calliopes-constellations

[calliopes-constellations]

literally patrick

[calliopes-constellations]

Dear Mike Faist,

Please stop getting pissed on. Even if it's "for the art." People say beauty is pain, but that does not include getting pissed on.

[calliopes-constellations]

One time, my friend told me she was surprised that I like Art Donaldson because I usually like ugly men 💀

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AWWW, THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!

[calliopes-constellations]

having 𝓾𝓷𝓱𝓸𝓵𝔂 𝓽𝓱𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓱𝓽𝓼 about this guy

[calliopes-constellations]

for my 2 followers.. and of course anyone else who's curious ;)

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[calliopes-constellations]

"ENSANGUINED" ★ WARNING: SEVERE MENTAL ILLNESS TOPICS AHEAD

✰ FANDOM ★ Challengers (2024)

★ SUMMARY ✰ Patrick self-harms while sharing the hotel room with Art, who has no idea what to do.

✰ PAIRING ★ Art & Patrick

★ ERA ✰ 2006 / pre-war...

✰ WORD COUNT ★ 2.8k

★ AGE RATING ✰ Teen

✰ CONTENT WARNING ★ Profanity / self-harm by cutting / depression / panic attacks / sexual jokes / nonsexual nudity (not described, but acknowledged) / brief mentions of institutionalization / slight gore / passive suicidal ideation and mentions of it / angst

★ A / N ✰ don't be a ghost reader !! love that my first post was just like "aww yay failing marriage" and now we're going straight to severe mental illness. don't read this if you are not in a good enough mental state !!! health before homos <3 okay update it's the next day, i just finished it, holy shit it's 2am fuck

✰ POV ★ Patrick (first person)

I ambled into the suspiciously clean hotel bathroom, my fingers wrapped around the fabric handle of the toiletry bag I threw together last minute. Unlike Art, who decided he needed multiple kinds of hair spray, my bag was light enough for me to forget it was there. I flicked on the lights, sliding my bag onto the counter as light swelled in the room, illuminating my figure in the mirror. The pristine tiles shone offendingly blinding light up into my unadjusted eyes. Grumbling under my breath, I traipsed over to the shower and put it to the coldest setting. Water began to splatter to the shower floor like a river of blood.

Wasteful? Yes. Did I care? Absolutely not.

I flung the smoky grey towel, previously draped over a hook, onto the counter in the space beside the sink. I stripped down to nothing but my bare, tingling, ice-cold skin and vaulted myself up onto the counter, sitting on the towel with my back up against the wall. The uneven paint pressed asymmetrically into the skin on my back, nipping at my already cold skin with its gelid concrete glanced over toward the door.

Still locked.

I tugged the zipper of my bag, digging my hand in and fishing around for the razor through my sea of half-empty bottles. Once my fingers met the handle, I pulled it out.

Look. It's not like I'm messy about it. It's the one thing I can keep under control. I clean the razor, I clean my skin, I clean the cuts, and then I bandage them. No infections. Nowhere veins stick out. Shame on a guy for just needing something to give him some semblance of control, it seems. At least according to Art.

I exhaled sharply, the familiar caress of utter numbness cascading over me. The rest of the room dimmed its stark hues, the edges of my sight fuzzing. I place the razor beside me, its handle clinking against the marble counter. I rubbed the skin of my thighs clean with the alcohol wipes, just as any other perfectly sane man would do to avoid an infection. 

Doctors would dictate me insane, though I knew I was anything but. They would see a man shoveling through his skin like he’s searching desperately for a missing part of himself, ending up ensanguined. While I could drown my sins in antiseptic and compunction I wasn’t sure if I was fabricating or not, an infection would send me to a doctor.

Who wouldn’t see that I just needed something to fill this everlasting silence.

Who would think I just wanted to off myself.

The acrid smell of the wipes clawed at the back of my throat already, sliding into my stomach. I tossed the wipes into the trash can right next to my feet.

I poised the razor in my hand, sweeping the scarred skin of my thighs with my vision. Lines tracing vertically, horizontally, diagonal, tearing my skin into shreds. Some still pink and raised, others faded into grey. But I took care of them as a father would to his child (after all, they are simply a part of me), just as any other perfectly sane man would do. They never gave me any trouble, besides stares in locker rooms, concerned glances from Art, or stinging as the fabric of my clothes chafed them. But the latter was the least of those issues.

Art knew to some extent. He knew about the illnesses and the scars. He tried to understand, pouring over articles he found, scouring the surface of the earth for ways to help me. But he only egged it on with his wide ice blue eyes, glassy with temperamental apprehension, like a band stretched taut. Like my broken brain and broken skin broke him secondhand. 

I locked eyes with myself in the mirror as if he were any other guy caught in my same position. It was like looking into the eyes of a stranger as this apathy seized control. 

And so the stinging began.

I focused on the sound of the shower and the piercingly frigid water droplets pelting the tile floor. It tore away the burn and ache as the fresher scars pulsed beneath my skin. I let the noise around me devour me until I felt as if my soul had been carved out and displayed to me in the form of my own blood.

Blood had begun to trace from the cuts, smearing as the blade continued to slice. Despite it all, I remained unflinching. I would not call it catharsis, but I was relieved to know that I was still human, just as any other perfectly sane man would be.

As time wore on, I felt my emotional paralysis begin to waver. The stinging began to bite at my skin like dozens of claws ripping at me. I straightened up again, color beginning to stream back into my vision. Specifically crimson. Oozing down the patterns of my jagged skin. It’s enough. So I rinsed the blade and placed it back in my bag.

Immediately, the pain ebbed. Never faded completely, but dimmed. All because I put away the blade on my own volition, without anything forcing me or prohibiting it. Because I was in control. I began to rummage through my bag again when I was torn from my trance by a knock on the door.

“Patrick, you still in the shower?” Art's voice came from the other side.

“Yeah, why?” I replied, my heart leaping into my throat as I realized that Art could and would pick locks. I knew he would rarely resort to it, as he liked to consider himself much too polite for that. But if Art was fretting over his best friend hurting himself on the other side of this door, very few things would stop him.

“I need to piss. Let me in.”

Oh. 

Nevermind, then.

“Dude, I'm ass naked. There's no curtain or anything," I lied, punctuated by a dry chuckle. Black began to yank at the edges of my vision, clinging vehemently to the corners no matter how hard I blinked. I pressed my foot up against the door from where I sat on the counter, my lips tightening into a grimace as my sight started to pulse.

“Don't care. You never used to be weird about that, by the way. I've been meaning to ask you. Why have you been weird about that?” Art queried, his voice coming hollow through the door. My breath began to stutter.

“This all is sounding like an elaborate excuse to see my dick," I choked out through my clenched throat, laced with a contrived laugh. I hastily began to rub antiseptic into my fresh cuts, the burning ripping me away from the conversation with Art. Blood continued to discharge from the open wounds, slipping into my fingertips and beneath my nails. 

“Believe me, if I wanted to see your dick, this is not how I'd be asking. Let me in.”

“What if Tashi comes back and thinks we're both touching tips in here or something?” I threw the antiseptic back into my bag, sliding down from the counter and back into my boxers. Where bandages would usually be concealing, air whistled right through the fresh nicks in my skin.

“What if Tashi comes back and I still need to piss?”

Checkmate.

I rushed back up to the counter, shaking my head back and forth to attempt to get some color back into my pallid complexion. My heart continued firing like a gunshot, sweat beginning to drip from my hairline. Ebony continued to spill into my vision, causing me to stumble and grip the counter. I fled towards the shower, pulling the handle down and watching as the stream of water ceased.

“Patrick? You okay?” Art's voice floated under the gap through the door again, this time more achingly clear than it had been before.

I couldn't help but wonder, for a single harrowing moment, what would have happened if Art had walked in only minutes earlier. Me sitting up on the counter, blood gushing from my skin, my hands coated in crimson. A blade captured between my fingers. How, then, could I have made it seem even remotely accidental? My throat began to constrict, blood rushing in my ears.

“Patrick?” Art repeated, his voice sharper this time.

“Oh, yeah, sorry, I- uh, I zoned out a bit. My bad.” I shook myself out of it, pressing a hand to my chest only to feel my heartbeat tripping over itself beneath the prison of my ribcage. I would have given nearly anything to have it spring out of my body and cease its torturous pulsing while covering the floor in garnet.

“Are you sure you're alright?”

“Yeah, I'm fine."

“I'm worried about you, man, open the door.” Art pleaded. I switched my gaze to the mirror.

To my dismay, blood had begun to pool on the front of my boxers. I stiffened. The fabric clung to my thighs, its color dissolving once tinged by the red spilling relentlessly from my skin. Too high on my own panic, I numbed the burning with the violent throbbing of my heart.

Art's going to know what this is. He's going to know. This is it. He's going to think you're insane. He's going to think you've finally lost it. He's going to call a hotline, they're going to take you to a mental hospital. 

The taste of antiseptic lingered on my tongue, and I could almost feel myself there. Standing in hospital scrubs in a room full of drug addicts and chronic depressives. People who didn't care about me and whom I didn't care about at all. Ripped away from Art, from Tashi, from tennis. Everything I have.

I can't breathe. Holy fuck, I can't breathe. Shit. This is it.

“Hey, Patrick? I'm gonna come in, okay?” Art began to twist the lock.

I sank down to my knees, heart throbbing so frantically that my vision pulsated and spun. More ragged breaths tore from my lungs as the lock continued to twist, sealing my fate as, just maybe, not any other perfectly sane man.

Art pulled the door open, and crisp air from our room flooded in, licking at my exposed legs and torso. The stifling mist surrounding me like a shield dissipated, leaving the room uncomfortably empty. We fell into silence. Silence so tranquil and sweet that I wished I could linger there forever, just beneath the surface, and drown in its intoxicating serenity.

Art darted towards me, falling to his knees beside me on the floor with a soft thud. He gently lifted the hands that I pressed into my thighs, right where the blood stained my shorts. A stifled gasp tore from Art's lips. 

“What… what happened?” He asked breathlessly, putting an arm around me, rubbing small circles into my shoulder. “Why?”

I glanced up at him, his eyes wide and glossy, fixated on the blood coating the fabric of my boxers despite his soft voice. His eyes reflected my own almost accusationally. No matter which way I turned and whom I confided in, I am only met with the harrowing clutch of my reality. I shook my head vigorously, dread still gripping my lungs. Tears had begun to leak into my eyes like blood.

“I… I'm so sorry,” He finally met my eyes, lips parted slightly as he perused my face with his vision as if he could find some reason in the creases of my skin. 

“Don't be,” I managed, my frenzied breathing beginning to slow. “It's- it's not your fault.”

“But I should have done something.”

“You didn't know.”

“I should have.”

“I didn't tell you.”

“I could have figured it out.”

“I did everything I could to make sure that didn't happen.”

We locked eyes once again, his face drained of all color. His gaze flitted back down to the blood on my legs, lips twisting in a helpless grimace.

“Can I at least help you clean it?” He suggested, offering me his hand.

I nodded, slipping my hand into his. I could feel his racing heartbeat through his fingertips. He kicked down the toilet seat and led me over to it before turning over to my bag.

“Do you have anything to clean it with?”

I nodded again, my eyes beginning to sting again at the heat rising in my face.

“Okay, good,” he replied. I sat down, the fabric continuing to pull at the raw skin of my thighs. 

Art lifted the blade. My frail lungs tightened again.

“I'm going to take this, okay? I'm going to throw it out somewhere tomorrow," He explained, and I could've sworn that I saw tears in his eyes for a split second. 

If I fight him on this, he’s going to think I’ve lost it. He’s going to think he has to turn me in to someone. There’s nothing wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with me, I swear.

He pulled out the antiseptic I had stashed away, skimming over the label I had plastered onto it.

He traversed back over to me, pouring a small amount onto a cotton pad as I stepped out of my boxers.

At the sight of my bare thighs, his eyes widened slightly. Any lingering color drained from his face, lips parting slightly. His throat bobbed as he stifled a gasp.

“Jesus, Patrick… I didn't know it was this bad.”

“Congratulations?” I croaked. 

“Sorry,” We both chorused, although for separate reasons, the silence following filled with an awkward chuckle from me as Art began to dissolve the blood with the cool sting of the disinfectant.

“Imagine Tashi walks in here now. We'd probably scare her off for good,” I joked dryly, grimacing as Art reached for the band-aids. “Sorry-"

“Don't apologize. None of this is your fault. It's just… your stupid brain. You know?”

“Wow, thanks. I'm honored," I remarked sardonically.

“No, no, that's not what I meant. I mean like - this isn't really up to you, is it? I mean, obviously I don't understand, and I'm not pretending to. But I've got a pretty stupid brain too. I know what that's like. I'm not blaming you for this, I'm really not. But there are other ways you can deal with this, right?” He began to plaster the band-aids over the freshest wounds. “You can always talk to me. You can maybe go back to that psychiatrist and get on meds like the ones you took a few years ago. But not something like this. This could kill you. You don't want that, do you?”

“Not really,” I responded after a moment of hesitation, just as any other perfectly sane man would. “I just… I need it.”

“You needed it. Not anymore, okay? Talk to me,” Art begged. I cringed slightly at the aching in my throat, jerking my head up in a singular nod. A sorrowful smile graced his lips for a fragment of a second as he started to wash his hands, scrubbing my blood away from his skin. 

“I'm just going to fuck up again,” I winced, tugging my boxers back up.

“Everyone does.” He met my eyes. “But I'll help you, I promise.” Art swore, pocketing the razor. 

Fuck.

Silence stretched between us again, as if we had managed to become worlds apart again all in a matter of seconds. I stumbled up to my feet, staggering over to the mirror. My hair clung to my forehead, coated in my sweat. The color had been sucked from my face minus the fuschia flush in my cheeks.

“Hey. Can I hug you?” Art broke the silence. He nudged me lightly with his arm, gazing up at me through his weary wide eyes. I nodded.

He lightly wrapped his arms around me, pressing his head into the crook of my neck, his fingers gripping my back as if nothing could pull him away. I could feel his heart beating against mine through the fabric of his shirt. My breath caught and stuttered, but he held me in his arms. I absentmindedly ran my fingers through his knotted hair just to feel beyond his skin that he was real. That someone cared enough to get their hands defaced with my blood.

“I love you, you know that?” Art began to relinquish his grip, slowly pulling away. His eyes met mine once again. “You don’t have to say it back. I just… wanted to make sure you knew. You tired?”

“Mhm,” I mumbled, finding myself intoxicated by the sheer shock of my heart stirring in something other than muddled anxiety. Art nodded, beckoning me out of the bathroom and back into our shared room.

He flickered out the lights, darkness peacefully encasing us in a world of our own, along with the thick blanket of silence. We both crawled into the bed, the sheets crinkling as we shuffled around. My arm met his, and the warmth of our bodies side by side melted together.

“Goodnight, Patrick,” Art murmured.

“Night, Art.”

I hardly recognized myself when I caught a glimpse in his mirror, but my image in his eyes was real.

[calliopes-constellations]

really cool & awesome comment i left on my draft while revising

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a lovely line i just found in a draft of mine

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god i wish i could lift up a rock and find these two

bugs when you lift up their rock

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screaming crying throwing up

CHALLENGERS (2024) Dir. Luca Guadagnino

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Giggling and kicking my feet before breakfast...

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I keep audibly laughing when I remember this one YouTube video where this dude described Art as 'looking like he was about to burst into song every time music started playing.'

IM WRITING ANGST AND FUCKING LAUGHING AT 330AM

[calliopes-constellations]

⋆⭒˚｡⋆ intro post ₊˚⊹♡

me: callie or calliope / they them / she her / omnisexual / " writer " / music enthusiast / raging art donaldson apologist / dear evan hansen / west side story (2021) / challengers / writes too much soft angst

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fandoms taking requests for: challengers (2024) / panic (tv) - NOT writing for ray or bishop / dear evan hansen

will write: fluff / light angst / heavy angst / potentially triggering topics (as long as not glorifying them)

won't write: r*pe / pregnancy content / smut (atm) / explicit or implied kink/fetish content / RPF / anything that actually requires a lot of knowledge about tennis. mind empty no thoughts guys

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Enjoy your stay here at ~ ⋆｡°✩ Calliope's Constellations

[calliopes-constellations]

audibly shrieked

they never leave my mind

[calliopes-constellations]

"I'LL LEAVE YOU" ★

✰ FANDOM ★ Challengers (2024)

★ SUMMARY ✰ Art tells Tashi that he wants to retire, and warns her that he is not confident in his ability to win against Patrick tomorrow. Slight canon-divergence.

✰ PAIRING ★ Tashi / Art - Patrick haunts the narrative

★ ERA ✰ Challenger / the failing marriage era

✰ WORD COUNT ★ 1.6k

★ AGE RATING ✰ Teen

✰ CONTENT WARNING ★ Angst / failing marriage / profanity / crying (lots) / Art being extremely pathetic

★ A / N ✰ don't be a ghost reader !! also i might just torture Art in everything i post here. i watched this movie for the first time with one of my friends and was awaiting the heavily implied "tennis-induced panic attack" that never came. so if yall want me to do something with that... also lwk im not gonna lie 2 yall, im not a huge fan of this writing HAHAHAHAHA

✰ POV ★ Third person omniscient

Tashi Duncan perched on the hotel bed, her eyes seeming to drill through the hotel ceiling. She traced the popcorned surface with her eyes, as if she could burn away the lines to extinguish the flame in her seizing heart. The ebony night sky poured through the sliver of open space between the curtains, shrouding half of her face in shadows. The black canvas drowned out the rivulets of light supplied by the stars scattered across the sky.

Art stood at the mirror in the bathroom, leaning on his bruised elbows. Grey lingered beneath his dulled cerulean eyes. Light used to dance in them, and they would shine and ricochet reflections like mirrors. Now when they glistened, they glistened with tears, and the lines creased beside his lines only folded when he frowned. Silence stretched taut between them, like a rubber band about to snap. The cold air gushing from the vent above Art's head slithered over his clammy skin. He studied himself in the mirror as if he could melt away the ice he became. But the flame had fizzled out and turned to whispers in his frozen blue eyes.

Tashi cleared her throat.

Art jerked up, his vision wavering before putting Tashi into focus. She laid still on the bed, although Art's heart continued to throb in his throat, flooding his hearing. He could feel his heartbeat behind his eyes and in the tips of his fingers, racing up his throat like vomit. 

He drew in a quivering breath through his pale lips, which he masked with a shudder. He pushed himself up from the counter, rolling his shoulders back against his glaucous shirt. He traipsed toward the doorway, his wife coming into view. 

Tashi sat stiffly, her gaze locked toward the sky even as Art’s footsteps could be heard. She blinked slowly, as if the darkness canceled out something blinding.

“Tashi?” Art began, leaning into the doorframe. Her head lifted, and her sharp eyes met Art's.

A sigh slipped from Tashi's lips, the corners tugging into a frown. She gazed past Art’s frame, her eyes straying from his. It was like wading through a dream, like nothing she could say would echo back at her.

“You can't keep preparing to lose, Art. When are you going to win?”

“I don't know.” He swallowed, rubbing over his ring with his thumb. Every line pressed into Tashi’s perfect face served as a rope around his neck, choking him and binding his throat. They used to be young, but so did everyone else.

It drowned Art in poignance that this is just another part of life. Because how could it be? How could something so raw and aching be part of this disease without an antidote? 

“You have to figure it out,” She demanded. Tashi winced at the fragments of compunction that rose in her chest as she dragged her vision back to meet Art. She would not allow these droplets of affection to morph into a river, and that river to turn into a flood. Just like Art had. Does it really take that much skill to hit a ball with a racket? Art toiled away toward this constantly wavering goal Tashi had passed to him. But he was always left picking up the scraps. Always second best. Always a tennis demigod, and never the whole deal. What would Tashi Duncan need to do if her husband still could not beat Patrick Zweig? After all these years?

“Promise me it doesn't matter if I win tomorrow,” Art began, his hands twitching as he fiddled with his wedding ring. He held her eyes with his gaze, as he had countless times before. Across the tennis court, at their wedding, and in this moment. Where the latter didn’t seem to matter.

“I can't promise you that." Tashi shook her head, her voice hardly a breath louder than the ceaseless hum of the air conditioning. Art reluctantly trudged towards the bed, sitting beside her. “Art, if you don't win tomorrow, I'll leave you.”

Yet again, silence encapsulated the pair, so stark and fragile that it could be broken by a single word. Art glanced up at Tashi, his face flushing from his cheeks to his jaded eyes. Tashi ran a hand through Art's dark blond hair, her lips twisting into a melancholy smile. She cupped Art's face in her hands.

Art recoiled slightly at the touch, but Tashi brushed her thumb against his skin. It warmed her fingertips as she traced her hands down his face. Art’s throat constricted as she maintained the contact, swallowing back the stinging in his eyes.

“Why?” Art implored, his voice raw like the words were etched into the back of his throat. He tilted his head into Tashi’s hand, his eyes fluttering shut.

Despite Tashi’s hand curved around the bare skin on Art’s face, her fingers were bare. Art clenched his eyes shut, his heart stuttering. Tashi would remove her ring when she melded herself to her racket, but here she sat in the temperamental sanctuary of their hotel room, hands bare.

“I have to.”

“No, you don't,” Art begged. “We have a child. What about her?” He removed her hand from his face, interlacing their fingers, his wedding ring grating against the space where hers should occupy. Art’s eyes burned at the thought of their child.

She had what he never did. Two parents who tried their hardest to love each other, who still kept their souls aflame with some form of passion full of something beside hatred. All Art had was his grandma. Then Patrick. Then Tashi. Then Lily. And yet every single one of those people who promised forever faded. Either physically or from his sight.

“We'll figure it out,” Tashi promised, placing her other hand in Art’s. “God, Art, don’t cry over this.”

Because it’s pathetic. Not because it hurts her. Right?

“She'll end up like me. And it seems like that's the last thing you want.”

“Art.”

“You can't make this cost me everything I have. I don't have anyone else. Patrick turned out to be a fucking bitch-”

“Art.”

“You only care about tennis.”

“Art.”

“And Lily won't understand any of this. You can't do this to her. To the both of us. Please," He entreated, tears beginning to trickle from his disconsolate eyes. “Please.”

“We'll see. After you win tomorrow, we can all go back to normal, okay?”

Art nodded, running his hands up and down Tashi’s arm just to feel the warmth beneath her skin that she never let seep into her words. He dropped his head to her shoulder, feeling her regretfully throbbing heart pulse through his skin.

“Okay,” He choked out, sliding down to rest his head on Tashi’s thigh. Hot tears streamed from his eyes, landing on Tashi’s bare skin.

I wouldn't have to do any of this with Patrick. I wouldn't have a doubt about my husband winning if I had just chosen Patrick.

“I'm sorry,” Art whispered.

“For what?”

“For everything.” Tashi's steady heart clenched. Rivulets of truth seemed to bleed into her mind - Art hadn't done anything wrong. He's just not a winner. He loses time and time again, but he hasn't hurt her the way Patrick has. “I’m sorry I can’t win for you.”

“Stop apologizing, Art,” Tashi commanded. “I can't keep doing this. I live for tennis. I'm going to forget who I am if I stay here doing the same exact thing every day. The same arguments, your same losing again and again and again. You're playing for me. I can't play anymore. You need to try harder.”

Silence settled between them again.

“I know about Atlanta.”

Tashi stiffened, perusing his trembling figure with her vision. Her heart spiked, the memories of that night breaking the floodgates she instilled in her mind to dry those rivers of vehemence she fought. How?

“Then why haven’t you left me?” Tashi inquired, running her hands through his hair.

“I can’t. I can’t leave you and Lily. You’re all I have, y’know? I’m not mad. I want to be, I want to be angry with you so badly. But I can’t,” Art confessed, a trembling sigh leaving his lips.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it,” Tashi pleaded, her hand moving down to rub his back.

“You did. But I don’t want to talk about that, Tashi. I love you,” He whispered into her skin.

“I know.”

“Can you just… hold me until I fall asleep?” He mumbled, tears biting at his eyes yet again.

Tashi nodded.

They lay together, bodies intertwined like two halves of a perfect circle. Their bare skin, static and touching, felt wrong. Tashi’s burning skin against Art’s slick, cold frame. They melted into each other despite their heartbeats turning to syncopation. 

Minutes flitted by, according to the clock mounted on the wall. But the stars drinking the moonlight that poured through the window were stagnant, weeping back down to the pair on the hotel bed.

“I’m going to sleep, Art.” Tashi broke the thickened silence. “You should shower.”

“Okay,” he replied, peeling himself away from Tashi. He smeared a hand over his face, attempting to tear away the tracks running down his face. 

He rose to his feet, picking up the pile of his clothes from the floor. He flicked the light switch in the corner of the room, his gaze lingering on Tashi as she was swallowed by the extinguished light. He stepped back into the bathroom, pulling the door shut.

And yet again, it was silent. Silence that settled in his bones and sucked the light from his swollen eyes. 

He stripped himself of his clothes and stepped under the frigid running water of the shower as if it could freeze his tears from falling. All it could do was wash away the sweat from his clammy skin and muffle his anguished sobs. And yet still, through it all, a single wilting flower of hope strained towards the sun, beaten and battered, but continuing to blossom with sickeningly vibrant color.