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The first time Peter sees Carl, he doesn't really see him at all. Not properly, not like normal people do, not like normal kids do - because Peter sees his own reflection staring back at him, with better shoes and better hair and better food, and thinks of mayhem.
The first time Carl sees Peter, however, he sees the end. He's an insightful kid, maybe, thinks about what's what, in between smashing up what else is also what. He doesn't really mind - the end, right beside him. If anything, it makes him feel invincible.
☞
When Peter is eight, and Carl nine, Peter steals his dad's whiskey from under his bedside table, where dustballs collect. With the serious intent only kids can muster, they'd fucked themselves over down by the bridge, contentment bubbling over from somewhere deep within, flushed cheeks and clumsy smiles.
Carl feels tender but empowered, that invincible feeling dancing its fingers along his spine, like he's something quite unstoppable. Peter, however, just ends forgetting what time Eastenders is on, to his horror.
That night Peter sleeps in Carl's bed - boys top-to-toe, a pillow thrown in-between because they're boys and it makes Peter giggle. It doesn't hurt in the morning and it never will, because Carl is unstoppable with Peter by his side, and Peter is so very innocent.
☞
The boys in the flats on Peter's floor like to laugh at his hair and his shrinking trousers. One day Peter decides he doesn't enjoy it too much, throws punches and chases them down the stairs with his cricket bat; they call him a psycho and by tea Peter has written it all over his notebooks.
He doesn't tell Carl.
☞
When Peter is ten, and Carl eleven, Peter asks him to run away with him, in so many words. They'd been by the bridge, as always, feet dangling off the edge as Carl passive-aggressively ripped leaves apart, recounting the days of school he'd been subjected to whilst Peter looked up at him in admiration, his big brandy eyes enamoured.
"Carlos," and Carl had stopped ripping leaves - albeit to rip Peter for calling him that. "Carlos," Peter continued, despite Carl's growing agitation, lurking in the corner of his grimace, "Carlos, can you promise me something?"
☞
Carl lives with his dad, on the floor below Peter; on weekends, they bunk there, because Mrs. Doherty doesn't like Carl's long hair or his mucky shoes or his absent dad, and Carl takes notable offence. Peter, ever insightful, ever pragmatic, with dirty teeth that make Mrs. Doherty cringe, doesn't mind one bit.
Because at Carl's, they have hoops, and David Niven films, and Carl.
☞
When Peter is thirteen, and Carl fourteen, Peter manages to kiss an unsuspecting girl - Susie, her name was, who had yellow hair but a persistent smile. Carl had laughed like a maniac, socked him around the head and shuffled him into the cornershop for celebration, or penance, depending on how Peter looks at it.
"Carlos, Carlos!" Peter laughs, running after his mate on the way out. "Carl, you div! Slow down!" Carl throws back his head and laughs in delight, speeding up with a smile to break his face. "They're not following us, you cunt!"
☞
Once, Johnny in Miss Walder's class kicks Carl in the stomach after he turns up for Maths with a huge smile on his face. Looked like a right fag, had been his justification. Johnny gets put in isolation and Carl in detention for retaliating, teeth beared and dukes raised in front of an audience of algebraic equations and passive peers.
Peter wants to know why Johnny did it, a buzzing under his skin, making his jaw tighten and fingers twitch - so tries cornering him after school, hoping to add another colour to his bruises. It doesn't work, of course not, since Peter hasn't stopped growing and Johnny has.
Carl takes him and his aching wrist to the medical room with soft eyes, saying I could've told you if you'd just asked and Peter, irritable, snaps back I know why anyway, feeling immediately guilty.
He makes up for it the next day; throws pebbles at the detention room window, just like in those old films, until Carl swears him out, and stones at Johnny until Carl swears him out again, a smile cracking his face.
☞
When Peter is sixteen, and Carl seventeen, Peter doesn't ask Carl to run away with him. Instead, he turns up at his flat with a backpack full of boxers and notebooks and his English homework, and packs Carl's stuff for him when Carl goes for a piss.
When Carl comes back, Peter gets an oh, and a glance at the grey sky, clouds and eyes downcast in apology. Peter understands, of course he does, so finishes his poem, and goes home for tea. Maybe not today.
☞
There's an alcove on the stairwell between the eighth and ninth floor, where a vending machine used to be. Carl doesn't know what happened to it, but he thinks it might've been stolen or destroyed or someone might've pissed in it again.
That isn't what matters though. What matters is what happens there. Arcadia, cigarettes, psychos.
☞
When Peter is sixteen, and Carl seventeen, Peter doesn't ask Carl to run away with him. Carl, however, one week later, steals a tenner from the old man who lives next door and buys Peter Metal Mickey on record. Peter grins his dirty grin and Carl rolls his eyes, socking him around the head: that space in Peter's chest fills again.
☞
Amy-Jo's room is haven of records and old magazines, a bicycle balanced in the corner and a burst wardrobe of clothes, and is very, very grey. Emily's room is neater - organised, as much as possible with the knowledge of a Peter living less than five metres away - with a bust window and a bust tele, and is very, very grey. Peter's is completley bare, except for a pile of cigarettes on the bedside table, and a posctard stuck to the wall above his bed from Turkey, someone's illegible scrawl displayed proudly on the back.
As far as the eye can see - solid, matte grey.
Peter spends most of his time in Carl's room anyway, so it doesn't matter - because Carl's room is bright blue, an exact replica of the sky for two weeks in August, an exact replica of Susie Graham's favourite dress, an exact replica of the shine Carl's eyes take on when he's plotting. Plus, there's always hoops in the cupboard.
☞
When Peter is seventeen, or eighteen, depending on what part of midnight he's finding himself at, Carl asks him Peter to run away with him, holding up a backpack and a Sainsbury's bag filled with books. He blames a sudden feeling of invincibility, and a baby photo of Peter he'd found - or maybe it was a baby photo of himself, he never can quite tell these days.
Peter shakes his head, and there's a moment where Carl wants to scream, he wants to cry and lash out, a moment he knows Johnny Borrell'd kick him for and the girls would laugh at him for, but the moment passes when Peter holds up a finger and returns with a fading postcard in hand. They leave without a goodbye and Peter thinks of mayhem, but can only feel delight.
☞
They live in squats, alcoves, places where vending machines once were but are no more, because some bastard decided to piss in them, up and down the country. Peter wakes up each day to his reflection staring back at him, ragged, crinkly - but always, in time, with a smile that could break his face in two. They hear in their streets word of runaways, but not disappearances, so it's okay, because the sky isn't so grey anymore.
They send back photos to Carl's dad, and sometimes his mum, maybe once, twice a year -
Peter and Carl in Turkey, shaggy heads and mourning eyes; Peter and Carl in the sea, ripped trousers and delighted smiles; Peter and Carl in an unrecognizable flat, smeared make-up and locked sides; Peter and Carl, sometimes, with others - boys with bright eyes and flat smiles or girls with flat eyes and bright smiles, but these come less often.
☞
That being said, Carl's dad doesn't hear from them much. Carl's room is still bright, bright blue, Peter's still a permeating grey, and there's still a patch on the wall that's darker than the rest of it, where something once was, the only sign that sun ever touched that room.
Amy-Jo gets a letter years later, from some psycho in the East end - she can't tell, the writing's an illegible scrawl - about being in a band, and being in love and about some Turkish curry she should try. She rolls her eyes and lets it be.