Thirty-Five

The way back to Burgess feels empty. For some reason I take shotgun while Hiccup sleeps across the backseat. Dad is silent all the way, peaceful. Eventually, I fall asleep as well.

When I wake up again, we're home. It's way past midnight, and my eyes burn. Dad hugs me before I jump out of the car, and he promises to visit the following week.

I help Hiccup carrying his stuff to his room, silently so he won't wake his parents. When we cross the street again to my place, we barely have time to undo any packing before he collapses on my bed. I stare at his form, somehow wondering on his sleeping form.

I love Hiccup. I love the shape of his body, his scent, his structure. The way his shoulder blades are pointy for being so skinny, the way his wrists are so thin I could wrap all of my fingers around it. His freckles that cover most of his skin.

How has this last time we had sex made me feel so self-conscious? His presence right now is killing me. At the same time I want him so far from me, I also want to eat him. Like joining our bodies and turning us into one.

I turn off the lights.

When I wake up again, I'm in the couch. I hear the rain pouring outside the windows, and the dim light tells me it's early in the morning. I should be getting ready for school. A blanket was thrown over me sometime through the night.

I get up slowly, allowing the dizziness fade as I step towards the stairs. Hiccup is still asleep in my room, snoring lowly. I don't remember when it was the last time we slept apart. Everything is in this faded shade of grey and blue, and the thin light that peeks out of the window gives this majestic scenery of the room.

I don't think, I just do it, my hands reaching to my pocket to pick up my phone, turning the camera on and snapping a picture. There are thin flecks that break through the image and I take a while to realize they are dust, floating towards the air. I wonder if they were alive, if they knew where they're going. If they find comfort in not having any control to their fall. If they ever fall. Perhaps their entire life spam is always falling and falling and falling. The picture looks nice.

I step closer to the boy, close enough so I can smell his scent. Grapes, clean clothes, a metallic smell that emanates from his hair. Leaning close, but never touching him, I just look. I look at his nostrils moving, breathing in and out, in and out. His eyes are so steady, peaceful, the edge of his eyelids glimmer in the dark. And his lips, so reddish and thin, if not a bit dry. I could stare at him forever.

Maybe isn't this the way it is supposed to be? I don't regret doing anything with him, but perhaps the way I adore him seems more pure when he is asleep. It's a harsh contrast against what we did only yesterday. How lustful his eyes were when he took over. I was his last night, entirely his.

I take another picture, this one perfectly closed on his sleeping face, his freckles showing slightly out of focus, but I save the picture.

I lean in to him, and this time I allow myself to kiss his cheeks before resting my arm on the area of the mattress near him, laying my head over it and just staying close to him, where his scent climbs up my nostrils and I feel literally drunk in him.

Love is weird. I want to swallow him up, as if trying to make our bodies into a single being, but I at the same time, I think about what Aster said just yesterday, about squeezing too hard. I push this thought away. What I have with Hiccup are sparks, roses and love lines floating around our kisses. I kiss his forehead.

A crack forms where my lips touch him.

School is dulling. The corridors, the people, the voices, the fluorescent lights that blink in the halls, on and off, on and off. We arrive sometime during second and third class, so most of the corridors are empty, except for that one jock that is too cool for class. My first class is trig – failed; - And I leave Hiccup by his class first.

As I walk away, the cloud of thoughts forms and emanates inside my brain, fogging my vision and everything I do is on autopilot. When I reach the classroom, though, I have the unnerving feeling that every eye is on me.

"Late, mister Haddock," I hear, and I nearly stop. He said Overland, but the letters that flew from his mouth curled and twirled all the way to my ears in the wrong order.

He said Overland. I nod to him, and nobody really makes any comments, so that is unnerving. I walk slowly, all the way to the last roll of chairs, pulling mine and sitting with my usual frown. I heard Haddock.

"Icarus," He restarts his lecture. I capture fragments of his words. "Flew too close to the sun-" I am by the window, and I can see the sun flaring over the hills from here. Everything is green and grey. It feels cold, it looks cold. "Close enough to the heat."

I think of Hiccup and his freckles. I kissed every single one of them just this morning. "His wings melted," I leaned in to him, we had sex just yesterday. Why is that so important?

"He fell to his death," I kissed him. I fucked him senseless, just yesterday. I was his; he took me so far;

"Or did he get burned to ash…"

We were so hot, so hot…

I didn't realize I was biting my lips until I taste blood on my tongue. I am biting myself so hard that I can see the red reflecting in the glass.

When class is over, I can still see the stars hanging around my eyesight. I walk slowly, but still think that I'm not going slow enough.

Suddenly I realize that I was not overthinking too much when all pairs of eyes are locked on me. I look around, familiar but hating the feeling that I am being exposed. My head sinks between my shoulders. I reach my locker, and that's when I hear his steps. For a moment, I imagine that it is Hiccup, but I look up to see Jake Hall coming up to me, a mischievous grin stressing his features.

This is the guy that everyone knew he was gay before he even had to come out. Drama club, book clubs and the fucking school paper. He walks towards me, his award winning smile that screams that he is about to get another prize. Suddenly I understand why everyone's looking at me.

"I heard that there is another member in our valley then." He snakes his arm around my shoulders, and I fight the urge not to punch it off.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I reply, looking by the corner of my eye. Jake smiles.

"Oh, no need to lie at this point, Jackie, we all know."

"Stop calling me Jackie," I warn him, shaking his arm off.

He takes a step aside, gulps. "Come on, Jack, it's okay, really-"

"What exactly is okay, Jake?" I stop walking, crossing my arms in front of me, and hoping he won't answer. Please, don't answer.

"You don't know?" He asks, as if restricting himself.

I look around, and there are at least ten people staring back. "Know what?"

If I had punched his face just a second ago, his expression would be just as perplexed. He snatches his phone, swiping the screen for a bit before turning it to me. "I'm sorry, dude, I thought you knew."

I take the phone, looking at myself on a video, leaning towards a locker. Another pair of hands circle my shoulders, and I instantly stop breathing while I watch me and Hiccup turning ever so slightly towards the camera, kissing each other so fiercely we could be eating the other's mouth.

Jake's cold fingers gingerly take his phone back, and he places another hand on my shoulder. "It's been running over all weekend," he says. "Jesus, man, don't you ever use your phone?"

I can't breathe. I can't even think properly. I got to find Hiccup.

I walk away. Jake doesn't even try to step closer. I can hear his heels turning while he mutters to some girls, "I tried."

When I find Hiccup, he is standing on the corridor. For a moment I think this is about to be like in those movies when the girl runs to the boy's arms and they circle each other in a comforting hug.

It's not the case. He grabs my wrist, not my hand, pulls me behind him all the way to the park entrance, into the cold.