Descent in Shadow

The silence pressed, denser than the attic dust in Milo’s throat. He turned first, the locket’s edge biting into the tender flesh of his palm. The first stair groaned. Another creak answered just behind him.

No words. Just wood straining under feet, the rustle of denim, the clotted air pushing back against their descent. The temperature dropped a fraction, but the attic’s fever still battered Milo's back, a slick second skin, as his mind tried to reorient touch.

Halfway down, his shoulder brushed the cool plaster of the hallway wall, and he leaned into it. The footsteps above him stopped. He froze, fingers curling around the smooth-worn banister. Slowly, he looked back up the steep incline.

Jude stood on the small landing, head ducked under the low beam, backlit by the attic’s molten light. One hand gripped the banister, knuckles bone-white against the dark wood. A sound escaped him, low and rough—"Fuck"—less a word than the fracture of breath.

Then, movement. Jude rushed the last steps, passing Milo in the narrow hall. A current of air displaced: cedar dust, warm skin, the fading ozone scent of the almost-brush of a jaw.

An ache opened low in his ribs, hollow and sharp. The hallway stretched, suddenly vast and alien. The faded wallpaper patterns blurred.

Cooler air washed over Milo, shocking after the attic’s boil. He gasped, the chill prickling his lungs: the fridge’s low drone, the soft thwap-thwap-thwap of the ceiling fan—ordinary sounds, crashing back.

He drifted toward the kitchen’s yellow light, finding Jude by the fridge. Harsh fluorescence bleached his face—the sweat-sheen on his temple, the tight line of his mouth—before he emerged with two dripping bottles.

The snick-hiss of a cap twisting off cracked the quiet. Milo leaned back against the counter’s laminate, its cool shock radiating up his spine. He watched condensation bead and slide down Jude’s bottle as he lifted it to his lips, watched the working of his throat.

Jude slid the other bottle across the counter. Milo reached. Their fingers didn’t touch.

He waited as Jude took a long pull, gaze fixed on a scuff mark on the linoleum, before lifting his own bottle. The cold glass stung his palm as he sipped. The beer tasted like tin.

Silence, thick and viscous, clung to them, swallowing the familiar kitchen sounds. The rhythm of the years felt vandalized. Milo’s throat seized.

He blinked himself awake as Jude set his bottle down. Watched him reach into his pocket, the movement deliberate, and place the small, tarnished heart locket on the scarred table between them.

Milo stared. He hadn’t felt it leave his hand. Hadn’t noticed when Jude took it—on the stairs? In the hall? Their fingers must have brushed.

Around him, silence pressed down. Jude traced a bead of condensation down his bottle, thumb sliding down the curved neck. Milo cleared his throat, the sound raw.

"The dust," he rasped, helpless against the muscle of his tongue. He tilted his chin toward the ceiling. "It was like powdered gold, in that light."

Jude’s eyes rose slowly from the locket. Not a smile. A flicker deep within his gaze, recognition sparking in the quiet. A single, slow nod. His thumb kept moving on the wet glass.

"Yeah," he murmured, the word thick, swallowed. "Everywhere."

The moment held. The locket gleamed dully on the wood. The fan thwapped overhead, with the house creaking softly in its wake.

The summer evening was stretching beyond the windows as their plans dissolved. Leaving was a punch of a thought.

Opposite him, Jude shifted, leaning his hip against the counter. He took another slow sip, gaze drifting past Milo to the darkened living room doorway, then back. His voice, when it came, was deliberately light, almost casual, but something darker tugged beneath it.

"Fan’s working down here." Jude’s eyes held Milo’s a beat too long. He gestured loosely with his bottle toward the living room. "Wanna see what’s on?" A pause. Milo’s gaze flicked toward the hallway shadows. "Or tackle the rest of those boxes?"

The offer hung in the cool air. Simple. Milo’s mind drifted to the almost-touch, the thickness of Jude’s body against his breath. He blinked, only to find Jude’s gaze fixed on him. His brows were drawn low over his eyes—something bestial in the shadow they cast.

Milo set his bottle down on the counter, palm sticky. The night bristled around him, still thick with the smell of sun-baked wood.