In fact, anyone who writes novel-length fanfics for ANYTHING should probably get out more. A lot more.
Seriously, though, you hit about 20 chapters and you should really get out the old vintage ca 1981 .325 Magnum Desert Eagle and shoot yourself in the kidneys, because at that point you realize that you could have been writing a real novel, or, God forbid, going out into the sun.
That is all.
SteveySunshineFoxxyLove SimbaNarutoTuthmosis III's testicles are officially no more. We've been keeping him in our bathroom so the other cats don't hurt him. They don't recognize his scent anymore, so they attack him. We're trying to slowly re-integrate him.
He's so sweet, though...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=OsOGhnfqDxU
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KIteUCEYYBM
Chapter Ten: Cry Me A River
They waited out the rest of the week. Murray improved, and was moved out of the ICU.
“He's devastated,” Sang laughed quietly to Dash on the third day. They were in Murray's room, and Murray himself was dozing. “His blood-work came back. He has iron deficiency anemia.”
Dash blinked. “Is that bad?”
“It causes sensitivity to sunlight and the urge to eat inedible things...like blood.”
The two of them started giggling uncontrollably, only stifling themselves when Murray drowsily asked, “What's so funny?”
On the sixth day, Murray came off the morphine completely. He was a little testy, but the pain wasn't unbearable.
Then he started to walk. The doctors told him every day how lucky he was to be able to, to not even need therapy.
Nine days after he went in, they reluctantly let him check out with the numbers of no less than twenty qualified psychiatrists and a promise to see one of them.
“I don't need to,” he said softly as they left the building, slipping his hand into Sang's.
#
“I don't understand why you won't just turn him in,” said Sang. “You'll be running from the fucking cops for the rest of your life.”
Dash shook his head. “If I turn him in, it'll put me right in their hands. And he wouldn't confess, you know he wouldn't. And then Ganymede...”
“I'll take care of Ganymede, remember?”
Dash bit his lip, then nodded. “Fine. I don't like it, but you're right. At least this way, I have a chance at being cleared. I'll go to the Gallery, but I want you to follow me, just in case something goes wrong.”
“Yeah. I'll tail you in my car. Here,” Sang went into the kitchen and reached behind the bottle of vodka. He pulled out a grey .357 Magnum Desert Eagle and handed it to Dash. “My eighteenth birthday present. Just in case something goes wrong and I can't get in there in time.”
Dash nodded, taking the gun.
#
“Okay,” said Dash, leaning into Sang's window a block down from the Gallery. “I'm gonna go in there and act like I'm going with him. When we're about to leave, I'll say I forgot something in my car. When I come out, call the cops and I'll keep him inside. If he comes out with me, tail us. If I'm not out in twenty minutes, come after me. Lock the door behind you so nobody interrupts us. You have your cell, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Be ready to call.”
Sang smirked. “Good luck, Sanam.”
“Thanks.”
Sang watched Dash walk up the street and disappear into the blank storefront.
#
The bell rang as Dash walked through the door. It was so surreal to be in the Gallery again. He glanced at the photographic prints lining the walls as he made his way to the back room. Plants, landscapes, buildings, but no people.
“That you, baby?”
Dash laughed as he rounded the corner past the tiny half-bath.
He leaned in the door to the back room. “Yeah, it's me.”
Steve smiled at Dash from the bedside. The room was exactly the same as it had always been, dark, warm, the air thick with cigarette smoke and expensive cologne. Steve stood up, took three slow steps, and wrapped Dash up in his arms. The smoky atmosphere intensified.
“Sang's outside,” whispered Dash. “He'll be in in about twenty minutes.” He drew back, biting his lip like a child who had broken something. “He caught me talking to you and I couldn't shake him...but I'll scare him off.”
He showed Steve the gun.
Steve laughed. “Didn't I give that to him?”
“Yeah.”
“One hell of a gun. Cost a goddamn fortune. Well, good thing you got it now, baby, I wouldn't want anybody else to.”
Chuckling, Dash shoved the gun back in his pocket.
“So, we got twenty minutes?” asked Steve with a filthy smirk, grabbing Dash by the back of the neck and shoving his tongue down his throat. Dash groaned and settled his hands into Steve's back pockets. Tall as Dash was, Steve was taller, and twice as broad, as powerful. Before he knew what had happened, he was on his back staring up at the drop ceiling.
Things fell into place again.
Nothing had changed in all their time apart.
When they heard the bell ring again, Dash signaled to Steve to stay where he was, and stood a few feet away, by the door.
Footsteps. Close. Closer. Coming around the corner.
Sang stepped into the room, his phone in his right hand and a pocket-knife in his left.
“You alright, Sanam?”
Dash smirked. “Just fine. Everything's going as planned.”
Dash cocked the gun and pointed it at Steve's head.
“Cover him, Sang.”
Steve looked from Dash to Sang and back. “Now just what the hell--”
“Shut up!” said Sang, sliding the knife under Steve's throat.
“Alright, now hand me your phone,” said Dash. “Pat him down. Make sure he's not armed. Don't bother with his back pockets, there's nothing in them.”
Steve's eyes widened. “You little bastard! You--”
“I said shut up,” hissed Sang. He tossed his phone to Dash over his shoulder and patted the older man down.
“Come on, now, baby, you know you're too old for me,” Steve spat nastily.
Sang ignored him. “He's got nothing.”
“Drop the knife.”
Sang turned. The gun was aimed squarely at his chest.
“What--”
“Put it down. Now. And get on the floor.”
“You've got to be fucking kidding me,” Sang breathed incredulously, dropping to his knees and letting go of his pocket-knife nonetheless.
“You had to keep pushing, didn't you?” said Dash coldly. “If you had let me go, that would have been the end of it. Did you lock the door like I asked?”
“So you wouldn't be interrupted? Smooth, Sanam. Are you gonna kill me? Or you gonna let him do it for you?”
Dash's mouth twitched. “I am.”
Sang bristled like a cornered animal and spat, “Why not?! He's so damn good at it! He hasn't gotten caught yet over Chrysippus!”
“HE DIDN'T--FUCKING--DO IT!” Dash screamed, his finger shaking on the trigger, pulling it in ever-so-slightly.
“I did.” Steve sighed with his confession.
“What?” Dash scoffed, not really processing the idea. “No, you didn't.”
“I didn't mean to let it go that far, I didn't mean for him to die, but he did, and I couldn't stop it once it happened.”
Sang let out a humorless, barking laugh laced with harsh panic. “You gonna believe that, too, Sanam? You gonna let him feed you that lie? If he didn't mean to, why did he build that room in the basement?”
“I was just gonna keep him there, I couldn't let him go--”
“Oh, come the fuck on! You were keeping Ganymede against his will, too. You're telling me you couldn't keep an eye on both of them?”
“I couldn't--”
“BULLSHIT!”
“Stop,” whispered Dash. Neither one of them dared speak over that tone. “If he says he didn't mean it...I-I believe him.”
“Really, Sanam?”
Dash's hand was shaking on the gun, but his aim was still true. “Close your eyes, Sang.”
“I was right!” shouted Sang defiantly. “That fucking scumbag did just make you his little protegé, didn't he?!”
“Just do it, baby,” Steve said. “You don't have any choice. He doesn't understand us. None of the others did, either. You were always just different, baby. Just like me.”
Dash's brow creased. “Just...” His lip trembled, and he whirled around, his hand suddenly steady.
“Baby...?” Steve's pupils dilated. Nothing left but a thin blue line.
The sound of the first shot mingled with Dash's scream, hoarse, vengeful. “NO! I'M NOT! I'M NOT! I'M--”
It became a chant, each word punctuated with a shot. His eyes were closed, but every single one hit home.
And long before he hit the ground, long before the trigger only clicked dully, Steve was dead.
If you are easily disturbed/upset, don't read this.
If you haven't caught it from the beginning, it starts here.
Chapter Nine: Skylark
“Holy shit!”
Dash had his hand on the doorknob when he heard Sang scream.
He looked from the door to the hall, then dropped his bag on the landing and ran upstairs to the bathroom. Sang was leaning over the tub, shirtless, pulling Murray out of the water. Dash helped him heave the limp body onto the floor.
At first, Dash couldn't see the cuts. Murray's wrists were clean. But then he looked up to the crooks of his arms and saw the thin, red lines, still seeping blood.
Sang checked his pulse.
“He's alive,” he said, tying wet towels around Murray's arms and legs. “Go call an ambulance and make four ice packs.”
Dash nodded and sprinted to the kitchen, plucking the phone from the hook and dialing. Down the hall, Ganymede came out of the bedroom and looked into the bathroom.
Sang was leaning over Murray. He was shaking.
“Don't...” he sobbed, “Marcel, don't you fucking dare...stupid fucking...goddamn it...”
He collapsed onto the boy's chest, his breath ragged.
Ganymede's eyes went from them to the water.
It was red.
Streaks of faded pink ran over the lip of the tub where Sang had pulled Murray out, and deep red rivulets ran down the side further up, pooling, congealed, on the tile.
He looked back to the men on the floor.
Sang was praying wordlessly.
Murray still didn't move.
Dash came back with the ice. They slipped it under the towels onto Murray's wounds, and Sang carried him downstairs to wait. Sitting on the steps, he almost looked like he was holding a baby wrapped up in his white bathrobe.
Several tense seconds later, they heard the siren approaching. The ambulance rounded the corner, slowed and stopped. The EMTs took Murray. Sang rode with him.
Dash and Ganymede walked the few blocks to the hospital.
“Is he gonna die?” Ganymede asked.
Dash clicked his tongue, searching for the right thing to say.
“I hope not.”
Marcel was sitting cross-legged on the floor while Sang sprawled on his belly over the couch. Marcel hadn't put on his makeup yet or fixed his hair. His roots were starting to show, a nondescript dark ash brown, the same color as his eyebrows and the fine hair on his legs and forearms. He had abandoned, for the moment, his usual wardrobe for one of Sang's old, grey t-shirts and a pair of blue basketball shorts. He looked a lot like he used to.
“So who was that boy?” Sang asked casually, running his nails lightly over the hardwood floor. Then, realizing how vague his question had been, he added, “The one you got kicked out over? Is he your boyfriend?”
“No,” said Marcel. “He was just a donor.”
Sang took a sip from the bottle of vodka on the coffee table, screwed the cap back on, and went into the kitchen, lighting a cigarette on the old gas stove, narrowly avoiding lighting his hair on fire, and shoving the bottle on top of the refrigerator between the phone book and the corn flakes.
“You hungry?” he called to Marcel, rooting around the pantry for food.
“No,” said Marcel, “But...” He hesitated, not sure how to ask.
“What?”
Marcel leaned against the door to the pantry.
“May I have a cigarette?”
Sang chuckled. “It'll kill you,” he said, pulling one out of the pack anyway.
“I just want to try it. I never have before.”
“In that case,” said Sang, turning the stove back on, “I'll light it for you.”
NO SMOKING
Dash stared at the sign with utter contempt. If he had ever needed a cigarette in his life, it was now. He fumbled with the pack in his pocket, stolen from Sang's kitchen the day before. He could always go outside, but he didn't want to leave Ganymede alone, and he didn't want to be gone if anything happened.
“Hey, Sanam.”
Sang had just come around the corner from the emergency room. The whites of his eyes almost matched the irises, and he was shaking.
Dash stood up. “What's going on?”
“He's in surgery now, and they're running blood tests. He's gonna need a transfusion, and they don't know if...” Sang sighed. “His chances aren't good.”
They sat down and waited for another hour before a nurse came out and asked Sang to go with her.
Dash watched Ganymede play idly with the plastic train set on the table.
It was 4:00 am.
Around five, Ganymede asked Dash to change the channel on the television. They watched re-runs of the Brady Bunch until six.
At six-thirty, Ganymede fell asleep across three of the plastic chairs, and Dash read through a home-improvement magazine.
At 7:14, Dash woke with a start, having fallen asleep and dropped the magazine. He picked it up and put it back on the table.
A few minutes later, a nurse came around from the desk.
“There's a waiting room upstairs near surgery,” she said, “There are some couches you can sleep on. I'll take you up if you like.”
Dash nodded and picked the boy up, carrying him after the nurse to the waiting room.
At 8:45, Dash finally fell asleep on the long couch while Ganymede slept curled up in a huge recliner.
A nurse shook him awake three and a half hours later.
“He's out of surgery,” she smiled cheerily, “He's in the ICU now, so we're gonna move you up to a waiting room near there.”
She looked around nervously before very quietly adding, “Normally, it's hospital policy to only allow family in the ICU rooms, but as long as you tell the staff that you're his family, they won't check up on it.”
She showed them to the waiting room and pointed out the doors to the ICU before disappearing around a corner.
“Do you want to go see him?” Dash asked. “You don't have to. You can stay here and I'll come right back. He's probably gonna look pretty rough.”
Ganymede thought about it, then said, “I'll wait here.”
Dash left him alone in the waiting room with a 1000-piece puzzle and some change for a soda. A receptionist stopped him at the door and asked who he was going to see.
“Marcel Murray,” he said.
“And what's your relationship to the patient?”
He almost hesitated, then said, “He's my brother.”
She checked the room and then lead Dash back.
Sang had fallen asleep on the floor beside the bed, his face resting on the bed near Murray's hand, their fingers limply tangled.
Dash cleared his throat, and Sang's eyes fluttered open. He stood up and threw his arms around Dash's neck.
“He should be okay,” he half-sobbed. “He'll start waking up soon, but he'll be really drowsy. They're keeping him on the pain medication until at least tomorrow to make sure he doesn't go into shock. If everything's normal, they'll move him in the morning.”
Dash looked over Murray's face. Even without his makeup, he was powder-white and his eyes were ringed in black.
“He looks awful.”
“Yeah, well, considering he just had a shit-load of blood drained out and pumped back in...”
Sang scratched his left arm, and Dash noticed a bandage on it.
“What happened to you?” he asked.
Sang laughed softly. “They didn't have enough of his blood type. If I didn't match, they were gonna test you, but they just got lucky the first time.” With a chuckle, he added, “I -- uh...also don't have AIDS, which is lucky I guess.”
They sat with Murray, and Sang filled Dash in on everything that had happened. Around 12:45, a nurse shooed them out for a shift change.
“You go on back and check on Ganymede,” Dash said. “I'm gonna see if I can find a decent cup of coffee in this place.”
It took him about ten minutes to find a working courtesy phone far enough from the waiting room. He took a breath and dialed.
“Hello?” the voice on the other end answered after two rings.
“Listen, we've got a little bit of a set-back.”
“Dash?”
“Yeah, look, Hyacinth's in the hospital. He should be fine, but we're gonna have to push our flight back at least to next week. Can you hang out 'till then?”
Steve sighed. “Yeah, yeah, baby, I can do that. Just don't be too long. I'll be waiting for you at the Gallery, alright? Call me if you need anything.”
“Alright...Steve?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I love you.”
Steve chuckled. “I love you too, baby.”
“Bye.”
Click.
The second he hung up the phone, he was pulled bodily across the hall into a dark waiting room.
The door slammed.
“What the fuck do you think you're doing, Sanam?!” Sang growled, switching on the light. He looked dangerous, looming up over Dash, blocking the locked doorway.
“There's no other way, Sang,” Dash said, sinking down to into an arm-chair. “I'm in too much trouble. If the police catch up with me, either I'll be in trouble, or he'll be.”
Sang laughed maliciously. “So?”
“So,” said Dash, standing up and suddenly remembering that he was about three inches taller than Sang, “just in case you forgot, he was the only reason we had a home for most of our lives.”
Shaking his head, Sang said, “We would have been better off.”
“Oh yeah? How?”
“Look at us!” Sang exploded, throwing his hands up in the air. “I fuck for a living! Out of -- what? Habit? Look at Marcel! Look at that kid! What kind of fucking home was he providing anyway?”
“So don't go with him. He was never anything but good to me.”
“Because he was making you his little fucking protegé! And he did a pretty damn good job! What do you do with your life anyway? You don't work! You're still living off that money he gave you--”
“Shut up! You just shut your goddamn mouth! I'm--”
“You sound just like him.” Sang sat opposite Dash and crossed his arms and legs. “Remember when he used to throw his tantrums? You'd come hide out in my room 'till he got over it. Remember how mad he got when I asked you to move out with me?”
Dash sighed. “He didn't want to be alone. After all he did...”
“What are you gonna do about Ganymede?”
“I dunno,” sighed Dash, shaking his head. “I don't wanna just leave him. But I don't know what else I can do. Can't take him with me.”
“That'd go over well,” smirked Sang.
Even Dash had to laugh at the dark humor.
“But what can I do?”
“Not go.”
Dash cradled his face in his hands, his elbows bent and rested on his knees. “Fine,” he said. “But if they catch up with me, you have to take care of Ganymede. Hide him if you have to, but don't let him go to the state.”
“Deal,” said Sang, a wicked smile spreading across his face. “But if you run, Sanam...I'll make sure he goes to the shittiest foster home in the system.”
Dash shook his head. “Don't worry. I'll just tell Steve to go without me.”
I understand. It drives you crazy that when you hang all over him, I don't care. Cause guess what?
Anyone as immature as you so obviously are is NOT worth my time.
You know, I'm starting to think maybe it WAS your fault last spring. And maybe YOU'RE the one that's been perpetuating your OWN drama. So, Andrea, I owe you an apology for thinking it was all your fault and that YOU were the only one creating the situation.
But I'm so over you. I know you expected me to beg you to take me back, but, sorry. I don't care.
You're an awesome person, and I seriously hope that someone someday breaks you of this habit of being afraid of being happy. Because then you'll realize that happy is a lot more fun than miserable.
I'm gonna go be happy, kay?
an apology
No words, but each knows what the other means
"I'm sorry it's been so hard."
"I'm sorry I made it that way."
The routine
a spring cleaning
for the soul
clear away the cobwebs
that start collecting in December
Or November
with a kiss of understanding
a reminder that we fit
together
Two halves of one heart
Broken
time and time again, but
worn down in the middle
smooth
each piece used to the other
Home again.
Fuck, I could teach 1st and 2nd year German right now...
BTW, I got 200 pts more than the highest score on my German placement test at UE, which means that I will enter junior (and maybe senior) level German classes in the fall.
May 17th
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