Delusions to Grandeur

So sorry, so selfish...

"I'm not angry, it happens."

Peter smiles earnestly at him and Jon feels sick under the oppressive atmosphere of the carefully crafted, supportive environment he's sat in. He's so safe it's almost suffocating, nothing here can hurt him. Nothing but himself. He very carefully doesn't dig his nails into his arm; why would he need to hurt himself, anyway? He is Jon Walker - his dad is the fucking mayor of New York. He gets everything he wants.

Or something like that. It's kind of an old excuse now.

"And how did that make you feel?"

Well, it didn't.

Jon doesn't say much more after that.



His name's Ryan and it scared Jon how beautiful he is. How dead he is.

It's kind of like; Jon will be sitting on the sofa with Spencer, the shy kid with anger issues who never quite manages a smile, and Ryan will walk in and suddenly Jon can't breathe. He's all bones and hazel eyes and hair that loses more of it's shine everyday. Jon wants to run his hands through it before it all falls out. Ryan will smile if Jon meets his eyes, that painful little expression that makes Jon's heart, or what's left of it, squeeze in his chest, like the alcohol in his veins is finally rotting to poison.

Ryan rubs Spencer up the wrong way and the kid's gone before Jon can tear his eyes away. Ryan sits down in his place, bones clinking together hauntingly, and lays his hands on his lap in an oddly precise manner. The knuckles stand out, straining against the skin and it reminds Jon, nostalgically, of how his rib cage looked when the flesh was blown off it.

"You shouldn't stare. It's rude." and his voice is like velvet and Jon wants to feel it, pressed against his mouth. Wants that precious adams apple between his teeth and vibrating luxuriously as he runs his tongue over it.

"I've never been one for manners."

Ryan doesn't smile.



Jon's not sure how he got here, pressing Ryan against the crumbling, red wall just outside the fire escape. He tastes cigarettes and stomach acid on Ryan's tongue and doesn't want to think about how Ryan probably didn't keep his dinner down. Or lunch. Or breakfast. Jon would be surprised if he even ate them. It's a sickening mixture but it's all Jon can think about, all Jon ever thinks about, and if he can fit his whole hand around Ryan's thigh when he grabs it to push his own legs between Ryan's then, well, he doesn't say anything.



It's confusing.

Ryan likes to be held (daddy issues did Spencer say?) but the minute Jon's hand slips an inch too close to his stomach Ryan will flip and his nails are sharp (and doesn't Jon's back know it). He's all 'don't touch me there' and 'it's so fat' and it's the first time Jon's ever cried for someone who's not himself because he's seen, and he didn't even need to have to know that Ryan is dying.

He can feel the outline of his organs when he holds him down to fuck him, the only time Ryan will let him touch him there, and he feels an odd mix of nausea and lust. He doesn't know how much longer Ryan will be around for, doesn't know how concave his stomach can get till there's nothing left to waste away to. Jon doesn't want to think about how two of his hands can circle Ryan's waist with space to spare, but he knows he probably should.

He's not in love.



Spencer smashes the tv in with a wooden chair and that's the last Jon ever sees of him.

He's dragged off, crying and angry and ready to throw some more things around but the guards (helpers, they're meant to call them) are stronger and he's gone in minutes. If Jon listens hard enough at night he thinks he can hear Spencer yelling,Spencer crying, Spencer punching the walls of wherever he's being held.

Jon never knows for sure, though, because he never sees Spencer again.



"I'd like to know what you felt when your father said that at your bedside."

I'm not angry, it happens.

It happens.

"I don't know, I - I." Jon stares at his hands, imagining skeletons in their place, "It hurt. I guess. I wanted him to cry, or to... hit me. I wanted him to do something. I didn't want this to be one of those things that just 'happens'."

Does suicide just happen? When Jon drank that first bottle he didn't want to kill himself. He thinks so, anyway.

It didn't just happen.

"Does your father usually brush off things you do?"

Jon chokes on his own bitterness.



Ryan's so cold and Jon's so scared and his eyes are half lidded and his lips are turning blue.

"I don't want you to die, Ryan."

And he's finally admitting it to himself and it hurts so much, the realisation he needs Ryan alive. He wants to see Ryan witty again, like when he first came to the ward, he wants to see Ryan stride from a room, rather than stagger. He wants the proud, dominating Ryan back, the Ryan who'd dare say a word against Spencer and laugh when one of the windows ended up broken. Who reveled in the madness they all were.

But Ryan just holds on.

"Please eat, Ryan. I need you here. I need you alive."

And fuck, because Ryan doesn't want to be alive. Ryan doesn't want to be here, want to be held. Ryan wants to be dead and it's like the stomach pump failed and the ethanol is there, like he's dying all over again.

Except this time, it's Ryan.

"We'll get you better, yeah? You said ice cream used to be your favourite food, well, we'll make it that again. Food will be good again, I promise you Ryan. Calories aren't real, you don't need to think about them, okay? Ryan? Ryan, I don't want to lose you, I... I think I..."

He's so, so cold.