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The downpour made its way towards the city. The high-rise buildings cut through the rain clouds as the beams of headlights mixed with the light of billboards. As the rain grew heavier and thunder became louder your eyelids became a barrier far too weak for dreams to continue developing. You slowly opened your eyes. The liquid crystal on the bedside table told you it was 2:47 AM. You took one deep breath and nuzzled up against Miguel’s sleeping form. His body was warm and his scent lingered in your nose as you let it fall perfectly on his collarbone. The slow rhythm of his breathing was only aiding your departure to the world of dreams. With sleep still stuck in your bones you glanced at his face. A few untamed strands of hair fell over the relaxed muscles of his face. He was beautiful… the other half of your star. But as his eyebrows suddenly furrowed and his lips turned into one fine line you realized that the burden he carried with him during every waking moment wouldn’t leave him alone even in slumber. Sometimes he would talk in his sleep and even though the conversations you had with him during those periods didn’t make much sense you still held them dear. It was in those short moments that you knew his consciousness let him get a moment of peace. But as he began to twitch slightly and murmur incoherent words you realized he was reliving another bad memory.
“Honey”, you whispered as you gently shook his shoulder.
He knitted his eyebrows again and his arms pulled you into a tighter embrace. He was holding you in a way you felt before… he held you with fear.
Beads of sweat on his forehead glistened in the dim light as his breathing became erratic.
“Miguel”, you called out his name a little louder this time, placing your hand on his cheek.
He jerked up suddenly, gasping for air with his chest heaving.
You froze for a split second due to the sudden movement before putting a hand on his shoulder.
He took a few shallow breaths as sweat glided down the side of his face. You watched his eyes shut close before being opened slowly.
He came back to his senses.
“Sorry about that…”, he said in a low voice as put his hands on his lap.
Your hand slithered down the sheets and found his. Your little finger enveloped his. Miguel’s gaze was somewhere out of that room, maybe even out of this universe… it seemed like he was miles away but he still interlaced your fingers. No matter how much his cold demeanor made people think he wanted to fight his own fights, your soul knew he was quietly searching for an ally he could confide in.
You were a finely tuned instrument by this point in your relationship. You knew how to listen to his silence, which scar to kiss and which wound to leave alone. You knew that he was like sand; the more one would squeeze him in their hand the more he would escape through the cracks. You would give him space when needed and take his broken being right into your hands, putting all of its pieces in place.
“Good luck accepting all that”, they would say to you.
But as time passed you found out that Miguel didn’t want to be accepted as much as he wanted to be understood. He wasn’t the kind that chased dead butterflies, romanticizing his own anguish and loneliness. Instead of that, he would lick the cuts that always bled in the dark, far away from everyone else. His constant battle to maintain order might’ve seemed like he was fighting windmills to onlookers but Miguel knew it was for the greater good. Someone had to carry the world upon their shoulders and Miguel took that role willingly. He tried to redeem himself for playing God but his cardinal sin kept dangling above his head. He wondered if the heavens were closed for all the people whose errors were born out of good intentions and if his afterlife would be a never-ending repetition of that day.
But now… now that he was in a small bedroom with clothes neatly folded in the wardrobe, he was between these snowy sheets with his bare skin touching yours and your voice might be the most beautiful sound this world had ever produced.
“It was just a bad dream, love”, you whispered as you stroked his hand with your thumb.
Whenever he felt like he was a crate of damaged goods you would be there to remind him that no matter how cruel fate can be, even the darkest rainclouds have a silver lining to them. With you he could dance on top of cars, he could taste the summer on your lips, he could wear your arms around his neck like a scarf to keep the cold away, he could look at the reflections of stars in your eyes, and he could pull off his mask and scream in your arms with tears streaming down his cheeks. He could be a lost man, he could be a mess of emotions finding shelter, and he could be Miguel.
Not Miguel O’Hara, just Miguel.
A man like any other. And you’d still love him to bits.
And as the shadows of the past haunted him, he knew… he knew he could always come back to you… he could always come back home.