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"Would you die for me?"
Johnny opened his eyes, met with the blackness of the ceiling separated by white-painted beams supporting the neighbours on the upper floor. "What?"
"Would you die for me, Jesus." Jimmy repeated, trailing a hand off the younger boy's chest. He didn't pose a question, Johnny knew him too well to make that assumption. With Jimmy it was always a request. A command. Jimmy was his Saint and could tell Johnny to walk to the edge of the earth and he would only ask 'how far'.
But Jimmy lived for the thrill, the high, the chase. Running down anyone and everyone he wanted to hold in his grasp, in his reliance. He was the idolisation of independence, and the ones swallowed up in his halo of control were the ones who'd gladly die to see the light.
Johnny counted himself among them.
"If it was what you wanted it'd be done in a heartbeat," he whispered. He didn't need to see Jimmy's little scoff of a laugh, not the way his lips turned at the corner and his dimples showed, the way he bit down into a smirk and let go of the breath he'd been holding. Johnny had heard it enough times to never forget.
Jimmy shifted on the mattress, springs sighing beneath the sheets as he stood up onto the wooden floor. His bare feet scuffed each step on the boards as he met the window, drawing back the plain white bedsheet sacrificed as a curtain. City lights stung Johnny right in the periphery, instinct was to close his eyes but Jimmy's silhouette against the glass was where his attention turned.
"If it was what you wanted, I'd do anything," Johnny continued.
Jimmy almost looked at him. Almost. Almost told Johnny how much he was liked, to the best of Jimmy's ability. Almost told him he was the reason Jimmy had made it this far, that the dependency he'd somehow blossomed in return terrified him and sent a shiver through his chest just the way Johnny reacted when Jimmy touched him in all the right ways. He almost admitted he'd fallen in love, the one thing he'd sworn away when in turn he chose to become the saviour for those who couldn't love themselves.
But he didn't, not that night and not aloud, and all he offered was the implication for Johnny to pick up in pieces after he'd get the call from the police that no one wants to receive, a week later, maybe more. But Jimmy couldn't say nothing. "And what if I told you you're the only thing worth living for?"