Milo's eyes float adrift, his gaze fluttering from Ren to the river to the ceiling of obsidian, never staying in the same place for more than a millisecond. His brain dissolves in his head; he becomes the steam, watching Ren come forward, his entire existence that of a boiling high, a lump in his lungs the only thing holding him down.
His heels lift from the floor, the hiss of rain on the lava now louder, higher-pitched. He tries to look at the fair man, standing there beautiful and alluring, but everything forces him to glance elsewhere, as if puppeteer strings pulling him left and right and up and down when all he wants to do is stare straight ahead. Perhaps this is punishment for never looking at him before, never realizing how handsome he truly was. Is.
Milo pushes himself off the rock wall, standing, equilibrium as wavy and freeform as the fog around them. He breathes in (sharp, take a hit, like smoking at midnight) and focuses until he's standing as still as he can. Ren hasn't changed a bit. He died pretty- and reliving is always the same.
In a game, things change. They waver and teeter between sides. Sides, not meaning right and wrong, black and white, or good and evil; in a game, the separation of morality doesn't exist, but a simple switch in strategy, and in tactic, and in how to play the game- that's what changes deep down. It's the idea to go slower instead of racing to the finish; it's the sudden step back to evaluate a maze, rather than turn mindlessly; it's the moment someone folds and it's Milo's turn, his eternal frown changing into a wonderful smile. Smiling, we abuse ourselves.
In a flash (flicker on the lights- please, I've been in here so long), Ren smiles back. It's quick and flowery and Milo has an irresistible urge to close the gap between him and the platinum man. A different kind of heat flows through him, an electrical surge of lust and desire and the regret of a million things flitting about his waxen head. Murder and suicide and gambling until he was worth nothing- Milo has done it all before, sucking everything he touches into an inferno nothing can escape.
With the voice of sheer glass, Ren says, "I can't believe you died on me, man. Not cool." He grins, as easily as that. Milo stays silent; there's nothing he thinks to say, so dim and doomed that words sift from his mouth, brittle, unspeakable. "Okay," Ren continues, "That was selfish to say."
I abuse myself. "People are selfish in games," Milo says. It's a hollow statement. Like a knocking that won't be stopped even if one answers the door.
Ren nods, then takes a step forward. The distance between them keeps shrinking, and now just two steps stand isolating them. "Are we playing a game? Right now?" he asks. The water droplets transform into honey, suddenly falling slower into the lava and evaporating into a thicker steam than before.
Milo nods. An ethereal feeling simmers in him. He's quiet until he bursts out laughing, watching Ren like he's the sunlight missing in death and darkness, like Milo's never actually woken up and the devil's granting him one dream before damning him forever. "When are we not?"
"I guess you're right," Ren whispers now, "Everything is a game."
They laugh. Again and again. Milo flails back into the wall, uncontrollable as the stone in his lungs droops to his chest and his stomach starts to hurt from laughing too much and too hard. Euphoria is Ren. Ren is euphoria. Interchangeable, the same. They are patterns of the other in Milo's game of love and loss, when he gambled his life before winning the other man's hand.
(place your bets, then take a drink), "I miss you," Milo says. Perhaps there's a conundrum, when the saddest thing Milo has ever said comes out in the airiest of tones, the happiest of murmurs.
Ren reaches out, fingers spread in the want and need to curl them around Milo's. "I missed you. You died first, remember?"
"No. Not really."
☠Task One: Entries 1-14☠
Start from the beginning
