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Smoke twists skyward, exhaled from cracked and dry lips, to slowly fade to join the growing darkness. Only its stench remains— until Ash draws another puff from the cigarette, for the cycle to repeat.
There is no breeze in the fields to dissipate the smoke quicker: there never is. Never will be. It’s a fact, a constant, something that will stretch on and on into infinity, much like the distant horizon that fades from dark orange to purple. A comfort, at least for some, to know it will never ever change. To always stay as the last remains of a summer heat, the last sparks of daylight already swallowed by the horizon to remain stagnant in the sky, and the sickly-sweet aroma that hangs low to the ground to never wash away. A scent slightly detectable when standing, and like a punch to the face when sitting or laying.
So Ash smokes. Too tired to stand or to walk, fighting to replace the smell with anything else. Too stubborn to just embrace it, to become one with the sweetness, to burn his nostrils until nothing but the roses remain. Still stubborn enough to kick away the thorns, to beat down the red and green plants until they submit to the ground, a mushy-damp pile of plant matter that does little to dissuade the thorns from pricking at his skin and leaving raised gashes along his legs.
The fields are eternal, after all. He’ll never see the patch he’s made himself again. His lungs will never blacken with tar. His skin will never close completely.
He’s not okay with that.
The smoke wreaths him, a protective bubble of chemicals and tar and ash, warding off the roses’ sickly stench. Enough to sting in his eyes, an uncomfortable itch that mimics the ever-healing scratches on his body that will be torn open again. A haze that, really, isn’t all that distinguishable from the haze that already blankets the forever-dusk; a mingling of evaporated water from whatever daylight came before the sunset, and pollen rising from the red petals.
Thank God he isn’t allergic.
Now that would be hell.
Only a stub remains of the cigarette. Finite, compared to everything else. Lasting barely seconds, it seems, when nothing else moves. Observing it dispassionately, he flicks it away to fizzle out in the field of flowers. The plants will not burn: too much water clings to their petals and runs through their veins. But if they do— what an if that is, and it draws a bitter laugh from his chest— if they do, the charred remains of the stupid fucking plants will give him ample relief from the smell. A softer place to sleep, cradled by still-warm ashes and charred soil.
He can handle the thorns. The smell— not so much.
In all but two minutes’ time, he’s drawn out another cigarette. Despite the stagnant nature of the air, the smoke is quickly overpowered as if washed away by something intangible. A current of wind that passes through his body as if he were a ghost. There’s a migraine forming steadily along with the dissipation, pressing against his skull. The lighter slips in his hands when he pulls it out, chilled despite the lingering humid heat in the air, each spark fainter than the last. Cigarette held clamped between his lips, an extra hand does not help, only trembling violently, fingers fumbling to grip the metal casing. A sharp corner tugs at his nails, just on the edge of painful.
There's a flick of metal against magnesium somewhere behind and above him, and the trembling orange flame is held beneath the cigarette still clamped in his mouth. He watches it closely, only until the flame catches and it's drawn just as quickly away, taking its warmth along with it.
“Admiring the sunset?” comes the smooth voice.
“Only until you arrived,” he replies, just as smooth in intonation, raspier from smoke.
A slight huff, barely constituting a laugh. “Spare me a cig?”
“Go fuck yourself.” He hands one over, passing it blindly over one shoulder. When Reddoons takes it, his fingers, dry and warm, brush against his.
For a long while, Reddoons seems content to sit in silence. Ash takes it as a blessing, a minor thing to have, and does his best to not think at all.
“Y’know, there’s a nicer hill a few days walk from here,” Reddoons muses around the cigarette. “I’d go as far as to say the roses are shorter there.”
“And yet, there are still roses.” Ash blows the smoke from his lungs stronger than necessary, watching as it tumbles away into nothingness. “Nothing can be ‘nice’ unless it is rose-free.”
Reddoons hums. A shuffle of feet, plant matter snapping under the weight of footfalls, and Reddoons moves to settle himself down right next to Ash, mindless of the uncut plants that dig into his skin.
“Have you tried pulling ‘em up?”
Ash snorts, and flips over a hand for Red’s consultation. “ ‘course. Did you?”
Red shows his own hand, marred equally with still red, still raised scar tissue. A particularly painful spot, a single circle of a puncture mark, digs into the joint of his ring finger. Ash lets his attention be drawn— a rare thing, might he add— tracing a gentle touch around the marks.
Red lets him without a remark, forgotten cigarette slowly smouldering away in his mouth. Ash knows he’s watching, and chooses to pointedly ignore the prickle of eyes into the top of his head. Does his best, too, to not watch the cigarette slowly burning away between Red's lips.
There's twin divots on Red's bottom lip, from where he worries his teeth.
When Ash grows tired of tracing the old wounds, Red, in turn, politely pretends that the weight of Ash’s hand in his does not exist.
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