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This is all there was. Purgatory. A rat chewing, and chewing, and chewing.
“Mm. Well. At least we got the chance to be what we are.”
“And what are we exactly?”
“Well i’m…tragic…you’re…” Noel paused, thinking for a while. Suddenly, Mischa’s own words from earlier came to mind. One of the two emotions he said he had harbored.
“Hmm, Passionate.”
Noel never saw Mischa that way. Well, not the “real” Mischa anyway. Everyone in Uranium knew the “real” Mischa was calloused, shut off, a real brute. Got into fights with his parents, was regularly suspended from school, and smoked weed. Noel guessed his judgments were unfair and preemptive. He knew now Mischa was far more than that. Months of friendship will typically do that. Wasn’t like Noel got a perfect rep, either. Instead of being remembered for his poetic tendencies and big dreams, his mourners had to drink baja blasts at his funeral.
Noel had a habit of inserting his friends into his stories and poetry, whether it was intended or not. Noel couldn’t help that he drew inspiration from what was real. Mischa, in Noel’s stories, had been a real lover boy. The kind of man who would bring you flowers, shower you with kisses, and pay the full bill on dates. Such a healthy dynamic is not what Noel usually fantasized about, but genuine attraction wasn’t what Noel usually felt.
Tragically, that was far from his relationship with the actual guy, he could dream.
As embarrassing as that was to admit now. It didn’t matter if the world knew anymore. He’d just kissed Mischa in front of the entire choir. Showed his closest friends what he really thought, in a rather scandalous musical number, might he add.
Noel suddenly realized that maybe the “real” Mischa was just the same.
“Drink to that.” Mischa raised the bottle he had been holding and drank a bit of the liquid.
Then, he offered it to Noel. Noel watched Mischa shove the bottle in his direction with a goofy smile. Noel’s line of sight drifted to the other’s hands. Mischa had scars all over his knuckles. Noel knew it was from fighting with other boys at school. He had never studied the scars this closely. Even when he patched up Mischa’s fresh wounds with bandaids.
“Ok?” Mischa questioned, Noel had been staring for too long.
Noel nodded and snatched the bottle, taking a drink. Much more brief than the drink Mischa took. Noel was dead now and didn’t care much for his mom finding out he had been drinking.
Noel’s face initially soured at the taste of the liquid within the bottle. Then, he hummed, happy with himself. Mischa, in the process of this, had placed his snapback on Noel’s head. It looked silly on Noel, completely out of place. Mischa wore it well. He was rocking that full head of hair. Dirty blonde curls. Mischa didn’t desperately gel his hair into place as Noel had always done.
Noel kept the hat on regardless. Hell, he even just drank vodka. Oh Noel you are rebelling now!
“What else did you never do?”
“Hm?”
“You never drink alcohol or kissed man. What else have you never done?”
“Well, I’ve never danced with a man either.” Noel chuckled. Then he remembered.
“-besides earlier.” Heat crept into Noel’s face. Sure, he’d owned it. It was in his bible, baby! But it still happened…
“Doesn’t count, was pre-choreographed. Totally not free will.”
Mischa was being really cool about that whole thing.
“Yeah.”
Noel leaned on Mischa’s shoulder at that, staring off into the distance of whatever magical, transcendent place they were in. He adjusted the positioning of the snapback on his head. If Noel focused hard enough, a piano could be heard. Music from somewhere else. Noel leaned over and swiped the bottle of vodka from Mischa’s hands, taking another drink. Mischa had jumped a bit at the sudden action. Startling backward on the wooden crate where they sat.
“God damn man! You like the taste that much?” He seemed amused.
“No. I hate it. But I’m never going to get to do this again.”
Mischa shrugged, as though to say ‘fair enough!’ He was right. The longer Virgil chewed and chewed the less time they had to do, well, everything.
“I wish I could have done all of it. Been old enough to drink, old enough to party. Old enough to go home with a man. Have him clean me up after I puked all we’d drank onto the floor. Maybe he’d kick me out, calling me an inebriate.”
Mischa eyed Noel weirdly for a second. You think he’d be used to the fucked up fantasies by now. Noel took another drink of the bottle. Taking down far more than he had the previous two times. Filled with an uncomfortable, foreign, sense of self-preservation. He wasn’t sure he wanted to die without getting drunk.
“Ok, no more drink.” Mischa declared flatly, taking the bottle back from Noel when he had guzzled down far too much. Noel protested, reaching for it. Like taking candy from a child.
Noel didn’t put up much of a fight despite this. Mischa was much larger and stronger than he had been. Not in a scrawny way, either. Neither of them was very scrawny. Mischa could kick someone’s ass…as he has proven. He knew Mischa would never seriously fight or hurt him. Noel wasn’t scared of him. Not now. But can you imagine getting in a fight with him? Being the kid who gets pinned to the wall, punched in the gut repeatedly by those arms? The kid who gets kicked square in the nose for calling Mischa a hothead?
…
Noel immediately shot down that train of thought.
“No more drink. If you have never drink now is not a good time to start.”
“I appreciate the sentiment but, I'm not sure alcohol is gonna do anything here.” Noel sighed, clasping his hands together.
Mischa drank the last of the vodka and sat the empty bottle down. Surely, two kids downing a bottle of vodka, when the closest thing one of them’s gotten to alcohol is communion wine, was a good idea.
The two sat there for a long while. Listening to a piano emanating from the sky. Noel realized his previous judgments were incorrect, you could still get buzzed in purgatory. His head felt a little heavy, it was glued to Mischa’s shoulder. His hands changing placement rather constantly. His clothes feeling too warm on his skin. Noel smiled.
His eyes wandered back to Mischa’s hands. He stared at the scars on his knuckles. Less with judgment this time, more with wonder. How they’d gotten there. All the stories Mischa could tell. Noel never got into physical fights. Not ones he’d had any chance of winning, for that matter. He’d gotten beat up, shoved, kicked. He’d never fought. Just sat there and took it. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the adrenaline rush of it all. Getting to break the nose of someone who was berating you.
“What are you looking at?”
“Your knuckles. They’re…ruined.”
Mischa barked a laugh.
“Ruined? You just now notice?”
“No. Not just now!” Noel lied. Sticking his lip out and avoiding eye contact. The corners of his eyes still crinkled in amusement. Finding just about anything funny at the moment.
“We first met because I broke my nose in a fight… when we first met! It’s been months since.”
Noel was shocked Mischa remembered the event. Since Noel recalled it to be one of the top embarrassing things of his school career. He had been crushing hard. If not crushing at that moment, he had been wildly smitten with the boy’s looks, and made a fool of himself trying to fix Mischa’s broken nose! They’d made drastic improvements to their first aid routine since then.
Noel stared up at Mischa’s face, at his nose, counting his freckles.
“You sure get into a lot of fights. Drives me crazy. You know how many bandaids we’ve run through in the choir room first aid kit?” Noel pestered, grinning.
“My bad for driving you crazy. Someone has to. You know how I feel about others at school. Also, I fuck with the paw patrol bandaids, heavy. They’re wicked as hell. Brings out my best features.” Mischa grinned. He took his snapback from Noel, tightening it back on his head.
Noel snorted at that, hitting Mischa in the knee.
“Well actually…I think Ocean drives me crazy enough.”
“Enough for the both of us. All of us.”
Noel nodded, making a sound of agreement.
“You want to try?”
“Mm... huh?”
“Dance, with me?”
Noel could’ve sworn there were stars in his eyes.
Mischa stood up, placing a hand on Noel’s shoulder. The other boy followed suit, standing up alongside him. He stumbled a bit, clearly still affected by the amount of vodka he’d drank from that bottle. Mischa seemed unaffected. Or he was very good at masking his drunken state.
They took an awkward moment to place their hands, holding onto each other’s shoulders. Staring at each other apprehensively.
The piano, playing from elsewhere, helped them get into the rhythm of it. Swaying back and forth, spinning round and round. Clutching onto the back of each other’s uniform sweaters.
Noel looked into Mischa’s blue eyes. They weren’t piercing, like most blue eyes. They were greyed, and dark. Rings lined the bottom of them. His dirty blonde curls framed his face. He had facial hair and a 5 o’clock shadow. Noel felt uneasy being this close to someone else’s face. Especially Mischa’s. He could practically memorize the patterns in his irises.
Noel usually would’ve given in to the guilt by now. Shoving the other boy away, declaring he didn’t need this sort of pity. He never would’ve accepted this. Not when he was alive. Certainly not when there could have been eyes watching.
He felt so weightless now. Weightless, how he felt when he used to dance with his mother. When Noel would stand on the end of her shoes. Reaching his hands up to hers. She’d swing Noel around gently. Tears in her eyes. They’d hum along to whichever bossa nova record he selected this time. They never had to worry in those moments. Noel never had to worry in those moments. She was doing everything for him. Wanting him to be happy in the face of everything.
Around the time his father left, they’d stopped dancing. Noel realized those moments of joy were actually moments of distraction. Realized that his mother came to him to dance when she’d coincidentally already had tears in her eyes. Clutching their records with shaking hands, asking her sweet boy to pick his favorite one. They wouldn’t speak much after that. She’d smile, and laugh as she swung her boy around. He’d never ask why she was crying, she’d never ask why he was so damn happy despite it all.
Well the easy answer, is that he was a child. Noel didn’t know any better. In terms of her son, mother didn’t have anything to be ashamed of yet. His father was still around. Horrible, but still around. They had more money. Noel wasn’t an openly gay teenager, he was a confused child. Sure he played with dolls, and asked if his mom could paint his nails all sparkly and pretty like hers, but those were met with awkward laughs. And ‘maybe later’. In more recent years, when the Gruber household was fully aware of what had been going on, (and his father was no longer around to be the biggest opposing force in Noel’s life), his mother simply took to telling Noel to “dial it back”, “pick off that nail polish”, pick up some more “normal” hobbies.
She meant well. They only had each other. Noel did not want to put the pressure of her son coming home with black eyes and bruises from school onto his mother. Not after everything else. So, he tried. He tried like crazy to stop it.
Clearly, that didn’t work. Instead of making normal, heteronormative friends, or by god going to a church, Noel hung out regularly with Constance. She’d cover up the aftermath of his fights with concealer she’d bought in specifically his shade. Her parents, selfless as ever, would offer him the leftover baked goods from their cafe. They’d paint each other’s nails, and he’d listen to her talk about all her celebrity boy crushes. As to which he would offer her relationship advice. As if Noel knew a damn thing about being in a relationship. As well as the unlikely possibility of Constance ever meeting said celebrity crush. Constance’s baby brother would sit with them, engaged in the conversation as though he understood a single word.
Noel enjoyed moments like those, he did. They were clarity in the eye of a storm. Constance was overwhelmingly positive in terms of accepting Noel’s sexuality. Most would give him awkward glances, or skip around the subject entirely, Constance truly could not have been more welcoming.
She was even trying, with unending patience, to walk Noel through this crush of his.
“You okay?” Mischa suddenly asked, Noel was torn from his thoughts. He didn’t realize there were tears in his eyes. He could feel them, teetering on the edge of his eyelids. Threatening to fall.
“What? What, yeah.” Noel blinked them away. Becoming increasingly aware that he was inches away from Mischa’s face.
“What are you thinking about? Lay some rad poetry on me, shawty.”
Opting to ignore that Mischa just referred to him as shawty, Noel told the truth, “I don’t have any. I was just thinking about, everything. My mother, my father, my best friends.”
Without a word, Mischa pulled Noel in closer. Holding Noel’s head to his chest.
They just kind of stood there. Grasping at each other. They both had too much to say and were hardly saying anything at all. Mischa began to sway Noel gently. It reminded Noel of how his mother would sway him on her shoes. Suddenly a great tightness strangled Noel’s throat and the tears fell. Silently. Mischa rubbed soothing circles into Noel’s back, and Noel was overwhelmed with the urge to do the same for him. To just help someone feel better in the middle of this all.
Noel, reminded that they had practically been in his very position when the Cyclone derailed and killed them all, started losing it. Pulled into the sensation of when the two boys were clutching each other in terror. Feeling that damned roller coaster halt to a stop and send them hurtling down. The screaming, the crazed screams. So, so loud.
Almost as if it were in slow motion. Amplified. A great cacophony of metal screeching, horrified screams, and a county fair below. They desperately held each other, if for hardly a second. Hurtling down and down and around.
Then, there was silence.
How in that silence, Noel had remembered everything.
His arguments with Ocean. Noel’s first friend since kindergarten. Kicking down each other’s building blocks, ripping into each other’s art projects. Joining the choir together. Eating all those lunches. The countless group projects led by a pitchy voice. The familiarity Noel will always be reluctantly thankful for. Never faltering.
Listening to rap with Mischa. Fixing his bloody noses, his bloody knuckles. Wrapping them up with bandaids and asking ‘What happened this time.’ Only to be met with a brief, stupid response. ‘You should go see what the other guy looks like.’ Laughing until their stomachs hurt. Sharing secret, hilarious glances when someone around them says something particularly vulgar. Sitting in Mischa’s basement. Listening to him ramble about his plans to move to Ukraine as he smokes. How badly he wanted to kiss his stupid face.
Eating dinner with Constance and her family. Getting warm baked goods from Mrs.Blackwood on a particularly bad day. Watching musical movies with her baby brother. Painting his nails in her room, talking about the hottest celebrities. Venting over their complicated friendships with Ocean, bonding over their desire to be more in this world. Deciding that one day they absolutely would be.
Sharing writing ideas with Ricky. Listening, as Ricky goes on and on about his fantastic worlds. Admiring his ability to be such a writer. And Ricky, listened as Noel went on and on about his provocative poetry. The way they’d both defend and comfort one another in situations of stress. Understanding each other creatively, and as friends.
Dancing with his mother.
It all died with him, his memories, his dreams, his family, and his friends.
Noel sobbed, hysterically wiping his face with his uniform sleeves.
“Mischa I'm so sorry.”
“What? What are you possibly sorry for?”
“Everything. Talia. What about Talia what about your future and-“
“Shh. Shush. Stop speaking so fast. We’re dancing. Just dance.”
“We were never getting chosen. We’re supposed to die here.”
“That we will. But it is okay.”
“Why is it ok? We never got to do anything useful with our lives.” Noel whispered, his clutch on Mischa’s back frantic, panicked. Mischa ran a hand through Noel’s hair, rubbing his back.
Tears streamed down Noel’s face, he felt snotty and disgusting. Not to mention, drunk. Thank god he wouldn’t live long enough to experience a hangover. He already felt as though he could throw up. That’s the stuff. Hours before his scheduled death. Why doesn’t he throw up on Mischa?
They stood in silence with the stars.
Noel felt silly, then. For insisting they never did anything useful with their lives. How could he say that?
Even insisting for a second that Mischa, the man who had a secret rap career, a passion, a beautiful fiance all the way in Ukraine, the singing voice and desperation of an angel, did nothing useful. That Noel, the boy who worked his ass off at a job he didn’t want but needed, took care of his mother, his friends, and dreamed big dreams, did nothing useful. He was more passionate, more driven, more desperate for a life-changing, riveting love story than any other.
Noel pulled away from the embrace for a second, looking at Mischa with adoration. Noel was sure his face looked disgusting. All red and full of tears. Puffy eyes. A tragic image for a tragic boy. Noel’s eyes drifted down. Staring at Mischa’s lips.
“I think I have to say this before we die.”
Mischa cocked his head, confused.
“I think I-“ Noel stopped. Looking at his shoes. He looked back up at Mischa’s eyes. Noel realized at that moment he didn’t need to finish the confession.
Mischa stared. Stared like he already knew, like it was obvious. Like he’d known the whole time. Every lingering glance, every awkward pat on the back, or compliment. All their after-school hangouts. Which, started as a group activity and eventually deducted to two. Noel was sure Mischa loved him too.
Maybe not in the same way.
But, they had love.
The piano stops. And suddenly, a high-pitched, annoying squeal of surprise fills Noel’s ears.
Both Noel and Mischa whipped their heads around.
There she was.
“OUCH! You just punched me! In the fricking boob!”
“Sorry!”