Work Text:
He leaned back as far as he could go in the chair without toppling completely, staring up at the night sky. Stars glittered overhead, some marred by the after image of the fire he’d just been staring into. Campfire smoke hovered in the air around him, mixing with the cool sweet scent of the night air. Orion hung in the sky to the right, one of the few bright constellations he could remember from school. Otherwise, he made up his own constellations. A rabbit leaping through the galaxy. A small fire burning in the distance. A witch riding by on her broom, waving in his direction.
The chair jumped under him, and he started, fumbling as the legs slammed back into the ground. He barely avoided tipping head first into the fire. Laughter erupted from beside him.
“Oh, man, you gotta be more careful!” Leo said from beside him, slapping a warm hand down onto his shoulder. “We almost lost you there!”
He looked over at Leo, eyes wide, lost for words. His friend’s dark skin was cast in half brilliant light and half deep shadow by their fire, a brilliant grin visible in the flickering fire. He could look all night long and never stop.
“I wouldn’t have nearly been offed if you hadn’t tipped my chair!” He finally got out, unable to stop himself from smiling in response. “You’re lucky I have such quick reflexes.”
Leo laughed again. “Sure. But really, you were somewhere else. Didn’t hear me say your name at all. What’s on your mind?”
He looked back down at the fire, and added another log when he saw it was dimming slightly. The night was chilly against his back. Around them, the forest could be heard still alive, even this late. An owl hooted in the distance. Something moved through the bushes on the other side of the fire, small and quick. Lightning bugs were lighting up the field further down, away from the light of the fire. It was peaceful, something he hadn’t gotten in so long. Everything was so busy back at home, between school, and work, and friends wanting their time. Here, he could just be him, with Leo, and they could forget everything for a while.
“I never want to leave. I wish we could just leave everything behind and make a life fishing and making things and never think about money or school projects or anything ever again.”
Leo, for once, was quiet beside him, though he could still feel his friend’s hand warm on his shoulder. He gave Leo some time, letting his friend think.
“I get it.” Leo finally said, hand squeezing. “With everything going on… I’d run away with you, man! But I like being here and there with you. Anywhere’s fine with me, so long as we’re together. Taking on the world, you and me! Partners in crime!”
“So you’re saying we go back, then.” He said, not quite dry, but with a hint of melancholy, eyes back to searching the sky.
“I’m saying… I’m saying we come back again, whenever things get bad. We support each other when we need to, and we leave when we need to. I don’t think we’d really enjoy leaving everything behind; you’d get bored after two days without your video games! We’d miss the group back at the dorms! You know we gotta do the next prank on Mara, or else she’ll never let us forget she won.” He paused, but I could sense something more waiting in the air between us, floating with the sparks off the fire. “And, I think, I would like it to be us forever, out there together. When we graduate, we can do so much! But we can’t if we don’t get there. So I promise, I’ll help us get there.”
All he could do in the face of that was feel the tears filling up his vision and blink them away, letting the blurry form of Leo resolve itself back into something solid and real. Sometime during that rant Leo’s hands had taken over, and he could no longer feel that gentle touch on his shoulder. So instead he leaned over and took one out of the air, lacing their fingers together firmly between them.
This time, he thought, I’m not going off anywhere without Leo. “Okay. I think that might be just fine.”
He couldn’t quite interpret the look in Leo’s eyes, but then that familiar smile broke across his friend’s face again. “Now then. Since we’ve gotten the Deep Talk time of the night out of the way, why don’t we move on to the Cuddling By the Fire time of the night?”
He flushed brightly, hoped it would be hidden by the glow of the fire, then shrugged and nodded. When Leo pulled on his hand to get him up and moved them to one of the bedrolls laid out just out of reach of the strongest of the heat, he went.
In the morning, he drove them back to the school. Leo sat with legs on the dash and a hand out the window, singing along badly to the radio the entire way home.