Work Text:
Apple mash and zucchini rot belch flies and stink in the corners of the room as he sits her down on the stone slab. Aware of the vegetation, she trembles as candles file silently out of their containers, wax slipping out of jars, into a melted mass with proud wicks sprouting from the floor. His ignivomous wink; every wick bursts into applause.
Silence dominates the space between them as more candles align themselves in circles on the floor. With a wave of his hand, some hover like clouds. Heat forces its way into the damp room as more candles blossom on the floor, radiating and whispering toward the fruit mounds. Wet edges strain to crackle into ash.
Smoke catches in her eyes and settles in her throat and lungs until they seize. Esophagus jerks, unkinks unkindly, and she swallows the cough into her stomach. Tears prick in the corners of her eyes, and she juts her chin out to keep them there.
“Oh?”
Chance glance and their pupils connect until hers quiver away. He holds her chin and pulls her deeper into the feverish miasma of the candles. Floating wax drips onto his hand, into their hair, and she jumps out of his hands as she scalds, but he brings her back. The candles nestle closer until she can taste the cloying scents of cinnamon, clove, dead apples, old zucchini. Gags, readjustment.
His other hand reaches out and steals one tear before it falls.
Candle-summer smoke
wasp-stings her eyes: swollen, red,
full of new water.