Malachi (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} going_cheap) wrote,@ 2006-10-11 09:54:00 |
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Something Stupid
Title: Something Stupid
Verse/characters: Rare Birds, Malachi and Rents
Prompt: 077 - What?
Word Count: 977
Rating: R
Notes: Malachi doesn't drink. Usually. Malachi, Rents, mention of Paul and Joshua. Brief mention of masturbation. Language. Bodily fluids.
When Malachi woke up, he heard the sound of electronic tinny music and felt sticky scratchy carpet against his cheek. He opened his eyes and licked his lips, dry tongue sticking and tugging. His mouth tasted awful.
Rents was there beside him. Sitting on the floor in his boxers playing Nintendo. The buttons on the controller clicked faintly.
Even the dim neon shade of the television screen hurt Malachi’s eyes, so he closed them again for a few minutes and just listened and felt the sickening sway of nausea. It wasn’t the cold tight feeling he got when he needed a fix soon, and it wasn’t the far-away feeling he got when the rush came too fast and emptied his stomach.
This was a hangover.
“Fuck,” he groaned softly, curling up tighter.
“Yeah,” Rents agreed without looking. “You stupid little shit.” He sounded tired. “You owe me for the quart you killed. And when you’re alive you’re cleaning my bathroom.”
“Your bathroom’s never clean,” Malachi grumbled hoarsely, lifting his arm to study the rust-colored stain seeping through gauze wrapped around his forearm.
He heard the sound of plastic cord whooshing just before the Nintendo controller crashed into the wall behind him. Rents pulled his hair hard to make him look at his angry red face.
“You're cleaning my fucking bathroom!”
“O-okay okay—okay.” Malachi whined as Rents let go of him. The floor shifted too much beneath him, and the more he thought about it, all of this was definitely his fault. He turned his nose to the carpet and covered his eyes with the inside of his elbow. Rents reached over him and got his controller back, and in a second the game music started up again.
Malachi thought it was a little funny that Rents paused his game before throwing the thing.
His arm throbbed.
“So who’s Paul, some boyfriend?” Rents asked, startling Malachi with the even tone he used when something was important but he was trying to pretend like it wasn’t.
Malachi thought about boyfriends and thought about Joshua’s face. The face he imagined turned into a girl face for a second. A young pretty girl-Joshua that maybe his mom had been a long time ago before she’d turned into a junkie and a whore and the scariest woman Malachi had ever met. “I don’t know anybody named Paul,” he answered, wondering what Joshua would think about Rents being sorta jealous.
The controller buttons clicked a little harder and Malachi’s shoulders tensed in response. But nothing came flying at him. “Don’t lie to me, Trix.”
“Huh?” Malachi turned his head and squinted at Rents through the faint fuzzy hair on his arm. The TV light made the hairs look colorful. “I don’t!”
“You were talking about him last night, him and some other guy too.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Fine.” Rents still sounded tired and mad at the same time. A new kind of mad, not the drunk crazy-eyed mad that made him yell and hit and fuck too hard. For the first time, Malachi wondered how old Rents was. And he wondered just a little bit why Rents was the way he was and if a long time ago he’d been anything but a gross mean asshole.
“I have to throw up again,” Malachi decided, grabbing onto the side of the bed to pull himself up enough to stumble into the bathroom.
“Good—clean up when you’re finished.” Rents shifted on the floor and kicked the bathroom door shut behind him.
Later, feeling lightheaded from the Clorox soaking in the bathtub, Malachi stuck his head out the door and coughed a little to get Rents attention. “What day is it?”
Rents was on the bed, jerking off under the sheets with a magazine open at his side. He didn’t seem too surprised to be interrupted, but he didn’t look too happy about it either. “Tuesday,” he answered tightly without missing a stroke.
Back in the bathroom, with the door shut but the window above the toilet cracked to let the humid summer air soak up the bleach fumes, Malachi tried to remember what day it had been before and how long it had been since he’d seen Joshua at the pretty blue mural and how many days later it had been when he’d gone to see Joshua’s whore-mom and how long after that he’d gotten high and gotten drunk and gone a little crazy for a while.
The hangover throbbed at the back of his head and ached down his spine and made his eyeballs hurt. And now, as he finished cleaning up his puke from before and the blood on the sink and the bits of bandage wrapper and stained tee shirts and all the other shit Rents left all over his bathroom, the other ache was starting up. Twisting and tugging like somebody was doing embroidery through his insides.
He finished up and snuck out to the kitchen to write a letter first. Blue ballpoint pen on the back of another takeout menu, because he wasn’t sure where his backpack with the nice paper in it was and he had to hurry before his hands shook too bad to write.
I’m scared. We got pizza the other night. With all kindsa stuff on it. When they get that pizza I think about the ninja turtles. Joshua. Did you ever want to eat the pizza on that show? Help me. It comes on in the morning sometimes when I'm still up and they never turn the tv off around here.
He reached inside for more words but couldn’t find them, so the tip of his pen swirled in lazy aimless circles across the paper. “I did something stupid,” he whispered. His arm hurt really bad now and he was afraid to look under the bandage to see. “I’m sorry.”
It’s Tuesday.
Title: Something Stupid
Verse/characters: Rare Birds, Malachi and Rents
Prompt: 077 - What?
Word Count: 977
Rating: R
Notes: Malachi doesn't drink. Usually. Malachi, Rents, mention of Paul and Joshua. Brief mention of masturbation. Language. Bodily fluids.
When Malachi woke up, he heard the sound of electronic tinny music and felt sticky scratchy carpet against his cheek. He opened his eyes and licked his lips, dry tongue sticking and tugging. His mouth tasted awful.
Rents was there beside him. Sitting on the floor in his boxers playing Nintendo. The buttons on the controller clicked faintly.
Even the dim neon shade of the television screen hurt Malachi’s eyes, so he closed them again for a few minutes and just listened and felt the sickening sway of nausea. It wasn’t the cold tight feeling he got when he needed a fix soon, and it wasn’t the far-away feeling he got when the rush came too fast and emptied his stomach.
This was a hangover.
“Fuck,” he groaned softly, curling up tighter.
“Yeah,” Rents agreed without looking. “You stupid little shit.” He sounded tired. “You owe me for the quart you killed. And when you’re alive you’re cleaning my bathroom.”
“Your bathroom’s never clean,” Malachi grumbled hoarsely, lifting his arm to study the rust-colored stain seeping through gauze wrapped around his forearm.
He heard the sound of plastic cord whooshing just before the Nintendo controller crashed into the wall behind him. Rents pulled his hair hard to make him look at his angry red face.
“You're cleaning my fucking bathroom!”
“O-okay okay—okay.” Malachi whined as Rents let go of him. The floor shifted too much beneath him, and the more he thought about it, all of this was definitely his fault. He turned his nose to the carpet and covered his eyes with the inside of his elbow. Rents reached over him and got his controller back, and in a second the game music started up again.
Malachi thought it was a little funny that Rents paused his game before throwing the thing.
His arm throbbed.
“So who’s Paul, some boyfriend?” Rents asked, startling Malachi with the even tone he used when something was important but he was trying to pretend like it wasn’t.
Malachi thought about boyfriends and thought about Joshua’s face. The face he imagined turned into a girl face for a second. A young pretty girl-Joshua that maybe his mom had been a long time ago before she’d turned into a junkie and a whore and the scariest woman Malachi had ever met. “I don’t know anybody named Paul,” he answered, wondering what Joshua would think about Rents being sorta jealous.
The controller buttons clicked a little harder and Malachi’s shoulders tensed in response. But nothing came flying at him. “Don’t lie to me, Trix.”
“Huh?” Malachi turned his head and squinted at Rents through the faint fuzzy hair on his arm. The TV light made the hairs look colorful. “I don’t!”
“You were talking about him last night, him and some other guy too.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Fine.” Rents still sounded tired and mad at the same time. A new kind of mad, not the drunk crazy-eyed mad that made him yell and hit and fuck too hard. For the first time, Malachi wondered how old Rents was. And he wondered just a little bit why Rents was the way he was and if a long time ago he’d been anything but a gross mean asshole.
“I have to throw up again,” Malachi decided, grabbing onto the side of the bed to pull himself up enough to stumble into the bathroom.
“Good—clean up when you’re finished.” Rents shifted on the floor and kicked the bathroom door shut behind him.
Later, feeling lightheaded from the Clorox soaking in the bathtub, Malachi stuck his head out the door and coughed a little to get Rents attention. “What day is it?”
Rents was on the bed, jerking off under the sheets with a magazine open at his side. He didn’t seem too surprised to be interrupted, but he didn’t look too happy about it either. “Tuesday,” he answered tightly without missing a stroke.
Back in the bathroom, with the door shut but the window above the toilet cracked to let the humid summer air soak up the bleach fumes, Malachi tried to remember what day it had been before and how long it had been since he’d seen Joshua at the pretty blue mural and how many days later it had been when he’d gone to see Joshua’s whore-mom and how long after that he’d gotten high and gotten drunk and gone a little crazy for a while.
The hangover throbbed at the back of his head and ached down his spine and made his eyeballs hurt. And now, as he finished cleaning up his puke from before and the blood on the sink and the bits of bandage wrapper and stained tee shirts and all the other shit Rents left all over his bathroom, the other ache was starting up. Twisting and tugging like somebody was doing embroidery through his insides.
He finished up and snuck out to the kitchen to write a letter first. Blue ballpoint pen on the back of another takeout menu, because he wasn’t sure where his backpack with the nice paper in it was and he had to hurry before his hands shook too bad to write.
I’m scared. We got pizza the other night. With all kindsa stuff on it. When they get that pizza I think about the ninja turtles. Joshua. Did you ever want to eat the pizza on that show? Help me. It comes on in the morning sometimes when I'm still up and they never turn the tv off around here.
He reached inside for more words but couldn’t find them, so the tip of his pen swirled in lazy aimless circles across the paper. “I did something stupid,” he whispered. His arm hurt really bad now and he was afraid to look under the bandage to see. “I’m sorry.”
It’s Tuesday.
