(no subject)

[wingborne]

“My name is John Egbert and I don’t usually do this,” he tried to say, but the boy kissed him with twisted tongue and gliding fingers beneath his jaw.

Under every touch, he was losing, losing, losing. The boy with the shade kissed him to shut him up, mouth wet and sloppy, fingers running down the sharp plane of his shoulder blades and the dip of his back, lips and hands and legs tangled on ghost sheets and John cried out with a strange warble because every time the boy grazed him with the long bony fingers because he felt himself breaking and mending underneath his skin and blood and bones.

“I don’t,” he tried to say again, but his words were lost to the creaking bed and the dark light surrounding his room, ghastly glow of his alarm clock showing the boy’s bony chest, strange and flat and hollow, rising to press against the outline of his ribs. He tried to reach out, touch him, place the flat of his palm against the broadness of his chest, but the boy slid away from the too intimate touch and took away the warmth.

“Please believe me,” he begged to the prying eyes of the movie stars on his littered posters and the feeling of his father’s overturned picture underneath his suitcase and to the boy who knelt between his legs and wrapped a condom on him like worship. It was cold and he shivered, but the cold scrape of the boy’s shades against his inner thighs was colder. Falling into pieces, he was falling into pieces, warm tongue slithering up his cock mended him, glued him back together with saliva and fingers taut against his hip and he tried not to wiggle underneath the touch but his immaturity and naivety screamed with every loose attempt to fist the blond tufts of hair and he cried out in shame for not knowing the rules of sex and in pleasure for knowing too much.

“Please, please, please,” but his prayers peeled away into begging and he lived alone in an apartment but he was a mess, thrusting too hard into the boy’s mouth and stroking the side of his face too much but the boy dug his nails into his hips and left crescent marks. The marrow of his bones were just a litany of eulogies, the boy ran up his knuckles against his sides, and he suddenly loved the boy who knelt between his legs more than anything else in the world, and he sobbed because he was lost.

He woke up on an empty bed and cold sheets, twisted underneath his stomach, and he was missing his watch.



The boy sitting at the bar wore his watch and a casual suit, with his bright red tie flitting out beneath his blazer like a young snake’s tongue. He was talking to another man when John touched his shoulder, and when the boy turned around, the man grew flustered and left back to melding dance floor.

“Hi,” John said, and he wiped his sweating palms against his pants. He hovered over the boy because he couldn’t read his expression, the shades perpetually in place, fingers dipped over the edge of his drink.

“Sit down,” the boy finally said, turning away again. “I’m not giving back your watch.”

“Oh! No, you can keep it, it’s not about that,” and John touched him again on the wrist as he sat down on the rubbery seats. The boy raised an eyebrow and shrugged, and inside his chest, John felt puzzle pieces falling into place.

“What do you want?” The boy leaned against the bar, elbows askew.

“I, wow. I just wanted to, um, say that I don’t—usually do what I did—”

“You wouldn’t shut your mouth about it,” the boy muttered into his drink. “Spoilers, hotshot, even if you’re ripped like fuck, your next one night stand doesn’t like a partner talking more than sucking. Shit, that’s some good advice, solid gold right there, can’t find that sort of ore in that temple of dooms. Write that down. I should take another watch from you.”

“I only had one watch,” John said, feeling his jacket for a pen, “I don’t usually wear watches, but it was a family heirloom. It’s from my father.”

“I don’t want to know, Jesus fuck, you never stop talking. Heirlooms are just things that mean a bunch of dead people owned them, don’t get all sentimental, start retelling your grandmother’s knitting stories and waving around her cozies, wear them for underwear, I heart grandmamma all over them.” The boy slumped further into the bar, and John noticed he was always slumping, a tall gangly boy who slumped to be shorter, and he felt tenderness touch him. The boy wrapped his hand around his wrist, underneath the clinking watch, and rubbed uneasily.

“Sorry.”

“So you’re new here, I get it,” the boy said loudly, “But holy fuck, it’s common sense that you don’t come up and talk to last night’s lay when there’s next night’s bonanza right in front of your eyes. Last night’s cargo goods are shipping out, time to rope in some hot young skipper ship. There’s some fine rumps up in here, bounce coins off those asses, not even like the shitty pennies stuck at the bottom of your wallet that you’re never gonna use, like laundry quarters, just bounce them.”

“I wasn’t looking for—sex.” John grabbed a napkin from the stack, turning over the fine ridges beneath his hands. “Last night, I wasn’t looking for that. I’m not even into guys.”

“You’re so far in the closet, you should be seeing Narnia. Or at least some mothballs from yesteryears.”

“No, I’m not…”

“Sure. You’re not.” The boy sipped on his drink. “You just happened to wander into the biggest gay bar in town by accident.”

“They said they had a good deal on martinis,” John said in a small voice, remembering the black chalkboard hanging outside the throbbing bar when his feet were tired and his hands were shaking. “It’s my first time at a bar, and I thought this one was nice.”

The boy rubbed underneath his wrist again, and then laughed. He had a nice laugh, and John eagerly watched him, to see his mouth suddenly crinkle up and something deeply human come from his mouth, warm and bright and deep.

“Jesus. Holy shit, wow. So you’re just stupid, then. Jesus.”

“No, well. I guess I’m kinda into guys.” He clicked his pen a few times. “I forgot what you said, what you told me to—write down, can you say it again?”

The boy always had a slight pause before he laughed, and he laughed again into his drink, and he reached over and kissed John with a hand lightly grasping around his ear, knees jostling together, a soft kiss with intangible meanings. He kissed him softly, one hand still anchored around his drink like a lifeline to the world, and John felt too warm when the boy finally pulled back.

“