Creature of Habit — Whizvin

BEFORE YOU START READING:

This features some serious angst, brief mentions of sexual action (I promise I didn’t write the actual scene, but definitely implied), and hoo boy I cried writing it so,,,

GOOD LUCK

———————

Marvin liked routine.

At least, it was safe to say this after twenty-seven years, when he did everything in the same order, every day without fail every time.

He hated the idea of change. Change was unconventional. It was uncomfortable. Change allowed things to go wrong in a world that he desperately wanted to be perfect. A perfect world meant a perfect life, and a perfect life meant order. It meant stability. It meant happiness.

Happiness was not easy to come by in this orderly, stable relationship.

Marvin was hard to please. Trina knew this better than anyone. He was easily shaken by events, he was quick to rise in anger and fiery-tempered, and he was unhappy approximately one hundred percent of the time.

Which made it seem odd when Marvin started coming home from work happy, agreeable, and loving. It was as if something had flipped inside of him. Not that she complained, of course. Finally, when she wanted to spend time with her husband, he didn’t mind sitting down for an hour to watch television. He ignored his company-issued work cell, which rang every ten minutes. Sometimes, it wasn’t even just ignoring -- he flat out declined the calls sometimes.

Trina felt wanted.

The only difference was Marvin’s frequent ‘business trips’, but she paid no mind to that. Successful businessmen went on these sorts of business trips all the time, right? There was nothing going on that would seem to be amiss.

--

Marvin’s world changed for the better when he met Whizzer. But it was a change, and change meant time for imperfections, time for disorder, time for chaos.

But for some reason, this time around, he didn’t seem to mind this new change. Especially when they ended up in a hotel room as he slotted his lips against Whizzer’s. It felt right. It felt better than those nights with Trina, when he dreaded being intimate with her and reluctantly getting through it.

He didn’t even know how it started. Maybe he’d been with friends, some coworkers had wanted to get drinks after work. Marvin couldn’t when he was intoxicated by the woodsy, rosy smell that shrouded the man straddled over him. He couldn’t the drink he had when the night started when he was being pushed down onto the bed. He certainly couldn’t what time he said he’d be back home as he made sweet love to the man who’d seduced him in a bar.

He hated change when he woke up in the morning and realized he was alone in the bed of a hotel room. The white sheets were unmade, and only one pair of clothes were on the ground -- his.

He hated change as he slowly sat up, head spinning from the events of last night. The way Whizzer came and went -- literally -- and was gone by morning, before Marvin had even woken up. Before he’d had a chance to plead his case and make him stay.

But this change… it became his new routine. He’d go home, greet his wife, get dressed for work while apologizing for the late nights at work, and he’d leave again to go to work. The business trips he took every other weekend were starting to get old, so he switched up the excuses. He stayed late on a deal. He went out with coworkers.

Not once did he ever think to cover the rosy scent of adultery and deception as he bustled about the house.

--

Change came again when Trina and Jason came home early from a family outing and caught Whizzer and him in the den, half-dressed and in the midst of that intoxicating feeling again. He was the one to ask for the divorce papers, though, in his attempt to keep a semblance of control. Marvin signed them and convinced Trina to do the same.

After all, they weren’t the same.

He formally asked Whizzer out when the papers were signed. He said yes. It was another good change as Marvin pulled Whizzer into his arms, kissing him with ion that rivaled the first night they’d met in that horrible bar. They made love again that night in a flurry of laughter and stolen kisses.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. Marvin fell into a routine once more. It was something he could keep, a sort of order he could live with. And he was happy. Sort of. Whizzer’s stubbornness, sure he could do without, but he still loved Whizzer. He loved him to the moon and back.

“I love you,” he’d said one day, and was… surprised when he didn’t respond to Marvin’s words. But he thought of nothing of it.

--

“Where have you been?” Marvin asked sleepily as Whizzer came out of the shower, a towel loosely around his waist.

“Nowhere,”he responded, getting ready for bed and crawling in next to Marvin. Marvin could see the bruises on his neck -- ones that he hadn’t left on him.

Whizzer had been with someone else.

But it was part of their routine. Whizzer would repeatedly sleep with other men, and Marvin was powerless to stop it. Sometimes, if he was still awake when Whizzer got home, he could smell another man’s cologne on his shirt, but it was gone within the next couple of days. The shirt, nor the body, had any remnants of the sin.

Marvin couldn’t lie. It hurt to know that, even with everything he’d given Whizzer, everything he’d wanted to give to him, and everything he did for him, he’d still go off with other men and not have the decency to hide it. In fact, sometimes he flaunted it, and Marvin couldn’t handle it. He got sick and tired of hearing about the rendezvous Whizzer made with someone, or all of the things that he was better at, things that Marvin could improve on himself.

But everything remained the same. Marvin never told him to leave. Marvin never told him to stop. He’d submitted to the idea that Whizzer was his boyfriend only by label. By action, he was a friend with benefits. There was no collateral damaged, and no strings attached, just as Whizzer liked it.

Except there was.

And that next change came soon after. Marvin’s life had been a whirlwind of changes since he’d met Whizzer. And this one cost the person he loved. He stared at the dark cherry wood in front of him, trying to rationalize everything he did as he watched Whizzer storm down the driveway through the blinds, slightly tilted open.

This change felt permanent, and that idea made Marvin’s heart sink into his stomach. He didn’t the actual feeling, only grounding himself when he felt tears start to roll down his cheeks, and he immediately shut down everything he felt.

Emotions were unstable. They were entropic. Chaos always followed emotion -- and he knew that well. Whizzer was an emotional person sometimes, and when he was, it ended in a fight or… well, this. Emotion was harmful to routine, and Marvin wasn’t about to let another change throw off his life.

He was done with change.

--

He was thirty now. Three years since he’d met his first big change, two years since his biggest change left him paralyzed in a state of permanent shutdown. Here he was, completely shut down as he watched Jewish boys attempt at playing baseball.

It was his routine now. Every Tuesday and Thursday was a baseball game. He made the promise to Trina and Jason to go, which was… very loosely kept, but kept nonetheless. There were days when Marvin almost couldn’t crawl out of bed, but he always did. After all, he had to keep his routine, lest he completely destroy himself due to the chaos.

“Come on, Jason, slide!” Trina called from in front of him, and the rest of the group followed suit. Marvin softly repeated the same thing, not finding the will to shout at the boy the way the others were.

The flash of pink in his peripheral made him do a double take. There he was.

He couldn’t handle another change. He’d just been able to fix his life. Though he’d hardly call his life fixed.

Just orderly.

Stable.

Routine.

He hid behind Charlotte. She was what stood between him and chaos. She was his shield between him and instability.

Yet somehow, Marvin couldn’t help but beckon him over. He practically dragged him over. Once again, Marvin was intoxicated by Whizzer. He wasn’t captured by the scent, however, but by his own personal want. He couldn’t possibly want another change to his life. It was perfect now. It had a set time for everything. Whizzer would be another wrench in the life he’d managed to pull together without him. Two years of routine without him.

So why was he so willing to accept, even encourage, Whizzer into his life?

--

Marvin had become used to change. Whizzer’s unpredictability was enjoyable, even alluring sometimes. Dates were at odd times of the night and morning. Kisses were random and spontaneous and never planned. Marvin didn’t mind, though. He found it amazing, too.

What he couldn’t handle was seeing Whizzer in the hospital only two days after collapsing at the racquetball court. This was a change that he wasn’t ready for, not so soon after he’d gotten Whizzer into his life once more.

When he was upset, he fell into routine. Wake up, go to the hospital, stay from open to close, then go home. Sometimes he’d eat, sometimes he’d go straight to bed. It depended on if Charlotte stopped him that night to invite him to dinner. It wasn’t every night.

Marvin sat with Whizzer for a while until Charlotte walked in.

“Marvin, can I talk to you…?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said softly. He stood, and the two of them walked out to the hallway, where Charlotte stopped him outside the door.

“This… thing that Whizzer has. It’s one of the things that many of our younger male patients have been getting. We… we don’t know what it is. It’s virtually unidentifiable on our medical records, and our technology is… it’s not picking anything up. We have no clue what’s going on…. We do have reason to believe, though, that it’s contagious. It spreads from one man to another...”

She didn’t have to say anymore for Marvin to understand what she was saying. He knew what she was implying. If Whizzer had it, it was very possible that he had it as well. And that broke him.

Marvin nodded quietly. “Thanks, Charlotte…”

“Marvin--”

“It’s fine…” he smiled sadly, and it contrasted with his eyes. They were dark from sleep deprivation. He looked completely and utterly irreparable. He turned on his heel and ambled back into Whizzer’s room, moving the chair closer and gently grabbing his hand. Charlotte watched sadly as Whizzer gently smiled, bringing a hand up to caress his cheek gently.

These days continued on for a little while. Jason’s bar mitzvah came and went, but Whizzer was doing badly that day, and hardly lasted through the ceremony. When it was over, Whizzer leaned heavily against him, and he shared a look with Marvin.

They knew.

When the rest of the guests left, Marvin let himself finally show the emotion that he, for so long, shut out and hid. Tears slid down his cheeks, and once they started, they didn’t start.

“You can’t leave me…” he said softly, hanging onto Whizzer’s robe as he sobbed quietly into his chest. Whizzer was dying, and he had no control over stopping it. This was the sick, twisted fate that he had to meet. “You can’t, Whizzer, you--”

“Marvin…”

“Whizzer, what am I going to do without you? I can’t handle this.” He was trembling violently. “What am I going to do…?”

“Marvin…” Whizzer rasped. Marvin came back to reality to see Whizzer crying, those beautiful brown eyes filled with tears and glistening in the light of the hospital room. “Marvin, you can do this…” He said softly. “You’re not alone… You have Dee, and Charlie… You have Jason, and Trina, and even Mendel.”

“It’s not worth it if it’s not you. They’re not you, Whizzer…”

Whizzer gently reached for his hands, lacing their fingers together. “I’m still going to be here… with you always, nagging you from beyond the grave. I… I’ll still love you, even if I’m not physically here…”

Marvin gently rested his head against Whizzer’s chest, facing him. Tears continued to cascade down his cheeks as he looked Whizzer straight in the eye.

“I love you…” he muttered.

Whizzer nodded. “I love you, too, Marv…”

Marvin watched as Whizzer’s eyes slowly glazed over. He was no longer crying, but he was no longer breathing. He didn’t have to look to know. He could feel Whizzer sigh out his last breath with those words.

--

It’d been a couple of months since Whizzer died and they’d had his funeral. Marvin made his daily visit, this time deciding to bring flowers.

“Roses. You asked for them…” He whispered as he laid them against the tombstone. He gently brushed the dirt off of it so he could see WHIZZER BROWN engraved on it. “You asked, and…, I’m finally delivering it.”

He coughed sharply into his hand, wiping it onto the white shirt he was wearing, and a splatter of red appeared. He’d been sick for a while, but he refused to tell anyone. He lived alone, so no one noticed unless they visited.

People didn’t visit much anymore.

Marvin let tears fall down his cheeks. He was always his most emotionally vulnerable around Whizzer, both dead and alive.

“I miss you… like always,” he started. He made a routine out of going visit every day and talking to his grave spot. It made Marvin feel like he was still there.

He could pretend everything was okay.

Marvin ignored as his vision went slightly blurry, merely attributing it to the tears. He wiped his eyes, staring down at the dirt. The grass had started to grow back where his lover’s grave was, so it appeared as if no one was here.

“Jason misses you… so does everyone else.” He sighed heavily, the weight of the world seeming to rest on his shoulders. “So do I…”

Marvin looked at the roses. “I hope you’re having fun up there, if you do believe in an afterlife, or some sort of heaven, or whatever you think exists…” He mumbled. “All of the roses you could enjoy. Boys with… twice the fashion sense that I have.”

He could imagine Whizzer laughing and responding with Two times zero is still zero, Marv.

His eyes blurred more, but he knew they were dry. Something was wrong. But he ignored it. He was in the middle of his routine, he couldn’t change it now.

“I love you, Whizzer… I’ll see you soon. Charlotte told me one night when you were still alive that whatever you had… I might have it too… If that’s the case… maybe you’ll be in my afterlife. Maybe we’ll see each other again. That would be amazing, wouldn’t it…? Just us two together again…”

He gently held his hands together in a praying position, and he closed his eyes.

And then the scene turned to black.