Junk Love.

nine.

Carter survives the pandemonium as a blackout. The drug he shot earlier still surges his body with pure dopamine like a defibulator. Every person running past him merges into a single being blurred into ebbing fractures of light.

Mel trembles frail as a leaf. Her legs and arms are snared to his torso as he carries her piggy-back. She reminds him of a kid tired after a long day at the zoo. When he sets her on her own two feet, secluded in a back alley, she continues to quiver.

"Is he dead?"

Her anxiety is as raw as a knife twisted between his ribs. So he has a heart and it does bleed. Witnessing her this defenseless and scared is akin to an ulcer blooming painfully in his chest.

Mel's vivid eyes pool with tears. "He's dead isn't he?"

"Mel..." Conflicted pain lowers Carter's voice to the pitch of a growl.

Resembling an agitated fairy, she starts to pace back and forth. She presses her hand to her forehead something she always does when overwhelmed. "That was a cop!"

"Mel."

"Fuck." Her sensual lips make even curses erotic. "Fuck, Carter, a cop is dead."

"Mel!" He he hadn't meant to shout but the velocity of her panic is seeping into him like a sponge. A familiar niggle of rage is flaring hot that disarms him completely.

In a fit of desperation, Carter grabs Mel by the arm. Not only wanting but needing her to quit pacing. Even he doesn't understand the choked gasp he makes when he pulls her into an embrace stronger than a tidal wave.

Her lungs are heaving and his heart spasms. Part of it is the drugs but, mostly, it's all them. Together. Mel smells of vanilla and stale cigarette smoke. It's an intoxicating sweet then sour aroma that would bring devils worse than him to their knees, weeping at her blessed feet.

For the first time in ten years, Carter cries with his face pressed against Mel's soft purple hair. Despite the violent rocking of his shoulders, she doesn't let him go. Instead she holds him as tightly as her waifish arms can grip and whispers, "shh it's alright," over and over in his ear until he falls completely still.

☯

Mel is used to callouses on her fingertips. On bad days, she'll lose feeling entirely in her right index finger and thumb. When she plays, the guitar strings drip bittersweet melodies with pricks of blood and sweat. Sometimes she feels enslaved to her craft but her hands remain the most important part of her.

Her hands are what makes today's nightmare vivid in recollection. The unconscious police-man swallowed up in the stampede of people overrunning the streets like a swarm of locusts. He'd been at her fingertips, the rough fabric of his uniform tangible, before she'd been yanked away.

Between swigs of liquor, stinging at her chapped lips, she tears off the dry skin cracking on her fingers. Blisters blossom in a way resembling a rose and thorn. Whatever fucked up mindset she slips into convinces Mel there ought to be scabs there.

Again, they seek shelter in a small four by four room. She's avoided Chinatown for months but it was the closest place to flee. Familiar with the area, Mel snuck with Carter into the attic of a restaurant she used rent at. The space is dimly lit by candlelight -- no one should notice them here for a night.

Closing time has already past but the owner stays in the lobby beneath her where he argues with another man speaking Mandrin. Despite the foreign language, Mel can tell their conversation isn't pleasant.

These walls are too thin.

Mel sits alone in the shadows, cross-legged on a silk red mat. Ahead of her is a curtain with Chinese calligraphy printed on the fabric. She slurps Sauki, getting claustrophobic between distant shouting and the closer, steadier, dripping from the shower-head. Carter's stayed behind the curtain for hours now.

Panicked and lost they'd rushed to escape downtown. Panting wildly by the end of the journey, Mel had led Carter to the crawl space door poking from a back alley. The erupting rainbow colors of Chinatown faded with them once they dropped into the attic.

Mel hasn't seen him since.

A part of her wants to believe she would tell Carter the story of what this restaurant used to mean to her. Yet, as the liquor goes syrupy in her blood, Mel turns more withdrawn. She fixates her eyes on the curtain watching the candlelight make the hieroglyphs dance.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Another slosh from the bottle tipping back, pouring snakes down here throat.

Eventually Mel can't stand the pressure any longer. If she keeps staring at the writing she might start levitating with it. In a fit, she swipes the curtain back. Goosebumps immediately raise the hairs on her skin from the icy spray of the shower cooling the space significantly.

Carter isn't even standing under the water. Three buttons are undone from his shirt and sweat sticks to his chest hair then drips from his body like sparkling fountain water. It's a clean sweat and she licks her lips as they suddenly feel drier.

There's a madness in him, his pupils the size of quarters, and his lip curling savage when she disturbs him. An alpha wolf with disheveled hair and a snarl -- this high has turned him positively feral.

Her heart races so quickly her sides ache. Mel wants it. She wants to taste it. Going primal herself, she braces her hands against his cheeks, kissing him rawly with her liquor flavored lips.

Open mouthed and moaning she deepens their kiss as his sweat soaks through her shirt. Like serpents in sync their tongues tangle, a cocktail of venom and anti-venom, that leaves them both whirling.

Swaying together like bridge cords, they keep each other steady, despite both falling back into the frigid shower spray. They stroke each other and open their lips to kiss blended with the water as it soaks their clothes and fills their mouths.

Even in the cold, Carter's hands are volcanic eruptions on her skin. He cups her most sensitive parts massaging sensually enough to make her almost scream. With a low groan, he lifts her up, yanking her hair as he carries her. Before long she's enveloped by the silk mat with him thrusting atop her.

The pleasure Carter incites is as intense as direct contact with the sun. Mel's moaning drops to a rhythmic sigh when he fills her. She has never ached this way. Where she feels each motion absorbed in her bones until she's brittle. As he caresses she arches her back into him, howling.

☯