Nothing Gold
Disclaim'd.
Like picking the black seeds out of a watermelon flesh. That was what it was like to forcibly remove the twenty-seven bullets from Dally's body.
Each blood-slicked round of lead burned his hand where it met his flesh. And, though a body weighted down and twisted awkwardly with the fierce jerk of bullet-impact, free-torn limbs, and so light-blonde milky-faced - faint lips twisted in a look of grim, final satisfaction - and queasily smiling for a hope that only boys with burdened but, oh, more free than anything, and souls the victims of circumstance believe; well, even if Dallas was dead, he pulled out each with nimble fingers, never flinched, and worked with care.
He'd not yet begun to rot. That nausea sweet decay of human flesh that stung his eyes with tears at dread of it; that too familiar face, removed of the world of light forever; and so still retained the smell of him, the look of him. The death was only new, but already he felt as though his heart had mourned it for a century.
As Johnny knelt there in the street, fingers nimbly moving inside where that callous - oh, and gallant - heart lie still, and others brushing softly pale, discolored cheeks, splotchy as from absence of blood, which by those fingers smeared wan lips and cheeks, he smiled sadly. 'I used to lay out here and look up at the stars when I would think about you,' he said, quietly. He glanced up at those same-said stars that burned palely above their heads. Haloes of cold, unfeeling light. He whispered lowly, like from far away. The stars are mostly dead.
Dark, ravaged gaze flickered back down to that stilled body, fearingly. Gently, fingers caressed the ashy hollows of his elfin face; dangerous beauty darkened by death, absent of choler, and only resolution, now, triumph beyond breath, in death. His breath caught, quivering, as with sure and steady hands he plunged himself lastly inside, and slowly removed destruction's gem. It cooled now with the still blood. Number twenty-seven.
Placing it down amongst the others, he with both hands - left and right, and wet with blood - shakingly lifted the dead, whiter hand to his lips, brushing chaste mouth sweetly and quiveringly across two cold fingers. He nearly choked, tears streaming fast, now, and soft whimpering sobs that shook his shoulders; no violent remorse, but only gentle love and grief of death. That chaste kiss of icy, warmed fingers, and volume steadily increasing as he trembled and he cried into the darkness of the streets - empty streets, bearing no witness - and the stars above, centuries old and having known too many tragedies before.
Cradling that hand against his lips, he whispers,
Nothing gold can stay.
/finite
