Aiden is running like his own life depends on it.

He’s out of breath, his feet pounding the pavement, the wind flying through his hair. The people he rushes past are nothing more than colorful blurs. The sidewalk feels like it’s a million miles long, and when he leaps off of the concrete onto the beach, his speed is significantly cut down.

Still he runs, kicking up slippery pebbles. At least the sun is setting, and the huge beach is sparsely populated. No one spares him a second glance.

The dying energy note was keening before, but now the volume is steadily increasing, and as Aiden cuts down the wide beach, it reaches a scream. He nearly falls as he runs, the sound overwhelming his senses and throwing his balance off-kilter. But he catches himself and tears towards the waterline.

The surface is choppy and white-capped, churned up by a storm gathering in the far distance. He scans the water for swimmers, but doesn’t see any. The few people remaining on the beach aren’t even wearing swimsuits. It’s too late, too cold for that. The sun is already dipping down below the horizon.

Aiden stops a few feet from the water, struggling to think around the wailing in his head, his eyes roaming wildly. This is where the sound brought him, but - is he in the wrong place? It’s happened before.

And then he spots it. All the way out in the distance, there’s a small boat. Is it just the rough water, or...?

No. He’s sure, now. It’s impossible to notice if you weren’t looking for it, but someone is drowning, right next to the boat.

The scream in Aiden’s head is now so ear-splitting that he can feel it vibrating through his teeth.

What the fuck is he supposed to do? He opens his mouth to shout, but that’s not going to accomplish anything. He can practically hear the clock ticking down. He can’t help, can’t even get someone else to help. Not in this amount of time. There’s simply no way.

Regardless, he has to try. He takes off running again, straight for the water, ready to try and swim for the floundering soul.

Before he can so much as get his sneakers wet, the deafening scream in his head chokes on itself, and falters. He freezes to the spot, staring.

“No,” he whispers. The distant splashing he could see before, he can’t see it now. “No no no-”

The screaming falls silent all at once. Snuffed out like a match.

Aiden’s hands curl into tight fists. He digs his fingernails in until his palms threaten to bleed. He drops onto the pebbles and lets out a dry sob. Presses his hands into his eyes. The silence where that missing note should be… it’s worse than the screaming.

He’s only fifteen, and he’s not ready for this shit.

Aiden tips his head onto his knees, trying to regain control, but it’s too late. A sea of sound crashes over him, dragging him to the bottom, and now he’s the one drowning.

He has no idea how long he’s been sitting like that when a bright, sweet note weaves through all the rest. It feels like a million voices are shouting in his head, but one person - one person is singing. The sound hits a perfect harmony with Aiden’s own energy, amplifying both.

In the chaos of noise, Aiden grabs hold of the only one he can hear clearly, then clings to it until everything else starts to fall back. It gets a little quieter in his head. For a moment, he can imagine that the noises he hears are just part of the rushing of the waves. All except for that one note.

Aiden comes back to himself and realizes what this must mean. He knows who this energy belongs to. But it sounds so - close?

He opens his eyes and finds Jamie Keane sitting right next to him, his heels dug into the pebbled beach.

Aiden wonders if he’s imagining this. He looks out at the water, half expecting to wake up from a dream, and spots a chubby brown puppy splashing around in the shallows, digging its tiny nose through the sand.

Aiden gives brief but serious consideration to the possibility that he died while trying to swim to the boat, and as a result, somehow squeezed his way into heaven.

Next to him, Keane cups his hands around his mouth.

“Nugget!” he calls. The dog lifts its head, tail wagging. “Come back! You’re too far, now!”

The puppy ignores him, already back to exploring. Keane lets out a sigh, then realizes that Aiden has lifted his head from his arms.

“Hi,” he says. Aiden blinks at him mutely, then does the best he can to gather his face into the neutral mask he’s slowly perfecting.

“What are you doing?” he asks, and Keane shrugs.

“Sitting with someone who looks upset?” He smiles tentatively, with only half his mouth. “If that’s alright with you.”

Seriously? Aiden thinks. After the way I’ve treated you? You’ve got to be fucking kidding.

Coming from anyone else, Aiden would take this as a joke, but he knows better. He’s already been so mean to this guy, but no matter what he does, he can’t get Keane to do a mean thing back to him. Not even when he stole that poem, which he was sure would be the incident that finally made Keane snap.

Aiden casts his mind around for something cruel and cutting to answer with, and... comes up empty, for once. Maybe it’s because they’re away from school and all the other people they know. Maybe it’s because Aiden just used Keane’s energy to rescue himself from a complete meltdown. Maybe it’s something to do with the rare close-up view Aiden is getting of Keane’s brilliant copper hair, his sugar-sweet brown eyes.

So Aiden doesn’t say anything, which, apparently, encourages Keane to do the opposite.

“Sorry if that’s weird. I was just walking my dog, and I saw you down here. You didn’t look like you were having a very good day. That’s Nugget, by the way. He’s a nightmare.” Keane holds something up: the chewed, destroyed end of a leash. “Look what he just did! Now I have to carry him home.”

The mental image flashes unbidden through Aiden’s head. Keane walking with the puppy tucked under his arm like a football. Aiden is struck with a sudden urge to laugh, and he barely ever laughs. Not unless it’s icy laughter, for the purposes of driving home a point.

“Anyways, I’ll go, if you want me to.” Keane’s slender fingers dart up to tuck a red strand of hair behind his ear. “I was just - look, I know we don’t get along, by anyone’s standards, but if you ever need someone to talk to, like - I’m around. I’ve had some pretty bad days, myself, and I usually find that-”

As always, Keane is talking and talking without taking a break to breathe, but… Aiden has never talked to him alone before, and he discovers that Keane’s voice perfectly matches his energy note, all warm and open and gentle. Enthusiastic to the point of tripping over itself, like the puppy splashing around by the shoreline.

The combined sound of Keane's note and his actual voice… it’s so strangely easy for Aiden to focus on, and the cacophony in his head falls even further back, giving him a moment of precious relief.

It makes it way easier for him to hear and understand what Keane is saying, without having to waste half of his effort pushing all the other noise down. Aiden hasn’t experienced this before, and though he knows he should jump in and tell Keane to shut up or whatever - he can’t make himself do it. He sits there, enraptured, and listens. Staring openly at Keane, who doesn’t seem to have noticed.

“-to walk on this beach right before the sun goes down, ‘cause it makes the water so pretty. I didn’t know that you liked to, though! I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here before. But Nugget ran right over, and then I saw you, so.” He pauses, looking at Aiden. He’s waiting for him to say something, clearly a little nervous, and when Aiden doesn’t, he adds, “You wanna talk about it? Whatever’s going on with you?”

“Who says anything’s going on with me?”

“I don’t know. You’ve just been - sitting like this for a long time.”

How long have you been sitting with me? Aiden wants to ask, but he bites it back. He’s not sure he wants to know the answer. He falls silent, and Keane, of course, jumps right back in again.

“I’m just saying, your face - you look like I did when I learned the hard way that the road behind the school is a one-way street.”

Aiden is curious, in spite of himself.

“What did you do?”

“Um - nothing, like, permanent.” Keane cringes at the memory. “But people weren’t exactly impressed with me. There was a lot of honking.”

Aiden hears a weird, airy sound, and realizes it’s his own laugh. Keane’s adorable brown eyes widen. Aiden can understand that. He’s a little shocked, himself. He quickly looks back to the water, but Keane won’t stop staring at him.

“What?” he finally snaps, twisting to face him again. Keane seems to shake himself out of a stupor.

“Nothing, I just - haven’t heard you-” He stops, shrugging. “Nothing. I’m sorry.”

Incredible. Here Keane is apologizing. It’s so backwards that Aiden could almost laugh again.

“The fuck are you sorry for?” It comes out all wrong, harsh and cold, the one time he didn’t mean it that way. Keane flinches and leans back, and Aiden finds himself scrambling to undo what he just did. “I mean - besides causing a twenty-car pileup behind our school. You should be sorry about that.”

Keane blinks at him, then laughs.

It’s a sweet, infectious, beautiful laugh, just like his energy, and Aiden - Aiden is the one who drew it out of him.

The whole rest of the world goes silent. Everything else disappears. Aiden can see only Keane, the way that his laugh scrunches up his freckled nose. His eyes catching the fading glow of the sunset, their color like sunshine through an autumn leaf, where before it was more like soft earth. The way that his vivid red hair tumbles over his forehead. Aiden wonders what it would feel like to twist his fingers into it.

His heart is pounding too hard. It’s almost painful.

He’s been drawn to Keane ever since his note untangled itself from everyone else’s. Attracted to him ever since he started paying attention. Had a pretty bad crush on him ever since he read that poem. But now, hearing this perfect sound, this sound he could happily listen to forever...

Something is happening within Aiden. A tectonic movement, a major internal shift that he somehow understands is irreversible. He doesn’t have a name for it, but it rushes and overwhelms him.

There are so many questions he suddenly wants to ask Keane. What kind of music do you listen to? What’s your favorite movie? What do you like to do, and do you want to go do it together, this Saturday?

Is there any chance you would ever kiss me, after all the things I’ve said to you?

“I didn’t cause a pileup!” Keane gently smacks Aiden’s shoulder with the back of his hand. It’s the tiniest touch, but Aiden’s skin burns there afterwards. “Cut me a break, I only have my learner’s permit!”

Aiden, still awestruck, answers without thinking.

“Sounds like they should take it away from you,” he says, and Keane laughs again. Aiden is instantly hungry for more. He wants to do nothing but make this guy laugh for the whole rest of his life.

“Stop it! I really didn’t cause too much trouble.”

“I can’t even imagine you causing trouble, Keane.”

“I got in trouble at school like, last week, just so you know.”

“For what?”

“I was-” Keane cringes again. “Eating a cookie where I wasn’t supposed to. But I disagree with the no-food-in-the-library policy on both a moral and a practical level.”

Now Aiden wants to laugh again, and this is all very - he’s not sure what, but his teeth are clenched so hard that his jaw aches, he wants to press a finger to the fabric of Keane’s flannel, and he feels all warm, even though the remaining sunlight is too meager to do much.

In fact, it’s starting to get dark, but there’s a pool of soft light around the two of them. Aiden realizes that he’s responsible and unsuccessfully tries to stop. Good thing Keane hasn't realized. He’s still watching Aiden with those amber eyes, waiting for him to say something, but... the longer his gaze lingers there, the harder it is for Aiden to find any words.

He’s desperate for one more moment of contact. Could he get away with touching Keane, just on his arm, or something? Maybe he can hide it behind a joke. His fingers stir on the pebbles, like he might really do it.

Something on the horizon catches his attention.

A Coast Guard search & rescue boat is cutting through the water, heading to the place where someone just drowned. Both boats are far away, but Aiden can make out someone standing on the deck of the civilian one, frantically waving their arms in the air, shouting something inaudible from this distance.

Keane hasn’t spotted it yet.

“So are you okay?” he asks. “Or is there anything you need? You looked really upset when I got here.”

Reality strikes Aiden like a punch to the face. He snaps awake from the strange, happy daze he’d fallen into. What is he doing? So what, Keane sits with him for a few minutes and all the defenses come crashing down?

Weak, he tells himself.

“Yeah, there is something I need.”

Keane smiles, surprised. “Really? What can I do?”

“You can shut the fuck up and leave me alone. I came here for some goddamn peace and quiet, not to listen to you drone on and on about - whatever the hell you were saying.”

Keane draws back sharply, his smile vanishing.

“I was only-”

“Don’t you have something pathetic to be doing? Like hugging one of your precious trees?”

Anger flares in Keane’s eyes.

“You share a quarter of your genetics with trees, I hope you know!”

“Would you fuck off, already? Your voice is so annoying, and you never stop using it.”

Keane surges to his feet, his hands balling into fists. Aiden wants to grab them, kiss them, apologize. It’s a full-body effort to resist.

“I should have known this whole thing was some kind of set up. I don’t know why I keep thinking-” Keane stops mid-sentence, then twists to face the water. “Nugget! Let’s go.”

The puppy bounds up to him, panting happily at his heels. Keane turns to leave, then swings back around.

“You know,” he says heatedly, and Aiden lifts his eyebrows. Is he finally going to strike back and say something harsh, for once? “You - you really -” He bites his lip, then gives up, shaking his head. “I hope you feel better soon, Aiden.”

The light that had gathered around them fades out as soon as he’s gone. Darkness and noise rise up on all sides.

Aiden forces himself to sit and watch until the Coast Guard pulls the body out of the water. He needs to remind himself about the reality of his situation. Maybe that will make things easier.

It doesn’t. The look on Keane’s face before he left cuts into Aiden like a jagged piece of glass.

“It has to be this way,” he whispers to himself. Over and over again, the whole walk home. “It has to be this way.”

But this thing in his chest isn’t listening. It plays the sound of Keane’s laughter, on repeat.

“It has to be this way,” Aiden insists, his voice growing hoarse.

He’s not sure who or what he’s talking to. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter.

Jamie Keane just planted something in his heart, and it’s already starting to grow.