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"It's beautiful," Jim remarked, and Plato couldn't say otherwise.
They had managed to scramble up onto the roof of the old mansion - its tiles crumbled beneath both of their feet as they tried to make themselves comfortable, and not slip right off at the same time. The fall didn't look too dangerous, but that could be attributed to what had happened not too long ago. Plato was sure his new perception of danger was warped.
And being with Jim had this … calming effect, on his usual nerves.
In front of them, the inky night sky stretched out as far as the eye could see. It was clear and dark enough that Plato could pick out stars, even though they were tiny - not nearly as noticeable as they had been in the planetarium. Equally as pretty, though. They sat in a comfortable silence until Jim spoke up again.
"How're you feeling?"
It took Plato a moment, before he shrugged his shoulders. "Fine."
"Fine?" That familiar, somewhat crooked smile was evident in Jim's tone. "That's all?"
Plato didn't know how they still stuck with him, after what he'd done. The stitches in his gut served as a painful - well, literally - reminder to his own instability, his own vulnerability. And yet they still were there, after witnessing him at possibly one of his lowest points. He still wasn't fully recovered, but as the doctor had said, he was still a 'young, spry boy'... Not spry at the moment. More like 'easily tired'. But mentioning that night wasn't a problem in itself.
It was just that Plato was terrible at enunciating his thoughts.
He looked over at his friend, who was still looking upwards. He allowed himself to focus on the other's profile for a moment too long - noting his vaguely unkempt hair, tracing the shape of his nose, and lingering on the curve of his lower lip --
"Yeah," he said. "That's all."
Plato wasn't stupid. He knew why he was so drawn to him; why he always wanted to be as close as possible to him. Sometimes, Jim allowed it, and it made him wonder. But most of the time, Plato was afraid of really telling him. He didn't want one of his only friends to leave him because he couldn't get over himself. But it was impossible, when Plato was already so desperate for what most weren't able to give him.
It was kind of chilly, and Plato pulled his red jacket tighter around his shoulders in order to stave off the cold. He wasn't like his stargazing companion - who ran warm, whose hands and chest felt like they had built-in kerosene burners.
"Gee, if only Judy could've made it." Jim's voice was wistful. "She would've liked this."
"What's she doing, anyway?" Plato mumbled sullenly, suddenly feeling morose at the reminder. "Even if her parents send her to bed, she just hops out the window." And not for Plato, he was aware of that. Before, he'd only the pictures to go off of, but now he was intimately familiar with what a loving stare truly looked like. There were heaps of conflicting feelings about that on his part.
It was Jim's turn to shrug. "Beats me."
Glancing over once again, Plato attempted to decipher his expression, but it was utterly unreadable. Calm, even. Something dug at his chest, threatening to tear his insides apart. But he couldn't let that happen right now.
"You disappointed?"
Jim huffed out something reminiscent of a laugh, but it was more like a weighty exhale. "A bit, maybe. But there's other nights for this, right? Nothing worth getting all beat up about." Still placid, he tucked his hands behind his head, reclining backwards on the deteriorating asphalt shingles as if he was laid on a bed soft as heaven. His body was relaxed and open.
"I mean, it's not like the only fun thing she could do is hang out with us," he continued.
Unlike me , thought Plato rather miserably.
"I guess," was the only thing he could think to say in response. Jim sounded more and more like he was trying to convince himself - of what Plato might've known. But he didn't want to think about it, not right now. Stillness fell upon them for a couple more minutes, until it was broken once more.
"Is this boring for you?" Asked Jim, shifting his position again, accompanied by the sounds of small pebbles tumbling their way down the incline of the roof. " 'S quieter without her, right?" From his pocket he produced a cigarette, sticking it in his mouth before fumbling for his box of dusty old matches.
It's never boring when I'm with you, Plato wanted to say, but the words died on his tongue. It was too corny. Too honest.
"I like the quiet," he settled for instead. "We don't need to talk."
Jim made that funny snuffling noise again. "Okay."
There was a snap, then a spark, and then the ember of the cigarette glowed faintly. Flicking his wrist rapidly, Jim extinguished the match, already exhaling plumes of smoke. Plato noticed how he examined the match closely to make sure it wasn't burning anymore, before tossing it off the roof into the thorny, overgrown bushes below. A dusty, long-forgotten grave.
Turning his head a whisker of a distance, Jim's eyes landed squarely on Plato, who immediately felt their effects. Sometimes they were a bright blue, but other times seemed greener. It didn't matter, though - they were always lovely.
Plucking the cigarette out of his mouth, Jim held it out to him.
Plato willfully ignored how a shiver went up his spine as their fingers brushed.
He raised it and inhaled. It was fine, and he easily held it in before blowing it out. Distantly, he wondered if he could ever learn how to make smoke rings - the guys at school who always did it made it look so effortless. But the thought dissipated as quickly as the smoke did, melting into the darkness. He passed it back to Jim, who stuck it in the corner of his mouth.
He tried not to think about how his lips had been on the same filter just moments earlier and stuffed his hands in his pockets.
"Are you gonna," began Jim, and Plato promptly looked over with rapt attention. "You gonna wear that everywhere?"
"Oh." All of a sudden, Plato was the fool. But what else could he say, besides the affirmative? When he first had received it, he'd held it in his arms like his own child, regardless of the fact that he wasn't going to have any of his own. Because it was his . It made him feel safe. It made him feel like he wasn't alone.
"I mean," he started, and bit his lower lip. Careful. "It's warm. You said that yourself."
"That's it?"
Unable to make eye contact, Plato looked skyward instead. "Sure, that's it."
Thankfully, Jim let the subject drop. Plato didn't think he'd be able to explain himself - to put his admiration into words without exploding or something. He knew that attempting to contain so much feeling in his body wouldn't end well - he might cry, laugh hysterically, or both. It was usually both. He just couldn't wrap his head around it, especially when his head was composed of a swirling tornado of thoughts.
He wasn't aware of Jim shifting again, too lost in his own mind until --
"Wanna go down to the pool?"
Plato snapped to attention, and found himself grinning out of nowhere, massacring his vowels in a way that resembled someone of much higher status than him.
"Fancy a swim?"
Delightfully, Jim mimicked the drawl. "Truly," he simpered, extinguishing his cigarette by rubbing it out on the roof, leaving a smudge of ash behind. "They do say that night swimming is an invigorating way to relieve the muscles during times of stress." The cigarette butt, like its cousin, was tossed off the roof to an untimely death a few dozen feet below. "Shall we proceed?"
"Indeed."
They clambered ungainly off the roof.
The window that led into a decrepit master bedroom was a tight fit. It took a bit of shimmying, like before, but they both managed it, albeit not mess-free. Jim dusted dirt and soot off his jeans, brow furrowed while Plato watched with a little amusement.
The walk through the house was an easy and familiar one; since Plato had gotten well enough to walk at a pace somewhat faster than a limp, it'd been a regular haunt of theirs. Usually they visited during the nighttime, but once there'd been an afternoon picnic. It nearly brought Plato to tears when Judy handed him his own, wax-paper wrapped sandwich. The memory was carefully filed away with the others.
When it was just them, it was easy to slip into a world where none of their actual lives were real - they were rich, all-important people who bought an expensive villa all for themselves, lazing about day-to-day with nary a care in the world.
But now, Plato and Jim were standing by the side of the empty, relatively disgusting pool. The surrounding plants were either overgrown or brown, or a little bit of both - roots burst out of the large ceramic pot nearest to Plato, flowing over the sides like a frozen waterfall, and he felt sorry for the thing's struggle to escape.
"It'd be nice filled," mused Jim, still staring into the pool. "You ever been swimming?"
"No." Plato couldn't help but beam. "I'd probably just sink to the bottom, like a stone."
"Not if you float on your back."
"I don't know how."
"It's not that hard." Jim turned to Plato, affecting the funny accent from before. "Ahem, when it gets warmer, I can show you. And if you sink, I'll hold you up, old sport." He landed his hand firmly on Plato's shoulder. "It shan't be hard to learn, in a pool such as this one. The water is the calmest."
"You don't say."
They both grinned at each other, before bursting into childish snickers, as if they'd been making smart comments from the back of the class.
Jim calmed down first, but it took Plato longer to catch his breath. He followed behind his friend as they entered the partially rotting gazebo. Surrounded by wood shavings and other signs that hardly anybody else came here, the thin couch-esque thing that Judy had laid on the first time she'd visited the mansion sat alone.
With a theatrical exhale, Jim sat down as if he owned the place. Plato did the same beside him, glad that they hadn't run. He still was a little weak from the roof-climbing.
"You're right, actually."
"What?" Confused, Plato wondered what he'd done.
"It's nice." Probably realizing that he was being vague, even for Jim Stark, he rushed to correct himself. "... The quiet, I mean. You said you liked it."
"Oh." Plato tried to quell the joyful flip his heart did. "Yeah. Well, I don't mind noise, either. Sometimes it helps things feel less empty." The empty mansion, silent and devoid of life, felt so full when the right people were around. When laughter echoed around the crumbling rooms and waltzed its way into the garden. It was the polar opposite to what he had formerly been used to.
"That too." Jim's arm looped companionably around the other's shoulders. "I like it when you and Judy cackle like hyenas."
Speaking of her - Plato would've expected that he'd be over the moon to be alone with Jim. Always seeing him and Judy together usually left him feeling hollow. But even though he was enjoying the attention, it didn't feel right when she wasn't there. Maybe he felt she deserved it more, being much more suited to Jim than Plato was.
Plato wasn't a pretty, friendly girl, after all. Plato wasn't pretty. And even though he knew that Judy didn't see him as competition, confident with her place in Jim's heart, he couldn't help but feel like it was all so unfair . He loved Judy too, and always would, but he yearned so much more.
But feeling so much for certain jacket-giving boys made him shrink in on himself, too. Judy was caring. Sweet. Soft. Everything a person needed. It was no mystery why she was in her position, and Plato in his.
And the resounding, ever-present guilt was what made him open his stupid mouth.
"You like her, don't you."
It came out much more accusatory and bitter than he had intended. He winced on behalf of himself, bracing for whatever Jim would say next. Of course he did, was that even a question? He might just laugh and say they were already going steady, ever since Jim brought her to the mansion. He'd swept her off her feet without hesitation.
But Jim's answer ended up catching him completely off-guard.
"Yeah." He was completely unmoved, arm still around Plato's shoulders. Avoiding eye contact, but then he --
"I like you, too."
All at once, Plato's world capsized.
"But -- "
He found himself unable to put together a coherent sentence, clutching at the sleeves of his jacket. He was sure he looked absolutely ridiculous right now - red-faced, mouth opening and closing like an idiot, but it wasn't on the forefront of his mind at all. "But you - don't you want to -- " He swallowed, his own body fighting a visceral, instinctual reaction. "Isn't she your -- "
Jim's hands were solid upon his shoulders. Grounding. "Calm down a minute, Plato. C'mon. Breathe."
But he couldn't. "I don't understand! She clearly - she clearly likes you too, why haven't you talked to her? She always looks at you, and - she, she -- " He was beginning to verge on hysteria, and Jim could tell, by the way his hands tightened, his composed look slipping. But Plato kept going, unable to comprehend what was happening. "She's - she's always got this look when she's -- "
" Listen to me, Plato," blurted Jim, and his mouth snapped shut.
"I'm no good at explaining these things." His focus hadn't moved from Plato's face. "You know that. None of us are good at it." Huffing out an embarrassed breath, his grip loosened.
"We're not going steady or nothing. We talked about it, it's … - It's complicated."
"Complicated?" Echoed Plato, weakly. "But - but you said you like her. Isn't that simple ?" His voice was trembling, wobbling like an unsteady, unskilled vibrato.
Finally, Jim averted his eyes. "Sure - I do." He looked to be struggling to put his words together. "It's just that she's - she felt it was all too fast, y'know? Too much, especially after the … The planetarium thing." With a downcast gaze, he laughed a little. Breathlessly. "Y'know, the honeymoon phase or whatever was nice, but we both felt when it went to pieces."
"But you and her still -- "
"Feel that way?" He shook his head slowly. "I don't know."
Aware of how he had entered Jim's space, Plato felt himself subconsciously leaning closer. He wasn't sure how he was plucking up the courage to even engage himself in this conversation - he wasn't sure if he was intruding on somebody else's territory. He still hadn't shaken that. But now that it was there, he couldn't deny anything.
Jim's eyes seemed drawn to him like a magnet, and he wasn't moving to push him away.
"... You like me?" Plato asked finally. "Really?"
Jim looked down at him, and a million emotions flashed through his eyes at once. His lips were parted slightly, a slight sheen over his hair from the little moonlight that made its way through the latticed sides of the gazebo. There was a war of conflicting feelings on his face, but the one thing that Plato picked up on the most was clarity.
"Yeah," he murmured. "I do." His hands slipped from Plato's shoulders, into his own lap, where they clenched into tight fists. "But I've never -- "
"I know," interrupted Plato, his heartbeat dancing a nervous staccato. Suddenly, he felt emotion welling up inside his chest, the cavity that was normally so empty. "I know."
Without another word, Jim's arms were about him, and he was full. His head fit perfectly in that little divot between his neck and shoulder - feeling the other's nose brush against his forehead, hands adjusting to keep them both snug as possible without falling.
Plato sniffled pitifully, burying himself further in Jim's tweed jacket. It was all so overwhelming. It was everything he'd craved. Everything he'd wanted so much but never received - until now, and he was certain he'd implode. Although he was perfectly warm and comfortable, he was shivering like he was freezing to death, just from the sheer sensation of this. Brief, cordial hugs couldn't possibly compare, as they only satisfied his hunger for a short while.
This was everything all at once.
And judging by the way Jim held him tight, he needed this too.