It was the worst thing I had ever had to experience.
His nightly screams that he wouldn't remember in the morning, the way he sweated half of his body weight every day. I would sit next to his bed, drying him with towels I had chilled in the fridge.
Sometimes, I wondered if I had done the right thing, taking him home. Wouldn't he be better off in a hospital ward? Probably, from a medical standpoint, but when I remembered Madara's face of disdain when he had believed he would be forced into confinement for detoxification, I knew I had done what was best for him, at least mentally, which weighed the heaviest right now.
It took him days to come round. And when he did, we came into a soft companionship together, although it was somewhat distant. I was happy Madara didn't seem to want to move out of my apartment, but the distance I felt between us was killing me. My body was aching to hold him, to breathe him in, to kiss him, to sneak into bed after him and press my chest against his back, nuzzle his neck until he fell asleep.
It was all out there now, in the open. Who we were. Me not covering my neck underneath a scarf, or hiding my lightning bolts.
I went back to work when he was up on his feet, but my heart wasn't in it. Not only because I missed Madara like crazy and my heart was still with him, but also because of how I had seen my colleagues treat Catherine. My little outburst seemed to have worked though, and the staff were very careful with what they said to me, but their previous behaviour had created something within me that made it impossible for me to love my job the way I had done. I spoke to Catherine, who had become a great friend to me, about it, and she confessed she felt the same.
"I know I have just begun my specialist training here, but... But I consider switching hospitals."
It saddened me that the one good thing left in my job wanted to leave, but I couldn't blame her.
One day when I came home, I would learn that Madara was fighting his own demons in his mind.
When I opened the door, a lovely scent hit me in the face like a train, and I realised how hungry I was.
"Oh my God, are you making chocolate pancakes?"
Madara showed up in the doorway to the kitchen holding a spatula, with flour in his long hair that he'd put up in a ponytail, and an apron covered in a chocolate batter. In that moment, when I saw him like that, I loved him so much I was certain I would die of it.
"Might be", he said with a smirk.
"God, these are lovely", I said as I took the first bite of chocolatey loveliness with cherry jam and vanilla ice cream. "You're a God. Now, what do you want?"
Madara looked taken aback.
"What do you mean?"
"You always make pancakes when you want to ask something of me, like that time you needed a new razor at midnight and didn't feel like facing the paparazzi. Now, spill it out."
Madara looked to the side and blushed.
"I didn't know you knew me quite that well."
God, I wish you were my boyfriend.
"It's an honour, knowing you. And seeing the paparazzi have gotten quite bored of us, my guess is you don't need me to run an errand for you."
Madara stabbed at a cherry on his plate.
"I... You know, when we... Talked... As M and H." The mention of that caused a shiver to run down my spine. "I was terrified you would find out about my addiction. And now you know, and..."
I waited patiently for him to continue. He didn't dare to meet my eye, but my heart melted at his hard he was working to be honest with me.
"Take your time", I said.
"Well, now you know, what do you think? Are you mad? Disappointed? Don't you wonder why I ghosted you?"
At this last sentence, he looked up at me from beneath the curtain bangs I had cut him. His look was so searching for forgiveness, it made my heart open up like a flower and bleed.
I put my fork down, and before I had registered that my brain had told my arms to move, I held them out...
And Madara walked straight into them and sat down in my lap.
I hugged him to me and he hid his face in my neck. I caressed his hair over and over, whispered into his ear.
"Watching you go through abstinence is one of the worst things I have ever had to experience." One of the worst things. Not the worst thing. Because the worst thing was losing my unborn daughter. "But I know what world you're coming from. I don't know much about it, but I know about the pressure, and how easy it is to take to drugs to mitigate that." At this, I softly grabbed his chin and forced him to look at me. "I guess you got into a bad place with your addiction and was too ashamed to contact me. And this time, you saw no way out. Correct?" Madara nodded, and I saw he was suffering when he looked me in the eye, so I released his chin, although he still didn't look away. "The only thing I feel is love."
Time stopped between us. My bones were aching to lean my body forwards to kiss this man. Madara's lower lip was trembling.
But then, he stood up and went to his pancake, hiding his face again, and the moment was gone, the words I had spoken spilled on the ground between us without anyone to pick them up.
That night, we went to bed separately as we always did. But whereas I had always accepted that separation between us before, now, I could not. It was as if something was comprehensively wrong, and I was afraid I would never be able to sleep again unless that was fixed.
I heard Madara go up several times, grabbing water, reading a bit, walking around, apparently as restless and unable to sleep as I was, and I wondered if he was missing me or cocaine.
When I got up to go to work the next day, I had hardly had any sleep, and I felt as if I would have a seizure out of tiredness. I had no idea how I had passed the day without dying, but soon, I found myself in the dressing room, changing out of my bloody, green scrubs.
And before I had time to think Bad Idea, I had taken my phone out.
Me: Long time no see, M.
His answer was immediate.
M: God, H, it was a long time ago.
Me: I miss you. Every day. All the time.
M: But we see each other every day now, don't we?
Me: I mean, I MISS you.
M: I don't even dare to dream about what you truly mean.
I felt drunk. On exhaustion. I had no energy to rein my spiralling thoughts, and what message they made my fingers tap out on the screen.
Me: I want to fuck the living daylights out of you.
M. H...
Me: I want to make you unable to breathe out of pure pleasure. I want to crush you beneath my body weight. I want to make you bleed, and then lick up that blood as an apology.
Madara started writing. Then, he stopped. Then, he started again. Over and over. The wait was agony, and I was suddenly worried I had gone out of my line.
But then, his answer came, and it was a photo.
It was of him, laying down, his shirt unbuttoned. He did not show his face, but I saw his hot neck tattoo, the one that was a spider web. The photo went down to his hips, and he had definitely pulled his trousers down or taken them off completely.
M: Come home. I'm waiting for you. Stretched and wet and ready.
He was waiting for me, just as he had promised.
He was wet for me, just as he had promised.
He looked like a fantasy, the way he lay on his back on my bed, legs splayed for me, with the cutest blush on his face.
He had gone to the hair dresser, I noticed, and got his long hair cut in a fresh line that made it seem even longer even if the tips had been cut. I liked his hair short, too, but long hair on this man lifted his face to the skies and beyond to the angels and the Gods.
"You're so beautiful", I said. "You're so, so beautiful."
"H..."
It was almost like roleplaying, but not quite. Because M was real, and H was real, just other parts of us, parts that kept secrets.
I approached him, my belt already undone in the car as I sped my Jaguar as fast as I could to get home. He was breathing rapidly, while my breathing was slow and deep, as if my lungs had a set number of breaths they could take before I died and they were trying to prolong my time with this man.
"M..." I purred.
I kissed him tongue-first. He opened his mouth to me as he put his arms around my neck and pulled me over him. Neither of us had a thought about foreplay, the months we'd lived together being enough. Being more than enough.
I kept my lips on his and his heart in my hands as I pulled my trousers down and then slid into him.
He nibbled my shoulder, and I bit his neck.
"Ahhh! Harder!" he demanded.
I looked at him, worried.
"But I'm biting you so harshly already""
"You said you would make me bleed." His eyes were big, begging me. "You said you would make me bleed and then you would lick it up."
I shut off the softest parts of my brain then and allowed myself to go berserk over his body. I turned him over forcefully and pushed myself into him from behind. I bit him so he actually bled, and sucked his blood like a fucking vampire. I grabbed the flesh at his waist with my nails in a way that would leave scars on my lover's skin for months. When he started screaming in parts pleasure, parts pain, my bed making lewd noises on the floor all the while, I put my entire body weight on him so he was forced down on his stomach, and I leaned my forehead over his back and put my hand over his mouth, not because I wanted to stop his screams, but because I wanted to hear him struggle getting his streams out.
"You like my cock inside of you, don't you?" Madara nodded desperately. "Say it!" I demanded while I kept thrusting.
He just managed to squeal, and finally bit my hand to get his mouth free. I removed it and grabbed a fistful of his hair, forced his face into the mattress.
"Mmm..." he said.
"Say it!" I demanded.
Of course, he couldn't, and I just laughed.
I turned him around then, and his face was so beautiful, his cheeks flushed, that I immediately melted
"Are you okay?" I asked. He nodded. "Do you need me to be softer?" He shook his head vigorously.
So I put his legs on my shoulders and fucked him raw until I came inside of him. When I pulled out, my cum ran down his thighs, wetting my sheets, but there was also a trail of blood.
Madara noticed.
"You said..." he whispered.
"I did."
I bent dock and licked his thighs, and I only had to breathe on his cock before he came for me.
And I let my harsher, domineering self go to take care of the man I had just fucked bloody.