#crow.original

[threesmallcrows]

MattMelloWeek Day 5: Early Mornings / Late Nights

Mello was so beautiful Matt often found him hard to look at; when he blinked, afterimages of him floated around his seared, blushing retinas / Matt's poxy, pitted skin was beautiful to Mello, too, as the craters on the moon were; the braces on his teeth flashed like satellites, and he saw him backlit by the stars of all the universe.

[threesmallcrows]

i believe 100% he was written by you

Most recently Daniel had gotten very into "gardening". He got competitive about his cabbages while Max prepared to race the NLS.

Max said vegetables weren't very interesting and Daniel said endurance racing was the epitome of boredom. Max said vegetables weren't even yummy to eat and Daniel said he was going to sic Max's trainer on him, holding his phone up to his chin, joking that he was recording. Max countered he was buying a cow and Daniel laughed and said did he mean a red bull, that he'd like to see Max try to turn a bull into steaks, what was his plan, hit it with the Pista with a knifeblock tied to to the grille, and then that he would choke Max's cow to death with his giant zucchinis, and that segued into an extended monologue about zucchinis and cucumber and eggplants.

"My two perfect erdapfels—that's how you say it, right?"

"No, that's German."

"Oh. What's it in Dutch?"

"...Aardappel."

That night Max complained about the dirt trapped under Daniel's fingernails and Daniel said, "The snail's here too", and then trailed his cock all over Max's shoulders and stomach while Max tried not to giggle.

Max stood in the doorway with his suitcase. He pointed out that by the time he would have gone and done the whole race and flown back Daniel's cabbages would not even have had time to grow one extra leaf. Daniel said that by the time his cabbages grew two new leaves he expected Max to be back with the trophy.

When he kissed him he tasted like fruit, the summer.

For a long time Max had hesitated to get married because he didn't want to be restricted, slowed down, held back; but Daniel never made him stay, even though he also rarely left. Max liked to leave but also coming back. His home was bigger every time he arrived, the cats were fatter, Daniel more tan, like a raisin, more beautiful like raisins, like the sun caught in grapeskins. Worms ate all the figs to bits and still his home was bigger. He came home with the trophy and found all the green tomatoes on the wall had ripened.

[threesmallcrows]

After Daniel woke up from surgery he flagged down the first nurse he saw. It mostly had gone well was what she said. Some minor complications with his blood. The surgeons had had to replace his heart.

“My heart?” Daniel said.

“Only part of it,” the nurse reassured.

Only part. The nurse went off and Daniel stayed. He couldn’t think about anything; thoughts scattered and ran from him like cockroaches into corners when you turned on the light. A complaint rose up in his mouth but he swallowed it back down. Spit and the taste of tap water. It was part of his contract that Red Bull could do whatever was necessary to make him a better racer. He could have the contract amended but then Helmut would just throw him out. There were ten thousand boys slavering at a shadow of a chance at the life Daniel possessed, ten thousand boys with their fingers shoved under his bedroom door. Boys who would burn alive to sit in the car.

It wasn’t the whole thing, Daniel told himself, wiping his eyes on a corner of the bedsheet. He was, in part, still there.

part 1: max

part 3: lando

part 4: oscar

part 5: lewis

[threesmallcrows]

The whole time they were filming, the weird kid stared unsubtly at him from the sidelines. Twelve-year-old Dutch Psycho from beneath the brim of his cap.

Finally Daniel, losing patience, winked at him and sent him scattering.

But then, exiting the toilets after they’d wrapped for the day: boldly leaning against the corridor in his trainers and jeans. “I’ll be seeing you around,” he said in his sandy voice. “Yeah, course,” said Daniel, tuning him out; the usual lower-formula blustering he’d heard ten zillion times. He’d already forgotten the kid’s na—

“Max. Verstappen.”

And then he took his hand off the lollipop in his pocket or whatever, and held it there, unmoving, unwavering, pointed at Daniel like a gun barrel in a stickup, until Daniel took it and shook just to get the fuck out of there.

[threesmallcrows]

Lando came in with his shirt off for some reason, so Daniel was treated to the sight of the whole upgraded kit.

“New goodies,” he said, and sounded transparently jealous even to himself. The scarring wasn’t bad at all for one month post-op. He slid his hands over his spine as Lando yelped and twisted, whinging about Daniel’s cold fingers.

part 1: max

part 2: daniel

part 4: oscar

part 5: lewis

[threesmallcrows]

breast 🤝 bros (pt. 1)

[threesmallcrows]

MattMelloWeek Day 2: Pining / Fake Dating

Matt didn’t so much slide into the DMs as clutch and climb in, jittering and gurning, and then cling onto the doorjamb refusing to get out.

MATT: cool party

MATT: loked like

MELLO: It was fine. Work thing.

MATT: wowww work thing!!

MATT: whatt a crazy life

MATT: club bumpin

MATT: ladies xpecially bumpinnn >o>

Mello read the message, then exited the thread; he didn’t look at his phone for the next 90 hours. New York on a June evening was stuffed with shining surfaces: neon, fountain shake, pavement shimmer off dropped dress sequins. Life moved here, not like back in grey Winchester. Everywhere, deals being made, everyone walking with purpose, the backs of their shoes stepped on with their haste to get on with it. Crypto swam through the air like the odor off a kebab cart. And Mello was hungry. He wanted to eat songbirds and the comfort off the indolent rich.

Making money felt good; last week he’d gotten high and sat in his bathtub with a couple of bands, rubbing the bills up and down his arms.

So he was dating a woman; well, what complaints did Matt have? Her arse was even skinner than Matt’s; she was like a little dickless boy; she was an Equinox junkie, sometimes she did 4 classes a day and then Barre for cooldown. She had breasts but Mello didn’t have to look at them if he turned her over. She liked being turned over. She was a half-Brazilian half-Norwegian model who thought it was sexy when Mello spoke Russian, even though half the time Mello’s Russian was Ukrainian. She couldn’t tell the difference, which was ideal. Matt was a freak for languages. He spoke Cobol and a surprisingly passable Surzhyk.

[MELLO is offline.]

The problem with Matt was that you couldn’t give him anything, not a millimeter, not a breath or piece of hair. If you texted him a vile insult it still made him happy, brimful with your acknowledgement. Matt could run off air and a peanut shell, affection-wise, obsession-wise—there was no difference with him, between Mello and lines on tables, he was blissful either way, cutting and chopping and sniffing and screwing and sputtering and reaching round your hip for more.

Matt’s idea of a workout was the half-crunch to fetch his cigarette off the nightstand.

MATT: sk whenss the wefding

MATT: j can give a spech

MATT: sleech

The thing was, that Mello had to be a different type of person now. Different friends body style face stride posture place in the world. He was cultivating an American accent. He was cultivating saying he was from Russia. He was running upgraded firmware, fucking hardass shit, a sexy version, like, 21.x, while Matt was hung up on the beta release of Mello that had weak wrists and who kissed.

[MATT is offline.]

Lot of onion layers ago, the beta version.

[MELLO is online.]

[MELLO is invisible.]

How easy to vanish; just a swipe of the thumb. Shaking, a little; he was starting to come down now. It was cold in the bathtub. His fingers felt numb and all their bones. Letter-by-letter, he typed painfully: I miss you, and felt his whole body flush.

[threesmallcrows]

MattMelloWeek Day 1: Forgotten Dreams

Mello had started a LinkedIn, like the twat he was aiming to become.

“Aiming to”—because Matt still remembered well when he used to cut his hair with scissors. His black nail polish, his lipstick phase. He was a faggot in a 800-pound suit. Matt knew the core of him. He wasn’t letting go of that, not easily.

Matt lay on his back on his bed in his flat, picking memories sweatily off his damp fingertips. “Investment banking”. “I-Banking”, for those in the know. Sounded like Eye Banking. A safe full of sclera. Matt had been “eye banking” the boys down in Hulme Park in the backwash swill of 0200 Saturdays, pocketful of lorazepam to take the edge off. On about 3 to 3 and a half milligrams of lorazepam he started to really feel good about cruising, he’d catch a rhythm and a glide, prowling the bushes and benches like a sickass panther, a sickass shark, deep sailing over the continental rift.

Mello had an advanced degree; Matt had an appointment at the free clinic on Nell Lane. Mello got a promotion and Matt got chlamydia. Matt got a prescription. Matt got antibiotics for his burning stream.

He would stand in the bathrooms in the mornings, holding himself with three fingers and pissing painfully, and picture all of Mello’s accomplishments at the bottom of the toilet bowl. His straight As, twisted teeth, his delicate six-pack, the whole effortful torso. But he lost his footing when he got to his beautiful face, framed in metal, like stained glass. His hand shook and he splashed a little on the rim. No, he couldn’t do it, he could never sustain any kind of rage—anarchy, remotely-detonated devices, and the guillotine, fine, the blade plucked loose from the razor fine—but against Mello, never. Already his fingers ached to pick him out of the effluvia where Matt had cast him, to wash him in the tender bath of Matt’s tongue and mouth: Hello, darling, it’s been so long.