watchful eyes (tronnor)

twenty four; and in their chrysalises, the defeated become butterflies

troye and nicholas held hands in the hallway when they saw each other the next morning ("what are you doing?" "holding your hand?" "why?" "i like you?" "oh. okay." "okay."). nicholas' hand is warm and troye melts into it like he is everything that matters.

lucas and tyler exchanged parallel smirks when they saw. five bucks exchanged hands, fingertips brushing and intertwining. lana smiled at them; "nice job, tro," she said. connor smiled and felt a part of himself sink into hell.

(troye is not his to be jealous of.)

(not that the burning in his heart is jealousy.)

lucas and nicholas have gym together, in which they have moved on from basketball and onto roller skating (which lucas has no end to complaints about) and the gym teachers have caught onto their hiding under the bleachers act. lucas shrugs his shirt off and into his gym outfit, planning out double dates ("calm down, lukie. we have barely even talked about what it is that we might be doing." "right. well you should figure that out then."). they jog around the gym together, not bothering to listen to gym teachers telling them they need to go faster. nicholas is pretty sure that it would be impossible for him to go faster, anyways.

nicholas can really only think about the touch of troye's slender fingers and the way his pulse echoed in his wrist when their skin brushed like two worlds sliding past each other. he can only dream of the blue of his eyes and the reflection of his laughter.

nicholas joins troye on the bus ride home, and they push each other with laughter through the door. then they are silent because troye's hands are in nicholas' hair (he really loves nicholas' hair) and their lips do not separate. troye has pale skeleton skin like white marbles and nicholas traces his fingers down troye's arm carefully and troye dissolves.

"troye..."

his eyes are closed when he responds. "yeah, nickie?"

"what are we doing?"

he sits up and their hands meet between them. "was it not you who grabbed my hand this morning and said it was because you liked me?"

"yeah, but - i just - i - i like labels," he stuttered. "i like having words to describe things. you are so much better at coming up with the right words. i just want to make sure that we are both on the same page, and - "

troye leans forward and their lips touch like butterfly wings brushing the undersides of leaves. "okay. can that be what the two of us are doing then? together?"

nicholas blinked.

"i mean - like - together together? because we like each other? and stuff?"

nicholas smiles. "yes. definitely."