Miles was on the roof of the treehouse.
Aaron was also there.
The roof of the treehouse was flat and stable, and could be accessed only really by slipping out a window and precariously scrambling up the tree until one could crawl onto the roof. Up until now, whoever was on shift would sit at the bottom of the ladder.
Miles hadn't wanted to, tonight.
Nobody had stopped him as he clambered onto the roof at the beginning of the night with a flashlight, knife and his phone. Shortly, Aaron had followed, and it had been an entertaining show of flailing limbs and muttered curses before Aaron was on the roof.
"You're not very elegant for a dancer," Miles remarked when Aaron collapsed onto the roof, panting.
Aaron didn't look impressed. "What caused the spontaneous decision to take tonight's shift on the roof?"
"A more appropriate vantage point," Miles answered matter-of-factly. "We can see everything from up here."
The sun had set a little under an hour ago, and to some extent the sky was still a purple-blue hue as opposed to the black it would become soon enough. What Miles had said was one reason he'd come up here, but there were more. It was nicer, up here. The wind was sharp and cool and the waning moon was in clear sight.
From inside the treehouse, there were muffled conversations coming to a close. Miles was glad that the wood of the flat roof was thick and had no gaps in it, for he really didn't want to hear want anybody was saying. He'd spent the entire remainder of the afternoon playing with Buddy, which had been a surprisingly relaxing activity for the most part, which was only when Buddy wasn't knocking him to the ground and licking him frantically. Climbing onto the roof was the first time he'd returned to the treehouse since he'd hurt Declan.
"You can't ignore them forever, you know," Aaron said, as if reading Miles' mind.
"Yes, I can." He couldn't, but he could try. "I'll just live up here, maybe. Until the week is up. Soon enough, Percy's going to have to accept the fate for that arm of his and our group is going to have to head back to the city."
"Distancing yourself from the world isn't going to solve any problems."
"Don't be so dramatic," Miles drawled, running a hand through his hair before flopping onto his back. "You guys aren't so important that I'd call you 'the world'."
"Aren't you just delightful?" Aaron said tersely.
Miles decided to ignore Aaron and instead let himself watch clouds crawl across the inky sky. He rested his arms on his stomach. His ribs still hurt from where Declan had driven his elbow into them, but any time he thought about that fight, Miles' stomach churned.
Slowly, Aaron lay down beside Miles, letting out a long sigh.
"Aaron," Miles said, and then nothing else.
"Yeah?"
"Are you afraid of dying?"
"Anybody who isn't afraid of dying is a fool," Aaron said at once
Miles resisted the urge to say, Then I'm a fool.
Death wasn't meant to be scary, was it? Animals lived their lives without even knowing they'd die one day. Why could humans not be the same?
Then only thing that made death a frightening prospect was, really, how it could come about.
Miles' mind was cast back to the countless times when he'd asked himself if death was really meant to be a scary thing. The question re-emerged when it wasn't welcome. Miles wasn't a violent person. At least - he didn't want to be. But sometimes he was merely curious as to what extent one could endure before... before, well, dying. And was the scary part dying, or what came before it?
Miles didn't want to die. But he wanted to know if it was worth spending a life in fear of the moment he would.
"Miles," Aaron said.
Miles hesitated before saying, "Yeah?"
Aaron rolled onto his side to face Miles, who turned his head expectantly. "What are you thinking?"
Miles didn't know how to answer that. Was he even thinking? Not coherently, he knew that much. "I'd rather not answer that question."
"Are you thinking of something happy?"
"Not necessarily."
Aaron's expression remained untroubled. "Then stop it, please."
Miles didn't tell him that thinking didn't really work like that, but he found himself trying to distract himself with different thoughts instead. Happy thoughts.
His family; his friends; Ty.
Those weren't happy thoughts. But they'd do.
Miles rolled back onto his back, careful of his shoulder, and clasped his hands behind his head. "The stars look nice tonight," he commented. There were no stars.
Aaron snickered softly. "The stars always fucking look the same."
Miles had been searching for a very specific answer from Aaron, and somehow Aaron had given it. "I do believe you just copied my line."
"Was I not meant to?"
"No," Miles said. "You were." He sat up, then. They were meant to be on lookout, not stargazing in an empty sky.
Aaron sat up too, like he had suddenly realised the same thing.
A cool breeze fluttered by. With it, a few leaves were sent tumbling from the tree the treehouse was perched in and scattered onto the roof. Miles idly picked one up and started playing with it, getting distracted again.
Then, out of absolutely nowhere, Aaron said, "I think I'm scared of living wrong."
Miles smirked, at first, because he didn't see how blank and serious Aaron's expression was. He supposed a conversation would be a good way to pass the hours, but starting it like this? It had him amused. It was only when he caught sight of how Aaron looked that he realised the blond meant what he'd said.
"Living wrong?" Miles echoed. "How can you live wrong?"
"By doing what I'm told, and nothing else."
As somebody who rarely did what he was told, Miles was finding it hard to relate to Aaron. At the same time, when he pictured life without the chaos in his own, he supposed that was what Aaron was left with.
"Don't you go on adventures?" Miles asked. "Or go to parties? Surely you have cool friends."
Aaron looked at Miles with a wrinkled nose. "You think way too highly of me." He hugged his knees to his chest. "I don't even hang out with my friends that often."
"Then why the hell do you call them your friends?"
Aaron cringed at that. "Because they stay with me at school."
Miles hadn't anticipated Aaron to have such a boring life. He suddenly shot to his feet, extending his hand to the blond. "Get up, then."
Aaron stared at Miles' hand like it was detached or misfunctioning. "What are you doing?"
"Offering you your first adventure," Miles said, deadpan.
"We can't leave! We're meant to be on shift."
"If any Altered come along this street, we'll be able to tell. I promise." He motioned with his hand. "Come on!"
Aaron stared at Miles' hand for another few heartbeats before slapping his own hand into it. "If we die, I'll kill you."
Miles took Aaron dancing on rooftops.
He took him racing down bitumen roads, screaming and laughing and grazing their knees.
He took him stargazing and flying - if sitting on one another's shoulders and clinging for dear life while they tore down the sides of hills counted as flying.
They rolled down the hills they'd run down; they lay, breathing heavily, on the roads they'd raced each other; they jumped from rooftop to rooftop where they'd danced earlier.
Then, when the sun was only just daring to chase the night away, Aaron and Miles returned to their shift at the treehouse, dappled in scratches and voices hoarse.
"That," Miles panted, "was an adventure."
"It was the best night of my life."
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