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"are you ready, george?"
"i'm a little scared. what if it doesn't work?"
clay laughed at the concern, backing into a parking space in the empty parking lot. the sun was still in the sky, but it would be down within the next hour and a half.
george's hands fiddled with the box in his lap, hearing the glasses move around against the cardboard.
"it'll work, baby. i promise."
the car idled for a moment before clay turned it off. he turned to george's nervous face with blurry vision.
"are you tearing up?"
"yeah."
"why?"
"because," he said, wiping the tears with the sleeves of his hoodie before they could reach his cheeks, "you're gonna see colors. and i get to be here with you when you do."
george's heart swelled at the comment, his similar feelings having been lost in his anxiety. he was just nervous. what if it didn't work? what if it did work? what would everything look like?
they got out of the car and walked over to the larger park area, a stretch of grass and firm ground facing up at the sky. the air was crisp and george could feel it pinching at his cheeks. clay reached his hand out to grab george's, the warmth of their palms pressed together making the smaller boy instantly calmed.
"the sun is gonna be setting soon and i want you to see it when it does. do you wanna put them on now and just look at everything?"
george hesitantly nodded, pulling the glasses out of the box and looking at them in his hands. the frame was dark black, and the lenses were a shade george couldn't fully distinguish. he knew it was either red or brown, but he wasn't sure which.
"c'mon, george. you can do it."
clay's soothing voice breathed new life into george's movements. he wanted to see the world how clay did. he wanted to sit with him and know the difference between the colors they both wore. he wanted to see the colors on his computer and see how vibrant they could be, like how clay would spend hours describing to him.
dream stepped in front of his vision as he unfolded them, slowly bringing them up to his eyes.
"i'll be the first thing you see."
george smiled with his eyes shut as he felt the cool plastic touch the bridge of his nose and trace the sides of his temples, wrapping behind his ears. it felt so weird to wear glasses.
he mustered up the courage to open his eyes, and his vision was flooded with a world filled with something he couldn't describe.
clay's skin. it was so... warm. for the first time, clay's skin and his clothing held a different vibrancy. his hoodie. was that green? his hair. it didn't look too different, but the roots were so much brighter against the lighter strands.
clay had a tinge in his cheeks. he was blushing. but the color of his skin and the color of his blush were distinguishable. he could see where the red permeated at the apples of his cheeks and slowly faded into nothing near the line his nose drew through his face.
"what's it like?"
"y-you're green."
clay smiled and nodded. he pulled his hoodie up over his face until only his eyes were peeking from the artificially bright fabric.
"does it look the same as my eyes?"
"no. it looks... different. but your eyes... that's green, too?"
"yeah. and so is the grass. and the trees. it's different shades of green."
"shades," george repeated as his eyes finally scanned the nature around them. he was right. the trees and grass, the stems of the flowers below them; this was all green. the grass was the same color as clay's eyes, and some of the leaves that had fallen onto the blades resembled what he used to see. he pointed to them.
"brown?"
"yeah! brown leaves and green grass."
"can you sit down on the grass?"
clay nodded and laid back on the blanket of green. george's eyes were flipping between his hoodie, his eyes, and the blades below them. he was in a trance as he kept comparing the artificial green to the real grass. he didn't know how to describe it, but they were so different. what did clay say it was called? shades?
the taller man moved to get up as he felt his eyelids dragging down over his vision, but george stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
"wait, wait, wait, come back. i wanna see the difference in color again."
clay chuckled and leaned back onto the mass of green blades, his hands underneath his head.
"you're so cute."
he laid there for a few more moments, allowing george's eyes to dart back and forth endlessly.
"george, the sun is gonna set soon. come here."
the older laid down next to clay and felt his arm under his slender neck. his skin was cold against the grass, but the warmth of his special person next to him vastly overwhelmed it.
"it's so... it's so bright."
"yeah? that's orange."
george nodded, mostly to himself. his eyes focused on the clouds drifting into the sun's path. they had a different tint to them, as did the lightened sky behind them. clay's arm pulled him closer and he pressed a kiss onto the crown of his head.
"is it pretty?"
"y-yeah."
george let out a small chuckle at the sheer simplicity of his answer, but every word escaped him as he looked at the sky. he was actually able to see how well the lighter colors blended into the darker ones; how the orange managed to fit perfectly with the purple, and how the yellow mixed so seamlessly with the blue that chased the sun into its orange glow.
"clay?"
"yeah?"
"i love you."
a smile was plastered onto clay's face as he felt his cheeks warm up again.
"love you too, george."