Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (Chapter 37)
Title: Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (37/?)
Author: Rose Rose682
Rating: nc-17
Pairing: Jack Barakat/Alex Gaskarth
Summary: I’d lost count of how many had gaped at my arm with shocked expressions and open mouths, curious people unsure of whether or not they wanted to know the answer asking, “Did you cut your arm?”
Disclaimer: I own neither ATL or any other real person mentioned in this fic, though I wish for it constantly.
Masterpost.
Some people experienced everything through their cameras, and I’d never gotten that at all. I believed that instances worth recording were best saved mentally, important images fixing themselves in my mind, recalled in instants of despondency and reminiscence.
The problem with memory, though, is that it does decline. It obscures with passing seconds, gets distorted, confused, is unreliable.
Pictures, however, static color images with distinct lines, are changeless and can be seen again as often as someone desires; they secure the exact aesthetics of a moment.
But the emotions, the movement of the air, how sounds pushed or pounded on the ear drums, another person’s bones or splashing rain against one’s skin can’t be captured in emotionless pictures. So photographs, while meaningful and incredible, were also inadequate.
It was because of that that I liked to focus all my senses on current moments and trust that my consciousness would save it if anything worth remembering happened. Missing out on certain parts of experiences to take photos of them didn’t seem justified to me. Some probably crappy pictures for all my non-optical senses wasn’t quite an even exchange.
So I rarely pulled out my phone during concerts, fixating on the beat drum thrumming against my ribs rather than adding another glowing screen to the crowd. It was better to have a genuine memory of my favorite songs being played live - all the constant amazement that I experienced when great band members recreated exactly what I’d listened to so many times while driving, cleaning, living - than a video of it to smile at later. There was YouTube for that. I didn’t have to record my life with vibrating hands and a falsifying lens.
And there wasn’t even much that was worth recalling. Being a person was fucking hard and was often undesirable. I get up, immediately wish that it was the end of the day and I was going to sleep again, go to school, learn boring information that I’d soon forget in all the classes I passed through, go home, endure homework while texting so that I didn’t get overpowered by the pointlessness of everything, have diner, drink water, shower, sleep, do everything compulsory to function properly as a human being besides anything that made me happy. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Infinite, irritating. Fucking life.
Of course, though, those mindless times that bled together were infused with the countdowns on my phone reaching zero, concerts and surprisingly great movies and gulping laughter on vibrant days. And those, those where what I was reluctant to forget.
Because I didn’t take pictures of Tom Delonge singing Reckless Abandon when I saw Blink live, so maybe eventually I’d forget how the lyrics rubbed against my abused throat when I shouted them back at Blink, how the neon lights had flashed insanely during the chorus, the push of bodies against my back as everyone collectively surged closer to the stage, the band, the source of the guitar riffs and drum beats and essential vocals and music that we lived off of. The idea that that memory might somebody be erased or condensed to clear space for what my I eventually regarded as more essential was alarming.
I could be forty-five and commuting to the cubicle job that I’d likely end up with and hear Sugar We’re Going Down on the radio, a song that practically everyone could sing along to, and fail to do exactly that. Those ‘what ifs’, those possibilities of what actually truly mattered falling from my brain pained me.
I disagreed with the notion that forgetting something invalidated having ever done it, but I hated that thought, that my teenage years might seem exclusively crappy when I recalled them in the future, all the fantastic times that justified everything else getting covered by the amounts of monotony in my memory. Fuck, that was disturbing.
My walls were papered with reminders of what I loved and ecstatic hours to force me to realize that Earth was a fucking amazing place and I’d gotten lots worth living for from it, and maybe the concert tickets, posters, funny tags, pictures of crowds I’d been in, and calendars with days ticked off were enough. Maybe seeing those repeatedly would permanently ink the events they were linked to into my brain; maybe forgetting wasn’t something to panic about.
But maybe not. I so despised everything indefinite.
Maybe this image would eventually become so distorted and unclear that it’d be purged from my mind, the real picture of Alex besides me, air toying with his hair, black jeans on the edge of the docks, angular elbows propping him up, eyelashes on his cheeks that blocked out the sun highlighting his skin expiring from my memory. This was something that the details of shouldn’t be forgotten.
I’d texted Alex that forcing any more science facts into my head would give me aneurism, and he suggested that we go to the docks and take in the beaming sunshine instead. I had Sunday to complete my responsibilities; Saturday shouldn’t be misused inside, annoyed and alone.
Thirty minutes of noisily closing textbooks and buttoning and lacing up my clothes later, my boyfriend was sliding into my car and tuning the radio to some Justin Timberlake song, demanding that I ‘shut up and sing along’ when I expressed discontent at the sugar-pop choice. He argued that music didn’t have to be incredibly meaningful if it was fun, and I, a lover of Blink’s idiotic and hilarious songs, was obligated to agree.
Alex’s arms moved back as his t-shirt pressed flat on the wooden dock, eyes being overloaded with light when he opened them to look at me, making serious eye contact as he said, “We should stay here forever. Fuck school, let’s become sailors.”
“That might not be the best idea,” I replied, mimicking his position and adjusting the bones of my shoulders so that they didn’t fit painfully into a gap. “Like, I’d probably suddenly develop sever seasickness and then we’d both get fired ‘cause I’d always be too nauseous to do anything and you’d have to be a good boyfriend and be constantly trying to make me feel better.”
“But we could totally pull off the uniforms,” Alex said, words directed towards the sky, eyes once again closed and fingers linked together underneath his head.
“Pull them off of each other? I’d be ok with that.”
Alex returned my grin with an amused smile, saying, “Even better. See? We should totally do it. It’d be great.”
“I don’t know, babe. What if I dropped my phone in the ocean? Do those ships even have electricity? I’d fucking lose it without music.” I objected, Alex shaking his head as he pulled his legs up onto the dock and turned his body to face me, blond stripe of hair flicking in and out of his eyes.
“Ok, we could definitely get hired to one of those fancy ships that has their own wifi, so that wouldn’t be an issue. And even if we didn’t, we could befriend all the other sailors and make music with cans and spoons and crap like they did in the sixteenth century or whatever.”
He paused, considering his options then gesturing widely with his hands as he prompted, “Imagine a bunch of sailors singing Castaway with barrels for drums. You can’t deny how awesome that’d be.”
“Or everyone spontaneously singing Calm Before The Storm when the captain announces that a storm’s coming,” I contributed, pushing myself up and crossing my legs, Converse tucking in next to my jeans. “Maybe we should just make a pop-punk sailing musical instead of actually becoming sailors ourselves.”
“Maybe,” Alex conceded, reaching out and dropping a hand down the center of my chest, fingers bumping over the buttons of my gray shirt.
His hands stopped at the end of my shirt, popping the last button in and out of its hole and tugging on the edge. His lips turned down in a mock-pout, sun-shocked eyes looking up at me through his disarranged hair. “But then I wouldn’t get to see you in a sailor uniform.”
“What if we refrained from becoming technology-deprived sailors, made a kick-ass pop-punk ocean musical, and I borrowed a costume and wore it for you?” I proposed, quirking an eyebrow.
“That’d be acceptable,” Alex said, lowering his hand to run it over my thigh and stop at my knee.
I tilted closer to him, touch slipping over his sides and fingers curling through his belt loops, pulling his hips towards me. “If I do that, though, I want you to be an shirtless extra, raising the sails or tossing out water or something physically exerting. You know, to make it even.”
“Yeah?” he teased, smiling with smug, drooping eyes. Alex’s hand pushed back up my thigh, thumb digging into the inside of my leg. “I guess I could do that. Like, if you really wanted me to.”
“Oh, I do,” I grinned, Alex’s touch tingling on the back of my neck as we moved in simultaneously, lips connecting.
The kiss was delicate and adoring despite our suggestive words, lips sliding together evenly. Alex’s hands were light on my excited skin.
I inhaled a happy breath when we pulled apart, smiling back at my boyfriend’s exultant expression before flickering my eyes to the sky. The color was dripping out of it, blue turning to nebulous pink and gray, setting sun sparkling on the monochrome water.
Hours had flitted past us, the day dying, so I glossed my hands over Alex’s hips and took them away from him, pointing to the graying sky and saying, “We should go.”
“Are you only saying that so you can get me into your bed?” Alex asked, hair dropping into his eyes as he inclined his head with the question.
I linked our fingers together, tugging his off of my leg and asking, “What if I am?”
“Let’s go.”
Laughing, I rose to my feet and pulled Alex up with me, already moving in the general direction of my car - I couldn’t remember exactly where it was - when Alex stopped suddenly, our connected arms becoming a straight line as he said, “Wait, I wanna-“
He cut himself off and jerked me back towards him, releasing my hand to get his phone out and open the camera app. Alex faced my curiosity, imploring with a compelling grin, “C’mon, babe, take a picture with me?”
And even though I wasn’t a fan of digitalizing instants in inanimate images, I slung an arm around Alex’s shoulders with no opposition and smiled widely, our heads blocking the majority of the docks and their vanishing colors.
Because, yes, the photo Alex took didn’t accurately duplicate the glitter of the sun beside his pupil or how his lips quirked up more on one side than the other, didn’t at all include the feeling of Alex’s muscles moving beneath my arm or the lively air tingling down my throat as I breathed it in, couldn’t depict any of the emotions that having Alex with me inspired, but it was something, and with times like that, those times that should be elatedly recalled years later, something is better than nothing.
There not being much worth remembering in life made what was worth remembering even more imperative to never forget. I got through despondent times with recollections of better ones, and adding to the positive hours I could remember during those that were negative was so fucking vital.
“Send me that picture?”
“Of course.”
___
Alex’s walls were largely undecorated, all void gray with almost nothing taped to them. There were a couple music posters with the corners stuck down, edges curling away from the plaster, but one of the only truly noticeable things on his walls was wide piece of white paper, checkered with curved black lines, alternating boxes colored in to expose the block letters of his name.
I was rarely in Alex’s house since he avoided being in the same residence as his parents as much as possible, so I’d been somewhat surprised when he said that we should relocate from the docks to here, a space that was currently devoid of any people besides me and Alex. Nonetheless, I hadn’t objected, happy to be totally alone with him and more closely see what was in his room.
When I’d been there previously, I was always distracted by my boyfriend, so actually getting to observe the odd optical rectangle I’d only seen through Alex’s hair or partially blocked by his neck was a nice change. The lines were distinct, never deviating from the intended direction, and precise. Every black cube was covered completely, the result of what must have been painful perfectionism.
I’d made something comparable to it in eighth grade art and was imagining Alex, four years younger, attentively placing Sharpie lines on the paper when my current Alex joined me, putting the cup of water he’d been getting down wherever and slipping his icy fingers under my shirt, rubbing them over my hips.
His touch simultaneously froze and enlivened my skin, my eyes moving off the abstract picture before me as my head fell back against his shoulder, Alex’s lips buzzing against my neck as he said, “See, this is much better, ‘cause I love the docks and the water and everything, but I can’t kiss you properly in public, and that’s really fucking annoying when you’re being so fucking hot.”
“Oh, really?” I said, releasing a breath as he kissed the junction of my neck and shoulder and continuing, “So irritating that have to get your hands on me and risk giving me frostbite as soon as we’re alone?”
“Yes,” Alex murmured, seemingly indifferent to the conversation, pushing his hands further up my chest before moving them to tug down my collar, undoing the top buttons.
He bit at my pulse point, making a jolt spark through my blood as he declared, “Definitely.”
And then my back was against the gray wall, shirt drooping open as Alex unbuttoned it more and he kissed me genuinely, my disordered hair mixing with the optical image behind me. I ran my hands up under his shirt, feeling his electric skin and spine, up to his protruding shoulder blades, t-shirt material collecting on my wrists.
I was usually insecure about my body and the scars that disfigured it, white lines across my bones and pink slashes dashed over my skin, continuously tugging my shirt over my hips and covering myself with oversized hoodies. Alex, conversely, didn’t constantly obscure himself, stretching out whenever we were alone, his clothes pulling back and exposing all that they could. And he obviously desired for me to do the same, touching my chest and back, feeling what he couldn’t see.
Ultimately, you’ve got to decide what matters to you and dispose of everything else that aggravates you, ignore your inane concerns until they stop existing. I did not possess enough unused mental space to give any fucks about my boyfriend seeing my body and its imperfections, so I rolled my shirt off my shoulders when he got it open completely, curling my fingers around the end of his, knuckles contacting his back and its moving muscles.
I’d always been curious about this, how I’d react when someone got my clothes off, touched the elastic of my boxers and the scars I so dedicatedly concealed, equaled the expanses of skin I exposed. And that got ticked off my list of questions when I drove Alex’s shirt up until he slipped it off and then laced my fingers through his hair and pulled him completely against me, Alex’s teeth dragging over my lip.
His hands squeezed between the wall and my back, moving me away from it and turning us around, my hair twirling over the black-and-white image it had been stuck against. The Converse I still had on caught on each other, overly-lengthy laces sticking between the sole and polished wood, and I tripped on nothing, falling backwards onto Alex’s mattress, Alex going down with me, grinning at me with an entertained eyes.
I was divided between being embarrassed and turned on, but Alex didn’t laugh, flitting his smiling lips over the underside of my jaw, assumingly not put off by my stupid stumbling.
There were many things in my existence to be embarrassed about, accidents and failures to blush at, deficiencies to ignore, but if I’d learned anything that year, it was how to deal with being a joke and make fun of myself, play crap off like it didn’t irritate me and rationalize away silly things that shouldn’t mean something to me but did. And at lots of times in life, there are two options: go for something you desire despite obstruction from possible rejection or repercussions, or take no chances and be perpetually unhappy.
Usually, the good outcome from going for something is much more good than the bad one is bad. Either you casually mention that you’d like a pricey ticket a concert two hours away and end up going and fucking living or are momentarily disappointed because you can’t go, or you never say anything and are saddened by pictures of the tour. Either you put a problematic poem in a collection that your teacher reads and get an A plus or a call slip from guidance, or you recycle those disturbing lines and are eternally curious about what would have happened if they’d been read.
Either you do it, whatever it is, and get rewarded greatly or punished inconsiderably, or you pass through forever with endless ‘what ifs’.
I absolutely hated ‘what ifs’, so I rolled my hips up when Alex slotted a thigh between my legs instead of panicking, the ‘fuck it’ attitude that had been infecting me then extending to the extent of my relationship with Alex.
Because, seriously, fuck it. The bad possibility will happen or it won’t, and avoiding everything that could have any negative repercussion would make for a monotonous and meaningless life that I was not inclined to live. Everything’s a game, and it’s better to regret losing than not playing.
And, fuck, the chances you take so often justify themselves, producing fucking elated occurrences like the present, in which my nails were dragging over Alex’s spine as his fingers dug into the spaces in between my ribs and my sides, hands fixed between my stomach and his chest.
It could be alarming, I supposed, having Alex on top of me, grinding on me, tongue licking around my mouth, since I was inexperienced with practically every part of relationships. But, though Alex was more truly confident than me, he was as unexposed to this as I was, having had more scars to conceal than I did since before I’d ever imagined the disturbing uses of razors.
I wanted Alex to like me, obviously, but I also wanted him to like me, who I genuinely was, not the person that I polished and purified and faked being around everyone else with all my lies and falsifications. So I trusted him totally, having no reason not to, gave him all my secrets, ridiculous and momentous, and revealed all my scars to him, mental and physical. We’d been all or nothing since that text I’d received divulging that he’d seen my cut-up hips; he knew my most imperative secret, so I might as well give him the others, go all in.
And I did, breathing in gasps when our lips disconnected and I slipped my hands into his pants, onto his ass, hips ticking up as his rocked down, Alex groaning next to my ear, “Fuck, babe.”
I exhaled some inexplicable noise, head turning sideways into the pillow and neck extending back, body moving closer to Alex’s, skin buzzing for more. Alex moaned again and my eyes closed, heart beat throbbing along my nerves.
His hands ran up the center of my chest, along my collarbones, and curled into my hair, pulling it off of my forehead and pulling. My eyes reopened, seeing Alex’s dilated pupils before he lowered his head to bite at my pulse, and then my muscles were jittering, hands squeezing his ass, ecstasy jolting through my veins as I came in my boxers.
Alex exhaled, “Ah, fuck,” movements reducing and irregular breaths blowing out against my neck. The elbows he’d had propped up on the mattress gave out, sliding sideways, the remainder of his weight resting on me, our bones rubbing against each other.
My heart returned to pumping blood out at a regulated speed, my lungs to properly sucking in oxygen, and Alex’s air floated over my throat more undeviatingly. “Jack?”
I hummed, eyes blinking open once more and adjusting to the changing light, Alex saying, “Your hands are still in my pants.”
“Oh.” Alex raised his head off my shoulder to smile at me, dropping another kiss to my lips and rolling off of me when I removed my hands from his ass.
I lazily considered the ceiling for a second before deciding that moving was unavoidable and getting to my feet. Alex was stretched out over his covers, hands linked behind his head and increasing the disorder of his hair, thin legs extended in straight lines, lips red and skin flushed, lively eyes following me.
I had an instant of pride and possessiveness when I kicked off my still-on shoes, extolling in the fact that Alex was mine, was choosing to be with me.
“I’m tired,” Alex said, my belt buckle clanking against the wood when I got my jeans off. “And hungry.”
“We should go to Steak N Shake,” I replied, having an impulsive day.
“We should,” Alex agreed. I took what seemed to be clean boxers out of his dresser, flashing my eyes at Alex over my shoulder, seeing him watching me closely with a smug smile. Saying another mental ‘fuck it’, I took off my sticky underwear and replaced it with Alex’s clean ones.
“You should wear clothes less often,” Alex decided, and I rolled my eyes, going directly against that by putting on the pajama pants that were on edge of the dresser.
“That was just rude,” Alex complained, sitting up on the side of his mattress, pouting at me. Ruling the importance of eating over that of faking annoyance at me, he said, “Really, though, let’s go get food.”
“Do I have to put on a shirt?” I asked, tossing him another pair of boxers when he undid the button of his jeans and tugged on the zipper.
“Sadly, yes.”
“Darn.”
Alex, having a much better idea of where all of his clothes were than I did, got completely dressed in the time it took me to get a t-shirt that was loose enough that putting it on didn’t irritate me. Doing up the laces on my Converse, I considered Alex through the blond section of my hair, him flicking caramel locks out of his eyes and questioning, “How do I look?”
Gray sweat pants rode low on his hips, an oversized sweatshirt covering his angular bones and scarred skin, blond and caramel stripes of his hair mixed together bizarrely.
“Amazing,” I said truly, getting up and relocating the contents of my jean’s pockets to the plaid pants I had on.
Alex grinned widely at me and laced our fingers together, exiting his room, and I added another image to the select list of those that I’d like to have infinitely impressed into my mind. Fuck, how indescribably incredible what’s worth remembering really is.
Author: Rose Rose682
Rating: nc-17
Pairing: Jack Barakat/Alex Gaskarth
Summary: I’d lost count of how many had gaped at my arm with shocked expressions and open mouths, curious people unsure of whether or not they wanted to know the answer asking, “Did you cut your arm?”
Disclaimer: I own neither ATL or any other real person mentioned in this fic, though I wish for it constantly.
Masterpost.
Some people experienced everything through their cameras, and I’d never gotten that at all. I believed that instances worth recording were best saved mentally, important images fixing themselves in my mind, recalled in instants of despondency and reminiscence.
The problem with memory, though, is that it does decline. It obscures with passing seconds, gets distorted, confused, is unreliable.
Pictures, however, static color images with distinct lines, are changeless and can be seen again as often as someone desires; they secure the exact aesthetics of a moment.
But the emotions, the movement of the air, how sounds pushed or pounded on the ear drums, another person’s bones or splashing rain against one’s skin can’t be captured in emotionless pictures. So photographs, while meaningful and incredible, were also inadequate.
It was because of that that I liked to focus all my senses on current moments and trust that my consciousness would save it if anything worth remembering happened. Missing out on certain parts of experiences to take photos of them didn’t seem justified to me. Some probably crappy pictures for all my non-optical senses wasn’t quite an even exchange.
So I rarely pulled out my phone during concerts, fixating on the beat drum thrumming against my ribs rather than adding another glowing screen to the crowd. It was better to have a genuine memory of my favorite songs being played live - all the constant amazement that I experienced when great band members recreated exactly what I’d listened to so many times while driving, cleaning, living - than a video of it to smile at later. There was YouTube for that. I didn’t have to record my life with vibrating hands and a falsifying lens.
And there wasn’t even much that was worth recalling. Being a person was fucking hard and was often undesirable. I get up, immediately wish that it was the end of the day and I was going to sleep again, go to school, learn boring information that I’d soon forget in all the classes I passed through, go home, endure homework while texting so that I didn’t get overpowered by the pointlessness of everything, have diner, drink water, shower, sleep, do everything compulsory to function properly as a human being besides anything that made me happy. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Infinite, irritating. Fucking life.
Of course, though, those mindless times that bled together were infused with the countdowns on my phone reaching zero, concerts and surprisingly great movies and gulping laughter on vibrant days. And those, those where what I was reluctant to forget.
Because I didn’t take pictures of Tom Delonge singing Reckless Abandon when I saw Blink live, so maybe eventually I’d forget how the lyrics rubbed against my abused throat when I shouted them back at Blink, how the neon lights had flashed insanely during the chorus, the push of bodies against my back as everyone collectively surged closer to the stage, the band, the source of the guitar riffs and drum beats and essential vocals and music that we lived off of. The idea that that memory might somebody be erased or condensed to clear space for what my I eventually regarded as more essential was alarming.
I could be forty-five and commuting to the cubicle job that I’d likely end up with and hear Sugar We’re Going Down on the radio, a song that practically everyone could sing along to, and fail to do exactly that. Those ‘what ifs’, those possibilities of what actually truly mattered falling from my brain pained me.
I disagreed with the notion that forgetting something invalidated having ever done it, but I hated that thought, that my teenage years might seem exclusively crappy when I recalled them in the future, all the fantastic times that justified everything else getting covered by the amounts of monotony in my memory. Fuck, that was disturbing.
My walls were papered with reminders of what I loved and ecstatic hours to force me to realize that Earth was a fucking amazing place and I’d gotten lots worth living for from it, and maybe the concert tickets, posters, funny tags, pictures of crowds I’d been in, and calendars with days ticked off were enough. Maybe seeing those repeatedly would permanently ink the events they were linked to into my brain; maybe forgetting wasn’t something to panic about.
But maybe not. I so despised everything indefinite.
Maybe this image would eventually become so distorted and unclear that it’d be purged from my mind, the real picture of Alex besides me, air toying with his hair, black jeans on the edge of the docks, angular elbows propping him up, eyelashes on his cheeks that blocked out the sun highlighting his skin expiring from my memory. This was something that the details of shouldn’t be forgotten.
I’d texted Alex that forcing any more science facts into my head would give me aneurism, and he suggested that we go to the docks and take in the beaming sunshine instead. I had Sunday to complete my responsibilities; Saturday shouldn’t be misused inside, annoyed and alone.
Thirty minutes of noisily closing textbooks and buttoning and lacing up my clothes later, my boyfriend was sliding into my car and tuning the radio to some Justin Timberlake song, demanding that I ‘shut up and sing along’ when I expressed discontent at the sugar-pop choice. He argued that music didn’t have to be incredibly meaningful if it was fun, and I, a lover of Blink’s idiotic and hilarious songs, was obligated to agree.
Alex’s arms moved back as his t-shirt pressed flat on the wooden dock, eyes being overloaded with light when he opened them to look at me, making serious eye contact as he said, “We should stay here forever. Fuck school, let’s become sailors.”
“That might not be the best idea,” I replied, mimicking his position and adjusting the bones of my shoulders so that they didn’t fit painfully into a gap. “Like, I’d probably suddenly develop sever seasickness and then we’d both get fired ‘cause I’d always be too nauseous to do anything and you’d have to be a good boyfriend and be constantly trying to make me feel better.”
“But we could totally pull off the uniforms,” Alex said, words directed towards the sky, eyes once again closed and fingers linked together underneath his head.
“Pull them off of each other? I’d be ok with that.”
Alex returned my grin with an amused smile, saying, “Even better. See? We should totally do it. It’d be great.”
“I don’t know, babe. What if I dropped my phone in the ocean? Do those ships even have electricity? I’d fucking lose it without music.” I objected, Alex shaking his head as he pulled his legs up onto the dock and turned his body to face me, blond stripe of hair flicking in and out of his eyes.
“Ok, we could definitely get hired to one of those fancy ships that has their own wifi, so that wouldn’t be an issue. And even if we didn’t, we could befriend all the other sailors and make music with cans and spoons and crap like they did in the sixteenth century or whatever.”
He paused, considering his options then gesturing widely with his hands as he prompted, “Imagine a bunch of sailors singing Castaway with barrels for drums. You can’t deny how awesome that’d be.”
“Or everyone spontaneously singing Calm Before The Storm when the captain announces that a storm’s coming,” I contributed, pushing myself up and crossing my legs, Converse tucking in next to my jeans. “Maybe we should just make a pop-punk sailing musical instead of actually becoming sailors ourselves.”
“Maybe,” Alex conceded, reaching out and dropping a hand down the center of my chest, fingers bumping over the buttons of my gray shirt.
His hands stopped at the end of my shirt, popping the last button in and out of its hole and tugging on the edge. His lips turned down in a mock-pout, sun-shocked eyes looking up at me through his disarranged hair. “But then I wouldn’t get to see you in a sailor uniform.”
“What if we refrained from becoming technology-deprived sailors, made a kick-ass pop-punk ocean musical, and I borrowed a costume and wore it for you?” I proposed, quirking an eyebrow.
“That’d be acceptable,” Alex said, lowering his hand to run it over my thigh and stop at my knee.
I tilted closer to him, touch slipping over his sides and fingers curling through his belt loops, pulling his hips towards me. “If I do that, though, I want you to be an shirtless extra, raising the sails or tossing out water or something physically exerting. You know, to make it even.”
“Yeah?” he teased, smiling with smug, drooping eyes. Alex’s hand pushed back up my thigh, thumb digging into the inside of my leg. “I guess I could do that. Like, if you really wanted me to.”
“Oh, I do,” I grinned, Alex’s touch tingling on the back of my neck as we moved in simultaneously, lips connecting.
The kiss was delicate and adoring despite our suggestive words, lips sliding together evenly. Alex’s hands were light on my excited skin.
I inhaled a happy breath when we pulled apart, smiling back at my boyfriend’s exultant expression before flickering my eyes to the sky. The color was dripping out of it, blue turning to nebulous pink and gray, setting sun sparkling on the monochrome water.
Hours had flitted past us, the day dying, so I glossed my hands over Alex’s hips and took them away from him, pointing to the graying sky and saying, “We should go.”
“Are you only saying that so you can get me into your bed?” Alex asked, hair dropping into his eyes as he inclined his head with the question.
I linked our fingers together, tugging his off of my leg and asking, “What if I am?”
“Let’s go.”
Laughing, I rose to my feet and pulled Alex up with me, already moving in the general direction of my car - I couldn’t remember exactly where it was - when Alex stopped suddenly, our connected arms becoming a straight line as he said, “Wait, I wanna-“
He cut himself off and jerked me back towards him, releasing my hand to get his phone out and open the camera app. Alex faced my curiosity, imploring with a compelling grin, “C’mon, babe, take a picture with me?”
And even though I wasn’t a fan of digitalizing instants in inanimate images, I slung an arm around Alex’s shoulders with no opposition and smiled widely, our heads blocking the majority of the docks and their vanishing colors.
Because, yes, the photo Alex took didn’t accurately duplicate the glitter of the sun beside his pupil or how his lips quirked up more on one side than the other, didn’t at all include the feeling of Alex’s muscles moving beneath my arm or the lively air tingling down my throat as I breathed it in, couldn’t depict any of the emotions that having Alex with me inspired, but it was something, and with times like that, those times that should be elatedly recalled years later, something is better than nothing.
There not being much worth remembering in life made what was worth remembering even more imperative to never forget. I got through despondent times with recollections of better ones, and adding to the positive hours I could remember during those that were negative was so fucking vital.
“Send me that picture?”
“Of course.”
___
Alex’s walls were largely undecorated, all void gray with almost nothing taped to them. There were a couple music posters with the corners stuck down, edges curling away from the plaster, but one of the only truly noticeable things on his walls was wide piece of white paper, checkered with curved black lines, alternating boxes colored in to expose the block letters of his name.
I was rarely in Alex’s house since he avoided being in the same residence as his parents as much as possible, so I’d been somewhat surprised when he said that we should relocate from the docks to here, a space that was currently devoid of any people besides me and Alex. Nonetheless, I hadn’t objected, happy to be totally alone with him and more closely see what was in his room.
When I’d been there previously, I was always distracted by my boyfriend, so actually getting to observe the odd optical rectangle I’d only seen through Alex’s hair or partially blocked by his neck was a nice change. The lines were distinct, never deviating from the intended direction, and precise. Every black cube was covered completely, the result of what must have been painful perfectionism.
I’d made something comparable to it in eighth grade art and was imagining Alex, four years younger, attentively placing Sharpie lines on the paper when my current Alex joined me, putting the cup of water he’d been getting down wherever and slipping his icy fingers under my shirt, rubbing them over my hips.
His touch simultaneously froze and enlivened my skin, my eyes moving off the abstract picture before me as my head fell back against his shoulder, Alex’s lips buzzing against my neck as he said, “See, this is much better, ‘cause I love the docks and the water and everything, but I can’t kiss you properly in public, and that’s really fucking annoying when you’re being so fucking hot.”
“Oh, really?” I said, releasing a breath as he kissed the junction of my neck and shoulder and continuing, “So irritating that have to get your hands on me and risk giving me frostbite as soon as we’re alone?”
“Yes,” Alex murmured, seemingly indifferent to the conversation, pushing his hands further up my chest before moving them to tug down my collar, undoing the top buttons.
He bit at my pulse point, making a jolt spark through my blood as he declared, “Definitely.”
And then my back was against the gray wall, shirt drooping open as Alex unbuttoned it more and he kissed me genuinely, my disordered hair mixing with the optical image behind me. I ran my hands up under his shirt, feeling his electric skin and spine, up to his protruding shoulder blades, t-shirt material collecting on my wrists.
I was usually insecure about my body and the scars that disfigured it, white lines across my bones and pink slashes dashed over my skin, continuously tugging my shirt over my hips and covering myself with oversized hoodies. Alex, conversely, didn’t constantly obscure himself, stretching out whenever we were alone, his clothes pulling back and exposing all that they could. And he obviously desired for me to do the same, touching my chest and back, feeling what he couldn’t see.
Ultimately, you’ve got to decide what matters to you and dispose of everything else that aggravates you, ignore your inane concerns until they stop existing. I did not possess enough unused mental space to give any fucks about my boyfriend seeing my body and its imperfections, so I rolled my shirt off my shoulders when he got it open completely, curling my fingers around the end of his, knuckles contacting his back and its moving muscles.
I’d always been curious about this, how I’d react when someone got my clothes off, touched the elastic of my boxers and the scars I so dedicatedly concealed, equaled the expanses of skin I exposed. And that got ticked off my list of questions when I drove Alex’s shirt up until he slipped it off and then laced my fingers through his hair and pulled him completely against me, Alex’s teeth dragging over my lip.
His hands squeezed between the wall and my back, moving me away from it and turning us around, my hair twirling over the black-and-white image it had been stuck against. The Converse I still had on caught on each other, overly-lengthy laces sticking between the sole and polished wood, and I tripped on nothing, falling backwards onto Alex’s mattress, Alex going down with me, grinning at me with an entertained eyes.
I was divided between being embarrassed and turned on, but Alex didn’t laugh, flitting his smiling lips over the underside of my jaw, assumingly not put off by my stupid stumbling.
There were many things in my existence to be embarrassed about, accidents and failures to blush at, deficiencies to ignore, but if I’d learned anything that year, it was how to deal with being a joke and make fun of myself, play crap off like it didn’t irritate me and rationalize away silly things that shouldn’t mean something to me but did. And at lots of times in life, there are two options: go for something you desire despite obstruction from possible rejection or repercussions, or take no chances and be perpetually unhappy.
Usually, the good outcome from going for something is much more good than the bad one is bad. Either you casually mention that you’d like a pricey ticket a concert two hours away and end up going and fucking living or are momentarily disappointed because you can’t go, or you never say anything and are saddened by pictures of the tour. Either you put a problematic poem in a collection that your teacher reads and get an A plus or a call slip from guidance, or you recycle those disturbing lines and are eternally curious about what would have happened if they’d been read.
Either you do it, whatever it is, and get rewarded greatly or punished inconsiderably, or you pass through forever with endless ‘what ifs’.
I absolutely hated ‘what ifs’, so I rolled my hips up when Alex slotted a thigh between my legs instead of panicking, the ‘fuck it’ attitude that had been infecting me then extending to the extent of my relationship with Alex.
Because, seriously, fuck it. The bad possibility will happen or it won’t, and avoiding everything that could have any negative repercussion would make for a monotonous and meaningless life that I was not inclined to live. Everything’s a game, and it’s better to regret losing than not playing.
And, fuck, the chances you take so often justify themselves, producing fucking elated occurrences like the present, in which my nails were dragging over Alex’s spine as his fingers dug into the spaces in between my ribs and my sides, hands fixed between my stomach and his chest.
It could be alarming, I supposed, having Alex on top of me, grinding on me, tongue licking around my mouth, since I was inexperienced with practically every part of relationships. But, though Alex was more truly confident than me, he was as unexposed to this as I was, having had more scars to conceal than I did since before I’d ever imagined the disturbing uses of razors.
I wanted Alex to like me, obviously, but I also wanted him to like me, who I genuinely was, not the person that I polished and purified and faked being around everyone else with all my lies and falsifications. So I trusted him totally, having no reason not to, gave him all my secrets, ridiculous and momentous, and revealed all my scars to him, mental and physical. We’d been all or nothing since that text I’d received divulging that he’d seen my cut-up hips; he knew my most imperative secret, so I might as well give him the others, go all in.
And I did, breathing in gasps when our lips disconnected and I slipped my hands into his pants, onto his ass, hips ticking up as his rocked down, Alex groaning next to my ear, “Fuck, babe.”
I exhaled some inexplicable noise, head turning sideways into the pillow and neck extending back, body moving closer to Alex’s, skin buzzing for more. Alex moaned again and my eyes closed, heart beat throbbing along my nerves.
His hands ran up the center of my chest, along my collarbones, and curled into my hair, pulling it off of my forehead and pulling. My eyes reopened, seeing Alex’s dilated pupils before he lowered his head to bite at my pulse, and then my muscles were jittering, hands squeezing his ass, ecstasy jolting through my veins as I came in my boxers.
Alex exhaled, “Ah, fuck,” movements reducing and irregular breaths blowing out against my neck. The elbows he’d had propped up on the mattress gave out, sliding sideways, the remainder of his weight resting on me, our bones rubbing against each other.
My heart returned to pumping blood out at a regulated speed, my lungs to properly sucking in oxygen, and Alex’s air floated over my throat more undeviatingly. “Jack?”
I hummed, eyes blinking open once more and adjusting to the changing light, Alex saying, “Your hands are still in my pants.”
“Oh.” Alex raised his head off my shoulder to smile at me, dropping another kiss to my lips and rolling off of me when I removed my hands from his ass.
I lazily considered the ceiling for a second before deciding that moving was unavoidable and getting to my feet. Alex was stretched out over his covers, hands linked behind his head and increasing the disorder of his hair, thin legs extended in straight lines, lips red and skin flushed, lively eyes following me.
I had an instant of pride and possessiveness when I kicked off my still-on shoes, extolling in the fact that Alex was mine, was choosing to be with me.
“I’m tired,” Alex said, my belt buckle clanking against the wood when I got my jeans off. “And hungry.”
“We should go to Steak N Shake,” I replied, having an impulsive day.
“We should,” Alex agreed. I took what seemed to be clean boxers out of his dresser, flashing my eyes at Alex over my shoulder, seeing him watching me closely with a smug smile. Saying another mental ‘fuck it’, I took off my sticky underwear and replaced it with Alex’s clean ones.
“You should wear clothes less often,” Alex decided, and I rolled my eyes, going directly against that by putting on the pajama pants that were on edge of the dresser.
“That was just rude,” Alex complained, sitting up on the side of his mattress, pouting at me. Ruling the importance of eating over that of faking annoyance at me, he said, “Really, though, let’s go get food.”
“Do I have to put on a shirt?” I asked, tossing him another pair of boxers when he undid the button of his jeans and tugged on the zipper.
“Sadly, yes.”
“Darn.”
Alex, having a much better idea of where all of his clothes were than I did, got completely dressed in the time it took me to get a t-shirt that was loose enough that putting it on didn’t irritate me. Doing up the laces on my Converse, I considered Alex through the blond section of my hair, him flicking caramel locks out of his eyes and questioning, “How do I look?”
Gray sweat pants rode low on his hips, an oversized sweatshirt covering his angular bones and scarred skin, blond and caramel stripes of his hair mixed together bizarrely.
“Amazing,” I said truly, getting up and relocating the contents of my jean’s pockets to the plaid pants I had on.
Alex grinned widely at me and laced our fingers together, exiting his room, and I added another image to the select list of those that I’d like to have infinitely impressed into my mind. Fuck, how indescribably incredible what’s worth remembering really is.