Curate, connect, and discover
[ Just some small practice writing snippit I wrote with adult Bart/Preston ]
It’s always the little things in life that remind you of what you miss the most. For Bart, it was the sunrise.
It’s trivial, something that happens every day, but no matter how early he has to be up, he’s always right there watching the sun come up over the horizon. Sometimes from different places around the world for a new angle or view.
No one really notices, or if they did no one asked why. Bart does a lot of strange things that are inexplainable, people stopped questioning him a long time ago. But staring at the sun coming up? That was special, something only for himself.
That’s how it started anyways. Later on he did more and more things for the same reasons, but again, nobody asked. Well, not until now.
“Where did you go this morning?” Preston asks into his next bite of eggs over the breakfast table. Bart was distracted pouring himself a glass of orange juice that it caught him by surprise.
“What?” He didn’t need to hear it again, he knew what Preston was asking, but it was jarring having someone call him out on it. He’d been doing this same routine since he was 15, and only now was it actually spoken aloud.
“It’s just, you got up super early and left for half and hour.” Preston ducks his head, embarrassment seeping into his voice as he adds. “Not that I was keeping track of you like a weirdo, I just woke up when you went out.”
“Oh.” Bart mutters with baited breath. They sit in more awkward silence before he actually caught up to his thoughts. He’d never actually sat down and explained this, but if he was going to trust anyone with this, it was Preston.
“I was watching the sunrise.” Bart smiles a bit and picks up his glass, sipping slowly at it.
“You got up that early just to watch the sunrise?” Preston gapes at him like he couldn’t comprehend what he was hearing. “Is that some kind of daily ritual from the future I’m not getting?”
Bart chuckles and sits down in the chair opposite of the blond, tangling their legs under the table out of habit. “Sort of? I’ve always done this. Growing up in Virtual Reality, I never had real people or experienced real things, like feel the breeze or smell the fresh air. I didn’t even know that I was missing those things until Grandma rescued me.”
“For a while I had the mindset of being in virtual reality. I didn’t find things dangerous cause there was always a reset button before. I took things for granted.” He chews on his lip with a furrow slowly creasing his brows. Preston reaches across and twines their fingers, squeezing his hand comfortingly with a reassuring smile.
Bart answers back with his own smaller grin, falling a little bit more for this blond idiot. “I never knew my parents, not until mom came and brought me to the future with her for that short time.”
“I remember that.” Preston recalls quietly. “You two were practically twins, I was so shocked when I met her.”
“You were also starstruck.” Bart chuckles, stroking small circles into Preston’s hand with his thumb.
“Only because I was a closet case with the biggest crush on you. I was presented with a girl version of my best friend who I was in love with, my head made weird connections.” Preston grumbles, kicking Bart’s shin under the table.
“Right.” Bart smiles fondly, nudging his foot back. “Anyways, even if I couldn’t be with her long, and I likely won’t be able to see her again, she’s.. She used to call me sunshine. Watching the sunrise is like my way of holding on to her memory.”
Thing go quiet again, companionable silence instead of the awkward interval. Preston had that calculating look in his eyes and Bart watches him think, committing every detail of his face to memory like he could lose that too.
Preston lost his mother when they were kids too, in a way, if you could consider her a mom. It wasn’t the same situation but Bart could tell that he understood. Maybe that was the reason he felt so comfortable telling this to Preston, he got it. He met Meloni, and not many people had got that chance before she had to go back to their time and ward off the evils of that world.
“Can I go with you tomorrow?” Preston finally asks, and the surprise almost threw Bart back.
“You want to watch with me?” No one’s ever done that, how would that even go? Would it be the same? Would that give it a different meaning? So many unknowns and yet all Bart could do was nod with a shy smile.
The next morning they both got up and left in total silence, still in their pyjamas. Bart carried Preston out to the cliffs, his favorite spot for watching, and they sat in the dew covered grass waiting for the sun.
“You know, I bet she looks at the sun too and thinks of you.” Preston says randomly after some time. Bart stares at him with absolute wonderment, his vision going blurry as they watered.
“Yeah.” Bart smiles, wiping at his eyes and turning his head to catch the first rays of light peeking through. He was right, watching it with someone did give it different meaning.