Everything you love will one day kill you, whether it's cigarettes, or drugs, or the boy with the blue eyes, they all kill you in the end.
Alternatively: rambling with much reference to Greek Gods.
-Sometimes, George felt like Hades. Dark and beneath and dragging the Persephone dripping with gold down into the dust alongside him.
Or... he would. If they had taught that in school and made him stencil it out onto his slate and his mother made him recite it as he stood by the tall vase in the corner of the kitchen. Since when did a farm hand need to know the ins and outs of the gods of an ancient civilisation he could never visit the ruins of?
Slim gave him smiles that showed glitter and words brushed with the sins of richer men. And George treasured them, abducting every single syllable into the mine of his mind and foraging for them later on. Though by God would he let anyone else slip in to pry them from their veins and arteries. The gate leading to his heart was dull with the sharp edges of diamonds and disasters.
Slim? George nearly moaned into the thin pillow under his cheek, twisted the threadbare blanket until it was a stormy river and no use as a shield against the cool night's air. Slim belonged in the bright airy fields, George knew. Slim belonged to their ranch, this ranch, his ranch. Sure- George might keep away anyone with no good reason to come by, but Slim belonged to the ranch. He could see it stretching out, confident that his heaven would allow him to stretch his ownership as far as the eye could see and ground anyone with a strong hand on a shoulder.
If he had to, George was fairly certain Slim could contain all and every instance of chaos in their desperate, dusty country.
George hated him. And then he stored away the luscious compliments and mined them in time to his work and his calloused hands and Candy's sweeping.
Hades ended up marrying Persephone, right?