carry on {merlin/teddy}

[[nyte]]

M E R L I N

Golden claws tear their way through a blood red backdrop, turning the black sky blue as dawn breaks across District Nine. I never got out of the habit of watching them, the sunrises, the scary uncertainty that was another day. Never got out of the habit of sleeping with one eye open, body poised to run from monsters with knives and feral beasts. Even with a warm bed to sleep in, curled under layers of covers, I cannot stop watching, cannot stop the fear curling off my breath with every exhale. I'm not running anymore, not in the physical sense at least, but sometimes it feels like I'm everywhere at once and I can't remember where I'm even supposed to be. 

My head's stuck too deep into the clouds, I think. I'm always thinking and dreaming and somewhere other than where my feet lay. It's so much easier than being present. Than living the nightmares I formed with pen and paper. 

I didn't know that someone could be so cruel, really. Never doubted the kind man with the contract and I was so delirious with thirst and hunger at the time that I couldn't turn down the offer. And he seemed so, so nice. And all I had to do was dance. He promised that was all I had to do.

But he didn't tell me that they'd be watching. Beasts with hungry eyes and foul breath. Ones that tried to grab at my ankles as my body flowed to music that filled the whole of the room, that beat within my chest in place of my heart because I could not feel it over the noise. He didn't tell me that they would order my shirt off my body and pants off my hips. He didn't tell me just how awful dancing could be. 

That's what I think of as I watch the sunrise. I think of the money in my pocket and how it got there. Of the kind boy sleeping inside the house that the steps I sit upon belong to. And of his mother who lets me stay. I think of how tired I am, but of how unwilling I am to sleep. I think of so many things that by the time I realize I should go back inside the sun has fully risen. 

Calcifer's awake when I re-enter, hair still mussed with sleep so I'm hoping that he didn't notice just how many hours I sat outside, staring at nothing. Because I didn't want him thinking I'm weird or strange because I wanted him to like me. (I want to be liked and loved and wanted but in none of the ways that I am.) He regards me in that same, lazy way, telling me that we have the day off and that we're going to see the Seraphims. 

The Seraphims, he'd told me about them. I've never formally met them but I already like them because of how happy they make Cal. 

Cal deserves so much more happiness than he has. 

I tangle my fingers in the hem of his shirt during our journey, for as long as I lived on the streets they still scare me. My eyes are cast downward, watching our feet trace worn paths as we walk and I barely even noticed as we make our way onto a wooden porch and through a door. 

The Seraphim's house smells of family. Of home cooked meals and birthdays. (I've never had one.) I can see dishes being washed and floors being sweeped, I can see a family gathered around the table talking and laughing. The Seraphim's house smells of happiness. 

One of them is there when we arrive but I can't bring myself to look at him. I can feel eyes upon the back of my neck and my throat closes up just the tiniest bit because I was never good with strangers. They made me feel small and scared and I hate feeling that way. I stay behind Cal, clutching his shirt for as long as he will allow me.

(Which ends up not being very long.) 

"Hey Merlin," He drawls in a way that only Calcifer can, "find Teddy. He's sad but you'll make him better." I look up at him confused because I wasn't anything special. I wasn't a medicine or a doctor or anything but a homeless boy dressed in an oversized sweater and tight jeans. 

But I've come to learn that Cal is always right, even when he isn't, so I nod and smile and watch him disappear with Teva. 

There's not a Teddy in sight as I look around. The sudden silence takes me by surprise and I cannot help a chill that runs down my spine. Even during lonesome nights, there was always the bustle of Nine's nightlife, utter silence is rare. Rare and terrifying. 

I scan the whole of the room, walking around carefully and biting my tongue to keep from childishly calling out Teddy's name. (I'm not a kid anymore, such luxuries are not an option.) And I don't think I would have found him, had I not almost tripped over the boy. He was on the ground and i was only looking at the clouds. Managing to stop just before running into him, I look at the small, huddled thing with interest. His eyes droop, looking at nothing in particular and I wonder if he's even noticed my presence. I don't think he has, as he's too busy sitting behind the couch and looking sad.

Carefully, I crouch in front of him, balancing on the balls of my feet, trying not to move too fast.  He reminds me of a deer or a rabbit, frightened and small. Not really sure what to do with himself and so he does nothing. 

Or maybe that's just me. 

"Uh, Teddy right?" my voice is faint, almost nothing more than a slight breeze, "I'm... uh I'm Merlin and I was uh... I... Are you okay?" It's hard not to laugh at the stupid question because I don't think I've ever met anyone who was more obviously not.

[gamemaker kelsier]

T E D D Y

I ache all over.

Like stars locked in rebirth my body explodes with a fresh pain with every move I make. I didn't know it could be this horrible, this thing that Tate calls healing. I don't think it's really healing, I think it's a lie. I think I'm just dying slower. My chest hurts.

It hurts more.

I'm really tired today and all I did was walk down the stairs.

I hold my hands out in front of me, they are unsteady and they shake. Scars criss cross down my arms. Some of them are faded and pinkish-white, the ones from the first few weeks. A few of them are fresher. They have fresh stitches from when Dr. Ken, the gang's doctor came over and did them. She got mad when she saw me picking at the scabs on one of them. She had to cut open a half-healed cut because it was infected and the skin around it was too pink. It hurt but I didn't even scream.

I have a new pain scale in my head and what she did when she cut my skin open felt a bit like a two. Tate hissed and looked away when she sliced it back open but that's mostly because I think he was scared for me.

My chest feels like a nine.

I wince a lower one of my hands to it, rubbing the skin over my heart as if it will help anything. It never does. I'm careful to avoid the stitches on my chest, I don't want to open one. Dr. Ken told me that for every stitch I opened she'd smack Teva.

I'm wearing a green pair of elastic gloves that she let me have. They cover up my fingers. I think my fingers gross my brothers out. They gross me out a bit even though I'm used to them. I think it's maybe because they're so unnatural looking without the nails there. I shudder slightly, having to shut my eyes as the memory comes back, fresh and unbidden.

Pliers Man has his knee in my back and the floor is cold. My chest feels like it's broken. My ribs are broken. I've peed myself and he's tearing off my nails. He's on the third one. The metal bites at my skin, ripping messily. He takes my middle finger's nail in two pieces. I scream with each tug.

Tears fall quiet and slow from my eyes.

I hear Tate come in the room. "Teddy?" he asks. He's looking for me and I should pipe up from my spot here, hidden behind the couch but I don't. I don't want him to catch me crying again. I want him to stop worrying about me but I don't know how to stop being worrisome.

I've been home for nine days but I feel like at any moment those peacekeepers are going to come back and take me away again. "Just kidding," they'll say and they'll put a sack over my head and they'll take me away and they'll electrocute me again. They'll whip me again and there won't be anything my brothers can do about it.

Tate leaves the room and I sigh.

Relieved.

Mo-Mrs. Seraphim. My adopted Mom. My adopted brothers, adopted Mom. She once told me that no matter what, I should never be afraid because I was the luckiest kid in the world. I had three older brothers to protect me and not many kids were that lucky. I used to believe her, that I was indestructible because of my brothers, the incredible Seraphim triplets. I was wrong. Learning that was a hard lesson.

I think I started to understand it the time one of the peacekeepers came into the cell and they took me to a room where they branded thirteen lines across my back. I screamed and cried with every touch of that hot metal and for the first time in my long stay there, none of my brothers were there with me in my head. The heat burned them away, scorching them from my mind, how they used to be.

Ever since I got home, I've noticed how different they are. How they're pretending to be fine. They talk less, joke less. The house is quieter. It isn't how I left it. Things have changed.

It's my fault.

Things are different because of me. I left. They thought I was dead.

I thought they were dead.

Every time one of them comes into my room to check on me, to make sure I'm still there, still breathing, I feel like I'm seeing a ghost.

I started pretending to be asleep every time they checked on me so they could go to sleep too.

At first I didn't have to pretend. I was so tired from being kept awake that I slept for three days straight. Since waking up then I've barely been able to sleep for more than an hour at a time. I get bad dreams. Bad memories. Pliers man is living in my head and he haunts the house. In the shadows that night creates he's here. I lie very still under my covers, watching the corners of the room, waiting for him to appear with that same bored look, wondering if he'll kill me.

I wanted to ask one of my brothers to stay with me but that isn't fair for them so I don't. I know that they've got to work so we can keep the house and they've got things of their own. Teva and Cal finally got together while I was gone and I'm glad. I always sort of thought it'd be nice. Tate found someone too and I met him once, briefly. He had eyes like melted honey though and I knew Tate would be warm with him.

So I'm glad.

I'm just lonely.

I can't sleep and I'm scared.

I can barely eat either.

Tate makes me breakfast like he used to and he tries to make sure that I eat because I know that it worries him that he can count my crooked ribs and I'm trying, I am. I'm not hungry though. I eat two bites and I feel like I'm stuffed full.

Dr. Ken says my appetite will come back as I get healthier but I don't know.

I feel like I'm in purgatory, drifting.

I look up through hair that's grown too long at dust motes dancing in the sunlight coming through the window and I wonder how that got there.

It's been months since I've seen the sunrise. I've been staying up all night just to catch it rising but I keep missing it somehow. I don't think that it's really rising. I think it's a hoax, a fake sun.

What if I'm just in an arena, what if my brothers are mutts and I'm really just insane?

I've toyed with the idea.

The front door opens and I hear Cal's voice. He tells someone to find me and I shift slightly where I am, my breathing gone slow somehow. My brain is moving slow too. I should hide because I don't want to be found but I feel like I'm trying to move through soupy air. It's too much effort to move and hide. If I stay still and quiet no one will find me. I can rest here, silent and alone. I like to be alone.

For a while it's quiet. I hear Cal and Teva go upstairs. Maybe this person will give up and I'll stay here, alone in my hiding spot. Maybe I can grow like flowers here, soft and quiet. I'd like to grow sunflowers from my spine. They can follow the sun through the window.

"Uh, Teddy right?"

I open my eyes slightly. There's a boy there in front of me, one I haven't seen before. For a moment that scares me. I don't like strangers much anymore. Strangers could hurt me. I know they could hurt me before too but now I know better. I don't make any movement of acknowledgement. If I play dead he'll go away, right?

"I'm... uh I'm Merlin and I was uh... I... Are you okay?"

I guess not.

I don't know how to answer his questions. Yes. I am Teddy. No. I am not okay. Those are the correct answers but not the ones that he wants. People want to hear that I am okay. They want a smile and a nod so that they can go on with their day. So I do that.

I work my mouth into a smile, a small, barely there one, but a smile nonetheless and I nod. It's like a rusted lever being tugged up and down. A bone in my neck cracks when I do it and I wince slightly. That was barely a minus two on the pain scale but it sounded sort of bad.

He's still in front of me.

He's blocking the sunlight. It frames his head in a weird sort of glowy halo. He smiles at me uncertainly, eyes crinkling at the edges in concern. He's a stranger but it doesn't look like he wants to hurt me. Cal wouldn't bring anyone over who would.

I guess it's my job to entertain him. I'm not so entertaining anymore. I'm sure I could still list hundreds of facts about the making of Panem, history, poetry, literature, anything. All I can think about lately though is prison.

After a few moments I let out a soft sigh to signal my surrender. "I'll be okay," I tell him, my voice still raw and harsh, not yet fully recovered from months spent cold and screaming. It's not a lie because Dr. Ken told me that I will be. It's fact. I've always held on to facts, in this case I think I need to.

If I was insane would I make up a nice strange boy that looks about my own age to talk to?

Probably.

Wearily, I pat the carpet beside me, teal gloved fingers splayed over the beige wool. If I want him out of my sun it's easier to offer him a spot beside me then to ask him to leave me alone.

I don't like being alone anyway.

It's not that his uncertain smile is sort of nice.

[[nyte]]

M E R L I N

"I'll be okay." he tells me in a voice that has withered and dried with age. I can see it crumble into dust in front of me, floating away on an invisible breeze. My eyes follow the words lazily, unimpressed by what was meant to sate my curiosity. I don't think they were a lie. Teddy doesn't seem the sort. It was merely a half truth, something that will probably be but possibly won't. Or something will possibly be but probably won't. Words are so complicated and twisted that it makes my head spin, so much so that I gladly take the seat offered to me by his hands painted bright blue. I want to hold them up to the sky and compare them, because I think maybe he modeled the long, pretty fingers after the likeness. I wonder if he watches the sky like me.

It's comforting really, to think that his eyes are fixed upon the same painting as I every morning and evening. Every dawn and dusk. But then again, most do not appreciate the beauty of a sunrise and set.

I would have left him alone, had Cal not insisted I talk to him. I hate to force myself on anyone. Being a burden for fifteen years was realization enough that people don't want someone like me. And when they do it's for the sharpness of my hips and the way my body moves to a beat much too loud. That they wanted me to break me and use me and throw me on the streets again with the rats and the monsters. So I move a little ways away, mere centimeters between us because I do not want him to grow too tired of me too quickly.

My heart is running laps around my ribcage; gaze still locked upon the thin boy with eyes playing dead somewhere against the back of his skull. "You don't have to tell me that." I murmur, interlocking my fingers and creating friction between them anxiously. "What I want to hear, I mean." I look away, eyes fixated upon purple lavender sitting within the windowsill, staining the sun purple as white light spreads across the both of us. It smells wonderful, like something precious.

"When I asked I wanted to know if you were really okay. The truth. Not the maybe truth. Or the will be truth. Or the probably not truth. Just how you're feeling right now because..." It's hard talking to him. I feel like a thousand eyes press into my flesh, fingers around my throat, peeling the skin away until I am mere nothing in front of a boy who has a family that wants him and has a thousand years stacked upon his shoulders.

I'm not shy. I'm really not. It was easier than I'd like to admit, standing upon a stage and using my body as a loaded weapon against men and women too high to filter their words. And I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good sometimes, to have been ignored all my life and suddenly have a spotlight thrust upon me and for people to praise me like I've always wanted. It's a toxic praise, snaking within my lungs and killing me slowly, but praise nonetheless.

But he's doing something to me. Just by sitting here. Just by looking so sad and rendering me so desperate to help him but feeling completely incapable. Cal wanted me to help him and I couldn't disappoint him but I'm so terrified of scaring Teddy away that I can barely force ten words out of my lungs before thick fingers strangle them away. "I know you're not." I finish, looking down at my lap as I pick at the hem of my shirt, tugging on green string come undone and waiting for the fates to snip away.

I'm not okay either. I want to tell him that. It's okay because I'm not okay either and I don't really think I've ever been okay. Because Mom and Dad partied and the kids at school whispered and because I had everything and nothing at all. I was weird. Outcast. I was a puzzle piece that never found it's jigsaw while everyone else snapped into place around me. I'm not okay because I feel so alone and because sometimes I'm so numb I feel like I'm not even here at all.

But Teddy doesn't care. He doesn't want to hear about me. Cal doesn't and Teva doesn't and Mom didn't and Dad didn't. No one cares but that's okay because I can. I can care. I can care about Teddy and Cal and Teva and Mom and Dad. That way they'll never have to be as not okay as I am now.

So my lips remain shut, eyes crawling everywhere but Teddy Seraphim.

And I decide I'll make him okay. Cal said I could and after all, Cal is always right.

[gamemaker kelsier]

IT FEELS LIKE I'M FALLING APART

TEDDY SERAPHIM

I'M FALLING APART EVER SO SLOWLY

I shut my eyes once again with a quiet sigh when he sits down beside me, getting out of my sun. Warm sun bathes my skin in a comforting light. I am pale and drawn but not by choice. It was so long since I saw the sky that now I spend most of my time at the window watching it to make sure that it stays put. I could sleep like this, I suppose, with the sun watching me. It's peaceful and safe here. The triplets are all around, it should be safe.

I don't feel safe, not anymore. I never do.

Sometimes when I am lying in my bed I hear the sound of boots marching down the hall, coming for me. I lie stiff and still, silent, hoping that if I breathe as quietly as I possibly can then they won't find me. I listen to the sound of their boots marching up and down the hallway outside of my bedroom door for hours, too afraid to call out for Tate. It reminds me of being in the cell, of knowing they were coming for me long before they arrived just because of the echoing sound of their feet. Sometimes as I lay there waiting for them and my body was in too much pain, too weak to do anything, I'd pee myself in fear.

I was in a constant state of it for so long.

I forgot what it's like to not to be afraid. I don't remember if there was ever a time that I wasn't. Life before I was arrested is foggy in my head and harder to remember now. Dr.Ken says that it's shock from what happened to me, that my memories will come back clearer. I hope so. Memories used to be what made me special. I was good at remembering. I still am, but it's all stuff that I want to forget, to repress and stuff into the back of my skull under lock and key.

Like the time the scary woman whom I stabbed came into the cell and stole Castor's eye right out of her face without a word of warning.

My brow furrows at the memory and I clench my hands lightly, as if I didn't just sit there in fear that night when I came back from some fresh torture and found her huddled up in a corner, half-blind and in deep pain.

I wish Castor was here.

There's no one here that I can talk to. Every time I even mention the time I was away Tate's face crumples up like he's going to cry again. Tripp is my big brother but despite my body, he's always been the most fragile. I can't stop thinking about the night I found him with the barrel of a gun resting in his mouth. I don't want to make him more upset by letting him worry too much about what happened to me. Teva's the only ray of sunlight in this place. Even if it's just filtered and pretend happiness I don't want to touch it. I don't want to make it worse than I've already made it.

Castor knows what it's like in there, she understands. I don't even know if she's alive. I don't even know if she's real. It's all relative.

"You don't have to tell me that."

Tell him what?

I open my eyes again, keeping my gaze trained on the sun. I'm afraid that if I look away it will disappear. He goes on, telling me that I don't have to tell him what he wants to hear, that I don't have to lie. I can tell this complete stranger that I am unraveling from the very center of myself, that I can barely stay awake during the day because I can't sleep at night, that my chest hurts more than it ever has before, that I'm afraid that I'm dying again. I look at my brother's faces and all I see is pity and worry. They never used to look at me like that before. Tate always worries but I used to be an equal.

Now I don't even have the strength to stand in the shower, let alone hold a full conversation.

No, he doesn't want to hear the truth. No one does, they want me to back to being who I was. I wasn't ever the peak of health before but I was better than this. I had meat on my bones and a constant grin tucked away in the corner of my mouth. Now it's like I've forgotten how to smile. They don't like that. I was supposed to be the innocent to be kept safe,the reason to keep going. Now I'm not. They've found other people to be their reason. I'm just a sad story, a tragic piece of history. Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead. It's funny, when they had me down in that cell all I wanted to do was survive and get back to my brothers.

Now all I hope for is release.

My body hurts. It aches, bad. It's indescribable how much simple movement brings me pain. I'm trying to be strong, like my adopted brothers but it's hard. Walking down the stairs is work, it's exhausting for a boy who is now used to being dragged everywhere. My heart has never been good but it's worse now. I can feel how bad it is in comparison after I died and was brought back to life by the pliers man who I think lives inside of my closet now. Dr.Ken's expression changes just barely when she listens to my heart and I can tell it isn't good.

I'm going to die soon.

There was no point in fighting.

I need to find one, I need to pretend that there is a reason to survive. Not even the thought of my brothers can keep me going anymore. I'm trying but it's like trying to cup sand in my hands. My thoughts wibble wobble through the creases in my brain and fall away until there is nothing left but agony. It's too strong.

My brothers always accept my answer now when they ask how I'm feeling. They're afraid to ask for more now and even if they did I don't think I'd tell them how I really am. The tension in this house is high, static. I'm afraid to set it off. I don't want anything to combust. I can see it in Tate's eyes though, his doubt when I tell him I'm doing alright. I don't look alright. I'm trying to but it's hard. I am haggard and tired and older now than I was four months ago. I am tired. I am so tired.

I lick my lips and take a soft, shuddering breath, an old man bent on making a point. "Maybe it isn't what you want to hear, but what I want to hear," I tell him, voice harsher, raspier than I mean it to be. I was never good at making friends before, always too bookish, ever the observer and barely ever the participant because of my bad heart. I get my intelligence from Mom and Tripp and my mouth from Teva, Tate says. I should really learn how to shut it sometimes.

"I must look really shitty then, huh?" I say, leaning my head back against the back of the couch. The fabric gives slightly beneath my weight and I keep my eyes open, staring at the ceiling. There's still remnants of colour there from the time I read about this man named Michelangelo who painted all over a ceiling once. I think Tate was mad when he saw it but he let me keep the pictures. That was years ago. They're unintelligible now.

If Tate were here he'd get mad at me for swearing. Those words never used to feel right on my tongue but something has changed. That precious thing that Tate was always trying to protect by not letting me learn how to use a gun is gone. I lost it somewhere between the fall and the spring.

"It was a bad winter for me," I whisper, "That's all. I'll be okay."

[[nyte]]

M E R L I N

I think that it's been too long since I talked to someone my age because he doesn't answer right away. My heart has stopped, anticipation running like venom through my veins, killing me slowly. I'm just a bit scared that I've fucked things up so soon because then Cal is going to be disappointed in me and his boyfriend is going to be mad at me for upsetting his brother and then Cal is going to kick me out of his house and I'm going to have to sleep at the club again and I'm going to get sold to a guy and fucked for money because that's what happens to everyone else and everything is going to go wro-

"Maybe it isn't what you want to hear, but what I want to hear," He snaps in such a way that I shrink. Every muscle in my body tenses and I wait. I wait for the screaming to start because that's how it always is when someone is mad at me. They scream and shout and one time Dad pinned me up against the wall by my throat and only let go when my lips started turning blue. I remember the bruises that lined my throat and collar for weeks after that happened, I remember that the teachers asked me what happened and I told them because I've always been a terrible liar. And I remember they said they couldn't do anything because he was rich and no one would believe me anyway and I said it was okay even though it wasn't. 

But he doesn't start screaming. There's no vein bulging in his temple when I gather the courage to look at him. He is nothing but a withering flower in front of me; as he's always been. There is not a red tinge snaking up his throat and onto his forehead, there is nothing. And perhaps I am more unsettled by that. 

I'm so used to screams and shouts and jeers. I hear them so often up on stage, they ring in my ears like church bells. Ding. (Look at this little slut! What I'd do to him!) Dong. (Can't find good whores these days. All worthless. Fucking worthless.) And I don't know if the words hurt as much as they burn. Burn into my cheeks and into my eyes and my chest and arms and legs and hands. Branding themselves into my skin with such vigor that I start to wonder. Is that what I am? A slut and a whore and all those words that I don't really know the meaning of but I know that they're bad by the way the men scream them at me. 

I'm not used to this. I regard the boy carefully, pressing my lips together so as to keep them from quivering. (It's all okay, it'll all be okay.) And yet I still cannot meet his eyes. So dead and dull and that break my heart a little every time I look into them. I do not know this boy, but I do not need to to feel sympathy. It overwhelms me like father's fist pressed into my stomach, emptying the whole of my body of air so violently that it hurts. It hurts so fucking much. But I do not pity him. I don't think I would know how to pity anyone let alone a boy who looks so strong but so broken. 

"I must look really shitty then, huh?" The words are enough to bring my eyes to his for the first time in what feels like eons. No! I want to say but my throat has swallowed up all of my words and I can feel my cheeks flush bright pink in embarrassment, gentle fingers creating a masterpiece upon the apples of my cheeks. He looks battle worn, like he's seen a thousand things and they're all trapped beneath his skull, he looks smart and quiet and haunted but not that. He doesn't look shitty. Not weak or ugly or anything.\I have not seen someone as beautiful as him, with stories engraved into his eyes with red ink. But I know better than to tell him that. 

I couldn't have anyway, I think father's hands are around my neck again. "It's a bad winter for me. That's all. I'll be okay." Maybe he believes those words even less than I, but I do not say that. I don't want him to get upset at me again and he told me he wants to hear it so I will not say anything about the words. I have learned my lesson as I have many times before. Speaking my mind has only ever gotten me into shit and so I won't. 

My head bobs without my permission, falling into a kind of stilted nod as I look away from him. "Okay." I mutter, picking at the beds of my nails until the skin tore away. "Okay, you'll be okay." I cannot bring myself to raise my voice above a whisper, too terrified that I am saying the wrong thing again and this time he will actually get mad at me this time. 

It's been a bad winter. He said. Me too. It's been a bad winter for me too. My parents didn't care that I ran just like I thought and I lived on the streets for half a year before I nearly died in a man's arms. And the man then sold my soul to the devil. Bad luck, I suppose, or perhaps I had done something really terrible in a past life and karma is punishing me for it. I don't know, and frankly I don't care. It hurts too much to talk about the past, yet it hurts too much not to. I haven't told anyone the entirety of what happened to me. Not even Cal. I just don't know how to bring it up. 

"Yeah." I shrug, having run out of skin to pick so I begin to ruin the carpet as well. "A bad winter. Yeah. Yeah me too." I swallow hard, my spit suddenly feeling like rocks grinding down my throat. "I uh... I..." He doesn't care he doesn't care he doesn't care. "That's why I said it's okay not to be okay. Because... I'm really not okay either. Not okay at all." And there are sudden tears building behind my eyes. Where did those come from? "I'm sorry." 

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That is what I would scream as father pinned me to the ground, bruising my wrists and squeezing them so hard that they popped. I'm sorry. That is what I would whisper when mother pulled her hand across my cheek, angry that I had gotten the wrong bourbon from the store when she never even told me what kind she had wanted. My fault. It was my fault. Because it was easier to take the blame than to stand up for myself. It is easier to be walked all over than to stand up and try to stop them because that would only bring more pain. What was good was to be compliant. What was good was to be a doll to be used and abused and tossed away when everyone was done with me because that is how I've stayed alive for fifteen years and that's how I will stay alive for fifteen more.

"I'm so sorry." And a raindrop has fallen upon the tip of my nose.

[gamemaker kelsier]

IT FEELS LIKE I'M FALLING APART

TEDDY SERAPHIM

I'M FALLING APART EVER SO SLOWLY

I 'm too much like Tate now.

I was cold just now, like he can be. I felt it there, the ice on my heart, on my chest, unbidden. I don't want to be like that, to become that. I want to be like mom was, warm. I don't want to lose myself here.

Tears form in my eyes to match his and I lower my head painfully to look at him. "Look," I whisper, "I'm sorry, I didn't used to be like this."

I should be more warm, like Castor was, cradling my head in the cell as I cried in pain and fear. I need to be as brave as she was and I hope that she's alive still, that she's still breathing. Someone needs to survive that cell, if I can't then it has to be her.

Exhaustion grips me like a vice and I feel my limbs go heavy with it, merciless. I get too tired now far too soon and it's agonizing, almost as bad as the constant pain in my chest. What is it worth being alive in constant pain if the only thing I can do is sleep for endless hours?

I want to ask him if he knows what it feels like to die, but I'm afraid of the answer that I'll get.

"Please don't cry, ok?" I ask it of him even as tears leak from my own eyes.

[[nyte]]

M E R L I N

His words are molten honey. Their sweetness upon my tongue is excruciating, peeling away at sensitive skin with every labored breath. I hate the feeling of eyes upon my skin yet I love the way that they adore me. Love me. The men at work want something of me, and that is more than I ever received from parents to whom I was only another pair of hands. There is sick satisfaction in the way that I captivate them. And so the guilt is heavy, rested upon my shoulders and I can feel myself begin to crumble beneath them. Calcifer suffers, he suffers every night as men take so much from him and yet I cannot help but feel as though I am worthless when they do not want the same from me.

I cry harder when he asks me to stop, hiding my face within the fabric of a sweater three sizes too big and there is so much to feel that I cannot bring myself to face any of it. I yearn for the touch of my mother, for her hands to hold my head blow the bath's water once more and as much as it hurts at least I would know that she knows I am alive. That in that moment, I am all that matters to her as water seeps into my lungs and my screams are muffled by the bubbles.

I want them back. More than anything, I want to be loved but in these moments I cannot help but remember just how hard I must be to even endure. Not even five minutes with this man and I have brought him to tears. "I'll do better!" My voice is shaking, sleeve wiping away the poison that upset him so. "Please just tell me how to help you and I will." My hands curl within the loose fabric of his shirt, desperation painting smiles upon shaking cheeks. I do not care if I am okay, only that he will have me in one way or another.

[gamemaker kelsier]

IT FEELS LIKE I'M FALLING APART

TEDDY SERAPHIM

I'M FALLING APART EVER SO SLOWLY

Suddenly the carpet beneath me feels too rough, the couch against my back too hard to the point where it's almost painful but my body is too heavy to move it and it's odd, being so trapped in my own skin. I don't have the excuse anymore of broken legs, of gaping wounds because Ken has stitched them all up.

Nine days, it's been nine days free and I don't fully trust it, I don't know when I will.

I ache all over in small, beating hearts, all overshadowed by the real heart in my chest, beating out of rhythm and too aggressively. I wince, tears turning into those of pain and for a long moment, I am speechless, trapped in the cage of my own pain.

His hands curl up in my shirt, too big for me now, and I am dragged back to this moment in time, his hands a safety rope in this uncertain shore. He begs me, asking me what he can do and I don't have an answer for him, anything that wants to move past my lips. I shut my eyes for a brief moment, agony gripping far too tightly, latex covered hands clenching slowly into weak fists as if to hold myself here.

I lick my lips again, tongue running over the cracked surface, almost cutting myself on them.

"Please," I say, "Help me get upstairs?"

[[nyte]]

M E R L I N

When I look at him, I see beauty. Adonis bathed in the light of a Greek Tragedy and there is so much that I think I could find within the depths of his eyes if I had the courage to look into them. But I feel so insignificant, worthless within this house filled with a thousand souls of strong men and there are ghosts buried within these walls. I can feel their hands upon my chest, begging to drag me within the walls so that a man made of flesh and blood can feel the woes within their spectral lungs.

There are screams within his throat, so loud that my fingers trace the skin without a second thought. "You're hurting." Under my breath, teeth dug into my lips and the pain reminds me that in this is real. That beauty personified rests beneath my fingertips and I cannot help but feel disgusting within his presence. As though I am a creature made of nightmare and greed. Numbed by past sins, turned to stone with a heart that bleeds all too often from the corners of my eyes and look at him. Look at everything he has been through and yet I am here, suffering and broken.

Pathetic. I'm pathetic. "Of course." He's light as air, I've been small all of my life. Barely reaching five foot five and yet he is nothing. Weighed down only by the trauma which I can feel hidden beneath the surface of his heavy eyelids. I wrap his arm around my neck and stand slowly. "You have so many secrets, I can feel them." I'm no good at speaking, at saying the right things. "Is that why its hard to walk?"

[gamemaker kelsier]

IT FEELS LIKE I'M FALLING APART

TEDDY SERAPHIM

I'M FALLING APART EVER SO SLOWLY

He pulls me up and half of me is left behind there on the floor and I keep doing this, cutting myself in half wherever I go and leaving myself there, remnants. I soft grunt of pain leaves me when he pulls me up and I stumble into him, sagging against him, unable to hold myself up. "I'm sorry," I say softly into his chest.

I don't know when I became like this; so goddamned week.

I think of my heart stopping inside of my chest and I remember it now. It had felt good, final, the end. After months of torture and suffering, it had finally been the end.

And then they'd brought me back. I tighten my lips at the thought of that, the unfairness. Bringing me back only to face the certainty of a slow rattling death was inhumane.

But the detention center never promised to be anything different.

My arm shakes around merlin, doing my best to help him. The strain of movement is enough to make my vision blur and even though I was just recalling it, I have to remember that I was legally dead two weeks ago, that my heart stopped. I'm weak because my body has given out and now it doesn't know how to function anymore, too confused at still existing on a physical level.

"I can't tell them what it was like in there," I say softly as we take the stairs slowly one by one, "It would break them, break Tate."

"I can't hurt them anymore."

Guilt washes over me with an added dull ache.

Guilt for what I put them through when I stabbed that peacekeeper all those months ago.

[[nyte]]

M E R L I N

"You can tell me." My smile is soft, taking the brunt of his weight as we climb up a mountain of stairs and had I not been dancing for hours on end these long nights I do not think we'd have made it. "I don't matter." It's best to be honest, to expecting nothing of those who will with no doubt grow bored of me in the hours that come to pass. Soon, I will fade into obscurity. Replaced by shinier toys without the ghosts sewn to my heels, needles poked through the callouses so that the pain is nothing that I have any right to complain about and yet its there. Constant and ethereal.

His face within my chest makes my heart race. Hand bracing his lower back, partly so that he doesn't fall but part of me just wants to keep him as close as I can. Affection is something I was so starved of, without a mother's love or a father's support, I take whatever I can get- as inadvertent as that may be. "Which room is yours?" I murmur, hands curling within his hair and it is so soft and nice that I can feel my heart melting with every pained breath.

Death is a terrifying creature. Full to burst with bad intention, adorned with a mask made of the skulls of the innocent and god, I have faced him a thousand times over yet here I stand. Tall as my broken body will allow and it seems unfair that a man so loved is fading within my arms. Shaking, pained, broken and dark.

"I'm temporary. Always temporary."

[gamemaker kelsier]

IT FEELS LIKE I'M FALLING APART

TEDDY SERAPHIM

I'M FALLING APART EVER SO SLOWLY

"There."

I point at the door that's been mine ever since I can remember. My name is written in faded crayon along the bottom in the right hand corner from when I was three and wanted to claim it as mine. 'Teddy'. The letters are too big, the swells malformed. I didn't know how to write well back then.

Mom had been so pissed but instead of giving me a cloth to clean it, she'd picked me up and put me on the counter. "Scars aren't something we hide, Teddy, we wear them with pride."

I don't think she'd say the same if she saw how many criss-crossed my skin now. I'm less a boy and more a quilt.

We shuffle in slowly until we finally reach my bed and I sink down onto the softness of the blankets and pillows Tate piled on it in an effort to make me comfortable. The ceiling sways above my head like a wave and my eyes shut, the tide, cutting me off from the shore.

"I don't think I can handle another temporary person?" I whisper. I think of Castor, her lips on mine, how she's dead now. My mother and my first mother and my father, all dead. I'm only fifteen and that's too many. I open my eyes again, skin too warm and looking at him. He's my height but more filled out; healthy.

I'd give anything to be healthy, to stop feeling pain. Everything is a flicker, a dull ache in comparison to the off-beat pounding in my chest. It's too much to handle, the only thing I can focus on. I have no other purpose but to feel the wave of pain, the ebb and the quiet calm before the next wave.

It's no way to live.