A/N: Okay. This is a 2nd-person perspective and I know technically that's not really allowed but it is a legitimate writing perspective; I wanted to try it. It may be a little OOC for John as well but I took poetic license with it.

This is basically my writing style in a nutshell (though I did take a few things out to make it less OOC); flash-fiction, lots of descript. and such, little dialogue. If you really hate it, please let me know; I've had this written for a while just didn't have the guts to publish it…

I hope you enjoy it either way!

Twenty Minutes on a Park Bench

You've never realized how much could really occur on a park bench in twenty minutes. How many mountains could be moved and seemingly unclimbable hills scaled in brown oxfords and long wool coats with upturned collars. The breeze of Autumn's fingers play patterns on your cheeks and comb through your hair, a seasons greeting in September. You breathe in the crispness, breathe back out a version melted in a mix of warm personal gases and minty toothpaste scents. Trees chitter with birds, squirrels chatter with chipmunks and you are deaf to all but the mantra: breathe in, breathe out.

The bench feels hard and unforgiving, but the body seated beside you is a sweet and sour juxtaposition. Soft and inviting, yet as complex as the labyrinth. Except this wonder of the world is filled with everything except a murderous monster. He overflows with everything but evil, the leftover something in Pandora's black box; the yang without the yin, an infuriating embodiment of all those stupid clichés preteens worship.

Strangers walk by you unseeing, unassuming. How could they possibly infer that your lungs have suddenly stopped working, your throat has seized up, your tongue has lost the ability to produce anything but dryness? How could they honestly realize all that, just from the way your body had stiffened, your head resting on the wooden planks behind you? It wasn't that they were just unobservant; they couldn't know, had no possible way. They didn't know him so their ability to know the precise feeling of falling in love with this man was impossible.

The way to tell him has caught in your throat.

The man in question seemed to be completely unaware of your slow asphyxiation as well, though the proximity between the two of you seems the likeliest reason for it. His breathing is hardly noticeable under the layers of clothing, it is as if he is miming a statue, but always willing to break position at any point just to surprise you. Which he does. You jump slightly as he begins to talk in that low baritone about some interesting thing that happened this one time in someplace exotic, but to you, the words are meaningless. The places he speaks of are no longer the fairytales or the novelties they once were, the only thing exotic to your ears now is the soft, the hard, the light and the heavy tones and timbres that slip in and out of his voice: The worst kind of hypnotizing: there is no special snap, clap or magic word to stop this spell.

His words dig up from his lungs to burst off his tongue as naturally as a seed digs up and out of damp, rich soil to break into sunlight. Phonating through vibrating vocal cords which cover either side of his larynx, you could hear the breaths he takes as your eyes close; drowning in the smoldering lullaby pounding in your ear drums.

You wish it was that easy for you to just get the words out, then suddenly it is.

A flooding is beginning in your lungs, a torrent of verbs, nouns, pronouns, articles, adjectives fill you till you have to open your mouth and shakily whisper the most important combination you know; the one most conclusive and encompassing. You don't register it but your colleague, companion, friend does. He acts as though you had just screamed it-for a passing second you are afraid you truly did- and his piercing eyes are bright and wide; spotlights filled with confusion. His slim head is cocked to the side lightly, questioning.

"What did you say?"

You breathe heavily. In. Out. You repeat yourself in a gloriously slow, exceedingly laborious breath.

"I… love you."

He looks to the rusted brick sidewalk, silver eyes searching for some kind of response. He leans back and you lecture yourself with your eyes tightly shut. You reprimand yourself, put yourself in a mental corner with a muzzle and throw away the key. You're about to get up and walk away, too embarrassed to even laugh it off and proceed to apply a small-talk Band-Aid over the internally bleeding wound. But then you hear the slow bubbling of his chuckle and your head snaps up to see his face smiling at you. He looks like everything.

You lean back with a disbelieving smile, looking down at your unclenching hands. You feel his arm fall around your shoulder. His voice holds both adoration and amusement as he says lightly to you, "Your feet don't touch the ground, you know."

Twenty minutes on a park bench never meant more to you.