Work Text:
1984
The crimson and gold glow of a campfire. The sky is black; the earth is brown. The desert at night. We are in a tent, but the sky and its billions of stars are clearly visible overhead, like that one goddess you talk about sometimes when you think I’m not listening. You are here. You are here, beneath me, and I can feel your bare skin, your leg hair soft on my own, your breath hot in my mouth, stale because neither of us have brushed our teeth for days and we don’t care; your face is unlined and radiant and smudged with dirt and dust and sweat; your curls are greasy and tangled and angelic and real, splayed out on the camp bed like one of those Mucha paintings you like; your eyes are glittering and spectacular in their depths, like the canopy of galaxies stretching above us. Oh, god, I love you, Jimmy. I thrust between your thighs, skinny and squeezed tight and slick with oil, and you moan back like I’m inside you; the tip of your cock nudges my belly every time I rock into you, and you are cradling my unshaven jaw in your hands, your touch so rough and spiky and raw I can almost feel it. I try to tell you out loud, but the words catch and twist in my throat, like I can’t get enough air—our bodies are in flames and maybe I am inside you—and you are inside me and we have always been like this, forever—I kiss you and then I am the sky, observing us from above, watching the heat cascade from us in steady waves like the blood pulsing in my dick, I’m so hard, everything is crystalline, you are everything to me—this is holy, you always tell me—and of course you’re right, you always are—I am overcome with blinding, white-hot light and we collapse, mingled stardust like always, like we’ve been since all of time began…
Gasping, I wake up.
I squint into the cold blue light. It’s too bright; the moon is full tonight. With a pounding heart, I come to. I register the wet, sticky mess in my sheets, clinging to my junk and cooling quickly in the autumn air. A few seconds pass.
Without warning, a violent wave of agony skyrockets in my chest, and then I’m heaving gripping, titanic sobs, squeezing my knees with both arms, emptying the cavernous despair that dwells deep in my guts into my already-soiled bedclothes. I fist one hand into my own hair and yank on it like the ancient Greek mourners did—like I’d throw sand over my head if I had some, but I don’t, because we left the desert years ago and now you’re gone and I’m here alone and I’m starting to think I’m never going to get over this. Never, for as long as I live. Hating myself, I roll out of bed, naked; the smooth hardwood floor is cold and alien against my bare feet. I can’t stop bawling. This is so stupid. I feel blindly around my top dresser drawer—in the very back, where I think I won’t be tempted—but I am, all the time—I retrieve that old t-shirt of yours that I never returned, the Bad Company shirt that doesn’t even smell like you anymore, the one that has become talismanic for me, a totem of how fucked up I am, because you fucked me up and now I’m like this and that’s mine and no one can take it away from me. I bury my face in it, crumple against the wall, and sink to the floor in a small ball, soaking the thing with acrid tears that feel like vomit.
Eventually, I stop shaking. My eyes burn. My weeping subsides; the ensuing silence is deafening, ringing interminably in my bedroom. Fuck.
Seven years. It’s been seven years. And, still, every night, it’s the same.