Work Text:
The walls crackle and thrum with electricity.
Gary feels it down his throat, in his chest, deep in his bones- a tick, tick, tick of seconds passing by and the hum of drills in the earth and the breath and wheeze of people exploited- and he is thrilled, so sickly it makes him cough into his hands through eyes watery.
(Through it all, the ash is rubbed into the carpet with bare skin against the wires, smog clinging under his nails like a song that won't leave his head, and the taste of static on his tongue).
(The Extinction crackles in his thoughts and he stares, wide-eyed and worshipping, at the open bulb in the ceiling, imagining what it were to grasp it with hands in prayer).
The iPod slips between his fingers, reminding him of his back to the wall, the geiger counter ticking in his other hand, and he gasps, low- and the Extinction purrs, a roll of haze slipping through his skin; a caress, a kiss, one of fire and death and the wonder of watching something slowly be consumed by themselves.
Tears roll down, and he does not stop them. Radiation burns.