Fic: LowLives part 7
WOOOOOOH. 34,080 words, 67 pages! *boogies*
LowLives
Word Count: 3949
i forgot what happened in the last chapter for a while. i've been writing in little bursts during my downtime in the theatre. >< but here there is more sex! and some more angst. this chapter's a bit weird, it was kind of difficult to write, but i hope it all works out...
ETA: i had a terrible time with the shift key this chapter O.o
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Wednesday, Carlo hands me a gun.
He holds it out like it's nothing in his hand or in his mind, and I take it. It's heavier in my hand than I anticipate and my arm drops slightly, but he looks at me expectantly, and I pretend that I'm not surprised by the weight.
I'm on watch, because of my leg, just gimpy enough to make it a bad idea for me to go off fighting junkies and drug dealers, which has sort of become standard operating procedure for me.
It's God awful boring for the first two hours, walking in circles around the perimeter, with my breath misting in front of my face in the cold air. It's been getting steadily colder every day, sunlight growing thinner and bleaker as winter comes on. I make faces to myself to keep entertained, and so I don't lose feeling in my nose.
Spencer's the only other one on watch at this point, and we take turns, trading off every twenty minutes in the freezing outside and the moderately warmer inside. There are space heaters in the middle of the warehouse, which helps.
The warehouse is almost entirely empty, most of the guys off doing other business, save the junkies in the basement - Vincent says that we're staying in this particular location until they're all sold off - so there's no one watching me, which means I can spend equal amounts of time watching the streets as I do sweeping my eyes over the interior of the warehouse, looking for any dark corners or hiding places.
There's a staircase, old and rusting metal, tucked into the back corner behind a column and a stack of old crates, that leads to what must have been an office, when the warehouse was still in commission. The staircase is rickety going up, creaking and squeaking under my feet, but it holds solid to the wall all the way up. Inside the office there's empty file cabinets, as well as a giant black chalk board hung up on the back wall, and a giant glass window that's partially boarded up, partially covered with the thin blacks plastic sheets of trash bags, taped at the corners with dull silver duct tape. The window is virtually unnoticeable from the ground level - I'd never even noticed it was there until today - a fact which I tuck into the back of my mind as I descend again, heading back outside through the heavy metal side door.
As I pass by the garage door, there's a noise, a rattle and a clang out of the silence that makes me jump, from over by the entrance to the basement. I step back in, holding the gun awkwardly with both hands.
It's just Spencer - I can recognise his back and the heels of his boots as he heads down the basement steps, the door clanging behind him.
I huff out a breath, and drop the gun, wandering over to Vincent's rolling desk chair. As the boss of us all, his chair is the nicest, with the rest of them crappy metal folding ones. There's nothing else to do, so I sit down, resting my leg, and roll myself back over to my watch position, hooking a space heater and dragging it over with me.
Then I hear something that sounds like a scream.
I push off in the rolling chair, scooting past the desks and tables, rattling over old nails.
"Spencer?"
There's no other noise, but I stand anyway, walking over to the door and knock. It rings loudly on the metal, hollow and echoing, but Spencer doesn't respond.
The padlock's undone, just hanging from the lock already opened, so I fumble for the safety on the gun, and shove it into the back of my pants, hooking the grip over the waistband so it doesn't accidentally fall down into the leg of my jeans. Which would be awkward.
I grip the door with both hands and heave, pulling it back and open. The lights are on downstairs, harsh white reflecting off the stones of the steps like they're wet with something.
And I hear it again - and it's definitely a scream, but it's muffled, like through cloth. I creep down the stairs until I can see past the floor level. I can't see everything clearly, but what I can see is a man, one of the junkies, arching up in pain on his cot, eyes squeezed tight, and Spencer standing over him with his back to me.
He's got a syringe in his hand, the needle inserted deep into the veins of the junkie, the plunger already depressed. He's just pulling it out, sitting back with his arms crossed, and then he's just watching.
Watching as this man writhes in pain, not even fully conscious - he's not hooked up to the IV bag, the tube is dangling free, dragging over the floor. He probably doesn't know what's going on, what it is that's causing him pain, in the disorientation that it leaves.
I'm stumbling back up the stairs, about to be sick, when I hear Spencer laugh behind me, chuckling to himself.
Fucker.
I'm running, fleeing, and then I'm out at the marina, almost a mile away from the warehouse, before I even consider that I should have stopped - should have stopped him, helped them, they're still fucking human, and I should have fucking stayed, but I didn't, I fucking ran away, and what the hell kind of person does that make me?
I slow to a walk, my knee telling me in no uncertain terms that that was a bad idea, and head out past the last buildings, onto the docks where the wood planking has warped out of alignment with constant damp and wet.
There's a bench along the waterfront, cold metal facing out over the bay. This section of the marina is empty, too old to bother fixing it up, and I hate my life right now, that everywhere I go is the same - sick and old and tired and broken. I sink down onto the bench and rest my head in my hands.
The gun digs into the small of my back, insistent and painful. I pull it out, and look at its shining barrel, and wonder what it would taste like.
I shake my head as my hands shake, shoving the gun as deeply into the pocket of my jacket as I can. Then I reach into the inside, disgusted with myself and people in fucking general, and take the bag of po out of my pocket. I don't bother checking the size, just scoop some out and snort it, feeling it flare and burn in my sinuses, making me sniff and cough. Then I collapse backwards, head hanging over the back of the bench, and wait for the world to go away.
It burns up before my closed eyes with a swirl of fire and colour and heat, making me gasp out loud and arch my back against my clothes and my skin and the air, too hot and heavy, heady against my nerves. I feel raw and exposed, flayed open for the world to see, but also so far away, raised up above it like a God, until I'm flying over these assholes and free of laws and expectations and life.
The ecstasy is only tempered when I feel the drip of wetness on my upper lip. I don't open my eyes, just flit my tongue out to taste, and its salty and coppery, full of iron. My nose is bleeding. It happens, when you snort, damages the fragile capillaries in the thin tissues of your nose - but it's not even enough to bring me down save for how strong the taste is when I swallow, coating down the back of my throat, thick and hot.
My contacts burn in my eyes and I don't think twice about swiping my fingers over the lids, pulling the lenses from my eyes and dropping them between the cracks of the wood, to splash silently into the bay.
The world blurs, and glows, lit all over with auras that shimmer out of focus, beautiful and ethereal, and I can't see whoever it is that comes up behind me.
"Hello, Arthur. Fancy meeting you here," he says, with that accent of his, and it's sad that I can recognise his voice and I still don't know his name.
"You're back early," I say, and lean forward, wiping my nose on my hand. It's a long red blur down the side of my wrist.
"Job went surprisingly well. You're good luck, it seems."
"So, what about you?" I ask. I'm talking like we're continuing a conversation, but I know it's happened only in my mind.
"Well, what about me?" He comes around, and says despairingly, "Oh, Arthur. What've you done to yourself?"
"You're human, aren't you?"
"Yes, that's the general consensus." He's humouring me. I can hear it in his voice and I know I'd be able to see it on his face. I have a sudden, irrational urge to see his face again.
"And them? Do you think they're human?"
"Who?"
"The junkies." I look down, at the white blurs that are my hands, so cold and bare that they don't look human. "The ones in the basement."
"Arthur," he says, and he makes me sick.
I tell him that.
"You all do, I'm so fucking sick of you all and your fucking human standards." I stand, get in his face until I can see the green-grey of his eyes, clear this close up, and then I shove him away until he's tottering at the edge of the dock. His coat is thick and wool under my fingers and all I want to do is bury myself in it, bury myself in heat and humanity, because all I see is horror. "Well what about them? They're fucking human too, can't treat them like fucking animals." I'm beating his chest by the end of it, landing solid punches that make him grunt, until he captures my hands in his and drags me close enough that I can't get the leverage to tear away.
"What have you seen, Arthur? Tell me what you saw." There's an urgency to his voice that strangely calms me, like there's someone else out there who knows what this kind of terror is - terrified of myself and of people in general and of life and what the fuck, I really am out of it.
"Fuck you." I want to get away, so far away.
"Come on, Arthur, tell me."
"Fuck you! Get your fucking hands off me. Get off!"
He's got his hands like steel vices gripped around my wrists, and no matter how hard I twist I can't get out of it. He lets up when my skin starts to heat, rubbed raw already, and instead shifts his grip so he's holding me around the middle, my arms pressed into my sides, trapped between us.
"Oh, Arthur," he says again and I want to tell him that's not my name. That's not who I am, this is not who I am - someone who runs away from people in need, someone who does mind-altering drugs to get away from reality. I'm not like that. He pulls out a crinkling pack of tissues, and dabs lightly at the smear of blood on my upper lip.
When it's mostly clean, the blood flow slowed to a vague seep from the torn tissue, he rubs his thumb over my chapped lips, smoothing the cracked skin.
I want to fuck him again. I want to feel his heat against me, his skin, to learn everything about him, learn his hot spots, and the noises he'll make when I kiss him softly. I want to know his name.
But Arthur knows his name.
I step away, calmly, and he lets me. I wrap my hands around his coat lapels, and drag him with me as I walk backwards.
I can't see his face, but he follows easily after a few tugs. When my back hits brick I turn us around, shoving him against it, and press myself all along his front. We breathe together, I can feel his chest rising and falling against mine, his warmth seeping through my clothes, and then he leans in and takes my mouth.
It's soft. Too soft, just the barest brush of lips. We separate, and all I can see is his full, wet mouth.
I lean back in, harder, pressing my tongue in between his lips, pushing against his teeth until he lets me in. His mouth is hot, steaming in the cold air, and wet, his tongue moving slickly against mine, running along the underside, and pulling it farther into his mouth until it feels like I could fall all the way inside him.
My hands rise to cup his face, raking through his short hair, fingernails digging in to the skin at the back of his neck. He shivers, and moans, desperate and hungry, rutting against me as I thrust my tongue into his mouth again, and again. He's got his arms around me, pulling at the small of my back until my hips are slotted next to his, the layers of fabric between us nothing in the face of the heat and arousal that's pulsing in my blood, sending a fire through me that has nothing to do with the drugs.
"Arthur," he whispers as he pulls away again. "Arthur, what did you see?"
I shake my head. "Don't. I - I fucking can't."
"Is it going to be like this every time?" he asks, and there's something that's not just curiosity in his voice.
"Like what?" I ask, sticking my tongue out to lick at the seam of his lips.
He breathes a sigh, and lets his tongue meet mine on his lower lip for just a moment, and then when he speaks again it's the softest of movements against my mouth. "like you, high and angry, all the time?"
"Well that depends, I guess."
"On what?"
"Would you kiss me if I didn't make you?"
I see the flash of his white teeth a moment before he swoops back in, kissing me breathless, forcing his tongue into my mouth and licking at my gums, hands diving icy and eager up under my shirt to spread across the skin of my sides, low down by my hips. With his arms around me all of a sudden I'm burning hot again, sweltering in my jacket. His lips are full and wet when I bite them, sinking my teeth into the thick muscle and pulling a short gasp of a breath out of his lungs.
His hands slide down over the fabric of my jeans and he works them into my back pockets, curling them around my ass, squeezing and massaging. They're so fucking close to where I want them - need them, it sends sparks up my spine, making my hips work harder against his. His hands flex with it, pulling me in with a rhythm that makes my knees waver as his dick pushes against mine, rubbing up against my zipper hard and rough.
With a grunt, he lifts me up by the thighs, hooking them around his waist until my dick is pressed up against his hard stomach. He's not quite strong enough to keep me up long, but he turns us, slamming me back against the brick again, and presses in. My thighs are spread so wide it burns, and I can feel his dick pushing, rubbing up against my balls, so hard and hot that it must hurt.
He blocks most of the cold air with his body, but I shiver anyway, thinking about how even though we're on a deserted dock, there's plenty of people who could just walk past, and he doesn't fucking care, they're practically not even on his radar for how intent his focus is on me.
"Come on then, what do you want from me?" he asks, smearing kisses across my jaw line and down my throat. His chin is covered with at least two days worth of beard growth, and scratches against my skin, leaving stubble burns that make me shudder. I throw my head back hard enough to knock into the wall when he fastens his mouth over my pulse high on my neck, sucking and biting and licking. I've still got the mark he'd left me before, bruised so deep it feels like it'll never fade away.
I let out a long groan that trails off into something embarrassingly like a whimper, and wrap my legs around his waist, hooking my ankles together behind his back. One of my sneakers feels like it's about to slip off my foot, but fuck that, because I have much more important things to take care of.
It's so hot I can't breathe, just gasping uselessly at the frigid air that seers my lungs with every intake. His hands are wrapped around my thighs, so high up I can feel the brush of his fingers against my balls, tight and tense and rubbing hard against my jeans. One rubs along the seam, right where my hole is, and it's so fucking good. The way he twists his hips into mine, corkscrewing and pushing up against me like he'd be fucking me so hard, so deep, if it weren't for the layers of clothing between us, makes me tremble and writhe in his arms, frantic and feverish.
"Prove to me," I whisper into his ear - I don't even know if he can understand me for how hard I'm panting, how very distracted he is. "Prove to me you're fucking human, too."
He turns his head to capture my lips again and fucks his tongue into my mouth, rough and desperate, sloppy and hot and wet and nice, and I stiffen, so wound up and wired that it doesn't even take another minute before I'm coming in my pants, slicking up the fabric of my boxers and moaning loud into his mouth. I can't even kiss back, it's running through me so hot, just let him fuck me into oblivion with his hips and his mouth and his hands.
His face is flushed pink, and he comes with a groan, dropping his head to my shoulder limply as he jerks and twitches against me, still wrapped up all around me.
"Hell," he says with a chuckle, "It is always a dramatic ride with you, isn't? Fucking roller coaster." He presses a kiss to the juncture of my neck and shoulder, wet and gentle. His hands slide up from my thighs to wrap around my lower back, and he steps away from the wall to let me down.
My legs don't unfurl easily, cramped up with tension, and don't hold my weight well even with my feet planted firmly on the ground. I'm damp and sticky. cold and exhilarated, and laughing breathless into his neck, where it's warm and smells soft and heady, like good cologne. His cheek rubs against mine, and I realise my arms are wrapped tight around him, holding him against me so he can't pull away - not that he's making a move to.
His big hands, wide palms weathered and rough, smooth up and down my ribs, warming my skin through my jacket.
"Will you go back to the warehouse?" he asks me, and I shake my head in response, brushing his cheek with my hair - which has been growing at an alarming rate, thicker and more unruly every day. "Can I give you a ride somewhere?"
"Can you take me home?"
"'Course. back to your apartment? Are you sure you don't want to go anywhere else?"
"No." I'd much rather go somewhere else actually, but that's not an option at the moment.
"Come on, then," he says, and pulls me along, his hands sliding into mine, and tugs me over to a silver car, which isn't anything more than a blur to me. It's chilly inside, the seats cold and stiff, but he turns on the heater full blast, with the vents on low, until the air starts to warm.
"How did you find me anyway," I finally think to ask. I look over, like I can see him beyond my short range of vision, but the indistinct shape doesn't tell me anything as he starts to pull away from the docks and back into the city proper.
"I came over on the ferry - had business on the other side of the bay. Saw someone there on the docks, just random happenstance that it turned out to be you, really," he says with a shrug. "Will you tell me what happened at the warehouse? Something got you spooked - I don't think I've ever seen you like that, not since you first came to Vincent."
"It's nothing." I turn my face away, look out the window at the shapes of the city flashing past. The sun is setting already, out over the city, and the whole world is lit up like it's on fire, glowing with a burning red. "just -"
"What?" he asks, too quickly, and I look at him sharply.
"The, the junkies, the ones in the basement - are they mutants?"
There's a long pause, in which we just drive, long enough that I surprised when he actually answers. "I suppose. There are definitely changes that happen, in their brains - some physically. I met a woman a few weeks ago whose body was so altered she absorbed all the heat in the area around her - she could freeze your skin with a touch, I almost got frostbite from her. So yes, in a way, I suppose they are. Mutations. Anomalies - you know they don't all react that way." He pauses again. "You didn't."
I won't respond to that. "Does that make them not human?"
"I wouldn't know about that."
"But you must've thought about it."
"Oh, certainly. But it doesn't matter what I think."
"I wanna know."
We stop at a red light and he looks at me, but I can't read his face. I just watch him, his form, keeping my face blank, trying to not even register curiosity.
"It's just money," he says finally, turning away again, watching the road as we pull up to Arthur's apartment.
I sit for a moment too long, still watching him until he reaches over me and opens my door. The cold air is a shocking blast in the warmth of the car's interior, and I shudder.
I get out.
I close the car door. I walk up to the building and unlock it with Arthur's keys. I climb four flights of stairs. My pants are stiff and still damp, and they rub against me uncomfortably with every step.
The gun in my pocket hangs heavy, tipping me off balance.
Arthur's apartment is freezing - I forgot I left the windows open the night before. I close the windows and work on cleaning out the fridge, even though I can't feel my fingers.
I take the trash out, leaving it on the curb for the garbage men to take in the morning. The smell's mostly gone from the apartment, aired out with the winter wind.
I swipe a pair of Arthur's boxers, and clean myself up, wiping all traces of that man's touch from my body.
But I can still feel the way his fingers burn on my skin.
-
previous / next
LowLives
Word Count: 3949
i forgot what happened in the last chapter for a while. i've been writing in little bursts during my downtime in the theatre. >< but here there is more sex! and some more angst. this chapter's a bit weird, it was kind of difficult to write, but i hope it all works out...
ETA: i had a terrible time with the shift key this chapter O.o
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Wednesday, Carlo hands me a gun.
He holds it out like it's nothing in his hand or in his mind, and I take it. It's heavier in my hand than I anticipate and my arm drops slightly, but he looks at me expectantly, and I pretend that I'm not surprised by the weight.
I'm on watch, because of my leg, just gimpy enough to make it a bad idea for me to go off fighting junkies and drug dealers, which has sort of become standard operating procedure for me.
It's God awful boring for the first two hours, walking in circles around the perimeter, with my breath misting in front of my face in the cold air. It's been getting steadily colder every day, sunlight growing thinner and bleaker as winter comes on. I make faces to myself to keep entertained, and so I don't lose feeling in my nose.
Spencer's the only other one on watch at this point, and we take turns, trading off every twenty minutes in the freezing outside and the moderately warmer inside. There are space heaters in the middle of the warehouse, which helps.
The warehouse is almost entirely empty, most of the guys off doing other business, save the junkies in the basement - Vincent says that we're staying in this particular location until they're all sold off - so there's no one watching me, which means I can spend equal amounts of time watching the streets as I do sweeping my eyes over the interior of the warehouse, looking for any dark corners or hiding places.
There's a staircase, old and rusting metal, tucked into the back corner behind a column and a stack of old crates, that leads to what must have been an office, when the warehouse was still in commission. The staircase is rickety going up, creaking and squeaking under my feet, but it holds solid to the wall all the way up. Inside the office there's empty file cabinets, as well as a giant black chalk board hung up on the back wall, and a giant glass window that's partially boarded up, partially covered with the thin blacks plastic sheets of trash bags, taped at the corners with dull silver duct tape. The window is virtually unnoticeable from the ground level - I'd never even noticed it was there until today - a fact which I tuck into the back of my mind as I descend again, heading back outside through the heavy metal side door.
As I pass by the garage door, there's a noise, a rattle and a clang out of the silence that makes me jump, from over by the entrance to the basement. I step back in, holding the gun awkwardly with both hands.
It's just Spencer - I can recognise his back and the heels of his boots as he heads down the basement steps, the door clanging behind him.
I huff out a breath, and drop the gun, wandering over to Vincent's rolling desk chair. As the boss of us all, his chair is the nicest, with the rest of them crappy metal folding ones. There's nothing else to do, so I sit down, resting my leg, and roll myself back over to my watch position, hooking a space heater and dragging it over with me.
Then I hear something that sounds like a scream.
I push off in the rolling chair, scooting past the desks and tables, rattling over old nails.
"Spencer?"
There's no other noise, but I stand anyway, walking over to the door and knock. It rings loudly on the metal, hollow and echoing, but Spencer doesn't respond.
The padlock's undone, just hanging from the lock already opened, so I fumble for the safety on the gun, and shove it into the back of my pants, hooking the grip over the waistband so it doesn't accidentally fall down into the leg of my jeans. Which would be awkward.
I grip the door with both hands and heave, pulling it back and open. The lights are on downstairs, harsh white reflecting off the stones of the steps like they're wet with something.
And I hear it again - and it's definitely a scream, but it's muffled, like through cloth. I creep down the stairs until I can see past the floor level. I can't see everything clearly, but what I can see is a man, one of the junkies, arching up in pain on his cot, eyes squeezed tight, and Spencer standing over him with his back to me.
He's got a syringe in his hand, the needle inserted deep into the veins of the junkie, the plunger already depressed. He's just pulling it out, sitting back with his arms crossed, and then he's just watching.
Watching as this man writhes in pain, not even fully conscious - he's not hooked up to the IV bag, the tube is dangling free, dragging over the floor. He probably doesn't know what's going on, what it is that's causing him pain, in the disorientation that it leaves.
I'm stumbling back up the stairs, about to be sick, when I hear Spencer laugh behind me, chuckling to himself.
Fucker.
I'm running, fleeing, and then I'm out at the marina, almost a mile away from the warehouse, before I even consider that I should have stopped - should have stopped him, helped them, they're still fucking human, and I should have fucking stayed, but I didn't, I fucking ran away, and what the hell kind of person does that make me?
I slow to a walk, my knee telling me in no uncertain terms that that was a bad idea, and head out past the last buildings, onto the docks where the wood planking has warped out of alignment with constant damp and wet.
There's a bench along the waterfront, cold metal facing out over the bay. This section of the marina is empty, too old to bother fixing it up, and I hate my life right now, that everywhere I go is the same - sick and old and tired and broken. I sink down onto the bench and rest my head in my hands.
The gun digs into the small of my back, insistent and painful. I pull it out, and look at its shining barrel, and wonder what it would taste like.
I shake my head as my hands shake, shoving the gun as deeply into the pocket of my jacket as I can. Then I reach into the inside, disgusted with myself and people in fucking general, and take the bag of po out of my pocket. I don't bother checking the size, just scoop some out and snort it, feeling it flare and burn in my sinuses, making me sniff and cough. Then I collapse backwards, head hanging over the back of the bench, and wait for the world to go away.
It burns up before my closed eyes with a swirl of fire and colour and heat, making me gasp out loud and arch my back against my clothes and my skin and the air, too hot and heavy, heady against my nerves. I feel raw and exposed, flayed open for the world to see, but also so far away, raised up above it like a God, until I'm flying over these assholes and free of laws and expectations and life.
The ecstasy is only tempered when I feel the drip of wetness on my upper lip. I don't open my eyes, just flit my tongue out to taste, and its salty and coppery, full of iron. My nose is bleeding. It happens, when you snort, damages the fragile capillaries in the thin tissues of your nose - but it's not even enough to bring me down save for how strong the taste is when I swallow, coating down the back of my throat, thick and hot.
My contacts burn in my eyes and I don't think twice about swiping my fingers over the lids, pulling the lenses from my eyes and dropping them between the cracks of the wood, to splash silently into the bay.
The world blurs, and glows, lit all over with auras that shimmer out of focus, beautiful and ethereal, and I can't see whoever it is that comes up behind me.
"Hello, Arthur. Fancy meeting you here," he says, with that accent of his, and it's sad that I can recognise his voice and I still don't know his name.
"You're back early," I say, and lean forward, wiping my nose on my hand. It's a long red blur down the side of my wrist.
"Job went surprisingly well. You're good luck, it seems."
"So, what about you?" I ask. I'm talking like we're continuing a conversation, but I know it's happened only in my mind.
"Well, what about me?" He comes around, and says despairingly, "Oh, Arthur. What've you done to yourself?"
"You're human, aren't you?"
"Yes, that's the general consensus." He's humouring me. I can hear it in his voice and I know I'd be able to see it on his face. I have a sudden, irrational urge to see his face again.
"And them? Do you think they're human?"
"Who?"
"The junkies." I look down, at the white blurs that are my hands, so cold and bare that they don't look human. "The ones in the basement."
"Arthur," he says, and he makes me sick.
I tell him that.
"You all do, I'm so fucking sick of you all and your fucking human standards." I stand, get in his face until I can see the green-grey of his eyes, clear this close up, and then I shove him away until he's tottering at the edge of the dock. His coat is thick and wool under my fingers and all I want to do is bury myself in it, bury myself in heat and humanity, because all I see is horror. "Well what about them? They're fucking human too, can't treat them like fucking animals." I'm beating his chest by the end of it, landing solid punches that make him grunt, until he captures my hands in his and drags me close enough that I can't get the leverage to tear away.
"What have you seen, Arthur? Tell me what you saw." There's an urgency to his voice that strangely calms me, like there's someone else out there who knows what this kind of terror is - terrified of myself and of people in general and of life and what the fuck, I really am out of it.
"Fuck you." I want to get away, so far away.
"Come on, Arthur, tell me."
"Fuck you! Get your fucking hands off me. Get off!"
He's got his hands like steel vices gripped around my wrists, and no matter how hard I twist I can't get out of it. He lets up when my skin starts to heat, rubbed raw already, and instead shifts his grip so he's holding me around the middle, my arms pressed into my sides, trapped between us.
"Oh, Arthur," he says again and I want to tell him that's not my name. That's not who I am, this is not who I am - someone who runs away from people in need, someone who does mind-altering drugs to get away from reality. I'm not like that. He pulls out a crinkling pack of tissues, and dabs lightly at the smear of blood on my upper lip.
When it's mostly clean, the blood flow slowed to a vague seep from the torn tissue, he rubs his thumb over my chapped lips, smoothing the cracked skin.
I want to fuck him again. I want to feel his heat against me, his skin, to learn everything about him, learn his hot spots, and the noises he'll make when I kiss him softly. I want to know his name.
But Arthur knows his name.
I step away, calmly, and he lets me. I wrap my hands around his coat lapels, and drag him with me as I walk backwards.
I can't see his face, but he follows easily after a few tugs. When my back hits brick I turn us around, shoving him against it, and press myself all along his front. We breathe together, I can feel his chest rising and falling against mine, his warmth seeping through my clothes, and then he leans in and takes my mouth.
It's soft. Too soft, just the barest brush of lips. We separate, and all I can see is his full, wet mouth.
I lean back in, harder, pressing my tongue in between his lips, pushing against his teeth until he lets me in. His mouth is hot, steaming in the cold air, and wet, his tongue moving slickly against mine, running along the underside, and pulling it farther into his mouth until it feels like I could fall all the way inside him.
My hands rise to cup his face, raking through his short hair, fingernails digging in to the skin at the back of his neck. He shivers, and moans, desperate and hungry, rutting against me as I thrust my tongue into his mouth again, and again. He's got his arms around me, pulling at the small of my back until my hips are slotted next to his, the layers of fabric between us nothing in the face of the heat and arousal that's pulsing in my blood, sending a fire through me that has nothing to do with the drugs.
"Arthur," he whispers as he pulls away again. "Arthur, what did you see?"
I shake my head. "Don't. I - I fucking can't."
"Is it going to be like this every time?" he asks, and there's something that's not just curiosity in his voice.
"Like what?" I ask, sticking my tongue out to lick at the seam of his lips.
He breathes a sigh, and lets his tongue meet mine on his lower lip for just a moment, and then when he speaks again it's the softest of movements against my mouth. "like you, high and angry, all the time?"
"Well that depends, I guess."
"On what?"
"Would you kiss me if I didn't make you?"
I see the flash of his white teeth a moment before he swoops back in, kissing me breathless, forcing his tongue into my mouth and licking at my gums, hands diving icy and eager up under my shirt to spread across the skin of my sides, low down by my hips. With his arms around me all of a sudden I'm burning hot again, sweltering in my jacket. His lips are full and wet when I bite them, sinking my teeth into the thick muscle and pulling a short gasp of a breath out of his lungs.
His hands slide down over the fabric of my jeans and he works them into my back pockets, curling them around my ass, squeezing and massaging. They're so fucking close to where I want them - need them, it sends sparks up my spine, making my hips work harder against his. His hands flex with it, pulling me in with a rhythm that makes my knees waver as his dick pushes against mine, rubbing up against my zipper hard and rough.
With a grunt, he lifts me up by the thighs, hooking them around his waist until my dick is pressed up against his hard stomach. He's not quite strong enough to keep me up long, but he turns us, slamming me back against the brick again, and presses in. My thighs are spread so wide it burns, and I can feel his dick pushing, rubbing up against my balls, so hard and hot that it must hurt.
He blocks most of the cold air with his body, but I shiver anyway, thinking about how even though we're on a deserted dock, there's plenty of people who could just walk past, and he doesn't fucking care, they're practically not even on his radar for how intent his focus is on me.
"Come on then, what do you want from me?" he asks, smearing kisses across my jaw line and down my throat. His chin is covered with at least two days worth of beard growth, and scratches against my skin, leaving stubble burns that make me shudder. I throw my head back hard enough to knock into the wall when he fastens his mouth over my pulse high on my neck, sucking and biting and licking. I've still got the mark he'd left me before, bruised so deep it feels like it'll never fade away.
I let out a long groan that trails off into something embarrassingly like a whimper, and wrap my legs around his waist, hooking my ankles together behind his back. One of my sneakers feels like it's about to slip off my foot, but fuck that, because I have much more important things to take care of.
It's so hot I can't breathe, just gasping uselessly at the frigid air that seers my lungs with every intake. His hands are wrapped around my thighs, so high up I can feel the brush of his fingers against my balls, tight and tense and rubbing hard against my jeans. One rubs along the seam, right where my hole is, and it's so fucking good. The way he twists his hips into mine, corkscrewing and pushing up against me like he'd be fucking me so hard, so deep, if it weren't for the layers of clothing between us, makes me tremble and writhe in his arms, frantic and feverish.
"Prove to me," I whisper into his ear - I don't even know if he can understand me for how hard I'm panting, how very distracted he is. "Prove to me you're fucking human, too."
He turns his head to capture my lips again and fucks his tongue into my mouth, rough and desperate, sloppy and hot and wet and nice, and I stiffen, so wound up and wired that it doesn't even take another minute before I'm coming in my pants, slicking up the fabric of my boxers and moaning loud into his mouth. I can't even kiss back, it's running through me so hot, just let him fuck me into oblivion with his hips and his mouth and his hands.
His face is flushed pink, and he comes with a groan, dropping his head to my shoulder limply as he jerks and twitches against me, still wrapped up all around me.
"Hell," he says with a chuckle, "It is always a dramatic ride with you, isn't? Fucking roller coaster." He presses a kiss to the juncture of my neck and shoulder, wet and gentle. His hands slide up from my thighs to wrap around my lower back, and he steps away from the wall to let me down.
My legs don't unfurl easily, cramped up with tension, and don't hold my weight well even with my feet planted firmly on the ground. I'm damp and sticky. cold and exhilarated, and laughing breathless into his neck, where it's warm and smells soft and heady, like good cologne. His cheek rubs against mine, and I realise my arms are wrapped tight around him, holding him against me so he can't pull away - not that he's making a move to.
His big hands, wide palms weathered and rough, smooth up and down my ribs, warming my skin through my jacket.
"Will you go back to the warehouse?" he asks me, and I shake my head in response, brushing his cheek with my hair - which has been growing at an alarming rate, thicker and more unruly every day. "Can I give you a ride somewhere?"
"Can you take me home?"
"'Course. back to your apartment? Are you sure you don't want to go anywhere else?"
"No." I'd much rather go somewhere else actually, but that's not an option at the moment.
"Come on, then," he says, and pulls me along, his hands sliding into mine, and tugs me over to a silver car, which isn't anything more than a blur to me. It's chilly inside, the seats cold and stiff, but he turns on the heater full blast, with the vents on low, until the air starts to warm.
"How did you find me anyway," I finally think to ask. I look over, like I can see him beyond my short range of vision, but the indistinct shape doesn't tell me anything as he starts to pull away from the docks and back into the city proper.
"I came over on the ferry - had business on the other side of the bay. Saw someone there on the docks, just random happenstance that it turned out to be you, really," he says with a shrug. "Will you tell me what happened at the warehouse? Something got you spooked - I don't think I've ever seen you like that, not since you first came to Vincent."
"It's nothing." I turn my face away, look out the window at the shapes of the city flashing past. The sun is setting already, out over the city, and the whole world is lit up like it's on fire, glowing with a burning red. "just -"
"What?" he asks, too quickly, and I look at him sharply.
"The, the junkies, the ones in the basement - are they mutants?"
There's a long pause, in which we just drive, long enough that I surprised when he actually answers. "I suppose. There are definitely changes that happen, in their brains - some physically. I met a woman a few weeks ago whose body was so altered she absorbed all the heat in the area around her - she could freeze your skin with a touch, I almost got frostbite from her. So yes, in a way, I suppose they are. Mutations. Anomalies - you know they don't all react that way." He pauses again. "You didn't."
I won't respond to that. "Does that make them not human?"
"I wouldn't know about that."
"But you must've thought about it."
"Oh, certainly. But it doesn't matter what I think."
"I wanna know."
We stop at a red light and he looks at me, but I can't read his face. I just watch him, his form, keeping my face blank, trying to not even register curiosity.
"It's just money," he says finally, turning away again, watching the road as we pull up to Arthur's apartment.
I sit for a moment too long, still watching him until he reaches over me and opens my door. The cold air is a shocking blast in the warmth of the car's interior, and I shudder.
I get out.
I close the car door. I walk up to the building and unlock it with Arthur's keys. I climb four flights of stairs. My pants are stiff and still damp, and they rub against me uncomfortably with every step.
The gun in my pocket hangs heavy, tipping me off balance.
Arthur's apartment is freezing - I forgot I left the windows open the night before. I close the windows and work on cleaning out the fridge, even though I can't feel my fingers.
I take the trash out, leaving it on the curb for the garbage men to take in the morning. The smell's mostly gone from the apartment, aired out with the winter wind.
I swipe a pair of Arthur's boxers, and clean myself up, wiping all traces of that man's touch from my body.
But I can still feel the way his fingers burn on my skin.
-
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