so long, see you tomorrow

“You’re getting real deep there, Fin.” Arthur chuckled. “I think broken things can be beautiful on their own, but they’re even better when they’re surrounded by other things. They may all be broken and not fit entirely together, but they can create something new and amazing together.”

“ you bring it out in me, ” fin shot back, grin easy. he tossed the chip into the air, white porcelain catching in the sun before he caught it in his palm. “ somethin’ new and amazing, huh ? what’re they teachin’ you on that games design course ? some oscar wilde ? ”

Jordyn sat on the edge of the pier, watching the young girls at the opposite end playing their game of truth or dare, eyes slightly glazed over as she felt a giant hit of nostalgia wave over her; just as the water waved over the girl who had jumped into the ocean. Lost in thoughts of childhood memories that she missed, she hadn’t even noticed Finley’s presence until she heard him speak. Blinking a couple of times and shaking her head, she turned her head to look at him. “Sometimes the most beautiful pieces of art are made out of things that are broken,” she gave him an encouraging smile. “I say go on a treasure hunt, see what else you can find, and work your magic on making something exquisite.”

jordyn’s words struck like a match on cardboard, ignited by unflinching sincerity. finley never knew what he’d get with her. he thought it was likely most people only ever scratched the surface on jordyn monroe; she seemed endless, a bottomless pit of empathy and a ferocious heart. maybe she was a daughter of poseidon, a goddess of giant storm waves, or maybe the ocean spray was turning finley’s thoughts to mist. “ ah, that’s... deep. ” he hopped onto the pier next to her, shifting his weight as sand slid of his sneakers in clouds. the pottery fragment pressed an indent into his palm.  “ i’ve never been on a, uh, proper treasure hunt before. they didn’t have them in the city or in georgia. ” there’d been a lot of ghost walks, though. gus had never liked the scarecrows. for good reason. “ you ever see people out here with those metal detector things ? i’ve always wanted to try that shit out. looks like somethin’ outta ghostbusters. ”

on any other given day, andrew would’ve thrown back a half-assed retort. perhaps a thinly laced insult somewhere in his words. but he just didn’t have the energy to do that now, so instead he rocked once on his heels and scoffed. “does it look like flower power is my thing? i’d rather rot.” his tone was nonchalant. “there’s just too many people.”

finley raised his eyebrows —— a silent and sufficient  ‘  that’s bullshit  ’ —— without an additional comment. his thumb smoothed over the ceramic in his hand, hesitating, before he dropped it into his shirt pocket. he always held onto the wrong things. “ you’re tellin’ me, ” fin mumbled, kicking a shell carelessly, the same way the sea had discarded it. “ i’ve already seen too many moon bags and teens chewing into glow sticks. the medical tent must be havin’ a field day. ”

“some friendship bands?” his chuckle was light, from somewhere in his chest that carried no worries. “lemme guess — one of ‘em has got w-e-s on it and the other has f-i-n. if so, i’m in. but only under that circumstance.”

“ fuck off, ” profanity had never sounded so fond. finley’s hands fell to his sides as he walked, eyes squinting at the sand for a sight of white or blue, or, ideally, a crab. on his wrist was a cluster of leather bands, tags and tan lines. there’d be enough space on there for wesley, too, if he’d been serious. “ i was thinkin’ more along the lines of  ‘  the really great one.  ’  and  ‘  oh, wesley, too.  ’  —- that’d fit, right ?  ”

their hands are touching again, and it’s almost nothing —- it could be nothing —- but, for gus, it’s hope. “ it does look like the point of a star, huh ? ” gus grins, wrapping his free hand around finley’s hand underneath his own and spilling the shards into his best friend’s palm hesitantly. always hesitant now. “ there’s a piece or two from everywhere we’ve ever been, ” gus admits, and it feels like he’s swallowing a rock trying to get the rest of the words to come out. “ they’re yours, ” he smiles. “ i want you to have them. make them into art. you’re good at that, you know ? making the jagged edges smooth again. ”

finley doesn’t know where gus is going with this one. he pulls his hand back to look at the miscellaneous tidbits at a closer angle, weary in a way that is unusual ( and unwelcome ) for fin ‘n gus. gus’s softness is a fracture in his insides, a split bone, a thorn, and he wants to take his face in his hands and say  ‘ please stay this way,  be infinitely tender,  don’t let this universe change you. ’   they live in a world where tenderness was achilles’ heel, and finley doesn’t want another demigod to fall. their sky is only big enough for mortal dreams. “ err, you sure about that ? ” fin's career in arts and crafts started and ended in pasta and glue photo frames when he was seven years old. he r e a l l y doesn’t know what gus is trying to say here. “ you’ve, uh... —- not gotten too much sun, have you ?  feelin’ dizzy ? ”

finley’s voice was warming, but andrew wasn’t too sure it was a sensation that he wanted to allow himself to feel. after the whole jackson fiasco, he was perfectly content ( but really, not so content ) with ignoring both the boys. but his questions were innocent, no sense of disdain plaguing them. “i guess,” he said with a shrug. “i mean, i don’t see the purpose.”

“ not surprising. ” finley couldn’t turn washed up bits of pottery into something with purpose and andrew would never be able to see it anyway. the universe got a lot of shit wrong but never irony.  “ you look buzzed to be here, ” he commented, dryly. it didn’t feel awkward. it probably should. that was probably a problem. “ did you decide to take a pass on the face painting ? flower power not your thing ? ”

wesley’s eyes were trained on the girls out on the pier before the soft voice beside him spoke up, and in an instant his attention immediately shifted towards his friend. “a mosaic of what? that’s the question.” he half-heartedly inspected the ceramic in finley’s hand. “how many do you have?”

finley shrugged, a soft rise and fall of his shoulders, of waves. he didn’t know. finley avlett never knew. “ dunno’. ” he admitted, the knots in his stomach easing in wesley’s presence. “ i’ve got, uh... maybe two so far. i might ditch these and makes us some friendship bands instead.—— you up for that ? ”

gus picked himself up slowly, his taxi yellow converse fading into a honey mustard shade the more he kicked his feet around in the festival grounds. no sudden movements, no sudden movements, no sudden movements. but, how could he not move quickly when he knows that voice, always knows that voice ? he faces finley with a smile on his face, shoves a palm in his pocket, and produces it within a few seconds —- an open hand with various piececs of ceramics, glass, and other materials he’d found. busted bottles, shattered plates… the list carried itself. “ i think broken things are often the most beautiful, you know ? need the most love of all. ”

finley stands and brightness fills his vision; white and temporary. maybe that’s what life is. a blind spot —- outside forces putting pressure on a giant bruise. finley’s palms felt sore. gus presented him with a small itinerary of treasures —- a bottle cap, some ceramic with lemonade pink flecks of paint, cathedral glass —- and finley inspects his magpie’s nest, his hand sliding under gus’s to hold it steady. he picks up the bottle cap with his other hand, twisting it under the sunlight, a fond smile playing with the edges of his mouth. “ you could make this one into a badge, ” he says, careful with his words. always careful now. “ — did you pick it up at benefit ? ”

Seth was excited and ecstatic. He was in charge of a Pepsi/Coke challenge booth for the kids. It was the best way he could imagine spending his time: out in the beautiful sunny weather, spending time with neighborhood children. He was also excited for the band that was gonna play today, that he would check out later. “Step right up!” he called out, pretending to put on the voice of a circus announcer. “Can you taste the difference between Pepsi and Cola?” 

a lady bug was roughly painted on the back of his hand; the black spots counting to six and the antennas smudged from the summer heat and finley’s nerves in big crowds. he was inspecting the damage when a voice called out, cutting over the festival theatrics and the white noise buzzing by his ears. “ i’m somethin’ of a pepsi master, actually. ” finley grinned, stepping up to the table. he couldn’t say he was surprised to see seth playing with the other eight year old children. “ you alright, man ? enjoyin’ the uh, festival vibes ? ”

“Victorian Certificate of Education. Graduating high school, basically. Lunch is the best class to kick it in, honestly. You know, just the regular snacks. Candy, doughnuts, chips. No, I’ve never eaten a lizard. I have eaten kangaroo, but.”

“ a kangaroo ? shit, man, was it from your backyard ? you raise it and eat it ? that’s brutal, jords. ”

“Thank you. Mine are too, especially after I cook. Though I must say it got a lot better after everything got a designated space. Either that or my former roommate was secretly eating my stuff while I was asleep.”

“ how’d that work ? my boyfriend does all the cookin’ so i wouldn’t even know where to begin with designating spaces. you got a label maker or somethin’ ? a cabinet for your jam pots ‘n what not ?  ”

the peppered kisses on jackson’s skin felt good, they felt like home. not the home he’d built with andrew and grace, but the home he was slowly but surely finding in finley avlett. the kisses reminded jackson that it was worth it. that losing andrew was worth coming home to him. “time.” jackson repeated, wondering how something as simple and meaningless as time could repair the blow to his heart. repair andrew’s bigoted thinking. time wasn’t a magical cute, but for finley’s sake, jackson was willing to pretend that it was. he had to find himself forcing words out, trying to think of something to say. typically jackson would always have the words, always have something witty to say to show that he wasn’t really hurting. he’d perfected that game. however, no words came out. all he could do was hold him and listen to the familiar sound of finley’s heart beat. the beat that made all of this worth it. 

words never came easily to finley——he’d always spoken with his hands, in the limited seconds between one record escaping into the next. he was his own language, and more often than not, he couldn’t provide people with a decent translation for his thoughts or his actions. sometimes that was a difficult quality to love, which is to say, sometimes finley was difficult to love. “ mmm, ” he hummed into jackson’s silence, as if the vibrations from his diaphragm were enough to make the situation any easier. finley’s best friend had never disappointed him before, he didn’t know what to say to someone whose had. ‘ i’m sorry for your loss ’ didn’t seem appropriate, even though this was, undeniably,  mourning. he hoped his hand on jackson’s shoulder, his lips against the russet flicks near his temple, said enough for now. again, fuck.

his fingers tap his wrist again. this feels like s a l v a t i o n, like something that gus thought he would never find. he is used to feeling small, is used to feeling like maybe —- just maybe —- he doesn’t belong. but here, with finley, he fits. it’s more than puzzle pieces snapping together, and it’s more than the time they dressed up as salt & pepper shakers for halloween. no, this is different. a good different. if gus is a library —— and he is. rows and rows of books and memories and kaleidoscope colors ——finley is the book that’s always been missing from the shelf. the spot has always been waiting for him, always looking lonely, and when gus’s gaze falls to finley’s lips before climbing back to the boy’s beautiful eyes —— the eyes that gus has fallen in love with, because the eyes neither age nor change, so gus will certainly be in love with finley forever —— his heart utters a ‘ welcome home ’ in uneven beats that gus is sure finley will hear. gus’s heart is an animal, a species of its own kind. he’s hidden it for so long, tried to settle its hunger and quench its thirst with anything he can find. the menu, written in the cursive elitists live for, lists the options: other boys, sometimes even other girls, new hobbies. it doesn’t help. nothing helps, and the creature living and breathing inside gus’s chest is r a v e n o u s. gus is afraid. he fears what it will do if it fails. if he fails. his heart needs finley’s heart between its teeth, eager to devour it at the altar, sacrifice it to the higher power that’s kept gus from swallowing finley whole all this time. he hopes he’s holy enough, pure enough for finley. he wants to worship him —— kiss all over the young god, make him t o u c h heaven rather than just know it —— but the feeling of inadequacy is the devil in this creation story, and gus is afraid that he can’t measure up, that he won’t measure up. that his prayers of let me be good enough for him, let him choose me, let this work out for the both of us, have gone unanswered and will be thrown into the pile of wishes that just weren’t real enough, weren’t good enough. but, this is r e a l. gus knows it’s real. he doesn’t know anything else.

finley’s thoughts are a string of forget-me-nots as gus’s mouth kisses his pulse goodbye, the space left behind heavy and beating with loss. the barely there hairs on his neck have registered an absence, already in their fourth cycle of mourning, wishing they’d bargained for a flick of tongue, craving crystallized  himalayan salt against skin. there’s a reason sirens sing their lovers to the sea; they’re not trying to drown them, they’re trying to bring them home. breathlessness is just a side effect, and it’s one he’s willing to endure if it means he’ll find preservation in the alcoves of apricot lips. finley had called for a lake and found an ocean instead; full, beating, lapsing. as gus rattles on with words he won’t register —— can’t register. all he can think of is the crystal pool on his skin left by gus’s mouth. gus. gus. gus. —— finley becomes a person who doesn’t know how to swim, and he looks at gus as though drowning is the best option there ever was. as if dry land had never been an option at all. his smile is a  lighthouse ——  it runs on it’s own solar power obtained by harnessing gus’s kindness and his tenderness and his heart. —— it always has been. finley isn’t in any danger here. the shoreline is still miles off, gus is speaking with a cloud in his mouth, and he’s submerged in the waters here. calm. here is the home he’s made. still. here is every merciful thought he’s ever had. gold. here is gus and here is finley and here is where his hand reaches over and strokes the pure skin beneath gus’s left eye and the ridge of his cheekbone with his thumb. the salt deposits in finley’s cavities have moved to his tongue in search of a better home, but it’s not right, it’s not there. it’s not close enough. gus is all twenty four ribs in one, he’s the honey bee caught in finley’s fists, he’s the spring season that’s bloomed down his spine and left his skin a honeycomb. he isn’t an object in the distance anymore.