Wings

By:  Sierra

 

::I touch you and take it away, my dear::

 

Joey stood by the window, wondering. There was a distinct film of dirt coating the window, and he felt an urge to reach up his fingers and touch the glass, which looked more like plastic to him anyway.

 

The entire sky outside was dim, in the hours that stretched from afternoon into night, where it wasn't quite one or the other, but was balancing in a fragile unstable existence. The sun from that sky gave the light coming through the window panes a distorted look that threw shadows that weren't quite shadows yet onto the dirty wood floor. He closed his eyes, wondering if when he opened them, the night would come. There must be a certain moment, he thought, when one second could be considered the afternoon, and the next, night. He wondered if he stood there long enough, if he could capture it in time.

 

He could be the Columbus of the sun, discovering the instant when the mood of the day changed and the music in his mind switched tracks to steady and solemn, brought on by the night. Maybe he could even feel the instant the temperature dropped. Joey wondered if he put his fingers up to the pane like he wanted to, with a light, stiff, and hesitant touch, he could feel the temperature inching downwards steadily.

 

"What're you thinking, Joe?"

 

Joey didn't respond. He could feel the temperature of the sun setting dropping simply from the heat that was reflecting onto his face. He could hear a train rattling in the distance, and he knew that the record in his mind was being taken off the player and switched for another one. He felt a wave of difference and sensed something softening in the air. He could feel the night coming and he didn't want to break that concentration.

 

"Joe?"

 

He was scared to shift his weight and reach up to rub his shoulder beneath the light cotton shirt he wore. He was thinking so intently on the cold and the change of everything, that he could feel a shiver running through him. Joey didn't dare break the throbbing in his head that was focused miles away on the setting of the sun.

 

"Hey, Joe? Joey!"

 

He bit down on his lip with such a passion that a slight crack was exposed on the lower portion of the flesh and bright red began to trickle from it. Squeezing his eyes shut, his eyelashes flickered up and down in a rapid motion. In extreme concentration, as the voice began to throw him off, he contorted his features into a pained expression that reached all the way down to his feet, pushing hard into the creaking floor.

 

Justin finally lifted his head up from the intense stare he had had on the floor, and noticed the whiteness of Joey's knuckles and the straight stance he had taken on. He looked like a paling ghost in front of the window, shaking and breathing rapidly. Justin looked up and down the reddish-orange-ish light that was brightening Joey's wincing features and felt a pang of dread inside.

 

"Hey…", Justin whispered, reaching out for Joey's hand.

 

Joey could feel the sensation of night creeping over his face, and he began to relax his fingers from their tense hold.

 

Just as Justin's fingers hung in the air, about to make contact with Joey's, his eyes snapped open and a satisfied smile spread over his face. He licked the trickle of blood away and wondered why it tasted like the sea, and looked down to Justin.

 

"I found it."

 

Justin snapped his hands back and rubbed his hands along his thighs from the cold, looking up with eyes full of shivering. "Found what?"

 

"The night. That second when it reaches the night. It's finally here."

 

Justin looked out of the distorted apartment window and cracked wood panes and saw the darkness spreading over the sky. Without a doubt, it was night, but he tried to keep his confusion in check. Joey looked so pleased with himself that Justin didn't dare speak out against him.

 

"Oh, okay, Joe."

 

Joey was focusing on the view out of the room again, and he could see the lights across town just beginning to turn on one by one, flashing across the sky. With the street lights blinking on in a burst of brilliance, he could suddenly see spots of people that were invisible before. Straight below him, curled up against their building was a young man cradling a guitar and strumming out the chords with a beauty that only he and few other select people in the world could hear. The car horns were distant, since most people were steering clear of the street they were residing on. It was just Joey, Justin, and the boy below with the guitar.

 

In their own light, the room was darkening except for a small lamp on a lop-sided table. Joey could see Justin lower his head with a sigh out of the corner of his eye. He was sitting in a slumped over position on the one bed that had too many loose springs and dipped a little too low in the middle, with his legs awkwardly pushed over the iron bar on the end.

The weight with which Justin put his hand up to his face was immense. He slid his head into the hand and let out a long breath.

 

"Look," Joey sighed, "we're going to get out of here."

 

The floor creaked as Justin shifted his weight on the bed. Somewhere below, a dog was barking and a police siren sounded, almost with a desperate ring.

 

"I don't think so anymore, Joe. I used to think we would, but the winter turned into spring, which turned into summer, which turned into fall, which turned into winter, and here we are… still here, in this shit-hole." Justin took an immense interest in his thumb, staring at the creases on the knuckle. "I used to believe you when you said that we would get out of here 'soon, soon, soon', but it hasn't come. It's everyday, coming back to this same dark room, this same dead street, in the same dying town…"

 

Joey was silent, knowing he couldn't argue. "We're getting there, Justin. I know you don't want me to say 'soon', but I think if…"

 

"My fingers are frozen, Joe. I can't feel them, and I've lost the feeling in my toes a long time ago. Do you know how much insulation there is in here?" Justin motioned to the walls and rubbed his arm along the crook of his elbows. "None. I opened up that loose board in the wall today and there was nothing in there. Just wood, then air. Freezing air." Justin looked up with eyes that were drowning and tearing in frustration. "I can't use my fingers if I can't feel them."

 

Joey knelt down to put his hands around Justin's, and although his were just as hard and frozen, he began rubbing them vigorously up and down the younger man's fingers. He looked straight up into Justin's face and saw pain and years etched on there that he didn't deserve. He wanted nothing more then to take Justin to the Plaza Hotel and warm him up inside, while buying him a five course meal.

 

But Joey knew they barely had enough money for hot chocolate from the man at the news stand around the corner. He had bribed him for his scarf when he had seen him slipping pot to a teenager, a police man only five feet away. It was the same scarf Justin wore tightly around his neck now. Seeing the man's body shaking up and down, his teeth moving in a steady beat to the guitar that was still strumming outside, Joey's heart began to break again. It tore him up inside to see Justin from day to day, knowing that trying his hardest wasn't good enough.

And Justin understood this, but it didn't keep his lips warm and pink, shades away from the white and blue they had taken on as a normal color.

 

It was surprising how quickly the darkness had come, and left one sitting, one standing, in a small dark room only lit up by a small pool of light. Outside, a street light sputtered and blinked off.

"Look," Joey said, straightening and glancing upwards. "Now we can see the stars."

 

Justin lifted himself off of the creaking bed and joined Joey at the window, looking up into a sky that was vast and interrupted by stray buildings of brick and concrete. He leaned his weight into Joey's and linked arms in an effort to calm his body and warm it at the same time.

And the guitarist straight below coughed and stopped playing, leaving the street in a dead and cold silence. It remained like that, a street frozen in time, until he picked up another song. It was slow and surprisingly haunting.

 

Joey slipped his hand down his thigh to meet with Justin's palm, and squeezed it once, before bringing it up quickly to his shoulder. Justin's eyes widened in questioning, and Joey pressed his forehead to Justin's to calm him.

 

"Shh…", he whispered. Joey turned his body around and linked the fingers of his left hand with Justin's right, down next to their hips.

 

Joey pressed his forehead so closely to Justin's that their eyelashes met, flickering once or twice. It reminded them vaguely of the fireflies that blinked lazily in the summer, seeming not to have enough strength to light up one last time.

 

Justin could feel Joey's body heat flowing through the thin shirts they wore, and tried to push his chest even closer, with eyes still locked on Joey's deep brown. It was hard not to be caught up in them, and they spoke more volumes to him then any word at that moment would have. Justin felt his body beginning to sway back and forth as Joey rocked his own slowly.

 

Their feet moved tentatively at first, a slow shuffle across the floor, each grain of dirt rough against the bottom of their soles. It was then that the silence came, the absolute end to any noise in the entire world except for their breathing and the sound of the guitar a few stories below, out the window.

 

"I'm only a man, with a silly red sheet…"

 

Justin bit the bottom of his lip, watching Joey's eyes and seeing his mouth move at the same time.

 

"Looking for, kryptonite on this one way street…"

 

Their movements became larger, as Joey led across the floor of the apartment starting in small turns, concentrating on shifting his and Justin's weight back and forth to the rhythm of the guitar.

Justin closed his eyes, letting his body sway and his mind wander as only Joey filled his senses. Joey's hands, Joey's chest, Joey's voice. Joey was moving energy through him.

 

And a pigeon was silhouetted by the dim light outside and the small amount of light inside, as it sat on the outside of the cracking glass. It was glaringly obvious that there were two figures dancing slowly across the room, but it wasn't clear as to which was holding the other up.

 

Justin had lowered his head to Joey's shoulders, listening to the vibrations his voice was making through his body. Joey had his eyes closed and his head swaying, leaning into Justin's body in such a way that made him seem very strong and vulnerable at the same time. They were the only two figures in the world, they believed. The only two real lovers, they knew.

 

And it was difficult, when Joey reached the end of his song at the same time the guitarist did, holding his note and fading away into silence again. Joey glanced down at Justin's head, and neither wanted to move. In low light, candle soft, they simply stood there. They stood there for a very long time, still slightly rocking to the words in their minds and taking small, circular steps that were barely visible.

 

It was Justin that raised his head up, looking at Joey once. "We'll get cold again soon, Joe."

Joey looked down at Justin's tilted neck, upwards eyes, and breathed in the wood scent Justin always seemed to carry before he brushed his lips along Justin's cheek. "Okay."

 

Joey slid off his shoes, leaving them in the middle of the floor, and Justin, already in thick woolen socks, found his way over to the bed unsteadily. He curled onto the creaking mattress and pulled up a torn blanket around his shoulders, which were hunched and waiting.

 

Joey was soon to slid in beside him, taking less of the blanket over his body, thinking about how shivering was supposed to be the body's reaction to cold, in an attempt to keep the body moving. He wrapped his arms around Justin's body, tracing his fingers up and down Justin's skin, hoping that the tingling feeling both of them experienced from that would provide a little heat.

He began to think, he began to wonder, staring at Justin's closed eyelids.

 

'When does it happen… sleep? Dreams? How does it happen?'

 

Soon they were free to dream without the cold concrete, the rattling bone-shaking subway stations, red-rimmed eyes, and blankets full of holes. They were free from the absent dollars and cents, empty boxes of cereal, and weighted sighs. And Joey, holding onto these thoughts, listened to Justin's breath, feeling it grow slowly steady and patterned.

 

He could be the Columbus of sleep… and he listened, he waited, he flew. He held onto Justin tightly, trying to find the exact moment when Justin fell asleep.

 

'They are wings', Joey thought, feeling his arms lifting them both into the warmth and nothingness of sleep.

 

The End

 

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