Coma ➷ Izzal

Chpt.10

Thoughts were aimless recipes for disaster, how quickly they could change and oscillate our state of minds. How optimism can transcend to sheer pessimism. How relief could be shrouded by fright. How love could be blinded by insecurity. They were reckless, the epiphanies you've ignored daring to ravage your tired head.

Axl's head came alive at night, and the thoughts he attempted to shove behind him were all catching up. Even with Izzy lying beside him, he couldn't stifle the anxiety in which chastised him for ever daring to close his eyes, telling him that if he does, he won't ever come back again.

He could see through his apocryphal pavilion of self-doubt, that bubble in which immersed himself within his personal trauma; trauma that can't be stolen. It was his, memories of the life he left behind in Lafayette. Memories of all the troubles that followed him to California. It was pain, pitiful and barbarous, and he couldn't escape it.

A quiver crept up his spine as he felt the familiar callouses of Izzy's fingers traveling beneath the hem of his shirt, just barely caressing his skin. When he turns his head, darkened eyes peer back at him, moonlight glistening off the silver of Izzy's nose ring.

"Can't sleep?" Izzy inquired, his voice just above a whisper, scouring for Axl's ears only.

Axl shook his head, peering at the cusps of a smile dancing across Izzy's pink lips. The heat resonating between them heightens the intensity, and Axl wallows in that discomfort for a terse moment to recognize that Izzy is right beside him. Authentic in his glorified presence, exuding life and realism and touching Axl in a way that felt so homespun. This wasn't an illusion, and although he's physically brought back into reality, Axl still couldn't pull himself from his thoughts.

Izzy's fingers ascend along Axl's skin, and the latter sucks in a sharp breath of uncouthness as the guitarist finds his chest. A broiling sensation contrives low in his stomach, and he shyly wriggles away from Izzy's touch.

"Don't- Don't do that, Izz," he mumbles, embarrassment burning through his reddened cheeks. There's a tight sensation in his pants, and Axl's cursing himself for feeling so many ways for Izzy.

But Axl doesn't move away when Izzy's lips linger upon the crook of his neck, and he doesn't move away when sharp teeth puncture his milk-white skin. His lips purse, yet don't conceal the faint moan that tears from his throat.

"Why not?" Izzy asks, the sincerity in his tone veiled behind rasped lust.

And Axl can't think straight, and all of these thoughts are spurring within his troubled head. Thoughts of Izzy, thoughts of his illusions, thoughts of never waking up again.

"Because it won't matter," he exhaled, eyes boring into the ceiling above them, the ceiling that was seemingly descending closer and closer to crushing them. Abhorrence cast upon them, and the burning arousal that dared to obstruct everything Axl brought himself to was diminishing.

Izzy sat up, hovering over the singer while scrutinizing him long and hard. From where he is, the moonlight doesn't find the acute features of his chiseled face, and instead makes a home along the vast side of the bed. Axl pushes his head further back into the pillow, establishing even a centimeter of distance between him and the antagonizing look of despair written across Izzy's face.

"It doesn't matter when I kiss you, does it?" Axl asks, and Izzy sits up upon the ginger's lap, doing an impeccable job of ignoring Axl's apparent erection beneath him.

Izzy doesn't question the reason behind Axl's words, and instead ponders them with his glistening tongue prodding at his bottom lip.

Axl feels himself sinking into the mattress, whether it be Izzy's impounding weight, or the plethora of emotions he's concealed for so long awaiting their liberation. But he's trapped, believing there is nothing more to this romance than an unrequited affection stuck upon the restraints of friendship.