Higher [boyxboy]

2. Understanding in a Diner

Nick woke up buzzed. His body was singing, sore from sleeping on the hard ground. The sun was warming his face pleasantly, and fresh, cool air had cleansed his lungs - unlike the stale room-air that he usually filled them with. His stomach was active and rumbling and Nick rejoiced in it. His body hadn't given up on him yet. He hadn't been too sure.

Everything hurt, but it was a real, alive kind of pain and Nick savoured it with each breath.

His high had worn off. He was sober.

He raised his head and his eyelashes twitched in the golden sunlight as he looked around him.

He saw grass and sky and a car he didn't recognise parked near him. Then he saw who it must have belonged to, and his heart fluttered in his chest.

There was a boy lying next to him, asleep, and Nick felt... fear... or desire? It was hard to tell.

His mind was moving too fast for him to keep up, trying to put pieces together. And what he couldn't piece together, he was trying to remember.

He couldn't remember.

He had never slept next to a boy before, but it figured that the first time he did, he wouldn't remember it.

He watched the boy for a while, watched his chest rise and fall evenly, the hand on his stomach rising and falling with it, his lips parted and flushed from the sunlight.

He wouldn't mind if this boy never woke up, he realised. If they stayed here under the morning sun forever. He would watch over him as he slept and keep him safe and Nick would be the happiest he could be.

The eyelids fluttered beneath him and opened to reveal brilliantly dark irises. Nick could see himself reflected back in them and for a moment he forgot that someone could see him through them, and not merely that he could see them. He felt his breath hitch and looked away.

Then he hated himself for looking away and made himself look back, but it wasn't the same. He shouldn't have looked away.

"You're alive. That's good," the boy said sitting up. His voice was raspy and Nick couldn't tell if it was from sleep or not. He was squinting up at the sun.

"Is it?" Nick saw him turn his head to gaze at him, his eyebrows pinched together. Nick noted with satisfaction that his eyes were nearly black even in the bright light. "Am I here against my will?" He half joked.

He watched as the boy's eyebrows shot up. He blinked instead of answering and tapped his pockets groggily in search of a cigarette.

Nick sat patiently waiting while he lit it up.

"I don't know," he said truthfully.

"Is that your car?" Nick pointed.

"Yes."

"Why did we drive here?" Nick turned back to look at him.

"We were driving to the hospital," the boy said unhelpfully.

Nick blinked. "And then we changed our minds?"

The boy ran a hand through his dark hair. "Well, mostly I stopped because you were about to throw up in my car. But you were also pretty adamant that you didn't want to go to the hospital." He took a final drag from his cigarette and put it out.

"Oh," Nick said simply as if everything was now explained. "And did I?"

"What?" the boy asked, confused. He looked like he was still half asleep.

"Throw up in your car," Nick said.

"No. You threw up over there." The boy pointed languidly to a spot a few paces away where Nick could see something discolouring the grass.