Jared and Gnat - Part Four - Bullet

It had been three days now since Jared had decided to get clean… And it had been hell. Jared tried replacing the heroin with gum, caffeine and simply playing out his addictions on guitar, but the call of the drug was strong and would break most men. He was not most men. Gnat felt obligated to try giving up, too. If Jared could, then he could too.

One night, the house was dark and cool. Thunder crashed down furiously outside. Jared had always hated thunder and would bolt for any cover he could find, and Gnat would comfort him and tell him it was just noise.

“Just try and relax, Jared.”

He chewed on his knuckle as a withdrawal habit. The tension of the thunder caused him to break the thinly-stretched skin, and blood seeped down his hand. Jared had never liked thunder. It always made him feel vulnerable in the grand scheme of things: his greatest fear… A heroin junkie with too much pride to admit he wasn’t anything more.

Gnat was hooked on the stuff, too, and was finding it just as hard. Last night he took out his pistol from underneath the sofa while Jared was asleep and placed the barrel in his mouth. His eyes darted to the bright moon in the night sky: a symbol of hope. Then he looked down at poor Jared, twitching and snarling in his sleep and smiled. Wretched as he was, he had a friend. A lot of people would kill to have a relationship of the kind he and Jared had. He took the bullets out of the 44. and placed it back underneath the moth-eaten sofa.

So now, Jared lay down on his lowly mattress, his sleep at the mercy of the harsh lightening outside and whimpered… Gnat pondered for a moment and smiled.

“Jared… You know that old tape deck we sold for H?”
“Yes. The one I had since I was five.”
“Well, I never sold it…”

Jared’s ears perked up. He frowned, confused. “Then how the hell did you get the money for the stuff?”

“… I didn’t. I did someone a favour, and- and-.” Gnat stuttered.

The weasel stood up, his eyeballs almost popping out. “Why the HELL did you do that? You know I always do. I wanted YOU to keep your dignity at least. I wanted at least one of us to have a shred of it left,” he shouted and got right up in Gnat’s face. “It doesn’t matter, Jared,” he said, backing off and shaking.

“It’s not fair on you to have to take that every night, and that tape deck is the one thing that we have to remind us of the old days,” Gnat said, raising his head again after gaining some confidence.

Jared sighed and sat on the arm of the chair. “Well… Thanks.” His tone lowered. After all this was out of the way and Jared had accepted the fact that Gnat was no child, the excitement returned to his eyes. “Where is it?”

“Upstairs, in the attic… I’ll bring it down.”

Gnat trotted off and within a few minutes of searching he had returned with an ancient machine that he was struggling to carry. “Let me help you with that,” said Jared, smiling again and relieving his friend of the weight. He plugged it in and began to search through his tape collection, but Gnat put one paw on his shoulder. Jared turned around, looking puzzled over his shoulder. “What?”

“I already picked something very special out. It was the first tape you bought.”

Jared looked with disbelief and affection at the small, scuffed cassette tape. “How did you know?” he asked. “What, that this was your first tape? You never shut up about this damn band!” Gnat said and giggled, causing Jared to laugh too.

Gnat inserted the tape into the beast and hit play.

The beats hit them instantly. It was the true atmosphere of the club in this song: music you could dance to and lose yourself in. Everything would just dissolve around the buzzsaw synthesizers and the clean, unedited vocals sounded clean and fresh in your ears. It was Bullet by Covenant.

Gnat backed up, one hind paw behind the other and clapped along with the beat whilst bending his knees until he reached the centre of the room. Their eyes locked and Jared grinned. Jared was no stranger to the club… But he had never danced one on one with another person. “Oh, what the hell!” He thought and jumped into the middle of the room, locking his paws with Gnat’s and bounced up and down. They both sand along, out of key and losing themselves. Then, the chorus kicked in and they bounced as high as they could.

“As the water grinds the stone,
We rise and fall.
As our ashes turn to dust,
We shine like stars!”

Jared and Gnat both sang as loud as they could, giving their lungs the work out they needed. The weasel had never felt so good in his life.

After what could have been a decade, the music stopped. They both panted. Sweat poured down their bodies. Suddenly, Jared moved with Gnat over to the sofa and locked lips with him, before falling down together and feeling their bones on each other.

That night, Jared and Gnat didn’t have sex.

They made love…