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Babe
Vegas hates it. He hates it and it means nothing because it still exists. His own hatred has never meant much, to the world at large. His power is toothless in this regard.
There's something tragic about you
It’s hard to look in the mirror, sometimes.
Why is loneliness like this? Why is longing like this? Why is it this everpresent hunger that demands to be noticed? This gnawing coldness that starts at the bones and seeps to the skin?
He’s so familiar with it that it may as well be the back of his hand, for the feeling of it has been pressed into his skin for as long as he can remember.
Rage is easier because at least in the moments before it burns out, at least then there’s warmth. He wishes it could have just been rage.
Something so magic about you
Vegas wants many things. He wants many things with the greed of a man who sates hunger with water. Wanting is what he knows. It’s burned into his bones, melted into his blood.
Don't you agree?
But fuck, he’s never wanted anything quite like this.
Babe
There's something lonesome about you
He grits his teeth and doesn’t admit to it. It’s easier for both of them if they remain inhuman to each other. It’s easier for Vegas to be an abstract concept to Pete. For Pete to be an abstract concept to him. It’s a strange, silent agreement between them, in this fucked up stolen moment. Because it’s clear at least what the outcome will be: of course Vegas is going to hurt Pete, of course Pete is going to hurt Vegas. It’s all either of them know. It’s already happening. After all, to bear your teeth, you must open your mouth.
But Vegas is self-aware enough to see a seed planted.
So concepts they will remain, to cover the raw vulnerability that both sides show in this hell they’re already in.
Something so wholesome about you
Once you become human to someone, it’s harder to hurt them. It’s harder for them to hurt you.
Get closer to me
Neither of them are really sure which end they’re protecting by doing this. Vegas can see it in Pete’s eyes. He sees all of the conflicted feelings Pete tries to hide behind a scowl. Vegas sees it in the way that he can’t bear to see that chained figure limp, that light extinguishing. In the way he doesn’t care if it burns him, but he refuses to let it go out.
No tired sighs
No rolling eyes
No irony
Because somehow, despite all of this, Pete sees it. He sees the person that Vegas is under layers of masks and falsities. Vegas doesn’t know what, exactly, that is, himself. Not anymore. All he knows is that some days he wants to tear his own skin off because maybe he’d be able to breathe again. Pete takes so long to broach the subject himself, even though Vegas knows that he understood immediately by the second time. After all, men like Vegas can only be hurt this way by someone if they let them.
No 'who cares'
No vacant stares
No time for me
He wonders if Pete is the only person on the planet who truly understands the depths of his patheticness.
Honey, you're familiar
“One day I won.”
Pete tells him his story, voice soft. And it’s terrible, how they’re water-reflections of each other, wobbling and shifting through the ripples that change. How his pain is Pete’s history. How Pete sees the years of it carved into Vegas’ eyes like the rings of a tree.
Sees how Vegas holds the hope of a child that someday the back he is chasing will let him approach. Sees how the monstrous things he does is for a reason that isn’t what anyone really thinks it is. Sees how the god Vegas makes these offerings to on desperate, bended knee spurns him with disgust.
Like my mirror years ago
Sees how even Vegas doesn’t know how much more he’s able to hold within himself.
Idealism sits in prison
He knows that he is not a good person and no Heaven would ever bless him, but he feels like this moment was made just for him. Just for them. He feels the eyes on him even as he turns his head away.
Every second ticks further and further apart.
Chivalry fell on its sword
Vegas wants to laugh but it lodges in his throat. The more that Pete acts like this, the more dangerous it becomes for them. Were they not clinging to the illusion that neither of them were human? That to him, Pete is nothing but a curiosity, entertainment?
Innocence died screaming
That to Pete, Vegas will only ever be a monster?
Honey, ask me I should know
He knows the stories, sees the ending, and yet he’s marching down the road all the same. He’ll drive his train to wreck with presence of mind.
He doesn’t think he really cares, anymore. Recklessness is heady, and the feeling of plummeting a drug. The shell of the seed cracks, loud as a broken bone, but quiet as their soft breathing into the air that reminds him he’s not alone. He’s not alone.
I slithered here from Eden
Just to sit outside your door
There’s only one way this story ends, and Vegas knows by now which one of them will be getting hurt.
Babe, there's something wretched about this
And yet. And yet.
Something so precious about this
That moment something in him snaps. That moment that he can’t hold on to being abstract, hold on to Pete being abstract, hold on to any of this, because he’s too damned human. He leaves the fucking key and Pete should run. He should run and leave him like anyone with any sense ever has and—
Oh what a sin
A hand on his knee.
Eyes locked in his.
Whywhywhywhy—
Run from him, boy. Yes, you need to run from him before you become human to him. Or worse, before he becomes human to you.
To the strand
How funny, really. How funny how quickly the dominos lined up for so long collide to the floor. How quickly the threads lined in place slide into cloth. It’s almost sickening. He wishes that was the reason for the tightness in his chest. It would have been easier if they’d stayed objects. It would have been easier if Vegas had stayed a monster.
A picnic plan
For you and me
But yeah. How funny. How funny that all it’s ever taken, all it’s ever needed to be, was for someone to see the vileness of the beast and want it anyway.
Something from a fucking fairy tale.
A rope in hand
For your other man
To hang from a tree
But there is will be no happy ending for them.
Because Pete has loyalties. And they will never be to him. Vegas wishes, more than anything, to be able to reach out and swallow Pete. To cage him in his ribs by his heart, just for him.
It’s another feeling of wanting, to sit on the shelf unsated with all the rest. With the half-written story of them.
Honey, you're familiar
Like my mirror years ago
Still, he wants it. To feel the warmth that he knows deep in the marrow of his bones must be artificial.
Nobody truly loves him. But Pete wants him. For whatever that means. And that’s enough.
They’re edging into dangerous territory, now. One of them needs to turn back. Vegas can’t help but step closer as he drags himself away.
Idealism sits in prison
Chivalry fell on its sword
And when he steps away, it’s like a yawning chasm in his chest stretches wider.
But he creates the line. Because he’s tired of reaching for what he wants to no avail. Someone like Pete… it’s not worth it if he takes it. It’s not worth it because it won’t mean anything unless it’s given. Vegas takes so much, but the only things he truly wants must be given.
Even if this want sears itself into him with new fervor, it’s nothing that he cannot grow accustomed to. A new hunger that will never grant him the mercy of starving him to death.
Innocence died screaming,
Honey, ask me I should know
Hands yank him forward.
Lips consume him. Bless him. Baptize him.
Stars fizzing under his eyelids and an air that finally feels like breathing. Yes. Yes.
Like a new god has claimed him, like a new religion has taken his belief. Like a devotee, Vegas prays with his hands.
I slithered here from Eden
Just to sit outside your door
Something beats in Vegas’ ears all the way down his throat and into his chest. He swallows.
Goosebumps are prickling up his arms and he’s captivated. Pete is stunning, a figure beyond human. And Vegas might just be a little in love with him right now. But maybe he’s been that way for a while.
Because a deep sense of knowing knots in his chest, weaving into the messy tangle of the rest, that this man will kill him and Vegas would accept it— want it.
Honey, you're familiar
Like my mirror years ago
They touch each other with instinct like they’ve done it their whole lives. With hunger like they’ve waited exactly that long for it. Pete hands Vegas himself and Vegas does the same in turn.
Idealism sits in prison
Titanic had its iceberg. Vegas sets course for his. There’s only one way this is going to end. But for some reason, he just cannot make himself care. He will let this man be the air he needs, even when the time comes to suffocate in its absence.
Chivalry fell on its sword
His blood sings with it, his lungs breathe it in. They’re equally unhinged in this, untethered to anything but each other. Explosive, dying stars drawing into each other’s orbit.
This will only end in pain and hellfire but oh, won’t it be beautiful as it happens?
Innocence died screaming
Honey, ask me I should know
Pete is a bad decision and Vegas is making him anyway.
I slithered here from Eden
Just to hide outside your door