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Shorter saw his eyes as clear as the dim light in that basement permitted him to. It was like the first time he met him.
He looked into his eyes and saw nothing.
Memories from juvie ran through his mind, faster than the venom still crawling through his veins.
Talking to that familiar yet unfamiliar kid. His eyes, cold; his face, cold; everything about him, cold. And yet, that did little to steer him away from his ticket out of juvie early.
After clearing his name and intentions, they became friends.
No—Ash became his friend.
Conversations that were once only bitten back with one-word responses.
To hear him once, to hear something that wasn’t edgy sarcasm or bitterness.
The angel laughed.
He never knew how badly he needed to hear it.
Bloody hands and cut thighs, blood stained white t-shirts and ripped jeans.
He remembers seeing him by Canal Street late at night.
The flickering light of a store casting over his damp dirty hair.
A dark light to an already dark shadow.
Those angel eyes, the ones he'd carry everywhere with him, coloring him with something that was not there. Something foreign, something he should never want and will never have.
Soft ash hair, sharp eyes. A contrast that couldn't be more obvious—his limp body, yet the fierce skill hidden just beneath that sin-stained flesh; the bones, the blood, all of it too broken to ever seek peace or forgiveness.
He was familiar with his game now: the smirks, the chuckles, the rare laughs, the sarcastic remarks, the picky eating, and their trust—it all faded into Shorter’s life a bit too perfectly.
He patted himself in the back for noticing as much as their meets would only really be for the gang. Partnering with Ash didn’t facilitate the duty of being a leader and it didn’t ease any pressure either. But those fleeting moments—at the bar together, quick check-ins at delis—were nothing compared to juvie. Juvie was the best part of being with Ash.
And then, a strange light appeared out of nowhere.
Shorter saw it in Ash’s eyes—the way they locked with his .
Sitting between them on that wooden chair, he could feel it in Ash’s calm demeanor. He was curious fast—hell, it’d only been a day since those two met. He stared into those angel’s eyes: he saw green, saw light, saw truth.
His warm smiles littered Ash’s heart, covering it yellow. A million smiles, absorbed fully by Ash’s heart, warming it from the inside out. His chuckles and laughs, his jokes and sighs—they all faded into Ash in a way that his never did.
Shorter wonders what became of that angel postcard—the one the angel took. He’ll never know, of course. Maybe it was tossed into the shadows, buried in darkness, swallowed in by emptiness, with a sharp, final thud—a bullet to the heart. His brain flickered.
He remembers the way the angel ran back inside, clutching that postcard to his chest, so close, so close to his chest. To his heart.
Even as his vision fades to black, his mind beginning to shut down, Shorter just can’t dim the thought—it’s strange, how that angel never knew. Never knew how much that postcard meant, how much he meant.