Rain thundered relentlessly against the windows. Outside the storm was raging, and the only source of light in the apartment came from outside. Streetlights and the constant glow of the civilized world now and again lost under the bright flash of lightning. Shadows danced over the walls. The sounds of the streets below echoed all the way up to the third floor, muffled by height and foundations.
They'd buried him yesterday. It was a pathetic service. A skeleton funeral for a man who'd lost the ability to care for people like a normal human being. No parents came to weep over their lost son, torn from their lives way before his time. Some of the people there had only turned up out of sympathy for the one person who actually cared that this run down, forgotten wreck of a man had died.
He still wore the suit. He hadn't even bothered to change. The white shirt was wrinkled beyond measure. The black tie had been pulled off and wrapped around his right hand like a bandage. Hair was a mess, there were bangs under his eyes. He'd barely slept, giving in to the darkness when the alcohol sang in his veins like a mother's lullaby and sleeping on the couch.
He was now seated on the cool wooden floor, head resting back against the bare brick wall of his studio apartment, eyes staring out unseeing through the window that encompassed most of the far wall. The world outside was dark, murky and visibly moving as the rain water drifted down the glass. Fingers stroked the smooth surface of the glass in his hand, swirling the dark liquid within. With a heavy sigh, he lifted the glass to his lips and took a hard swallow of the alcohol, feeling it burn as it flowed down his throat.
Few people had liked Evan by the end. In the begining he'd been a bright and youthful young man. Filled with energy and light, Evan could start a party in a morgue and people would throughly enjoy themselves. He could still remember the way the lad had introduced himself to him. A coffee shop and a hand-held game console. Someone had sat themselves down in the seat opposite him in the little booth. He'd looked over the top of his DS at a pair of vibrant green eyes that belonged to a lad with a wicked grin. "What ya' playin'?" he'd asked. It was hard not to instantly like the stranger, despite the invasion of privacy.
He'd liked that particular coffee shop, even though it was further from the campus than its cheaper rival. It had been the place chosen for their first date. They were poor college students - where else were they going to go?
But then had come Calvin.
The bastard hadn't even shown at the funeral. He was the whole reason Evan was dead, and hadn't even bothered to confront his guilt; his shame by showing up. If he ever saw that gutless bastard again he'd punch him square in the jaw. Calvin had broken that happy-go-lucky boy and turned him into a ghost of a man. How could he have been so blind as not to see what was happening to Evan while he was still blissfully unaware of the affair? The boy was cracking right before his eyes, but so swamped with work, publishers and other things that he hadn't seen the cracks that were forming in Evan. Looking back on it now, he could see each and every problem as if it had been staring in his face and he'd just ignored it.
The mood swings, the shivering, the sleepless nights, the fights, the nights spent apart - the list went on and on, stretching out like a never ending road before his eyes.
He shouldn't have let him go without a fight. He should have stood his ground and done something to revive the old Evan. When he came back the second time, wanting a second chance he should have fixed things then. Even if their relationship was rocky, he should never have let the friendship fall into troubled waters. When Elliot punched him, he shouldn't have let evan think he didn't want to know him anymore. Just because they were never going to date again didn't mean that he was going to cut Evan out of his life. He should have worked to restore him. Coerced Elliot into helping repair the broken man. Lake had known him before Calvin too; he would have helped. They could have shown Evan that there was more to life than destroying himself.
But no, instead he had ignored Evan in favour of working on the blossoming relationship with Elliot.
He'd left Evan alone - and that was how he had died; alone, on the bathroom floor in some hotel room. It wasn't enough that Evan was killing himself; Fate had seen to it that someone else would finish him off. Sure, the guy was locked up, but no one really cared about the murder of a friendless junkie. The police just assumed that no one would really care.
Yet there he was; probably the only person in the world that actually cared.
Finishing the last of the whiskey in his glass, he dropped his head back against the wall. Forearms resting on his knees, spinning the glass between his fingers. Lost in thoughts, grief and despair, he didn't hear the lock click open and the door to the apartment open. When his alcohol addled brain finally worked out that there was someone else in his apartment the light from the hallway outside his front door swept briefly over the interior of his home before the door closed and everything sank into the darkness once more.
"Raleigh...?" called out a voice. Elliot broke his vision of rain streaked and warped world as he moved into his line of vision. He turned to look at the figure slumped on the floor. "Oh Raleigh..."
As Elliot made to move closer, he heard his own cracked voice in his ears speaking to the younger male. "I let him die, Eli," he said. "Calvin was killing him and I ignored it because of my own stupid pride. I didn't want my heart broken, so I sent him away." Dropping the glass tumbler to the floor, it rolled away. Arms came up and encircled his own head, burying himself within his limbs. "It might as well have been me that stuck that knife in his chest and stood over him while he bled to death..."
Elliot was upon him now, arms wrapping tight around him. Elliot was meant to be the one that needed holding; the fragile heart that needed protecting. "Its not your fault, Raleigh."
"He was jealous of you, Eli. I could save you, but I couldn't save him. I was too busy with you to realise that he needed healing. I was too stupid to see he needed me back then." Slowly, he lifted his head to stare out through tear filled eyes at the worried blond. "Instead of sending him away when he tried to break us apart I should have tried to help him move on. Evan was a good boy before he met Calvin. If I had never introduced them he wouldn't be dead now. No one cared that he was dead!" He shuddered and fell against the warm body holding him. So much younger than himself yet with an armour built only from tradegy. "Calvin certainly didn't care."
Elliot moved to kneel between his legs, hands reaching up to hold his cheeks, bringing his face to look directly at his face. Thumbs smoothed over his cheeks, wiping away tears. He wasn't crying just...weeping. Silent tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, but he didn't cry like the rain that was falling outside. Water dripped from the ends of Elliot's hair. A few droplets splashed against his cheeks, mirroring the tears that were upon his own face. "Don't ever think its your fault that someone close to you died. There was nothing you or anyone else could have done in the end. You couldn't have known what was going to happen."
Lowering his arms, he wrapped them around Elliot, pulling him close to his chest. He was wet from the rain outside, but nothing felt warmer in the whole wide world. Of all the people in his life, Elliot was the only one that could understand. Elliot was the only one that could help fix him.
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