It wasn't even the darkest hour of the night. The sun was rising, the stars vanishing and even the bats flying around the street lamp were gone.
Floyd heard him coming back because he had just come back, as well. He quickly tried to close the door but he knew it was too fucking late.
"What the fuck are you doing in my room?"
Thomas Blake. He seemed calm and relaxed, but he would gladly have torn off the 'staches from Deadshot's face.
"Chill out kitty. Scandal asked me to check and see if you were in your room, that's it"
And that's the truth, thought Floyd, more or less. Apart from the 'Scandal asked me to', that is the truth.
"Come have a drink." he said out loud, "At this point, better to wait for the sun to rise."
Thomas stared at him while he went down in the kitchen.
The sun. The sun in Africa shone and shone and burnt down everything, and if he ran in the savannah even in the morning he could already feel it, he could already feel it raining down, a molten burden, like holding the whole earth on his back.
Is it possible, thought Thomas, that there are two suns? Two suns. A sun and a foggy imitation of the sun. The sun in Africa.
Thomas knew he was just tired, over thinking. Shaking his head, he followed Floyd to the kitchen.
It was when Floyd opened a bottle of Jack Daniels that Thomas realized they were going to screw up everything. Starting with laughter.
"Jack Daniel's, Lawton? Really? C'mon, you really enjoy being a cliché."
It wasn't the first time they had talked about mustachioed superheroes with a slight addiction to booze, but Thomas sensed that they were not going to stick to that conversation. He could just feel it in the air. He could tell, because the air got thicker and sweeter, heavy like syrup. Like the sun in Africa that had haunted him throughout his life. What Blake didn't understand was that in that precious moment the percentage of oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide in the air didn't change. Something changed, but it was not the methane.
Blah blah blah Blake get it together blah blah blah. That's what Floyd got of the words he had just said. It was easy for him to talk. The problem for him had always been the saying.
"You get that I get you, don't you. Because I fucking get it, Thom- Blake. To lose something you didn't even ask for in the first place and feel like shit anyway. That's how it works and it's shit."
Was that some kind of consolation? It was not the helium.
Because it really looked like a consolation. And it consoled.
Like a "well yeah I shot men and I'm a real man but fuck, a son is a son"
It was not the hydrogen.
Not the methane.
It was not Floyd getting closer and it was not Thomas taking a step towards him.
"You know Thomas I'm glad you didn't cry, Thomas, Tomcat. You know in that case I wouldn't have any other choice..."
Thomas Blake felt Floyd's knee pushing on his thigh and when he raised his arm he realized he had stucked his nails in Floyd's neck and now they were all covered in blood. He didn't care, but the mustache. The mustache.
A mumble was the only answer Thomas gave Floyd.
"Exactly my friend. Instantly. I would've shot you instantly. Like real friends do."
It was not the nitrogen oxide.
It was not the radon.
It was not the neon.
It was the subatomic, ancestral explosion of tongue against tongue and bloodless lips against somebody else's teeth and they didn't even understand the purpose of this violence, but it was the sweetest thing they'd ever felt.