Work Text:
Mark had turned in everything he hated, everything he feared to become, but it wasn’t necessary bad to have everything he had now, a new life, London, a nine to five job, a salary, a credit card, a television, a smartphone, a electrical tin opener, a carpet that wasn’t covered in vomit and piss, he had filled his apartment with plants and other decorations, he had a laptop, a social media life, a fucking big television, a washing machine and an old record player.
He seated in his couch watching mind numbing shows on Netflix stuffing junk food on his mouth. and he had dates and meaningless sex, he didn’t know any of those men and women, he was just trying to feel something.
He did his laundry every Sunday, he wondered who the fuck he was and who he was becoming while he saw the clothes rolling around in the machine window.
He called his mother wherever he remembered to do it, he texted Diane often wishing her luck at school which made him feel like an older brother. A creepy older brother, and he had broke contact with everyone else in the gang.
He had a new group of friends, healthy ones, the kind of guys who felt like the worst thing they had done in their life was smoking weed in their rooms when they were sixteen. They were nice, they were kind, they didn’t have anger issues, or a speed addiction, or a dead daughter, or blonde platinum hair and a wicked smile that could break him in a second.
They were good mates, they weren’t like in Leith of course, but, wasn’t that the whole point?
The cold air hit him in the face, his gaze was in his phone screen and his left hand looking for a cigarette in his jacket pocket, the laugh of his coworkers was growing farther away while he walked down the street leaving the pub when everyone had joined for Friday drinks.
He would have stayed more time, he even could have gone home with that girl from the second floor of the office who always flirted with him. But he wasn’t in the mood. He was completely off since the morning when he woke up to a notification on his phone.
‘’@_sicksboy has required to follow you!’’ on Instagram.
It wasn’t a complete surprise that one of his ex-friends wanted to connect again with him, Spud texted him once in a while, with the promise of not telling anyone about it, Begbie was in jail and that was a relief. The only one who hadn’t tried to reach out was Sickboy, until now. But why now?
Why now? Was the question that burned into Mark’s mind the whole day, since he saw the tiny blank square telling him that his ex-best friend was trying to follow him, to know about him, he didn’t post much but still kept his account private so no one could see the boring fuck he was now. Posting pics of his fucking plants. Plants for fucksake, he quickly archived those photos during the day at the office, nervously watching that the request to follow him was still there, it was weird, having Sickboy to request for something, anything, when he always had what he wanted without asking. This wasn’t going to be the exception to it. Or was it?
He kept smoking until he got to his apartment, throwing his jacket and shoes away, unable to stop watching Simon’s instagram profile.
He hadn’t searched for any of their friends social media, he was tempted to many times, specially Simon’s, but he wanted to leave that behind, the last time he did it he cried with guilt and remorse drunk on the floor while swiping up on all the pictures of Tommy smiling and living a normal life, with Lizzie and football and the gym, before heroin, before everything went down.
Simon's profile pic was simple, just his face slightly turned sideways with red light illuminating a part of his hair, no glimpse of a smile.
His description read:
Simon Williamson
Movie Character.
chances in my veins, running out of time.
Leith, Scotland.
Mark scoffed at the ‘’movie character’’ part of the profile description. Of fucking course, Simon always lived like his life was a movie everyone was lucky to be seeing.
He had only eight pictures, Mark’s heart hurted at the one with both of them holding a smiling wee Dawn, Mark's eyebags full red, skinny and almost dead. Simon smiling like he had wined the lotto twice. It surprised him that he had that photo there.
Another pic with Spud, one of Begbie kicking a trash can, a video of a lighting painting the night sky purple for a moment.
The rest of the pictures were selfies, a careless and bright smile in some of them, the last one a mirror selfie in a dirty pub bathroom. Even in those places he shined, he knew how to look good, he always knew, Mark thought.
The caption read ‘’you are in my veins, you fuck’’
Mark throw the phone at the couch and got himself in the shower, everything felt overwhelming and for what? It was just a follow request, and Simon used to be his best friend, he could decline it, or accepted it, or ignore it forever and keep going with his numbing life, but truth to be told: the request was the most exciting thing that had happened to him in months.
It was four am, and he kept watching the phone laying in the nightstand. He sighed deeply, fuck it. He entered into Instagram again, Simon’s profile, to find that he had uploaded some stories, he accepted the following request and clicked on the stories, quickly turning the volume down, it was a club, blasting music and neon lights, next story was another mirror selfie, he looked exhausted and high as fuck, Mark smiled warmly remembering all those sleepless nights. He liked a few pictures and put the phone aside to sleep.
When he woke up and he had no notifications, it would be a lie to said he wasn’t disappointed, he thought that at least Simon would write an insult or a quick joke under his photos, but there was nothing.
Monday morning came, and while he was filling some boring formularies at work, his phone lighted up.
‘’so rentboy is alive’’ it read, and it was from @_sickboy.
Mark’s face light up like a fucking Christmas tree.
At the end of the working day he was called out by his boss for not leaving the phone during the whole time there, he quickly apologized and ran out from the office, without keeping his eyes and fingers off the screen.
They were joking, they were acting like if nothing had happened, like if Mark had left just yesterday, not a year ago.
Simon liked all his pictures, posted a comment on a selfie ‘’nice’’ it read. Mark blushed.
Pathetic, why he was blushing for it?
‘’what does that fucking mean?’’ he asked on the dm’s
‘’what?’’
‘’nice’’. On my picture’’
‘’that you look nice? Mark, you can’t take a compliment you still the same mess’’
‘’fuck off everything is changed’’
‘’not everything’’
‘’it is’’
‘’it’s not’’
‘’it is’’
‘’it’s not’’
Simon always had the last word.
Mark was high as a kite, it was weird, no substance was in his body, but Sickboy, the same old man who had broke him and put him together again many times, was in his life again , or in his virtual life, something like that, and that felt like taking fucking fentanyl.
‘’where r u staying?’’
‘’you are delusional if u think im telling you that’’
‘’cunt. it would be nice to see u, that’s all. But have It your way’’
They exchanged phone numbers at some point in the night, when Mark was having microwave dinner.
Simon was being really nice for once, all ‘’I want to see you’’ ‘’It would be nice to see you’’ he even tried to facetime Mark, but he didn’t answered it. He wasn’t ready. Simon only wrote a ‘’I understand’’ fucking mind-reader cunt.
‘’do you need money?’’
‘’always. But that’s not why I contacted you’’
‘’so?’’
‘’so?’’ why the fuck it had to be a reason to be in touch with my best mate?’’
‘’we are not best mates Simon that ended ages ago’’
And after that, for five days, Simon didn’t texted him back.
‘’sorry’’
‘’I didn’t meant to say it that way’’
‘’I crossed a line I know’’
‘’simon I know you see this fucking messages’’
‘’im sorry’’
‘’you still my best friend’’
Mark saw that on his Instagram stories, Sickboy put up a song, the lyrics read:
‘’you got my devotion
but man, i can hate you sometimes
i don’t wanna fight you
and I don’t wanna sleep in the dark’’
It was sadly singed and Mark listened to it the whole day. Simon kept without answering his texts and two of his calls. His days had turned grey and without surprises again, woke up, no texts, work, no texts, go home, no texts, microwave dinner, no texts. No Simon. No best friend.
Simon uploaded a new picture, Mark thought that the son of a bitch had made it on purpose, because he looked ridiculously good and hot and everything that Mark’s mind tried to keep away, he seriously needed to get laid soon, because it was impossible that a single photo of Simon fully dressed and in his beige trench coat smoking a cigarette under a bridge and looking deeply into the camera got him so flustered.
He decided to comment ‘’nice’’ and Diane answered ‘’thanks, I took it’’
That almost gave him a heart attack, loudly gasped in the middle of the silent office, gaining the curious looks of various co-workers who had told him that when he was going to introduce the ‘’special girl who always had him looking at his phone all blushed and happy’’
‘’you are dating SimON???????’’ he texted her immediately.
‘’LMFAO no, we are just good friends’’
Friends? Good friends? Simon and Diane? The same guy who had offered her to ‘’work with him’’ was now good friend with her?
He texted Simon.
‘’don’t touch Diane’’
And that, finally, got him an answer after five days of fucking silence and indirects trough songs.
‘’im not you. she’s fucking young Rents’’
‘’I know that, and I know you, that’s why im telling you’’
‘’it worked’’
‘’what?’’
‘’she told me to upload that picture to get your attention and it worked’’
‘’the fuck you talkin abt with gaining my attention you brain damaged fuck, I’ve been texting you for five fucking days without answer whiny bitch’’
‘’hahahahahahahahahahahahahh its so easy to get you angry Mark, I should make a career out of that’’
‘’and why you wanted to get my attention?’’ Mark decided to ignore everything else and concentrate in the fact that Simon had to make some sort of ‘’´plan’’ to get something out of Mark.
‘’I like attention’’
‘’shocker’’
‘’and I need a place to stay’’
There it was.
‘’no’’
‘’you said you were my best mate still. That’s harsh on a best mate Rentboy’’
‘’stop with that nickname, and when I told you that you ignored me for days’’
‘’I was sad’’
‘’for what?’’
‘’u are oblivious or u fake it all? u told me we were not friends anymore, that fucking hurt, u never own your shite Mark, u never own the mistakes u made and the people u hurt, and the relationships u screw over, we always had plans together, to leave together, and one day I woke up and u were no longer here, u don’t even have the balls to call yr ma’ and pa' I have dinner with them often, they miss u, they still yr fuckin parents u cunt. u are so selfish and self-centered, and look who is telling u that, at least I own the fact that im selfish and narcissistic, that I fuck up, that I miss u, that I have to look out for u first because I knew that u would never look out for me’’
Mark kept reading the long paragraph over and over again, a lump on his throath and a itch on his eyes from menacing tears.
Simon kept writing something, the little dots moving up and down while Mark tried to form an answer that didn’t sound victimized or pathetic. He knew Simon was telling the whole truth. And he always loved him and hated him for that.
´´don’t go angry with Spud for telling me that a few times u two texted. and u told him that u wish u were doing better, u were always so honest with him that I knew he wasn’t exaggerating or lying, I know u have a good life on bourgeois terms, but outside of it what u got? who do u got? i worry abt u, I worry abt us, abt not having any future together anymore. because unlike u I know when I found my kind of people. Spud can be fucking stupid and Begbie is a psychopath, but they are my people. N u are my person, u are my best friend, and i fuckin miss u, im not telling this to have a place to stay, i live with spud so think whatever u want abt my intentions’’
He was writing something more, but suddenly stopped and just sended a ‘’think about yr shite’’
Mark did, for three days he didn’t answer.
He called in sick at work. He thought about the loneliness of it all, he thought about the hangovers and how Simon was sitting beside him in the bathroom floor while Mark vomited his guts out, he thought about the nights where they were too drunk and high and too horny to give two shits and ended having sex on the couch of their old flat, he thought about the running after stealing, the needles shared, the records listened in the floor of their room, he thought about all of it while watching his ‘’home’’ now. this wasn’t home, he figured. he lived here, he had a life, a normal life here, but he didn’t felt like any of this was warm enough to be called home. he missed his parents, he missed his friends. he missed not having to pretend to be a whole different person.
And he missed Simon, so fucking much. He hadn’t even admitted completely until now. Until he found himself listening to the same song in repeat and posting it to his Instagram stories, hoping that Sickboy would take the hint. He was pathetic, maybe, yes, absolutely, but he couldn’t lose Simon, he had lost so much, they both had lost so much.
‘’i won't say a word,
but I think he knows
that I've hardly slept,
since the night he left.
his body always kept,
mine inside of it.
keep the nightmares out,
give me mouth to mouth.
i can't live without ya,
take me to your house’’
half an hour later, Simon answered to the story
‘’then come home’’
Maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, to come back to their old life, a life full of misery and sorrow, but he had a long video call with Simon on how things could be different this time. how they could work it out, he could get a job back at Leith, he would leave his apartment by the end of the month and he would quit his job the next week.
Simon’s smile every night that they video called was everything that make him feel like any of it was nonsense, like it was something that could work, because; why run from home? why run from the one you love?
His parents were all smiles and cheers when he announced that he would come back, Diane told him ‘’I knew Simon would convince you’’ Spud was preparing a room for him, it all felt so different this time, a breath of fresh air, of sane air, of home air.
‘’im nervous, that’s all’’
‘’its obvious’’ simon answered
‘’i don’t wanna fuck this up’’ he didn’t meant exactly to only coming back home, but to the relationship between him and Simon.
‘’we are not the same anymore Mark, we can do so much good to each other, and u know it, no more of all that old shite’’
Mark was in an awe at how different Simon was, it almost felt out of character the way he kept saying that they both would make things work, that they would be good for each other, that everything was going to be fine as long as they were together, as long Mark didn’t run away.
Everything was in his right place, Spud, Simon, and Mark were watching a movie togeher on his first night back, Spud had fallen asleep at the half of it, and Mark had intertwined his fingers with Simon’s while he rested his head on his shoulder, he smiled to himself, remembering the lonely nights in London, without Simon, without the smell of his shampoo and the softness of his hand, without a second opportunity to get it right, without home. All that loneliness was over and it has been washed away with Simon’s constant reassurement.
Home wasn’t London, home wasn’t Leith, home was Simon whispering to him, in the middle of the night while they shared the bed ‘’we will be okay’’.