Broken Image

TW: Adult themes, implied familial abuse, severe mental health struggles, and self-harm.

Once, in a cramped little apartment within the heart of the Silk Strip, there were two young men.

One of them was called James.

James. Soft fluffy hair, slender frame, soft-spoken and skittish. A woodland fox of a man that scurried quickly from work-task to work-task like he was nervous he wouldn’t be permitted to finish.

His eyes snapped open at the exact time of 6:29 AM every morning, fueled by what appeared to be the express intention of working himself to death. Actually, James did not wake up thinking this exactly - in fact, when it came to self-care or generally any lingering consideration of himself or his life, James considered very little. Only the time he had ahead of him and the many, many things he had to do.

James, you see, was the sort of guy that rushed out of bed with ideas. He was the sort of man that made the bed first, before doing anything else, and then promptly set his coffee pot to drip while he took a timely, crisp shower. He had read somewhere, you see, that cold showers were better for one’s productive output day-to-day.

In truth, he had ALSO read somewhere that cold water helped relieve inflammation, but as was his want and his habit, he tried not to think about it. Even as he swiped a thumb idly over fresh bruises on his inner thighs.

Breakfast consisted of very little, most days, with James so desperate to bundle himself out the door that all he could seem to burden himself with was the effort of tipping the coffee pot. Specifically, into an economical little travel thermos - politely patterned with a tasteful British flag. 

(James had always wanted to visit England, you see)

Sometimes though, James would manage the occasional handful of toasted grains from the half-eaten bag of muesli that sat alone on his shelf in the fridge.

Well, almost alone...but the six pack of Red Bulls and forgotten slice of pepperoni pizza weren’t his, so he didn’t give them much thought.

On especially rare days like this one, James would also have the opportunity to slip a tentative hand into a  haphazardly discarded envelope left on the bench top - expression grim as he thumbed over the contents inside.

A note on top of the envelope read:

“Fix the fucking car.”

As James was roughly toeing on his commuting shoes, he managed to slap his own note onto the kitchen counter, before bundling himself and his newfound tube money through the grubby apartment door and out into the city.

James, you see, didn’t believe in the ethical ownership of a motor vehicle, and only took public transport.

James took a 7:15 tube that ran from an underground station about a 10-minute walk away from his rickety little apartment. The commute convenience was fantastic - even if the area within which he could afford to live (the lovingly named ‘Silken Strip’ of the city) was less than ideal. Not that James had chanced to experience the Silken Strip in its prime time, but he simply assumed the culture wouldn’t suit him very well.

Leaving the Silken Strip was the easiest, simplest, and arguably best part of Jame’s day - as by this point, there were still miles of hope about just how much he could get done from that 7:29AM opening till 7:30PM, 12 hours later.

Amidst a sea of hand-stitched leather insoles and tastefully layered winter coats, James was an enthusiastic yet nervous bundle of expertly thrifted tweed. A light-framed bean pole that hunched over a bag of loose papers and Copic markers as he skipped three steps at a time up the grand entryway to work approximately 50 minutes after initially stepping onto the subway. 

Work was good - James understood work. 

To clarify, James liked the autonomy his job gave him. He liked the quiet trust that came from interpreting complicated concepts.

He thrilled in the gentle, smug smile he afforded himself over the lip of his mug as he shared a quiet smoke break with the marketing lead; both of them chuckling at the idea of turning a three-page press release into a "simple infographic." 

(And ah, cigarettes. His habit; James had tried to shake it but the shakes interfered with his drawing hand.) 

The hard part of Jame’s work day was what came after. As he bid farewell to the marketing department, a large hand would more often than not clap him heartily on the back and announce they were due for a beer. 

Making inebriated small talk with the design lead, was NOT what James was good at. But it's not like James could say no - his job was far too perfect to risk being the 'unsociable one'...again. 

James always did, to his credit, scrape and skid through the process. He laughed when the rest laughed, ordered beer he didn’t like and cheered when one of them got the waitress's number.

However, there was no denying the weight of social exhaustion that hung over Jame’s yawning form as he hefted his book bag onto one deeply aching shoulder and slipped back onto the subway.

At home, he would forget to blink as he strained his eye over emails he hadn’t managed to keep up with on the clock…never quite done.

When he finally went to sleep, it was in an exhausted, melancholic caffeine crash.

Jame’s eyes slipped closed, blue eyes lost beneath a warm blanket of exhaustion.

And then, almost as soon as sleep had taken him…

A pair of lazy eyes drifted open.

Once, in a cramped little apartment within the heart of the Silk Strip, there were two young men.

One of them was called Saun.

Saun. Sleep tousled hair, sinewy frame, outspoken and bold. A growling dog of a man whose wit was quick and whose teeth were quicker. 

Blinking grumpily into the flickering light of outdoor street lamps coming through the window at a vague and indeterminable 9:30 (ish) PM, it was clear that James had woken up with the express intent of burning an angry hole in the world. 

Where one man had bounced out of bed, the other trundled; feet hitting the stained hardwood floor of a blatantly affordable studio apartment with a displeasure slap. 

His hand scratched bluntly at the stretch of flat stomach peeking over the top of a pair of black slacks he had forgotten to take off, and his eyes wandered blearily to his hands.

Where the first man had seen an obstacle and hurdled it with the unequivocal efficiency of your classic everyday salaryman, the other regarded minor inconveniences with such acidic disdain so as to burn a hole where his gaze had landed.

Expression sour and lips curled downward, Saun began the routinely annoying search for press-on nails he’d spent not nearly enough time wearing in and had presumably taken off the previous day.

Saun, you see, was the sort of guy that liked it indulgent. He was the sort of creature that glanced over one shoulder at a time to demurely consider an unmade bed before shrugging off the notion of making it whilst also deciding he deserved new sheets.

His press-on acrylics, of course, were easy to find - tucked in an odds-and-ends drawer beneath the kitchen bench top. The bench top on which sat a hastily scrawled note that simply read:

“Not my problem, whore.”

Where the first man had skittered into the kitchen and scrawled a hasty complaint, Saun lazily withdrew a cigarette lighter from a kitchen drawer and allowed himself the simple indulgence of plucking Jame’s note up between two fingertips and setting it on fire inside the sink.

Where James had kept his morning brisk with a rushed cold shower, Saun delighted in the hottest and by far laziest shower any mortal man had ever experienced; delighting in a power bill he would never see nor be expected to contribute to.

Where the first had proceeded to hurriedly trip out into streets of bustling early morning commuters to pack himself into a sweat-filled subway train, the other glided down the apartment’s narrow stairway, and emerged into romantic evening foot traffic, intent to wine and dine.

The silk strip was Saun’s favorite part of the city (though the rent was no joke, let’s be real) and he intended to enjoy it to the absolute fullest between now and the time he inevitably passed out. 

Saun, after all, was a sleepy person. He woke up drained and existed in a sluggish haze. He lived his life on vodka red bulls and slept the moment he hit the sheets at (an arguably prompt yet ambitious) 6:25am. As such, Saun decided to indulge and delight in what little time he did have.

As such, the night as it stretched out ahead of Saun, was both deceptively high class and notably bum at the same time. Amidst a sea of copycat dresses and tasteless suits, Saun was a glittering display of sex and cash - sitting cross-legged at a bar seat at one of the Silken Strip’s most expensive clubs in a sheer shirt that did absolutely nothing to hide his figure away. 

He ate with leisure and worked from his phone with a single-minded concentration as he did so - occasionally waving over a server to refill his glass.

And yes, work. Work was good - Saun adored work. 

To clarify, Saun loved to feel important. Loved to look and feel occupied. Loved to open his emails to see the latest edits of his 8x10 boudoir nudes. LOVED to hum and open a calendar, thoughtfully glance over a sea of appointments, and regretfully tell a prospective client how he simply didn’t have any room.

When the dinners were done and a cab was caught (his car was STILL broken down, after all), Saun would settle down to the actual meat of his business.

He was a dancer, and as such his world started and ended atop the glamorous stage of the Lucky Calico - the premier dance club of the Silken Strip.

Saun was a masterpiece in his element, all ivory skin bathed in golden neon club light and adorned in silver negligee. The Lucky Calico boasted him like a prized showdog.

He was a specialty dancer too - a man whose feminine figure captivated a deeply devoted and extremely particular audience of both gay men and straight women. An audience that, though small, would pay obscenely to worship their effeminate prince.

Making inebriated small talk with a room full of horny strangers was exactly what Saun was good at, and for every minute he reconsidered his last vodka shot, he spent another ten grinding well-paying circles into the lap of somebody’s hot dad.

Work ended (as it often did) in a haze of cigarette smoke, glitter beards, warm tongues on his neck, and the twin shifting images of his disgruntled manager telling him to get some sleep - even while his co-workers tittered and laughed at his expense.

It wasn’t his fault they weren’t having as much fun as he was, he reasoned clumsily at the back of a nervous cabbie driving him home. If anything, HE was setting an example by actually engaging with the clientele. The cash he had managed to drunkenly stuff into a black garbage bag spoke for itself, after all.

He threw some unknown amount of money at the back of the cabbie's head, before stumbling out of earshot of the ensuing yells through the little unassuming door that opened up to the staircase to his apartment.

Saun’s bleary grin faded as his blurry vision centred on a letter sitting on the entryway mat - the cold shock of the handwriting becoming clear in his vision even before he realized he’d bent down to pick it up.

His feet carried him into the kitchen as the door clicked closed behind him, up a seemingly endless void of blurry steps, eyes locked on the sender. When his feet hit the cold of the exposed wooden floor of his apartment, he wobbled and stopped.

He stood still for a long while, the sender’s name drifting in and out of focus as his skin was bathed in sobering moonlight from a window whose drapes he had forgotten to draw.

Suddenly the music from the club that had filled his mind and followed him home was replaced by the faint wir of the fridge, and the creak of the building. His throat, which had been sticky with liquor and the spit of strange men, was now dry and tight.

His gaze lifted, and his hand dropped to his side, and he turned his head to meet the eyes that judged him from across the room.

James regarded him silently, arms slack at his sides in a way that seemed to mimic Saun’s own - but his eyes glinted with a harsh and penetrating disdain.

Saun’s mouth twisted. He laughed without humor.

“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep right now?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be fucking someone’s husband?”

In lieu of a response, Suan lifted the letter and presented it blankly at the other man.

Jame’s gaze dropped across the room to look at it, and his expression shifted to one of recognition.

“Is that-”

“-dad wrote,” Saun interrupted, tone disinterested.

“Why would you show me this?” James whispered suddenly - ghostly white and deathly quiet, his eyes hollow as they stayed fixed on the envelope.

“You know I’m just going to burn it.”

“Do you even care?” James hissed incredulously, voice still low while his nostrils flared wide and angry. “What’s the point of you being here if you’re just going to show me things like this?”

Saun suddenly stepped forward, and James instinctively mirrored the action. The letter crunched in Saun’s tight grip. “Do not talk about me like that. Don’t talk about me like I’m some kind of therapy doll meant to make you feel safe, don’t you dare.”

James recoiled for only a moment before he veered forward, baring his teeth as he hissed.

“Don’t I dare? I hold my tongue all day for people that do not give a single shit about me while you spout your slutty wisdom to anyone who pays you enough to hear it!”

“Don’t speak like you know me!” Saun shot back, nails digging into the letter in his grip. “You never took the time to know me.”

Saun continued to menace forward. “If you did, maybe you’d learn to bite that tongue of yours a little harder.”

The sound of a heavy thump registered in Jame’s ears before the notion that Saun had somehow backed them both up against a wall had fully registered. James was now pinned in by Saun’s clawed hand, planted hard against the wallpaper by James' head.

James bared his teeth in response and leaned sharply forward, noses almost brushing, his eyes raw with hatred and his voice ghostly and flat.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

Something in Saun snapped - and a loud SMASH echoed around the apartment.

The room stood still in stark and uneasy silence for a long, long while. Slowly, a rivulet of blood made a path down along the cracks in the glass that filled his vision, originating from the raw skin of his fist, buried in the centre of the mirror.

Emotion or alcohol, he wasn’t sure which it was that left him so numb to the pain, but the gaze that met his from within the shattered mirror regarded him with utmost clarity.

“I thought you were supposed to protect me.”

It was a dry and unmoving commentary, but Saun’s eye contact still faltered. 

“You never liked my methods,” came Saun’s hoarse reply.

Saun’s other hand balled up and came to rest on the wall, bracketing his body to hunch over the shattered full-length mirror. His eyelids fluttered as vision blurred in and out of focus, his breath coming out hot and fast as he gritted his teeth into the unwelcome silence of his own home.

“I never remember them,” James replied simply, voice distant. There was a hint of remorse tucked somewhere beneath the cold exterior, and Saun latched onto it.

“You’re not supposed to,” Saun grit out. “That’s what I’m for. I remember everything, all the time.”

He slid downward, hand shaking from blood loss and adrenaline as he tucked his hands tightly against himself. He crouched in front of the mirror and allowed his head to thunk bluntly against the fractured glass.

James met him from the other side, their foreheads pressed together as they stared blankly down at their twin wounds.

“I suppose that is your thing.”

Saun snorted, his grimace pained. 

“Did you forget?”

“Remembering the bad things isn’t really what I’m good at,” James murmured.

The silence that stretched between them was longer than either of them would have liked, as the hollowed quiet only served to deepen the chasm within which they both sat. The endless tick, tick, tick of a clock hung on the wall of another room seemed to ring like gong strikes in their ears - shrouding them in a thick fog of despair and overwhelm.

“Why are we fighting?” Saun asked the cold, dead air. “He fucked us up, so why are we fighting?”

James laughed, but it was off-key and desperate. Saun lifted his forehead off the mirror and met his own eyes.

“I don’t know,” they whispered softly into an empty room, and their expression twisted into one of exhaustion and anguish even as tears made their vision swim. Their heads fell forward against the glass, and a new crack splintered out across the surface.

Saun and James raised their eyes to look up at each other, the crack travelling through the centre of their shared face and leaving them with a broken image.

“I don’t know.”