Hollow Bones

Chris stared at the mirror, a frown present on his face, but it always was these days. His shirt was off, revealing his bony chest. He ran his hands over his ribs, feeling the dips and tiny mountains underneath his pale -and at this point, unhealthy- skin. His hands started to go down his torso reaching his hip bones that looks sharp enough to cut glass. At this point, his skin looked like it was shrink wrapped over his bones. Chris was essentially a walking skeleton, and he wish he could say he didn’t like it.

It was odd, he thought, that he was the bigger, more dominant one in his relationship, and yet he got panic attacks at the thought of gaining weight, while his boyfriend wanted to eat fast food everyday.

Chris continued running his spindly fingers up and down his chest, just feeling the bones. He didn’t trust his eyes to see if he gained weight, and his boyfriend hit the scale a few days ago and he hadn’t found it yet. His attention snapped back when he felt skinny arms wrap around his waist, looking down he saw that it was Devin.

“Good morning,” He whispered, sleepily, leaning his forehead against Chris’s back.

“Good morning.” Chris replied, ceasing the movement of his hand. Devin didn’t like it when he checked for fat. Devin sighed, placing a small kiss on his bony shoulder blade.

“I love you, my little sparrow.” He whispered, kissing Chris’s shoulder again, letting his hands drop down, thumbs rubbing his hip bones.

“My little sparrow,” Chris heard him whisper again, “My little hollow bones.” He gave Chris’s skin one last kiss, before letting go, to walk back to their room to get dressed.

---x--x---

Devin and Chris had been dating for a few years. They were briefly acquaintanced in High school -only ever meeting via their mutual friend Ricky- but they didn’t really hit it off until they both got into college. Chris and Ricky, who had been bestfriends since the dawn of time, luckily were accepted into the same college. Devin, who had also gotten into it, and who was a friend of Ricky’s, but not a best friend, was studying the same thing as him. Art, fashion and design. Yes, they really were just that gay. Back on track, because Devin and Ricky had some of the same classes, a mutual interest, and Devin still lived at home so it was a constant connection to free food and a couch that hadn’t been fucked on numerous times, Ricky invited Devin into his little friends circle, which included Chris. They hit it off immediately, and started dating a few weeks later. It was interesting, for them both to be dating someone who had common interests, but also conflicting opinions. Lots of conversations they had within the first few weeks of dating were joking arguments, about controversial topics and odd things they heard about online and in the hallways. Basically, it was interesting for them to be dating someone that they actually really liked.

Because they were both on a college budget, most of their dates consisted of movie nights, the occasional club, and take-out food while they were in their pajamas. And sex. But sex didn’t only happen on date nights. It was nice, for both of them. Simple, easy. But, as most people now, there is always a calm before the storm. And that storm came in their second year of college.

It has started out as a way to save a few extra bucks. Since he and Ricky shared a dorm, and they were both constantly busy, what with the classes, jobs, and relationships (Ricky was dating a very nice girl named Jessica), they didn’t really have time to get more than two (and that was pushing it) part-time jobs. So they were pretty much broke after paying for food, books, and anything else they needed. Being (slightly) responsible and mature adults, they made the responsible and mature decision to cut back on a few things each so that they would both have some money. For Ricky it was make up, hair product, and pointless nick-nacks that he bought on whims. For Chris, also hair products, CD’s, movies, and those dumb chains he wrapped around his belt loops, but a few weeks into the Saving Money Fuck Yeah plan, he realized, Hey, I actually don’t eat a lot. Actually I throw out most of my food. So, he decided, he could also cut down on money he spent on food. It started out that he just didn’t buy things he knew he wouldn’t eat. He didn’t really eat fries when he went to fast food places, so he didn’t order those. He wasted most sweet things that they had in the dorm, so he let Ricky (who also didn’t eat that much, not Anorexia, just messed up metabolism) eat them. In the first month, they saved about twenty dollars each. Becoming more aware of how much food he wasted, he didn’t buy as much. Of course, no one noticed at this time. Chris had always been skinny and tall, and had away had periods of time where he just did things differently than he normally did. No one questioned it.

It was probably what Chris was studying that pushed him over the edge though. He was studying to become a tattoo artist. He was good at art, and drawing, and loved the concept of body modification, and had a few himself. But in the art class he had, the teacher was obsessed with the art concept of beauty. Not in a The-Concept-Is-Messed-Up kind of way, but a I-Love-The-Concept-Lets-Study-It-Forever kind of way. All class, they studied the curves of a woman's hips, the beauty of Victorian females and their pale skin, the way that modern models waists were tiny, and paintings and drawings of beautiful people who were celebrated so many years ago. Yes, the concept of beauty was always on his mind. And Chris would like to say it was only for art, but it wasn’t. Everywhere he looked he saw beauty now. He saw it in Ricky, who was small with thin wrists and a bright smile. He saw it in Ash, who wore tight skirts and ripped tights and made sure her hair was carefully parted each and everyday. He especially saw it in Devin, his boyfriend. His wonderful, caring boyfriend, who had a perfect figure, and prominent hip bones, and collar bones that jutted out, and a soft voice, and silky hair, and small hands. Yes, his boyfriend was very beautiful.

So it wasn’t a surprise when he got a job at a Tattoo Parlor -it’s name was Funhouse, and yes, it was very fun- and saw so many beautiful people, who were covered in bright colors and tiny pieces of metal, that he decided that, yes, being beautiful was a very good thing. Chris did not think he was beautiful. He was too lanky, and his hair did this weird floppy thing, and his features were too sharp in some places, and too soft in others. But he wasn’t really skinny. No, it was more that his height spread out his weight. And, in that Art class, the teacher said, “A Century ago, being round, and a little curvy was beautiful. Now, being thin is.” Chris wanted to be beautiful. So he decided to be thin. And he would save a lot of money too.

--x--x--

“You’re so skinny.” Devin giggled one day. It was about two months until summer, Chris would graduate but Devin still had a year left. “You’re like a sparrow or something.”

“I’m like a bird?” Chris asked, laughing, looking up at Devin. His head was in Devi’s lap, they were in Chris’s dorm, it was a Date Night (a.k.a We’re gonna watch movies from the Eighties and have sex nights). He choose to ignore the part of him being skinny, because he’d only lost five pounds so far. He was getting better at not eating for long periods of time, but his self control was horrible when him and his friend’s went out to eat..

“Yeah, like, hollow bones and shit.” Devin said, running his fingers through Chris’s hair.

Chris grinned, and leaned up to kiss Devin. They started the Having Sex portion of their date as Ferris Bueller sang on a parade float.

--x--x--

Little Sparrow just stuck. Devin liked it. He liked calling Chris that, it was cute. Chris didn’t mind, he found it endearing. Hollow Bones also stuck, Devin didn’t know when he started calling Chris that, his Little Hollow Bones, but he did. And as the year progressed, he started looking more and more like he really did have hollow bones. Life went on as life does, waiting for no one and also at its own pace. Ricky and his girlfriend broke up, made up and were still together, he and Devin continued to excel at their classes, Devin had started making more stuff when he wasn’t at school which resulted with a lot of strange haircuts for cosplaying purposes, they became friends with a boy named Brandon (he was studying photography), and Chris kept up with his classes, his drawings were improving and he recently learned that, surprising, if he uses the color pink in drawings the world does not end. And, much to his delight and to others worriment, he continued to lose weight. He continued to become beautiful. By that point, his wrists were thinner, and his hip bones peaked out, and he could almost see all his ribs. Most of the time Devin frowned when he saw the weight lost but didn’t mention it, afriad to cause a fight and put Chris in a worse position. But his friend’s weren’t and they pestered him to eat, and, on one occasion, actually force fed him in the middle of the mall food court. He didn’t really care, he was supposed to be an artist after all, surely to be able to create things of beauty he had to have a better understanding of it?

And so, life continued, and Chris graduated, along with some of his friends, and Ricky and Devin were still in school, but didn’t really mind because they were pretty good friends at this point. Chris got a full time job at Funhouse Tattoo’s, instead of part-time. He worked at the desk, sometimes drawing designs for when the artists were lazy -it always made him laugh when one of them would walk over, and beg him to draw because their arm was tired- and he loved it. He gained a bit more weight during this time. His metabolism got messed up, and he started purging a lot, and a lot of people thought that it was great. That he was finally filling in a bit, becoming healthy. Chris was slightly disappointed, and got back on track a few months later.

Life goes on, bodies decay.

Devin and Ricky graduated, with some of the best marks in class (only beaten by a girl named Megan, who hands were thin and careful) and they immediately started working. During school, Ricky worked at a makeup shop in the mall, and Devin worked in a clothing shop downtown, but now that they had degrees and stuff, they got jobs at actually clothing places. For Devin it was a place called Fantasy Factory, which sounded dirty but it wasn’t, it was a store that made custom costumes for people, along with dresses, corsets, pants, and jackets. Ricky worked at a place called Quirk which was the equivalent of Fantasy Factory, but more casual things instead of fake knives. Chris had started tattooing people, only a few, under the careful eyes of the older artists. Most people complimented him, and loved their tattoos, but still. Also, he and Devin moved in together. They moved into an apartment, that was small. Only one bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen and small living room, but that was all they needed. They didn’t throw parties, or had people come over to visit, and the prospect of eating anywhere than the couch was frightening to them. So, they lived in their cozy nook, that had a broken window and a questionable stain on the wall, and they went to work and came back home and loved each other (in more ways than one, if you know what I’m saying). And they were happy. And Chris kept on being more and more hollow.

--x--x--

It was when Chris ended up in the hospital that people really noticed how bad he was. He was severely underweight, and dehydrated. His stomach was getting twisted and sometimes he had trouble breathing. He got himself into the hospital because after coughing up blood at work (on the desk, so everyone saw it this time) he passed out. Everyone had noticed how thin he was, how tired he was. His cheeks were hollow, and his fingers where knobby, and even his tightest pair of jeans looked baggy on him. No one noticed just how bad he was, because he was careful. He didn’t vomit up food, if he ate something, he would just make sure he didn’t eat a lot for a while. He wore clothes baggy enough to hide his protruding bones and sickly looking skin, but made sure they were tight enough that no one saw a huge change in his style. Not even Devin saw exactly how sick he was. Yes, he knew that Chris was sick, and he knew he needed help, and he tried very hard to understand what was happening to his once happy, life filled boyfriend, so he let him have free-rein on things. He knew that Chris was self-conscious of his body, so he didn’t push things, like sex and anything with a lack of clothing. It when only when he saw Chris laying in the hospital bed, with its starched white sheets and chemically smell that he really saw his chest for the first time in a few months. The hospital gown was thin, so it showed off his collar bones, that were now very obvious, and his now frail chest. Devin held Chris’s hand, which was cold and slightly dead feeling, and he waited. For Chris to either wake up or for the line to go flat.

When Chris opened his eyes, only a little, his eyelashes fluttering, he was greeted by Devin, still holding his hand. Devin gave him a soft, sad smile and said,

“You weren’t supposed to take the hollow bones thing serious, sweetheart.” Chris let out a small laugh, before closing his eyes and going back to sleep. Devin just kept waiting, while life did not.

--x--x--

Chris went home a few days later, doctors gave him sad looks, and a piece of paper with the name of a rehab center. Chris hid the paper before Devin could see it. He was also given a few days off work.

“To recover a bit.” His boss, Michael, said pointedly. He visited him at the hospital. “We like you a lot. We don’t want you to be hurt. When you get back we’re gonna watch you like a hawk.”

“Hawks. Plural.” Chris replied, sleepily.

“You’re in a hospital bed, practically flirting with death, and you’re correcting my grammar?”

“Pretty much, yeah." Chris smiled.

He could tell that Devin was worried, and tip toed around him in conversations. Chris didn’t blame him. It’s been tense for a few months. Devin was worried, and Chris seemed indifferent and they didn’t go out, and their sex life was dead (Chris was too tired to be an on top top, and his bones were too weak for Devin to be on top while he bottomed) and now suddenly he just found out, Oh yeah, your boyfriend? Yeah, he has a very high risk of dying and you didn’t even notice. Yeah, Chris could forgive Devin for being a little tense.

Chris laid on the couch, twisting and turning trying to find a position that didn’t hurt. He had so little muscle and fat on his body that he didn’t really had any cushioning or padding anywhere. When he got bruises they hurt like hell. So even sitting down on the couch was a task. Devin sighed, sounding slightly annoyed,

“What’s wrong?” Chris shifted again, wincing as he laid on his side (Devin was sitting on the arm of the couch).

“It hurts to sit down.”

“I thought it hurt to stand up?” He asked, slightly aggravated.

“No, it’s tiring to stand up.” He moved again, finding a slightly comfy spot. “It hurts to sit down.” Any irritation in Devin’s face disappeared, as he leaned down and kissed Chris’s head softly. He then spent fifteen minute walking around the apartment, finding all the blankets, comfy sweaters, and even some cotton that he had from work, and sticking it in the biggest pillow case he could find. He put it on the couch, so that Chris could sit maybe a bit more comfortably. It didn’t help a lot, but it helped enough.

He ate more than half his dinner that night.

--x--x--

Work remained the same for Chris, the artists just a bit more careful of who they let Chris tattoo (People who were stick thin were not allowed to be tattooed or pierced by him, in fear that he would relapse) but it stayed mostly the same. He kept making appointments for people, and practiced on those who trusted their tattooers enough to let a newbie ink them. His life in general got a bit better too. He and Devin didn’t fight, and he was slowly putting on weight and getting his appetite back. Slowly. It was a process. But no matter how often his almost had a mental breakdown about it, or how often he pushed his food away from him as if that would make it disappear, or how often he would actually cry to Devin about how he didn’t want to be healthy he wanted to be beautiful, Devin always insisted that he was beautiful, and gorgeous and every nice word that he could think of. He said, that no matter what Chris would always be his little Sparrow, his little hollow bones.
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