Page 42 of Untouchable

"It's the absolute best," Harp says, taking a deep breath.

"I'm really glad you were here," Harp says. Parker is caught off-guard by the admission. And while he knows that Harp is probably just referring to the fact that he didn’t have to catch his asshole dog alone, Parker allows himself to bask in the words.

“Me too,” Parker says. He doesn’t bother trying to hide his broad smile. Suddenly, the whole world seems a little brighter, crisper.

Okay, so maybe I didn’t fuck up too badly last week.

He catches Harp’s eye for the briefest moment, and Harp smiles at him. Time suspends, and Parker is aware of nothing but the deep, endless mahogany brown of Harp’s eyes.

He feels buoyant, somehow, like things have returned to their rightful place, the planets gliding into alignment.

He’s struck again by Harp’s kindness, the way Harp never makes him feel stupid, even when Parker doesn’t understand whatever vague, recursive thought he’s articulating. Being around Harp makes Parker feel a potential he’s never experienced before. Like maybe he could learn. Like maybe he could be something… more than he is.

And he likes seeing Harp smile like that—likes seeing Harp smile at him like that.

“I see it,” Parker says. “Why you like it up here. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think I’d still go nuts if I were up here by myself all the time, but… I dunno. There’s something… peaceful about it. Like, it doesn’t really matter who you are. But not in a depressing way, you know? More like, yeah, man, it’s chill, because the mountains are gonna be mountains whether or not you got a D on your math test or locked yourself out of your apartment.”

He trails off, blushing slightly, looking down at his shoes as he walks.

* * *

Harp studies Parkerfor as long as he’s able to comfortably.

It's an odd side effect of being alone all the time—of being afraid of not being alone: looking at faces can be difficult for Harp.

It feels too open to be seen and too invasive to see—something instinctive and strange and feral that rears its head in Harp when he's forced to leave his lair and participate in the flow of human life off of the mountain.

But today he looks at Parker and wonders what he looked like as a little kid and what he'll look like as an old man. He wonders if he ever had a bad haircut (probably not) or braces (probably yes).

Parker must feel Harp’s eyes on him and Harp prepares to feel like a creep for staring at him. Instead, Parker turns to meet Harp’s gaze, grinning.

“What?” he asks, a little playfully.

Harp had forgotten that impossible way that one's own expression is magnified when it's returned. The full force of Parker's smile is like sun on his face and he smiles back harder.

He wonders if he'll have a hundred more moments with Parker like this before their paths inevitably diverge in the future, or if this is just one of a handful of times they have left.

It's all frightening to think about. It feels bad to be invested in caring about a person again.

But it feels thrilling, too, and in spite of himself Harp can understand the appeal.

It’s been so long since he made a friend.

"Just time traveling," Harp says with a shrug. "Getting nostalgic for a thing that hasn't happened yet."

Don't be a cryptic weirdo, Harp reminds himself. He looks back to the path.

"How's, uh, Mindy?" he asks abruptly, thinking back to the last time he was face to face with Parker.

The topic shift probably doesn’t make sense to Parker, but Harp has thought about the two of them all week.

He’d gone to a liquor store on the way home after the appointment with the chiropractor, the moment when he’d made the connection about the fact that Mindy and Parker are clearly an item.

Harp hadn’t wanted to look too closely at why he’d needed to go home and get plastered ASAP when he’d left his appointment, and Parker doesn’t have to know that Harp had been up past midnight that night drinking and feeling sorry for himself… about nothing in particular, of course.

But after that initial… whatever it was… Harp had found himself thinking how perfect they were for each other, how much fun Parker must have with someone so gorgeous and outgoing and charming.

“Mindy’s good, I guess,” Parker says. “I mean, I’m definitely mad at her because I tried to convince her to do all my paperwork this morning and she wouldn’t. She kept saying that I had to do it just because it was part of my job or whatever and she wouldn’t even let me bribe her with a latte.” He grins crookedly.

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