And The Heat's About To Break

[ifnotwinter†]

They met in a club.

Marc was flying high on a borrowed ID and four bottles of Sam Adams, a couple shots of cheap vodka, the music, the dancing, the heat. Bodies twined together on the dance-floor, pressed against each other in dark corners. He'd never been a dancer but here it didn't matter and he hurled himself into the rhythm like he was dancing with it and it alone, swayed to the gasping sweaty beat of a hundred young adults all moving together and let the music sweep him away.

He wanted it to last forever, knew that it wouldn't. It was already past late and Marc knew Sam would freak if he got home late and wasted (one of the two, he could usually handle) so he reluctantly made his way through the writhing throng until he was spat out in an alley along the main street entrance. He checked his phone, decided he was fucked no matter what, and elected to grab a quick smoke before heading home.

He'd barely lit up when the other boy slipped into place next to him. "Can I get a light?" There was a cig hanging from lips twisted into a wry smile, a spray of freckles across a long nose, shaggy blonde hair feathered at the tips. When Marc sparked the lighter and the boy leaned in, cupping his hand against the light breeze, Marc could see that his eyes were a deep blue and something twisted up deep inside his core, something he thought he'd stopped feeling.

He turned away and took a long drag, hoping that the flickering dim of streetlights would cover up the heat in his cheeks. The boy didn't leave. Instead he leaned up against the brick with one leg bent and the foot resting flat against the wall. He blew a plume of smoke and Marc couldn't, couldn't stop his eyes from tracing the line of his Adam's apple down to the smooth jut of collarbone straining at thin fabric, couldn't stop his heart from speeding up and his gut clenching in a mix of disgust, shame, and--

And--

Later, he decided it was because the other boy didn't say anything. If he'd said something, if he'd asked, if he'd used a stupid pickup line, it would have been okay because Marc would have never, ever -- but he didn't. He just stood there smoking until Marc crushed the butt of his cigarette against the wall and went to step away. Then the other boy was moving, too fast for Marc's alcohol-soaked brain and he didn't have time to react before his lips were crushed in a bruising kiss.

After that it came in waves. He remembered being pinned back against the brick, a knee between his legs and denim rubbing on denim at his groin and being suddenly, painfully hard. He remembered fumbling kisses and a soft throaty laugh against his ear oh honey, are you new? He remembered scrambling to get his fly undone and then wet heat, underwear down around his knees head back eyes squeezed shut so that it could be a girl, it could be a girl. Flyaway blond hair in the sodium lights. Blue eyes. Lips. Tongue. A crashing wave of feeling that left his knees weak and his breath gone. And Marc remembered after: the boy spitting over his shoulder and the way his heart pounded, nausea starting to coil in his belly. The boy undoing his own fly, his cock -- Jesus, his cock -- in hand, winking with a ladder of silver barbells.

He didn't remember what happened after that; the next memory that swam up from the murky depth was puking in the corner of the bus stop shelter. Marc heaved up beer and bile that felt like thin glass splinters until there was nothing left inside but a wild heat that climbed through him like a forest fire and set him alight so that the only thing that he could do was straighten up and put his fist into the bus station's Plexiglass side.

Sam was pissed when he got home. He slammed a bag of frozen peas down on the counter next to Marc but didn't sit, just paced awkwardly in the tiny kitchenette while Marc tried to flex his bruised and swollen knuckles. "If you goddamn beat on someone," he said finally, and Marc said I didn't, I didn't even, it was a fucking bus stop-- and Sam yelled "You think that fucking matters?" And it hurt, it hurt, and it did exactly nothing for the coiling anger still coursing through him. He clenched his fist under the bag of peas and felt lightning-sparks of pain rush all the way up his forearm; it helped. A little.

"You can't fuck this up," Sam said finally, and sank down into a chair. He scraped a hand across his face, pinched the bridge of his nose. "That was the deal, Marc, Jesus. You can't fuck this up. Not if you want to stay."

Marc knew. He knew, he did, which is why he muttered an apology instead of an explanation and went to bed and woke up hungover and with his hand throbbing, a hot ache he almost welcomed for how it kept him from being able to think of anything else. Sam was already at work but he'd left scrambled eggs in the pan like maybe a peace offering or maybe he just didn't want to do the dishes. Either way, Marc ate them.

He must have been drunk as hell, he reasoned, or maybe he got a roofie meant for some chick. It didn't mean anything. The old anger bubbled together with the eggs and the remnants of last night's beer in his gut, made his stomach hurt. He told himself he felt sick because fuckin' faggots, throwing themselves at anyone that moves. He told himself it was because fucking queers, catching me out like that. He told himself it was because if I'd been sober, fuck, what I'd have done to him...

He told himself he felt better, and maybe even did. He dreamt about it for the next three nights and woke up shaking with a hot mess between his thighs, ran his boxers under the cold water of the sink. It didn't have to mean anything. It didn't have to mean anything at all.

The next time it happened he was just drunk enough to be the one to make the first move, just sober enough to stop himself when the other boy was arching up under him against the cool metal of someone's shitty Honda Civic. He pulled away, stumbled back swiping at lips that were kissing a moment ago and Jesus, Jesus fuck what was wrong with him? The anger swept back, a deep and gnawing heat at the pit of his belly that made his fists clench and his heart speed up but it was different, somehow. And then he--

There was a hand down his pants and his tongue tasted like nicotine. The other boy was smiling. His hand moved and Marc's hips bucked forwards of their own volition and he choked on something like a groan, like a cry. Fumbled at his belt but it was already undone. There was a slender hand wrapped around him and it was all too much and Marc's teeth tore a ragged hole in his bottom lip that filled his mouth with copper. Heat rose up and swept over him, pulled him under. In the back of his mind he was screaming because this was wrong, this was wrong but as he breathed out curses into the cool night air all he could think of was that it didn't matter.

After that it happened again a couple of weeks later, and then it happened again a week after that and then again, and then again. Marc tried not to touch him even though he knew the other boy wanted him to because that would be (gay) too far. They came together for five or ten fumbling minutes in back alleys and against cars, fall apart again. Marc went home and avoided Sam's gaze and the world continued on. Everything was normal. This, whatever it was, this didn't matter. It didn't matter.

Except for how it started to. How each time didn't seem quite the same, how each time the afterglow lasted a little less, the feeling of release a little shorter, the banked heat of coals deep inside flaring up a little more quickly. He wanted something to break, wanted to break something just for the sake of seeing it broken. Wanted more. And maybe that was why when the other boy pinned him up against the side of the dumpster with his pants around his knees he didn't fight, didn't struggle, just sank his teeth into his wrist and waited for the heat to sweep up and over him.

But it didn't.

And it hurt.

And he wanted to hurt it back.

It wasn't so much a fight as a beating. Marc couldn't remember the last time he felt like this (that was a lie but--), white-heat surging through him roaring up inside like it was eating its way out in huge toothy mouthfuls. His fists cracked against the other boy's face. Something crunched. Blood spattered warm onto his skin. He was pulling up his pants with one hand and lashing out with the other. The boy cried out, hands to his face. Half-fell to the pavement. Marc kicked out hard against a soft stomach and the boy's back arched, he choked, vomited. Lay half-curled into a ball up against the dumpster crying, sobbing, and Marc almost couldn't breathe with the disgust and fury still screaming inside of him. He couldn't keep looking. Couldn't stay any longer.

Instead, he ran.