Blood.
It’s always been his life force. His sustenance. What he needs to survive. What he can go without for days, weeks if he has to. But not what he can afford to lose.
His clothes are already stained a deep crimson, a color that will never be lifted from the whites and silvers. Underneath, his torso almost resembles minced meat. He’s old enough that such injuries won’t kill him, but they hurt enough that he’s losing his senses - his sanity - and whatever’s left of his humanity. Each gash, torn skin and muscle and soft tissue, even as they stitch back together infection is taking over. He’s lost half his internal organs, leaving his lungs and heart beating faintly within the open, empty cavity behind broken and chipped ribs. His face isn’t really much better. He knows one eye is missing, and his nose is broken, and god-only-knows what they did to his hair.
One arm dangles at his side, joins bent out of place and from the wrist down removed. The other is intact, but covered in healing scratches and bruises that cover much of his body.
Every breath feels like agony as his body struggles to heal. He can barely part his lips to breathe in… let alone actually feed off someone to heal. As he lies there, body sinking into the cushions, Ilya struggles to keep hold of his thoughts, to remain awake….until someone comes to find him.
And yet, his thoughts are only on one person.
Luka.
A shuddery breath passes his lips, the moment he makes it into Ilya’s apartment. He hasn’t been there since the last time they saw each other, and he has lost count of the days and ours that they’ve been away from each other. This is his last resort, he knows it is. Because after this he won’t know where to go, what to do or how ti handle the way he’s caving. It feels as if he’s been torn open, as if everything that he is, everything he has ever been has spilled out over tile flooring. As if he’s constantly bleeding from a heart he knows his hands no longer hold. He hasn’t slept properly for weeks, eyes puffy and red, pallor decorated by bruises in all kinds of shades, from deep red and purple to faint yellow. He stopped bothering, stopped caring and stopped living. Because if he can’t find Ilya, if he can’t have him back, there’s nothing left to actually live for.
His entire posture speaks of disaster, shoulders slumped and head no longer held high with his usual cockiness. He’s broken, and everything that used to be Luka is so long gone that regaining it seems as impossible as ever. All that’s left are broken pieces and fragments of Sanha.
The world weighs heavy, on slim shoulders.
And Luka truly is, a prisoner of emotion.
A prisoner of love.
Another breath and he moves, slips further into familiar rooms and he aches, he aches so immensely that he swears his knees will bend and he’ll loose balance. His heart races in his chest and hazel hues remain wide open. It’s almost frantic, the way he searches over open expanses, the way he tries to keep himself sane is almost beyond his own capacity and he’s so sure he won’t make it for another day. It’s strange, it sends his mind spinning in directions he can’t stop and it makes him crazy. Because no matter how hard he tries to stay alive, how he tries to wait, there’s nothing he wants more than the gift of peace and quiet. Death. But not even overdosing had granted him this, of course not.
He has barely reflected over it, over the way things are too still to be normal. But it’s because he isn’t prepared to be faced with anything aside from the emptiness that lingers inside his own soul, together with glass, ashes and blood; scattered pieces of a puzzle he desperately wants to put back together. Therefore the way he walks is unconscious, the way he steps into Ilya’s living room sos low and silent he barely notices it himself and he stops, for a sliver of a second he stops, lowers his gaze and he’s about to cave then and there. If it weren’t for the dark tuft of hair that caught his attention, even though it took moments for it to register.
He lifts his head, his eyelids remaining slanted because he’s so sure he’s imagining things that he’s about to curse. But as realization actually strikes, as lips part and he feels like he can’t breathe, when he knows he’s not dreaming although wishing he actually was, he has to grasp the doorframe in order not to topple over. Because this is not what he wants to find, not what he expects and he hates it, he hates himself for not coming sooner.
“ I-Ilya. ”
He practically whispers, forcing himself to move away from the doorframe with slow steps. There’s so much blood, so many injuries he doesn’t even want to reflect over and he’s not sure the vampire is even alive anymore and it eats away at the remnants of what still exists in his mind. There’s a wave of guilt, as he lowers himself to his knees beside the couch, as he tries as well as he can not to loosen his strict hold on raging senses. because panic won’t help in the least even though he wants to sob for all he’s worth. His fingers shake, as he opts to brush a few dark strands of hair away from a pale forehead and he can’t hold back the moist from his eyes, trying furiously to blink it away.
" Please don’t be dead. “
He pleas.
A silent little whisper, that dusts over chapped lips.
” Please don’t leave me. “