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The stars are beautiful at this time at night. They twinkle with dreams and hopes of the people below but they're so far away that one can only look at them from their grounded spot on this rock called earth. Robert and Victor are on the roof of his shitty apartment complex, they did this every night that Robert couldn't sleep due to his nightmares. The silence is always like this, soft but unstable with it changing moods from every word. It was never scary but uncomfortable in a way that being so open is.
“Robert”
That single word broke Robert out of his poetic but undeniably worsening spiral of negative thoughts. Victor would call Robert anything else unless they were having sex or talking in a way that would make Robert spill his guts on the cracking foundations of the concrete. Victor was not talking seductively either so it was the later of the two.
“What is mecha man to you?”
There was a beat of silence but Robert knew no matter how awful it felt to be open, it felt worse to lie to Victor. He trusted Victor and would never jeopardise that.
“Mecha man is a suit of armour to me and…my only purpose in life”
Another long stretch without a word and victor spoke again in the same calm but firm cadence.
“What is Robert to you?”
That was a difficult question but Robert eventually decided he thought enough.
“Robert is a mask, a placeholder until mecha man come back”
Victor didn't seem satisfied but let it go for the time being.
“Who do you think Robert is to those who care about you?”
Robert didn't have an answer.
Victor's white eyes looked at roberts own and he spoke again.
“Because I know who he is to me and I think you need to hear it from someone you care about more then yourself”
Robert knew victor would continue talking so he didn't interrupt him.
“Robert is the man that helped me get sober from drugs, Robert is the man that made my heart grow the more we spoke, Robert is the man that inspired me to be more then what I had accepted myself as and…. Robert is the hero I never knew I needed” victor got closer to Robert the more he spoke until he was so close Robert could feel the hot air from his breath and smell the last thing he ate, that being a twinkle and a rat.
Those words took the air out of Robert's lungs the same way the hands on his shoulders did.
“Robert is a hero and he has done a better job with helping me then mecha man would”
Robert could feel tears welling in his eyes and tried to blink them away but Victor just took his hands off Robert's shoulders and hugged him with a tightness that suggested he was losing him, maybe he was losing him because of mecha man.
“Robert is a hero to me and mecha man is a public figure”
The tears broke free from Robert's eyes and he gripped onto Victor's torso with all the force he could muster, he needed an anchor. He needed Victor and for once he needed to be Robert.