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We'll watch TV while the lights on the street put all the stars to death.
***
In Lovro’s mind, Nix was a loose formation of particles, a simple, blurred cloud of smoke. That was all they did. Smoke.
But there was something more to it, the curl of their lips around a joint, the tremble of a thumb as it forced the last juice out of a lighter, the flick of an eye up from where it wasn’t meant to be looking. Not a lot was said over the course of these long nights. Hours could go by without more than three sentences of conversation. The setting didn’t matter. Empty apartment or busy street, their lack of substantial speech was the same. Sometimes Nix told Lovro about Roko and Nora’s escapades, and other times Lovro told Nix about Jakov’s most recent conquest and endless pining for Eva.
Of course, they each knew the other liked, kissed, fucked girls. In this day and age, who didn't? It didn't matter whether you wanted to or not; you just did. And during the act itself, you nearly found yourself wanting it — even if that desire was only to prevent yourself from waiting for it to end instead. Lovro knew this well. He didn't know if anyone, let alone Nix, felt like that, but he knew that was how he felt. He knew it wasn't normal in the same way it wasn't normal for him to get off to two guys doing it from the comfort of his little handheld block of circuits. Still, it was more normal than going out and acting on those impulses.
Today, tonight more accurately, Nix's cloud took its shape on the cement casing they called a skate park. The yellowing light from the street lamps hit his hair in the same way it always did, slick on the stretches of straight between strands sticking up and out, dramatically, as if seeking refuge from his scalp. By the time the night came, if Nix had been out the whole day, the magic of hair products began to wear off, and all that remained were slivers of a rawer sight of him. Lovro didn't know. He supposed he liked it. Objectively, Nix looked worse for wear. The beauty was in the exclusivity. Whether vulnerability or lack of care, something had to have possessed him to result in him showing Lovro this part of himself. It was for him, then. Perhaps, in mornings gone, it had been for girls after long nights, or Roko on the way home after ragers, but on nights alone, it was Lovro's.
Nix let his weight fall into the concrete like a sack of bones, building blocks waiting to be put back together. He held his joint, as always, loosely between his index and middle fingers. It tipped and bowed with every movement of his wrist. Nix spoke with his hands. Lovro wondered what more he could do with them. Lovro always held his joints like they owed him money.
They had been staring at each other without expression for too long now. Nix's line of sight kept flicking back to the glowing end of his joint, then down to the pale blue valley of Lovro's tensed forearm, until it followed the lines back up to meet Lovro's unmoving eyes. He smirked a little the third time this happened. A lot. A little wasn't enough to encompass the way the skin around the corners of his mouth rolled and creased readily, effortlessly, weightlessly.
Lovro's lips pursed slightly. He made sure to look just past Nix into the darkness of the skate park, with its one flickering street light left on, before breaking the silence. "Isn't it weird that I don't know anything about you?"
Nix thought for a moment, taking another deep puff and expelling the smoke through the thin slit he made of his mouth. The action had no real skill behind it, and yet Lovro still felt as if he was watching some great magician blow images out of nothing. Finally, clearing his throat a little, he said, "Don't think so. I like it."
"You like it?" Lovro asked, dumbfounded. He received a polite little murmur of agreement, almost too small and inconsequential to have come from Nix. "Well, that's the only opinion of yours I've heard recently, so I suppose I got what I asked for."
"I get to be whoever the fuck I want to be around you." Nix sniffled. "Within reason."
"What do you mean?"
He let out a low groan, rolling his head back in irritation. Mock irritation. He was clearly loving this. Lovro spotted a faded hickey on his collarbone as it emerged slightly from below the neckline of his shirt. "This is low-effort. I can just exist. You don't ask for much."
"I don't need much." Lovro found himself responding before the thought of what to say even consciously crossed his mind.
"Exactly. You don't talk about girls all the time, and you're not trying to get in my pants all the time either."
"Well, you can't be sure on that last one."
A laugh escaped Nix, a real, genuine laugh which made Lovro feel the most accomplished he had in recent months, as did a weak kick to the shin. Lovro kicked back playfully. It was reminiscent of the games of footsie he played with Jakov under his kitchen table after sleepovers when their bedtime was still ten o'clock on a good day.
"Would you let me?" Lovro asked absent-mindedly through an airy, open grin.
Nix blinked, though his smile never faltered. "What?"
"Get in your pants, I mean. Would you let me?"
The silence that fell was heavier and louder than any atomic bomb of realisation that could've gone off in that moment. It was a quiet capsule of possibility, a simple question posed, yes or no? Though it was perhaps the single most complicated question Nix had ever been posed in his entire life. Usually, the answer to a question such as this would be yes, absolutely, without question. This wasn't usual. He was unusual when Lovro was about, or maybe it was Lovro who was unusual. Though, then again, Nix felt that Lovro's default setting was 'unusual'. Didn't that make him the most normal of the two?
"What the fuck, man?" Nix muttered under his breath through a scoff, gaze fixated on Lovro's unmoving grin. One of his canines stuck out a little further than the other one, or the other one was a little further in than the first. It was impossible to tell. But in that moment, he wanted nothing more than to find out. Maybe the fixation came to avoid the question. Maybe he had just never stopped to look before, and this was a natural curiosity which came across everyone whose eyes had the fortune of perusing Lovro's features. Maybe — and this option seemed least likely — Lovro made him inquisitive. New, fresh. Curious. "What the hell, sure, why not?"
"You would?"
They had been smoking, this whole time, all the time, every time.
"Sure."
Anything and everything could be blamed on them being high out of their minds.
Besides, Nix wasn't much of anything other than deeply amused now. The way the corners of Lovro's mouth picked up into a grin, with effort and motive, sent Nix into an absolute mental tizzy. He could've replayed that scene in his mind all night until he learned it inside and out, could relate every word in the dictionary to it, draw it from memory, whatever it took to see it again.
The punchline never came. No 'That's so gay' or 'I knew you were a homo'. Just a grin, and more grinning.
"What are we doing, Nix?" Lovro laughed.
"Smoking," Nix replied, shrugging, taking another drag. He let Lovro wait for him to exhale his cloud again before glancing up between his brows with an acute curiosity. "What else?"
"No, I mean — why do you keep hanging out with me? You know a hundred other people who smoke. We don't talk. We don't do anything."
"Hey, man, if you don't want to hang out anymore, just say that."
"That's not what I'm saying."
"What are you saying?"
"I just —" Lovro paused, breath hitching in his throat before finally releasing. He nearly folded in on himself. "Forget it."
"Well, no, now you've got me curious!" Nix laughed, met only by another kick to the shin from Lovro. "Come on, mystery man. What's on your mind?"
Another silence fell over the two. Fell in the sense of crashing down, through roofs and ceilings, leaving debris all around them while they stood, stock-still statues in the centre of the room. There was no room. There was no ceiling, just the edges of the skate park and an open, endless, inky sky.
"You know," Nix began, unfazed by Lovro's lack of response, "I kind of always thought you were a bit of a freak. Couldn't understand why Jakov clung to your side so hard."
"Well… Do you understand now?"
"A little too well," Nix said. He dropped the remaining sliver of joint in his hand down onto the concrete, stamping on it to let the glint fade. He jumped up, turning to face Lovro again and reaching out a hand. "Teach me how to skate."
"What?" Lovro laughed, dumbfounded, but took his hand anyway.
"You heard me! I wanna learn how to skate. I always thought the two of you looked cool cruising along, two peas in a fuckin' pod. I want in."
"You can't just learn to skate in one night, that's not how it works." But Lovro was already handing Nix his board, and Nix was already jogging to a flat stretch of grey.
The skate park was empty. Completely, totally, utterly barren of any human soul other than them. There were no mosquitoes to bat at, no slugs to avoid. No hedgehogs scurrying along the edge of the park where concrete met grass, desperate to get out of the city. Just an endless landscape of grey with a fuzzy green border, black and blue in the lighting, and then them. Free to do whatever the hell they wanted to do and be whoever the hell they wanted to be. If, tonight, that was gay as hell? So be it. There wasn't a soul to bear witness to it.
Lovro followed Nix in a light jog to what could be described as the 'kiddie' section of the skate park, all flats and tiny slopes and high railings to hold on to. Nix laid the skateboard down gently, noticing the rim scuffed from years of restless use, and put a foot on it. "Lay it on me."
"Okay, whatever you do, don't just try to push how you're standing now —" Lovro urged, hesitating a little before laying his palm flat against Nix's back between his pronounced shoulder blades. "Speaking from personal experience. The board will go flying, and you will stay exactly where you are. Let me show you."
Lovro eased a little as Nix removed his foot and stepped back. Lovro repositioned the board and jumped on sideays, using a little momentum to cruise alongside Nix. The hair on the back of his head nearly grazed Nix's nose. When he reached the end of the straight, he pivoted and made his way back.
"Did you see? Stand sideways with your dominant foot in front unless you're pushing."
"Got it." There was an undeniable confidence about Nix, no matter the situation. Still, he put his hand out wordlessly for support when it was time to step on the board. Lovro took his hand, readying his other hand to catch Nix when the inevitable fall happened.
Nix, for lack of a better word, leaned on Lovro. He put his arm around the width of Lovro's upper back, forcing Lovro's hand to move to Nix's waist, and stood there. Made no effort to push, move, or skate in any capacity whatsoever. He just stood there. They had been standing there too long, holding each other. Lovro took it upon himself to move them a few steps, heaving Nix along on the skateboard. Nix let out a little gasp at the motion, murmuring a curse under his breath and tightening his grip.
"What, are you scared?"
"Hell yes, I'm scared! It's one thing to watch you whizz and flip around like some sort of acrobat and completely another to be on the thing myself!" Nix spat, fixing his eyes on the broken street lamp to avoid watching the floor go by beneath him.
"It's not so different to riding a bike, you know," Lovro explained, now almost entirely lost in this bizarre act of carting Nix around.
Nothing.
As Lovro took them down the bend, with great care and another hand on Nix's abdomen, mumbling additional instructions to help him turn, he looked up at Nix's face. And the expression could only be encapsulated in life, not even video or photo, and most certainly not word. Such… focus. Such confusion, such apprehension.
Lovro felt almost too scared to ask, "What's up?"
More hesitation before Nix finally blurted out, "I never learned how to ride a bike."
Nothing could've prepared Lovro for that. The sincerity with which it was said, the dead-serious expression as if he was confessing a sin or a childhood trauma? Gold. Absolute gold. He contained his laugh long enough to pick up the pace and start running, Nix in tow beside him, only ever gaining speed.
"Lovro, the fuck —? Lovro!" Nix exclaimed through hearty laughs, to no avail. Jumping off now would be stupid; he was entirely at Lovro's mercy.
He gripped Lovro tightly, his shirt bunching up beneath Nix's fingers. They never slowed down, only sped up into a turn, and headed directly for an area with no railing. "Lovro? Lovro, the fucking — Lovro!"
"Can't learn if you never crash!" Lovro whooped, laughing. Nix couldn't bring himself to close his eyes as the drop approached. The blur of his vision turned from grey to a deep evergreen speckled with evening dew, flickering under lamplight, and the board fell away from his feet.
The moisture hit him before the pain. They collapsed onto the floor not far from the asphalt, a tangled mess of limbs and clothes. Nix turned shakily over onto his back, laying his arms out to either side as wide as he could. Lovro tried to sit up, but was laughing so hard that he fell back down onto Nix's outstretched arm, and Nix couldn't tell if he was really that amused or just trying to catch his breath. An ache spread through him — focal points: joints, hip, upper back — and the wet grass enveloped him.
Lovro's arm moved, windmill, and landed on Nix's abdomen. All his air escaped him. The sky spun, and the wheels of his skateboard squeaked in the distance as they came to a halt. He imagined worms climbing out of the ground around his head and body, into his ears and eyes. He imagined not fighting back.
"That's not how it works, you know that?" Nix sputtered out, groaning a little. His fingers found themselves pouring over Lovro's like tactile eyes (his own, real eyes were far too busy taking in the few stars light pollution allowed them to see). "The whole learning from mistakes thing relies on the mistake being yours. This was an assassination attempt."
"What's mine is yours," Lovro responded through a grin.
"Oh, really, you're a commie now?"
"I'm generous."
"Generous isn't exactly the word I'd use, but alright. Whatever suits you." Nix sighed. It seemed like years had passed between them, when in reality it had been a maximum of fifteen minutes. All of those hours spent together had added up to this: lying on the dirty ground, all up in each other's personal space, and waking up bruised in the morning.
He struggled to drag his arm out from beneath Lovro and propped himself up on his elbows. Lovro tried to follow suit, but a few taps on his waist from Nix's awkwardly positioned fingers told him to stay put. He manoeuvred himself over Lovro, his shirt hovering centimetres above Lovro's abdomen, his arms planted firmly on either side of him. Lovro copied Nix's earlier action — he realised the finger taps were to tell him they weren't getting up — and fixed his round eyes on Nix's sharp ones. "Here. Payback."
"What?"
"You gave me your mistake," Nix's voice grew low, almost guttural, spewing out of him without his sanction. He mustered all his strength from days spent at the gym with Roko to suspend himself on one arm, the other snaking to hold Lovro's head up. "I give you mine."
The way his lips met Lovro's held some unspoken, foreign gentleness Lovro never would have expected Nix could carry. When Nix's eyes fluttered open, they were met with Lovro's dilated pupils illuminated with yellow satellite dishes of light from the above lamppost refracting into multiple sources. Nix almost jumped instinctively to an apology or pure dismissal of the situation, but something about those eyes soothed him into crumpling back down beside Lovro without further need to explain himself.
It wasn't long before he felt hot breath on the side of his neck, and even shorter before he felt the now-known press of Lovro's lips against his jaw. Still slightly cautious, but of his own accord now, not for fear of rejection. Was this teasing? Well, Nix would be damned if he didn't try find out.