you will burn in hell, they say {open}

[MARCUS OTTER]

The organ sounded broken. The organ sounded like a million sins stuffed uncomfortably tight into one redundant song. The organ sounded distant. The church was only a mile away, but the mile made the difference he supposed. The mile made the difference, he supposed.

Of course there was no fighting once you entered holy ground. But the mile made the difference. That's what he supposed, anyway.

"David, let's not kill him. Not today. David, just let him go." The voice didn't blend well with the distant organ. The church organ. A mile away. Marcus coughed out a laugh, eyes rolling slightly back as the hand around his neck tightened.

"You're going to hell." David, looming over him, said through gritted teeth.

"See you there, then." Marcus choked back, air flooding back into his lungs with the hand released his neck, and the knee that had formerly been digging into his rib cage was gone. He lay flat, though, listening to the organ, watching forms disappear in the opposite direction of the church. It was kind of hypocritical to go to church after almost killing someone. Then again, it was kind of hypocritical to leave from church and almost kill someone. It was all kind of hypocritical.

Rolling onto his side, he glanced down the gravel road to see if any cars were coming. Wondering if the organ would ever stop. Did the organ player ever go home.

He rolled onto his stomach, head turned to the side, arms moving under him to push himself up. The gravel looked like blurry red and gray, maybe because of the blood still dripping from fresh cuts and wounds.

Dragging himself over towards the woods he pushed through the trees and branches. Just get away from the organ. Just bleed in silence. That seemed like it could be nice.

Tugging fingers through red-soaked hair he stumbled on. Through more trees. Still the organ echoed. Does it ever stop. Does He ever give it a rest.

"There better not be any organs in hell." Marcus mumbled through blood-painted lips, smirking at himself. He hadn't realized where he was going until the Mill was in sight, but now he had to congratulate himself on a find well done. The decrepit looking wood building would do just fine. No way the organ could get through there. No way He'd ever find him there. No way.

Dragging himself onto the top floor, he looked down through a hole in the boards and watched blood drip onto the rotten wood. And then he began to hum. A song that sounded familiar. Like it'd been playing all day. What had it been playing on again?

Oh yes. An organ. He was still here.

[PERRY BUCHANON]

Perry took strolls through the park often - it wasn't a habit that most people knew about, admittedly because he had a reputation to uphold and taking walks seemed a bit too... tame to most. It was something he'd been doing for years, since he was big enough to go running off into the woods for hours on end, coming back dirty and banged up from climbing trees and swimming in brooks and digging in the mud. In high school it had evolved into a routine of getting himself fucked up on a noxious cocktail of drugs and vanishing into the wilderness of the jungle, urban or rustic - it didn't matter - for days at a time. He'd wander home covered in bruises, grinning, a real horror to behold for his poor old mother that he loved so dearly.

The woods here weren't anything like the stuff back home, though. These were desert trees growing out of sandy, dry pebbly soil, twisted things that were for the most part too frail to climb. So Perry just took walks, smoking spliffs, snapping the rubber band on his wrist cruelly whenever he felt the familiar tug of druglust start to hum threateningly in the back of his mind.

It was the only time probably in his whole life when he could feel truly serene, just walking, away from stupid fucking people and their yacking mouths. Just trees and dirt crunching under his feet and an endless stream of cigarettes to give his hands something to do.

He had taken a shortcut through the woods, one that was slightly off the beaten path, towards the shoddy looking mill where he used to shoot up by himself, shuddering under the stars in the dead of night. His therapist would say this was a bad idea - this is the kind of shit that could trigger relapse, yadda yadda yadda. He tromped through the dry crackling grass under his feet, pushing the door open with an elbow and peering lazily inside. He didn't expect to see Marcus lying there on the floor bleeding everywhere, but he didn't look all that surprised, either.

"Well look what the cat dragged in," he said after a long stretch of silence. He stepped inside, flicking his cigarette aside and tilting his head as he peered down at the other boy. A short laugh escaped him and he walked over to where Marcus was sprawled out, dropping into a bird-like squat and raising one very amused eyebrow. "Looks like you've had a rough fuckin' morning, Marcus," he observed, keeping his voice light and aloof. To be totally honest, he wasn't entirely sure how to deal with running into Marcus, especially considering the other's current state.

They hadn't really talked before Perry had left for treatment, not since the incident, and it wasn't like either of them to write (fucking gay, no way they were going to keep in touch).

Perry hadn't even really been planning on finding him since he'd gotten back two days earlier. He hadn't had a sober conversation with the Marcus since high school.

He glanced around the mill and inhaled sharply, body going rigid for a moment before he snapped viciously at the rubber band at his wrist, the skin welling up red and angry from the abuse. Then he looked down at Marcus and added, "Missed me?" just to be a dick. He had to keep in character after all.

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[MARCUS OTTER]

Blood was starting to dry above his brow, on his lips. He wiped and licked it away, grunting as he turned onto his his back and stared up at the ceiling that had slowly been caving in over the decades and now had little broken windows to peek through at the tree-tops. A spider came scuttling towards him and he sat up on his elbow slightly, staring at it contently until it was near his arm at which point he raised a quick fist and slammed it down, flicking off bug parts before scowling at the empty mill.

Someone was coming in to interrupt his lovely time. Who had the nerve. He went to stand up and tell them off, but his arms collapsed under him and he was left sitting in the middle of the floor peering around in the dimly lit building until a voice made the approaching figure clear in front of him. His face went from squinting eyes and pursed lips to leveled brows and a thin line of a mouth. Perry.

His head dropped back on his shoulders, looking up fully into the boy's face, as if studying a peculiar looking animal. Eyes flitting down to where the other dropped his cigarrette, he raised his eyes again. As was his usual nature, Marcus didn't have much of a reply for the other. "Perry, right on time." He finally muttered out dryly, offering a less than enthusiastic smirk.

There was never a right time that the two seemed to stumble into each other. It was always in the middle of the madness and mayhem that was the way they functioned. As was the routine, it had been over more than a few weeks since their last run-in, not a pleasant memory in Marcus's mind- but then pleasant wasn't how his mind worked anyhow. "It's been a fine morning, I assure you." He hummed out evenly, forcing himself to sit up more, looking up under heavily lidded eyes at the man.

He watched his strange reaction to his surroundings for a long moment, frowning deeply before his face resumed it's stoney composure. "You were gone?" He quipped, although not a bit of a smirk crossed his face this time. "I suppose I knew something wasn't here. Just didn't know it needed missing." He mused up at the ceiling, keeping his eyes there for a long moment as he questioned, "So how's the sobriety, not hitting you too hard with reality, I hope?" And he gave the ceiling an uncharacteristic smile.

[PERRY BUCHANON]

It seemed Marcus was still as charming as ever. Perry snorted, turning a little on his heel like he was casting a critical eye over the inside of the mill, when in reality he just didn't want Marcus to see that he was grinning, goofily, overcome by a rare moment of stupid affection for a stupid boy. But the familiarity of the scene grated on him suddenly, squashing the brief feeling of human tenderness; the smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared; he snapped viciously at the rubber bands around his wrist, a sullen look casting darkness over his face. These walls looked just as evil and oppressive when he was sober as they had in his moments of heavily medicated delirium when the stars gushed and exploded, terrifying and apocolyptic through the holes in the roof that had rotted away rotted like us all, love amounts to nothing but rot in the end really -

Snapsnapsnapsnap.

He resurfaced from his reverie with a shudder, moodiness forgotten after a brief moment looking at the forming abrasions on his wrist before he turned back to Marcus. "My timing's never off," he agreed wryly, being so bold as to sit down next to the other boy (first checking thoughtfully to be certain he wasn't squatting in blood). He lit two cigarettes and offered one mildly to Marcus. He adopted the look of some kind of crazy monk, calm, a little sedated by the pot but still alert and aware and even a little serene as he balanced in his preferred bird squat position, hands dangling over the edges of his knees jutting out on either side of him.

"There you go trying to hurt my feelings and we haven't even been talking five minutes, you little cunt, you," he chortled, looking infinitely amused as he reached out and ruffled Marcus' hair just to piss him off, get the ol' blood boiling again like it used to maybe (although maybe not, even without shit in his veins it seemed that the fight in Perry had been subdued, diminished, his eyes got vaguer, his infantile charms got more introverted and secretive).

He shrugged disinterestedly at the half-taunt, half-question posed by his old compatriot. "I dunno', how's the anger meds?" he replied mildly, for once tone absent of any mockery or contempt. His expression was one of curiosity and maybe pity, too, as he looked down at Marcus' face all beat to shit and scowling, stubbornly lively anyway, eyes screaming fuck u to the universe -

For what?

Perry rocked back on his heels and let himself fall ungracefully from his haunches onto his butt, flicking ash from his cigarette. He grinned a little and said, "I got those flowers you sent me by the way, gosh Marcus, that was real sensitive of you to think of me in my hour of need, I always knew you were a romantic." This was all a whimsical piece of bullshit, of course, because Marcus had not sent him flowers, would never in his right mind send him flowers, and if for some reason he ever did send him flowers, Perry probably would have burned them on his hospital mattress dancing and screaming and waving his hands like a maniac just for the principle of the thing, ysee.

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