— benzodiazepines
Don Lorenzo & Marc Snuffy, Marc Snuffy & Mick Munn ; Angst, Slight Comfort, Past Death, Referenced Drug Use/Abuse ; 1.6k
—
Not a son. Not a nephew. Not a relative. Marc Snuffy had to keep the impulse to fucking rip a lock of hair from his scalp at bay as he forcefully took the pills box from Lorenzo’s hands.
“What the fuck do you think you're doing?!” he shouldn't have used that tone. He shouldn't have raised his voice. He shouldn't have been looking at him like that. That was not the Marc Lorenzo knew, that was not the figure he could count on, that was not what he needed to hear from him or how he should have looked, in a moment like that one.
Rationality wasn't his strong suit when his heart was exploding in his chest and all he could feel was his best friend’s dead body in his arms, limp and cold and still, as Mick had never been at all.
Lorenzo’s eyes were wide with surprise, awake as he had rarely seen him, those days. His stance alert, his hands shaking, too caught by his outburst to fight for the small box. “I—”
“Lorenzo,” Marc wasn't even sure of what to say. How to say it. What to do. How to react. Nothing at all was in his mind as much as all he could think of kept bouncing from corner to corner and crashing onto other sentences and thoughts and screaming.
Screaming. Did he scream when he saw him that day? Was he petrified? What did he do? How did he react? He remembered it all so vividly it almost felt like a dream still. Still digesting a reality he had barely faced at all. Still hoping to wake up and find him in his apartment, stubbornly alive as he should still be.
He had been avoiding the cemetery for years, ever since he had found Lorenzo. He had thought that redeeming himself would have been enough to forget. Not move on, as the mere smell of a specific dish still made his brain freeze and his hands grow numb, simply avoid. Avoid and go on until retirement and until all he would have been left with would have been a desolate tomb to take care of as he had always regretted not doing when he was alive.
“Where did you get these?” Marc asked, his voice controlled and forcefully calm, because he had seen that expression on Lorenzo’s face only when he had woken up in cold sweat the rare nights he passed out, with dried tears on his cheeks and names of people he never knew at all rolling from his lips in a continuous loop that never seemed to be wanting to stop, and he hated to be the one causing him to look like that as much as he hated very few things. “Where—?”
“I'm sorry,” was all Lorenzo said, his voice barely a whisper. “I— I’m sorry, I—”
“It's okay,” no, it wasn’t. It really wasn't. He couldn't lose him too. “Where?”
“A guy at a rave,” he said, “I— I needed to fuck myself up. And these calm me down.”
“Okay,” okay, okay, will you stop lying to his face? Marc gritted his teeth and took a deep breath that came out his mouth shaky and forced. His grip on the box tightened, he put it in his pocket. “Talk to me.”
“I'm sorry,” he repeated. “I’ll stop, I’m sorry, I—”
“Kid.” Kid. He was just a kid. Barely fifteen years old, barely started puberty, barely knew what anything was. He couldn't risk it. He couldn't risk it. “I’m sorry too.”
“Don’t apologize,” Lorenzo’s voice for the slightest bit of grit, “why are…? Don't, I—”
“I'm sorry,” he repeated, fuck, he had to apologise, he had to, Lorenzo didn't know shit, and still, Marc couldn't move, didn't have the guts to comfort him and reassure him.
He just wanted to scream. He just wanted to punch something. Maybe himself. Maybe he deserved it still. Maybe he was going to lose him too and he wouldn't have been able to do anything again. Maybe. What was he going to do? Fuck, what even—?
Marc shook his head fast. What was he, in his twenties again? The hell was up with that? He didn't need to feel like that, he didn't need to act like that, hell, Lorenzo needed him, shit, where the fuck was he?
Where in the world was he, at that moment?
The room was blurry and dark as his room had been. The pale light coming from the corridor barely revealed the details of the kitchen where they were standing. Unreal, unreal, nothing was real. He wasn’t real. He wished he wasn’t. He wished he hadn’t postponed dealing with shit. He wished, wished, wished, as he always did, that something, anything, could have been different.
Marc was terrified of leaving that claustrophobic space only because he was sure of who he would have found on the rug in the living room.
“You’re scaring me,” he heard Lorenzo whisper. “I— I’m sorry, I… what’s up with you…? I…”
You’re never like this. You never lose your cool like this. You never raise your voice with me, no matter what fucked up shit I still can’t let go of I do. Why are you like this now? What? Why? What’s different, this time?
“Talk to me,” Lorenzo threw his offer back at him, a shaky smile made its way on his face, a grimace that just looked wrong. A kid comforting his guardian. That was a weight no child should have had to bear at all. And still, Lorenzo, as he usually did, wanted to help. Be useful. Be something.
Fucked up. He was fucking up a child by reinforcing his contorted fears. Marc’s head flashed with a thought he discharged as soon as it appeared.
“I can help,” what was under that was something they were both very aware of, a mechanism so engraved in him that they both had been avoiding analyzing for way too long. “I… can help. I’ll— I’ll stop, I… you can talk to— to me, okay? I can listen! I can—”
“Lore,” Marc took a deep breath. He exhaled slowly. He took another one. He closed his eyes for a moment, forced his body to stop shaking even slightly, and opened his arms. “It’s okay.”
Lorenzo looked at him for a moment too many before looking away. His hands were still shaking. His stance still alert. His eyes still awake. And still, as always, underneath it all, Lorenzo was just exhausted.
It took him a moment to get close. It took him a moment, but when he did, Marc held him in a hug so tight he knew he was hurting him. Lorenzo didn’t complain. He was doing the same anyway.
His body was still sickly slim from the years spent on the streets. Marc wondered if he was ever going to see him at least a bit healthier. He knew he still had a long way to go. He remembered perfectly the kid he had met that day. As much as it could have been better, for a moment, Marc simply felt proud of how far he had come.
He was warm, scalding, compared to how Mick had been. He was breathing fast, as he usually did when he was as shaken as at that moment. His hold on him was hesitant and still, careful but real.
Real.
Lorenzo was alive. He should remember that instead of jumping ahead to a future he hoped would never come.
“How long?” Marc asked, tired voice and exhausted mind.
“Dunno,” he mumbled, “a bit. Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he hesitated for a moment, debating. In the end, he decided to be honest. “No, it’s not."
“It’s not,” Lorenzo repeated.
“It’s not,” it made the smallest of smiles appear on his face. He hugged him as if that would have protected him from what he couldn’t be protected from at all. “And that’s okay.”
“That’s okay.”
“We’ll figure something out,” hope, that was. He didn’t know how. He didn’t know shit. He wished it could have all been simpler.
“I’m sorry,” Lorenzo said, “don’t…”
“I won’t,” he reassured him. “I won’t, kid. You’re safe.”
Lorenzo’s shoulders shook. He rubbed his eyes with a hand. “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” he slowly let go of him, his hand laid on his shoulder, “wanna watch a movie?”
“My chest hurts.”
“It can distract you, maybe, it… will pass,” he grimaced, “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault, all mine.”
“Not yours either, kid,” You just wanted to be calm. You just wanted not to be real. I understand that too much to be angry at you. “A Marvel one?”
Lorenzo hummed. “Those are nice.”
“They are,” he nodded, he gave him the most honest smile he could muster, “I’ll make popcorn.”
“It’s two in the morning,” he grimaced, half-grateful, shining golden smile.
“Since when has that ever stopped you?” He couldn’t help it, his smile softened. “We’ll get there. Promise.”
Lorenzo nodded fast. He shook his head. He gave him a look. “Okay.”
He believed in those words as much as he did. It was no matter, Marc made him sweet popcorn and stared unblinking at the TV with his mind far away and his gaze unseeing. He knew Lorenzo knew he wasn’t there, at that moment. He knew he didn’t mind. He knew. Lorenzo was kind. Lorenzo, at the end of the day, was just like him. He hated being like that in front of him as much as anyone would have, and still, it didn’t really matter at all.
By the end of the movie it was obvious that neither of them had followed much of it all. But Lorenzo seemed almost calm and Marc couldn’t see needles on the floor anymore, so maybe, just maybe, for that night, it was gonna be okay like that.