Betrayal in Elysium [malexmale]

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

I wasn't sure how long I had laid in bed for.

I didn't want to move. I didn't want to eat or sleep or drink or work or anything. I felt too sore to move. I just wanted to stay curled up under the blankets for as long as I could. I had made the door to my room disappear and asked Malachi to put a barrier up. I wanted to be alone.

But at the same time, I didn't.

And the one person's attention I craved was the one I wanted least. Why was it all just one big contradictory mess? Even worse was that I couldn't go mad from all of this. The goddess Lyssa and her maniae wouldn't even give me that comfort.

I felt even more miserable knowing I had broken down for the first time in my long, long life. I had never shattered to pieces like that, and so pathetically. In front of Malachi and Adrian, who knew me as the snarky little brother who would face anything with an offbeat attitude. They had watched me fall apart and I didn't even want to look at them right now. I had actually clung to Malachi, hoping that finally having someone who cared about me, holding me, would bring me some sort of comfort, but I felt even more lonely. How pathetic was it to feel lonely in the arms of someone who actually gave a shit about me?

Even worse, everyone knew Cain would do this. Fuck. I knew Cain would do this. I would constantly remind myself that Cain couldn't be trusted. He killed me three times, destroyed my body. What made me think he wouldn't do it again?

Hope, I thought in agony, curling up and pulling the blankets over my head tightly. Even though I kept reminding myself that Cain was Cain and would always be an over-controlling murderer, there was still a part of me that hoped and prayed that he had changed.

Maybe this time would be different. Maybe this time he'd love me. Maybe this time, if I did something differently, he'd forgive me whatever I'd done. Maybe this time he'd tell me things. Maybe this time, we could be happy.

Maybe this, maybe that.

But in the end, hope was crushed by the cruel iron fist of reality. There was no more hope for Cain and it stung. Even worse that my heart throbbed and bled for him. I wanted to be back with him. I wanted to feel his arms around me. I wanted him to cradle me and comfort me the way he did when he'd saved me from Hannibal. Cain had seen me when I was weak and instead of breaking me apart, he'd saved me and taken care of me, like a brother, a lover, should.

It wasn't real.

Part of me was trying to convince me that I had overreacted. Maybe Cain really did think I was beautiful.

Yeah, sure, and maybe Lady Gaga will actually just wear jeans and a t-shirt to the MTV Music Awards.

I sighed heavily, squeezing my eyes shut and wishing a random missile or asteroid would plunge through my ceiling and crush me into the floor. I could still feel little quivers coursing through me, but the tears had ceased sometime around midnight. I had run out of tears to cry. I already cried enough for a few centuries-- and enough to destory whatever was left of my pride. Now I just wanted to hide until the end of the world, whether that came sooner or later, I didn't care.

The air around me rippled with a familiar fissure of power and I listened to someone appear in my room. Part of me hoped it was Hades wanting to beat my skull against the wall. I would happily welcome his abuse, anything to stop the pain that made my heart feel like it was literally being torn out of my chest-- and as someone who's had this happen before, I knew what I was talking about.

"Abel?" Malachi asked. I didn't say anything. Didn't even shift. He'd just have to guess that I heard him. I listened to his shoes shift on the floor and the discomfort he probably felt made the room get heavy with a blanket of awkward. Normally I'd make a joke about him being one of the seven dwarves, a tie between Dopey and Bashful, but I couldn't even muster the strength to say it, so I just laid there, waiting for him to speak.