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You take one long drag off the joint. The smoked burns and coils around your lungs. It’s a beautiful feeling. This isn’t your first toke of the night, and it won’t be your last. Gamzee rolled up four fatties. This is the second one. You two haven’t even finished it yet. You’ve already grown wings, and you’re on your way to the skies. Stars burn against your fingertips.
His weight is comfortable where he lays half on you, propped up on one elbow with the other arm across you. He plucks the joint from your hand and takes his own drag. You laugh as he nudges at you like a big puppy. Your mouths open and lock together. Smoke enters your throat from his mouth. It tastes even better because it came from him. Then you breathe it back into his face with a smile.
It takes another hour and a half before all four blunts have just been reduced to roaches littered around the mattress you two rest on. Nothing has meaning to you anymore. All that exists now is this ratty mattress on the floor and his body on top of your own. You’re floating underneath him. He’s got you on your back. He devours you easily. He takes your life essence through your lips. His hands roaming on your skin, touching your most intimate places, light you on fire. White-hot streaks behind wherever his hands run over your warm skin.
When he takes you, it’s magical. He is so hot against you. His skin is the most delicious silk. You bite it and claw at it to anchor yourself against his rough love. It’s no use, though. You’re lost in the nirvana that his body brings you. Your climax whites out your vision and takes you so high, higher than any drug could ever take you. It’s a miracle. And it’s even better when he spills into you. You are full and sated as he removes himself from you and brings you down to cuddle him. It doesn’t take long for you to slip into a blissful, black sleep.
You wake with a dry mouth and pounding headache. The sunlight flooding into the small, dirty bedroom is muted by the grimy window. You’re thankful for that. Any real sunlight would blind your bleary eyes. It takes a minute to blink all the sleep from them. It takes another minute to assess your position. You’re lying on your side, an arm encircling your waist possessively. There is a warm chest pressed to your back. Long legs are tangled with your much shorter ones. Warm, moist breath blows over the top of your head.
The mattress you lay on is torn and old. Stuffing sticks out in odd places. There is no frame; it just sits on the scuffed wooden floor. The roaches thrown over the side of the bed and the three empty vodka bottles immediately tell you where you are: Gamzee’s apartment. A place you simultaneously hate and love. Every time you leave, you swear you’ll never be back. Every time you come, you swear you’ll never leave.
You turn on your back. The abrupt change of position begins to wake Gamzee from his sleep. He is totally pulled from it when you sit up. You bring your knees up and set your elbows on them. Your head makes a soft sound when it falls forward into your hands. This is the worst part of every visit to this hellhole. The regret. The pain. The heartache and hangover.
Your body trembles. You try to fight back the tears, but you are once again not strong enough. They slip from your scrunched up eyes and pool in your hands. Everything is silent. With as long as you’ve been doing this, you’ve learned to silence your weeping. The only evidence that you’re even crying is your body that shakes like a leaf in the wind.
His voice is thick and groggy as he asks, “Wha’ the fuck?”
You just shake your head. You can’t do words right now. They get caught on the lump in your throat. You just make this quiet little keening noise.
“Kat? Wha’s wrong, baby?” He reaches for you, but you slap his hand away. You don’t want him to touch you. You want him to disappear, want all of this to just be a dream. You want to be in Dave’s arms in your nice, warm bed, not sitting with Gamzee in a shitty apartment on a worn-out mattress.
“Talk to me, sweetheart.” Ignoring your rebuttals, he puts a hand on your back. It rubs little circles in your skin. You want to break it.
“No!” comes your raw voice. “D-don’t fucking touch me!”
He doesn’t heed your words. “C’mon now, don’t be like this. Let’s be quiet again, let me motherfuckin’ hold you.” Damn that cooing voice. Damn it and damn him.
“Fuck you!” you choke out. “I hate you, fuck you.” And then you bury your head farther in your hands and sob. He says nothing more, just pulls you against him. You fight him at first, but eventually you succumb. You let him hold you. You cry into his skin and beat the side of your small fist weakly against his chest. He takes the abuse. He always does.
Eventually, you are all cried out. Your eyes are dry. The whole room is quiet, save for breathing.
“You all done, brother?” he murmurs into your hair.
You nod. “Yeah,” you say, tone blank like your eyes. “I’m done.”
He rocks your body and smiles down at you. “Good. Ain’t this better? Ain’t it nice to be motherfuckin’ held like this?”
Your hand comes up to cover your face. “I hate this.”
Gamzee cocks his head to the side. “Hate what?”
“This. All of this. I hate coming here. I hate getting high with you, fucking you, just you in general.”
His breath is hot against your ear as he whispers into it. “You don’t hate it, motherfucker. You love it and you know it. Else you wouldn’t keep coming back.”
You know he’s right and you fucking despise that he’s right. You can’t hate this or him. There’s a reason you never stay away for more than two weeks. You need him like you need air.
“Dave loves me,” you mutter.
“Dave ain’t fuckin’ here,” he hisses. “I am. You come to me, Karkat. This is your motherfuckin’ doin’.”
You feel like you’re going to be sick. “He trusts me. He loves me. He wouldn’t hurt me.”
That sweet little coo is back. “Oh, kitten. If he loved you, would he let you go? He knows you come here. Everyone knows you come here. You think no one sees when you leave my fuckin’ apartment, walkin’ like you up and forgot how and covered in hickeys? You think he don’t see? You think he don’t know that it’s me that gives you the pleasure you really motherfuckin’ need? They all know you’re mine, motherfucker.”
If you could cry anymore, you would. You lie to yourself all the time. You like to think you’re hiding this thing you have with him. Who the fuck are you kidding? You go back to the apartment you share with Dave smelling like sex and weed. His eyes are always drawn to the marks on your neck and chest. When you’re naked, you know he’s staring at the bruises on your thighs and hips, shaped just like Gamzee’s fingers. But you still try to fool yourself into thinking no one knows.
Gamzee’s hand strokes through your tangled hair. “You’re mine, Karkat. You ain’t never gonna be able to up and leave me. You fuckin’ need me and you know it. I’m the only one that knows how to treat you right.”
His voice is a soothing balm to the wounds on your heart. You curl up in his arms, hide your face in his chest. You’ll remain here for a few more hours until you can pick yourself up again. When you finally pull away from him, you’ll pull your clothes on. You won’t look at him or speak to him again. You’ll still kiss back when he claims your lips hungrily one last time. Then you’ll walk out of his dirty apartment and go across town to your nicer one. You’ll walk in the door. No calls to Dave. He’ll hear your entry.
Dave will stay in the kitchen and stare at his apple juice. He’ll give you a simple greeting as you walk by. You’ll mutter a response and go to your shared bedroom. You will strip all your clothes off. He will hop into the shower with you. He’ll wash all traces of Gamzee’s scent from your body. More marks will crop up under his teeth on your skin. When you get out, neither of you will speak of it again. And in four days, you’ll go back to Gamzee’s squalor and do it all again.
You don’t want Gamzee. You need him. He is your world, your air, your everything. You can’t live without him.
And that makes you hate him even more.