They leave early in the morning one morning and drive until they run out of gas.

“When this is over,” says Tobias, peering through the haze, “this is where I'm going to go. Going to live right here in Jonesville where nothing ever happens.”

The people who mill about are doughy faced men and their stringy, pie-baking wives. Tobias glowers at them.

“I don't think you'd fit in here,” Leander remarks, keeping close to Tobias. The people are staring at them, because people in small towns like Jonesville can smell outsiders the way a jaguar smells fresh meat. “I don't think you'd much like waking up and seeing the same person every day.”

Tobias shakes his head. “No. Never again. Maybe I should move to Los Angeles.”

He lived there with his mother once, a long time ago. The city had smelled like smog and so many people with all their problems. It was a little like New York but instead of being a dozen little cities, it was like one huge empty space filled with people.

A perfect place to lose himself.

“I think I'd miss you,” Leander says. He scurries over to sit on one of the green park benches, and Tobias follows him. “I want to live in New York City. It sounds like fun.”

“I would think you'd want to get as far away as possible.”

Leander wriggles his toes inside his tennis shoes. “I don't know,” he says. “I think I could manage staying here. Once I'm 18, my father won't ever talk to me again.” He tilts his head up to peer at Tobias through a curtain of frosty black hair. “But I don't know yet. Depends on where I want to go to university.”

Tobias' shoulders slump. “I don't even know where I want to go,” he grumbles, slouching into the bench. The snow on either side of him chills his slender hands. “I haven't thought about it in so long. I'm probably supposed to be applying for colleges, but hey, there's always tomorrow.”

A laugh escapes from Leander's mouth, but that laugh is cold to match the air.

It's getting hard to laugh at anything now.

“Have you ever been in love?”

They are driving again —without stopping for anything but gas, and they are almost to Missouri— and Tobias is starting to doze, hypnotised by the long stretch of road ahead of them. “Have I ever been in love?” he asks, blinking. “Why do you ask?”

He hasn't. He knows he hasn't.

“Oh.” Leander curls up in the passenger's seat and peers out the window at ground moving beside them in the darkness. The radio plays songs they haven't heard before, and he taps his fingers along to the beat. “I was just wondering if you knew how it felt.”

Tobias shakes his head. “Oh. No.” He fiddles with the dial because it's hard to drive and stay awake and he hopes he'll find a song Leander can't tap along too. It's making him think too much.

Leander nods and his fingers still. His eyes flutter shut, and, envious, Tobias watches his breathing even, leave tiny bursts of condensation on the smudged window.

It's only after he's sure that Leander is asleep that Tobias stops the car —in the middle of the road, too, because it's not like anyone is coming that can't go around him— and leans back in the seat and sighs heavily. His breath shows up in the air even though the heat is on and he's so cold he can't make his thoughts move in linear lines.

Next to him, Leander looks fragile and small: slender body and delicate bones and small, pert lips that move when he breathes.

Tobias rests his head against the steering wheel and stares at his shoes in the dark of the car. He listens to 90s music that he doesn't know and it sounds so good to finally hear something different, even if that something different is all about grungy sneakers and low-riding jeans.

And Pearljam. When Pearljam comes on, Tobias can't listen to them because sometimes their lyrics hit too close to home.

His hands run over the steering wheel. He shuts his eyes, hoping that sleep will catch him before the backtrack does. The time difference would give him an extra hour, if there was anyone to spend it with.

Beside him, Leander is sleeping, open mouth squished up against the window. His lips are turning blue.

Tobias takes him by the shoulders and gently tugs him backwards.

“Wha?” Leander's eyes flutter open. “My mouth is cold.” He ghosts his fingers over his lips. He shivers.

Tobias' hands linger on the other teenager's shoulders, keeping him still. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I tried to move you do you wouldn't be so cold.” He rests his forehead on the top of Leander's head.

“Did you turn on the heat?” Leander looks up. His breath fans over Tobias' face. It's opaque.

Tobias nods. “Yeah.” His hands shake as he moves them to hold onto Leander's arms. “But it's still cold. I think the heater might be broken.”

“We'll steal another car, yeah?” Leander yawns and wraps his arms around Tobias' neck. “Your body is so warm. I don't want to go to sleep cold.”

Tobias lets Leander settle against him. His hands move to push hair from the other teenager's face. The closeness makes his heartbeat fast, and he's sure Leander can hear it, slamming in his chest. “I don't want to sleep cold either.” His forehead rests against the back of Leander's neck.

Leander hesitates before tilting his head up to look at Tobias. “Hey, Tobias.”

Tobias peers down at him. Their hair is in his face, and it's Leander's turn to push it carefully behind his ears. “Yeah. What do you want?” He shivers at the contact.

“I don't know what I would do without you,” Leander whispers. “I'd be crazy and lonely.”

Breath hitching, Tobias nods. “Same.”

Leander smiles a little. He pushes himself up on his elbows, leaning up until their faces almost brush. He is frozen. “I...”

Tobias tilts his head and presses his forehead against Leander's.

Leander's eyes flutter shut.

“Let's go to sleep,” he whispers. “I'm so tired.”

Tobias nods, body is taut with anxiety. “I'll see you in the morning.”

“I'm so glad.”

So glad there'll be a morning? So glad Leander will see him? So glad they are finally going to sleep and this touching will end?

Tobias isn't sure. He shuts his eyes and falls into the blackness of unconsciousness.

Tobias knows all the words to all the songs.

“Love this song,” he says. His hands tap on the dashboard. “We should get into drag races and do hard drugs.”

Leander rolls his eyes. They are driving through rural Pennsylvania and it makes them both so nervous. “Whatever you want, Kitty.”

Tobias knows there is no one to hear Leander say it, but it makes him blush, embarrassed anyway. “Not really,” he amends. “I'm just...trying to think of good things to do, you know? Because I want the world to be exciting, even if just for one day.”

Considering, Leander licks his dry lips. “I think stealing a car to drive as far as you can in one direction is pretty exciting.”

“You lived the same day over and over for six months,” Tobias points out, elbowing the other boy in the ribs. Leander squeaks. “So I don't trust your opinion of 'exciting' anyway.”

Rural Pennsylvania is cold and crisp and clear. They drive into a town that looks an awful lot like all the other towns and pull into a McDonald's driveway.

“Maybe we should ask the drive-thru girl what her name is so we can come back tomorrow.” Leander grins at Tobias. “That's exciting, right?”

Ignoring him, Leander gets cheap, greasy fries and a cheap, greasy hamburger with money he finds in the glove compartment. The coins are also greasy. His hands are too.

They drive out to a park and lie there in the dead grass, sharing fries and blasting 80s tunes that make them want to dance. Tobias' feet tap, his spine wriggles, but he doesn't get up because he doesn't want to disturb the calm that has settled like a blanket over the both of them.

“I love fries,” Leander says finally. “But I never get them.”

There is no reason for this provided, but there doesn't have to be.

“Same.”

Snow angels. “Ours are holding hand,” Leander points out. He reaches out to grab Tobias' hand. “See? They're friends.” He grins at the other boy a moment before he seems to realize himself and drops the contact as if the feeling of skin against skin burns him.

“Yeah.” Tobias stares at the snow angels. Their hands are indeed touching. “We should make more. Over there. Holding hands.” Short sentences. Fragments. He doesn't look at Leander as he begins to trudge over to the pristine space of snow.

He ignores the surge of glee when Leander bounds after him, giggling to himself, black hair flecked with snow.

More snow angels. Some of their hands are touching, some of them aren't. Tobias dusts the snow off of Leander's back before grabbing him around the shoulders, clinging to him.

“Get off me, you idiot,” Leander scolds. Tobias begins to pull away, but Leander grabs his arms. “No. Sorry. You're warm. Don't go.”

Toes wriggling in his shoes, Tobias rests his shoulder on Leander's shoulder. He is sure that his heart is making noise in his ribcage. It's only a hug. It's only lasting altogether too long. “My legs are tired,” he whines before letting go.

They lie there in that dead grass, looking up at the blue sky. “It's so pretty here,” Leander mumbles, rolling onto his side and propping himself up on an elbow like a French model. He smiles at Tobias. “Don't you think? I think I'd like to live in a place like this one day.”

Small towns mean spending a lot of time with oneself. Tobias has spent a lot of time with himself.

“Yeah. Me too.”

...so I've had a kind of stressful last few weeks. We'll go with that one, okay?
Also: no (minimal?) updates during November, due to NaNoWriMo.

Which leads me to my next point: I don't have very many ideas for WriMo. Basically, I've got 'explicit gay sex' and 'Jewish' written on a piece of paper. Since I intend to post it this year, I'd really appreciate suggestions.

Leave me a review if you have a request. Yes, your secret desire for a redhead to steal someone's bookbag can become a reality, because redheads are word fillers.

As is sex.

Moving on.
Thanks for reading.