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The wood in the hearth crackled and sparked. Cade and Albright sat on the floor of the small house, drinking and savouring the warmth emanating from the fire. No tables or chairs, all of it smashed to tinder by a now-dead and devoured devil. Albright knew it would be a while off before they could make some replacements, the dampness of the late winter didn't lend any favours to curing wood, and they certainly couldn't afford to buy any either, but that didn't matter. The still surviving sparse furnishings left over by the previous occupants combined with their meager possessions were more than enough. They owned a house. They owned land. They were finally free from wandering after jobs, working for men that didn't give a shit if they lived or died. Exactly the dream that Cade had preached to him each and every night since they partnered up.

Cade took another swig of whiskey straight from the bottle, swallowing it with a shuddering gasp. “Happy?” He asked as he held out the whiskey to Albright.

Albright accepted it and took a mouthful of it himself. It tasted sharp, with more burn than flavour. The real popskull-type stuff that drove the air from your lungs with each sip, the body never fully adapting to the harshness. “I think.”

Cade gave a loud laugh, stole the bottle back then took another drink. “That's a lot coming from you.”

The laughter dropped the bottom out of Albright's stomach, his heart ground into an ache by some nameless, swelling feeling. The man made him feel more than anyone else could, even if he was rarely able to name the sensations. He looked to Cade. The whole world wobbled, Cade with it. Still, despite the blur, Albright caught a brief glimpse of the mark Clay had left upon the man, rings of colour around his irises, the same colours of the soil if you dug down deep enough. Greens, blacks, and reds. An unnerving trait if seen in anyone but Cade, but with him it seemed natural. Albright blinked hard and the colours were gone.

“It doesn't feel real,” Cade said as he turned the unlabeled brown bottle in his hand, twirling it and watching the remaining fourth of the liquid slosh around.

“Yeah.”

“More so than normal?”

“...yeah.”

Cade tipped the bottle too far, it slipped from his drunken grip and clattered upon the ground. “Fuck.” He muttered. Cade pulled his other hand from Albright's grasp and, with a fumbling effort, pushed the cork back into it.

A nighttime ritual, a reflex so familiar, Albright did not realize that they were even holding hands until Cade pulled away.

Cade flashed him a wide, crooked grin. “A sign if any to stop for the night, huh?” He grabbed Albright's shoulder and shook him playfully.

Albright stuck his legs out to steady himself and Cade took the motion as an invitation. He straddled the other man's legs, sitting practically in Albright's lap.

“I'm so lucky that I met you,” Cade said as he draped his arms around Albright's neck, resting part of his weight upon his friend's shoulders. “None of this could have happened without you. And now…and now all I really want in life is to stay living with you,” he slurred. “You ain't sick of me yet, are you?”

Albright puts his hands upon Cade’s hips to keep him steady. Half-baked words formed in his mouth, the syllables slipping from his mind before he could spit them out. He shook his head, the only response his body allowed him to muster.

“How does, how does that song go, the one that you're always singing? I open my grave…?” Cade's words hung in the air, followed by painful silence.

Albright swallowed hard, finding his tongue after a few painfully awkward moments he answered. “Bereft from death-”

“Donned in my shroud, I'm coming home to you,” Cade drunkenly lilted out the bars, finishing the verse. He leaned backward, eyes cast towards the ceiling and brow furrowed in thought as he tried to formulate in his mind the words he wanted. “I'd crawl out of my grave for you. I don't know if I could, given my circumstances, but I'd try.”

Albright laughed, a pathetic wheezing noise that sounded more like a cough or an inadvertent exhale of air.

“Don't laugh,” Cade answered, his voice tinged with hurt. He pressed his forehead against Albright's, “I'm serious. Devil be damned. I won't leave you alone in this world if I can help it.”

Cade's words cut deep. “I know,” Albright whispered, their lips brushing as he spoke. “I'd do the same for you.”

An emotion that Albright couldn't identify crossed Cade's face. Something strong, raw, and animalistic. Halfway between shock and joy, with deep sorrow thrown in. It left almost as soon as it came. “I love you.” Cade closed the gap between them, kissing Albright roughly. His hands wandered, cupping Albright's face and tangling his fingers in his already messy black hair.

Cade's mouth tasted of alcohol, or maybe that was his own or both of theirs. Albright couldn't tell. However, he could smell that sweet scent of dry rot that clung to Cade. A faint part of Albright hoped that it would rub off onto his clothes, rub off onto him, and stay there so a part of Cade would stick with him. He wrapped his arms tightly around Cade's waist, pulling him closer and fully into his lap. Cade always felt warm against him, a small source of comfort that until now had been relegated to private moments that always felt too painfully brief. All those tiny touches and glances that could be played off as meaningless nothings between friends coalesced into this moment of confession. Cade wanted him around. Wanted him to stay in his life with him forever.

An awful thought snaked its way into Albright's mind. This wasn't real. It couldn't be. An all too perfect event, an impossible moment like this could only exist in a desperate dream of someone begging for one last moment of happiness before death. Albright placed a hand on Cade's chest, separating the two of them, and jerked his face away from Cade's grasp.

Cade scrambled off of him, rambling off a mess of apologies and comforting words all the while. It all sounded like nothing more than a jumbled string of noise to Albright. A completely unintelligible cacophony with the only gleanable part of it being Cade's frantic concerned tone. His body felt leaden, existing only as a horribly distant chunk of dying flesh. Cade had grabbed his hand again, firmly holding it in both of his own. The sudden warmth and motion grounded Albright just enough for him to make sense of the other man's next words.

He gave Albright's skeletal hand a gentle squeeze. “Why don't we get to bed?” Cade asked with a pleading tone.

Albright gave a weak nod in response. The moment was gone if it had existed in the first place, and he had killed it.

They quietly readied themselves for bed, like a knife in the gut, the house felt painfully silent without Cade's usual nonstop flow of chatter. With one bed between the two of them, not like the house could fit another, they slid into their separate sides. Cade kept well to himself, purposely lying right against the edge so as to not bump into Albright, an almost impossible task considering the minuscule amount of space between.

Albright closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable sensation of Cade's hand seeking out his own. The minutes crawled by or maybe hours, hard to tell when the only way to keep time with only the light of the fire to go by. Albright turned his head and looked at Cade. He hadn't moved an inch, still facing towards the wall, but now breathing slow breaths that hitched at the end.

Albright reached out to him, hesitating for a few seconds before tugging at his shirt sleeve. Cade didn't respond. Albright tugged again, before sliding his fingers as far down Cade's arm as they could reach. Cade rolled onto his back and Albright took his now accessible hand in his own, interlacing their fingers. Strange hand in strange hand, marked by the land they lived upon.

“I love you too,” Albright said.