Moonlit

It was the moonlight. Moonlight always made things…different, as it did this time.

The moon was full, and it was bright enough to bathe everything in its silvery-white light, but for the tendrils of fog that wound through the streets and turned the moonlight blue. Not, that they consciously took note of this as they stood waiting in the ferry terminal.

He stood casually, tall, hands shoved deep in his pockets. Movement in the corner of his eye; he turned to his companion.

“Cold?” he drawled good-naturedly, smirking.

His companion growled softly, light glinting blue off bared teeth. “I’m hardly this masochist who wears next to nothing when it’s the dead of winter, Kane,” he hissed, and Kane chuckled.

“Down, Mykel. Is that bitterness I hear?”

The shorter boy snarled at him sullenly and bounced a rubber ball against the linoleum between his feet. “I guess we’re not making it back in time for my brother’s birthday,” he muttered.

Kane refocused his gaze out past the glass. “You wanted to be there for that?”

“Hell no. You know how my mother would make a deal out of it though, if I didn’t show.”

“Hn.”

There were no available chairs. The scarce few in the dilapidated old terminal were all filled with sleeping or near asleep folk, caught in the same predicament of delayed ferries. Kane nudged his friend. “How ‘bout over there? We can sit in the corner.”

“Mm.”

There was a slight hesitation – a sudden movement together, an accidental brushing. His fingers, his wrist. Kane ignored it, sat.

The moonlight that poured in freely through the large glass windows washed the entire terminal in pale blue and gave Mykel’s hair blue lights. He stood there, bathed in it, rolling the ball around in his fingers. “Is that supposed to be comfortable?” he grumbled.

“Didn’t think you were such a complainer, Mykel. Just sit down. Unless you really would rather stand?” He studied the young man’s face, shadows sharply chiseled, the lips flattened, mouth pulled taut. “Relax. Your mother can’t blame you for accidents and late ferries.” He gave him a dry, crooked half smile. “She should be worried if she could.”

Mykel was watching him intently, dark blue eyes empty of emotion and looking all the more oddly vulnerable for it. “Yeah,” but it was rough, and stressed. He ran his fingers through already disheveled hair and sat abruptly, a little too close, but no one cared.

Kane watched and listened to his ball bounce, one of the few sounds in the quiet terminal. Hypnotic, and the thin slender fingers that caught the little piece of red and yellow rubber.

“Mykel,” he said, and the fingers started and missed and the ball bounced into his lap and rolled off the other side. He reached out and caught it before it could go too far. He could have brought his hand up and across to give it back, but then again…he could have sat up a bit more and wouldn’t have had to reach across him, so close, to take it back.

“So.” Mykel, swallowing, afraid to bounce it again.

Kane spoke first. “One day that thing’s going to roll into the street – ”

“And I’ll go running in without looking both ways to grab it and get hit with a semi, huh.”

A pause. “Not if I can help it. If you’d be that stupid, I’d buy you a million bouncy balls. They can’t all roll into the street.”

Mykel laughed. Some of the tenser lines eased. “So…how are things going with you and Sai?”

He stiffened, if only for a brief moment. “You haven’t heard?” he said slowly. “We broke up. She was, ah, seeing Tobias.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” He smiled, rueful. “It’s – ”

“Her loss.” The ball was bouncing again, without conscious thought.

Silence again. A light shiver. Bleary eyes, blinking. “Tired?”

The ball stopped. “Why would I – ” His sentence was cut off by a yawn. “Shut up,” he scowled, to Kane’s smug grin. And then, almost absently, “Your hair. It’s almost…golden.” He had the audacity to reach up and tug on a piece.

Kane gave him an amused look. “It’s just brown, Mykel. Evidence that you’re tired. Get some rest; I doubt we’re going anywhere anytime soon.”

Mykel scowled again; the ball slipped away again, this time forward. He lunged out to catch it and fell back against hands braced to catch him.

“Ungh. Next time, watch where you’re going, especially where that ball of yours is concerned…it’s going to be the death of you someday.” Reproachful words, but the voice was too soft to carry much of a sting. The hands, warm against his waist, were slow to let go. “You’re shaking.”

“I…I’m cold.” Only half a lie; he leaned back to say it.

“You always are.” That sounded almost accusing, and he leaned forward, maybe too far, his whisper brushing his ear. Both shivered slightly, a thread of something deliciously, forbidden-fruit sweet down their spines and in the very heart of them. “One would think you’d know to dress warmer. …Oh,” and the soft exhalation was just as bad, “they’re handing out blankets.” And the third time it was clearly deliberate, for his lips touched his ear in a low purr. “Be a good boy and get us one.”

Mykel jumped up like a scalded cat, though the warmth against his back was instantly missed. When he came back, thin sheet in hand, he stood there, as if deliberating.

“…Kane…”

He grimaced, managed a low laugh. “Don’t. Who’s going to know?” He tugged on his pant leg, and he tumbled down with a soft, breathless yelp, startled eyes like a lost puppy, limbs tangling, noses touching, all warmth and fast heartbeats. “There’s no one here to know…” He lowered his voice. “Please. Just one night.”

Black-haired boy’s eyes slid close as brown-haired boy’s hand cupped his cheek, traced his lips with a fingertip, pressed his own to his forehead. Warmth bloomed somewhere deep in them both, a delirious joy, a wondering incredulity, the socially unacceptable cast aside, just for that night.

The blanket-sheet was unfolded, mostly draped over Mykel, claiming “cold” with a shy glance. Tentative, but tired, letting his head rest against his leg, sighing.

Kane, looking down, fondly and lips turning up, couldn’t really resist and stroked the dark, moon-kissed head, who, in turn, shifted enough to rest his cheek against that hand, and sigh with lips against those fingers…

“Just for tonight, huh?”

A smile, and a contented sigh as fingers slid together. “…We can take it from here.”

-fin-

Inspired by deviation of egosun: egosun . deviantart . com/art/moonlight-32992170