BOYS OF SUBURBIA [boy x boy] [Wattys 2018]

✗ THIRTY-TWO ✗

The last few weeks had been opulent.

Ever since Denise decided to ring him up and he had worked for her party, she had been calling him up almost every day to deliver her shit. The poor little rich girl couldn't get enough. She had an addiction to everything that made her seem cool to her friends and he knew it was morally wrong to feed upon a fifteen-year-old girl's insecurity but it was the only thing financing him at the moment. After his mother had hit the bucket and his father was nothing else but a deadbeat, he needed to help Rae with stabilizing their income.

"Where did you get all this extra cash?" Rae's eyebrows scrunched when he plopped a few hundred dollar bills on their kitchen aisle.

"I've been working a few jobs to help you."

The connotations behind the sentence made Rae pursed her lips. "I told you I don't need you helping out. You shouldn't be worrying about the money- I'm the older sister, it's my job."

"Who cares?" he grovels, "Mom's dead. Dad is...Dad and you're going through Uni right now. You're going to need some help. And I don't mind."

Rae ran a hair down her brown-blonde hair, "It's not just that, Niko! It's dangerous- that kind of job-"

"It's fine! I got friends- Sebastian- to help me out."

"Don't get that poor boy muddle up in your drugs, Niko," scolded Rae disapprovingly, harrumphing, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes. Sometimes, Rae was more of a mother than his mother had ever been- had. The past tense still stung every time he used it. It was literal, concrete acceptance that his mother was dead. But his mother was dead a long time ago. Dead ever since she succumbed to the darkness of an addiction. "That boy is innocent. Don't corrupt him."

Too late.

Niko shook his head and drew his sister in a hug from behind with this shit-eating grin on his face, placing his chin on his sister's shoulder as she began sorting through a load of bills cluttering their desk. "I won't."

Rae snorted.

-

"Look at what I've got."

"Niko, I'm working," came Sebastian's irate reply as he swiped a customer's credit card into the machine. Niko had randomly appeared from behind and dumped a load of hundred pound bills on Sebastian's cashier when he was obviously talking to a customer about his discounts on perishable goods.

As he bagged the last of the customer's canned fruits, he glared at Niko, who impishly grin- knowing this crooked little smile would help him have his way with Sebastian.

"Yeah, but look." He held up the wad of cash and Sebastian's eyes turned into saucers. "You can quit this goddamn place."

"Jesus Christ, how-"

"From Denise's party. I just gave what Don asked for and kept the rest for us. Do you know what this means?"

Sebastian licked his lips and uttered a sentence as he locked eyes with the other boy. "I'll tell my boss."

Niko was right since the beginning about Sebastian hating his part-time job and now he had a chance to get out of it, he took it without even thinking about the consequences. Soon, in less than fifteen minutes, the two boys whooped and rejoiced in their monetary freedom around the streets of their suburbs. They celebrated their newfound richness by burning away days of their lives, pushing the present into the muddled haze of past tense.

Niko was used to monochrome days that passed without any significance of ever occurring, the monotony of routine and the overwhelming loneliness but now it was cured by a boy with blue eyes, dark hair, and lips as soft as snow. Niko wasn't ready to admit anything- not ready to say he loved him or anything stupid like that- but he wanted to hold onto the moment.

They escaped towards the forests again. It was one of those days where there was nothing to do except waste time. Niko had splurged again on matches and expensive lighters, gasoline and wanted to try out the special employee 'gift' from Don.

"These are handcrafted," Don had said, tapping appreciatively on the inconspicuously black bag and winking when Niko had delivered the sum he had received from his clients. "Try them out. You'll love it, I promise."

Niko was lounging on the enormous tree root that protruded out from the moist soil, lazily lighting his cigarette by holding it out into the flames and casting the tip in an orange glow. The pain of scalding fingertips and scorched knuckles where the embers dig in, the scent of singed nails and fine hairs wafting into the night sky, the warmth that tingles underneath his skin for hours after he's returned to the coolness of his bedsheets with Sebastian's kisses marred all over him was more addicting than any drugs.

"What do you have?" asked Sebastian, head on the conjoining socket that attached his arm to his shoulder. Niko fed Sebastian the cigarette by placing it on Sebastian's lips, feeling him inhale the nicotine and exhale out a large cloud of smoke, and retreated before putting up to his lips again.

"Some new stuff Don gave me. Said I'll love it," described Niko, languidly, removing Sebastian away from his body. That column of heat generated by their bodies being close together seeped away- much to Niko's disappointment- but he sat upright to grab the envelope of pills Don told him to try out before dispersing them into the market.

Right now, he was in such bliss- surrounded by everything he loved: Drugs, alcohol, Sebastian, fire, his pyromaniac obsession, Sebastian, and Sebastian.

"Okay." The agreement slipped out of Sebastian's lips. Now Niko was fueling that boy's obsession with narcotics and lust and that boy was feeding Niko's obsession with him. Pale skin and such blue eyes- beautiful. Before Sebastian could retrieve the envelope out of Niko's hands, Niko lashed out and kiss Sebastian full on the mouth. He wanted to kiss him every day, every second, feel his tongue, consume him, trace every part of his skin.

With his eyes closed, he fumbled in the darkness for the envelope and tore it open. As they retreated in sync to take breaths, Niko opened his tongue and dropped a pill into his mouth before colliding his lips again with Sebastian's, exchanging the pill with just their tongues.

And before they know it, the world fell behind them.

-

aw, it's all nice and cosy.

[wtf val]

dedicated to descents for writing stories for my gay ass.

anyway, please vote, comment xx