Junk Love.

six.

Carter and Mel wake to a tremendous pounding knock on their door that causes the frame to rattle. All the curtains are drawn so Mel narrows her eyes to apparent darkness. Why would someone be knocking this unpleasantly at such an obscene hour?

Distinctly cognizant of his heat warmly seeping into her own body, she twists to look at Carter. There's a serenity about him. He's unblinking. Snuggling her close against his chest and gazing at her like she's a solar system.

"Rent's up!" Whoever is at the door has a gravelly voice, rough, and grating.

The digital clock on the nightstand reads 12:00 p.m. in bold letters. Instantly they both scramble for their measly amount of belongings. A quick rustling of clothes as they dress rapidly in the dark.

A man meets them at the threshold. He does a lot of theatric arm waving and yelling that effectively shoos them back out on the streets. Mel is still trying to untangle the sleeve of her hoody enough to get her arm through. The clerk draws the blinds behind them.

"Prick!"

Even disheveled by the morning, Mel is a marvel. She shouts while throwing a small stone at the window. A resulting alarm shrieks through the unearthly quiet swamping the neighborhood. Carter and Mel leave the racket behind, starting at a run hand in hand.

A drizzle of rain drips from a cloudy sky resembling a massive smoke monster in the city smog. Last night they hadn't wandered far into the residential housing area, perhaps only a mile or so, but they're both soaked by the time they walk back downtown. Mel even limps slightly.

"C'mon, follow me." Carter says.

A slight furrow of her brows meshes into the pain squinted on her expression. An adorably innocent blend of confusion and defeat. All he wants is to build her back up brick by brick. Carter exchanges the strap of her guitar case onto his own shoulder. Then they bow their heads to the rainfall as they navigate a maze of streets.

Carter is an overshadow. The entirety of his emotional capacity is debilitated by constricting boundaries. Love to lust. Right to wrong. Like to hate. Hope to hopeless. Like his brain is a constant floodgate and the only buffer he has is using his veins as expressways for toxins. It's the only solace he's found in the conundrum.

Despite an inner serpent spiraling through him like Draino, Mel's presence is soothing. She's a warrior in her anomalies. He'd been snorting coke off strippers chests while she was ducking in alley's discreetly smoking sharply scented vinegar in the dark before finding the light again.

He envies her. Carter isn't familiar with envy and the fucked up wiring of his brain hasn't processed it as an emotion to split. In envy, he's started to feel things for what they are instead of what they aren't.

"You look glum." Mel is such an empath she probably doesn't realize how her own brow pinches whenever she gets worried. "What's on your mind?"

You mostly.

"We're almost there." Is the only response Carter can form.

Soon, the drizzle intensifies into a mini monsoon. Cars whipping past splash mud like missiles. Puddles on the sidewalk squish in saturated shoes. Mel's purple hair is still vivid, even limp and drenched in rain, but her waifish figure is practically devoured by dripping oversized clothes.

There's only another block to go but Carter can't endure the twist in his chest. She's suffering and he hates it. Except hate isn't split with rage. This time it's split with a terrible tearing in his stone heart like she's physically capable to rip the whole muscle from between his first and second rib.

Usually his spontaneity results in yelling at an empty sky until his lungs burst. Or driving so fast he becomes a part of the wind while talking to somebodies who weren't there at all. This moment consists of swooping Mel up into his arms like a child. He cradles her bridal style while she laughs warmly.

Carter is paralyzed. She makes all the bad things go numb. A lithe elusive puma paired with the sleek and docile river otter. When she tries to squirm away she even makes chirping noises she probably doesn't notice herself.

"Let me down!"

Because of all her squirming, her descent back to her own two feet isn't graceful. She stumbles and he secures her by bracing his palms against her hips. Surprising himself, Carter whirls Mel around, trying to catch her laugh with his lips as she leans away.

Their unraveling kiss is disrupted by a robust shout speaking a foreign tongue. Carter keeps his arms looped around her waist but yells back in the same language. Mel's eyebrow quirks slightly, impressed.

"You know Italian?" She asks.

"Enough."

Evidently so, because the words Carter's responded with prompt the man to waddle away on too short legs. A long white apron, splotched red with tomato sauce, only makes his belly bulge more. She watches the Cooke go, wearily, until he disappears into the building they enter after him.

An array of colorful Persian rugs and grand paintings of Italian sceneries adorn the space. The room is dimly lit in a soft golden hum. She's perplexed as Carter explains his Mother used to "do business" for the owner of this pizza parlor. Occasionally he's allowed to stay in the back room whenever circumstances leave him homeless. Circumstance such as rolling his car three times across the freeway...

The four by four break-room Carter's been provided isn't the worst place. It's like an office only improved by fancy grapevine paintings matching the ones in the lobby. A custom desk replicates a pool table and, stuffed under it, is an air mattress.

"Cozy." Mel remarks.

Tonight, it doesn't matter neither of them are wealthy. They share pizza and drink fancy red wine, sitting across from each other, atop the leopard print pool table. Their connection is so intense an electric pulse that links his heart to hers feels visible.

Laughter fills the room for a beat. Mel tries to steal his ball cap, perched on Carter's head tilted up. Which results in a lot of tickling and a piece of pepperoni stuck in her hair.

The wine hits Carter hardest. Harder than the shots of Crown they shared their first evening. An obvious insanity poisons him but, like a moth to a flame, Mel is drawn to the shadowy devils gradually glazing over the boyish glimmer in his eye.

Mel observes until Carter is drowned up completely. A walking dead man replaced by his crying profanities at the floor before continuing the conversation as they normally could. Like the yelling never even happened. Perhaps it hadn't. She's drunk and high herself.

Both of them are fractured parts of bigger planets. They didn't fit and were cast off into the harsh universe doomed to drift away with nowhere to belong. By the same design his and hers broken parts were thrust into the same cosmos.

Their dilated pupils highlighting bloodshot eye whites are the markings of a beast. Under a black light they'd resemble ghosts with obvious madness smoldering their gazes like glow-sticks. The poltergeists. The outcasts.

☯