Work Text:
he doesn't think about it.
the flickers of silver things sharp in the crevice between eye and orbital cavity
of warmer weather, good for flying.
not ideal as in strategically. not progressively prime.
just good.
freeing.
when the burning comes,
once the initial shock subsides and the infinity of it begins,
he shakes as if pinched by the inner wing–picked up by that tender, papery thing and seared right over it–
something so severely fragile even the veins don’t touch it, so frighteningly transparent he could be pried apart at those seams and it’d shrivel at the first external exposure,
unnoticed even as weakness, as if never there in the first place
but he feels it–somewhere even he can only speculate.
he’s already eaten this grief and wants no more of it now.
doesn't like it coming back up on him, like modular glass lodged in the back of the throat
(like the modular glass lodged in the back of his throat–all the pieces they couldn’t get out)
a sour thing as dire in taste and viscosity as a mouth full of blood.
…distant memory holds him like a doll. cradles him like something delicate and worthy of it–
in the way awareness fosters its own care
and in the way the simple, sudden knowledge of that hemorrhages immediately into something else–
opposite in intention the way there is no comfort in the blank bursts of nothing, nor any malice in the spotting of red hot rage
no trust and no particular awareness angled towards that fact–though trust is far too ranked, above or below, for the splintered thing behind his eyelids when they close.
it was whatever came when the day was done, in the creases of sunset nestled into the directory cubicles, all the comings and goings of an hour that no longer concerned them as perceived
in the split separation of
holy thing and devotee
and
holy thing and passerby
was a comfortable send-home,
a tender touch to a forearm, always accidentally grazing the wing
no way to avoid touching the Entirety of him in simple motion, given the size of hand to frame,
given the enormity of the gesture, however habitual
the enormity of a gesture in its consistency
the time of day for two beings to merely be similar enough to recognize it,
unknowingly going home for the last time
following closely behind those back-clasped hands, miming the motion of a kinder memory, at the same hour here,
knowingly going home for the last time.
knowing this time the execution that follows.
he doesn't think about it much.