He doesn't know how long he stands there. Waiting, fixated on the light poking through. It's as if he's never been so mesmerized by the sun, and dawn rises like a held-in breath. At last, at last.
Methane corrodes the air as he wades back and forth, slipping in and out of existence. Stalagmites bleed gases and the cave spits fuels, his cheeks burning red as his lungs contract and fill. Part of him watches his senses dull, and part of him wants it. All of him doesn't move, just letting the gases in, melting as wax ablaze.
He hears a scream behind him. It's so far away he can hear it in his own head, and for a moment he wonders if he heard anything at all. He finally walks away from the center of the room and lets the sun dim- perhaps that's what everyone is waiting for. For the sun to die.
Eyes roll back and in, his knees stumbling as his toes spread like roots on the ground. He smells the ricochet of jagged boulders ripping apart from themselves and he hears the simmering stench of soaked flesh. He wanders for what seems like eternity, and forever pours from his mouth like honey.
Like honey. Like him.
(and kiss like air is nowhere but here, cold and wet and lifeless)
The first time I met Ren, he was so alive it made the world feel worth it. He walked like the ground held him up, like strings moved him every which way he wanted. He whispered like voices were golden; he smiled like teeth were not.
Once, just once, I watched him laugh. Heard him. It was the brightest thing among sin. And the lingering taste of smoke arose on my tongue; seeing him, I felt high. I felt endless.
That was the mistake, thinking endlessness was possible. Thinking it could happen.
The last time Milo sees Ren, they're both dead. Ren is laying with his back against the wall, the faintness of the scream still dying in his eyes. Silver and copper both rust beneath rain and the gentle rise and fall of the delicate man's chest disappears, resulting in stillness, the kind of motionless glare Milo knows too well. Loves too well.
Eternity dies right in front of him, his mind hazy from drugs and body swaying from heat. His hands move without him asking them to, and he lifts the other man like he weighs nothing. Perhaps he does, and all the weight of Ren lied entirely in his smile, tons of marvel captured in his laugh.
This is easy for him. He places Ren on the tablet, and the lukewarm skin weighs the stone down. Sunlight pours in from the sides and Milo takes it in, momentarily distracted that the light is coming from somewhere other than Ren's skin, astounded that other things may burn that are not him and this feeling. Golden plains stretch elsewhere. Their hands forget to clash.
He leaves Ren Cayse behind. Maybe he should've done this all along, and forgotten the sins of his past. Maybe it's time to stop holding it in, and finally come down from the high.
☠Orville Stud☠
It was a plodding thing. Four legs much too muscular for the tired pace it lazed across the organic carpet, a head, a serpentine tail as long as it was powerful. This is a lousy description, he knows - heck, he could be talking about Upton - but to add any more details gets complicated fast. To talk of its color would take quadratic regressions and differential equations and a host of math classes Orville dropped out of. Wouldn't have understood them anyway.
Whichever color they would least like it to be, it would be. Usually, that meant green, but sometimes not. Sometimes it would walk past a boulder and go grey so that they still couldn't see it too good. Sometimes it would be all one color and then have just like a green thumb, which would explain how the caves are kept so lush.
☠Task Six: Entries 1-14☠
Start from the beginning
