#have👏sex👏with👏your👏sleep👏 paralysis 👏demon👏

[bitchfitch]

His house was haunted by the ghost of his childhood imaginary friend. Evan knew it as well as he knew that describing Evi as his "Childhood" imaginary friend was... deceptive at best.

The cabinets opened on their own, Evi's favorite sorts of items would vanish from their place around the home and reappear under Evan's bed, he would wake up in the middle of the night to the feeling of someone crawling into his bed and laying beside him. An ice cold hand on his chest, a smooth mask of a face would tuck itself against his side as Evi wormed his way under his arm. Evi's voice, sweet and cracking like poorly annealed glass, would seep into the spaces between his drowsy thoughts as he fell back asleep. The words as saccharine as they are vicious.

Evi used to be his muse, the beautiful world they'd made together had been the inspiration for the music that launched Evan into stardom. Evi gave Evan everything that was good in his life. How could Evan leave him? Why was he left to be forgotten all those years ago?

How dare Evan call him back from the obscurity of memory now that his life was over.

In the morning there would be burns where Evi's golden claws dragged against his skin.

His house was haunted by the ghost of his imaginary friend and it's presence was as much a balm as it were a thorn. Like the injectables that used to make Evi feel as real in the waking world as he did in their dreams.

Evi broke things when he got bored. Framed pictures. Gifts from people more real than Evi but who's friendship with Evan had been just as imaginary. Anything from the period Evan spent in rehab after he followed Evi out of a third story window at a party.

Evan would find those ruined fragments of his life when it was at its peak, his mind would tell him he should mourn the broken flower pot that was painted by the first girlfriend he'd had who cared enough to discourage his smoking habit. That he should be furious with Evi for breaking it even though it had been Evan alone that ruined that relationship. He wasn't. He was numb as he picked up the pieces and set them back on the shelf Evi had knocked them off of. The small memories it had held, the beads from broken bracelets and guitar picks with concert dates written on them were left on the tile for the maid service to deal with next time he cared enough to call them.

His pill bottles kept going missing too, when he found them their contents would be gone. What Evi did with the antidepressants and pain killers was a mystery, but Evan had caught him dropping the sleeping pills into his drinks. He wondered where Evi learned that trick every time he poured them out and what it said about the man Evan used to be or the company he used to keep that the childish figment of his imagination knew about the concept of date rape drugs.

Ambien had too strong of a taste to really work the way Evi was hoping it would.

The ghost of his childhood imaginary friend was haunting his home and he had no desire to do anything about it. The mess of jealous destruction, the quiet humming from just over his shoulder, the nights spent frozen by sleep paralysis while Evi straddled his hips and traced his claw along the strap holding Evan's breathing tube in place. It never felt like a threat. He Knew Evi too well for that.

The dark gave the illusion that Evi was really there. His weight and the chill of his glass skin, the soft clink of his body brushing against itself. It was so easy to drift off with the impression that Evi's invisibility was merely the fault of his human eyes.

It was a comfort after the months of isolation. Of doctors appointments and lawyers and every relationship in his life dissolving like the pills Evi kept dropping in his drinks.

Unlike every friend he'd made into a household name, unlike every industry contact he'd made richer than God, Evi didn't care that he chose life over his career. If Evan let him speak again, if he took the plunge back into the same maladaptive fantasies that made Evi so real, he would be pissed with Evan as he was probably right to be, and then so sweet as he wrapped them both back up in their dreamed world.

All Evi ever wanted from him was his companionship, and he had abandoned him in favor of people who wanted him to sing for their pocketbooks until he suffocated on tumors.

The ghost of his imaginary friend haunted his home. Everyday Evan let himself become more certain of it the less ghost like Evi got. His words cut further into the waking world, his humming turned to singing the songs Evan wrote about him. Not the ones that made the most money, but the ones Evi liked the best. The ones no one but Evi had ever heard.

Evan would see him out of the corner of his eye. A flash of bright pink hair or wine bottle green legs crossed neatly beside his as they watched the movies and shows they used to talk about together for hours.

He wanted so badly to reach out to him.

He'd spent years breaking himself of the habit of doing so. He'd spent years killing Evi the only way a thought could be killed, by thinking about anything else. Evi had almost killed him. Betraying him like that had been necessary for survival. It still was.

Evi was a drug more potent and addictive than anything you could buy. The imaginary and the dreamt engulfed the real world around him, battling it like a wall holding back a tidal wave. The only way to chase him had always been to force himself deeper and further from that protection and into the storm. Every step Evan took towards him and away from shore would have Evi drifting another mile deeper.

He still wanted... He wanted what it had been when it was at its best. Evi hanging off his arm at party after party. His laugh and words so real everyone who'd partaken in whatever was on offer that night could hear him too. His muse, beautiful and adoring, would bring him water for the hangover next morning, pain killers and sleeping aids so he could drift back to their castle in the clouds where pain existed only to further the story and pleasure wasn't limited by flesh.

The first step into that sea was buying, framing, and hanging another copy of the poster he'd sold years ago. It was from an old movie that had either been lost to time or never made at all. Evan's father had been the one to hang the original up in their home when he was still just a boy.

A man stood at the front, his sword held high as a woman in a tattered white dress clung to his nearly naked, sweaty body. Beneath them, under the man's foot, was an alien with glassy skin and bright pink hair. Her face was turned away, the valley between her breasts shattered by the warriors blade as a battle raged in the background.

As a young boy Evan had fantasized about saving her. Maybe the movie gave reason for why she deserved to die, but he would never see it. He would battle the so called hero and bring the broken woman to her people who could heal her shattered heart. She'd call him her knight and kiss him like he were the sort of man who starred in these sorts of movies.

She became Evi so gradually that Evan couldn't remember when each little change came. He did know it was the other boys at school making fun of him for having a girl imaginary friend that made her into a him though, even if Evan still thought of Evi as a woman in the secrecy of his mind.

If Evi cared he'd never said anything. He called himself Evan's king just as often as he called himself queen. A creature as fluid as the thoughts that made him.

His house was haunted by the ghost of his imaginary friend. Evan could hear him clearly now when he stood in his in home recording studio where the poster hung between panels of sound dampening foam.

"I miss you, my Knight."

"You've been asleep for so long but still I guard you here in our castle. Our bed is warm with you, your body hasn't aged a day, your strength remains. Please wake up. Please come home so I'm not alone anymore. You promised to save me. You promised."

"What did I do to anger you? Please I'll kneel at your feet and apologize until you believe me. I'm so so sorry. Please wake up. Please my Knight."

It's been weeks since another living person spoke to him.

He was right to kill Evi. He was. He was. He tells himself that in his home that's too large for one man.

Evi took the real world away. Made life boring. Made him walk out a window thinking he'd fly. Evi would kill him without ever meaning too.

The life he'd killed Evi to lead dissolved the second he refused to let himself die. He was right to go through with the surgery. He was right to set himself onto this path of isolation. He'll live a long life. A long life with too much money and too much empty space around him.

He knew Evi better than he knew himself. He'd made him after all. There was no one around to encourage his bad habits anymore. No one pushing heroine and designer MDMA into his hands. He'd even quit smoking.

Before Evan lived that rock-star life, Evi and his maddening influence was as benign as the water lapping at the shores of a still lake. He made reality glow instead of disappear.

It wouldn't hurt to indulge in one addiction now that the others were gone. He's been handling Evi for nearly 30 years, he can hold him close and be fine. He can.

Evan didn't need sleep aids to find his way to their dream, but with how often Evi tried to slip them into his drink, it felt right to take a half dose stood there before the poster. He couldn't speak to tell Evi he was on his way so the gesture would have to do.

Evi's voice snapped out of existence the instant he turned from the poster, but he felt Evi's hands on him, heard his feet clacking on the floor as he pranced in excitement, felt him grab his hand to drag him to his bedroom like they were eager lovers.

He woke up in a bed surrounded by crystalline flowers. The ceiling above was hidden from view by a fog of starry clouds. When he breathed, he felt the air rush through his sinuses and down a throat cancer had never touched.

Evi was on him in an instant, his hands dove into Evan's hair as he kissed him like he was attempting to make up for the time they spent apart. Evan returned the enthusiasm, licking into the sugar of Evi's mouth as he grabbed his hips to keep him close while Evan fought to sit up in their bed.

He hadn't realized how ruined his waking body was until he felt no pain for the first time in years. His back didn't smart at him, his hip didn't try to lock up, his shoulders were strong enough to support his and Evi's weight when he braces on one hand. There was no low thrum of sickness in his blood, no exhaustion. Just life as it was meant to be.

When he and Evi parted, his words froze in his throat. How did he forget how gorgeous Evi was? The fan of his turquoise eyes, the needle fangs behind his split upper lip, the earnest bright joy he bore like it was his gift to the world.

He cupped Evi's jaw, his fingers pressing into the dripping waves of his molten glass hair. Evi waited for him to speak first, those eyes tracing along the features of Evan's dreamt face like it was the first time he was seeing him.

Evan hasn't spoken since he left his speech therapist in a fit of disgust at the sound of his new voice. Maybe if he hadn't built his worth around the sound of his voice. Maybe if he had forced himself to keep practicing. Maybe if he had been a different man, he wouldn't have returned.

He holds Evi, one hand still on his hip the other petting his thumb along a new sea-foam green scar on the edge of Evi's jaw. And he speaks.

"I've made a horrible mistake-"

"It's all ok now. You're home, you won't leave me again, my Knight" Evi cocks his head his darlingness takes on a razor's edge of warning "Isn't that right?"