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The first time she sees him smile it is because the flame of the candle shuddering clumsily in her hand burns against his pinky finger. It is a clumsy movement in itself - unpracticed, stiff, cracking - and his eyes cloud with their own murky insecurity about the expression.
She knows this is a smile that has heaviness knotted at the corners, knows the quickly melting curve hasn’t found reason to fight against the weight holding it down for some time.
But they all have their vices.
She means to blow out her candle again, means to find any reason to extend her time beneath the man’s distant blue gaze - but habit and the misplaced smile send her free hand tucking unconsciously into her back pocket, thumbing for her own crutch.
She checks both pockets twice as he guides her backwards towards his door, out of his dark apartment.
(Part of her had thought that maybe she was the only one who missed an electric payment.
Part of her knew it was the excuse she needed to finally meet the boy with a guitar and no smile up the stairs and down the hall.)
“I think I lost my stash in here,” she tells him, and there is a flicker of a new emotion still - one that fits into all the smothering lines in his face as if it knows it is right where it belongs.
“You’re just a kid.”
“I’m twenty.”
He helps her search the crevices in even the corners of the room she hasn’t as much as looked at.
She finds the corner of her little baggy beckoning out at her in one of his back pockets, and she makes a point of running her fingers along his ass as she retrieves it.
“Found it,” she deadpans, waving it in his face when he turns sharply at the sensation.
She doesn’t linger on it, though – balling her prize tight in the sweaty palm of her hand as she moves back towards his door again - this time without the pointed invitation. It is as if the part of her that needs it knows that she had almost lost it, as if it’d felt her fear and began twitching uncomfortably to life, prodding her with it’s own concerns – pleading for a fix.
The flame dances harder now above the shaking candle.
When she glances back at him, he is still watching her lightly - soft moonlight painting the dark corners of his eyes.
“You’re staring,” she tells him.
He blinks away.
xxx
She isn’t an indecisive person and she has known for months now that she wants him.
He is a quiet sort of artist - he has a guitar but she only hears him play snippets and chords and orphaned notes at odd hours. He plays with a practiced precision but never a song through. She wants to know why.
She wants to make him smile again.
She is a little drunk and a little high and climbing the fire escape up to his balcony above hers seems like it can’t go wrong. Her mind is flooded with a particular shade of moonlight soaked blue.
His window is open and he is strumming distractedly at his beat up guitar – it is a tune she recognizes and when his eyes meet hers and the melody drops out of the air she hurries to catch it, picking up the next verse in an unsteady hum until his eyebrows twitch and he strums at the guitar again until she has slipped into her routine, swaying closer to his amused blue gaze as she dances.
When he smiles again, the tiniest laugh accompanies it - and she is close enough to feel the little breath of air attached to it.
It is no more natural than the first. No easier.
It slips away and she doesn’t want to see his lips without the odd curve, so she covers them with her own - kissing him soft and slow and nothing like how she thought she might.
He reacts immediately as she presses her body against his and wraps her arms around his neck - moving against her and losing a barely-there moan against her lips that turns as quickly as his smiles into something else.
He pushes back from her, breathing heavily.
“You need to leave. You know where the door is.”
She thinks that the last place his fingers were were digging into her ass above her most recent buy, and she automatically ghosts her own fingers over the pocket, feeling to make sure he hasn’t hidden them from her again.
The lump is still there, but his eyes follow her movement with disdain that covers whatever soft lust she is certain was present only breaths earlier.
“Right. Your brand of self destruction is above mine,” she mutters dryly, making a point of running her shoulder hard against his chest as she passes, glancing over her shoulder as she continues her movement towards his door. “No one likes a saint.”
Something ebbs at his eyes like desire – but not for her. Something more internal is pressing at him, something he hurries to suppress, clamping his jaw against it.
She wonders if they are words.
“I’m sorry,” is what finally comes out, dry and gravelly. “I can’t.”
The words don’t make her feel better, instead biting, still condescending, at the still fresh wound.
“Life only happens once,” she adds, not bothering to turn this time as she hauls at the door. “Don’t know about you, but I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than the things I never did. You can’t live in your past.”
xxx
There is a mutual friend of a mutual friend and they are at the same patchworked party when the little beeper goes off at his side and suddenly, she understands a page more of him than she did before.
He catches her staring as he thumbs at the alarm, and his gaze falters on hers.
“AZT break,” he mutters in explaination.
She is already digging through the bags in her pocket as he brandishes the little caplets as proof.
She finds the bag she is reaching for and tugs it out herself, holding it out against his, fingers brushing. His soft gaze flickers between the identical pills in the baggies.
They are less different still than she thought.
“I guess we have matching baggage,” she jokes halfheartedly, drawing the pills back away and shoving them back into her pocket.
His eyebrows furrow against the usual crevices in his brow when his eyes meet hers again and hold tight.
The shade of blue still makes her heart stutter.
She kisses him again in the alley outside the bar, with snow falling cold and wet in her hair and on her cheeks and his lips and body warm and persistent against hers.
When he hesitates again, falters, she tangles her fingers through his and squeezes tight.
“You can’t live in your past,” she repeats, gentler than before - pressing up into his space. “Move on with me.”
He moves hesitantly back towards her, but falters only a moment before kissing her.
They are bad at pillow talk.
“I was in a band - I met… I met my wife touring. We were irresponsible mostly because we were never in our right minds because we were in too deep. She killed herself. I quit.”
“Drugs or the band?”
“Everything.”
“I’ve been a dancer at the Club since I was 13.”
It’s more than that, but he knows.
Her body itches, then pulses, then aches for a fix as she lies against his warm side, and she thinks it must be nearly sunrise when she untangles herself from the warm breathing and sweaty sheets and fumbles through the piles of clothes for her jeans and their back pocket.
He finds her on his couch and she is miles away, but still the icy chill of his voice stretches the distance and stings painfully against her skin.
“I can’t be with you if you’re doing.”
“I’s not like I’m gonna make you do it with me.”
“It isn’t about that, Daisy. It’s about what you’re doing to yourself.”
His voice doesn’t raise above a pleading whisper, but the racing of her heart tries to convince her he’s screamed as she collects the remainder of her clothes from his floor and slinks towards the door.
“Honestly I’m not sure how that concerns you.”
“You can’t love someone else until you love yourself.”
She scoffs at that.
“You’re not exactly an authority on loving yourself.”
She is entirely sated but feels anything but as the door falls shut behind her, heart thudding unsteadily.
xxx
She likes how his breath felt on her skin and his soft words had filled the silence and how for the first time she had more than the shadows on her side. But mostly, she likes him. Likes his company, likes his friendship - likes wanting to be better when she is around him.
Her skin begins to itch for him instead.
She tries to make the craving go away, experiments with the drugs in her stash for days until her body has sunk to aching desire that nothing she has stashed away can combat.
She throws out the drugs in a fit of combined rage and frustration and regrets it almost immediately - but she locks her doors, sinks to a seat on her bed and waits for the pain to start hitting her in waves.
It takes a day for her to reach her limit, but her sweaty, tear soaked palms are shaking to hard to turn a door handle – so she curls up as small as she can go on the hard floor, digging her nails deep into her skin and losing herself to the persistent, urging, pulsing misery.
She hates him for being the cause.
She isn’t sure how many hours or days or minutes have passed when she hears her window creaking open, sees blurred feet stepping into clarity towards where she lies on the floor.
“What happened , what’s wrong?” His voice is frantic as he falls to his knees in front of her, and her muddled, throbbing brain can’t quite make out why he grabs at her wrists, feeling across the smooth skin before relaxing almost imperceptibly. “No one has seen you in days, I checked the club and they said you haven’t been in to work – Daisy…”
He helps her sit up even though she is more than happy to stay curled in on herself on the floor.
She blinks sluggishly, and it hurts, trying to remember exactly what her situation is.
His fingers sweep gently up and down her quivering, sweat-soaked arms – eyes reading across her slowly once, then again – and the asshole smiles.
She has enough control left of her cognition to add a checkmark to the list of smiles she has seen him wear.
Five.
“You’re quitting,” he says, eyes annoyingly bright, and she groans, sinking weakly up against his chest – it is more comfortable there than on the floor.
“I hate you,” she says into his shirt. “I hate you, I hate you. I hate you.”
Her body protests everything she tries to make it do, and she thinks it must be tearing itself apart.
He holds her tight as the shaking increases, and she doesn’t feel better, but the persistence, the steadiness – is a comfort.
He stays.
He makes her shitty soup that only tastes shittier on her tastebuds, which stand in solidarity with the protest the rest of her body is putting up. He checks every loose floorboard and drawer underside three times for any remnants, and the practiced precision with which he locates every spot she’s ever used reminds her that he has done this, too.
She likes it best when he just sits with her and she presses herself close to him and he holds her tight – cradling the back of her head and slipping an arm snug around her waist and holding her together as pain and need pulses through her veins.
And then the pain becomes less and the tremors become smaller and the need is still there, a persistent nag at the back of her mind – but she can push through it.
He is still with her.
She tells him he probably shouldn’t leave.
He doesn’t.
xxx
The need is always there, always present and pleading with her - but she drowns it out with him. With soft kisses and long conversations and shared warmth when neither of them have payed their bills.
It is still hesitant, at first – he is still hesitant.
But she shifts her baggage around enough to make space for his to squeeze in alongside it – and they move slow, but together they do alright.
She gets him to start support group with her, and he smiles more and more.
He tells her how well she is doing, how fantastic she is day after day.
But then one of their friends, one of the brightest lights in their little community center group begins to fade – and he grows distant. They spend time in the hospital with their friends and when she reaches for his hand, his fingers barely twitch against hers.
Shadows are growing heavily back against his eyes.
She can’t bury the nagging need in the back of her skull with him if he is trying not to exist.
She doesn’t apologize when he finds her on the roof with a new stash in front of her, aching itch finally silenced.
His brow furrows deeply and his words are angry, but there are tears burning against the fire in his eyes as he steps towards her, holds her wrists, her shoulders, her jaw and pleads for her to tell him why.
“We’re supposed to be a team,” she snaps, pushing away from him despite every destructive habit that tells her to hold on tight, to keep getting off on the high and ignore the damage it is doing to her. Anger gets the better of her but melts just barely when his own frustration falters and she catches a glimpse of the broken resignation just behind the thin mask. But only for a moment. “You can’t just ignore me every time you get scared. That isn’t how loving someone works. And don’t tell me about you’re shitty baggage, cuz we have all got our crap, you selfish asshole. You’re just the only one of us not making an effort to fit your own shit in with the rest of ours.”
She heatedly gathers the baggy that has fallen to the ground between them in the confrontation, shoving past him for the door.
She isn’t sure if she has been unfair and she isn’t sure if she cares.
She finds a place he didn’t look when she went cold to hide the stash and tries to ignore the ache in her stomach that urges burning tears to her eyes.
xxx
She doesn’t see him again, and she hears that he has sold his guitar for a car and left town.
She tells herself she doesn’t care.
But it doesn’t take her long to know she can’t be in their building alone, can’t breath in the open space that suddenly feels so confined.
She packs her drugs and a change of clothes and leaves.
xxx
She sees her own face smiling up at her from the missing person flyers her friends have posted all over town, but there is too much to lose.
She is tired of losing.
xxx
She needs her medicine, can feel the disease taking over her cells the same way the withdrawal from her drugs had. Only this is more insidious. Slower.
She feels like she can feel every segment of her body turning on itself one bit at a time.
The little money she still manages has to go to getting her fixes.
She thinks about what he told her, about having to love herself to love someone else. She knows it is bullshit. She loves him.
He is too afraid of life and its consequent end to ever admit that he loves her, too.
xxx
Two of her friends find her on a bench in a park that is too close to home, but part of her thinks it might be good that they do. She hasn’t had her AZT in weeks and the slow, crawling ebb of the disease against her system has peaked.
Sometimes she isn’t sure she remembers how to breath.
She does remember how and where to meet her dealers.
“I want to go home,” she tells them, even though the words are heavy and painful on her tongue. Even though she knows none of them will let her out of their sights again.
She doesn’t think it will matter much longer, anyway.
There are more footsteps, more voices when the reach her building – and she is shifted from soft, female arms into a sturdy masculine hold.
Her head lolls tiredly against his chest as the group moves towards the stairs - and she belatedly recognizes him.
“I thought you were in Santa Fe,” she mutters weakly, bitterly, and he doesn’t respond except to hold her tighter.
He has no power – his apartment is ice cold and she vaguely hears scattered argument about where to put her before he is lowering her gently onto a hard surface, curtained by a blanket – brushing her hair from her face and holding tight to her hand.
“Someone get a blanket, she needs heat.”
“It’s too late for that, I’m calling 911.”
“Hurry.”
She feels someone tuck a blanket around her anyway, but her body keeps shaking and her eyes are glued to his.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t speak – just holds her hand tight in his and stares at her brokenly. It takes her a stretching moment to realize that he is shaking, too.
“I was,” he tells her, after they’ve held each others eyes long enough that everything is beginning to blur around him. “In Santa Fe.”
It is a belated response, slow and deliberate, and she only breaks contact with his eyes when the lazy, light breaths she forces down her aching throat catch up with her and her lungs heave a full load that makes her throat burn and constrict in protest.
This moment, her slipping away between his fingers – she knows it is exactly what he has feared, exactly what distanced him and drove him further and further away from her. She wants to feel spiteful for it, wants to enjoy that he has to endure it after everything.
But love is more spiteful than even she is, and the realization only makes the pain she is in burn more fully.
“I’m sorry,” he tells her, gravelly voice a soft plead and when he reaches again towards her cheek, fingers brushing her jaw and tangling into her hair and holding her tight – there is no hesitation. “Daisy, I’m so sorry. I love you. I love you, and running away… it wasn’t because I didn’t.”
She stares at him as she catches her breath, lets the foreign, forbidden words melt against her skin.
“I love you,” he tells her again, and it is as if finally letting the words slip past his tongue has unhinged an entire cache that he has been suppressing. “I love you.”
Another painful cough tears at her throat, but she reaches for the hand she turns away from as it comes over her and clutches him tight as her chest throbs.
“I love you.”
xxx
She wakes up in a hospital bed that none of them can pay for surrounded by wide eyes that are barely daring to have hope.
It only takes her a moment to frantically locate him at her side – his own eyes wide and damp - wet tear stains crossing through the sad lines under his eyes and down his cheeks.
His hand is pressed firm and unyielding against her heartbeat.
She reaches for his jaw impulsively, thumbing at the trails - and a sad smile crosses his lips at the contact.
Nineteen.
“You’re soaked,” he notes hoarsely through the lingering curve, and his fingers brush at the hair stuck to her brow. “the… the fever must be breaking.”
She is exhausted and responding takes all her strength but she does it anyway.
“You’re staying, this time?”
Twenty.
“Loving you isn’t something I’ll ever regret.”