Work Text:
Black nail polish, it's been so long I can't remember if it's my hands or his anymore. He's so far away. "I miss you." His voice is an echo in my empty room. It's cold in here, save for the blanket underneath me and the warm hands on my thighs.
"How have you been?" He gives me the same answer he's been giving me for four years.
"Well. You?" I want to cry, I know he's not real. Just for this moment. I've lied for less, so let me have this moment.
"I'm laying on your bed naked, and you ask me how I am?" I'm not on his bed, I know this, I'm at my mother's home on my own bed. "Did you see my new ones? Ask me why I did them instead of how I am." The scars on my thighs are either well and faded or new and bright red. I let one of our hands come to caress a nasty long one that still stings when I stretch.
"Why then, was it because of your body again?"
"I miss you." My thigh twitches when our hand grasps it, squeezes it. "I can't be without you much longer."
"So it's a yes then?"
"Just fix me. Fix me like you said you would four years ago." Our hand leaves my thigh and reaches for the scalpel I left next to me on the blanket. It's cold in my hand, but I want it to be in his. He's not here. I tell myself I can't feel the tool in my hand until I'm convinced he's in front of me again. "Where did you go?"
"Who cares? I'm back now, right? I can fix you." He doesn't really talk like this. He's always gentle and always tells me when he leaves and where he goes. The scalpel touches my thigh so softly I didn't notice it at first, but my senses were probably numbed by the eight ibuprofen I took before I started dreaming. I held my breath and let our hand guide the tool deep through my skin. It burns, sure, but it's because of him and nothing has felt better. Tears try escaping me, but if I make any noise I haven't imagined properly it could break the illusion. I sob anyway.
"Don't leave me." Our hand lifts and digs the tool suddenly through my skin once more. He's fading slowly. I can't smell him anymore, can't remember the color of his nail polish.
"How could I leave you? I never even came back." No. He's here! But our hands are no longer one, and I slowly realize I'm just another hopeless boy cutting himself in the solitude of his room. Wishing his boyfriend would come back and fix him.