#if i ever rewrite and recycle this in my fanfic no i didnt

[wispvial]

Day 7- It's a Nice picture!

for @texas-chainsaw-fanworks , i would have liked to participate in this more but couldnt, but heres a quick lil story :] cw violence ig

FRANKLIN AND NUBBINS ENJOY THE SUNSET

Thick, cloudy, honey-colored streaks captured the glow of the descending sun. The two men, noticing the sky from the window, like the surface of a far-off planet, stopped in their tracks to bask in the yard.

“It’s beyond words, man,” said Franklin.

He wanted to cry at the sight of it. He had many reasons to. His heart swelled with a terrible wonder; he turned his head, and spat on the ground.

“My grandfather spent his last years out here. In the middle of nowhere, alone; he stopped reaching out to us, and my parents let him be. He died and his house turned to goddamn ruins ‘cause we never came by to check. I wonder why it was so easy. To just leave him.”

The nearby magnolia tree rustled as black birds poured out of it, under the golden dome of the sky resembling a cloud of noisome insects.

“But I get it. Why he refused us, why to him, it was worth it. It wouldn’t be so bad to die out here, seeing this sunset.”

And here he was.

Regretting his choice of words, he fidgeted.

What was he doing out here? He had made a friend, that man now standing behind him, stroking the back of his neck, watching the sunset with him, and to end the story there would be for the best.

And if, perhaps, the story ended for him, as maybe, he thought, might be deserved, and the man reached in his pockets, and pulled out the razor, and wordlessly brought the keen edge to his throat… He imagined a quick slash, the vessels of his neck emptying out on the ground, face down in the puddle, redder than the sunset, prettier than it to the man who would crouch over him.

But the hitchhiker giggled, oblivious to his spiraling train of thought. He had taken such natural beauty for granted and was glad to be reminded, was glad to pull away from his work to marvel at it with his friend.

“I-It’s real pretty, huh? I know. I’ll take a picture. And…I-I won’t charge you none.”

“You better not.” He sighed. The crumpled dollar bills in the jeans he came with were long gone. Reassured, Franklin took an unhurried swig of his warm soda pop. It was a weekly treat for the Sawyers, and the hitchhiker, disinterested, had given the bottle to him.

“Man, even the bottle looks pretty in this light. Look at that. Everything does.”

 He thought if he turned around, the hitchhiker might look prettier to him than he would have liked. But wanting to see his friend’s crooked grin, and share in his pleasure, he—

SNAP! went the wicked camera shutter.

“Hehe.”

“Hey! You took MY picture!”

----

The bright blue of day, the golden sunset, the stars at night. It didn’t matter what he did. It didn’t matter if he was bad. As long as he lived, he would enjoy each gift given to him.

Inside the house, the bound victims writhed with chafed wrists against their restraints. It was the last sunset they would ever see—in fragments—slats of orange light on the bloody wooden floor.