Run away but we’re running in circles

[Angel Miguel Albares]

Angel stayed underwater for a long time. He sank to the bottom with his eyes closed and he held himself there, letting his body drift. All the world faded; all colors, noises, sights. Julio didn't join him right away as there was no accompanying splash, so he stayed under and had that magical, muted world all to himself for a while.

Then the splash, and Angel resurfaced to take a long breath, floating at the deep end. He smiled when he noticed that Julio was in his underwear. How prudent. Angel could have helped dry his clothes but maybe he wanted to feel the warm water on his bare skin, rather than have soggy clothes slap around his body. At any rate, him being nearly naked was not an unwelcomed sight at all.

Angel swam closer; in the water he felt much more graceful than he did on land. As a kid he was gangly and he never filled out enough to make the best use of his tall body. He did well for a while but then the drugs took away his appetite and he stopped eating. He stopped laughing, too. Tonight was probably the most he'd laughed... since the other night a week ago, when he and Julio had a good laugh over Steven Seagull. Angel kept that little drawing in his sketchbook; he looked it over fondly throughout the week.

"There's something on your face too," he said as he slipped closer. And then splashed Julio—gently—before darting away laughing.

[Julio de la Rosa]

Julio tilted his head, expecting Angel to wipe whatever was on his face off. But instead, he mischievously splashed water in his face and Julio made a surprised face before shaking his head and splashing back. By then, Angel had gracefully swam far enough away to avoid the splash. With his head start, Julio ducked down under the water to swim toward him, popping up on the other end of the pool.

Whoops. He was still off. Angel was an arm's length away. Julio leaned back in the water and gently poked Angel's calf with one of his feet, as if playing tag before he let the water swallow him again and swam off.

His mother taught him to swim when he was young, like so many other things she taught him. She told him swimming could be a kind of dancing, too. Some people even danced in the water. As she grew weaker, it was the only place she could still dance.

Popping up on the other end of the pool, Julio looked out over the city from inside the pool. It looked like they could just swim right off the balcony and over all of Portland. He smiled over at Angel.

I wish I could fly, he signed, even though he wasn't sure Angel would understand, since it wasn't a common phrase to look up.

[Angel Miguel Albares]

Angel was a good swimmer too and with a head start he avoided most of the retaliatory splash. Laughing to himself, he turned to see Julio following him and put on a burst of speed, but was still in range to be poked in the leg. He poked Julio back—tag!—before doing a half lap around the pool, ending up floating beside him at the edge looking out over the city.

He rested his elbows against the broad glass ledge and leaned his chin onto his forearms. The smile disappeared as he turned his gaze down, down, down... down... How easy it would be to swim off the edge. How nice to shed all of his weight, all of his problems, and fall so fast and so far that he could leave them all behind.

Julio signed something that he didn't understand, but he reached over anyway to touch his arm. Brushed away a bit of orange paint. Slid his fingertips along the length of his wrist, and down to his hand. The tattoo on his arm was beautiful and fierce, just like him. Strong. He was no stranger to pain. Angel's fingers curled around his hand silently as his eyes flicked up to Julio's eyes. No more smiles now. Just the sadness that Julio captured so well.

Then he was gone, sinking underwater and swimming away—away from the edge.

[Julio de la Rosa]

Julio smiled as Angel touched his arm. But his smile slowly faded as he realized that Angel was no longer smiling. And when he took hold of his hand, Julio tilted his head and watched the sadness in Angel's eyes growing. What was wrong? He started to move closer but then Angel was gone, dipping into the water and away from him and the edge where he had been staring over the cityscape.

Bewildered, Julio turned to watch Angel swimming away, fully clothed. Somehow not slowed down by the weight of all those layers.

Julio slowly swam away from the edge, too, following Angel at a respectful distance. He wasn't sure what just happened. His head felt a little like it was spinning from the sudden change in atmosphere. One moment goofy and light, the next minute, it was like Angel was back to being scared and skittish. Was it something Julio did?

He waited for Angel to resurface. Waited for him to look in his direction. You okay?

[Angel Miguel Albares]

With a splash that sent water over the edge of the pool deck, Angel hoisted himself up and sat on the ledge far, far away from the dizzying drop. He wanted it. He wanted to throw himself off that edge. Even with Julio here, even with the evening going so well and even with that cocktail of drugs inside, he wanted it and that scared the shit out of him.

Angel didn't know what that meant. In the moments where he stared death in the eye, he wasn't afraid. But when he snapped out of that trance he was horribly afraid. He wanted to die but he was scared to die and that didn't seem quite right, did it? How could someone want both, when they were mutually exclusive?

Julio seemed concerned as he swam closer hesitantly. Angel saw the way he approached, how slowly he was moving forward. He nodded silently at the ripples near Julio and swiped a hand over his cheek to finally get rid of the paint that may or may not still be there. Just something to do.

"I'm going to hang your painting up in my bedroom," he said out of nowhere, just to say something. Anything.

[Julio de la Rosa]

Since the fun had stopped, Julio also pulled himself up out of the water and took a seat beside Angel. Then realizing he was too close--close enough to feel the warmth of his body--he scooted away, to place the usual distance between them that Angel always placed between them. He reached up to run his hand through his hair and realized it was a horrible mess. Gently, he shook the loose ponytail out and let his hair fall to his shoulders, slipping the band around his wrist.

Toying with the band, he looked down at his distorted feet in the water as they gently kicked back and forth. Then he looked up at out at the now calm waters, still colored in that mystic purple color. It looked like magic. He stopped playing with the band and rested his palms down on the edge of the poolside.

When Angel broken the silence, Julio looked over at him. He almost asked him to see his bedroom but then thought maybe that would be out of line. So he nodded, trying to imagine how Angel's bedroom looked. Whether it was as white and intimidating as the front of the penthouse. Still with the space between them, Julio reached out to gently move his fingertips over Angel's hand. To hold it. Nothing big. Nothing kindergartners wouldn't do. But human contact of some kind.

[Angel Miguel Albares]

Angel wasn't proud of it but when Julio sat too close to him, he shied away and leaned away from him. The warmth off of his body scared him. The emotion that welled up inside, that the drugs should have repressed, scared him. He wanted to lean in and not away so badly but it was like the connection between brain and muscles was severed. His body reacted the way it always did when a person got too close, even as his mind and his heart were opening up to Julio.

But they had only been together twice. It was normal to be wary, wasn't it? Angel knew Julio wasn't trying to push him into anything, evidenced by the way he readjusted the distance between them. Julio was sensitive to his needs without him having to voice them. He was the real angel between them...

Sitting there swinging his legs through the water helped him to calm down. And when Julio reached over to take his hand, there was brief resistance at first—again, that muscle memory—but he didn't let go. He held the hand that insinuated itself around his and slowly curled his fingers around Julio's. Earlier, his touch was a cry for help. He had to touch Julio to bring himself back from that edge. Now it was another step back, just holding his hand silently.

Angel looked at him, finally. With his hair down, Julio looked softer somehow. He seemed more gentle, another facet of him that Angel was seeing for the first time. All of the tattoos, the facial hair, the muscles, they stopped being intimidating. Julio was handsome. No, beautiful.

"Will you come again, if I called you?"

[Julio de la Rosa]

Julio smiled, an amused twitch of the lips. A call would make things a little difficult unless Angel face-timed him but... He nodded. If Angel called and just wanted to talk, Julio would pick up. He couldn't talk back but there were video calls, texts, anything. And he knew what Angel meant. The gist of it, not the stupid semantics.

They could be friends, couldn't they? Angel looked like he needed one. And Julio needed one. There was such a difference between this and the kind of things the people he knew did for fun. Parties, loud music, drinks, drugs, dancing, sex. It was probably cliche, too. But it was true. The lifestyle of strippers, of night club attendees, of bouncers and bartenders and escorts. The club was a den for all those things and sometimes, even when he wasn't at the club, it extended outward.

But in his tiny apartment, it was just Julio and his old DVD player and his stack of dollar bin movies five, ten years behind the times. There were shorts and running shoes so he could jog up the ridge or head to the gym with music. There was a kitchen good enough to make home cooked meals and a bed with a warm blanket to sleep in. When it came right down to it, Julio didn't have a lot of wants and needs. He'd learned far too early on what was really important.

And Angel, he had this enormous penthouse. But this was where he really spent his time. Out here on this balcony. Dreaming of... whatever Angel dreamed of. Maybe he dreamed about flying, too. Away from everything here. Or maybe he loved it here. But it didn't feel that way to Julio. It felt more like Angel was trapped. And there was so much Julio wanted to ask, that he wanted to know but he also tread lightly and carefully because he knew what it was like, to carry heavy burdens close to the chest. Julio wasn't here to open wounds. And if all they did was sit here with their legs in the water, hand in hand, looking at each other and at the city and at the sky... he was content.

[Angel Miguel Albares]

"Okay."

There was reassurance in knowing that Julio would visit again if Angel asked him to come to Portland. And he did come all the way out this time just on the suspicion that Steven S. was him, without even having concrete proof. Next time Angel wouldn't go through the club though; he didn't think he could ever do that again, if all it achieved was to make Julio think that his intentions were lurid and selfish.

He lapsed into silence as they sat by the poolside, looking off into the distance at all of the colored lights twinkling like stars. In Hazleton he could look up at night and see a myriad of actual stars but here in the big city, that sight was much rarer. Angel caught maybe one or two exceptionally bright ones but the rest were doomed to obscurity.

"Let's go back inside, Julio." Sitting there was nice and all but it started to get chilly after a while. Angel didn't much feel like getting back in the pool when it was too easy to swim right up to that edge so it was better to get as far away as possible. He reluctantly let go of Julio's hand and squelched his way over to the studio to grab Julio's painting, leaving a long trail of damp footprints.

[Julio de la Rosa]

Ah. Well, all good things had to come to an end. Julio acknowledged Angel's words with a slight nod of the head, slowly getting out of the water. To be fair, the air was growing colder and he was still sitting there in his skivvies. Shaking out his wet legs, he pulled his shirt on and struggled a little with the jeans. The problem with wearing well fitting pants--they didn't go so well with wet skin.

Eventually, he managed to get them on, although the wet underwear definitely made things a little uncomfortable. Adjusting himself as best he could, he followed Angel's wet footsteps back to his studio and watched him take the painting that Julio had created from the easel. He was really going to do it? Hang it in his bedroom? Julio grinned.

Oh, was he going to get to see the bedroom, then?

"You're really going to hang it in your bedroom?" he wrote on his phone with an amused expression as he turned his phone toward Angel.

[Angel Miguel Albares]

Angel kept his eyes on the painting while Julio dressed himself, determined not to look. Stare. Ogle. It probably didn't matter much to Julio, being that he was a stripper, to be seen in his underwear and admittedly he had the kind of body worth flaunting. But for the sake of being polite, Angel kept his eyeballs to himself. It just didn't seem... right to look at him that way at a time like this, when their friendship was just starting to take off.

Once the clothes were back on it was safe to approach again, and Angel nodded. "Of course. I like it." Why not? He liked this view of himself through Julio's eyes. It made him feel warm inside and he didn't often get to feel like that. Smiling, he walked back inside—dripping water—and led the way through the living room into one of the bedrooms. The master bedroom was surrounded by windows too, offering superb views of the city.

Angel turned the light on and wetly padded over to the far side of the room. His bed was enormous, the one thing he picked out for himself. It wasn't white; he didn't think he could go to sleep in an all-white room. Along the sections of wall were hung paintings, some that were his own (a lot of superheroes and mystical creatures), others that he had purchased. Like the pictures hanging on Julio's walls in his apartment, these were a motley collection. No theme, but he liked all of them.

On the nightstand there was a lamp but no alarm clock—he had no need of one. No pictures, though. Nothing to remind him of his family. Angel selected a blank section of wall that could be easily seen from the bed and hung up the painting. "How's this?"

[Julio de la Rosa]

His grin only grew as he followed Angel into the house. Angel was sopping wet and didn't even seem to care that he was leaving water everywhere. That seemed like him. And for some silly, foolish reason, it only endeared him to Julio.

That and he liked Julio's painting. He liked it. For some reason, that made him feel oddly shy inside. As if he'd bared something private and Angel found him not lacking but found him... worthy. A painter that liked his painting. But it was more than that. More than Julio could really put his finger on, so he just went with it.

When they entered Angel's room, Julio's eyes widened at the size of the bed. It was... so huge for one skinny young guy. Did he... No. Julio didn't think he had a lot of people in his bed. He must just like the room. Maybe he needed it. Did he have a lot of nightmares? Julio could imagine him as skittish in his sleep as he was when he was awake, moving from one side of the bed to the other.

Julio also noticed it wasn't white. There was color here. And Angel had loads of other paintings on the walls. When Julio's was hung up, it definitely didn't seem to fit in but Angel seemed happy to have it. Julio smiled.

"It looks so out of place," he wrote. "But I like it."

Julio was out of place, too. And he felt like Angel knew that feeling, too.

[Angel Miguel Albares]

Slowly and gently, almost tenderly, Angel brushed a hand over the edge of the canvas. For a second he lost himself as he gazed at the roundish figure with the chubby angel wings and the paintbrush in hand, trying to see what Julio saw. He tried to envision himself being that colorful, that... warm. There were a lot of warm colors in the painting and that was how Julio seemed to feel about him.

"I love it." It wasn't professional, no. But it was honest. And honesty was one of the few, rare qualities that elevated a piece. It was the thing artists looked for when they viewed other paintings, the thing that drew one's eye. Amidst the sea of 'professional' paintings, Julio's stood out because it evoked emotion in the viewer—even if the only viewer was Angel himself. Besides, Julio looked so pleased that it was impossible not to love it exactly where it was.

"I think it does belong." Like a centerpiece, perhaps, it stood out. It didn't belong; neither did Angel. Surrounded by other glossy paintings, it was raw and honest. And this was Angel's bedroom; he could put up whatever he wanted. As he stepped back, he squelched and it was only then that he realized he was wet. Oh... right. Angel lowered his head and laughed at the pool of water at his feet.

"I... should probably change..." he said slowly, making a face. The housekeeper wouldn't like this. Smiling sheepishly, he gestured to the bed. "I'll be right back. Have a seat. There's a remote on the bedstand, you can watch something if you want. A movie maybe? I think there's still more than an hour left of your time." The television was hidden at the moment; a button caused it to lower out of the ceiling and drop down right before the bed, for easy viewing.

[Julio de la Rosa]

For a second--just a second--Julio wished that he was his painting. Wistfully, he watched Angel as he stared at it. As he touched it. And he loved it. Julio didn't know what Angel saw in the painting. To the eye, it seemed pretty talentless beside all the other work, it was true. But Julio had put himself and... he had put his feelings into it. When he looked at Angel, these were the colors and the shapes that came through. And maybe that was what Angel was seeing, somehow.

But he still wished for that one second that it was him that Angel spoke to that way. He didn't even really know why. They just met. They were just becoming friends. But... he supposed attraction was attraction. Even if he had to put it away and store it for... another time.

The magic moment disappeared as Angel stepped back and the sound of his wet clothes brought them both back into the present. Julio's gaze, as it was wont to, followed Angel's to the pooling water around him. And he half grinned because it was funny. And because Angel laughed and his laugh was precious.

Okay, he signed. Slowly, he sank onto the bed as Angel left to get changed. His wet underwear made things... uncomfortable, to say the least. He thought of his duffel bag and how he should have changed into one of his thongs. It was better than being wet. But he didn't know where Angel had disappeared off to and he didn't want to look like a skeevy pervert so he stayed where he was.

He studied the room, the various other paintings, the superhero figures, the furniture. He looked at the remote that Angel had mentioned but he didn't see a television anywhere in sight. Still, he picked it up, turning it over in his hands. A movie. Was that going to become a thing? Should he come out here to Portland regularly and watch movies with Angel? He smiled at the thought; it made him feel like he was twelve again.

He wondered if Angel played video games. Julio wasn't impressive at them but he had a couple of the older consoles, some older games. Mario games were his favorite.

[Angel Miguel Albares]

For some reason, as he got to the bathroom door, he turned back. There was no cause for it; Julio wasn't going to root through every drawer the second his back was turned. It wasn't suspicion that made him do it though. He kept thinking about the warm colors in the painting, the smile and the sad eyes. He kept thinking about the way Julio saw him, why he saw Angel that way when all everyone else saw was a strangely quiet young man with ostentatious blue hair.

What did he see that others didn't? How did he see it? There was an artist's soul inside, Angel was almost certain of it. He flashed a quick smile and disappeared into the bathroom to towel off and to change into some dry clothes. It was connected to his closet; the designer evidently took into consideration the fact that most people wanted to dress after they bathed and made another door leading into the walk-in.

So he put a towel to his hair as he stared into the mirror at himself but all he saw was how pale he was and how skittish he looked. Even he could see it. The wariness in his eyes, the sadness that he had lived with for so long and the inability to connect to other people. Except Julio. He connected to Julio; earlier when they held hands he felt connected. His lips twitched into a smile when he remembered it and quickly he slipped the towel over his eyes so he didn't have to look at the goofy grin in the mirror.

What happened to his crush on Logan? He still thought Logan was incredibly handsome but Logan had always been out of reach. Julio was here—sitting right outside on his bed. It wasn't that Julio was Logan's stand-in, either; there was a real place in Angel's heart for him. He was beginning to carve out a little niche for himself, with those gentle smiles, gentle eyes, gentle hands. Everything about Julio was gentle.

It didn't take long for him to change into another black hoodie and acid-wash jeans, and then he was back in the bedroom again. Julio was still there. A tiny part of him was afraid he wouldn't be but... there he was, and Angel's heart was glad.