TRIGGER WARNING: strong language, alcohol, self harm/scars, blood.

6. Proof.

Did you trust his silence, or did you need something louder?

Late fall, 2017. Eliseo doesn’t remember much about those four days without Mason. He remembers the taste of dusty vodka disguised in Gatorade bottles, the way it burned less with each swallow, until he wasn’t sure if he was even drinking to get drunk anymore or just drinking to keep from sobering up. He remembers talking too much to strangers at gas stations, to his reflection in windows, to the dog down the street. Rambling like filler, nothing sticking, words slipping through the cracks in his teeth. Without Mason, everything he said felt rehearsed and hollow, like he was pretending to be alive.

When he finally saw Mason again, it wasn’t relief that hit him first, it was suffocation. Mason clung to him with a desperate gravity, arms locking tighter than a casual hug, hands lingering too long on his sleeves, eyes dragging heavy and wet across Eliseo’s face like he was memorizing him. Eliseo felt wanted, yes, but wanted like prey. Smothered. Watched too closely, held too tightly. Mason’s eyes looked swollen, rimmed in that private red that never needed explanation. Eliseo didn’t ask. He never asked.

So Eliseo filled the silence with words, the way he always did, but it felt different now. His rambling wasn’t funny or sharp or clever, it was padding. Empty noise to keep them from hearing how much they were both unraveling. Mason didn’t laugh. He only pressed closer.

It took Eliseo three days of that silence to crack. One night, leaning against the rusted rails of the track where they’d always gone, the place that pushed bottles to his lips, he shoved a loose hinged, slightly chipped butterfly knife into Mason’s hands. “If you want to fix this, if you want to really prove you’re not going anywhere, then bleed with me.” His voice shook, but he masked it with a smile, the kind that dared you to call him insane.

Mason hesitated only long enough to make Eliseo’s chest twist. Then, obedient, he flicked the blade open, with an ease that Eliseo didn’t expect. He knows how to use a knife? Mason’s trust was terrifying, more terrifying than the violence. Mason went first, again, with too much ease. He then extended the eager knife to Eliseo. Eliseo was clumsy, almost foolish, and winced as he cut a little too deep. Blood rushing hot between their fingers. Eliseo clasped Mason’s hand in his, pressed their wounds together so neither could pull away, and with his other hand tugged Mason into him, close enough that their foreheads brushed.

The night air went still. Eliseo began to sway, slow, deliberate, dragging Mason into a dance no one else would ever see. On the tracks, under the thin light of the moon, with blood soaking between their palms, he felt it. That binding he craved, something raw and eternal and unforgivable.

“See?” Eliseo whispered against his temple, voice almost tender. “Now you can’t leave. Now we’re proof.”