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I.
It begins the summer before Dora Lange, when Marty, eyes narrowed against the gunmetal light, watches Rust smoke in that peculiar way of his, like a kid trying to make the most of his last joint, and wonders aloud, “You suck dick half as well as you suck on them cigarettes?”
By all accounts, it takes him by surprise when Rust suggests he come on over and find out.
After that first time, it starts to happen more often, until they fall into some kind of fucked up routine that neither of them are particularly quick to acknowledge in casual conversation.
It's the same every time, so that Marty begins to suspect Rust has a sixth sense for this kind of thing, the way he doesn't need to ask or be told. He just... drops , just goes to his knees and lets Marty fuck his throat until there's saliva running from the corners of his mouth and he gags, and the constriction of it around his cock is enough to make Marty come in a torrent, pulling Rust's hair as he does, with his vision gone to grey around the edges and his legs trembling, and shame already setting up camp in his belly.
It takes the better part of six months for Marty to build up the courage to return the favour, and frankly it kind of scares him, how much he enjoys it. He's never had himself pegged as the dick-sucking sort, but there's something profane, something holy in the noises Rust makes, in the way he says Marty's name like a prayer, bites his lip all slutty and wanton just before he comes and the taste of it like salt-water fills Marty's mouth all at once, lingers there so that when Rust kisses him after he's sure he must be able to taste himself on his tongue.
II.
After the burned out church, they swing by Rust's place. Marty is half-hard the whole way back, but when Rust offers to help out he scoffs and says, “I'm trying to fuckin' drive here, man.”
By the time they pull up outside Rust knows he regrets saying no, knows it because while he's unlocking the door Marty presses up close and grinds against him and kisses his neck, and clearly doesn't give a damn if the neighbours see. Rust stops turning the key and feels a shiver tremble up his spine, and he thinks there's no way, no fucking way he's going to settle for anything less than being fucked raw, not now, not after all this time, all this tension. So he breathes out hard through his nose and says, slow, measured, “Gonna have to stop you, Marty, unless you mean to fuck me.”
As it turns out, that's exactly what Marty intends to do, and not ten minutes later he has Rust slick with lube down on hands and knees on the mattress, and neither of them can remember the last time fucking someone felt so damn good, and all Rust can hear is his own breathing, the pounding of his heart, the lewd slap of skin on skin, Marty telling him he moans like a whore.
He says, “God, God, Marty—please, please—fuck— ” and bucks his hips, and when Marty moans hot and wet against the back of his neck it sends a wave of pleasure rumbling through him like distant thunder. His hands clench into white-knuckled fists and he presses up hard against Marty, and his orgasm goes sparking through all his nerve endings so he feels like he's on fucking fire, and for a precious, fleeting second the world goes away, and all he has is this moment, Marty breathing heavy against his sweat damp skin, breathing fuck, oh fuck at the end when his own release finds him.
After, Rust slips away to clean up. Marty is gone by the time he gets back.
In the morning the tension between them is electric, palpable. By midday the air in the car feels like there's a storm waiting to break, a hurricane about to make landfall. They pull over at the side of the road out in the backwater with the bayou oozing past them sluggish in the summertime heat, and Marty bends Rust over the hood of the Chevy, fucks him so hard that he bleeds. He can't sit down or even move for the next week without grimacing.
III.
Rust fights like he fucks, like something savage, all sharp edges and teeth bared like fangs.
For a while, Marty hates him.
It takes ten years for his hatred to mellow, and when Papania and Gilbough bring him in to talk Dora Lange, talking about Rust doesn't stir up old resentment like Marty thought it would; it stirs something else in him, an ache behind his eyes and in his heart that he recognises as regret. The interview drags on and he remembers the jut of Rust's hipbones under his hands, the smell of him like ozone, like the air after a lightning strike, and in the end, distracted, he says, I won't help you and leaves.
When he sees Rust's beat-up old truck in his rear-view, it hurts like a physical thing, like being kicked, and the sight of him does stir up the simmering old embers of hatred... but he pulls over anyway, agrees to buy him a beer, tries very hard not to puke on the way there.
It's remarkable, how easy they fall back into old habits.
IV.
When he sees all that blood come gurgling out of the dark, jagged line in Rust's abdomen, Marty feels cold dread settle in his chest, and the weight of it is a burden so terrible that he can't say all the things he's thinking, can't say I fucking love you, man, you can't die now, not like this, can't say anything except, “No, Rust, it ain't bad, it ain't bad.”
But it is, it is bad, and even when he manages to sit up, to let Rust lay his head in his lap, his new perspective doesn't make it look any better. He knows he needs to apply pressure, but if he presses too hard he can fucking feel the wound opening up like it's going to swallow his hand, like he's going to end up waiting for help in the gathering dark with a fistful of Rust's guts and nothing but corpses for company.
So he only presses as hard as he dares, and when Rust touches his hand weakly with his fingers he conjures up a smile and says, “It ain't bad,” again, because fear still has its vice-grip on his heart and he can't for the life of him think of anything else to say.
As the dark comes creeping in, Marty wonders if they're going to die down here (in lost carcosa)— thinks Rust might already be dead, and if he is... God , if he is—
He takes a moment, takes several, counts his breaths and calms himself. The rational side of his brain reminds him gently that Rust keeps making faint little noises in the back of his throat like he's dreaming, and he's still so warm , his chest still rising and falling with his shallow breaths.
Beneath his hand, in his fingertips, Marty can feel, however faintly, the fluttering of a pulse.
When the flare goes up and floods the woods with light, Rust's eyes flicker open briefly, but with consciousness comes pain, and he sinks back down gratefully into the waiting dark. For a long time afterwards, he'll be unsure if he just dreamed Marty saying I love you, haloed in unwholesome white light.
V.
Things are different after Carcosa. Better.
Marty kisses him now for longer than before, and slower, with none of the old tortured desperation, without the stink of denial on him. He touches Rust like he's something precious, and every atom of Rust's being hums under his fingertips.
Sometimes Rust catches the sentimental old bastard staring at him with a face like a moonstruck calf.
After they've taken out his stitches and the wound in his gut has healed enough that he can walk around unaided, he comes to Marty, sat slumped on the couch in front of the television, straddles his lap, lets Marty fuck him to a slow and easy climax.
He thinks they're skirting dangerously close to lovemaking territory these days.