The glare was a physical thing, a solid white wall behind his eyelids. It pressed, a headache already forming behind his temples. He tried to burrow deeper into the rough wool beneath him, but it scratched. Too hot. Everything was too hot. A fly buzzed, a persistent, irritating drone that vibrated in the humid air, thick like syrup.
He opened his eyes. A mistake. The sky was a pale, washed-out blue, a flat canvas with no relief. The sun hung, a brutal, unblinking eye, directly overhead. Sweat pricked his hairline, ran in rivulets down his neck. He felt… wrong. The body was his, sort of, but younger. Limbs felt too long, skin too smooth. The ache in his back was unfamiliar, a soreness from muscles he hadn't used in… how long?
Then the memories hit, a brutal, disjointed wave. The metallic taste in his mouth, the sharp scent of burning plastic, the screech of tires, that impossible, sickening lurch. And then nothing. Absolute, cold nothing. Until now. This heat. This buzzing fly. This insistent, dry taste of dust on his tongue.
He sat up, slowly, his head swimming. The world tilted, then righted itself. He was in a field, tall, dry grass rustling around him, tickling his bare forearms. Beyond the field, a dense line of black pines stood sentinel, their tops hazy in the heat. A dirt road cut through the middle, pale brown against the faded green. This place. He knew this place.
A sharp, sudden intake of breath, a sound that felt alien coming from his own throat. This wasn't right. This was *before*. Years before. The summer before everything went wrong. The summer before… he shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be *anywhere*.
A shadow fell over him. Not a cloud, the sky was relentlessly clear. A human shadow. Leaf flinched, twisting around, his movements clumsy. He landed on his knees, hands scraping against dry earth, a small gasp escaping his lips. He looked up.
Rowan. Tall, broad-shouldered, impossibly still. The man stood there, silhouetted against the blinding sun, a dark, imposing figure. His jeans were old, worn denim clinging to his thighs, a dark t-shirt stretched across a chest that always seemed too wide. He hadn't changed. Not a single line around his eyes, not a single set to his jaw, not the faint, unreadable curve of his mouth.
Leaf’s throat seized. The air caught in his lungs. This was impossible. Rowan was… he was supposed to be dead. Years from now. And Leaf, too. But here they were. Both, somehow, alive. And Rowan was looking at him with that same, intense gaze, the one that always felt like it saw too much. It felt like a punch to the gut, winded him.
"Took you long enough," Rowan's voice was low, rough, like gravel shifting. It was the same voice. The same steady, unshakeable tone that Leaf had both loved and hated, that had been a constant through so much turmoil. It felt like a physical shock, the sound reverberating through his bones.
Leaf swallowed, his mouth dry. He tried to speak, but only a small, choked sound emerged. His heart hammered, a frantic drum against his ribs. It wasn’t just the shock of seeing Rowan, or the impossible circumstance of their meeting. It was the electric thrum of proximity, the way his skin seemed to prickle, hyper-aware of every inch of space between them. It was too much. Too fast. Too… everything.
He scrambled back, a desperate, clumsy crab-walk. The dry grass crunched under his palms. He felt a blush creep up his neck, a familiar heat that had always betrayed his inner turmoil. He hated it. Hated feeling so exposed, so raw, in front of the one person he thought he’d never see again.
Rowan didn’t move. He just watched, his expression unreadable, eyes a deep, shadowed green. They seemed to pierce through Leaf, stripping away his defenses, his borrowed composure. Leaf felt a tremor run through his hands, clenching them into fists. He remembered the last time he’d seen those eyes. Filled with grief. Accusation. A raw, unyielding pain that had mirrored his own.
"Are you… alright?" Rowan asked, his voice softer this time, a slight frown creasing his brow. He took a single, slow step forward. Leaf froze. That step felt like a boundary crossed, a line drawn in the suffocating summer air. It was the pursuer closing the distance, and Leaf, the affected, felt his breath hitch again, involuntarily.
Alright? No. He was not alright. He was dead. And now he was here. In the past. Trying to fix something that was already broken beyond repair. And the first person he saw was the man who had been the epicenter of all his past and future heartbreak. The sheer, overwhelming irony of it was almost comical, if it didn't feel like a vise tightening around his chest.
He managed to shake his head, a small, jerky motion. The sun beat down, intensifying the strange fever that seemed to simmer beneath his skin. The grass blades shimmered, blurring at the edges of his vision. He felt dizzy, a faint ringing in his ears. This was all too real. And yet, fundamentally, impossible. His fingers instinctively went to his wrist, where a thin, silver chain used to rest. It wasn't there. Of course not. This wasn't *his* body, not exactly, not yet. Not the one that had worn that chain.
"You hit your head, maybe?" Rowan asked, his voice closer now. Another step. Leaf could feel the warmth radiating off him, the faint, clean scent of sweat and earth. It was Rowan. Unmistakably. The same shoulders he'd leaned on. The same hands that had held his. The memory, sharp and unbidden, of those hands, strong and calloused, brought another flush to Leaf's cheeks.
"No," Leaf rasped, the word tasting like ash. He pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly. His legs felt like jelly. He focused on the horizon, on the hazy outline of the distant treeline, anywhere but Rowan’s face. "I… I just…"
What could he say? *I just died in a car crash several years from now, and woke up in a younger version of my own body, in a timeline before your own tragic, preventable death, which I'm now tasked with preventing?* The words felt insane, even in his own head. He gripped his forearms, feeling the slight tremor in his own fingers. He wasn’t ready for this. He wasn’t ready for *him*.
Rowan’s hand reached out, then hesitated, hovering a few inches from Leaf’s arm. The proximity was agonizing. Leaf could feel the heat, the subtle movement of air. Every nerve ending seemed to fire. He wanted to flinch away, but something held him rooted, a strange magnetic pull that had always existed between them, even in the darkest times.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Rowan said, a flicker of something—concern? amusement?—in his eyes. The light caught the faint stubble along his jaw, highlighting the strong line of his throat. Leaf felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to reach out and touch it, just to confirm he was real, solid, here. He clenched his fists harder, fingernails digging into his palms.
Leaf finally met Rowan's gaze. Those eyes. Unblinking. So damn calm. That calm had always unnerved him, even when he’d craved it. It felt like a deep, still pool, hiding something vast and ancient beneath its surface. Now, it just felt like a trap. A beautiful, inescapable trap. He remembered the future, the inevitable tragedy, the grief that had consumed them both. And now, he was supposed to rewrite it. With this man, who stood before him, unknowingly holding all the threads of his existence in his hands.
"I…" Leaf started again, then stopped. What was the point? He was here. Rowan was here. The past was now the present. He could feel the weight of it, the impossible burden. He was a second chance, a ghost in his own life, tasked with saving a man who didn't even know he needed saving. And looking at Rowan, so alive, so real, so *there*, all he could feel was the terrifying, undeniable pull of something he had thought was lost forever. The faint, almost imperceptible warmth of Rowan’s hovering hand felt like a brand, searing into his skin, a promise and a threat all at once. The silent tension stretched, thick and hot in the summer air, wrapping around them both, pulling them closer, inevitable as the rising sun.