onepassingnight | under the boardwalk // people walking above || closed log;

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under the boardwalk // people walking above || closed log;

Hadn't he stepped to this tune already? He's off-meter and the beat is running thin. Not that he had ever been much for music. Adam could appreciate a tune, and even decently carry one, but he'd never been one to see things through. He had foolishly thought things could be different with Peter. Things were always different with Peter.

He confides in the only thing he knows; more accurately, the only thing that knows him: the ocean. Its endless and unchanging face studies his own, and he knows he's been made.

"Peter." His voice doesn't sound like his own, and he doesn't turn - he can't. There's nowhere left to run.

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Peter had almost thought, with some semblance of conviction, that the crying was done with. God knows he'd been trying to hold himself together nearly this entire time, and Adam made it no easy feat. But when he feels something wet slip down across his palm, he opens his eyes half-lidded onto Adam and any part of him that wasn't already demolished simply crumbles.

While Peter had cared about a great many people in his lifetime, those still weren't words he threw around easily. Peter might love a little more freely than some, but that didn't diminish the extent of his emotions, or the meaning. And even then, it wasn't something he confessed to often. Especially as of late, the word had nearly disappeared from his vocabulary.

But when he can feel Adam's words against his skin as much as he can hear them, it very nearly pulls Peter inside out. Suddenly squeezing his eyes shut to keep his own welling tears from falling, he needs a moment to find his way through Adam's words still echoing in his mind. Breath coming in shaky bursts against Adam's mouth, Peter pushes in for his own firm but quick kiss so he can find himself once more, so he can find the breath he needs to speak again somewhere in the depths of Adam's lungs. Pulling back again not a second later, with lips still ghosting against Adam's, Peter finally finds his words. "I love you too, Adam."

For a long pause Adam simply is. He doesn't breath or speak or blink or move. Every moment of the virus was still on the forefront of his mind, though it felt as fake as it was now, china memories to be stored away and never used. Hearing those words bolt him back there and he's suddenly constricting his arm around Peter, pulling him tight against his chest, instantly exiling any thought of those few days. If he can do nothing else, he can at least hold Peter until the morning light. Methodically, he replaces every moment of the virus from one of this dream, erasing each touch and rewriting each breath; reetching each word into his mind. Maybe someday soon he'll be able to make new memories, but for now there was this and this was enough.

Peter knows that he still doesn't understand all of this, and it's likely that he never will. But he doesn't need to, it's not necessarily important to know exact details when he has emotions to sift through, and those are more than enough to inflict on the both of them. Tucking his nose in against Adam's neck and blinking back tears he doesn't want to fall, all Peter can do is stay silent and hope to offer whatever comfort he still can for as long as he's allowed. This right here is more than he could have ever asked for, and eventually his breathing slows to a quiet pace against Adam's skin, the ebb and flow of his emotions relaxing to something a little more manageable. But even then, he's still wound tight, clinging to one of the few things he has left, desperate to believe it won't disappear for just another few moments, needing whatever he can get to make it through.

He grapples for a hold in Peter's shirt, hand jumping out of the sand. Don't cry, he wills the body against him, a few tears of his own already falling in the man's hair. His own breathing isn't as calm, growing frenetic as he tries to stop the floodgates from opening all over again. If they were to, he won't be able to stop them, his self-control long since shot. It's hard to care with Peter this close; hard to feel anything but his fingers at his back, the man's breath making his skin tingle, shivers pulling over his skin. Adam presses his lips to Peter's forehead, his bangs tickling him with each forced breath. This can't end, not just yet, and he holds Peter all the tighter as if he can keep the day at bay.

Peter's already sure that he's outlasted the time he usually gets to spend asleep and now he's biding his time, waiting for the inevitable moment where he'll be pulled back towards wakefulness. But until then, he's clinging with all he has, burying himself against Adam as if there's no other way to keep living. Maybe if he holds on all the tighter he won't be the one left alone in the sand, and he'd beg for it if he could. He'd ground out the words if they had any affect at all, but instead, he's dripping tears against Adam's neck, holding his own breath. Lifting his face to but his nose against Adam's ear, thinking he can come up with necessary words, Peter knows they'll only sour the moment, so he stays silent, dripping desperation.

When Peter's breath trickles into his ear, he shudders, wishing he could pull the words out of the other man. His words might be the only thing Adam gets to keep when all is said and done, light ebbing in through his window. Leaning back just enough, he's kissing away Peter's tears, despite the steady stream of his own. Shaking hands grip Peter's face, needing more than anything to take his fear; take his pain, and make it his own. "I'll come back, Peter," it's hushed and fractured, but the truth of it carries. His mouth collides with Peter's again, his last chance to plead his case. If they're operating on borrowed time, he can't waste a red second. "I promise."

If he had the words to give, he'd hand them all over without a second thought, but he's run out and trying to stumble through all the assorted things he wants to say just seems completely pointless. And even if he could piece something together, Adam's kiss would've stolen it away before it passed his lips. His face caught in Adam's hands, there's nowhere else he can look and it breaks him apart as much as it puts him back together, trying to use Adam's face to focus in on all that he is. With forced, harried breaths, Peter offers a twitch of a nod, his fingers curling in the hem of the other man's shirt. It takes far too long for him to dredge up the ability to speak, he knows it does, but he's distracted, clinging as much to Adam's promise as he is to his presence. "Okay."

What comes over him isn't exactly a smile, but there's some mirth behind it. This is one promise he can keep; one way he can make things right. He pushes his face in against Peter's, tears spilling over the man's cheek before he can stop them. It's either let go now or be torn away, his last comfort pulled from his arms by the coming day. Adam buries his face in Peter's hair, holding fast and clutching so tightly his arms shake. If the dawn wanted Peter, it would have to take him by force.

Peter would beg Adam to stay if he knew it would have any affect at all and if it didn't make him feel horrendously guilty for even thinking it. This isn't even his Adam to keep, and Peter keeps telling himself a few more seconds mean the world. Nose grazing Adam's wet cheek, Peter's doing everything he can to keep himself completely here; even with alarm clocks and places he needs to be and things he thought he wanted to be doing, maybe if he lets himself disappear into Adam, it'll all go away too. "I don't want to wake up." Peter's mumbling his words, fairly sure he can already feel himself getting pulled away despite all efforts to the contrary and any chance at keeping from crying himself awake is lost, as he's left clinging to things that aren't even there.

"But you have to," Adam brushes away Peter's bangs one last time, feeling himself getting yanked back into the waking world. It wasn't fair; it wasn't as if he had anywhere to be. And in a single instant, it's all over, the world they'd built gone in the single blink of an eye. Until the next time.

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under the boardwalk // people walking above || closed log;

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