“Mitch,” Calvin eventually spoke up in a tone that suggested that he was annoyed at being ignored.

“What?” mumbled Mitch, throat already raw though nothing had happened yet. He kept his gaze focused out the window and on the bay. It was his favorite part of living here. Several minutes passed in silence, until Mitch closed his eyes and sighed. “Calvin, what?”

“You look like hell,” Calvin stated plainly, padding over until they were standing side by side. Something inside of Mitch unclenched; he wasn’t necessarily at ease, but at least the facade in the form of hollow banter had been dropped.

“Wonder why that is,” Mitch responded dryly.

“I don’t hate you,” Calvin’s voice was unnerving in its gentleness. He reached out and touched Mitch’s left arm, and Mitch wrenched away from him.

“I don’t care about how you feel!” snapped Mitch. “Spent enough time doing that. Years and years of it.”

“C’mon, don’t be that way.” The hand was persistent, until Mitch at last yielded and allowed it to make contact. He tensed as fingers rubbed his bicep. “I wasn’t aware of how badly you were hurt. I’m so sorry about that, I-” Calvin went quiet for a moment. “You know many times I’ve said that what you do is dangerous, and I was at the end of my rope with how reckless-“

“Oh my god, fucking spare me this!” Mitch once again moved away, and turned so that they could face one another. “Look, I know nothing turns you on more than a wounded animal, or a good ‘I told you so’ moment so I’m sure that you’re harder than a diamond right now with this one-two punch combo.”

Calvin shrugged, the ghost of a smirk on his lips. “Maybe a little.”

“But!” Mitch held up a finger, pissed off that the response caused a laugh to push its way up his throat, and he swallowed it down. Years ago he’d found that sort of thing to be charming, and unfortunately a part of him still did. “Actually, no, you know what? What I do might come with its risks, but it’s much better than being strung out on pills and coke and…and who knows what else, OK?” He’d begun to falter, but the momentum had built and he needed to take advantage of it before he stalled out. “And…and at least I get support from people up there. You know, the ones that you write off as ‘degenerates’ or whatever. They’ve done more than you ever had to get me clean and healthy.” By the end of the tirade, Mitch’s breathing was heavy and his chest had started to heave. He would have killed for a cigarette right then, and the irony was not lost on him that he’d just sputtered out that part regarding health.

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“Would hitting me make you feel better?” Calvin asked as out of left field, casually as he would for the TV remote to be handed over, or for a glass of wine.

“What the fuck?!” Mitch’s eyes went wide while Calvin crowded into his space, as if he was presenting an actual opportunity to strike.

“I’m wondering that if I’ve messed you up as badly as you claim that I have, perhaps it’d make you feel better to throw a punch.” The green of Calvin’s eyes was the only thing in Mitch’s field of vision. His jaw clenched so tightly that he could feel the pressure build and shoot through his teeth, and he was certain they’d start to crack at any moment.

There was a part of him, the one that was primal and deep seated, buried under many layers at his very core and having never once seen the light of day, that was ignited by the prospect of unleashing pent up aggression in a physical manner. It was impossible to tell if it had existed before Calvin had come into his life, but years weathering constant storms had eroded him down into a version of himself that was either an entirely new composition, or had been there the entire time but was never meant to be unearthed. The trick was finding a way to stabilize the pressure and hopefully keep it from erupting altogether. His hand shook, quaking just as the earth does when a volcano explodes.

There was another part of him that wanted so badly to grab Calvin’s face and kiss him, and try to fix this as he’d done so many times in the past. That made him even angrier, that somewhere he continued to harbor a gratuitous amount of love in his heart, regardless of how brittle and twisted it’d become. Because it was love, even in this perverted form. He loved this petulant man-child, and all of his wit and charm and naivety, but he also couldn’t stomach living like this any longer. Now he’d have to accept that there was nothing to show for the 5 years that they spent together, other than addiction -pre-existing but greatly exacerbated- and a batch of trauma that he’d eventually have to contend with.

For all he knew, this was like every other time that Calvin had gotten bored and was seeking to more or less spice things up for a short while, so that he could get lavished with attention and compliance. However, his guts relayed to him that this felt entirely different from before, and that Calvin was sincere in being done. Ultimately, there’d be no way to ever be sure, and the truth would never be revealed.

Really, what Mitch had suspected for some time was that there was another person on the side. The tension of the last year had compromised his ability to be intimate, and he could barely remember the last time he’d gotten fully hard without it leading to more anguish and anxiety. Instead of support, he’d been the recipient of snide remarks, sometimes outright mockery. So he wasn’t itching to stick around and find out if someone more functional had taken his place in that department.

It wasn’t even his fault, he had to remind himself. But that was a conversation between the two of them that would never take place. And that, if nothing else, was why he needed to get out of this.

“No, it wouldn’t,” Mitch answered at last, partially lying, his entire body deflating when the words exited his mouth. Something bitter lingered on his tongue, and he questioned if it was a physical embodiment of disappointment, or nothing more than acid reflux from all of the compounded stress.

Regardless, it dissipated the very second that Avi resurfaced.