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❝ eyes like a storm❞
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SONG : Joy. - Same Place

HE HAS TO wash the bedsheets again.

Quentin's thighs, once unhurt, now ache with the memory of rough hands and intimate stains. A thick layer of sweat clings to his battered skin, to the soreness of his scalp. He drags his fingertips down his trembling ribcage, scratching the skin above his heart which pounds into his ears.

It's empty.

Empty of the love he'd felt for the man slumbering right next to him, tight arms still clutching his waist. Empty of the rush of want and eagerness. Empty of the screams of sickening loneliness.

Empty of everything he'd felt only an hour ago.

And now, here he is, nothing more than a mere body contaminated by lust. A tantrum of emotions raging in his head. Disgust. Regret. Wanting to rid himself of all he'd just done; fragments of the faux words of love that had crawled across his tongue, of the parts of the man he'd left on his skin—the bruises, the bites, the marks—like the crumbs fallen from the mouth of a starving beast.

His eyes land on the stranger on his bed, leaking sweat into his sheets, nudity barely hidden by the covers. His brows scrunch, the after-effects of a hangover throbbing in his skull.

What's his name again?

He needs to leave.

He still remembers it, the empty seduction and promises of pleasure, the whispers that had rolled off the stranger's tongue, having have sent shivers down his spine and him clinging to his sheets later on as he was brought to his climax.

It had enticed him then, exciting his yearning heart. Two strangers, one being far older than him—a decade's gap, unbeknownst to the other—alluded by attraction, crafting a secret to the others who would never understand the love between same genders.

But now, the thought of those words simply make him gag.

His gaze wanders to the window, seeing squares of lit windows from decrepit buildings hovering behind the sheer curtain, which shifts gently in the wind. They're like stars, he imagines, despite stars not existing in this city consumed by pollution. However, he pretends that they are stars anyway, just the ones that had fallen from above, the same twinkling objects that accompany the moon every night. Artificial as they may be.

He begs to be alone with them now.

So, forcing his hand across the centimetre space, he prods at the stranger. "Hey," he rasps. "You should go."

Ragged breathing.

Noises of honking cars and clips of conversations below.

An untamable, pounding heart.

Quentin shivers, not just at the breeze coming from the window, but also at the silence that echoes back. It doesn't matter, though. Because he knows the stranger will leave eventually. For this isn't his home. It never was.

He pushes the man's hands off of him, cringing slightly by the contact. He peels himself off the bed, tugging on his underwear and snatching a box of cigarettes from the bedside table. Carpeted floor soothes his bare feet as he travels to the window, sliding himself onto the sill.

A click of a lighter later, a glowing cigarette dangles between his fingers, wisps of smoke blowing out past his lips. It clouds the air, almost blocking the clogged streets below.

His eyes follow the throngs of people, the slow traffic and the few passerby's that stop near him. It comforts him, this distance and proximity. To be alone whilst not truly being alone.

By the time he's smothered the flame and retreated back into his room, the stranger has already left. All that's remained is the imprint of his body upon his bed and the few stains that are soon to be erased. Relief floods his lungs at the return of solitude, a smile cradling his kiss-burnt lips. And to think, just a few hours before, the loneliness had been chipping away at his sanity.

He's not the first.

And surely, he won't be the last.

It doesn't take long before, he too, steps out the same door the stranger had left through.