December Boys (BxB) | ✓

Chapter 23 - With or Without You

I expected asphalt, scraped skin and most of all, pain. I expected life flashing before my eyes and maybe a distant light that would coax me into the afterlife. Hitting the ground should have been an unlikely meeting between two opposing forces. like positive and negative poles on two magnets, forced together, incompatible by default. It should have been like that, but it wasn't.

Instead of crashing to the ground in a heap of limbs and excruciating injuries, landing came in the shape of two bodies colliding with each other. The sound of the impact was therefore not of a soft body against hard asphalt, but of soft boy crashing into another not-so-soft boy. 

There was no time to think or feel, and all I could register was that the air shot clean out of my lungs as I crashed into Axel's chest. I barely felt it when his arms circled around me and grabbed hold of my back, keeping me in place. The world twirled and spun, and together we tumbled to the parking lot ground, Axel on his back, me on top of him.

"Shit," I gasped.

My pulse was beating like a drum inside my head. Facing the ground past Axel's shoulder, I couldn't see much. All I sensed was that the asphalt smelled like rain and that a dull ache had manifested in my arm. I'd landed on it when we fell, hadn't I...?

"Ugh," Axel moaned in return, voice faint.

Fuck, I'm crushing him. Slowly I tried to lift myself up, and separate myself from Axel's body, but found that I was still trapped in his arms. Wait, what?

"Are you okay?" he asked, stirring underneath me. Panic was quickly rearing its ugly head, and I braved the pain in my arm. I wriggled around, casually hinting at my wish for his arms' removal. We were good. We were okay. No need to hug it out on the cold, wet ground. Axel!

At last, Axel let go of my shoulder blades, and I scrambled off of him.

"I— I'm fine," I stammered. My body was one big ache, my brain felt rather like a bowl of porridge, and the sensation of Axel's arms around my body still sent little shivers down my back. Very much not fine, as a matter of fact. 

He considered me from the ground. Axel was on his back, looking almost as messy as I felt, but it didn't take long for him to begin moving. It took a while, but I watched as my bruised savior crawled into a sitting position on the ground. His eyes were narrowed as he massaged the back of his head with one hand.

"You..." I tried to speak but found that I couldn't. What could I possibly say to him? He might have just saved my life. Would a simple 'thank you' suffice? It didn't feel like it would.

"You sure you're okay?" Axel rose to his feet and dusted off his palms. They hadn't taken any damage at least. I wondered what his back looked like, though... There was no way he could get away unscathed by that impact. Axel wasn't exactly unfamiliar with wounds, but the thought of me being the one to inflict them on him... My belly did an unhelpful flop.

"You saved me."

Axel blinked, messy hair falling in his face. His eyes were almost golden in the city lights. "I caught you," he replied.

"Thank you."

Facing him, my heart still hammered in my chest, much like it had when I stood atop the platform earlier. My arm ached, my palm was scraped and bleeding, but none of that mattered. I had been in real danger just now. I could have been seriously hurt, and yet Axel...

He turned his face away, a careful twist of his neck, and there it was again, barely visible on his profile — that ghost of a smile. It wasn't a proper one, not really, but his mouth tugged upward just a tiny bit. It was only visible if you were looking for it. Stunned, I watched the candid smile of Axel Montgomery.