GUARDIAN | DORBYN ✓

48

jack stuck close to daniel for majority of the night, sitting beside him when the boys followed daniel's request and took a blanket out into the back yard.

the brunet boy laid back, glancing up at the stars with an empty expression as jonah picked up his journal. "find the last page, move two back."

jonah's eyes were quick to fall upon the title, brows furrowing. who's angel? "is this for jenna? i thought you didn't like her anymore."

he was obviously confused, and daniel held out a blind hand sternly. "someone else. hand it over."

so, jonah slid the book onto daniel's palm, licking over his lips. zach interrupted him before any words could leave his mouth, "do we know them? how old are they?"

"no, just some girl from camp, remember? like, sixth grade?" daniel almost grimaced at the lie that tangled his tongue. "the book is old, i probably used to write in random pages. here,"

daniel dropped the book, a paperclip holding open the page of whatever song they were supposed to be writing. "this is just a few things, we could scrap it all, i'm just messing around..."

jack jabbed a finger into his waist, causing daniel to curl a little. "don't put yourself down, this looks good. have you practiced it?"

once again, daniel had to sit up, propping up onto his hands as he met eyes with zach, who sat across from him. "did we take the guitar or are we stupid?"

both jonah and zach went to reach for it but the youngest got grasp on it first, sticking out his tongue with playful torment. it was quickly handed to daniel, who crossed his legs like everybody else and ran his thumb over the strings to test if it was tuned.

he shuffled, leaning a little to remember the first few lines, at least they were good enough.

although he hummed the same tune following, the boys seemed to understand where he was coming from, and he was thankful for that.

"i don't know, it's— it's kind of like how much trust you put into someone, the beginning of love, that vibe..."

jonah moved the book closer to himself, taking the pencil into hand as he glanced up at the remainder. "okay, so, following this line..."

they managed to alter some things, knowing 'i love you' could be a take on the song until jack suggested eight letters so it could be more versatile, considering the words 'i hate you' alongside it.

the page was smudged but they managed to rhyme majority, having some trouble with synonyms and such as it seemed that jonah and jack began to look over the work. they'd all been working for an unknown amount of time, the only notice prominent is how the backyard lights flicked on since the sun disappeared from dusk.

daniel laughed dryly, "we really need to stop leaving group projects to last minute." he laid back once more, zach crawling around jack to lay his head on daniel's stomach and stretch his legs off the blanket.

his eyes tracked over the skyline, clouds out of sight. tonight was calm, peaceful, no bugs bothered them from carrie's insist to bring incense sticks for the corners of their blanket.

zach's head turned at the close-to-inaudible, "holy shit," that dropped from daniel's mouth. his hand raised playfully, closing the brunet's jaw.

"you'll catch flies," zach let out a breathy chuckle. the ones we don't have, his head turned to look at the atmosphere with a furrowed brow. "what's up, d?"

daniel stammered, playing off his shock as well as he could. "just some dumb constellation anna told me about once... she— she said it can be hard to see a lot of the time."

another fucking lie. god, they all hurt him. why am i insulting what corbyn loves? i loved him for it.

"which one?" jack caught drift of their conversation, cutting off jonah, who joined jack in looking at daniel. "ava's been going on about them recently 'cause of some book she read."

daniel was caught, not thinking anybody would really care for it as he shifted his arms with a reluctant breath. "lyra."

"where is it?"

jonah's voice wafted, now looking up at the stars with everybody else.

"that crooked t shape? that's cygnus, look down in the right bottom corner, i think that's lyra." daniel's hand raised, finger pointed toward the constellation although it was quite obvious nobody else could see just what angle he could.

EXTRA NOTES
-this is short too im sorry ):

-someone should've got me to listen to lauv a hot minute ago cause ive been missing out😔