Oh, fucking. Shit.

I stared down at the man pressed up against the wall. He’d surprised me with the pressure he’d enacted on my body; or maybe pressure itself was a surprising thing. I mean, the world was so soft. I was the hard thing, how could anything else push back? Everything was good.

Oh, my brain went again. Everything is good. That thought pinged around, and it didn’t feel positive.

“You are, aren’t you.”

“I.” I passed a hand over my face, feeling every molecule my rough palm disturbed on its path. The music, I thought. And the lights.

I looked back at the man staring at me with such accusation. And this.

I knew this. I knew this too fucking well, had been here so many times. How had I not realized earlier? How could I be such a fucking idiot?

“Fuck,” I voiced aloud. I didn’t really know what else to say. The room pulsed around me still, but now that I knew that it wasn’t organic, I almost felt like I could control it. Less like I was in some womb, that I needed the music for my nutrients, that the lights were a vital part of my development, but shit, no, I think I still needed that, or maybe I.

Oh, shit. 

“What the shit did you take?”

Fuck, I thought, trying not to laugh. What a role reversal. How fucking funny. Except, of course, that it wasn’t at all. Except, of course, that this was the one thing that I never wanted to feel again. Panic was building in my chest even as my body refused to acknowledge it. It just sat there, nowhere to go, as I’m sure I grinned like an idiot and passed my hand over my face again and again.

How the shit had this happened.

Oh, I thought, remembering the drink the bartender had given me. Fuck.

“I think I’ve been drugged,” I heard myself voice. I didn’t remember giving myself permission to say that, and yet say it I had. “I think I’ve been drugged.”

***

He didn’t seem to be able to stop repeating that phrase, or stop passing his hand over his face. When he said, “I think I’ve been drugged,” for the fourth time, I grabbed his hand and stepped close. He immediately froze, his body tensing at my proximity.

“Fuck,” I heard him whisper. I saw something in his eyes, some pressure waiting to break and I hated myself for being so harsh with him. I mean, shit. The guy didn't even know. It wasn't his fault. Had he ever even been high before? I pushed away my own pain, the way my stomach sunk, and laced my fingers in his.

“You’re going to be okay,” I told him, not sure where my need to comfort him came from. He looked down at me, eyes searching, and I hoped to god he found what he needed in my face because I didn’t know what to do, or say.

I mean, shit. This was not my area of expertise.

I guess I do have a bit of a window into the whole, high as shit, no one around to comfort you experience. How many times had I been eating my toes in the back alley of this very bar?

“I think I've been drugged,” he repeated again, and I squeezed his hand, feeling a sigh come from my chest. No one deserved this. No one needed this thrust upon their nights.

Especially not him.

I felt his hand squeeze back. Then there was a rustle of clothes as his body slid closer to mine.

“Hey.” I looked up, confused, and found those green eyes dripping with everything I'd been struggling with right under my skin. Desire. Lust. A month of waiting butting up against way too much chemical influence to make this feel anything but fantastic.

“Shit,” I think I whispered, and I swear to god he muttered, “fuck it,” before leaning down and kissing me again.

God it felt so good. God, it was so wrong, but it was the most right I had felt in years and I wasn't ready to give it up, my body wasn't going to fight it and my brain wasn't able to, not with the way he was kissing me. Somehow he got my hands up above my head, both my wrists trapped in one of his hands, and I moaned my approval and rocked my hips into his and he growled, swear on my mother’s grave that was the sound that came from his throat and from anyone else it would have made me roll my eyes but from him, him, I nearly came right then.

Meanwhile, some part of my brain kept up a steady beat ofwrong, wrong, wrong, in time with my heartbeat. The faster my heart went, and it was going very fast, the louder the voice got.

His hand was passing over my chest, sliding down the tight green shirt I'd chosen, feeling my skin just on the other side of the thin fabric. When he reached my midriff he dipped his fingers below the fabric, and I could feel his fingerprints on my skin, wanted them to leave indelible marks, never wanted them leave but Wrong! my body shouted, and I gasped, wrenching my skin from his fingers in a motion that slammed my back against the wall and drove my forehead into his chest.

It was too much, his hand on my skin, his breath against mine, that stupid fucking correct voice inside of my head. I panted, trying to understand which way was up, trying to bring some semblance of the control he was supposed to be back to this environment. Stop, I whispered, or thought, or existed. My hands were still captured in his, my head resting lightly on his chest, my breath pooling in the fabric of his shirt. I couldn't see for the hair falling down all around me, and I was thankful for that. I needed the shield. I was falling apart. I was falling apart, he was ripping me apart, I would fall to nothing and it was his fault and in the morning he wouldn't remember or, worse, he would hate me for letting it get that far. Or, worse still, he would hate himself.

Fuck it if he hated me. Everyone hates me. But if he thought of himself the way I did me?

I turned a sob into a cough and ripped myself away, pressing my face into the wooden panels of the wall.

“Hey.” His voice was still so light - how could he stay so light? “You okay?”

I hated that question, hated that even now he was looking out for me. Hated it even more as I felt his questing hands trickle their easy way down my spine. I let them, for a moment. Hated myself for loving the way I was comforted. Pretended that he meant it as that.

But when his fingers dipped up under my hem again, skimming on the sensitive skin there, it was my turn to grab his wrists.

“Stop!” I said forcefully. I still wouldn't look at him, couldn't take in those eyes that I knew would be blown out, a reflection of all the things I was feeling. I stared instead at the hands I held pressed against his stomach. “I can't. You can't.”

“Why not?”

He almost sounded hurt. My gaze was pulled to his without my permission.

At the sight of his eyes, I pulled it away just as quick.

“I want you,” he whispered, and my entire body shuddered. “I need you.”

I took a deep breath. “I don't think you want the same things from me as I need from you.”

Without waiting to see if he had heard, I pulled him toward the booths.

I had clocked his friend when they had come into the bar, had watched him and that big bear claim one of the booths. I just hoped they were still there, and not out on the dance floor. I didn't know what would happen if I got us out in front of the speakers again, with the way our bodies were, with the way my skin was threatening to break and let out all the things I was holding back so barely, so carefully…

When I reached the booth I barely looked, I was so caught up in all the things swirling inside my gut. I needed him to touch me, and here he was, and he could, but why did he only want to do it when he was like this?

I tugged him, hard, causing him to crash past me into the booth. The friend, who had been straddling that bear guy, fuck, what were their names, who even cared anymore, who could care about anything when this was happening, he jumped about a foot and stared at us.

“Your friend,” I told him, hearing all the edges in my voice and knowing how that meant I'd already shattered but fuck it. Hadn't I wanted to break myself on this man? Isn't this what I fucking deserved? “Is high as shit.”

There was a moment of silence as the two men in the booth, shocked out of their whatever they'd been doing, stared down the the two men standing before them. Then the little guys face clouded over.

“What the fuck did you do.”

“Me?” My voice was shrill; I was not in control. Fuck it, fuck me, fuck him. Fuck me again. “What did I do?” I lifted the hand I still held, felt the limpness of his arm and something inside of me keened. I hated that feeling, hated knowing how he must feel. “Do you think I want him like this?”

I closed my mouth and looked away as I heard my voice break. I couldn't keep breaking for him. I couldn't turn into the pile of nothing I was so close to becoming.

I dropped his hand and backed away. “Just. Take care of him.”

I fled before my mind could betray me and tell me why my entire being hurt so fucking much.