Chapter Text
It felt like someone had kicked him in the ribs. The Dj rolling over with a loud grunting sound, sliding off the edge of his bed, taking some of the grimy sheets with him. Lucky for the young man, his arms broke the fall, thrust in front of his face as he toppled onto the ground into a sweaty tangled pile of limbs and thin bedsheets. His breath uneven and jaggedity, head throbbing and body tense.
“Dude, what the fuck,” The Dj couldn’t muster the care to answer the ‘question’ beyond a muffled groan. The other man rubbing the sleep out of his shiny blue eyes as he tugged some of the blankets back onto the bed. Causing Sid to roll even further away, cracking open a greenish-flecked eye to peer up at the edge of the mattress. Where he could see the blurry visage of the other man’s sleepy grinning face. Long greasy blonde hair hanging off the side of the bed towards Sid, the red-flushed cheeks and cigarette stained teeth only adding to the man’s charm. The Dj grunting again and rolling onto his side away from the blonde, muttering a quiet ‘fuck off, Cor’ under his breath. “‘S not my fault you fell off the fuckin bed, ratass.” The other man stretching like a cat before he wrapped the sheets back around his body, turning back to face the paint-peeled wall.
Leaving Sid to stare at the ceiling, half on his back, a bit glassy eyes as his gaze traced along one of the cracks in the plaster. Watching a bug skitter into one of the dark corners. One of the boards on the old wooden floor was digging into his spine, and the awkward angle he was at was going to strain something but he couldn't get his limbs to corporate. It felt like something was pinning him to the floor. A heavy weight on his chest. He was back in that fucking house again. Red paint, carpeted floors, and that disgusting hint of lavender. Sid’s body tensed again, breath hitching in his throat. He hated the smell of lavender. The Dj’s chest tightening, his jaw locking in place. It felt like a hand was over his mouth, clamping it shut. That fucking B--
“Hey--!” A hand, real this time, was poking his cheek. Sid’s own hand immediately shooting up to grab at the wrist, stopping the blonde dead in his tracks. The Dj’s breath a bit panicked as his eyes focused and he sat up so fast it made his head go all wobbly. Trying to calm himself down as he looked over and was met with the half annoyed half worried eyes of Corey, the blonde squinting at him. Surprisingly not still making himself comfortable in Sid’s bed. The blonde rolling his eyes once Sid had sat up, pulling his hand away. “Thought you fuckin’ died, dick.” Corey's eyes only softening a bit when he finally registered the panicked look in the younger man’s eyes. Biting nervously at the interior of his cheek as he reached out a hand to gently lay on the Dj’s tense shoulder. “ ‘s okay dude, you’re okay.” The Dj letting the hand that had been holding Corey’s drop to the floor, using the other to palm his eye and rub away the light tears that had started to form. Taking a deep unsteady breath and leaning just barely into the blonde’s touch. Corey let out a soft exhale, sitting more up on the bed and grabbing Sid’s bicep. “C’mon, get up,” Pulling at the younger man until he finally let the blonde drag him up onto the mattress.
The Dj rolling onto his side, the cold air of the room tickling up his back. The blonde rolling his eyes again, throwing the sheets over both of them and grunting as he settled back against the mattress. Pulling the Dj close to his chest, running warm fingers up the skinnier man’s spine. Sid could only let out a pathetically quiet sound into Corey’s chest, curling tighter to the other man as he squeezed his eyes shut. Corey huddling Sid closer and resting his chin on top of the Dj’s head, tucking a hand on the base of the man's skull, rubbing a thumb over strands of the longish greasy hair. The whole thing was almost too intimate; The Dj’s head was still spinning as his breathing started to even out. The blonde humming something under his breath. He smelled vaguely of cigarettes. A smell Sid had become accustomed to after being friends with the man for longer than he could remember. Hell, if the whole grimy apartment block smelled like stale cigarettes and dust.
Though at least most of the time Corey would have the decency to shower sometimes before he tried to sneak into Sid’s apartment for a quick fuck or to get high while listing to music crackling the shitty radio the Dj had made out of scraps fished from garbage bins around the ‘rich people’ neighborhoods. They’d only been chased by cops once, which all things considered was a new record for the pair. Corey had started to hum a quiet rhythm, the warmth of the blonde man’s body was starting to make Sid drowsy. His eyes only flicked open once to briefly study one of the bruises across Corey’s collar bone. From what he’d been told the man had gotten it from some chick he’d fucked a few days back. Probably at one of the many parties he’d haul ass to over the weekends when the blonde wasn't working an overnight shift at a porno shop. Sid would occasionally drop by the shop just to harass the blonde on his breaks and try to steal a box of condoms, in which he was seldom successful.
Sometimes the Dj would put little advertisements on the corkboard in the small entrance of the shop. “Local Dj for parties” and such. It did snag him a few gigs at least. Though Corey would occasionally deface his advertisement by scribbling out “Dj” and replacing it with “Bj” because the blonde had an excellent sense of humor. A small smile was tugging at the corner of Sid’s lips. Even if they were living in shitty apartments and living the life their school teachers said they would before they dropped out. It wasn't all bad. At least they hadn’t died of overdoses yet.
Luckily for Sid, the unpleasant feeling of wooden boards colliding with his body and jolting him out of sleep was not the thing that had woken it up the second time. It was Corey sitting on the edge of his bed and repeatedly poking his shoulder and munching on a smushed white-bread sandwich, the sound of an extra crunch on the side told Sid that the blonde had put sugar between the two slices just to add some flavor. Grinding it between his teeth. The blonde had actually presented him one as well as soon as the Dj had sat fully up in bed, shoving the paper plate into his tattooed hands and proclaiming it was a meal fit for a king. Sid snorting at the remark and biting a chunk out of the crust. The Dj eventually slid his way out of bed when Corey threatened to piss on his carpet if he didn’t, not that it already didn’t smell vaguely of piss. Though fresh piss and the yelling that would follow such an event was sure to attract the wench of a landlady and her fish-eyed husband. Who wouldn’t kick you out from smoking meth in your bathroom but would boot your sore ass for making too much noise at the wrong time or trying to sell their mangy cats for a quick buck. It's not like the cats were worth much anyway.
Corey had slung himself over the stained lounge chair in the corner of Sid’s room, still refusing to put a shirt on and clutching a cigarette between his teeth. The blonde was scribbling something in a notebook, glaring at the paper like he wanted to set it on fire. The words on the paper indecipherable chicken-shit; occasionally a word such as ‘fuck’ or ‘shit’ standing out against the pages because they’d been vigorously traced over until they stood somewhat legible. Sid had only dared to try and peak over the blonde’s shoulder once and grab a quick look in curiosity and had received a smack in the jaw as compensation. One of Sid’s hands unconsciously raised to brush a few fingers over his jaw at the memory, his glassy eyes only refocusing when his view drifted back to his other hand. Laying open-palmed on his thigh and presenting a few pale-colored small tablets. It only took a second to snap out of it and toss them into his mouth Sid squinting his eyes closed for a second as the pills rested on his tongue, letting the familiar chalky taste numb the buzzing need welling up at the base of his skull. Sadi buzzing had been threatening to grow into the roar of a headache. Combing a hand threw his hair and letting out a small sigh, settling his other leg with a hand as it had begun to bounce up and down. Instead lowing his head and resting it on his hands. Heat beat already started to feel just a bit uneven. But in a good kinda way.
He’d heard wind of some party or something they would have to attend, Corey proclaiming that he’d snagged the younger man a job and that he knew some of the guys in attendance. But then again the blonde could find someone he knew at almost every single party he’d even stuck his nose into. Whatever. A job was a job and if it meant he could play music and snag a few pills off someone, who was Sid to complain? The Dj stumbling off his bed and out the open bedroom door; finding his way to the kitchen table and the piles of wires and equipment that greeted him. Even second hand; the knobs slightly worn down and the sound a bit fuzzy sometimes, they could do the job. He’d risked his throat for it on more than one occasion when a junkie worse off than had pulled a knife and demanded it. Sid refused, that’s how another in particular scar ended up being added to his ever-grown collection, running diagonally across his right forearm. He couldn’t remember if he’d stitched it up, or someone else had. And it didn’t matter, the thing had healed with patchy white and jagged redness. Standing out against his freckled skin. At least the fucker hadn’t sliced anything too vital while he was at it.
Sid hadn’t noticed that in his spaced-out state his hands had begun to instinctually pack up his ratty old backpack. Stuffing it with extra wires and turntables on automatic while his mind wandered. Blinking at his hands as they pulled shut the zipper of the bag, ghosting over a busted seam he’d badly sewn shut with fishing line sometime before; sealed with duct tape. It worked. Setting the bag back upon the table and lightly padding before loosely spinning on his heel, wandering back to the doorway of his room and leaning his weight against the door frame. The edges of his vision were starting to pop with color, the corners of the room bubbling. Sid’s eyes loosely focus on the far corner of the room, fingers ghosting over the bumpy scar tissue of his other hand’s knuckles. Tracing the ink embedded into the back of his hand. Some of it roiled under his skin.
“Sid,” The glassy green eye not moving from their fix on the corner, but instead answering the call with a low grunting sound from his chest. “Parties at ‘round 9,” Corey was rolling a cigarette between his fingers, “Got someone to pick us up, ‘s across town near Safari’s,” Sid nodded, humming something under his breath getting Corey to snort, rolling the cigarette between his teeth. “Hosted by some older guys y’know, they’re selling out the basement so if you want shit; buy from them, tell ‘em you know Paul and they won’t give you nothin’ mixed, and--,” Sid was barely processing anything the blonde way saying as the man kept rambling, something about the party that he should have probably paid attention too, muttering under his breath and sluggishly finding his way back to his bed. He’d barely been up for a few hours but it felt like a lifetime, and it’s not like he’d get much sleep tonight anyway. He could practically hear Corey roll his eyes as Sid planted face down in the sheets. “--point is, ignore the mask thing and just don’t piss anyone off this time.” Sid managed to raise a hand to flip the other man a middle finger which was returned with grace as Corey reached down to the floor and picked up a magazine stolen from the local corner store; thumbing open the pages half stuck together by a long since dried spilled soda. The cigarette between his teeth unsmoked as he squinted at the pages. He’d be responsible for once and wake the Dj up later. Sid already had big enough dark circles under his greenish eyes. Big rings of shadow that sometimes made the kid look like a skeleton. Thin boned wrist and drug-addled eyes. Corey could feel his jaw tighten; making an effort to unclench the muscles as he flipped through another page of the magazine. Only now realizing that he’d unconsciously crushed the filter of the cigarette between his teeth. Moving a hand a little too quickly to pluck it out and throw it down onto the floor, some of the tobacco spilling out from the split paper. Corey grumbling under his breath, and running a hand through his hair. It was always fucking something, wasn't it?