When the opportunity presented itself for Jackson to see some of Evan’s paintings, he took it. For months, he’d told Evan to bring his shit over, but his boyfriend had shrugged off the request, stating that he wasn’t about to lug canvases around the South Side. It wasn’t that Jackson really cared about art, he didn’t, but he cared about Evan. When he’d mentioned a few months ago that he seriously wanted to see his work, Evan had gotten shy, his pale face turning a vibrant pink, which Jackson found endearing.
They seized the moment when Evan’s roommates left for a two-day drug run through Indiana and Ohio, knowing that there wasn’t likely to be another chance for a while. It was strange to think he’d never seen Evan’s place. He had a picture in his mind of what he thought it looked like, but as he stood in his boyfriend’s bedroom, he realized he couldn’t have been further off.
A single bed was pushed into the corner next to a window with kinked blinds that didn’t do anything to stop the daylight from pouring in. The walls were a dingy white and there were splatters of multicolored paint all over the rotting hardwood floors. It smelled vaguely like mold, weed, stale beer, and acrylic, a combination strange enough to make Jackson’s stomach turn. Empty baggies were piled on the nightstand and strewn over the bed; a junkie’s touch.
Compared to the squalor he grew up in, it wasn’t too bad, but he’d chosen to keep his space cleaner, feeling it would stop him from allowing himself to be like his father, as if a mess could make a man a monster.
“It’s not much,” Evan said, sounding apologetic, “but it’s mine.”
“It’s nice,” Jackson lied, grinning back at the smile on his boyfriend’s face.
“You’re full of shit.” The redhead laughed, crouching down so he could slide a few canvases out from under the bed. “Here are some of them,” he said as he leaned five paintings against the wall. He pointed to the piece in the middle. “That’s my favorite.”
Jackson nodded and bit his lip as he looked over the artwork, all featuring him in some degenerated way, each one more disturbing than the next.
Somehow every painting screamed in torture but settled into solace, leaving Jack wondering whose pain was reflected, his or Evan’s. It was the first time Jackson had ever truly admired a piece of art, and he felt it in his bones. It was as if Evan had scooped out the marrow and spread it across each canvas. The paintings were as unnerving as they were beautiful—how Evan saw Jack, how Evan saw himself
“You hate them,” Evan stated, his tone indicating that he knew he would.
“They’re all me,” Jack said in a hush.
Evan shook his head in disagreement. “No, they’re all me.” He sniffed uncomfortably. “My fears I think.”
“Afraid of me?” Jackson questioned. “Don’t act like it.”
“Afraid of what I could do to you,” Evan admitted, sitting down on the edge of the bed and pulling a baggie out of his nightstand. Jackson turned away as Evan snorted the cocaine, unable to watch him give in again. Jack’s heart cracked with every line his boyfriend cut. He’d never seen a strong man be so weak; a slave to a substance.
“More worried about what you do to yourself than what you do to me,” Jackson muttered, studying the paintings again.
“It impacts you though, right? What I do to myself?” Evan asked after he let out the familiar sigh of the last line bumped.
“Rather be destroyed by you than never fucking know you,” Jack confessed, feeling the weight of the statement. Maybe Evan had ruined him after all. “You’re really talented, Evan.”
“At fucking up?” Evan teased wryly, getting up so he could come behind Jackson and drape his arms over his shoulders. Evan pressed a kiss on the back of Jack’s head and breathed into his hair.
“At this shit,” Jack replied, waving toward the paintings. “Love them.”
“I’m more talented at other things,” Evan flirted, reaching down and grabbing Jackson by the wrist to flip him around. Evan pushed Jack hard against the wall, cupping the crotch of his pants roughly.
“That right?” Jackson smirked as his boyfriend unzipped Jack’s jeans. He kicked off his shoes and shimmied out of his pants while Evan yanked off Jack’s shirt, leaving him naked while Evan remained fully clothed.
“This body,” Evan crooned, rubbing his hands over every inch of Jackson’s torso as he kept his eyes trained on his hard cock. “Want to get dirty? Be my muse?”
“What I gotta do?” Jackson grinned, knowing that whatever it was, he was putty in his lover’s hands. Jack wondered how another person could hold that type of power over him, making him happily and dutifully kneel to his will.
“Just gotta take it like I know you can,” the redhead stated as he dug his fingers into the fleshy bits of Jackson’s ass. “Ready to do that for me?”
“Do I look fucking ready?” he retorted, knocking his dick against the thigh of his boyfriend’s sweatpants and lifting his eyebrows. “Bet I feel ready, too. That big dick stretched my ass out good this morning.”
Jackson never thought he’d be a morning person, but waking up next to Evan had a hell of an effect on his body. It was barely 9 a.m. and while they’d already banged hard once, he was more than ready to do it again. Everything about Evan was sexy, from the way he looked to his attitude. He had a perfect face and a body to match it. Just being next to him in bed drove Jackson crazy.
“Bend over and show me that hole,” Evan directed. “Spread your cheeks, baby, c’mon,” he prompted. He leaned down and spit into the gap, and Jackson’s muscles contracted at the sensation. “Looks so good. Now, go lean your elbows on the bed, stick that ass in the air, and wait for me.”
Jackson obliged, glancing over his shoulder to watch as Evan stripped off his clothes and grabbed two tubes, one paint and the other lube. “Don’t get those two tubes confused,” Jack warned, smiling at the grin on Evan’s face.
“That rhymed,” he stated, tossing the lube onto the bed and covering his palm with red paint. He smoothed it up each of his fingers carefully as Jackson narrowed his eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Evan replied with an indulgent hum. “Finger yourself,” he ordered, watching as Jackson popped the top of the lube, squeezed some out, and began to dip a digit in and out of his hole. He let out a breathy moan as he did, causing Evan to shake his head. “So fucking sexy, Jack.”
Hands that were completely washed in crimson reached around and pressed onto Jackson’s hipbones. Hunched over Jackson’s back, Evan put his right hand over Jack’s heart.
“Line me up,” Evan directed, letting out a sigh when Jackson did as he was told. Evan pressed the thick head of his huge cock against Jackson’s hole. He pushed back as Evan wiggled his hips, groaning when he bottomed out. He mounted Jackson and settled those paint-wet hands around his neck, squeezing gently so the paint left hand marks on his skin.
“Harder,” Jackson rasped, overwhelmed by the desire to be fucked brutally and choked out. “Just don’t let my body go limp.”
Evan did as he was told. They were alike in a lot of ways: both having addictions to things that fucked them up. Jackson gritted his teeth as Evan drove into him hard, and he was desperate to feel the release he craved; a recharge and reset.
Jackson’s body wanted to inch forward with each thrust of Evan’s powerful cock, but the strong hands clenched tightly around Jack’s neck held him back. The blood drained from his head as his body arched under the weight of Evan’s, pleasure pumping through his veins as his mind floated away. He saw flashes of red hair in his peripheral vision; black dots dancing in front of his eyes before everything went dark. Evan’s animalistic grunting sounded miles away as Jackson found a space in the quiet, his body trembling as he left it.
Gone.
He came to when he heard gunshots. Three distinct pops, in close succession to one another. His head was pounding as he tried to open his eyes, wondering if he’d dreamt them. If it wasn’t for the bed being wet underneath him, he wouldn’t have thought they were real.
Sticky puddles of come and sweat adhered the sheets to his thighs, and his body felt empty in a satisfying and alarming way.
“Evan,” he croaked, voice as broken as his body felt. He willed himself to stand as the room spun around him, forcing him to the ground. He blinked several times, trying to get his bearings, looking past the open door at the streaks of red spread across the wall of the hallway.
“Evan,” he called louder, closing his eyes again, willing his fuzzy brain to focus. When his eyelids lifted, he saw himself in the mirror that hung on the door of Evan’s closet, covered in blood.
Maybe he was dead.
“Evan!”