So they ran. They ran until Theo was gasping and panting, sweat pouring down his face, his slender, gangly body shaking with the exertion. They ran into the woods, down one trail after another, the towering trunks of Douglas fir and cedar trees rising up around them like skyscrapers, the fresh, clean air that they produced burning in Theo’s laboring lungs like fire.
Despite his exhaustion, Theo really felt like he could run forever. Eric’s fingersclenchedaround his wrist still, feeding him strength somehow, and it felt good to get away. It felt good to be embraced by the woods, and he didn’t know how far he would have run if not for the root which reared up, breaking free of the beaten dirt path and seemingly grabbing for his foot.
He would have gone sprawling if not for Eric’s firm grip on him. As it was, he only stumbled, but his ankle turned a bit on the root, and he was finally halted, panting, head lowered, blowing and huffing like a wild animal.
Which was sort of how he felt, actually. Or maybe like an animal who has been released from their cage, feral rather than wild.
He met Eric’s eyes and saw that his best friend was huffing for breath, too, though maybe not as much as Theo was. Eric had been involved in various sports back in high school, and though he’d been out of that years ago, he’d kept his body in good shape.
Still, it had been quite a run, and with Eric still holding Theo’s wrist, they limped over to a fallen tree and sat down. Surely Theo should pull his hand from Eric’s grasp. Surely Eric would release it. One or both of those things would happen, right?
Only neither of them did, and they sat there on the rough, mossy bark of the tree, sort of but not quite holding hands, as their breathing gradually slowed and the sweat started to dry on them.
“My dad’s gonna kill me,” Theo realized, when it felt like he should say something. He knew it was true, too, and he felt briefly guilty for having doubtlessly worried the man, who had a lot on his mind. As much as Theo did, maybe, only it was Theo’s father’s fault that this was happening.
Not his mom dying, that he knew very well was nothing more than fate. But dragging him from his hometown, from his friends, from his job, fromEric, that was all on his dad, and he felt a brief flash of anger as he thought about it. Brief, but hot, burning fiercely through his veins.
“Yeah,” Eric had to admit, his stocky, muscular body at rest now, relaxed against the tree, long, strong legs stretched out in front of him. For the first time, Theo realized, he was taller than this man, who had always been the bigger one.
Well, Theo had a couple of inches of height, maybe, but Eric was still the bigger one, with those broad shoulders and strong arms. Theo might be taller, but Eric was wider, so it still felt like his best friend was bigger.
“Fuck him,” Eric finished, and Theo blinked, and then grinned a little. Leave it to Eric to so casually dismiss everything that had happened. The funeral. The fact that Theo only had a few short hours, less than twenty-four of them, before he was going to leave, maybe forever.
“Yeah,” Theo agreed, and he threw his head back and looked at the branches which arched overhead in a glorious blaze of sunlit green which made them almost seem to glow. “This place … I don’t think there’s going to be anything like it in New York.”
“They have forests in New York,” Eric said, and then he frowned, just a tiny bit, the only sign that he was unhappy with what was happening. “Listen, man, I got an idea. How about you just don’t go?”
Theo let out a soft, surprised, uncertain little laugh. Eric liked to mess around, but for some reason Theo didn’t get the sense that his friend was joking this time.
“What?” Theo asked, and Eric caught and held, Theo’s eyes. He literally felt like he couldn’t look away like Eric had him utterly captivated. But then, that wasn’t the first time he’d felt that way.
“I talked to my folks,” Eric admitted, his full lips mostly relaxed but very serious. “They said you could come live with us, you know, just for awhile. Until you can save up for your own place.” Eric hesitated, and then added, as though as an afterthought, “Or, you know, I could come with you. We could get a place together, man.”
Theo considered it all very carefully, and for the first time since the night he had found out that his mother was dead, killed in a car accident, and his father had announced that they were leaving for New York, he felt a brief surge of hope.
Eric was sometimes kind of crazy, but in this case, the idea had some definite merit. Theo turned the idea around in his mind, and to his surprise, he couldn’t find any reason that it couldn’t work.
“Are you sure?” Theo asked, searching his best friend’s face. He didn’t want to accept this out of some sort of charity, though. He didn’t want to do it unless Eric really wanted to do it, too.
“Yeah, of course, I’m sure. So what do you say? Will you do it?” There was a strange intensity in Eric’s eyes, a bit of tension about his lips and in the muscles of his jaw, like he was holding something back. Was it possible, Theo wondered for the first time, that Eric didn’t want him to leave just as much as Theo didn’t want to leave?
It was so hard to tell with Eric, but the signs were there if you knew where to look. Theo, after knowing Eric for just a few years shy of two decades, fancied that he had some idea what went on in that head of his.
But only some.
“It sounds good,” Theo admitted. He needed time to think about it, but time was exactly what he didn’t have. Besides, what was there to think about really? It was definitely going to be better living with his best friend, probably his favorite person in the whole world, than it was going to be having to start all over again in New York. He wasn’t even a minor anymore, he realized. His father couldn’t say anything about it. Well, he could say whatever he wanted, and Theo was sure that he would say plenty, but he couldn’t actually stop it from happening.
“Yeah, it does,” Eric agreed, and Theo didn’t exactly know how it had happened. He just knew that Eric’s eyes looked even larger and rounder than they usually did, even more of a brilliant jade green, and it was only as he was contemplating the freckles scattered across his best friend’s nose and cheeks that he realized just how close they really were.
How had that happened? He was leaning in, leaning toward Eric, and Eric was leaning in toward him, and the tips of their noses were so close that they were almost brushing.
Theo knew he should say something, something light and irreverent, but that was really more Eric’s department, and Eric wasn’t saying anything, just looking at him. At least he could pull away, he thought to himself, and then he didn’t. He didn’t move even a fraction of an inch away, even as Eric leaned in even closer, his head tilting slightly to the side.
When it happened, when their skin touched, it was their lips, not their noses. Eric had it angled perfectly, and those full, soft, slightly dry lips brushed over his own in what was unmistakably, irrevocably, a kiss.
Eric was kissing him.
That was weird enough just on its own, but what was really bizarre was that Theo found himself kissing Eric back. He found his lips parting to the gentle, but insistent, pressure of his best friend’s tongue. His own tongue brushed against it, and the touch was brief and light, but the impact which rocked through Theo’s body was anything but.
