Ashes to Ashes Pt. 01

The fight has left me somewhat tight and sore and to have another set hands wander my muscles and bones. Smart fingers, too, finding spots and bits to ease away. As he probes me, the chill probes back, nipping and poking and needling his fingers. He doesn't pull away, even as his weight keeps getting sliced and flowing back to one indomitable mass. His weight pours into me. My joints lock underneath it.

"I just want to warn you," I say, "You are getting a little too brave. Might find something that you can't win against."

There is a streak of glamourous foolhardiness in him as his hands dip from the shoulders and go to my chest. The chill sparks and flows into him, knife dagger teeth ripping through his skin and he holds up. He grunts and grips and unfortunately that damn chill locks his grip tighter and tighter and tighter, thin bony fingers piercing into one of the few soft spots on my body. I laugh. I laugh at the trap he so blindly fell into. No wonder I found him in a groove, cut off from the world with rock and stone.

"You are an idiot, my friend," I sigh. The chill cuts and tapers off and he can finally move again.

He decides that the best course of action is to keep his hands there and I simply admire his blatant audacity.

I decide that I like the way his hands feel.

"I get it," I say, "And that's fair. Almost died and all that, but now I have a question for you. Do you want to feel alive?"

Once again, in the space behind the thoughts, I feel the nod and the consent. I lay my hands atop of his and guide his fondle and press. I press and squeeze him and fall into the pulse and chill. Much gentler than the time topside, still that same growth and spread through my muscles. It fills and flows, nipping and kissing at my skin and his. He falls to his knees, joining me in the cool water. It shivers up into him, that same flow of current from my body into the water, the slip and slide and into his body through every point of contact.

One in particular draws my attention and the chill finds it amusing as well. And it has him shivering and trembling once more. He does that a lot it seems. Too much energy crammed into his body, too much nervous vibe and ebb in his core. But it's fine, the pressure poking me in the small of my back on my tail bone. Through the cloth, through the cold water, his wonderful prod gives warmth and calm and whining need as his hands keep pressing and fondling and kneading my chest. Clumsy, very clumsy, but so very eager at every bit of motion, every bit of touch and squeeze.

A hand roams down and caresses my stomach, right on the node of chill and pulse and everything dangerous and wonderful. It shifts and spikes and flows all into his hands. It spasms and shifts and his hand is frozen once more at my touch. My hands leave his and I finally turn to face him. I control his limbs, bring them back to my shoulders and my head and I interlock our legs. The pressure from him goes from my spine to my stomach, right on the heart of the chill. He freezes. Ike freezes and stills and his eyes go wide as the chill spikes into him.

It's a simple matter to let him fall into the water. A nudge really, and he splashes down, soaking him instantly. And he is afraid again. Pinned and trapped once more and he sees something shining and dangerous in my eyes.

I lean down and kiss him. He tastes like rock and stone and immense weight flowing into me. I let the chill pour into him and I complete the circuit. Cold weight flowing into me, into him, out of him, out of me. Harmony in sharp cuts and smothering pressure, hummed melody of the space behind thoughts that are not quite back into the realm of the real. His length presses into my stomach, hard. Eager, very eager to feel alive again, to put the entrapped groove of rock membrane behind him. Eager to get bound and tightened in something else.

It's easy to take off his clothes, even as they cling to his skin, dripping and wet. It's easy to take off my clothes in much the same manner. The circuit breaks and I pull away. Thin, so incredibly thin and straight, weak, just a bit. A few days' rest and some good food would do him good. Still thin though, but that's just the way the figure lies. I pin him to the lakebed, head laying on the shore, hair matted across his pale eyes.

He's in a daze, eyes not quite seeing the reality we share. He sees the reality we feel. Space and time and all sorts of notions just drifting beyond perception. He looks to the me behind myself, the flow of chill within my body, hands joining it to his weight. He goes to my hips and the chill lets him. I go to his crotch and he does not stop me.

Ike is free and proud, standing straight and tall and pressing into my stomach, right along the central ridge of muscle. The chill likes the pressure, likes the flow of weight from it. Something in my core twinges and twitches, sends shivers up my spine. I sigh a ragged breath through him and his smothering weight below me. I lean to his ear.

"I hope you're ready, friend," I purr. I lick his ear and let surge spike through his mind. The echoes hit me a second later and it smooths through him. The shaking's stopped at least, the grip's tightened, and he moves to line himself up with me. It resonates and hums at the edge, at the tip and the spark and line connect and flow as I drop.

Full, it feels good to be full of something round and smooth and smothering within. Weight and pressure. He is simply weight and pressure inside of me, expanding me, stretching me with gentle heat that fills and parts. The cold water slips between our legs and shocks the system, heat and cold intertwined, the same nerve endings giving opposites equal in intensity.

The chill in my core recedes from the extremities, the sharp jagged edges letting go. The soft hollow stays for a minute, stays in my arms and my legs. Vacant abyss with the faintest echo of sharpening blades. Faintest echo of the stab and pierce and delirious shred of my civility.

And the weight comes in to fill the gaps. It comes and goes like the tide, slowly encroaching, almost cautious in its approach. Each rise and fall of my hips coax it further, to take the land so freely offered within me, to spread and open and fill and settle in. It's easy. It's so easy to take the grooves in my being and gently open the fibers and threads.

I reach the bottom and stand in stillness for a long, long moment, savoring the wonderful fullness nestled within. Warm and smothering and soft, an immense beast of girth and weight, glorious weight settled in my body. Such a thin host for such immense presence. I rise again and the weight rises with me. The chill sparks in my breath as I huff and groan in the echoing pond.

"You're glowing," Ike whispers as I reach his summit again. Awe. Awe tinged with fear in the subnotes of those two words.

In my veins runs cold lightning. In my veins, beneath the skin, it glows and crackles and wavers in the dim light of the cave. The arcs play between my fingers, dancing and climbing and suffusing the skin with white-blue light.

"Do you like it?" I hum as I drop. Full once more, savoring the stretch of muscle and skin. My hand goes to my belly and I trace the outline of him through me. His shifts and his thrusts lack power. Again, rest, some food, some sleep and he'll be right as rain. I circle my hips, letting him bend and flex within, hitting new spots, new points of soft chilling sensation that rattle my spine and clench my jaw. I feel the nod once more as my ministrations make speech impossible.

"You're very cute," I whisper in his ear, "Trying to hold on for me. Keep trying."

He shivers and squirms and bucks and writhes, eager for any motion he can make to break through the nervous energy building in the pit of his stomach. The chill that has poured into him seeks movement, seeks motion, seeks cutting and sawing and so many terrible acts and all it gets is the scramble and tantric panic of someone in over his head.

The circuit joins and completes within his spasming motions. A click and a lock, the pieces aligned and I can feel the pressure build within him, in that same space behind thoughts. Instinct, maybe, that most primitive part of the self, calling out to the rest of that grandiose delusion. It feels good. It feels good to be on top and have him in over his head. To peer into him with stark cold light as the pull and tug joins and I slam down on him again and again. He holds on. He holds on as best he possibly can.

And he fails.

Those twitches grow and ebb. Tide of earthquake mountain ranges slowly coming up into me. His face tightens and his teeth clench and I bury myself into his neck, lips to collarbone and he releases.

Warm, so wonderfully warm and filling and spreading into me. The sharp chill and the dull cold, inside and outside, diffuse and flow and sigh. The spark spits and jumps at the filling warmth, fighting back against the intrusion at long last. I melt. The bones and the muscles give way to viscous liquid as everything lets go. The water beyond us sparkles and shimmers and waves with my discharge, bottle storm lightning and thunder clouds. Heavy. I feel so incredibly heavy and wonderfully full.

Cold, so incredibly cold and hollow and empty and tired and heavy. The chill is empty and tired and exhausted. I'm faring slightly better. I do not have the extra power to pull myself up, but the muscle and the flesh and the bone do a good enough job to get me out of the water. A brief moment of rest and I drag Ike with me. He doesn't have quite the momentum to be in full control. He just sits there in stillness, in still solitude and quiet contemplation of what he has done.

"I really did that, didn't I?" says Ike.

"Yeah. And you were alright. About as good as could be expected. Definitely better than I thought you would do, honestly."

"Thanks for the wonderful endorsement. I am exhausted."

"Fair. That's fair. I'm kind of tired too."

"No wonder. You're the one who did all the work."

"You can do more when you're rested up."

I settled into him, laying down on the cold stone, his back to my stomach. Between the two of us, the stone and the water slowly fade and there is only the warmth of skin and muscle and body. My core is calm and warm and full.

"Still on for the deal," I say.

"Yeah. Yeah. Kind of hard to think about what other people will think when you're so close."

Despite its exhaustion, the chill still moves and probes, flowing uphill into him. The remnants of his weight responds in kind, eking and flowing and pressing back into the sharp blade and blunting the edge. It's nice to have a soft cut to my world, not a sharp jagged touch in my muscles.

He touches my hands and presses into my core. I take that as a cue to hold him tighter.

---

We emerge to the night sky, clean and cold and refreshed. Better, it's better than the beating sun and scorching sand. Stars, billions of stars, endless stars that meld and flow together and shifting and melting together into a grand streak of light. It swirls and turns and streaks across the sky. I stretch and turn and it feels amazing to be in a world that is cold and cool and where the suggestion of heat and burns are just as faint as the chill was in the day.

I stretch and click and pop, the surge and spike settling everything into its proper home once again. Just enough part in the muscles to keep them limber, just enough hollow in my core to keep my aware. Good, I feel good. Not great, but good. The glass structure still stands in the center of the aisle, the few remaining still frozen in time. Ike looks to it then back to me. I just shrug. Already, the edges are a little rounder, sand and wind and heat tearing down the monument to my power. Shame. I kind of liked this one. He pokes it and a shard breaks off in his palm.

Ike shivers and clutches at his shoulders. Cold, he is cold and my tattered jacket would do nothing. It does nothing for me, except hug my frame in the desert breeze. He looks to the stars and closes his eyes, soaking in the vast void overhead. No ceiling, no roof, endless sky that twinkles and shimmers. He holds up a hand, thumb and forefinger outstretched. I hear the thoughts in the space behind my mind.

"That way," he says, "That's east, more or less. Might be a day or two, but that's where he should go. We're going to Fingertree Fort."

"Never heard of it."

"Not surprising. Small town. I don't even think its more than a hundred people."

"Seen smaller. Ever been to a Collective's Lodge? Usually have no more than 20 per settlement, depending on how you count. Weird guys."

He shakes his head in the starry light, shaggy hair dancing and bouncing. Ike really needs to be properly cleaned, but that's a problem for civilization. The desert doesn't care. The desert doesn't care for the shifting sands and fluid thought, the iron wills and endless dreams. It only cares for heat and chill and the ceaseless wind blowing across its skin. I shake out my hair. Already, there's dust and grit coating every thread. I pull the mask up. It doesn't keep the grit out, not all of it. But enough to keep me going.

We start walking down the dusty road. Buildings, ruined and squat, line our path. He walks beside me, eyes to the sky, taking in every mote of light pouring down from the heavens. I keep my eyes forward to the rolling dunes. Mountains ever shifting and wavering. Dull gray gold, almost sparkling in the light. I pull the tattered jacket a little tighter. It does nothing, of course. But it makes me feel better.