#dawson lacey

[mydarlingdearestdead]

"You know," Jude lifted a polaroid from the carpet as they spoke. The non-printed side faced them and a date was scrawled alongside a mysterious red, sticky residue. They grimaced, continuing, "You drink like you're trying to beat a world record."

Dawson laughed drunkenly. He lifted a glass of what Jude would assume to be water with any other soul in a silent toast before swallowing the remainder in a single swallow. He groaned, shaking his head like a dog perturbed.

Absently, Jude turned the polaroid in their hand, all the while troubling their mind for a response. Their breath snagged in their throat when they recognised their own gap-toothed grin, although Dawson had not been the commander of this image, they knew. He would never put his name to this work due to the blurred edges and dim lighting- The imperfections. Regardless, if they had any doubt it was quashed by the mere image of his saintly face from within the canvas.

Jude had thrown their arms around him, their backdrop that of an event lost forgotten. They threw their head back to glance the camera, evidently aware of its existence, but Dawson's gaze only fell upon them. His awe-struck, glazed expression brought warmth to Jude's chest in the modern day, even as they maintained blissful sobriety.

"Okay!" They slipped the flawed picture into their jeans pocket, "How about sobering up, huh?"

Dawson groaned in response but Jude pushed forward nonetheless. They were stubborn like that, you understand.

[mydarlingdearestdead]

Dawson always left behind him a scent entirely unidentifiable. It was not something that could be condensed upon a perfume label or categorised by a sales representative. Not his aftershave, nor his deodorant- I purchased both in bulk in order to conduct many an experiment-, nor a combination of the two. Eventually, I were forced to a conclusion in which it was a rather infuriating but entirely natural phenomenon.

Frankly, the evaluation disgusted me.

Having clothed my apartment in the light scene of rosemary and mint- Shampoo, air freshener, incense, hair oil-, you can understand the horror at such a perverse invasion. It was only once I succumbed to the familiarity of the scent that I began yearning it.

In fact, while it was available to me I figuratively turned up my nose to the notion of endorsing it.

Dawson merely laughed, chewing on his thumbnail, steadying himself in order to lecture me on the extent to which I was incorrect.

[mydarlingdearestdead]

The sky had turned to an inexplicable dusk by the time Jude took their leave and Dawson watched their back, blinded by the last strains of sunlight.

Though time carried on as it always must and always will, Dawson felt as if he may as well be suspended above the city in a transcendent bubble. There, he would remain exactly as now only frozen. This, a perfect fantasy, persevered through the tears and the empty bottles until he lay upon a bare, ominously stained mattress in the dawn.

A streak of orange lamp-light lay across his bare chest, illuminating barely a lit cigarette in Dawson's limp left hand. The smoke curled by his golden crown in fascinating, cruel patterns.

Jude would complain, he knew. Ash on the bed. On the carpet. It hardly mattered now.

Masterlist

[mydarlingdearestdead]

Dawson produced a monumental shrug, summoning all essence of himself into the singular, dismissive movement. Jude, in reply, aimed a kick to his shin.

He leapt to his feet with a yelp, demanding, "What was that for?"

Jude reclined upon the sofa, positioning Dawson in their periphery to a Goldilocks perfection. In reply, they scoffed, "Answer the question."

"Fuck you- Jude!" This, he exclaimed as, once more, his body interfered with Jude's tendency to forcefully stretch their limbs.

"Were you drinking?" They asked again, feigning enticement by the water stains upon the ceiling.

Dawson crossed his arms.

"Dawson."

He sniffed, "Yes."

"Fuck."

But Dawson merely waved a hand, "Progress isn't linear, Jude. How many times have you told me that? And now you're going to get all pissy because I made a mistake-"

"A mistake implies that you regret it." Jude retorted, "If it had been a mistake, you wouldn't have lied to me- By omission, for fuck's sake. Don't say you didn't."

Dawson, perhaps wisely, closed his mouth.

[mydarlingdearestdead]

Dawson strangled weakly the neck of a bottle in his left hand, that which dangled off the sofa's torn edge. His body lay casting guard upon the opposite direction, allowing Jude a glorious view of his blond hair, slicked into cruel, unpleasant forms by some gel. Red wine, they noted, with some distant, illegible emotion, the most inexpensive brand to be found. Still, if it had an alcohol content, Dawson wasn't known to judge.

He stirred, making a noise like a wounded animal, something that could not quite be described as a whimper, nor a groan. Releasing the bottle to the carpet, it thudded harmlessly, having been drained already to the drags. Jude wished so dearly that this was a fact they could have claimed to have held some kind of shock value.

They cleared their throat and, in clear response, Dawson stilled. After, perhaps, forty-five seconds, he began an exaggerated breathing routine. An elaborate routine of such a natural act...

Would it have been entirely cruel of Jude to laugh?

[mydarlingdearestdead]

I was due to be presenting a self-defence workshop at a local secondary school; one I shall not name in the interest of protecting both students and staff from my intention to publish. I knew even before I had purchased my 24-Hour Railway Pass that I had very little hope of finding myself upon the train come nine o’clock. Regardless, I rose promptly at a quarter past seven, bathed and dressed. My thoughts were slow, attempting to pierce through the fog of inebriated memory. Only one thing was solidly known:

Dawson Lacey was at the foot of my bed, depositing saliva into the carpet with a bottle of red wine (Its contents disposed, I assumed, through classical means) clutched by the neck in his right hand.

He awoke to the hairdryer’s wailing. I was relieved. You see, Dawson could have slept through an air raid as a young man, another manner in which we contrasted one another. I have always been eager to awaken with the sun while he would have rather repurposed the magnificent swirling colours of dawn into a blanket to aid his comfort.

That relief, of course, was diminished as he appeared, guilty as sin, a stricken expression upon his face in my entryway, having tumbled blindly down the staircase. He held, in one hand, the bottle still. The other, unsurprisingly, clutched an iPhone which had certainly seen a more fortunate existence in a previous life, the screen chipped and flickering.

I cannot, even now, really explain my actions which followed. I can only attempt to justify them in that he smelled rather rancid, of stale alcohol and sweat and his hair so badly required a scrub. I want to imply that I pitied him. That I acted as a human might when faced with a wounded animal. As if I was in a position to aid him.

I kissed Dawson Lacey.

A horrible decision. One entirely removed from my character, in addition, and one I have never claimed to pride myself on. But he was still Dawson, regardless of the items he relied on, and he was devastatingly warm.

We stumbled backward, vaguely attempting to locate the banister as an anchor. From there, matters progressed. I suppose I must have released him at one point or another- For oxygen, for release, for the purpose of ringing the Vice Principal of this extremely conservative, all-female Catholic school and coughing meekly- but I cannot claim to recall a single thing other than sheer heat.

[mydarlingdearestdead]

I came only to the realisation that Dawson and I lived lives inextricably bound following the final crossing of two such paths.

Forgive me for they say it is simplest to begin a tale at its natural beginning but I find, having written these words a dozen times over, that I am rather ill, gazing at false words as they masquerade in the cursive of my own hand. To my mind, a beginning as it is classified by the classic structure implies an ending, a final climax which is planned and whose execution is guaranteed. As no such thing is true, I feel rather the fraud attempting such.

Hence, I believe I am inclined to begin unnaturally, not with our meeting but with our departure. I am one to enjoy a story- Although, do not allow that word to persuade you toward an assumption of fictionality- of which the ending is known to me from the opening cover. Take The Bible, for instance. Best-selling work of fiction of all time, though few can claim to have read each and every word, even fewer may comprehend it and fewer still had heard not of the Resurrection before delighting in Genesis.

I am not a religious person, nor do I believe myself to be a particularly pure or moral example of humanity. It was here that Dawson and I differed from one another. Although, at the root, we may have consisted of a similar enjambment of morals and beliefs, our outlooks could almost have been described as opposite.

It was not that he was an optimist, nor that vanity became him. In all honesty, I can hardly relate the truth to words in my mind. To put it to paper seems like a task far beyond the capability of my hand. Regardless, I suppose I may do him a disservice if I refrained from venturing an attempt:

Dawson was, at heart, a good man. Regardless of his actions and his barbed words, this I know to be the ultimate truth. I suppose, therefore, that the issue lay in the fact that he, himself, knew this fact to be true.  

[mydearestdarlingdead]

Why do I write what is wrong with me