Snake Bite

Chapter 3

He should have known from the start. He never lasts long enough to see a battle won. Soft tree, soft bark, disappearing behind him. It was never his to win. The tree is gone, and the ground is setting him down gently. Someone else was supposed to fight for him. Abbacchio's mouth floods with metal. He spits it out. Sharp red stings his chest where the metallic taste lands. Something is pulling at his legs. The sensation is cloyingly sweet, like he has taken mouthfuls of brown sugar, gritty and thick. He spits out the sweetness. It lands on the red: white foam, white satin, white cloth with black spots. The spots are too quiet. They make Abbacchio's ears hurt. He wonders why his ears are on his leg. Something about that is the wrong color. Blue would taste better against the ear on his leg.

"Abbacchio. Stay with me."

Right. He needs to focus on Buccellati. The snakes will incapacitate him with their venom otherwise.

"They already stung me." Abbacchio's voice sounds too much like the shape of rain. "My ear is on my leg."

Concern is like four pinecones dancing on Buccellati's tongue. "I know they stung you. Try to stay conscious." He frowns, hands on Abbacchio's knees. "I don't think I sound like pinecones."

Abbacchio tells him that it's a strange position. "Feet are supposed to drive into the ground. They're red roots of trees and you are a tent." Buccellati nods. "You're all in the wrong dimension. Heads go away from waists. Your face isn't for going near legs." Abbacchio wonders how Buccellati managed to mess up such a simple thing as standing.

"You're not standing either, Abbacchio."

Abbacchio's mouth drops open in surprise the color of lightning bugs. He watches as a few of the beetles crawl up his face and fly away. He's not standing up. The sky is looming out in front of his face in the wrong direction. The ground is tattered sheets against his back. "Ah," he says. "No. We are both on the tattered sheets."

"If you say so." Buccellati's hands are dragging blue against Abbacchio's ear on his leg.

"Ears," Abbacchio cautions. "I won't be able to hear the colors."

"That would be an improvement. Stop squirming."

"I'm not."

Sticky Fingers reaches down to where Abbacchio's ear was on his thigh. His ear is back in its proper place, but there is sparkling yellow pain high on his leg where the ear used to be. Cool air brushes against the pain, feathers that are still not the right color of blue.

"Abbacchio. Stay still. You're kicking me."

When Abbacchio looks down, he sees that Buccellati is right. Abbacchio's leg is beating wildly against Buccellati. The impact feels like nothing, fluffy white nothing nailed on at the point of the sparkling yellow by something that looks like an enormous bee's stinger. "Bees took my leg off," he whispers conspiratorially. "They put a cloud on with nails."

Buccellati sighs, and leans hard on Abbacchio's leg to still it. "Try not to knock me out, yeah? I can't help you if I get kicked in the head. I'd just zip this off," he taps the side of the cloud with his knuckles, "but then the poison would be sealed in." His hands track sharp pink around the pain in Abbacchio's leg, making the stinger wobble. "We both need to stay with it. I'm not hurting you too much, am I?" The stinger slips free of Abbacchio's cloud-leg.

"It's a nice flavor of pink," says Abbacchio. "It smells like cherries." Little melted drops of the red lipstick Abbacchio once bought (but only wore once, because it didn't suit him) roll down from the sparkling yellow spot of pain. He wonders how his lipstick got into the cloud.

Buccellati shakes his head and then dips it between Abbacchio's leg and the cloud to press his pinecone-blue mouth against the lipstick-weeping spot of sparkling pain. He must have eaten the cold feathers because instead there is warmth and blue. It hurts, maybe more than before, but now the sensation is the proper shade of moody blue so it feels better. Abbacchio wants to reach down and bury his hands in Buccellati's soft black hair. Buccellati's blue mouth gushes melted lipstick. It looks good on him.

"Hold still, Abbacchio." Abbacchio ignores him in favor of enjoying the silky feeling of Buccellati's hair. It tastes like mint and gold against his hands. When he moves his fingers down to Buccellati's neck, the skin makes Abbacchio think of drinking warm milk. He can smell lavender, pink and supple, in Buccellati's racing pulse. Suddenly it is too much: the pink smell of lavender, the gold of Buccellati's hair, the blue wrapped around sparkling yellow nailed to a cloud. The colors assault Abbacchio from every angle and then, all at once, there is nothing but darkness.