Leviathan knew you were on two different worlds.

Clinging to the desperate scraps of attention that were thrown his way like a snake begging for heat under a dying lamp. He never knew what to do with himself if he wasn’t locked away in his room with his fish. The one goldfish he would talk to for hours on end like it was a person and he could hear every word it blubbed back, like it made some sort of sense to the man.

If there was anything Leviathan was, it was self-loathing. He didn’t deserve the things he had, not after the fall. He was barely deserving of his dear friend, Henry the fish - but he had him. It made him feel sick with himself most nights. Tossing and turning in the cold porcelain tub he called his bed. His eyes always seemed to be lingering on that fish.

He didn’t deserve the good things he had, the good moments with his family when they happened, the good people online that he hoped were his friends (which were likely just his brothers trying to give him a sense of peace by existing in his world). He learned all too early that his feelings were impulsive - reckless.

He had all of these emotions so deeply pent up inside of him and there was no escape, leaving him like a balloon being filled with too much helium; it was only a matter of time before it would explode. The thought of that made him feel sick.

He wasn’t used to the idea of someone bursting into his room at the weird hours of night, for someone actually coming to him for more than the money he hoarded. You insisted to spend time with him, like he was actually worth some form of effort that wasn’t to be cast away like a dead fish down the drain. You smiled at him in ways that screamed wedding bells in his ear, but all he could hear were alarm bells.

You wanted the best for him; and he wasn’t used to that. So he put up his walls and he cemented them with layers of iron and rock. He couldn’t risk losing someone else. He couldn’t risk having a footnote in the only person who ever tried to read him - because what if that book closes? What if all he was to you was just a good chapter in your book of life?

You were perfect together, but he was scared he wasn’t your one – because if there was anything Leviathan knew - he knew you were on two different worlds.