Into the Dark {l.h. + a.i.} || lashton || BoyxBoy

| t h i r d |

| t h i r d |

•••

"When the moon fell in love with the sun
All was golden in the sky
All was golden when the day met the night."
-Panic! At The Disco, When the Day Met the Night

•••

"I can't go in there." I said, planting my feet and holding myself together as best I could. "Luke, my mother is in there."

"Yeah, she is."

"Luke, please. Please, please, please. It--I know this is my fault, but--," I started to feel my voice get brittle and break apart at the edges as Luke narrowed his eyes at me, seeming confused.

"Ashton, why did you kill yourself?" He asked finally, simply.

I swallowed. I thought. I took a breath.

"I guess..." I started, "I guess because it all feels very pointless to me. Life isn't very beautiful."

Luke and I were standing in the parking lot of the hospital. Calum and Michael had already gone inside after a long, tense car ride, and my chest felt like snapping rubber bands.

I expected Luke to do what he'd done at Calum's house--to force me to look, to see what I'd done, but instead he just studied me for a long moment, and then turned and began to walk away.

"I--where you you going?" I called after him.

"Follow me." He said in answer, and my legs were spurred into motion, mostly by his inescapable mind control over my body, and maybe a little bit by true curiosity as to where he was headed.

The hospital was in Cress, though many might have been deceived by the sign that read "Welcome to Piss." One of the many scholarly vandals inhabiting Cress had decided to spray paint over the C, r and e to make the town name a bit more descriptive of the actual town.

Cress was reminiscent of what I had always imagined an area plagued by nuclear waste fallout might look like. It was like real-life The Simpsons--the towns-people of Cress had dismal social skills and they all looked just a little bit off. You'd see a nice middle aged woman from a distance, but up close you'd realize she had a 5 o'clock shadow. You'd see a normal teenage guy, but when he smiled, every tooth in his mouth would be rotted out. That kind of thing.

Of course, this was probably due to the plethora meth labs that could be found in Cress, but sometimes I liked to pretend I was the only human on an alien planet, observing people while the soft-spoken British man from the Discovery Channel ran a narrative inside my head: On the horizon, we see a flock of 20-something women who seem to carry weight solely in their necks and ankles. Only time will tell, but I am almost certain that if we head toward Walmart, we'll find their mates.

Luke was walking with the odd air of hurried non-purpose that I'd begun to notice he kind of exuded. I was a couple feet behind him, and took the time to study his wings.

They were oddly angular, and tinted gold like everything about Luke seemed to be--his gold eyes and gold hair and the strange gold aura radiating off every inch of his exposed skin. The feathers were long and delicate looking, and upon closer inspection I saw that each one had it's own unique white and gold design--sort of like millions of monochromatic peacock feathers.

"I can feel you looking at me." Luke said, bursting my trace and snapping me to attention.

"Your wings are beautiful."

"Beautiful is such a stupid word. You humans fill your language with such stupid words." Luke said, with an odd amount of acid in his voice, like he was harboring a personal vendetta.