Sometimes, Foster hopes and prays that there’s no God so that they don’t have to see him live the way he does.
He’s 28 years old (already too long a life for someone like him), and there’s a lingering smell of cigarette smoke when he enters a room, as if the ash in the air were writing his signature in front of his eyes.
He’s too tall -- he’s still not as tall as Bautista, and for that he’s honestly grateful, because how that man doesn’t accidentally knock his head off getting into the car is legitimately impressive. His limbs are gangly and he looks like an alien in a human suit when he moves.
He rubs the back of his head, his undercut getting less and less noticeable with every passing day. Dull, lifeless green eyes stare back at him. If he were any less optimistic, he would maybe want to rip them out of his skull, just so that he wouldn’t have to look at them (or any of the rest of himself, for that matter) again.
There’s grime on the motel mirror, and he feels some sort of sacred kinship with it, splashing water from the sink onto his face. The bags underneath his eyes only stand out more. “You need to go outside more,” his mother would tell him. But every time he did, it would never result in a tan. Just another splash of freckles somewhere on his body. (He doesn’t think about how badly he wants Bautista to find all of them, make constellations as if his body is somehow comparable to the clear night sky.)
It probably had something to do with his stark-red hair. Kids would call him shit like “daywalker” and “red-headed step child” when he was little. They would also call him stuff like “girl” and “miss,” which was equally as wrong. He wonders if they’d call him a girl now, or if they’d upgrade to blatant dehumanization.
It was hard enough being a “girl” going through a growth spurt that put you at a solid 6′2″ in freshman year of high school -- imagine how hard it would be to be in front of those same kids that had called him nasty names as he is now. (Maybe he’d deserve it this time.)
He looks like shit, and doesn’t feel any better. Bautista keeps asking him if he’s okay, as if the answer’s gonna change. (He doesn’t think about how his heart starts to beat faster when he hears the worry in Marc’s voice.)
His top scars are one of the few things that he finds any beauty in on his body. They remind him that he’s done what he can to create himself. He is his own man, and he no longer has the tits to prove it. He can’t help but crack a smile at the thought of the way Bautista chuckled when he told him that joke, about a year into their “partnership.”
The syringe of testosterone is lying precariously on the edge of the porcelain, a millimeter of movement away from being on the floor, ready to step on and stab your foot into. The thought of just taking testosterone accidentally like that has come into Foster’s head once or twice before. He doesn’t dare to think about how Bautista would react if he walked out of the bathroom with a hole in his foot.
It doesn’t register that his breathing is getting heavier and more ragged until he looks into the mirror again and sees that he’s crying.
He’d have to deploy the special technique to go to sleep tonight, probably. He might even have to cuddle up with his bottle of ginger ale, if it gets any worse. (He doesn’t think about how Bautista’s arm would be just about as thick around, and how much warmer it would be.)
A knock on his door disturbs his thoughts (and temporarily disrupts his panic attack, thank God for Marc Bautista), giving him a bit of time to try and excuse the tears streaming down his hollow cheeks as droplets of water from attempting to wash his face.
“You can come in, I’m not naked or anything.”
Bautista gives him a second before he takes Foster up on that offer. “I heard you breathing heavy. Wanted to make sure that you were okay in here.”
Foster chokes down a sob. “You ever thought maybe it was just me getting my rocks off?”
“Knowing you, I would honestly be more surprised if that were the reason.”
Foster looks up to meet his “partner’s” eyes, and this is one of the few times of his life that he’s actually felt small.
“Bautista, seriously, I’m fine,” he says, and he would almost get away with it if it weren’t for the breathlessness.
The taller man looks into Foster’s eyes, and he rests a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to lie to me, Pierce. You’re... Christ this is gonna sound pathetic. You’re my best friend.”
Something inside Foster breaks. A rubber band that had been holding his ball-joints in place snaps in half. He feels himself crumble into a pile of mushy messy lovestruck pieces onto the dirty bathroom tile.
“I wish I were a better friend,” he replies, his voice breaking. He means it, in many ways. To be better at showing that he wants to be Bautista’s friend, to be deserving of that level of trust and care, to be even closer...
“You don’t have to be better. You’re great already.”
“Can I hug you?” Foster asks, knowing that this was never guaranteed. He cares so much about Marc. He wants nothing more than to hold him close to his chest and forget about the weight of the past hanging around his neck for just one goddamn second.
When he nods, Foster can’t help but sink into the warm slab of muscle in front of him. He can hear Bautista’s heart beating in his chest, and he wonders if this is the normal pace it goes at, or if it quickens when he’s around, like Foster’s own does.
Jesus Christ, he’s so good at hugs. There was a nagging thought in the back of Foster’s mind that told him that he was gonna snap in half when Bautista’s arms wrapped around him, but he’s so gentle, and it makes the ache in his stomach pulse harder.
One of the arms holding him moves away, and Foster has half a mind to protest, until he feels it on the top of his head, softly massaging his unruly mess of hair, fingers sprawling out across his too-long undercut and too-windblown hair. If this was an attempt at making Foster feel comforted, it was working, but if it was an attempt to stop his heart racing, it was failing miserably.
Foster pulls his head away from the crook of Bautista’s neck in a daze, looking at him through blurry eyes. His face is scorching hot, and it only gets warmer when he feels a calloused hand cup his cheek, tenderly moving a thumb across his cheekbone, catching a tear in its tracks.
And the next thing he knows, they’re connected at the lips, and it’s so good. It’s so fucking beautiful. There’s no perfection to be had here, no fireworks, no swelling symphony. It feels like a release of tension. An elastic band coming back to shape after being stretched to its limits. The ball of anxiety and overwhelming fondness in Foster’s stomach unravels itself as he feels Bautista’s chapped lips slide against his own.
Despite the times this has happened before (however few and far between), they’re still not quite in sync with each other’s movements yet, bumping noses and occasionally clacking teeth. It’s the best kiss that Foster’s ever had.
This isn’t a good way to stop him from panicking, and they both know it, but it gets him out of his head, and it helps them in figuring out exactly what they are, what they want, how they’re gonna fucking make it like this.
Foster’s never been the best at showing restraint, and this is no different. He’s desperately trying to get his tongue into Bautista’s mouth within seconds, and his hands wrap around his neck, hands trying to pull him even closer. His spit tastes like mint, and it’s even better tasting than the mints he steals from Bautista when he’s not looking. It seems like Bautista’s defenses are down too, because he’s relatively quick to allow it.
He’s almost too focused on the sensation of kissing the man in front of him to realize that he’s being pushed backwards towards the wall, and it’s only once his back is pressed to it that it fully registers. Bautista’s hands leave Foster’s body and are now fully boxing the shorter man in. The force behind them would suggest that it’s less about wanting to keep him against the wall, and more as an act of self-stabilizing.
And CHRIST, Foster can feel how warm and strong he is, and he wants to keep kissing him into oblivion, but he knows this is a bad idea. He knows that this will end badly, he knows that they’d both beat themselves up about it if they let it escalate like that, he knows, he knows, he knows.
He pulls away for a moment, breath ragged, as his hand runs along the taller man’s jaw. (He doesn’t think about how sharp and perfect it is, or how nice the stubble feels underneath his fingertips. He doesn’t think about tracing his fingers down his neck, toward his chest, down his abs...
(Or maybe he does.)