The Lonely

[dr_riley]

Open to All
WARNINGS: None yet



Somewhere in the back of his mind, behind the cogs jamming with fevered panic and hidden within the terror scrambled maintenance and safety protocols that normally kept his heart and lungs and adrenal glands within normal parameters, Drake couldn't help but liken himself to a goldfish in a bowl: tiny and helpless, on display, nothing secret, nothing private, at the whim of an entity far more powerful than any he'd ever come across, and yet the tiniest bit...fascinated. The sudden BANG caused him to flinch and stumble backwards with his arms raised (To what? Protect himself? That's a good one.) and when he looked up again, everything was as it had been a moment ago.

But it also wasn't.

If he'd known right away exactly what happened, he'd have liked to have said that he felt very strange, but he didn't. What he felt was dreadfully familiar. It was something that, until recently, he felt all the time, waking and sleeping, accompanying him to work, meeting him for lunch, coming home and sitting at the dinner table, getting bigger and bigger until he couldn't breathe. He had learned how to live with this quiet terror and was still relearning how to live without it.

What was different was the...hunger? Desire? Biological urge? ...to feel others feeling it. That part was so new and so subtle that he didn't notice it at first. After all, Drake had often, perhaps selfishly, wished that his loved ones might have an inkling of the danger he put himself in every day, of how he felt, of how hard he tried. And sometimes...he wanted to get back at them. He never did, he never would, but the hurt and angry little thought sometimes niggled its way to the surface all the same.

And now it was there full time. It howled in his ears and it filled his lungs and it spoke through his lips:

"I will make you feel alone."

Comments

[out_of_order]

"...I'm sorry."

He knew what Drake meant to do, and he knew it couldn't be helped. Just as it was with him.

"I can't help what's happened to me, any more than you can with yourself. I can't not Know. And the fact that it's something you keep hidden, that you don't want to think about...only begs for it to be brought to light."

When Drake would look, he'd find Cal a little closer, those eyes still unblinking, an eerie glowing cast to that gaze that seemed to bore right into him.

[dr_riley]

For a moment, a rush of thoughts flooded Drake's consciousness. Ordinary thoughts. Classified thoughts. Private thoughts. And then nothing, although it still felt as though Cal could see every moment, every mistake, every fear and regret as though he had stood beside him his whole life, just watching. Indifferent.

It was that indifference that got to him. He craved being seen, but not like this, not all the damaged bits between the cracks in his smile, not against his will, and certainly not with as much empathy as a prepared slide of Clostridium perfringes beneath a microscope. It was that indifference, not just to his brokenness, but to what should be Cal's own - How dare he be okay? How dare he advertise the marked difference between how each of them had coped with loneliness in their lives? - that deadened his eyes. That clenched his hand with a sound like cracking ice. That made him breathe heavy plumes of cold, drenching mist.

When Cal was close enough, Drake jutted out a hand to grab his arm, and his grip was stronger than expected, thin fingers sucking all the warmth away. His edges seemed to blur and his voice seemed far away.

"You want in? Fine, mate. Be my guest."

A chill that settled behind the ribs blew through them and gathered the fog around, a hiss like wind sweeping over the tundra, whipping up the snow, spraying sea water into the frozen air, a deep, hollow howling. And then it fell silent, so profoundly silent that there was nothing to distract from the empty desolate feeling of the place they now found themselves in. It was a feeling that seeped into the bones. It was the feeling of telling a joke that no one laughs at. Of being the only one not invited. Of having what should be a good time if only there were someone to share it with. Of being forgettable. Inconsequential. Walled off and uncared about. Drake himself seemed to embody this feeling, this barren Arctic solitude, exposed to the elements and devoid of life or warmth. And he seemed comfortable with it.

[out_of_order]

He didn't move a muscle. He'd probably anticipated it. Perhaps part of him welcomed it. After all, if Cal was here, it meant that he couldn't be anywhere else, couldn't submit any others to the things they didn't want to be Known. It was just unfortunate that it was not without cost.

It was cold, like the frigid air of the frozen planet of Ilum. He knew this feeling, the numbness, the silent and yet somehow tense sensation. The world going by around you while you felt like a rock sitting in the middle of a rushing stream. Cal loathed the feeling, the solitude that still persisted even amongst the company of others, the invisible barriers that were set up by no one but yourself because at the heart of everything, trust had been shattered and the only one you had to rely on was yourself, and there wasn't any confidence in that decision, just necessity.

Just as this could be. Perhaps they could feed off each other in this twisted cycle until this nightmare broke.