We Are Bulletproof

"Ah--ah--yes..."

God FUCK it stung! His ass was probably never recovering from this. And he loved it. His black, cracked heart loved the scene they were making and loved the moment that he and Dakota were drawn into. It was only them but it also wasn't. This moment was theirs but there was also an entire club watching, with the music pounding and echoing in his ears and Dakota's body working its magic, wrecking him from behind. He never felt so alive as he did when Dakota slammed into him one last time and he felt something hot, sticky, slippery sliding down his legs. Blood? Semen? Both? Who cared--it was still amazing.

Only being pushed up against the wall saved Alejo from falling completely over onto his face. He panted against it anyway, cheek rammed up against the wall and lips parted to let out half-pained, half-pleasured gasps. "Oh babe.. that was... amazing," he laughed faintly as he reached behind to pat Dakota's ass. Mmm tight. He'd have to get in there some time, see what the other side of him was all about. In all likelihood he would feel just as amazing and Alejo already felt something darker in him stirring at the thought.

"What?" Alejo stung and smarted and throbbed everywhere, but most of all his ass when he turned slightly to look at the new guy. He blinked. Was he okay? He was... fucking high, drunk, fucked. Fucking fucked so thoroughly that he would never be okay again.

"I'm amazing baby," he laughed deliriously as he stumbled drunkenly towards that tall, good-looking man with the glowy green eyes. Pretty. "Are you gonna... play with us?" Alejo's hand slid up his chest, right up the center. "You look like you could do some damage, big boy."

But wait. Where was the other half of 'us'? Alejo looked over and Dakota was being held loosely by some people who looked concerned. "Kota? Baby? What... are you doing over there?" Was he running away? But he--he hadn't done his job yet! Alejo was still alive and breathing!

Here's a thing about Seth: he didn't like it when people took advantage of others. Call it a pet peeve. But really, it ran deeper than that. The kid getting butt fucked was obviously high off his ass and the other guy--Seth had seen him around town before and he was kind of an asshole. He ran with shitty people. He was shitty people. Seth saw him at this club more than once, too and Seth had only been living in Hazleton for a couple of years. But he knew enough. He'd seen enough.

And he'd definitely seen enough of the little shit taking advantage of some poor high kid. It was fucking... depraved, was what it was.

He ignored the comment about the damage he could do. It was true, but he wasn't about that life. He took his fighting outside the bedroom. Gingerly, he reached down and pulled the kid's pants up, trying to be careful about it but... there wasn't much he could do about all that blood at the moment. But Seth was handy with first aid and he could help... elsewhere.

"Come with me. I can fix you up."

The fucking goth creep pushed away from the people who had caught him and he stalked over, putting his hand on the kid's throat and pulling him back, away from Seth and against himself, like he was taking ownership of him. Or taking him hostage. There was blood all over his neck, smearing on the goth's hand. He noticed--licked it off as he held the kid against him.

"Stay out of our business. He doesn't want to go anywhere with you." The goth petted the kid's cheek like he was an animal. "Isn't that right, darling?"

"Ahaaa... cum with you?" Somehow that struck him as being hi-la-rious because he just came! And Kota did too, which was wonderful because to his drug-addled mind, that meant they were soulmates. They were made for one another, in their shared and equal desperation to shed this mortal coil. He reached down to pat the handsome man's cheek with a deceptively gentle hand, since he was there in the vicinity of his destroyed lower body.

"Ah—fuck—fuck!" The pants were tight on him; not as tight as the leather ones, but still very clingy to all the parts that stung when they were pulled up by a helpful hand. Alejo half-collapsed, weak at the knees from the sudden jolt of discomfort that lanced up his spine. Luckily Mr Tall, Dark and Mysterious was there... and then he wasn't? Dakota was back! Alejo leaned up against him, moaning softly at the hand to his throat.

Oh... yes... He put up a hand to curl around Dakota's. It might have looked like he was trying to escape, he didn't know. Actually what he did was tighten that hand around his throat, in the hopes that Dakota would finish him then and there. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the still-decent part of him was dying because he had just done the most depraved thing he could think of. Without any regard for his own body, for dignity or self-respect, he let someone fuck him in the middle of a crowded club and that just... split his soul apart even more. He was breaking his own heart, and he was too high to realize it.

"Mm... I wanna fly," he said a little sadly. "You said we'd fly... waaay up into the clouds, Kota baby~"

This
poor
kid.

He didn't have a clue.

And was that sick fuck actually trying to strangle him? Right in front of Seth--and everybody in the club? Not everybody was staring but everybody in the vicinity sure as hell was. It was hard not to--first with the rough fucking--even normal fucking would have been an eye catcher--but then this. Seth wasn't trying to be a goddamn superhero. But he also wasn't going to just sit there with the rest of the crowd, ogling what was clearly an abusive relationship.

"We are," the gothic creep said, and it looked like he tightened his grasp on the kid's throat. He was choking him. Choking him out, right there, in full view of everybody watching. "We're going to fly--"

Punch. Right between the fucking eyes.

"WHAT THE FUCK, MAN?"

"You're trying to kill him!" Seth punched him again, this time hearing the telltale crunch of bone breaking. The guy finally let go of the kid to hold onto his gushing nose. There, that would take care of his fucking high! Seth reached out to catch the kid, because he looked unsteady as hell on his feet. And fuck. The guy squeezed so hard, there were fingernail markings all over the kid's throat. Was he even breathing?

"Hey, hey, stay with me, kid...!"

"He wants to die, you fucking moron!" Except his words were muffled by blood and the hand covering up his face. Didn't matter, Seth heard him. Didn't care what he had to say.

"Hup." He lifted the kid over his shoulder, best way to minimize the damage to asshole that the asshole did to him. "Get out of my way," he said to the people near him and they scuttled away like cockroaches.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Alejo let himself slide against Dakota as the hand at his throat dug in deep. The breath stopped at where those fingers clawed their way into his windpipe and he let out a softly strangled sound. His own hand kept pressing against Dakota's, pushing it in deep, deep,, urging him on. Kill me. He was all pain and all pleasure; his body was a complete mess but his mind was clear. In that moment, it was fully clear.

He wanted to die.

No more torment in death. No more thoughts plaguing him. No more feelings of inferiority, no more of that bone-deep need to be seen, to be loved as fiercely as Dakota was choking him right now. "Fl...y..." He smiled; darkness encroached on the edges of his vision. He was blacking out and in a few more minutes, he would be gone. He would finally soar way up into the stars, where he belonged.

...except...

He didn't go. He stayed. And as Dakota was punched and let go, his body forced in a great big gasp of breath. No! Alejo scrabbled to fight off the tall man but he was so weak—half-dead, really. "N-no," he whispered as he tried to reach for poor Dakota, who never even got to experience that brilliant, clear moment of his own. "Ko-Kota..."

Helplessly Alejo felt himself being carried off. He vaguely heard Marge's voice telling someone to take him to the back room and gamely struggled again, but somebody—Marge—slapped him hard on the ass and he flinched from the pain that rocketed up his spine. She-she did that on purpose!

"Stop fighting him dumbass! C'mon, go around the bar on the left side there."

The woman behind the bar--Marge--seemed to be of the same mind as Seth. Thank fucking god somebody around here had some sense in them. Seth moved around the bar as directed and into a room in the back. The kid was pretty pissed off at this point, which Seth didn't fully understand. It must have been the drugs. He probably had no clue what was going on and he was just acting out.

There was a nice, emerald green chaise lounge. Seth brought the kid over to it and laid him down as gently as he could. Marge didn't seem to be so delicate with the kid but... the kid... looked so delicate. He could have been made of spun glass. At the moment, however, he was a bloody mess.

Seth began looking through cabinets indiscriminately, until he found one that contained a full first aid kit. Any good bar or club would have one, given how fights liked to break out or people got sick. Not that it was the bartender's job to keep them patched up but... emergencies. Always good to be ready for them. Pulling out some clean gauze and disinfectant pads, Seth perched on the edge of the chaise lounge.

"This'll sting a little," he warned him as he opened one of the disinfectant pads. The sharp smell of it even stung his nostrils. Tilting the kid's head back, he wiped the blood from his throat. "That asshole really did a number on you."

Mess didn't accurately describe Alejo's state of being but bloody, yes. He smelled it in the air and tasted it on his own tongue. He thought of poor, sweet Dakota, who was probably back outside getting mopped up or maybe even escorted out. People really thought he was raping Alejo, didn't they? But didn't they see him on his knees earlier, bringing him to the brink of ecstasy? What was wrong with people these days, Alejo thought irritably. Couldn't two people in lust and in—some sort of suicidal downward spiral together fuck without somebody trying to haul them apart?

Ah, and Marge. Maybe she sent this tall man over to break them up. Well-meaning Marge who hit him right where it hurt... She was definitely the type to kick a dog while it was down! Alejo heard her saying that she would be outside if the stranger needed her, and then a door slammed, sealing him in. He was laid down somewhere rather gently, and he bit back a cry of pain and disappointment, turning his head into the back of the couch for a moment.

Shit. Why wasn't he allowed to just... drift away? How many pills did he have to swallow before death claimed him and he was finally put to rest?

Alejo heard cupboards being opened and things being shifted around. He only finally looked up into the face of his rescuer when he smelled something alcoholic—not deliciously alcoholic, but medical. Disinfectant. "Ng..." He didn't cry out even when it stung so fiercely that his eyes stung with his neck. Idly, he reached up and touched the wrist of the hand trying to save him. Followed it up to a forearm, tracing the patterns engraved into smooth, warm skin.

"Who are you?" He asked in a daze, frowning. His fingers rose up to touch the man's arm, finding strong muscles and more tattoos. "You have beautiful eyes," he mused mostly to himself. "Like... little gems..."

Brave boy. Seth had seen bigger men bitch and moan about getting a little alcohol in their wounds. This kid just took it, but it might have been the drugs. Probably the drugs. Seth had no idea what shit he was on but it was messing with his psyche big time. No sane person would stand there and let a man fuck him ass naked on the dance floor. And that was what Seth saw when he was headed towards the bathrooms. That gothic death freak fucking a helpless kid on drugs. Acid, probably.

"Seth," he said, glancing at the hand that was rising up his arm. He continued on, not even wincing at the wounds, although they were... pretty nasty. Seth could tell they were going to leave a mark for days, probably weeks. The throat was a delicate area. There was a reason MMA fighters didn't go around fucking strangling each other.

Pulling the kit back toward him, he found some good sized bandages. He did his best to ignore the curious fingertips. The guy was still out of it, by the way he was looking at him.

"You have pretty eyes, too," he said, traces of his greek accent evident in the gentle trill of his R. He tilted the kid's chin again so he could bandage him up. It really looked like some creature mauled him. It wasn't just his throat. The entire shoulder area had been shredded. What the fuck was that other fucker on?

"Who are you?" he asked, to keep him with him. Not that he looked like he was about to pass out but Seth really couldn't tell. He seemed confused but he didn't have a concussion or anything. Hopefully. Seth hadn't seen the entire debacle but his head, at least upon a cursory inspection--he felt for anything wet, any blood--seemed intact.

Gentle hands. Was Seth a doctor? Alejo whispered the name to himself. "Sethhhh..." Hm. He almost made that goddamn noise Jack did when he thought deep thoughts. Hm. Seth. "Doctor Seth," he said without realizing that he'd spoken it out loud. It was in his mind, rolling around and around. Seth with the beautiful green eyes and the careful hands, trying to patch up physical injuries when the real wounds were somewhere he couldn't reach. Not even with his gentle hands.

"Do I?" Alejo blinked those supposedly pretty eyes of his. They were blue, pretty ordinary. Green was much rarer. Hazel, too. Browns and blues were all over the place, but it was nice of Seth—Doctor Seth—to say that. Alejo vaguely thought that he was foreign, but it slipped away on the strength of a little laugh and a shiver as pain cascaded down his spine. Ahh Dakota, the little darling, had done a number on him.

Well, Alejo still had his number. He could find him again. For now, he was docile and calm—the high was fading already, as such things usually did. Alejo had never tripped out for more than a few hours at a time, more was the pity.

His curious fingers tickled the underside of Seth's chin; he laughed in childish amusement. "I'm Ale-ale-alejandro~" He sang his name. "But you can call me... Alejo, or Allie, or... Al." Alejo frowned as he traced Seth's facial hair. He liked it. It looked good on that strong chin and above those pretty lips. Hm. So pretty—in a masculine way.

"Actually no. Don't call me Al." His leg kicked out over the other armrest of the chaise lounge, bringing with it a fresh wave of pain that made him curl back up instinctively. "Agh... fuck. Are there painkillers? Can I have eight?"

Doctor Seth. He would have laughed, if the situation wasn't so serious. And Seth took these things seriously. He could have been a doctor, though. He came from an entire family dedicated to medicine and science. His grandfather was a doctor, his father a scientist, searching for cures and vaccines.

"Not quite. But my mama's a nurse and I learned from her."

He glanced at the boy's eyes. Crystal blue, spun glass. They were striking against honey skin and dusky hair. Even in his current state, it was quite obvious he was a looker. Which was probably why he was targeted by the creep. There was a boyishness about him that made him look like an easy target, like he had no clue what was going on. Or maybe that was the drugs. Seth didn't know him personally. Had never seen him off drugs.

His response to the question of his eyes, though, was a soft grunt. What else was he to say? He didn't want to wax poetic on his eyes. They were pretty. Objectively, he thought most would agree.

Seth knew the song Alejandro was singing and he almost smiled. But he was still feeling too serious for that. It was hard not to take things seriously after witnessing what he did. It really jarred Seth right out of the partying mood, that much was for damn sure.

Again, he tried to ignore Alejandro's questing fingertips, even when he tried to tickle him under the chin like a baby.

"In Greek, we say Alexandros or Alexo for short."

Alejandro seethed with pain and Seth instinctively laid a hand on his leg to stop him from moving it around any more than he had to. He couldn't deny painkillers, even though he was a little wary about their interactions with whatever unknown drug was still filtering through Alejandro's system. He found a bottle of pills and foolishly handed them over to Alejandro, not really expecting him to make good on the eight pill deal. It sounded like over-exaggeration due to pain.

"About your..." He gestured lower, to Alejandro's now blood-stained jeans. "You should take care washing that out. It's an easy place for infection to take hold."

He held out a few disinfectant pads. "Here... The sooner... the better."

"Alexo?"

He mused over that new iteration of his own name, sounding it out in his head, which was crowded by a thousand other thoughts. Alejo, Alexo, Allie, Al. He was collecting quite a number of pet names but this one was new. It felt like a fresh new start, with someone who looked at him with only concerned eyes.

"I like it." He smiled but his voice was plaintive. Alexo might be a better version of Alejo. Maybe Alexo didn't take a million drugs, chase them down with a hard drink, and then run off and make a spectacle on the dance floor of a crowded club. Alexo probably didn't make people think that he was being raped, or that he needed saving from someone who was only doing what he was told.

"My mom's a nurse too," he said almost off-hand, as that tidbit filtered through. By then Doctor Seth had already left to grab some pills, which he greedily accepted. Alejo shook out eight. Or ten. He had them in his mouth faster than a waiting dick, and then he looked up at Doctor Seth who was dispensing with advice and sanitary wipes. Alejo shook his head and while he took them, he didn't immediately use them.

"Why are you doing this?" He asked around a mouthful of bitter powder as he chewed, preemptively holding out a hand to prevent Seth from freaking out the way Jack had before.

To this, Seth did smile, slightly. He wasn't sure why. Just the way he said it. Heartbreaking but he liked it. Seth hadn't meant to bestow it as a nickname. It just seemed that Alexo here had a lot of them and some of them--Al?--might have some baggage attached to them. Nicknames, in general, were given by others. Maybe Alexo here didn't want to be reminded of those past people. There was a lot of pain in those pretty eyes. It flickered in and out, with the dazed expression.

"Interesting." And he was interested. Their mothers were both nurses. If Alexo's mother was a nurse, though, shouldn't Alexo be more careful? Well. Shit. Seth was one to talk wasn't he? Going out into the world, into pro fighting. It had to break his mother's heart, when she had such carefully laid plans for him. But she loved him too much to hold him down. Sometimes, a man just needed to go out, see the world, and make his own call.

"Hey--" he said in protest as Alexo decided to down what could have been ten or fifteen pills. Hard to tell. It was like he shook them out and just tossed back as many as possible. Seth frowned. "You're fucking up your liver."

And he might end up having to have his stomach pumped, which would just be the icing on this shit cake. He was half tempted to punch the pills out of his gut, make him throw it up. But he didn't. He'd already been through the wringer tonight. Seth didn't have to add to it.

"Helping you?" Seth asked, somewhat taken aback by the question. "Because nobody else would and I didn't like what I saw. Somebody had to stop it. That guy really wanted to kill you, didn't you see that?"

Interesting, interesting. Alejo's mother was a nurse, yes—that was how she met his father, a policeman who was taken into ER with a gunshot to the chest. It bypassed his heart but it clipped his lungs, collapsing one. After the surgery that nearly killed him, he took a long time to recover and Alejo's mother was there to help him through it. They fell in love, had kids—three, of which Alejo was the middle child.

He still remembered the pride shining from his father's eyes when he graduated from the police academy. How his father touched the shining badge on his chest and then hugged him close and tight and muttered into his ear that he loved him, and had never been so proud. Alejo thought back to that moment often with tears in his own eyes. There might have been tears in his eyes in that moment, when he flashed back for a few seconds to that scene which was embedded deep down into permanent memory.

But maybe to Seth he just looked high.

"I need them. Medical condition. Body doesn't respond to drugs. Need eight. Or fifty. To kill the pain." He responded automatically because he'd had to dispense with that explanation so many times before. Lots of people didn't believe him but he actually had medical records—just not on him right now, so he couldn't prove that he wasn't lying. Ugh. So bitter, though. He swallowed a wad of dry ass powder and coughed into his hand, which jolted his ass again and made him spasm on the couch. Fuck.

Slowly he sat up, even though his ass was screaming. Alejo broke open one of the wipes and sighed down at it rather than up at Seth. Another good Samaritan, huh? His half-high brain wanted to make a pun out of that, like... like Sethmaritan or something equally fucked up stupid, but he didn't say it. The half-not-high part said that Seth was a good guy. Like Judah, another Good Guy, doing the Right Thing by what he perceived to be someone in distress. Only Alejo was fucked up on drugs and thought he loved everything about that rough, raw bareback sex.

Which he did, don't get him wrong, but... he felt like these days it wasn't so much about the pleasurable pain as it was about the painful pleasure. He used to like it a little rough, sure. Scratching, nibbling, maybe a couple half dozen rough thrusts into his waiting ass—you know, vanilla things between lovers when the freaky mood overtook them. These days he was looking to get torn apart, like his heart got torn apart, like his life got torn apart. Was that what it was? He wanted to mirror his fucked up life so he destroyed his body in the hopes that something would... he didn't know, finally gel? Finally feel like it made sense?

Make the pain on the outside match the pain on the inside...?

"I asked him to do that," he said quietly as he eased his pants down to begin cleaning up. Wow... that was a lot of blood. It smeared all over the inside of his thighs, mingled with semen. Hm. Not a very pretty sight. "We were going to die together..." Alejo's hand stilled; his gaze lifted even though his head didn't. "I'm sorry. I know you thought you were doing the right thing. You seem like a good guy..."

But Alejo had had good guys and he didn't know if he could handle another one in his life to tear everything apart from the inside-out. Good guys, they were... too easy to fall for. Good guys with nice smiles and beautiful eyes, who looked at other people like they cared, whose hands were gentle and soft and whose hearts were the same... They were too easy to get to know, to love, to insert himself into their lives like he was made to do that. Good guys loved him back. But they couldn't handle his darkness. Good guys weren't equipped to deal with the way he needed to both be loved and torn apart by the same hands.

Not that Dakota was what he needed either. Dakota was on the other end of that; he was too far gone. There was no love, all hurt there, so in the end Alejo still didn't feel as if he had what he needed. He had what he wanted, which was a pretty death, but... something still wasn't right. He just didn't know what he needed so he took the easy way out—death.

His gaze flicked back down and he resumed cleaning himself up. "There's almost no point helping someone like me, you know?"

Seth wasn't sure he believed the medical condition bullshit. After Alexo took way too many pills, Seth took the bottle from him, carefully screwed the cap on, and put it back into the kit. Now he was really going to have to have somebody keep an eye on the kid. Seth did his best not to wince as Alexo sat up. He saw his fair share of messed up wounds but he could safely say he'd never seen anything like this before.

He turned his gaze away, somewhat sickened by what a man could do to another man with just his body. Still, out of the corner of his eye, he could see the sticky mess all over Alexo's thighs and inwardly he shuddered. Seth was mostly on the heterosexual scale sexually. He had no problem with men. Even he experimented a couple of times and he enjoyed what they did together. But he'd never seen such brutal... fucking. He'd never seen a man bleed from being fucked so hard that it was like that sick fuck was trying to rip poor Alexo into two.

It hurt to look at.

"It was the right thing to do," Seth said, as matter of factly as if he were telling Alexo that water was wet and the sky was blue. "Maybe you won't get it tonight but eventually, you will."

His gaze dropped too, automatically following Alexo's to the mess around his thighs. Seth wished there was a way to make that feel better. But it was probably going to follow Alexo for a while. And it was a lot worse than the neck wounds. It effected the way he was able to move, to sit, to walk, to even lie down comfortably. No wonder he wanted those painkillers. But... Seth thought that if he wanted to kill the pain, the pain wasn't as good as he wanted it to be.

"Almost, you say. But there is a point."

"Hm." God he was becoming his dad. Not his real dad—Jack. "You sound like someone I know."

That was something Judah would have said, in his infinite wisdom and goodness. That just because he couldn't see the forest for the trees in the moment, didn't mean that the forest didn't exist. Sometimes the bigger picture took a while to develop. Sometimes there was no bigger picture, though, and all they had were the broken up pieces to remind them of what had once been and could never be again.

Ah, life.

Alejo opened another packet. "Are you going to be the one to help save me?" His tone was wry, amused—disbelieving. "Save my damned soul? Pull me back from the brink of doing something drastic?" There was a line for that—Seth would have to get behind Jackie and Margie and Brayden. Alejo smiled to himself even while he winced; the alcohol really stung his ass.

"Are you that much of a good guy?"