hi everyone! so i dont usually do one shots but this one stuck out in my head. the way i wrote it might be a little confusing so anything in italics is referring to melchior. let me know what you think :)

He could never understand why he would always say yes to sleepovers. He was young and still longed for the comfort that his parent's room was just a short call away but it would make him mad if he refused. It would make it seem like he didn't want to spend time with him. He did. He wanted to spend forever with him. He hated that he loved deeply and hard and lost himself. He was skittish. And proud. And frightened of himself and his shadow and his thoughts and his eyes and the fact that he didn't know exactly who he was referring to… himself or him. It was torture loving your best friend. It wasn't fair but he had told him it wouldn't be fair.

And then the dreams. Those damned night horses trampling every synapse he needed to focus in class. Sky blue stockings clinging tightly to his muscular legs. When he had told him of the dream before he had a chance to breathe he had told him it was normal. It wasn't normal. He didn't know normal. His body was not designed for normal nor was his mind. It was a tragic and cruel design flaw that made his soul question god's sick sense of humor. Why was he always the puzzle piece that didn't fit? Sure he looked the part. He had two arms and two legs and two eyes and everything looked like they would fit just right but when he tried to piece himself into his arms … into his life… he refused to fit. Melchior or some unknown force would not let him fit because god knew he wanted to slide into place.

"Melchior…" his voice was almost painfully immature and frightened. It broke with each word and he flamed with embarrassment at the perfectly natural changes going on in him. They were normal… in an abnormal soul.

"Yes Moritz?" his fingers mirrored the white worn pages that he absentmindedly flipped. They were soft and pale and intelligent. Moritz knew they were soft… he had touched him. Once. His cheek. It was so brief and fleeting that he was sure he didn't remember it. He had fallen as always but he had scraped his cheek. He had helped him up and gently with a cruel slow tenderness removed the dirt from his cheek.

"Do you remember…" his cheeks flamed where he had once been stroked by his best friend. His only friend. A friend he couldn't afford to lose to love. His voice pattered out to an insignificant nothingness much like himself. The book closed making a curious muffled thump much like a heartbeat. Melchior had acquired a life time of heartbeats by closing book after book. That's how he got to be so wise. He had lived two lifetimes worth of heartbeats. Moritz had two lifetimes too but from nerves doubling his heart rate.

"Do I remember what?" Every second they spent together seemed muffled and silent to him. It seemed impossible but it was true. All he could hear were the gentle brushing sounds of Melchior's lips as they moved and each gesture seemed to have a low resounding thunder. He was so… impressive. Everything he did was like a dance or an act of god. These where the moments when he saw the grace in god. He had created Melchior to balance out the uneasy and cracking movements of himself.

"Nothing. Keep reading." Please keep reading. He never should stop and really look at him. He didn't want him to really look at him because then he would see him looking back. And how is he supposed to explain that? One does not stare at ones best friend. It is a common truth because if you look too long you realize that they are the only person on earth who understands you. Who cares for you out of choice not out of habit or force. They are the only one who won't hurt you purposefully. In short you realize you love them and it is a blackening and terrifying experience. He had looked too long at Melchior. Melchior made it easy to look at him with his attractive confidence. His mysterious and inviting smile. He begged people to look at him and he had fallen to his wily charm. It was an unfair trap.

Unfair. He had told him it would be unfair.

" Moritz… you look ill." He was ill. And scared that Melchior had looked long enough to notice his pale face and quaking hands. Melchior still had not looked away and gazed deeper at the shaken youth. He held his breath to keep the cracking voice inside him. It wiggled and squirmed and finally burst past his lips.

"Touch me." He screamed silently at his traitorous voice. His vocal cords were already being cruel by twisting his voice into octaves and now they seemed to work on their own accord. But damn it he just smirked.

"Excuse me?" he thinks he is joking. Of course he thinks he is joking. He was nothing but a big joke with a terrible punch line. He wanted to see with a morbid curiosity how long until the joke died.

"Touch me. I feel as if I am going mad. Please just… hold me down to earth." The joke was dead as Melchior's hand came out and alighted briefly on his arm. He stared for a moment and looked. Really looked at his shy best friend. He was curiously handsome in an angular way. By no means was he gorgeous or was he breath taking or even… he couldn't find the words for it but his hair fell just so and his eyes shifted just so and his mouth twitched with some unspoken agony some unspoken itch as if it had something to say.

"Are you down to earth yet Moritz?" he was being sarcastic… or was he… he was joking… maybe not… he was concerned… he was frightened… he was already gone. Lost amongst the childhoods they shared. Washed away with too many intimate memories of skinned knees and gap toothed grins. When one shares the innocence of a pirate battle, a sword in hand backs pressed tightly together fending of what used to be cootie ridden pirate wenches, one can not break the sanctity with say… a kiss. First mates don't kiss their captain.

"I am lost in space. But… when have I never not been drifting." The hand never left. It was still there. It stayed there and for a brief moment he thought for once he might be tethered. Saved in a harbor of battering winds. But like those damn butterflies that would tangle themselves in his wild hair it flew away with only the slightest bit of reluctance. To block out the eloquent silence of his timid best friend Melchior reopened his book. There was not a tale wild enough to crack the silence and let noisy blood flow out. Instead the clicking sound of his shivering and a few tears plinking in a pretty tinkle upon the wooden floor created a somber little melody to read along with. With another heartbeat Melchior set the book down.

"Why are you crying?" it was simple curiosity. He wasn't concerned. He wouldn't let himself think it was concern at least.

"You." It filled the room with sound and didn't fade like most of his frail vocalizations.

"me." He sighed. It was not a tired sigh. Not the sigh Moritz father would give when seeing a report card or the sigh of the pastor when he would wake Moritz up at the pew. It was an all knowing sigh. The you and me seemed to mingle in the air, the vowels knotting in space and creating a mess while the consonants buzzed about the two boys heads. Moritz held his breath as Melchior let out another great sigh blowing away the words between them. His breath caught a draft and lifted up to make the tears on Moritz face feel chill.

"I am sorry…"

"Don't be. Please. I … understand."

"Liar." He drew back a little. He couldn't let him get away with a lie like that. There were millions of things Melchior understood. In fact there is almost nothing he doesn't understand. But… he will never understand this. There was a mountain…. A valley… a year… a flame… a tangible barrier between us. It held words and hands and thoughts back and whether the society or his own inhibitions had built it didn't change the situation. It was still there.

"Moritz…"

"Yes Melchior?"

"Say something…"

"What?"

"Anything… just say something…"

"I …" it came down to this. His face still itched with drying tears. His mouth itched with words unsaid. His heart itched with too many feelings. "Am glad we are friends." Damn.

"Oh…yeah… me too…" he frowned. He had made him unhappy by saying they were friends. "Is that what you were really going to say?"

"Yeah."

"liar." He laughed nervously. Melchior had always had a knack for turning things around on him." Please… just tell me…"

"I…"

"You…" he smiled. The frown had so easily slipped like sunlight off water and shifted to a refracting smile with all the colors of the rainbow in it. It warmed him through and through and broke the mountain between them. Crumbled it. Smashed it to stones that paved a road to him.

" I love you."

The hole. The mountain had crumbled and imploded into a hole. Gently Melchior pushed his chair back and he once again looked with a gentle tugging frown on his face.

"I have to go…" he couldn't bare to see that frown. Knowing he had caused it with love was too much to handle.

"No you don't. I mean… you are not going to go." He staid. He stood. He walked.

"Where are you going…"

"you." He walked to him. He gently pulled him from his chair and into his arms. For one stone second, for one timeless endless mess of clock hands moving he fit. He fit. "You are my best friend."

"Don't leave me…"

"I can't."

"Say you love me…"

"I can't."

"Fine."

"Please stay Moritz…"

"I can't." he couldn't stay. He never could. He was a summer wind. A summer yearning. A memory before his time. Before he could brush through another linen his hand shot out and caught the wind. Carefully he kissed him. It burned ember on the breeze and so often true with wind when he opened his eyes the wind had gone leaving a swinging door in its place.

so tahdah. thanks for reading and reviews would be lovely!