the bolder thing to do 》 gawsten

"you know that nothing lasts forever"

it isn't until the sky has faded and grown dark that the severity of their words truly cuts through him. he sits, perched over a canvas of oils, when the last of their exchange comes back to haunt his brain. the words settle awkwardly in his mouth, sit sourly in his head.

this isn't right. none of it is.

he looks out beyond his work to the window, eyes tracing the outlines of the trees in the dark. then, they dance up to the moon, watching the sea of stars above dazzle him with their brilliant twinkling.

on the outskirts of town, sat out in the cold, his favorite blue eyes study the same sky. he called him starboy for a reason - he was sure that he belonged up in the sky with all of them. they were his lost brothers, and he could feel the ground up constellations that formed his bones. he was sure bits of the cosmos floated through his bloodstream, bits of fallen stars leaked from his eyes when he cried. he was a universe within himself.

and wonderfully complex was he - he who toyed with awsten's heart like so.

as they both stared up at the same sky, very different thoughts floated through their very different heads. awsten's head was flurried, mind racing with thoughts of his beloved boy. his little meteorite.

geoff, meanwhile, could be left to contemplate his place in the universe. alone. he wondered back to the times before, before he'd left. before she'd died. before he'd come to hate his guts. before he slept on the streets, or beneath the sheets of strangers. before he came to hold awsten in his arms.

and then, the thought of awsten was one that made his heart feel funny. what had once left him feeling light as air, drunk on puppy love, now left him feeling heavy. and that wasn't to say he didn't love him; because he could swear to every god in the multiverses that he did. awsten tied him down to one place, one hope.

he was the breeze in the air that kept him cool. he was the whispering in the trees, the dew settling atop the moss in the early morning.

but what was he to awsten then? was he truly the warmth of a summer night, as he had once told him? that night when they were drunk on their love and memories, had he meant it? was he simply floating too high in the clouds?

carefully, he lifts himself off the grass he has called home and turns back towards the tiny town he's settled himself into. only for awsten - as is everything in his life.

he lives for him, and him alone.

he doesn't get in his car, instead deciding to walk towards the dorms. he knows awsten isn't supposed to have guests, but he has no plans of staying long.

-

it isn't long until he is standing outside the dorm building, fully expecting all the lights to be out. of course, save for awsten's.

he's up late again. he always is.

he finds him sitting at his window, seemingly counting off the stars above them both. geoff contemplates tossing a small stone, or sending him a text. however, the longer he ponders, the more the knot in his chest swells and fills his entire being. he can't do this anymore.

he can't do any of it.

so, he turns away. like he's always done. because it is all he'll ever be good for. all he'll ever accomplish.

he walks down the road from which he came, but no longer is he filled with any sense of himself. none of this is right.

it's as if he's still fifteen. he's leaving home every other week to escape his own head, control something, anything.

he wishes that boy didn't tether him down so. he wishes he could just leave again. or perhaps leave for good. he knows his destiny is to be here for only a fleeting moment, like a gust of wind blown in with the tide. ever changing, ever rolling.

awsten is ever growing, enlightened and filled with boundless potential. all he can ever hope to be is the means to push awsten out into the world. he may be made of nothing, but his amethyst was the most deserving of all the universes blessings.

and he was deserving of nothing more than the chance to fade away into nothing, forever.