MICHAEL

After years and years of sitting on that stone alone, dangling on the edge like a leaf and staring at that distant cave pushed way back to the horizon, I am finally going to go there. In my head, I always imagined going alone, shifting among the shadows like a ghost through the woods. Luke is here with me though, tripping ungracefully over his converse. The blonde is dangerously clumsy when it comes to hiking- it's a wonder he hasn't torn himself up to bits with the number of times he has fallen.

We've been hiking through the trees for a couple hours, and the sky has been growing dimmer and dimmer with each step we take. It won't be long until the sky turns pitch black and the only light to guide us is the moon, half hidden behind the cluster of trees. I pray that Luke had packed a flashlight somewhere in his huge backpack, because while I am accustomed to the dark in the woods by my house, I'm not used to it back here. Roots appear under my feet in random places, and I have to catch myself blindly on a nearby tree constantly.

The atmosphere is quite relieving though-we haven't approached the river yet, but we can still hear the roar of it in the distance. We sometimes see a flicker of fur dart behind a bush, and at one point we saw a lone deer gallop elegantly away from us, zipping between the thin spines of the trees. We've heard a series of different bird calls in the few hours we've been hiking, and it is easy to catch a glimpse of them soaring among the treetops. I am amazed by how fearless the squirrels and chipmunks are. On more than one occasion, squirrels have willingly dashed up to our feet and sniffed at them, twirling their fluffy tails in the air.

Luke seems beyond excited by the whole ordeal. He keeps blabbering on and on about the pretty colors of the birds and asking me about the different types of trees. He makes sure to always ask me how I'm feeling and if I need to rest, and if my bruises are hurting.

As the sun is setting, I see Luke yawn and stumble against a tiny twig, and I realize he is probably exhausted. He isn't used to this much physical exertion in one day.

"Let's set up a little camp or something," I suggest. "It's getting dark." Luke nods vigorously, and we veer off to the side, finding a nice spot underneath a canopy of trees. Luke plops down on the grass and pulls open his backpack, yanking out two blankets. He lays one down on the ground, and leaves the other crumpled by his side. He spreads it over the head of the blanket, using it for a makeshift pillow. The sun sets among the horizon, plunging us in near darkness until the moon begins to shine, illuminating our faces and spreading a wide light through the trees.

"The moon is so bright back here," I breathe, staring up at the crescent moon in astonishment. Luke looks up as well, nodding with a smile. He sets up the rest of our little camp while I stare at the moon, like a huge spotlight in the sky. I tear my eyes away from it to find Luke spread out on the blanket, the spot beside him open for me. I hesitantly crawl over to him, flipping over on my back and laying down next to him. There is a large gap between us, but neither of us makes a move to fill it.

"So, Michael," Luke begins. "How old are you, anyway?" I blush slightly, brushing my finger against the dirt beside me.

"I'm sixteen." I admit. "But I'm almost seventeen! My birthday is in November."

"We're basically the same age then. I'll be eighteen in July." Luke grins, his lip ring glinting off the light from the moon. His blue eyes shine against the dark sky. I am momentarily enthralled by Luke- and each minute detail that encrypts his face. The way his lips are full and pink, his eyelashes long and blonde. His hair, which has begun to fall out of its quiff, falls in perfect strands over his forehead, making him look much younger, despite his broad shoulders and prominent muscles.

I make myself look away before Luke catches on to my staring, and I gaze at the endless stretch of trees in front of us. I'm not too afraid of any night creatures that could come out to us tonight, since I've grown accustomed to the types of animals that live in the woods, and none of them are dangerous. I allow myself to rest and shut my eyes, imagining finally getting to that cave I have been staring at for so long. I have no idea what is going on a few miles away, back down at my house, where my father lays unconscious. However, I am certainly glad that Luke came in. I had never seen my father that angry before.

"How are your bruises?" Luke asks, his voice soft, matching the quietness of the woods.

I look down at my arms and poke the dark spots painfully. "They're fine."

Luke lowers his pretty eyes down to my arms and blinks sadly at them before laying his head back on the blanket, staring up at the sky littered with stars. I do the same, analyzing the sky with its scattered stars, just one tiny galaxy in the midst of millions. How odd it is that we are just two people, so tiny and obscure in a world filled full of other people, each with a different mind and different thoughts and different troubles. I wonder if anyone else, besides Luke and I, is staring up at the sky, looking up at space with nothing but freedom in their eyes.

~*~

I wake up right when the sun is rising, the sky a beautiful mix of pinks and oranges, looking like a watercolor painting. I'm about to sit up when I feel something pressed against me. Luke. His arm is wrapped lazily across my middle, and his feet are tangled with mine. My face is pressed against his broad chest, and his chin is resting just above my head. I don't remember falling asleep so close to him last night, but I suppose we ended up like this sometime in the night.

I carefully untangle myself from him, brushing myself off and sticking my hands through my lilac hair, attempting to make it look somewhat acceptable without a mirror. As I stand to my feet, stretching my dormant bones, I hear a shuffling near me. I turn to see Luke waking up, his long limbs stretching out to their full length. His blue eyes groggily open, and they blink a couple times at the intense sunlight. He flops a hand over his eyes to shield the sun away as he gets slowly to his feet. When he catches sight of me, he smiles.

"Hey, Michael." Luke greets sleepily, his mouth opening into a yawn. Luke rolls his shoulders and bends down, crumpling up the blankets and shoving them back into his backpack. He pulls out two bags of chips and tosses one to me, and I fumble to catch it. The blonde shoves the flashlight sitting on the grass into his bag, and then he sits down beside me, opening his bag of chips and eating them.

"It's really pretty here in the morning." Luke comments, his blue eyes surveying the scenery around him. I nod, struggling to open the bag of chips. Luke notices and chuckles.

"Do you need help with that?" He asks, and reaches over. I sigh and hand it to him, and he opens it effortlessly.

"Thanks." I say softly. "But yeah, it's beautiful in the morning. It's always beautiful." We sit there, eating potato chips as breakfast but not really caring, and then we get to our feet. Luke adjusts the heavy backpack on his shoulder and gives me a smile before we continue deeper into the woods.

The birds chirp louder than yesterday, eager for the day to start. The sky's sunrise melts into a clear blue, free of any white clouds or debris. The dirt and grass is soft under my feet, and I can't help but to close my eyes, breathing in the fresh air that only this place can offer. I glance over a Luke, who is currently tripping over seemingly nothing but his own feet. I suppress a smile.

We walk for another hour, ghosting over twigs and sticks, until it occurs to me that we should have reached the river by now. I stop, furrowing my eyebrows, and try to listen for the river. I think that I may hear it, far away in the distance, but it could just be my mind tricking me. Luke notices that I stopped and gestures to me.

"Come on, we've got to get moving." He says impatiently.

"No, I think we should have reached the river by now." I admit, tracing my fingers over the bark on the trees. I look around, trying to get a hold of my surroundings.

"What? I thought you knew where we were going." Luke says, frowning. I chew on my lip nervously.

"I thought I did, but this isn't normally the route I take to get to the base of the river." I answer, averting my vision away from the irritation growing in Luke's icy eyes. "I've never seen this part of the woods before."

Luke narrows his eyes at me and turns away. "Well, what are we doing then? Do you even know which direction we should go? How are we going to find our way back?" I wince at the proximity of his voice.

"I-I don't know, I-" I stammer out, wilting at his loud voice and confused at why he has gotten so angry all of a sudden. Luke huffs and shakes his head, lifting a stiff finger towards a random direction.

"Let's just go, yeah?" He grumbles quietly, and stalks off. I stand, deflated as I watch the blonde boy in the lip piercing storm angrily off before slinking behind him, my head down and eyes focusing on the blur of grass under me.

The birds stopped chirping after Luke raised his voice, and they sit like stones on the treetops, not uttering a sound as we walk past, Luke ahead of me. It is clear he hasn't got an idea of where he is headed, but I don't either, so we are both out of luck. I can practically see his anger radiating from his stiff shoulders as he stomps across the weeds.

I am tempted to open my mouth or say something, but I'm not used to this side of Luke, and in all honesty, it scares me. The way his voice raised reminded me of when my dad would yell at me. The way his lip ring glinted against the sun reminded me of the shattered glass glinting against the fluorescent lighting in my room. It broke something in me, and now we are both as silent as a fire.

We both noticed the river becoming louder though, rushing like blood in our ears. I became aware of Luke turning his head occasionally to take a quick glance at me to make sure I was still there, and that was the only thing that kept me from running away. The air becomes damper the more steps we take, and the dirt under us gets softer and wetter.

Luke stops ahead of me, his head bowed and shoulder slumped. He sinks to his knees and holds his blonde head in his hands. I slowly inch forward, and quickly realize that we have found the river. I stand next to Luke's drooping body and stare at the atrocious river in front of us. I lower myself next to Luke, right on the edge of the earth, with my feet touching the slippery rocks guarding the stream. The water churns in front of us, the strong current visible beneath the glittering waves.

Neither of us speak for a while, staring at the water as though it were the most interesting thing in the world. I don't look at Luke, and I'm not sure if he looks at me, but I feel as if I speak, the world will come crumbling down and bury me beneath its ruins. So I don't. Instead of our voices, the heavy water pounding against the rocks fills our heads instead. A slight wind comes through and ruffles our hair, messing it up but we don't make a move to fix it. We are as still as corpses, buried under eight feet of thoughts we can't express into words.

I hear a small sniffle from the right of me and I turn my head, widening my eyes at the glistening teardrops dripping down Luke's cheeks. His lips are pressed together, and he is staring straight ahead, but I can see the guilt filling the blue in his eyes. He notices that I am looking at him and he suddenly moves, whipping his head towards me. I can see each glittering droplet leave his red-rimmed eyes. I'm unsure as to why he is crying until he speaks.

"I'm sorry, Michael." He chokes out, his voice thick. He squeezes his eyes shut. "I-I know I scared you and I didn't mean to. I just got really frustrated all of a sudden and I couldn't control it, and I-"

"It's alright, Luke." I interrupt him, feeling my heart piece itself back together.

"No, I scared you." Luke says, staring deep into my eyes. I can practically see him battling his own thoughts in his head. "I could tell. You-You're eyes got all big and your lips pouted a little and you were shaking, Michael." Luke pulls his long legs up to his chest and hugs them, resting his chin on his knees. No more tears escaped his eyes, but now he just looks tortured.

"You didn't mean to." I tell him, pushing my hands into my hair. I feel the rough texture of it, rubbing the thin strands in between my fingers as I stare at the blonde boy beside me.

"I overreact about things. It's just something I do, I always have." Luke explains, blinking a few times as he stares at the roaring river at our feet. I scrape at the mud with the tip of my sneaker, watching as the wet dirt dries on my shoe.

"That's alright." I say honestly, and look up at him. He is already watching me, his soft blue eyes gazing at me. He doesn't answer- perhaps he doesn't agree, and he nestles his chin back onto his knees, closing his eyelids halfway. I scoot over slowly, wrapping my skinny, pale arm around his broad shoulders and staying there. I hear him audibly sigh.

"How are we going to get across the river?" Luke asks dully. I purse my lips and shrug.

"I don't know, but let's not worry about that for now." I suggest, slumping my shoulders. "Let's just...stay here for a little while."

So we do. I replace my arm by my side and Luke stretches out his legs again, chewing on his lip and looking deep in thought. I turn and gaze at him, and I have the sudden urge to thank him. To thank him for coming into my ramshackle house and getting me away from my father, and treating my wounds and not freaking out when he saw my scars and for taking me to the one place I've always wanted to go to.

The more I stare at him, the more I can see him in a superhero suit, a black mask around his eyes and silver gloves. A cape fluttering from his back in the wind as he looks proudly into the distance. The vision fades and I see Luke, sitting with his head down in front of the water, dressed not in a costume but a band tee and skinny jeans.

He's still a hero to me.

---

A/N i posted a mashton fanfic if you guys wanna go read that, its brand new (((:

my grandma gave me a journal for christmas and i was like wtf am i gonna do with this and then i was like hey i'll use this for my wattpad books and so basically i have the entire rest of the book planned out and im supER EXCITED

ITS 2015 THANK GOD 2014 SUCKED

please vote and comment, love you guys so much