The sensation of floating in the middle of a shadowless, lightless space of time.. and then the awareness of a rough, scratchy sensation aggravating my cheek. Irritably I lift a hand to push it away, but as I do so, I realize I am asleep, and the very action of moving my hand has now awoken me to past the point of being able to fall back into blissful slumber. Discomfort and pain begins to register in a slow wave throughout my body; I squeeze my eyes shut in a pleading attempt to shut it all out, my fingers rubbing at my cheek, trying to dislodge the abrasive fabric that seems to be stuck to it. Fatigue and the atrophy of many hours of stillness rests heavily on my body, making it feel one with the floor. Floor. That's what that is!
Groggily I open my eyes to stare at the floor, which is level with my cheek and undoubtably embossing a fuzzy imprint into my face. Why am I on the floor? Slowly, uncomprehendingly, I run my exhausted fingers over it jerkily, trying to understand how I got there, my eyes half closed and my body seeming to shudder with stiff discomfort. Sleep is slowly drained away from me like a precious ambrosia being funneled down into a fathomless abyss, and I flail at it vainly, whimpering. Silently I tell my back to shut up as it groans at me, and I lie there stupidly, unable to find the resource of strength needed to sit up. I feel like a thousand pounds of lead, and just as intelligent, too. I can feel my thoughts, disjointed and nonsensical, riddled with the chemical of stupor-like disconnectedness. Words flow into each other, making sentances strange and bizzare, but ones that I understand completely until my brain cuts in and reminds me how illogical and idiodic they are.
I groan slowly, and using my limp hands, I push myself to a sitting position, where I weave dangerously, almost toppling back onto the floor again in defeat until I see the red, accusational glare of my alarm clock sitting on my nightstand. 9:50 am. SHIT! Shit, shit, shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!! Ten minutes until I'm officially irreparably late for Lit! Springing up with sudden, new-found agility, I forget all about trying to figure out how I ended up on the floor and make a mad, clumsy dash for my closet. Ripping open the door, I grab wildly at any shirt and pants I can find, struggle into them, leaving my discarded clothes of last night sprawled on the floor. Still trying to do up the fly on my jeans, I charge for the washroom, simultaneously managing to smack my elbow against the door frame and send Shae's guitar spiralling across the room. Cursing, I thank the gods that it is in its case, and nursing my elbow, brush my teeth like a madman and drag a comb through my hair.
With the icy taste of toothpaste still haunting my tongue, I manage to do up my fly, grab my backpack and coat and head out the door, leaving our dorm in a general state of Jere-like disaray. As I run downstairs, I open my bag to make sure I have my books and notes. Rifling through the various tomes, I come across a paper bag and a note taped to the side of it. Pausing, while heaving for breath, I pull it out curiously, staring at it. And as I read, a huge, goofy smile touches my lips... a sudden lightheartedness fills my body.
'Miah. I knew you were going to be late, so I made you some breakfast. It's nothing spectacular, but after that lunch you made yourself yesterday, I figure anything could be better. I'm guessing it's.... oh, about three minutes until you are late for Lit., so you'd better hurry your ass! Put this back into your bag and RUN! I'll be waiting for you.
So will Professor Alec. Heh.
Love you,
Shae'
His elegant, elongated script ends off with a crude drawing of his middle finger, sticking up at me pointedly. I have to laugh, even though I want to cry, and stuff the bag back into my backpack, resuming my mad dash across campus. Gripping the straps to my backpack, I run haphazardly, trying not to trip on the exposed tree-roots riddling the ground, hopeless thoughts of Shae distracting me entirely. Am I that predictable? Or is he just that... clairvoyant? Either way... little things like this only make it worse... make me worse. He's so thoughtful... so... uplifting... caring... no-one else would make me breakfast in anticipation of my unpunctuality... I can almost see his slender, spectral hand moving across the paper, the pen gripped lightly in his fingers, a tiny, impish grin on his satin lips. And then.. wishfully, I see him lifting the paper to his lips slowly, his eyes closing softly as he presses a deep, lonely kiss to the surface. I hear him whisper my name into the kiss, and then, with a desperate light in his eyes, fastening the paper to the bag and putting the whole thing into my backpack. God... if only...
"JERE!"
I blink and skid to a halt, hurriedly turning to see who has just screamed my name. A grin touches my face as I see Brendan waving wildly at me with both arms, speeding across the distance between us, his bright orange hair flopping crazily. Waiting, catching my jagged breath, I watch him approach, and then continue running to the English Studies building with him at my side.
"Hey man," he says cheefully, snapping off a salute. I grin.
"Hey," I stammer out, instantly noting that running and talking at the same time is not a good way to conserve oxygen.
"You're late," he observes flippantly, to my annoyance.
"No... really? I just figured I'd run to burn off carbohydrates."
He laughs, and then delivers me one of those keen, intrusive looks that makes me want to stop dead in my tracks and punch him in the head. I sigh angrily and glare at him.
"What now?" I ask him quietly, coming up to the massive dark brown building and yanking open the glass door, letting him go in first.
We head down the eastern hallway. He shrugs nonchalantly and keeps his eyes on the awful carpeting, speaking mildly.
"Nothing... are you alright?"
I frown, not quite understanding. "Yes," I say slowly. "I'm fine... why?"
"Shae... said you... were acting weird last night. Said you ran into your room without saying anything, slammed the door and wouldn't answer his knocks. He's worried about you. Thinks he's done something wrong."
I close my eyes for a moment as I hear this, and shake my head slowly, feeling shame and annoyance sweep through. Something wrong... unless you call being unbearably fuckable wrong... giving your best friend a hard-on that threatens to tear the crotch out of his jeans wrong...
"No," I say softly, dismally. "He's not done anything wrong."
"Well...what happened then?" Brendan glances over at me gently. "One minute he said you were giving him a shoulder massage... and the next you were out of there like electricity through an unsuspecting bird."
I have to grin weakly at that: Shae's terminology alright. Morbid to the highest degree. But Brendan shakes his head, turning his bright, pericing eyes on me.
"Not funny, man. He was... like... freaking out when he told me about it. Came to my room in the middle of the night. I swear the guy... was... crying... at some earlier point."
I slow down as I hear this, not feeling my legs come to a halt. Dismay and self-loathing worms its way through every bone in my body as Brendan's words register, and shock makes my words shatter all over the place. What...? I'd... made... him... cry? Why...? He's had worse things than someone running off on him unexpectedly before... oh, good Christ. I gaze at Brendan worriedly, my eyes bright with concern. I can feel my heart suddenly take on an eratic, disturbing rhythym, making my body feel like paper.
"What..." I ask stupidly, and Brendan grabs at my arm, pulling me along as he explains.
"I don't know. I don't know why he was that upset over it.. but he was. Jere... what happened? He thinks he did something awful.. something he didn't know about. Thinks maybe you didn't want to touch him... hell, even started worrying that you thought he was... coming on to you."
I want to laugh. Suddenly, I feel like falling to my knees and screaming with laughter, laughter so loud that it would make the building start to break, drown me in rubble and death. And then, when I was dead, I would cry. Come on to me? Oh my God. That would be a fucking miracle.. a dream come true... a way out of the hell that has followed me around like a thundercloud for months now. I can hear bitter attempts at laughter spilling out of my mouth, and feel Brendan's uncomprehending gaze on mine. I wish that was what he'd done wrong... I wish he'd done SOMETHING wrong... I'm so tired of feeling like the pervert all the time... dirty and disgusting... unable to feel anything but lust everytime I look at my best friend...
"No," I say calmly, sourly. "If that is what he'd done, I don't think either of us would have gotten up for class this morning. We'd still be on his bed, naked, with me covering him like a blanket."
Brendan slowly looks down, drawing his lips into his mouth, comprehending. A dark, sympathetic look fills his gaze that I suddenly can't bring myself to tolerate right now, and so I start to walk again, tossing my words over my shoulder at him as I approach the English Lit door.
"I wanted to touch him more than anything. That is what was wrong. I wanted him to.. come on to me. THAT is what was wrong. I was about to kiss him. That is also what was wrong. Nothing HE did. Just me. I had a boner harder than a brick wall... I couldn't let him see it. So I ran. I'm wrong. Very.. fucking... wrong..."
These last words are whispered as I open the door. I am suddenly thrust into a huge lecture room with bright overhead lights and hundreds of people in the semi-circle seating arrangement suddenly turning to look my way. Squinting through the glare embarassedly, I catch sight of Shae, sitting in the front row, biting his lower lip in trepidation, shaking his head slowly at me. Brendan comes in after me, and then I hear Professor Alec's voice cutting thinly through the air.
"Good... evening, gentlemen. Glad you could join us."
"Sorry," I murmur, trying get out from under his watery eyes by heading towards the empty seat beside Shae. But Alec's voice stops me, and I groan inwardly, rolling my eyes as I turn to face him again.
"That's twice this week, Shepherdson." I nod miserably. "Yes sir." Why dispute the ugly fact?
Alec slowly drains his gaze off me to fix hawkishly on Brendan.
"And you, Stohltz."
Brendan says nothing, simply shrugging. I can feel Shae's grin. Alec looks up, his reedy voice snapping through the air.
"Something funny, McDairmuid?"
Shae shakes his head firmly, with a languid, lazy smile. "No sir," he says politely, his tone of voice and relaxed posture anything but.
Alec's severe eyebrows furrow together in his pale, sallow face, and after he delivers a scorching glare at Shae, he looks to Brendan and I again.
"Take your seats, gentlemen. As it seems the only empty seat is beside Sheldon-"
I wince at the use of Shae's proper name, and predictably see Shae's smile instantly snap into a vengeful expression of malice.
"- Jeremiah will sit there, and Mr. Stohltz will have to seat himself on the stairs."
Brendan grins to me secretly and heads amicably off to the stairs, winking to Shae. Shae winks back and watches me approach; I can hear the soft giggling of girls on the aisle row as Brendan makes himself comfortable in their midst. Professor Alec delivers me another withering look and then continues on with his lecture, his nasal voice once more filling the unfortunate room. I grin at Shae as he pulls his bag off my desk, and I slide into the hard plastic chair, getting my notes, textbooks and breakfast out of my bag.
"Thanks," I mouth silently, pointing to the bag. He smiles radiantly and offers me a shimmering veiw of his bright sapphire gaze before turning back to focus on Alec again. I watch him turn, again feeling the thickness of breath in my chest as I wonder how much I must have scared him last night. I gaze down onto his semi-hidden profile wonderingly, seeing the fair rise of his aristocratic cheek from in between the locks of his hair, and the sweep of his long, amber eyelashes. Sudden revultion makes me nauseous as I realize that tears had trailed down those delicate cheeks last night, and that their painful, uncomprehending descent had been initiated by me.
Regret and shame overtakes me, making my pen droop in my fingers, my hands suddenly weak. I want to fall to my knees before him.. beg forgiveness. Closing my eyes, I breath in shallowly, trying to eradicate the sinking, horrible feeling in my chest, yanked out of my introspective slump by Alec's voice raping my solitude once more.
"Sheperdson! Either you're awake or outside. I don't get paid to teach corpses."
Sighing, I snap my eyes open and then drop them back to my notes. Alec continues. And continues. And continues. It seems I have several thousand pages of notes littering my desk, my fingers aching with writer's hand by the time Alec starts to draw to a conclusion. My legs have cramped up, and I look over at Shae sereptitiously once more as I start to shuffle my papers together. He is staring somewhere left of Alec's head with a blank look on his face, his chin supported in one hand, and the other twirling his uncapped pen on his paper-free desk. I shake my head slowly, a wry smile making me chuckle softly. Shae never takes notes in class... never. Doesn't copy them off other people either. Yet manages to get perfect or close to perfect on every test Alec springs on us.
I see him start to look away from the spot he has been staring at, and I drop my gaze lest he catch me watching him. As Alec starts to dismiss us and I am putting my notes away in my bag, I feel a sharp nudge dig into my side. I look up and see Shae, an expression so displeased and angry on his features that it makes me jolt.
"Look," he hisses, using his chin to gesture at the door. I look over wonderingly, and feel my heart sink in sudden, shuddering fear as I see a familiar shape standing just outside the partially opened door. Long caramel coloured hair, shining like pale copper in the hallway lights, that I instinctively know is scented with vanilla and Panteen Pro-V shampoo. Covering slender shoulders it falls to a waist so perfectly tapered and slim that it makes me think of airbrushing, hips covered in strange shiny blue material that comes to a stop half way down the thighs, thighs that I know feel like silk, smell like baby powder and sex.
Legs longer than should be possible, tiny feet clad in high heels tall enough to rival the Spice Girls'. I look up slowly, dreading every inch, coming to rest on a pair of shirt-covered breasts that have made many a man here (including me, long ago) almost cry with lust; so perfectly rounded and heavy, nipples hidden that I know are as firm and sweet as strawberries. I keep looking, seeing a cream-coloured neck which used to be stained red with hickeys after sex, and a face that was beautiful, but one I knew could look uglier than sin. Her blue (coloured contacts) eyes train on me maliciously, and she offers me a wave with perfectly manicure nails that gleam painfully in the light. I remember how she used to beg me to fuck her... spreading her legs on my bed, sinking two small fingers into her gaping cunt, bringing herself to thrusting orgasm on my sheets.
And now... I try not to gag, instantly feeling sick and afraid. Why is SHE here...? Why?
"I'll see you in the dorm," I suddenly hear Shae say flatly, grabbing his bag and walking out, pushing past her without a single word.
I stare after him, feeling my skin wanting to drip off, and then look at Leia again. She beckons to me, a sweet, evil smile on her glistening lips. Sighing, I stand, grabbing my bag and shuffle towards the door, keeping my wary eyes on her all the way. I see Brendan out of the corner of my eye, looking alarmed and wearing a warning expression directed at Leia. She ignores him casually, and links arms with me as I approach her. I growl under my breath and try to shake her off, but she hangs on persistantly, with a strength I had forgotten she possessed.
"Hello, Jere..." she breathes, her throaty voice purring in my ear. I twitch in intense irritation.
"What?" I snap, still trying to disengage her arm from mine. I feel sullied...
"How's the cocksucking life going?" She asks conversationally, smiling charmingly at some asshole that walks by.
I tense in snapping anger, and am about to open my mouth to let loose on her, when she interupts me smoothly.
"I'm sorry.. I'm being very rude. I'm trying to be calm about this.. you understand." Her nails dig into my arm deeply, and I fight back the yelp that springs to my lips. I say nothing, and she smiles at me.
"It's not everyday that your boyfriend dumps you for a guy. Rather... traumatizing."
I roll my eyes but press on, wanting to get out of there, shake her off. She hangs on, walking with me quickly. I am silent, frost radiating off me in waves.
"So... tell me.. how are you two? Is he everything you hoped?"
I sigh in anger, and turn blazing eyes on hers. "Yes," I snap acidly. "Everything and more. Okay? Are you done now?"
She is silent for a moment, her eyes shrewd and calculating. And then she smiles, all blonde and honey again.
"Tsk, tsk, Jere... I'm only trying to be polite here. Want you to be happy and all.."
I emit a tiny, needle-like laugh and shake my head slowly. Happy. Right.
"Okay," I tell her shortly. "Are you finished? Can you take your good samaritan ass away from me now?"
"Mmm," she croons, and I shudder. So... hideously unsexy...
"No. Just for that, I think I'll come up to your room with you. See the old place again. I think I deserve it."
I stop and stare at her.
"What? What for?" A momentary fear rattles me. What if she says something to Shae...
"All the wasted time of my life that I spent in that hellhole..." she hisses, keeping us walking, heading towards the dorms. "Letting you fuck me til I was too sore to piss the next day.."
I blink and my jaw falls open in disbelief and rage. "WHAT?" I half-yell. Then my voice drops down to a deadly whisper, my arm wrenching at hers to dislodge it. "Letting me fuck you?! Jesus, if I hadn't given you what you wanted, you weren't going to give me a moment's peace! Coming into my room in the middle of the night.. demanding it... so shut your goddamned mouth, Leia."
She chuckles throatily, softly. We walk in taut silence to the dorms, my arm as rigid as a steel cord, my body feeling poisoned as she holds it. I run up the stairs to my room quickly, anger burning as I hear her persistant footsteps pattering behind me. I kick open our door as I reach it and dart in, about to close the door behind me when she shoves it back open. Stepping in behind me, she gives a triumphant giggle. Shae is sitting on the couch, his gaze on the wall in front of him. As he hears the door open, he looks down towards me. His face starts to light in a smile, but as he sees Leia, it halts instantly, giving him a creepy, unfinished look. It descends into a completely evil glare, and he stands slowly, watching her.
"Get out," he says acidly, his eyes bright with rage.
She watches him with that infuriating smile, and shakes her head. Then:
"Hello, Sheldon," she says sweetly. Shae's eyes turn to deadly ice.
He repeats himself. She does not listen. Instead, she starts to walk around the living area, her fingers reaching out to touch things as she goes, tables, picture frames, books and knick-knacks. Ruining everything. Her long, fake nails glittering nastily in the sunlight, her hair shining like the falseness of health just before death. I want to run after her with a rag drenched in disinfectant, wipe it over everything she touches, eradicating her vindictive energy. We both stare after her, not moving. After a while, she pauses in front of Shae's guitar, which is propped up by the wall of his door. Running her nails over the frets, she speaks suddenly.
"Didn't you get this when you were... ten?"
Shae stares at her, his eyes narrowing slowly, into blazing slits. He says nothing.
"And.. weren't you ten... when your uncle raped you?"
I freeze. My breath lingers unspent in my lungs, my body too shocked to process it. I stare at Shae helplessly, my eyes wide and disbelieving, fear shaking at my heart and body. My fingers tremble. Oh...my... God...
"What..." he says tonelessly, his eyes widening, the blueness paling startlingly. His body has become stiff and unmoving, his fingers splayed at his sides, the muscles in his arms clenching tightly. I gaze at him in fright, not wanting to see what is happening, what I know is going on inside him. His lips part slowly, and his eyes begin to change. Darkness swirls into them, a darkness that shakes forth the first, sinning tears from my eyes and makes a cry leave my throat. Shadows pour from his gaze onto the floor by his feet, threatening to drown him in their gasping grief. The darkness makes his eyes wild, makes them identical to the memory that I have long made myself forget, the vision of his young, fearless eyes caught up in the depths of insane pain. Distantly I see Leia turn to find him, and her face instantly whitening, her fingers to fall slack... I want to tear those shadows away...
the door is breaking... someone is pounding at it so hard that it looks like it is going to explode off the protesting hinges. i run towards it, my heart in my throat, wondering at the forceful, frantic fear behind it. what do i do if it is an emergency? my parents aren't home, like always... i don't have anyone to help me if i have to act. my sticky, sweaty palms are on the rattling doorknob and pulling it open, the door swinging wide to let a golden-haired blur come charging through, crash into me and send us both flying into the opposing wall. the fall jarrs me, but i see shae, his hair touseled and stained-looking, dirty and strange. he is collapsed on top of me... he smells very weird and scary. i shake him, make him look up, my hands on his shoulders in frantic fear. 'sheldon...' i hear myself scream, my high-pitched voice carrying like razors around the house. stains cover his shirt, his favourite light blue t-shirt. it is ripped and i notice that the button is torn from his pants, leaving a withered hole gaping. 'sheldon...' i gasp again, and he looks up slowly. his long, long hair falls away tiredly from his face, and what i see there makes me scream again, but i don't hear it this time. his eyes, always so blue and bright and beautiful... are red. crimson red with the pain of tears, his eyelids puffy and his eyelashes clumping together in blotchy black. he stares at me unseeing, his body shaking like a leaf as i hold him. blood in his hair, i realize paralyzingly, as his eyes begin to focus, the pupils sharpening madly. 'stop screaming,' he tells me, his voice eerie and strange. but i can't stop... and he's talking.. over my screams.. over my tears and the world shattering down the middle. i'd never seen my friend this way... he was the warrior... always winning school fights, always being the best at everything... and now.... 'he hurt me, miah...' i hear, and the screams stop. 'who...' i ask tearily, tears burning into my cheeks. his eyes are wild again. 'he hurt me. we went to the zoo today, miah. i saw the panthers again. he kept touching me all the time, combing my hair with that dirty brush in his pocket. i kept trying to leave but he kept following me miah. i said i had to go pee, and he said he'd wait so i went in. but then the door flew open and the lights went out.. the door locked. i tried to run around him but he grabbed my hair and pulled me back. he made me kneel over the toilet and he shoved my head in.. he told me he had to so i wouldnt scream. my pee was in the water and it smelt so bad but he was shoving my face in... i couldn't breathe. he tore my pants... look... and then he... he.... he....' 'STOP!!!!!!!!' i scream at him, trying to crawl away from his blonde hair and his tiny, frightened face, his defeated hands. i can't see, i'm crying so hard, and he's screaming with me, clawing at me, making me stay. his arms are around me and against everything that should be happening, he is holding me, comforting me as visions of his uncle stab into my brain, blood and shit on his hands, his body convulsing, shae's screams bubbling out of the yellow, bloody water. 'i can't sit miah,' he says blankly. ' i can't sit down. i think he broke me...'
I know I have fallen to my knees, because Shae looks so terrible and gigantic in this moment. I am crying again, but neither of them see me. Shae is shaking, his skin white and his eyes hollow and dark. He stares at Leia, who stares back, her mouth gone slack and fearful. Those shadows burn in his eyes... shadows that hide him from me... take him to the one, single place I cannot follow him because I was never there, I did not experience the hell that made them.
"Get out of my room," he says suddenly, his voice void of emotion.
Leia stares at him blankly, wonderingly.
"Get out of my room," he says again, his voice that same insidious inflection of nothingness.
She does not move.
"Get out of my room," he repeats, his voice cracking this time.
She begins to shake.
"GET OUT OF MY ROOM!!!" He screams suddenly, and I see the tears glittering like broken glass on his cheeks. He springs at her, running towards her with a speed that seems to dazzle her, only belatedly making her move, realize what is happening. With a yelp, she turns and starts to run for the door, but he catches her in two massive leaps, his fingers extending like claws, curling into her shirt, sinking into her chest and holding her up by the thin fabric. He slams her into the door, and I wince as I hear her head make a resounding knock against the wood. She gazes at him, stammering, and he slams her again.
"Shut up, bitch," he spits, his voice a riot of fury, a trembling wave of annihilation. "I want you to listen to me very closely, do you understand? Because I'm going to tell you what every single person in this goddamned building knows, but is too chickenshit to say, lest they ruin their chance to fuck your whoring cunt. You are NOTHING. You are STUPID, ORDINARY, and completely ASLEEP. You. Are. NOTHING. I've hated you the moment I saw you...but I hate you even more for all the shit you put him through, made his heart endure. All the fucking pain..." And then his voice drops to a dangerous, pain-filled whisper. "All the fucking jealousy..."
I blink as I hear this, not understanding. Jealousy? What jealousy? But before I can contemplate it any further, he is wrenching open the door and sending her flying into the hallway, her shirt ripped and her bra torn. She lands on the floor in a heap, her hair tangled and windswept, her mascara running and her eyes wild with tears and fury. But he is not finished. Not yet.
"Go ahead," he says, staring down at her as he begins to close the door, his body a current of rage. "Call the police. I don't give a flying fuck. I'd gladly go to jail for this." And with that, he slams the door so hard that the wall shakes, and I hear her yelp outside. I stare at him as he leans against the door, and run towards him as he starts to slide down it. He is in my arms by the time he hits the floor, his trembling body curled around my own.
"Guess everyone knows, huh Miah," he says through tears, and I cannot reply.
"How do you do it? Make me feel like I do? How do you do it? It's better than I ever knew..."
With a sudden, static-filled second, the radio turns itself on, brought into being by my instructions the night before. Sound blossoms into my room; Incubus, sounding tinny on my tiny, bedside radio. The drum beat sounds like a fork knocking on a soup can, and the lead singer's voice's usual powerful energy and light sounds plastic, unreal. I fight it for a moment, the usual, automatic dread of having to waken crashing over me, the instinctive want to hibernate and be a hermit for the rest of my life becoming an ideal goal. And then after a moment of being caught up in that paralyzing fear, I realize it is Saturday, there are no classes, and I have to be up early to get Shae out of bed.
Relief. I can feel it spreading through me like sunshine in a dark, dark place, and I smile lazily into the soft dark of my room, my eyes still closed against the brutish reality about to confront them. Stretching slowly, I move under the sheets restively, once again becoming familiar with my arms, hands, legs and chest as I systematically flex each muscle in every area. My fingers brush against the cool fabric of the parts of the sheet I have not lain on, and my blanket glides smoothly over my bare arms as I unfurl them. I draw the familiar, bookish smell of my room into my lungs deeply, letting loose a soft moan as I command myself to sit up, fight the fatigue making my muscles flaccid and useless.
I open my eyes languidly, peering through my eyelashes at the time blinking beside my blaring little radio: 7:45 am. I stare dully at it for a moment, simply enjoying the hypnotic aspect of the numbers filling my entire scope of vision. On, off. On, off. So simple. Not like the rest of the crap that happens as soon as I turn the lights on. Lights go on, Life floods in, I hurt. So complicated, unnescesary. Sighing, I slide out of bed, doing a strange sort of swagger to the lightswitch, trying avoid my bed and the wall all at the same time. Flicking on the switch, I groan and lean against the wall stupidly, blinking owlishly into the glare.
"Hate this morning shit," I grumble, my voice laced with sleep. Managing to get the energy, I propell myself off the wall and stagger towards my closet, wrenching the door open and stepping into the blessed darkness. Sighing, I pull out a shirt, boxers, a pair of pants and a towel, bunching them up into a haphazzard bundle to clutch as I step out again. Heading out of my room, I head towards Shae's room, sticking my head around the ajar door slowly, blinking tiredly into the darkness. Gazing around into the twilight softness, I follow the shafts of light streaming through the blinds on his window, watching them illuminate long rectangles of navy blue carpet, some being turned into oblong shapes by random peices of clothing or books on the floor. Then they stream up the sides of his bed, draping like robes of light across the altar of his resting place. I see them pooling across his blanket, the darkness of it giving vague impression of his slumbering figure underneath.
He is sprawled out on the bed as he always is, one arm thrust out in an unconscious gesture of beckoning, the other tucked under his pillow, supporting his head; an incredibly sexy posture that he manages to pull off with such finesse. It always makes him look so relaxed and confident in his beauty. His hair streams out in dim gold waves across the pillow, his face silhoetted in the darkness, the alabaster sweetness of his face barely discernable in the half light. I hear his breathing, calm and steady, an alluring tide reaching my longing ears. His nightshirt, a simple black singlet, wraps around his chest tightly, the blanket taking over about half way down. The elegant symmetry of his biceps leaves me staring helplessly, a lump of aggravating desire rising in my throat. The room is silent in an almost holy way: it is the church, and in the middle lies the god. His chest rises and falls, a perfection so simple and ancient that it almost seems reasonable to me for one fleeting moment to run my hands across it, feel his muscles and bone move and jerk under my touch, feel the smooth satin of his skin against my own.
But instead my hand rises to the door, and making a fist, raps on it reluctantly, lightly. He is still, unmoving, and I knock again.
"Shae," I whisper softly, gazing at him.
Without moving, his eyes open, staring at the ceiling uncomprehendingly for a moment before I speak again.
"Time to wake up," I say quietly, and his eyes flicker over to me.
He watches me for a moment, a look of quiet contemplation on his restful features, a look which at the same times seems so peircing and gentle. I stare back, lost, caught in the way his eyes have turned to the colour of the most magic-filled midnight sky. He smiles then, a corner of his lips raising lazily in a charismatic gesture that makes my fingers curl. The night before with Leia is like it never happened.
"Okay," he murmurs faintly. "Thanks."
I nod, and watch him for a moment, seeing him start to stretch, his eyes closing. But I leave before I can become too entranced and head towards the washroom, closing the door behind me. Leaning against the support of the door for a moment, I let my mind linger on the newly aqquired image of him sleeping before admonishing myself and sighing helplessly. Thoughts of frustration and endlessness fill my head as I shrug out of my shirt, letting it drop to the floor with a fabric, dark whisper. Stepping out of my boxers, I kick them into the corner, shivering as the cool air of the washroom caresses my body. Stepping into the shower, I turn on the taps, twiddling them to a random setting as the water comes pelting through the showerhead and onto my head and back.
"Chist..." I wheeze, as water as cold as liquid nitrogen slides down my skin. Hovering there in discomfort, I wait for the hot water to kick in, trying not to think about the fact that Shae stands here everyday, his body occupies the same space mine does now, wearing the same lack of clothing I am now. No. Don't think.
The warm water distracts me as it kicks in, embracing my body like a lover, making me sigh in relief. Running my hands through my hair, I lift my face to the spray, closing my eyes and losing myself to the endless drum beat of droplets abusing my skin. Steam raises all around me, filling my lungs with a moist oxygen, making me feel like melting. Reaching gropingly for the soap, I find a bar and begin to rub the sweet-smelling suds into my skin, my flesh becoming slicker than ice. Running the bar down my chest, I feel the water and soap mingling, making my nipples suddenly extra sensitive as the heat sears them. I shiver at the contact, and suddenly the pleasure of the water takes on a higher dimension, turning the normal into the sexual. Helplessly, unconsciously, my hands start to move more slowly down my body, my fingers dancing lightly over my abs and slipping slowly downwards..
Shae's hands...
Their etheral, starlit fingers sliding treacherously down my skin, leaving shimmering trails of soap and lust. I feel my own hands slowly becoming his; losing the shape I have known all my life to become more slender, poetic and graceful than my own. I feel them lengthen, become pianist instruments: the fingernails long but unthreatening, the colour of the flesh turning pale, a concoction of diluted cream. The water trails down his wrists and pools onto the backs of his hands, becoming elusive, everchanging bracelets in the clouds of steam surrounding me. His hands move, propelled by my muscles, caressing my waist and hips provocatively, his touch a mocking demand for erotic upheaval in my brain. The water burns my face, sears my shoulders, encourages his hands as they proceed still lower, the soap becoming an excuse to let them slide a little further... and a little further more...
Shae's voice...
"Shae," I hear myself whimper into the onslaught of water, his name muted by the moisture, the thickness in my throat. I'm shaking. His fingers reply to my voice, quickening now as a rush of arousal floods my body, feuling their passion. Miah... I hear, a throaty, longing sound echoing in the deepest labyrinths of my brain, causing me to shake even more, Shae's fingers to dig into my skin. A far away part of my brain is watching this strange transformation, and a far away part of my heart is shattering as it holds onto the realization that none of this is real, could never be real. I know my tears can't possibly be hotter than the shower water, but they boil as they pour down my face, leaving a mapped trail of terrain lost and longing. Distantly I feel myself sobbing with shame and pounding desire, my body as weak as a child's with both arousal and love. Both so fucking unrequited...
Can't let this happen... can't do this...
But it's happening anyway. The touch, the feeling, the wanting... it's all building and burning, sinking through me, pushing down...
Lust like I have never felt... the want, more than anything, to find him, grab him... cover his mouth with my lips so he can't say anything and press my soaking, naked self to his lean, supple body...
Shae's body...
In flashes red and white with thousands of molecules of heat, I see him, gloriously bare, spreading his arms towards the sky, eyes closed. Skin so smooth, begging me to touch it... muscles lying like panthers on his abdomen, hips so slender and sexual... pubic hair the colour and texture of straw... eyes as bright as the Earth seen from thousands of lightyears away... his pulse jumping in his throat...
"I want you..." The words fly into the space around me and then my hands... Shae's hands... are falling, reaching... a current as strong as liquid steel throbbing into my groin. One hand reaches out to grab for blind support against the shower wall as chest-exploding pleasure rocks my body, triggered by the tentative, dirty touch of my.. Shae's... fingers brushing against the engorged head of my cock. I can place the moans I hear, I know they are mine, but they seem so distant somehow... Shae's fingers trembling with unsatiable desire as he touches me... he's wanted this for so long...
My fingers grip tightly at the spaces in between the tiles on the wall, the water obliterating any thoughts of stopping. Soap covering Shae's hand... my hand... making the skin lubricated, easy to move with. I hear him, moaning into my ear as he grips me, hear his breath, quick and hot... his tiny whimpers of desire driving me crazy. A grip so tight.. so perfect. His hand is like a vice, sliding quickly up and down the lava-like length of my shaft, procuring in me feelings never before experienced, never before so perfect.
"So hard," he whispers sexily in my head... I see him on his knees... "So fucking hard..." I can feel my knees buckle, I hear myself groan mercilessly. "Keep going," he commands in a whisper, and our hand keeps going, pumping relentlessly, my other hand tearing away from the wall to cover my mouth, to put a stopper in the moans spilling like water over my lips. "No," he says, the hint of razorsharp erotic amusement in the tones. "SCREAM. Let me hear you. Come for me, Miah.... all over me..."
"Fuck you," I groan into my hand as I feel it building in my balls, his voice dragging up and down my cock, in the guise of his hand. "Fuck you fuck you fuck you..." I want to fuck you, I want to hurt you, I want to love you, I want to leave you ... make you FEEL this... make you hurt like you made me hurt... I don't want to want you... but fuck do I need you....
Shae's words...
THOSE words. I'm moaning them into my hand as the other pushes me to the brink.. and I'm falling... plummeting... falling to my knees.... "I need this... I need you... please don't stop me... I love you.... I want you..." The words I've only ever dreamed about since I've heard them... the words I haven't been able to bring myself to repeat... "I NEED YOU..."
My cock throbs with a surge so powerful that it wrenches a cry from my soul. And suddenly I am everywhere: the shower, the water, the walls, the world... I am everything for that half of a half of a second. Everything explodes outwards, and then suddenly retracts, imploding, sending me to my knees, surging up my cock, forcing itself out of the head... the world, my heart, my love, my carnal weakness... hitting the shower floor... pooling with the soap and water and heat. Semen draining down and away. No sin here.
The tiles are digging into my knees... my chest is heaving with the need of oxygen. The orgasm leaves me weak... feeling hollow, stupid and useless. I can feel the shame, burning in my head, but I can't let myself listen to it... not now. My hands are shaking. Not Shae's hands. Mine. My corrupt, ugly hands...
"Miah?"
Gasping, I look up, fear making me jolt. But the door is closed; I see his shadow drifting along the crack under it. I gape uselessly for a moment, and then stand unsteadily, reaching out a hand to turn the water shakily off.
"Yeah?" I manage to reply, wincing at the sound of my voice. So tiny and sinful...
"You okay?"
I am silent for a moment. Why does he ask this? Did.. he hear me? Biting my lower lip, I swallow thickly.
"Yeah," I repeat myself again, and step out of the shower, leaving the ugliness behind.
"Okay," he replies after a moment that I can simply taste is riddled with doubt. "We have to go in about five minutes."
I nod silently at the door, still shaking with the aftershocks of desire and shame. God... did I really do that? Am I... not quite... all there? I just... jerked off with him in the next room. Sure... it's happened before... but then I wasn't salivating about him. About Leia or some other faceless girl. But now... an earthshaking orgasm about my best friend... with him in the next room, wondering if I am okay. Suddenly the ironic hopeless of it strikes me as highly amusing... making my throat want to whimper and giggle all at the same time. Jesus. Let me burn.
"Okay," I half-whisper, and in a daze, pick up my towel. Going through the motions of drying myself off, it is with still wet skin that I slip into my boxers and jeans, pulling my shirt on over my head as I walk out of the door, needing the security of the material to cover my eyes as I walk past him.
I can feel my cheeks burning with crimson blood and my breath coming in shallow, useless gasps, and worst of all I can feel his eyes on my back, blazing pinpoints of self-conscious pain through my skin. With trembling hands I pull the shirt into place, and stealing half a moment to compose myself, I turn to face him.
"Okay," I say, suddenly finding it very difficult to withstand his keen gaze. "Let's go."
His eyes, with their clandestine brilliance, rest on me heavily, scouring my soul with each second. I try not to pale as visions of my fantasy come rushing back... his fingers... God, his fingers...
He drags them now through his hair, keeping his eyes on me for a probing moment. "Okay," he says finally, and turns away from me to grab his backpack. I let loose the breath I have been holding captive, feeling its jittery nervousness spill out into the air, giving my head a chance to settle again. I head towards the door quickly, droplets of water dripping down my cheeks from my still soaking wet hair, and step out into the hall, waiting for him to catch up. But he calls me back, and I turn around slowly.
"Here," he says, his voice sounding oddly apprehensive. I blink at him for a moment until he holds out his hand, my jacket hanging from his fingers. Or rather, his jacket... the one I stole from him that day in the woods. The one he hasn't laid a hand on for all those years. The drab, grey material swings forlornly from his hand, and it is with a lump in my throat that I quickly grab it from him, trying to ignore the unnerving feeling that in taking it, I have taken a peice of his soul away, the part that never remade itself after that day... the part that will always be grey and drab... lost to time and persecuted emotion.
We are silent as we start to move again, me shuffling down the hallway, the jacket gingerly draped over one tingling arm, Shae locking the door behind us. I glance back over my shoulder at him as I head towards the stairs, his shoulder-length golden hair cascading in silken layers around his face, hiding it from me. I watch him lock the door, the key glittering in his pale fingers, fingers which seem to be trembling... what? I stop and stare, concern making me forget my destination. But he turns before I can examine more closely, and his lips become attached with a radiant, hopelessly heartbreaking smile.
"Onward!" he exclaims cheerfully, any traces of the previous strangeness gone from his gentle voice, his sapphire eyes. He slips past me, and it is in a hurricane of thought that I follow him downstairs, catching vague visions of his hands upon the railing, his booted feet lightly landing on each stair, the swish of his hair as wind rushes through each tawny strand. His shoulders, clad in his leather jacket, look impassive and stark, sexual in their implacable strength. I want to kiss them... run my fingers over the worn leather, be secure in the knowledge that he can't feel me through it... can't feel my heart bleeding... bruising. I wonder how much more it can take...
We are outside.. the coldness of the air stings me, but as I look down at the coat, I know without a shadow of a doubt that I cannot possibly wear it. Not now, not today... not after what I'd done. Shivering, I tell Shae to meet me at the truck. Ignoring his wondering look, I run back inside, crashing up the ill-kept stairs and back into our room, tossing the offending, wretched garment onto the floor. Slamming the door and locking it after me again, I dash back down the stairs, trying to make myself go as fast as I can; outrun the tears I can feel pooling in my gaze. I run back over to the truck, opening the door and getting in. Shae looks over at me and then down at my hands, noticing the lack of coat. I cannot look at him... I just can't. But I feel his gaze darkening, feel his hands tightening on the wheel. But I stay silent, and blessedly, so does he. He sits there for a moment longer; the sudden distance between us starts to burn me... it is like he is a million miles away. And I realize that he has always been. We have always been so far apart, ever since that day... only now I am truly realizing just how impassable that distance has become. Glaciers in the way... bridges burning... landscape in ashen smouldering...
The roar of the truck startles me as he starts it, and it is to the hidieous music of silence that we begin our drive. I hear the pipes rattling solidly against one another as the wheels traverse bumpy spots in the roads, and after a while, I begin to lose myself to the clanging orchestra, almost becoming hypnotized. The landscape flows past the windows in a blur of grey and yellow and green that is lost to me, become as faceless as my thoughts, as disheartened as my soul. Street lamps are sulphuric, distant flashes of light across my retinas as we pass them, Shae's hands on the steering wheel as substantial as ghosts.
But then he is talking... talking about random nothingness... explaining to me where we are going, what is happening with the pipes in the back, who is supposed to take them and what they need them for. His voice soothes me slowly... and I start listening to the actual words, feeling their light, easygoing tones brushing away the strangeness between us. Why is he so capable? So perfect? Maddening... purely maddening...
"...-so he's supposed to meet us up there. The house isn't finished yet... he's supposed to be there with a team of builders tonight to finish it up. He didn't want to pay for the shipping of the pipes professionally, so he asked me for a favour. I figured I'd do it because I had nothing else to do.. might as well get the money he's willing to pay."
I nod stupidly as he finishes, realizing I haven't got a clue in hell who he is talking about. But no matter. I'm here now, with him, in this horrible contraption. And the hopeless thing is that I know I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
"Are you hungry?" he asks me suddenly, and I start to shake my head as a negative when the realization that I am indeed hungry dawns. So I nod, and he grins wryly. "There's some fruit in my backpack. Help yourself."
I reach for it, unable to halt the wondering grin that sneaks onto my lips. Another talent of his... being able to discern what I need before I even realize it myself. Pulling the buckle on the olive green bag open, I fleetingly wonder what exactly he is- visions of wings and blinding white light forking across my consciousness like flame reflecting off a blade of steel...
"Mmmm," he croons, pointing to the bunch of grapes sitting in my hand. "Grapes."
I smile helplessly and look down at them, voluptuous and ripe, their chlorophil intensity momentarily shocking me amidst their nest of everyday, dark colours. I smell them, fresh and enticing, reeking of trees and forests, of soil and sunshine... better days...
...Shae's long blonde hair, loosely held in a braid, wisps of hair escaping the clumsy pattern to frame his delicate, teenage beauty... his lips on mine, the trees a visions of red and white against my eyelids...
Roughly I cast the thought away, not allowing my body to respond with its customary shiver of enchanted, cold desire. Plicking off one of the grapes, its released moisture begins to seep out of the fissure and down the smooth, rounded sides. I stare at it, feeling suddenly ill, uneasy. Like so much trivial emotion... just pluck it... kill it... watch it drain all away.
"Do you want it?" I hear myself ask, and Shae grins his assent.
So, ignoring his outstretched hand to receive it, I offer it instead to his lips, my fingers heading towards his mouth slowly, tremblingly. I feel unreal in this moment; the movement of the truck, the air around me, the grape... all shoved aside for something else, something deeper and more demanding. Here, take it. Small, useless. It will do nothing to satiate your hunger unless you eat the entire stock. Crunch it between your perfect teeth, taste its lifeblood. Never know that it died for you willingly. Anything to touch you. Anything to be wanted by you. His outstretched hand begins to fall back onto the steering wheel slowly, his eyes locked on mine, and mine on the grape and his lips. Their softness would become adorned with the juice, a sweet potion of sugar and lust on his tongue. Could I lick it away? Run my tongue across his sticky, grape juice covered lips, make his hands fly off the steering wheel, feel his mouth open up to mine in a searing admission of love. Years of desire being shown to me as we die, the truck veering off the road into the trees, our faces covered in blood but our kiss still burning... bodies trapped in seatbelts, yearning to touch each other, to discover heaven as it approaches to claim us...
His lips part to recieve the fruit, and I know that if I were to look up, I would see his impossibly bright eyes locked onto me strangely, apprehension and confusion making the sky-like irises burn. But his lips hold me in their thrall. Slowly I tip the grape into his mouth, watching the green orb fall into the unknown darkness behind his teeth, feel the juice remaining on my fingers, making them shimmer, awash in the symbolic confession of need. His jaw moves slowly, his teeth bite down into the sumptious fruit pregnant with so much of my heart. I feel curiously detached from all of this but at the same time agonizingly near, and I begin to retract my fingers, unable to decipher how to deal with the combined desires to keep them there and pull them away. But he stops me.
"Wait," he says softly.. too softly, the careful empathy in his voice almost aming me believe that he knows.. that he understands what I have just given him. "Still some on your fingers."
I look up slowly, finding his gaze, but his eyes are on the road by the time I get there. His lips are parting and I can see the pink, velvet wetness of his tongue extending. I can't help but close my eyes, feeling greedy as hell but needing to lose myself to this intimacy, as unintentional as it is. I know that I'm not breathing... the truck feels like it is slowing, taking my thoughts with it, dragging them into the gutter, losing them to visions of sex and shivering need.. a strange chariot of speed and fear. My fingers shake in anticipation and distantly I hear myself thanking whatever available gods there are that his backpack is sitting in my lap, hiding from Shae the inevitable erection I can feel throbbing there. The juice burns on my skin, so acidic and intense that it shocks me, his tongue not only about to send me into spirals of debilitating pleasure, but to administer relief as well.
Like viscous silk it envelopes me, my chest struggling to withold the whimpers of tear-stained arousal that beat my throat. His tongue invades me, moving dangerously across my skin, sucking gently at each finger, the tip of his tongue grazing across my nerves. The feeling of it.. the complete pleasure of it makes my hips shake, my penis to throb mercilessly. He's taking everything, I realize deleriously. He just ate my heart, now he's licking the blood off the fingers that handed it to him... taking it all. God.. it feels like a Siouxie song. It seems like it goes on forever, my limp fingers in his mouth, his tongue and spit working a strange, intoxicating fellatio on my flesh. I want to move my fingers deeper and have him accept them; in doing so letting me be in love with him, giving me complete affirmation and release from fear...
"ASSHOLE!!" His scream makes my heart seize up, his voice muffled by my fingers in his mouth.
I pull them away in a flight of fear, eyes darting around wildly, unable to comprehend until I see the car halted in front of us, about to pull out of a sidestreet. The truck slams to a punishing stop, and Shae's arms are like cords of steel gripping the wheel. My hand falls, my heart thumping erratically, and I stare dumbly at the car in front of us, down to its puny smallness, barely able to see the white face behind the tinted windshield. Shae snarls and his fingers rip off his seatbelt, and before I can think of stopping him, he flies out of the truck, the door banging with a metallic screech against the body and bouncing back open again. In three gigantic strides, he is by the driver's window, screaming for him to wind it down. The driver complies readily, nervousness like a veneer of disease on his face. His wide dark eyes stare up at the furious figure of Shae, his Mexican features lost to an expression of trepidation. Shae lets loose as soon as the window is open a centimetre; his voice slams into the space around me, making me wince. Poor guy, I think, glancing pityingly at the Mexican, idily hoping that Shae doesn't leave his eardrums bleeding.
"I could have KILLED you!!! Don't you realize you are supposed to LOOK when you're turning out onto a major street? Or any street for that matter?! Jesus GOD! If I hadn't been watching, you would have ended up obtaining a very close relationship with the pavement! It would have taken them a spatula to pry you off of her! WATCH WHERE THE HELL YOU ARE GOING NEXT TIME!!!"
With that, Shae stomps off, his face red and his fingers tearing at his hair in nervous, delayed reaction. I wince at him worriedly, seeing the driver of the little Honda drive off, looking about to cry. Shae glares after him over his shoulder as he swings back into the truck, his eyes dark and wild, his expression angry.
"Dumb shit," he mutters furiously, fingers ramming the buckle to his seatbelt back into its holder, but the buckle not co-operating and sliding all over the place, missing the mark each time. I sigh at him softly, shaking my head, our previous moment at the back of my mind for now. Always getting so angry... always yelling at people. Always for good reasons, yes... but still.
"Shut up," I murmur softly, my fingers closing over his shaking ones, coaxing them into letting me put the seatbelt on.
After a moment of ignoring my touch, he finally relents, his hands falling away limply. He stares in outrage after the retreating little car, his lips still forming scathing syllables. I manage to fit the buckle in, the click resounding much too loudly. I sit there for a moment, my hand still on the seatbelt, my gaze on his.
"Going to make yourself old, Shae," I tell him quietly, and he snorts.
"Not me that's going to do that. It's all the other assholes out there," he snaps, shaking his head.
I say nothing, simply levelling him with a petulant look, to which he responds sighingly. But he shoves the truck into gear and we are off again, soon hitting the city limits. I don't feed him anymore fruit, and he doesn't ask for it. The bag sits like a puddle in my lap, distracting me with its contents of grapes every once and a while when I choose to look down. We talk lightly, about nothing really, most of it me listening to him and his calm voice, quietly admiring the clearness of the tones as he sings along to the random songs that crawl across the radio waves. The moutains loom tall and cavernous in the distance, the road clear and winding ahead. Farmer's fields stretch for impossible distances all around us; the sky becoming a theater of brilliance that leaves us breathlessly caught in its thrall. A few times we stop at gas stations, Shae getting out to pour gas into the greedy tank of the truck, and me to walk around to stretch, staring starry-eyed up at the sky and trees all around me. I catch him watching me a few times as I do this, and each time he flashes a quick, almost forced smile before looking away again or running off to pay the cashiers inside the run down little shops. I don't bother to ponder the reason behind his reaction; not wanting get myself up into a hopeful frenzy. Forget about it. Don't think. Your hair probably looks stupid or something.
By the time we get up into the mountains, it is nearing sunset; huge golden shafts of light stabbing in between the spaces of the trees that shoud our path, the sky streaked with cherry reds and neon oranges. Both of our windows are down, the air pouring in all around us, smelling ancient and holy, spiced with pine and water freshness. I feel liberated, sitting here, with him.. in this ancient vehicle, the leather seats creaking and groaning under every movement I make, hearing his laughter echo all around me, the soft, healthy air streaming into my lungs. I want to lift my arms and embrace the sky; my smile already almost reaching that point. How do you do it? I ask him silently, watching him helplessly as he drives. Make me feel like I do? How do you do it... it's better than I ever knew. The world takes on a sharpness around him. I notice with almost painful clarity the darkness of the tree trunks wizzing by the windows, the stark, human signature of the powerlines swooping like elongated birds from rusted, vigilant poles. The solidness of the road beneath us, the razorsharp preciseness of the lines designating the lanes and the millions upon millions of miles between us and the Earth's core, the very thickness of rock and diamond protecting us from lavic embrace.
By the time we reach our designated road, we are both wild with laughter, laughing about nothing and everything, meaningless memories coming back and our minds caressing them with nostalgic wonder in the way that only true friends can. Shae is almost hysterical with laughter; his eyes shimmering and merry.
"Remember how Jamie ended up in the garbage that night? His boyfriend got so fed up with his lack of libido... WHAM! Straight into the dumpster..." He pauses to catch his breath, his body convulsing with infectious joy. "He was so drunk that he thought the rolled up carpet in there was his boyfriend... he spent a good ten minutes trying to get it to tell him where its dick went..."
Driving up the darkened, lonely one-car road, we are both howling with laughter as we pull into the night-covered house. Shae grins widely at me as the joke dies off, and it is with a huge sigh that he tells me to hold on, getting out of the truck to dart up the gravel driveway and up onto the unfinished porch. I watch and hear him knock on the screen door, see him peer inside. After a moment of impatient waiting, he extends a cautious arm and shoves open the door. Glancing back at me in surprise as it swings open, he shrugs at my raised eyebrows and heads in. I watch the door bump on his back as he walks inside, and then it stands still. I stare at it, wondering, and then look up to the windows, searching for some sign of life. But no light flickers in any blank pane, no sound echoes forth except Shae's questing voice.
Then he comes back out, a look of black irritation on his features. Sighing, I get out of the truck and begin to walk towards him, shivering in the sudden cold that assails me. Running his fingers through his tawny hair, he shakes his head slowly, deliberately, his gait cold and exact, a sure sign of deadly anger.
"Alex was supposed to be here tonight. I confirmed it with him twice. He was fucking SUPPOSED to be here...!!!"
I sigh and search for something to say, and then the realization of the true cause of his anger hits me. He stares at me, and then nods with a grim half-smile.
"Yeah. We're six hours out of civilization. I'm dead tired. You can't drive this thing in the mountains."
He curses and kicks at the stones around him, causing dust particles to rise and cloud my vision of him, swear-words landing like sparks around us. I sigh and stare up at the house, shivering. Fuck. Now what? Damn Alex.
"I could try," I venture after a long while, but am instantly cut off by Shae's sharp refusal.
"And be scared the whole way? No thanks. I don't want to do that to you." Snarling, he heads back to the truck and curses at the pipes lying innocently at the back, shaking his head.
Getting back in, he stares at me defeatedly, and I walk back slowly, worry making me feel jittery. Getting in, I sit next to him, my hands in my lap and my brain whirling a mile a minute. Silence reigns, and then Shae speaks up suddenly, his voice marginally calmer.
"There's no way we could sleep in the house... the thing has no windows... we'd freeze our asses off. At least in here we've got a heater to turn on everyone and a while, and there's windows. And you don't have a jacket! You idiot! I told you to bring it!"
I shrug at him after a moment, and sigh. "Don't worry. I'll be okay."
Shae doesn't even bother to dignify that with a response, and I smile to myself. Oh well. Might not be so bad... if I had to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with anyone... it would be him. I'll freeze my balls blue... but hey. What a way to go. He leans back abruptly, his movements stark and laced with anger, his gaze like blades of tempered ice on the vacant house. He shakes his head every once and a while, muttering things that I can barely discern over the engine's gutteral protests, his fingers wrenching around each other behind his head, barely containing the rage caught within. Even though his outrage is massive and obviously driving him to distraction, I can't help but smile secretly at it, loving him all the more for this indignant passion. I watch him out of the corner of my eye, watch him idily braid loose strands of his hair before giving up half way through and letting it go in disgust. His stance, strung out and on edge, threatens to shake the entire truck with its building anxiety, his fingers stabbing futilely at the radio's console, trying to find something good but coming across nothing at all.
The cold is seeping in slowly, invading the dying light filling the truck, pushing it out and aside for something else... darker and more powerful seeming than any ray of sunshine could ever hope to be. The light in the car is almost nil; Shae is but a navy blue silhoette in the pressuring darkness, the radio's dial glowing meekly in the face of his stewwing rage. Time passes very slowly, each of us chaging position every so often, not a word spoken, not a breath wasted. I try to stop my body from reacting to the cold and alerting Shae, but after a while I hear him sigh under his breath and sit up to look at me, one arm hanging off the back of the seat as it anchors him into an unsteady sitting position.
"Miah." Reproachfully.
I sigh silently and look up at him reluctantly, the shivering of my arms and chest making an interesting rattle of muscle and bone in my head.
"What," I ask him petulantly, trying to avoid noticing how bright his eyes are, even in the inky darkness.
"You're a dumb shit." He responds matter-of-factly, gazing at me with a hint of a smile on his lips.
I glance over at him indignantly, my eyebrows raised. "What was that for?" I demand, shifting so that I can see him better. His languid smile as I move makes me sigh softly.
"For being a dumb shit. I told you to bring a jacket. Now you're going to be exhaling icicles by morning."
I shrug. He grumbles, not relenting. After a moment of simply gazing keenly at me, he begins to take off his coat; slender hands moving through the soft dark blue air with the insubstantiality of ghosts, light like that of the stars emanating off his skin. The metallic music of his zipper lowering makes me at once feel both frustrated with him and also instantly aroused by its other possible connotations. I beging to protest as he starts to shrug out of it, his shoulders moving in rolling movements to rid himself of the garment, his eyes on mine and negating every single lame, faint excuse I add to my arsenal.
"Shut up," he says warningly, and the words die on my lips falteringly. "Now, take it." He extends the shimmering leather, almost lost in the darkness, towards me. I staunchly refuse it, shaking my head and covering my chest with my arms.
"Miah." Stern heaviness rams through my skull; his voice impervious to any defiance.
I ramble hopelessly as my hand, unbidden, reaches out to take it. "I don't need it, Shae... honestly. Just relax... please... I'll be fine..."
He stares at me, making my words catch fire in the air with his blistering gaze. His scent rises like the sudden realization of God around me, blossoming from the satin, cavernous depths of his coat and steaming off his newly-bared skin. Pine trees and soap, with a deeper, almost hidden tangy scent of sweat underneath. So beautiful, I think jerkily. His hair falls in cloud-like layers around his Elvish face, strength and anger still making his jaw tight; the eternal light of retribution and battle ever raging in his sapphire eyes.
"But... but... you're going to be cold..." I hear myself whisper, my eyes locked on his.
There is silence as he stares at me, my words empty and devoid of meaning in the face of his annihilation. And then it changes. The light in his eyes becomes strange, distorted for a moment. His gaze flickers away, looking somewhere else it seems, some inner, yearning place demanding his discipline. His lower lip begins to curl inwards, to become trapped by his teeth, and his features look the very picture of regret and doubt all in a frozen instant. I become very aware in this moment of his heart; I realize out of nowhere that his pulse is jumping... I can see it flickering in his throat; a tiny patch of skin alive and unending. Throbbing. He is very much alive... his jugular vein pure, indisputable proof. And that realization suddenly becomes very important.. although I can't tell why. But then he looks back up again, the strangeness in his eyes almost gone, but still lingering like paleness of the face after a long, difficult bout of illness.
"So come here then," he says softly, calmly, his voice the very antithesis of what assails me as I hear those words. But I move as though in a dream... and indeed I almost wish I am... for if I were, I would not have to pay for what I yearn to do to him.
"Okay..." I whisper... my voice dead leaves on forgotten ground...
And we are moving. His arms are extending, opening up, one hand still clutching the jacket. I'm inching along the seat to reach him, my trembling, unbelieving hands moving forward to wrap around his slender, strong chest, our bodies meeting and meshing together like so much unhindered matter. My hands move across the soft, worn smoothness of his shirt, covering my senses in the feeling of surreality, my lips slightly parted in awe and facination. He is closing in around me, his arms like pliant, protective swords across my back, his fingers lightly entangling in the fabric of my t-shirt as he draws me close against him. Our legs are entangled; I cannot tell which are mine and which are his... my body is lost to a tsunami of sensual override as his essence fills me. I hear myself sigh helplessly, a tiny confession of release as our transformation is complete, my head lying on his chest, my eyes squeezed tightly shut against the feelings of fear screeching around me.
Don't lose this, Jere... don't make it break...
His arm moves away for a moment as he drapes his coat over my shoulders, the leather warmth becoming a cocoon of summer-like humidity as it covers us. His hands hold me tightly; I wish more than anything that I could see them doing that, see what my heart has beat for, for so long.. but the jacket is in the way. His breath is a muted, murmuring roar in my head as my ear lies against his chest, the soothing perpetuance of it makes me instantly drowsy and highly aware of the intimacy and humanity created by this touch. As I listen to him breathe, I am humbled by the sound of it.. my mind caught up in child-like wonder as I experience the gift of feeling him exist... feeling him die and be born again every new and brilliant second. My arms hold him securely, not wanting to let this go, but also being more afraid than anything of showing it.
"Sleep, okay?" He murmurs faintly, and I feel his diamond bright gaze light upon my head. "Alex should be here by the morning."
I nod feebly, not wanting to think about Alex, the house, the truck or the goddamned pipes. Just him. So I tighten my grip around him, and after a moment, he returns the squeeze with much more intensity than I am prepared for. But just as I am about to look up at him in concern, he presses a tender, ubelievable kiss to the top of my head. I feel his lips pressing down upon my hair, feel his chin graze the side of my forehead. The warmth of his breathing, his mouth and his hands create thousands of burning pinpoints all over my body, making me shiver with his energy transforming mine. His fingers dig into me as the kiss slowly breaks away, and he snuggles down further into his seat with tiny grunting noises that make me feel like grinning and crying; possessive, laughter-filled sounds that are way too cute to bear. He drags me with him, each movement bringing us closer and closer until I am pratically sitting on him and the world fades into nothingness... reality burning away behind his closed eyelids... in the look of his hair under the stars... in the warm, protective strength of his hands. As he settles down, I hug him tightly, the taste of tears already creeping into my mouth, their tell-tale sting already shooting into my eyes. God... I hear myself think, my heart wrenching with every tired, jaded, longing word. I want you. I want you. I want you. I still feel his kiss... worming its way down through my skin and bone to my very core.. like alchohol through an empty stomach. Is this really happening?!?
"Miah?" Drowsily, huskily.
"Mmm?" I respond distractedly, his breathing making me feel faint with delerium.
"Sing to me, Miah. You've always had such a very beautiful voice. Sing to me... under the moon and stars..."
I look up slowly, to find his face awash in the blue-white timelessness of the stars, his eyes closed and his head leaning against the back of the seat. The clarity of his jaw and skin enraptures me, but I still manage to shift slightly, my cheek resting on his shoulder now, my lips brushing imperceptably against the golden hair covering his ear. He moves with me to allow me more comfort, his head turning so that his cheek is brushing against mine, his hair cascading across my face. It smells like Herbal Essences.. so very sweet and pure.
"Sing me to sleep," he whispers faintly, his voice drifting off on a sigh of fatigue and contentment.
I gaze at him a moment, ignoring my fingers itching urge to lift and caress that sweet, delicate face. And then I start to sing, the very first song that comes to mind. Softly at first, my voice trembling with un-use, like the spine of a book cracking uneasily open after having been stowed away in the shadows and the dust of generations. But as the song progresses, my voice becomes steadier, more confidant. Goo Goo Dolls, the song 'Iris'. My anthem of the here and now.
"And I'd give up forever to touch you
'Cause I know that you'd feel me somehow
You're the closest to Heaven
That I've ever been
And I don't want to go home right now..."
He smiles slowly, silently, his eyes still closed intently, his cheek pressing against mine.
"And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
'Cause sooner or later it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight..."
My eyes close, my heart hurts. Fingers white with tension, lips burning with words unsaid...
"And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am..."
His lips form the words with me now, picking up at "everything's made to be broken". I can't help but notice the symbolism.
"And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
And you bleed just to know you're alive.."
My favourite line. I couldn't count how many times I've found myself wanting to be hurt... wanting to bleed just so I could prove to myself that I am real... that the world isn't some hopeless, horrible nightmare against all blatant evidence.
"And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am..."
His smile threatens to undo the fabric of my heart as the song fades away. I hear my own voice spiralling back into darkness again, dying in a moment of splendor, of gold and glitter and autumn skies. He clutches me softly, nuzzles my cheek, leaving me breathless as usual in the face of his nearness. We are silent for a while, my white-hot tears dissapearing into his shirt hopelessly, but him not seeming to notice. I just want you to know who I am... I just want you to know who I am.
And then, his voice, filling my void again, bringing beauty and blinding power into the truck, the words of magic spilling off his lips. It is Dylan Thomas, and the poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night." He merely speaks my favourite lines from it, his voice suffused with a passion unmatched by any other I've ever heard, his spirit giving force to his favourite scripture. I try not to yelp. The poem that embodies this angel before me... hands burnt as they clutch the flaming swords of redemption and defence. Always raging against the dark, against the hate and lies. The dying of the light.
"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, RAGE against the dying of the Light!"
I smile amidst my tears. "Rage, rage," I echo softly, and then changing it with a tiny grin. "Against the dying of delight..."
He chuckles softly and opens his eyes, glancing over to me. He does not see my tears. But his eyes are bright, endlessly bright.
"Beautiful. Clever." He whispers.. his eyes falling sleepily closed again. "The dying of Delight. De-light. The light. Delight... beautiful. Clever.."
I love you.