I DO—N’T - by Onlyreal

I don’t remember asking for you. There was no night of desperation, no candle smoke curling toward the ceiling, no blood offered with trembling hands. I didn’t stand barefoot in a circle and whisper my worst wants into the dark. If I had, at least this would feel deserved. You arrived without permission, without ceremony, without sound. The apartment noticed first. The walls tightened their angles. The corners leaned inward by degrees too small to measure. The air thickened, as if it had weight now, as if breathing required agreement. I stood in the kitchen holding a glass I didn’t remember filling, listening to the hum of the refrigerator stretch too long between cycles. Then you spoke. “Don’t move.” Your voice did not echo. It didn’t travel. It simply existed, already inside the room, like a pressure change or a thought that had slipped past my defenses. I froze because I was already still. You stood where the hallway should have been. Almost human. Enough to be misleading. Your shape refused to settle, proportions correcting themselves a moment too late, as if reality were constantly reconsidering you. My eyes slid off your edges. My stomach tightened, not in fear, but in something disturbingly close to recognition. You looked frightened. That should have comforted me. It didn’t. “I’m sorry,” you said quickly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” That was the moment I should have run. Instead, I asked, calmly, “What are you?” You hesitated, like the question mattered. “I’m hungry,” you said. “But not for what you think.” I laughed once — short, disbelieving. “Then leave.” Your expression softened. Grateful. “I can’t.” And just like that, the room sealed itself around us. ⸻ You didn’t touch me that first night. You sat on the floor with your back against the wall, hands folded tightly in your lap, eyes following me with an intensity that bordered on reverence. You didn’t breathe unless I did first. When I moved, you leaned forward slightly, as if anchoring yourself to my motion. “I only exist when I’m allowed to,” you said quietly. “I don’t want to hurt you.” The sentence felt rehearsed. Old. “You’re already here,” I replied. “That counts as hurt.” Your shoulders drew inward. “I’ll be careful,” you promised. I let you stay. That was the first decision. Everything else grew from it. ⸻ The pain did not arrive as violence. It came as pressure. A presence that leaned without touching. A weight behind my eyes. A tightness in my chest that made every breath feel unfinished. I woke with my teeth clenched hard enough to ache, my hands curled into fists I didn’t remember making. You watched all of it. “I’m not feeding yet,” you explained one morning, kneeling beside the bed. Your form wavered like heat over asphalt. “This is just proximity.” “It hurts,” I said. You exhaled, long and unsteady. “I know.” That was the first truth you offered me. ⸻ When you finally touched me, you asked. Your hand hovered inches above my arm, shaking like it was resisting gravity. “May I?” I nodded. Your fingers settled against my skin with impossible care. The pain bloomed slowly, warm and deep, spreading through muscle and bone like something waking up. I gasped despite myself. You recoiled instantly, horror-struck. “I’m sorry. I didn’t— I didn’t mean—” “Don’t,” I said. My voice trembled, but not from fear. “That was… different.” You searched my face. “Different how?” I swallowed. The ache lingered, pulsing thoughtfully. “Like being held too tightly by something that doesn’t know its own strength.” Something in you relaxed. That was the first time you fed. ⸻ I learned your rules by living inside them. You could not hurt me directly. No strikes. No cuts. No breaking blows. Everything had to be allowed. Pain had to arrive through duration, through closeness, through refusal to stop. The longer you stayed near me, the deeper it sank. You pressed your palm against my chest and waited until my breathing shortened, then waited longer. You cradled my head and leaned close enough that my skull rang with pressure. You sat beside me for hours without touching at all, letting absence do the work. Each time, you watched me like I was the only thing keeping you real. “I don’t need much,” you said once. “Just enough to remain.” I never asked what happened if I said no. ⸻ The apartment stopped behaving like a place. Light filtered in but never fully arrived. Time thinned. The outside world blurred into an idea rather than a reality. Messages went unanswered. Days passed without names. There was only you. And the pain. You began to hesitate. You fed more slowly. You apologized again. “Does this hurt too much?”“Should I stop?”“Are you still with me?” “You’re getting attached,” I said one night. You flinched like I’d struck you. “I don’t know what that means,” you whispered. I reached for you then. My hand passed through the edge of your form, heat and resistance without substance. You sucked in a sharp breath. “It means you’re staying for me,” I said. “Not the pain.” Your eyes darkened. Wet. Uncertain. “Is there a difference?” I didn’t answer. ⸻ The pain grew denser. Not stronger — heavier. It settled into my joints, my organs, my bones. My body learned to carry it the way people learn to carry grief: awkwardly at first, then as if it had always belonged there. “You’re adapting,” you said with awe threaded through horror. “That’s what people do,” I replied. “We survive what we’re given.” “You shouldn’t have to.” And yet you stayed. That was when I realized you loved me. ⸻ Love ruined you. You tried to be gentle. You pulled back sooner. You hovered at the edge of feeding, prolonging it, stretching the ache thin and sharp until it learned how to think. The pain became intelligent. I would curl inward on the bed, breathing shallowly, waiting for you to finish not touching me. You would kneel there, hands clenched, eyes shining, whispering apologies to a god that wasn’t listening. “Please,” you said once, voice breaking. “Tell me when to stop.” I looked at you. If I asked you to stop, you would fade. So I said nothing. ⸻ The first lasting injury happened by accident. You were holding my wrist to steady yourself when your grip tightened reflexively. Something inside the joint protested — a hot, sickening wrongness that turned my vision white. You recoiled with a sound like grief. “I didn’t mean to,” you sobbed. “I would never—” “It’s okay,” I said, calm even as my arm throbbed. “I’m still here.” You folded inward, shaking. “I don’t want to exist like this,” you whispered. I should have let you go. Instead, I reached for you again. ⸻ You began to suffer too. Not physically — your kind did not break that way — but in restraint. In love that could not save and would not release. “I don’t know how to stop needing you,” you confessed. “I don’t either,” I said. The room pressed closer, thick with shared endurance. One night, you cupped my face with hands that barely held their shape. “I love you,” you said. The words arrived exhausted. I leaned into you anyway. “I know,” I replied. ⸻ You told me you could leave. Starve yourself. Fade quietly. Spare me. At the thought, the room loosened. Air returned. The pain did not leave. “You taught me how to carry it,” I said softly. “It doesn’t need you anymore.” Your face broke. You knelt there, unraveling, devotion still anchoring you even as you thinned. If I asked you to stay, you would. If I asked you to go, you might finally rest. “I do—” you began. I shook my head. “I do—n’t,” I said. You smiled — loving, resigned. As you faded, the pain settled neatly inside me, patient and alive.

Other insights from Onlyreal_Sochi

Referral Earning

Points-to-Coupons