Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2019 23:42:16 +0000 From: AP Webb Subject: D'n'M Part1 Chapter 16 This story has been a long time in the making. Part1 consists of 19 chapters, not all of which contain any sexual material. Its main characters are teenage boys. The author has not been a teenage boy for a long time and apologises if the dialogue is not always convincing. All the characters and events in the story are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, either living or dead, is entirely unintentional. The story is copyrighted and may not be reproduced in any way without the express permission of the author who can be contacted at pjalexander1753@gmail.com D'n'M Part1 From Chapter 15: For the last few weeks Dan had experienced a growing awareness of something different about M, an unfamiliar distance, a completely uncharacteristic reluctance for them to spend time together. After nine years of virtually living in each other's pockets (certainly in each other's houses), Dan just knew there was something wrong with his friend, and it hurt. He would do anything in his power to put it right. But first he had to find out what it was. And that was why he had been repeatedly texting Milo for most of the day and why, having received no response of any kind, had decided to just sit it out in front of the house until his friend arrived home. He was determined to get to the bottom of whatever it was that had caused things to go off the rails so that, together, they could sort it out and go back to normal, just like they had done so many times before. As far as Dan was concerned, it was what friendship was all about. ********** Chapter 16. Once they arrived at the park Dan wasted no time. "Ok, M. What's up?" "What do you mean?" "I mean, what's up? You've been off with me for weeks now and I need to know what I've done wrong to my absolutely best friend so I can put it right. So tell me, what's up?" Milo couldn't have looked more shocked or felt more surprised if he tried. The idea that this amazing boy could ever do anything wrong was just too ridiculous for words. In Milo's eyes D was the living embodiment of the perfect friend, and it was the near certainty of losing that closest of bonds which had resulted in weeks of sleepless nights, loss of appetite and ever-more desperate excuses for not spending time together. Milo thought back to how things had started to go so horribly wrong. He and Dan both enjoyed their sports, not just at school but pick-up games of soccer, hoops and boarding with other young teen boys at the skate park or the waste ground on the edge of the housing development where they all lived. Of course, get a bunch of curious and growing boys together and it won't be long before the subject of girls, and therefore of sex, is under serious discussion. Who liked who? Who had held whose hand? Who had got past first base? Who knew what about `doing it'? From there it wasn't far to questions of physical development, achievement and attributes - of girls' endlessly fascinating chest development and also of the progress of the boys' own dicks. It was these, sometimes bawdy, often wildly inaccurate, conversations that had begun to seriously undermine Milo's view of himself, to the point where he was behaving so seriously out of character that Dan was convinced that he, himself, must be the cause of his friend's discomfort. The truth was that Milo had increasingly come to realise that he didn't much care which girls were the most attractive, accessible or available. He wasn't very interested in what went where as far as male-on-female sexual action was concerned. He was completely disinterested in one girl's impressive chest development or another's oh-so-kissable lips. On the other hand, thanks to school gym classes, regular visits to the swimming pool and frequent sleep-overs, he knew exactly which boys had reason to be proud of their journey towards manhood -- who had the biggest dick, the thickest hair, the most impressive muscles. In short, Milo had begun to realise that he was gay (as the events with Zephan over the weekend had confirmed) and there was no way that D -- straight, normal, regular-guy D -- was going to so much as give him the time of day once he knew. Hence the weeks of fear and withdrawal and the desperate hope that he could somehow carry on as before with no-one, especially not D, being any the wiser. But here was D demanding to know what HE had done to cause Milo so much distress and what he could do to put it right. "I don't know what you mean. Nothing's up." D's face clearly showed that he wasn't convinced and just as clearly wasn't going to let it drop without some sort of reasonable explanation. "My mum is getting me down, that's all and I'm worried about making the swimming team this year. My times haven't been as good as I was hoping and coach says other guys like Jamal and Eli are snapping at my heels." "Yeah, right. Mr. `Faster than a speeding bullet' at under fourteen free-style is worried about not making the team. Sorry M, I'm not buying it. Now give me the real reason and then I can sort it out and everything goes back to normal." D's response, in fact his whole attitude, was so reasonable, so typically concerned and caring, that Milo was brought close to tears, and that would have raised D's suspicions to an even higher level, backing Milo into an increasingly tight and impossible corner. He could think of no other way out of the situation than to go for the nuclear option and so, for the first time in all the years of their tight-as-brothers friendship, Milo snapped at Dan. "For f-fuck's sake, D" he yelled. "Get over yourself. Not everything is about you. Not everything in my life involves you. I've got other things going on that you know nothing about. Now fuck off and just leave me alone" With that he took a couple of steps forward and was nearly past his dumbfounded friend and on his way out of this gut-wrenching situation when Dan grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. The two boys were now inches apart and facing each other, each as confused and unsettled as the other, both on the verge of either bursting into tears or punching the other in the face. Luckily for them both, Dan was the first to regain his sense of normality and to start to process what had just happened. He quickly put two and two together and realised that things were just not adding up. First, M never swore, not proper swearing, anyway. Maybe the occasional "Crap!", but it just wasn't something he ever did, however provoked or irritated. Second, everything in M's life DID involve Dan and had done since that first meeting at the park nine years before. And third, because they spent virtually every waking moment together, there was nothing about M's life that he, Dan, didn't know about. So his friend was clearly lying to him and that could only mean that things were really bad and genuinely serious. Without another thought Dan did the first and only thing he knew that might help his troubled friend -- he grabbed him with both hands and pulled him into the tightest of tight hugs. So there they stood in the park, two thirteen-year old boys, one silent and the other sobbing uncontrollably, both completely bound up in this moment of crisis, both desperate (for very different reasons) for everything to go back to normal, but both knowing that this was going to be a decisive moment in their young lives and in their friendship. Gradually Milo's sobbing subsided and Dan, concerned but silent, led him to their usual bench. And there they sat, with Dan's arm still around Milo's shoulder, neither of them speaking, with Milo's emotions spinning circles deep inside and Dan's thoughts imagining every sort of dreadful scenario. Eventually he decided that he had given his friend enough time to regain some control. "Ok, M. I believe you. I believe it's nothing that I've done to upset you. And I can't tell you what a relief that is. But there's something not right, that's obvious, and I want to help sort it. You won't convince me it's got anything to do with the swimming team -- you're a shoe-in and you know it. Whatever it is, we'll sort it out together - even if it's your mum - just like friends are supposed to do. Just like we've always done." This all sounded so reasonable, so sensible and reassuring, so typically D-like, that Milo was almost persuaded to just blurt it all out and hope everything would automatically turn out for the best. But no, that was just too big a risk. He knew that the bottom would drop out of his whole world without D's friendship. In fact, his whole world would just implode, leaving him no better than the zombie characters they often spent hours massacring in their video gaming. "Okay D, you're right about the swimming, but I just can't tell you what it is. I just can't. You'll hate me and never want to speak to me again. And I couldn't bear that. I just couldn't." Milo was close to tears again and he knew he wasn't capable of holding out much longer against D's basic decency and reasonableness. "Hate you? Ha! Not possible. And so what if you've done something really bad that'll get you into heaps of trouble at home? Or maybe at school? We can sort it out together. Like we always do." Milo stayed silent and dropped his head, deliberately avoiding eye contact with D. "Anyway, it can't be anything at school `cos I'd have found out by now from one of the gossip queens who wouldn't have been able to stop themselves from dishing the dirt. So it must be something at home, and if that's it then there's nothing to worry about, `cos I've always had your back. Always." And it was true, D had a long history of digging Milo out of the holes he'd dug for himself due to various mishaps, crimes and misdemeanours, keeping him out of trouble or embarrassment in the process. There was Milo's ninth birthday sleepover when he drank so much cola he peed his pants. D didn't just not tell anyone, he took Milo's wet clothes home to get them washed and dried and back, before Milo's mum -- a very sharp-eyed and even sharper-tongued lady at the best of times -- had time to notice they were gone. Or the time they were playing one-on-one soccer and Milo shot the ball straight through the glass of the kitchen window. D owned up as the culprit and took the punishment -- grounding for a week and no video gaming -- without a word of reproach to Milo. So, yes, D had always been there for Milo and had never got close to letting him down. But this? Being gay? This was different, wasn't it? In another league altogether. ********** To keep this amazing resource open and freely available to readers everywhere, please consider donating to; http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html