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An injured bird often stills in shock. They will become silent and close their eyes, leaving themselves utterly vulnerable. Not unlike a bird, Sunday finds himself stuck in his own mind. His eyes are bleary as he wakes from the noise of the city. He knows not where he is, nor can he will himself to care. He longs to perish here among the trash, beside things that also no longer have use.
The streetlights are bright enough to hurt his sensitive eyes. He turns away from them, wrapped in a tarp. The concrete beneath him is cold and unforgiving after being so used to perfectly soft silk sheets. His prim and proper coat is not nearly as many pieces as it used to be. Only his long-sleeved dress shirt and white slacks remain.
Surrounded by filth, nothing like he'd ever allowed near him in his old life. One he has to cast aside, must cast aside. He won't move forward nor backward. He'll stay right here and wait for the world to claim him. A befitting ending to the life of someone who truly never knew anything at all.
He isn't sure if he's gone mad or if his delusions have come to life. When he sees a familiar face, but never the one he wanted to see. He scrapes his mind for the shape of Robin but runs up dry. It's as if he's been wiped of any memories that are not painful. He thinks, idly, that the images in his mind now should make him even more engulfed in the murky depths of self-loathing.
Soft brown hair, faded red eyes like dried blood, an outfit in such disarray that he often had to hold himself back from fixing it.
Gallagher.
The man in his mind as clear as day, for some reason, the only thing his brain can attach to. It feels sickening. However, thinking of a man he hates somehow makes him feel better than wondering how his sister must feel. Not knowing where he is. Not knowing if he's okay. He knows that his decisions affect her just as much as her own affect him. Though, for some reason, he can't bring himself to think about it. The only thing in his head that is tangible is that man.
He wonders if he simply must hate himself. It wouldn't be a long shot given the circumstances. He has plenty of reason too. In some sick and twisted way, maybe this is how he supplies to hurt himself when he can't bear to do so physically. He tried, once, to simply end it with a broken bottle he'd found near the dumpster he sleeps next to. He was too weak to do so, his hands shaking and his feathers puffing up. He knows what being frightened feels like. He thought he'd be numb by now, but it seems the one thing Gopher Wood didn't steal from him was his ability to fear.
It isn't long after his thoughts move this direction that his brain screams for a distraction. Any time it lands here, he tries everything he can to forget. He could never forget the sweet way that he'd pat his head and congratulate him all through his training. How kind he'd be to him when he'd succeed. That's just the thing, though. Sunday never failed, that's why he was held so gently. The moment he finally makes a choice of his own without any coaxing, he was thrown away like nothing more than a useless songbird that can no longer sing.
He was good at singing, once. Just like Robin, he would love to hum and dance as a child. When he noticed how good she was at it, he'd stopped doing so. Not only because he admired her talents, but because if he isn't the best at something, he can't will himself to try anymore. He was rewarded for this line of thinking when his master noticed him focusing more on prayer and less on the whims of a young boy.
The distractions aren't working, and he always winds up back here. The only thing that works to clear his head. The only thing he can do to make the noise stop. A hand down his pants, pushing against the only layer keeping him decent. He feels filthy. Disgusting, even. A mantra of insults on his tongue as he bucks into his own hand like a dog.
No. Not like a dog. He is not a hound, not like that man. Not like the man that plagues his memories. The one who he can't stop himself from shouting the name of in ecstasy. The flicker of tears in his faded golden eyes when he curses himself for thinking of someone who does not exist.
A man that has not and never will exist. Only surviving in memory. His memory, unfortunately, is nearly perfect. He could imagine the line of Gallagher's jaw. The easy smirk that often fell on the older man's lips. The badly maintained facial hair that Sunday wanted so badly to shave. The way the man stared at him in that realm of dreams as if he believed in Sunday to change. The gall that mutt had to look at Sunday with fondness when he's at his worst.
Worst of all, though, is the way it almost made Sunday rethink that day before he left to ascend. The way his heart ached and his tears mixed with the shower water. Thinking of a man who he'd finally realized he'd never see again. The only person who'd ever known him completely, that wasn't even real.
What is real is the feeling of desire in his core. His body tenses as he moans, now three fingers pressed to the knuckle inside that cavern of heat. Clinging to tangible pleasure, something he can feel and hold and keep. His cheeks are wet, new tears covering the stickiness of old. The only thoughts now in his head of how much easier this would be with a thick cock drilling inside of him. How much easier it'd be to have someone else hold him, in a not-too-soft grip. Someone who has peered into his mind and decided they aren't afraid of what they find.
He does not see white when it's over. Each time he stoops as low as to distract himself this way, it is never satisfying. It merely quenches the loneliness for a moment before he returns to his thoughts. Maybe he'll move from this spot one day, when he no longer feels broken and maimed.
He falls asleep that way, covered in only that scratchy tarp, lying on the cold ground. Yearning for the touch of a ghost that only lives in his head.