Chapter Text
He could barely feel his hands as Julian gently pulled them away by the wrists. His chest heaved with a breath that didn't quite reach his lungs, instead clogging his throat, his heart was about to burst out of his chest. He wasn't sure when his eyes had wettened, but before he knew it, they were clouded, unable to focus on Julian.
For the months the plan had been brewing in his mind, he hadn't often allowed himself to imagine it, how Julian’s neck would feel under his hand, soft and pliant and oh so fragile. He hadn't wanted to imagine the satisfying stillness that would follow; yet the images often came by too quickly to ignore them. For how little he had thought about the moment, he had expected many things: rage, insults that would prove, once for all, what Julian truly thought of him. He imagined Julian shoving him off, holding him down –like Paul himself had done countless times before–, making him truly as helpless as he felt. Hitting him, giving him a true reason for his anger. Do anything that would justify Paul, make him out to be less of a monster.
He tried to convince himself it wasn't about violence, but it was all it had ever been about; Julian, and the evergrowing teeth of Paul's desire.
It was for that, that Julian's gentleness was so jarring then. He stopped pleading, stopped crying, stopped trying to push Paul away as if he had given up. His life was Paul's to take if he so desired. It only made him more disgusting. Nothing could have prepared him for the resignation he saw in Julian's eyes, as though he had known all along what would happen and had simply been waiting for it. Had he been so obvious in his desire, in his plans, in the rot inside him? Was there truly no part of Paul that Julian couldn't see?
He felt hands setting on his shoulders, gently but firmly, and let himself be pushed off, still as a corpse, a puppet whose strings had just been cut. Nothing could move him, pull him out of the dazed limbo he found himself to be in. For a moment, Julian hovered over him, and he didn't think to resist. Would he do the same to him? Did it matter anymore? Julian stood up, pushed away; and Paul turned to lay on his side, his body convulsing with quiet sobs. His mind raced with so many thoughts he couldn't form a single coherent one, and at the same time, a thick fog clouded his mind. He felt as if he had stepped out of his body to see himself from the outside. He faintly wished earth would swallow him, that he'd rot.
Julian's figure danced on the edge of his vision, a blurry shape of colour with undefined borders. He could decide where to play the borders, in his mind, and his image of Julian would be malleable, fitting to any of his ideas. He could decide what to see from Julian, and the choice would be as good as any. His glasses must lay somewhere on the grass, but he didn't bother reaching for them. He needed not see, needed not confront the reality he found himself trapped in. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath; his chest felt as compressed as he imagined Julian’s had been when he had sunk his knee into it. Soft steps crunched the grass around him, but he paid them no mind.
His eyes snapped open when he felt hands on the sides of his face, but it was just Julian. Only Julian. He saw him far too clearly now, his eyes, that sea-glass shade he loved but now felt like he was seeing for the first time. He blinked a few times, until he realized Julian had only put his glasses on.
–Thank you–he wanted to say, but then Julian was grabbing his hands, hauling him up onto his feet. Paul saw him brushing his shirt as though to pretend nothing had happened, the calculated carelessness of the motion far too forced to seem natural. It couldn't hide the trembling on his hands, the way he avoided looking at him. Paul didn't know how he had ever been convinced by Julian's unwavering calm; only then he recognized his movements not as confident but as fearful. His shoulders were tense in a way they only ever were when cruelly imitating Paul's own gait.
Paul was trembling so violently he believed his legs would give out at a moment's notice; when he tried to lean onto Julian for support, he pulled away so suddenly Paul almost fell down.
He wanted to snap at Julian for it, and he would have, were it not because he couldn't bring himself to muster any anger; it abandoned him, leaving only an empty shell of a man, ashes left to scatter in the wind. It was what he had once been, before Julian, and he found there was an almost perverse sense of fairness to it.
He clutched Julian's hand with both of his, holding it in the lightest of grips possible lest Julian pull away. He tried to pour his consciousness onto the simple gesture; he dared not speak, acknowledge what had just happened, the tension that lingered between the both of them.
–Pablo, –Julian’s voice was soft, tinged with such blatant disappointment it struck Paul like a blow. He opened his mouth to retort, but no words came out; they stuck to his throat, slid down his larynx and settled heavily on his stomach. There was nothing he could say that Julian wouldn't expect, nothing that he hadn't said a million times before, repeated in the quiet peace of his bedroom and out in the open, until the words had become devoid of any meaning. Paul would apologize, Julian would pretend to forgive, and the fantasy would never stand a chance of becoming true.
–Let's get back into the car, Pablo,– he said ever so softly, ever so uncharacteristically Julian. Hadn't he known better, he might have believed Julian wasn't being himself. Now he understood what he had never wanted to see. Julian opened the door to him, his tone and movements as controlled as if handling a ticking bomb that could set off at the first misstep. For Julian to treat him like he was such was shameful, almost degrading, but he bit his tongue until he tasted blood, made himself endure the humiliation.
Paul observed as Julian's palms pressed firmly into the steering wheel: his eyes traced the tense line of his jaw, descended to his neck –to the bruises that would no doubt bloom into the skin–, trailed his shoulders to rest on the taut muscles of his arm, the unnatural stiffness. The car started and the path began to fade behind it, into the blur of the background.
No part of him remained hidden to Julian, not anymore. As though he had been torn open, pinned like a bug and dissected: his chest, his ribs, his heart, they were all laid bare for Julian to examine and pick apart. When Julian looked at him, he saw not the man he wished to be, that far-fetched ideal, but rather the pervasive rot that had taken ahold of every corner and crevice of his body and brain, that hid just beneath his skin. There were no secrets left to hide, no more plans to keep hidden until the perfect moment, no more lies to tell. There was nothing he could do to make Julian understand, and maybe there would never be.
He was not sure when he had started crying again, or if he had simply not stopped to begin with, but even as he sank his elbows into his knees, buried his face into his hands, Julian didn't say a word about. There was a newfound distance between them that he didn't believe could be mended again.
Julian kept his eyes stubbornly fixed on the road, not sparing Paul a single glance for the rest of the journey except for the instants in which he seemed to believe Paul didn't notice. In the countless hours that followed, he didn't stop the car again: not to eat, not to stretch their legs. Paul hadn't asked why.
He knew.