Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 14:28:08 -0400 (EDT) From: mori jane Subject: Flames to Ice- Chapter 5 Legal Disclaimer: This story is a fictional story written by me. I'm assuming that you want to read it and can, or if you can't well...that's your choice and I hope you enjoy it! If someone wants to post this somewhere than please ask for permission. :) Note to readers: It has been a loooooong time. Sorry about that. I have a valid excuse, really. But now its summer so hopefully I'll be able to write quicker, but until then, here's the next chapter. Please feel free to e-mail me at morijane3004@yahoo.ca, I love hearing from you. Chapter 5 I dreamt something fucked. I don't even know what it was but there were some weird sound effects. I woke up feeling pretty disoriented not knowing what had woken me up-it was still pitch black outside as far as I could tell. Listening quietly in the darkness, I collected my thoughts. I heard some noise in the next room and I flipped. Our neighbours, the Cruthers, had been broken into about a month ago and even though they had caught the "no-good teenage ruffians" as Mrs. Cruther called them, I've been incredibly paranoid since. "David," I whispered. No answer. "David!" That one was practically hissed, but there was still no response. Fucking hell. I slowly slid out of my bed, nearly tripping over my backpack and retrieved my bat from my closet as quietly as I could. I was about the go out into the other room, but I lost my nerve. If I was going to have to fight I sure as hell wanted some back up. I crept over to where David had fallen asleep earlier and crouched down. I poked at the lump. He groaned and jumped, flipping the covers off his face, successfully whacking mine in the process. "What the fu--" he started louder than I would have liked at the time. I slapped my hand over his mouth to prevent him from being heard from the next room. "Shhhhh. You have to be quiet, okay?" I whispered I could sense his confusion, but he nodded. I took my hand off his mouth "You have to get up, man. I think I heard someone in the next room. I think someone broke in!" "Shit! Really?" He sat up fast. Too fast. His head collided with mine, tossing me on my ass with my hands nursing my pain-filled head. I heard him inhale sharply. "Way to get out of the way, dickhead," he groaned. I gaped at him. "That was your fault!" I accused in a hushed voice. "Yeah, well, get me your bat. You can use that head of yours to beat them up," he chuckled. That brought me back to my senses. We had a job to do. But I had to resist the urge to throw his pillow at him. I picked up my bat, and we got up, creeping towards to door. "Yo, where's my weapon?" "I don't have anything else, just the bat. Wait here, and back me up if it looks like I need it." And with that, I opened the door and stepped out. David flicked on the light as I lifted the bat up to ready my swing. I was stunned. Not just by the light, but the sight of a cat kicking off the sofa that he was scratching at. I looked at the windows, and saw that I had kept one of the open but not stupidly-it was by no means large enough for any human to get through. The cat must have come through there. I lowered the bat and looked over at David, and we started laughing. The cat, that was more like a kitten just sat there, head cocked, looking at us with its big green eyes. "Dumbass, you woke me up for this?" he said with a smile that softened his words. "Shut up. If it was someone, you would hate it if I bagged the guy on my own while you were asleep like a baby in the next room." I gave my attention to the kitten. It had ginger-orange fur, like a tigercub, and the fur was mussed up giving it a comical look. I melted. "It's so cute!" I walked up to it slowly, not wanting to scare it, and held out my hand. It hesitantly extended its neck, sniffing at my fingers. Then it lolled out its tongue and lapped at them. I grinned. "I am so keeping it." "Uhh.D? It's a stray. Don't you think you might want to get it checked out before you decide to keep it? And aren't you forgetting your mom. Last time I heard, she was still wasn't in to the whole pet thing." That burst my bubble a bit. I sat down on the couch and placed the ball of fur in my lap, stroking it until it purred contentedly in my arms. A thought came to me. "I know. I'll keep it down here-Mom will never know." I grinned up at David, satisfied with my reasoning abilities at this ungodly hour. He just looked at me like I was crazy. "I'll tell her sooner or later.just.I need time to warm her up to it." "All right, buddy." "I'll convince her somehow. And if it takes me longer to make her realise her love for animals, maybe you can keep it for a bit?" "Uhhh. How about, no." "Aww. Look at this face. How can you say no?" I lifted the kitten until it was resting on its back two paws, and held its head up to mine. I hugged it close and stuck out my lower lip in a pout while softening my eyes. It was my best pleading look and it had not failed once. He made a show of sighing and rolling his eyes, but when his eyes met mine again, I knew I had won. And with that I plopped the kitten in his lap. "Heyyy! Get it off of me." The cat started rolling around in his lap, trying to burrow its head in his abs. But it didn't look like there was any give. An image of my face resting on his hard, chiselled and very naked chest popped up unexpectedly. My mouth went dry. I licked my lips slowly and raised my eyes to his face. The annoyed expression resting there surprised me and I had to focus my energy on trying to remember why. Oh right. The cat. "Nope. You'll have to get used to it anyways. Besides, it looks like he likes you. Don't you, kitty," I finished, scratching the head lightly. It meowed, delighting me. We stayed like that for some time-David and I sitting side by side, him holding the cat gently in his arms. We started talking about other things, our voices settling into a hushed tone, emphasizing the intimacy building in our exchange. I got up once, but only to turn off the light, deposit the kitten in the unused mudroom with a nice ratty patio cushion and a heater (in case it had a "little accident" I didn't want it to be on me or David!) and get the sleeping bag, some pillows and a blanket for us. He didn't feel like moving, but I nudged him until he rolled onto the sleeping bag and I stretched out beside him, covering us with the blanket. It was a bit cold, and I felt him scoot closer to me, until our bodies were touching. The heat coming off of him felt amazing. "Move over a bit," he said. I complied, a little confused, but then I felt his head on my pillow, so close to mine. He angled it towards me, and I moved mine towards his, so that they were touching. I closed my eyes for a minute, savouring the peacefulness, thanking God that things looked like they were going to be all right between us-especially considering his mood earlier that night. "D, what do you see in your future?" he questioned softly. It was a question that I had asked myself many times before. Sometimes the answer was satisfying, with a confident resolve that made me believe that my dreams would come true. But most of the time, the answer was so disappointing, so heartbreaking that I would lay awake for many nights, feeling depression envelope me-my mind screaming, my soul crying. Nothing, I wanted to tell him. I'm not good enough to get anything. I'm a disappointment; weak, stupid. Instead I said, "I don't know." He made a sound of disbelief. "Don't tell me you, Damien, of all people, don't have a plan." I did have a plan. Well, two plans. One was a plan so extravagant, it was almost a joke. There would be no way I could succeed in bringing it to life. The other.well, the other was more realistic, but way too depressing to make me want to live through it. "Well, what do you want, at least?" Everything. A strong, supportive family. True love. The world. "I want a lot of things," I told him. "My main dream is simple. I want a loving husband, and amazing kids that I can love and play with. I want to be loved in return. I want a family.and it just.hurts you know? It's hard enough to have a real family without there being a gay factor to fuck it up even more. Like, people cheat, people leave, they die! But I've been hearing all this shit about how a lot of gay guys aren't all that monogamous. And even if they are, what are the chances that we could get married? Have kids? Some people might be getting more liberal but fuck, there are plenty of people that don't want to see a gay couple adopt kids. It just sucks that such a simple dream is so hard to fulfill. I don't know.it just fucking hurts." He was silent. "And I know that there is more to life than that, I do. But everything else doesn't seem all that worth while if there isn't someone to share it with. No one to come home to at the end of the day, after a tiring day of ruling the world.and just be with." What I didn't add was that even if people were more accepting, even if there were higher chances of happy monogamous relationships.I highly doubted that would happen to me. At the risk of sounding self-pitying, I truly believe that I would never be loved. That I'm not good enough to be loved. I don't deserve it. Sure I was no insane murderous fiend, but I wasn't good enough to deserve the kind of love I wanted. I'm nothing. Not good enough. Weak. Some people were strong enough to withstand anything. There are people starving, dying, abused everyday of their lives, alone. There are people whose lives are spent living in fear. These things happen on a daily basis, and I have to wonder how I would have held up in any of those situations. And I realize that I couldn't have. And I admire those people who strive to survive. But some people's lives are so hard that I wonder why they still fight. Not in a twisted way, but I think that because I just don't understand why they fight a futile battle, or even if they win, if it was worth all the pain. Maybe that was one of my problems, I gave up to easily. My mind went to suicide too fast. I wouldn't do it, not now. Wouldn't thrust that pain on my family, but as soon as they died.I would probably die, because I doubt I would have anything worth living for, be worth life. It bothered me that I was weak. That I was so easily hurt. Who would want to be with a fucking sissy that cries inside every time he sees someone get hurt. Someone who couldn't be happy. An emotional masochist. I made myself depressed more often than not. If I felt happiness for an abnormal amount of time, I made myself sad. I reminded myself of the things I worked hard to put out of my mind to continue living. I kept doing that until it hurt too much to cry, so I made my heart frozen. I wasn't unfeeling, but I made myself not care when something happened. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep going on everyday with a smile plastered on my face if I did. I didn't know how to deal with pain any other way. Certainly not with death. And I was not special in any way. There was nothing extraordinary about me. I was average. Surely I would need to be good at something, be something more than average for me to be loved the way I craved. Saying I was average was even pushing it. Who would want me? I'm a weak, pathetic, unremarkable little shit that takes things for granted, that can't help anyone because I'm not strong enough to even help myself. I want to kill myself perpetually. WHO WOULD WANT ME? I don't even want me. SO FUCKING WEAK! And even if God were to bless me, make someone want to be with me, make someone love me, I wouldn't be able to go through with it. Life, the universe, is all about balance. I've been lucky enough to have an early life filled with good things, love from a wonderful family, some friends, nothing I wanted I didn't get. If I got true love too.that would push the good over so far over the limit something horrible would have to happen to balance it all out. Be it the pain when that person dies, or they leave you, something. But it would hurt too much. Too much. I would rather be lonely for the rest of my life. Lonely is pain too, but its little pain over a longer time. That even my weak ass could probably take. It's better than the world of pain that would hit me, especially since my "true love" would probably have melted my frozen heart. And so I was stuck. Living a life that wouldn't make me happy. Empty of all the things that I needed. Of love, of a family, of dreams. I could dream of having the world all I wanted. But getting even that, to me, wouldn't be worth it. So how did I see my future? As melodramic as it sounds, I didn't see one. Up until this year I had at least felt some hope. An annoying little sliver that just wouldn't fucking die. But more thinking had made me realize that it was just time for me to realize the truth and just try to get over it. Maybe make my life worth living in other ways. "Come on, Damien. Don't think like that. You sound so defeated and I don't like it. You'll find someone. I know you will. You may not believe it, but you're an amazing person. You have such a good heart. You deserve happiness. You will find true love. And you will have a family. Fuck, you'll be the best dad ever." He turned on his side to face me then slid his hand down to find mine and gave it a firm squeeze. At that moment, I think I felt more safe and content than I ever felt in my entire life. It felt weird to have him hold my hand. I don't think he had done that since we had held each others hands to cross the street when we were younger, but he didn't seem to mind and I was glad for it. I realized at that moment how much David really meant to me. I loved him. I wished him all the happiness in the world. It made me almost sad that he was straight, and not because of sex this time. I had to remind myself that even if he wasn't, nothing could come of it. A few moments passed. "What do you want in your future?" I asked softly. He squeezed my hand briefly. Then thought for a moment. "I want what you want." We were quiet for the rest of the night, falling asleep soon after. I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling unusually warm. It took my sleep-drugged mind a minute to understand. David was spooning me from behind, holding me to his body. Our hands were still entwined. A feeling of happiness washed over me and I slept on.