Author's Note: The introduction is tame, but later parts of this story will be slash. That is, boys will kiss boys and possibly even have sex. If you don't like it, leave. I should probably also note that the character's perceptions are not the same as mine, so if you come to me going "Oh my god! You think insert something the character said here?! How could you?", I will politely laugh in your face.

New note: This is the revised edition, which means I fixed some typos, changed some wording, and altered a couple of small facts in order to jive with the prequel I'm researching. No major changes, as expansion on the story was considered and deemed unnecessary.

-- Summer's Gone Introduction By: Ariel-chan --

It was summer. The trees were leafy, the grass was green, and the birds were singing. The sun was shining hot enough to grill a cat on a hot tin roof, the bees were buzzing enthusiastically about their inborn duty to fly into people's soda cans, and the mosquitoes were out in full force.

School was out.

I was miserable.

I've never understood who came up with the concept of letting kids out of school for the full three months of the hottest part of summer. Why not spring? Spring was warm enough to go swimming or hiking or lay out and tan without all the bugs and the heat. If I tried to stay in the house all summer, someone would complain.

"Go out," they'd say.

"Be a kid."

"Have some fun."

"Get some exercise."

The problem was, I'd tried to do all of that stuff in the spring when the weather was better. In the summer, I'd have liked nothing more than to be cooped up in the nice, air conditioned school. It wasn't like the sight of the blue sky outside was going to distract me from my work. There wasn't a single window in any of those classes for me to stare longingly out of, even if I'd wanted to.

Which I didn't.

The worst part of summer was definitely the first day. I'd get up in the morning and drift downstairs to hear my parents getting ready for work and talking. That would be the first day I'd hear the words "family vacation".

When I was a little kid, family vacation was cool. We were all happy, and Kiara and I pretty much got along. Plus, kids have nothing better to do.

When I got to be about ten, I wanted to go to summer camp, but I couldn't because we had to go on "family vacation".

I couldn't go camping with my friends, couldn't make it to anyone's sleepover or birthday party, couldn't do anything, because I had to spend time with my family.

I guess I was around twelve when Kiara started to make me nervous. She was fourteen, and she'd drifted into wearing a lot of black and make-up. On top of that, she'd gotten rather fond of tormenting me, and the last thing I wanted was to be stuck in the back seat of the car with her while we drove for six hours straight.

The first morning of this particular summer, I walked down to the kitchen and overheard Mom telling Dad that needed to remember to pack the digital camera when we went on vacation.

'Please, God, Goddess, Omnipotent Blueberry Muffin of Heaven, whatever you are, if you have any decency, you will strike me down with a life-altering three month illness right now. No? Maybe just a little three-week, highly contagious one? By the time it gets around my entire family, it should be nearly September.'

"Good morning, Luke."

'Thanks for nothing.' "Morning, Mom." I grabbed a bagel from the fridge and slid into the nearest chair at the table.

"Now, Luke, I know you were hoping to go to band camp this summer," my dad began. "But you need to understand that this vacation is very important. Your sister is about to leave us and go to school away from home, and we may never be able to take a trip as a family again, what with summer classes and all." He patted me on the shoulder and grabbed his keys off the table in front of me. "After all, playing the violin isn't as important as family."

'No, Dad. It's only my position as first chair, my career potential, and any future orchestra scholarships on the line here. Obviously a month being alternately coddled and ignored by you people and nearly stabbed to death by my sister, the Bride of Dracula, is more important than any of that.'

"I understand, Dad." I looked down and started to pick at my cold bagel until they left. Upstairs I could hear the beginnings of a steady thumping sound that meant Kiara was awake and ready to begin her last summer as a member of this household.

By this time, I was fully afraid of my sister.

She was taller than me, to start with, and since she was born first she'd managed to beat me to the position of "black sheep" in the family. Unfortunately, that made me the normal one.

I really wanted my parents to leave me alone, the way they left her alone most of the time. I'd tried to rebel a little bit, but I got bored with black, and the loud music I seemed required to play was probably destroying my ear drums. I didn't realize until years later that they left her alone because they thought she was a lesbian, and didn't want to know about it if she was.

She'd cut her hair short and dyed it dark blue when she turned sixteen. She had about five piercings in each ear, and a lip piercing that she'd done herself. Just the idea that she could stick a sharp object through her own flesh. I had no doubt that she was capable of doing the same thing to someone else's body, possibly with larger objects and in more vital areas.

When I headed up to my room, I ignored my trepidation and knocked on her door.

She answered in her full gothic glory, the stud winking out and taunting me from her upper lip. I hadn't seen her in anything but full street clothes in years, and I wondered absently if she slept in all that crap. The chains had to be painful.

She glared at me, and I blinked myself out of the weird dimension where people think about what their homicidal sisters wear to bed. "Coast is clear," I said. "Mom and Dad left, if you want breakfast." She grunted and started to brush past me, leaving the music blaring but closing the door firmly, probably to keep me from going through her stuff. Not that I ever would. We'd bought her a pet hamster about three years ago. None of us had seen it since it entered the room, and I had a pet theory that she'd mutated it into some sort of man-eating dog. I wasn't sure how she'd do that, but I was fairly sure it was possible.

"Speaking of coast," I piped up before she could get down the stairs. "They're planning to pack for our vacation already. How do you plan to keep Mom from going through your room and packing for you?"

She stopped at the top of the stairs. "Same way as I have been. Pack my own bag tonight and have it sitting outside my door in the morning." She turned around and looked me straight in the eyes. "She doesn't really want to go in there, you know." Her face broke into a terrifying grin as she caressed one of the safety pins on her shirt. "See you in the car."

When she started down the stairs I went into my room and locked the door behind me. You can never be too safe. I glanced over at the pictures on my dresser. Those days they were mostly pictures of my friends and I hanging out, with one picture of the last year's vacation. Behind that one was a picture of the year before that, and behind that was a picture of three years ago. all the way back to when I was about five.

The me of last year's picture was smiling a half-smile and waving limply at the camera from his position on the floor of the deck, looking over sheet music with a pencil in one hand. Mom was stretched out on a chair beside me, tanning herself, and in the back I could barely see Kiara, huddled in the shadow under the roof and glaring at the camera.

Every year, mom barged into my room the night before vacation and packed all my clothes and everything for me. She refused to let me take along any books or video games that might distract from "family time", as well as my violin, because she didn't want to hear "that racket" on her vacation.

I stared thoughtfully at the corner that held my backpack. Nothing would stop her from packing my bag. I wasn't Kiara, and I couldn't intimidate her into leaving me alone, but I had a summer reading assignment in that backpack that she couldn't stop me from doing, and my backpack was big enough. my violin was small enough.

The plan was hatched.