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everything shiny in coveted. the glitter you trade off for a pack of precious electrokats. the blood you try to spill. the blood you try not to spill. nothing shiny lasts forever, and the blood never stays where you want it to.
•••
party poison’s bandages tighten and loosen around their torso as they breathe in their sleep. fun ghoul has spent too long watching the strips of fabric grow ever redder. as much as he wants to stay with party, he knows the time would be better spent clearing his head. besides, it’s not like party’s gonna know he’s gone. not like there’s anyone else left to miss him. a quick walk.
he walks until he comes across the bones of a car, long since picked apart by motorbabies. as he sits down in its shade to rest his legs, a tiny gleam of reflected light at his feet catches his eye. folding over, ghoul stretches out his arm to pick up a piece of glass, edges worn smooth by years of sand, but sporting newer chips sharp enough to split skin. he throws some precious saliva onto the fragment and wipes off the grime with his sleeve.
not much beauty is left in the zones. sometimes you feel it after you hit your target. you see it in the rare clouds that seem like the only thing the dust can’t touch. you don’t tend to find it laying on the ground, trampled, in pieces.
but as ghoul holds the shard up above his head, he knows that the yellow light reflecting back into his eyes is the purest beauty one could find in the zones. shiny doesn’t do it justice. not when the sky is the same shade that poison’s blaster once was, before time and sand did what time and sand do. smooth the edges and make new ones.
•••
party hasn’t spoken a word since fun ghoul had returned. ghoul knows the hard feeling you get in your gut after waking up to an empty diner, but party knows how stifling the air can get inside.
“sorry.”
it’s not a lot but ghoul is glad he said something. party and ghoul know that things are going to be okay, but there’s been too much silence in the diner lately.
“here, poise. i found this and uh. here,” ghoul reached across the table and set the shard in party’s hand. he doesn’t say everything that he wants party to know, but they know it anyway.
i can’t lose you too.
“i thought of you when i saw it.”
you’re the broken glass in the morning light.
“it’s pretty shiny.”