Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 23:47:27 -0500
From: Stabbing Westward Junkie <youarenotyourf_ckingkhakis@hotmail.com>
Subject: Gothic Transfixion - Chapter Six Part One

There is a general stunned nodding of heads, and a few blank looks. Silence
descends again, but I can feel Madison's bright eyes upon me, so I look up
into them. She offers me a smile, and a sympathetic sigh.  And then --

"Relax, Mad."

I blink, we all look over at the doorway again. Josh is back, leaning
against the wall, composed but wan. We glance at each other. Did any of them
hear him come down? He crosses his arms over his chest and looks at us, his
gaze level, challenging no-one, simply grave and frank. No-one says a word,
but a few fold under his attention, their gazes dropping away. Madison nods
slowly, and is about to maneuver around him, when he reaches out with an arm
to bar her way. She reluctantly halts and slowly turns to face him, anxiety
in her features.

"Look," he says quietly after a while. "I didn't say anything to any of you
because I didn't want you to judge me for something as small as this. You
might say that you wouldn't think anything of it, but I have seen it cloud
the most open person's perspective when dealing with gay people. And
honestly, I didn't think it really mattered. Wasn't really anyone's
business. A few of my close friends know...but know that you all do..."

He pauses to sigh slightly, and shrug.

"I guess I just have to hope that you'll be mature about it, because I
really don't want to have to deal with homophobic stupidity."

He gazes around as he says this, and, incredibly, I hear a few soft
chuckles, and I know some smile at him, for he smiles in return.

"Josh.."

I look over my shoulder to a prep-ish looking guy with delicate features and
a wide, honest smile.

"I guess I can't speak for the rest of them, but I don't really give a shit.
As long as you're still willing to give me rides to school in the
morning..."

Laughter, and Josh winks. And with that, he walks directly in front of me
and stops, his fingers reaching out to grasp mine. Then, before I can even
think about feeling embarassed, his lips are upon mine in a quick, poignant
kiss, and his hand running lightly through my hair. Even in the face of all
this stress and self-consciousness, I am still knocked away by his touch and
the erotic feel of his kiss. My eyes close for an instant, and my fingers
squeeze his hard before he pulls away again. Then, with a secret smile, he
is out the door again, and I am left standing there in the semi-circle of
his friends, my lips burning and my cheeks raging redly.

Again, the slightly stunned silence, and I manage to look over my shoulder
warily at the people behind me, wanting to gain some idea of how that just
registered. Gazes meet mine for sudden, honest seconds before shifting away
again, and smiles briefly touch lips before conversation restarts and
normalacy reigns. I watch them quietly, Madison beside me, as they file out
into the living room again, acting as though nothing out of the ordinary
happened.

I stare at the brightly gleaming floor silently, trying to process
everything that had just happened, zoning out in the glare of the reflected
overhead light and in my memory's insistance to dwell upon Josh's kiss. What
does this mean now? Is his mother going to go insane and end up ruining his
life? She didn't sound like the extremely...stable type. And what about
Josh? That couldn't have been easy for him... I had no idea he was on such
tumultuous ground with his parents. A soft sigh drifts from my lips and my
shoulders sag unconsciously along with it, my eyes closing.

"I think I'm going to go now, Silver... see about breakfast. Okay?"

I jump slightly, having forgotten Madison was still there. I look up and
meet her concerned gaze and flash her what I hope is a carefree smile. I can
feel my eyes darkening, though, like an onslaught of thunderclouds on an
already overcast day.

"Sure," I tell her, and before she can ask me any uncomfortable or
thought-requiring questions, I slip out of the kitchen and start to head to
the back door, needing to get out of the house for the moment, to get out of
the constricting walls which seemed to hold in nothing but confusion at the
moment. But as I put my hand on the doorknob, clutching its promising
coldness longingly, the stairs off to the right seem to suddenly loom out at
me. I glance over and stare up their shadowed length contemplatively,
feeling with complete unhappiness Josh's presence up there. Would he want me
up there, after what just happened? It would take a heart of stone not to be
affected by what he'd just had confirmed for him, not to mention the other
revelations. Probably wants to be alone...

But even as I think these debilitating, very Silver-ish thoughts, I begin to
climb the stairs slowly, my hand gripping the railing reluctantly, my feet
seeming to have aquired intelligence of their own. Then I find myself at his
door, and without even knocking, I open the door and slip in, to find Josh
sitting on the edge of his bed. He does not move as I come in, the
expression on his face non-existant and blank. In his hands I can see the
shirt that I'd worn yesterday, his fingers moving absently over the
material, caressing it slowly. Watching him with an increasing sense of
loss, I fight the urge to cry; the look on his face and the pure solemness
of his gaze makes my heart hurt. My fingers flinch as they long to reach out
and smoothe those cares away, wanting to create that beautiful smile upon
his lips again, the laughter in his eyes.

"Oh, baby," I whisper silently, my fingers clutching each other painfully.
My chest feels like it is about to explode - my heart pounds with worry and
strange fear. He looks up suddenly, his gaze at once becoming guarded and
his fingers to drop my shirt instinctively. But once he realizes it is me,
he sighs shakily and shakes his head at me, his eyebrows raised and his eyes
glittering crazily with unshed tears.

"Jesus, Silver!" He stammers quickly, reaching over to pick up my shirt
again and dropping it back onto the bed. I bite my lip and mumble half-assed
apologies, which he dismisses with a shake of his head.

"No, it's okay," he says quietly, and the ghost of a smile stretches wanly
across his face. "You just...scared me. Didn't know you were there. You...
you're good at that."

The look on my face must have been as chagrined as I felt, for when he looks
back at me again, a true smile infiltrates the gloom on his features, and
the tears in his eyes seem to subside for a moment. Picking up my shirt, he
starts to fold it, and then drops it again, plucking at it anxiously while I
ransack my suddenly useless brain for something to say. As I watch his
shaking fingers, I run through all the plastic words in my head, feeling
incompetent and stupid in the face of this eerie pain. As I open my mouth in
the hopes that something halfway intelligent will come out of it, he
suddenly picks up the shirt and bunches it up with white fists and slams it
against the faraway wall.

I gasp softly, helplessly, as I see him do this, and step timidly towards
him as he tosses himself down onto the bed, shoving his head under his
pillow and gripping it tightly around him with his hands. I stand there
stupidly, hovering at the foot of his bed, staring blankly at him until I
notice that his shoulders are shaking and that he is drawing his body up
into the fetal postion. I clamber onto the bed worriedly, come to an
ungraceful stop beside him and lay a hesitant hand on his shoulder.

I let it rest there lightly, half expecting him to shrug it off. But he
doesn't. He stops shaking after a moment, and his fingers start to slowly
relax, blood rushing back into the skin again. He doesn't remove the pillow,
though, and I stare at it sorrowfully, wondering what he is hiding from me,
if sparkling tears are soaking into the material, if blood is being drawn
from a lip clenched relentlessly between grinding teeth.

"Josh?" I whisper as quietly as I can, and my hand tightens its grip
questioningly. The pillow doesn't move, but his body straightens out and he
shifts closer to me slowly. I lie down next to him and put my arms around
him as best I can, willing him to talk to me, wanting more than anything to
help, to make it all leave. I hear nothing but silence and heavy breathing
that is scented with salt, and then a muffled voice.

"You should go," I hear, and I frown. What? Go?

"What the hell for?" I ask, the tone coming out a lot more cold than I'd
intended. But it doesn't rile or upset him, he merely repeats himself in the
same deadpan, calm voice. I sigh and shake my head firmly, even though he
can't see it.

"No, Josh."

Silence again. Staring at the pillow, I'm about to speak again when when the
fingers tighten again, and his body starts shivering. And then the pillow is
ripped away, knocking things over in its furious flight, and Josh buries his
face in the blankets, trembling.

"I hate that bitch!! I HATE her!" he half screams this, and claws uselessly
at the bed. "All she's ever done is try to make me miserable! Miserable like
she is! Because I have better luck with guys than she does! All her friends
think she's so perfect... she goddamned well pretty much disowns me when she
finds out I'm gay, and now only treats me like a guest that's overstayed.
And now she's cheating on my dad because nothing is ever good enough, and
she has the gall to accuse ME of whoring myself! Of staying up all night
fucking every single guy I see! 'Get AIDS,' she told me! It would teach me
to be a goddamned CHRISTIAN!"

He yells that last word, and then rolls over onto his back, staring at the
ceiling, tears slipping down his cheeks, his jaw clenched in fury, his eyes
red and green iris' smouldering blackly. I stare at him silently, not
knowing what to say or how to say it, my hand still on his shoulder but
trembling with the force of frustration and anger. Suddenly I wished his
mother was here. The fact that she is a woman would never even cross my
mind. She would be an unrecognisable mess within five seconds flat. I gaze
into his eyes helplessly, and when he moves them to find me, my vision blurs
and I start to see double. Josh's alarmed face swims in and out of my feild
of vision, and I can feel the tears overspilling onto my cheeks, burning
hotly.

"Oh... oh, Silver... Jeez... Silver..." I hear him say with aching
tenderness, and suddenly his arms are around me, drawing me close to him,
his scent and warmth covering me. His hair drapes across my cheeks, mingling
with my tears, and I feel his tears falling onto my skin and his trembling
kisses being presses to my forehead. I can't stop crying, as much as I want
to, and as much as I realize how silly and thoughtless it is to be crying
now of all times. I try to move out of his embrace, try to pull myself
together.

"No..." I say mutedly, the tears making my voice thick. "No.. I'm supposed
to be the one comforting you... not the other way around..."

Josh doesn't relent, however, simply gripping me tighter, his voice soft and
worried.

"Why are you crying...?"

I'm quiet for a moment, and then I manage to pull away, running my hands
through my messed up hair, fingers trying to tear the tears off my face. I
shrug and struggle for breath.

"Because. Because I don't... no-one should ever treat you like that, Josh...
I hate her for it already, and I've never even met her. I hate to see you
cry, it scares me more than anything... and to know that she was the one who
made you do that..."

Josh regards me silently as my voice trails off, and then I feel a finger
sliding down my face, and I look up to meet his green gaze.

"Silver... I-"

He is interupted by a slamming door downstairs. We both blink and look over
to his door, as if being able to see through it to the source of the sound.
My hand finds his as an unnamed fear hits me, and my fingers grip his
tightly as his name is screamed. It echoes through the walls painfully, and
I see Josh wince as it peirces into the room.

"JOSHUA! Get your ass down here NOW!"

I look over at him, frozen, and watch as he slowly gets up, a set,
determined expression on his face. "My mother," he explains needlessly to
me, his voice hollow and eerily expectant. "I wonder how she got home so
fast..."

"YOU LITTLE FAGGOT! Get down here NOW!"

I flinch as I hear this, and can feel the rage slowly drawing the blood out
of my cheeks. Without thinking, I am on feet and almost yanking on the door
when Josh spins me back and grabs my face with his hands. Dragging me close
so that my eyes are mere inches away from his, he speaks quietly,
dangerously.

"Stay. Here."

I shake my head furiously and wrench out of his grasp, reaching for the door
again. But he stops me once more, yanks me back.

"SILVER. Stay here. There isn't anything you can do to make this any better.
You'll just make it worse. Hurting her won't get you anywhere except in
jail, and I refuse to have my boyfriend in jail because of my homophobic
mother! So STAY HERE."

And with that, he pushes me back onto the bed, holds me down for a moment to
make sure I'm not going anywhere, and then leaps off the bed, tears open the
door, slams it, and runs down the stairs. My fingernails dig into my plams;
I can feel blood trickling down my wrists, but the only thing I can really
register is the ceiling and I use it to calm myself down. 'Okay, Silver...
relax... relax... don't spaz... not going to get him anywhere good...' I
murmur this to myself, not moving, listening to the indistinct yelling match
downstairs.