Population 801

Kellin spent most of Saturday at Justin's house watching reruns of Even Stevens and eating junk food. In a town like Denning, there wasn't really much else to do. They had one strip mall but all it had were lame small businesses and a Party City. Of course they loved to reek havoc on Beau and Jenna when they had their shifts there, but they didn't have any desire to go let balloons loose that day.

Eventually though, curfew rolled around and Kellin had to head home. He waved goodbye to his friend and hopped in his car. He was driving down the street singing along to some Brand New song on his Ipod when he saw a silhouette walking down the street- not the sidewalk- literally the middle of the street. Kellin would have honked had it not been so late at night; but given the current situation, he pulled over and got out of his car.

"What are you doing?" He whisper-yelled at the leisurely walking figure. As he got closer he started to recognize the person as none other than the mystery that is Vic. He would have recognized sooner had he been paying attention to the details. Now he could see the soft curls and the curved cheekbones that could only belong to Vic. For whatever reason though, Vic was completely ignoring Kellin's existence. Frustrated, Kellin walked in front of Vic and lightly nudged his shoulder.

As soon as he did though, Vic started to fall. Kellin realized that Vic wasn't regaining his balance and quickly grabbed hold of his waist. As soon as he got a good grip on him Kellin looked at Vic's face and realized that his eyes were completely closed. Waving a hand in front of Vic's face, Kellin said his name over and over, with no reply.

"Fucking sleepwalking?" Kellin muttered, carrying Vic back to his car. "Are you kidding me?" He got Vic over to the passenger side and clumsily put him on the seat. "What am I going to do with a sleeping Vic in my god damn car?" He muttered as he got into his seat. He decided it would be best to just drive around until Vic woke up and Kellin could explain.

They drove for about 15 minutes before Kellin started to get sleepy himself. About five minutes into the drive Vic slumped over and rested his head on Kellin's lap. Kellin pulled off the road onto a look out in the woods not far out of Denning. He was absentmindedly stroking Vic's hair and admittedly dozing off himself when Vic started to rustle underneath his touch. Vic groaned and rubbed his face on Kellin's pant leg before sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Hey you." Kellin said quietly, trying not to startle him. Vic smiled up at Kellin for a brief second until he realized his current situation.

"What the fuck?!" He screamed scooting over as far as he could to the door. "Did you fucking kidnap me?!" He screamed.

"No!" Kellin said hastily. "No, Vic, I didn't kidnap you. You were sleep walking, Vic, in the middle of the street. I helped you."

"That's ridiculous, Kellin, I don't sleep walk. You're a fucking creep." He tried to leave but Kellin locked the door using the switch on his door.

"Stop, Vic, okay? You can't leave we're like 5 miles out of town, anyways. Can we just talk, Vic? Just have a conversation?"

"Fine." Vic said scooting a little closer. He was still far away, but he didn't look uncomfortable.

"So, you said you don't sleepwalk right?" Vic nodded. "Well sometimes things can trigger sleepwalking. Like stress or emotional events."

"Okay, Kellin, you want to talk, we'll talk. But on my terms. Any question I don't want to answer, I won't answer, got it?"

"Mmkay. No questions about the past." Kellin repeated. An awkward silence fell between the two until Vic spoke in an extremely quiet voice.

"Why do you care anyways?" He whispered. Kellin felt his stomach physically drop at how small Vic's voice sounded. He sounded scared and lost, and a little hopeless. Kellin scooted closer to Vic and cautiously placed a hand on his knee.

"I don't know, Vic. I honestly don't. You're just... intriguing. Something about you screams mystery and I want to figure you out."

"No you don't. There's nothing to figure out. I'm just like everyone else." He whispered.

"But you're not, Vic! I've lived with the same people my entire life and then you come along and you're just... you're new! I can't help but be drawn to you somehow and I want nothing more than just to spend all my time with you until you become just as familiar as everyone else in this town; but part of me knows you won't be. You're always going to be different and I admire that."

"You really want to spend every minute with me?" Vic smiled at him.

"Every. Minute. I want to learn everything that you know about the world outside of Denning." Kellin beamed back. "It's all I've ever thought about."

"I don't know Kellin..." He replied warily.

"Come on Vic. I won't ask any uncomfortable questions, I won't push you to tell me anything, we can just be buds." Kellin smiled uncontrollably. The thought of Vic actually not being cold to him was something Kellin had been hoping for since he laid eyes on the tan male.

"I should get home, Kels." Vic said putting his seat belt on and facing forward. Kellin nodded and put the car in drive, heading back to town.

"I like to come out here." Kellin said, mostly to himself. "This is the farthest I've ever been out of Denning. It's nice actually seeing the sign that says that I'm leaving. There's gotta be more than this town and this life, even though no one else seems to think so. There's a whole other world beyond this town and it's just begging to be explored. Can you imagine all the faces and all the experiences that are just knocking on our door and we never see them because we live in this... this bubble." Vic just nodded at Kellin's ramble and continued to stare out the windshield. Kellin hadn't expected him to reply, but he wanted to say something about how suffocating Denning was. Vic had to understand how trapped Kellin felt every day for the past 17 years.

When they finally got to Vic's house Kellin pulled into his driveway and put the car into park. They sat in silence and Kellin was rather confused at why Vic hadn't left yet. Right as he opened his mouth to ask though, Vic cut him off.

"Fine." He said. Kellin looked at him confused before Vic continued. "Fine, we can be friends. But the same rules apply, Kellin, I'm not answering any questions I don't want to answer."

Kellin practically beamed with excitement as he said a simple, "Okay." and Vic left the car. He waved at Kellin when he opened his front door and Kellin waved back before reversing out of the driveway and heading home. He couldn't keep the smile off of his face as he thought about how he had successfully and for the first time since kindergarten, made a new friend.