Although I never specifically use names, I intended this to be Dick and Wally. You can put in other names if you would prefer. I was having some feelings and I didn't know how else to deal with them.
There wasn't time for labels. Not in this life. The world was going by too fast to try and put a name to anything more than a headstone or a memorial plaque, and they had to take what they had before the world could take it from them.
It didn't make them gay, or bisexual for that matter, and it probably wasn't even love, but no one was going to wait on a probably when every day was one day closer to the last time they would see each other. The world didn't wait on maybes, and they couldn't afford to wait on the world.
It wasn't always rough- sometimes it was the kindest touch they had known all day and every grazing was a new swarm of butterflies unbeknownst to them- but when it was, it was. They would meet each other the next day with bloodied lips and bruised hips and everything else but their averted gazes.
When it was gentle, it was to avoid the preexisting bruises and cuts from whatever mission had brought them to the bedroom, or the couch, or against the wall, sucking apologies and goodbyes into every inch of clean flesh.
And it hurt. The bruises were one thing, a dull ache, but there was nothing to compare to having someone that you can't have.
For every "I love you", there was a "You can't".
Every "I need you" had a "You won't".
In another life, this would've been easy. This would've been possible. Every kiss wouldn't hurt so much, and they wouldn't beg for the bruises to remember it by.
It wouldn't have been about getting to the bedroom before anyone else saw, trying to forget the kisses and bites before they even bruised. There wouldn't have been the same shame and regret that ate away at them until they were nothing but hollow and were forced to come back for more because they needed something, anything, to fill that hole up again, in an endless cycle that hurt more each time. Sometimes, in the delirium, it might have felt like a happy ending, though they were always left more broken in the end.
But they would take it: every bruise, every stuttered shout, and mark, and the teeth ruts on their lips they would be nursing for days, because it was all they ever felt they deserved. It was all they felt they could get, when the world was tearing away everything else from them. They couldn't wait on hope, or fate. All they had was now, and now, they only had each other.
It wasn't all sex and teeth, though.
Sometimes, what could in any other situation be called 'passion' would be stopped and they would just curl around each other and break down, because as good as it felt, as amazing as it could be, it wasn't what either of them wanted, and it hurt more than it pleased.
Even the honest, "I love you"s choked out in those instances, breathed in a shaky breath on a bruised column of throat while trembling fingers tried pulling them closer, finding that the love they needed was just there, right there, hurt.
No matter how real it felt, or how good it was, they knew this would be all it would ever amount to. They would never have more than these goodbyes, and it made every hello a sharp reminder.
-F.J. III
