"Trash."

"Freak."

"Loser."

They hurt, they always hurt. Each word or sneer or laugh in his direction felt like another cut on his body, a new bruise, a broken bone. What was that saying?

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me…

Yet the words hurt. They hurt and they twisted in his gut, right where he needed them the least. They fueled a fire inside, though, one true desire of acceptance or at least a little spark of recognition. Yet it never came to pass, so the fire never burnt out.

It just kept burning and burning and burning, a witch at the stake. That he was certain of.

What he was never certain of was how the moth could fly so close to the flame without its wings shrivelling up under the burning light, plunging him to the ground to rot with the other hapless victims of his fire.

It might have been because of his own fire or it may be because the other had no fire. The moth was all ice, cold and calculating and mechanical.

They weren't friends and definitely weren't lovers, but something drew them to one another still. Something primal. The thirst of a good fight, blood or, when they were older, sex.

Praise was the greatest fuel to his fire, the moth heaping it on him as the two broke the mattress, screaming at each other in their native languages. He could feel himself filling and being filled, icky fluids running down his thighs as the other flipped them over again and again and again….

But the moth had other prey, different from the spider himself with his unforgiving flame.

He was forced to sit and watch in that cold barstool, as hishishis moth was broken under the weight of another. The moth reveled in watching him suffer, he was sure of it as the new prey all flocked to take what was the spider's.

Yet the moth grinned and grinned and grinned.

"Freak."

Spiders catch flies and eat their partners.

And so, too, did he and his flame.

An old friend, a new fling and a match to hold to it became his weapon of choice, letting the new prey ravage his body before heartlessly destroying them all with one try. Only one escaped his clutch.

And that one was what would harm his moth most of all.

A broken heart was sweet when topped with revenge, betrayal a dessert that the spider could get used to. He watched his moth cry as he finished his way with her, stabbing her in the heart as much as he could to make sure he knew he was the last thing she saw.

A broken heart to match.

His moth never complained after that, letting him break him over and over, become a toy for HIS use and HIS use only.

And in the spider's diseased mind, as he hit another home run between the cardinal and the gallinule, taking them into his web of fire and lies, it tasted like gasoline.

It tasted like victory.

A/N: Wrote this while half asleep