#rmr when we talked about them on a road trip... anyway took that and ran w it

[chateautangerine]

@indeath asked: [ 𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐒 ] ― sender gives receiver flowers 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐒𝐄𝐒 (accepting)

At precisely 9PM on the dot, his Austin-Healey purred and cruised into a mostly-empty parking lot, a welcome sign buzzing up above. 

It is here where they’ll stay. 

How long has it been? Four days. Better to say nights. By some inexplicable manner of fate, earlier this week and Cliff perhaps made impressionable by isolation, the pair of them had agreed to pack what they could and jam it into the three-by-three of his trunk and backseat, the speedometer set to 65 over the I-81—New York as close to him now as the moon. 

They checked into a small motel in the middle of somewhere, the only sounds the humming of the vending machines. A lapping pool, steam billowing. Cliff by the second-floor railing playing with sparklers. 

He lights one up. 

“I always wished someone would've done this with me,” he starts, every word weightless, gone. The stick sizzles red and orange and bright, Cliff holding his arm out shoulder-height. He gazes up. Then, breathily, ”It means a lot to me that you came along."

Above his head, he sees a clear amalgamation of stars. It could be the Big Dipper. Maybe it's the Little.

Nour’s shadow stretches over, and Cliff turns his head.

There he is, all resplendent in white. Nour with his baby powder hair. Nour with his ever-soft laugh. Cliff thinks he remembers every inch of his face now—the slight crease beside his mouth when he smiles. The exact length of his eyelashes when he turns to sleep—a familiarity that can only be born from sharing the inescapable days and nights, nights and days with another conscious being, the moon like pupils, now, in his eyes. Nour reminds him of nights spent in an indoor tent; the childlike wonder and sanctuary it gave him. Nour stands with a handful of flowers. 

"Now who's that for?" he asks, high and curious.

As if there were anyone else here.

Cliff doesn't know what they are. Just that they're blue and that Nour gave them, the fireworks illuminating his face like a birthday cake. Birthday candles. Making a wish. He takes them, observing, and they're eye-to-eye.

"I don't think anyone's given me flowers..." he wonders aloud, still wispy and croaky, Cliff somewhere in another world, or maybe right here. He thinks of car rides spent with someone jostling the radio on. Someone sharing an unfamiliar room beside him. Of birthday candles and late-night company.

He hands his sparkler over. The pool ebbs below them, foggy, cloudy. Cliff looks just the same. "Would you like to keep riding with me?" he asks.