new chapter, sorry it's not really very long. been writing more now that school's out, but i haven't been so consistent, hopping around on different fics instead. i hope to finish a mortuary kid story i started near the beginning of the summer--got about three quarters through it before my attention went elsewhere. yeah, i'm just that ADD, what of it?

anyway. still thinking about starting a twitter for saul, but i don't know if it'd be worth the effort yet. you guys let me know whether or not it'd be something you'd be interested in, yeah? and i'll cattleprod a friend who mentioned he'd draw up a picture of saul for that account. yeah.

hope you guys enjoy the chapter!

thursday, 25 june, 2009. 4:07am

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Danny was finished with the pictures and he’d handed them back to me, neither of us saying much more than general small talk as I put the pictures into a dresser drawer and crawled into bed. But long after the stain had dried, my fingers were drawn back to the spot, eyes slits in the dark for a while before I managed sleep.

-- -- -- (chapter begins)

Beyond Halloween and towards Thanksgiving, the passage of weeks began to weigh heavily on Danny’s mind--I know, because he couldn’t stop silently watching me. Like he was afraid I might poof out of existence should he miss coming home from school for just one day, one hour. He’d wait up, in the dark, for me to get home from work, but our silences grew longer, more like they were when we first moved in.

One of these days he’s going to develop an ulcer…or beat the living shit out of me. Whichever comes first.

-- -- --

“Hey, Saulderman, Benji’s in his room.”

Pete answered the door when I knocked the first day of Thanksgiving break; it was only eight in the morning, but Pete looked like he’d been up a good hour or so. Sometimes, I find myself staring at this guy and wondering where the hell he’d come from--was so used to him on pot for so long, I still don’t quite know him sober.

“Sleeping?” I guessed, and he nodded, causing me to shrug and ensconce myself onto their sofa to see what Pete’d been watching. Ah, a pothead flick--some things don’t change, after all.

-

It was closer to noon than not by the time Benji shuffled from his room into the living room, crashing down onto my legs and making me grunt and shove him off onto the floor, his scowl more pout than anything with real menace.

“You’re such a punk,” he whined from down near my feet, and I rolled my eyes, using my toes to dig into his side and make him shriek laughter before he could squirm away and back onto the couch.

“Hey, Saul, Danny asked me when your birthday was.”

“Did he?” I stretched, bending my spine back until it crunched and my shirt rode up my stomach.

“Yeah. I don’t really remember the day, just that it’s between Thanksgiving and Christmas, right?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“…You still moving out? I mean…even with you and Danny?”

I looked at him; “Why would that change anything?”

He flushed a bit and shrugged; “I dunno.”

I continued looking at him for a couple minutes before turning back to the television with a small shake of my head. Honestly…what would me and Danny have to do with me moving out?

-

The second day into the break, Danny left the house sometime while I was at work, and he didn’t come back that night. Or all of the next day. Andrew didn’t appear worried about his son’s absence, so I could only assume it was something prearranged.

It’s not that it bothered me, but it was fucking quiet and boring home by myself, so I finally took my bike and pedaled back to the old apartments, and stashing my ride behind the dumpster.

On an off chance, I glanced inside and noted someone had thrown a rather beaten-up skateboard inside--after fishing it out and brushing away some indeterminable vegetation slime, I tested the bearings in the wheels with my thumb and found them slightly out of whack but not so badly as make it useless.

Thus, I carried the board up to Greg’s, knocking on the door and straining my ears for a quick listen. It was silent, which was surprising, and even more so was that nobody answered the door. I tried again, using the tip of the board to rap four or five hard knocks to save my knuckles, and suddenly heard a muffled crash and cursing from inside before the locks rattled and the door swung open.

It was hash-pipe-guy, and his pale skin had a more sickly tinge to it today, dark bruises beneath his eyes and an ill-tempered expression darkening his overall countenance. He recognized me well enough that he left the door open, but he grumpily returned to his room, stumbling over piles of clothing and miscellaneous junk before he made it inside and the sound of another lock engaging made an angry last retort.

Otherwise, the apartment was deathly still and quiet, and assuming Greg wasn’t home, I made my way over the debris littering the floor to the couch, dropping the board to the carpet and settling myself down to watch television.

A girl came out of the locked bedroom at some point, shuffling through the living room to the kitchen, the sink running a few moments before she shuffled back to the room with a glass in her hand and the lock clicked back into place. She’d been wearing a pair of men’s boxers hung low on her somewhat fleshy hips, and a sports bra, the straps crisscrossing the space between her shoulder blades, but nothing else. Completely uninteresting.

-

It was late when the front door finally opened, snapping me from the light sleep I was under; I’d settled into lying down onto the couch at some point, the television on but the sound down low.

A person shuffled into the apartment with a low cough, back bowed with weariness as they made their way into the kitchen--they wasn’t there long before the sound of retching and gagging pushed me slowly upright, my brow furrowed sleepily before I got up and silently made my way over to the doorway. Whoever it was, was bent over the sink, heaving for quite some time before they finally quit long enough to run some water and gasp a bit; I dispassionately watched him cup water into his palm and wet his mouth, spitting and repeating the process until satisfied.

It was only when he stood upright that I was sure it was Greg, and he turned and walked back towards the living room, stopping short only when he nearly ran into me standing in the doorway.

There was no smell of alcohol on him, so I said, “Everyone in this place infectious?”

“Damn, I thought it were you standing there--you scare a body, kid,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair before answering my question, “I weren’t sick before work, but damn if Furby didn’t give it to me, I’m gonna kick his ass.”

I let him by and he made his way into the living room, moving slowly, as if his body was made of pain. When he flopped into a beat up recliner, I came up behind him and put my palm to his forehead; he didn’t even seem to notice, which wasn’t surprising, considering his skin was worryingly hot against my skin.

“You need to be in bed,” I told him, my tone flat despite the mothering words.

He groaned; “So far away.”

“Lazy ass. Get up.”

Surprisingly, he didn’t argue, peeling himself from the chair and letting me push him down the short hall to what I assumed was his bedroom; I thought Pete or Benji were messy, until I saw the state of Greg’s room, a smell like dirty socks hanging in the air. Greg tried to crawl into bed fully clothed but I efficiently stood him in place and yanked at his clothing, working off his shirt and moving towards his pant buttons before he thought to brush my hands away and do it himself.

I was in his personal space, but he didn’t appear to even notice, except his voice came suddenly, “You’re a queer-boy.”

It wasn’t a question, but I nodded slightly, concentrating more on whether he was going to fall over every time he made a vague swaying motion, his skin giving off more heat than a person should. I could feel him through my clothes.

“Never really thought ‘bout it, you know, queer kids, but then you kissed that guy. You know?”

I didn’t know, so I ignored it, stepping back because he appeared to have a handle on his clothes--I left him stepping out of his pants, and took a turn into the bathroom to see if they kept any kind of medication there. They didn’t have a cabinet like we did in our apartment, but I found some pain killers in a basket on the back of the toilet, and I grabbed a few for his fever before heading back into the room.

He was sprawled out in his briefs on top of his blankets, and I went over and coerced him into taking the pills--he popped them dry and crunched them a while, causing me to make a face at the sure bitterness. I didn’t know people could really do that; gross.

I left him to sleep after that, mentally thinking to check in on him come morning.

-

Greg felt well enough in the morning to chuck a shoe at me when I walked into his room--I calmly let it him me in the shin before picking it up and slugging it back, aiming for his midsection and hitting a bit high in the chest. He groaned and rolled onto his side, vaguely flipping me off before muttering something along the lines of reluctant gratitude for the night before.

I nodded, told him I was off, and left the apartment to return home.

It was early, the house silent, Danny sprawled out asleep in his bed. I was quiet enough to grab my work uniform and leave without waking him.

-

After an eight hour shift, my clothes hung damp against my skin, sticking in ways I’d rather not think about, and my hair was limp and greasy. A film of grease lined my forehead and nose, the sleeve of my uniform stained dark when I wiped the worst of it away with a grimaced twist to my lips.

I thought about going home, I really did, but I had some things I wanted to talk with Greg about first, so biked back to the apartment, stashing away my bike and hauling my ass up flights of stairs because the elevator had a ‘closed’ sign taped up. Not unusual.

When I knocked, I didn’t have to wait very long before the door opened, and I blinked upon seeing Danny standing there in the doorway. He looked grim and somewhat pissed off, but he let me in, standing by the door and crowding my personal space as I walked by.

“Your mom has no idea where you are, you know,” he finally stated, and I gave him an odd look before shrugging.

“She never does.”

“When’s your birthday, Saul?”

I stared at him a long moment before responding, “Eleventh of December.”

“And you’re really leaving?”

I sighed; “That’s the plan, idiot. It’s not that I’m leaving you…I’m not going to fade into mist.”

That had once been my plan, though, to disappear from anyone who once knew me. I used to think I could do it, even to Benji, but I know now it won’t work--I can’t do it. Growing up, laying on the sofa for hours at a time at night, staring up at the dark ceiling above, I used to map out how I’d do it, how I’d fade away. I could travel by foot, by car, by train if I had to--illegally if I had to. I could steal, dig through garbage, get a job, play some old, rich fool into keeping me for a while.

There were a million things I could have done, but I see now that they wouldn’t have worked.

“And I’m not going to leave without telling you,” I told him, saw how that had been his greatest worry, that I’d shift it when he wasn’t looking.

“Promise?”

I nodded, and then asked, “Is Greg here?”

He blinked and asked, “The tall dude?”

But before I could nod, he’d answered his own question, “Yah. Looked like hell, all dead and shit.”

I rolled my eyes, and made my way down the short hall to Greg’s bedroom--the door wasn’t latched all the way, and I pushed it open some and peeked in. He sat on his bed, wearing only a pair of hitched-low camouflage shorts--there wasn’t any indication of underwear, unless it was falling off his ass as much as the shorts. Unbidden, a twinge of horniness shot through me that I could only ignore, waiting for him to look up from a large book containing glossy photographs women in sultry bikinis.

“What’s that, Sports Illustrated in one convenient wank bank?” I finally asked, and he looked up, his face a bit pale from illness until a flush rose up on his cheeks.

“Fuck you, Saul.”

The words were habitually stated, masking his embarrassment, but he closed the book and I noted that it was looked like a model collection. So yes, one convenient wank bank.

“I take it your boy out there gave you a talking to,” he finally teased, and I snorted.

“Something along those lines.”

He grinned a bit, moving so that his legs slid over the edge of his mattress and he leaned back on his palms--if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was presenting the expanse of flesh at me on purpose.

“I had something I wanted to ask….” I began, but he rolled his eyes.

“You think it’s that easy? You’ve noticed there’s no room, haven’t you?”

I was silent a moment before saying, “I’d pay part of the rent.”

“You’d pay groceries, you shit, don’t think I never noticed you coming down here and knocking me clean out on food,” he mocked, and I shrugged that it was agreeable.

“Regardless, there’s no room, Saul.”

“It’s not forever, and I could sleep on the couch.”

“That couch is shit.”

I looked away at his final shoot-down, forcing my disappointment to sink down a bit before nodding and moving away from the door.

He sighed with something like guilt; “Saul…wait.”

When I looked at him, he was sitting forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at me with an intensity rare for him.

“You can bunk here with me, so long as you keep your hands to yourself. Remind me sometimes of one of my kid brothers, you know, and I…I like you Saul. You’re a shithead, a right cold bastard, but you’re alright. So…you can stay here a while, unless I got a girl in here, then you’re on your own for a few days, got me?”

I nodded, swallowing past a hairy itch in my throat at the glimpse of pubes just visible at his waistband.

“Sure. Some advice though, man…wear underwear.”

Startled, the flush from before returned even as I jokingly leered, tilting my head in a grateful nod before I left him cursing at me.

Danny was in the living room where I’d left him, idly running that skateboard across the carpet with his foot, and he looked up as I entered.

“You ask what you needed to?”

I nodded, and he lumbered up from the couch, bemusedly grabbing the skateboard when I told him to before we started for the door.

“This yours?” he queried, tucking the board beneath arm.

“Yah, found it out in the trash, it’s decent enough.”

“Bearings are shot.”

I scoffed, and he grinned a bit, shutting the door behind him and walking along beside as we started down the hall.

He waited until we were all the way down to the bottom level before he finally thought to ask, “You’re going to be here when you move out, aren’t you.”

“Greg said I could stay a while,” I agreed, and he winced into the sun as we stepped outside.

“I guess….” He trailed off, but I heard what he meant, that he could live with it.

Danny’s bike was stashed somewhere else, and I slowly biked over with him, my skateboard balanced across one thigh as I held it in place. He suddenly flipped one hand beneath an end of the board, causing it to jerk up and nearly causing me to wipe out, grinning at my choke of indignant outrage. I tilted the bike to the side and spilled off it, smoothly landing on my feet and dropping the board before launching at Danny, laughing at his stunned look of horror just before I made impact. We tussled a bit, our laughter sounding in spurts, and maybe part of it was I’d missed being able to touch him.

It’s a powerful thing, to know you have explicit permission to touch someone, anywhere, anytime, and not even have it be sexual. My hands on him and his hands on me, elbows and shoulders, hips and knees, and maybe bruises were involved, but it was still worth it.

Both of us grinned like silly fools by the time we had Danny’s bike and mine, pushing off and heading for home.

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A/N: more to come, eventually. don't give up on me, guys.