Aidan had no control over the smile that quickly appeared on his face at hearing Lachy’s voice. “Morning” he sat up, rolling his neck around to try and get rid of the tension. “We should probably get moving soon, huh?”
Lachy nodded, stretching his arms out in front of him with a soft yawn, "Probably. The quicker we get moving the faster we'll make it to the camp."
He nodded, rising to his feet. “You have any idea how close we really are to being there?” He asked, looking down at Lachy expectantly.
At that he shook his head, slowly standing up with a soft groan, "A few hours out at least. We should reach the train track soon and then after that it's just follow the trail till be reach the crow, whatever that means."
“Hopefully we’ll actually be able to find this place.” He grumbled. “I don’t know about you but I don’t exactly want to just wander around forever looking for it.”
“I guess we just have to follow the railway till we find something.” He sighed, heading out their little covering and into the sunlight.
Aidan nodded in agreement, standing up with Lachy. He squinted into the sunlight, shielding his eyes with his hand until his eyes adjusted more.
Lachy's eyes adjusted almost immediately, the sunlight lifting his mood ever so slightly. He swiveled on the spot, finding the train track and heading towards it.
Aidan dropped his hand as soon as his vision adjusted and he picked up his pace to get over to Lachy’s side. “So this is supposedly our last day of traveling then?”
The small boy nodded, keeping his eyes trained on the path ahead as he replied to Aidan, "Hopefully. If we don't have to stop on the way there then we should be there by the end of the day."
“Great, then that will be our goal.” He said before going quiet, most likely for the next 10 minutes unless Lachy continued to talk to him.
Lachy was quiet for a little while longer, thinking. Eventually, after a few more moments of silence, he spoke up, "Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if… if you weren't.. you know…"
He sighed softly. “Yeah I think about it a lot actually…” especially in the beginning, when he was just figuring it out, he’d push himself to get his brain back to ‘normal.’ And after he got sent to the Facility, he only thought about it more. What it would’ve been like to grow up and become an adult if he was straight.
He looked over to the other male, a soft, sad expression on his face. He did, too, wondering if maybe his abuse might have been less if he had been straight, "Honestly? Me too…"
Aidan nodded silently, still thinking back on those times. He’d been so scared back then, and just hid it under layers and layers of aggression. But in the end, everyone still found out what he was.
Lachy was just glad that it hadn't had been worse. That he hadn't been killed in that household. It made him scared to even think about the possibility. If that had happened… he never would have met Aidan.
“How did you figure it out? That you were..like this?” He asked Lachy curiously, looking over at him, his head tilting to the side a bit. This had been something Aidan was wondering about for a while.
"There… there was this boy, in one of my classes," He said quietly, "Popular, strong, good looking, kind as anything. He was there for me when I needed," He shrugged, fiddling with the ends of the sweater, "The kind of person I needed back then."
“That sounds…really nice actually.” He realized that now he was going to have to answer the question. He silently prayed that Lachy wouldn’t ask.
He nodded a little, thinking back. However he didn't dwell on it for too long, "What about you?" He asked, "You don't have to answer, I can tell you don't like talking about it."
He sighed, shaking his head. “It’s fine, you told me so I’ll tell you.” He thought back. “It was a long time ago now. I was maybe 13? He was just this older kid in the neighborhood. I looked up to him and shit, eventually caught some sort of feelings. He figured this out and kinda used that to get me to do whatever he wanted. So yeah I have a lot of shit on my permanent record because of that.”
His eyes widened a little, blinking a couple times as he processed it, "Oh.. oh gosh Aidan I'm sorry. You don't have to tell me anything else about it, I'm sorry you had to go through all that."
He shrugged. “It’s okay. I mostly just tried to forget about it. And I pretty much succeeded, and was able to mentally dismiss it as a one time thing, puberty and shit you know? But then it came back and…well now I’m here.” He gave a sarcastic bow before seeming to grow serious again. “I can trust you not to go blabbing about this, right?” It honestly seemed like more of a threat than a question.
Lachy nodded quickly, knowing that tone and if he did tell anyone Aidan would probably kill him, prophecy or not, "Of course, you have my word, cross my heart." He made the motion over his heart, making sure the other could see.
He stayed silent for a few seconds before simply replying with “good.” He continued to walk, not necessarily wanting to end their conversation but just wanting to end that part of it. He did trust Lachy, in his own weird way.