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So, you’ve got a brand new start. Which isn’t all that new at all, because somewhere you’ll always be that same angry kid, hissing at anything that gets close, tearing through everything that gets in your way. But still, it’s leagues ahead of everything you thought you’d have. The job is simple: you will serve this kid until you die.
Stupid, smiling, brightly shining kid, blissfully innocent in the face of the wickedness of the world. How, you don’t understand. He crawled out of the same gutter as you did. Where you clawed your way out snarling and growling, he was whisked away, a fairy tale if you’d ever heard one. (You hadn’t, before this. Now, he points out the pictures to you, tracing his fingers over letters he’s still learning how to read.). It should make you mad, or desperate or anything– But that misplaced kindness saved your life somehow, and put it in his possession. And yeah it's the best thing that's ever happened to you, being extorted into this guy's personal bodyguard for life. But… at some point it warped. The both of you grow, and change. Get a bit twisted. And when and why and how you don’t know. It’s terrifying.
Is it really about the food when there's a chance each time you taste it you wind up on the floor coughing it out? Is it a safe place to stay when at any moment you could be yanked out of bed, rushing to his side to protect him? Is it still your life, if it’s all for him?
You've got all this– but now you're willing to throw it away without a second thought. You're going to give your entire life up for him. You know it, within your heart, each beat the tick of a clock on borrowed time. When did that happen? Right under your nose, the only draw to doing this, to staying alive-- they pale in comparison to simply knowing he's safe? It wasn’t on purpose, but here you are. You care now. Far too late to save you, just in time to seal you in.
You're given a literal collar around your neck and it's the only possession that matters to you. The only thing that's blue against a sea of red. Do you even own anything? You’re a right hand, an extension of someone else’s being. Everything you have is his.
You're certain you've never told him you love him, and you're not even sure if you do, because a word like love has no place in your mouth, in your home, in your world. And you're starting to think it might be true, but if it is, that's far too dangerous, and it's terrifying to realize you're that attached. That you're scared to see him with a gun, and you're scared to think he's somewhere without you to protect him.
And he's never said he loves you, but he's held back your hair and given you milk and smiles at “your” shared memories and “your” shared childhood like they were things you had in the first place, not things you gave away. You want those things to mean I love you, because I love you is something you cannot have.
The only photos in your camera roll, on your cracked little flip phone are of him.
Everyday other people get closer and closer into this little world, this bubble you've created where you're the only one who can protect him, and he's the only reason you're still here. Loud people, obnoxious people, and oh so sure of themselves. Slamming into each other and clawing towards your place in the world, your place at his side.
But if someone else takes that position, where will you go? You have no existence beyond that. Every way you can define yourself is anchored in another. His personal bodyguard, his partner, his right hand. To cease existing in the context of him would be to cease existing. Would be to die.
You've never said 'I love you' to each other, and you never ever will. ‘I love you’ are the words of the foolish, the carefree, and the soon-to-be-dead. You are none of these things.
Your entire purpose is to protect him. If not you, Who will taste his food for poison? (That bitter treasurer would, and you know that.) Who will go with him when he ventures out into the world? (That cheerful clown, or former traitor, or a disgusting metal ‘toy’ he can’t even use without shaking.) Who will wake him up every morning? (A loving grandfather). Who will understand him, what it was like to come from those slums? (A chivalrous childhood friend.) You are a particularly useful multitool, until you grow rusty. Until a blade breaks, or a spring pops. Until you go out in a blaze of glory, and all you can do is pray it’s something worth it.
You've supported him all this way. He smiles at you, and calls you family, and tells you the things you shamefully want to hear. That he cares about you, and trusts you, and counts on you.
But it isn’t the same, see? You know it, deep in your stomach, solidified with each sip of milk every morning. You know you need him far, far more than he needs you.