Stupid Little Blue Haired Boy (boyxboy)

sweet sixteen.

so. erm. this is awkward.

to all of you who saw what i posted at the end of the chapter, before i cut it out, i'm sorry, that was the wrong part.

i've got a couple of the chapters prewrittenish, and uh. yeah. WRONG PLACE.

my upmost apologies. 

anyways! for you, my lovelies, I HAS ANOTHER CHAPTER.

enjoy, okay? okay.

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Timmy talks in his sleep.

He doesn't just mutter like most people, but speaks full on words. Ones I can understand.

"Zachary?" he whines, "Is that you?"

I shake him, to no response.

"What do you mean?" His voice is frantic, panicked.

So I just continue to listen.

"No!" he almost screams. "You can't leave me! You can't!"

"Zachary! I love you!"

Timmy thrashes and tangles himself in the covers. His bare back is a hundred degrees against my naked chest.

"Timmy," I shake him. "Timmy, wake up. It's just a dream."

He fights my hands. "Let me go. I need to stop him."

I'm fighting with a sleeping boy.

"Wake up."

"Zachary?" In the dark, his eyes click open. They glisten with fresh tears.

"No, it's Damian. You're here with me."

"Did I...did I fall asleep? Where's my shirt?"

"Yeah. And it's on the floor. Are you okay? You sounded pretty bad."

"I'm okay. Can I have my shirt? I should probably go home now."

"Hey Timmy?"

He turns. "Yeah?"

"Will you stay?"

"You want me to?"

"Yeah."

Timmy checks the time on the glowing clock. Midnight.

"C...can we go out f-for a walk, at least?"

"I don't see why not. Come on, get dressed. I'll show you the coolest place in all of Ashland."

If the tracks are cool by day, then they're unreal at night. A thick mist settles over the metal, hanging just around our ankles and obscuring them from view. The graffiti letters look even more menacing with only the moon to light the path.

Timmy walks slowly, carefully, afraid to fall despite my arm wrapped securely around his waist. He's shaking.

I'm not going to let you fall. I promise.

"Andrea asked why you didn't come back with me that day in the park," he stammers.

Oh yeah? What didja tell them?

"She asked if we had sex." He laughs. "I'm still a virgin, I don't know about you. It's not like I'm against it or anything, but I just never seemed to need that in our relationship. It was complete with just kissing and touching and holding hands."

"I'm not."

He nodes and continues, "I told her it was because of the alcohol. She called you a fairy and told me you and Justin used to drink with her all the time. Is that true?"

"Yeah."

Timmy sighs. "But you don't drink anymore, do you? I saw the look on your face too. Even when you couldn't verbally express your opinion, it was still clear what you thought. Why'd you stop?"

"Alcohol makes people do stupid things."

"And drugs?"

"They ruin people's lives."

His little head bobs up and down.

"I don't like it here," he confesses. "I miss my old town and my old friends and everything. I mean, the people here are great, and you, well you're more than I could have asked for, but it's just not the same. At least there, I felt like I belonged. Like I had been everyone's target and punching bag long enough, and I had an obligation to them. I knew who was going to hit me when and where and how much it was going to hurt afterwards.

"I haven't been here long enough to have that all figured out."

"It doesn't take a genius to see that one. Did people actually hit you, back there?"

"Yeah. They actually did. It's not like here, where everyone seems to stick with words and repetitive insults. I'd almost rather have the physical pain."

"You just can't let it get to you..." I start.

He finishes. "I don't. I mean, it doesn't. Something doesn't feel right, you know? It just doesn't feel like the way it's supposed to. Everything is just a little off."

"Well, one day we'll all get out of here. And when we've done what we want and seen what we dreamed and meet who we were designed to meet, we'll look back on this place and just laugh. And we'll see who's laughing then."

"Nice job Kellin Quinn, how long you been saving that one for?" he jokes.

"Crazy fangirl much? It's sad that you knew."

"I am a homosexual after all, remember? Kellin Quinn turned me gay."

"You wish you could say that. I know you were born queer, baby."

"I think I was too. I had my first crush when I was in the third grade, on my best friend. I didn't tell anyone else, but the feeling just never really went away."

"What was his name?"

Timmy's face breaks out into a lopsided grin.

"Zachary."

"You're shitting me."

"No sir. We were a match made in heaven. Elementary school sweethearts, as they say."

"When did he figure out he felt the same?"

"Oh, I'd say right about when I did. We got married pretty shortly after that. It was a nice wedding, with blackberries for flower bouquets and the tabs off Coke cans for rings. This darling girl named Amanda was the one who made it official. I wonder what happened to her."

"Who was the husband and who was the wife?"

"Who do you think?"

He races forward, tugging his arm from mine. "What about you guys?" he calls out behind him. "How did you and Justin meet?"

Why the hell not. I chase after him. I've eaten, and the night is young. I'm five feet eleven inches full of uncontainable teenage energy.

"At a fair," I yell back, "in fourth grade. Some promotional shit to raise extra money for the school's art program or something like that."

"And did you know?"

"Know what?"

"Know that he was the one."

Ten year old Justin was tall and lanky, dressed in an oversized jacket and jeans ripping at the knees. With a dirty hand he brushed the long wavy hair from his eyes and turned around in line to greet me.

When you're in fourth grade, you don't think of other kids as attractive, even if you know what gender you like. You think of them as either dull, friendship material, or the coolest looking kid in the world. Justin may have not had a calculator built into his watch, or the newest Nerf dart gun in his pocket, in case of an ambush, but I knew.

Justin fell into the last category with no questions asked. I knew he and I were going to be best friends.

"I knew he was going to be pretty damn special, yeah."

"Darn," Timmy corrects. "There are young ears around."