teach me gently on how to breathe || tradley/brad

جائع

The curly-haired boy suddenly jumps awake from the strange dream again, breathing heavily and frantically taking in the dark surroundings he fell asleep to nearly three hours ago. Once he rolls over onto his side, he catches his breath, face-to-face with his sleeping boyfriend softly inhaling and exhaling in the sleeping bag beside him. Brad struggles to imitate the seventeen-year-old's involuntary actions and pulls his body into a sitting position in his sleeping bag, rubbing two fist over droopy eyes.

"Tris," he whispers, gently brushing his fingertips over the blond's jawline. Tristan stirs in his sleep, unconsciously murmuring an incomprehensible response before rolling over onto his back. The younger boy lets out a sigh and shakes up his messy curls, wishing he could peacefully fall asleep each night without seeing that creepy skeleton behind his eyelids. And of course, waking up with the seemingly unbearable emptiness in his stomach. It's like the skeleton and hunger walk hand in hand.

He slowly sinks back into the partially zipped sleeping bag until he's resting on his back before rolling over onto his stomach, burying his face into the fluffy pillow beneath his head. Maybe I should've ate a little more, he thinks, already disagreeing with himself as soon as the thought comes. He wonders what's happening to him. How did he turn from always telling himself: "eat for the body you want, not for the body you have," to believing that feeling hungry isn't a good thing? This is the least he's eaten in three months. He should be ecstastic.

But it's hard being ecstastic knowing that crisps, pie, biscuits, pizza, sausage, cake, chips, ice-cream, doughnuts, soda, and pasta still exist, and somewhere near half of those fattening foods are stored in the kitchen, just waiting for Brad to consume them.

With one last look at the back of his boyfriend's tousled blond locks, the curly-haired boy's unzipping his own sleeping bag, crutches in hand, as he quickly limps through Tristan's nan's house to the staircase leading to the second floor.

He doesn't worry about making his way downstairs unheard. He hurriedly hops down the staircase and flies to the kitchen despite his ankle. As soon as he flicks on the kitchen light, he pauses.

What am I doing? he asks, resting his back against the wall. He realises he can't just freely raid Tristan's nan's cabinets, even though she did tell him to help himself to anything in the kitchen. But he's not stupid. Everyone says that.

I shouldn't even be down here, anyway, Brad tells himself. But he doesn't pick his feet up from the tiled floor. Instead, he drops his crutches, allowing them to clatter to the floor before he limps over to the cabinet and snatches out a bag of wavy crisps. He instantly drops to his knees and tries prying the bag open, groaning in frustration when the stubborn bag remains closed. Frowning, he fumbles with the opening, trying to force the crisps open before it suddenly rips open, sending all of them flying into the air and landing onto the kitchen floor. Brad doesn't care. He quickly scrambles over on his hands and knees, like an animal, to the crisps sprawled out on the floor, and grabs a handful, shoving the salty snack into his mouth.

After he's done, he pulls himself up with the counter and limps over to the fridge, pulling out a half finished container of vanilla ice-cream. He frantically searches through all the drawers until he finds the drawers of utensils and instantly snatches up a large, silver spoon, shoving it into the dessert. Instantly, he's licking the silver clean before shoving it back into the container again for another spoonful. He limps over to the refrigerator, searching for cherries before his eyes light up at the sight of chocolate syrup. He quickly pulls it out along with a container of vanilla frosting, and pops off the lid of the chocolate syrup, squirting a thin line of fudge into the container until the vanilla inside is no longer visible. He carelessly lets the bottle slip from his fingers when he's finished and forces spoonfuls of chocolate syrup and vanilla ice-cream into his mouth, literally moaning at the taste.