I don't know where I'm going, but anywhere is better than here in this lonely cottage atop a mountain that no one but Gerard can find, and if Gerard is able to find me, then it's not the place I need to be.

The man's car keys bisect my fingers as they frolic around inside their prison cell and await the duty of unlocking the automobile's door so that I can run away and forget about all of the people who enjoy calling themselves friends, and the moment chugs along with an absence of acceleration that's so crucial to me. The car is too far away.

My surroundings scream at me throughout my journey to the vehicle, some ordering me to go back and apologize to Dallon for making public his secret, some ordering me to never contact my friends again, some ordering me to run the car right off the mountain, and my final decision is a mix of all three.

I peer into my bag, where a bottle of peroxide cowers away so that it'll earn my pity and its utilization, but that's not my destination. Instead, I procure a pencil and a meager scrap of paper, jotting down six simple words.

Do not try to locate me.

And with a lowly regard to it, the paper whirls to the ground, likening to a helicopter seed with both its movement and its evocation of peevishness, and I turn my back to the house so that I'm but a cloaked figure in the blankness of night.

A clicking noise signals the unlocking of Gerard's van, and with much more force than is needed, I slide open the door to find myself in the unfamiliar terrain of the driver's seat, an area I had only ogled from the back row due to Gerard's travel restrictions, but brushing away the nervousness in an ample supply, I commence my departure.

My hands yank each other from side to side, pulsing in miniature actions as the key meanders through the slot and breaks its neck trying to start the engine.

Within milliseconds, the automobile is alive with the rumbling of the motor, partially suspending the night's hollow sounds that are only neglected white noise to me, because I have many more things to worry about than the fleeting commotion of the darkness.

The authority granted by the vehicle is unnatural, more than I could've asked of anyone or anything, and half of me debates returning to the house and confessing to all my sins, but Dallon would be the first one suggested to hear it, and I'd rather not present him with ammunition as his Christmas gift. There are better things for that, including the interminable spite I reserve for him.

So with that figured out, the gears arabesque into drive, and my foot plats with the pedal until we're bombinating in total secrecy through the mountain pass as my friends have no idea I left them on Christmas Eve so that I could fulfill my cowardice.

Time is, on the first occasion in history, non-linear, just passing by with a wave and circling back around in various points on the spectrum, all conducting a hideous mess of confusion that I have no availability nor patience to sort through, but it acts as my only companion through the dull venture to wherever it is that's farthest away from the Caribou cottage, and perhaps that's worth gratitude.

My ambition was to take note of the things I reach, but the trees are all just hazes amidst an even hazier sky of midnight-dyed nitrogen that can never seem to dose my lungs with its healing, and every pebble I scrape with the wheels of the car is just another casualty spread across a battlefield in a war that has taken enough lives already to become insignificant. The only monument I see is the steady beacon of the headlights fixed in front of me, imprisoning my attention when it should be elsewhere, but no one is ever out on the streets at eleven o'clock on Christmas Eve, so I allow my mind to wander into wherever it pleases, because at least it's not into the ground when it ultimately kills itself again while embalmed in a metaphor for death, and perhaps the night is soothing.

In many ways, that concept is plausible, and I've always had a kinship towards plausible, the crux enshrined in the uncertainty if anything is even real or not, and though the birds have been slain for the cradle of rest and offer no music to calm my restless nerves, the silence is evermore an unlikely comfort without a feathered partner to assist.

The ataraxia consumes my head until the lights of the town materialize in the gravel and asphalt compound of my path, and the birds are only a side thought, replaced by the merry chattering of the citizens as they feast on Christmas dinner with people who actually love them (or at least pretend to, which is relevant to my case) and stroll around the sidewalks in scarves announced festive by a mere color pattern, through it all seeming more cheery than I could ever be, but my hopes are that I'll absorb some of the delight for myself before I leave for the cottage again.

Because maybe I don't want to be gone forever, and maybe there are people who would genuinely miss me as they engulf themselves in a lie, but then again, true hatred is immersing someone so thoroughly in a misconception that they crumble upon learning that their reality isn't so viable as they had once suspected, and distancing myself from that misery is what I'd consider productive.

I observe the glee of normal pedestrians as the car rolls by, a placid expression transporting the halcyon days directly to me while I near an isolated park lit by holiday lanterns from many different religions.

The vehicle skids through the pavement, jostling its contents at an undesignated stopping space on the curb that I repurpose to parallel park the vessel so that I may ramble about until my lids falter with tiredness and require me to revisit the cottage with shame hauling lead into my step.

The wind slaps me for being so unprepared without a jacket and so ignorant from abandoning my friends at the Caribou lake house, but I guard myself against it by shoving my hands in my jean pockets and lumbering through the park until I encounter a brick wall, faded by the greying affliction of age, and climb atop it to see the vast expanse of the town.

The bar Gerard took us to a few nights ago blares with a dense population on the smoky horizon, and a dysphoric simper sheets my entire composure as I crouch towards the frozen earth without a trace of sense as to where I'm going from here.

Thankfully, it appears that I don't have to anytime soon, because a boy around my age is sauntering my way with a peppy grin tumescing his chilled complexion as he scoots onto the wall with me and without permission.

"Sitting on this wall is dangerous, you know," he warns, spider curls vomiting from his head as he examines his swinging legs while they smack against the bricks.

"Well you're on it anyway."

"Fair point." The boy shrugs, nodding in silence. "What brings you out here?"

A sigh flows out like the poison of a cigarette, the cigarette that entailed a secret that was told and then lured me out here to ponder my troubles. "I made a mistake."

"That's okay. Everyone does."

My jaw leans, contemplating the facts. "I guess."

A smile fiddles the end of the boy's lips as he stares at me in amusement with a tilted view beveling his perspective. "What's your name?" he asks, his voice a pleasant melody merging with the rhythm of the town.

"Patrick Stump," I reply firmly. "You?"

The boy's smile swells wider than before, as if pleased that I asked the question that I did. "I'm Max."

My brows ply in a labor to draw an answer from the kid. "Do you have a last name?"

"Of course — I just don't disclose it to anyone."

"And why is that?" I continue to press, brows still stationary from a few seconds earlier.

Max prepares himself for a speech, groping a carefree countenance to project it. "I prefer to think that I'm nothing special, just a human lost in a city of others exactly like me in the way that they're only trying to move about their lives and find meaning in it, and last names are too garish to complete my wishes of privacy, so I don't use them."

"Surely someone knows your last name."

"Not because I've told them."

My hilarity almost effervesces from my mouth, but I stifle it at the last chance in the realization that it's rude to laugh at someone's theology. "Okay."

"So you made a mistake," Max circles around, humming as he sifts through the vague information. "Let's take your mind off of that."

His proposal is unpredicted, causing me to dip back and almost fall off the wall, but I hold on at the last second to protect a miffed gasp. "I thought you would be a problem solver."

"Isn't this solving it?" Max muses, scratching a symphony into the jagged terrain of the bricks.

"It's just distracting myself."

"There's most likely nothing going on, but you just feel guilty about it anyway." His words strike me head on, and a fraction of me is angry at him for being so assuming, but the remainder of the fraction dictates otherwise, for it knows that this is a better medicine than Dallon's.

My eyes patch Max's fingers with their focus, observing as spirals and ornamental delicacies animate the generally lifeless surface of the wall, and with my strained limelight I forget to speak loudly enough to hear, but the message is nevertheless conveyed. "Maybe."

"Do you like candy canes?" Max grills, hand paused within the deep pocket of his jacket as he waits for my response.

My shoulders fouette indifferently, marking a reply "A bit cliche, but yeah."

"Screw cliche. You're taking one." And without my consent to that last fragment of his diction, he awards me with a pinstriped pole and vanishes from the ledge of the wall.

I study the candy cane intently, tracing its every twist and turn without addressing the fact that the kid has disappeared.

"Did that work well enough to get your mind off things?" When I nod once glancing up, he requites the favor, smiling once more as the wind gambols in his hair. "Then have a good Christmas, Patrick."

As Max's image dwindles in the fog, all I can think is that someone like him cares about me. And that's fucking amazing.

~~~~~

A/N: ooh where he going (I promised myself I wouldn't sing cotton eyed joe and I'm not bc I'm stronger than you think)

current vibe: when I found out where the [pete wentz screaming in the distance] meme came from

~Da[n]k[meme]ota