named after a 100 gecs song but inspired by of montreal's ‘requiem for o.m.m.2’

thank u always 2 my babygirl cits

In Toronto, the parking lot air tastes the same way it used to.

The stadium’s emergency exit door closes behind him and Troy breathes in unmined ore, salt-prickle at the back of his throat from the icemelt. There’s one dull red flood light that’s been glowing since Troy's rookie season. It makes the grit-gray snow slouched up against the brick blush, pinks the plow leftovers, somehow flushes the filling of his lungs. His mouth drops open for the long exhale. It would have taken more conviction than Troy’s felt in his entire life to keep him from coming back here.

Dallas doesn’t look over even when the exhale becomes an out-loud sigh. Just keeps staring into the empty parking lot, past the mound of snow in front of both of their trucks, parked in their old spots. Side by side. He’s got his upper lip packed, no jacket, but he’s clearly been out here so long the skin on his upper arms has gone red and rashy. Ugly. He always got color in patches. Troy’s heartbeat, already at a decent jog, lurches, sprints.

“Hey,” Troy says.

Dallas’ eyes swing over like he’s just realized Troy exists. Mouth shut, one eyebrow twitching up. Troy holds a hand out and Dallas stares for another second, waits until he’s drained last bit of comfort the overflow parking lot offers and then digs in his pocket for the tin.

The stupid thing is Troy really doesn’t even like it. His brain reminds his body of this fact while he tucks the dip in between his lip and the firm gum under his teeth. It’s a good thing Dallas still isn’t looking; his eyes flutter a little. Impossible not to under the immediate surge of sensation: plush swelling, sweet, ease. Troy’s puffer isn't thick enough to ruin the impact of his shoulder blades sharp against the brick, eyes half-closed as his head tips back, settling. They stand there for a second, silent, breath visible. It’s so fucking cold. Troy has no idea what to say, why he came right back here. The light’s really been on out here the whole time.

His rookie season, Troy thought for a while—smug and dumb—that either the overflow lot was a secret or Dallas said some shit to keep everyone else away. All theirs: big swath of barely-plowed, always-wet asphalt of a kid fort, bleary red light a big keep out sign. The exhale always waiting to arrive after a shitshow of a practice or the stuck-pedal of adrenaline when they won. This is the reliable in-between, ready for any version of them.

It took actual years for Troy to figure out: it wasn’t a secret. There just wasn’t anything out here worth finding.

“You’re playing like shit,” Dallas says. Finally.

You’re a rapist, Troy thinks. And tighter, worse, way louder: you ruined everything for us.

“Whatever,” Troy mutters. He doesn't know what he came out here expecting; he knows what he figured was most likely to happen, what he wrestled into a clean jock for. This doesn’t feel like that. He flexes his numb fingers.

“You like sucking?”

“It’s better than—” Troy almost gets there. Fucks up: glances over. Dallas smirks like he can read it off of Troy’s face. He doesn’t regret saying it, getting traded, getting so fucked. There’s way too much more vivid shit to regret than that; but sometimes, he misses the old way everything fucking sucked. The new way everything sucks is—

“What were you gonna say?” Dallas asks. “Better than winning?”

Troy shakes his head. Too hard, short hair at the back of his head catching on coarse wall. Dallas is steps out, rounds on him. Troy’s always had at least three inches on him but that’s another fact that sits on an unreachable shelf in his brain. There’s a ton of truth his body never seems to believe.

“Better than being with you,” Troy finishes.

Dallas laughs. Not really. “You sound like a fucking chick.”

“Fuck you,” Troy says, barely hearing him. Pulse picking up—not quite like it is on the ice, but starting to slink into muscle memory.

“That your problem? Got a gay crush on me?”

A lot of color. Not just the splotchy, sick-pink face; there’s dark crust left under the right nostril, a thin line of it jagged on his upper lip from Rozanov’s fist. If you squint, the black sky hung tight over the parking lot looks the same way the rafters above the rink do. Past the lights, the flags and legacies, it’s just empty space. “You’re my problem.”

“Yeah?” Dallas isn’t a scrapper and still doesn’t fight clean. Goes for the balls just like Troy figured he would. He jerks a thumb towards Troy’s truck. “Must not be that big of a problem.”

“Fuck you,” Troy says.

Dallas’ thumb hooks his arm out wide, welcoming the dead air between them. “Okay, go for it. let’s fucking hear it,” and at Troy’s blank face, slack, dip-thick lip hanging a little open, “Whatever stupid social justice warrior shit you were planning on saying to me—oh, that’s right. You wouldn’t pull that without an audience.”

He sounds a little rehearsed. The idea of it shouldn’t make Troy’s stomach squirm all happy: Dallas frowning over his phone, fucking crawling through Reddit, trying to armor himself with anything hard-shelled enough to use as a defense. Wanting, specifically, to use something on Troy.

Troy sucks at the wad of chewing tobacco. Fresh electric saliva, big swallow. “You know what you did.”

“And what the fuck did you do?” Zero to one fucking million, still. Dallas spits the whole thing of dip out. Loud wet slap echoing once it bounces off the slippery material of Troy’s puffer and hits the ground. “What have you ever fucking done, Troy?”

Hard to hear around his heartbeat, air raw, air thick and throbbing. The warmth in his gut. Troy didn’t know what he came out here for, but now he doesn’t have to know.

“I never raped anyone.”

The low night and the snow piled up around them all contract, clenching, the world tunneling until it’s just them. A tendon in Dallas’ thick throat is standing up, his trading card face cracked into something much uglier. The air in Troy’s chest narrows, too, condensing into the smooth, unforgiving ice they played on an hour ago, their first game together since—

“You were just using me.”

It cracks out of Dallas. Not like he had rehearsed it; small and crude like he hadn’t meant to say it at all. His face is all contorted, angry tight.

Troy has to get a hand on the wall not to stumble back when Dallas takes a step forward, thinning his lips and hoping his face is flat, nicotine gushing out of the pouch and dripping towards his throat. He doesn’t swallow.

“Your whole sadass career,” Dallas keeps going, finishes closing what little distance is left between them. Rough sputter of a voice getting louder, half-spit and all teeth. “You’re my fucking sidecar. Didn’t you notice? Now that you’re going nowhere without me?”

“Good one,” Troy grits out. “You have some girl write that for you before you—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Dallas says, and makes him.

Troy should be more ready for the slam of sudden body than he is, but Dallas practically headbutts him, lunges. Clumsy, coming from too close, but Troy’s already wrongfooted—thinking, you were just using—thinking, why the fuck does this matter—or he was born wrongfooted, probably. His back hits the wall and Dallas makes a stupid noise, goes for a kick to his nuts. Troy lands on the ground, sputtering, thigh stinging where Dallas had missed but missed fucking hard, and then the steel toe of one boot plunges into his stomach.

The pain’s unreal which is crazy because for pretty much everyday since Troy picked up a stick, he’s been in some kind of pain. Playing with a broken finger because who gives a shit, you’ve still four others. Just a headache, shrill, teeming, pulsing headache stretched into the next day—not a concussion, just. Don’t go to sleep yet. Those open sores from the straps on pads, scaly needy eczema, sweat pimples on his ass that hurt to sit on and those bruises that stay plum or blood-black for months because any decent player notices you protecting your left side just under your ribs once and it’s as good as wearing a fucking bullseye for the rest of the season.

Troy’s seen Dallas too shitfaced to stand up, to open his eyes. He’s never seen him fuck up playing darts.

On his side, curling up but not quick enough, Dallas doesn’t miss with the third kick, slamming home between Troy’s legs. Doesn’t miss what’s right there, either.

“Oh.” He has such a bitchy, high-pitched laugh. Kind of a giggle. Dallas’ smile is so mean. “You little pussy.”

Troy scrambles to get up, fingers scraping at the sludged snow too slowly before Dallas rears back. The next hit makes the first few attempts feel like flirting. Troy throbs, radiant heat between his legs—the cup keeps his balls from popping, probably, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less fucking bad. He might puke. There’s a clench that starts behind his bellybutton and ends in his asshole. The pain puts him on autopilot; Troy doesn’t feel himself grabbing for his ankle, just the stumble, the start of Dallas falling. Gravity basically does the rest.

“Come on,” Dallas grunts, sprawling half on Troy and pulling at the first thing he can grab. His fucking ear, hard enough to rip it off, stupid—they’re both bad at this. The exit light dims his fake teeth sour red. Troy can see the blood crusted under his nose from when Rozanov punched him, and then he can’t see anything except wet smear, eyes watering too much, the skin attaching his ear to the rest of his head threatening to fucking rip with the next mean yank. “Take that fucking cup off and get up, get up and fucking say that shit to my face—”

“—fuck yourself,” Troy gets out, however many months and he couldn’t figure out how to say anything more than that. To mean anything more.

“Does it make you feel better?” Dallas is panting, trying, which is at least kind of a win. Contentment simmers in Troy’s gut, muffled under the roiling nausea. There's so much aching, low heat between his legs, pulsing, sticky-spread, but he’s still too chickenshit to check if it’s blood. Dallas shoves himself up to look down at him. “Lying about me just to make yourself look better in fucking comparison? Fucking jealous bitch.”

Dallas collapses down on top of Troy just as heavy as if he’d taken the whole arena with him. Concrete blocks of a stomach but his collar is way closer now, Troy doesn’t really need vision to get a fist in his t-shirt. Almost too much comes up with the first pull, the fabric baring belly, pale, patchy pink, while Troy strangles him. Sure grip on his collar, his throat, trying to make one sputtering knot of both. They’re one ugly thing together for a few minutes until Dallas punches him in the side of the head.

“Fuck—” Troy reels, skull connecting with the ground, the impact rippling through his teeth. His vision blears, drool spilling hot down his chin as he spits out the dip he almost choked on while Dallas watches wide-eyed, cheeks so fucking pink. Staring and almost hungry while Troy sputters and coughs. Troy’s molars are humming, he can feel clumps of snow grinding into his hair, rough and bright. The sore, sensitive heat between his legs narrows, swells. “Jealous of what? You’re—piece of shit, you—”

“Shut up,” Dallas grunts, gets a knee between them, one palm slapped half over Troy’s face, fingers curling and clamping while his other hand shoves down between them. Troy’s mouth is half-covered, too thick with spit and nicotine to beg him to stop. “Take the cup off. I'm gonna knee you in the balls so hard your grandson’s gonna feel it—”

Troy should fucking know better, but that was always true.

Dallas is easy to distract until he sees what he wants. Tunnelvision that insulates him from the rest of the game, top scorer, whatever. He's got it now. Half-lidded starving bright eyes fully focused, fingers digging under Troy’s waistband.

The worst sound comes out of Troy, smothered in the burning curve of Dallas’ palm. He gets the strap of his jock up, moves the cup—enough. Troy tries to squirm back, shoulder blades pleading with the ground. Nowhere to go. Dallas is practically straddling him, almost touching, practically, almost—

“The fuck,” Dallas says, really just says. It falls out of him dry and quiet. “Is that a fucking boner?”

He sounds confused. And genuine. He sort of sounds exactly like Troy most remembers him: up too late, mud-low voice and his pig squeal of a laugh. Excited, young, dumb. Building a towering future out of the thin air between one hotel bed and the other, when it was just them, way before—before.

Troy has to react, needs to say something. The moment is burning itself into permanence. Sloppy heat eating the present and suddenly he’s in the dark, in Tampa bay, the first year living together in Toronto, the one time in New York when Dallas was too sick to go out but not too sick to remember he had a body. Sometimes a fever can feel like—they had split a bottle of Nyquil and Troy said anything he could to make him make that nice laugh. So much to see in the room with all the lights off; window looking out at the neon world, neon world looking back. The blurred-wet edges of everything and the hour late enough to pretend to be asleep, porn pouring through the metallic speaker of Dallas’ phone, held against his chest. Spread out in bed. Still bright: the city or the orgy licked light around his profile, made his stupidly long eyelashes flutter and glow. Halo along the edge of the sheet, bouncing while his hand worked furiously underneath.

Troy doesn’t say anything.

Dallas does. Sounding more strangled now than when Troy’d been trying to strangle him. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

He lunges away, scrambling upright. Both hands pulled off Troy like he just remembered he’d been fingering a live outlet. His eyes are still dark, focused. Hard not to think: predator. Flushed cheeks, panting wet open mouth but it’s—not. Not that at all. Just blood rushing. Aimless, brainless body. Just blood.

Dallas’ heavy boots thud, splattery, on the wet concrete. Every step away stretches something thin and thinner, frantic in Troy’s chest but Dallas just walks away. Back turned to Troy, dull truck shining on the other side of his shoulders.

Troy’s body only follows because—animal, brainless muscle. Most of his life, he’s had no fucking idea what’s happening, what to do, and still listened to the surety tugging, tucked beneath marrow, past the dim inside of a bone. Never knows what, just knows he has to.

He knows exactly what it is, too. He’s lying. That’s also pretty much always been true.

“Hey,” Troy calls. Stumbling into the jog to catch up to Dallas’ pace, legs numb and flagging. His stomach really is turning, balls aching, cock worse. He loses him around a snowbank then rounds it to find both of their two trucks waiting next to each other. “Hey, motherfucker. I’m not fucking done with you.”

Troy hears it. Dallas sure as shit hears it. Desperation, bright as the backs of his bare arms, red and shining wet, fucked from the ground and Troy’s nails. Marks on his neck, down the side of his face. The cracking black rimmed around both nostrils from getting just a little of what he deserves. Troy sounds like a bad actor in an action movie. Lying his whole dumb life and he’s still not that good at it.

“Come the fuck over here—get back here, bitch. I thought you wanted to fight.”

Dallas doesn’t turn but the challenge sterns his shoulders, makes his spine stack up steady, his jaw. He's a scorer, not a scrapper. He knows what he’s doing. At the door of his truck, hand in his pocket. Dull electric beep before the engine rumbles to life, headlights flooding the snow bank in front of them with vicious blank light, blaring music muffled by the body. Dallas looks up. “You’re a fag.”

“No,” but Troy has to bite back the awful need to finish, to remind him: I was your friend.

The urge congeals, slippery and stuck, takes up his whole stomach. Below that he’s just ache. Nicotine spit. He can feel a lump of ice give up, sliding down from where it’d been clinging to his hair, riding down the back of his neck like a wet line cut open between skin and jacket collar. The empty heat of cold burning. Dallas opening the car door: grinding, bright clench.

Satisfaction spikes through the soreness as Troy slams it shut with his shoulder. They're not close enough that the handful of inches he has on Dallas matter but Troy tries to feel them anyway.

“Always knew you were fucking scared of me,” Troy spits.

“Get away from me,” Dallas says. Almost laughing.

“Or what?”

No more action movie shit but Dallas’ face says it: or you’ll wish you had. Too late. Troy should have been wishing that shit for the good part of a decade.

Troy’s got a stupid smile on his face, mean, juicy, sweet-tasting curl to his mouth when he closes the distance between them, hands going for Dallas’ collar again. Only one of Dallas’ shoots out, faster than him to get another fist in Troy’s hair and then his vision rips open, color exploding, bright where there shouldn’t be. Dallas must pull some out, that’s gotta be the feeling of hair tearing from scalp but that pain comes second to the obliterating rush of Troy’s head crashing into the closed window of Dallas’ truck.

Awful. Almost nice, like not existing for a second before the ground curves up to catch him. Troy’s knee cracks with the landing, his body wobbling. His thoughts aren’t coherent anymore: just the pulse of blood. Fingers scrambling for support and he ends up on Dallas’ leg, the other palm skidding down the cold metal of his car door. Nothing to anchor but the steadying surety: knowing Dallas will do it again. Ease behind the blinding pain when Dallas does it again. He keeps a hand in his hair the way Troy had to learn to ask for with Adrian, soft for a second, palm meeting the curve of his skull after. The blood finishes rushing, gets where it’s going. Troy bites his tongue and he spits a fat wet wad of copper out of his mouth. Not enough force; it drools thick down his chin. He keeps blinking and he can’t see more than the red-edge of Dallas’ face staring down at him.

“You’re so fucking weak.”

Troy hears it in Dallas’ voice before he gets that he said it. The sudden loss of Dallas’ grip on him sends him reeling, scrabbling at the car, down on his other knee so he doesn’t land on his face. It got Dallas off him, though, which is what he wanted. That's what he wants—to get Dallas—

The problem is: he’s too good at running his mouth even when he can’t feel a single nerve-ending in the rest of his body. Troy’s fingers are numb and his tongue is still wagging.

“Do you think you’d still be a fucking virgin if you didn’t make them?”

Dallas doesn’t say anything but he doesn’t go, either. Rounding on him so that Troy has no choice, his back hits the car door, has to give in as Dallas drags him by the ear, holds him up sort of, makes sure he can’t lose his balance even on his knees. Troy bites his tongue again, teeth cutting through the copper drool, too much to tell him. Trying to get out—remember, you were my best friend. Buried alive in the body, gasping its way above ground, now.

But Dallas is so steady. His chin is tucked to his chest. Black eyes staring down. “Take the cup off.”

Sometimes Troy thinks it’s worse to know the right words, what he should say, and at the same time know he never grew the necessary muscle to get them past his lips. No chance, now at least. Dallas lifts one foot up and presses it firmly between Troy’s legs.

He slumps into it, the sound that comes out of his mouth wet and slippery. Closes his eyes when his fingers push under his waistband, already reaching for himself before Dallas peels the sole of his boot off him completely. Hand in his own sweatpants, on his knees, on the ground outside. Dallas watching. No way to do this that isn’t awkward and humiliating. Troy’s cock kicks before he even gets the cup off, drooling wet into the fabric of his jockstrap.

The plastic makes an embarrassingly delicate noise against the ground and whatever smear of control Troy has left all goes into keeping his face blank, angled up. Not letting his view include anything below Dallas’ waist where he wants way too badly to check if he’s hard, too. To look down at himself and the swell his hand makes in the fabric of his sweatpants and the urgent jut of his dick. Troy shifts his wrist to pull his sweatpants down but Dallas toes at his forearm, leaves a smear of freezing wet on skin. He shakes his head, hunching in, hands braced against the truck.

Troy takes his hand out, settles it restless on one thigh, fingers curling. A greedy twitch runs from the root of Troy’s dick to the bottom of his gut. Dallas doesn’t miss it; almost, almost smiles. The next brush of his boot makes Troy’s whole body shake. Sole squeezed flat to the length, whine wrung out of him.

Dallas looks hot. Overheated, eyes glassy, focused. The increase in pressure is incremental, the sounds Troy can’t help making so giddy and wet. Troy’s vision fizzes. He’s so turned on he’s sick, squeezing his eyes shut, not putting together the soft ripping noise or the slack fact of his own jaw until warmth bumps up against his bottom lip. Thick blunt heat pressing into his mouth, past the widening split of his teeth. Saltsour flesh and then quickly, thumbs. Big fucking thumbs prying opening Troy’s mouth for him like he’s too much of a dumb animal to do anything alone.

His dick isn’t that small. Isn't that big either, though Dallas can’t be more than half-hard. Troy’s one more nudge of his’ boot away from coming in a dirty, cold parking lot, shining writhing nice heat—Dallas looks like he knows. He’s filling out on his tongue, Troy’s cheeks hollowing automatically, taking him, taking it, mouth working like he’s sucked dick before—and Dallas looks like he knows that, too.

Troy’s groans, hips twitching forward, fingers dig into his own thighs and he strains to open wider, get more all while Dallas says nothing and feeds him another inch of his cock. It’s not enough. Troy needs Dallas’ hand in his hair again, his boot crushing between his legs, he needs to hear him. He never let himself think about it but he always thought Dallas must talk a lot of shit. During.

His mouth is too full to get any other goading thing out so on the next pull Troy scrapes his top teeth a little over along Dallas’ shaft. Front teeth catching just-barely on the swollen head. Dallas’ eyes are drunk-heavy, half-lidded. “You’re not gonna,” and that’s all it takes. Troy whines, mouth full. Mouth thick and thicker with more spit, more hot hum swallowing Dallas from the sounds Troy can’t keep himself from leaking out. It works, anyway. Dallas isn’t quiet.

Not: you like that bitch, not the: fucking whore, stupid faggot, slut, not anything Troy’s waiting and waiting for. Leaking a little, about.

Dallas’ voice eases out, slow and hazy. “You’re just jealous,” Dallas says, like he’s coaxing an abandoned dog. “You were just fucking jealous. So stupid. So—” laughing at his own joke, he’d always fucking do that, he kept everything good away from Troy and saddled him with all his bullshit, sidecar for so long he forgot how to get anywhere without him. It’s not fair. Troy shuts his jaw a little, meaning to use his teeth, a little, to tell him—but the back of Dallas’ cock bumps against his soft palette, shoving into his throat. The world sputters and blurs bitten-bright when Dallas fits the bottom of his boot over Troy’s cock and pushes.

The shock does it. The night, the same-taste familiar air and that whole fucking game. The built-up empty months, how much he hates him, how long he loved him. Dallas’ shitty balance—he thinks the balance trainer looks stupid so he loses his footing immediately, standing on one leg and trying to keep his dick jammed into Troy’s mouth at the same time, filling him deep enough there’s a vein along the underside pulsing against the soft of Troy’s tongue, enough that Troy can’t even taste the sour head of his cock, has no idea if he’s close. Dallas fumbles forward and any tease he might have intended by stepping on Troy’s dick becomes a full smother. Scouring heat from the cold, the gross wet, grit-shifting of rubbled pebbles and snowmelt and the idea of the imprint of Dallas fucking boot burned into Troy’s cock. Troy comes.

Beyond his wet, loud, clogged breathing, Troy can recognize the song playing from the truck’s stereo. Can feel himself right back here again a year from now, ten, whatever, wherever he is, whenever he hears it. Like the radio playing during a car accident; meaningless the moment before and then tremendous, in you, forever. There’s no way to lie. Your body always knows.

He takes forever to empty into his sweatpants and then his cock pulses weakly, nothing else left in him but the sensitive flesh still throbbing, pleading under his boot. Wedged up, softening in the hot, cooling mess in the jock. Dallas must be flirting this time, so much lighter knocking the back of Troy’s skull against the car door after he gets sloppy, fucks up with his teeth.

Dallas pulls out, fingers curling into Troy’s hair as he tugs him up a couple of inches, lifted off his haunches just enough to be uncomfortable.

“Don’t,” Dallas says. Just the t-shirt, rucked up like Troy’s mouth could unmake the winter around them. Flushed hot, pink patches on his stomach, pink thighs. In his pink fist, the dark, wet head of his cock.

Troy nods and Dallas gets that look back. Wide, sky-eating wide pupils, heavy lids. Singular, vicious focus. “You’re gonna be good to me?”

“Yeah,” Troy croaks. He can’t feel his fingers or the pain in his knees, the stupid bob of his head still bouncing in eager agreement. Barely feels Dallas hard, sour, sucked slick, fat crown bumping against his bottom lip. He’s somewhere the blush of the parking lot can’t reach, beneath the earth, a warm separate smothering place that swallows him the second he opens wide.

Dallas takes a long time to come.

i'm sorry <3
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