Hear What the Silence Screams

Mikey sank down into the crevice between the embankment and the road, curling his arms around his legs and watching the road idly as no cars went by. Small town, no real need for cars unless you were a teenager. And even then the cars were only for the thought behind them, the feeling of maturity. Being able to drive around and wave at the kids beneath you who had to walk or ride the bus or get rides from their parents and try to stand the music they had to listen to.

Dead silence wafted around, and under normal circumstances, Mikey would have been completely at peace with the world. The square of the town loomed in front of him, cement and dirt and a few old buildings that were still in service from the sheer convenience of their placement in town, but no one was masochistic enough to bother going out in the peak of the day. Not when the air was thick enough to taste and choke on.

A car actually did whiz by, after a little while of Mikey leaning back into the grass and wiping his forehead with the back of his palm, and he recognized them as some of his brother's old friends. Their promises of 'getting out of this shitty town' came back to him as he watched the car disappear around the only real curve in town, the one winding around the school building that was at the heart of everything, and his heart dropped. It was sad to have to witness their return, dragging their shattered dreams behind them as they ran back to their parents.

Mikey was never one of those guys. He didn't have his mind dead-set on moving to a big city just to piss off his parents and hating his life, fucking it up as a big fuck you to everyone around him. Small places were fine. Less people, less noise. Looking up, squinting against the sun and the sweat trailing in his eyes, he decided that maybe somewhere small and cold was the best place for him.

Somewhere where no one knows him, where everyone just accepts that he is mute and doesn't dig at it and make his life worse.

Like fucking Frank. He needed somewhere away from Frank. Sitting in the middle of the town next to the building Frank was in suddenly seemed foolish, but where else did he have to go? He didn't have a vehicle to go anywhere else, and if he showed up at his house so early in the day, it would raise questions he didn't want to answer.

Frank kicked the front doors to the school open, twisting his whole body to the side and curling his arms into his chest, a little 'Pow' escaping his lips before he could help himself.

The sudden influx of hot air nearly threw him off balance, he had to reach out and grab the divider in the middle of the doors to steady himself and regain his breath. It just came out of nowhere. He was used to the heat, of course, but foresight doesn't really help when the air turns into a vacuum.

Just the fact that he was willing to step out into the inferno and look for Mikey had him pretty smug. He didn't have to do this, didn't have to trudge around in the mid-day heat when it was the worst just to look for him and try to get him to see that this Special Ed class was one of the best things that could happen to them. Before, Frank was a little wary about it, about having to be lumped in with those kids, but it's not like he was popular anyways. This way, he and Mikey wouldn't be bothered to talk. They could sit together and be smug in the fact that they were getting a free ride through school just for pissing people off.

See, totally a good thing.

The cement beneath his feet crackled with each step, the rubber soles of his shoes nearly sticking to the surface as he looked around for where Mikey might have went. It couldn't have been too far because--since Frank drove him home and everything--he didn't have a car and probably didn't want to make the walk to his house until the sun was a little lower in the sky and there was a little relief from the shade of the trees and buildings.

He rounded the corner of the building and a flicker in the corner of his vision stopped his tirade. A smile slipped on his face as he stuck his hands into his pockets and picked up his pace to reach where the grass met the road, plopping down beside Mikey without much dignity. The grass was a little cooler over here, not warmed by the sun as much because of the little ring of shade circling a nearby tree.

Frank stuck his chin into the web of his thumb and forefinger and huffed loudly.

"Boring-ass town."

Red heat flashed behind Mikey's vision for a moment, a nice image of him strangling Frank popped up, but he had to let it go. Instead he uncurled his legs from where they were tucked underneath his knees to stretch out halfway onto the asphalt, shifting his weight to the arm farthest away from Frank.

"I like it this way. It's quiet. But I don't expect you to understand that." Mikey cut a piercing glance over at the boy beside him, scooting a little farther away.

Frank's grin grew wider at the response, stretching across his reddened cheeks and highlighting the apples. "I was under the impression that we were in the same boat. I understand, you understand. You like the quiet, I get it." Frank slouched down, reaching his fingers up towards the blindingly light blue sky and humming his approval of the popping muscles in his shoulders. "It'll be really quiet in the class they're putting us in," he worked at keeping his voice nonchalant, ignoring Mikey's glare completely. He didn't know what it was about Mikey that made him keep pushing this. But he'd like to find out.

"It will be filled with stupid kids." Mikey winced at his own callousness but held his ground. Tucked his fingers into the grass outstretched behind his back for leverage, the bits and pieces of ground breaking apart beneath his palms. The grate-gray roots living under the thin surface of green followed the scoop of his fingers and cried out against the abduction in silence and soft pops.

"Then you should fit right in," Frank mumbled under his breath, tucking his chin into his collarbone. Words that fell out in the rush of the moment. Harsh and not-true, not what Frank wanted to say. But tempers of teenagers rarely made for good conversations. Take two of the same and it's a stalemate.

Blood rushed thick and blue in Mikey's temple for a moment, giving him time to decide that no, this wasn't worth it. "I'm not going to go in that class, so shut the fuck up and leave me alone." The tendons stretched tight in his hand underneath string-bones and letter thin skin, itching. Frank was lucky Mikey thought slapping a guy was too bitchy.

Glassy green eyes cut a long sideglance at Mikey, the green of cat eyes and stagnant chlorine-enhanced water that's left sitting at the lip of a swimming pool after a splash.

"You know what?"

"What?" Mikey asked through clenched teeth.

"I'll bet I know somewhere that you would like. Somewhere quiet. And." Frank squinted up at the sun still hanging too high in the sky, gleaming white-hot and burning the skin where his hair parted.

"Inside."

Black spindles of eyelashes stuck together for a minute, cemented by sweat and pure heat before Mikey decided. Again.

"Okay."