"I doubt it will make you feel any better, but I understand."
"No, no one does, not even I."
"But I do." It felt my lungs were about to cave in as memories flooded my mind, l walk out of his gaze heading quickly to the living room, I kneel by my records.
"What are you doing?" He asks with his voice still weak.
"I'm better thinking when Lou Reed is singing" I say picking up Loaded by The Velvet Underground.
"Thinking?"
I nod, "in my life I have felt only pain—happiness never lingers but misery always does. So I think instead." I admit as "Who Loves the Sun" begins to play soothingly. Ah, comfort.

I stand, trying my best not to look directly at him I sit on the couch, he sits next to me. I don't understand why suddenly I feel so uneasy and he makes it worse as he takes my hand intertwining his shaky fingers with mine, both palms sweating.
He looks me in the eyes once more, whispering "how do you get rid of a pain induced by your brain? How do you live when your happiness derives from dreams?"
I sigh, "you don't. You just wait for death to come to your bed." 
His lips form a gentle smile as a tear runs down his cheek, "but she doesn't seem to find me attractive."
I smile back wearily pulling up the sleeve of the hand he was holding where you could see traces of past anxiety attacks and idleness induced by cigarette butts; on the edge a hardly-healed, still-sensitive scar along my radial artery. "Death hides too well."
With worried blue eyes he runs his fingers gently through every blemish, as if mystified, making me feel accepted for the first time in my life.

"Sweet Jane," "Rock & Roll," "Cool It Down," I'd heard them all before. Only this time it was different. Everything felt different, Lou's voice, my heartbeat, the couch, even breathing felt different.

"New Age" starts playing, from my lips escapes "this is my favorite" echoed by his smoky voice that had said the exact same words, like it was scripted. We face each other as I wonder how could someone with such kind eyes and angelic features be so troubled? Because he would not admit it, but I knew he was broken. He did not deserve knowing what this is like. 

"Ian, you need Debbie."
He takes a gentle grasp of my my face, like he's afraid I'll slip away, "but I want you."

Lou whispering you're over the hill right now, and you're looking for love in the background, my stomach feels sick. I breathe in his air, hardly, I can hardly breathe.
I'll come running to you honey when you want me. 
I don't know why, I kiss him.

It's the beginning of a new age.