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There’s not much he expected after the incident, as he so nicely dubbed it, in July.
Spending so much time with Winnie was guaranteed, he guesses. After all, there’s only so much time together two people can take apart if they’ve been glued together since elementary school.
When Augustine was just laying on the couch, his leg propped up and bored out of his mind, Winnie would pop up out of nowhere; he supposes his mom let him in. They’d talk about the things that have happened in the time they were emotionally/physically apart, when the vibrations coming from each other's mouth would only be an idea. Something Augustine wasn’t meant to hear, a set of words not meant to reach his ears.
It couldn’t have been a more stark contrast from now.
He swore everything that came from Winnie’s mouth were just random thoughts concealed as conversation topics. It could be some new snack he found at the grocery store that had some odd flavor, or how his aunt came to visit and scolded him for ‘paying too much attention on the road’ and ignoring her even if there “...were plenty of reasons to be more concerned about the street rather than her! She knew. She was stating the obvious”. The pair never did like his aunt much. The pair of them.
Augustine almost thought he wouldn’t be able to refer to Winnie and him as that anymore.
He continues to ignore the odd sort of ache in his chest when Winnie stops talking, and how the odd satisfied smile on his face sits there perfectly, and how his eyes dart over, as if anything Augustine said could be as interesting.
(He speaks anyway. If anything, Winnie seems entertained.)
And they would stay together for hours, just like that. It was such a sharp contrast from how Winnie was left with his broken leg, moments spent together involving Augustine with tension that neither could figure out how to solve.
“I guess we really didn’t know what it was, so we couldn’t fix it back then”. It’s something he wanted to tell Winnie in some of their more vulnerable moments in his living room. On occasion, during that week spent on the couch, it would reach the tip of his tongue, his lips forming the words. But he always paused. As much as it bothered him, he still felt like there was something unrecognizable in their relationship. A bit of complicated nerves in his chest at the thought of Winnie, and his face, and his care for him that really should have brought a sort of guilt, but instead left his nerves buzzing.
(If he could figure it out, maybe he could fix it. Come as it may, he didn’t know what it was.)
Winnie didn’t let him stay on the couch for more than 5 days that July, considering it was still summer and ‘those crutches are supposed to be used, not just sit there for emotional support’. They live in a small town, so they’re used to making most of the fun themselves. This happened just about everyday for weeks.
Today, in particular, it’s getting ice cream at the little local shop, not one of the massive chains around the country.
“It’s been a while since we’ve been to Agatha’s, hasn’t it!”
Winnie doesn’t phrase it a question, more as a statement that Augustine knows will be the main topic of conversation.
“Mm, I guess. What, last time I saw it was when I was 11 or something.”
“Yeah! Exactly why we should go today.”
“Are you joking?! We obviously can’t drive, and the walk is 15 minutes, probably more with me going there, too.” Augustine refutes, eyebrows furrowing in frustration with the suggestion.
“No way! It’s been way too long since we’ve been and I’m moving soon! Their flavors are too good to not taste for another year. C’mon, you’ve gotta admit the ice cream has to be worth walking for, right~?”
He ends the sentence with a wink in ‘Auggie’s’ direction. Augustine feels his face heat up in anger (yup, totally anger. What else could it be?) and crosses his arms while diverting his gaze away from his best friend.
“Seriously? Is that the only reason you wanna go, ‘cause of their flavors?”
He feels himself pulling a face and redirects his gaze back towards Winnie, only to be met with an eager smile and pale blue eyes full of hope.
“Y’know what? Fine,” he responds, looking at a spot to the left of Winnie’s face, “I guess it’ll be kind of nostalgic to see the place again.”
Winnie jumps out of the armchair diagonal to the couch, lifting his arms up as the smile stretched across his face grows more ecstatic.
“Oh my god. Yes! Let’s go right now. It’s been forever, I’m so excited -”
“Hey. I need to put my shoes on, give me a minute!”
“Shoes? As far as I can see, you can only put on one.”
“HEY.”
“Winnie, you have to stop WALKING SO FAST. You should know better about how freaking slow moving is with these.”
Winnie’s stepping on the stones on the edge of the sidewalk, like they’re both 10 years old again, using cash from their parent’s wallets to purchase sweets. It’s almost nostalgic.
“Actually, I healed quickly, so I have no memory of being a complete slowpoke with those things, Auggie. Imagine we were born, like, 500 years earlier. They didn’t have crutches when they broke their legs, did they? It’s simply an art lost in time.”
Augustine grumbles some sort of comment about how they had walking sticks and such, but watches as Winnie stops skipping around the rocks and simply walks by his side again.
By the time the pair reaches the shop, they’re arguing about the best form of ice cream (Winnie insists it’s soft serve, but Augustine prefers scoops).
The shop is spread apart from the regular rows of markets and stores, and stands alone, slightly disheveled from how he remembers it from when they were younger. The grass surrounding the exterior is either overgrown or browning with the lack of care taken to the lawn. Despite this, groups of parents with young children sit at the aging blue metal picnic tables, laughing.
Augustine takes a peak at Winnie’s face and finds the tilt of his lips pointing upwards in this kind of boyish smile, his eyes looking at the kids playing with each other. His heartbeat picks up in his chest as they head towards the ordering window, stained slightly yellow underneath the white and blue awning. Huh. Not the nerves in the chest this time he notes, yet odd all the same.
Winnie bounds right up to the girl at the opening, who is wearing a matching hat and apron with the same colors as the awning.
“Hi!”, he exclaims, the same upbeat quality he has to his voice whenever speaking to…well, anybody.
“I’ll have a medium strawberry and vanilla soft serve, please and thank you”, he says, while the girl at the counter nods.
He glances to the side at Augustine, with a look of uneasiness showing for a split second before he’s back to his positiveness and turns right back around to the employee, not letting Augustine step up to place his own order.
“Auggie over here’ll have 2 scoops of pistachio ice cream, thanks~”, he says, not stopping to consult Augustine or anything .
“Hey, Winnie, wait-”
“Is it still the same as it was back then?”, he suddenly asks, interrupting.
The small smile remains on his face even as his eyes look at Auggie with seriousness or…concern? Obviously he’s referring to his order. Augustine thinks back to the last time they came here and thinks of his taste now. He really hadn’t changed his taste that much, though obviously Augustine’s thinking had. It really was pistachio back then, wasn’t it . It had been so long since then, but Augustine really was about to order pistachio. He can only remember some details about that time.
Early August, both of us were… 11 years old?
Winnie had a gap in his front tooth; he was always a bit late with rites of passage like that. He called Auggie old for ordering a nut flavor. In return, he called Winnie basic for ordering vanilla.
A bit stunned at his memory and the question, Augustine only furrowed his eyebrows,
“Uh, yeah, actually. How did-”
“12.11 CAD, please”, the worker says, glancing at the two of them.
He begins to fumble with his crutches to get out his wallet to get money out to pay, but a hand touches his own to keep the right crutch steady. Looking up to meet the hands’ owner, Winnie’s looking at him with amusement dancing in his eyes.
“It’s alright, I know how hard it must be to pay with how much you spend on hats. I got it!”
He turns to his wallet and Augustine attempts to protest (‘I do NOT own that many hats, it just gets cold -’), but he’s already handing over a card to the girl. All smiles, Winnie makes his way towards the window where you’re supposed to hang around for your order after he gets his card back.
Augustine ends up standing dead still, his face slowly going pink while his expression looks more confused than anything.
Winnie spares him a glance and tilts his head. “Hey, Auggie? I think we’re supposed to wait over here. I already ordered!”
Snapped back into motion, he begins his crutch-walk and stops next to him by the window.
“How’d you even remember my favorite flavor was pistachio? Last time we got ice cream was over a decade ago.”, he vocalizes, a look of slight astonishment painting his face.
With a grin, Winnie responds, “How could I not? If it was the only time, I'm sure I’d remember something as important as that.”
Laughing, Augustine turns back facing forward and notes, “I guess it’s a given. Like knowing each other's hockey numbers from when we were kids or something.”
Maybe, if he wasn’t looking so straight forward, he would’ve seen the way Winnie’s face softened and how his eyes widened a fraction beforehand. But as it is, he didn’t, and so as it was, he couldn’t have known.
Soon after, their ice creams arrived in the form of a white bowl and a clear cup. Unsteadily unhanding his crutch, Augustine reaches a hand out to pick up the bowl with the green ice cream and, as he gets a grip, he hears the other say his own thank yous and such to the worker, but after, Augustine gets a bit preoccupied with attempting to balance the bowl without falling.
He doesn’t notice the silence or the fondness in Winnie’s eyes focusing on the look of concentration as he tries to balance.
“I’m all in support of your independence in handling the situation”, Winnie says when they’re walking to a curb farther away from the families, Auggie fumbling next to him, “but ending up with a broken wrist shouldn’t be today’s end goal.”
Augustine feels the smallest bit of irritation, as he would just not stop pestering him about a potential injury under the guise of his usual positivity, but he was sort of right. He’d already tripped over seemingly nothing, causing him to almost splat onto the pavement if not having Winnie to catch him (His nerves and stomach felt kind of on fire. Odd.).
So he gives it up and hands over the bowl to Winnie’s outstretched hand and watches him smile and say “I told you so”. This only prompts him to roll his eyes and search for the nearest and flattest curb to sit on. Though he feels the edge of his mouth start upwards, he totally doesn’t think about what caused it.
Winnie takes a seat farther away from the shop, it barely a blur in the distance. He follows suit, laying his crutches down first, then slowly lowering himself in a sort of pistol squat. Smiling, Winnie hands him the pistachio ice cream while keeping his own and the two spoons in one hand. Augustine takes it and receives a spoon as well then turns forward, stretching out his legs. In contrast, Winnie’s feet are flat on the pavement with his own soft serve balancing on his knees, covered with thin sweatpants on account of the weather.
For a while, it’s silent; hearing the children yelling in the distance, birds chirping. It’s peaceful, he thinks.
“Hey”, Augustine starts, “what do you think your college is gonna be like?”
Winnie adopts this odd sort of smile on his face, happy, but containing the slightest bit of sorrow below the surface.
“Oh, I’m sure it’s gonna be wonderful. Parties and people and stuff,” he boasts, but it’s a tad rushed, “anyways, what do you think you’re gonna do for college? We already know about my plans.”
He’s laughing, Augustine knows that, but he also knows when some of his loudness is being faked. He frowns thinking about it as he puts a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth, but decides to touch on it later. Most definitely, he thinks.
“I’m prolly just gonna go to a college closer to here than yours. I did get accepted into some others I applied to later, so…”, he drags it out, glancing to the side to see the soft smile Winnie has on his face.
“That’s great! Wow, I’m so glad you were able to get accepted. I mean, it obviously would’ve been better if you could’ve gone with me, but this is fantastic!”, he gushes.
Again, it’s genuine excitement, but there’s a melancholic tint to his tone.
The pair divulge into silence again and they finish they’re ice cream soon after. This is when they start more of their trivial discussions, if you can even call them that. It’s a normal game; for children, that is, to play when they’re bored. It’s simple; you look at a person, or a group of people, and make them a past, present, and future of your own imagination. They’ve been doing it since they met. It started mostly as a way to get Winnie to talk to more people without getting scared they wouldn’t like him; it gave him confidence, especially if the backstory was funny. Here, it’s just fun. Especially the kids they can make out in the distance. Their futures can be anything the two want it to be.
This ends with Winnie laid down in the grass, cackling about someone’s future profession while Auggie is wheezing while clutching his stomach.
“Oh my god, NO. For his sake, I hope you're never becoming his school counselor, mentor, or teacher.”, Augustine breathed out. Winnie’s no better when attempting to steady his breathing, mumbling incoherent retorts while trying to maintain dignity.
After they both have their heartbeats to as normal as they’ll get when they’re near each other, Winnie gets up and throws away their cups and spoons since it would be too much trouble for Augustine to do it. He’s unsure of why the sunset tonight feels so final and different (Maybe it was their earlier college talk?), but Augustine really didn’t want to end their time together so suddenly that day.
So when Winnie comes back, his mouth stretched open in a smile, his face illuminated by the golden hour of the afternoon turning to night, he can’t stop the words,
“You wanna head to the park?”,
from coming out of his mouth.
There’s no reason for it, he knows that. To his credit, it doesn’t sound nearly as sudden and unprepared as Augustine feels when asking him, stumbling onto his feet and gripping his crutches so tight that his fingers turn white. This time Auggie sees the fraction of which Winnie’s eyes widen, but his grin just broadens into a genuine smile as he agrees with a,
“Yeah, totally. We can go to the closest one from here so you don’t have to walk as much.”
Auggie nods as he releases the death grip on his crutches, shedding the oddly nervous energy that came from the question. Why was I so scared he’d say no? He thinks. Not like it meant our friendship was over or something.
He hears Winnie giggle softly and lifts his gaze upward to see him standing closer. His hand comes up and brushes the side of his mouth, just next to his lips. There’s this delicate look of focus in his eyes as his lips pursed in concentration.
Augustine can hear the slight hitch in his own breath at the tentative touch, his eyes widening in response to the sudden contact; suddenly, he can’t move. He’s not sure he wants to.
The warmth is gone as quickly as it began, but the smallest part of him wants to keep chasing the touch. As Winnie retracts his hand, there’s a slight dust of pink covering the cheeks of his pale skin, like when they were stuck in that snowstorm; only this time, he knows it’s not cold outside.
Clearing his throat, Winnie mutters, “There was, um, a bit of ice cream on your, uh, face.”
How very articulate of him, although Augustine doesn’t answer any more eloquently.
“Oh. Thanks for getting it. That’s really…nice of you..”
For a couple more awkward seconds, they stand there looking at each other until Winnie coughs once again and exclaims,
“Okay! We should probably get to the park quickly if we want to spend some time there before it’s completely pitch black; sunset usually takes a while, but no harm in moving now, especially with your leg!”.
Blown out of his stupor, Augustine mumbles a soft ‘yeah’, and Winnie starts walking forward. Feeling his face heat up, he lifts a hand from his crutches and presses it into the left of his face and the now nonexistent stickiness. Now red, he comes to a set of realization as he looks at Winnie’s back:
Yes, the abnormally fast heartbeat, nerves lighting on fire, and his face becoming a tomato are all weird occurrences for him.
Yes, they don’t happen regularly. Therefore, it is not some rare medical condition.
And no, there isn’t no reason for this to happen. There is, in fact, a very tangible and real cause.
His name is Winnie Bosko, and Augustine is most definitely, irrevocably, in love with him. His best friend. The one he was so close with as to share some sort of hallucination with; the one who is leaving for a college miles away soon.
Fuck , he thinks as his hand grips the side of his cheek, fuck .
🐻
Winnie turns around after a couple of steps where he can’t hear the clop of his best friend in crutches, and sees him just standing here. He raises an eyebrow, which spurs Auggie into movement as he puts his foot forward and catches up.
“Sorry,” Augustine says with a slight grimace on his face. It still feels warm, “guess I had to take a moment to make sure the ice cream was gone.”
Winnie seems to understand this, and grins smiles and says, “It’s totally fine! I would just hate to get too cold and rely completely on the warmth of a streetlight to get home.”
Continuing the slow pace towards the park, they see it devoid of children as it usually is; Augustine chalks it up to the lateness of the afternoon.
He decides to plop down on an old green slide, wide with the paint slowly flaking in bits and pieces, mixing in with the woodchips. He lays the crutches down in a woodchip mound, hoping he doesn’t get any splinters when he picks it up again. Patting the side next to him, he watches as Winnie skips over and takes his spot on his left. The duo take some time to look at their surroundings.
The sunset has become a deeper orange with the minutes used to get to their location; the swing sets made of metal reflect it, with the set attached to the slide doing a decent job in blocking some of the sun, though it does enough to give them warmth.
Augustine notices the odd tension again; it’s not one that resides in a hostile origin, he now realizes. Rather, it’s romantic, and wasn’t really something he could repair. He was fairly sure it wasn’t mutual; Winnie was about to leave for college, so if felt some of how he felt, he would’ve said something by now. To his chagrin, it brought down his mood a bit. It kinda pissed him off. Breaking into this tension, Winnie was the first one to speak through it.
“Why were you gripping your crutches so hard on the walk over here? I could feel how tense you were, how you were moving and everything…what’s wrong?”, he questioned, the lightness of his eyes defined by the shadows, his lips downturned in worry.
Stumbling over his words in response, Augustine cursed at himself for being unable to come up with a real answer.
“...it’s not because I made you uncomfortable by touching you, is it?”. It’s barely audible, not over a whisper, but it’s more clear to Auggie than the crickets in the grass.
“NO! God, of course not”, he blurts out, the quickest answer that’s come to him all day. His face heats up again with the memory of it, the urge to just cover his face increasing with each passing second.
“Could you tell me then? We said we were gonna be more honest with each other after the incident, and I'd hate to have another rift before I…” he stumbles off, not continuing the thought.
That’s the part Auggie latches onto, spotting the same hesitance and uneasiness he saw earlier on the curb of the sidewalk.
“What’s up with that then? The diversion thing you keep doing when you talk about college; I can see it too. You haven’t been completely honest either, have you?”
He says it with his usual bite, but it feels like too much here.
Winnie, not the type to shy away from emotional conversations, attempts to try again, “I…just…it’s too soon.” His gaze turns downwards.
“Too soon for what?” he replies tentatively.
“To stop talking to you again.”
With that, Augustine thinks back to the more recent discussions about the future, the way he was never specific in his fears or hopes related to college. Once again, he wonders why.
“Can you answer my question then, Auggie?”
He feels his mouth go dry.
“About why you stopped moving…breathing when I touched you; why you were so tense.”
Augustine looks up to his left, at Winnie. He’s looking at Augustine again and why is he always looking at me ?
Their eyes meet, his lively yet pale blue eyes locking onto his pitch black ones.
He’s never been the best with words; even in this delusion in July, before killing the monster together, that much emotion took a large amount of effort to get it out of him, which caused the most tears he thinks he’s ever cried in his life. With this, he figures he’s always been an action-driven guy. So he does just that.
He grabs Winnie’s stupid collared shirt with speech bubbles on it and pushes his lips against his.
It takes less time than he thought to reach his target because, as it turns out, the other was already leaning forward.
Augustine’s eyes shut when he feels Winnie reciprocating, the other's hands curling around his waist, pulling him closer. He imagines the other has kissed people before, though he can’t be sure. He’s just thinking of how glad he is that he’s the one who's being kissed right now.
His hands move from the front of Winnie’s shirt to his face as it deepens and he moves his head slightly to the side. They decide to come up for a breath after that, the experience quite literally taking his breath away.
Panting the slightest bit, he moves his hands down from Winnie’s face to his shoulders, just looking at his face. He’s smiling as he always does, but this time, he’s sure he’s returning it with one of his own.
“A guy of few words, huh?”, the blonde remarks, face blushed nicely under the sinking sun.
“Shut up”, the other laughs, ducking his head to Winnie’s chest. “How else would I do this?”
Looking up, he brushes his lips against him, then pulls away. “At least I’ve shown some initiative. Do you have something to say?”
Looking at Augustine with muted adoration, he declares, “Auggie, I think I’ve loved you for a while. The incident couldn’t have done anything better than develop new reasons for me to adore you more than I did when we were younger. College was such a daunting thing to face because I’m not sure how I could handle not seeing you in college, yet still loving you. It might be different now, but knowing you feel the same is… the best thing that could’ve ever come from out hangouts, besides spending more time with you, is knowing you wanted to spend as much time together as I do with you,” he ends it with the sweetest little lovesick grin, one that Augustine thinks, personally, could destroy him whole.
Everything about Winnie had always been like that.
“I couldn’t imagine life without you,” Auggie starts, “Having you by my side has always been the greatest thing life has ever given me. You know I run on emotions, how I’m better at showing things than saying them; but for you, I want to try to tell you exactly how I feel.”
He presses his forehead up together with Winnie's, looking up to his eyes, watching the other as he feels himself melt in his hold.
“You’ve been the subject of my thought for years; sometimes that wasn’t always a good thing. But just the thought of you brought my heart to my ribcage, so loudly I’m fearful you might hear it.
I love you.
More than I ever have anything in my life. I couldn’t imagine caring for anything more than I do for you.”
The two boys sit there, connected, enraptured, swallowed completely in the other. They don’t think of college, of the inevitable separation, of the unavoidable miscommunications; simply because they know.
They will always come back to each other. They’ll always find their way.
In the future, Winnie will share one of his bits and pieces of knowledge he collects to Auggie, the most important one of all; similar to how he thought their shared hallucination was a result of their death or injury, or how he knew they had to end their amalgamated monster.
He will tell him the story of the Androgynous from Greek times, as originally told by Pluto. About the theory of soulmates.
But that’s not right now.
That’s their future, Auggie in Winnie’s arms.