Down We Go
He heard somewhere, once, that you can't love someone else until you love yourself. He really hopes that it's true, hopes that he hates himself because loving anyone, anything is dangerous right now. He hopes that all he feels is anger and frustration and that all he wants is a release, a release from the unfairness of it all.
"Because it is unfair," he tells himself. Unfair that he should endure physical and emotional torment, when all he ever tried to do was help. To find her was an accident, to lose her deliberate and fate remains the demon that stalks in the shadow of them all.
It's so unjust in this world he's built for himself and he's angry because of that. Angry with himself for caring, angry with her for being what she is and angry at what she is for taking her away. He's angry at the world for fucking things up, angry at the glass in his hand for being empty, angry at the bottle for slipping out of his hand and crashing to the floor. Even as he stoops to clean the mess, he feels so slighted that all he can do is watch the whiskey soaking into his carpet.
He clenches one hand in his hair, just short of tearing a few strands out. He's drunk and can barely think, although that isn't saying very much. He's been feeling inebriated for weeks.
Everything he believes in is slowly being eroded away, along with his sanity, by his corrosive, hot desires. Animalistic, he thinks and the irony is clear to him.
What he needs and what he wants are two completely different things, he knows. What he needs is to sober up, find the 'nice girl', follow the plan he made for himself when he was eighteen. A plan to save him from the corruption he saw everywhere in his world, his family. He needs to stop thinking about her, with her accusing eyes and personal demons that permeate the air around them. He needs to stop thinking about hair and chins and arms and lips, but he can't. He can't and he knows it's because he's never felt this raw before, never felt so exposed and intoxicated and wanting.
Not even with Max.
He wants to think about her at night, he wants to dream about long, smooth hair and cheeks. But he doesn't control those dreams. He wants to save her, so that she can save him, so that they can save the world. He wants to make the world right and good and clean, or maybe just himself. He desperately wants to feel clean again.
He desperately wants Alec.
He wants him hot and rough and hard. He wants him up against the door, breathless. He wants to feel dirty and used because then he doesn't feel so guilty.
He's sick of feeding his morals and letting his conscience treat him like a naughty child. He knows that he should know better, but that's never changed anything. He also knows that he'll be here tonight and no, the world doesn't need saving.
He blames the world for being what it is, making him into what he is... and what he may become. Because he's beginning to realize that what he wants and what he needs aren't very different after all.
He wants for everything to be simple again, plain even, and what Alec is and does isn't that hard to understand.
He needs everything to be complicated because otherwise what does he have? If there is no conflict, what then becomes of our hero?
He wants to be right, but he doesn't know that what they think is simple truth is rapidly becoming twisted myth.
He needs to understand that even though his beliefs are failing him at every turn, it may be for the best. Maybe he doesn't know why he does these things anymore and maybe that's a good thing. Because between what's wrong and what's sane there are only corrupted ideals and maybe, just maybe, he wants to be corrupted.
***
The air inside is warm, especially after the chill of downtown Seattle. He finds the smell of Scotch enticing and stops in the kitchen to find a glass. He doesn't touch the light switch, he doesn't need to and, more to the point, he doesn't want to.
He finds Logan at the computer and waits, finishing his drink. Logan shows no sign that he is aware of Alec, yet when he turns to find him draped across an armchair he isn't surprised. Like a harlot seducing her customer, he purses his lips and tilts his head as he speaks,
"Hey, good buddy."
Logan says nothing, he's long since cleaned the shards of broken bottle from the carpet and leans over to pour Alec another drink. But after the glass is filled and the mandatory sip taken there isn't time for small talk, he moves quickly and his mouth is on Logan's fast and hot and wanting.
But it isn't about kissing.
It's about groping and squeezing and sucking. It's about arms and shoulders, smooth and muscled. It's about neck and collar and Logan's stubble. In a way, it's about Max, neither can save her, help her or have her.
For Alec, it's about corrupting and taking and having. Because, if he can't be good enough, not for Max, not for Logan, he can be bad enough. Wrong enough.
They're close to the bedroom door now but they won't go in, Logan's adamant about that. Instead they'll lean unsteadily against a wall, a piece of furniture or maybe they'll go down and use the rug. Carpet burn.
Logan can feel one of Alec's hands tucked into his waistband and he's fumbling with his shirt buttons. He inhales loudly as a thigh is slipped between his knees and he presses Alec further up against the cupboard. Alec can taste Oban on Logan's breath, he likes it, it reminds him of cigars and up-scale strip clubs.
Logan finds the moment when Alec takes control and pushes his hips roughly against him, forcing Logan up onto the countertop, incredibly erotic and Alec finds himself unable to resist leaning forward pressing his mouth to Logan's. Only briefly though, because with Alec it's all about his throat, sucking and biting and nipping lightly over his shoulder.
The actual fucking is probably the least sensual sex either of them has ever had and they like that. They don't want this to be like everything else they've had before. No flowers from Logan, no spooning with Alec because that would make it seem too normal. They aren't ready to deal with being normal. Alec, who's lead his entire existence blending in and becoming what he's not; Logan, who's spent his life trying to bring society back to his standards. Both of them want to lead a double life, say a big 'fuck you' to themselves.
Alec wants it rough, it makes him feel alive and in the morning the bruises and red marks remind him of that for days. Logan just likes to bury himself far from the commitments and promises, far from himself.
It might be love but it's probably just sex.
They might need it but they probably just want it.
But they both enjoy it.