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 Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 4:15 pm
Lawrence hadn't slept through his birth and therefore there was no reason he should sleep through his death either, he reckoned. It was fine to be awake. He chatted even while he was bathed, enjoying the oils more than he let on. He'd always been vain, or at least had been such before everything had gone wrong. He considered this different from vanity, it wasn't about looking good, it was about presenting the best possible offering as he left, about showing that he appreciated the body he'd been given, even if he hadn't always treated it appropriately. He wanted things to be easier for Rodney, but the ritual soothed him too.
He listened as the other man talked with the same avid attention he'd paid before in their conversations and nodded. It was the forgiveness part he clung to the most, the idea that even in spite of everything there was some thin sliver of hope. It had become a fixation that bordered on zealotry, concerned with little else than that he could somehow be redeemed, that he would make it to heaven and be there waiting when Rodney inevitably arrived. How could he not, with such devotion?
Carried over Rodney's shoulder, he rested a cheek against the other man, not struggling at all. "I'm glad I met you." he said.
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 4:41 pm
"I'd change this if God granted it," Rodney said, some part of him still holding out for a sign, for an angel at the last moment to stay his hand. But the man he was carrying was not an innocent child, like Abraham's son. It was a man stained with the blood of children.
It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck...
"But I wouldn't change having been your friend."
And anyone could change. Be given a new heart, a new self. There was an altar, and a set of cups, and on a folded cloth in the middle of an altar a secespita.
It was always early in the morning. It gave Rodney the rest of the day (and daylight) to clean and prepare the body.
He set Lawrence down, and Lawrence could see the finished statue. It was surreal in comparison to the sketch, the stone impossibly and deceptively touchable, the fabric frozen, billowing in invisible winds with paper-thin parchments and carefully-crafted notes...the pieces Lawrence had written during his stay. Huge wings arched behind the angel, feathers crafted in gentle layers.
The candle was a frosted garden glass, the whole of it luminescent from base to tip, made to withstand the outdoors (if not as much time as the statue itself). The angel protected it from the elements with stone hands.
"I'll keep it lit, while I'm alive and able," Rodney said.
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 4:48 pm
Even when time forgot him, the statue would endure, and that was important to him. He openly admired it. "I'm very, very impressed. I don't know what I was expecting but even my imagination couldn't do justice to the reality of it. It is gorgeous. Thank you."
Rodney got a genuine smile. "I appreciate the sentiment and the idea of being able in some way to be here. I appreciate you in general, I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't ended up running into you. We aren't so different and yet we are completely different. I'd just have liked to get to know you better and for longer, in another time and place, where our circumstances were different."
He took a deep breath and exhaled. "So, when do we begin?" he asked. "And what do you want me to do? If clothes are an issue I can remove some of them too, I don't mind being cold for a little while, so long as you promise me it will only be a little while."
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 5:06 pm
"No, you don't have to worry about that, your clothes can stay on," Rodney said. "I'm going to give you a blood thinner. It...won't take long. I'll collect the blood in the cups. You'll feel a little sick, and dizzy, before falling unconscious. I'll...need to remove your softer parts after you're gone. In the end, they'll be burned, along with the blood. I'll be sure, first. The rest can be dried and preserved. Each statue has an opening. Your body will be placed inside. My will dictates a very large donation with the stipulation of the preservation of the garden. And...I'll be buried here, too. But...not for a while, maybe. I can't know the day or hour."
Rodney set the knife at the foot of the altar.
"Are you ready?" he asked. "Have you...had enough time? I...left Butch at the house. She'll miss you. And I can't explain to her..."
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 5:15 pm
"I've had a lifetime of time." he said. "I just didn't use it correctly until now." He shivered, not with cold but with a fear that wasn't of death but something else entirely. "I'll miss her." he said. "I'll miss her and I'll miss you. If there was anything I was afraid of, anything at all, it is just the idea of having to go somewhere away from here."
"I just wanted a home, a home that I couldn't ruin. My whole life was a long sequence of breaking every home and family I touched. I felt like I'd found somewhere here I couldn't break. You've been kinder to me - the real me, not some front - than anyone in decades." He eyed the altar and the fear he felt was almost refreshing, an actual honest to god emotion, not a pale shadow of one.
"Keep her busy." he said. "Give her lots of exercise. Don't get caught."
He smirked. "But I'm ready, and I still love you right here and now, god help me."
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 5:25 pm
"I'll take care of your body, but you...will be sent on." He knelt where Lawrence was, and held him again, a long while.
"You're...very dear to me. And I...hope that we meet again."
Then he picked Lawrence up. It was easy, physically, but his heart felt like it was encased in lead.
He lay Lawrence on the altar.
Rodney bent over him and holding his hand (with the left), prayed a final time...for guidance, for strength, and for mercy for both of them. Clutching that hand, and in a burst of emotion, he touched his lips to Lawrence's, kissing him fully and for the last time.
Then he took up the knife in the right.
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 5:32 pm
It was all he'd wanted and with the most primal sort of terror running up and down his spine, it was enough to steel him from struggling or doing anything just as undignified. He returned the kiss and meant it deeply, it was better than words and said everything he might have otherwise failed to articulate.
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 5:37 pm
The cut Lawrence barely felt at all, a rush of warmth, shock, and endorphins.
Nobody had stayed his hand. They were both where they were supposed to be.
Rodney arranged his hands over the side, and rivulets of blood ran down grooves, where Rodney held and replaced the cups as the life drained from his friend.
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 5:43 pm
It hurt but not half as much as other things Lawrence had had happen to him in his life, barely anything once his body kicked in. He knew shock existed more or less to make dying easier and that was what it did now, easing everything back to a dull haze as sentience became harder and harder.
He was where he'd ended up. He'd brought himself here and the people he'd killed had never had it as easy as he got it now.
Rodney was the one he held onto, even when sight faded he gripped him as best he could until in the end his strength faltered and failed too and he let go, going limp and still, looking truly relaxed in a way he probably never had in life.
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 5:54 pm
The rest of the day went as Rodney had described it. He'd done it all before, but it didn't make it easier. The body took more than a day to fully prepare, but once Lawrence's body had dried, he and the statue were both placed by the overlook, where Rodney took Butch to see the mountains.
LIfe went by as it had, with no conversations or gallery openings or wine tastings. He went alone. He watched alone. He waited alone.
But at the overlook, he'd talk. About the day. The things he'd seen and tried. As if Lawrence could hear him (and he hoped in some ways that he could).
He celebrated the New Year at the overlook too, and left a second glass of champagne beside him on the bench.
January turned into February, and on into March, where the first stirrings of spring were spreading through the garden, and the fresh green shoots of flowers began to spring up through the snow. The year felt slow and strange.
Until at the gas station near the end of town he saw a child alone by the counter, trying to buy milk with too many bruises.
And he felt his right hand clench.
Word count: 6635
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