He rolls down the windows of his Land Rover in order to feel the scorching heat from the tarmac as he drives through the late afternoon smog of Phoenix. The wind the vehicle's velocity generates doesn't cool him down much, but it does help to evaporate the sweat, leaving his skin dry and wind burned as well as sunburned. The dust and grit are choking, but he welcomes it. The orange tinted sky behind him is beautiful, streaked as it is with the intense red and brighter gold of a desert sunset. The sky in front of him is shading to lavender and indigo flecked with stars. He doesn't look at the glittering pinpoints of light; he never does these days.
His dog trots up to greet him as he arrives home and he absently scratches her behind the ears as he unlocks the front door. He spends the evening grading papers from his English 101 students before showering and crawling into bed. If he's lucky, he'll get a few hours sleep before he has to drag himself back out of bed for the commute to the Paradise Valley Community College campus for another day. A day he will spend droning softly on about a subject for which he has no passion.
The gentle sound of waves lapping below drifts up and through the open door to the balcony. The soft light of two moons lends a bluish tint to everything in the room, bathing their skin and the crisp, white sheets in a silver glow. John moves beneath him, hips rising to match his, thrust for thrust. But the warmth of skin on skin inevitably turns into the heat of lifeblood flowing between his fingers as he tries to stanch the flow from a mortal wound - to his soul, as much as to John's body - and the soft moonlight inevitably turns to the green and blue tinted light of the gateroom, making the shattered stained glass and the crimson pool of blood spreading beneath his knees look garish as well as ghastly.
Rodney struggles, but doesn't cry out. Things he would rather not remember assault his dreams, but he pushes them away and wakes to the soft hum of the air conditioner. The air is so dry it makes his sinuses ache, but he refuses to use a humidifier, preferring the dryness which doesn't remind him of things he's lost and would rather forget he ever had. The silence he will always keep for the pain he will never admit to feeling, let alone share, and doesn't find who he has become ironic at all.