A/N: I'd just like to mention that I did change my pen name from Sam Makowski to sammasterpiece. That way it matches my twitter and my tumblr, and also doesn't show up when you google my name.

Also another reminder that for anyone interested in this story, I have updated up to chapter 8 on my blog. The first eight chapters can be found at tagged/here_now_gone (without the brackets, obviously).

He woke up disoriented. Sun falling through a window was warm to the point of discomfort on his face, the couch was soft beneath him, and his stomach was growling.

For one beautiful, glorious moment he didn't know where he was, forgot all about the events of the past week; he thought that maybe he had fallen asleep on Josh's couch again, like he had done any number of times, after the two boys had stayed up most of the night playing video games and playing guitar, writing songs and planning their dreams.

He rolled over and opened his eyes, and saw a small screen black TV placed on a glass stand, pressed up against a brown wall, and the illusion was snapped.

He wasn't on Josh's couch, in Josh's house. He would never be in Josh's house again, because Josh was dead.

It felt like a hole had ripped open inside of him, like a tender scab had been unexpectedly torn off a still-bleeding wound, and he gasped as waves of something that felt very much like nausea swept over him.

How long would it be before this knowledge didn't hit him like a bucket of cold water, like a wall of fire? Would he ever get used to the idea of his best friend being dead, and it being his fault?

He lay there, staring up at the ceiling, for a long time, until the grumbling of his stomach became too painful to ignore. Then he got off the couch and padded on socked feet into the kitchen.

Mike was already there, sitting at the kitchen table with a book and a cup of coffee. "There you are," he said cheerfully. "I was starting to think you'd never wake up. Would you like some lunch?"

"Lunch?" Matt asked, confused.

"We could make you some dinner instead, if you'd prefer, but it's a little early for that."

Still a little disoriented, Matt glanced at the clock on the microwave and saw that it was two in the afternoon. "You shouldn't have let me sleep so long," he said. "I don't want to...infringe."

"We didn't get home until almost three last night," Mike reminded him. "And you looked like you could use the extra rest. Do you feel any better?"

"Not really," Matt said with a shrug. It was going to take a lot more than one good night of sleep for him to heal. "It's going to be a long time before I feel better."

Mike looked at him questioningly and he added, "I still don't want to talk about it."

"I won't make you," Mike said calmly. "Now, do you want some lunch or not?"

"Yes," Matt said, and then added, "please." He thought it couldn't hurt to at least try to be a little nicer to Mike, after all that he'd already done for him.

"What would you like?"

"Oh...I don't know. Anything."

"Sandwiches?"

"Sure."

"How hungry are you?"

Matt's stomach growled, answering loudly for him, and Mike chuckled before standing and walking over to the kitchen counter, pulling open cupboard drawers, seemingly at random. "Well let's see what we have," he said cheerfully, "and then you can decide what and how much you want from there."

Matt hesitated, on the verge of getting up and helping, and then sank back into his chair, unsure of how he could.

"Hey, Mike?" he carefully asked Mike's turned back.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

Now Mike did turn to look at him, a warm smile on his face. "No problem," he said easily. "You want ham and cheese or peanut butter and jam?"

"Ham, please," Matt said. Kindly, Mike had closed the door that had briefly opened and Matt knew he could drop the subject if he wanted to; Mike wouldn't be hurt or upset if he chose not to push his carefully constructed boundaries. He would understand, in the best way he could, and it was for this reason that Matt pursued the subject. "I mean it. You've been too kind to me, especially considering the way I've treated you. There was no reason for you to be so...so compassionate, and I appreciate it."

He stopped, frustrated, feeling as if he still hadn't quite said what he wanted to say, hadn't yet expressed his gratitude in an adequate way, but maybe it would be enough.

Mike opened the fridge, pulling things out and setting them on the counter, keeping his back turned to Matt as if he knew instinctively that speaking to him directly would expose all of Matt's vulnerability.

"When I say it's not a problem," he said slowly, as if he were choosing his words with care, "I mean it. Maybe someone else would have left you huddled up against that building, but I couldn't. And maybe I don't understand what you went through, what you're going through, but it was pretty obvious that you were hurting and you needed help. You're too young to suffer through whatever you're going through alone—"

"I'm not that young," Matt said, his words carrying an echo of the night before.

"Too young," Mike said firmly. "You're only, what? Thirteen, fourteen years old?"

"Fifteen," Matt said defensively, petulantly, knowing it didn't really make a difference.

Mike shrugged his shoulders. "What I'm trying to say," he said, "is that we're all too young to go through something like that, but you're younger than most. And I couldn't not help you. I couldn't just leave you there, as if I'd never seen you."

Matt was silent, watching Mike lay out slices of bread and spreading butter over them, layering ham and cheese and lettuce together. He felt an unexpected warmth spreading through him, directed towards this boy who had helped him simply because he couldn't not. Slowly he stood and went to stand beside Mike, helping him put the sandwiches together.

"Well," he said softly, keeping his gaze steadily focused on the task at hand, "I don't think many people would have done what you did. And if someone had to find me on the streets, aside from the rapists and murderers, I'm glad it was you."

Now it was Mike's turn to be silent, but when Matt glanced at him out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw him smiling.

"Think this is enough to satiate your hunger?" he asked a moment later.

"Probably," Matt said, appraising the pile of sandwiches they'd produced. Chuckling, Mike carried the plate over to the table and they sat, an empty chair between them.

Neither of them felt the need to speak as they ate, something else Matt appreciated. He chewed slowly despite the hunger in his stomach, thinking.

He had done everything he could to keep his grief isolated, locked up inside him—to keep himself isolated, locked away from people who could hurt him and whom he might hurt. He had thought that no one could ever possibly understand—and that was still true—and he had thought that the only way to get away from the pain of his past was to physically leave it behind—and maybe that was still true too—but—

It wasn't fair, he figured, to take so much from Mike, this stranger who had taken him off the street, and not give him anything in return. Surely he deserved at least some measure of the truth; and maybe he wouldn't understand, but maybe he wouldn't need to.

Still, he was hesitant. It felt like his story was locked up so tightly inside of him that to let it out would be to induce a flood, an earthquake. And it felt like keeping it locked up inside of him was the only way to keep Josh close to his heart, to preserve him, to prevent from forgetting him or losing him or replacing him in anyway.

You don't have to lose him to let other people in, a voice whispered in the back of his mind.

He knew that was true, just as he knew that no one could ever replace Josh and everything he meant, everything he didn't know he was.

Okay, he told the voice in his head, the one that was gently urging him not to stop grieving, not to forget, but to move on.

"Mike?" he asked, his voice sounding fragile to his own ears, placing his half-eaten sandwich back on the plate.

"Mhm?" Mike's mouth was full of food, and he chewed and swallowed, placed down the book he'd picked up again after carefully marking his page, before turning his expectant gaze to Matt.

Matt swallowed thickly before speaking. "You can ask questions now, if you'd like."