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Description
"I had hair once, you know," the skinny boy said, his legs hanging off of the edge of the hospital's rooftop they were sat upon. Chocolate brown eyes looked up to stare at the other, slightly older teenager. Peach fuzz was all that remained of the tendrils of which he spoke, the coloration long gone and now reminiscent of a newborn baby's scalp. There was something behind those irises, though, something behind the corneas that gave them their shade, that protected the light reactors behind the shield from too much sun; there was something broken and weeping, hiding from the unstoppable pain wracking the skinny, hairless boy's form and killing him slowly from the inside out. "Or maybe you don't. You only ever knew me when I was here," he added softly, bringing his gaze back down to the city below.

He tugged on the black coat hanging from his body as if he was a simple, deformed mannequin, his fingers stained with the blue-green of dwindling veins. A road map covered his skin, dotted with thick scars from IVs and surgeries, broken bones and radioactivity. Teeth-shattered lips were bitten once again, the chapped exterior splitting and bleeding slightly, bringing about the taste of metal on the bald one's tongue.

The other boy was silent.

"I dyed my hair a lot, too," he tried again, hoping inwardly that the attempt at conversation would not be met with indifference this time. "I never really found the right color. Maybe I just didn't look hard enough or maybe I somehow always knew I'd end up without much of a choice. Bald or a wig, in the end. I'd rather be bald."

"Would've fallen out anyway," answered the other boy gruffly. The straight-cut fringe, blacker than oil, blocked out a fraction of the even darker eyes that belonged to him. Long fingers grasped subconsciously at the cross that hung around his neck as he sniffled a bit from the cold, the metal of his nose stud chilling to touch. Eyeliner had been dragged underneath his eyes to accentuate their foreign shape. "Can't imagine you with hair."

The sick-looking boy laughed, "Told you."

The city below them staggered about like red ants, busily working and hustling from point A to point B without so much as a worry other than how late they would be, could they stop for a bagel, where the fuck could they drop this and not get arrested? Taxi cabs honked in near-synchronization, their yellow bodies covered in dust and graffiti from adolescent parking lot escapades; the sun, though, continued to gleam down on the cars from behind smoggy clouds. Electronic billboards showed advertisements for the next pointless object of everyone's affections, be it human or artificial.

"I hate this."

The gruff boy made a questioning noise through pursed lips.

"People going about their lives and not giving a shit about all the other people dyin'," he replied after a brief pause. The tired eyes squinted angrily, the dark bags surrounding them emphasized even more. Shadows accented his prominent cheekbones as he bent forward even more to rest his face in waiting hands. The sick boy continued, muffled by the limbs. "It's not fair, Tsubasa. It really frickin' isn't."

Tsubasa exhaled noisily, almost as if he were angry. He crossed his arms against his slender chest, rolling his eyes before saying, "Suck it up, Laurence."

"Shut the hell up," sighed the sick boy. "You know how long they're givin' me now? You wanna fucking know?" He looked up indignantly, scrambling off the ground to stand and stare at the Asian who only continued to glare straight back at him. Laurence clenched his fists. "Three months," he whispered, "three fucking months left until I just up and fucking die. And you know what? I really don't need any of your goddamn bullshit. Why the hell're you even here anymore? You did your community service; you should be gone by now. All those prissy colleges'll just adore you, right? Say hi to the outside-fucking-world for me, yeah?"

Tsubasa remained quiet, his eyes changing subtly from enraged to slightly confused, accompanied by something practically invisible that left it without a name, a label, a term. Laurence only bared his teeth, stomping up close – much too close, theretherethere and too close – to the other boy, the elder gazing down at the shorter, younger one. The peach fuzz was even more conspicuous in this light, the dark circles and the cheekbones that reminded Earth that the boy was sick, dying so textbook-illustration, so punch-in-the-stomach that Tsubasa drew his lips even more into a straight line. The bald boy spat at him, cursing.

"Do I fulfill some kind of superiority complex in you, Tsubasa?! Is that it?!" he yelled, the sensation of his vocal chords snapping under the stress bringing forth chills and short, consistent jolts of pain that ran up and down his shattered vertebrae. "Is the thought of me having wings in a few months so comforting for your goddamn existence?! Oh please, stop me when I get to an answer you fucking like!"

"I liked the last one," murmured the older boy harshly, mentally preparing himself for the punch in the face that was likely to come. He closed his eyes, turned his head for the blow, and waited–

Only, nothing of the sort ever did come. Not a knuckle connected with his cheek, a kick to the crotch that would have sent him reeling was only a fairy tale, and the sole thing that Tsubasa heard, saw when he pulled back the blinds from in front of his corneas was Laurence, tears inching down his worn, exhausted, too thin face. The expression of loss, of hurt, of anguish was apparent. Bones that should have been covered by eyebrows contorted in agony and Laurence pushed the older boy away pitifully, turning and beginning to stumble away, his balance so thrown off by the tears and the pain of the illness that he nearly fell to the ground a number of times.

A punch would have been much better than this. So much fucking better.

Tsubasa walked over to the boy, pointed boots hitting the gravelly concrete loudly, his arms swinging like a metronome as he rushed to catch up with Laurence. The younger boy had just reached the door when a pair of arms wrapped around his waist from behind, a pair of lips coming in contact with his aching skull that moved and whispered "Sorry" repeatedly. Muscled limbs constricted the boy's torso into a tight hug as Laurence tried to wriggle away, cursing and feebly hitting the older boy, tears continuing to fall. Mucus dripped from the sick boy's nostrils.

"This isn't a fucking joke, Tsubasa! Go home!"

"No."

"I'm so damn tired of y–!"

"I'll say it again: 'm sorry."

Laurence continued to yell, "You can say it all you want! It's not gonna change anything!"

"Don't expect it to."

"Then let–" Laurence finally struggled free out of Tsubasa's grip, pushing the older boy away once more only to fall on his side from lack of equilibrium, "–go!"

"Why?" asked Tsubasa quietly, slipping his hands into his jeans pockets. "Ta let you fall on your ass like an idiot?"

"N-no...!" replied Laurence in an indignant tone, letting out a pained breath as he clutched his side through the material of his coat. "Shit," he muttered under his breath.

Tsubasa knelt down on one knee beside the other boy and offered a hand. The sick one looked at it in suspicion, glancing back at the ground after a moment passed by. The black-haired boy sighed and sat down beside the other, crossing his legs pretzel-style in the process.

"'s my job to look after you, so I'm not goin' anywhere, Laurence," he mumbled.

"Your hours went up a long time ago," muttered the bald teen, situating himself against the nearby wall. He leaned his head back some to rest against the cold brick, burnt red coloring contrasting so deeply with his pale, translucent skin that it nearly set him aglow. The firefly boy, the moon boy, the disintegrating boy. "Like my brother. Thought the schools'd look at him more if he went outta his way to do good deeds and do more hours. Didn't do jack shit. He got passed over by some foreign girl from Spain when he applied to Harvard."

"You don't get it, do you?"

Laurence glared, mouth so thin as he swallowed all of the horrible words he wished to spew were kept under lock and key by iron bar lips. The daggers, the knives, the bullets that flew at the older boy from his piercing stare were sharpened to the point of being impossibly deadly. The only words that he could manage to get out, his fists wrenching at the old sweater he wore underneath his coat, were forced. "You're the one who doesn't get it: Go. Home."

A tiny, barely noticeable smirk appeared on Tsubasa's lips and he whispered, "You really don't."

"Shut up," growled the sick boy, bringing his knees close to his chest. "Just shut up."

"Quit whining, then," replied the Asian gratingly, fiddling with the pendant on his necklace once more. "All you seem to do anymore."

"If you went home, you wouldn't have to listen to me." Laurence sent another glare in Tsubasa's direction, though the older boy dutifully ignored it. "Why do you even care? You could've just done what you were assigned to do and then left. Like I said, colleges won't–"

"I don't care about that."

The sudden increase in volume within his voice sent completely different shivers down Laurence's spine, chills and questions popping up randomly throughout his sore brain. The younger one looked up, trying not to raise his brow in confusion until he viewed the image of Tsubasa actually smiling. Serene and natural, the smile was pure, almost a mirage on the elder's mouth that Laurence nearly rubbed at his eyes like a child in surprise. Not once, not once, not once in the entirety of their encounters with each other had the older boy smile like that.

"I really don't," he added, eyes widening as his eyebrows disappeared even more behind his bangs. "You keep talking about death and school when you never really asked me straight up why I stayed. You assumed, Laurence."

"But only made an ass out of me, right?"

Tsubasa nodded, "Don't make a habit of it." That sickening, odd smile was still plastered all over his pretty little face.

"So why did you stay?" asked the bald boy after a moment or two of forced silence. He was the very parasite that infected him, drained away his energies like a leech. All marrow and coffin-bones, a skin body suit that latched onto muscles and sinew, taping him to the wall that he leaned upon. And his eyes, the brown of the rings within the whites so vibrant that they were nearly impossible to hone, filled to the brim with the last spark of innocence he could muster up; they were drowning so horribly in the death that he was surrounded by, constantly reminded of his own demise.

"You calmed down. I'll tell you. My parents named me for a reason," Tsubasa began softly. "It means 'wings'. They liked our home country enough to keep the name thing goin'. Moved here when I was three and my mom barely spoke English. We got kicked outta three apartment buildings until I was seven and Dad fin'ly got a real job. I studied a fucking lot 'til I was fifteen and didn't need ta. It didn't work and I didn't care anymore. Got a four point oh, anyway. But I never had any friends, y'know that? I never gave enough of a damn ta really try.

"I thought that maybe if I volunteered here, I'd get a shot at getting the one thing I never had."

"What was that?" Laurence inquired just as quietly.

Tsubasa hummed slightly, the laugh rumbling in his throat but never reaching the air. He shuffled closer to the sick boy, getting up on his knees to move quicker. Close enough, he bent forward so that the warmth of his breath tickled the pores on the side of Laurence's neck. His lips were close enough to the shell of the younger boy's ear that when he whispered, he almost touched it.

"You," he murmured. "You don't need to worry about getting your wings in three months, Laurence. Let me be your tsubasa. I will be your wings."

He leaned in and left a chaste peck on the sick boy's cheek before pulling away and surveying his countenance, drinking in the expression like a glass of wine. The anger that flushed his hollow cheeks, eyes widening indignantly.

"What the fuck was that?! You bipolar little bastard–!"

"The truth," interrupted Tsubasa. "The one thing I never did to you was lie."

"No!" The pale boy was shaking his head aggressively, shutting his eyes tight and attempting to push the other away. Fists gripped the long-sleeve shirt the black-haired boy wore, balling up the fabric and leaving wrinkles. Tsubasa rested a hand on one of the skeletal, road map limbs, sighing in a pitying way. "No! You don't care! You never did!" Tears peered out between the slits of his eyelids and he ground his teeth together angrily. "Selfish prick, you never cared! Shit, just... go away...!"

"No," answered Tsubasa, mimicking the position of Laurence's hands on the dark coat that encased him in a fabric tomb. "'m not leaving." He leaned in, hesitating for a moment. When the younger boy showed no sign of moving, he latched his lips onto the other's.

The kiss itself was chaste, but as Laurence unclenched his fists in order to bring Tsubasa closer to his form, letting his knees collapse to the ground to situate into a pretzel-position, it deepened into something that words were not able to convey between them. The sick boy's very fingertips were electrified, struggling to hold onto the black-haired boy for dear life. He continued to cry, choking back sobs as contradicting emotions ran through him, spreading like wildfire and burning up every pore, every organ, every last centimeter of bone and tissue inside of him.

Tsubasa left a small kiss on the top of the younger boy's peach fuzz skull, lips whispering absolutely nothing but small sounds that were merely reminiscent of words.

"Tsubasa..." said Laurence, voice drunk with sadness. "Please don't go."

"Never said I was goin' anywhere." The arms around the Asian's waist tightened and the sick boy buried his face into the thin shirt that clothed him. "'m right here."

A pause before: "Be my wings."

He smiled, genuinely and purely, hugging the other boy back. "I will."

Description
"I had hair once, you know," the skinny boy said, his legs hanging off of the edge of the hospital's rooftop they were sat upon. Chocolate brown eyes looked up to stare at the other, slightly older teenager. Peach fuzz was all that remained of the tendrils of which he spoke, the coloration long gone and now reminiscent of a newborn baby's scalp. There was something behind those irises, though, something behind the corneas that gave them their shade, that protected the light reactors behind the shield from too much sun; there was something broken and weeping, hiding from the unstoppable pain wracking the skinny, hairless boy's form and killing him slowly from the inside out. "Or maybe you don't. You only ever knew me when I was here," he added softly, bringing his gaze back down to the city below.

He tugged on the black coat hanging from his body as if he was a simple, deformed mannequin, his fingers stained with the blue-green of dwindling veins. A road map covered his skin, dotted with thick scars from IVs and surgeries, broken bones and radioactivity. Teeth-shattered lips were bitten once again, the chapped exterior splitting and bleeding slightly, bringing about the taste of metal on the bald one's tongue.

The other boy was silent.

"I dyed my hair a lot, too," he tried again, hoping inwardly that the attempt at conversation would not be met with indifference this time. "I never really found the right color. Maybe I just didn't look hard enough or maybe I somehow always knew I'd end up without much of a choice. Bald or a wig, in the end. I'd rather be bald."

"Would've fallen out anyway," answered the other boy gruffly. The straight-cut fringe, blacker than oil, blocked out a fraction of the even darker eyes that belonged to him. Long fingers grasped subconsciously at the cross that hung around his neck as he sniffled a bit from the cold, the metal of his nose stud chilling to touch. Eyeliner had been dragged underneath his eyes to accentuate their foreign shape. "Can't imagine you with hair."

The sick-looking boy laughed, "Told you."

The city below them staggered about like red ants, busily working and hustling from point A to point B without so much as a worry other than how late they would be, could they stop for a bagel, where the fuck could they drop this and not get arrested? Taxi cabs honked in near-synchronization, their yellow bodies covered in dust and graffiti from adolescent parking lot escapades; the sun, though, continued to gleam down on the cars from behind smoggy clouds. Electronic billboards showed advertisements for the next pointless object of everyone's affections, be it human or artificial.

"I hate this."

The gruff boy made a questioning noise through pursed lips.

"People going about their lives and not giving a shit about all the other people dyin'," he replied after a brief pause. The tired eyes squinted angrily, the dark bags surrounding them emphasized even more. Shadows accented his prominent cheekbones as he bent forward even more to rest his face in waiting hands. The sick boy continued, muffled by the limbs. "It's not fair, Tsubasa. It really frickin' isn't."

Tsubasa exhaled noisily, almost as if he were angry. He crossed his arms against his slender chest, rolling his eyes before saying, "Suck it up, Laurence."

"Shut the hell up," sighed the sick boy. "You know how long they're givin' me now? You wanna fucking know?" He looked up indignantly, scrambling off the ground to stand and stare at the Asian who only continued to glare straight back at him. Laurence clenched his fists. "Three months," he whispered, "three fucking months left until I just up and fucking die. And you know what? I really don't need any of your goddamn bullshit. Why the hell're you even here anymore? You did your community service; you should be gone by now. All those prissy colleges'll just adore you, right? Say hi to the outside-fucking-world for me, yeah?"

Tsubasa remained quiet, his eyes changing subtly from enraged to slightly confused, accompanied by something practically invisible that left it without a name, a label, a term. Laurence only bared his teeth, stomping up close – much too close, theretherethere and too close – to the other boy, the elder gazing down at the shorter, younger one. The peach fuzz was even more conspicuous in this light, the dark circles and the cheekbones that reminded Earth that the boy was sick, dying so textbook-illustration, so punch-in-the-stomach that Tsubasa drew his lips even more into a straight line. The bald boy spat at him, cursing.

"Do I fulfill some kind of superiority complex in you, Tsubasa?! Is that it?!" he yelled, the sensation of his vocal chords snapping under the stress bringing forth chills and short, consistent jolts of pain that ran up and down his shattered vertebrae. "Is the thought of me having wings in a few months so comforting for your goddamn existence?! Oh please, stop me when I get to an answer you fucking like!"

"I liked the last one," murmured the older boy harshly, mentally preparing himself for the punch in the face that was likely to come. He closed his eyes, turned his head for the blow, and waited–

Only, nothing of the sort ever did come. Not a knuckle connected with his cheek, a kick to the crotch that would have sent him reeling was only a fairy tale, and the sole thing that Tsubasa heard, saw when he pulled back the blinds from in front of his corneas was Laurence, tears inching down his worn, exhausted, too thin face. The expression of loss, of hurt, of anguish was apparent. Bones that should have been covered by eyebrows contorted in agony and Laurence pushed the older boy away pitifully, turning and beginning to stumble away, his balance so thrown off by the tears and the pain of the illness that he nearly fell to the ground a number of times.

A punch would have been much better than this. So much fucking better.

Tsubasa walked over to the boy, pointed boots hitting the gravelly concrete loudly, his arms swinging like a metronome as he rushed to catch up with Laurence. The younger boy had just reached the door when a pair of arms wrapped around his waist from behind, a pair of lips coming in contact with his aching skull that moved and whispered "Sorry" repeatedly. Muscled limbs constricted the boy's torso into a tight hug as Laurence tried to wriggle away, cursing and feebly hitting the older boy, tears continuing to fall. Mucus dripped from the sick boy's nostrils.

"This isn't a fucking joke, Tsubasa! Go home!"

"No."

"I'm so damn tired of y–!"

"I'll say it again: 'm sorry."

Laurence continued to yell, "You can say it all you want! It's not gonna change anything!"

"Don't expect it to."

"Then let–" Laurence finally struggled free out of Tsubasa's grip, pushing the older boy away once more only to fall on his side from lack of equilibrium, "–go!"

"Why?" asked Tsubasa quietly, slipping his hands into his jeans pockets. "Ta let you fall on your ass like an idiot?"

"N-no...!" replied Laurence in an indignant tone, letting out a pained breath as he clutched his side through the material of his coat. "Shit," he muttered under his breath.

Tsubasa knelt down on one knee beside the other boy and offered a hand. The sick one looked at it in suspicion, glancing back at the ground after a moment passed by. The black-haired boy sighed and sat down beside the other, crossing his legs pretzel-style in the process.

"'s my job to look after you, so I'm not goin' anywhere, Laurence," he mumbled.

"Your hours went up a long time ago," muttered the bald teen, situating himself against the nearby wall. He leaned his head back some to rest against the cold brick, burnt red coloring contrasting so deeply with his pale, translucent skin that it nearly set him aglow. The firefly boy, the moon boy, the disintegrating boy. "Like my brother. Thought the schools'd look at him more if he went outta his way to do good deeds and do more hours. Didn't do jack shit. He got passed over by some foreign girl from Spain when he applied to Harvard."

"You don't get it, do you?"

Laurence glared, mouth so thin as he swallowed all of the horrible words he wished to spew were kept under lock and key by iron bar lips. The daggers, the knives, the bullets that flew at the older boy from his piercing stare were sharpened to the point of being impossibly deadly. The only words that he could manage to get out, his fists wrenching at the old sweater he wore underneath his coat, were forced. "You're the one who doesn't get it: Go. Home."

A tiny, barely noticeable smirk appeared on Tsubasa's lips and he whispered, "You really don't."

"Shut up," growled the sick boy, bringing his knees close to his chest. "Just shut up."

"Quit whining, then," replied the Asian gratingly, fiddling with the pendant on his necklace once more. "All you seem to do anymore."

"If you went home, you wouldn't have to listen to me." Laurence sent another glare in Tsubasa's direction, though the older boy dutifully ignored it. "Why do you even care? You could've just done what you were assigned to do and then left. Like I said, colleges won't–"

"I don't care about that."

The sudden increase in volume within his voice sent completely different shivers down Laurence's spine, chills and questions popping up randomly throughout his sore brain. The younger one looked up, trying not to raise his brow in confusion until he viewed the image of Tsubasa actually smiling. Serene and natural, the smile was pure, almost a mirage on the elder's mouth that Laurence nearly rubbed at his eyes like a child in surprise. Not once, not once, not once in the entirety of their encounters with each other had the older boy smile like that.

"I really don't," he added, eyes widening as his eyebrows disappeared even more behind his bangs. "You keep talking about death and school when you never really asked me straight up why I stayed. You assumed, Laurence."

"But only made an ass out of me, right?"

Tsubasa nodded, "Don't make a habit of it." That sickening, odd smile was still plastered all over his pretty little face.

"So why did you stay?" asked the bald boy after a moment or two of forced silence. He was the very parasite that infected him, drained away his energies like a leech. All marrow and coffin-bones, a skin body suit that latched onto muscles and sinew, taping him to the wall that he leaned upon. And his eyes, the brown of the rings within the whites so vibrant that they were nearly impossible to hone, filled to the brim with the last spark of innocence he could muster up; they were drowning so horribly in the death that he was surrounded by, constantly reminded of his own demise.

"You calmed down. I'll tell you. My parents named me for a reason," Tsubasa began softly. "It means 'wings'. They liked our home country enough to keep the name thing goin'. Moved here when I was three and my mom barely spoke English. We got kicked outta three apartment buildings until I was seven and Dad fin'ly got a real job. I studied a fucking lot 'til I was fifteen and didn't need ta. It didn't work and I didn't care anymore. Got a four point oh, anyway. But I never had any friends, y'know that? I never gave enough of a damn ta really try.

"I thought that maybe if I volunteered here, I'd get a shot at getting the one thing I never had."

"What was that?" Laurence inquired just as quietly.

Tsubasa hummed slightly, the laugh rumbling in his throat but never reaching the air. He shuffled closer to the sick boy, getting up on his knees to move quicker. Close enough, he bent forward so that the warmth of his breath tickled the pores on the side of Laurence's neck. His lips were close enough to the shell of the younger boy's ear that when he whispered, he almost touched it.

"You," he murmured. "You don't need to worry about getting your wings in three months, Laurence. Let me be your tsubasa. I will be your wings."

He leaned in and left a chaste peck on the sick boy's cheek before pulling away and surveying his countenance, drinking in the expression like a glass of wine. The anger that flushed his hollow cheeks, eyes widening indignantly.

"What the fuck was that?! You bipolar little bastard–!"

"The truth," interrupted Tsubasa. "The one thing I never did to you was lie."

"No!" The pale boy was shaking his head aggressively, shutting his eyes tight and attempting to push the other away. Fists gripped the long-sleeve shirt the black-haired boy wore, balling up the fabric and leaving wrinkles. Tsubasa rested a hand on one of the skeletal, road map limbs, sighing in a pitying way. "No! You don't care! You never did!" Tears peered out between the slits of his eyelids and he ground his teeth together angrily. "Selfish prick, you never cared! Shit, just... go away...!"

"No," answered Tsubasa, mimicking the position of Laurence's hands on the dark coat that encased him in a fabric tomb. "'m not leaving." He leaned in, hesitating for a moment. When the younger boy showed no sign of moving, he latched his lips onto the other's.

The kiss itself was chaste, but as Laurence unclenched his fists in order to bring Tsubasa closer to his form, letting his knees collapse to the ground to situate into a pretzel-position, it deepened into something that words were not able to convey between them. The sick boy's very fingertips were electrified, struggling to hold onto the black-haired boy for dear life. He continued to cry, choking back sobs as contradicting emotions ran through him, spreading like wildfire and burning up every pore, every organ, every last centimeter of bone and tissue inside of him.

Tsubasa left a small kiss on the top of the younger boy's peach fuzz skull, lips whispering absolutely nothing but small sounds that were merely reminiscent of words.

"Tsubasa..." said Laurence, voice drunk with sadness. "Please don't go."

"Never said I was goin' anywhere." The arms around the Asian's waist tightened and the sick boy buried his face into the thin shirt that clothed him. "'m right here."

A pause before: "Be my wings."

He smiled, genuinely and purely, hugging the other boy back. "I will."