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He obediently retracted the touch but didn't seem too hurt by the rejection of it. He understood. "I wanted to too... so much.. I had to be careful though. I was scared. I... I didn't want anything bad to happen. I wanted to be sure I wasn't just... acting on the heat of the moment. I wanted to be sure my feelings were genuine." He lowered his head a little and then offered the small parcel which looked like several old pages ripped out of a book wrapped around something and tied on one end with a scrap of string.

"I'm not asking you to do that Noah," he looked exhausted as he forced a small smile to choke away the pain. "You wouldn't be the person I thought you were if you did. Awesome people don't do that." But the smile wobbled and faltered revealing it to be a farce. "I just want to know how to go from here. I know what I want. You know what I want. I'd be grateful if I got to be your friend still. But you are going into this knowing I want more than that. Knowing that I wasn't acting on the heat of the moment - that I truly did and still want that.... and me knowing nothing other than you have a girlfriend already."

Al squirmed hearing that name again, he was so mad at her right now for simply existing that he could barely stand it. "Oh I'm mad, don't let me lead you to think otherwise. I'm mad and disappointed. You made a lot of assumptions about me and acted based on them. I know I screwed up. I didn't really think about how you could have interpreted my intentions."

He finally moved back a step to let Noah breathe and redirected his energies on exploring the immediate area harmlessly. "But your assumptions of me were false... and at the same time, I wonder what kind of person you really think I am if you drew those conclusions of me?" He noticed the moths hanging over the desk and froze there to admire them, he couldn't stop the small flutter in his heart or the slight smile that accompanied it. "Even now you doubt me," he looked back at Noah, frown returned. "I never intended to hurt you or make you feel that way. My intentions were to be sure before anything was irreversibly done. There are a lot of ifs in this world and us..." he gestured between them. "... one of the few things I really cared about the outcome of. I didn't want to be that thing you regretted in the morning." He leaned with his hand against the edge of the desk. "I think it's fair to say I have deserved a few hurt feelings on my end, too. Because yes, I ******** feel replaced and like I didn't matter. I was torturing myself over whether I was doing the right thing for us and you ... just... moved on."

He shook his head, "I never felt this way about anyone before. Not even my ******** hot a** tutor."

"I hadn't. Not a day went by that I didn't think of you," Al looked back with nothing but hurt in his own eyes. There wasn't animosity. He cared too much about Noah for that. But he was a wounded animal who was likely to lash out for fear of more pain at any given moment.

Something still caught his attention though. That text. That cruel ******** text. He went from calm and repressed to almost a snarling creature as he snapped his words, "that text." He was already shaking and had to take a moment to calm his nerves and stabilize before he erupted. He continued again, calmer, but it was a false calm, "that text had no purpose other than to hurt me and you know it." Placid waters with sharp toothed predators beneath the surface.

"Know what Noah?" He tried to look him square in the eyes again, his own already red and burning again with hurt and a strong desire to lash out at this point. "You've been real ******** successful."

Al shook his head violently as he shoved the bundle back, "no." He tried to place his hands around Noah's to encourage them to wrap around the gift and stop trying to lose it. "It... it just sucks okay. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to feel. I don't ******** know how to be right now. I feel like I'm dying." He choked back on his emotions as they only got in the way right now.

"But this is yours. It's small and stupid so stop trying to give it back, okay?" That was only making it worse anyway.

Al's hands were removed from Noah's carefully and he bobbed his head just a little. "You can still be mad at me if you want, just do it for something I actually did? 'Cause I should have been faster." He swallowed audibly as he watched Noah. "Like, I'm not perfect or anything okay. I was scared. I thought something was wrong with me but like... I dunno. I'm a coward." He cracked a smile then let free a short and mirthless laugh at his own expense, "I'm not very smart either or we wouldn't be in this mess."

The smile shifted back to a frown, "so if you're gunna be mad at me, be mad 'cause I'm a slow stupid coward that did a stupid cowardly thing that hurt you. I didn't mean it, I'm really really sorry, but it is what it is and I can't take that back any more than you can."

"I really do, but, um," Al frowned and tried to tap a curled finger under Noah's chin to get his attention. "I'm not going to lie to you Noah," the look on his face fell to a degree of unreadable. There was still clearly thoughts behind his eyes, unknown thoughts with wildly churning gears.

"You know what I want. That... isn't just going to go away. You do realize that, right?"

"Again, I know you. You don't lie or cheat. I would have been disappointed in you if you hadn't told me," he moved towards the door with a careful saunter. "But, that also isn't concrete. No matter what, feelings are going to be hurt. But you have choices now. Ask yourself the same thing I asked myself."

He lingered in the doorway, eyes fixed on Noah, "ask yourself what you really want."
He finally looked away and started to turn, "find the answer and once you have it, give it to me."

"I will wait patiently for it," he was gone.

As he pulled back the papers it became more and more clear they were actually pages pilfered from an old song writing book. Lines intended for musical notes were instead filled out with rambling thoughts and childish doodles. What Noah was looking at appeared to be letters. Ones addressed to him but unsent until now. They retold of Al's days while he was away. Some pages held nothing but dark self doubt and the belief that he felt nothing simply because nothing would have been easier while others confessed of the truth and the fears of being found out for it. That he may legitimately die because what he felt wasn't... normal. Even the talks he had with others about it had been enclosed, along with feelings of a continuing hopelessness despite them. But there was clearly a hope that held on. The last page ended with the realization that he was ready and willing to give it all up if he had to. That Rep, shockingly, seemed to understand and accept it too. It ended with a doodle of Noah and Al standing together in all their stick figured glory, stick hand in stick hand. No one ever said Al was Leonardo da Vinci.

At the heart of it all was a few little items; a Cadbury creme egg (which pained him to give up, it was the only one he'd found), a small unlabeled container of some sort of liquid, a travel size bottle of scotch, a shiny smoothed stone with various colours swirled in its surface, and a condom still fresh in its wrapper(which he really wishes he didn't put in there, probably not a good idea to wrap presents while you're drinking).