This is everything. (THOMAS)

[Elliott James]

Elliott sat under the shade of one of those gigantic, beautiful weeping willows. It was his favorite tree in the entirety of Pittsburgh - and he'd been around. It always looked alive, even in the halting chill of autumn and the dead of winter. A vitality tree.

The sun was lower in the sky - not ready to go down yet for two hours at least. Two hours of daylight. Two hours of the sun filtering through the branches, which were green with leaves once more. Looking past the leaves, up into the sky, he noticed a few clouds, and stared them down until they floated away on the wind. He could feel every part of his body, he could feel the rough bark behind his neck, feel his hands shaking slightly in his pockets, trembling against the thin black fabric of his - Thomas's - hoodie.

Trembling. For what was to come. For what might be.

For what could be forever.

This was everything.

[Thomas Wells]

Sick. God, he felt ill. Ever since he'd hung up the phone - it felt like hours. It had been half of one. He'd spent that thirty minutes with his stomach in knots. What could possibly happen? He could lose the only person he'd actually been close to in his... in his life. Literally, the only person he loved. And god, did he. With everything. That night, after the game, after... the kiss... when Amelia had taken him to her house... he couldn't say anything. Not once did he say anything. And bless her, Amelia understood. He slept on her couch. Lie - he laid on her couch for the night. Showing up for school for the next couple of days wasn't in the cards. For some reason he kept going back to the bleachers. He couldn't let go of that feeling.. that feeling of rejection... that feeling he'd convinced himself that he would have to get used to for the rest of his life - because who else could he love, and if there were another person, how could they love him back? If Elliott couldn't... who could?

And that had all changed a mere thirty minutes ago.

Now he was walking to that tree. The tree - their tree. They would sit and smoke and look at the clouds and just be. Being with Elliott... it was somehow so satisfying. So right. He wished those days never ended. But they did... the nice weather had died out, just as Elliott had almost died. Those were the most terrifying hours of his life, sitting in that godforsaken waiting room, not knowing whether they'd removed his appendix in time. It was so stupid... an unnecessary organ, which people had removed with no trouble all the time... it had almost taken the life of his best friend. If Thomas had gotten to that tree any later...

Unconsciously, he sped his pace. Soon, he was in the park... and there it was. The tree. Elliott sat at the base of it, hands in his pockets, head up, looking at the clouds. Just like always. Stomach churning, walked forward slowly, until he was mere feet away. Elliott looked at the ground, and then at him, right in the eyes.

Thomas stood, hands in the pockets of the hoodie that belonged to the same person who had him completely at his mercy. Stood, and looked, and waited.