#insect bites

He couldn’t break anything around Lorelai. The only time he’d tried that, she’d starting packing her bags, and they’d had to pay the hotel staff off for the damages. It was the closest she’d come to leaving him, right then and there. Nonstarter. 

She noticed it this time, but she mistook it for withdrawal. He was seldom down long enough for the lapse to start really hurting, but she could still see the signs when they came. She ran her fingers over his temple in an attempt to be soothing. It only made the burning worse. He bit into his own hand just to feel the pressure.

Another club. Better maintained on the inside than the others had been. It was a pity they had set it out in the middle of the swamp like that. The whole city was built on top of the wetland. The air burned with heat even at the darkest time of night. Lorelai had bought a pointy pair of pink sunglasses and a snapback that said LIFE’S A BEACH. She lost both of them an hour after they had entered the club and soon after he lost sight of her all together.

Thank god.

He knew so intuitively what he had to do. His knocked his shoulder straight into the boy’s side as he passed. The drink spilled and his hands didn’t leave his pockets. The club was crowded and his movement was subtle enough for the whole thing to look accidental, if you weren’t paying close attention.

“Say excuse me, asshole.” He heard the boy hiss out from behind him. Paris had to wipe the smirk off his face before he turned around.

“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” It melted into a glare. He didn’t need to force the irritation into his voice; it was right beneath the surface. He only needed to reshape it. It did not de-escalate from there.

The kid swung on him. Paris slipped to his right. He knew it was unfair. He was — for once — the more sober one in the exchange. His reflexes were overtrained. It didn’t matter. He’d been given an opening. He swung back. 

He pulled the punch, the same way he would have if it had been Delta. Not trying to kill him. Not even enough to seriously injure him. Just to do it. He got a few hits in just like that. There wasn’t any adrenaline in his body. All that existed was release.

It was a very funny feeling when the other party fought back.

The fight had to be mutual; he knew that ahead of time. He wasn’t crazy enough to just beat a stranger unprovoked. Still, the resistance he received came as a surprise. He wasn’t used to encountering it while in this headspace. In spite of what he’d planned, it caught him a bit off guard. Not enough to change the outcome, just kind of diminishing what he could get out of it. It shifted back into a normal fight just as soon as the kid had recovered. He was so fucking sick of those. The way they were matched up was decent, though. He gave more than he got, enough that he was momentarily sated. 

The bouncers got in the way before he could finish, though. They dragged both of them outside, practically throwing them onto the pavement. Paris landed on his feet, twisting out of their grasp. The other boy landed roughly on his side. All too familiar. The boy sat up, trying to struggle to his feet. The only reason Paris didn’t immediately kick him back down was because he was aware on some level how hard the concrete must be. No broken bones. That was a rule.

He shook his wrists out, ready to draw even more out of the encounter if he could afford it. He rolled his eyes as the club’s doors opened again and the boys’ friends came to the rescue. God fucking dammit.

He was right — the concrete was hard. They were all so fucking drunk and uncoordinated, but there were a lot of them. It was like fighting a moving wall. He wasn’t ready to be on the defensive. Not while he was like this. The most Delta had ever given him in return were cat scratches — sometimes electric shocks, if he was really freaking out. He’d barely even feel them until afterwards. Here, the sharpness of the pain took him out of the mood instantly. The one it forced him into was even stranger. For some reason, he started laughing. One of their fists caught the side of his face. Another half dragged him backwards, making him lose his balance even from a sitting position. He got the preternatural instinct to protect his skull. He felt the hard edge of someone’s boot collide with his interlaced knuckles just as soon as he did so. He’d just barely spared himself the head trauma.

“Not the head, dumbass,” One of them slurred. 

“Yeah, dumbass.” Paris was still laughing hysterically. Someone kicked him in the stomach, cutting him off mid-breath.

“He’s fucking insane. Like, mental sickness.” The boy he’d initially started the fight with had started to walk away. “Leave him alone.”

“Pussy.” Paris coughed. He flinched as one of the shapes above him moved, but another hit didn’t come. They withdrew.

He sat up slowly. His knuckles were bloodied, though he did not know if it was his or not. He glanced back at the club doors. The bouncers had been watching the whole thing. They shook their head. No re-entry. As if.

When he was back on his feet, his vision immediately got spotty. He thought it was another insect hallucination, but the movement was much more rapid. Like ink blots. The only reason he bothered to distinguish was because the hallucinations did not usually take up his entire field of vision. They didn’t threaten to take him down again. He blinked in and out of wakefulness and somehow did not stop walking until he heard the sound of waves crashing. Nobody could see the ocean at this time of night, only the darkness that held it. The beachgrass was right off the road. He took about five steps into the sand before he collapsed.

==========

It was the that heat first woke him up. The sun had only just risen over the ocean and already it was unbearable. All his skin felt dry and course. He rose his head up slowly from the dune and immediately regretted it. He hadn’t felt the soreness until he moved; it did not go away again once he stilled.

He blinked. A small caiman laid within the reeds a few feet from his face. They watched each other for some time. Little insects crawled rapid and clumsy throughout the pale grass and into the sand. There was an itch in his arms and his calves. He knew he’d spent the better part of the night getting eaten alive. 

He crawled up through the sand. The pavement was too hot to touch; he forced himself to rise. He shook the sand out from his shirt and hair. The sweat that was forming on his skin moistened it, coating him in a gross, muddy substance. The gnats buzzed incessantly. His mouth felt like cotton. Hell on fucking earth.

He trudged the path back to the motel room. He was lucky the spatial memory was still holding up, foggy as all his other facilities had become. Otherwise he’d have been totally lost. Lorelai…wasn’t as good with directions. Hopefully she’d made it back okay.

When he entered into the room, Lorelai was sitting up in the bed in just her camisole. The blanket was crumpled up around her. She looked up expectantly as he walked in. She wasn’t alone.

“Oh my god, you’re still alive.” Lorelai gawked. “Did you get kicked out of the club?”

“No,” he lied.

“So you just left me there alone for no reason?” She asked.

“Yes.”

“Very cool of you. I was worried.”

“Clearly not that fucking worried.” His eyes traced over the girl sitting cross-legged on the bed beside her. She was wearing Lorelai’s hoodie, which was technically his hoodie. She was also hitting his vape. She didn’t take any visible offense.

“I should probably head out, anyway.” The girl unfolded her legs and stepped into her slides. She gave Paris a quick once-over as she stood up. “You’d better take some Nexgard. The sand fleas burrow.”

He could immediately feel the itch, even knowing it was psychosomatic. She slipped the door open.

“You’ll call me?” Lorelai called after her hopefully. The girl winked without smiling and disappeared behind the closing door.

Paris held one open hand up in the direction she had left in. The universal — one-handed — what-the-fuck? gesture.

“What?” Lorelai’s tone was defensive. “You’re not my boyfriend.”

“We are on the damn lam and you’re inviting people back to our room?”

“Relax. She’s rebel. She was at Occupy.”

He could’ve guessed. Any breed of deviant sexuality typically signaled rebel allegiance. God knew Empire wouldn’t have them. That didn’t necessarily put his mind at ease, but he’d have preferred to be caught by one of the rebel groups over Nezu if it really came down to it. Lorelai held up a large envelope from the nightstand.

“She asked if I could drop this off for her at Coda since we’re already headed North.” She smiled a little.

“Fuck no.”

“Well, it’s my ship and I’m driving, so we’re probably gonna. But we can talk about it.” 

There was definitely an edge to her voice. He didn’t answer, knowing there was nothing he could do but irritate her further. He moved past her.

“You should shower,” she suggested helpfully.

“I’m gonna shower.” 

……..

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@catnykit @snakebites-and-ink @vivulapom @scoundrelwithboba @whatwhump

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