Ichor || mxb

IX

Everybody goes through it. That chronic feeling of emptiness; the lack of feelings, a symptomatic of mental despair. That numbing soreness that bites at your soul ever so slowly yet consumes you as a whole, like a bat out of hell.

Twosome, put in completely different settings, coming up against the same feelings. Two put in completely different situations yet their souls ended up at the same end line. Despair.

One, a narc, barely a mindless body, traveling through the chatter, the frustration that doesn't seem to fully seep into his brain. The same lack of heart is only thing keeping him sane at this point, or as close to it as he can come.

Another, with nothing but a wish of death on his mind. Albeit, he knew not even that could satisfy his soul. If darkness was an emotion, he was consumed by it. No anger, no frustration, no angst, just pure nothingness.

At least not until 'it' happened.

After two weeks of picking up the pieces of his busted up empire, the gang lord was now thriving in the market, right at the top. Right in where he should be. Though not even that could satisfy him now. Something was missing.

Not even the strongest of drugs could drift him into the land of ecstasy and bliss he desired- craved. No matter how many pills he took, how many needles he injected, how many times his nose bled out of exhaustion. Ethan couldn't find that glorified release that his whole being nagged for.

On the other hand, the younger of the two had nothing to run away too, nothing to occupy the suffocating seconds that clocked away. Grayson had interrupted that corpse-like stance of his a total of seven times since he's been locked up in the master bedroom.

If he wasn't on the bed, he was plopped into the jacuzzi with water way too hot for his own good. Not that the dumb baby had anybody to whine or complain to, begging to adjust the temperature.

So there he sat, the high temperature nipping at his skin feverishly, giving him a much needed feeling. To feel. Anything he could have he could take, he's even tried as far as dunking his head under water just to feel that aching and throbbing in his chest that his body seemed to enjoy oh so much.

Amidst his dosage of harmful ecstasy, he hadn't heard the the rattling and turning of the room's doorknob. Or maybe he did but his body chose to dismiss it, focusing on what's important to him at that moment.

The smell of rotten death enveloped Ethan's senses as soon as he stepped foot into the room. Confusingly enough, a source to the smell was nowhere in sight in the spacious chamber.

Looking around, his eyes finally landed on a mere source of light coming from under the bathroom door. Choosing to continue his search, Ethan willed himself to check for the boy that had been shoved to the back of his mind for the course of two full weeks.

Despite being reassured by his workers that they'd check up on the prisoned boy twice a day, supplying him with food that he'd barely take three to four bites of. Taking the few steps that led to the foot of the door, the narc's brain filled with scenarios of how the younger could've escaped the manor.

Such thoughts dispersed as he heard the soft bubbling of his much missed jacuzzi. Contemplating wether to give the boy privacy or just feed his curiosity.

With a hand on the door knob, the drug lord's mouth fell open as reality downed on him.

Ever so slightly lipping a 'what the fuck', The nefarious gang lord noticed he was, for the first time, caring for someone else, thinking of someone's displeasure before his own.

At the realization dawned on him, it left him angry almost, a huge deal of irk pumping through him as he thought 'what was changing?' 'Why is this such a big deal?'