The Trail (johnten)

2.4

it had been about 15 minutes since the boys, having decided decided ten's lungs had had a long enough break, continued their walk. for the first little bit the boys asked each other small get-to-know-you questions that were fairly meaningless. 

however, this light conversation soon died away and the pair had been walking in a comfortable silence. johnny has assumed that ten was quiet because he wanted to enjoy a bit of his walk in peace. whereas ten....

well, ten was being tormented by his own mind.

while johnny was walking in a comforting silence, ten was being suffocated.

'he doesn't actually want to be here.

he's just being nice.

he just feels bad for you.

he pities you and your weakness.

even if he pretends he doesn't, he sees how weak you are.

he sees how stupid you are.

he sees how utterly worthless you are.

he knows exactly what you were planning on doing at the end of this walk,

and he is disgusted by it.

he's disgusted by you.

he hates you ten, the sooner you realize that the better.

he hates you.'

"ten? ten? are you okay?"

the small boy shook back to reality upon hearing those words. he looked up at the person calling his name as he felt tears begin to fall onto his cheeks.

"hey, what's wrong?" johnny asked, worry etched into his tone.

ten could only stare up at him as the thai's entire body began to shake. the crying boy tried desperately to stop himself but eventually the inevitable came.

while looking into johnny's soothing, warm eyes he finally broke.

johnny sank to the ground with ten in his arms as he watched the smaller boy completely crumble. ten sobbed violently into johnny's chest, clenching the taller boy's jacket in his tiny fists as hard as he could.

this is how they sat, ten in johnny's arms as the older sang softly and played with ten's hair to calm him down, until johnny noticed that the sun had began to set and hoped pointing that out to ten would calm him down.

it did.

----

a/n

hey guys, sorry for leaving you on a cliff hanger AND for putting in an a/n considering I usually don't as i feel like it disrupts the flow of the book BUT i'm planning out the book and just wanted to know if you guys wanted a more slow-burn relationship between ten and johnny or if you want them to express their feelings kind of early on? it's totally up to you guys because on one hand i want it to be realistic but at the same time i don't want the story to get boring so please let me know what you think :)

also, how long do you guys prefer the chapters to be? do you like this length? a little shorter? a little longer?

thank you guys so much for reading and i hope you have a good day/night :)

p.s. i promise this will be one of VERY few a/ns in this book :)