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Language:
English
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Published:
2019-07-29
Words:
591
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
9
Kudos:
101
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7
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721

Are You Still In There?

Summary:

Max and Neil are both insomniacs with a lot on their minds.

Work Text:

The hum of cicadas accompanied the summer night, warm air filling their tent as the forest breathed in harmony with them. How oddly lucky for Max to have gotten stuck at this camp with someone with the same insomnia as him, same exhaustion that sleep couldn’t satiate.

It was nice to feel so comfortable with someone else around. It was a rare feeling — to both him and Neil, even other people’s presence could make them bristle with rage or anxiety, but through either a mutual understanding of the problem or just dumb luck, this hadn’t happened between them. During the darkest hours of the night, when neither of them could sleep and going outside would just mean getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, sometimes the best solution was just to lay in their cots, staring bitterly at the wall and sending their curses to whatever force put them here.

Neil’s legs were boney and stick thin, but Max didn’t mind laying on him, perpendicular to his friend as he laid across both of their cots with his feet resting on the uncomfortable fabric he had made his bed. Neil had a hand on Max’s hair, a quiet reassurance that he as there.

“Hey, Neil?” Max asked, his voice rasping with tiredness. Neil hummed in response. “What the fuck was that at the summer social?”

“Ugh. Don’t remind me.” Neil groaned quietly.

“You know I love to make fun of you, but I’m being serious.” Max replied, looking at Neil’s face. His eyes were always bright, this vibrant and haunting blue-green that shone like mirrors in the low night light, pupils slitted and always suspicious like a cat’s.

“What do you mean?” Neil asked.

Max hummed, quietly dreading forming an answer. “Like… I just don’t get it. The whole thing. I don’t get what it was that came over you with Erin, or what Tabii’s whole deal is. God.”

“You mean crushes?”

“It’s fuckin’ ridiculous.” He groaned.

“Yeah, I feel the same way. I mean, not exactly, I don’t think.” Neil said. “I think it’s ridiculous, but I still get it.” He explained. Max looked away, back to bitterly staring at the tent wall. “So you’ve never had a crush?”

Max shook his head, too tired to keep talking.

“You think you’re aro?”

Max looked back him, looking confused. His tone was accusatory, but his face looked curious and, in a very Max way, excited. “The fuck does that mean?”

“Aromantic. Means you don’t feel the whole romance thing. Like,  it just doesn’t apply to you, at least not the way it does everyone else.” Neil explained, and Max didn’t respond. “What are you thinking?”

“Shit.” Max responded, squinting his eyes thoughtfully as he looked at the ceiling. “Shit.”

Neil laughed lightly. “Is that a yes?”

“I think so.” He responded, listening to the forest as it breathed around them again. “Fuck, I thought I was going crazy.” He smiled, and Neil laughed.

“Nope. It’s totally normal.” Neil reassured before laying back on the cot, not shifting his legs as to not disturb Max. “You’re aro, I’m pan, and Nikki’s probably gay and hasn’t figured it out yet.”

Max snickered. “That’d explain a lot, actually.”

Neil nodded. “We should sleep.”

Max hummed in agreement, closing his eyes and not moving. Something about knowing this about him helped him get to sleep, knowing that there was a word for him and it was in his hand now.

The summer night sighed, a final breath as it fell asleep with the rest of it’s inhabitants.