What the hell were they doing? It was a thought that had been bouncing around Mackenzie’s mind for weeks. It was there whenever Harvey was, lingering in the background like bad elevator music only drowned out by the bassline of their heartbeats. Everything Mackenzie thought he knew about Harvey Hargrove was wrong and that left him to fill in the blanks. But how could he ever be sure of what the other boy was thinking when he was always so hot and cold? Holding Mac close in town square and then knocking him down a few pegs in front of their friends. Crying, apologizing, caring? and then flinching away like being near Mac burned. Was it him? Or was it something else entirely? And how could he ever know?
“Exhausted,” he echos back, nodding his head. He watches Harvey carefully, eyeing the poorly placed bandages on his face. He would have done a better job, had the taller boy not been swatting at his hands the whole time, but then again- maybe he wouldn’t have. Not with the way his hands shook the whole night.
“I found you last night in the woods, you were um- calling my name? And your face- I don’t know what happened, I guess maybe you fought with a branch or a small bear or something before I got there,” Mackenzie tears his gaze away, opting to look anywhere else rather than to imprint the image of Harvey’s expression into his memory, “I tried to patch you up as best as I could but I’m not- you’d think I’d be better at that sort of thing after the year we’ve had, but I’m not. So… um- I was on the floor, but I guess it was a couple of hours ago you were upset so I just- I mean, I figured the whole thing you did for me in the town square might work since it worked then. And then I didn’t want to move and wake you up and well, here we are.” He can feel himself rambling and he stops it with a sharp intake of breath, standing up from his spot on the bed.
“Anyway, I can go and um- let you get some rest. I just didn’t want you to like, wander back into the woods or anything.”
Calling his name in the woods? Come on, Hargrove.
Harvey wanted to kick himself or something. He wished he could swallow down the absolute swell in the center of his chest, but it was like waves on the roughest night. He was destined to crash into the shore, leaving something like destruction in it’s wake. Harvey was just a structure made of sand, crumbling into smooth nothing under the weight of exactly how much he and Mackenzie Walsh were hiding.
Before, it was just sex, wasn’t it? Angry, jealous, something to keep their minds off of just how fucked the world around them seemed to be - at least that’s how Harvey had coped with it. Now that it felt like more, it was even more scandalous. Being touched could be blamed on nearly any factor: adrenaline, drinking, curiosity - take your pick. Feeling things for each other couldn’t so easily be explained away so easily, not even to himself.
Harvey had already been putting distance between them - distance was good, wasn’t it? - but when Mac stood, the swell in his chest became a tsunami and knocked him back toward the bed. A few foot stumble - dizzying - that nearly swept him from standing yet again. He didn’t want him to go: the anxiety that was still pumping through his veins told him as much, but instead of ‘Stay,’ came: “You probably shouldn’t -”
Harvey coughed. If he’d finished the sentence, he’d be right - Mac shouldn’t go wandering out his bedroom when they had no idea who was awake on the other side! But he shrugged instead of finishing that train of thought.
His face stung. He couldn’t think straight, and his brain rattled when he shook his head, but he did it anyway. “You, um... You should just stick around.” Harvey shrugged. Did it seem nonchalant enough? Did it sound like he cared too much? He didn’t know - he just knew he probably needed to sit back down before he fell over.
The bed dipped beneath his weight. “Okay?”
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