I watched Cemetary Junction and it made me miss Dawson....
Dawson was a Hearst, a Munroe, a Hughes and a Rose.
Inheriting his mother’s stubbornness and the need to do things on his own gave him quite a driven nature to the point where he was very goal orientated. From his mother he also inherited an energy and buzz about him, making him quite passionate about the things he cared about. His father had given him pride, making it difficult for Dawson to admit when he’s in the wrong and a care for his own person. He never allowed himself to fall into disarray; always kept himself neat and tidy – unless he was feeling generally lazy and when laziness set in, those Hughes genetics made it difficult for Dawson to get motivated again without a goal to aim for.
But even with the traits his parents (and grandparents) displayed, Dawson was his own person. He liked lounging in the sunshine, singing show tunes in the shower and demonstrating things with a certain flair that only an actor could display. Dawson, however, was no actor. Growing up he had considered taking up a career in acting but it never had amounted to anything. He didn’t particularly enjoy his desk job but it paid the bills. If he wanted to continue living with Kasper then he needed to pay his way, no matter how many times the other male said it’d be fine for him to take some time out to pursue acting. Even Kasper didn’t have an endless supply of cash funds.
That was the thing about Kasper though – he understood Dawson. They both had grown up with a rather large extended family. The circumstances may have been different, but there were so many people involved in the ‘main’ family that the normal family lines were blurred. Dawson could happily sit and listening to Kasper talk about his family for hours. None of them may have been related to him by blood, but each member in Kasper’s family tree had been absorbed into his heart and made into a real family. He talked about them all in such an energetic but loving way, complete with interesting little stories and anecdotes about them all. Dawson had only ever met a few of the ‘younger’ members – those around Kasper’s age. He called them his cousins, but it was hard to tell just what relation they all were. He and Emma had unintentionally butted heads at first, their stubborn natures clashing when they first met, but things soon smoothed out between them. They still had moments now and again where they’d have a disagreement and both stick to their guns and would not back down. Someone usually had to intervene before a shouting match ensued between them. When relaying this information to members of his own family, there was usually one figure who would snigger and say “Well, that’s Morgan’s fault” despite Dawson not understanding what it had meant about his grandfather.
It was a lazy summer afternoon when Dawson discovered a side to himself he wasn’t completely sure he liked. Unsure just what side of the family he had inherited such a thing from Dawson had spent nearly an hour pacing the living room trying to work it out inside his own head while Kasper watched from his spot on the couch with worried eyes.
Dawson had grown up believing he wasn’t a violent person. He had never struck out at anyone, and if anything violent came up he would just turn and walk away. Growing up the other kids had called him a coward, but he stuck firm to his beliefs and had never hit anyone. He was proud of himself that despite some things he had been through Dawson had never, ever smacked anyone no matter how much it seemed they ‘deserved’ it. But on that lazy summer afternoon, Dawson had found himself in such an incomprehensible rage that he had swung for another person. Not just some random stranger or someone looking to start a fight with him – it had been someone he knew.
Keith was trying his best to woo Dawson’s little sister Lina. He was....mildly successful, although Dawson’s father seemed to be attempting to thwart the man’s attempts at every turn. There was nothing about Keith, however, that would make a person dislike him. He was nice to Lina, and obviously cared about her. Despite his protests, Rueben actually liked the guy. There was nothing outright that could pinpoint the reason why Dawson had lashed out at him.
There was one thing about Keith, however, that did manage to get under Dawson’s skin and it took an entire hour of pacing for him to finally grasp just what had caused him to punch without warning; Keith had said something inadvertently against ‘mothers’. Keith’s mother had left him when he was around age seven or so, leaving him with resentment towards matriarch figures. He may have not meant it to be directed at Isabel or even Dawson’s grandmother Madeline, but what Keith had said touched a nerve within Dawson that lead him to seeing nothing but red. Leaping up from his spot on the sun lounger on the balcony of their apartment, Dawson had flown over to where Keith was sat, hauled him up by the collar of his shirt and punched him square in the jaw. Once the blow had hit, he dropped the other man and stepped back, taking a few moments to recount just what he had done. When things settled in, he fled, leaving Kasper to suggest Lina take Keith home and that he’d call and let her known how things panned out once Dawson had calmed down.
It had taken an hour for him to reach a state where Dawson felt comfortable forming vocal words instead of incoherent stammering to the older male who had done nothing more than watch him with a concerned expression on his face. That was another reason Dawson liked Kasper so much – the guy didn’t pressure for any information that he felt wasn’t going to be willing given with only a few probing questions. Whenever there had been an argument between Emma and him, Kasper had given Dawson room to breath before trying to work through the kinks of what had caused Dawson to disagree with her. Dawson didn’t like admitting when he needed help, and Kasper didn’t force help upon him.
He had been enjoying the sunshine, leaning against Kasper with the older man’s fingers stroking through his hair. The conversation had been light and they had all been happily talking about various things. What with work and everything else Dawson rarely ever had chance to spend time talking with his little sister these days. Kasper had mentioned something in passing about how he was going to buy a mother’s day card for his ‘grandmother’ in the hope that she’d bake him something sweet and delicious and Keith had said something against mother’s and how he thought they weren’t the effort people put into cards for mother’s days and the like. Dawson had just found himself snapping like a stretched elastic band, firing off at Keith.
And now he felt like he had ruined the day. Slumping down onto the carpet, fingers fisted into his hair and he let out a long, low groan of dismay. Things had been going so well and he had just punched a guy in the face. A guy who wanted to be his brother-in-law. How was he supposed to face Lina after this? How was he going to face any member of his family? He was supposed to be the calm, non-violent one. The male with a temperament like Ainsely’s. Lost within his turmoil, he barely felt the fingers slipping into his hair and the body coiling around his own from behind. Long legs slipped around him and an arm reached around his body, pulling him close to a warm, hard chest.
“You’re Dad is going to give you a freaking medal,” Kasper announced, dropping the hand from Dawson’s hair and nuzzling his face into the feather-soft locks. “You have just done the one thing I’m sure he’s been wanting to do since before he even knew the guy existed.”
"I cannot believe I'm loosing to a pregnant woman."
Yumiko grinned and nudged Vincent's arm with her leg. "Maternity leave is the most boring thing in the world. I coped last time because Dion kept fussing over me and I had my own set of nerves to worry about - this time, however, I know what to expect so I'm just taking it easy." She grinned again and pushed various buttons on the video game controller in her hands. "Which is one of the most boring things to do in the world."
"No wonder you're so good at this game then."
She shrugged, setting up the next match. "Everyone's either at work or at school. I had Tay come round yesterday to change all the fuses just because I felt so lonely. I know I should enjoy this because once the baby is born I'm going to be rushed off my feet, but I'm just not meant to be on my own."
Vincent glanced up at her from where he sat on the carpet. He'd been skiving school because he was feeling weak and drained after last night. It had been a long time since he'd suffered through such a painful transformation, but after talking to Jae when the sun came up he assumed it wasn't just him that had been affected. Something must have been in the air. Sometimes the moon was just overpowering. It was rare, but Vincent knew it happened.
He had apologized to Marshall, saying that he didn't feel up to attending classes today. However, neither did he feel like spending the day alone. Somewhere deep inside himself he felt a pull towards the feeling of family. After years of thinking that he no longer needed nor wanted anything like that anymore Vincent was unsure within himself now that not only was his father back in his life, but the woman he was seeing was willingly offering Vincent something similar to a second chance.
Knocking on her door had felt weird. Telling her why he was there had felt even weirder. Yet, she just smiled at him and welcomed him into her home with open arms - and a hug, telling him that he was always welcome to come and visit.
"Is that why you're so happy with such an extended family?"
"Do you mean you and Jesse, or Collin? Or Tay and Jung? I like being around people and being with them."
"You had your own family before my Dad came into your life, and now you have his own kids to deal with. Not to mention you're having his baby too."
Releasing the controller with one hand, she dropped it to her baby bump, stroking it fondly. "I've accepted that Alex has his own history. Sometimes I do worry that making him go through it all again might make him slip back into the man you knew back in Ireland, but then I look at him and I just know he won't give up this time." She gave Vincent another of her sunny smiles and went back to defeating Vincent's character in another death match round on the video game console.
"Does Dad..." Vincent paused, thinking of how to say the words that hung on the tip of his tongue. It was his father he was prying into, in a way a son rarely did. A son didn't ask the current lover of his father what they said to one another. Some things were just private, between the two adults. But still, he was curious. "Does he talk to you about Ireland? When he was there, my mother...?"
She paused the game and lowered the controller to rest on her swollen stomach. Reaching over, she brushed her fingers fondly through Vincent's blue-black spikes, stroking the tips of her fingers against his scalp. "You've told me more than he has. Julian has told me more than Alex has ever said about when he was married to your mother, but he remembers them, and when I touch his hand I see flashes of those times. He tried, he really did. The drinking, the smoking, even the womanising came about because he felt like he failed being what he thought he was supposed to be with your mother."
He blinked at her. "You really think that?"
"He really thinks that," she replied with a small smile. "That's my 'power'. I don't really talk about it, because I think it's wrong to pry into people's memories. Memories are private and very precious, but I can see them. I usually have to concentrate, but if someone is thinking about certain memories I can see them with just a brush of skin," she explained. "I've told Alex that I'm 'Gifted', but explaining what I can do can become confusing. It's not reading someone's mind - it's reading things they've got locked away. Even things they themselves can no longer remember."
Vincent had thought she must have been gifted, but he had no idea what Yumiko's power was. Poppy had told him about Dion's, and demonstrated her own. By the looks of things, Poppy's power was completely different from either of her parents. She had terrakinesis. He had originally assumed Yumi had something similar. To find out that Yumi had a power that affected a person's mind rather than the physical world came as quite the shock. "So you can see what people remember?"
She nodded. "I can also take them away," she admitted with a downward turn of her lips. "And make false ones."
"So you can take away a person's memories?"
"I can, but I won't unless they have a reason to no longer want them. Our memories are what makes us who we are, Vincent, I refuse to destroy a person just because of something bad happening to them."
"You can make my Dad think he never left me, can't you?" She nodded, but the expression on her face was solemn; sad even. He gave her a comforting smile and nudged her leg with his shoulder. "I won't ask you to do something like that to him. You might turn him into a bigger dork than he already is. Heck, you might turn him into a 'Soccer Dad'."
Her lips pulle dinto a pout and a crease formed in the space between her eyebrows at the top of her nose. She didn't look angry - more confused. "You mean he doesn't play soccer?"
"Have you ever seen him do any form of physical exercise?"
The furrow deepened for a few moments while Yumi seemed to process this question, running through her mind all the instances where she had seen Alex and any activity that involved physical exertion (bar one particular act, but she was currently carrying one of the consequences of that act). After the moments passed, her face split into a wide grin. "He dances!" she announced, clapping her hands together like a small and over excited child.
This caused Vincent to let out a bark of laughter. "He does not dance. He's a man over the age of twenty nine."
She shook her head. "Oh no, I've seen him. We've danced a lot, even if it was just in private. Did you know he's learning how to tango?"
He stared at her, completely gobsmacked. Never in his entire life had he ever expected that his father would willingly learn any form of dancing. This woman was a stark contrast to his mother - the woman Alex had married. He was doing things for her he had never done for anyone before. He was doing things for himself that he would have never done before. Somewhere inside him, Vincent felt tugs of saddness. Alex had left him - had left an entire family behind and now here he was forming a whole new one.
But there was a huge difference between the life Alex once had and the one he was living now;
It had Yumiko in it.
Vincent smiled up at her, feeling the warmth in her smile through his whole body. "You're too good for him," he said softly.
"No one is ever too good for anyone else," she replied, reaching down and fondly ruffling his hair. "People just think that some need to change to be able to be with other people. No one should have to change to be in love. It just happens. Take the bad with the good because everyone has a flaw that they think makes them worthless compared to the one they love."
"What's your's?" He felt bad for asking it, but she had put it out there.
She smiled: small, sweet and gentle but there was a slight sadness lingering beneath, as if a grey storm cloud formed in a bright blue sky. Vincent couldn't find a flaw with the young woman that would make her want to feel worthless, but as he read her smile something she said earlier clicked into place. "You can hurt peoples minds..." he said, voice barely above a whisper.
Yumiko could potentially destroy a person's mind. She could turn them into a blank slate, or give them memories that were not their own. There were people at the school who could destroy with fire they created with their minds. He knew there existed monsters out in the world that could kill. For years he believed he was nothing more than a beast - a thing to be caged and hated.
But Yumiko - She could be dangerous on a level that a human should never possess, but everyone she met simply adored her. She was happiness in human form. Love and honesty and kindness. The pregnant woman sat on the sofa beside him was the direct opposite of every demon Vincent had ever met or heard about and yet she had the potential to become something far worse than anything like that.
"I'm glad you are who you are, Yumes," he added after a silence that settled. "And because of that I think it makes what you see as a flaw invisible to everyone else." He smiled up at her. "Take it from someone who thought he was a monster; you're far from the terrible thing you think you might be. I'm glad my Dad met you. I think that you're the best thing thats ever happened to him."
There was a particular little coffee shop he liked to visit. It was a further walk from the campus than the cheaper equivalent, but it was quaint, quiet and most importantly both the customers and staff didn’t feature judgemental eyes. It was where he had the first date with the person who had dragged him down further than anyone thought was possible. It was where he had charged out to beat a heartless bastard senseless until someone who proved themselves stronger than they looked pulled him away. After the months melted together, meshing with alcohol, pain and a mindless existence, Raleigh found himself within the walls again. He’d been trying to avoid the place because of all the memories it held, but it seemed to have muses living in the walls. Inspiration flowed like water through his head whenever he sat down in the old and worn seats. There was no other place quite like it and yet somehow all the praises that could be sung about it had been warped and twisted by his foolish actions.
Memories of those actions ran through Raleigh’s mind as he sat in a window booth. Elbows on the table, fingers linked together to provide a resting place for his chin. Warm heat floated upwards from the white ceramic coffee cup beneath the cover of his hands, the steam tickling his palms while his eyes lowered to the empty space that occupied the seat opposite. Green eyes, vibrant and sparkling like emeralds compared to his own jade glass should have been looking at him from that seat, not the vacant nothing that wasn’t there. Dwelling on the dead was a terrible thing to do. He had already allowed the dearly departed to pull him down to the point where the undertow had swallowed everything he held dear. Finding air and getting everything back was proving difficult, but he was going to do it. His heart couldn’t withstand being turned into dusk, the loss of his light would tear him apart into nothing and he knew it. Raleigh knew he couldn’t allow himself to give up and fall back on terrible times. He had to let the dead rest and not cling to a memory that wasn’t even true. It was the reason why he had been avoiding this cute little coffee shop. Burying the monster meant wiping this place off his mental map completely, and yet Raleigh couldn’t find it in himself to part with it. It had been his before Evan had come into his life. Not every whisper in the shadows belonged to the murdered soul.
Tearing his eyes away from the chair, Raleigh’s gaze washed over the rest of the interior. Wooden floors, booths at the walls for privacy, little tables set up with a few customers dotted about. There was a stage with comfy sofas and chairs to his right, and tucked just to the left of the entrance was the main counter, manned by a girl with flamingo pink hair in pigtails and black ‘geek chic’ glasses perched on the bridge of her pointed nose, freckles dotted over her sun-brushed skin. She had commented on how it had been a while since she seen him when he slipped into the building. She had had her braces removed since Raleigh last seen her. He just smiled a small smile and ordered a regular cup of coffee. The place was relatively empty, although that may have been mainly because most of the customers would be in class at this hour. What Raleigh hadn’t expected was for a person he thought he would never see again stride in. Fuzzy memories muddled by alcohol floated to the surface of Raleigh’s mind, dragging with them those thoughts of self hate and hate for the rest of society with them. Snapping his head away from the entrance where the figure stood talking with the barista, Raleigh forced his focus on the world through the window. People walked on by like the building was invisible.
However, it seemed as if he’d been noticed, despite attempts to blend in with the scenery. Having flaming red hair meant it was difficult to become one with the off-white walls. The man came over to the table and announced his presence by clearing his throat. “This seat taken?” he asked casually.
He could easily say yes and turn him away, but if he was to make amends with himself he had to fix those that had been affected by his self destruction. Just because he thought they would never meant did not mean he was never going to apologise if the situation ever arose. Let his eyes rest on the figure of the other male once again, Raleigh silently shook his head in response.
Given the signal, the other male placed his mug of coffee and cream down and settled down on the seat that had been the object of Raleigh’s scornful scrutiny. He shrugged off his jacket and arranged himself before looking at Raleigh again, a smile on his face that reminded Raleigh of a child with an all-you-can-eat ice cream in his favourite flavour. “Haven’t seen you for a while,” he said in as he ripped open the sugar packet and poured the contents into his mug. “How’ve you been?” He was acting quite amiable considering how Raleigh had last acted towards him.
Dropping his chin to sit only on his thumbs, Raleigh took a few moments before responding. “Good,” was all he said.
“It’s a shame that you don’t come out anymore. You used to be a lot of fun,” the other male mused as he stirred his drink. “I’ve had a few people asking where ‘Razzle’ is. You made quite the...” a pause “impression.”
Raleigh watched the spoon and the fingers swirling it around in the mug, the silence between them broken by the sound of the metal against the ceramic, the soft background music in the air and the voices of the other customers. Pressing his lips to his fingers, he didn’t know what to say. To put it quite simply, he didn’t know where to start. He could blurt out an almost comprehensible ‘I’m sorry!’ but that would hardly be enough, especially for someone like Jack. Finally, with a sigh he looked up once more to the green eyes of the other male; eyes that were green like polished emeralds. The only thing that was similar between the pair. It was the reason Raleigh had picked him – those eyes. Jack had dirty blond hair that hung long and shaggy in his eyes in such a way that a slight shift in his head had him blinking against the strands that brushed his lashes. There was a silver hoop in his right ear and a tribal tattoo that curled up from his shoulder blade to the left side of his neck just above the collar of his striped polo shirt. As he sat there inspecting the other man without saying a word a thought popped into his head that made him smile behind his linked hands.
He didn’t want to see green eyes looking back at him. He wanted a blue like ocean waves, set into a face of much younger years with skin untouched by ink and piercings. He had only gone after this person for his eyes. They certainly deserved an apology, but Raleigh didn’t have to make any more effort than that. “Thanks, for what you did for me.”
Jack tilted his head to the left and gave a grin and a short sound that seemed like a chuckle. “I never actively looked for you, I just always happened to come across you. I followed the gossip; if people were talking about seeing Razzle in a bar or a club, and I’d think to myself ‘Hey, I wonder how he’s doing?’ and go and find out. I figured out a long time ago that you were running from something that you couldn’t really escape from. I’ve seen a lot of people run and get lost to the point where they can never get back. You had something you didn’t want to completely run away from though and if you didn’t have something or someone to tether you, you’d lose it completely,” Jack explained, talking with his hands like he had always done in the few coherent moments in Raleigh’s memory that the pair had had an actual conversation. “It was a letter you kept in your jeans. You’d tried to start a fight with this suit and ended up getting the shit kicked out of you, and I carried you back to my place. You smelt like you hadn’t changed in days, so I washed your stuff. It was crumpled, like you’d read it thousands of times.”
“You didn’t read it did you?” Raleigh asked quickly, interjecting the other.
“Nah, it wasn’t my place,” Jack replied as he lifted his drink to his lips and blew over the surface, causing it to ripple like a pebble thrown into a vast like. “But it was what you were holding onto; it was your thing you didn’t want to run away from. If you had kept on going without something keep watch over you, you’d vanish – like those people you hear about in the news. Bodies that turn up months later to shatter those hopes families have of their loved ones returning to them as if they’d just gone to the shops and got a bit lost on the way back. I didn’t want to be sitting at home one day and hear that you’d been found dead in a gutter somewhere because you’d picked a fight with a guy who’d retaliated by sticking a knife in your gut.”
That was what had started him on his path to destroy himself, because someone he knew had done just that. Someone had turned up dead and instead of grieving like a normal person, Raleigh had taken his grief and thrashed it out on the whole world. In his head he knew that was how he had ended up, but it had never felt as real as it did with Jack explaining it all to him now even if it was months after the entire fiasco.
Despite the lack of response from Raleigh, Jack continued on regardless. “I followed you out that day, when I last saw you. I’d seen that kid around a few times, but I didn’t think you two knew each other. I thought you were going to cry when he found you stumbling down the street.” He took a few moments to watch the shift in Raleigh’s expression, and a knowing look entered his eyes. “You did cry.”
Raleigh had clung to Lake had cried tears that had been building up inside himself for months. Everything had swelled up into a maelstrom until just seeing Lake had sent the emotions toppling over the edge. He blinked his eyes slowly in recognition of Jack’s assumption.
“After then I didn’t see nor hear anything about you. I was worried that what I was trying to prevent happening to you had actually happened, but your name never cropped up. I don’t know your surname, but your first name is distinct enough for me to keep an eye out for.” He had drunk the contents of his mug down half way by the time he finished and lowered it once more onto the surface of the table. Reaching over, he placed his hand over Raleigh’s connected pair and held his stare. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Listening and processing everything Jack said to him, there was one thing Raleigh noted that he felt he needed an answer for. Pulling his hands away and dropping them into his lap, Raleigh sat back in his seat, blinking to break the contact in their gaze. “You’ve seen it happen before haven’t you?” he asked, looking down into the cooling coffee in his cup, staring into the deep brown depths like the answer swam within like fish in the sea. “Someone ran and ended up completely lost.”
Jack nodded, taking another sip from his own drink. “My sister,” he said with just a beat between his response and Raleigh’s question. “and myself.” He curled both hands around his mug and swirled the liquid within. “When the police found her she was just a shell. She needs constant care and attention now; some days she doesn’t even remember her own family. I couldn’t believe that people let something like that happen to her – I hated myself for being unable to help her. I ran away from home and tried to be someone new, but I had a friend who wouldn’t let me go. She didn’t try to stop me, but she kept watch out for me. I had an anger I needed to get out, just like you did. When she felt me slipping too far, she’d pull me back in. She dragged my sorry ass all the way back home and showed me my sister to remind me of the fact she had done exactly what I was doing and she had ended up nothing more than a broken doll. When I got better I vowed that if I ever met someone in the same boat I’d try and do what my friend did for me.” He looked at Raleigh with honesty in his eyes. “I didn’t know enough about you to force you to confront things, but I hoped that I could at least keep an eye out for you.”
“So you let me do the things I did to you because you thought it would help? Because you thought you were just looking out for me?”
There was a one sided grin on his face, almost sick and twisted. “If it wasn’t me then it could be that person who’d pull a knife on you. Yeah, you were rough sometimes, but now and again something would slip through. You talked in your sleep now and again and sometimes it’d be like a switch had been flicked in your head and you’d go from a wild animal to something...softer, and I’d hear you say some name. Eli, Elliot, or something, I never heard it properly.” Draining the rest of his coffee, Jack sat back as the base of his mug tapped against the table. Both hands were palm flat on the tabletop, forcing his arms out straight. “Judging from the fact I’ve not seen you around, and the way you look, I’d say you’re no longer running, right?”
Raleigh had never taken into account Jack’s point of view. He had always assumed it was simply because he liked taking care of lost things, like in some kind of sick and twisted fairytale. If there had been someone like Jack in the beginning to keep watch then perhaps Raleigh would have never thrown himself into his self-made punishment. “Again, thank you for what you did. I know I was a dick to you, and you didn’t deserve the things I did, but you achieved exactly what you set out to do, I’m just sorry I couldn’t be something more for you in the end.”
Jack gave a small laugh, waving his hand at him. “I’m just glad to know you’re doing better. Didn’t think I’d meet you here though – a friend introduced this place to me a few weeks ago. I had no idea you came here.”
“I didn’t – not since...well, then,” Raleigh expressed with a small sigh. “I’ve always liked this place though, it helps me think in a way a lot of other ‘artsy’ cafe’s don’t. I’ve tried to avoid it because it brings back a lot of bad memories, and I must admit that seeing you has brought back even more, but I don’t feel as...bad...as I thought I would.”
“Just don’t go doing it again, okay? As fun as Razzle was, I think I prefer the Raleigh right here.” He motioned Raleigh’s entire person with a slow and purposeful move of his hand through the air.
Raleigh chuckled, shaking his head. “That was a stupid nickname anyway. I don’t even know who gave it to me; although I was pretty sure I was answering to anything by a certain point.” He shook his head once more, only this time with more force to dissolve the thoughts and memories building up inside his mind. “I’m not completely fixed, but I’m getting there. I’m not going to give up this time. I learned the pain once of loosing someone because of what I did – I don’t want to go through it a second time.”
“That person wrote you that note didn’t they?”
“I thought you said you didn’t read it?”
“I didn’t, but the way it looked was obvious that whoever had written it was important to you. I’m glad you still have them in your life. You’re really lucky to have someone who’ll accept you, even with your flaws.”
Rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly, Raleigh nodded. They could have stayed in that foreign country and never come back, but they had. Raleigh had promised never to let anything come between them again, and he was going to keep that promise. He would do anything to keep the one person who made his heart feel alive in his life for as long as humanly possible.
Letting a silence descend over them once more, Raleigh stared into the now cold depths of his coffee. He had only bought it out of sheer habit, but now that he had allowed it to cool it felt as if he’d wasted his money. Sliding the hand that had been rubbing the back of his neck down to squeeze and massage his own shoulder, he sighed once more. He really didn’t know much about Jack, despite the things they had done together and what he had discovered today. They liked the same coffee shop and had both had a similar life experience but for the moment that was all they had in common. He really didn’t know what to say now. The air was different between them than it had been all those months ago. He had picked Jack for his eyes, but now he didn’t need them.
“You can leave if you want to,” Jack said, snapping the growing lack of words that was developing between them. “I let you out of my life once before, I can do it again. You don’t have to force yourself to stay just because of what happened between us during the time you were trying not to be yourself. I completely understand.”
“Don’t you think that’s a bit heartless?” he asked, returning his gaze back onto the form of the other man. “Saying that I don’t have to stay and build something between us?”
“Do you want to?”
“Well...Uhm...I’m not sure.”
Another grin slipped onto Jack’s lips, this time honest and understanding, splitting the seam to reveal the teeth within his mouth. “You have that person in your life that you care deeply for, so I’m not going to try and replace that if that’s what you’re suggesting,” he countered. “But I would like to be your friend, if I can. If it’s too uncomfortable I won’t complain. We can start from the very beginning if you like.”
Raleigh took a few moments to mull over Jack’s suggestion. They had a history, but it was a pile of matchsticks compared to an actual brick-built friendship that Jack was offering. Slowly, he held out one hand to the other male. “Hello, I’m Raleigh.”
