TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of religion, strong language, alcohol, physical abuse, self harm/scars.

5. Red.

What did it feel like on the days you couldn’t see him?

Late fall, 2017. Sundays bled into Monday like a bruise. Eliseo hated Sundays; Mason hated them worse. Eliseo guessed it was church and family, the hollow loop of prayers and plates that swallowed Mason whole. He smelled the Sunday the next day, incense or stale coffee clinging to Mason’s hoodie, and it was always wrong.

Weekdays were small warm things: stolen vodka, dizzy slow dances under streetlights, cigarettes that kept hands busy. Mondays were for the damage. Fists into concrete, raw knuckles wrapped in bandana, tears wiped in the dark. When punching the asbestos filled walls of the abandoned hospital didn’t open whatever closed inside him, they went to the railroad tracks and lay down, breath fogging into white, and let the cold settle in. Mason would knit his brows, press his face tight, and the tears would come anyway.

Eliseo stopped asking what was wrong. He made guesses that maybe he hated the Christian agenda as much as he did, maybe his parents, maybe he lived in a hoarding situation, but the answers didn’t matter. He wanted only to be the one who could make the crying come, to be the hands that shook it loose. So they practiced their small deaths together on the rusted rails. Two bodies breathing cold into the dark, each exhale a rehearsal for the end.

Did you ever feel afraid for your friend?

Early summer, 2017. A Saturday night, though Eliseo remembered it like a Monday, because Mondays were always the days they broke each other open. They weren’t dating or anything weird like that. They just held hands sometimes, mostly Mason’s idea, and Eliseo never minded. Whatever Mason was looking for in the touch, Eliseo wanted to give it.

The railroad tracks had gone soft with green, rust swallowed in vines. Eliseo talked too much, as usual, words spilling into the dark.
“Mason, I know you can talk,” he said suddenly. “You know, man, I’d love it if I could hear you say my name. Not in any gay way or anything, I just… I just want to know you’re real. I know that sounds crazy, but I’m not crazy, I just want to make sure I’m not. Of course you’re real, but like...” He cut himself short, realizing he’d lost the thread again.

Mason stopped walking, eyes steady on him. Mason’s eyes were always saying something, “how do you know I can speak? what makes you so sure?”, but never out loud.

Eliseo smiled, gave him a light shove, the kind they’d traded for years. Mason snickered, but his ankle rolled, and he gasped. Instinct: Eliseo’s hand shot out, grabbing his sleeve. And then he froze.

The hoodie wasn’t Mason’s, it was his. Their Saturday ritual. Hoodie swap. A small comfort before the grueling Sunday. Mason’s sleeves hung loose, one pulled back just enough.

Red.

The red welts, the scabbed-over cuts, the purpled bruises climbing his arm, up to above his elbow.

For half a second Eliseo tried to rewrite it. Maybe Mason fell, maybe it wasn’t what it looked like, but Mason’s eyes were wide with panic, already tugging the fabric down.

And suddenly, Eliseo couldn’t see anything else. The corners of his vision swirled, blotted, red.

“Mace…” he started, but the word crumbled in his mouth.

Mason shoved him, hard, sending Eliseo stumbling back onto the tracks. For the first time, Mason’s touch was all force. No anchor. No comfort.

The first kick landed sharp against his ribs. Then another. Eliseo curled, arms up, but he couldn’t decide if it hurt more that Mason was the one hitting him, or that he had finally glimpsed the truth Mason was trying so desperately to bury.

Red spread everywhere.

When did you start seeing red, Eliseo?

Eliseo does not remember. Maybe, he never stopped.

Author's note: OKAYYYY SHIT GOES DOWNHILL FROM HERE BE READY.......