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There’s little that puts Martin at ease quite like the first pull of a joint.
He lets the smoke swirl around in his throat, letting it sting and soothe all at once before exhaling it out of his nose and reclining back in his shitty yellowing patio chair on his shitty balcony outside his shitty little apartment.
The glaring neon of nighttime Miami begins to soften as the time until sunrise dwindles down to just under thirty minutes, but it all just feels hazy to Martin anyways, what with his eyes glazing over up until they were just barely closed; he didn’t want to fall asleep mid-joint. Truly, it’d be a massive fucking waste.
Martin takes another puff of the joint as the shrill sound of sirens echo beyond, deep into the concrete jungle where Martin had been only hours ago doing house cleaning. His body still aches despite the new bandages and ointment he’d applied to himself with uncharacteristic difficulty.
Patching himself up is routine after his various appointments, though tonight, he’d fumbled with the roll of medical tape and pulled his face when cleaning the scars from dog bites and bullet grazes with saline. Even applying the last of his bandages was done so with trembling fingers.
He’d spent a long while after just staring at his hands. How bruised and calloused and disgusting they looked.
Martin really wondered why that boy had held them so gently. Scraped at the dried dirt and blood mucking up his face with deliberate care even as his body shook brazenly with fear. He wonders if the boy simply just had a shit judge of character.
(He doesn’t dwell on how the boy had stopped shaking after that, how he’d let Martin help him up, how it had made his stomach swirl with a foul mix of guilt and giddiness all the same).
Rasmus.
The boy’s name all at once eases and violently contorts Martin’s thoughts, swarming around his brain and scraping like the buzzing flies that nip at his skin when he sees the men in animal masks when he dreams.
As though he’d been possessed, Martin nearly tore open his drawer and grabbed a pre-rolled joint, swiping his lighter from his jean pockets across the room before the thoughts of Rasmus began to consume him as totally as the phone calls had.
There's another puff of smoke, and the haziness of Martin’s sight finally begins to blur and his muscles finally, finally relax into the shitty plastic of his chair. He still twiddles with the small paper roll between his fingers, slowing down only as his brain begins to fog up, thoughts smudging together until they were an ugly, unidentifiable brown mass.
Martin lifts his hand for a final pull of the joint, finally letting the spent wrapper fall into the ashtray on the small table beside him and sighs as he tilts his head back, staring up at what was left of the night sky, what was left of the night he’d met Rasmus.
Rasmus.
He could still see him clearly.
See the way he’d been curled up on a shitty bed with shitty neon pink and black tiger patterned sheets, surrounded by empty bottles and needles and a large camera pointing right where Rasmus was feebly gripping at the rancid bedsheets.
See how Rasmus had barely acknowledged him beyond asking for his passing to be quick and painless, how he couldn’t sob despite the tears so clearly welled up in his eyes.
See how he’d curled his head into Martin’s chest when he’d scooped him up and walked them out of the house they’d both been stuck in, unused to another warm body, another beating heart next to his.
He wants to be scared that his thoughts don’t rage and storm at the thought of seeing the boy comfortable here. (He doesn’t dare think about around himself. He’s a realist.)
He doesn’t wish for much. He doesn’t even get his hopes up.
But he thinks it would be nice to see Rasmus in the morning.
Soon enough, his eyes close, and Martin dreams as the sun rises.