"Hurts…"
The barely heard word snatched Finn's attention. He might have been thinking to himself, thinking aloud, but Josiah said the word with a sigh as though he understood. Finn smiled at the dark, at the momentary connect, the dispelling of loneliness. He'd never get tired of this feeling. Of these moments when he wasn't the only one who thought and felt as he did, when there was someone who wasn't alien and didn't alienate him, when there was someone who understood. These moments when he wasn't a misfit in the world.
Though these moments didn't change that he had no place in the world, they still delighted.

Josiah sat, the ends of his feet overhanging the edge of the ledge. Finn tightened his fingers in Josiah's in a twinge of nervousness. A minute squeeze, involuntary, but that he was aware of. He noticed though he wasn't sure if the other boy did. He was holding on. But he also had the urge to pull him back.
Gingerly, he sat next to Josiah, knees bracing.

"Why…"
Finn waited.
But Josiah shook his head. From what he said next, Finn pieced together that he'd probably been on the verge of asking him-
Why-
He wanted to die.

Finn looked at their hands twined together. Was it better? He tilted his head slightly, still looking at their hands- they made him feel mellow inside.
Was it better not to know?
There was a sort of… sanctity in secrets. In walking around with something ticking down inside you, a countdown to self-destruct, that nobody could see or suspect. In dying like that- a tragedy, a mystery.
Especially as, if you were going to punish the world, those people who drove you to destruction instead of saving you, it'd hurt them more if they didn't really know what they were being punished for. Wondering would plague them more than guilt would. Wondering why he'd done it. Whether it was because of them. Wondering if they'd gone wrong. Where they'd gone wrong. Truth would hurt for a while, but time would heal, or so they said. However when there were no answers, there was no moving on.
Of course, this wasn't for them. This was for him. Because he was so tired. Because life wore him down, and the futility wore him down more.

It hit him in his gut that this, too, was for him. He wanted to die because he wanted to live, and because he wanted to live, he dragged Josiah along for the ride.
Except Josiah wanted this too, right? He had agreed to it. There had been moments when his eyes were full and bright.
But there had also been moments when jagged Josiah might have sawed slightly at the threads of connect with his sharp edges.
And there had been moments when the threads were pulled tauter and Finn felt them knot and unknot in his stomach and throat.

If they shared why… it would be a moment of connect. Delightful. Warm. Making him feel mellow inside.

"You don't want to- you'd rather not-?" Finn stumbled over his words. The words stumbled over the knot in his throat and tripped over his tongue. "It's ok if- you don't- do you? I mean I-" He breathed in, the breath ragged because it was tearing on something in his throat. The knot had turned jagged.
He didn't know if he wanted Josiah to know. He didn't know if he'd understand. What if they weren't drawn closer? What if the thread was gnawed thinner between them, the fibres sticking out like severed arteries, drawing blood from his bleeding heart?

What if he only wanted to give Josiah everything so that Josiah could bear everything for him?

There was a sanctity in secrets. In a silence that wasn't stoic, just scared.