#caltex

He knew it wasn’t healthy.

Their bodies pull each other close, a mess of hands and limbs, heat and desperation. Urgently grasping, holding, refusing to let go. He’s driven by the need to feel and the need to touch. To take what’s his. To be taken. His partner responds in kind, firm grip pulling him closer.

Hands glide up his side, trailing stings and dull throbs he knows will bruise. Lips and teeth clash, desperate for something, anything. Fingers curl through dark locks, tugging and tugging and burning. He nips at the expanse of flesh before him, scraping his teeth against the other’s skin and leaving splotches of purple and red. Hatred and passion and disgust and loathing well up, and he bites that little bit harder, grips that little bit firmer. The hands in his hair tug sharply, and he knows the loathing is reciprocated.

The pair wrestle for control, for some semblance of stability, for validation and for dominance. Their words are scathing and their hands are rough. The fingers on his jaw are demanding, scornful the breath mingling with his own. He responds with defiant fingers and smug lips and lilting, teasing words.

He knew it wasn’t love.

Words fly, aiming to injure and overwhelm and torment. Malicious names and mischievous brags strive for a reaction. Searching for that anger, hostility, hate. Seeking to excuse his own feelings; seeking to incite them in the other. The craving to be loathed by another as deeply as he loathes himself. The yearning to spit the poison his partner thirsts for, desires deep in his bones and twisted, thorny heart. The hunger for validation, for proof that neither is alone in their inherent apathy.

The salty flesh beneath his lips makes him sick. The arrogant smirk, the condescending words and the patronizing touches make him want to reach out and squeeze, destroy, mutilate until the too much too muchtoomuch goes away. Until he feels nothing. He knows his haughty simper, his supercilious demeanour and disdainful tone makes the other feel the same. He does it for a reason; to incite that self-righteous indignation he needs, feels, too strongly too strongly in the other man. To make the other man feel how he feels. To stop him from suffering alone.

He knew he couldn't afford to care.

When the aggression and hatred slows, when the fire subsides, when bruising touches turn soft and empty and listless, he thrives. He craves those moments of empty nothing. He craves those moments of idle tolerance, of futility. The moments where they lie, cuddling for nothing more than body heat, skin sticky with sweat but blood cold as ice, hearts firm as stone, eyes vacant as mirrors. The moments of unburdened peace, of fatigue that temporarily quashes the fires of detestation and hatred and loathing and too much too much too much. The moments where he feels blissfully empty. Where he feels nothing.

And he’ll regret it, when the numbness abates, when he feels again. When his inadequate heart is swamped with too-much-too-strong-too-full passion. When he feels so strongly about his own beliefs, his mouth opens of its own volition. When it talks and talks and says nothing of substance to people who don’t care. When he can feel their hatred and mocking incredulity and lack of interest.

But he can’t regret it for long. Not when another remark of “Shut up California.” interrupts his earnest streams of consciousness. Not when another joke is made at his expense. Not when fire burns within him and smoke streams from his lips and the skin bubbles on his back and he burns. Not when the states see this, and they laugh and laugh and leave.

Not when they always leave him.

So he returns to his only constant, to the mutual hatred he feels towards Texas and drowns drowns drowns until he feels nothing once more. And then he repeats, and repeats, and repeats hoping in vain, praying to a god he doesn’t believe in that he’ll stop feeling so empty while still feeling everything.