Atlas: FTWD (Nick/Troy) Fanfiction

11 // sun

"our once barren world now brims with life"

sun, sleeping at last

sun - the star around which the earth orbits; a person or thing regarded as a source of glory or inspiration or understanding 

Nick

The rest of the night I spent feeling like I was sitting on the edge of a knife, my convoluted feelings swirling around inside with no way to explain them or express them. I have absolutely no idea what I feel for Troy, yet at the same time, I know exactly what it is. Do I have any idea how to proceed with these thoughts? No fucking clue. I was starting to get the strange yet idiotic idea that Troy might feel the same, but that disappeared under the moonlight along with any hope that these feelings would go away. Why the hell am I obsessing over my friend? My guy friend? This isn't me. I'm not gay.

I say this as I watch Troy staring up at the clouds, his fingers tracing them as his eyes try to follow. His high-ass mind doesn't seem to register me staring directly at him, but I guess that works to my advantage. Now I don't have to explain why my eyes can't move away from my best friend's face. His terribly, amazingly handsome face.

What the fuck? I take another hit of my blunt to try and focus on something else. Anything else.

"What would we do without the sun?" He ponders next to me and I snap my eyes down to look at him again but he's just sporting an idiotic grin on his face that causes my own lips to lift into one.

"Don't know, man. We'd be pretty fucked," I joke and he only shakes his head at this as his hand drops down and flops onto his chest.

"No, I mean...it literally creates everything. The food we eat, the plants we're sitting in right now, the reason we can even see each other," His eyes flicker up to mine at this and I swear my heart almost stops, "It's fucking incredible. We'd be so lost without it...so damn lost," I laugh at his poetic words.

"And you say you're not creative," I chuckle and he rolls his eyes, shoving me with his hand as I lie down next to him, my eyes now trained on the clouds above. It does look pretty damn stunning; even if I wasn't high as a kite right now I'd still be as captivated with the way the sun rays are leaking out behind the darkening clouds. Or maybe it's the way Troy's staring at the sky like it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

No. Fuck no. That's not why, it's just pretty.

"I think the most terrifying part about the Sun, is that eventually - like all stars - it's going to go out as well. Eventually, they all go out. The Sun's no exception," I remember learning that the Sun is a star back in elementary school but being reminded that eventually, some day, that huge star that is powering our lives is going to burn up and everything that we've been building down here on Earth is going to be gone.

"Fuck you man," I curse at him for reminding me of our impending doom and he just chuckles as he sits up next to me.

"Just keeping it real," He notes as he takes a hit of my blunt and I swear when his fingers brushed against mine to take it from my hands, I felt a literal spark. Like an electrical socket shock. What the hell is wrong with me?

"Last week one of our prompts for the journal was about what we think comes after death," Troy adds, his tone dropping as the smoke exhales from his mouth and into the fresh air around us.

"Oh? And I can only imagine what you wrote about?" I joke and he attempts a smile at me before looking back out at the meadow in front of us.

"It was actually something somewhat positive, believe it or not,"