Untitled, Unfinished

His white shirt was wrinkled and untucked, his tie loose around his neck. He had pushed his sleeves up around his elbows, revealing the subtly defined muscle of his forearm. Beneath his thin button down the ridges and planes of muscle could be seen along his back and shoulders. A strong frame, to carry a heavy burden.
A lock of blonde hair fell across his forehead and covered part of one eye- the consequence of repeatedly running his hand through his hair.

With his elbows touching his knees he sat, dejected, bent over on himself. It was cold outside now, nearly dusk, and the hard wooden bench on which he sat could offer him no warmth. But if the chill in the air bothered him, he made no indication. He just sat, unmoving. A perfect impression of a carved statue, beautiful and lifeless. The trees around him rustled their dry, golden leaves in the gentle breeze. All around him the earth was begining to lose its green, and was instead being replaced with dark reds, bold yellows, and rusty oranges. The clouds hung low in the darkening sky, with the strong rays of the sun surrendering slowly to the west.

The sound of my footsteps brought his face up suddenly to meet mine. Lines of tension creased his forehead and the darkened sockets of his face house two watery graves of green-brown. His eyes were like staring into the darkest depths of despair. Upon seeing me, a single line of moisture traced down one cheek of his unmoving face.

I gingerly sat down next to him, still staring into his face. No words could form in form in my mind, not that the lump in my throat would let them past anyway. Instead, I reached up with one hand, and gently brushed away the still-remaining tear with the back of my fingers. Something in him gave way, I saw it in his mouth. The hard, firm line of his lips, tightly shut before, cracked open just enough to reveal the tremble in his bottom lip. Before I could pull my hand back into lap he caught it with his own, holding it in place for a moment. With fingers like ice he pulled my hand and arm around his neck, while simultaneously leaning closer to me.

And then everything was a blur, rushing by in fastfoward.

His mouth was crushing to mine, with nothing short of fury. He wrapped his arms around me, drawing me into him even as I felt myself already pressing into his chest. My hands tangled in his hair, and locked around him, refusing to let go.

And then all the sudden he still. He face pushed back from mine, unreadable. The change was so abrupt that for a second I thought I had imagined the whole thing.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, his voice strained. Still his hands remained in place.

"I didn't mean to overstep, I-" he started, but I didn't let him finish. Hadn't he apologized enough already? There was nothing here to weight his shoulders, no regret to darken his face. Even after everything, even now, he worried about being wrong in his emotions. About stepping over the lines he continued to break, even as he sought to avoid them.

I touched my lips back to his, silencing him and removing his lingering doubt. He resisted for half a second, and then he allowed the heat of the kiss to thaw out the ice of his worries. I had begun to wonder how anyone could fail to see the good in him; how they could miss his truest self, struggling daily to shine the haze of his past. But his intensity soon burned those thoughts away, and I was beyond the calm and rash state that allowed thought.

What tomorrow would bring, neither of us then knew. I knew his fight was far from over, in many ways it had just begun, but I did know one thing. I knew that when the demons came for him again, when the ghosts poured out of his closet once more, that he would not have to face them alone.