SUGAR AND STEEL

Chapter 4

As promised, the cotton candy boy texted the psycho the next day (or rather later the same day, depends on how you look at it). However it was not under the circumstances in which he wanted to do so. Because the pretty boy did not so pretty things to get paid (he really should’ve thought about the whole starving artist thing).

Looking in the mirror, the boy that tasted like cough syrup thought that the lilac and lavender around his throat was oddly pretty. He also thought that maybe texting the boy that he wanted to kiss (like really kiss) again was maybe not the best idea. But when he heard the front door to his crappy little apartment creak open, he knew that there was no taking it back.

“What’cha need me for Dolly?” rang a voice from the living room. It was just as sickeningly sweet and smooth as the night (morning) before, and the boy in the bathroom let himself soak in it before answering.

“In the bathroom!”

But when the psycho walked into the bathroom in all his glory, his cocky smirk died right there on his face. Because the pretty flower boy from last night (morning) was not the way he remembered. He stood there, shirtless and crying, staring right into the grey eyes of the elder.

A noose of lilacs and lavender blossomed under the pale column of his throat, and blood crusted on the raised welts that resembled those of fingernails on his ribcage and onto his back. It spiked red hot jealousy in Sami, because someone touched his flower boy. He stepped forward and ran the pads of his thumbs over the flowers on the boy’s throat, watched his fingers raise goosebumps on the broken boy’s skin as he trailed his fingers down his sides and over the welts.

“I need you to help clean up the ones on my back.” And when he pulled his eyes up to meet the younger’s he realized that where they used to be green, they were now blue from crying. As blue as the label of the painkillers on the countertop.

“Okay.” There was quiet.

“I didn’t let him touch me, I want you to know that. I… I didn’t let him-” his voice cracked and broke.

“I know.” And the psycho did know. Because those painkiller blue eyes in the mirror and the garden around his throat told him everything he needed to know. Well, almost everything. They sat in silence except the occasional hiss of pain through the younger’s teeth until he couldn’t just not know anymore. “Who?”

“Don’t know his name. A regular at the club I dance for, but he never touched before,” Kai quickly added, seeing the cloud darken around the psycho’s pretty head.

“I’m gonna kill him.” And Kai could tell he was serious. He didn’t even think before he jumped right into the deep end. He didn’t even really know how to swim. But he figured with the help of the brooding psycho standing next to him he’d learn pretty quick.

“I’ll help.”