call out my name [2gether]

CH 21

THE HUNDRED WAYS TO LEAVE SOMEONE.

"Tine," Sarawat called out carefully, voice wavering in the quiet night while staring wide eyed at the ghost. "What's wrong?"

Silence and then a shuddering sob echoed throughout the murky space. The room was gradually growing colder.

Sarawat had called out to Tine several times already but it seemed that he had gone into some kind of state of shock after their toxic kiss. His form kept shifting between his soft, human looks and that of a bloody corpse, as if he was reverting back to his initial form, the zombie-like thing he had first showed up as. A chip of worry hacked at Sarawat's heart at what this could possibly mean.

It seemed that the end of their time together was growing closer. Sarawat could not stall it for any longer. It was impossible to stop the flow of time, as it was impossible to stop the laws of nature.

A crack spread rapidly along Tine's hairline as a deep wound ripped the skin on his forehead apart, running to the side of his temple and nicking one of his eyebrows. Trails of dark red blood ran down his face like gruesome tears and blood bubbled up between his puffy lips, spilling over his pointy chin, dripping sluggishly onto his trashed clothing. His wide blown, brown eyes stared horrified at the guitarist.

Sarawat's heart raced even faster, almost trashing straight out of his chest as he watched the strange phenomena unfurl before his fluttering eyes, like a loop back and forth. One moment Tine's face was porcelain and beautiful, serene like an angel and the next moment it was all bloody and broken like a road kill. The same thing kept happening with the rest of his ethereal form. His one arm alternated between hanging uselessly at a strange angle down his side, white bone sticking out and then mending itself back, the comfy clothes flickered between being wholesomely clean and then all ripped up and bloody.

It fucking terrified Sarawat that Tine looked so scared. So scarred.

Sarawat's hands started to shake as it finally dawned on him that something was seriously wrong, an eerie feeling tickling along his lower back. This was not one of Tine's usual whimsical outbursts, something strange was happening and he did not know how to stop it. As always. Fucking useless. He bit his lower lip in frustration, almost drawing blood as he darted closer to the ghost, shaky hands outstretched helplessly.

He wanted to draw Tine into his warm embrace, press him close to his own thumping heart and comb his fingers though those ebony locks and feel Tine's heart beat reassuringly against his own, feel his warm breath fan against his skin. Sarawat just wanted Tine to be there and alive with him. Was it too much to ask for?

Yes, yes it was.

Bitter tears stung Sarawat's big eyes, clouding his vision as he desperately tried to blink them away. Tine could not leave him now. Not yet.

Please.

Sarawat had felt a pull from the depths of his core during their kiss, as if something deep rooted had been ripped out of him and transferred to the ghost, drawing blood along with it. It had certainly felt like Tine had taken some of Sarawat's energy, his life essence. But was that not a good thing? So why the fuck was Tine regressing? Maybe the undead and alive forces were not meant to be mixed together at all?

Icy air hit Sarawat's overheated skin as his tanned hands swept straight through the ghost in his attempt to get a hold of him and bring him closer. Tine's chest burst into powdery tendrils of ghostly smoke at the foreign intrusion from Sarawat's limbs, before instantly clustering back together. Without Tine consciously putting effort into creating a shallow corporeal form it was impossible for them to even touch each other. Tine needed to get a hold of himself.