Sykeskarth: a Guide For Dummies

One Year.

A/N: Written by asphyxiatide on Live Journal... I really love this one. I guess a dramatic weight loss trigger warning..

It's precisely a year ago to the day we last spoke.

It wasn't even like we knew we were going to have to part. I just dropped him off after the show that night, pecked his cheek, and told him to get inside before it started pouring again.

Oliver... Oliver was never one for being inconspicuous. He always had to find a way to make a spectacle out of himself. I guess that explains all the tattoos. Oliver had - well, has, I suppose - a turtleneck of technicolor tattoos that spilled from the top of his throat out to his fingers and to the dangerously low point on his stomach hid just below his belt. Yeah, I was familiar with the eagle plastered across his hips, right above his script reading "reckless". I guess if I saw it every day I should've seen it coming.

It's November twentieth and it's his birthday. We had gone to a random local show this night last year, and that weekend the first storm of the season was coming through. I picked him up, gave him his annual Birthday Blowjob in the hallway of his apartment, then took him to this club. We danced. He was a good dancer, but he didn't like to admit it. He had his weird ways of doing things like that.

I'm staring at myself in the mirror.

I wouldn't say I'm a shell of what I used to be. I'm more of a ghost. I'm pale and my eyes have sunk into my head, limbs skinny and in a way I kind of look like a Tim Burton character. No one can love me. No one has in this past year.

I force myself to go outside.

The weather isn't bad. It's cloudy but it doesn't look like it's going to rain. I start walking and somehow I find myself at the playground where we met. Of course I would do this to myself. Nobody's here except for me and I sink down into the swing I was in when I first saw him walk around the corner. I look up. Someone's coming around the corner.

The figure is all limbs and skinny jeans and puffy jacket. I blink. I know who it is but I don't want to admit it to myself.

He stops. Then he keeps walking, crosses the street, and beelines for the swings.

I can't feel my insides.

They're gone. My lungs are shuddering and my throat is collapsing in on itself, fingers winding up into the chain of the swing. I kick the sand underneath me. Not today. Today I'm supposed to wallow in my own misery and binge on ice cream while watching romantic comedies starring Dane Cook and Matthew McConaughey. I knew I should never have left my apartment cocoon.

"Alex?"

I look up. Wide hazel eyes and soft lips, flower blooming from his throat. My heart thuds.

"Hey," I breathe.

Oliver bites his bottom lip, shuffles to the other swing. He sits, starts pushing himself with his toes.

"It's been a while," Oliver murmurs.

"A year, actually," I remark, turning away from him. "Happy birthday, by the way."

Oliver doesn't say anything. The earth is quiet except for the sounds of my breath and the bones in my back when they crack up my spine. We stay there for a while, his skeletal frame a pendulum in the corner of my eye.

I hear him get up again, walk towards me. His fingers burn when they close around my chin, wrench my head up to his. My eyes water when I notice the hurt look on his face.

"I fucking missed you," he admits.

"Then why didn't you fucking call me?" I retort, finally letting myself cry. I cringe. It's terrifying that I've let myself cry in front of him so easily. Oliver moves his fingers to my hair, falls to his knees and pulls my forehead into his.

"I love you," Oliver breathes. "I love you, don't cry."

"I love you too," I choke out, hands fisting in Oliver's shirt. I pull him closer and his arms go around me and mine snake around him under his jacket. "I don't know how I managed."

"You're so skinny babe," Oliver whispers. "You're almost gone. Come back, please."