* Lost Boys ~ Dan/Howell • Phil/Lester *

Train tracks+meeting

The mocha haired boy, keeping about his path, began to wonder. Will I ever find a home? A friend? Any sense of belonging that I've yearned for since I was four, and sitting in that adoption office after... the event. Will I ever be able to forget the things that have happened? Will the scars ever fade? The thoughts continued to rush in his mind. Will my heavy, dirty soul ever become weightless and pure? Am I a goner? Will anyone catch me if I fall? He had forgotten what happy felt like. These thoughts kept bombarding his mind until he felt strings of wet spreading across his face. Crying. Of course. He was weak. Always had been. But he survived. He took his pain and ignited it into a fight for himself. He was in a constant battle to not loose himself. But he was running out of ammunition fast and his morale was low. He didn't know how to function at this point. He just started running. Running from his past, his thoughts, his demons. Keeping his head low so no one could see him cry, even though the only eyes on him were the ones in the sky. He continued to blindly run down he tracks when an stud in the path tripped him, causing him to fly forward, his tiny body thudding on the wooden slats. He picked himself up and kept running, now with a busted lip, a bruised forehead, and scraped up hands. He just kept sprinting, his head still down.
-------
The raven haired boy began to wonder "will anyone ever accept me? Will I ever find a friend? Someone who genuinely cares for me? Will I always be regarded with malice? Will I ever be happy? Will I ever find a life? Is there any chance of normalcy for me?" The thoughts continued to violently meander through his mind. It's like his brain was on a tear. He couldn't stop thinking. About not being accepted. About the day he left. He couldn't remember what happy felt like. He just wanted to run again. Away from these thoughts, his demons, his past. So he did. He took off in a mindless sprint still looking down. He didn't have the pride enough to run with his head held high anymore. He just kept sprinting. It felt like his legs would never tire. He was stopped abruptly by ramming into a figure in front of him. "FUc-AHH" said the figure. A human voice. Something the raven haired boy hadn't heard since he left that life two weeks ago. It was like silky ecstasy flowing through his ears. The two sat on the ground completely befuddled and bedraggled before glancing up to see who or what they had run into. The blue eyes met brown and in that moment there was peace for the first time. The blue eyes like a cloudy palace in the sky. An escape from the dim grey below. Cool and calming. The brown eyes troubled yet warm. Like being offered a place to sleep by a kind homeless man. They were soft like a brown fur blanket. And they looked like they had cried enough tears to break the Hoover dam. The whites of the eyes had turned a light shade of pink from the consistent red veins covering them. Like roots made of blood. They were disturbing yet beautiful in a way. The two stood up and stepped back from each other. Like inspecting cars after a collision they looked each other up and down. The brown haired boy wore a faded burnt orange vest over a worn navy blue shirt with tattered cuffs, coupled with a pair of dark blue jeans. He also carried a small, forest green rucksack. The black haired boy wore a tattered school uniform. A navy blazer with the sleeves torn off, creating a makeshift vest, over top of a baby blue collared shirt. His khaki pants stained with dirt and grass stains, and now mud from the train tracks. The blue eyed boy spoke first. "A-are you alright?"
"Y-yea I-'m fine" the brown eyed boy hadn't spoken to anyone in so long that he found the words difficult to form.
A long silence was broken by the boy with brown hair
"What's your name?" He wasn't sure if he was overstepping bounds by asking personal information like this but he had yearned to speak with someone for so long, he couldn't help himself.
"Phil. Y-yours?"stated the boy with raven hair a bright blue eyes.
This surprised Dan that someone cared enough to ask him. But he was also uneasy. Do I dare let him in? Do I even begin to ponder about a friendship? It's been a year since I left. Am I ready?
His train of thought interrupted by more speech
"Hello?"
"D-dan-iel. B-ut I p-prefer D-an"
"Nice to meet you Dan."
Both boys were unsure of where to go with the conversation at this point but Phil spoke up once more.
"Where you headed?"
"Um...we-ll...I j-ust...uhh"
"You don't have to answer its ok. I'm pretty uh tired though. Wanna find somewhere to rest?"
"Uh-sure"
"Cool. Also do you have any food? I haven't eaten in about a week"
Dan responded by pulling out a box of poptarts. His loot from the last convenient store.
"Great!"
Phil's face lit up at the thought of a cherry pop tart. His parents always told him that pop tarts were common food and were not to be enjoyed by people of class.
Dan interrupted Phil's nostalgia.
"W-wanna f-ind a p-place to r-r-est?"
"Sure I think I saw a shack over that way. It's in the woods but not too far. Is that okay?"
"S-sure"
So the boys began to walk together, unsure of this trust they had placed in each other. And so again, the boy with brown eyes walked, and the boy with blue eyes walked, but for some reason both held a little less sadness on their shoulders. They walked a bit taller too. They even looked around a bit. Instead of noticing the scary drab trees far off in the woods, dan noticed the green trees near the brook. Instead of seeing how filthy and rusted the train tracks were, Phil noticed the pretty flowers growing between the wooden slats. And instead of noticing how alone the both were, they noticed the other boy walking beside him. They continued to walk for about a mile and a half in a comfortable silence. They looked each other in the eyes occasionally. They didn't know why. Maybe it was just to see the eyes of another human being. Maybe it was just to feel...safe? Neither knew why but they just felt less uneasy when the stared into the other boys face. They felt a mutual sense of belonging; something they had both craved for so long. They continued to follow the same train tracks but for some reason they both felt like they had taken a new path; a better route; a brighter horizon.