Chives and Nervous Breakdowns

"I hate it here, Ro," Dewey said softly, pulling at a loose thread on the grey blanket covering his lap.

"The city?"

"The country." Silence slipped between them. "The world too, I guess."

Rowan stopped what he was doing, looking up from the midnight skillet he was cooking for the two of them. It wasn't like Dewey to be like this. Not even after everything that happened with his parents. Sullen was a word for it, but it didn't fit. It sounded too safe. And Dewey didn't sound safe.

"The city's shit, but the world?"

He pushed the peppers around the broccoli and onions in the stainless pan, knocking two thin pieces of translucent onions onto the stovetop without even noticing. It was all autopilot. His eyes were fixed on Dewey and the gentle slope of his shoulders. They always bent this way before he lost it.

"No. No it's all the same."

A green pepper plopped to the floor.

Rowan didn't catch it.

"So the dream about that cabin up north is gone?"

Silence. Dewey stared out the window.

"How about your artistic inclinations?" Rowan continued. "Three weeks ago, you were sure as a dog before a storm that something good was coming for your next painting. You even bought the train tickets to Minnesota, right?"

"I didn't buy them," Dewey said hollowly. "Why should I go look at nature and find inspiration when it doesn't matter?"

Rowan stopped stirring the vegetables.

"Dewey, what's this about?"

Grey eyes looked up, caught between the prison bars of his hair. A car drove by outside, its lights flashing through the second-story apartment and glittering in the unshed tears lining Dewey's lashes. Something begged in his eyes but Rowan couldn't catch what it was. Dewey looked away, back outside.

"You can't be what you want to be anymore."

"Well, what do you wanna be?" Rowan asked, sliding out two red Twizzlers from the package on the counter and tossing one to Dewey. "You can market just about anything, 'specially with that smile of yours."

Silence spread across the room.

The joke fell flat.

Dewey looked at the Twizzler and suddenly he was crying. Soft, shaking tears that fell to his lap and alarmed Rowan.

He clicked the burner off, halfway out of the kitchen already.

Another car rushed by, splashing loudly through a puddle as its heavy bass rattled the windows of the room, mocking the pretty thunder from earlier that night.

"What's wrong?" Rowan asked as he approached.

"I want to be loved," he said and there was such an aching quality to his voice that Rowan nearly puked.

"Hey," Rowan said as he knelt in front of Dewey. The crying didn't stop. "Hey, man. You're loved."

Wet eyes looked up to him, full of heartache and despair. This was wrong. It was wrong.

"No," Dewey said, his entire mouth curling into a deep frown as tears rolled down his cheeks. "I'm...I'm not."

"Then what am I, Dew? C'mon. You think I put up with you because I have to?"

Dewey just looked at him, lip wobbling as though that made it worse.

Frantic to fix this, Rowan continued, "I'll burn the skillet if you keep crying."

"What, want me to break down in the kitchen?" Dewey asked.

"If it's not too much to ask," Rowan said, smiling softly.

Dewey huffed but the sound was close to a laugh. Closer to being okay.

"I can't prove I'm good at making skillets if you sabotage me like this," Rowan said, carefully weaving humor into his tone in a way that wouldn't upset Dewey. "I've fucked up the last three attempts because of you in one way or another and I'm starting to think you don't actually like skillets at all."

"All right, Ro," Dewey said, affectionately patting Rowan's head with a hollow smile. "Go cook your skillet. I'll come cry in the kitchen."

Rowan looked up at Dewey from his spot on the floor. There were shadows in his face that never existed before. A hollowness that no amount of sleep could fix. Something changed in Dewey when his father killed his mother.

Something changed in him too.

The lights of another car flashed through the room.

Everything had teeth and everything scared him. It was like the world ripped off its mask and what lay underneath was so grotesque and so ugly he couldn't function. Frozen in place, Rowan watched helplessly as the world sank its fangs into his friend's neck and bled him dry.

There wasn't even anything to do. No way to stop it. The pressure was suffocating and impossible to avoid.

"I'll pick the broccoli out if you don't want it," Rowan said, walking into the kitchen with Dewey trailing behind him.

Dewey grinned and this time it was an honest, open thing so similar to the ones he used to wear that something in Rowan's chest unwound.

"I like broccoli the way you cook it," Dewey said.

"What, burnt? That's as far as you'll let me get."

A warm laugh bubbled out of him and the world shuddered as it shifted back to normal.

"Maybe I like burnt broccoli then."

"You're not getting it tonight," Rowan said, clicking the burner back on. "Go grab some garlic and peel it for me. Maybe some chives from the garden if we've got any."

Ordinarily, Dewey would complain about being put to work, but tonight he patted Rowan once on the shoulder, gripping hard, and then slunk out the back with a pair of scissors, headed for the chives.

Rowan looked down at the steaming food in the pan.

This was wrong. Something in Dewey was wrong. He looked down at the pepper splattered across the floor like a body at a crime scene.

Something was really wrong.

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Thanks for reading! The others are linked down below :) I can't lie, it's shocking to see how many of these I've posted now. Hope you're all enjoying!

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