Masochist

He was pretending. Lying on a carpet comprised of varying bits of rough blue fibers, which smelled a bit like stale cigarette smoke and dust-mites (assuming that such things had a scent) and overpoweringly like home, he was making believe as children do with dolls and plastic pistols. It was all he could do in the daylight hours, now. There was no place that welcomed him but the retreat within his mind, a landscape that was feudal and ugly and cold. Such a place was no eden yet it was the only one in which he felt safe. Where his throat had no voice and there was no one to fruitlessly reach for, therefore a world holding none of the conflicts of reality.

To a passing stranger (if one were to venture through their strictly private apartment) he might have looked as if he had simply collapsed in exhaustion. Yet the position in which he lay was undeniably deliberate: his slim ankles aligned as if his thighs had been fused together and the soft vulnerable bottoms of his feet presented to the world, skinny arms splayed outward and bent at the elbow. His posture said 'Hurt me, for I am defenseless' yet the slight downward angle of his head and the fisted fingers of his small artist's hands spoke of fear. Defeated, poised tensed and ready to be hurt yet making no move to resist the inevitable pain.

He almost expected someone (anyone) to creep forward in his peripheral vision and drive a railroad spike through the innocent dip of his lower back. To pin him to the floor like a butterfly on cork board. He almost wished it so, if only to relieve him of the agony that these baleful silences and frigid glances inflicted. Physical pain he could weather well and in all honesty it was driving him mad to be kept inside a plastic cube. He was a sensual creature; he needed to be touch and be touched, if only in the most meaningless and casual fashion. But none would, and the denial was crueler than watching a loved one hammer a stake through his fragile flesh.

Though he blamed the sins of mankind on himself when he was feeling a bit out of sorts and hated himself on a good day, he could not help but question what it was that he had done this time. In passed days he had been encompassed by a perpetual emotional group-hug. No matter how he failed or how many times, they had loved him. Unconditionally. Callisto, sweet tender Callisto who was now sharpest with his words and more distanced than the rest, had said it all so long ago. ‘I would have given him a million chances.' Apparently, Réme had squandered his million chances and now found himself on chance one-million-and-one. Or so it would seem, by the way that his bandmates could hardly endure sharing a room with him. As if he reeked of something pungent that they could not ignore or forgive. He wished that he could not feel.

Réme blinked slowly, brassy lashes caressing the blue carpet that was leaving an imprinted pattern on his right cheek. Was this what it felt like to be dead? This slow but apparent descent of... nothingness. Cold yet still. No shiver, no discomfort, just an internal chill like the surface of the lifeless polished stones sold in artsy shops. He was beyond tired. Not the sort of tired that causes one to slumber, but instead a kind which made him certain that if someone he loved were to come and express an apology he would not find the will nor energy to even turn his eyes to them. To feel a responsive acknowledgment at all. Under other circumstances he would be horrified that such an uncaring, selfish reply could even be formulated by him... but that too seemed beyond his current capabilities. It was as if he were there and yet not. An elephant might have come and laid on his vertebrae and he would scarcely have known. He was highly aware of all that transpired around him but felt nothing at all. Nothing, other than a slight echo of emptiness that spoke of absence of emotion. Time passed, light retreating from an advancing darkness. And he grew colder.

When someone had poked him and asked something his lips had moved to reply. Yet they had not moved at all (it only felt as if they had) and he did not have the humanity to repeat himself. He thought Deanna had been the last to interrogate him as to what he was doing lying prone for hours on end, but could not be certain. If there was anyone who could rouse him back to being Réme it was certainly not that woman. That wretched woman who had everything he had ever wanted, and yet remained smug with the audacity to act as if Réme owed it to her to like her. Jealousy was not a fitting hue for Réme and he might have been glad for his unfeeling state if he could summon the passion required to be 'glad'. But that was all beside the point, wasn't it? The point, presently, was to exist. For that was all he was doing. There was minimal thought, no emotion, and hardly any comprehension of time. Therefore, he could only linger. Be. Lie on the carpet and pretend that he did not exist at all in thought that it might become true.

“HE'S A FUCKING DRAMA QUEEN, CALLISTO! DON'T YOU DARE GIVE IN TO THAT BITCH'S MOODY SHIT!” Shrieked an unfamiliar tenor, somewhere in the sharply relieved distance.

Deanna shouting at Callisto about Réme, naturally. He was her favorite and most sensitive subject. Réme wished the higher powers to smite her, oftentimes (or for her to fall into a deep, dark pit if he was feeling charitable). She was the most paranoid woman that he had ever known and clung to a ridiculous illusion that she must defend her territory from Réme at all times. Considering that Callisto had chosen her over Réme almost instantly (and was planning to marry the woman, for God sakes!) the whole possessive battle was absurd. But nevertheless, she continued to see something which made her feel insecure. Be it real or fabricated.

An abrupt slamming door and no returned shouts, for the one person Callisto had never raised his voice to was her. Footsteps, a sigh, and Réme could sense the quivering pyre of flame that was Callisto's presence. Chaotic tension choked the air, lashing against Réme’s sensitive inner 'vibe detectors' like torrential rainfall. He wanted to care suddenly, very much. But he could not. Oh well. Callisto did not love in return and for once Réme could be unselfish and do the favor of not caring either.

Nothing was said for nothing could be. Réme was dead and Callisto was resentful. There was anger and there was frustration whirling in and out of the constraints of the younger man's small body. These Réme could sense vividly. Once there would have also been love, but no more. Callisto had surrendered to Deanna's demands of his entire heart and there was nothing left that could love Réme. Not even the tender devotion that had been present before the hate had begun, just months before now when Réme had still been adored by his bandmates. Callisto stood somewhere apart from Réme’s line of sight, still lost in his own thoughts. They had separated from a symbiotic being into two opposing forces. Well, not quite opposing. Opposite, rather. One was angry, the other empty. Nothing remained of the beautiful bond they had once shared but a sense of loss.

'Move. Callisto may hate you... but you have to be alive. Just in case he ever needs you. In case he actually is concerned. Come on, moron. Move.'

Réme blinked, much more slowly. So thoughtfully that it became a breaking of the monotonous rhythm that had gripped him. Yet still he was so tired, too much so to shift. Living, aside from the preordained and automatic functions, seemed overly strenuous. Yet the desire was rising and feeling began to color him once more. He could never help feeling quickened when Callisto was near. Because if there was one thing that Callisto was it was alive. Whether he sulked or giggled or screamed in anger, Callisto Infelise never ceased to burn. The facade of still emptiness began to fracture and Réme reached pathetically for it to return.

“You're a fucking ass. Stop wallowing in self-pity.” Callisto's husky, emotional voice sneered.

Yet the words were not as cruel as they could have been because Reme could feel heat from another's skin hovering near to his own cold flesh. Callisto had knelt beside him. That in and of itself spoke of some sort of caring, a begrudging concern. In other days he would have been the picture of gentle compassion, holding Reme close and saying just the right words to unveil what tormented the elder man. Now he was coarse. Yet he was still there. If he truly did not care he would have ignored Reme entirely.

Réme drew a deep breath and questioned why he had craved that empty chill. Callisto was here and not with Deanna, choosing to lay harsh words onto the person he was meant to dislike rather than pursuing his aggravated fiancé. That resonated as a multitude of unspoken things, whether it was a gesture of friendship or something more questionable. It all throbbed with bitter misery but Réme was able to take comfort in the shard of hope. In the knowledge that Callisto's hand lay soft, oh so gentle in contrast to his reprimand, at the small of Réme’s back. And as Réme at last found his will and turned his head to gaze longingly at his companion, that hand began to rub in a circular motion of intended comfort.

How long the moment would last, neither knew. How long could they maintain the shaky resurrection of a dead past before Callisto must return to being angry and Réme must return to being in morbid isolation.

“I'm sorry.” Réme whispered, his lips feeling leaden and hypothermic after so long of knowing that emptiness.

Callisto was frowning yet there was a sadness, a wish to forgive, reflected in the dark glass of his eyes. He seemed to know that Réme spoke of whatever had caused the hatred rather than the self-indulgence of lying so miserably in full view.

“It's necessary.”

And Réme, in turn, knew that this was meant to be an explanation for all the anger and rejection, rather than forgiving the situation which had brought this deceptive conversation.

On the thinly-covered skin of Réme’s lower back, which had been positioned in acceptance of a railroad spike, Callisto's hand continued its soothing rotations.