Ok, so after the revelations of the last chapter let's see how things are the morning after. It's also been brought to my attention (thanks Sam) that there's no way to contact me on here so if you want to send any feedback then my email address is sithspawn78@yahoo.co.uk and as usual don't forget to donate to Nifty here https://donate.nifty.org/

 

Chapter 15

 

\\\ Nick ///

 

Waking up in a strange place is never one of my favourite things, especially when there are different sounds, smells and feelings around as your awareness comes back. As I started to come around I heard some heavy breathing and the occasional snorting sound. I could smell fresh hay in the air, as well as feeling a prickly sensation on my back, and that's when my eyes blinked open as I remembered where I was. I was lying on my back in a pile of straw, with an old blanket draped over me; looking up at the wooden roof of some stables. I had no idea what time it was but the sun was definitely up so I'd obviously been out for a while.

"Anyone ever tell you you look cute when you're sleeping?" I suddenly sat bolt upright and looked over to the stable door to see Lucas leaning on it with a huge smile on his face.

"What're you doing here?" I asked, obviously not thinking clearly about where I was.

"Uh...I live here, the question is what're you doing here?" What was I doing there? I didn't even remember what happened after I left the school but for some reason I drifted towards the farm without even thinking about it. It couldn't have been to see Lucas as I left him at the school so maybe I wanted Josh and Alex to protect me.

"I...I dunno...I just ended up walking round for ages last night and somehow I ended up here." I shuffled back against the wall, pulling the blanket up as I drew my knees into my body for warmth. "What time is it?"

"A little after 10." I was suddenly wide eyed and reaching for my phone to see if he was right but then I realised I never took it with me to the school. "Y'know, everyone's out looking for you right now."

"Really? Why?" I asked glumly.

"Cos you obviously didn't go home last night, duh."

"So why aren't you out looking for me as well?"

"Didn't need to, I already knew where you were." He replied with a cheeky grin on his face. "I saw the door was slightly open when I came down for a drink earlier and found you fast asleep, so I put that blanket over you to keep you warm." The events of the night before came flooding back to me and I started crying into my knees again. Lucas opened the door and knelt down next to me, rubbing my shoulder soothingly when I suddenly looked up at him as I remembered something else from the night before.

"Oh god!! I punched Jamie in the face...he's gonna hate me now." It dawned on me then that I'd probably blown it with the few friends I'd made here and went back to crying into my knees.

"Don't worry about that, he'll probably have a wicked shiner but I don't think you did too much damage." Yeah maybe not physically, but I bet he's not happy with me now. We were quiet for a little longer before Lucas spoke again. "So...you wanna talk about last night?"

"What's to talk about? My whole life is all a lie and just a sick joke to some jealous bastard, and now everyone at school knows about it so I'll be a laughing stock when we go back."

"Look, I know how you feel..."

"DO YOU?!?!" I was suddenly up on my feet shouting at Lucas as he started to stand up. "Do you really know how I feel?!?! You know what it's like to have your parents lie to you all your life?!?! You know what it's like to trust someone and then they stab you in the back?!?!"

"You mean Danny? He didn't stab you in the back..."

"Really? He knew for weeks about my da...about Brandon, yet he didn't say anything."

"He probably didn't think..."

"Oh you're right there, he clearly didn't think." I snapped back, not letting him finish.

"No, I meant he probably didn't want to say something that may not have been true, I mean, how would you have felt if he told you weeks ago that he didn't think Brandon was your dad and then it turned out he actually was?" I thought about that for a second but I was still mad at Danny. Before I could say anything else Alex was suddenly at the door.

"Hey what's all the shouting about...Nick? What're you doing here?" He asked.

"Oh...err...hi...I uh...kinda crashed here last night, hope you don't mind." I replied, looking down at the floor.

"And you knew about this?" He asked, giving Lucas a stern look. "I should've known something was off when you didn't want to go out looking for him. When did you know he was here?"

"Umm...about seven." Lucas answered guiltily.

"You mean you never said anything when Summer called, frantic that she didn't know where he was? She's been worried sick and you didn't say a word?" Alex looked really pissed at Lucas and I took that as my cue to leave. "Whoa, where do you think you're going?"

"I'd better go home...sorry about all this."

"Not in that state you're not, come on, let's get you fed and cleaned up. I'll call your mum and tell her where you are." I didn't know what he meant by that comment until I realised I was still dressed like a zombie, so I grudgingly followed them back to the house. When we reached the kitchen Alex asked me what I wanted to eat and when I just said cereal he just looked at me sceptically and offered to cook me something while I used the shower. This was the first time I'd actually been inside their house and I was amazed how nice it looked. They had a proper, rustic kitchen, with a big table off to one side, a huge breakfast bar in the middle and solid wood units all around the edge. Over the worktops were dark blue tiles, but above that it was all yellowy coloured wallpaper. There were a few pictures on the walls as well, all of them seemed to be by Alex, and one that caught my eye, just for pure quirkiness, was of a fortress with a little bird in the watchtower, going mental with a machine gun.

"Come on, I'll take you up and get those clothes off you...uh I mean...I take you up and see if I can find some better clothes for you to wear." Lucas said as his face turned bright red.

"You've got two minutes and then I want you back down here." Alex angrily said to Lucas and then turned to me, his face softening slightly. "Take as long as you need Nick, Lucas can show you where the makeup remover is as well so you can take those scars off." Lucas quickly led me up the stairs to his bedroom, which was about three times the size of my own room, and then pointed out the big, walk in wardrobe off to the side. I was amazed at the size of it and realised my own bedroom could easily fit inside it. He quickly dashed out and was back a couple of seconds later with a huge, fluffy towel and some make up removing wipes.

"Ok, bathroom's just down the landing on the left and you can borrow any clothes you want from here; they should fit you I think. Just drop the towel in the hamper when you're done." He was just about to take off again when I grabbed his shoulder before he could turn around.

"Wait a second...I just wanted to say thanks. I know I've treated you like shit since I got here but that's all gonna change now, I just want a fresh start."

"Don't worry about it, what're friends for?" He replied with that gorgeous smile of his.

"Yeah...friends." I said with a tinge of sadness. I stared into those hypnotic blue eyes of his and I could feel myself wanting to lean in for a kiss.

"LUCAS!!"

"Oh shit, I better go. Come down to the kitchen when you're done." He scrambled out of his room and down the stairs, leaving me to wonder if I should've made a move or not. I wandered into Lucas' wardrobe to see what I could find and noticed that it was all parted down the middle, with a large mirror taking up the far wall. On the left side were all sorts of skinny jeans, small shirts and other, I dunno how to say it other than, gay clothes. Then on the right side were the clothes he'd been wearing more recently, like looser jeans, tracksuits, bigger t shirts and hoodies. It was almost like seeing old Lucas and new Lucas in the same room. There was also a strange pile of clothes on the floor with random tears in them. They looked like pretty cheap clothes so I just assumed they were ones he'd tried out to make his own zombie costume. I picked up a couple of the t shirts and couldn't work out why the tears were in pretty much the same places on all of them; it almost looked like he'd tried to tear them up by making Josh wear them as they were split down the chest, under the arms and at the end of the sleeves. I fished out some clothes I liked the look of and hoped Lucas didn't want to wear them any time soon, then padded down the landing to the bathroom.

When I walked in I couldn't believe how luxurious it looked. The tiles were pristine and all the fittings were in a gold colour. It was like one of the bathrooms in the luxury hotels I'd seen in films and when I looked over to the shower I saw a huge, walk in cubicle, big enough for four people, with multiple shower heads at different heights. That was when it hit me. It had to be that big because of how huge Josh was. And what if he wanted to shower with Alex as well? Then I looked down at the towel in my hand and thought about how many times it might've been used by Josh or Alex. How many times had this towel rubbed over those huge, bulbous pecs on Josh, or those shredded abs on Alex? I was getting hard just thinking about it but then I reminded myself where I was and quickly set about trying to remove the make up from the night before.

I looked at myself in the mirror and, as I'd slept on some pretty rough ground in the stables last night, some of the scars had already started to peel off. The rest came off relatively easily and with a couple of the wipes to remove the last traces of the makeup, I was finally back to my normal self. I stripped down and turned the shower on; marvelling not only at how much water was spraying out of all the jets, but at the steam coming out as well. This was going to be the first hot shower I'd had in a long time. When I stepped in it felt incredible, almost like I was washing away months' worth of grime and I felt myself just leaning back against the wall to just let the water cascade over me. It didn't last long though as I again realised where I was and finished up pretty quickly. After drying off and slipping into the clothes I'd borrowed from Lucas, I checked myself out in the mirror and, for the first time in a long time, felt good about my appearance. I dropped the towel into the hamper, gathered up my clothes and made my way back to the kitchen.

"Ah perfect timing. Feeling better?" Alex asked.

"Yeah much better thanks. I haven't had a hot shower in ages." I replied, suddenly feeling self-conscious about not being as well off as these guys clearly were.

"We've got the same taste in clothes; you picked out my favourite hoodie." Lucas said with a smile.

"Oh...sorry, I could change it for another one." I replied, feeling my face start to flush.

"No no, you look good in it." Lucas said and then quickly looked away as his face turned red.

Alex set a plate loaded with a full, fried breakfast on the table for me.

"There you go, get your laughing gear around that." I looked hungrily at the plate loaded up with food laid out for me and saw Alex give it a sceptical look. "Hmmm...I think I may have made a bit too much there, just leave anything you don't want." I sat down and started shovelling food into my mouth. I didn't know whether it was Alex's cooking or just better quality food, but it all tasted amazing. I slowed down my eating to savour it a bit more and I could see by the amused look on Alex's face that I was making a bit of a spectacle of myself.

"Sorry." I said between mouthfuls. "It just tastes so good."

"Why thank you. I spoke to your mum while you were in the shower so they've called the search party off, and I told her I'd take you home when you've let that go down a bit." I started to come down off cloud nine when Alex said that. I wasn't looking forward to going home and the reality of everything from the night before came thundering back. I think he must have seen it in my face as both he and Lucas came to sit at the table with me. "Look, Lucas and Sammie told me about everything that happened last night and I know this can't be easy for you, but if you need to talk about anything at all, we're all here for you ok?"

"Thanks." I didn't really feel like talking about any of it right now so I decided to try and change the subject. "So...are you still drawing comics?" I asked him.

"Not so much at the moment, I'm doing some concept art for some new films right now so that's taking up most of my time."

"Oh wow. Anything I'd like to see?" I asked hopefully.

"Well I know you're a comic fan so I'd say definitely, but I can't tell you what they are just yet."

"Aww." I gave him my saddest, puppy dog eyes, hoping he'd change his mind but I couldn't hold it long as Lucas started laughing across from me.

"So who are your favourite comic characters anyway? Besides the ones I drew of course." Alex asked with a cheeky wink.

"A lot of the usual ones you know, like Spider-man, Batman and the Teen Titans."

"Really? Not someone like Superman or the X-Men?" Alex asked in surprise.

"Not so much, I mean I like Superman I guess but I just think he's a bit too powerful so they always have to draw a bigger threat for him. But X-Men are just a bit...freaky."

"Freaky? How so?"

"Well...like...I dunno...I mean imagine if we lived in a world where people were born with mutant powers. Like some you'd be able to tell straight away by their looks but others would look normal and that's just a bit...I dunno...scary."

"Because they'd have to hide?"

"Well yeah, I mean...you could go to school with someone and think they're perfectly normal and then one day their power kicks in and everything would change. Same with Superman, I mean imagine growing up with Clark Kent as your friend and then finding out that he was Superman."

"So do you think you'd rather not know if he was?" I'd never had such a deep conversation about comics before but now here I was being probed by one of my favourite artists. Maybe I could shape the way he creates some comics in the future.

"Hmmm...I dunno." I replied. "I mean, I think it'd change your relationship for sure. Like maybe it'd make you jealous or amazed or...I dunno...freaked out."

"You mean knowing someone like that could be frightening?" Alex asked and I could see Lucas was paying close attention to what we were saying.

"Maybe a little I guess. I mean, if you grew up with him you'd know if he was a good person or not but I think there would still be a little bit of fear about what if I pissed him off or something like that."

"What about Clark himself? Do you think he'd want you to know about him?"

"What, me personally?" I asked and to my surprise Alex actually nodded. "I dunno, I guess if we were close he might want to tell me but he might worry about me keeping the secret."

"Why? Wouldn't you be able to?" This was getting weird now.

"I think I could, but then if I knew what Clark could do I'd probably be too scared to tell anyone, I mean, we all know Superman is meant to be good but it wouldn't be hard for him to make someone disappear would it?"

"Sooo...you're saying you'd probably keep the secret out of fear for your own safety?" Alex asked.

"I dunno, probably...I'm just glad I don't have to think about that in real life."

"Yeah, that would be a dilemma wouldn't it? Anyway, let's get you home." We both started to get up but Lucas stayed where he was, looking a little down. "You want to come too?"

"No, I'll stay here and clean all this up." Lucas said as he took my plate over to the sink.

I gathered up my zombie costume from the night before and, with only the briefest of goodbyes from Lucas, followed Alex out to the car. As we drove down the road from the farm we saw Josh, Sammie and Ben driving back towards us with Sammie giving me a little wave as we passed each other. On the way I talked to Alex more about comics but probably not as in depth as we did earlier, and once we pulled up to my house he reassured me that I could talk to them any time I needed to before I hopped out and trudged up the pathway to the house.