Maven

Life has a strange way of moving on. With every bit of air, there is a map of intricate thoughts. It comes in heaps of crystalline failure and the smallest steps of progress. Imperfections are frustrating lines etched into skin and tears that never come. They keep him awake at night in bad dreams.

One year ago, everything was different.

Before that, even in the construct of thoughts, everything also was different.

Nothing in this world is fair. Nothing in this world is solved. But in the hypostatic of moving, eons and fragments of possible solving are appearing. And just like words from the mouth of a person he loves, he tries to catch them. And not break them in this instance.

All he can do is take those steps now. To learn from mistakes.

The first time staring at the tiny white pill is like staring at a comet that will extinguish life.

But it is a choice right now. And even in some hazy acknowledgment that nothing will just turn bright and better and that side effects still catch up, he just swallows it.

Swallowing the pill.

A strange expression to fit what is happening.

He isn't the only one that has to swallow a pill.

His mother is still not over their arguments, and Cal and Thomas and everyone else is right. Iris has made some fair points in their past talks too. Even if they are not friends, and something about his boyfriend falling at her knees stings in jelous colors, she is right in her dried out spikes when they throw each other a few words.

Living in this appartment is depleting resources. And not the ones that are material. But every day of fighting and animosity and the constant attempt to make him turn around, to tell him he was at fault as a child. It doesn't sit right in the hevy veins pumping blood through his chest.

Perhaps it is time to get to conclusions.

Something that helps further the process of solving this endless puzzle of living. And functioning properly.

A part of that is finding a different place to stay. something permanent, something safe, something to keep. Something for himself.

After all the talk about home with Thomas, this is what has to be finalized.

So, after all that has been said and done, the rest will have to continue. And it will never be easy. It isn't a default of happiness. Everyone else got that right too. But their genuine interest in him and his well being makes him wish for the first time...for the first time in forever.

The house in the Stilts is still the same, still small, still surrounded by dirt and it has a leaking rain pipe now too.

The kitchen is still the same, and everything is inviting him, just because that is what hospitality means.

Thomas is highly energetic and bouncing like a small dog fetching a ball. No one else is around.

They are alone for dinner.

"It looks like a heart," Thomas exclaims, looking at the pancake, even though it's in the evening, and dark outside, because breakfast dinner is the best invention ever. Whatever is inside the creation, it is already darkened brown and it stinks heavy. "See, quality cooking. This time I have this."

"Truly an artist," Maven acknowledges with a little bit of bite, but not too much.

The radio rustles in the background. It is like some relict from the past, over twenty years old, clunky black plastic with a cassette deck and a half-broken antenna.

"No wait." Thomas tilts his head. "It is more of a...huh. But from this angle, it is a heart, at least."

The pan makes a warning sizzle, but Thomas just ignores it for a moment.
Maven's eyes try hold a point on a cupboard to his right, but one corner of his mouth twitches involuntary when Thomas moves closer.

He's shimmying his shoulders in the best attempt of some sort of dance and singalong, but completely wrong and out of place.

"You don't even know the words," Maven states, one pale hand and fingers moving along his forearm.

"And that's okay." Thomas tries to smile it away, but something shattered and mourning still slip through. "I'll just make some up and act like I know what I have to do. That's what this is about, right?"

The pan sizzles again dangerously warning.

"Get back to the stove," Maven whispers. One more moment, soaking himself in the static sound of the radio playing some sort of tune with an echoing trumpet solo, and one tiny touch holding onto his arm.

The moment doesn't pass too fast, and a few blinks later the smallest kiss gets planted on his cheek, a freckle of warmth. It is a touch to never get tired of, even if he can act the part. Confessing that someone is the love of your life is awfully final and extremely overtuned romantic. But it wasn't a lie. As much is true.

"I turned it off," Thomas whispers. "See?"

"It is still going to burn." A weak nitpicking complaint. Maybe some faint backdrop on every night of anxiety that has been there or is yet to come. "Stop burning food, Tommy."

"I don't really care, Mave."

In the weird dust and smoke that flies through the light from the window, to an old silly radio, in a tiny kitchen, for another fragment of a moment, the world is silent and fine. It fits perfectly into the palm of his hand just like Thomas arm and the space between his shoulder blades.

"Remember how you said we should dance sometime?"

"Yeah," Thomas breathes at his side, just below the shell of his ear, and at the tingling sensation, he slightly moves his hands to a different grip at the back, between the harsh skinny parts of skin and bone in darker skin and too wide clothes. He smells like cinnamon, sweet but also searing in something hot and spicy. "Yeah, I think I do. You up for that disaster now?"

"No one can see me fail to lead you right now."

"You aren't gonna fail. See, easy. You got this. I like to be lead. I am a wet potato."

That isn't how the idiom goes, but living with someone that invents new ones or mixes old ones together , this has become a standard, and right now, Maven isn't in the mood to lecture him.

It is charming. That is what it always has been.

"You aren't a wet potato. You are better. You always get better."

Thomas' head rests on his shoulder, but with some strange sense of willingness, he lets himself get pushed back enough. Just enough. For some strange tumbling back and forward. Not even a slow dance. Just dangling from one side to another like seaweed at the ground of the ocean in a wave. It smells of burned pancakes. The scent rinses into his nostrils and gets stuck in a decisive huff. The music still bleeds over the house and sinks in soft metallic spirals of a soothing singer into the kitchen floor.

"You are doing a-ok. I am not so hot. But we can make it."

As it always is, the best moments are stolen in solitude.

Later when they sit at the table, the happiness is slowly retreating, but only because Thomas can't keep the jokes up coming forever, and he knows they will need to talk about the inevitable soon enough.

"Remember? I joked about running away together," He says, and the thought is strangely comforting but also very laughable.

Maven stares at the plate in front of him and just taps his fingers at the edge of the rundown wooden table. Everything has grooves and scratches. "Do you want to now?"

"Mhm. I don't know, I wanted to hide, really," Thomas only makes. Maven can perfectly understand that sentiment. "And you?"

"I don't know if I want to stay. I want to be somewhere... Where no one knows me. Where no one cares, I guess. But I can't leave now. I have some form of responsibility I can't run away from. I want to finish what I missed in school. I want to go to a nice uni. Maybe." Mavens cheek twitches. He stops before he looks up again. "I want you to permanently move in with me. I already made all the preparations. We can find something nice. I have still enough money left for that. For a while. "

"Oh." Thomas makes. "I think..."

Thomas stabs the pancake in front of him before smashing it together and chewing too long. "I think I want to go to school again too. I ain't that smart, but I should try. Maybe I want to do something with art. Or tattoing. Something I like."

"It's a good idea."

"Maybe it is."

It is hopeful. That is all that there is left.