a boy for sunflowers (krii7y) [completed]

grave

it's here lads. I'm wrapping this up soon. I think you guys are gonna really like the next chapter. (Sorry for the lack of John's presence)

Three months after that, Lucas felt a little bit lost without John. He'd asked around and been as discreet as he could, but still nothing. Lucas was genuinely concerned that John was dead, or he'd gotten himself into some sort of trouble and it hurt not being able to reach him, it tore him apart. Though, if he was dead, someone would have put out a missing persons report, and nobody had. It was a small town, he would have heard.

The last three months had been weird in themselves, there was random fires that sprung up all over town. They reminded Lucas of a familiar memory that he wasn't ready to tell anyone yet. The smell of ashes in the air was constant, he blamed the local gangs for doing whatever they wanted.

Meanwhile, John's condition was deteriorating, with some doctors putting it down to bipolar, schizophrenia or just a temporary period of depression. John's dad was curious that nobody had been able to diagnose him, and he was even more angry that ket had been found in his system three months ago. The nurses often commented how he talked to someone from time to time, though they would never see another person in the room. Sometimes, they would come back into the room to check on him and the window would be open for no apparent reason.

Everyone was human, and Eli and the guys were really starting to feel the guilt and the heat of leaving John to rot in there. Eli had stopped visiting him over time because the blond just got worse and worse. One day, John's dad turned to face his son, a broken mess of tears, practically skin and bones and bleached hair.

"John, you keep saying you know who killed that kid. Could you tell me who?" he asked, he figured that was probably making his son mad, it made perfect sense.

"He wouldn't like me to say," John replied softly, turning his body away from his father, he didn't want to talk.

He left the conversation at that, but that was the most he'd gotten out of him in the last three months as he didn't talk much. He could face it, the doctors thought he was batshit crazy, which was right to assume but wrong at the same time because there had been hardly any cases of mental illness in his family.

Speaking of guilty consciences, Mason, Matt and Damien were standing in front of Jay's grave, directly by the church. They'd made sure not to stop by for too long just in case anyone passing by got suspicious. Whilst they were there, no words had been spoken for the time being, Mason suddenly really felt out of place because Damien and Matt were staring at the grave so intently as if the dead boy was going to emerge any second. Mason figured he'd ask them about it later, he really didn't want to come because even being in the presence of a dead man was making him lose his nerve.

What's more was that Matt had insisted on bringing flowers from Mason's beautifully kept garden, to which he didn't pay for. That pissed the Aussie off a bit, but they had a bit of a thing going, he guessed (or had, Matt had been cold as of late) so he let that one pass. The flowers were sunflowers, of course.

"I'm sorry. I guess I didn't get to sort out your mess after all. I was ignorant," Matt apologised so quietly that his voice was barely inaudiable.

Feeling confused, Mason shot Matt a look, not that he was looking in his direction, but he felt as if something was very very wrong. His mum had always taught him that if someone apologised, it meant that they had done wrong. The Aussie would have liked to have thought that he and Matt were closer than ever, though maybe that wasn't the case. In fact, when he studied Damien and Matt, they seemed to have this mutual understanding of each other's emotions and would nod every so often. Perhaps Mason wasn't as involved, he wasn't as deep in shit as he thought he was. Really, Mason would have given anything to share the weight that Matt was carrying on his shoulders. He was the one for him, after all.