perhaps the best way to forgive is to drive 532 miles together.
or, in which two boys who fell back apart fall back together when they need each other most, and learning why what happened occurred over a five hundred and thirty two mile road trip...
burnt sunlight on retracted hope ; ten hours before
dan howell spent most of his eighteenth birthday at the old woods behind his house, slipping into the place he used to constantly spend his summers. he remembered diving into the lake a couple of miles in completely clothed after losing a bet, or pushing the other boy in.
he hasn't been here in years- not since the day he went to the hospital. he's forgotten the way the warm summer light slips through the trees. he forgot he feeling of your shirt sticking to you and the way it felt to dip your feet in the lake.
he remembers the vivid flowers, and the pile of bricks that he and his friend used to pretend were lining the pathway to a medieval castle. he remembers how if you didn't look carefully enough, you'd miss the old treehouse the boys' fathers built so long ago.
"it's pretty- isn't it, dan," a hand presses against his arm lightly, a girl staring at him as he stands on the edge of one of the small drop offs half a mile from the lake. she smiles, leaning over to brush some stray curls out of his face. her finger traces some of the freckles only his upper arm, his hand wrapped around hers.
"i spent most of my childhood here, if i have to admit. i use to pretend to be a king, but the other boy i used to play here with wanted to be it more so i let him. i was like co-king or something, i guess." he pulls the girl after him back to the path, heading down to see the reflections of the sun off the water.
"you ever going to tell who your knight in shining armor was? he stopped talking to you when we were sixteen, dan. i think it's okay to tell us."
dan doesn't open his mouth though, and she just barely shakes her head, blonde hair falling over her shoulders. his lips are stained cherry red from a lollipop he was having earlier while they were still trying to find the path. his curls fall back over his face, and shadows cast from the trees create more spots of darkness on his face. in the light, the freckles sprayed across his cheeks look like tiny constellations.
he remembers that boy traced a series of freckles out on his left cheek the last time they were out here, right before the incident. said it looked like the big, or little, dipper. it happened while they were laying on the banks of the lake, clothes soaking. dan was laying on his stomach, and the boy, who dan refers to as donnie when his friends pressured him to think of a name on the spot while listening to fall out boy, was sitting on top of him, legs on either side of his stomach.
he remembers donnie's skin seemed way too lukewarm for him that day, it sent a shaky feeling through dan every time he brushed against it. donnie would laugh if dan made a comment about it, before just sitting on top of dan. donnie's eyes couldn't stay concentrated on dan's eyes while they talked (and he refused to get off), they kept wandering everywhere but dan's eyes.
but what happened on those dew covered banks ruined what they had forever, burnt what little hope that dan had of them staying friends despite how different they were to a crisp that crumbled right before his eyes.
he would almost say he felt the old scars ache as he sat right where it happened, remembering the feeling of blood on his face and fire licking his skin. elisabeth hugged him a little tighter then, setting her phone aside after telling her girlfriend she needs to go. dan just sighed and let his eyes fixiate on an old cheery blossom tree in the fields beyond a nearby hill. that's where they found him, bruised, bloody, and burnt unconscious due to acts of hate under a tree that meant love.
he missed the contours of that boy, he did, he missed the sleepovers and drinking hidden wine they kept under their beds. he misses the tipsy confession and the burning of the liquid in their lungs. he misses donnie pressing his forehead to dan's whenever dan started crying, dan's hands gripped tightly in between them.
but he can't have that anymore, it was him lying on those old banks on his eighteen birthday crying into his best friend's shirt. donnie's hands were replaced with elisabeth's small and soft ones, and perhaps his heart panned a bit when he called her donnie while crying instead of elisabeth.
perhaps that's why they stayed there until the sunset, biding farewell to the sun as the orange, pink, and red hues finally disappeared off the surface of the lake. just like the way the boy that use to rule this kingdom next to dan disappeared out of his life, slowly, then completely, replaced by a dark void.
perhaps the sun will rise again.
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hello and welcome to my new fic! i hope you enjoy, and these chapters will be shorter than most of my chapters for other books, but can range anywhere.
as noted this is an au, and this will be a longer one. also, my reason for making them eighteen is that they just graduated from high school (this will take place in america, no specifics yet, and most of this book will not take place in the town they are in now). they're (dan and phil) having their last summer before going to college. i say anything more and spoilers.
this is rated mature because of mentions of violence.
