Control (Dark Romance)

Chapter 7

Nikola's P.O.V

I know that you're technically an adult now, but I know how much you love them. Plus, there's no real age limit on legos, 
Hagen.

I swipe my fingers over Hagen's obnoxiously large handwriting, the words barely fitting on the tag attached to the large gift bag and read them over twice more. I let the tag rest before I dip my hands inside and pull out the box marked 'BEST BIRTHDAY GIFT EVER'.

I'm sure I would've smiled if I wasn't so tired, but even that small stretch of muscles would've ached.

I doubted any person who had to endure shutdowns enjoyed them, but I truly loathed them.

I knew it differed for every person, supernatural or not. No brain was exactly the same, so it varied, but I was one of the unlucky ones who were left painfully aware when my brain crashed.

I felt it climb up and watched it happen while remaining frustratingly incapable of making it stop as if I were placed as both player and spectator in some terrible game.

It was being made mute that I hated most. It didn't matter that I wasn't a garrulous individual; it was infuriating to have the ability, the choice, stripped away.

But I'd learned not to hate myself because of it. It only made things worse. 

All I could do was learn my triggers and remove myself from any stressful situation that could make my brain regress to only performing the most basic functions. I'd done that over the years, and thankfully, I hadn't experienced a shutdown in years.

Not until Thursday.

Nothing could've stopped the crash after I was forced to watch Hagen's hopeful expression slowly twist into one of pained regret before he'd turned away, his brown eyes made wet because of me.

It had all been too much. Amongst fighting against my maddening instincts to claim him and the agony that came with keeping us apart, seeing that look on his face had been too much.

Hagen hadn't even made it to the bottom step of our staircase before my brain unplugged,  allowing my magic to escape in a torrent without my usual control over my magic.

Torrent was the only way to describe the destruction.

Ma had reconfigured most of the house by the time I'd picked myself up from the corner in my room I'd shrunk into, but there were still parts of it that smoked, piles of our home reduced to rubble. 

Ma and Dad were great about it, they always were, but that didn't help soothe the misery that followed after seeing what I'd done to the house.

The only thing that was worse than that was recovering what I'd done to my mate. My Hagen, who I'd somehow managed to hurt when I was only trying to protect him.

That torn expression flashes before my eyes once again, forcing the jagged blade of my guilt to sink even deeper.

This won't help - Neo advises, his worry evident as I free the pieces of tape keeping the box together - it will only hurt more.

I lift the top of the box and pass my eyes over the carefully labelled, pink ziplock bags that held lego blocks in each. 

At first glance, they seemed to be sectioned by size, but the second revealed that their colours also separated them. Resting atop them all was a small booklet, a handcrafted instruction manual filled with Hagen's scrappy handwriting.

When you finish, you'll see what it is! Happy Birthday, Nikola!

My eyes linger on the last page, and it's two lonely sentences for a while.