Paula
The aftermath of early spring rainstorms brought the smell of damp earth and sun-kissed conifer leaves down on a warm wind, ruffling the long, loose hair of two figures making their way through the emerald blur of the forest around the facility. The smaller of them, red and quiet, led his taller companion across a soft expanse of moss, weaving them between the tallest trees.

Owen had some idea of where he was going, though he kept telling himself that he could just go a little but farther, because it couldn't hurt. He, truthfully, was waiting for his eloquently-worded speech to come back to him; with every step through the brush, perhaps, another point would come back to him from the buzzing creeping up through his head.

None such luck.

He wiped the palm of his free hand on a faded patch of his pants, humming low in his throat. It was too warm to be bundled up in all his worldly comforts—a familiar green hoodie was reinforced with his old denim vest, lined up and down with stitches of red thread and faded logos, printed claws, painted bones.

One glance back at his beloved's face brought him a little peace, even if they were probably a little bewildered at his silence since insisting they come with him. His pace slowed a little, and he squeezed Uriel's gloved hand; the bronze-haired boy could never help but smile at them when he did that, every time. *You can do this. You've been talking, and you've been thinking, and you can do this.*
Carl
Uriel had little idea of what compelled the boy (*Their* Boy, they like to think in their sugary sweet head) to drag them all the way to the middle of the forest. Nonetheless, they let themselves be dragged around by their wrist, their lack of resistance betrayed by the small quirk of a smile on their face and a fond gleam in their eyes. 

Times like this, they felt like a supporting character in a fairy tale— they were a princess being whisked away by a knight, or a fairy watching with amusement as they walked amongst the forest growth. 

At this point, they were used to being dragged to random places with little explanation by Owen. However, one thing remained constant; whatever the journey was for was always worth the wait, and so Uriel stared at the back of the boy in front of them with adoring eyes.
Paula
"I-I should probably tell you what we're out here for, shouldn't I," Owen started, coming to what senses he had left when Uriel looked at him like that. Butterflies flapped in his stomach, sending ripples of warmth to his every extremity; their effect on him, one of many, pushed against his ribs and nibbled at the tips of his fingers, melting into syrup. He faced them, looking fixedly at their hands.

"I, I've been thinking um, a lot, and—well, you remember how when you —no, ah, hang on, I had it..."

Stepping a little closer, the boy laced their fingers together, letting his thoughts again become dreamy and fluid. Despite how his bothersome tongue prevented him from saying much clearly, he wanted to tell them everything about everything. Even through their glove, he could feel their heartbeat—slower than his, and quieter, like an echo tucked behind his own. Their sweet glimmer of life.

"There's, um. A proper introduction I'd like to make," He tried again after a moment, smoother the second time. "I don't... Really know how to explain it. You, you bring me out of my shell, yeah? Er—you're kind to me, to p-parts of me that I'm not very kind to, and, and it's making me want to be kinder to what's been scaring me for-for a long time now."

As if on cue, a ripple of reddish-orange light ran through his fingers; against their palm, Owen gently trembled. The sticking power of his therapist's wisdom and his own determination were tested a thousand times a minute, it seemed—his first memory of that shade of glowing red was one of fear, the first of many of the same. Supplanting that legacy was something he could only be crazy enough to attempt, something only his beloved Uriel could inspire him to be crazy enough to succeed in. Just this once, the river of trapped firelight beneath his speckled skin didn't disperse.

"I'll only ask you t-to trust me, like you always do."

Callused fingertips tugged nervously at the end of their glove.

"May I? P-please?"
Carl
"...Ah." 

Lips parted, grey eyes wide. Uriel's white eyelashes fluttered open at the startlingly intimate request, their pallid face growing warmer. 

Wordlessly, they shake their head yes, the air sucked from their lungs from the oh-so-sweet earnest expression on Owen's face. Talking here seemed an impossibility— they were too busy staring at the swirl of golden fire around Owen's fingertips. 

*Trust him, like they always do.* 

As if he even had to ask. 

"I... I would like to meet it." They uttered, their words only privy to the nervous boy in front of them and the mystical, large forest enveloping the pair. 

"It is you, after all."
Paula
Owen savoured every moment with Uriel that he could take to order his thoughts, as slowly as he needed. Every word out of his mouth sounded strange, painfully uncoordinated, backwards; from his own eyes, warm in his skull, he felt a tiring but sharp gaze, unrelaxed and ever-present. But, what radiated from theirs was only patience. They understood. *Whatever this meant to him, they would understand.*

"And-and, it's *You...*"

He trailed off, methodically loosening each fingertip, breathing deep and slow the scents of dryer sheets and old wood. Uriel's glove slid off to his pocket, and the sun shone through their pale skin, glinting silently off of an array of tiny silver scars. Every nerve ending that recognized their cool skin wanted for more of it, always, to hold safe and precious from any who had dealt them those little slices and knots of pain.

A silly thought, from the troublesome heart of only the most hopeless of romantics, but Owen supposed that it meant enough to warrant the big deal he made of it. The heat rushed in his ears, behind his scarlet face, and through the skin over his hands; he was screwed, deeply and helplessly.

"*Ach..* How do I say that it wants to hold you without s-sounding insane, heh?" His palms, hot like the stones circling a bonfire, encase their hand, pressing it flat. "Since the first time you held my hand, *Cariad*. I... I thought, then, that I might understand this—thing—as something gentle, I, this-this part of me wanted to. It wanted to hold you. I didn't know that it could—that it w—that—"

His brief ability of mostly-complete sentences evaporated from his tongue once again, leaving him with that one sentiment repeating over and over. 
*In.*
His skin buzzed.
*Out.*
_ _

That translucent red, glinting orange and gold in the light, spilled from between his fingers like a heavy mist, the hot breath of a gentle beast. Owen's power, mute and obscured, soft and fluid and tentative like it had never been, kissed every knuckle, ran along each line in their palm. It was as though he had never touched them, or anyone, before in his life—the sensation was so odd and so necessary that part of him ached like he was still anticipating it, still holding his breath. 

He had hands, and suddenly he had never had hands, and he had no idea what to do with either of his hands or not-hands or any of him at all, save for staring with the widest eyes.
Carl
"Insane? Do not worry about such a thing. We'll be mad together, if that's the case— for you make me turn to a bumbling fool." 

Owen stuttered and tripped over his words, and yet Uriel knew exactly what the boy meant. The feeling of something inside you that only caused strife and anguish wherever it went— it was a feeling familiar to both Owen and Uriel. They did not need his words to understand the joy of knowing yourself to be capable of something good. 

It being because of them, however, was a fact that still made their head swim. 

...And, their internal monologue about raging beasts in the hearts of children who couldn't know any better stuttered to a halt as something warm spilled upon their palm. The glittering gold fire licked the tips of their fingers, warmth spilling down their hand as it followed the natural calluses of their hand. It paused to inspect every barely-visible scar that faded silver with time, old wounds serving as a riverbed for the molten red-gold shield. 

Uriel sharply inhaled, hazy grey eyes looking up at Owen with impossibly pink cheeks. Their eyes flitted between the shield tracing their skin and the other's sparkling eyes, words failing to form any sense of coherency besides the stutter of a lovestruck fool. 


"I, um," They shudder. "D-does it like me?"
Paula
"*You're so cute...*"

The worried bow of Owen's lips stretched wide into his lopsided smile, a giggle like sparks crackling up from his chest, bright and warm.

"It loves you, *Fy annwylyd,*" He whispered, his voice creaking ever so gently. "It—it sings every time you t-touch me."

His fingers moved to curl around theirs, bringing their enveloped hand up to his face. The glinting gold in the molten-red-faced boy's eyes matched the ether flowing over their skin as he rubbed a circle in it with his thumb, watching the fiery haunt of his distant nightmares twirl and fold over itself in what must only have been joy. It did indeed sing, low like the rumble of the floor under his old amplifier, melodies of clumsy, strong fingers over the rhythm of his quickening heartbeat. 

Pressing Uriel's hand to his cheek, their adoring fool slid their sleeve back, rough fingertips tracing the soft, *So soft* Underside of their wrist up their arm. More of the humming, searching stuff followed, tiny arteries under his freckled skin lighting up like their every breath fanned the furnace wound throughout him. Once it was allowed, that oft-obscured piece of him delighted in being awake—it was bolder than he would ever be, turning his own flesh raw pink (he was close to inventing a new shade of the colour), revelling in this new form.

Little ridges like the melted edges of broken obsidian formed over the back of their hand, flakes of armour padded by liquid sunlight. In those moments, they were in his blood, wound into his soul, captive audience to every song of which they were the muse.

"Every time you kiss me," He murmured. "Every time you look at me like that."
Carl
I respond after my game dev presentation

They never thought their skin to be beautiful— it was too pale to be something worth admiring, a color that was almost translucent in the setting sun. However, clearly they were wrong; the golden fire that cascaded down their skin seemed to have a different opinion, tracing every groove with the enthusiasm of an explorer. A shaky, emotion-filled breath shuddered, and helpless, hazy grey eyes swam with adoration. 

It was hard to think in this state; Uriel would have liked to imagine themselves as a cerebral person able to contain the muted feelings they had, but the tides of the fiery river working its way down their skin had consumed their emotions whole. They were helplessly drowning in a sea of bliss, with no desire to swim to the shore of clarity. 

A cool thumb brushed against a cheek laden with acne scars, reveling in the feeling of their palm pressed against their beloved's face. 

And— Uriel shakes, doe eyes wide open, lips silently parted about to say words they were unable to find. Their other hand slowly makes its way to their wrist, and the liquid fire curls around their finger. 

Uriel brings the hand back to their face, examining the liquid fire up close while still thumbing the skin of Owen's cheek. *It's golden,* A soft voice in their head murmurs. *His heart is golden.*

And, with little occupying Uriel's mind save for the yearning for Owen's golden soul, they lick the essence of Owen's soul off of their finger.

"U-um..." 

A silence falls upon them, face turning even brighter at their brazen action. 

"S-so you'll always be with me..."
Paula
Uriel's presence still had that effect on Owen; the effect of warm molasses dripping through his brain, over his tensed muscles, filling his mouth with sweetness. Here, when he felt them practically under his skin, this effect was tenfold—his eyes, lidded heavy and hazy with the same gold running between his fingers, followed their movements slowly yet fixedly. He wondered, somewhere behind that smitten gaze, what they saw.

The boy hummed softly when they stroked his cheek, his melted shell following suit. He wondered if it could crawl any further—if he could reach, with this odd sense, around their chest to feel their lungs expand, their shoulders stretch, their voice rumble. That familiar hunger had been creeping back, increasingly lacking in shame, heavy in his stomach, swirling in his head, and sharp in the palms of his hands.

He followed the path of their arm to his cheek over and over, in case they might see dancing in his eyes the image of their fingertips reaching into his chest and sinking deep into his heart.

"H-hhuh?"

A bewildered, shuddered sound escapes him when the smallest piece vanishes behind their lips. Owen could still feel it, almost, before it dissipated somewhere in their throat—the fiery stuff was quickly losing feeling, separated from his body, but he was still aware of the warmth around the little satellite curling around their tongue. He might have felt their voice rumble, from a place he couldn't fathom, but his head was suddenly too hot and dense and perplexed to be sure.

"Is-is that, is it..."

*Safe? Painful? Precedented?* Uriel had never cared much for any of those things, in the time that he'd known them. The bronze-maned boy's heart pounded beneath his chest, his face turning a shade of red so miserably hot that it seemed to glow from beneath.
_ _

*How intimate*, he managed to think through the rush, *To be consumed*—all his faceless fear and pain in this tender, molten form offered up to them, accepted so completely. Owen wondered if the rushing in his head might deafen him, if he would sob for days afterward.

Callused fingertips trembled gently as they traced the slope of Uriel's throat, smooth and pale as milk. Loose strands of spun-silk were swept aside, his heels just barely lifted from the moss.

"Keep... Keep it safe, cyw," He murmured, breath curling into the soft hollow somewhere below their ear, softly nuzzling their cheek. Without thinking, his lips brushed their neck, gliding down the path that piece of him must have taken. The motion was the final stanza of a poem, he thought, a prayer for safety, sealing his offering with a kiss, with three, with five.

*Fuck.* His chest heaved. *Have I ever kissed them there before?*
Carl
Owen's love was something Uriel still had trouble accepting. Nevertheless, they took it with little pushback, save for the tiny gasps of air as the redhead snatched the breath out of Uriel's lungs. 

They're light, and yet— they feel like they're burned into Uriel's skin, lingering there far after Owen pulls away. 

Uriel's head swims. If their face wasn't already bright red, it would've been even more flushed. 

"M-my love," They breathe into the crook of Owen's neck. "If I could only ask one thing of you... It would be to never leave my side."
Paula
Heaving a sigh and leaning into his beloved, Owen mused that this would be a lovely place to turn to stone.

In a fairytale sort of a way, a doomed romantic rhyme, where the sun's rays froze the two of them in time forever; in an eon, someone would find them, standing in the moss under the gentle sun, still twined together like cats' tails. They might muse about how tender their faces looked, with nothing visible but their eyes fluttered shut and noses buried in shoulders, hidden smiles pressed into once-warm skin.

A sorrowful thing, though, he decided, for something so gentle as their breath on his neck and their request buzzing in his ear to be turned to cold dew. 

Strong, heavy hands move from pinning theirs to his cheek to slide down their sides, gentle as whispers and just as weighted. As his pinky fingers traced their waistband and his palms crumpled together over the small of their back, he nearly forgot what they had asked him.

"If you'd let me grant you such a thing, *Cariad*, it's my command," He whispered, the tip of his nose rubbing against the soft down of their neck.

The flames had retreated, satisfied, sinking back through his cheek and his palm, but when he extended his fingers to encompass Uriel's back, it felt like they might keep going forever until every inch was pressed into his chest. In the back of his mind was the image of their hand, complete with every line, fingerprint, tiny scar. He knew it like another part of him, a map tucked between his ribs of someplace he'd gone to conquer a grand, impossible fear.

His voice broke when he murmured his *"Thank you,"* And felt quite certain it would have dissolved completely if he said it any louder.

Owen hummed, and the rumbling in his chest might have sounded to them like the sigh of a great sleeping beast.
Carl
Lemme finish funeral lunch

...Had to take care of very drunk mom. Whoops
Paula
Patpat
All fine and dandy
Carl
To be held so firmly by another... What more could someone desire, besides the persistent hands of a lover tethering them to this plane? 

Uriel dreamed about such a thing with their whole soul. They closed their eyes and felt his hands on their hips, tracing their figure and holding onto their back— surely it was the figments of a dream, and yet it persisted even as they opened snowy eyelashes against Owen's cheek. 

This was the foolish teenage love Uriel had hungrily read about in their fairy tales— but instead of watching as a narrator in the clouds, they were the character who's heartstrings were so deftly tugged on by the bassist. 

What could they do? It was a walking dream, and yet the dream weaver was completely helpless to Owen's charms. 

"W-we should..." They gasped, another wave of bright red consuming their cheeks. "Y-you should think before you speak... Unless you're intending those phrases to toy with my heart..." 

Uriel barely pulls away, arms falling to their side and holding Owen's hand in front of them. "Such sweet words... How gluttonous of me, to eat them with such fervor." They sheepishly mumbled, burying their chin into their poncho.
Paula
It wasn't that Owen *Couldn't* Stifle that little whine when Uriel pulled away from him, but he did feel strongly about it. The air now between them was an ache, and the insistent hammering in the boy's chest threatened to shake his posture, his composure long left in shambles. The hand they gripped squeezed with a desperation.

"*Please...*"

His voice slid like butter, practically dripping at the edges as nearly all the warmth in the boy's body melted toward his chest and his face, pooling in his stomach and his hands. He thought of their cool skin, hidden behind their collar, and his head swam—what was he to do with such a longing, now that he knew he didn't have to quell it?

"Indulge, *Please*," He pressed, stepping into them again, pressing their joined hands between their chests, their knuckles against his heartbeat, fit to push him away if they so desired. The weight of that strong, callused palm travelled from there up to their collarbone, fingers splayed over the curve of their neck into their shoulder. Despite their layers, he felt warmth, and thought he might faint.

"Could, could I be devoted.. To you as well?" 

His fingers moved their collar aside to reveal their face; the pads of his fingers slip across that smooth, cool skin along their neck, and in that moment he was hopelessly, *Blissfully* Obsessed with it. With them, with the way they fit together. Owen's knees shook, but he leaned up despite it. One hand cradled their face, the other gathering a weak fistful of their poncho, drawing them ever nearer.

"For you, Uriel. All for you. I want, I *Want* You to..."

Their foreheads pressed together, noses brushing softly. His lips lit on their cheek after he trailed off, the unspoken end of that sentence blooming a wreath of roses with petals of liquified flame deep in his gut.

_ _
"As much f-fervour as you like," He murmured. *What possessed him to* Say *That??* What *Was* He, letting those thoughts slip from him, brash and ravenous, putty in their hands, yet gripping them for dear life?

A shaky, molten breath, and he crushed his lips against theirs, another weak sound loose in the back of his throat. He kissed Uriel like he wanted them to forget the meaning of gluttony entirely; or, as close to that as his young, clumsy, overexcited form could allow.
Carl
Uriel could accept this as a good end to their story. Here was about the time the credits would start rolling; a velvet curtain would slowly close in on the stage, the actors of everyone involved in their life stepping out in front and taking a bow. Owen would get the most applause, they think— he'd raise his arms as he came out last, earning uproarious support and perhaps even a standing ovation. 

It wouldn't be beyond Owen, they thought. After all, if he was going to receive a standing ovation, Uriel would make sure they were the first to rise from their seat. 

...Ah, but. The curtain *Didn't* Close. Owen was still kissing them, his nose poking against their cheek and warm lips pressed against their own. He was still here, and they were still kissing, and there *Was* No curtain slowly marking the end of Uriel, Owen, and the world as it was.

And so, Uriel kissed him back, and their soul— which they'd finally came to accept might have been an actor this whole time, if only because there was no way a staring role like Owen could fall in love with a narrator— sighed sweetly, for there was no music playing them out, and they could melt into his embrace for as long as they would like.