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 ^{(it's beta!)}

"I'm leaving Jersey."

"What?" Charlotte's voice was soft but still worried, inquiring, searching---"What do you mean, you're leaving?"

"I meant what I said." I stared up at the polluted sky, my eyelids growing heavy. I was about to fall asleep on this empty, barren stretch of beach. I had been walking alone all night, like I always did when the monster reared its ugly head, and finally collapsed on the sand, like I always did whenever the monster got too strong.

Tonight was different.

"I'm leaving."

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere."

I was falling asleep and I wasn't going to wake up.

Charlotte was silent for a moment. "That doesn't make sense."

"I'm leaving Jersey... but I'm not going anywhere."

Her voice was worried when she spoke next, a little garbled because of the bad signal. "Andy, where are you?"

The word escaped my lips for the third time.

"Nowhere."

She was silent.

"You're my best friend, Char."

"I... A-Andy, please don't..."

"I had to say goodbye."

Charlotte Jones had known about it for a long time---known about my battle with the demons that clawed at the inside of my mind and ate away my sanity until I couldn't go on.

"I love you, Andy."

"I love you too."

There was a very quiet sob. "I can't stop you."

"You can't."

Silence.

"This is gonna kill me for the rest of my life."

I could feel tears stinging at my eyes; her voice was almost overpowered by the soft sound of waves breaking against the sand barely a foot from my bare toes. "I was going to leave you a note. Let me apologize while I'm still alive."

The pills were beginning to work their magic.

The wind that drove the waves had been pleasantly warm; even the taint of New Jersey couldn't stop the beauty of the night.

"I'm outside," I whispered. "It's beautiful... it's a beautiful night to die."

"I am, too," Charlotte whispered. The signal was getting better. "I know. I know."

For a moment, I could hear her voice coming from two places at once. The pills were working faster.

"You were the only one that ever told me the truth."

"This will kill me the rest of my life."

There was a dial tone in my ear, but I still heard Charlotte speak. I forced my eyes to move; she was coming over a dune not three feet away.

As she moved, I heard a tiny rattling sound.

"I love you."

"I know."

She sat next to me on the sand and watched the waves.

"Are you going to let it kill you?"

She reached into her jacket and I wasn't surprised to catch a glimpse of sickly orange-yellow plastic.

"No."

She squeezed my hand and I squeezed back, mine weaker, hers desperate.

Slowly, she leaned back until she was on her back, rolled, pressed her lips to mine.

"This is my all-time low..."

"It's familiar."

We had both been through this before, but it had never gotten this far.

"It is."

This was the last time.

I pressed my lips to hers again; I was losing feeling in my legs and my voice was soft when I spoke.

"Remember when we set fire to the boardwalk?"

She laughed and opened the bottle, downing half of it and choking for a moment, swallowing thickly. It took a moment before she could swallow the rest.

When she had, she laid back down next to me.

"We never got caught."

I remembered stolen cigarettes and cassette tapes and getting drunk under the overpass by our house when we were tough, snotty teenagers.

"Never," I murmured. Slowly, almost lazily, I reached over and looped my arm around her waist, drawing her closer.

"There were so many mistakes..."

She kissed my neck, rested her head on my shoulder, both of our gazes on the night sky. A long strand of auburn hair brushed over my cheek and I smiled, small and sad and a little scared.

"What do you think it'll be like?" she asked finally.

Her voice was slow and tired and soft.

She was slipping.

"Good," I murmured. I was slipping, too. "It'll be good... we'll be together."

I drew her closer. "If it's not..."

My lips met the top of her head.

"I'll protect you."

She laughed softly and I returned the sound.

"I love you..."

"I love you too."

I closed my eyes.

"This is the last time I put you through this."

"I know."

Our voices were reduced to whispers. I could barely move my mouth, and I knew she couldn't, either.

I could still feel her breathing---slow and irregular.

"Charlotte?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

"I'll see you there."

"I know."

"I love you."

She murmured something back, but I couldn't hear it.

I managed to make my lips move, one last time, but I didn't know if any sound escaped.

"I love you..."

A/N: This is partially based on a drug trip I experienced a few months ago.

The sky was a bright, bleached white, flecked with blue clouds, below me, under my head. I was standing, but my feet couldn’t possibly stick to the ground, couldn’t, no way, because the world was upside down.

I saw the sky under me, I saw the sun, black but somehow bright, shining under me, peeking out from behind blue clouds.

I cringed, knelt, ignoring the insane urge to grab handfuls of the crimson grass.

I fought it. Impossible. The ground had to be below me, the sky had to be above me.

Don’t be stupid, man, you’re not falling towards the sky, I told myself. Gravity is still towards the ground.

That hadn’t changed.

Had it?

If it had, I was in danger of falling into the white sky, falling into the black sun.

Black hole sun, won’t you come, and wash away the rain...

I closed my eyes. That was the only way to fight the illusion. Fight the illusion, fight the feeling that you’re going to fall into the sky. Blinded, I could believe everything was where it should be.

Close your eyes. It helps.

Okay, my eyes are closed, but I needed an explanation. What was this? Alice in Fucking Wonderland? Where was the big white rabbit, and the caterpillar with the hookah? Because absolutely nothing was going to make this any weirder.

It was a visual thing. I jumped and fell towards the ground. My arms weren’t trying to relax towards the sky.

It was reverse image. It wasn’t just the upside-down thing. The sky was the color of the clouds and vice versa. The sun was black, not white or yellow. The grass was scarlet.

Except blue wasn’t the inverse of green and white sky wasn’t the inverse of blue sky.

I took a step, then another when I didn’t fall into the blank whiteness. I walked for a little ways.

What had been a plain, flat area of blood-red grass had disappeared into a rocky plain, blocked by purple-leaved trees. A mountain, a stream. Mountains. Plural.

But it was so wrong. The mountains were upside down, too. Balanced on the tip, all eighty five million fucking tons of earth and rock in the air. It looked like it had to crush itself, but it never did.

A stream flowed from the mountain, sort of. Except it was going upwards instead of down, from the tip of the mountain to the peak, at which point it seamlessly disappeared into the vacant sky.

And it was a weird reddish-purple color. Everything was weird.

The mountain didn’t cast a shadow. It should have blocked out the sun, but it never did. It just balanced there.

The sun cast out some sort of light, but it was just white. Maybe it was the sky and not the sun that threw it out.

This couldn’t happen. This couldn’t happen.

Faggot.

Nance.

Queer.

Cocksucker.

Caradoc Dillon knows even before Davey Gudgeon dispels all doubt.

Asleep, he doesn't dream of pouty-lipped girls with soft breasts and demure curves, but of brooding boys with sharp angles and dark hair and grey eyes.

He doesn't speak of it: like a horrible crime, it is unforgivable.

When Davey Gudgeon, who is tall and dark-haired (like Rhys, but not Rhys), eyes him speculatively in the library stacks and jerks his head toward the door, Caradoc nods. In empty classrooms and stairwells, and under the bleachers of the football field, hands and mouths meet hungrily, not sensual but compulsive, as if they need this, and need it quickly. He imagines Davey is Rhys; he doesn't wonder if Davey imagines he is someone else. He doesn't care.

Faggot. Nance. Queer. Cocksucker.

Words are hurled at Caradoc like fists, but he doesn't flinch anymore when they hit him. He only flinched once, the first time, when he heard them whispered rather than shouted by some boy who spies them under the stands. The boy is stunned first, and then disgusted, furrowing his brow and grunting "Faggots." Davey is stricken. Caradoc is simply defeated. By dinner, everyone knows.

Caradoc defines himself by what he is (prefect, best in class, queer) and by what he is not (rich, handsome, popular). He doesn't flinch when someone calls him a faggot, because he knows he is, and there's nothing for it, is there? He knows that no matter how those words sting (and they do sting, they draw blood in unseen places), they are kinder words than he would hear if they found out what else he was.

What is concealed is worse than what is revealed, and in this world, there are worse things to be than a cocksucker.

And there are worse things than people who are nothing more than faces in hallways and bodies in classrooms spitting words with casual cruelty, for sport more than malice. So he ignores them, drives his meat around his plate in listless circles, wincing when the fork tines screech against the porcelain. Rhys throws down his napkin and huffs off and he pretends not to notice, not to be hurt.

After dinner, James asks, "Are you, then?"

Caradoc nods, and James looks at him suspiciously, as if he's never really seen him before, and then he nods back, decisive, smiling in his unflappable-James way. "Right, then. So long as it's not my ass you're looking at." Michael, who has only recently discovered girls, merely blinks and looks bewildered; he can't fathom why a bloke would want anything other than tits.

II.

Rhys glowers at him in sullen silence and it makes his skin crawl. The glare of grey eyes narrowed and unfathomably flashing is far worse than all of those idiots at dinner and their taunts.

"Stupid cunt."

Rhys ' lips curl disdainfully. He is so fucking good at looking cold, and Caradoc has always feared that this look would be unleashed on him, and now it has. Rhys does not move. He is braced against the window seat with the fading sun casting an aura around his head like an angel Caradoc saw once in a book of art. Paintings like that hang in churches, and people bow their head when they see them, like Caradoc bows his head now, because it hurts to look; because Rhys is too beautiful and too angry and Caradoc is too ashamed.

"You could've said."

Said what, Caradoc wonders, barking a laugh. Rhys, because of you, I think I'm gay? You would've turned away just like you are now.

He says neither of these things, just reigns in his awkward chuckle and shrugs slowly, like weights are pressing down on his shoulders, peering up at Rhys through thick lashes with a burning face and clenching stomach.

"What would you've done if I'd told you?"

Rhys shrugs, the rise of his shoulders desultory, flippant.

"That's not the point, is it? I shouldn't have to hear it from the rest of the fucking world first!" Rhys watches Caradoc squirm and his heart beats faster. "I thought we were mates, but you'd tell your mate who you were off snogging, wouldn't you? You didn't tell."

His lips are chapped and he worries them between his teeth. "Why the fuck not?"

Because I would've died if you'd laughed, Caradoc thinks. And you might've. More than likely would've done.

Rhys' lip is bleeding now and Caradoc wonders if it is his queer-self or his wolf-self that wants to lick away the blood. He doesn't answer.

"Fuck you," Rhys sneers.

A sudden hard punch to the face and Caradoc bolts so the older boy doesn't see his eyes well with tears.

When he knocks shoulders with a boy in the corridor who barks "Hands off, queer," he doesn't even hear it. His ears are too full of Rhys ' 'Fuck you.'

Davey isn't surprised the next night when Caradoc shuffles his feet and mumbles that he can't see him anymore, not meeting his eyes. He doesn't say anything at all, but then, they never really talked much, did they? It hadn't been about talking, hadn't really even been about Caradoc and Davey, but about what you shouldn't want and what you couldn't have and maybe everyone talking about it made all of that too much, too real. Davey just nods and pushes past him, and Caradoc can't decide if he feels disappointment or relief.

Either way, it doesn't feel as cold as 'Fuck you.'

III.

Rhys skulks in the hall, following Caradoc. He doesn't know why he wants to see it, needs to see it, but he can't stop himself. He thinks this is what it must feel like to be a puppet. His fingers itch and he doesn't know who he wants to hurt more, Caradoc or Davey. He recedes in shadow and Caradoc never even sees him. Hasn't looked, Rhys thinks sourly. Hasn't ever.

He is vindictive, happy when they do not kiss, do not embrace. He can't hear the words, but the slump of Caradoc's shoulders shouts shame and surrender, and when Davey steps around him and walks away, Rhys smiles. Only for a moment, though, because Caradoc's face is so fucking beautiful and sad and Rhys knows it's his fault, even though it's what he wanted. Somehow, this just makes him angrier.

The oily voice catches him off guard.

"So Dillon's a queer and you're a voyeur. How quaint!"

"Sod off," he starts to say, but doesn't finish, lets it trail away half-spoken. His mouth opens again, and what he says he will regret later but by then it's too late to call the words back.

"You want a real show, Howell?"

Howell tries to look indifferent, but Rhys has already seen the flicker of curiosity in his dull, dark eyes.

IV.

'Fuck you' hurts, but not as much as calculated betrayal. The ache of the toe of Rhys 's boot in his stomach is nothing compared to the sear of a knife in his back.

Exhausted after the fight-- not a fight, Caradoc never fought back-- sore and bruised in the headmaster's office, Caradoc can't even look up, because he's afraid that Rhys is looking at him and he'll be sick, or worse, that Rhys isn't looking at him and he'll be sick.

Caradoc wishes he were dead.

Rhys is staring at his hands, picking his cuticles till the skin splits, knowing Caradoc can smell the blood.

V.

They persist in stubborn silence until they can't stand it any longer, because Caradoc won't demand an apology and Rhys won't beg for forgiveness. The unvoiced howl of their loneliness is a plaintive poison waxing in their blood. When they finally speak to each other, their voices creak like old doors opening into abandoned rooms with a cadence halting and hesitant like first steps on newly-mended bones.

"Why him?" Rhys whispers. He does not add why not me, but Caradoc hears it.

"Because he would." Caradoc whispers back. He does not add because I was afraid you wouldn't, but Rhys knows.

They wrap violent arms around each other, trapping their bodies and each thinks he will tear the other limb from limb because he is so fucking angry. But they don't. Caradoc cries without sound, tears streaking down hollow cheeks, and Rhys wonders if it is the boy in him or only the dog that wants to lick them away.

He tightens his grip on Caradoc and his arms and, oh fuck it, the other's whole body shakes and shakes and shakes, and Caradoc says "fuck you," softly into Rhys ' shoulder, because there is nothing worse than silence.

The lake never looked prettier.

(It was really a reservoir, he had never called it that, no one ever had; it was always just The Lake, and no one ever called it anything different, you even got funny looks if you called it the reservoir unless you were older than dirt)

It was man-made and you could still tell where the people that made it had planted trees around the edge, but other trees had grown there and messed up the landscaping.

There were a few little gravel spots that led off the little gravel road that wound around the whole lake for people to park.

He parked in the same one they had parked in four months ago; he had been driving but not this car, Craig’s car, a nicer one.

You could see the lake from where he parked and he liked that, liked it enough to get out and go sit on the grass further down the hill.

The sun was high, hot, away from just above him, on the two oclock side, and he realized with a pang he should be graduating right now.

Not that it really mattered. He could go wherever he wanted, Craig told him, he didn’t need a diploma, they would go wherever they wanted.

He looked out over the lake, watched the water glimmer and shine and glitter and wondered why there were no boats out before he figured out it was two o’clock on a Wednesday and everyone was at work or school.

He didn’t really remember why he came out here, something about a bottle—

“Hey baby.”

He stood quick and whipped around, staring around for the voice it’s so familiar and sweet it hurts—

“Craig.”

He’s sitting on the hood of the car with his legs crossed and his feet barely brushing the gravel.

“You left,” he says, and Craig doesn’t act like he hears at all.

“You remember this spot?” he says instead and looks around, like he’s living the memory now. “You were so good.”

“You left, Craig. Why’d you have to go and leave me like that?”

Craig stands up and crosses his arms now instead of his legs. “You told me you were gonna come with me, Andy. You promise but you stayed here in fuckin little Capote Kansas.” He says it kay-pote even though he knows that’s not how you say it, it’s cuh-po-tee like the author.

“I didn’t promise nothin’,” and Andy sounds almost pouty, mulish almost.

“Well you didn’t break your promise all the way at least did you Andy?”

“I didn’t?”

“Nope.” Craig leaned in and he still smells like he always did, smokes and chamomile and soap. “You remember?”

Andy thinks for a few seconds and he thinks hard and you can see it on his face. “Nope.”

Craig smiles and all of Andy’s bad feelings are gone because it’s a good smile, a Craig smile and it makes him feel warm and good inside. “Look out there, baby.”

He points to the lake and Andy looks and it’s him except it’s not him because he’s him.

“I told you, didn’t I? Quick and easy as falling asleep.”

Andy looks back at him and understands now. “Oh.”

Craig smiles again and this one’s gentler. “Come on.”

“You’ll be there?”

“Yeah.”

Andy’s eyes narrow and he knows Craig likes playing jokes. “You promise, Craig?”

Craig laughs that full barking laugh and Andy smiles, reassured. “I promise, baby.”

Craig holds out a hand. “Now come on.”

And Andy takes his hand, and all that’s left is the body and the car and the lake that never looked prettier.

The wind moans like a wounded animal in the northeast.

Gathering speed, it rips over the heaving ocean, smashing the dark wavecrests to boiling foam.

Evening skies darken as the bruised, heavy underbellies of clouds tumble into a chaotic stampede of black and leaden gray. Lightning scars the skies and thunder bombs out like mountains cracking from peak to base. Leaves are showered widespread, coating the slick streets and saturated lawns with russet and brown and gold; trees shake their heads, goaded by the howling wind into an insane dance.

Inside the black Porsche that drives slowly down Azalea Boulevard, two men are utterly silent.

One—the driver—is larger than the other, tan and rugged; the hands that clasp the steering wheel are enormous and long fingers, rough from years of overwork, then from the unforgiving strings of a guitar. His face is not as good-looking as his companions, but he is, in his own odd way, handsome—his lips are thick and in some curious way obscene, his nose overlong and slightly crooked, his eyes dark and intelligent and expressive. His hair is long, made up of tight dark curls that sometimes fall in front of his face.

He is dressed more simply than his companion in a gray tee-shirt, damp at the shoulders from his rain-soaked hair, and stonewashed jeans; a leather jacket lays almost forgotten in the backseat and a scuffed boot presses down on the brake as they come to a stop sign.

If the driver is (in some odd way) handsome, his passenger is beautiful. This man is smaller; where the driver is sinewy and rangy, the passenger is lean and thin. His skin is almost luminescent in the weak light, providing a sharp, contrasting background to his shaggy dark hair and kohl-rimmed hazel eyes. His physique is not quite as developed as his companion’s; he has muscle, but unlike the driver’s, it would not stand out like whipcords under exertion.

His face is delicate, finely-boned; his eyes are large beneath black brows, deep laugh lines in the outer corners, and his nose is perfectly straight, if slightly upturned; his lips are full and bow-shaped, teeth small and white, jaw and chin firm and almost square.

His tastes are clearly more extravagant than his companion’s; the button-up white shirt is wrinkle-free and caters extremely well to his body, clearly well-tailored, possibly custom-made. The knot of a burgundy tie rests below the hollow of his throat, and the fabric will brush just above his silver belt buckle when he gets out of the car. His jeans are well-made, as well—dark denim, clinging to his hips and thighs. A watch, small and silver and expensive, gleams on his right wrist, and highly-polished black boots with silver heels rest on the floorboards; a small, thin cross rests almost directly on the fabric of his tie.

Suddenly the passenger speaks; his voice is low, raspy from disuse, and it betrays what his face does not—he is tired, very tired.

“Come back.”

The driver glances at him, quick and fleeting, before the car begins to move again.

“Why?”

“We miss you.”

The driver laughs, low, even though the statement isn’t funny.

“Who?”

“Me. Frankie—you know Bryar’s moving up? He’d love to see you.”

“You conveniently forgot someone.”

The atmosphere in the car changes, then; the passenger remains silent and the driver smiles.

“How is he?”

“Good.”

A silence.

“Ray, come to Christmas, at least.”

Ray is silent for a moment.

“Where is it?”

“Frankie’s. Jamia wants to have a big, traditional Christmas now they’ve got a place.”

“Gerard, you know I’m going straight down to Virginia after this week.”

“Ray...”

It has been a long time since Ray’s heard any kind of vulnerability from the older man, but this is one of those instances.

“Please.”

“Where the hell am I gonna stay?”

“Don’t you still have that loft apartment?”

“...Yeah, I guess.”

They hit another stop sign and Ray drives on, his eyes flickering from one rainswept street to the other.

“Please, Ray... we all miss you. We haven’t seen you since fucking September—and... God, it’s almost Christmas.”

Another silence.

“Why didn’t you ever call or anything?”

Ray gives a one-shouldered shrug, eyes on the road.

“I just... I needed time on my own.”

“You’re shut up down there with those fucking horses and that dog—”

“It’s doing me a hell of a lot more good than staying in this godforsaken place,” Ray says abruptly, cutting the older man off. “This...”

He’s silent for a moment before speaking again; now his voice is nearly pleading.

“Gerard, I hate it here. I—I just... I feel so goddamned trapped and—and pent up... and there aren’t any good memories no matter where I look.”

“Then stay here. Make some,” Gerard says, eyes roaming Ray’s face.

“He’s going to be here.”

“You have to let him go, R—”

“I can’t!”

The words are sharp, not angry, desperate.

“Gerard, I can’t—it doesn’t matter how hard I try— I— I’m still in love with him!”

He lets out a slow breath and stops at the house he’s supposed to drop Gerard off at.

“Just... call me, okay?” the older man asks.

Ray nods and Gerard presses the issue.

“You promise?”

The younger man is slightly taken aback at the childish inquiry but nods again.

“Yeah.”

A pause.

“Yeah, I promise.”

“Alright.”

Gerard clears his throat and opens the door, stepping out.

“See you.”

“Yeah, see you.”

“Ray?”

“Yeah?”

“Think about what I said, okay?”

“Alright.”

Gerard closes the door and is gone.

“Wake up.”

She rolls over onto her side, long fingers brushing his arm.

“It’s no use pretending.”

He smiles, inhaling deeply, absorbing the scent of her shampoo and the leftover trail of her perfume.

“Morning, beautiful.”

She is still beautiful to him—neither of them is particularly young any longer; he has only recently turned forty and she is almost thirty-seven. Her body is still a wonderland to him, and even now he traces the soft lines and gentle curves of her hips and very slightly rounded stomach.

They can both hear the children playing in the backyard outside the window—cries, giggles.

Her eyes are wide open and his are only half-lidded, blue meeting green.

“The birds are leaving.”

He rolls onto his side, draping an arm over her waist.

“Hmm?”

“Listen.”

He does.

“I can still hear them.”

“Only some of them. They’re leaving. It’s almost October, remember?”

“I know.”

A quick, chaste kiss.

“Of course I know, Matt’s birthday is next week, and Alice’s is the next after that.”

She smiles and reaches up, lacing her fingers in his thick, short red hair.

“What are you getting him?”

“I don’t know yet.”

He puts both hands on her waist, tugging her closer, and a silence falls over them.

“If I leave before you, darling...”

He is alert now, head cocked to one side.

“Don’t waste me in the ground.”

He smiles, laying his head on her breast.

“One of us will die inside these arms, you know that?”

“I know. I’m counting on it.”

She laughs, quick and soft.

“And one of us will scatter our ashes in the yard.”

“In the yard?”

“Please?”

He tilts his head up, catching his lips with hers, and rubs his beard against her cheek. Her lipstick is still there, faint, as though the way their lips had met last night had stained her own.

“Okay.”

Another kiss.

“Do you promise?”

“Yes.”

He smiles, and she runs her fingers through his hair.

“Go back to sleep, Sam.”

“Why?”

“You need to.”

His smile fades.

“So do you.”

“I want to watch you fall asleep.”

He simply settles, shifts, inhaling slowly, deeply.

“Okay.”