Fragments Of Love Series Part 1 : Toxic Love [ SandRay - Only Friends ]

Dancing with the devil

It was a dance between them, push and pull, desire, feelings, a roller coaster. And Sand and Ray were caught up in it.

Ray let himself drift, like a piece of wood on the water. Even though he tried to suppress it, the voices in his head grew louder every day. Voices of addiction, of despair. And he? He did nothing to appease them, no, when he wasn't suppressing them he was feeding them, with self-hatred, disgust, every bad feeling a person could feel. Only to drown them in mindless sex with Black. Only to drive to Sand afterwards, at 1, 2, sometimes 3 in the morning.

And Sand? He allowed it, allowed himself to be swept into the maelstrom; allowed Ray to drown him with his tears. And be burned by his closeness. Yet, every time Sand woke up in the morning and the bed next to him was cold and empty, it felt like another needle was being stuck into his heart. But the pain had become so familiar, Sand wouldn't know what to feel without it.
Sometimes he felt like his heart was already dead. He felt like he didn't deserve happiness after everything he had put Ray through, and this was karma hitting him.

And they danced this dance for weeks, months even. And yet they hardly spoke to each other. They spent the nights in the same bed and didn't sleep together.

"You always come here, Ray." Sand opened the door. Ray looked tired, broken, as so often lately.

"I have nowhere else to go, Sand." The same answer, every time. The same ritual, Ray took off his jacket and shoes. The poor-boy shirt lay freshly laundered in the bathroom. They crawled together under the covers of the double bed, Ray laying his head on Sand's chest, listening to his heartbeat until they both drifted off to sleep.

It wasn't as if their friends didn't notice. They also saw the looks Ray and Sand exchanged. They were not blind to the fact that Ray often disappeared with Black, only to return like a new person. But none of them asked questions for fear of exploding an unstable situation. Their motto was "As long as Ray doesn't drink, everything is fine. As long as Sand doesn't break, he's okay.” A toxic mentality. But it worked for them, pretending not to see, not to sense the change in both Ray and Sand. They pretended they didn't see how much more Alcohol Sand consumed, how much more Ray smoked, how often Sand got high on weed. Their friends had reached the point of helplessness. Sand and Ray were a black hole, prone to destroy everything that got too close to them, and their friends had to save themselves.

They had tried talking to them, months ago, for weeks, trying to make sense of the dance between them, of what they were trying to get out of this situation. They never got a satisfying answer, and one day they were done, decided to stay away, decided to save their peace of mind. They were nothing but a shadow of this act, background characters in a movie, a movie about toxic love.

"You can't live without him." Black let his gaze wander to Ray, who was lying on the bed with his eyes closed.

"I know." The answer came quietly from Ray's lips.

"You'll destroy yourselves completely." The concern in Black's voice didn't even reach Ray anymore.

"I know." He replied again.

"I'm worried about you, Ray. About both of you." Ray remained silent. "How long is this going to go on? Does it have to escalate before you finally talk to each other?"

"Why should we talk? Everything is perfect... so damn perfect," Ray muttered. Black gave up, he had tried for a long time to understand Ray's train of thought, in some respects they were not so dissimilar, but even he had his limits.

"Don't you want to come?" Nick was leaning in the doorway of Sand's apartment. It was 10 o'clock at night, Nick and Boston were going to meet Top and Mew at Yolo.

"Not tonight." Nick rolled his eyes.

"It's always “not tonight” with you."

"Not tonight, Nick." Sand repeated.

"Are you expecting company?" Nick looked at his best friend and only then really noticed how thin the other had become. "I'm worried about you, Sand." Sand wasn't a person who let himself go, he took care of himself, his body.

"Nick, it's all right." Sand ruffled his hair. "Have fun with the others."

"I tried, Sand." Nick had to swallow, he was on the verge of tears. He hated having to watch Sand slowly poison himself, but there was nothing he could do. He was powerless. And for the first time in his life Nick truly felt useless in Sand's presence. Normally Sand was always the one coming up with a plan, knowing what to do. But what happens when the one who always has a plan suddenly doesn't have a plan anymore?

And then, suddenly without warning a phone call changed everything - the order of their universe. Everything collapsed, as if someone had changed the molecules of their world. But it was just a call, a call that was not meant for neither Sand nor Ray.

"He's awake." A sentence that Black muttered to himself over and over again. Tears had gathered in his eyes. "Ray, he's awake." A silence spread through the motel room. Black stared at the phone in his hand as if he could extract any information from it.

"Who woke up?" Ray had joined Black on the bed. Black turned his gaze to his friend. His heart was pounding in his throat, tears flowing uncontrollably down his cheek. With trembling hands, Black took Ray's hands in his. He closed his eyes briefly, not wanting to say the answer out loud. If he said it out loud, it would become a reality. And just for a moment, Black wanted to live in this world where none of this was a reality, not yet ready to face it.

"Black?" Ray raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Who's awake?" Black took a deep breath, swallowed hard. He opened his eyes and looked directly at Ray.

“Todd.”