Sorry for the brief hiatus. Mom life, ya know.
Anyway, this brief drabble takes place sometime in the first couple months after Mattie first comes to live with Arthur and Al.
"Al? Are you asleep?"
"Mm? 'Sup Mattie?"
Mattie stares into the dark for a moment, then turns on his side and props himself up on his elbow.
"I dunno," he mumbles finally. "The rain…"
Al's sheets rustle and Mattie can make out the dim outline of his thin frame and tousled hair as he sits up.
"What about the rain?"
Mattie doesn't reply, only slips down from his bed, pads across the room, and climbs up next to Al. The other boy scoots over without hesitating, and sits silently as Mattie hugs his knees to his chest and rocks back and forth, listening to the rain rattling down on the gutter over the window. And when Mattie lies down and curls up on his side, Al mirrors him.
"What about the rain, Mattie?" he whispers.
"It just—" Mattie sniffs and hopes it doesn't sound like a crying sniff— "It reminds me of Francis."
Al is silent for a long time, and Mattie wonders if he's fallen asleep.
"Did Francis like the rain?" he asks after a while.
Mattie laughs wetly. "Not really. He kind of hated it. But it was raining when I left—you know, when they took me away."
Another silence, and Mattie breaks it this time.
"We were always going to be together, Al," he whispers. "And then he sent me away."
Al doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything. And he doesn't say anything for so long that the first sound to break the silence is the quiet sigh of Mattie falling asleep. So he just wriggles deeper into the warmth of the bed and listens to his friend's breathing and the beating of the rain.