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Written for chris_baby over at LiveJournal, at her suggestion.

Time for Everything

by Ralu


"How things are together we'll destroy And then we can destroy what we are" (Tricky & Martina Topley Bird - "Feed Me")

At times, something inside him breaks. Little cracks he can feel creeping under his skin, some kind of weird impatience making his body tingle, his bones slightly vibrating, like being trapped underneath a huge ringing church bell. He can't think straight, he can't see straight, he can't even tell a straight lie.

It comes and it goes, it's just the way he is. It ain't new, it ain't spectacular either, he knows that. Nothing ever truly breaks all the way through.

It scares him at first, but it's all part of the game, it always has been. It's what makes it exciting. Fear is the one thing he's ALWAYS recognized, the one thing he's always followed, fell back on, made it his. His shelter. His trap. Fear and fucking - they go together. Naturally. So he tries to push it, tries to push it so far back, so deep in, so fucking hard it only makes it the more frightening, the more attractive. So incredibly fucking arousing.

Beecher ain't different. Well...at first, anyway.

He chases it. Of-fuckin'-course he chases it, his dick's his brain and his brain's all fucked up, how could he NOT chase it? It's instinctive, an animal-like compulsion to have and to hold and to break and to have again and again and again and again and again and a-FUCKING-gain. It tears him up on the inside, but it don't matter cause there's nothing inside to tear in the first place, so he wants it, he needs it, he fucking feeds on it, sucks it all inside, rips the flesh and splinters the bone, more, more, more, give me more, MAKE me feel...

When Beecher comes back from the infirmary, he's ready to take it, whatever it is Beecher's got for him. IF he has anything.

Of course he has. Beecher's his ocean to drown into, calm on the surface, swirling in madness just beneath the skin.

"Tell me how it feels," Toby asks him one evening, just before lights out. "Tell me where it hurts."

Chris looks up in the mirror and sees that nasty glow on his face, the sour smirk hiding under that fucked up goatee, catches his eyes lingering over his lower back. Over his fresh scar. There's something sickening dancing around underneath those gold eyelashes of his; it makes his stomach roll, a faint taste of metal and bile on the tip of his tongue.

"I got shanked in the back, Beecher, where the fuck do you think it hurts?" he answers, leaning over the sink, spitting. It's instantaneous, a fleeting shadow passing him by, years of experience flashing in the blink of an eye - he pulls himself up abruptly, pale body twisting awkwardly under the neon lights, fingers clutching onto the edge of the sink.

He looks up, but Beecher's still on his bunk, still smirking. Motherfucker.

"It does hurt, doesn't it?" he whispers very, very softly, and, for a second, he looks normal again, some kind of weird sadness settling over his gaze.

It's so...warm. And so distant, all at once.

Chris wants to tell him that yeah, yeah, it DOES hurt, it hurts, it always hurts. But his words always sound like lies, stuff he only says 'cause he's expected to, 'cause people wanna hear them and they're not real, they're not true, are they? His words are always lies. Even when they aren't.

It hurts so Goddamn much.

The trick is to believe it yourself. To listen to your own muttered words, one by one, every small syllable. To watch yourself, how you smile, how you walk, how you bow your head and frown a little to show just how interested you are in what the other guy has to say, who the other guy is. To constantly see yourself reflected in someone else. How they believe you, how they buy your bullshit. It makes it all seem...real enough to buy it yourself. It's not that hard, really.

Chris is all about tricks.

***

"There is a time to search. And there's a time to stop searching. There is a time to keep. And there's a time to throw away." (Ecclesiastes 3 - The Bible)

Chris is all about tricks. His fingers slide across them, dig in, plasteline-like stickiness that never goes away, not even if he'd want it to; something which...he doesn't really wanna. Just because he doesn't know how to. His whole life revolves around matching the perfect trick with the most UN-perfect reality - all at the right time. He builds tricks like a man builds his house. His home.

Of course, Chris' biggest problem, his ever-constant failure, is finding the right moment. Fuckin' timing.

That's the one trick he never could master properly. The one trick which has always tricked him. Over and over.

This time around, it ain't no different.

He tells him he loves him. He tells him he *needs* him. He tells him he loves him, he tells him he needs him, he tells him he...

I love you, I need you, I love you, I need you, IloveyouIneedyouIloveyouIneedyou,Ineedyou, needyou,IfuckingNEEDyou!...

Oz is his grave, his blind spot, his four cornered room. His home. Now and forever, like marriage.

And he can't take it, he just can't fucking take it.

"If you really love me, then leave me alone."

A slight push, warm hands pushing him away, a distant sadness in his voice. Lack of...*whatever* in his eyes. (Need) That's what's missing.

A faint taste of metal and bile lingers on the tip of his tongue.

"...death. Let me live."

And it penetrates. Sadness and warmth and distance - all at once.

Biggest trick he's never pulled.

But I DO love you, I do love you, I love you, IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou...

I'm not lying. I know that. I'm not lying.

Something inside him cracks wide open, all the way through. Beech says it's a lie, he says it's unreal, he says it's just a delusion.

Beecher doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.

It tears itself apart into a million pieces and then it drags itself back up again, sucking in the entire ocean, twirling madness first. It rises above everything else and Chris knows, he finally knows he's never really built his home anywhere. He just doesn't know how to. He just can't.

Okay.

Okay.

This is real though.

It hurts. Right.Here.

I can feel it. It's true.

And it's over.

---the end---

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