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happy new year, friends!


ADAM BLANCHES AT the realization that he is, in fact, going to share a tent with Dawson Evans. His vacant stare lingers on him for five stunned seconds.

Dawson shoots him a perplexed look. "What?"

"Nothing," he mumbles. "Nevermind."

He drops his satchel on the chair and unceremoniously spreads a couple of things on the desk, among which his journal, his phone and his gloves.

Then, he turns his back on Dawson and starts, without prior notice, to undress slowly.

The cord turtleneck is the first item to go, followed by his long-sleeved shirt and then his pants drop, too. He kicks them off his slender ankles. The silence surrounding them is so heavy you could hear a feather touch the ground.

Dawson tries not to stare at Adam. He tries not to stare at his godly alabaster back, at his long neck, but there's skin everywhere, fuck, there's so much skin, and he feels like he might just die right here and right this second, if he so much as dares look away.

He knows he's not supposed to look at Hamilton like that, but his whole body is tingling in an unfamiliar way. He's hypnotized, completely subjugated by the sight of every single curve of every single muscle on his back and legs and...

This is fucking torture, he thinks, dragging his hand over his face.

Adam is back in the same pj pants he was wearing the night Dawson stayed over. His back is still bare and so is the rest of his upper-body, Dawson ascertains, when Adam turns around to fetch his shirt into his backpack.

"Do you mind?"

Dawson looks away, feeling a little light-headed, like he was just shaken out of his torpor. Shame makes his cheeks burn, as he nervously bites his bottom lip to cool off and calm his nerves. He thought he got rid of that habit for good.

Even without looking at him, from the corner of his eye he can see him slide in bed, while holding his journal and a pen. He bends his knees to use as escritoire and dives into his coveted lonely pastime.

"What exactly do you write in there all day long?" Dawson ventures, avoiding his gaze by staring at the ceiling.

"None of your business," Adam says, distracted by his journal. He speaks slowly, like he's done repeating himself.

"Fine," Dawson smirks "I know you'll let me read it one day, anyway."

"You believe that if it helps you sleep at night."

Dawson turns over, his back facing Hamilton's bed. He doesn't fall asleep, though. Not yet. He quietens down so he can relish the comfortable silence they're sharing. He listens to the sound of Adam's fingers running over the rough paper of his journal. Just for a brief sinful second, he imagines what it'd be like if they were touching his skin instead.

He gulps. This isn't happening. He has to do something, anything, to get rid of that thought.

"Oh and, for future reference, I should probably tell you that my eyes aren't hazel. You know, just in case you need that for your sonnets" he teases, then pauses with a long sigh. In the blink of an eye, the irony on his lips is gone. "Nobody pays attention, they all think my eyes are hazel, but they're not. They're green."

He feels ashamed of how little his voice got. Almost as little and shaky as that of a kid.

Adam gently drops his pen, his blue eyes boring into his back.

"I know."

*

Dawson woke up on the right foot this morning. Being the early bird he is, before the clock stroke 8, he had already done the following,

1 — Gone for a walk to clear his mind. Didn't help.

2 — Sat on a musky rock for half an hour feeling sorry for himself.

3 — Decided to just get breakfast and walk back to the tent.

Dawson makes his entrance just in time for Adam's awakening.

The boy is sitting up, his smile is barely detectable to the naked eye. He looks a little hazy. "What's that?"

"Tea," Dawson puts the cup down on the desk, "I remember—"

"Thank you," Adam mumbles, diving back into the duvet cocoon he made for himself.

On the way back to his bed, Dawson stumbles on something. Hamilton's journal is lying on the ground, right by Dawson's feet, open and facing down.

He probably fell asleep with it, then kicked it off the bed, he hypothesizes.

He doesn't pick it up at first. He glances at Adam, hoping that would make him feel any less guilty about touching his most precious belonging.

In the end, he decides to pick it up. First and foremost, he dusts off the cover and checks whether the impact damaged the journal in any way. Then, he turns it around.

His heart constricts into his chest.

It can't be, he thinks but a broken gasp is the only sound that manages to escape his parted lips.

NEUTRON STAR COLLISION
by A.M.H

Instictively, he shuts the journal, his thumb still marking the incriminating page.

Is that poem about him? He really wants to know if Hamilton wrote poems about him but he's too afraid, afraid of the truth, of the irriversibility of it. He's stuck between a comfortable reality and an unsteady possibility. What would change? What wouldn't?

His mind goes back to the time he found that folded short poem in Hamilton's book. Retuning it without reading it felt like the right thing to do back then. But now, now something has changed. Things are different. He is different.

He stares at the leather cover, debating whether he should open it again. He needs to know, but then again, fear blocks him. Curiosity is eating him alive, consuming him from the inside but what's the cost of it? What's the cost of crossing that line? Never being able to take a step back, never being able to forget. It's a life sentence he's not prepared to get.

It's hard to hold the journal in his hands and not read it. All his most intimate thoughts, all his wildest dreams, are right there, ink on paper. The same paper witnessed all the joys and tragedies of the boy's life; the same paper answers the one question that's been haunting Dawson both in his waking and sleeping hours.

Do you hate me?

And the only thing that separates Dawson from the harrowing truth is the courage to face the consequences.

"Is that my journal?"

Reality plummets on Dawson when he's least prepared to react. Hamilton's voice makes him snap out of his limbo.

He winces. "Yes," then clears his throat, placing the journal on the desk. "I found it on the floor. Closed."

Adam's terrified gaze turns into relief.

Lie to protect the people you care about.

Only trouble is, until that moment, Dawson had no idea he even cared about him to begin with.

*

"What are you thankful for this year?"

Marlene asks, taking a sip from one of the beers that Frank managed to buy from a small bar on the way back to camp. Conway and Thornbury are nowhere in sight, as promised and, as per tradition, the group is sitting around the campfire, sharing what they're thankful for. They're passing around a little rock collected from the river earlier that day and only the person who holds it is allowed to speak, similarly to The Lord of the Flies minus the gore and the thirst for power.

Dawson is on his fifth beer. Cal, who's sitting right next to him, is following suit.

Frank takes the rock, "I'm thankful for my mama," the group sniggers. "Wait, let me finish– I'm thankful for my mama because she's the reason why I get to be here today."

He passes the rock on to Vickie. "I am thankful for my best friend, Karen," she slurs. "She's not here, though."

"We can see that," Dawson jests. Cal chuckles.

"Next," Marlene commands.

Vickie throws the rock in the air and Calliope catches it. She glances at Dawson, a demure smile on her lips.

"I'm thankful for Dawson."

The group falls silent. Noah's jaw almost drops to the ground. Dawson's bewildered gaze is fixed on Calliope.

"From the moment you arrived, you were part of our group. You've been so good to Milo. Abe always pushed to include you in everything we did. Maisie-Rae adores you," she pauses, "and so do I."

Dawson swears he can feel Adam's glacial stare on him.

He turns to look at him without even realizing. His eyes are sad but it's a new kind of sad, one Dawson has never seen before. The sun doesn't set in them. This time around, the only reflection he sees is that of himself, as he breaks Adam's heart without meaning to.

Before he even has a chance to reply, Cal hands him the rock. He spaces out at the realization he has nothing to be truly thankful for. Nothing that really stands out, nothing that's worth mentioning. Or so he thinks.

Maybe, it's the other way around. Maybe, there's just too much to be thankful for.

He thinks about his new friends. He thinks about Milo. He thinks about Maisie-Rae.

Then, he thinks about him but only for a treacherous second. His fogged mind is playing tricks on him. Alcohol coats his lips like bitter dew.

"I'm thankful for this, all of it," he finally
says. "I met some pretty cool people at Wharton."

"Cheers to that!" Frank raises his brown paper bag, then takes a sip of beer.

Clearly, Dawson is not talking about Frank Moretti but it doesn't really matter. The awkwardness of the moment has passed.

He sneaks a peek at Cal. She's forcing a smile, while playing with her golden bracelet.

"I'm thankful for my boyfriend Bryan," Tabitha takes the floor. "He's always so supportive of me. He really is the best."

One instant later, the rock is in Adam's hands. He's staring intently at it, as if he's searching for a formula.

"I'm thankful for being alive," he utters slowly, and, for the second time that night, the group falls quiet.

"Well, that's not grim at all," Noah jibes at him, stealing the rock from his hands.

"Noah!" Marlene rebukes him, voice dripping in indignation.

"I'm just saying, that kinda killed the mood," Noah insists.

"How about you shut the fuck up?"

Predictably, everyone's now staring at Dawson.

It was probably not a good call to tell Noah Walsh to shut up after nipping in the bud the possibility of him sleeping with Calliope. With a defamatory lie, no less.

"What's your problem, Evans?" Noah rises, his hands already clenched into fists, ready to hit.

"It's Thanksgiving, for fuck's sake!" Marlene yells, shooting up. Her hand is pushing Noah back. "Can we all try to get along?"

And so they all sit back and try to play nice, only for the time necessary to finish the round. They finish their beers, get rid of the empty cans and each one of them starts heading back to their tent.

"We need to talk," Dawson whispers to Calliope. "Right now."

She nods and follows him under a tree. He leans against the trunk and runs a hand through his hair distressedly.

"What's up?" she chirps. Dawson is not sure whether she is genuinely unaware or just pretending.

Dawson is thinking of how to approach the issue to minimize the casualties.

"Is this about what I said?" she murmurs.

"I like someone else, Cal," he blurts out, appalled by his own words.

"Who?" she furrows her brows dubiously.

Adam, Adam, Adam!

"I—" he sighs, "I can't tell you."

She stares vacantly at him. Her body looks like an empty shell, a hollow machine free from any form of pain, divorced from the disappointing reality around her. But her eyes tell a different story. Her eyes tell the story of a girl who believed she was enough, until she found out she wasn't.

"I'm gonna die alone," she murmurs.

"You won't," he asserts.

I drank way too much for this.

"I can see it," she hums. "Fifty years old, two dramatic divorces, an empty apartment in New York City, a Chinese takeaway food-based diet. maybe a dog, and some judgmental friends to whom I lie about my romantic life all the time."

"That's not what's gonna happen," he repeats patiently.

"Am I unloveable?"

Dawson shakes his head.

Calliope is right on one thing. She's one of those girls craved by many, but taken by none. Young men are afraid of her confidence and cowed by her charm. Not Milo, though. He never was.

"I think..." he crosses his arms to his chest. "You can't see the people who love you. You're too focused on what you think you want to understand what you really need."

She's sobbing into his arms. His sweater is drenched in her urgent tears. Dawson can't remember the last time he held someone. He had forgotten what it felt like.

He's more and more convinced that hurting people is the only thing he's ever going to be good at. Too bad the feeling is anything but rewarding.

"Everything's gonna change now, isn't it?" she sniffles.

"Nothing's gonna change."

*

After holding her for what felt like an eternity, Dawson walked Calliope back to her tent, where Marlene was waiting for her in motherly apprehension.

On the way back from Calliope's tent, Dawson stumbles into Frank, who is even drunker and more psyched than he was less than an hour ago. He's still sitting by the campfire, now extinguished, chugging what's left of his twelfth beer or so.

"Evans, hey!" he shouts, running after him. Dawson doesn't stop walking, determined to ignore him. He's really not in the mood for his bullshit. He just wants to go back to his tent and get some rest. Today was a long day.

Being a midget compared to 6-foot-5 tall Dawson, Frank Moretti has to take two steps for every single step Dawson takes in order to keep up. He pants like he's running a marathon. "I need to tell you something."

"Go to sleep, Frank. It's 1 am," Dawson mutters.

"I am," he gushes, out of breath.

Dawson comes to a halt right in front of his tent. "What are you talking about?"

"Hamilton asked me to switch with him."

Dawson doesn't believe him. How could he? He's drunk and obnoxious and Dawson's just too tired to listen to him. He opens the tent with his arm, making his way into the room.

He blinks twice, as realization hits him.

Adam's stuff isn't there anymore.

*

A/N:

any theories on what happened?

any thoughts on dawson's development? what about his private thoughts?

also, i would really like to thank you because this story recently hit 10k reads and believe me when i say that i couldn't be happier.

you made it happen.

i love you and i'll see you very soon,
ellie <3

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