Don't try to fix me
I'm not broken
-Hello, Evanescence

6:23 pm

"I'm broken."

Dom tore his eyes away from the spider he'd been tracking to look at him.

Elijah sat-cross legged on the couch, biting his nails. His words seemed to echo threw the loft, creating an asylum of melancholy sadness.

"And why is that?" Dom asked, his eyes returning to the spider as it began to crawl down the wall.

He could see him lighting a cigarette out of the corner of his eye.

"I can't tell you. It would fuck everything up."

Three smoke rings appear in the air above Elijah.

Dom tries to laugh.

Elijah just watches the smoke fade away.

"Tell me."

It's Elijah's turn to laugh. One of those laughs that make you feel sick to your stomach, one that sinks into your skin and tears at your flesh. The kind that people laugh to hold back the tears and screams building within them.

"I'm in love." Elijah says, tilting his head to stare into his eyes.

Elijah studies him for a moment, looking too deeply at him for Dom's comfort. He feels open, naked.

Dom breaths in deeply, the taste of smoke forming on the back of his throat, and looks away.

"I'm in love...with you."

Elijah blows another smoke ring in the air, stands and walks into his room.

Dom doesn't move.

He tries to remember the last time he brought a girl home to fuck.

He can't even remember the last time he even wanted too.

The spider disappears behind a picture.

Elijah lays on the bed, still smoking, and counts the cracks in his ceiling.

There are sixteen. Almost invisible if you're not looking for them. Like little flawed treasures waiting to be discovered.

Dom enters the room.

Elijah finds crack seventeen.

Dom plays with his rings as he walks to the bed.

It creaks as he lays down next to him.

"You gonna fix me now?"

Elijah looks over at him.

"You're not broken," Dom insists.

Momentary pause, filling the room with a silence so thick you could choke on it.

"Yeah, I am," Elijah sighs.

Dom tilts his head to meet his gaze and reaches for his hand.

"Then I'm broken to," Dom whispers the words, more for himself then Elijah, as he weaves their fingers together.

Elijah rolls over and puts his head on Dom's chest.

Neither one speak.

They don't need to.

6:28 pm