many weeks ago
Closing the door behind him wasn't the sure way of leaving the remnant of a nightmare in the distance. Escaping from the bathroom with his hand held in security, couldn't absolve him of what kept him up nightly. Coaxing him from a steamed room after washing away the grime and gunk death left over him, never gave reprieve from what acts of termination leeched on to him. Through memories that spanned another man's legacy with those heinous acts of torture and elimination through out last year, left punctured wounds that never were able to heal. He was weak, far inferior than his other half but only made whole by his acceptance. That acceptance did not save his fragile state of mind nor cushion it for the days that followed. He tried. Nathan took on more than he could handle and was expected to. It was always his way of surviving only not when the raft continued to shrink in size after floundering for one. His drowning was well documented. As hand of the one who witnessed him at his lowest, the same hand spared him salve to pat against the re-opened gashes.

They were invisible by sight but felt in each of his steps. Towel held together with one hand at the waist and his other hand tightly clasped against hers, led him away. He was astray out of her presence, and pushed to stay together, in line. What was shared in hope, had been the same with balance or never rushing to the chance to fix it all at once. On evenings where space was shared, bed the same, he tried to avoid the congestion that sleep brought on until there wasn't anything to sleep for. During the crisis of terror that disrupted the slumber, right beside her, he had no choice but to lay in the open. To show that being with him, in closeness, wasn't nor would be easy. A better understanding came with communication, and open dialogue. He buckled in moments of abrupt desperation, to get it out before it engulfs him whole. Opposite of those moments, he turned in on himself with a barrier that was impenetrable. It threw him in complicated positions where wanting the energy of hope was all too much to bear more than the soil that topped over a still grave.

Where he sat, just at the edge of the bed, her shadow caped him before arms did the same. The weight was managed, carried easier than what he walked with on a daily. It was then he wanted to chase its possibility of safety away or reel it in under the cloak of being the same for her. Posed to flip a switch, to ignore the wiring he so used to display, was tough. To fight it came with experience, and letting go, letting her win was as foreign as the cost of love. When eyes closed, they weren't to give into sleep but to surrender to a foundation he suspected least to be rooted so far deep that the evenings attempts at sleep and the terror to follow, would never phase him.

four days in passing
Blacking out, times of undocumented passing and goings, held strings upon his arms and shoulders. The time came again where folding freely open after week long fog lifted from his life. He trained slowly to recuperate, to follow into an easier transition when the awakening had sucked out his entire energy. His body and mind were affected, usually, but the pain sometimes was too much to bear. When he rolled over, aching through joints, through the old injuries that carried him into territory of searing stabs of tiny unrelenting needles; his re-introduction to reality was a rough landing. Lasting days and surely affecting his mood, the point of trying to remember and placing what happened in absence reflected on how the days in passing went. He was crabby, more down with least spikes of feeling better. It was a familiar place to reside in and he loved it only because it was habitual like the way he leaned on his known vices. Where discomfort prevailed, he ran towards the familiar despite its destructive effects.

He wanted his space, to be left alone. The mood was thick and did better in isolation. Same standard when in company of her or his band of ferocious felines in training. While his partner in crime and that unspeakable sentiment was gone, Nathan retraced his steps. Falling in walks that were taken or even crawled. His memory failing him when touching parts of his Loft's surfaces, the walls in particular. One event that was not forgotten had been the violent dance that took place there months before trying to make peace with it, but one thing for certain, he needed to go back. Not to that date, not to the time he felt the most conflicted with nearly killing his woman, then just an important confidant. The week he was questioning had since lapsed, and answers were tackled as soon as he carted himself into that small room. He left it open, only with that trust was standard in his loft. Not to think of mishandling or extra eyes lurking into the security hub or arsenal of weapons.

That was the problem. Not thinking. Letting his gut go ignored because he had comfort and companionship. Understandings of matters caught between reality and the veil he often was taunted from. Caresses and shared tenderness was driving him further from his immediate stances on being a hard headed individual who relied on measures to remain safe or to catch knowledge from nets cast. Eyes scanned thoroughly, seeking media stashed back as memory, to make room for new recordings. A precaution set in place but before he tried to look for the previous week's footage on the system through the cpu's drive, he plundered through the shelving at the discs.

Jaw strained in concentration, fingers pushing away one jewel case to the next. The date's were in order, so one out of place would stick out like a sore thumb, one he should've been on top of. He had, right? Series of questions began to frustrate as the search went from calm, to obsessively searching. He ripped out cases filled with months worth of footage, tossing things to the side while seeking one in particular. His guessing, predicting the missing footage went from himself to the other part of him that must have logically gotten rid of it.

He reasoned to himself, hoped that was the case because it happened before. Believing he misplaced items, all to awaken to the knowledge it was thrown out. The pills, statements of financials he archived, to info regarding heavy hitters dealt with in the past. All of those gone, and placed somewhere out of reach, especially the reach of his mind, but he wasn't sold this time. Unsure, his calm turned sour, into a fit that fueled an urge to turn his Loft upside down again. Backing out and closing the door before he could submit to that kind of irrelevant terror, Nathan breathed heavily with thought to go back to bed. To think this through. To be smart about it. To not dwell on the one if, because he knew how deep that would drive his penchant for throwing away all his efforts of a new day with her, completely away.