Seemed like it’d be a nice sort of park in the daytime, thick trees but the undergrowth had been cleared from between them, and they walked along a carpet of rotting leaves and pine needles steeply uphill. The canopy overhead blocked out the sky, great swathes of the trees evergreen.Nowhere in the city smelt quite so fresh as it did in this grove, and if it weren’t for the distant rumble of traffic and the whir of some nearby generator, Casper could almost pretend he was away from it all. A vast forest out in the middle of nowhere.

The treeline broke into the universe scattered across the ground, and kudos word-nerd, it was spectacular. Casper stopped just inside the treeline, his breath tight and hitching in his chest, while Cain strolled down the slope. It eased out to a bench perched atop a cliff above the entire city. Up here, urban squalor spun out into a tapestry of neon verve, threads of growling traffic weaving together an abstract war. Building lights burst across it like little supernovas, glimmering in the dark.

Why had he never been here before? All these years and he’d never even bothered to climb the hill. His pestilent apathy slapped him in the face and nearly brought tears to his eyes.

The dim orange haze of the sky and all the city glow behind him cast Cain’s face into shadow as he looked back, his silhouette a bit of night peeking free of the amber muck.

“It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?”

Casper could only nod, his hand pressed over his mouth tohide the way his lips trembled.

“Are you coming? Your food will go cold and I kn—”

The break hung abrupt in the air. A snapped twig ending that jolted Casper out of his slow awe. Cain’s fingers carded back through his hair as he half-turned, his profile an aquiline carving against the sky. A quickening of Casper’s heart, and with a deep breath, he followed Cain down to the bench.

Way up here, the breeze came quick and sharp even though the air had hung slow in the streets. It bit into his skin and ruffled the edges of his clothes. This high, it almost lost the petrol stink, and something fresher breathed through it. Sweet petrichor splashing a raindrop across his tongue. Cain’s whole shirt rippled, catching the wind like a sail unfurling on the high seas, but he stood unconcerned as if it were the balmiest of summer gusts.

Cain stayed quiet as he handed out the food once they’d both sat down. It felt like him giving Casper a moment to absorb the view.

It was so much better looking out at the city while the wind whipped against your skin and the heavens touched the horizon. Almost at the crooked kiss of sky to land, the lights faded, sparse then gone all together, and where those lights ended felt like the place where life begun.

“I wish everywhere was like this.” Casper’s throat was tight and his broken voice wouldn’t lift above a whisper. “It feels real.”

“Like what?”

“Real. Green, open, natural. I hate it down there. I feel so trapped all the time. I just want to look out my window at night and see the stars.”

The wind whistled in the silence between them. Had that been too much already? Casper peeked out of the corner of his eyes. The city lit Cain up now: the slow, breathless smile on his lips, his food forgotten on his lap, elbow on the back of the bench and his head resting in his hand. Staring. At Casper.

Asshole didn’t have an inch of shame. Gave it all to Casper instead, heating his cheeks with this blatant ogling.

Food. Talk about food. Nice and simple. Casper picked his up, tapped the chopsticks between his fingers and pointed them at Cain. The address by the wood startled him, all wide blinking eyes again, and Casper startled himself by giggling.

Giggling. Shit.

“What did you get?”

“Shrimp Thai green curry. You?”

“Seriously? You can’t get the shrimp curry!”

“Well I wouldn’t have if I’d known I’d be eating it with you!”

If there were more colour to the light, Casper was sure that shadowing on Cain’s cheeks as he turned his head away would be bright pink. Casper poked Cain in the arm with his chopsticks, and when his eyes turned begrudgingly back, Casper asked, “Why does that make a difference?”

“So I’m not that guy who gets shrimp curry at the Chinese.”

Casper laughed. “It’s alright, you’re already that guy who took his local Chinese with him when he moved house.”

A groan. Cain slumped back in his seat, fingers back through his hair and a helpless smile on his face. “Oh, piss off. I wish I never told you that. What have you got anyway?”

“Changing the subject?”

“Yes.”

“I got vegetable udon noodles and these spring rolls.”

A delicate arch lifted Cain’s eyebrow, his hair tousling on a stray gust, and it looked as if Casper had finally found someone who did raised eyebrows better than him. “You’re a vegetarian?”

The sandwich chicken he’d scoffed a whole pack of at his last trick’s wouldn’t agree but... “I try my best.”

Cain nodded slow and tilted the container, rice in a creamy green sauce, toward Casper. The motion of his hands didn’t distract from how ... intent his eyes were. Seriously, who got intent about vegetarianism? “I suppose you don’t want to try some of this then.”

Casper shook his head and shifted around on the bench so that he faced Cain more, one of his knees bent up against the back. “Let me have some rice.”

It was good. No denying that. Light and fresh and a little hot, creamy with coconut and lime. Casper pinched a shrimp, evading Cain’s snap with his chopsticks, and planted it in his mouth around the laughter.

“Oi!”

“This is good!” Jesus Christ, Roach, at least swallow it first. “Congratulations, you’ve converted me.”

“I’m sure that poor shrimp would disagree.”

Casper groaned. “Stop it. It’s barely got a brain cell.”

A broad smile spread across Cain’s lips, a glint of the city lights against his teeth. Cain’s head tipped back. Shadow cradled the side turned away from the galaxy beneath them while his eyes traced Casper’s face. Funny that Casper still wasn’t quite sure what colour his eyes were.

Funny how he wanted to know.

A wooden clack snapped through Casper’s sappy falling into his eyes crap, and Casper tore his gaze away from the stars glinting in them. No more of that this evening. Absolutely not. Roach Boy didn’t do getting lost in his eyes. Getting lost in eyes meant feelings and he couldn’t afford feelings.

Cain’s voice slid soft through the susurrus whisper of the wind. “Eat your food, Casper. It’ll go cold.”

Shit, and his name in that velvet voice already had him melting. Play it cool. “Alright, dad.”

“Piss off, brat.”

There it was again. It fit this time, though. Just an affectation, and an annoying one. Grinning, Casper popped the lid off his noodles and gazed out across the city while he ate. He didn’t turn his body away from Cain, elbow hooked on the back of the bench.

And the city was so goddamn beautiful he couldn’t really breathe.