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The room is almost pitch black. The dying street lights outside barely intrude, only leaving a dim glow on the ceiling, peeking through the gaps in the black out curtains.
You lay curled into him, squeezed together on the twin mattress. He lets you take most of the blanket. He runs hot, anyway.
It's oddly quiet outside, the only thing you can hear is the occasional car and an unrelenting cicada.
Inside, you hear someone punching numbers into a microwave downstairs, and someone else trudging up the stairs to slump in the room on the other side of the wall behind you.
He sighs, and the arm you were using as a pillow shifts. His forearm bends to lay over your head, hand tracing the stray hairs around your face. You press your nose into his skin, smelling him and his head lolls to the side. You look up and see the darkest sprinkle of light reflected in his eyes.
His hand slides down the side of your face, tips of his fingers under your jawline and coaxing your head up. He leans forward, pressing his rough lips to yours with a softness that he shouldn't be capable of. He is a paradox.
Your fingers curl around the edges of his wife beater, tracing the ribbed fabric. You twitch, and he makes his hold on your head firm, reminding you of his restraint.
His tongue traces your bottom lip before he pulls away, and you lick your lips in his absence, tasting remnants of his lipstick.
Maybelline 49. Rouge Passion Red.
Earlier today you both went out, him in a cap and surgical mask with the most effortlessly genuine fake cough, and you with your darkest sunglasses to hide your dead eyes from the offensive lighting. Standing with him in the middle of the pharmacy's makeup aisle had felt hazy, like something that could only happen in a dream. Two things that shouldn't overlap, normalcy with a man who strays far away from it.
Being with him always feels like that.
He had stood behind you, chin on your shoulder and arms slung around you as you slowly picked plastic packages from their hooks and dropped his makeup into the basket. A ginger woman trying and failing to hide her middle age had side eyed you, not doing much to hide her unwarranted disgust, and he had tripped her as you walked by, giggling into your ear as you left her sputtering on the ground, fake apology barely leaving your lips.
Here you are, laid up with him, and the haze hasn't left.
He moves under you, shifting the pillows and wedging his back into the corner as he sits up.
“Come ‘ere.” His gravelly voice whispers, and he guides you up, now sitting curled partially on the pillows and partially on his rigid thigh.
He leans in again and you meet him, tilting your head forwards to feel his bumpy scarred skin on yours. His hands cup your face the way you've done to him so many times.
He hums, deep and baritone the way you love to hear, and you slide your hands up his arms, holding on to him.
He pulls away.
You both sniff at the same time, and your breaths overlap as you exhale a silent laugh. He leans his forehead against you, nose nudging yours.
Words must be careful in moments like these, both of you sensitive to domestic bliss.
You were victim to acting coupley; it always felt delicate. Neither of you want to be tied to each other, and neither of you are unable to stop yourself from extending a tender touch to the other.
He would never tell you he loves you. You think you may love him for it.
Sometimes you wonder if it's toxic.
But he doesn't hurt you when you don't want him to, won't string you along for a scam or robbery when you don't feel like it (usually). Sometimes a few days will go by without a word from him, and then he'll spend 3 days in a row stuck to you. His fluctuating emotions match yours.
Sometimes when he's away for more than a few days, you'll get a folded piece of construction paper slid under your door, usually blank save for a red stained kiss, sometimes with a few manic words about anything in the world, and occasionally with a few crude pen drawings, and once a crayon drawing of you and him.
You think that little drawing is one of the sweetest things he's ever done. It makes you sick.
You have it folded on top of the nightstand.
He slides his hands away from your face, pulling you to straddle him, and you feel a pulse within you.
You press a kiss to his lips, brushing your mouth over the curved scar on his right cheek, and grazing your teeth against his nose. His hands settle on your hips.
“You're abnormal.”
“The kind of mind the Joker attracts.” You mock quietly, and he hums again, pressing a soft kiss to your shoulder.
“Tell me…” He starts, pressing the side of his face against yours, cushioning your hair between you as he talks into your ear.
“How you feel about me.”
He feels you start to freeze, and his arms slide around your back, caging you in and bringing you flush against his front. One of his hands flicks at the hair at your nape, and you feel him mouthing at the strands. The words little freak affectionately come to mind.
“I want to split you open,”
“Down your chest, down to your heart. I want to shrink and crawl inside you and hide myself there, in your steamy flesh; Close to you and inside you in the rawest way.”
He hums, then grunts, then giggles, flicking your wet hair away from his mouth and kissing the side of your head before leaning back to be face to face again.
He presses his forehead against yours, hands running up and down your sides.
“Tú me provocas.”
“Y por eso te odio.” You finish, smiling stupidly. “Your Spanish is better.”
“I know.” His thumb sneaks under the bottom of your shirt, feeling your skin.
“Reward me.”