I promise you would rather be somewhere else

Flower of Melancholy - submitted by @meowstic-seer-of-the-future

The descent always made his ears pop. He worked his jaw, swallowed, and kept his eyes on the leather of Arthur’s boots in front of him.

Arthur stood with his weight shifted to one hip, carbide lamp dangling from his calloused fingers. The pale skin at the back of his neck was streaked with the day’s first layer of dust, dark hair already damp with sweat that dripped down to his collar. He didn’t look back at Wayne and Wayne was grateful for that. He’d find Wayne staring at him far too often if he did. But Arthur’s hand found Wayne’s wrist in the dark before the cage jolted to a stop at the third level and the shift boss started barking orders. Just a brief squeeze, thumb pressing against the pulse point. But it settled him.

They’d been at this for eight months now. Long enough for Wayne’s hands to crack and bleed and heal into something that looked more like his father’s than his own. Long enough for the clay to work its way so deep under his fingernails that no amount of lye soap could scrub it clean. His older brother Billy had spent three years in these tunnels before the cave-in crushed his leg and left him walking with a cane at twenty. Their mother had wept and prayed when Wayne told her he was going down too. She’d stood in the kitchen doorway with flour on her apron, her mouth working around words that wouldn’t come, and finally just pressed her palm to his cheek like she was memorizing the shape of his face.

Wayne had wanted to tell her it would be all right. He’d wanted to say he’d be careful, that they needed the money, that the company store was eating them alive. But what came out instead was the truth, Arthur’s name. “Arthur’s going, I have to go with him,” and his mother’s eyes had gone quiet and knowing in a way that made his stomach clench. 

He didn’t have the words for what Arthur was to him. He’d never seen two men look at each other the way he looked at Arthur. In church they talked about sin between men like it was a thing that happened somewhere else, to other people—city degenerates and foreigners, not boys who grew up chasing jackrabbits through the sagebrush. Wayne had searched himself for sickness, for the corruption the preacher warned about, and found only this: a certainty as solid as bedrock that he would follow Arthur Parrish into the ground if that’s where Arthur went.

The shift stretched fourteen hours. Wayne swung his pick until his shoulders burned and his vision narrowed to the seam of coal before him. The dust hung so thick in the tunnels that breathing felt like swallowing sand. Around him, the other men worked in silence broken only by the ring of steel and the drip of water somewhere in the dark. His father worked two levels above. Arthur’s father worked the east drift. None of them spoke during shift—they saved their breath for survival.

When the whistle finally blew, Wayne’s back cracked as he straightened. He wiped his face with his forearm and left a smear of black across his tan skin. Arthur appeared at his elbow, lamp off now, his lean frame outlined in the dim glow of Wayne’s light.

Arthur looked up and smiled at him and bumped his shoulder.

Wayne just looked back at his friend and nodded. It was all he needed to say.

Their day off came slow. The rest of the week was filled with more of the same—darkness, sweat, the endless rhythm of pick and shovel. Wayne’s mother counted out ration stamps at the kitchen table, her lips moving as she calculated how to stretch the flour and the sugar. His father sat in the chair by the radio, too tired to do more than listen to the staticky broadcasts from Denver. Marcus propped his bad leg on a stool and whittled, his face drawn and old before its time. Wayne watched all of them and felt the future pressing in around him like the walls of the mine.

He was seventeen years old. Everyone felt he should be thinking about girls, about marriage, about the things other boys used to discuss in hushed tones behind the schoolhouse. Instead he lay awake in the bed he shared with his younger brother and thought about the way Arthur’s breath caught when Wayne’s hands found the hollow of his hip. He thought about the salt taste of Arthur’s throat and the sounds he made when Wayne touched him in the places no one else had ever touched. He thought about how Arthur’s pale skin flushed pink in the hills, how his dark curls looked spread against the golden grass, how his body arched like something holy when Wayne took him in hand.

He would’ve slept in the next morning, would’ve taken advantage of the day off to rest, but this was his only day to be alone with Arthur and he couldn’t sleep a second longer. Wayne pulled on a worn shirt and overalls worn soft at the knees. They were the cleanest clothes he had. He told his mother he was going fishing as he pulled on his boots that were already splitting at the soles. She nodded without looking up from the washtub, her hands red and raw from the lye.

Arthur was waiting at the parish fence line where the town gave way to the foothills. He’d shed his mining shirt for a threadbare undershirt that showed the lean lines of his shoulders, the ridge of his collarbones, his smooth chest. His curls were longer than he usually kept them, falling over his forehead in a way that made Wayne swoon. His friend grinned when he saw Wayne coming, that reckless grin he never showed to anyone else—the one that cracked through his respectful facade and revealed the fire underneath.

Arthur made a sound of greeting and started walking. Wayne fell into step beside him, their shoulders nearly touching as they climbed.

The late summer heat had burned all the green from the hills. All that was left was golden grass and gray sage. The heat had scorched away the wildflowers and the tender sprouts of spring, leaving only the hardy scrub that could survive the drought. The sun beat down on the back of Wayne’s neck, and sweat trickled down his spine, but he didn’t mind. Up here the air was clean. There was no coal dust, no diesel fumes, just the smell of sage and hot rock and the cracked mud of the distant creek bed that had dried to a trickle weeks ago.

They walked in comfortable silence, picking their way between boulders and patches of prickly shrubs. Wayne watched Arthur move ahead of him, always captivated by the easy stride of his long legs, the way he pushed through the brush without hesitation, the pale strip of skin where his undershirt rode up at the small of his back. Wayne’s hands itched with the want of touching him.

They found their spot in a hollow between two ridges, shielded from view by a stand of juniper and a tumble of granite. The ground was flat enough, covered in dry grass that crunched under their boots. Arthur stopped and turned, and Wayne saw his chest rise with a deep breath—the first easy breath either of them had taken all week.

“God, I’m tired,” Arthur said. He pulled his undershirt over his head in one motion, revealing the pale torso beneath, the ridge of his ribs visible beneath the skin. Mine work was lean work—no softness left on either of them.

Wayne let the straps of his overalls fall from his shoulders and then reached for the buttons of his own shirt, but Arthur was there first, pushing his hands aside with an impatient sound. Arthur’s fingers worked the buttons from the top, knuckles brushing Wayne’s throat, his chest, his stomach. Each touch left a trail of heat that had nothing to do with the sun.

“Let me,” Arthur said, and Wayne’s hands fell to his sides.

Arthur peeled the shirt off Wayne’s shoulders and let it drop. His palms slid across the tan skin of Wayne’s pecs. Unlike Arthur, he has started growing a patch of dark hair in the center of his chest over the past year. Arthur loved running his hands through it on his way to Wayne’s nipples. Wayne’s breath caught as his friend thumbed them. Arthur smiled, that private smile, and leaned in to press his mouth to Wayne’s collarbone.

Wayne’s hands found Arthur’s hips, pulling him close. The contact made them both groan, even if it was just dusty denim against dusty denim. Wayne buried his face in the curls on top of Arthur’s head and breathed him in. The faint mineral smell of the clay that had worked its way into both their pores but he could still make out the scent of Arthur underneath it.

They undressed each other slowly, piece by piece, dropping their clothes onto the dry grass to make a rough bed. Arthur’s fingers traced the lines of Wayne’s ribs as he pushed the overalls down past his thighs, and Wayne returned the favor, palming the sharp jut of Arthur’s hipbones, the lean muscles of his thighs. They were dirty—of course they were dirty, they were always dirty now—but neither of them cared. Wayne pressed his thumb into the crease where Arthur’s leg met his hip and felt the grit of coal dust against his fingertip, and all he could think was more.

They sank down onto the makeshift bed, clothes bunching beneath them. The dry grass pricked at Wayne’s back, but he barely noticed because Arthur was climbing over him, knees bracketing Wayne’s hips, pale skin glowing golden in the afternoon light. Wayne reached up and pushed the curls back from Arthur’s forehead, and Arthur turned his face into Wayne’s palm and kissed the calloused heel of his hand.

“I see you every day but we only get this one day together,” Arthur said. His voice was low, rough. “If I had it my way, we’d have a whole life of this.”

Wayne’s throat tightened. He didn’t have the words Arthur had—never had. What he had was his hands, his mouth, the whole of his body that he would gladly lay down in service of this boy. He pulled Arthur down and kissed him, open-mouthed and hungry, tasting the salt of his sweat and the faint sweetness of the chewing tobacco he favored.

Arthur kissed back just as desperately, his tongue sliding against Wayne’s, his hands braced on either side of Wayne’s head. Their hips moved together in a slow grind, and Wayne felt Arthur’s cock press hard and hot against his stomach. He reached down and wrapped his hand around both of them, his own length sliding alongside Arthur’s, and the sound his friend made was like nothing that existed in the world below.

“Wayne—” Arthur gasped against his mouth. “God, Wayne—”

Wayne stroked them together, his grip tight enough to make them both shudder. The heads of their cocks slid against each other and Wayne’s hips bucked up into his own fist. He couldn’t tell where he ended and Arthur began—just heat and pressure and the slick slide of skin on skin.

But he wanted more. He wanted to take Arthur apart piece by piece, to memorize every inch of him, to worship at the altar of this body that had become his religion. He released them both and Arthur made a sound of protest that turned to a moan when Wayne rolled him onto his back and started kissing down his chest.

Wayne had gone to the county courthouse with his dad once a few years ago. It had been a whole day’s trip but worth it to see the biggest building he’d ever seen. It stood three stories tall and a whole block wide. The entire thing was built from stone, mostly gray granite taken from the quarry two towns over, but the front steps were a smooth, pale stone that rose up to thick white columns bracketing the entrance. He often thought of that beautiful stonework when he was face-to-face with the expanse of Arthur’s skin. It was just as smooth as the texture beneath his tongue. The steps had seemed to swallow the sound of his footsteps as they’d climbed to the front doors. Wayne felt like Arthur’s body would do the same. Like he could scream his deepest worries into the nook of his friend’s neck and he’d take them all away.

Wayne’s mouth found Arthur’s nipple—pale pink, tight—and he sucked it between his teeth. Arthur’s back arched off the clothes, his hands flying to Wayne’s hair, fingers tangling in the shaggy strands. Wayne worked the nipple with his tongue, then bit down gently, and Arthur’s hips jerked.

“God, Wayne,” Arthur groaned. “Have mercy!”

Wayne moved lower, kissing the ridge of each rib, the hollow of Arthur’s stomach, the faint trail of dark hair that led him lower. Arthur’s cock lay hard against his thigh, flushed pink, and Wayne nuzzled against it, breathing in the musk of him, the heat. He pressed his lips to the head and tasted salt.

Arthur’s hands tightened in his hair. “Don’t tease.”

Wayne wasn’t teasing. He was savoring. But he took mercy on them both and opened his mouth, taking Arthur in as deep as he could go. Arthur’s cock was long and lean like the rest of him, and Wayne had learned over their months together how to relax his throat, how to breathe through his nose, how to take all of Arthur and hold him there until they were both trembling.

He set a slow rhythm, pulling back to tongue at the head, then sinking down until his nose pressed against Arthur’s curls. Arthur’s hips stuttered upward, fucking into Wayne’s mouth in shallow thrusts that made Wayne’s jaw ache in the best way. The sounds Arthur made—gasps and moans and bitten-off curses—were louder than the wind in the juniper, louder than Wayne’s own racing heart.

“Wait—” Arthur pulled at Wayne’s hair. “Wait, I don’t want to—not yet—”

Wayne released him with a wet sound as his friend propped himself up on his elbows. He looked back at the wet and throbbing member in front of him. He dreamed of it sometimes—often—but his subconscious never really captured the true beauty of it. He gripped Arthur’s ass and pulled his body closer so he could nuzzle his face in closer to his lover’s core. He held his body close and let his raging heart settle a bit. He felt like something was slipping away from him and these stolen moments were all he could do to claw it back. 

His friend’s fingers traced the hard lines of muscle on Wayne’s shoulder. They were one of the few good things that came from a life of menial labor. “My dad says they’re opening a new drift next month,” he said. “Deeper than the others. More dangerous.”

Wayne’s stomach clenched. “You don’t have to volunteer for it.”

“It’s not about volunteering.” Arthur shifted to look at him. “They’ll send the youngest and freshest down first. That’s the score, we go down and we dig and we hope the mountain doesn’t swallow us whole. It’s what our fathers did. And our grandfathers.”

Wayne thought of Billy, of his mother’s face, of the future that waited for them like a trap. Wives they didn’t want. Children they couldn’t afford. A lifetime of darkness and dust until the earth claimed them back. He couldn’t fathom ever caring for a woman the way he cared for Arthur. The very thought of anyone else’s hands on him, anyone else’s breath against his skin, made him nauseous.

“We’ve been damned to that hell by God himself,” Arthur’s voice was shaking in his anger. He only let it out in quiet moments like this. “The only fucking mercy we’ll ever see is if a stray boulder puts us out of our misery early.

“There’s got to be something else,” Wayne said.

Arthur was quiet for a long moment. Wayne could feel him deliberately untense parts of his body. Then he said, “I heard a man in town talking about the shipyards in California. He was making his way out there for a job. They’re paying real wages—not company scrip. We could go. You ever wonder what the ocean looks like?”

Wayne crawled back up Arthur’s body and took in the emotion in his eyes. He almost saw something like hope in them, and it made him want to cry. He bent his head towards him. They kissed again, Arthur tasting himself on Wayne’s tongue, and Wayne felt Arthur’s hand wrap around both of them once more. This time Arthur set the pace with slow, deliberate strokes that made Wayne’s vision blur at the edges.

Wayne couldn’t stop touching him. His hands roamed over Arthur’s chest, his sides, his thighs. He traced the ridge of Arthur’s hipbone and the hollow of his throat. He palmed Arthur’s ass and pulled him closer, grinding their cocks together in Arthur’s grip. He pressed his forehead to Arthur’s and stared into those dark eyes, so close he could see the flecks of gold in the brown.

“I’d follow you anywhere,” Wayne said. The words came out rough, barely a whisper, but Arthur heard them. He would’ve heard them just from the look in his eyes even if Wayne had never opened his mouth.

Arthur’s hand sped up. His breath came in short bursts against Wayne’s lips. “Then let’s go,” he said. “Let’s get out of this place. Go west, go east, go anywhere—”

Wayne’s orgasm hit him like a cave-in—sudden, devastating, leaving him buried in the rubble of his own release. He spilled over Arthur’s hand, over Arthur’s cock, his whole body shaking with the force of it. Arthur followed a moment later, his back arching, his head thrown back, a sound torn from his throat that was almost a sob. His release mixed with Wayne’s, slicking the space between them, marking them both.

They lay there in the aftermath, chests heaving, the hot air stirring the sagebrush around them. Wayne kept his arms around Arthur and held on. The sweat cooled on their skin, turning the dust to paste, and Wayne thought absurdly that they’d need to wash in the creek before going home.

Wayne pulled Arthur closer and pressed his lips to the crown of his head. Soon they would have to dress, to descend, to return to the world that had no place for what they were. But for now, in this hollow between the hills, they were free.

“I mean it. Wherever you go,” Wayne said against Arthur’s hair, “I’ll follow.”

Arthur’s hand found his and laced their fingers together. Dust and dried spend and the salt of their mingled sweat caked their naked bodies. This was his religion. This boy, this place, this fleeting moment of grace before the darkness called them back.