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Sunlight shines through the window in the cramped room. Andrew shifts, taking Thomas’ arms with him. The blonde smiles.
For the first time in nearly a year, Andrew didn’t have a nightmare about the forest. That damned forest. Neither he nor Thomas remember what happened that final night. All they have as proof that anything actually went down is the condition of Andrew’s eye — newly blind, a strange scar down the middle. Thomas, apparently, remembers waking up with Andrew beside him on the forest floor. Beneath the tree that took Dove. Andrew doesn’t remember anything before the hospital. His father above him, Thomas gripping his hand and trying his hardest not to cry. Lana. Chloe. Everyone was so happy to see him.
They’ve both been getting better. Slowly, painfully slowly, but better. They went back to school after winter break. Andrew felt hungry again, the forest entirely removed from his body. Thomas dared to begin drawing again. Not the monsters he used to create, no. He probably won’t ever be ready to draw those. But he draws nature, beautiful nature. Demented nature, after what they've been through, but it's still beautiful.
He draws Andrew. The sharp angles of his face not softened at all, but treated with infinite care nonetheless. Andrew sees himself through Thomas’ eyes, and what a flattering thing to see. Disturbing but gorgeous. Frightening. Awe-inspiring.
Andrew wishes he had the right words to make Thomas feel how much he loves him. But all that comes out is a mess. A jumble of letters, strange and demented. If he was an outsider, he would question whether the author wants to make love to the subject or murder them.
But Andrew wants neither. He simply wants to crawl into Thomas’ skin, make a home for himself there. Nestle into the Andrew-shaped hole in his heart and be overwhelmed by love. By closeness.
Tragically, he can't. So he has to be content like this. Curling around Thomas like a snake, pressing kisses into his curly hair, caressing his exposed arm with his scarred hand.
Thomas is wearing a tank top, while Andrew is still in a sweater. Australia in June is apparently not cold to Thomas despite it being winter. Andrew has gotten used to much colder temperatures during American winters, but seventeen degrees (Celsius, of course. He's gotten used to Farenheit in America, but when he's here, he defaults back to Celsius) is still chilly to his sensibilities.
Thomas’ eyes blink open, spring green irises consuming his pupils.
“Jesus, it's bright in here,” he mumbles, covering his eyes. Andrew frowns and removes Thomas’ hand. Thomas flinches at the light. “Ow—! Hey…” He glares at Andrew, who kisses the palm of the hand he's holding.
“Sorry. I just wanted to see your eyes.”
“You stare at my eyes all day anyway,” Thomas says, both playful and slightly annoyed. Andrew kisses his temple. His lips linger there in a facsimile of a massage.
“Maybe I could take one for myself.” Andrew holds one eye open. It's fuzzy with sleep, even more beautiful up close. “You wouldn't have to deal with sunlight in the morning as much.”
Thomas smiles. “You know I'd give it to you if I could.” He runs his thumb over the eyelid of Andrew’s blind eye. “You know I'd give you everything.”
“But you don't have to now.” We're alive, he thinks but doesn't say. Your parents are dead and we're out of school and the monsters are gone. We're free.
“I know.” He pulls Andrew into a kiss, wrapping his arms around his waist, slipping his warm hands under his sweater. Andrew shivers. The skin-to-skin contact is intoxicating. He wants them to melt into each other until not even the sharpest blade could separate them. Andrew buries his fingers into auburn curls, tracing his lips against Thomas’ scarred ones. Both of their lips were bitten and cut and punched to hell and back during those months at Wickwood, but they found each other anyway. Their mouths meeting was excruciating, but they still chose it.
Now that he knows lengthy, yearning kisses don't have to lead anywhere further, Andrew can't get enough. The pain is gone. Kissing Thomas is the closest he can get to devouring him. He wants to taste his blood, but he couldn't bear to make him bleed, so he settles for memorizing the flavor of his lips.
They pull away from each other. Thomas’ lashes flutter. Andrew licks his freshly kissed lips. His heart is swelling with satisfaction, with joy and want. He wants to reach into Thomas’ chest and feel the organs there. Feel his lungs breathing for Andrew. His heart picking up speed for his kisses.
“Australia isn't so bad when you're here,” he says instead, smiling breathlessly.
Thomas scoffs. “Australia is great, you're just being spiteful.”
“No, I mean it. I've never been on a vacation here.” Or ever, really. But he leaves that part out. “And I'm glad my first is with you.”
“Oh,” Thomas exhales involuntarily. His pupils finally give way, dilating just a bit, before he grins. “You're adorable.”
“No, I'm rotten.”
“Adorably rotten, then.”
Andrew can't help but chuckle. “I see there's no winning with you.”
“Nope.” Thomas grabs Andrew's hand and pulls him out of bed. The cramped trailer rocks with the motion. “Ah, shit! This thing is rickety as hell.”
“Are you surprised? It was cheaper than a hotel room. And you insisted on it, anyway.”
“Shut up.” Thomas shoves him, the trailer rocking again. Andrew yelps, clinging onto his boyfriend. His fingers curl into Thomas’ top. The thin fabric stretches against his fingers. He imagines it as Thomas’ freckled skin, delicate yet so resilient. He imagines breaking that skin. Imagines blood red as roses spilling out onto his hands. Painting the web of scars across his hand once again. He wants to tear off his skin and taste muscle so badly, to carve their initials into Thomas’ bones like you would a tree trunk. To stake his claim on this boy.
God, he’s fucked up.
“Hey.” This time, Thomas grabs his hands and brings one to his lips, kissing the knuckles gently. “Stay with me?”
And Andrew would end the world if Thomas asked him in that tone. He presses his hand further into Thomas’ mouth. “I never left.”
“You were lost in your own little world, there, Andrew,” Thomas says, slightly muffled with the back of Andrew’s hand.
Andrew smiles. “Well, in a sense. Considering you are my world.”
Thomas’ lips contort into a grin. His cheeks go pink. “You romantic.”
“Only for you,” he says, pressing their foreheads together.
Thomas laughs — giddy and breathless and smiling like an idiot. He's never looked more beautiful. “Hey. Let's get breakfast.”
“I thought you wanted me to make breakfast.”
“Yeah, but going to a diner and eating ungodly food is a vacation staple.” Unconsciously, his eyes flit to the tiny kitchen area, and Andrew understands.
“The vegemite traumatized you, didn't it?”
“No. Not at all. It's not like it was the same level as the woods.”
“I don't know,” Andrew says, pushing down his smug grin, “you looked like you were close to choking and dying after that first bite.”
Thomas smacks his arm. “Shut up! I'm too American for your weird Australian food!”
Andrew swallows the urge to point out that he doesn't like vegemite either, instead pecking both of Thomas’ cheeks and letting his head fall on his shoulder. “I kinda want to go back to bed, though.”
“Ugh, we slept enough yesterday. Let's go out and do stuff.”
“You don't like snuggling with me?” Andrew asks, faking a pout.
Thomas kisses it right off. “I like it more than anything else.” He squeezes Andrew's scarred hand, massaging it with his thumb. “And I know you’re baiting me, by the way.”
“Congratulations. You're such a genius for figuring it out.”
“I'll choose to pretend you said that sincerely,” Thomas says. “Come on, Mr. Chauffeur. Take us to the nearest shitty brunch place.”
“Get dressed and I'll consider it.”
Thomas sighs. “Fine.”
Andrew leaves to go use the bathroom — completely unconnected to the only bedroom. Awful layout in this place. It probably wasn't cheap enough . Thomas emerges with a t-shirt for a band Andrew knows for a fact he doesn't listen to and jeans.
“And what about you? Are you gonna go out in the clothes you slept in?” he asks, crossing his arms.
“Oh, right.”
After throwing on a different sweater and actually putting pants on, Andrew grabs the keys to the rental car and begins to make the trek to the nearest parking lot. He watches Thomas the whole way; he memorizes the way his lips curl upon watching possums roll around in the distance, memorizes the wistful look in his eyes as the wind ruffles the leaves on trees, how his fingers itch for a stick of charcoal when they come across a flower growing out of the sidewalk.
“I love you,” he mumbles right before opening the car door. Thomas blinks. Once. Twice. Then a few rapid blinks.
“Have you ever said that to me before?” he asks, voice uncharacteristically quiet.
“Um. I thought so,” Andrew says. But even as he scours his brain, he can't remember ever saying it. Oh, he's thought it for years, he thinks it every time he so much as looks or thinks about Thomas. But he’s never voiced it. “Well, I do. I love you. And I'm not afraid to say it any longer.”
Thomas licks his lips, tongue running over the grooves and patches of dry skin. “I love you too, Andrew. I love you more than the entire world. I’d give up everything for you.”
Andrew exhales sharply. If his cheeks were any hotter, they would burst and his warm blood would spill out, all over Thomas. He thinks Thomas would like it. Andrew certainly would. “I’d do the same.”
“I know.” Thomas smiles and cups Andrew’s cheek. “You tried to.”
“So did you,” Andrew points out, leaning into Thomas’ touch.
Their lips are drawn to each other again. The moment feels like it lasts for eternity; Andrew would be beyond content if it actually did. But it doesn't. It can't. Still, he leans into Thomas as he tries to pull away, craving him. In an ideal world, spikes would grow out of Andrew's lips and connect their lips together. Permanently. They would share air, unable to survive without each other.
As they part, he thinks it wouldn't be too different from now.
Thomas lets out a breath, the air hitting Andrew's lips. Andrew shivers.
“You're so beautiful,” Thomas says, patting Andrew's cheek lightly. “Now let's eat. I'm starving.”
Andrew chuckles at his boyfriend's eagerness and gets in the car.
The diner simultaneously smells nice and like way too much grease at once — it's small, and the tiled floor is white, revealing stains on it. Andrew is not impressed. Thomas marvels. Andrew rolls his eyes as they slide into a booth.
“Oh my god, look!” Thomas grins and grabs something next to the seasonings. “They have pens here!”
“Gonna draw something?”
“Hell yeah.” Thomas taps the pen on the table. “Hmm, no paper, though. And drawing on napkins sucks…” He shakes his head and grabs one. “Whatever, I can deal.”
“Draw on me,” Andrew says without thinking. Thomas blinks, lashes fluttering like a faulty LED.
“Are you sure? The pen's kinda sharp—”
“I don't care.” He holds out his scarred hand. “I don't have a whole lot of feeling in this hand anyway.”
Thomas blinks again before grinning. “Well, how could I resist having someone so pretty as a canvas?” Andrew's chest clenches as Thomas takes his hand and starts sketching on it. He's drawing upside down, which means he wants Andrew to see it. He's so in love with him it hurts.
The waiter takes their orders, seemingly nonplussed by seeing one boy drawing on another. Andrew blushes in a mix of embarrassment and creeping happiness.
They're silent as Thomas moves the pen, the music filling the space between them. The drawing takes the form of a singular rose bud. The stem curls like roots and vines, thorns angular in contrast. It reminds Andrew of the forest. How the vines invaded his body.
But Thomas’ vines are beautiful. They would wrap around Andrew and embrace, not strangle.
“Why a rose?” Andrew asks quietly.
“Hm.” Thomas brings his lower lip into his mouth, biting it in thought. “I don't know, actually. It's just, ever since that night in the forest, I think of you when I see roses.”
Andrew's breath catches in his throat. He can't tell if it's from the anxiety of the forest being mentioned or because it's so romantic. His heart aches and swells. His fingers twitch with the urge to grab Thomas’ hand, mouth itching to spill all of his darkest feelings. He ends up humming and nodding instead. Thomas laughs — well, it can only be described as a giggle, really.
After only a few minutes, Thomas looks up at him again. “Okay. It's done.” He studies Andrew as the blonde lays his hand against the table again.
“Thank you,” Andrew says. “I love it. It's… beautiful.”
“You really think so?” Thomas asks, smiling bashfully.
“Of course. Nothing you draw could look bad.”
Thomas snorts. “Well—”
“The monsters were beautiful too. It just sucks that they tried to kill us.”
“Haha, well, if that's how you wanna think about it.” Thomas runs his fingers over the pen markings on Andrew's skin again. “Hey, you wanna draw on me?”
“What?” The question makes Andrew's train of thought crash. “I… I can't draw?”
“I don't care. Just… doodle on me, or something.”
“Um. Okay.”
Thomas presents his wrist to Andrew, who takes it hesitantly. He wracks his brain for things to draw. Nothing. He's not like Thomas; he can't just pull an image out of thin air. All he has are words.
But he looks at Thomas’ face — excited, loving — and has an idea.
“Come a little closer,” he says, brandishing the pen.
“Huh?” Still, Thomas obliges.
Then Andrew presses the pen to Thomas’ cheek. He's gentle, only putting an indiscernible amount of pressure. “Does it hurt?”
Thomas’ breaths are heavy yet so shallow. “I mean, a little, but… keep going.”
Andrew nods. He finds patterns of the darkest freckles on Thomas’ face and draws lines between them. Sharp and angular. When he moves the pen too quickly, Thomas winces, so he takes it slow. Stars begin to take shape on the freckled skin. So beautiful. Like an inverse night sky.
Their drinks come. The waiter must think they're strange, or worse, realized the true nature of their relationship. But Andrew knows Thomas doesn't want him to stop until he's satisfied with the drawing, so he doesn't.
The only break is when Andrew takes a sip of water, and Thomas tries to look at himself in the reflection.
“No peeking,” Andrew says, smiling at Thomas’ scoff.
“Alright, alright, fine. I'll wait for your masterpiece.”
Just as their food is placed in front of them, Andrew draws the final line. He takes a picture with his phone. Thomas smiles in anticipation.
Then, he hands the phone to him.
Thomas’ breath hitches before it spills out again. “Oh, wow…”
“Um, it's a little silly,” Andrew mumbles. “Sor—”
“It's beautiful,” Thomas says sternly. “You're beautiful. Andrew, I… I love you.”
And despite the fact that they said it to each other not even a half an hour ago, Andrew's heart flutters. Now he understands why Thomas finds joy even in the most imperfect drawings. Despite the lack of creativity, it's still a part of Andrew. It's something Andrew wanted to give to Thomas.
The warmth in his chest bubbles over, and he doesn't even try to stop himself from saying it.
“I love you, too.”