#madehiswar

he turns his head to watch frank enter one of the many living rooms in the dust-covered mansion. 

marc puts a paint-stained finger to his mouth, presses it against the drowsy smile. shhh. 

time for words comes later. 

marc sits in the middle of a unswept carpet, crossed legs and bare feet. dust is clinging to his white shirt and sweatpants, various shades of paint are doing the same to his careless hands and exposed wrists. there’s a modest-sized canvas in front of him, safely perched on an tiny easel. frank stands in the ornate doorway, like a shadow that’s trying to decide what to do with itself. and then he walks over to the nearest table to busy himself with something. marc doesn’t react.

he feels good. he feels like himself.

so he puts the brush against the filled canvas again. slow strokes, languid pace. he paints a man laying on a grass, surrounded by picnic patterns. the man is hugging a beer bottle, his gaze isn’t directed anywhere in particular. white shirt. a beard. unruly brown hair. he looks either somber or just relaxed, marc hasn’t decided yet. could be both.

he hears the rustle of pages from frank’s journal in the background. marc’s absent smile grows.

they guard their respective silences for a few more minutes and then marc decides he’s ready to talk again. he doesn’t look at frank, just continues dabbing at the canvas, so proud of himself. look at him. he can be patient enough, he can be focused enough. he can create, not just destroy.

❛ i have a friend. they showed me the basics. it’s like drawing, but more. ❜ he likes it. he doesn’t need to be completely present for the process-- but the results are tangible. painting numbs him with comfort, it stains him and reassures his contours.

frank lifts up his head, recognizing the moment in which he can ask a question and get an answer.

❛ is that you. ❜ his gruff tone stands in contrast to marc’s soft and lethargic timbre. 

marc turns to him with a skewed smile. then he returns to painting after a while of just staring at frank as if to say ‘the answer is complicated.’

❛ it’s steven. ❜ he hums out after that pause. so yes, in a way, this is an autoportret. but it’s not.

after a few short strokes of light on the bottle, marc continues. 

❛ on coney island. me and steven used to go there a lot, every time i got a longer leave pass from the hospital. ❜ it doesn’t feel like he’s in a boarded up room in his mansion anymore. it feels like he’s back there, listening to people having fun and drinking colors straight from a glass bottles. he likes that. ❛ i’d sit somewhere on the boardwalk and wonder if people can tell. that i’m from a mental hospital. ❜

hello, i’m marc. i’m no longer from chicago, i’m from putnam hospital.

he shakes his head. no. today he’s feeling good and that’s what he’s going to stick to. 

❛ i saw a guy there once. i was... nineteen maybe, he looked my age too. i really wanted to talk to him, i didn’t even know why. he was reading a book and he looked like he’s written it, if that makes sense. ❜ marc thinks frank understands. ❛ but i felt that-- i felt that if i went to talk to him, it wouldn’t work out. no, it had to be steven. steven could talk to him. so he did. ❜

marc doesn’t even know how to describe those days. those few moments of freedom from therapy and blank walls of his hospital room. he felt like he’s been sneaking out of his existence and letting steven take over. every escape looked the same: meet on coney island, buy beer, talk about everything and nothing at all, look for a quiet place where nobody would see him and the boy with rounded glasses kiss.

it felt like being alive.

thanks to steven and coney island.

❛ and that’s the story of how i met my first boyfriend. ❜ marc finishes, pulling the brush away from canvas. the painting glistens with fresh colors and he tries to soak this in. these strokes will never be as vivid as they are now. 

❛ but they didn’t let me out too often. or not often enough. we never got serious. and then my dad died, i escaped then enrolled... you know the rest. ❜ marc sets down the makeshift palette ( a board from one of his crates which store untold egyptian riches ). 

he looks at frank with a grateful smile. marc hasn’t told that story to anyone, but now he has. furthermore, he managed to paint it. he made those rare moments tangible. those moments of his youth that felt just like that-- like being young and so full of life. laying on grass, thinking about nothing. steven had it all and that gave marc something to look forward to while he was closed in those walls that promised to make him better. promised to fix him. 

❛ i thought about coney island today. ❜ marc explains his motives behind the painting while getting up and stretching. ❛ i realized that i don’t have too many good memories from that period of my life... so i should... honor them, you know? capture that feeling. ❜

frank nods.

❛ remind myself that i can still feel like this. ❜ marc adds, absentmindedly. his gaze starts to reflect the gaze of his painted counterpart. he wakes up with a jolt of his head and beams at frank.

what u think tho / @madehiswar.

Wow user madehiswar is the first person to send anon hate, off anon

a tiny step taken forward, eyes never leaving the other’s sight  /  the toothpick placed between his lips, he’s toying with his meal. his mother always told him not to play with his food  ;  good thing he didn’t care much for rules.

❛ hey. you know the deal. ❜ he opens one eye. it rolls from one side of the room to the other before disappearing, clearly offended. marc unearths his arm from underneath the covers and blindly points at the grimy cellar window: ❛ no waking up while the sun is still out. ❜

he doesn’t know how frank does it, the man seems to function on nothing but military rations and energy pills. doesn’t need to sleep, doesn’t need to rest, gets both days and nights. marc exhales, rolling over and sliding arms underneath the thin pillow that smelled like layers and layers of dust. warm, bandage-covered feathers brush against his thoughts like an invitation. the warmth of sleep is still present and within his reach, maybe if he closes his eyes harder… something hits the bed right next to his exposed feet. marc listens with one ear, plucking out the sound of unzipped duffle bag and following metallic rattle. an assault rifle? he almost opens an eye to check if he’s right but... he has to be. he doesn’t need to look to know that he’s right, not after so many years of conscripted or bought violence. 

frank keeps filling up the bag with more and more sounds and marc sighs into the pillow.

❛ what time is it? ❜ he mutters, words muffled by the bleached fabric.

❛ 4PM. ❜

❛ mm. ❜ marc protests again. 

fine. fine. alright. he’s getting up. marc pushes off the covers, sitting up sluggishly. sand sloshes loudly in his head and he freezes, listening to it. the daily ritual of assessing if he gets to be lucid today or devoured by sandstorms locked inside his skull. he waits for things to get worse, but the desert sand just seeps through. he feels it pour out of his eyes, ears, between his teeth– and it leaves him whole. his hands feel like they belong to him again. he flexes and uncurls his fingers, strangling the cover for a confirmation. marc sighs.

❛ what are we doing today again? ❜ he knows. it’s just that he sometimes asks frank things just to say something. 

❛ the bridge. ❜ frank doesn’t look up from the gorged bag, fighting with the zipper. 

❛ right. ❜

he swipes tongue over his lips. and just like that, marc ran out of things to say to frank. it’s not easy to have a conversation with him, that’s just how it is when it comes to men without future. marc’s the same, so he gets it. and it doesn’t discourage him. he swings his legs over the edge of bed, bare feet hit the cold, uneven concrete. frank finally looks at him and marc meets that gaze. frank’s eyes are always dark and intense, it reminds marc of empty eyesockets of a bird skull. and sometimes he wonders if this is why he loves them so much and could stare into them until everything makes sense again. his lips get dry again. he’d hate if that was the truth. 

❛ alright, alright. ❜  marc gets up with a strained sound that reflects the garden of blooming bruises across his skin. he stretches, feeling every single muscle strand in his body. frank is still staring at him, analyzing. marc gives him a crooked smile.  ❛ don’t stare at me like this. i’m fine. ❜

‘fine’ is their codeword for ‘i won’t get distracted in the middle of a gunfight’.

❛ it’s important. ❜ frank replies, picking up the bag. the crookedness of marc’s grin gets more pronounced. frank continues: ❛ we only get one shot at this. ❜

❛ like with most things in life. ❜ marc shrugs with one shoulder. wrinkles around frank’s eyes sharpen, unspoken ‘smartass’ bites the air between them. silence again. marc chews on the inside of his cheek, counting the instincts in his head. and then he crosses the distance between them with a few steps. 

marc snakes a tired arm underneath frank’s chin, tugging his head closer. frank lets him and then marc presses lips against the buzzed sides, somewhere above the ear. almost a kiss but not quite because his teeth drag against the short hair strands, his nose moves back and forth– sometimes every single movement marc makes is just full of need. selfish, hungry. that one desert hyena somebody forgot to put down. that’s who he is. frank grunts, it’s a noise stuck between acceptance and reassurance. saying that what he’s doing is okay. that it’s okay to act on this, on whatever hunger sits deep in marc’s stomach. it works for them, it works so fucking well– marc exhales again, imagining his breath wash over frank’s skin. his lips form into a proper kiss and he lets frank go. they look at each other and marc smiles again. he grins enough for both of them.  

this is a good night, he thinks. 

frank’s fingers are carding through his hair, brushing back the brown strands. marc doesn’t bother with holding back the smile. it’s not the usual grin of a crocodile, it’s not a knowing smirk of an emaciated jackal. it’s a smile, human lips and rounded teeth. his neck turns into an expectant arc, bared and raw; his arm circles frank’s waist, no desperation, no anchoring for support.

the back seat of the van isn’t the most comfortable place in the world, but they both have spent too much time there already to care. lying between worn-out seats and frank’s forged body has become something of a habit, just another way to end a night. and both of them could be filled with adrenaline, decorated with blood splatter-- or have nothing in their bloodstreams at all, not even exhaustion --and they’d still end up here, marc on his back and frank framing him with his limbs. brown eyes slip closed for a comfortable while, letting frank test. see which kneading movement on marc’s hip will earn him the slightest of hitches in his breath. see if he remembers how to guide his kisses down, if he can keep the weight of his profession away from infecting them. it’s METICULOUS, a revision of something that was deemed redundant-- until marc dug it out, absent-minded smile and stretched out hand.

frank’s lips are following a vein in his neck, hints of a stubble scratch against marc’s skin and he doesn’t stop an exhale. why should he? his knee slots itself between frank’s thighs, lips press harder into him-- but he wants more, his gloved hand cards through short hair on the back of frank’s head, pushing down until he can sense warm breath washing over his skin. frank is deliberate, marc is not, marc is all impulses that haven’t been drowned out by antipsychotic powders.

frank’s hand leaves his hip, it moves up to tug at his tie. marc lets out a soundless laugh, the space between lungs and ribs feels warm, brimming with something real. 

he cranes his neck to nose at frank’s temple, his left hand starts to unbutton the white waistcoat.