AN: This is the first part of a four…shot. So put it on your alerts if you want to see how it ends. :)

It is also for Lunar Chasmodai for helping me with homework :coughcough: and just being overall-ly amazing. She wanted slash, geeky art student junkies, mentions of lesbians, crying, and…perhaps rape. o.O So. Keep your eyes peeled, man. So I hope she likes this. D:

(And disregard the fact that white is all the colors or whatever as you read this…’cause it works better when it’s nothingness. xD)

(and Katie, I’m still working on your birthday story. It’s just muy difícil but I’m still trying, mannn.)

White.

White is not a color. It is an absence of color. It is a blankness, an emptiness in my chest.

White is detestable, I think, my eyes crossing as I stare up at the colorless ceiling of my dorm room. My legs kick at my sheets and my fingers twitch, reaching for something that isn’t there. Maybe they’re trying to gather sleep to clog my head or for colors to scream across the ceiling.

“Damn it,” I mumble through clenched teeth. “Son of a bitch…” Though I’m not sure who I’m talking to.

Jude, the only one around me, snores in his sleep – just one sharp snort – and flops onto his back, exposing his pale skin to the dark room.

White, he glows, angelic and saintly as he sleeps. I envy him for being able to float away to the land of dreams in shocking color while I lie restless and sleepless for another abnormally long night of stretching ceilings.

I wonder how he’d react if I crawled into bed with him so some of his sleep might seep into my own exhausted brain. I wonder things like that a lot… They’re strange things to wonder about, but I can’t stop myself. Living in this room with him makes it hard to do.

Jude makes me think of all the things I’ve always denied that I am and never wanted to be. Kids at grade school used to taunt me with it when I didn’t play football or kickball with them at recess, but sat on the swings instead. “Greg the fag!” they’d chant as they marched around me, throwing sticks and stones to break my bones and those words that unfortunately did hurt me. And then there was my dad. Instead of calling me “son” or anything nearly normal, I was merely referred to as “Nancy boy” and I hated it. Yet here I am watching Jude’s pale chest expanding and deflating as he gently breathes.

“Damn it,” I say again as I roll onto my side and stare at him.

I time my breathing to his and slowly shut my eyes.

-

White morning light filters and shifts across my face, pulling me from fitful sleep, leaving me bleary, heavy, and wide awake again. I groan and pull my pillow over my head, willing the sun to go back down and my eyes to slam shut once more.

“You’re going to be late,” a voice warns in the softest sort of way and my pillow disappears from my head. Jude grins down at me, Cheshire and Crest white grin and sleepy morning eyes. “Wakey, wakey, Greg.” His hand reaches down and ruffles up my hair and my whole body turns to static.

I wrench my pillow from his hand and place it back over my head with another groan. “I don’t want to get out of bed today.”

“Hey, if I have to, you have to.” Cold air settles over me and I grit my teeth.

“Gimme my blankets back…”

Jude doesn’t answer. I peek over my shoulder to glare at him. He’s gone.

After a moment I pull myself up and shuffle down the hall to the bathroom, take a piss, check my hair in the mirror, and decide that wearing a hat sounds like a good idea today.

White foam bubbles and froths from my mouth as I brush my teeth, my eyelids sagging. So tired. When I finally slept, I just dreamt of Jude and me as we stood in the middle of a glowing white room, back-to-back and not touching and all I wanted was to turn and touch him so I could shield my eyes against his shoulder, but every time I tried, I woke up. So goddamned tired.

“Hey! I said you’re going to be late!” Jude yells, suddenly popping into the bathroom. His voice echoes around me and I flinch. I flinch again when he throws an arm around my shoulders and shoves a bagel into my face, white cream cheese smearing across the tip of my nose. “I brought you breakfast. Go get dressed and you can it eat it on the way to class.”

I avoid his eyes and duck out from beneath his arm. “Thanks, Jude.”

“No problem!” Yeah. Right.

-

White canvas burns my retinas, but I can’t look away. Jude’s humming beside me, Pearl Jam maybe, or one of his other favorite bands, and there’s a clean, dry paintbrush held loosely in my fingers as I cross my eyes and try to make something (or anything at all) appear in front of me.

“Wet grass and white headstones all in rows…” Jude sings around a brush that he has held between his lips and I glance over at him. He’s holding the brush so tightly his lips are drained of color and I look away again. I don’t want to look at his lips. It’ll make me think of what happened two, long weeks ago.

White wine drunkenness had left us both giddy and affectionate. We sat outside and stared up at the stars and the pearl moon and then as we stood to go inside, we looked at each other, spoke words that never met the night air, but only pummeled against each other’s lips. We kissed clumsily and somewhat awkwardly, and now I can’t stop thinking of him though we haven’t discussed it and things haven’t been strained between us.

Maybe it didn’t happen. Maybe it was a dream, but it’s hard to dream when I can barely sleep anymore. And do I want it to be something that’s not real?

Jude puts his hand on my shoulder and sings a line of his music in my ear. I tense to feel his hot breath but I don’t pull away. I wait for him to drop his hand and lean back from me himself before I drop my paintbrush to the floor, get up, and leave the room even though I hear people calling for me, Jude’s voice louder than the rest.

-

White pills bounce in my palm, the two of them tapping together and starting to get pasty in the sweat of my hands. I tip back my head, drop the pills into my waiting mouth, and swallow hard.

I stagger over to my bed and burrow under my bleached sheets, waiting for the pills to kick in because I’m so damned tired.

White fog surrounds me as I clamber into sleep. The face of the moon gleams in the sky above me with millions of bright star points at the edges of the galaxy. I close my eyes and sit down, sand shifting beneath me.

“I thought I’d find you here,” someone says behind me, and I know that voice by now. It’s Jude but when I turn and try to reach him, he’s sitting on the moon, so unbearably far away as he smiles and kicks his legs and whistles to the stars. I try my hardest to fly, but my feet remain leaden. “It’s okay!” he yells. “Try again tomorrow! It’s okay!”

My eyes scrape open There’s a hand in my hair, fingers gently scratching over my scalp and easing out tangles. “It’s okay,” Jude’s soft voice soothes. “It’s okay…”

“What’re you doing?” I croak, the bitter taste of sleeping pills stuck thick in the back of my throat.

“You were having a bad dream,” he speaks softly and gently and I think of our night on the sidewalk, his hands inelegantly and almost painfully snarled in my hair. I move my head away from him now and rest it on my pillow.

“Oh. Okay,” is all I can say. No thanks. No leavemealone or don’tgoaway. “What time is it?”

“A little after noon. I came up here as soon as I could. I thought you were sick or something. Are you okay?” He’s still sitting on the edge of my bed, staring across the room to one of the blank walls and restlessly glancing down at me from time to time.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I finally answer. Noproblem!

“Okay. Good. Hey, I’m heading to the bookstore and then a café with those two lesbian chicks I was telling you about. The ones with the tattoos on their heads? You want to come? I’m not leaving till around three, so want to?”

“No thanks. I’ll stay here and try to sleep some more.” I roll over and stare at the uneven bumps of the wall’s surface.

“Oh. Well…do you want me to bring you back a book? You were looking for one about that guy who had the painting with the chick holding that dude’s head...”

“Orpheus’s head,” I quietly correct.

“Yeah sure. That one. By that guy.”

“Gustave Moreau.”

“Yeah. Him. You were looking for a book on Gustave Moreau last time. Want me to get one for you if I find one like that?” His hand is on me again, warm between my shoulder blades.

I shake my head. “No. That’s fine. Have fun.”

“Are you hungry? I’ll get you some food before I leave or I can pick some up before I get back… Like a doughnut or a muffin or something like that from the café…”

“I said that I’m fine, Jude. Could you just shut up for five minutes?” I regret snapping at him as soon as the words leave my mouth, but I can’t take it back. I swear under my breath instead and shove my face into my pillow.

Jude’s hand stays on my back and I wish he’d pull away to hit me instead. I deserve it. “What’s the matter with you? Huh? You’ve been so pissy lately. Is something the matter?” Noproblem!

“No.”

“Are you sick?” he tries that guess again.

“Nope.”

“Did I do something wrong?” another guess.

I think I hesitate, but I say no again.

“Is it... Are you mad? About…you know… About me kissing you?”

Am I mad? Am I mad that he made my stomach churn and my brain melt into mush? Am I mad that I flew to the stars, touched their white-hot purity, and floated back down to land safely in his mouth? Am I mad that we pretended that nothing happened for the past two weeks? That I’ve been dreaming of him every time I manage to sleep since then? That my insides are white noise empty?

“No… No, I’m not mad.” I think that’s the honest truth, but I can’t be sure. “I just…” I look up from my pillow and turn my head to study one of his feet that’s tucked under his body on the bed, his toes flexing inside his sock.

“You just what, Greg?” he gently presses, his hand pressing harder to counteract his words.

“I just…don’t know. I’ve been feeling empty and blank and I can’t sleep or paint or draw, but that night I just felt so…good – so right – but now I’m back to feeling nothing.”

He gives a maybe-laugh. “W-we were drunk, Greg. Of course you felt good.” Is he excusing what happened? Is he saying I was nothing? I close my eyes. I’m tired. “I mean… Maybe you just need to find something to keep your mind off that and all that other stuff so you can get back into the swing of things again.”

My eyes snap back open. “It’s not that simple!” I roar though I only meant to say it. “At this rate I’ll lose my scholarship, and if that happens my life is fucked! I can’t go back home to my parents. You don’t get it, Jude! You’re fucking me up!” All the things I’ve been thinking these past few weeks are pouring from my mouth as I sit up and scream at him while my head screams in pain. His eyes are wide, his hand on his lap and not on me anymore. Good. Don’t touch me. “I can’t keep being around you. You’re…you’re sucking out my…my breath…and I can’t take it!” I’ve never been so raw before. I’ve never shown so much feeling. I couldn’t at home. Nancyboygocrytoyourmotherjustgogetthefuckoutofhere. I couldn’t in elementary school. GregthefagGregthefagheplayswithdoooolllllliiiieeeessss.Don’tyou? Couldn’t in high school. Didn’t talk in high school. But here I am with Jude and everything comes out finally and it feels good.

He stands up and begins pacing between our beds. “Fine. Fine. This is fucking great, man.” He shoves his glasses up onto the top of his head and rubs his eyes, laughing a laugh that makes me shiver. “Best friends forever, right? Yeah well sorry, Greg. I didn’t know it meant something to you, okay? So—”

“So what? So get over it? So suck it up and move on? Fuck you, Jude! I’m…I’m leaving. Have fun with your stupid tattooed freak friends. I won’t be here when you get back so…so bye.” I get up, shoving him out of my way, grab my coat and beanie, and leave the room, slamming the door as hard as I can. Fuck him.

-

White snow sifts in front of my face, speckling my clothes. My body’s stiff with cold and my anger has been slowly dissipating over the past two hours, leaving me to shiver, curse myself, and regret everything I said to Jude up there.

He probably thinks I’m a freak…not like that’s anything new. I haven’t exactly been the most popular kid all my life. A pansy at home, a girly quiet thing in grade school, and the silent weirdo who had his nose buried in a notebook and his hands coated with lead and charcoal all through high school. I thought college would be different. I thought I could start over and be something new…something that I didn’t loathe and that other people didn’t either. But along came Jude and I feel just as awkward and useless now as I did then.

I shiver hard and hunch down further in my coat. I shouldn’t have gotten angry. I was just so confused and sad and pissed off. I shouldn’t have stormed outside either, especially after saying I wouldn’t be there when he got back. I had no where else to go. I’d intended on moving out after I’d found a new roommate as I ran out here, but I remembered that Jude’s basically the only one I really know and like…or who really knows or likes me. If he likes me anymore.

“Hey, you okay?” a girl asks as she passes me by. I glare at the way she stares at me. Greg the Freak again. I nod numbly when she doesn’t keep walking. She bites her lip and shrugs. “Well, okay then. But be careful! Don’t get sick!” As if she actually cares. No one actually cares. I don’t even care. I narrow my eyes at her as she hurries off.

Maybe I do want to get sick, though. Maybe I’ll get so sick that I’ll die. Maybe then I’d feel better. I frown. What am I thinking? Am I really going to make Jude make me feel like I want to die? No. No, I won’t let him make me feel this way.

I get up and brush the snow off my front, my butt ice cold from sitting for so long. It’s hard to hurry, but I try to get back to mine and Jude’s room as fast as I can.

White paper is taped to the door. Sorry it says in Jude’s crooked writing. I ignore it and unlock the door, stepping into the warmth of the room and peeling off my coat when I see Jude’s not back yet. Good. I haven’t figured out what to say to him yet, or if I’m even going to say anything at all.

My feet bring me over to his bed and I sit at the foot of it, staring at his dirty clothes piled in a corner.

After a moment I find myself thinking that I need to remind him to separate his whites from the colors, and I wonder what that means mid-thought. Does it mean I actually care about him? Well, of course I care about him… I was just angry. So I’m not angry anymore? But if I’m not angry anymore, that’ll just leave me feeling awkward and sick. I lean back in his bed, feeling awkward and sick.

A few minutes pass before I roll over onto my stomach. I’m on Jude’s bed. This is something I’ve been thinking about but haven’t been indulging in for so long. I press my face into his pillow and breathe in deeply. This is what I’d smell if I crawled in beside him one night and pressed my face into the back of his neck, my body against his.

I close my eyes, my hand snaking down past my waistband as I clutch onto his pillow and think. I think of what could happen if I ever crawled into his bed with him. He’d turn over after I’d peppered the back of his neck with kisses and his hand would be mine, stroking me softly as I held onto him, crying out his name as he brought me to release.

White covers my hand, sticky and making me feeling nauseous. I slide out of Jude’s bed and wipe my hand clean on a dirty shirt of mine. After a brief hesitation, and feeling disgusted all the while, I fall back down onto his bed and close my eyes.

-

White powder is before my eyes when I wake up and I blink hard, trying to figure out what it was, where I am, and how I got there. By the time I realize I’m in Jude’s bed because we got into a fight, the speckles of white I woke up to are gone.

I slowly sit up, rubbing my eyes and yawning.

“Did I wake you? You were talking a little so I thought you were already awake.” I freeze. Jude. Jude’s in the room and I’m in his bed. It takes all my strength to raise my head to find him. He’s sitting on the floor between our beds, tapping something that’s out of my sight between his legs. “Did you hear what I was saying or no?” Doesn’t he care that I’m in his bed. “Or are you just still too mad to answer?”

“I’m not mad…” I force myself to say, despite how afraid I feel. “I was asleep.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t look at me. He just keeps tapping.

“Jude… What’re you doing?” I look over his shoulder. There’s a jagged piece of broken mirror between his long legs, and on it he’s using his library card to separate powder into two thin lines. I think of movies of gangsters and junkies and clear my throat that’s suddenly so thick with something that I can’t swallow. “What is that, Jude? What’re you doing?”

He finally looks up to me, his eyes wide and scared shitless, more intense than I’ve ever seen him look before. “I… I was just… Just listen to me, okay? Hear me out, Greg.” He must see the fear on my own face because he reaches out and puts a hand on my knee, making me relax and keeping me in place before I even realize that I was about to run. “I was telling Sarah and Kandi about you… Those are the girls I went to lunch with… And they just… They said that you just needed to relax, and you do, Greg.” He always talks fast but now he’s talking faster, tripping over his words as he licks at his dry lips. This is what he does when he’s nervous. It makes me nervous that he’s nervous. “And then we were talking about what to do about it, and Kandi was kidding but she said ‘Well, what about drugs,’ and I thought well, why not? Right? I mean… If we don’t do something, you’ll get kicked out anyway. Right?”

He pauses for me to answer and I can only nod because he just said “we” and not “you” and it feels good. “Okay. Yeah. Right,” I agree when he still doesn’t continue and he nods back.

“Right. And so we’ll just do it this once. Just this once and we’ll find something else, but this will just… It’ll be an experiment. It’ll buy us some time.” More we and us. “I thought we’d snort it. I know… It’s heroin, and I was talking to Kandi and she said the first time she did it, she did it this way so I thought we could too. Snort it… So… Do you want to?”

I don’t answer because I can’t think, but I find myself slipping off his bed and kneeling on the other side of the mirror, staring at him as he stares at me, before I avert my gaze down to the mirror, staring at him from between the lines. Read between the lines, but all I can see are his hopeful, worried eyes and I take a deep breath.

“Okay. Just this once though, okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. You’re sure about this?”

I nod. I’m positive. I need to do something and if I don’t do this and continue doing nothing I’ll have to go back home to my parents and this will just be more ammo for my dad to use against me. He’ll tear at me and taunt me with my failure until I fall apart so I nod some more.

“I’m sure.”

“You first then.” He puts a hand on my knee again and I take a deep breath, staring down at the perfect lines, and all I can think is one thing:

White.

Lemme know what you think, please. D:

And if you’ve ever done heroin – tell me exactly how it feels.

xD