HLL: WHY is Butch so fun to write? He's excellent at flaunting that he's screwed up. ;) I intended for this one to be about 500 words...but you know me, I get carried away.
Disclaimer: I don't own PPG.
Four: Nightmare.
What's the difference between a dream and a nightmare?
He could tell you, but he wasn't in the habit of speaking to anyone about anything. Not without punches flying first. From him, no reason needed. Sometimes, he just liked watching the blood flow.
It didn't matter if it was his own. That was fine. When he was bored, raging against the confines that his brother (the leader) set.
On certain days, anger made him sleepy. He'd fall into a slumber for fourteen hours, rolling on a mattress with no sheets because fuck doing laundry.
He knew he was fucked up because his dreams weren't filled with award ceremonies or tropical paradises or even winning a million dollars. He could care less about awards, hated the sun, and would rather steal a million dollars.
No, they were filled with fighting. Punches and kicks and moves he'd picked up from kung-fu movies.
Nightmares were when he lost fights.
And he only ever lost to one person besides his bossy brother.
His mouth twisted, but his mind sung with memory from the blows they'd gotten from her.
A counselor once looked at him over the clipboard and spelled out the word sadomasochist with him. Then he read Butch the definition.
The counselor called it a diagnosis, but Butch thought that it might be his religion.
"You're messed up," Boomer told him when Butch got real destructive for no reason.
Butch could've cared less.
But, when it was sleep, his sleep...that was different.
The first time was on a Saturday night after he'd finally passed out at four in the morning. His arm was slung halfway off the bed, his legs halfway off the other side, and his head on nothing but the mattress with no pillow in the sight.
It'd started out like his dreams, it really did. When she started bleeding, he was laughing in his dream. Cackling because she'd already landed a punch on him and it was only fair. Even in his dreams, he was realistic. If it wasn't a good fight, he wasn't interested.
She was supposed to do what she always did in his dreams: get up and punch him or throw him across the room or even an insult would've been enough.
But, she didn't.
Her hands went around his neck. He was ready to be choked, hurled, beaten.
When she kissed him, the sky turned red. He accidentally threw himself off of his mattress while waking up, slamming his skull into a nightstand.
"Shit." He glared at the mattress as if it'd caused this dream.
The second time, he was ready. He'd tried reading about lucid dreaming. It was when you could control your own dreams. Sort of.
When she went down, he lunged for her.
Her dark smile was quick as she leaned in while he landed his kick.
"Butch."
All she had to do was whisper into his ear and he was rolling off his bed again with a string of curses to follow. His skin was covered in goosebumps. He thought about setting his body on fire, bruising himself up so bad that he'd never dream about her again.
His mirror said he looked rough, but his eyes were shaking with excitement. He shoved the desire building in his chest down. Deep, deep, deep. Where his demons slept.
The third time, he was screwed. He knew it. His control slipped right through his fingers.
When she came towards him, his body moved first. Rough kiss and rough touch. All he could do was rough. Except that it didn't matter because the rough made it better, so much better. His body had three thousand volts of pure energy coursing through it when his fingers grabbed her hair.
When he woke up, he was panting, but he hadn't rolled off the bed.
The longing. The longing was there. His mouth was dried, lips cracking at the corners when he let out a bitter laugh.
Guilty habit.
That was what it became. For a boy who advertised every dirty habit, you'd think that personal shame wouldn't eat away at him.
It did. He was him. He could never change that. He remembered the counselor sounding out the word and wondered if maybe Boomer was right.
He was messed up.
One month later and he was gritting his teeth.
It was free period. A fifteen-minute break and his brothers were talking about nothing. A game, a class. He was seething, shoulders hunched while his eyes darted around.
Green. Bitter green that he wanted to crunch in his mouth.
If he hadn't seen her, maybe the nightmares would've remained in his head. Maybe he could've sweated them out. Maybe he could've learned to forget that sick rush of pleasure.
"Butch?" Boomer's voice was littered with concern.
Because his brothers knew how to spot a predator.
It was too late.
He was halfway across the courtyard before they could move. His tackle was hard. The screams of her friends were loud in his ear. They rocketed past everyone else, smashing into trees, a bench, a fountain. All the while, her fists were on him.
"What the fuck is your problem?" she cried out when they finally rolled to a stop. He was crouching and she'd landed up against a tree. The countryside. Her eyes whirled around. "If you wanted a fight, you could've just asked, asshole."
And he knew when he was silent that she started to realize that this wasn't like the other times.
He'd be carrying on and hurling out derogatory names at her. His taunts would be merciless.
Quiet was scary. Her eyes narrowed.
"What the hell is going on?"
He might've mistaken an excited beat behind those glittering green eyes. Was it the blaring sunshine above them? The beast inside him wasn't patient enough to ask.
She was up, ready to strike. They rushed towards one another and she wasn't expecting his arms wrapping around her because he was a snake. And then she felt him chuckle against her neck.
He'd lost it. That's why he was laughing.
Because he was messed up.
He kissed her as rough as he'd done in all of those half-nightmares.
And there it was.
Her sounds sounded like his when they were in battle. He could've picked up a sound from her over a mile away, but he'd never been this close before.
Two growls of pleasure as teeth gnashed against lips. They slammed into the ground behind them.
Two.
His eyes flew open. Two.
No dream. Two.
No nightmare. Two.
She flung him off of her, wiping her mouth fiercely with her sleeve. Pink stained her cheeks, a horrendous color against her green color scheme. She was trying to mouth something, an insult. Her hands balled into fists, a fight attempting to brew.
But, they were staring at one another know, sitting on their asses with a few yards in between. Blinking the way fighters do when a left hook comes out of nowhere.
"You're messed up," she screamed suddenly.
His voice was breathy, a strange sound even to his ears. "Well, so are you."
Several miles away, their siblings were rushing after them. Following the trail of destruction, the broken branches, and startled faces as they headed towards the city's limits.
She swallowed. He watched the painful lump go down as her desperate eyes flew back to where they'd come from. They'd be here in minutes.
"They're going to stop us," she muttered.
He nodded with a cross look. "What a shame."
Her green eyes met his. The beast inside of her was coming out to play.
He saw it, inhaled the rising scent of her fury.
"Hurt me," he told her. "You little nightmare."
They were gone before the others had even made it past the city marker.
HLL: TWO in one day? Wowza. I couldn't help myself. Love writing from the boys' perspectives.