They’re still holding each other. Still connected. Onyx rests his cheek against the side of Andres’ head, warm and tired and wrung-out. Gooey and sweet like cookie dough.

Everything comes to a standstill. Onyx feels like he just took an uppercut to the jaw and his vision is shaking back into place. Sunlight refracting through a multi-paned window. Andres jars him to his core.

"You--,"

He swallows, because he's a hundred percent sure he's hallucinating, now. Or that this is a joke. It has to be a joke? Haha, funny joke. Funny end of the world joke.

One hand presses at the base of Andres' spine; the other hovers above the back of his head.

"--you can't just say that."

Distantly, he wonders how many other people he's said this to.

[attr="class","mintag"] andres buenaventura

His breathing slows, but he doesn't release Onyx from the grip he's put him in. He doesn't move to fix the sticky mess on both their stomachs. He'd die on that couch, either fucked out of his mind or alone. But even if he's not expecting much there's still a sting that his tired brain registers. A painful grip in his heart. [break][break]

Onyx is in disbelief, and part of him thinks he's appalled, maybe even disappointed. He feels sick for a moment swallowing as he closes his eyes. One small breath, that's all he needed. [break][break]

Because yeah. Yeah that's about what he expected from this. From being honest and vulnerable. It hurts. Because despite all…all the weird signals, their time spent together he's still just friends. Even resigning himself as just...a bed warmer for him, it still hurts. He hates himself for it all the same. For caring so much, for being so desperate. "O-Onyx-" its a struggle to name the man that has ruined him unintentionally. [break][break]

Andres smiles into his skin, quiet and sad. This is his fault for testing something so fragile. But as much as it had been a bad idea he doesn't stop. He already broke it. "I love you." He whispers the confession into his neck, smiling and holding back a sob. He thinks it's ok. It's all ok. He's ok. He got what he wanted, if brief. He'd fed into his own delusions long enough. And how fitting for it to end at the cusp of the apocalypse. [break][break]

What is more fitting to a euphoric high than falling down to the deepest depths for his low?



[break][break]

+ onyx straub | don't look at me during [break][break]

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

"Andres," he says, and he can feel the other man trembling slightly in his lap, shaking like he's holding back tears.

It rips at something inside of him, something protective and long thought dead. A vestigial organ that has since resolved its purpose.

He puts his hand firmly over Andres' neck, slides his fingers up through his hair. Out of a million pathways he never imagined this would be where this went.

"You shouldn't."

He doesn't say it back, yet, not because he doesn't want to, not because he doesn't feel it... but because he's not deserving of this precious thing suddenly resting in his lap.

He wouldn't know how to put words to it, anyway.

[attr="class","mintag"] andres buenaventura

Andres focuses on his breathing, as he's met with silence. He counts the seconds between Onyx's words. His touch is a comfort he's glad he's dying with. And then he felt his chest throat again. Something snapping with cold rushing through his head. He shuts his eyes, gathering the strength to talk. "And?" The word is a struggle, but it helps him gather strength for the next bit. The bit where he smooths it all over. Where he makes it all go away. Where he is just Andres, happy and smiley and helpful and dumb. Because he was smart. He was smart enough to know how this would end. And he'd still gone through with it, like an idiot. [break][break]

"Why-...why does that matter anymore?" It doesn't. Not to Andres anyway. Count how many more times he could smash the sledgehammer on the mirror. How many more pieces he can break into dust. He laughs. Its quiet and raspy, and it pulls at his lips into a forced smile despite how much he fucking hated himself. But he keeps a singular goal in mind. Don't cry. He could hold it in just- wait. "Don't worry. I-I just wanted to tell you." Because this pain was temporary. There's more tan enough liquor squirreled away in this apartment. He'd drinking himself to death before the meteor shattered the whole continent.

[break][break]

+ onyx straub | don't look at me during [break][break]

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

"Because--,"

After everything he's said. After everything he's done.

"It matters."

Of course it matters. Even if they're all going to die.

Out of everything don't worry has him angry. He pushes Andres away and looks at him, really looks at him, hands on his shoulders.

"You can't just say that and then say don't worry! What if we--," he swallowed, and his thumbs thrum over the wells of his shoulders.

"If we don't die."

If we don't die, we have a chance.

He couldn't think like that. Couldn't allow himself that. That was far more than he deserved.

He kisses him again, then, softer, hands coming up to cup his face, holding him in the closest thing to tenderness Onyx can muster. What if he just let himself believe? What if he just let himself have this?

"I've hurt you."

[attr="class","mintag"] andres buenaventura

He's startled, pried off Onyx with ease. Andres isn't strong enough to hold on, exhausted and beaten down without emotional catharsis. He doesn't like this. He doesn't want Onyx to see the hurt, the bitterness as his entire self esteem caves in on itself. He doesn't want Onyx to deal with tear streaks and a forced smile. [break][break]

His eyes widen at the thought. If they don't die. He didn't believe that. Because he knew if he did, onyx straub wouldn't be here, kissing him like this, looking at him like that. This is different. He can't be convinced it isn't. If the end of everything wasn't so near, Onyx would have never come to him like this. [break][break]

And that thought alone, hurts him too. How ugly he must've looked. And how it must feel, when Onyx puts his hand on wet cheeks, and Andres' own breath hitches as he tried in vain to say 'Don't.' [break][break]

Andres rests his hands on Onyx's chest and kisses him back. He leans into the sweetness of Onyx, awkward as he could be. And his hurt is soothed, if momentarily, by those damning lips. When Onyx pulls apart, just barely, and says the obvious, he tears his gaze away from his lips and says, "I know." [break][break]

He knows. He knows he shouldn't. Not when Onyx kept on hurting him like this.

[break][break]

+ onyx straub | don't look at me during [break][break]

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

"No, Andres, I don't think you do."

He's about to stand up carrying this man but remembers his injuries at the last second and just sits forward.

"Beyond the-- this. What we're... I've hurt you. Physically. Repeatedly. Badly."

God above, this was entirely too much. He didn't deserve to hold this wonderful thing so precariously in his arms.

"Don't-- look like that," he says, close to tears, himself, "I can't-- you shouldn't--,"

You shouldn't feel that way about me.

But he does. He does, he does.

"Why?" he asks, foreheads pressing close. "How? When? Why?"

It had to be the end of the world. It had to be. No other reason for such crazy decisions.

[attr="class","mintag"] andres buenaventura character switching is hard

"I know!" His voice raises despite trying to stay calm, and happy. How could he not? It's not like Onyx bashed his skull hard enough to give him amnesia. But he feels sick. He feels that hurt manifest into something hot and bitter at the mouth of his stomach and inside his throat. It burns. How forced his words were tying to maintain calm and so very clearly losing it. [break][break]

But it didn't just feel like a rejection. It felt like him doubling down. When would it be enough? But if he's so guilty- so distraught then- "Then- why a-are you here?" Because if he shouldn't love him then why was he here? If he didn't feel the same why was here here? If he- If he felt so guilty then why- [break][break]

He can feel his heart breaking in real time. And he didn't know it would come with so much adrenaline. [break][break]

"Why not?" he protested, fists clenching as Onyx held his gaze. He tried to shift away, tried to glare. But Onyx pulls him close and he lets him. Because Onyx could do anything, say anything to him and he would allow it. [break][break]

"I just do! W-why does it matter?" He's exasperated. He hates these questions because he can't answer them. He barely knows himself. Just that it was lying under the surface, waiting. He had never meant to see onyx straub again. He remembers that horrible day, where he had just been buzzing with excitement under the bleachers. He remember the way he'd touched chapped lips with something so chaste. He remembered the way it made him blush and how the memory of Onyx had slipped in, horrifying him and making him run for all the way back home. [break][break]

He'd buried that deep, only to have it resurface in the worst of moments. "My first kiss. I thought of you." Andres admitted, feeling like a moron. Hot tears bubble in his eyes and drop as he ducks his head. He can't look him in the eye. He's glad he gets to die here.

[break][break]

+ onyx straub | don't look at me during [break][break]

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know what Andres is doing. It has to be a joke… something… flexible. A stress response. Something that seems so very heavy and dire in the moment, but in the morning, when the sun is shining and the meteor is gone and everything is still okay, Andres’ll laugh it off. Ha-ha, the funny things we say in the dark.

He fits his hand around the back of Andres’ skull, something soft and gentle, thumb brushing along the shell of his ear, and he remembers how it felt to take it and squeeze and--

--he shuts his eyes. Tries to focus on the here, and now. Of course, it would turn out that Onyx would be the one having panic flashbacks about the injury he’d caused, willingly, and so without remorse. He focuses on the feeling of Andres on top of him-- in more ways than one--

“I--,” he says, and he can’t find the words because he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

If Andres telling him he loved him knocked the wind out of him what he says next makes him see stars. Onyx physically pulls the man off of him by the shoulders-- gentle, but firm-- and looks at him, aghast, horrified.

"Why?" he asks again, but it's less angry, more surprised. "You're-- insane," he says on half a laugh, sitting back to pull him closer, impossibly close. "There is something seriously wrong with you. With us." And then he's laughing, caught in the absurdity of it, because if he doesn’t laugh, he’ll start crying.

"Absolutely crazy. Don't cry. Please don't cry." And he's kissing the side of his head, his face, his nose, his jaw, his neck. "I don't want you to be miserable our last night on earth. I didn't exactly have a plan when I came over but I know it wasn't that."

[attr="class","mintag"] andres buenaventura

Onyx isn't taking it well, shattering any and every expectation he'd had. Somehow, Onyx just playing the part, making fun of him would've felt better than this. He hates how much he relaxes when Onyx grabs him, how much he trusts to the guy that couldn't even admit he liked him. Maybe he was just a pity fuck. But it wasn't like he hadn't made himself one either. [break][break]

He's laughing. Andres is crying from an embarrassing high school memory, and Onyx was laughing. But when he says us in disbelief he feels marginally happier, before proceeding to kick himself in his head. He loved this bastard man, despite it all. He thinks, that despite all this, its nice that Onyx tried to comfort him. Soft kisses peppered on his face soften him in his anger and grief. Crazy. Another way to say dumb. [break][break]

"You're inside me. I assumed that was the plan." At least, that had been Andres' plan. He can't stay mad at Onyx though, wrapping his arms around him again. Kissing him back when he catches his lips. Because even after all this, he would take what he could get. He would die tonight, but at least it'd be without regrets. "Don't go." His voice is small, a plea. "W-we don't have to do anything. I just-" he rambled a bit before cutting himself off. "I'm not miserable. So stay." he lied. But the alternative was do die alone.

[break][break]

+ onyx straub | don't look at me during [break][break]

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

“It-- maybe?” he says, cutting off the sentence, and it curls up in a question. “I… didn’t come over here with the intent of this--,” he wraps his hands around the curves of Andres’ ass and pulls him tighter against him-- “--but I’m not mad this is where we ended up.”

It wasn’t I love you back… but, Onyx hoped, it was… close.

Andres just told him he loves him.

No one’s told him that since before his sister died. It’s a lot to process. Especially given the years of abuse Onyx had mitigated on the other man.

Andres does this to him. Andres brings it out in him. He could die here, he thinks, as he kisses him hard.

"I would like to do something. More things." He gave his hips an experimental twitch, hands splaying over Andres’ sides as he strums his thumbs appreciatively over the muscles in his lower abdomen. God, but he was beautiful.

"If you wanted."

[attr="class","mintag"] andres buenaventura

He's quiet as he let Onyx talk and felt himself calming down. There was no more yelling, no storming out. No mocking laughter. It's almost normal...like he'd made a big deal over nothing. But he likes the sound of his voice and the way he holds him and Andres can put those negative thoughts aside. He can enjoy this fleeting moment for what it was and die happy. [break][break]

Onyx finds humor in this. Andres finds him adorable. Even if he'd been crying only moments ago. He wipes his eyes. "I did." he asserted softly. "When you kissed me- I-" it had been all over after that. He didn't want to let go. Crazy is what Onyx had called him and maybe he was. A little bit. [break][break]

But this had to be a good sign. Onyx is talking, staying. And then he kisses him and he felt his face burn red hot. Andres pushes back, hungry and desperate after his confession. It doesn't take any convincing for him to respond in turn. And then Onyx pulls away and Andres nearly kisses chase, leaning closer until he talks. The question is poised and he almost doesn't answer because he's busy focusing on the way Onyx's calloused hands feel on his skin. [break][break]

"I- I would...too." There's a small nod as he looks back into a lone, brilliant blue eye. "I wanted." he echoed before

[break][break]

+ onyx straub | don't look at me during [break][break]

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

He hums a thoughtful note as he proceeds to do it again-- the kissing, cupping the back of Andres’ head and drawing him in, holding him there like he can rewrite the history of this feeling and replace it with this, with the warmth of their mouths together and the want that burns inside of him instead of the anger and the sound of cheap metal crunching under the force of a human skull.

He kisses him for a long time until he feels his feet hit the proverbial ground again and the horny hamster in his brain jumps back on the wheel.

"Do you still have that-- Halloween costume?"

[attr="class","mintag"] andres buenaventura