a world of my own

((Author's Note: A short introduction. Not much exposition.))

 

     Lucas sighed as he stepped into the light of the setting sun. His body ached from work and protested further at the thought of the walk ahead of him. Still, his bicycle had been stolen months ago and there was nothing much else to do but push forward down the cracked sidewalk. For once, the street outside the hospital was quiet, and he spotted only the same few ragged gentlemen he'd been seeing for years. They seemed to drift around the hospital, and sometimes it would seem for a few days that they were gone altogether. Yet, without fail, the wanderers always returned to be a sort of permanant fixture in Lu's life, forever formatted against a darkened sky and faded stone walls. Lucas pulled his coat tighter to his skinny frame as he moved into the wind, eyes down to his too-small shoes as he followed his familiar path.

 

Had Lu looked up as he used to when he walked, he would have observed the ever increasing decrepity of East Sanitarium as his route took him South and West. He would have seen the number of eccentric drifters speckling the sidewalks, wearing colors that may have been bright once, steadily increase. He may have seen the moon hanging bright overhead as the sun quickly slipped away, still not bright enough to light his way as the number of street lamps slowly dropped. Even if he had been looking up, though, he would not have seen when a wiry young man in a green silk shirt came stumbling out of an alley and slammed into Lucas, quickly bringing them both to the ground.

 

Lucas cursed, and the other man scrambled away quickly, his chest heaving and his eyes wide. He backed up against the nearby building, fingers twitching in fear. Lu took little notice, more concerned about having fallen on his cigarettes and the fact that he'd scraped his elbow. He groaned and lit the slightly bent cigarette before his eyes moved to the drifter. 

 

"The fuck, man?" He said, before he saw the fear in the stranger's eyes, "Hey, are you okay?" He changed his tone of voice, trying his best not to sound angry. The drifter only nodded, and Lu caught a glimpse of his pupils in the moonlight. They were massive, and a deeper black than the spaces between the stars in the night sky. Lucas sighed a little, put his hand on the man's shoulder. "Hey, you're alright. Look up at the sky, isn't the moon beautiful tonight?" The man replied only by staring blankly at Lucas, and then slowly turning the stare up towards the heavens. A small smile crept across his face, and as Lu turned to continue on his way home he heard a soft "Yeah..." follow him into the night.

 

Yeah, thought Lucas, taking a drag from his cigarette and exhaling it with a heavy sigh. Soon, he stood before his warm abode and spyed Hyde inside on the couch, his reading glasses resting delicately on his nose. Lu smiled a little and unlocked the door with a flourish.

 

"My love, I have return-" Lucas didn't get a chance to finish his sentence before Hyde threw his book down on the couch and crossed his arms in anger.

 

"You're back so late!" Roxas Hyde stood and took a few strides toward Lucas, his short blonde hair wild, "Why." It was not a question, but a demand. Lu noted with some pleasure that Hyde's light brown eyes didn't reflect the same anger as his body language.

 

Lucas shut the door behind him and pulled his jacket off, setting his keys down on the table. "I had to stay and help some of the other nurses, there was a big accident up North-" Hyde interruped him again, having spotted the scrape on his arm. "What did you do!" Another non-question. Lu tried to smile, placed his hand on Hyde's cheek, "Sweets, you didn't let me finish. There was a big accident up North today and one of the nurses on the next shift was going to be late. Then, on my way home, a drifter accidentally knocked me over on the street."

Hyde took a deep breath, bit his lip, uncrossed his arms and then crossed him again, "Okay," He said simply, and Lucas was glad to be off the topic.  He made his way to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of vodka, noting the charred paper in the sink that meant Hyde had been indulging in his favorite nervous habit. For as long as Lucas had known him, Hyde had loved to burn things.

 

They spent much of the evening in quiet comfort, Hyde curled up in the armchair with a book, and Lucas draped half-naked over the couch playing an old hand-held video game. Around 1am, Hyde accidentally burned the armchair with a cigarette (for the 1000th time, Lucas joked) and the fit of giggles he had was almost immediately followed by soft snores. Lucas smoked the rest of his cigarette, and carried the smaller man to bed.