Breathing

He was there to see it happen. He didn’t know her, which some people might think would make it easier for him to stomach. But no, the fact that he hadn’t known her made it worse. And he couldn’t seem to understand why. Why would he care about this nobody more than he cares about his friends, or his boyfriend? There was something seriously fucked up in his mind, he figured.

He was okay as he carefully walked down the dank alleyway, the smell of sulfur, steam, and iron mixing together. He was okay as he passed the lifeless body, rivulets of blood running from her nose. He was okay even as he stopped to stare at the crack in her head, and the glistening of… that might have been brain matter, actually.

He was okay as he emerged on the other side of the alleyway and stepped into the stream of midnight lurkers.

It was only when he got to his shared apartment and slammed the door that he realized he wasn’t okay. He felt a heavy weight on his chest; his breathing picked up.

He leaned on the wall to balance himself, but he couldn’t seem to calm down. He dropped to the floor with a loud thud and sat back against the door, knees drawn to his chest.

In his narrowed vision, he saw his boyfriend padding down the cold hallway.

Panic attacks like this were few and far between; the elder boy knew better than to touch him.

He, however, blindly reached out, gripping at the broad shoulders of his boyfriend and colliding their chests so he could sob into the older man’s neck.

They curled up onto the floor, whispers of how he had to breathe passed between their bodies.

But he couldn’t. Not yet.

The older man kept at it, trying to remind him that he needed to breathe, that he was going to be okay.