everything I was, burning slow
price x reader. 1.2k words. title from 24thankyou.
tags: implied/referenced illness+surgeries, implied/referenced self-harm, established relationship, panic attacks, brief vomit mention, nonsexual nudity
banner from @/cafekitsune
Your mouth is dry and gritty as if you inhaled half the desert and, after a swallow, as tacky as a bowling alley floor. The side of your face is cold and wet, but you’re too busy mapping your molars with your sticky-shriveled tongue to bother lifting it. Once you confirm that all your teeth are in their crooked places, your limbs return online. You push, arm shaking, yourself onto your back. Another swallow. Tastes bitter.
When you were dragged to church as a kid, you’d lean in your seat and gaze at the vaulted ceiling and the murals of angels. Did the same with the open sky, staring at rolling clouds or blinking stars. No matter where you were, you relished how small you felt. How insignificant.
The view from the bathroom floor is a lot like that, too. Lends perspective. Partly under the toilet bowl (you’ve got to clean under here better), you stare at chipping paint and watch particulates float lazily on by. You lay there, telling yourself you’ll get up when the world stops turning. But it won’t, will it? It’s spinning and carrying on. You hear the neighbor mowing the lawn and the dog across the street barking at him. The radio is on in the living room, transitioning from music to a talk show. This is all going to carry on without you, and—
Your jaw pops, hinging open to suck in a sudden, desperate gasp for air as if you’re a fish dropped unceremoniously onto the deck of a boat. What you get, what you taste, is turbid and stifling. It tickles your windpipe and forces you to choke as your chest tightens. You clutch your shirt and silently beg the invisible fist around your heart to loosen its grip. Not again, your thoughts slur. Not again. This is getting embarrassing.
It passes. Eventually.
How long you lay there, you don’t know, but the sound of the front door opening and closing a floor down stirs you out of your stupor. You’re dimly aware of John calling for you, his voice steady and level–your name, maybe? Sheer terror and embarrassment keep you pinned on the tile, though at least it lets up just enough to let you curl into the fetal position. It’s gut-wrenching to hear his tone gradually swell from curiosity to concern.
The bathroom door opens at last, and your eyelids squeeze shut.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Before he touches you, the light flicks off, and he turns on the tap. He crouches. His knee skims your calves, and a warm hand slides up your back. He fixes your slightly bunched shirt, tugging it down, then rubs circles above your tailbone how you like. He’s talking, too, whispering something you know is kind and tender. It’s an internal tussle of whether or not you want to hear him. The brush of a knuckle over your temple pulls the cotton from your ears.
“–member we’re supposed to take deep breaths, yeah? Can you do that for me? In your nose, out your mouth. C’mon, with me,” He murmurs, tracing the shell of your ear as he demonstrates.
“Can’t.” It’s the first word you’ve spoken in hours. It tastes sour.
“‘Course you can. Like me, babe.”
In. Out. In. Out. In—
“I got my results.” You croak, eyes opening in slivers. Blearily, you turn your head, looking past him to the corner of the bathroom counter.
“In a minute.”
The hand on your back completes a few more figure eights before John hauls himself to his feet. The dull, muted sound of him punching in your passcode and typing keeps you tethered. You both hold your breath for very different reasons.
“I see,” John says a moment later, “I see.”
With some convincing, he maneuvers your body into a seated position, leaning you against the tub. He doesn’t complain, scrubbing the toilet and floor clean of your sick and taking breaks to rub your shins and give you sips of water.
“Bed or bath?”
“Bath.”
He hoists you by the armpits and sits you on the toilet, briefly cupping your face in his hands. Scarred knuckles and palms thickened with calluses; they’re the softest things you’ve ever felt. After checking your eyes and pressing a kiss to your forehead, he starts the tub and carefully undresses you.
“Join me?” You ask, leaning into him as he helps you step out of your jeans and underwear, fingers skimming the keloid on his shoulder blade.
A warm puff of air and a kiss to your neck. “Need or want?”
Sometimes, you need him in the shower when the shampoo bottle is impossible to lift.
“Both.”
He hums, sits you back down, then strips.
John climbs in first, offering his arm and supporting you by the hip as you follow. He situates your back to his chest, rubbing your elbows after you adjust. It’s a tight squeeze in a tub realistically meant for one, but he never complains. Steam curls off the water’s surface, and sweat beads at your neck. He kisses it anyway.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks after a time, voice rumbling through your spine.
Tracing the scars on his arm and comparing them to your own, you consider.
When you first started dating, it took months for you to let John see you with the lights on. So used to partners seeing the brutal constellation of marks, self-inflicted and surgical, and finding reason to flip off the light. Used to them suggesting clothes with sleeves and layers. You can’t recall what changed your mind to let him have you in the morning light so long ago, but you remember how he looked at you. How, before he even really touched you, he studied each of them. Invited you to do the same. A new kind of intimacy that told you how well your bodies fit together in more ways than just the one. It lent perspective.
“Later, in bed. I’m tired.”
An arm bands around your stomach, settling you closer. You don’t feel small with John. You don’t feel insignificant.
“Alright. I’ve got you.”
You feel like the world.
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