1

He walks into the house and on instinct from the smell floating all over the room, he knows that she's home. For the first few seconds, a logical thought comes to his head. After last night, he's not sure he wants to face her. He doesn't deserve to look at her. It amused him in a sense that once upon a time, he never did understand why people seemed to react the way they did to another person's pain but now he did. 

Callum Kingston was a monster, and though he might not fully understand the weight of the word, he refuses to live his life like that again. Like a dark hole that he couldn't see but sense pulling him closer and closer to a death he deeply craved. She had come in and put a lid over that hole and he knew, knew too well that her absence would only mean his mental death. 

He let his eyes stare around his parlour walls. She was the reason there was colour here, that he felt like he was part of a family again. Though he can not remember much of what his Family felt like before his diagnosis, he knows too well she's a glimpse of that life. He doesn't want to go back. He cannot afford it. 

His instincts tell him to lie to her. He's very good at persuading people, getting what he wants but he had abandoned that life after her. At least, that was what he thought until last night. Why had he done that? Why had he proved everyone else right? That he was unstable and would never amount to anything?

"Are you gonna come in or stand there?"

Her voice gets him out of his thoughts and he focuses on her. Autumn McKeon is in a large wool sweater and mini shorts, her braided hair in a rough bun as always. There's a soft smile on her face as she stares at him, just like she always stared at him. He thinks of the first day she had spoken to him. The first time in years he had felt someone touch him, come close to him. Usually, he stayed away from people. He didn't trust himself, couldn't but her... It was like being next to her was absolution of all of his sins. 

Callum needed her. Like he needed oxygen. Like he needed his cigarettes. Like he needed to fucking exist. She brought colour to his life. He couldn't lose her. He couldn't... Imagine it. 

"Callum? Is that... Is that blood?" Autumn's voice creases with worry now, as it always does. Callum knows that she's always worried about him. He's prone to irrational outbursts and spontaneous acts that have him in shapes he should never be in but somehow, she works her way through it. Only goddesses can do things like that. 

She walks to him and cups his face in her hands. Her dark eyes are searching his face and the worry them only grows more as she stares at him. She can smell the blood and she begins to glaze through other parts of his body with her hands, like a frantic Mother worried her child had poison tucked somewhere in his clothes, and eventually, spots the large gash on his forearm, the blood seeping from it like an everlasting pool that threatened to swallow even her in. 

Autumn doesn't say a single word. Instead, she grabs his good hand and leads him into the kitchen. He follows. Of course, he'd follow her anywhere, she is his beginning and end. When they get inside, she pulls him into a stool and begins to clean the wound. It's not deep. Callum knows far too well she would never have forgiven him if he did so, but it's deep enough to get her entire concentration. To have her in front of him, the specimen of glory that she was. It gave him enough view of her face, and also, the view of the bruises all over her left shoulder and collarbone. 

He shouldn't like it, should he? He had scarred her. He had... Hurt her, and yet, all he could think of was how she looked even more celestial with his mark on her. That she would never be able to take off her shirt in front of someone else that isn't him and that... That is enough for him to know he didn't deserve her. That he would never deserve her. 

"Do you remember, Autumn?" Callum's voice as always is soft. Like a breath of air over a person's face, caressing you softly. People barely ever heard him and he didn't care. He couldn't care. The only person who was able to hear him well was Autumn, and that was enough for him. "This was how we first met at the restaurant. I broke a glass and had some cuts. You helped me clean them up. Do you remember?" She didn't reply immediately so he continued, "You wore that bright yellow dress with green flowers painted all over. Your nails were painted a light red but some of the colour had chipped out. You looked tired with a stain of mustard just above—"

"I remember," Her voice washes over his face like spring. She has not looked at him yet and the small smile that had come to his lips at her voice begins to fade away as he stares at her. Callum craves her face but she still doesn't look up. She's no longer cleaning his wound but instead, grabbing onto the rim of her large sweater, her head fallen, and when again she does speak, she says, "Did— Did you cut yourself because of me again?"

Callum stares. His brain is thinking rationally, working at double speed. He cannot lie to her but her emotions... He doesn't understand most of them. He doesn't understand what to do now. What to say. "It was— It was not because of you. I— I needed to punish myself for what I did to you. It was... My guilt. Not... Not you."

"But it's because of me." He hears it. The slight stutter, the low pants, the small breath intakes. She's crying. His goddess is crying. "You keep... You keep hurting yourself like this because I can't be good enough for you."

"You are enough, Autumn." The word comes out like a plea. A prayer. Callum cannot tell her that she truly is and that the thing wrong is just him and the only way he would ever fully be able to satiate his desires is by hurting himself at the very least. He also cannot tell her that he has thought of her many times with her blood streaming out of her veins in branches like the ethereal being she was. 

Because she wasn't supposed to know that her boyfriend was a sociopath. 

Callum Kingston always told the people around him his diagnosis. His present boss knew this but kept him away because he was effective and he minded his own business. In fact, everyone in their workplace knew, except Autumn. She had taken a vacation during his recruitment and when she had returned, no one had told her about it. And he had made sure after he realized he cared for her that none of them dared to. 

Why? He was not ashamed of who he was. He didn't have the emotions to but she was the only person that made him feel like he was actually... Human. He had searched throughout the years for a cure for his disorder because he was tired of feeling empty, angry at himself and irritated by the people around him and there she was, the antidote he never knew he needed. 

Callum was learning to be a better person. He truly was. And it was all thanks to her. So what if he kept that vital informatory part of his life secluded? She would never know. He would never let her fully see that side of him. Though yesterday had happened, he knew from that mistake the right thing to do and he wasn't going to give in to the voices again. Never ever. 

"Autumn," He held up her face with his good hand and stared at it. Tears irritated Callum. He saw no use for it, saw no point to it but on her... It evoked those emotions he never knew he had and he wanted to protect her. To shield her from everything that would dare hurt her. Even himself. 

Pulling her into his chest, he drank in her scent with his face buried into her neck, almost getting high from it though this time, he did his best to stay rooted in the ground. He knew she loved him and he... He found her very stupid for that, but he was also eternally grateful. It was why, for her sake, he would do what he had been completely against throughout the entirety of his life. Find a therapist who would help regulate the thoughts in his head. 

So he could be with her and worship her fully. Just the way she deserved.