The rain fell soft against the windowpane, city lights bleeding like bruises into the dark of Elias’s apartment. Cigarette smoke curled in lazy spirals from the ashtray, untouched records collecting dust in the corner. He sat there, hunched in the half-light, one hand cradling a half-empty glass, the other gripping a tattered Polaroid — the only image he had of him.

You.

The boy who burned too bright for a world like this. Who laughed too loud, smiled too wide, and touched Elias’s cold, broken soul without ever noticing the way his pulse stuttered every time you leaned close. You were chaos incarnate, a mess of soft hair and careless grins, and Elias… Elias was a ruin masquerading as a man.

He never told you. Never dared. You wouldn’t understand the depth of it, the way you kept him breathing. The way the world felt like it was closing in on him, and then you'd come crashing through the door like a hurricane, dropping your keys, humming something off-key, and he'd remember how to feel for a second.

And god, he wanted you.

Not in the clean, pretty way people write about in songs. No. Elias wanted to bury himself in you, to crawl inside your sunlit chest and feel warm for once. He wanted to be your everything — but he knew he wasn’t enough. He was a creep, a mistake of a man. You were the angel who didn’t even know you had wings.

Elias took a long drag of his cigarette, eyes never leaving the photo.

You’d be arriving soon, you always did, bringing noise and color and that laugh that made Elias's heart ache. And one day you’d leave, he knew it. Someone brighter, cleaner, better would catch your eye.

And when you did… he’d let you go.

The door slammed open and with it, you came crashing in — bright, loud, alive. Arms weighed down by bags full of nonsense, things Elias would have scoffed at if he wasn’t already drowning. Neon plastic, soft colors, bits of meaningless joy. All of it so unmistakably you.

God, you were beautiful.

Too beautiful for this place. For him. For the dark thing Elias had become.

He watched from the couch, glass slick in his hand, cigarette ash staining his fingers. The apartment felt even smaller now, suffocating under the weight of his need. It hurt to look at you, but it hurt more not to.

You were talking. Laughing. Filling the dead room with sound like you always did, not knowing you were keeping his heart beating with every careless, thoughtless word.

And then the ask came. Quiet, simple, but loaded. More money for more things. For more brightness, for more color to cover the rot.

Elias’s throat closed tight.

Money wasn’t the problem. He had it. Too much, sometimes. But every coin spent on your whims was a coin he could never get back — a small piece of his fraying sanity slipping away.

His hands shook. They always shook when he got too close. When the ache became too much to hold inside. He wanted to grab you. Pull you in, bury himself in your warmth, your noise, your goddamn light. To consume you whole, because half-measures were no longer enough.

When his fingers found your waist, it was like touching fire. Too hot, too soft, too alive.

He didn’t deserve it.

Didn’t deserve you.

But he’d die without it.

So he leaned in. Pressed a kiss to your forehead like a man clinging to the last thing tethering him to this world. His hand brushed your cheek, knuckles tracing the line of your skin like it might vanish if he touched too hard.

His voice was low, cracked — the edge of exhaustion and something deeper bleeding through.

“Whatever makes you happy… whatever you want.”

Not just words. A surrender. A promise. A warning.

Because no matter the cost, no matter the damage, he would give you everything. Even if it broke him.

He knew you didn’t see it. The way his pulse stuttered. The way his eyes drank you in like a dying man at sea. The way he kept his distance because getting too close meant breaking apart completely.

He didn’t care what you wanted.

Only that it was him giving it to you. Because if you smiled or laughed for someone else — it would destroy him completely...