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Sometimes, he laid awake at night.Sometimes he’d think of something somewhat rational (the pet he’d just lost, the wish to be made of wood, if he would ever manage to take the mask off in front of strangers. The answer never changed from “no”, and he was glad it didn’t). Sometimes there would just be white noise buzzing softly and nothing else.
That night, for the first time in his whole life, he thought of Silvestro.Of where would he have been right at that moment.
That was irrational, even for him.Silvestro died when he was too little because he was a bastard who didn’t deserve to keep on going. Nature knew that and decided to kill
him before damage could be done. His stomach digested itself in a painful implosion.
And yet somehow, right there on the couch, under his blanket, eyes up to the ceiling, Eska thought about how Silvestro’s life could have been.
The first thing he saw was Silvestro in his bed.A good bed, with a frame.He was laying on it, not sleeping. A body rubbed all over him lazily, groggily, catching its breath, being unbearably warm under the heavy sheets, asking him to say he felt something he knew he couldn’t feel for anything or anyone.He said it anyway.Eska looked around.Silvestro’s house was huge and full. Bookcases, tables, chairs, carpets. A bathroom, a kitchen, a living room, all separated by walls and doors. Thousands of ornamets all over the place. Newspapers and books forgotten on various pieces of forniture. He must have liked to read, seeing as the
volumes were big and heavy. They talked about history and boring things. Radiators filled every nook and cranny with a lovely heat, blocking all gusts of wind outside.
It felt just as empty and cold as Eska’s room.It was…Missing something.His throat tightened itself in a choking knot.Silvestro responded to his wide stare with his indifferent own.His eyes were blue.From the woods.From the woods never came anything.He worked and worked and didn’t listen to the Spirit. He got money, he worked, he got money, he worked, he got money, he didn’t hear the birds crying, he worked, he didn’t pay attention to those whimpers, he got money.None of them.None of them had ever been in that warm, warm house.It was winter. He was coming back home. It was freezing. He didn’t stop when he heard a deer’s lament.Actually, he didn’t even hear it.Eska spat right into Silvestro’s fake blue eye and came back to the present by the sheer strength of his own sobbing.
Piece of shit.Piece of fucking shitty bitch, cunt, motherfucker, stronzo, bastardo, minchione figlio di puttana, Hure, Scheißdreck, Mistkerls Nutte,
putána stin psykhí, malakas,
gamiméno skatá-
He whimpered.That was rock bottom. That was rock bottom, and it had just taken thinking about that horrible
thing
that thank everything was
dead
andburnt into nothingness
to make him sink that low.And now he was crying.He stumbled off the couch and out of his blanket, legs unsteady as he trembled his way towards a door. He hit corners and felt the cold wrap around his numb toes. He felt tears rolling down his chin.Curling himself in a ball on the mattress, Eska felt so small.So uncalculated.So skinny.Something that needed to be disposed.
It hurt.
A groan accompanied something shuffling under the soft cover.“Eska?” a female voice called sleepily. A soft but firm hand grabbed him, somewhat gently dragging him under the sheets:
“Thaische, get in here, ’s too cold f’r this bullshit.”Kim opened his eyes with a groggy sound.“
‘s all good, Eska’s jus’ stayin’ with us. Go back t’ sleep,
cushlamachree.” his wife assured him. He nodded, not fully conscious to begin with, and drifted back into his dreams wrapping an arm around Eska.Niamh waited just another second to nuzzle the back of her son’s head, pressing sweet, quiet kisses on it. He breath became slower and deeper, until it picked up a regular pace.Eska listened. All was still.Søpple had wrapped herself around Burkāns, similar to a friendly furred python. He stared at them in the cosy darkness under the fabric.Silvestro wouldn’t have even come close to them.He spat right in the blue stare inside his mind, blinding it. A curse faded into the depths of his thoughts.
He smirked, snuffling a bit, and closed his eyes.