Love Like Lithium - 1. Chapter 1

Standing here wasn't going to make a difference. Why did she move him anyway?

"Chris." Christus looked up to the stalls. His lover's marble skin was barely visible under the bright auditorium lights, his face hidden in shadow. He grinned.

"Laurie." There was a pause as the costume-mistress came back and added more to the Sir Christus' armor. She left again, wordlessly. Christus turned to look back to his pale paramour but he'd gone. Christus sighed.

"What's the problem?" Christus head snapped sideways to find Laurie hiding in the wings. He was leaning against the stage door, brushing his dark fringe from his emerald eyes. "I'm still here." He was gently tugging the curtain ropes, twirling them around his fingers. Everything Laurie did was so seductive to Christus. He couldn't have even imagined anyone more sexually appealing.

"You move too fast."

"It's all in your head." Laurie chuckled as Christus moved uncomfortably, the armor glinting under the stage lights. Christus looked down at his costume then back to the wings. Laurie had, once more, gone. Christus' eyes glazed over as he remembered Laurie's serpentine figure. It had been three months to this day since Christus had met Laurie; three magical, chemical months since he had first laid his hands upon Laurie's soft, moon-like skin. Laurie grinned. "Thinking about me?"

"You guessed."

"I know." There was a silence. Christus knew what Laurie was going to ask. They were connected, somehow - Christus and Laurie. Laurie and Christus. Laurie, Laurie...Laurie... "Still taking your medication?" A guilty look came over Christus' face. "You have, haven't you?" Christus nodded, his golden bangs bouncing gently. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the bottle of pills, shaking them softly. The rattling echoing into his very soul.

"I have to. They say I'm ill - they say...they say you're--"

"No on cares what they say!" Laurie was behind him again. He snaked his arms around Christus' waist, nestling his chin into the crook of the other's neck. Christus leaned his head back, letting his eyes slide shut, and his cheek softly brushed against Laurie's. "It doesn't matter what they say anymore. All that matters is us. No one else, okay? No one..." Christus sighed.

"I've got to start again, Laurie. That's what they say, 'a new school, a new start.'" Christus stepped away from Laurie and turned to face him. "I...I can't see you anymore." He reached down and unscrewed the lid of his medication. He quickly popped a pill into his mouth, chewing on it slowly. "Goodbye, Laurie."

"Everything okay out here?" The costume-mistress came bustling around the corner. She stopped in her tracks when silence answered here. "Christus?" He snapped his head up and looked around at the empty stage. "I don't like to think of you alone out here." She moved towards him, safety pins alert.

"I wasn't alone." Christus mumbled. "I'm never alone. Never."

Walking around school later that day, Christus became uneasy with the whispering behind locker doors and satchels.

"They say he's mad."

"They say he carries a knife."

"I heard he got expelled from at least three schools." The rumors varied from person to person. He never let them bother him, though. If they thought they were winning, then they probably were.

"They say his love's dangerous..."

"...like Lithium."

His weak smile waned to nothing as the days waned on. At night, he'd fall into a restless sleep, the moonlight casting dark blue bars across his tousled, blond hair. Laurie, as silent as a fox, would prowl around, catlike and moody because Christus had chased him away. Christus would hug his pillow, feeling the cold fabric brush against his cheeks, and Laurie would reappear in his mind. He'd hear him whisper "Haven't you missed me, darling?" But when the daylight came, memories of Laurie would fade to nothing, and Christus would set of for school once more.

Then there was the party. He hadn't even planned on going; assuming he'd only been invited as a joke, but doing anything to escape the growing clutches of Laurie. He took a swig of vodka when offered, the smell like ethanol. Images of his sallow stalker flashed through his mind; lying against the school's lab desks, Laurie's kiss like chemicals.

And then, Elsa was upon him, her hands sliding around patches of his unexposed skin. Her digits were cold, like her intentions, fondling and massaging his most intimate places.

"Want to go somewhere quieter?" she whispered. He considered his options: he could stumble backwards, over empty beer cans and semi-conscious people, or he could latch onto her - blonde and perfect as she was - and have a chance at being someone else. Someone accepted amongst the others.

So he nodded and followed.

The ceiling was cracked all over and he'd counted 34 so far. Elsa's hands were all over him, like ivy on a stone angel. 35. She scratched him, leaving vicious, crescent welts on his chest. 36. Her nails were acrylic; fake, like the bearer. Toxic. The deeper her claws sunk, the redder his skin felt; almost like acid. Christus could feel the taunting malice in her kiss. He shuddered at her cackle and pushed her off, Laurie smiling triumphantly.

He escaped out the back door and down the side path, with Laurie in tow, where some local boys were smoking; their cigarettes alight like argon in the darkness. They looked up when he passed.

"The new kid." One of them explained, a clown's grin spread across his face. Christus ignored, heading for the bus stop.

"Wait!"

Wait?

Wait.

He couldn't help it. Christus glanced over his shoulder, and sure enough, one of the kids - a tall, auburn-haired boy - was running after him, detached from the group. Christus thought he was beautiful. Laurie growled. He swallowed; the taste of vodka mixing with cherry lip gloss, the taste sickening him.

"Fine, Toby! Run after your boyfriend! See if we give a fuck!"

"Ignore them."

"It's a bit hard." Christus replied, nervously. "They're still yelling." He glanced over Toby's shoulder at the boys, all of who were making noise. Toby grinned and flicked his cigarette into the gutter. The bus, a number 94, approached with its headlights blaring.

"Not them." Toby continued. "Other boys; from school. Ignore them all. If you like boys then go for it."

"This is my bus."

"I know..." Christus reached into his pocket to fish out his bus pass.

"Well, see ya'..." And suddenly they were caught in a chemical kiss, the tastes of alcohol and smoke combined. Hands slid over marble-like expanse between t-shirts and jeans. The cold felt like paper cuts, but Christus could feel the warmth anyway; static hair fell upon rosy cheeks, and as quickly as it happened, it was over and Christus was sitting aboard the bus, receiving strange looks from other passengers. He spotted Laurie through the window, silently crying behind the bus shelter, but Christus didn't care. He heard the word 'fag' from somewhere on the bus, but the night's events had blocked everything out.

"They say your love is like Lithium." Toby said to Christus as they slid into the dark lab the next morning at school. Christus grinned to himself, thinking of the bottle back at home in his medicine cabinet. He thought of Laurie. He thought of the dark bars projected across his torso at night. He thought of the crescent welts on his chest.

"Lithium isn't such a bad thing..."