Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 22:44:24 -0500 From: Rhaven Subject: Upon A Time Chapter One This story contains strong language and sexual content between boy/boy and boy/man. Purely fictional based story, so just sit back and enjoy. For more stories and poems, please visit: www.rhavenlore.com Upon a Time Dylan ran. It was a fear with no description, fear only felt of innocence. He ran for his life. He had known a fear that most men never dreamed. Dark figures chased him, faceless monsters from his past. Dylan ran. Dylan always ran. He ran from the ghost of his father, he ran from the beast that was his mother. He ran from the twisted soul of himself. Dylan ran. The small boy that was once him screamed. A cry of terror, of frustration, a call for help, why didn't anyone help him? Why didn't anyone come to his aid? Dylan ran. Dylan ran alone, running from his past. Dylan always ran. A slap in the face, a punch to his stomach, his father communicated those ways to him. An obscenity, an insult, which was his mother's love, her disgust for me, overwhelmed her. Dylan ran. He always ran. He ran from the bullies, he ran from the police. No one wanted him and no one cared. Dylan woke up crying, again, the sheets soaked in the sweat of fear. How long must he endure this pain? He was no longer that small helpless child; he was a full-grown adult. Wasn't he? An adult trapped by his past. "Son of a bitch!" Dylan spat seeing that it was only 5 a.m. No reason to try to fall back to sleep, it was nothing more than a curse for him, a death of melodramatic proportions. Sirens blared somewhere outside, a beacon sound of someone's pain. Dylan brushed his bangs out of his eyes and sighed, he was tired, but he was always tired. Soon the sun would rise, showering its perfect glow across the earth, a false prophet lecturing of hope. Dylan forced his body to move and climbed out of bed. He kicked at the pile of clothing at his feet and made his way to the bathroom. The reflection in the mirror looked old and worn. When did he age? When did that youthful aura fail him? He scratched at the whiskers on his chin and frowned. "You are a piece of shit." Was his only comment to the reflection. How many times did he want to smash his fist into that ugly reflection? It mocked him with the truth. Dylan was a loser, not because of his past, but because he had allowed his past to possess him. A person can never grow; never mature until they are willing to escape the boundaries of their childhood fears. Dylan had never come to terms with his nightmares. He was afraid to. His nightmares were all that he had, all that he was. Without them, what was he? The shower felt good, the warm water rolling over his body like a loving embrace, the only embrace he ever knew. Dylan knew his was odd, he knew that he was not a normal person. He spent most of his life in depression, not knowing laughter and he hated it. He hated this heartache, he hated his life and all that composed it. Reluctantly he turned off the shower and dried off. On the floor of his room, he found his pants and a shirt that wasn't too wrinkled. It smelled clean, so he slipped it on. A real person wouldn't live like this. A real person couldn't live like this. Dylan flipped on the coffee machine and grabbed a Pop Tart. He turned on the monitor to his computer and sat down at the desk. The glow from the screen lit up the dark room. "Time to see who wants at bitch at me." He clicked his 'Mail' icon. 54 new e-mails. It had been a busy night. He skimmed through the mail, seeing if any looked important and chose one. The thing about owning an Internet business was you had to deal with a lot of assholes. Nothing seemed to please them. He had thought starting his own business a wonderful idea. It was going great; BarterVille.com was growing faster than Dylan could keep up with it. Now it was work, and all the fun had been sucked dry out of his dream. Too many people used BarterVille.com to shut it down. Too many people loved his idea. In addition, the money he made from it wasn't anything to ignore. It had bought him this house and his new car. BarterVille.com was his and he was stuck with it. Dylan spent the rest of the morning replying back to all the e-mails, in his dark room, in his dark house, away from the light of the sun and life. CHAPTER ONE "Jesus Dylan, this place smells like shit." "Thanks." Said Dylan sarcastically, he picked up the TV remote and started flipping through the channels. "Hey I'm just saying you could open a window sometimes you know; maybe let some light in or something." Joel said leaning back into the couch and shaking his head. "You live like a fucking hermit here." "I like my life." Dylan said defensively. "Bullshit, don't lie to me, I know you too well." Joel shifted awkwardly and cleared his throat. "You still having the dreams?" "Everyone dreams." Dylan said flatly. He was happy that Joel visited him, he was the only friend he had left that could deal with his melancholy, but sometimes Joel didn't know when to shut up. "Yeah right." Grumbled Joel. "Remember that time you had that dream about Lance? Geeze that was freaky, you dreamed he broke his arm and then the next day, he did." "Lance, man I hadn't thought about him in a while, what's he doing now?" Joel laughed. "If you ever came out of your hole, maybe you'd know. Lance is working over at Office Depot now. Got married, has a kid and is still boring as hell." Dylan didn't like being reminded of his childhood, Joel was a constant reminder, sometimes he felt Joel did that on purpose, forcing Dylan to relive the old days, just to see how he would react. "Well it's getting late; I guess I'll head home." Joel said abruptly. "Oh, by the way I'm taking you to this new comic book store tomorrow." "I don't read comics anymore Joel." Dylan almost said angrily, he didn 't like being forced into going somewhere. "Don't care, I'll pick you up at 11." Dylan didn't have a change to say anything else, Joel out was of the house and into his car. Dylan wanted to scream and instantly began collecting excuses to get out of this little trip Joel had planned. It wasn't as if he had anything scheduled for tomorrow, he never had anything scheduled. For some reason Dylan hated his normal routine of boredom to be interrupted. It was almost two in the morning before courage and exhaustion lead Dylan to his bed. With sleep came the dreams, but this wasn't his normal dream. He was walking down a familiar street, it was a place he knew, yet didn't know. He stopped and looked to his right. There in a field were two rooms, just two simple square rooms, side by side. The rooms looked old and isolated, single doors leading into places Dylan knew no one had been in years. That didn't matter here, time didn't exist in this place. Time waited for something to trigger it, to restart that celestial clock. Then someone appeared, standing defiantly between the two rooms, standing secretively in the darkness. Dylan called out, but here he had no voice. The figure stepped out of the shadows, his angelic smile glowing, as it always did. "Jesse!" Dylan screamed, shooting out of bed. He looked around the room in hopes the dream was real. "Jesse, oh god. Jesse." With reality coming back into focus, Dylan fell to the floor, overwhelmed by his vision. Dylan closed his eyes, grasping onto that image of his lost love. It was twenty years ago, when children were suppose to know only joy and wonder. For Dylan it was a time of discovery, dark and wonderful discovery, truth and pain, reality was not a paradise. Sabato Creek was its name, of no interest to anyone, well anyone without the imagination of a child. Three boys played at the bank, not for the first time, this was their special place. A place away from hurt, a place for only friendship. "Go ahead I dare you." Joel giggled. Dylan looked over at the boy and frowned. "I don't want to, make Lance do it." "I ain't gonna do it! That's gross." Joel laughed so hard he doubled over and slapped his knee. "You guys are a bunch of sissies. It's only a frog." "I don't care; I ain't putting it in my pants." Lance said defiantly puckering his lips in revulsion. "Okay, but you don't know what you're missing." Joel unzipped his pants and pulled open his underwear. He held the squirming frog up and threatened to drop it in. "No way you're going to do that." Dylan laughed and regretted it; his black eye pinged with pain as he smiled. Neither Lance or Joel had spoken of his new bruise, they didn't have to ask, they knew all too well who had given it to him. "Who says I won't?" Joel giggled and dropped the frog. He zipped up his pants quickly and stood completely still, holding his breath, experiencing the bizarre sensation of a live frog in writhing in his pants. "What's it feel like?" Dylan finally dared to ask. "Creepy." Joel shuddered. "Oh man!" "What?" Lance said backing away from Joel as if he was about to explode. "The frog's given me a woody!" "No way." Dylan laughed. "A what?" Lance asked taking another step away from Joel. Both Dylan and Joel snickered at Lance's ignorance. Joel unzipped his pants and pulled out the frog. "See, I got a woody." Joel pulled down his underwear so Lance could see his erection. "Man Dylan, it's all slimy." "Oh you mean that kind of woody." Lance said pulling at his shirt, something he did when embarrassed. "I was thinking you were talking about the frog." "Whatever." Said Dylan with a shake of his head. "Did you like it?" Dylan asked as he ran his fingers over Joel's erection, feeling the goo that covered it. "It is slimy." It wasn't the first time he had touched Joel's penis, in fact they had started making it a habit, something they did almost every day. Joel always had some good excuse for Dylan to touch his or for him to touch Dylan's. "You want to touch it Lance?" Joel stepped toward Lance. "Um. no thank you." Lance said pulling harder on his shirt. "Okay who's next?" Joel zipped up his pants and grabbed the frog before it could leap away. "Not me." Dylan said quickly and pointed to Lance. "I. don't think my mom would like." Lance began, but Joel was already pulling down his short. "Screw your mom. it's fun!" Joel thrust the struggling frog down Lance 's blue underwear and smiled. "OH.oh..uh." Was all Lance could say, he wiggled his hips and danced around until finally he couldn't stand it anymore. "Get it out! PLEASE!" "You want it out, get it yourself." Joel said smirking. Lance looked desperately over to Dylan, pleading with his eyes. "Joel, you know Lance won't touch the frog." Dylan slipped his hand into Lance's underwear and retrieved the trapped frog. Lance didn't touch any kind of creature, from cats to worms, he just couldn't stand touching them, Dylan thought it was strange, but didn't tease him. It was the one thing that bonded these three together, no matter what, they saw more than their weakness, their pain, they were friends united. Joel rushed forward and pulled open Lance's underwear. "Geeze Lance, can't you ever get a woody?" Joel frowned as he stared at Lance's limp penis. "Whatcha guys doing?" Lance screeched and slapped Joel's hand away as they all turned to see a strange boy walking towards them. Dylan was speechless, this kid was cute. For the first time in his life, he felt something churn and pull on his heart. "What do you want?" Joel barked, obviously upset at the interruption. "I ." the boy looked down at his feet, feeling the full weight of Joel 's anger. "Hey Joel, chill." Dylan said stepping between the two boys. "Hi, I'm Dylan." "Hi, my name is Jesse." Dylan picked himself off the floor and stumbled into his kitchen. He didn't bother to see what time it was, he didn't care. He leaned on the counter until the coffee was finally ready and quickly poured him a cup. "Hello?" Joel yelled from the front door, giving Joel a key to the house had been a mistake, but Dylan didn't have the heart to ask for it back. "In the kitchen." Dylan yelled back. "Dude, what the fuck? It's 11 o'clock why aren't you ready?" Dylan looked down at his naked body and tried to smile. "Sorry, just give me a few minutes and I'll be ready." Once dressed, Dylan found himself in the passenger seat of Joel's car. The dream had disoriented him so much; he had forgotten that he didn't want to leave the house. He didn't have time to worry about that now, Joel was driving his normal way; like a maniac. Joel drove as if the destination was the only thing that matter, tunnel vision to the extreme. "Where we heading?" Dylan asked when he realized where they were. "The comic book store, idiot." Joel laughed. "I know that, I just noticed that. that we're in our old neighborhood." Dylan looked out the window to the familiar surroundings; it was like stepping into a memory, a bad memory. "Store's on 8th Street, by the Rainbow Mall." Joel said as he swerved the car into the other lane without warning. "I dreamed about Jesse last night." Dylan said as they passed the old convenient store, they haven for superhero adventures and candy highs. "Jesse? Jesse who?" Dylan almost swallowed his tongue; he gritted his teeth in anger from Joel's ignorance. "Jesse, you dumb fuck. Who do you think I'm talking about, Jesse Ventura?" "Oh yeah." Joel said absent-mindedly. "Anything freaky?" "No not." "Damn!" Joel interrupted. "Fucking road construction." Dylan looked up to see the street ahead of them block with barricades and men in orange vests lounging around. "Shit, now we have to take Meriden." Joel veered the car towards Meriden Street without bothering to slow down. Dylan held in a scream as the car slightly fishtailed, Joel jerked on the wheel madly to get it back under control. "You're going to get us killed." Dylan whispered, not really wanted Joel to hear his protest, it would only make him drive crazier, as if it was a challenge. "You know it's not that weird that you dreamed about Jesse." Joel started. "After all, we were talking about Lance yesterday. I'm sure that triggered the memory." "Jesus, now you're a psychiatrist." Dylan moaned. "Don't worry about it, it was just a .. STOP THE CAR!" Dylan screamed. "Stop the fucking car!" "What the hell?" Joel yelped and slammed on the brakes. "What? What's wrong?" "Pull over to the shoulder you idiot!" Dylan instructed, looking behind them to make sure no one was about to ram into them. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Joel screamed. "You just can't yell like that, scared the shit out of me." Dylan didn't answer, he climbed out of the car and ran over to the remains of a house. All that was left of the house were two rooms, it was just as Dylan had imagined. Two rooms, resting next to each other, patiently watching as time and life past it by. "I. I dreamed this place." "You dreamed about this dump. shit man; you've got some boring dreams." Joel laughed, though it was a weak laugh, almost forced. "Damn it Joel, I saw Jesse here." Dylan yelled as he cautiously walked around the blackened boards that littered the ground to the burned ruins. "Looks like a fire did this place in." Joel picked a stray board and examined it. "Wonder why no one bothered to tear it down? Looks like it burned down a long time ago." Dylan looked around, holding his breath, hoping beyond hope that Jesse would magically appear. "Jesus Dylan." Joel said suddenly. "You've got to see this." Dylan reluctantly walked over to Joel who pointed to a corner of the second room wall. There still visible through the dusty charred wood and weeds Dylan saw his name etched into the wood. He knelt closer and pulled madly at the weeds; Dylan & Jesse. There it was, scratched into the wood, by the gentle hand of Jesse himself. "Jesus man, you really freak me out." Joel leaned down to see the writing and shook his head. "So this is where our mysterious Jesse lived. Damn man, you really freak the fuck out of me. "