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Jeff looked Nic up and down, chewing on his bottom lip thoughtfully.
“Are you serious about this?”
Nic didn’t even look up from rifling through his crowded desk.
“Look, if you don’t want to come I’ll find someone else.”
Jeff shrugged, rubbing at his stubble and putting on a performance of hesitation that was quite pointless considering the fact that Nic’s backside was facing him.
“I don’t know… You’re asking me to join you on a hike? To meet a cult leader? Or something… A journey fraught with peril and danger?”
Nic looked back over his shoulder, squinting with a funny expression.
“He’s not a cult leader.”
Jeff laughed, “Dude, I’ll do it! I’m just messing around.” He paused taking in Nic’s narrow frame and receding hairline. “It’s not like you cut an intimidating figure, you’ll need someone to protect you.” He smirked and leant back on the office door frame.
“My hero,” Nic quipped, rolling his eyes.
And suddenly Jeff was stuck in the ass-end of some definitely occult forest protecting Nic from poisoned hot chocolate.
See- what pissed Jeff off was what Nic didn’t put in the podcast, at all.
The bird people? The forest closing in, folding around them like a hand crushing a spider.
The strange eternity spent between worlds.
The softness of the air.
“So… what's going on?”
“I don't know man, I've been trying to get back into dating a little bit. It's hard.”
Nic laughed, his smile lines deep and his eyes flashing with amusement.
“It’s not like it used to be,” Jeff continued, biting back the ‘not after meeting you.’ “Girls don’t really… It’s like we’re not speaking the same language.”
The conversation seemed to swim behind his eyes, sliding hazily through his teeth and into the muggy air. Nicodemus looked up at him disarmingly, as if sensing the shift in the atmosphere. His face seemed a little less tired, more eager. Jeff tried not to stare too hard.
As he stared at Nic’s face the ghost of an old conversation hummed in the back of his mind.
He cringed internally as he heard himself stumble over all the words filling his mouth like rotten fruit, spilling over his tongue without consent.
“Tinder? Is that like a fire thing?”
He tried to pinch his lips closed as the air hissed around him. He heard it and felt it. Hundreds of charades echoed painfully out of his lungs and into the forest.
“You think MK is into guys?”
Nic looked up at him and the air started to shake.
……….…………
+Get it right this time dumbass+
Geoff looks around.
They are standing in a small clearing.
Everything smells like wet dirt and pine and moss.
Sunlight lays all around him and Nic, speckling the other man’s face and shoulders with gold.
“Hey.”
Nic looks up at him from fiddling with his recorder. The sun bounces off his glasses beautifully.
“Uh… Hi?”
He grins widely up at Geoff like there’s a trick being played here only he knows about.
The forest is buzzing with life all around them. Complete calm sings in the air, and Geoff takes a moment to feel the soft ground beneath his running shoes. Everything is so green. Ferns that erupt in huge clumps all around, giant cedars creaking upwards lined with moss and lichens. Nic’s eyes.
Somewhere a bird calls, a stream babbles softly, leaves brush against each other overhead.
Speaking now feels blasphemous. Like an intrusion. Like disturbing one of the only moments of peace left in the world.
So he doesn’t.
The moment seems to stretch out for an eternity. The sun, the green, the peace. Nic stands hunched over his notebook, tape recorder slung around his neck. Everything is perfect.
Then Nic looks up.
He looks good. Really good. Healthy, more alive somehow, better than before.
Almost perfect.
Geoff opens his dumb mouth again.
“Nic…”
He tries to find a way to convey everything he’s ever felt for the man in front of him. Confusion, intrigue, affection, maybe something more. The man’s jacket is slightly too big, his pants containing almost too many pockets to count. His hiking boots new, freshly worn in and only barely muddy. Embarrassingly civilian. He looks…fresh? Like new growth in spring. It makes Geoff’s tired heart ache.
“I don’t know man…”
Nicodemus looked up, smile lines deep and eyebrows raised.
How can you explain to someone you care?
“I love you Nic. I love you something bad, and I’m too busy loving you to hate it. Every moment I’m with you I’ve been dying to tell you just to get this ball of thorns out of my chest. I don’t know how, or why, or when. All I know is you’re too good for me and I’ll never have a chance but I’m still telling you-”
Of course, he doesn’t say that.
Geoff Van Sant is a coward.
“I’ve been trying to get back into.. Dating.” He says it like it’s a question.
“Ah-huh.” Nic murmurs, “And how’s that going?”
Geoff doesn’t sigh, but he shoves his hands into his vest pockets.
“It’s hard.”
Somewhere deep in the undergrowth a bird’s call is returned. Something far off shudders into flight, shaking dew down from mossy branches. Ferns bow around each other, glistening in the dappled gold, and Geoff Van Sant’s heart aches too hard for him to stay silent.