Chapter Text
***
The smarter you become, the more eager you are to be dumb. The same goes for memories — too many don’t sound like a good idea at all, and the human brain does a surprisingly good job of managing the excess, tossing out anything you haven’t reached for in a certain amount of time. You forget last names, phone numbers dissolve, and you’re barely able to recall what you learned sitting at your desk back in second grade. And yet, there’s always something — a tiny nit hidden between the strands, ensuring all the lice come back — biting, burning, itching — again and again.
They say hair holds memories — but somehow, clippers never seemed to do the job. David used to wonder if there were any other tools to lobotomize himself. Because as much as the brain was nature’s wonder — a dense network of tightly packed neurons, tiny fireworks inside the skull — it pissed him off just as much: replaying the same old story whenever he and Simon fucked.
Because, look — that’s what he was supposed to think about: hot, glistening skin melting through the space between his fingers; the faint salt taste of it when their mouths brushed; Simon’s thighs locked around his waist, bouncing against David’s hips — up and down, up and down — skin slapping in a steady, obscene rhythm; wet, warm flesh tightening, fluttering, pulling him deeper, sliding on his cock —
But somehow, all he could hear was:
“I’d take a shotgun and shoot every one of them. Scrub the world clean of all the damn faggots.”
And there he was again: a twelve-year-old with dirt under his fingernails and too much knowledge about all the tools stored in the garage.
He stood by the workbench, holding the rag, waiting for the signal. His father didn’t look at him; his eyes were fixed on the Remington 870 12-gauge, laid out across the oil-stained wood like a patient on an operating table. The barrel rested to the side, the bolt and carrier exposed; all metal, gleaming faintly under the garage light.
“You see this?” he said, running a finger along the bolt. “Carbon builds up here. Powder fouls the chamber. If you don’t keep it clean, it jams when you need it most.”
David nodded quickly. “Yes, sir.”
His father slid the bolt forward along the action bars with a metallic shhk-shhk, then reassembled the shotgun with precise, practiced movements. He twisted the magazine cap tight and racked the pump once, twice. CLACK — the action closed, ready.
He reached into a cardboard box and lifted a green shell, brass head catching the light. He thumbed it into the magazine tube, then another.
“I saw that boy down the street today. Neighbor’s kid. Walking home with his hair grown out like a girl’s...” He spat into a cup. “It’s a sickness, David. A rot. You let rot spread, and soon you don’t have a town anymore. Just a gutter.”
His voice dropped, intimate, almost conspiratorial. He racked the pump again. CLACK. The sound filled the garage, sharp and threatening.
“Y’know what I’d do, son?” He didn’t look at him. “I’d take a shotgun and shoot every one of them. Scrub the world clean of all the damn faggots.”
A pause.
Then the blast tore through the garage — deafening, raw. The sound snapped down the driveway and spilled into the street, startling birds from the branches. A spent shell ejected, spinning across the concrete before bouncing into a stripe of sunlight. The smell of burned powder filled the air.
David’s ears rang painfully.
He didn’t even flinch.
His father lowered the shotgun and set the safety with a soft click before resting it against the workbench.
“…But you,” he said, taking a deeper breath, voice calm now; almost terrifying in its pride, “you’re normal, son. You’re built right. You’re one of the good ones.”
David didn’t know if it was a question or a statement. He nodded — quick. Just in case.
He wanted to be good.
Good, like a dog trained to attack on command.
Long story short, David wanted his factory settings back. Because whenever he and Simon fucked, David had this urge to bang his head against the wall until the dense network of neurons leaked out and all the tiny fireworks exploded through the cracks in his skull.
Oh, that was everything he could think about.
And Simon saw all of it. Nothing went unnoticed when he was on top — and oh God, how he loved being on top... Setting the rhythm, choosing the pace, deciding when he was done — and getting to slap David across the face, hard — every time his eyes glazed over.
Again.
He wasn’t there.
Simon wondered if it was his fault. After all, the human brain loves explaining things, and it also loves shortcuts. And when context is absent, there’s no shorter explanation than blaming yourself. In the room where conditions remained unchangeable, the only independent variable Simon could measure was himself.
He slowed down and let his eyes drop, taking in everything he despised: purplish stretch marks zigzagging across his hips, tangled with pale, ridged scars on his thighs — tally marks carved into the concrete of his own body, recording every day he felt trapped inside it. His nose wrinkled at the sight of the loose skin around his crooked, sunken nipples and his belly button — skin that no patch of hair could ever disguise, skin that had been botched. A knotted mess of curves and angles, feminine swell and masculine edges, that left him feeling like a neuter thing; a surgeon’s mistake — stuck somewhere “in between.”
He hated the mirror. He loathed it. And yet he couldn’t stop himself from looking again — because what if, this time, she was finally gone? But the middle school girl in the back row was still there: alone, wearing the same mustard-yellow sweater every day, greasy strands of hair clinging to her cheeks, teeth stained and dull. That face didn’t age. It lingered, stitched into his reflection — an unwanted roommate he was forced to share his body with, buried deep in the fibers of him, impossible to cut out without cutting himself apart.
Every glance made his skin crawl. Every glance made him smaller. And yet he couldn’t stop himself from looking again.
Because what if, this time, she finally disappeared?
She never did.
Simon felt ugly as fuck.
It had always been like that.
He shook his head, trying to get rid of the thoughts. His breath hitched, thighs burning from the effort, slick dripping down David’s shaft. He wanted it to feel good — fuck, it almost did — but every spark only sharpened the ache of being alone in it. He could feel David twitch deep, feel the involuntary pulse against his walls — but his partner’s hands stayed flat and useless on the sheets.
David barely touched him.
Ever.
At first, Simon was fine with it — as long as he didn’t feel that familiar, judging stare crawling under his clothes, under his underwear, under his skin; all just to see what was there. It was respect, wasn’t it? Until Simon started feeling like an unwanted present, unwrapped and met with disappointment; given to someone who never asked for what was inside — but still took it, all awkward smiles and weak handshakes, just out of politeness. Just because they couldn’t say “no.”
Because if David hated this, why had they fucked in the first place?
It didn’t make any sense to Simon.
God, it pissed him off.
The gift Simon offered had cost him so, so much. Why the hell didn’t David understand that?
Why wasn’t he there?
Simon hadn’t realized there were three of them in the bed — nor that the third, hidden from his view, was holding a 12-gauge Remington 870.
He slapped David across the face, hard.
“David, what the fuck is wrong with you? Open your goddamn eyes!”
The answer came instantly — reflex before thought, before Simon had even finished his sentence.
“They’re open.”
Another flawless “Yes, sir,” delivered without hesitation, because there could be none. It had always been like that: first the answer, then the pain. First the paw, then the treat.
A familiar, pulsing hot sensation bloomed on David’s cheek. He frowned and pressed his palm against it.
That part, at least, was predictable.
Simon broke the rhythm abruptly, still straddling him. David’s cock slid out with a soft sound — thick, hot, still twitching — nestling wetly between the sticky, flushed lips of his cunt.
“I’ve been riding your dick for ten minutes straight while you stare through me like I’m a fucking wall.”
David exhaled and dragged a hand slowly down his face, as if trying to peel off a thin, sticky layer of something he couldn’t quite scrub away.
“Don’t start this again.”
“Oh, I’d love to finish,” Simon shot back, “but it’s hard to get there when I’m basically jerking off using your body!”
Oh, he was so tired.
“You leave me, every goddamn time! It’s like I’m fucking a corpse.”
“I’m trying to focus, okay?!”
“No, David, you’re trying to survive it!”
Silence.
Turns out, David had to concentrate to tolerate Simon’s skin.
Simon sighed and squeezed his eyes shut with the heels of his palms, letting his head drop forward. He desperately needed to take a few breaths so the sting in the corners of his eyes would go away.
David wouldn’t understand, anyway.
It had always been like that.
Simon had swallowed his pride so many times that it got stuck in his throat.
He asked flatly,
“You want to continue?”
And while one part of David wished he could say “no” — the part heaving against his ribs, heavy on his chest, making it harder to breathe, pressing him down into the damp sheets and squeezing the air from his lungs — the other felt it: a tiny, starving itch that kept growing stronger, spreading low across his abdomen, traveling down from his navel through the dense trail of hair, sending urgent, rhythmic pulsations to his cock.
Simon’s gaze was intense, prying, unrelenting.
In a room where neither of them dared to break the silence first, every second of David’s hesitation stretched grotesquely long.
David swallowed. His eyes shifted to the side, slipping out from under Simon’s stare.
Finally, he said,
“…Yeah. I do.”
But David was still normal.
Still good.
Right?
Without saying a word, Simon pushed his hips back, impatient; his hand slipping down to wrap around the hard length beneath him. He lifted himself just enough, then lowered slowly, taking him inch by inch until his whole cock was buried inside, feeling that stretch, that heat, that deep fullness that used to make his breath hitch, his eyes roll back, his teeth sink into his own lip — that now only managed to pull him, briefly, out of the tangled swarm of thoughts buzzing in his skull.
He started moving again, slow and slightly uneven, his nervousness bleeding into the rhythm, tangling with the heat and friction trying to drag him back into his body. He slid more easily now, both of them slick and tight and full of need, the wet glide turning smoother with every roll of his hips.
It felt so good.
Simon kept his eyes on David, searching his face for proof — for any sign that he felt it too, that he was there.
David turned his head to the side, cheek pressing into the overheated fabric of the sheets. His brows trembled — just enough for Simon to catch it.
The only thing Simon needed was to be seen.
And right then, David closed his eyes.
Simon grabbed his chin and forced his face up.
“Look at this. Look at me. You act like it’s disgusting.”
The thing was — David didn’t find it disgusting.
That was the problem.
He thought that’s why he was.
His eyes glazed over again.
Simon let out a sharp breath. “For fuck’s sake.”
If David wanted to lie there like a corpse, Simon would let him.
For a moment, he convinces himself that chasing the release might quiet the mess in his head — a simple, mechanical solution; tension building, tension relieved. A machine that has to vent when the pressure becomes too high. Like turning on the shower and letting the water run hot, fingers sliding deeper, breath held tight behind clenched teeth, the door firmly locked; being completely by himself.
Because either way, the bed was empty — even despite the two bodies in it.
And he might as well take what he can take.
He shifts deliberately, picking up the pace now — letting himself feel good, sound good, louder on purpose, breath heavier, rougher, obscene with intention; almost like with singing, steady, loud, and confident, when no one can hear you. The rhythm between them turns mechanical, stripped down to pure physics: heat and friction, skin dragging against skin, wet glide and tightening muscles replacing what should have been connection.
David’s jaw tightens.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the window left wide open, the thin, transparent curtains dragged carelessly to the sides. And — most of all — he couldn’t stop thinking about the neighbors just one wall away: a neat blond family of four, plus a golden retriever — all of them polished and symmetrical, like something lifted straight out of a TV commercial. The kind where everyone smiles over a bottle of menthol cough syrup. Or maybe it was anti-nausea pills for long car rides.
He couldn’t remember which one.
“Turn it down,” he mutters.
But Simon doesn’t hear the beg hidden in the mutter. He ignores David, focused entirely on himself.
After all, corpses don’t talk.
Right?
And the louder Simon gets, the stronger that imagined presence becomes — eyes pressing in from the other side of the wall, from behind the glass, from everywhere at once — watching, judging, crawling beneath David’s skin.
How are you supposed to relax, to let yourself feel anything, when it feels like everyone you’ve ever known is standing there, shaking their heads in quiet disappointment?
“Come on…” David grits through his teeth, fingers curling deeper into the sheets. “That’s… that’s perverse.”
Simon freezes mid-motion, eyes widening for a heartbeat.
“What?”
Because he’s heard it before. Many times. Always a command — to squeeze, to shrink, to fold back into the closet; to braid his hair like a girl should.
It felt like betrayal at the very core.
And when David drives in another nail —
“That has to be treated.”
— Simon feels the world collapse under him.
He couldn’t believe it — David had just said it.
David, who was talking to the ghosts.
“David.” Simon pulls back slightly, tilting his head, searching his face. “Are you talking to me?”
Silence stretches between them, thick and viscous, filling the room like honey poured into a jar — trapping them, two insects frozen in their misunderstanding. Time slows, thickens.
The ghosts are there, eyes narrow, shaking their heads, whispering disgust — how filthy Simon is, how filthy David is.
David looks away.
He isn’t here again.
“You know what? Fuck you, David. Fuck you. I’m gonna help myself.”
Simon gets up suddenly, moves sharp and nervous. He storms out of the room before David even opens his mouth to say something.
The bathroom door shuts.
The lock clicks.
Then water.
A rush through old pipes. A steady stream hitting porcelain.
David stays in place, exactly how Simon left him: one arm bent at an awkward angle, fingers still curled into the sheets, his head turned to the side, cheek pressed into fabric gone cool where Simon’s heat used to be. His cock softening slowly between his thighs, sticky and unattended.
After all, corpses don’t move.
Right?
David stares at the ceiling. At the crack in the plaster he has already memorized. He waits.
He expects it.
The shift of weight against tile. The hitch of breath. The low, rough sounds of someone trying to finish what was interrupted. He knows what that sounds like. Knows the rhythm of it. He hated when Simon did that.
Water running. Fingers moving. Teeth clenched.
He braces for it.
Instead, the breathing stutters.
A sharp inhale.
Then another.
Then something breaks.
David’s stomach drops when he hears sobs echoing against the bathroom tiles. Muffled, like Simon’s pressing his fist to his mouth to keep it down.
The water keeps running, indifferent, as the sobbing splinters into uneven, desperate gasps. Each sound lands inside David like something thin and sharp — like a razor drawn slowly across muscle.
His throat tightens.
He should move.
He should get up.
He should cross the room, knock on the door, say something — I’m sorry, say that’s not what I meant, I don’t think you’re perverse, I don’t think you need to be treated — say anything that sounds like a human being.
He doesn’t move.
His body feels nailed to the mattress. Heavy and useless; like someone has pressed a palm flat against his sternum and is holding him down.
Another sob.
He squeezes his eyes shut.
The crying stretches. It feels endless. It fills the apartment, seeps under the bedroom door, crawls into his ears, and stays there, torturing him.
Then, gradually, it quiets. The sobs thin out into shaky breaths. The water shuts off. The bathroom door opens again.
Simon walks back into the room.
He stops at the edge of the bed.
David sees him from the corner of his eye before he gathers the courage to look fully.
Simon’s hair is wet, pushed back and messy. Strands cling to his temples. His eyes are rimmed red, lashes clumped together. Dark circles sit heavy beneath them. His cheeks are blotched and flushed, especially across the nose — the kind of red that only comes from crying hard and trying to stop.
He stands straight, almost rigid.
Looking down at David.
There’s something still there in his expression — stretched thin, fragile. The last thread of hope refusing to snap.
His voice isn’t loud.
“Do you even like me?”
That one hits.
David’s chest tightens.
He swallows hard.
“That’s not fair.”
And he truly believes what he says. Because, look — David was never good at art. If he ever found himself at a painting exhibition, he wouldn’t have much to say about the canvases lining the walls; and all the flowers he had seen in his life looked more or less the same. Sure, they were nice — but whatever fascination others felt seemed to pass straight through him without leaving a trace. He understood what was practical and what wasn’t. He knew exactly how to take a machine gun apart and put it back together again. David believed his rough palms and calloused fingers were made for physical labor, not art.
But when he looked at Simon — standing right in front of him, naked, exposed, vulnerable — and Simon glanced at him from under his brows, that stubborn spark flaring in his eyes; when David’s gaze moved over the lean, pale body, the long limbs marked with white scars, proof of battles fought and survived; at the wide yet fragile frame that looked as though it hadn’t quite finished growing into itself — he knew, without a doubt, that Simon was beautiful.
Not in the way roses in a flower shop are beautiful — but perhaps like a dandelion, trying to stand tall on its thin stem, enduring a wind that always seemed determined to bend it.
David truly believes the question isn’t fair. The problem is, he can’t say that out loud. All the words at his disposal feel too small for what he is trying to express, and yet Simon keeps trying to make a wooden stump speak.
“I’m asking,” he repeats, his voice rising, edged with demand.
David looks back at the ceiling. At the crack in the plaster — the same crooked line he memorized earlier, as if it might offer him something steadier than this conversation.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t, would I?” he says.
Simon shakes his head.
He can’t believe David is able to disassemble a machine gun, yet can’t assemble a single sentence he desperately needs to hear.
“I love you” — was it that hard?
Three fucking words.
Was it too much to ask for?
“That’s not an answer, David. That’s a question.”
Another pause.
No reply comes. Just like Simon thought. He sometimes feels like talking to a concrete wall would be more efficient than talking to David.
Simon’s shoulders drop a little; a final surrender slipping through his mind. He exhales through his nose — not angry, not performative. Not even demanding anything anymore.
He is just so, so fucking tired.
“I see,” Simon says quietly, stepping into his boxers and tugging them on. “Look, I’m not doing this forever. I’m not gonna keep competing with whatever you think you’re seeing in my place.”
His jaw tightens for a split second. He adds, voice low and final:
“Because I know who I am.”
David frowns slightly — the crease of someone who’s caught part of it but not the meaning.
Because while he sees a 12-gauge Remington 870 laid out on the workbench in his mind, Simon thinks David is staring at a girl in a mustard-yellow sweater.
The tragedy of the broken telephone is that they’re both looking at the same space between them:
It’s just that one sees a 6 —
And the other sees a 9.