bruised apples

viii. don't let it go

{ you better save yourself / from something you can't see }

"Hey."

Dan's voice echoed across the courtyard, hitting Matt with a sudden mixed feeling about showing up here in the first place.

"Hey," Matt nodded. He stuck his hands in his pockets as Dan cooly walked over to the small fountain in the middle of the stone tiles scattered across the floor. He watched the brunette boy hold out his fingers in the water.

Dan sighed.

"What's up?" Matt queried, leaning against the fountain.

The rapidly fading sunset cast the most beautiful glow onto the boy's face. His eyes shimmered, the oranges and yellows fading into the blue of the shadows around the two boys. Dan's eyes flickered from Matt to the stream of water against his fingertips.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" Matt tilted his head.

Dan looked down and mumbled, "Your mom and... everything. I suppose."

"I have no clue what you're talking about."

"Pete told me."

Matt halted, "What are you--"

"Your.... your thing."

It felt like time had collapsed onto him, forcing Matt to reach out for more seconds, minutes, hours even before he could think of something to say. Because this whole diet thing was supposed to be a way out of his hatred for himself, his slipping grasp of control, and everything that his father suffered through before he pulled the trigger.

He exhaled, trembling in the cold gush of wind and in Dan's quiet gaze.

"You're scared, aren't you?" Dan lifted his chin out of his scarf. Matt looked blearily at the other boy.

"I'm not scared," Matt said bluntly.

"Look, I'm not trying to make you feel--"

"It's not-- you're not."

"Then what?"

Matt paused, leaning over and gazing into the puddle at the bottom of the fountain. He remembered his mother in the ripples. He remembered finding her knees deep in the ocean. The thing is, he couldn't stop remembering.

A touch on his shoulder made him shudder.

"Hey," Dan said softly. Matt glanced up.

Dan's left hand shifted from his shoulder to his neck. He rubbed gentle circles on Matt's cheek with his thumb, his eyes shifting from alert to sympathy so quickly that Matt wasn't sure if he was imagining things or not. He felt another hand on his waist, the shadow across Dan's face either getting larger or his face getting closer to Matt -- he wasn't too sure. And surely this was all a dream, of course, because there just wasn't any realistic way--

His lips -- Matt could seriously faint right now -- pressed against the other boy's.

And, after a second, Matt kissed back, his cold fingertips on the other boy's cheeks as he brought their bodies closer together and finally everything seemed like it was going to be okay for once. It was as if this magical little moment where someone loved another almost as much as Matt loved Dan was finally proof that love existed and it was tangible and people cared.

"I love you so much," Matt choked out, burying his head into the other boy's chest. 

Dan wrapped his arms around the other boy, shivering almost as much as there was darkness in the sky.