Roads

Roads // Mainstay

2:51

------

What you need now is an explosion.

You stand, a living cliché, at a crossroads, a fork in the depths of the woods. If you knew at one point in this narrative which way to go, you've forgotten it now. You set out on this journey too long ago; the memories of your ambition aren't fresh anymore. You wish for the sixtieth time that this was a movie, that you could spin a knife or listen hard for the sounds of war.

What you need now is a sage old man.

You rub your eyes. Did you see any clues on your way here? Did someone drop a passing comment? Was there a symbolic gesture to the left or right by an important character? You firmly believe in symbolism, even if superstition is a little too illogical for you.

What you need now is a prologue.

You can't recall if you had any key run-ins with a parent or sibling or long-lost friend mysteriously returned to your home town. That feels too far-fetched for you. Your writer's sensibilities make you doubt that very much. You scratch the underside of your chin. The loneliness of the forest crowds in around you.

What you need now is a love interest.

It dawns on you: you're writing the story. This is your spec script, your pilot. Or maybe it's your eighth episode. You can't rely on someone else's convention and cliché to get you out of this.

What you need now is a decision.

I Want You

I Want You (She's So Heavy) // Across the Universe Original Soundtrack

3:44

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Metal on metal, metal on flesh. The only sounds they know, from birth, from childhood, from adulthood at fourteen when they kill their first wolf. They stand back to back, the hordes coming at them in waves, scythed down before their swords as they whirl in a tarantella of death.

Ariston feels Nabis's shoulder blades writhing against his. Nabis is breathing easily, no more heavily than when they spar against one another in the blood-spattered sands at the center of the city. Certainly not as heavily as when those same sands are spattered with their passion, darkness hiding their sin from even the gods.

Nabis cries out as the tip of a blade finds his bicep, and Ariston cringes in empathy, feels the pain in that cry. The hesitation slashes his concentration long enough for an arrow to fly past his uplifted shield, embedding in Nabis's back.

Only a soft grunt betrays the killing shot. Then Nabis slumps against Ariston, his weight heavier than it should be, because it is the death of something more than a fellow Spartan, a comrade in arms. Nabis's hand reaches for Ariston's ankle, brushes it with fingers calloused by war.

His lover's soul and strength flows into Ariston in that final caress. There is nothing to lose now. Ariston hefts his shield and takes a step backwards, protecting the body from mutilation by the hungry, naked animal-men surging to fill the gap Nabis's fallen sword has vacated.

Ariston roars, and Nabis's voice joins his from the River, and the howl of the wolf echoes in their warcry. The barbarians hesitate, but there are too many of them to succumb to a collective cowardice, and so they charge all at once.

Sparta appears, then, the test complete. The strongest has proven himself. The warriors can step into the midst of the startled horde, decapitated heads tumbling in their wake.

And Ariston can fall to his knees at Nabis's side, clutching the lifeless corpse to his chest, the borrowed soul flowing back out of him to cross into the afterlife.

Tell Me You'll Be There

Everyday Sunday

Tell Me You'll Be There // Wake Up! Wake Up!

3:37

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This isn't humanity, he thinks, this is Humanity.

He touches her hair, spread like shimmering ripples on the couch. Tears are there, a foreign tingle at the corners of his eyes, but he holds them back. She is beautiful. He can hardly breathe; there is a tightness in his chest that feels like the first piano chords of a memorial service hymn.

"I'm here," he whispers. He crooks his finger and strokes her cheek. She is everything he thinks of when someone asks him to be compassionate, to be empathetic. She is helpless, fragile, broken, beautiful.

He adjusts the blanket close to her chin again. Her skin against the dark fabric is pale, as if no blood runs through it. Her blood is human; her blood is Human. He is human too, but she makes him Human, lying here beside him.

"I'm here," he whispers again, this time leaning towards her so that his lips brush her ear as he releases the words. The cartilage is cool to the touch. He admires the curves and whorls of her ear, the way her hair sweeps across the top.

It is raining, a glockenspiel on the windows. He finds himself closing his eyes and swaying to the tuneless melodies. The sky will cleanse him tonight. Maybe he will kiss her under a streetlight, a moment of cinema perfection he can lock in his mind forever.

"I'm here," he says, this time louder than a whisper. The room feels empty. When he looks around, he feels the weight of uncleanliness. He shifts, his skin crawling with dirt and invisible insects.

Humanity lies unbreathing on his couch. His knives are sticky with her blood, but the rain will wash them clean. He will hold her one last time, unprotesting as he embraces her, embraces Humanity in its most perfect state.

He takes her body up in his arms and carries her to the doorway, standing in the porchlight circle, barely breathing.

"I'm here," he whispers, and steps out into the rain.

Sheep Go to Heaven

Cake

Sheep Go to Heaven // Prolonging the Magic

4:46

------

Dwayne looked up from his desk as the sounds of whistling echoed down the hall. Sure enough, Mickey strode into sight, chest puffed out like a bird in mating season.

"Lunch! Today! On me!"

The rest of the office workers barely glanced up.

Mickey's face fell fractionally. Dwayne gulped and exchanged a meaningful look with Josh, who raised an eyebrow in return. It was his turn, Dwayne knew, to take the fall.

"I'll go with you, Mickey," he said, barely above a whisper.

"Excellent." Mickey's face lit back up.

Josh leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. "Didn't you want to go golfing at lunch?"

"It was swimming!" Priscilla volunteered from around her computer, her grinning face popping into view.

Dwayne started to draw his finger across his throat in a panicked way, but then Aaron joined in with a sincere, raucous laugh. "Are you seriously going swimming? Cause I'm totally in."

In her sharp, squeaky little voice from her corner desk, Anna said, "I'm pretty sure you said skydiving."

Dwayne gave her a death glare. Bitch, he mouthed, and she gave him a humorless smile in return.

It sucked to have dated the most passive aggressive woman in the company.

Sighing, Dwayne pushed to his feet and faced Mickey, who looked so swollen with excitement he could have been punctured with a pin.

"Skydiving?" he said breathlessly.

"No," Dwayne said. Quickly, to stifle any potential tantrums, he added, "But we can go to the Y."

Mickey frowned.

"The YMCA," Josh said, tapping Mickey's arm with the back of his hand. "He wants to take you swimming where little kids get their first lessons blowing bubbles."

It was constant, this torment; Dwayne rolled his eyes towards the ceiling tiles and pleaded with the gods of business to drop a monumental sale on his lap. I'll even let Sammy have the commission, he added.

The phone didn't ring, even though he gathered his jacket as slowly as he could and inched towards the door, trying to distract Mickey with small talk. Mickey had none of it, however, and bounded ahead of Dwayne, followed by a whooping Aaron.

"Hey," Josh said softly, tugging on Dwayne's sleeve.

He turned and glared down into Josh's smug face. "This just makes your position worse. You're aware of this."

"Oh, of course." Josh frowned his acknowledgement. "Hey, listen. I clicked on my fortune this morning on Facebook and I thought you might want to hear it."

Dwayne's entire being reached out to cling to that measure of hope dangled before him.

Josh grinned and said, "Happiness really scars the soul."

It Takes Two

Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock
It Takes Two // Profilin' the Hits
5:02

------

They didn't come to the club to dance or touch or sweat. They came to watch, and sometimes they danced and touched and sweated. Once in a while, she took him back to her place. There, they just lay close in the dark and listened to the way their breath naturally synchronized.

She stood against the counter, a smile pulling her face into something twisted. A pale yellow drink swirled in her left hand, the toothpick clinking rhythmically.

He came up behind her and put his hands on her hips, because they hadn't touched in a while. "I think I spotted one."

She let out a soft, full-body sigh. "Not tonight."

She felt him stiffen with surprise. "I thought -- "

Turning into him so every part of their exposed skin brushed, she breathed into his neck, "I'm tired of choosing."

He flinched at every soft word tickling his hairline. "But that's what we do."

"That's what you do."

"You watch, too."

She pulled away, her bottom lip curling. "I want to dance."

He shot her glass a meaningful glance. "This isn't you."

Her head tilted slightly, she considered him for a moment, then scrunched up her nose in a faint expression of disgust. "Or maybe it is."

"You're not scared of me," he said. "If this was you, you would have told me."

"I'm not afraid of you," she echoed. She stared off at nothing beyond his shoulder.

He waited a beat. "But..."

"But nothing," she said, grabbing his hand. "Let's dance."

"No." He pulled it back. "But what?"

"But," she said, tracing a line down the front of his starched dress shirt, the only one unstained by blood, "I'm afraid you'll go."

"I won't."

"Choosing people is your life." She didn't want it to be an accusation, but she could feel her eyes boring into him with the unanswered questions she finally allowed to surface. Her voice dropped as the music died down between songs. "And I enjoy it, sure -- I need the blood to keep me sane."

"To keep you alive," he corrected gently, brushing her cheek.

She avoided the affection in his gaze. "And you need it to keep the world in order."

He shrugged, a learned helplessness in the gesture. "Guardian angels don't have it easy."

"So we're perfect," she said, laughing a little sadly. "For each other, I mean. And as pawns in some cosmic game, because who -- what we are keeps us from abandoning our guidelines much."

He paused for a beat filled with the thundering of the next song's intro.

"But?" he mouthed.

She leaned in again, and this time she ran her tongue along the line of his neck. Then she traced the faintly metallic line of saliva with the tip of her nose and raked her fangs down his skin. She felt him shudder under her hands.

"Th-that's new," he stammered when she drew away.

"Dance with me?" she said, smiling, offering her hand as the music throbbed around them.