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The neon strobes of the club bleed into the air, thick as water and slick as oil, winding through the pulsating mass of bodies around Oliver. He breathes in time to the beat, the thump of bodies against the sticky ground the metronome to his slow blinking eyes, set like stone on Felix who is just far enough away he couldn’t reach him if he dared try to. The club is built to make the eye wander, to overwhelm and force an adrenaline rush but all Oliver can see is him .
Felix is lit up in shades of radioactive neons, his white t-shirt blinding, his face and exposed arms streaked with the glowing fingerprints of a hundred partygoers using the dim light and copious amounts of glow-in-the-dark body paint to excuse their groping, their desperate need to touch the foolish angel whose wandered in among the base and lowly.
Oliver’s jaw is tight at their presumption, their cowardly attempts at gaining the attention of something as empyrean as a Catton for even a moment. Sick with jealousy at how their fingers know the feeling of Felix below them before his own. He swallows, mouth dry and skin hot as he observes the throng of bodies around Felix, pressing in, cutting him off from Felix’s light. The world is Felix’s stage and it’s as if a spotlight follows Felix everywhere he goes. Oliver is part of the dark mass of observers below him, the only one really looking as the rest clap and scream for an encore.
Oliver moves enough among the crowd not to stand out and hums along to lyrics he’s never bothered to learn, head swiveling instinctively towards Felix with every unnatural movement. The bodies around him sway and jump too close, brushing up against him, damp and warm like spit. Not for the first time, he prays. He prays for the rapture, for God to take all of his creations from the Earth leaving fallen angel Felix and him alone. Surely, God knows better than to let Oliver into his kingdom, he knows Oliver if he knows anything at all, and it would be oh-so convenient if all of these sweaty loud moving things would disappear before Felix chooses whichever one he will let warm his bed for a quarter of an hour back at the dorm in Webbe.
Oliver sniffs, immediately regretting it as the scent of expensive perfume and cheap alcohol mixed with sweat fills his nose. It disgusts him but he tries to force the possibility of the situation’s charms. It doesn’t work and he only becomes all the more aware of how utterly simple everything is, of how futile and sick the fleeting adrenaline high is, and how he can’t fix Felix not to chase it.
He loves Felix, of course he does, but all of the little nauseatingly human things Felix does keep him from being in love with Felix. Oliver loves Felix with the simultaneous detachment and cannibalistic need to be seen of a believer towards their god. He is Cain driven into the unexplored territory of irreversible sin by lack of recognition. If only his god could accept what he has worked so hard to cultivate, if only his god didn’t hunger for all of the things Oliver could never lay at his feet in offering. It's fatal this dissatisfaction, and Oliver knows he will have to see it through because he could never be rid of this feeling .
The idea of Felix isn’t enough in the nighttime. During the day when he is forced by responsibilities and politeness to be apart from him Oliver can pretend that Felix is just a dream, a mercury-dipped figment of his imagination borne from unspent energy and shaped by his choking desire, but at night Felix comes alive and so he does as well. His marionette strings are pulled taunt again after becoming tangled up in the light. He dances in tune to the music and movement of Felix, mouth bright with the sweetness of being Felix’s favorite toy, his best mate, his Ollie .
Oliver itches, desperate for silence and air but more in need of proximity to Felix than anything else. God’s provide for their most devoted disciples, don’t they? He sees with excitement that Felix has grown bored of the eternal party of the club, eyes flicking about head and shoulders above the crowd before landing on him. Oliver suppresses the shiver of pleasure he gets when Felix’s mouth stretches into a relieved grin at the sight of him, both puckish and alien under the blacklight. Oliver is a dark blip in the neon of the club, not having the wardrobe or interest to be one of the bright young things jerking about in the dark. He is a black hole, an inevitability, an unfathomable danger, but it's his otherness that lets Felix find him so easily, that makes Felix want him around. The foil.
Felix moves through the crowd easily enough for a god among men, the roaming hands of his lesser disciples falling away as he makes his way to the most devoted of his followers. Oliver sighs with satisfaction, with the knowledge of being special, of being loved despite his feral need to sink his teeth into his owner. Judas loved Jesus after all, and Jesus needed Judas to be free. He knew the end of his story and still tipped his head and drank his wine so it's easy enough for Oliver to smile naively up at Felix knowing that Felix couldn’t be a martyr, couldn’t be eternal without him.
He smiles when Felix reaches him, practiced to show friendliness rather than his canines. Felix stoops over sloppily, his lips brush Oliver’s ear as he speaks. Oliver memorizes the damp heat, his tongue running along the backs of his teeth in his mouth, restless.
“Ollie, mate, I’m a bit knackered. Want to move this party back to my room? I’ve got some green that isn’t going to smoke itself…”
Oliver slowly turns his head to look over and up at Felix, nodding at him with a smile, thrilled to be chosen over everyone else, to be given the chance to worship his god in relative solitude. Felix returns his smile before rubbing Oliver’s head affectionately. He turns around and then looks back, holding out his hand to Oliver who looks at it confusedly. Felix laughs before stooping over to shout.
“It's a bloody maze in here, hold onto me and I’ll get us out Ollie, trust me and you’ll be rewarded,” Felix says with a silly wiggle of his eyebrows, the piercing in the left catching the lights.
Oliver takes his hand, their index fingers interlocking. He’s electric. Felix leads them out of the club to some disappointed and downright vicious looks thrown at Oliver behind Felix’s back by some of the Catton hangers-on but Oliver pays them no mind, not worried about jealous animals when the hand of god is upon him, leading him out from the cave and letting the ignorant keep their light and shadows.
Oliver wants to flinch at how his heart races at Felix’s words as they walk, completely innocent and only alluding to the aforementioned “green” rather than what Oliver really wants, to be rewarded with anything Felix would be generous enough to bestow upon him. Oliver is growing tired of performing for a pittance but still it has its charms, for now. One day Oliver won’t have to ask, just like Felix doesn’t have to ask, merely be and be given, but that's not tonight. Tonight it's just them walking along the streets of Oxford, laughing and joking too loudly, hands still interlocked because Felix seems to have forgotten about the contact and Oliver would rather die than remind him.
They reach Webbe after a few drunken missteps back from the pub and make it to Felix’s dorm room with a couple of bottles of alcohol procured on the way from the large collection in the shared kitchen space. Felix lets them in and immediately flops down onto his bed with a dramatic sigh as Oliver closes the door behind him carefully, arms loaded down with the alcohol and a bag of crisps the agoraphobic girl in the college had practically thrown at them when they had accidentally startled her in the hall. Felix had just looked down at the bag after it bounced off his face before the girl squeaked out “for you” and bolted. Felix had shrugged before picking up the bag with a smile, depositing it in Oliver’s waiting arms. Oliver had hummed unsurprised and followed along. Felix incites the primal urge to give, he couldn’t fault the girl for falling prey to it.
Felix turns to him lazily, a soft smile on his face now pressed up against his blanket as Oliver sits on the ground and arranges their choices of libation and sustenance, mostly different forms of vodka plus the odd bottle of white wine. Felix stretches out with a sleepy cat sigh, fiddling with the bookshelves against his bed until his hand returns with a plastic bag of weed, loose papers for rolling tossed in with the bud. When he pushes himself up off the bed, streaks of body paint leave impressions on his blanket and pillow but he doesn’t notice, too concerned with rolling them a couple of joints to care about something as simple as cleanliness.
Oliver watches Felix through his eyelashes, eyes downturned as he pretends to be debating the drink choices. It doesn’t suit Felix to be dirty, it is as if any bit of refuse that would ever attempt to mar the man would look purposeful, streaks of dirt look like artfully placed makeup on a beauty like Felix, and the body paint bleeding along his skin from sweat and movement looks like fairy dust or the like. It almost sickens Oliver, how effortless, how utterly inhuman Felix is, but in the same breath it comforts him because Oliver isn’t human either.
Felix breaks the silence with a rundown of the girls he’s been playing with for the past couple of days and Oliver lets him, washing away the bitter taste of other people’s names on his Felix’s tongue with swigs of alcohol large enough to drown on. He sways as he throws more and more back, the world getting delightfully fuzzy by the time Felix is content with his neat row of freshly rolled joints. Felix looks down at Olliver, eyes widening slightly at the sheer amount of alcohol he’s put away in so little time. Oliver meets his eyes over the mouth of the bottle currently tipped at his mouth. Felix shakes his head with an affectionate grin before he stands and makes a move to lower himself to the floor.
“Move over Ollie, you’re going to end up stuck to the floor before we even get to the main course, put the wine bottle down and break bread with me,” he says with a wink sitting down across from Olliver, his back against his bed.
Oliver does as Felix says instantly, wiping at the moisture around his lips as subtly as possible. It already takes effort to blink but he likes the way it makes Felix hazy in front of him, makes Felix seem closer than he really is, like Oliver could reach out and touch him, bend forward and… well nothing because he wouldn’t dare. Felix lights a joint, tossing the rest and the book he rolled them on carelessly to the side. He takes a deep drag before passing it to Oliver who twitches when their fingers meet briefly. Felix laughs at the bottle nestled in Oliver’s lap like an infant.
“Can’t have you fucked up all by yourself mate, I expect I’ll have to drink a bottle and a half to catch up to you, but who am I to step down from a challenge?” Felix says before ghosting his hands over the small city of bottles and selecting one.
Felix holds the bottle up with a silly “cheers” which Oliver returns silently, lungs still full of smoke but tipping the joint to his friend. Felix throws the alcohol back with expertise, chugging it like cold water on a blazing summer day. His throat bobs, jaw shifting subtly and it makes Oliver’s stomach tighten, chest light on fire. Felix is haloed in the light from his lamp, his dark hair gold at the edges and lips glistening with alcohol and moisture from his tongue which darts out to collect a drop of his drink that threatens to roll down his face.
Oliver wishes he could lick Felix clean, the whole of him, taste the chemical body paint mixed with salt and skin on Felix. He wishes he could slide his hands below the hem of Felix’s tshirt and peel it from him, run the tip of his nose along Felix’s ribs as he kisses up his body. In certain light, Oliver can see the dark outline of Felix’s wing tattoo and it makes him buzz. The familiar chant of we should be lovers, we should be more, you are everything to me so can't I be the same for you plays in Oliver's head. He needs his obsession with Felix because he no longer remembers how he survived without it.
They pass the joint and different bottles to and from each other until the joint becomes a second and then third and the bag of crisps is remembered, most of the bottles having been drained to dregs. Felix regales him on some boarding school tale, probably one Oliver’s heard before but sounds new every time when it comes from Felix. He smiles and sways a bit, almost falling back making Felix laugh around the mouth of a wine bottle.
“You good there, mate? I’m fucked, to be honest, completely and utterly gone…” Felix says with a boyish giggle, holding his bottle like Jesus with the lamb.
Instead of answering Oliver salutes Felix like an American and falls back not even noticing how his head thumps against the ground. He splays out, chest rising above him like a mountain range. He clumsily reaches out for the bag of crisps but it doesn’t materialize. Felix laughs, the bottles rattle and knock to the floor as Felix swipes them away, clearing a space for himself at Oliver’s side. Oliver watches him, heart stuttering in his chest and his vision swirling, lagging as he turns his head away from the bent form of Felix clutching the crips bag, obviously playing a drunken form of keep away with Oliver. Oliver looks up at the ceiling, focusing on breathing, ignoring Felix’s pouty muttering at the fact Oliver hadn’t reacted at being denied crisps.
Felix huffs but lowers himself to the ground, sort of falling the last few inches as he lays beside Oliver. Oliver holds his breath as he feels Felix’s hair brush against his arm, and he practically convulses when Felix lays his head on his arm to use as a makeshift headrest. Oliver takes a minute to gather the courage before he looks over at Felix who looks back at him with a cheeky smile, eyes blurry and eyebrow piercing winking. He’s a vision. Oliver is the unfortunate hermit plagued with the knowledge of something that can’t be understood by anyone else, a soothsayer, the weaver of destiny. He smiles at Felix limply, feeling guilty for nothing and everything he’ll ever do all at once.
“Ollie, one to ten how well do you think you could fake your way through a tutorial right now? I don’t know if I’ve been this…well fucked since ever…” Felix says, voice sleepy.
Oliver hums, mind focused on memorizing the warmth and weight of Felix’s head on his arm. Felix rifles about in the crisp bag before taking one and placing it on Oliver’s forehead with a snort.
“Zero, I’d be surprised if I remember anything about tonight in the morning, or ever I guess.”
Felix nods sagely. The crisp shifts on Oliver’s forehead as he raises and lowers his eyebrows rapidly, finding the sensation of his face contracting and relaxing fascinating in his overly inebriated state. Felix devolves into a fit of giggles, gasping out some sort of comment about “Ollie’s dancing crisp” before burying his face into the flesh of Oliver’s arm as if to stifle his laughter. Oliver stills at the feeling of Felix’s face against his skin, the subtle heat of his mouth creating condensation where his lips meet Oliver’s skin.
After a moment Felix raises himself to a repose, looking down at Oliver who has no choice but to stare back, caught completely in Felix’s glow. Felix smiles with the whole of his face, eyes sleepy with weed and skin flushed with alcohol.
“I love you mate, truly, you’re the best mate I’ve ever had, you know that right?”
Felix hiccups before continuing, leaning dangerously close to Oliver’s face.
“I’m your best too, aren’t I? Of course, I am. You're the best Ollie, we fit together so well don’t we? Like you were made to be my friend and I was made to be yours.”
Felix finishes his declaration of friendship with a saccharine and half-asleep smile, satisfied while Oliver looks up at him, ravenous, desperate. Oliver is silent for a moment, trying to keep his voice steady, keep it from betraying his love for Felix.
“Of course, you’re my best Felix, who else if not you?”
Felix nods once practically falling over onto Oliver’s chest but saving himself at the last possible moment. He slowly blinks down at Oliver’s chest and Oliver does a piss poor job of regulating his breathing, of course, Felix is too fucked up to notice how his gaze affects his best friend but still Oliver fears the possibility of Felix seeing what is so obviously in front of him. Felix doesn’t. Instead, he lowers his cheek to Oliver’s chest for a moment, the imprint of his body heat searing Oliver under his clothes. The crisp falls from Oliver’s head like a crown from a slain monarch. Suddenly Felix moves so fast Oliver startles, all of a sudden eye to eye, breath warming Oliver’s lips, mouth open from the momentary shock.
“God I love your eyes Ollie, too pretty for a man, it’d be so much nicer if you were a girl… I wouldn’t have to bother with trifles like Annabel and India, if you were a girl… well I’d just need you.”
Felix isn’t smiling anymore and Oliver is a breath away from sobbing. He knows this, knows that in another life they could have been happy or something that resembles it, but Oliver isn’t what Felix wants, even the Oliver he built to perform just for him. He’ll always fall short and it will always make him hate Felix just a little more than love him. He wants to beg, plead, and say what his whole body has been singing and screaming since he caught Felix’s eye through the window, we should be lovers. Oliver blinks away the tears rapidly. He whispers, voice cracking. Not able to lie now as perfectly as when he’s sober.
“I know.”
Felix doesn’t react to his words, just looks down at him with something akin to regret. Felix reaches over and moves a stray lock of Oliver’s hair away from his forehead, his hand a bit shaky.
“We won’t remember any of this in the morning,” Felix says, recycling Oliver’s words from earlier, dipping them in a new meaning that takes Oliver’s breath away further, leaving his chest even more hollow than usual.
Oliver looks at Felix who seems unable to hold himself still, undoubtedly a result of the alcohol. Oliver searches Felix’s eyes for instruction, for a sign of what Felix wants so he can break himself to provide it. Felix’s brown eyes divulge no secrets but seemingly on impulse Felix leans down and brushes his lips to Oliver’s, soft, searing.
“Come on Ollie, just for a minute, just a touch…”
Oliver isn’t sure what Felix wants just for a minute but god does he want to give it to him. Oliver is convinced he’s either dreaming or hallucinating, probably actually passed out on Felix’s floor in real life, but if this isn’t real and neither of them will remember anything in the morning, what’s the harm? Oliver takes a shuddering breath before mentally saying “fuck it” and pushing himself up to catch Felix’s lips with his own.
Felix pauses for a second before kissing him back. Felix is a heavy weight on his chest but Oliver doesn’t mind in the least, the pressure of it is near dangerous with their size difference but the fact he can practically taste death on the edges of Felix’s lips only makes him more hungry, his movements more desperate. Felix is a shit kisser in general, Oliver has watched him enough to know that, and the sheer amount of alcohol and weed in their systems doesn’t help as far as coordination goes but somehow it doesn’t matter because his god is breathing life into him.
Felix ruts against Oliver, cages him in, stretches the smaller man’s arms above his head, and holds them there as they kiss roughly, teeth clashing painfully, lips, tongues, cheeks, narrowly missing being cut or bruised by their frenzy. Felix tastes of salt and vodka, it's so sweet Oliver’s teeth ache painfully. His heart hammers in his chest, pumping so furiously it seems to go still. The world is tilting on its axis, the air is unbreathable, stars burst and are reborn behind his closed eyes. He was made to love Felix and Felix was made to be loved.
After a long minute Felix pulls away, chest wracked by uneven breaths, his eyes dark with dilation and dissatisfaction. His lips gleam with their combined spit, the sight of him stuns Oliver to silence. He doesn’t feel real, the pulsing awareness of the weed beginning to take over his mind, intoxicating him to the point he almost lets every secret he’s ever had spill from his lips. Begging for forgiveness sounds good when he can feel the solidness of Felix pressed up against him but he knows better than to give into the drunken urge for honesty, morning brings regret but part of him hopes the nighttime could make him brave.
Oliver feels their chest bump against each other as they both work to regain their breath. Felix had ended up straddling him as they kissed and now he sits up to his normal height making Oliver crane his head to maintain eye contact, scared of losing it, of losing Felix. He tries to say everything with his eyes, too pretty for a man, but he knows it's futile, Felix doesn't want to see what's behind them and probably couldn't fathom what he would find anyways, but Oliver has never been so desperate to be understood, known, loved than this moment. The ache of want has coalesced into a gaping wound.
A few tears drip down the sides of his face and Felix shudders. He wipes them away, the tears wetting Felix’s jeans at his knees where he rests his hands after, he looks as if he's holding himself up. Felix hiccups but this time it looks like an attempt to keep from crying.
“It'll never be enough, will it Oliver?” Felix says.
He looks haunted, like he's just gotten the answer to a question he shouldn't have asked.
Oliver laughs bitterly. His face screws up, he feels like a kicked dog atomically close to giving in to the urge to bite the hand that feeds him and hurts him in turn. He feels animal.
“Just a touch could never be enough,” Oliver breathes out, it's barely more than air but Felix hears it.
Felix flinches, looking electrified, like he's in even a fraction of the pain Oliver has made for himself. He gets off of Oliver jerkily, like he's forgotten where he was, dazed and confused. He swallows, eyes flicking about. Nervousness doesn't suit him. Oliver feels dirty, he's made a god act human for even a moment.
“Um, I'm sorry… Oliver… I think?”
Felix shakes his head slowly, he's not even in the same galaxy as sober despite the mess they've made of things which should sober both of them at least a little. He picks up a still half-full bottle of lemon flavored vodka and finishes it off in a couple of desperate breaths. He drops it in front of him with a hollow clink. He looks like a man just pulled from the sea, barely saved from drowning, eyes still wide and wet with fear. Oliver is still in the sea, overboard with no hope of being saved.
Oliver pushes himself up and looks around the floor for something to drink but there's nothing left. Felix lights a joint and hands it to him slowly, avoiding his eyes. He's folded in on himself, arms around his knees and back up against his bed, cornered in by the bedside table. Oliver takes the joint from him and puts it in his mouth like communion. He feels exposed in his place in the middle of the floor like his back is to a storm.
The night goes silent, all he can hear is Felix's breathing. His head spins, the feeling of panic and despair growing in his chest rises, the need to give in to his spiraling thoughts is winning but that wouldn't make Felix like him more so Oliver holds it in, the hand he rests the joint in trembling. He should have known better than to follow Felix into the unknown, he's there to guide Felix after all, even if Felix and the world see it differently. Felix sees him as a pet, not a toy like the rest, a pet because pets that have come from broken homes make their owners heroes, broken toys are thrown away. Felix would never throw Oliver away, Oliver wouldn't let him.
Until the kiss, it had been enough to simply be around Felix. He could have pretended that was enough for him indefinitely but now he's tasted blood and the only way to get rid of a dog with a taste for flesh is to destroy it. Oliver takes a deep drag from the joint before holding it out to Felix, an olive branch of sorts. Felix glances at it, at him, and takes it after a moment. He takes a hit and the smoke billows from him with a sigh. He looks at Oliver, eyes dark. Oliver can practically see the memory of the night already begin to bleed away. His heart jerks at the fact he'll be the only one to remember if he even gets that, but the relief of knowing nothing will have changed in the morning is almost enough to appease him.
“Sorry… Oliver, Ollie, thing is, I'm not all that sure what I'm sorry for or if I'm actually sorry about it at all.”
Felix pauses, looking over at Oliver almost sheepishly.
“Thank fuck it's Friday and we'll have a day or two to sleep this all off…that's it Ollie, all we've got to do is sleep this off…it'll be a dream maybe, but I hope not.”
Felix says this going from careful blankness to a version of his normal carefree self. Oliver nods, the movement makes the light and shadow of the room bleed together into mist.
“It's a dream already, and I never remember them in the morning anyway.”
Felix nods, looking rejuvenated but also seconds away from spewing, Oliver understands the feeling.
“I'll go back to my room now then,” Oliver says, trying to haul himself up but failing to, looking plastered and pathetic, only a little on purpose.
Felix watches him for a moment before shaking his head.
“No Ollie you'll find your way into a river or something, fall down the stairs and crack your head in, absolutely not mate you'll sleep here for the night, can't have you dying after leaving my room, it'd look bad,” Felix says pulling himself up and barely making it to standing, using his bed as a crutch heavily.
He rocks dangerously on his feet but he does his best to clear his bed of books and fluffs up the blanket. He almost falls back when he steps away from the bed but he stays up by some miracle. He looks down at himself with a noncommittal hum, not seeming to care enough about the state of himself to change. He looks over at Oliver and pats the bed like he’s calling a dog up.
Oliver watches him sleepily from where he's slumped on the floor, the effect of the weed growing almost scarily overwhelming. The glow in the dark body paint now makes him almost anxious. He hates how Felix lets it cover him so thoughtlessly and then he hates himself for being jealous of paint. He’s a mess and it's starting to threaten all he’s shaped so carefully. Thank the lord the privileged forget quickly. Oliver weakly shakes his head which is practically on the floor.
“I don't know Felix, don’t want to make you uncomfortable, I’ll just lay here until I’m sober enough to not fall into any rivers or down the stairs.”
Oliver doesn’t want to leave, of course he doesn’t, but Felix likes the illusion of choice and on insisting, politely, so Oliver gives him the chance to do that.
“Ollie I won’t take no for an answer, you know that by now so hop in. There’s room for the both of us and I’m too high to care about the heat of it.”
Felix says this with a nod to the bed that he seems to instantly regret from the pained grimace on his head. Oliver hums, getting to his knees. Felix takes his jeans off, kicking them away sloppily, half falling onto the bed in his silk boxers as Oliver watches from his vantage point on the floor. He crawls forward as Felix hums tunelessly and burrows into his bed. Oliver uses the side of the bed to pull himself up to standing, eyes blinking unfocused and hazy. He pulls his shirt off leaving him in his undershirt, and kicks his pants off, his cheap cotton boxers keeping him decent.
He carefully crawls over Felix who's gone silent, just watching him from below the blanket. When he settles, his back to the wall of bookshelves as far away from Felix as physically possible, Felix nods as if approving of some invisible thing and clicks off the light. Smears of paint begin to glow and it creates just enough light to allow Oliver to make out the shadow of Felix’s face. Felix looks suspiciously sober, solemn and contemplative. They breathe in silence, synchronize, lay uncomfortably still. After far too long Felix shifts, turning away from Oliver.
“Night Ollie,” he says, voice thick, muffled by his pillow.
Oliver swallows, almost chokes on nothing feeling incredibly lonely.
“Goodnight Felix.”