Pretty Dead City He still hated it. He knew it was JC and he couldn't stop hating it. There was something in him that tried to stop him, but he lifted his hand to strike and crush it against the wall. It screamed a whispery, reedy scream and clung to his arm. It was no more than three feet tall, skeletal and bent, ugly, ugly, ugly and only half there.
He lifted his hand to strike it and met its eyes before he let it fall. Help me, it mouthed. Help me. Help me.
The man who took her hand and led her to the dance floor didn't look any less unreal.
"Shit," Chris said and turned back to the creature clinging to his arm. It weighed nothing and felt like spun glass, both sharp-edged and soft. It didn't look so ugly, he thought. It wasn't really ugly, it was just weak and in pain. He lowered his hand. He couldn't remember why he'd wanted to kill it.
The party continued around him, dance and laughter and bodies rubbing against each other, the music pounding and swallowing all other sounds. Chris felt a pinprick of pain somewhere behind his eyes and he had to look away. It was easier to look at the grey creature, see JC's scared eyes in its face. He touched its forehead with his free hand. It felt soft and prickly with heat; almost like it was electrically charged.
It moved against his hand, butted its head against him like a cat, and his arm ached and his hand tingled and he felt heat pool in his chest and slide downwards. He stroked its electric skin and looked into its wide, blue JC eyes and thought, it's not sick if I know it's JC, right?
It released his arm suddenly and he thought it might be a little bigger now; a little fuller, as if it was swelling from his touch. He reached for it again and the jolt was sharper, brought a little real pain and a rush that was clearly headed for his groin.
He looked around. Beautiful faces, brightly coloured dresses, even white teeth in too-exposed rows, eyes like painted baubles; all in a swirl of colour and sound. No one saw him. He wondered where the rest of them were.
The rest of who?
The rest of.
Them.
A tug on his arm and he followed dumbly into a shaded nook, imagined privacy, and he couldn't stop himself from touching it again and it grew a little more; gained colour and weight, a familiar bone structure under the alien skin, and its eyes were unblinking and unrelenting.
It pressed against his leg and his knees buckled and he slid down the wall. It was in his lap, burrowing against his chest, making his skin flash hot and tingly and he gasped and stroked its smooth-rough back. It squirmed and pushed its tiny, bony paws under his shirt, path of searing heat along his chest and he arched and dug his fingers into its back, its broader, stronger back, its broadening, strengthening back.
It pushed its face into his neck and whispered, in JC's voice, "We're so fucked, Chris, we're trapped here," and he bucked his hips so sharply his back protested and came, and he grabbed JC - pale, too-bony JC, but it was him - and kissed him through the last sparks of orgasm, bit his lip and twined his hands in his dry, tangled hair. JC shuddered and pushed him down, his skin still faintly electric against Chris', and groaned in something that sounded more like pain than pleasure.
He felt battered and ill used, and it hurt a little to breathe again. Like it had outside. Not enough air, or not enough oxygen, or maybe something unhealthy in the air, something that pressed down on his diaphragm and abraded his lungs and rushed thick and harsh through his throat. He noticed that he was sweating rivers, wet-hot-sticky from his scalp to the soles of his feet, and his skin was ticking like a cooling engine, little twitches of confused nerves. JC lay heavy on top of him, his face again pressed into Chris' neck. He was trembling, in exhaustion or emotion or pain or whatthefuckever. Chris untangled his fingers from his hair and patted his back. There was something going on-- somewhere. Something.
Wait.
Wait.
"JC?" he whispered. "JC, what is--" but JC had already pushed himself violently away and hovered above him like a malevolent spirit, his drawn face a mess of too-sharp angles and too-hollow eyes and too-white lips.
"You FUCKER," he hissed and punched Chris in the stomach, got to his feet, a little shakily, and through his efforts to avoid barfing up his lungs, Chris noticed that JC was completely naked.
"Wha-- what-- WHAT?" he squeezed out with hardly any help from his cramping midriff.
JC trembled and knotted his hands into fists and looked like he wanted to pace. There was no space to pace in, just the little corner behind a heavy brocade curtain and beyond that, the crowd of dead, laughing faces.
"We're not okay," JC said. "Don't think for a second--" He broke off and pressed his fists against his eyes, so violently that Chris wanted to grab his arms and force them down. He couldn't get off the floor yet, though, so he didn't.
"JC--" Chris said. He could take small breaths again, one, two, feeling better. "JC, what's."
JC shivered; Chris could see his kneecaps shaking, the tendons on his arms tighten like steel wires under his skin. "We're dying in here," he said slowly.
"I know," Chris said. Not that he did. He had no idea what they were doing. Dying, living, swimming in puke. The party went on, loud and boisterous, and he realised he hadn't thought about anything but the present in, what, hours, days, he didn't know.
"They're gonna feel us," JC said. "They'll try to stop us. Give me your shirt."
"What? From what?"
"I'm naked, Chris. Give me your shirt." He made a jerky, abrupt movement, threw out his hands. He was naked, yeah. Chris forced his muscles to comply and pushed himself up to sit against the wall, fumbled with his shirt buttons. JC crouched in front of him and pushed his hands away, did it himself with ungentle fingers, yanked the shirt down Chris' arms. Hey, kinky, Chris thought mirthlessly and sat up straight and struggled out of the shirt.
"Get up, come on, we have to go," JC muttered and tugged at his hand.
Chris got up, but it made him feel weak and nauseous and he leaned against the wall and tried to find enough air to fill his lungs. "Wait. Where?" he asked. JC was like a dog on the trail now, coiled energy and nerves. Still, in the white, ruffled shirt that barely covered his ass, he looked strangely debauched - wasted and decadent. Chris thought of Sid Vicious and laughed before realising that right now, with his wild eyes and emaciated face, JC looked a lot more like Sid than Chris ever would have thought possible.
"You act like him, too, you crazy fucker," he mumbled and let JC pull him along into the crowd.
Whose wet dream? That was a question for the ages. He stumbled behind JC, grabbed at his shirttail, got a handful of slightly bony ass instead. JC slapped his hands away and hissed a curse.
"Okay, okay," Chris said and looked around and saw people staring at them. People, or not-quite-people. "Dude, seriously, they're about to--"
JC turned fast enough to crash right into him and he raised his hands, ready for a punch, but JC just yelled, "Get DOWN!" and pushed him, and Chris landed hard on his ass and saw something heavy fly over them, almost glancing off the back of JC's head.
He threw up his hands and covered his face.
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