It was hot, midsummer, the sun bright enough to dry the sweat from skin and leave throats parched; hot enough that the boys had abandoned their efforts at practice to sprawl in cool grass, half-covered by the shadow of sprawling branches. The younger -- fifteen at most, skinny but tall, hair vibrantly red and wild, straight, unbrushed to his jaw -- was still halfway panting with the exertion of some last tumble, hands and cheeks and knees smudged with dirt and sliding toward sunburn around the edges of his shoulders, the back of his neck, the tip of his nose. His eyes were on the elder -- early twenties, hair a richer auburn and longer, tugged into a careful tail down his spine, stocky and strong and comfortably shirtless in the grass -- as he nimbly rolled a generous pinch of apah into a soft hand-made rolling paper.

This was neither of their first time. Reese had first lit in young, twelve or so, with the affectionate teasing of a first crush egging him on. Now, almost ten years later, the smell of the dried drug and the taste as he sealed paper to paper with an expert swipe of tongue was familiar, reassuring, stirred an edge of affection and a memory of young lust. He viewed his work, smoothing fingers over the paper and settling one end into his mouth, in a careful and cricital sort of way. The Lamp spell that kindled the edge, just a sharp flash of fire that cooled to an ember, was done with a serious edge of ritual -- even if it made Warwick smile, suddenly, delighted and impressed by this smallest of spells. Awestruck not by the magic, but by his brother.

To him, this was not ancient or familiar. His focus wasn't on the smell, or the sight, or the routine. It might not have been his first time, but apah was still new enough to fascinate. As Reese drew in the first slow drag and held it, spur offered out to his brother, Warwick couldn't help but watch in a flustered and hopelessly admiring sort of way. His brother's movements held an easy grace, a strength of movement that wasn't pretty but that was elegant in its own quick, efficient way. In comparison, when Warwick reached out to steal it away for his own slow drag, his fingers seemed too-long and awkward, coltish and unfamiliar. Even before the smoke slid into his lungs and he offered it back to reclaim his sprawling position in the damp and the dirt and the grass he was wondering at the way he could feet the tips of those long fingers, that he could fold them in half and into thirds and curl them into the huge shape of his palm, and that he somehow manage to not drop everything he touched.

"Hold it as long as you can." Reese's tone, as always, was clipped and direct, the words accompanied by rising blossoms of smoke. There was no malice in his abrupt manner, and after a decade and a half Warwick had finally grown to understand this. Out of an argument, in the ease of day-to-day life, he could take the words at face value and smooth ruffled feathers all on his own. For fifteen-almost-sixteen Warwick had a remarkable elasticity, an almost unmatched ability to simple snap back into himself. He could bend. He could bruise. He always healed.

The brusque order was met with a slow nod instead of the expected, frustrated, 'I know that!' most budding adults would have been unable to suppress. In the long run, it was probably for the best: ten seconds, fifteen, and the itching sensation in the back of his throat overtook Warwick. Instead of the slow hiss of pale smoke he would have liked to blow [showing off because he was a show off, and because he needed to show he could do it], all the breath exploded out of him in several sharp, gasping coughs. It won a slow edge of a smile out of Reese, eyebrow raised in mocking question, and Warwick coughed again. Not only because he had to, but because the hand across his mouth would partly hide the start of a slow flush, and the effort of coughing pressed his eyes closed against the face of his brother's amusement.

This was not Chan, nor was it a golly lady's party. This apah had been grown and maintained by Pina Ro, not exactly a friend but a solid businessman -- when it came to his drugs. The goal was not enlightenment, not wisdom or self-discovery, not exposition. Ro's goal, with his growing, was the sheer pleasure of getting high. The muted blue smoke smelled warm, felt cool, coated Warwick's lungs and mouth with a soft cushion, set the back of his mind into a slowly-spreading fuzz. As he caught his breath, reaching up to wipe the salty sting of tears from the corners of his eyes and spread them down his cheeks, Reese eased down to sprawl in the grass beside him and offered out the spur between two calloused fingers for another draw.

Warwick closed his eyes and this time, with the taste still on his tongue and the world gone soft around the edges, it went down smoothly. The smoke filled him and stilled him, sapping away the itchy urge to jump up and move for the first time in a week. He imagined he could feel the tension and the restless energy draining out of him and sliding away into the grass beneath him, swallowed by the earth or the mona or whatever it was that turned him toward calm.

This time, he sighed the smoke out, hand twisting to sprawl with his palm turned up toward the sun and his fingertips twitching against the sensation of a breeze. He opened his eyes at the raspy sound of Reese laughing around the end of the spur. The corners of Reese's eyes were wrinkled, an eyebrow raised as the flush drew up into his brother's face, Warwick's expression sliding toward a puzzled sort of amusement, questioning, curious, confused.

With an audience, this time, Reese blew the smoke out in several curliing sighs, and Warwick couldn't help but watch as it spiralled its way upward and dissipated into that greater whatever-it-was just as the energy had slipped out of his body. Apah in his system took away Reese's gruff edge, drew his mouth into a slow smile and narrowed his eyes into catlike pleasure. "Just glad you'll finally sit down for more than five minutes, Les. You wear me out."

Even Warwick wasn't sure if his own flush and reaction was embarrassment or delight at the focus of blue eyes on him and him alone, for the moment. He had replies to this jibe, a jumbled bubbling of words that gathered in the back of his mind: a comment on how he couldn't stand sitting down, how his feet and legs ached to be moving, running and jumping all the time, his addiction to the smooth elegance of a tumble or a run or a jump, how trees seemed to lean in toward him and beg to be climbed. The plant in his system made it all so obvious. The world spoke to him, moved around him, and Warwick didn't have any choice. He was a part of it.

But he couldn't get this out. Instead of a thoughtful, elegant description of his place in the world and how he twisted into it, Warwick responded with a bright grin and a roll of his shoulders deep enough into the grass to leave green streaks against his shirt and dirt spread across his skin. He had to twist a rebellious tongue into the shape of words, force his mouth into the proper vowels, "What use'd I be if'n I just sat there, Reese?"

"What use indeed." His tone still held an edge of laughter, his own eyes narrowing to ice blue slits and the corners of his mouth tugged up into a smile, but Reese looked more thoughtful, now. Enough so that Warwick shut his mouth and twisted his palm back down into the cool prickle of grass, watching his brother and letting his mind wander.

He'd been thinking too often of the present and the past, the cool quiet in the middle of the night when the drinking had slid away from the light of the fire and off toward private tents, the food packed up and the persistent thrum of music faded into silence. Too much time was spent worrying about the empty spot left by Reese's absence, and it sharpened the eerie stillness of a small tent, how much space Warwick had to shift and roll and listen to voices outside his tent. He'd strained to pick words out of hushed murmurs, secretive tones, hostile and brusque arguments held in muffled whispers, their topics a constant and worrisome sort of mystery. Warwick was fifteen and naive in the midst of the jaded self-certainty of the Black Hands surrounding him. Sheltered by Reese, kept purposefully uninformed, protected by a circle of what seemed to be brotherly concern, he had no idea what a handful of twenty-something wicks might be muttering about until the wee hours of the morning, or why they might disappear for a day or two here and there, usually near the outskirts of cities. He could, however, fret over it.

The apah stole that away. As it sank into his skin and his lids fell halfway closed, the brush of his eyelashed blurring Reese into a spectral, inhuman smudge, Warwick couldn't help but curl a smiile and let the world relax around him. The drug lulled him helplessly into a sense of comfort and complacency, warmly fuzzy around the edges and unable to focus enough to be afraid for his brother. The time for that could come later; the time for shouting matches over the danger of dealing in death, over the morality around taking another human being's life and how much better it was to focus on the sheer pleasure of movement. Bitter words spoken over drinks or coin, hot eyes that burned with restrained tears, the sharp curve of a frustrated sneer from Reese. For now they loved each other with no strings, no 'buts' or pauses of hesitation. They could sprawl in the sun and the grass, hazy and warm, arms spread and fingers just barely brushing to tie them together.