I will always love how sometimes we do not need to share words in order to share feelings, we just need to share a gaze.
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Grief. Grief was a miserable thing. It was a lonely thing. And because he had first had experience with grief he knew he never wanted to feel that pain again, would never wish it on anyone. Because on this day so long ago, grief overwhelmed him. It took him to that place where everything was dark and twisty, no sign of the light of day, the light of hope. He thought today was going to be the same as it was then, dark and twisty, but when he woke the next morning with Thomas still asleep in his arms he felt that lightness in his heart.
He wondered how he ended up here, not in this bed, not with Thomas in his arms but somehow in this life. Because somehow he felt like he didn't deserve this. Not the cancer, that's not what he meant, but how could he deserve to have someone like Thomas? He was the most infatuating person he had ever met, too down to earth to deserve the life he was given. What was really unfair was his cancer, his suffering. Life was unfair that way.
His eyes travelled across the room, filled with light from the rising sun. He felt the heat from Thomas's breath on his chest through his shirt and the skin under his fingertips from the shirt that had hiked up sometime during the night. He let out a small sigh, out of bliss or nerves he couldn't be too sure, the emotions flooded through him and the damn that worked so hard to keep them back was threatening to crack. The emotions threatened to fill over the top despite his efforts of pulling it higher. His eyelids were heavy, his blinks getting harder to come by as he wallowed in his own mind. Of everything he'd done in his life, what had he done to deserve this?
His breath caught in his throat when he heard footsteps padding toward the door, and he fluttered his eyes shut, because if someone were going to peak in on them he wasn't going to get caught up enjoying this silent moment with him. Moments later, he heard the door creak on its hinges, someone had been looking in on them, or more likely on Thomas. He was just somewhat of an obstacle in the way of that. His hand tightened around Thomas, the dip between his ribs and his hip. Moments later, the door creaked and he heard the latch click signaling the all clear for him. Though, as he laid there waiting for Thomas to wake, he wandered again to the night before. Because he knew that Thomas had seen that emptiness where his leg should have been, and though it was really no secret that it wasn't there anymore, he felt somewhat attached to that part of him. The part of him that was no longer.
He pressed his lips to Thomas's hair, his heart pounded in his chest as he did so. It plummeted again when he began to shift in his grasp from the spot he hadn't moved from all night. He feared he woke him, even though he tried desperately to be soft and to not wake him, that had obviously failed. He was always relieved when Thomas slept, because when he slept there wasn't that hidden look of pain on his features. The way he always looked when he must have felt that pain in his head that he tried to hide it from everyone, he wasn't very good at it.
