AN: Trying something new. The goal was to be as raw and image-heavy and punchy while keeping things as short as possible. Takes place in the 80s.
Back pressed up to the wall, Mac feels the hands desperately grasping at his face and J's hot, heavy breath ghosting his lips as their foreheads touch and they look at each other with fiercely hungry, clouded, magnetic eyes. This is how it begins. He leans his body into Mac's and presses his mouth to Mac's mouth. Mac fights for breath, fights for dominance, slinging an arm around J's back in a clumsy, one-armed embrace. He grips the back of J's shirt as if to drag him down, holding on like a drowning man.
In a moment, the void of a month long absence is filled.
And for a moment, Mac forgets Hunts Point with its cutthroat streets and blackened, fire-gutted buildings and abandoned places, the glassy-eyed, haggard-looking junkies huddling inside and lighting up at sundown.
He forgets that he doesn't have enough money in his pocket today to buy a burger and a couple cans of root-beer.
But then, he opens his eyes and reality comes back. It always does. He feels like he's been shaken awake from the closest thing to a warm, pleasant dream he has had in a long time.
They stand there, chest to chest, heaving for air and shaky with adrenaline, suddenly aware of themselves and of the room and of the fact that this can't last.
Out on the street, a dog barks loudly, tied to a post. At any moment, he expects the hard knock at the door that will make them bristle and part with fearful, apologetic looks, straightening their clothes.
But nothing comes.
"What now?" J ventures to ask, after a long moment.
Mac feels a deep, stinging pinch in his chest at the words and shakes his head, slowly and faintly, his eyes darkening while he gazes into empty space. "We don' tell nobody."