Conflicted Eyes, Confusing Feelings | Complete

t w e n t y - e i g h t

"Don't call him, yeah? He's an asshole." Xander murmured, dousing his fingertips with the water dripping from his hair to rub along Sage's skin. Soon, the ink that once formed numbers became smeared and illegible, but Xander didn't stop until it completely vanished. As his eyes flickered to Sage's, he released his arm, stepping away from him.

W-why ... why is he being like this?

To answer Sage's question, Xander replied with, "I was just picking up some stuff."

"Hm? O-oh! Me too. I-I went to the p-pharmacy and super ... supermarket but then the rain caught me." Sage explained, throwing in insignificant, awkward hand gestures to get his point across. About to speak again, his throat closed in on itself in response to Xander pushing the hood from his head to reveal wet curls, sliding his tongue out between his toned lips.

I-it must f-feel like magic to kiss him.

His lips look ... r-really soft.

...

WHAT?!

Saaaage, stop thinking like that!

Xander ... H-he'd probably not like that.

"I-I mean! N-not that I expected to see you here, sir. I-I was walking and I bumped into the kind gentleman. Sorry!"

Xander tilted his head to the side, confused by Sage's absurd shift in persona. Colour swept across his lightly-mottled cheeks, causing them to glow like red glowsticks in the dark as he fidgeted. Just when Xander opened his mouth to advise Sage to not think too far into the small charade he pulled, he closed it, rolling his eyes on second thought.

"You have any idea what's on 66th Avenue, kid?"

Sage's lips crinkled into a cute little pout, eyebrows drawing closer at the word Xander referred to him as. "I-it's Sage, sir. X-Xander, I mean. And no."

"Stop calling me sir, and I stop calling you kid, yeah?" Xander said, about to flick Sage's nose, but the attack was evaded. "66th Avenue is a bar." brashly looking away, Xander refused to tell Sage what kind of bar it was, to preserve his innocence.

"I-is that so? W-well, I'm too young to--" Sage was interrupted by the sound of a deep rumbling cascading through the sky, sending vibrations through everyone and everything in sight. Sage's quivering shoulders hunched, arms going forth to wrap around his small torso in a protective gesture. As his head swiftly moved from left to right, the whorls of hair that had been brushed behind his ear went swinging forward, into his face. "I-it's cold." he got out in a small, breaking voice.

Xander nodded in agreement. His fingers twitched in the pockets of his blazer, desperate to be set free in order to take care of the insolent strands of hair that fell loose. Not only that, but Xander wanted to touch his hair. It looked soft. Sage looked soft.

A thought that had him questioning his hesitation struck him. If Axel could freely touch Sage's hair, then why couldn't Xander? All he had to do was reach his hand forward and tuck away the hair behind his ear. How hard could that be?

Towing the hand that he actually felt something in, he outstretched it towards Sage, but the boy's head whipped around, and as though stung or burned, he yanked his head back, his body hopping backward along with it, like a startled bunny. Eyes wide like a bewildered kitten's, he stared at Xander, whose hand remained mid-air. It remained like that for a while before he slowly pulled back, coiling his hand into a fist and thrust it back into the safety of his pockets.

Sage flinched. Flinched.

And Xander felt like shit for that. The pang of a strange feeling hit him harder than it should, but he settled for trying to shrug it off.