kissing. next.

The cage rocked in his hand as he quickened on the final 3 stairs, pushing out of the final vestiges of dark. The white ambience that lit the hazy sky wasn't warm, but it still allowed his lungs to expand freely, finally, the way he waited for. He tugged the bandanna down off his face, worn everyday like a lucky charm, like armor. Some of the others shook their head at this uniform of his, refusing the claustrophobic press of their own hot breath against their skin. It's already too hot down there, they said, beginning to sweat even without the added layer. But he could handle the heat, the extra labor to breathe. His lungs were strong and he wanted to keep them that way.

But as much as he relied on it, it was always a gift to tug the thing off. To feel the air on his sweat-damp skin, across his tongue. The bird in his hand let out a trill, as if in agreement. It was good to breathe free. The miners around him dispersed, feet dragging them back to their assigned domiciles. But the boy turned the other direction, feeling light. He knew better than to smile down at the cage in hand, to poke a finger through the bars in some kind of kinship. To show too much out in the open like this only brought trouble, only showed them what they could take from you.

So he headed towards the aviary, crossing the courtyard he walked everyday. This place was featureless and concrete and unapologetically cold. This same place held a memory of life and light and oxygen and him.

Both things can be true, and they always are.

He'd been leaving a shift, just like today. He'd tugged his bandanna down, just like this. The cloth had caught a day's worth of dust in the air, coated itself in the fumes and grit, and felt heavy on his skin. After the slow pull of fabric down his face and the first clean breath in his lungs, he'd felt his body begin to relax until he looked across the courtyard and saw him.

Tyler.

His head was hung like it weighed heavy, held above the flowing robes of the flock. He couldn't help but watch the flow of fabric around his form, its color dark and viscous and mesmerizing. But when he looked up, Tyler was smiling at him. Against all odds, smiling.

"Hey, Josh," he'd said, directly into the air around him. Not loud, not attracting attention, but Josh heard his voice like a shout at any distance, any volume.

They met in the middle of the concrete square, tugged towards each other til they were toe-to-toe. Tyler's eyes were delighted, fixed on him. Josh was too tired to understand or to question why or to think of something clever to say... or to remember how the negative space where the bandanna had been always left a harsh line of black across the landscape of his face.

Tyler had reached up to it then, thumbs rubbing into the line of dust and grime for a moment, before tracing smudgy tracks down his face. Right where tears would fall. Josh felt the grit of it, and the softness of it. It felt silly, and young, and belonging to another life somehow. The dust on Tyler's fingertips, the smile on his face and the way he only offered a simple, "You look cooler now. Like maybe you did it on purpose." He left many other words unspoken.

Words like maybe you shouldn't be covered in the dust of a job that's killing you. Like maybe my own hands lined in black are killing me just the same. Like maybe the only way to take a little power back is to laugh about it.

Like maybe if we can laugh here, now, easy and open, regardless of who can see—

A whistle blew hard then, startling them both.

Josh didn't like to remember the rest of it.

He reached the aviary, stolid and looming like everything else in this city. But on pulling it open, the small host of birds took flight in complete sync. They always scattered at his presence, even though they knew him. It was instinctive to go, wasn't it? He understood that, at least.

So he nudged the aviary door quietly closed, setting the cage on the ground and settling himself beside it. Popping the latch, he gave the day's chosen canary another chance to live.

"Hey. You made it," he said, waiting for the bird to recognize its home, its freedom, its ability to leave confinement. It hopped from perch to cage floor, trilling. And Josh sat and waited, tucking his crossed legs underneath himself. He rested in these moments that somehow felt like life to him, bigger than he could understand sometimes. Dema was a sprawling city, expansive and unshakable. The largest anything he could comprehend. But no matter the space, it felt to him like a series of closed doors and misdirections. The towering walls systematically mapped out to keep everyone lost inside them, at constant motion and going nowhere.

When he was young, he believed trailing a hand along the wall as he walked the endless streets would finally lead him somewhere new. If his fingers never left the concrete, if he explored every single twist and turn, surely, then he'd—

But it was hard to think like that anymore.

He tucked a knee up under his chin, knowing not to poke a finger into the cage and startle the bird further but waiting, still waiting.

"I'm not going anywhere, you know. Might as well come out."

Enjoy the time you have left, he thought but didn't say, shifting a little to stretch out the bend of his spine. Maybe if he looked away, left some room—

He glanced up and saw that the other canaries had settled back on their original perches. The flock of them at rest once again, trilling and chirping like normal, despite his presence. He couldn't help but smile then, safe in this place. For once, the concrete walls that wrapped him were a reassurance and not a threat, keeping this moment of light on display to himself.

He wished Tyler was here.

There was something defiant in the thought and the way it filled him. He pushed up from the aviary floor, brushing his clothes off on instinct. The dust clouded around him, scattering the filth of the mines onto this briefly holy floor. He looked down at the poisonous black, and for a moment, anger at himself shot through his body. For bringing the remnants of them here, for—

Then the barest touch on his shoulder pulled his attention, and in the strike of anger, he nearly swatted at it. Open-hand, only malice, corrupted.

It was the canary.

He couldn't recognize its patterns on sight, but he somehow knew. Looking down, the dusty cage was sitting open and empty. And the freed bird had lit on Josh's shoulder, a moment of trust or acceptance or brazen curiosity. Whatever it was, the boy smiled, open and enraptured. The bird's claws flitting gently on the dusty fabric pushed all thought of its origins behind, and they were two escapees in that moment, both light on their feet, ready to move.

He had to see Tyler.

The canary only stayed for a moment before flying off, and Josh hurriedly tucked the cage away, finishing the task to the Bishop's standards. He left with fresh life, feet pulling him to the spot they often crossed paths. The rhythm of his footsteps on concrete carried him along, keeping pace with something inside him, something innate. Not overly energetic, not drawing attention, just self-assured. Feeling older and younger and a bit too much of everything. Feeling like he needed to share with someone.

Then he heard the whistle.

His muscles tensed on instinct. His body wanting to fall into the stance of punishment, his mind wanting to fight.

He did neither.

Josh turned the corner towards the sound, seeing a mess of limbs and energy and breathless chemistry. All scuffed elbows and bony knees tangled up in trainee's robes. A mess of fabric and boy that he shouldn't be able to recognize, and yet.

He always knew him from a distance, no matter how far.

Amidst the tension and threat in the air, the echoing sound of whistles, the violent kick of Josh's heart in his chest knowing the punishments that could be waiting... across the way, Tyler smiled.

It was different, on him, in this moment. New. Not directed at Josh, and still he felt it somehow in his teeth, in the stretch of tendons in his neck. In the way Tyler's cheek was prickled red by a bruise pushing to the surface.

Then Tyler looked over, locked eyes with him. Only a moment passed, the barest breath, before Josh thoughts flickered curiously warm inside him.

Foot after foot after foot on concrete. Mind wiped clean of the words that they'd read clearly on his face if he thought them too intently, if he let himself believe. He tried to think instead of other things. Of the sound of citizens in the distance. Of sleep that might come or might not. Of what tomorrow's lessons would take this time.

He was young and in the process of being trained, of sanctification if he got a passing grade. Only a few weeks into training and he felt his spine straighten at just the thought, as if the harsh line of cardinals was watching over him now. On stage, they stood shoulder-to-shoulder above the trainees, unflinching and godlike.

Bear witness.

He shook his head on impulse, trying to clear the thought. He was free of lessons for the day. He always tried to leave them behind, drop them at the foot of the concrete doorway as he stepped over.

Today had been different though; today, they weighed heavy.

It isn't difficult, the cardinals had said. All we ask is that you don't look away.

How simple it was, not to move. Neck locked, lock-step, all they had to do was watch. Devotion lived in one's ability to witness.

So bear witness, they'd commanded, voices monotone.

His hands started to tremble.

Bear witness rang in his ears; he had repeated it like a mantra throughout the entire lesson, pressing fingers into palms. The syllables found some kind of rhythm in his thoughts as he watched. The words became his focus while his mind reared back, his eyes fighting to close. He'd felt the ache of tendons in his neck, pulling against his will, or maybe the pull was his will. He could never begin to understand what he wanted while in that room, the cardinals lashing out in front of them.

Their hands were wet, sickening in the neon light. The red wash of them shot through with the cold glow made them look flayed open from fingertip to elbow, like exposed muscle ribboned with fat. And he himself had felt flayed, agonized, vulnerable. Fighting the tremble currently rippling through his fingers at the sight of (not his, not his, not his, someone else's, not his own—) blood on their hands.

(but wouldn't it be easier if it was your own?)

He kept walking.

It didn't matter. He'd borne witness, passed their test. Lesson over. A day done. Again.

His feet led him through the alleys and courtyards without needing to lift his eyes, the space inside these walls beyond memorized. He risked a glance down at his hands, flexing the fingers on his right to see if they would hold steady. The lines in his skin were almost entirely clean today— a small relief in itself— and he managed a few moments without a shake. He dropped his fist back down to his side, fingers starting to twitch in a familiar pattern. They did this when he got tired and his guard lowered, finding something comforting in the movement and the loose twist of fabric at his thigh. His eyes still ached, his bones heavy, but at least this brought a moment of peace—

A body rammed into his side, throwing him out of step. He tried to right himself quickly, but felt the scramble of his limbs, unwieldy in surprise. Turning, he saw Enoch, another boy from his lessons, face gripped in a reckless grin.

"Watch it, Tyler," he said, brushing off the shoulder of his threadbare shirt in false indignation. Tyler's eyes flicked from the shine of his teeth to the bumps of his knuckles, immediately slotting back into his own defensive stance. He wasn't much of a fighter, not in times like this.

"Sorry."

Enoch huffed a breath as he fell into step beside him. "God. Can't even pretend to push back a little?"

Tyler kept walking, tipping his chin up to meet the challenge in silence. He picked up the pace as well, wondering how Enoch had handled today's lesson. One boy among them had collapsed, and another had coughed his limited rations up onto the floor and was removed from the room. Enoch must've managed the watching, given his high spirits and the laugh in his voice.

Tyler could never help but be wary of this boy and the way he glowed. They'd been in lessons together for weeks, plucked from the rest of the citizens to serve their greater purpose. Or that's what they'd been told on day one of assignments. Tyler was immediately suspicious, hackles up, mind full of questions that he knew he couldn't voice. He'd looked around the room with brow furrowed at all the others chosen when his eyes caught on Enoch's. They were an icy blue sparkle, mischievous and alive. Matching the cardinals' challenge with a challenge of his own.

He'd given Tyler a flicker of a smile that day, clear across the room full of disciples. And Tyler remembered the way it felt like a tickle across his skin: how he'd wanted to understand it, and also run away. He felt the same now.

"How'd you do today?" Tyler asked, voice slightly rough from disuse.

He could hear the spit crackle of the boy's smile, lips slick against teeth as he spoke. "They got all my attention, just like they wanted."

Tyler felt his breathing go shallow. Enoch bumped into him lightly, shoulder brushing shoulder out of rhythm with their steps. Intentional.

"What about you, Tyyyler?" he asked, playful. His voice was rich no matter the situation. Tyler could feel its high resonance inside his skull. "Did you like it?"

The question forced a pause, clearing his head. He looked over at Enoch in momentary confusion, then back down to his feet. "Didn't know we had to like it. That wasn't part of the lesson."

Enoch exhaled a laugh, brash and defiant. "It's not in the books but... you can like things without permission, you know."

Tyler's thoughts produced another familiar smile, open-mouthed in delight. Instantly and eternally, a collection of images followed: gritty dust on skin, tired eyes, vein-bumped wrists, a rhythm like wingbeats in his chest.

Tyler shot an elbow out to catch Enoch's ribs, a little too hard for play. He was met with a pained huff, and he side-stepped away before the boy could recover and retaliate.

"Who are you trying to impress out here? Nobody else is watching. No one's giving you a grade."

Enoch's head ticked to the side, in tandem with his smile.

Tyler felt a buzz pick up inside him with the taunt, and the look. It had gone silent somewhere in the mire of the day; he hadn't even noticed when it left. But it returned, restless and awake, as the boys started to scrap in the middle of the courtyard. The fight was one of concrete burns rather than gouges, bruises instead of breaks. It was a tangle of knees and forearms and chests, muscle-on-muscle, warm through the thinned-out patches of their uniforms. Both fought to win as long as winning meant prolonging the fight.

They'd both won in lessons, today and everyday, their competition fierce but entirely unspoken. There was no place for this boyishness in the running to become a cardinal, to ascend to Bishop. But they both felt the fire all the same, and here, now, they had a place to put it. Into each other, in their shared air, broken up with exhales and barked laughs.

Tyler couldn't help it. He felt disgusted. He felt euphoric. He felt alive.

The whistles blew.

They fell off each other, pushing up from the ground. Tyler knew punishment was coming, or at the very least, attention. But for once, he couldn't manage to be afraid. Exhaustion and adrenaline flowed through his veins, the day's complete lack of precedence making him lose track of how to react to anything. There was no blueprint for the Cardinals' violence or the way Enoch's arm had felt pressed flat against his chest.

They were separated, reprimanded, escorted directly back to domiciles without food. But Tyler wasn't hungry, not like that. He allowed himself one final impulse, a glance cast back to the other boy. He turned the cheekbone he could already feel starting to bruise, offering a reckless half-smile. A confirmation, a thank you maybe, or fuck you.

Instead of Enoch, his look caught on a furrowed brow, head cocked slightly to the left. Caked in dust, eyes over-communicative in a language Tyler hadn't learned to translate, standing stock-still like stone.