Cold Hands
Fourteen
It's something like.
Like how Brendon has started casting his worried eyes at Pete, too. Everyone's noticed he's lost his energy, his motivation - the thing that's keep them going all these years. Pete still smiles that weary, comfortable smile but it's hollow, like his stomach, and the way his collar bones cut through the fabric of his t-shirt is distracting enough Patrick never notices anymore.
Ryan, Patrick decides, is like a leach. He latches on, bones sharp and digging and he smiles, fucking smiles, and he writes all these pretty words that twist and turn round and round your grey matter till all you can think is 'I wasn't born to be a skeleton' yet Ryan was. Born to be a skeleton. It's in the way his cheeks dip in and how right it looks to see his spine protruding gently from the angles of his back. He's elegant in a way that makes Patrick's eyes water when he'd bent over on the bathroom floor, he's dying just so prettily that Patrick has to take a breath when he sees delicate, pale things wrapped loosely on Pete's wrist. Fingers meeting.
Ryan sucks everything out of you. He takes into into himself, that adoration, those idolising stares, those crisp morning smiles, and he loses it somewhere in himself. Somewhere dark and coiled that, if you peer too closely, is visible on the edges of his smiles. In the curves of his ribs. He takes it all in and he can't quite hold on long enough to force down breakfast and then he's away again, fraying away at the edges of other's so he might, briefly, be complete.
So, Brendon comes to Patrick, worried and anxious. Patrick tells him he asked Pete to eat (it counts, right?) and Brendon takes his lip beneath his teeth, glancing towards the two skeletons in the corner. The skeletons in their closets. Ryan is tired and worn and ragged and the water he clutches to his bone is working away at the slight warmth of his hand, turning his skin a shade paler than what was already dead. Pete's head is buried in Ryan's shoulder, his own hand shaking slightly as it clings to a skeletal thigh, anchoring him to Ryan.
Like Ryan could drift away at any moment,
Like how Brendon has started casting his worried eyes at Pete, too. Everyone's noticed he's lost his energy, his motivation - the thing that's keep them going all these years. Pete still smiles that weary, comfortable smile but it's hollow, like his stomach, and the way his collar bones cut through the fabric of his t-shirt is distracting enough Patrick never notices anymore.
Ryan, Patrick decides, is like a leach. He latches on, bones sharp and digging and he smiles, fucking smiles, and he writes all these pretty words that twist and turn round and round your grey matter till all you can think is 'I wasn't born to be a skeleton' yet Ryan was. Born to be a skeleton. It's in the way his cheeks dip in and how right it looks to see his spine protruding gently from the angles of his back. He's elegant in a way that makes Patrick's eyes water when he'd bent over on the bathroom floor, he's dying just so prettily that Patrick has to take a breath when he sees delicate, pale things wrapped loosely on Pete's wrist. Fingers meeting.
Ryan sucks everything out of you. He takes into into himself, that adoration, those idolising stares, those crisp morning smiles, and he loses it somewhere in himself. Somewhere dark and coiled that, if you peer too closely, is visible on the edges of his smiles. In the curves of his ribs. He takes it all in and he can't quite hold on long enough to force down breakfast and then he's away again, fraying away at the edges of other's so he might, briefly, be complete.
So, Brendon comes to Patrick, worried and anxious. Patrick tells him he asked Pete to eat (it counts, right?) and Brendon takes his lip beneath his teeth, glancing towards the two skeletons in the corner. The skeletons in their closets. Ryan is tired and worn and ragged and the water he clutches to his bone is working away at the slight warmth of his hand, turning his skin a shade paler than what was already dead. Pete's head is buried in Ryan's shoulder, his own hand shaking slightly as it clings to a skeletal thigh, anchoring him to Ryan.
Like Ryan could drift away at any moment,