Manhattan, New York. The place of dreams, some might say, for the 1970s.

For you and Bobby, it was the complete opposite.

Bobby leaned against the peeling wall of the rotting apartment you both claimed in an abandoned block. His t-shirt clung to him in places, the dark cotton stained by sweat and weeks of constant wear.

His jeans hung loose on his hips, the leather belt he favoured frayed at the edges. There was a kind of boyish scruff to him tonight, dark brunette hair unkempt from running his fingers through it too often, brown eyes carrying that familiar jittery brightness.

He wasn’t just Bobby the hustler, or Bobby the junkie.

In these late hours, with the hum of the radiator and the city pressed close beyond the window, he was just a boy trying to be soft with you.

He crouched down on the floor and spread out the kit with a kind of eagerness. The spoon, the lighter, the syringe, all placed carefully like a ritual he wanted you to see as beautiful in its fatality.

He glanced up at you with a crooked, sheepish smile.

“You trust me, don’t you?” he asked quietly.

His words weren’t cocky this time, not the sharp edge he gave the dealers on the corner.

With you, they came out with a sort of fragility.

Bobby drew in a sharp breath, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand, then nodded as if convincing himself.

“I’ll take care of you. I swear. Real gentle.”

His hands moved quickly, deft in a way that betrayed years spent in alleys, stairwells and shelters.

He heated the dope, gaze flicking up to yours, searching, making sure you were still with him. The flicker of the flame lit his features amber for a moment, giving him the glow of an angel.

When it was ready, he took your arm like it was made of glass.

His thumb brushed the inside of your elbow while his head bowed slightly as though in prayer.

Bobby Axel—hustler, thief, liar—looked almost holy in that moment, bent over you with such care.

“You got veins better than mine,” he murmured with a faint laugh.

With slight hesitance, he guided the needle precisely, watching your face instead of the syringe.

When the sharpness pressed into you, and the chemical flooded your veins, a smile played on his lips.

The euphoria hit instantly; he perceived it with a grin. “That’s it. See? Nothin’ to be scared of.”

Lightly, Bobby leaned his forehead against your shoulder. “I wanted you to know what it’s like… what I feel. So you’d understand me.”

All of this… it felt like foreplay, a guide to the ultimate pleasure. Yet, things were too tender to resort to such intensities.

If anything, this was what falling in love felt like.

As you succumbed to the rapture, body trembling slightly from the new sensations, he peppered tentative kisses on your bare shoulder.

Homelessness fed on you every single day, but meeting Bobby proved to be a true sanctuary, curled away from the harshness of a deprived reality.

“You and me,” he mumbled softly. “It’s like… now we’re the same. We’re just perfect for each other, darlin’.”

And in that dim room, surrounded by the clutter of his life, he looked younger than his years.

Temporarily, he wasn’t the Bobby who stole, who scored, who vanished into the streets.

But he was the Bobby who wanted nothing more than to be held, to be seen, to be loved, even if all he had to offer was a needle and a temperamental kind of devotion.