Everytime he closed his eyes, he couldn't shake that image of Merrick off of him— his haunted face, the subject of an American Gothic. He'd always thought that he couldn't feel things the same way other people could, but he was realising now that he could. Like a knife in between his ribs.
Full of uncertainty, he walks towards Evien's room. The corridors are dark, darker than he'd noticed. The smell of him, mingling with the sharper scent of herbs, fills his head and veins.
Kastner?
Feet getting wet in the water, he takes another breath. There is another smell: the bitter and metal smell of unhappiness. For a long time he stands outside the doorway, unsure of himself, fidgeting with his sleeves and that Adam's apple going up and down, up and down. Then he clears his throat, and lets himself in.

The air inside the room was stale and warm. He doesn't see Evien until he shifts and for a second he is locked into place (Were those shadows under his eyes always there? Was he always so small?) until he breaks away, a nervous hand at his temple.
Should you be the one asking? He shoulders through the curtains, inspects the recently dried herbs, the bedsheets that needed to be changed. Fucking hell, Kastner, a gentle frustration in his voice, Who are you? What are you doing to yourself?
Having to cure a doctor of his miseries. It sounded perverse. Something turned inside out and still breathing. Taylor didn't know what to do. He could barely even take care of himself. He stands there, helpless, eyes wide and hands limp. It is quiet, other than the murmur of the stream just outside the door. The light inside is heavy and green.

He'd asked the wrong question. The wrong words, the wrong meanings, all coming out of his mouth in an unstoppable stream and he can't stop himself, just like you can't unspill a bottle of ink. Evien moves past him and he holds his breath— he touched me— but he quickly kills the thought and buries it deep.
From here, he only sees the back of his head. His tan neck. The image is fuzzy with dark. Maybe I don't know you at all.
To see someone so whole become hollowed out, it was cruel. Just a few days ago he had envied the doctor for his knowledge, his decisiveness, his autonomy. It was cruel. You, he stops himself briefly, but decides to continue. How can you help others if you can't take care of yourself? He sees it now: Evien is just a boy. He might've been a medical student, he might've been a prodigy, he might've come from a poisonous home, but he was just a boy.
He sees it now.

Am I not allowed to? He asks, still calm. But he feels the first pinpricks of frustration drive themselves up his palms, and he clenches his fists.
I've never known anyone in my life, and this time, I thought—
A heavy sigh that lasts longer than it ought've. He looks away in shame and confusion. They crowd around his head like birds to a bloated corpse. He leaves the sentence to die a quiet death. It chokes in his brain, it rolls over in the metaphorical hospital bed.
I thought I knew you. Wearing your heart on your sleeve meant that there was nothing stopping anybody from tearing it to pieces. Nothing between it and the open air. Life was just a yawning vaccuum that wanted to hurt you. So far. There is heat in his voice now.
Kastner, he's cooled down again. Let me help you. This time, it is him that searches Evien's face for eye contact. The map is treacherous and infuriating, but it is beautiful.

The golden light hits the side of his face and turns the fur there into burning white filaments. The dust motes shiver in the beam. Taylor steps forwards, and they move alongside him.
Evien is right, and that's what kills him. He breathes. It is a muffled and dry noise, like sniffing through a fist. They stand there, one boy on the floor, ragdoll-ish and spent, the other boy standing, awkward, his mind in a simmer. His first taste of empathy in months. He remembers why he had decided so long ago not to feel. It was much easier that way.
Just... he pauses, fights to find the words he needs. He'd never been good at this. Let me exist next to you for a bit. What's left of his frustration is quickly evaporating— he's just tired now, tired and confused, barely even able to keep up with what's coming out of his mouth and what's coming and going in his head.
His steps eat up the distance between them in neat, mincing bites. He's close now, close enough to reach out and touch the curly brown hair.

You can exist next to me as long as you want.
His feelings for Evien were creeping, subtle, a leak in the corner of a room. But now, they were impossible to ignore. The water had rose up to his neck. The elephant in the room had turned its passive head towards him and lowered it to charge.
All hooded eyes and heavy lungs, he takes one of Evien's hands and brings it up to his nose. They smell like herbs. They are small, and the palms are slightly calloused. This only happened in his dreams. He lingers in this moment of unreality.
You, too. Neither of them had said I love you yet, but it hung in the air and swarmed their heads.
He closes his eyes and places his other hand over the doctor's. In the dim light, he looked translucent. Only that green gaze felt real. You, too.