself grinning back. Flooded with relief.
You remember wishing, in a moment of selfishness, that it would last forever.
Your knuckles rap against wood. Without hesitation, you push open the warped front door, poking your head into the dimly-lit space. Edward’s apartment.
“Knock, knock,” you make your way inside, one hand out of sight. A take-out bag dangles from the fingers behind your back.
Edward looks up at you from his desk, a toothy smile welcoming you. Before he can speak, you hold up one finger.
“Smaller than four, but bigger than three. To make me delicious, just add an E. What am I?”
He lights up with excitement, one hand reaching up to cover his mouth while he ponders. As he thinks, his eyes wander to the corner of the room, before snapping back to your own.
“Pi?”
“Surprise,” you reveal the bag you're hiding, the clear shape of a to-go box visible through the white plastic. He claps his hands together in boyish thrill, pushing his chair away from the work space. “Blueberry, from that diner you like. Hope it’s still warm.” You press your lips together, gauging his reaction.
“Oh, you shouldn’t have!” From the way his eyes squint in satisfaction and how he touches your arm as he walks past, you’re glad you did. You begin to ramble, your elbows pressing against the cold surface of the kitchen island.
“I hadn’t heard from you, and I was feeling awfully lonely, so...” You shrug.
“I’m honored that you chose me for your entertainment.” He gives a slight, playful bow, rummaging through cabinets for clean silverware. You frown when you see the empty state of his pantry.
When he returns with two forks, you both dig into the Styrofoam box, not bothering to find plates. After a few bites, you wander to the wall, where a series of newspapers, photos, and drawings create a mural. You trace the collage with your gaze, attempting to piece together the meaning of it all.
“New art project?” You turn your head back to Edward, who shoves one last bite of pie into his mouth. Hurrying to swallow, he moves next to you, before leaning over his laptop. He closes a few tabs, bright green text against a dark background.
“Research,” he waves a hand, but the fervor in his eyes betrays the attempt at dismissiveness. “I think I finally know how I can... do something. Help fight all the problems in Gotham.” He glances over, glasses reflecting the lamp beside you. A smile plays on his lips. “You’d be amazed at the kind of things people just leave around the internet.”
For a while, he had been making comments that suggested a rage, bubbling up inside him. When the mayor or police were mentioned on TV, he’d scoff, mumbling about how they were useless, all of them a bunch of liars. You didn’t think anything of it— after all, you agreed with him. You thought that irritation would only amount to a few angry tweets; maybe a strongly worded blog post, or, at most, some corrupt official getting their email hacked.
If you had known what this would inspire, what he was really up to, you would have stopped him. You would’ve grabbed him by the shoulders, shaken some sense into him. You would’ve done something.
Instead, you laugh. You shake your head, and you laugh.
“If it’s you, they don’t stand a chance,” you raise an eyebrow, unfazed. “You always were a good detective.”
You hum your encouragement, failing to recognize the spark of change across his face.
“Speaking of detectives,” you switch gears, hopping onto the loveseat’s one clear spot and tucking your legs beneath you. Your words are tentative, answering an inquiry that was never posed. “I started a new book, a mystery; it’s about a group of people trapped in a mansion—” His voice lightly cuts through your own: the rejection is soft, but firm.
“A-actually, just give me one second,” he frowns, eyes plastered to his screen. “I just need to do this... thing. Then we can talk.”
He’s apologetic, as if the situation is out of his control. A boy-scout smile; an attempt at appeasement. You nod, biting the inside of your cheek. You always were so understanding. So accommodating.
The film of blueberry compote in your mouth tastes bitter.
Something’s wrong with Edward.
It’s been a few weeks since you last saw him. Last heard from him, even. All you got was one message, an Onto something big. Talk later. And then, nothing. The check marks next to your response stay gray: unread.
Something’s wrong with Edward.
You hear his presence before you reach the floor of his apartment. Music spills into the hallway, threatening to break down that sorry excuse of a front door that protects him from the outside world. You knock—pointlessly, you think, given the noise (a more fitting description, it’s more like industrial noise than it is music )—and reach for the handle, but he beats you to it.
The door opens with a thunk —only a few inches, enough to see the side of his face. His eyes are frenzied, bright. It makes you jump.
“H-hey!” Your voice competes with the noise, now even louder with the wooden seal cracked. You mouth the words instead, pointing to the other side of the gap. Let me in?
The door closes, followed by the swift clacking of many locks. When it creaks ajar, you push it open further. The music pauses.
Before you entered, you imagined you would have to force a smile to your lips, but you find it comes much more naturally than you expected. It’s a genuine smile, despite the circumstances. You laugh bitterly to yourself — you’ve pavloved yourself into being happy just to be here.
Edward bends over his computer, his face blanched blue from the LCD of the screen. A green sweatshirt dwarfs his frame. He glances at you, tossing an energetic nod your way, and turns back.
“Gi... give me a moment. I’m onto something big—something huge.”
Your eyes scan the room, and you swallow. It’s never been this bad before.
What had started as a controlled mess—a corner, some pictures posted on the wall, a few books stacked messily on the floor—has devolved, devouring the room with it.
When you last saw him, he attempted to pick up some of the clutter, scattered across the room, stuttering excuses and apologies and at least feigning decency. Now, he doesn’t bother. You aren’t sure it would’ve made much of a difference.
Simply put, his home is a mess. The living room is functionally unusable, and from the way the hallway looks, you bet his bedroom is just as bad. Cups cluster around tabletops, decorations pushed out of the way to make room for documents and string-connected photos. The surfaces are covered, leaving nowhere to sit, except the chair closest to his laptop. Power tools and bits of metal dot the floor, and you think it best to keep your shoes on.
Dishes fill the sink in varying stages of cleanliness, takeout containers left half-abandoned on the island where you used to eat together. Magazines and papers clutter the countertops and stove—the fire hazard making you cringe—but you suspect that Edward isn’t doing much cooking of his own, anyway.
Slowly, you notice that you are surrounded by a miniature Gotham, the city duplicated within the confines of Edward’s living room. Roads and avenues trace the wood grained floors beneath you, papers littered like street trash. Towers of books and empty cages stand like skyscrapers, and you cringe to think what poor creatures would be stored in them. The thought makes you nauseous.
You excuse yourself, stumbling toward the bathroom. At least the chaos hasn’t reached this room yet, and you can sit on the toilet seat and breathe. You rack your brain, wondering what to do. What you can do.
At his best moments, Edward was excitable, yes, but this was downright manic. Even before he went on his medication, he never acted like this.
His medication.
Your eyes dart to his medicine cabinet, hanging above the porcelain sink. Fearing what you might find, but too scared to leave the question unanswered, you bring yourself to your feet, pulling open the little white door. Little orange soldiers greet you, neat in a long row - painfully empty. You bite your lip, staring into the ceiling light until your vision is stained white.
It’s ok. It's fine. He hasn’t done anything yet. Nothing he can’t come back from.
As far as you know.
When you leave the bathroom, he’s still hunched over that laptop. He barely acknowledges your entrance into the room, and you massage your palm, self-conscious. There’s nowhere to sit, but you aren’t sure if sitting would make things easier, or harder.
“Hey,” you swallow. “Can we talk?”
His response is painfully earnest. “Yep, sure thing. Just... one moment and,” he clicks a button. “Done.” With a warm smile, he turns toward you, one arm resting on the back of his chair.
“Well,” you waver, softening at his smile. “Uh, how are you? You didn’t answer my message.”
He clicks his tongue, lifting his hands. As if to say, oh, yes, my mistake. Silly me. “I’m sorry about that, truly. I’ve just been so busy.”
“Is the freelance job going well?” He shakes his head at your question, his smile tinged with pity.
“Oh, that thing? No, I stopped that ages ago,” he brushes the bangs from his eyes. His hair is getting long. “You know, I’ve realized something much more important.”
“And what’s that?”
“I have the power to change the world.” He laughs, breathless, and the sound is so Edward that it makes your heart ache. He continues.
“You know, we all do, but we’re too fu-” he stops himself, agitated with nervous excitement. “We’re too darn scared to see it through. Everyone’s too scared to get their hands dirty.”
Your laugh is nervous: an attempt to diffuse a bomb much bigger than you can handle. “If you wanna get your hands dirty, we can go to a protest. You know, they’re holding one next week in response to—” As you reach for your phone to search the event, he cuts you off, grabbing your wrist. It thrums at his touch.
“No,” he shakes his head, feverish. “No, you’re thinking too small. I’m talking about something that’ll leave a mark.” His eyes brighten with raw vigor. And for what feels like hours, he tells you everything.
He shows you photos, emails, evidence. He reasons and justifies, completely bought into his own sermon. As his rambling activates pent-up energy, he is forced to stand, and continues, dipping this way and that for something new to show you. These, he explains, are photos he took on the other side of the building -- there’s an empty apartment there, facing the nearby club, where they go there like flies to a light. Perfect for blackmail, proof, and whatever the situation demands. Show the city who they really voted for.
And this, he demonstrates, is the blueprint for a... device he’s working on (That explains the power tools). The page he shows you is scribbled with frenzied drawings, a man’s head wrapped with tubes and tape. Something small going up and down the passages. Another page shows a neck collar, fitted with a blinking device. Not meant to kill - no, at least, not right away. No, killing them is too easy - too cheap. They need to realize what they did wrong, you see. They need to repent, in order for it to mean something.
He goes on, his face flushed. Bending to pick up a specific document or design, pointing it toward you like a fucked up sales pitch. It all comes back to one thing, obsessively printed everywhere you look. Renewal.
You can only stare.
When he calls your name, it takes a moment to draw you out of your stupor. His eyebrows tilt upward, inquisitive—a child wanting to be told that he’s done well.
“What do you think?”
The tips of your fingers press against your lips, allowing you to focus on controlling your breath.
“I... listen, I—I care about these people as much as the next guy but— Eddie. You can’t... this is a joke, right?”
His face twists in disbelief.
“They said you would respond like this,” he sighs, pressing his palms into his forehead.
“They?” A million questions run through your mind—along with them, a million possibilities. Edward and his laptop were always inseparable; you once tried to convince him to pick up a real career in coding or I.T., but he always waved off the idea. It seems obvious he’d make connections with strangers (it is the internet, after all) but this is never what you imagined. This is more dangerous than you could imagine. You bite your tongue, lightly touching his shoulder. “Did someone give you this idea? Edward, I don’t know who you’re talking to... but if you’re in trouble, you can talk to me.”
“No!” He shouts, immediately startled by the pitch of his voice. He pulls away from your touch. “No,” his volume lowers. “We’re way past talking. We need to take action.”
He runs a hand roughly through his hair, quickly adjusting his glasses. You bite your thumbnail.
“Eddie, what about the police? What you’re talking about... This is,” you hush, “fucking murder.”
“No. No,” he frowns, eyebrows knitted together in frustration. “No! These people,” he spits, laughing dryly. “They’re more like rats than humans. This? This is pest control.”
“They don’t usually throw exterminators in prisons and mental asylums for doing their jobs.”
“Nobody will know that it’s me,” he reasons. You watch his back as he shovels through the items on his desk, until he turns around, holding an army green, vinyl thing in his hands. You nearly choke, your mind unable to understand what you’re seeing.
“Is... is that...”
“I’ll be no different from any of the other disguised people, running around this city.”
You feel dizzy. In his hands, Edward holds a mask. Only the eye holes stand out from the shiny material, the mouth covered with a grill. Like something out of a horror movie. What’s worse is the genuine joy you notice in Edward’s eyes, like this was the solution to all his problems.
“You’re talking about terrorism, Ed. Chaos.”
“No,” he smiles, his eyes sparkling with enlightenment. His hand reaches to your shoulder, like a pastor comforting the pious. “I’m talking about renewal.”
“I can’t help you do this,” your voice rises in spite of yourself, strained.
He frowns, his hand suddenly next to your face, touching your cheek. “Oh, no. Where did you get that idea?” He tuts. “I would never ask you to be involved. I’m taking care of this for you. For us. For everyone like us.”
You clench your fists, carving half moons into your palms, and step back from his touch. “I never asked for this.”
“No,” he concedes. “But don’t you think we deserve it? After everything they have put us through? The cops, the drug pushers, the mayor, the Waynes,” he snarls. “All working together, and I can prove it.”
“Why do you care so much about these people? I mean, seriously? The mayor? The recluse billionaire Bruce fucking Wayne? They’re just rich assholes who don’t know you exist!”
“Yeah, well,” he bristles. “Maybe someone should do something about that, huh? Maybe rats like them should be put out of their misery!”
You don’t stop the exasperated laugh, churning in your throat as you listen. “Let me guess, you’re going to be that someone? Throw your life away for “the cause”? Fuck the man, right?” You hate how acidic, how vitriolic, your words sound.
“Maybe I will.” Indignant. It makes you want to push him, grab him, make him see some kind of sense.
“And the people who care about you, Edward? We just sit back and watch as you crash and burn?”
“Nobody cares about me.” His voice strangles at the last word. You see red.
“I care about you!” You launch the words across the room, ricocheting off the wall. The echo mocks you. He winces and looks away.
Your fingertips graze the fabric on his chest. “I- I love you, you know? Doesn’t that mean anything?” Your words come out like whispers. Breaths on a cold night.
“We all have to make sacrifices.”
The stars in his eyes are dying, replaced with bitterness and bug spray, and it breaks your heart.
You just want to bury your face into a pillow and scream. Instead, you take a deep breath. You lower your head to look up at him, searching his eyes for... something.
“Edward, please listen to me,” you whisper, your plea met with silence. Your words fall against deaf ears. “This is crazy-”
“Oh, and what the fuck do you know?” His head snaps up, voice raised in agitation. His mouth curves with a snarl. “I don’t know what I expected. You don’t know what it’s like to feel like nothing. To be no one. You love me? What a joke,” he scoffs, venom and hurt dripping off his tongue. Your heart drops: he doesn’t believe that you love him. “No, you pity me. You know what you are? A liar and a bitch, just. like. everyone else.”
The air is sucked out of the room. Your face falls. “No... I-” The meek words hit your eardrums, but you don’t acknowledge them; it takes all your focus to keep from crying. Mechanically, you push past him and head for your bag.
“Bye, Edward.”
“No, no, that’s not what I -”
Your eyes burn. You’ve always hated how you cry when you’re angry. You hate how weak it makes you feel.
“Hey, wait - I... I’m sorry - just, come back.”
He knows. He knows why he can’t throw those words in your face and expect to be able to take them back. After everything you’ve been through, he knows what they mean to you.
“J- just listen to me!”
You can’t bear to be here. You’re suffocating. Air. You need air. You need out. Outside, in the dark, where you can be completely engulfed by the light pollution and grime. Anywhere but here, before you lose the will to leave.
“We’ll... talk about this.” You whisper, “Later. Later.”
More words leave his mouth - apologies? Regrets? - but you don’t listen. Your body moves itself toward the door, but when you go to open it, a hand moves past you to hold it shut.
Irritation bubbles up in your stomach, and you spin around to face him
“This isn’t how I wanted to do this,” he mutters.
The first tinge of uncertainty you’ve heard all night makes his voice waver, and he leans toward you.
When his lips join with yours, you pray that it will be rough. You pray that it will be disgusting and violent and unpleasant, and give you all the reason you need to break your feelings in half and discard them, as you know you should.
But it’s soft. Gentle. The sculpted curve of his upper lip fits perfectly with your own. The soft skin you were once jealous of rubs against you. You can taste the exhaustion on his tongue, clumsily dancing with yours. One of his hands cups your face, the other awkwardly making its home on your waist. He pulls you into his warmth, your soft parts pressing into him, and from the bones pressing into your skin, you can tell he hasn’t been eating.
When he separates from you, you need to catch your breath. In the following silence, marred only by the sound of breathing, you stare into his distressed eyes; your own, wide with confusion. He looks ready to cry. You can feel his hand tremble against your cheek.
“You- you love me, right? So this is fine. It’s fine. This is what you want. Right?”
The desperate, confused attempt at self-persuasion makes your knees ache. You loathe that your first instinct isn’t to run away. You were always the first to support women who stayed in abusive situations, but now that it’s you... you don’t know how to feel. This isn’t dangerous. It isn’t, right? This is Edward. Sweet, harmless, soft-haired Edward.
Your faces bent over a massive jigsaw puzzle. Messily trimming his hair in the sink. Grasping your hand to help you cross big puddles. Rubbing his back when he cries. Holding your hair when you drink too much. Reading side by side. Crossword puzzles and daily riddles. Your head resting on the soft of his abdomen. Stargazing. Edward.
It’s not his fault. You put yourself here. Familiar words bubble up in your mind - a memory, a lifetime ago, voices of the people who brought you into this world, even though they probably shouldn’t have. Stupid fucking bitch.
You feel your hand make contact before you see it. A smack reverberates across the small space, muffled by the towers of books and papers. Edward looks shocked, frozen; red starts to blossom across his cheek. You freeze too, tears brimming on your eyes. When you realize what you’ve done, you inch forward, face etched with concern, hand stinging. You cradle it in your chest, mouth opening and closing like a suffocating fish. Apologies sting the tip of your tongue.
He drops his head, and his shoulders begin to shake.
Great, heaving sobs.
“Please. P-please help me.”
He whispers your name between aching gasps, etching the feeling of his breath into your chest. Barely audible pleas float to your ears, like prayers.
“I-I don’t know wh-why I can’t control myself,” he groans out the words into his hands. “Don-n’t leave me, pl-please, I need y-you."
You’re certain your hands are firmly by your sides, held back from touching, from comforting, the crying mess of a man before you, until suddenly they’re not, and you can feel soft locks of honey-brown hair between your fingers, and you're pressing his head further into your chest, because god forbid you let go and the last remnants of your Edward disappear completely.
The penitent at confession. Which of you is the true sinner?
“Please,” his voice, pathetic and groveling, rumbles throughout your ribs, entwining with the air still trapped in your lungs. “Please don’t leave. Stay with me.”
And you do.
Something’s wrong with Edward.
Something’s wrong with you.