#waylaycr

The ink traveled up, and Jude’s thighs softly squeezed Kris’ hips. Kris’ room was dim and dark, but comfortably so, with nostalgia humming in the corners over trinkets and livable messes. The bed sheets were crumpled at the end of the bed, and here, together, they shared the epicenter. It felt like the immediate aftermath of a bright fire; living quietly in the black ashes of a warm summer night.

Because, really, that’s what it was. Long, dark hours of midnight escapades and rebellious rendezvous. Their feet were sore and their clothes smelled of fresh dirt and foam. But they had won, and it was another three a.m. alone together, mutually clinging the the remnants of conspiratorial adrenaline.

Jude tilted his head continued to murmur out his own responses to Kris’ comments.

   “Hey,” he said eventually, “stay still. Here.”

The pen is lifted and feathered, going from chin to lip to over Cupid’s bow, ‘Jude’s’ is written over Kris’ mouth, and Jude kisses it dry. His laugh whispered over heated skin.

   “Don’t worry, we can’t get ink poisoning from this shit. Gotta deep throat like ten of these things to worry about that.”

Palms hover over cheeks and waists and the cap of the pen lightly presses into the flush of Kris’ face. Jude idly begins to tap it in some mindless rhythm. Then, fingers hook under pale chin, and he’s drawing over brow and cheek bones. Each star, each heart, each personal signature comes stamped with a press of the lips. Even when marks begin to create new paths. Traveling over jaw and down to the thrum of a throat. Jude blooms both flowers and bruises in the grove of Kris’ clavicle.

   “It’s also waterproof–I can help you wash it off afterwards.”

He doesn’t say when he plans to stop, especially when pen is left hanging unused in between fingers, eventually. Time and space is occupied by only the reverent apparitions of affection. Carving through adoring touches, Jude was good at hiding the clumsiness of inexperience. But he knew Kris could still pick out every slip of the teeth and stuttering pause of a gaze.

On the bedside table, Jude’s phone lit up at 3:43 a.m. He puffed out a breath, leaning back, seeing a dark, blurry photograph from Sally. He tucked the pen behind his ear. Hair either fell free from the action, or got caught over the hook of the cap. Arms–free of heavy sleeves, only the slim-fitting cotton of his v-neck now–stretch over broad shoulders, and he’s pushing the both of them into well-worn pillows.

A beat, and he’s just observing Kris, understanding what can be only understood in the solitude of a late night comfort. Then he rolls off, and goes to his side of the bed, flicking open the message from Sally.

   “Or we can take a shower in the morning, that’s all up to you, dream guy.”

It was a very blue summer in a very green backyard. The town was a bauble of smooth, humid glass, with trees and rain pressed desperately against its cramped walls. It was convoluted and overwrought and crazy and Sally wished it had lasted forever. That delicate vignette of adolescent memories.

Charlotte was in the left swing, while Sally was in the right. Charlotte was still, watching an ant crawl over the toe of red leather shoes. Sally kept swinging, higher and higher until she almost flipped herself to the ground.

When she finally slowed down, Charlotte asked, “Do you know the, uh, lullaby? Ladybird, ladybird?”

Charlotte had a wistful, crisp voice that Sally liked. Charlotte had curly red hair and dark brown eyes and everything about it made Sally wish autumn came home sooner.

Sally shrugged, “Nah.”

Charlotte dug her heel into the damp mulch. It had rained, earlier. “Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, your house is on fire and your children all gone. All except one, and that's little Ann, and she has crept under the frying pan.”

Sally had listened, and Sally felt disjointed. Sally was twelve years old and was still awkward and growing, without much to call her own. She collected dead birds and hovered at doorways. Only, as of late, Charlotte would be there with hand sanitizer and impatient tugs.

   “Your middle name is Ann.” Sally could only think to say. She didn’t like the rhyme all that much.

   “Oh,” Charlotte could tell. Charlotte seemed to pick up a lot of things when it came to Sally, and Sally never figured out how. “It is. Hm, okay, what about Daisy Bell?”

   “Does a daisy catch on fire in this one too? C’mon, Charles.”

At that, Charlotte twisted her swing closer to Sally’s, draping her long, knobby arms over each other. “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do! I'm half crazy, all for the love of you! It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage, but you'll look sweet on the seat of a bicycle built for two!”

It wasn’t sung, it was yelled in a joyously careless hymn. The sole of her shoe rubbed Sally’s calf, peeling off old band-aids and scabs by accident. Neither noticed. Sally teetered back in her swing, hands locked around the summer-heated chains.

   “Your breath is awful!”

   Charlotte laughed, and it sounded like fallen leaves on the sidewalk. Thinking about cooler days, hot chocolate, no mosquitoes to bite their cheeks as they waded through the backwoods’ river. Sally wished it’d lasted longer.

   “Sally, Sally, give me your answer, do! I’m half crazy, all for the love of you!”

   “Oh, no!” There was that girlish squeal of surprise, giggles overtaking as she pushed at Charlotte’s boyishly skinny waist. Charlotte was ticklish, and she hated that Sally always remembered that.

They grappled, swings creaking as they bowed together, hands fighting and voices mingling. Charlotte still singing highly, even with all the giggles. Sally was just kicking the best way her unrestrained, youthful self knew how.

It was a tight, overly hot series of days that melted into teals and faceless plays. Hearty sunsets with shy clouds, casting vague shadows over the tiger lilies in the Cartwright’s backyard. They’d go from white to pink, and Sally and Charlotte would spend every evening picking at them, waiting for the fireflies.

That made Jude frown. An annoying though. All of that was practice for this real crazy shit, this world-ending pre-apocalypse, and it hadn’t ever been good enough?

Jude slowly slid a foot further down the coarse shingles. At least he had the previous experience of severe rooftop angles. He tipped himself over the edge, looking at dusty grass, snowy foam, and shambling sleepwalkers. All of them, moving like zombies, like they were constantly without reason, straying off path and scaling fences with the uneven gait of something not normal.

In the white lit street, Kris’ silhouette cuts sharply over a motion detector. Its red lasers flicker, just barely over the flooding florescence, and then they die completely. Kris shifts, and Jude raises a hand. Hey, man, good job, it says. Just the little things.

There’s something about the weight of exhaustion, too many sleepless nights of fear-driven adrenaline, that pulls at the bones and makes you crumble to gravity. Jude’s foot slides, his hand jerks to stick out the side, and he careens over.

It’s a thudding impact of dirt in his mouth and grit in his palms. His head hurts, and his chest heaves something painful. Just barely a groan, first thought goes to who’s nearby to have heard?

Kris, who’s already there, gently hovering his hands overheard, unsure but firmly concerned. Jude lifts his head, and it takes a moment to unrattle his brain.

   “I’m fine, man, I’ve had worse.” He mumbled, hand coming up to dig his nails in his scalp. Pulling himself up by his own strands, not staying grounded. Kris is quiet--they only spoke in whispers out here.

Jude’s knees bend, and he’s back on the ground. He’s twisted and broken and blundered himself enough to know a sprained ankle when he feels one.

   “Recount on that, actually,” he hissed, “ankle’s bit it.”

Kris was considering it with a heavy look. Jude didn’t meet it, focused on testing the damage instead. (He didn’t want to face Kris, not after that slip up.)

Alright, walking, let alone outmaneuvering sleepers and metaphysical angels of death, wasn’t going to work now. He reached up and gripped the hand Kris offered out.

   “Yeah, this is real fucked for me.”

Still focused on his ankle, Jude’s legs are bent precariously, painfully. Kris gripped him, suddenly, in a way that he was pulled off his feet. Hand under the crook of his knees, another tucked under his upper back. If Sally weren’t his sister, this manhandling would’ve been considered in more surprise.

Hands clutched Kris’ shoulders, and Jude feigns usefulness by checking past him, looking for anything approaching. Nothing, not even within the flutter of an eye. Jude could be more put-off if he hadn’t already had a history of being lugged around by Sally--although her’s were often to cause damage, not mitigate it.

He lightly tapped the back of Kris’ neck with the heel of his palm.

   “Is this the part where I’m meant to swoon?”

It was the best way he could approach it, acknowledge the edge of this position. Jokes always worked, better than straight embarrassment. Whether or not Kris could make the trek back to the meet-up point like this was a question for the night, but for now, Jude just added lowly, still not looking Kris in the eye,