Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 07:32:17 +0000 (UTC)
From: Ckskb Lfb <ckskb1@yahoo.com>
Subject: catch me if i fall chapter 9, gay, young-friends

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This story is 100% fictional.

This story will feature sexual scenes between minors of various ages so if
it's something you don't like/agree with or it is not legal in your
area/country or are not as of yet of legal age to be reading this sort of
stuff then don't read any further.

I welcome feedback emails with healthy criticism, suggestions etc. or just
plain correspondence, but flames will be ignored and those email addresses
will be added to the block sender's list.

Send your feedback emails to: ckskb1@yahoo.com and add "BCC list" along
with your comments/feedback if you want me to add you to the list of people
I will be emailing with updates and release dates of new chapters/stories.

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Chapter 9: Bits and Pieces Of Proof and Reason

"I'm anxious about this night sailing lesson." Andronicus and Vasilis were
walking down the port to the sailing school, holding hands as they had done
for almost three months now. Ever since that day at school they never
stopped holding hands. At first a lot of the villagers had looked at them
with either scorn, indifference or by ignoring their very presence but as
time passed most of them softened up to the young couple. Seeing them being
young, in love and with the exception of being gay being no different than
the other teenage couples on the island.

"Yes, I know, you've told me like a hundred times already." Vasilis
laughed. "You'll do great, stop worrying." He rubbed his fingers on
Andronicus' palm squeezing it gently.

"Yes, I know, but still...I am anxious okay!?" Andronicus whined.

Vasilis looked around and pulled him off to an alley where he proceeded to
hold the boy's face in his hands and rub their lips together enticingly
before sucking Andronicus' breath from his mouth with a wet, sloppy,
passionate kiss.

Andronicus held him from his waist as they kissed and kissed and kissed.

"You know you've been putting your cake and honey in me but I have yet to
put mine in yours." Andronicus whispered. Vasilis blushed.

"Yes, that'll happen. I just can't seem to get enough of yours, ever."
Vasilis replied.

"I'll be late for the sailing lesson..." Andronicus said but made no move
to leave.

"I'm not stopping you..." Vasilis nibbled on his lower lip.

"You are kissing me, same thing." Andronicus pulled him closer.

"We continue like this I'll have to squeeze my sausage in your buns right
here and now." Vasilis whispered in his ear.

"You started it..." Andronicus moaned and against his desire he pushed
Vasilis back straightening his clothes.

"It's your fault for being so god damn sexy."

Andronicus poked his tongue at him and started walking.

He took his seat and pulled out his book and text pad. An hour of theory
later they were in the sea. Vangelis explaining them about beacons, night
sailing and so on. Vasilis waited for him to finish his lesson and then
they went to Andronicus' house. His mother was not pleased that they
continued to go out together in this fashion but she knew now that she
could not force Andronicus to break it off and so she stayed in the
sidelines.

"Finally Friday...I'll go have a quick shower and then we can play some
FIFA?" Andronicus asked removing his clothes.

Vasilis looked over scanning him quite overtly and purposefully. "Yeah,
sure we could do that..." His voice trailed.

Andronicus blushed at the intense scrutiny and walked in the bathroom.

He turned on the water, adjusted the temperature and stepped in the
bathtub.

He begun with rinsing his hair and face and was about to rub over his chest
when he felt a cold breeze and a second later someone stepped in the
bathtub behind him. He felt hands snaking to his flaccid almost four-inch
dick and around his chest.

"Or we can do this." Vasilis whispered in his ear and started a slow
jerking off motion with his hand.

Andronicus moaned softly and meandering his hand between their bodies he
wrapped his slender fingers around Vasilis' rigid soldier giving it a good
squeeze.

"Ya..." Andronicus let out and moved his butt back pushing Vasilis' hard
penis between his buns. "You were saying something about buns and sausages
earlier?"  He breathed wiggling his buns.

"You little minx, have you any idea how much you turn me on?" Vasilis
brought his hand down from Andronicus' chest and took hold of one of two
hips.  Squeezing it he brought their two bodies together.

Andronicus pushed his ass back with Vasilis pushing forward and Vasilis
found himself dickhead deep inside the love of his life.

They groaned softly with Vasilis rocking back and forth.

"I am no minx but you turn me on so much as well and I bet you I can make
you cum at will." Andronicus wiggled his pert behind.

Vasilis groaned. "I doubt it..." Whatever he intended to say was lost as
Andronicus constricted his anal muscles as if he had not taken a dump in
weeks.  His sphincter held the impaling member in a vice like grip. Vasilis
blew his cork lodged in Andronicus' anus slamming his hips back and forth
like a jackrabbit in heat. "Oh my fucking god!" Vasilis yelled as he
orgasmed inside Andronicus, his hand rapidly stroking Andronicus who did
not last long and sprayed his offerings to the cascading shower water.

It took them a moment to catch their breath. They soaped each other up and
rinsed off before drying each other up.

"Vasili...it looks like Iraklis is uploading stuff in google drive."
Andronicus had exited the bathroom first and turned on the computer.

"Weird, I don't remember seeing this picture of you before?" Vasilis asked
him as he sat down.

"Dunno, it's always been there, it's the only one I have of me and
dad...before he broke up with mum." Andronicus replied taking the framed
picture from Vasilis looking it over.

"He's not blond." Vasilis stated.

"No, neither is mum, I guess I took from one of two grandparents."
Andronicus shrugged.

"Yeah...I guess." Vasilis said and lifted a leg to put his underwear on.

"Looks like Iraklis has left a message in Skype. He wants us to video call
the group before opening anything he uploaded earlier. Shall I call him
now?"

"Well we aren't dressed but what the heck." Vasilis chuckled.

Andronicus poked his tongue out and pressed the video call button on the
group.

It didn't even get to ring and they could see Iraklis, a few seconds later
Fraggos' and Iasonas' faces appeared through their web-cameras.

"Hey..." Iasonas waved, he looked positively mirthful. Iraklis chuckled
with Fraggos slapping his forehead.

"Honestly now? Iasonas, Andronicus...fuck all of you looked like you've
just gotten laid! I need a girlfriend!" Iraklis teased them.

"Why would you say that `cause two of them are also at least half naked?"
Fraggos jested.

"So what's up?" Vasilis asked.

The mood on Iraklis face changed in an instant. He took a couple deep
breaths before he started speaking.

"You guys know how I like reading conspiracy theories even if I don't
necessarily believe them right?"

"Yeah, we know." Andronicus replied.

"Well...I've sort of been running a crazy idea on my head...and I've been
trying to find proof of either proving it true or false, it's why I have
not been as active in google drive lately."

"What idea?" Iasonas' curiosity peaked.

"The idea that...the wreck was not an accident." Iraklis said, swallowing
hard.

"Come on...what are you saying? That someone purposefully sabotaged the
ferry? For what reason?" Vasilis tried rebuking the very notion.

"I think...if I am correct to cover up Pavlos' rape." Iraklis was almost
pale white and anyone who could see his face could easily tell he was not
kidding around.

"Show...show us what you found...you found something didn't you? I mean why
else tell us now?" Vasilis almost ordered him.

"Okay...so open the google drive and go into our folder, then into the new
folder I created "Wreck proof"." Iraklis told them. They all hurried about
to open their browser and then google drive's link.

Once there they waited for Iraklis to continue.

"So...It wasn't easy and I could not find concrete proof but I'll show you
what I did find." He took a breath and told them to open a file.

"This is a newspaper article I found. It shows how the ship owner company
had won several awards that year for those ferry boats, on customer
service, speed of travel between Ydra and Athens and finally for their
exemplary service of their ferry boats." He waited for them to read the
article, then he had them open another file.

"So next I found this article that the storm had caught them off guard but
there was not much they could do because of some "technical problem" that
the article does not name because the case or the information were not
released to the press." He continued to present them with what information
he had found until only one file remained.

"This is all...this, I mean...it doesn't prove much of anything except
maybe that the captain of the ferry had the worst possible luck on the
planet?" Vasilis still tried to cling on the belief that the wreck had been
a horrible accident.

Andronicus could sense his discomfort and squeezed his hand under the table
comfortingly.

"I know so I...if my father ever finds out I'll probably be grounded for
the rest of my life but I used his coast guard credentials to access the
coast guard's mainframe. I found that file left in there. It is the folder
of the investigation that followed the wreck. It is still open and cold."
He waited until everyone had opened it.

"I made copies of copies and did my best to delete anything that could
back-trace this to my dad's computer or to us seeing it. It shows that the
captain had declared SOS to the coast guard immediately when the rudder
failed."

"Wait, the rudder failed? How does that happen on such a boat? I mean
everything is run by a computer no? And that was never released to the
public."  Vasilis spoke in clear worry.

"Yes, it was never released to the public or the media because it is still
an active case even if cold. They don't know how or why, the way the boat
fell on the reef it destroyed the propeller and rudder almost completely
and to such an extent that with the destruction of the boat's computer
system because of the water prevented them from discovering if the rudder
had been tempered with. In his last communication the captain had told the
coast guard that the checks before leaving the port had shown no
errors. The coast guard verified this with the ship owner company with
their authentication codes and event log from their operations'
center. Furthermore, when the storm hit them the captain, a seasoned sailor
with more than twenty-five years of experience, did everything he knew and
could to steer the boat without the rudder and keep them afloat until the
coast guard and any other vessel around could provide aid. The captain knew
of the reef from the naval charts and previous experience and the boat's
GPS showed clearly that he tried his best to avoid it entirely but because
of the storm and the rudder's failure he was unable to. After the ship ran
aground on the reef he and the crew followed procedure to the letter but
because it was night, cold and with gale force winds and rain the
passengers that did not die from drowning because they did not manage to
get out from inside the boat died from hypothermia or crashed on the rocks
by the waves. Only eleven passengers managed to live long enough to be
rescued by the coast guard and a huge container ship that was nearby and
positioned itself in such a way as to provide calm water for the coast
guard ship to do their jobs." Iraklis took a breath and continued.

"There were some parts that my father did not have clearance to view,
something about a coast guard officer being on board the boat and two more
pages I could not view. Look I cannot prove it but...I think someone
sabotaged the rudder in hopes of the storm catching the ferry in open sea
and sinking it to cover the rape of Pavlos. I cannot prove it but I do not
think that your aunt was leaving your uncle that night. I think she was
going to Athens to get Pavlos tested in a hospital and then proceed to
Piraeus police department where Ydra belongs to name who the rapist was and
move the legal system along for whatever would be next. I think the rapist
learned of it and did all he could to prevent it."

Vasilis had gone ghost white. "But...that would mean...I mean...my aunt,
cousin, so many loved ones lost from Ydra in that wreck...I think I'm going
to be sick..."

Iraklis was not over. "Andronicus...what do you know of your grandparents'
deaths?"

"Not much, why? I know that they died in an accident...car crash I think
mum said once?"

"No...they were in that ferry...you, me, Fraggos, Iasonas and Vasilis are
all connected, the wreck connects us, Fraggos and Vasilis their cousins and
Iasonas' mum and my dad were two of those eleven that survived."

"No, I am pretty sure they died in a car crash..." Andronicus said, his
face a grimace mix of surprise and denial. His mother would not have lied
to him about this would she?

"Andronicus...I'm really sorry, I mean I...I shouldn't have to be the one
to tell you this but...here's the passenger manifest from that wreck. I
logged in from my father's account, he's a coast guard officer."

"WHAT? Are you an idiot? The coast guard will know, and your father..."
Vasilis started saying but Iraklis cut him off.

"Will you relax? You've taught me better than this, I did not print this
from my father's account and it's not strange for him to view it, he had
viewed this like a hundred times in the past. I mean our fathers were best
friends." He told Vasilis. "It was not strange that he looked at that case
file containing the passenger manifest. So I took screenshots of the thing
from the prtsc button in the keyboard, pasted them to Microsoft paint and
uploaded those after removing all metadata and personal info data from the
properties. We're good." Iraklis concluded grinning.

"Oh ok, I did train you guys well." Vasilis grinned back.

Andronicus read the manifest and bolted out of the room before Vasilis
could even react. "Guys I'll call you back later."

Andronicus walk-ran to his mum's room and burst in without even knocking.

"Wha..." She did not even manage to get a single word out.

"Why did you lie to me, us? Grandma and Grandpa did not die in a car crash,
they died in the naval wreck here in Ydra. Why lie to me?" His voice full
of anger and accusation.

Her jaw hung for a moment before she could reply.

"I...I am sorry, at the time you were so young...I did not tell you that
they died in a car crash, you were very young and just told you that they
had gone to a long journey. Then later on when you asked again I did not
tell you that, you sort of filled the gaps." She spoke calmly, too calmly.

"Why not tell me and Christina the truth?"

"Christina knows, she always has."

"Then...why...?"

"I do not know why she never told you."

"Why should I? Not in my job fucking description." Christine had heard it
all. She threw in her comment, shrugged in deathly apathy and walked away.

"What else are you lying to me about then?" Andronicus continued.

"What? Nothing. Why would I lie to you?" She rebutted him, there was worry
in her eyes.

"I don't know...this is so fucked up..." Andronicus just turned and
left. This had happened so fast that Katerina had not even thought to ask
how or from where Andronicus learned of this.

Andronicus closed and locked the door to his room behind him. He sat next
to Vasilis and hugged him. Vasilis just let him enjoying their close
proximity, he always loved snuggling with Andronicus and enjoying the heat
of their bodies and the boy's smell wafting to his nostrils.

"This changes things, who would kill almost five hundred people just so he
could kill a single person...and a child at that." Vasilis was not asking
Andronicus. He was just voicing his thoughts which troubled him.

"Must have been whoever raped Pavlos...he probably sank the boat to silence
the whole matter forever." Andronicus replied.

"How do we find him? Our search so far has turned up so little. It is down
to only three people who could have done this, the rape I mean, and things
are not moving fast enough..."

"Yes, but now we have more information to cross reference from. Whoever it
was it must have been someone who had enough access to Pavlos to be able to
do this without getting caught, someone who had probably done this before
either here in the island or elsewhere, and he must have had intimate
knowledge on the workings of a ferry such as this to be able to sabotage
it, also time is a factor, the ferry would have docked for no more than
twenty, thirty minutes at the port, unloaded and loaded passengers, at the
most, he must have known where to go, and what to alter and be out of the
ferry before it departed, and all that with people coming and going...there
can't have been many males like that in Ydra that left after the wreck and
he couldn't have left before as he would have to have physically done this,
training someone else to do it would have taken too much time and effort."
Andronicus surmised.

"Yeah...I think you're right but we have no access to databases and what
little we have access to like social profiles is giving up a lot less
information than I would have thought of." Vasilis rubbed his forehead
displaying his frustration at the slowness and ineffectiveness of their so
far effort.

"Makes sense doesn't it?" To Andronicus the answer was self-evident.

"How so?" It was not so to Vasilis though.

"Well, think about it, you're an adult guy, you like raping kids and you
have just sabotaged a ferry boat full of almost five hundred people, would
you even have social profiles? Would you not be more than a little paranoid
and careful about what info you display online?" Andronicus elaborated.

It was as if a light bulb had turned on in Vasilis' mind. "Yes! So perhaps
I...we should search not for what is online but for what isn't."

"Now you have lost me again, just when I think I've outsmarted you."
Andronicus teased him.

"As you said, we cross-reference what information we have, names, dates and
so on with what information is not available online. If someone doesn't
have social profiles, and/or he has very little digital footprint then
something's off. Let me recall the others." Vasilis Skype called the rest
of their little conspiracy.

Andronicus and Vasilis spent ten minutes completing each other's sentences
explaining what they had come up with.

"Aww, you guys are cute, you even complete each other's sentences now."
Fraggos teased them grinning.

Andronicus poked his tongue at him and Frenched Vasilis who looked mighty
happy.

"Only problem now is I don't want to overdo it at coming and going to
Athens on daily trips, it costs like fuck and eventually my mum will catch
on to what I'm doing or worse the police will, hacking ain't exactly
legal."

"Oh! I remembered what I've wanted to tell you earlier." Iraklis
exclaimed. "There is a young coders' campus conference, seminars and so on
during Easter's second week. Perhaps you could attend it, you'll be in a
hotel wifi, I am sure you could...uhm "Creatively acquire access" to
databases or anything else there without anyone knowing it was you. Here
let me give you the notification I got from Facebook."

"What!? How did I not know about this!?" Vasilis nearly screamed. He opened
the link Iraklis sent him. "Oh it's in Thessaloniki, great I haven't been
there, five days, cool! Yeah, I'll sell the idea to my mum. They continued
talking for some time until Andronicus started yawning and said he was
tired.

Time seemed to fly as Easter was almost on them.

"Mum, I've been thinking, I want to transform the second floor to a
semi-autonomous apartment. I mean I'll be eighteen years old in a couple of
years and I'll be coming and going to uni. And I really want my space even
now, so I've been thinking of having a bedroom, a bathroom and an extra
space for living room and attached small kitchen with a hatch for the
stairs. Doesn't all have to be done instantly, I mean we can do the bedroom
now, the bathroom maybe later and I can work on the living room on my own
and in two years or so we do the kitchen and a separate door to outside."
Vasilis told him mum during lunch one night.

She looked at him, scanning him on how much he had changed and how fast it
all seemed to be going. Sixteen years ago she was breastfeeding him and now
he was asking for almost adult autonomy. His enthusiasm made her feel a
certain sad joy. Her little boy was not so little anymore.

She nodded her approval. "We can start cleaning up the second floor and
attic then, transport what we want to keep to the basement storage and
throw away the rest, meanwhile you need to decide what colours you like,
you need to gather the money to purchase them, I won't purchase everything,
you want autonomy you need to work for it as you will when you start
working for a living. I'll pay for the plumbing and such. We have a spare
sofa in the basement storage you can use for the living room." She told him
making him beam at her as he stood up and walked round the table and hugged
her.

"Thank you! Come on I'll start by washing the dishes and then we can go up
and start now. I can transfer my..."

"Vasili, calm down, we won't start now, it's almost ten in the
evening. Tomorrow we'll start by emptying the basement from what we don't
want to keep, then we'll empty the second floor and attic, then we'll need
to bring the plumber for the bathroom and electrician to look things over
and then you'll have to buy the paint and your friends can help you paint
the whole thing up. After that you can move your stuff there."

Vasilis sighed. "Okay...I guess..."

"But since you offered you can wash the dishes." She told him and left the
kitchen before he could protest.

The night could not pass fast enough, school could certainly not finish
fast enough, he ran back home, had a shower and waited for his mum to
return home from the store.

"For real now, as you would say, have you thought of anything else all
day?" His mum chuckled.

"No, now hurry up already!"

"Calm your horses, let me have a shower and grab something to eat." Vasilis
spent the next half hour pacing up and down in the living room waiting for
his mum to finish up.

Taking a few large garden rubbish black coloured bags they climbed down to
the moist, dark, cold basement.

"Okay, so left corner there are all of grandparents' stuff, we'll start
from there, the furniture we'll keep and if you like any of it you can have
now or later. Then right corner there are your dad's stuff, we'll leave
that alone for now, the rest of the room I don't even remember what is what
so we might uncover a few good things and a lot of junk. Just show me
everything and you can start putting the junk in the bags and taking them
outside, okay?"

Vasilis nodded and pushed his long sleeves above his elbows.

They started working, removing the white sheets from the furniture and
dusting them, then his mother and he would look everything over and decide
if one or both of them wanted to keep something, if not Vasilis would throw
it in a bag, when a bug filled up he would take it outside and leave it by
the garbage bin for the municipality truck, one of few motor vehicles
allowed in the island, could pick them up.

They made a break for Vasilis to finish his homework and Vivi to get some
rest.

"Mum! I'm going down to continue." He yelled at her and descended the
basement's stairs.

He gazed at the corner where his grandparents' stuff where. They had almost
finished going through that corner of the room. Gazing around he saw the
pack of things his mum had told him they were his dad's. For some reason
all these years now he had never come down to look those over. Not that his
mum had forbidden it or anything but the thought had not crossed his
mind. His mum had told him that they would leave those for now, but that
did not mean he could not search through them a bit, may he could find a
picture of his father or a memento he could put up in his desk and/or room,
perhaps his medals from his service in the military navy or coast guard.

He lifted the white sheet and viewed what was there. There looked to be
three rather large, metal and wood chests. Two of them were locked with a
heavy, iron cast padlock each. The third was also locked but the key was
forgotten on it. Vasilis unlocked it, removed the padlock and opened the
heavy rusted, iron lid.

There were various pictures of his father inside, alone, with his mother,
parents, with him. He picked those he liked the most, then underneath them
he found several letters with "To Vivi, my love." On them, love letters to
his mother, he thought from when he was on a ship, back then they had no
internet or emails or mobile phones, so letters like these were how people
communicated. His mum had probably kept them out of sentimental value.

He left them aside without opening them and a different envelope held his
attention. This one was newer, much newer, for one thing the "To Vivi and
Romanos." Were not handwritten but printed, then the envelope itself looked
new, not more than five or ten years old. Finally, why would his father
address his mother and his uncle at the same time?

He opened the envelope and unfolded the letter inside. It was handwritten
in his father's handwriting and the yellowed paper had various stains on
it.


"My dearest sister-in-law,

I am writing to you in my direst moment of need, I found out, a couple of
days ago that my son ...-there was a pause in the writing with a large
space between the next bit- ... my Pavlos was raped. No matter what you
hear from the villagers it was NOT my beloved Romanos, he could never have
done this, not to me or to his son, he loves us more than life itself. No
it was the major's son, Thanos. I... -another gap- Pavlos came back two
days ago crying heavily. I had to press him more than I would like but he
finally let on what that monster had done to him, he told me that there
were two men present but that the second only watched...those
monsters...they hurt my son. There is little I can do here, and Pavlos will
not tell me who the second person was. I've already told Gabriil –his
father-and he's coming with me tomorrow to Piraeus.

We will go to the police there to make a statement and start an
investigation with them, not even the Major has that much influence to stop
that, and then we'll probably be going to the Children's hospital near
Penteli to get Pavlos checked up for a sexual assault kit and whatever else
is required.

I have wanted to tell Romanos of what has really happened and why I am
really going but...I know that if I tell him he would go find Thanos and
kill him with his own bare hands and I cannot do this to the father of my
child. I prefer that he hates or resents me until this is all sorted out
and Thanos is behind bars. I hate doing this to him but what am I to do
when I know it in my heart that he will kill the ones that hurt his child?
I hope it'll all be over within days at the most. Gabriil arranged it so
that he did not book the tickets in my or his name so that one learns,
instead he is using the name of his best friend in the coast guard,
Harilaos Petrou. No one will think anything like this and because he is
coast guard no one will actually look at our tickets, he'll just flash his
work ID then and it should all be ok.

I feel so guilty that I could not protect my baby from these monsters but I
will see them put behind bars if it's the last thing I do.

Yours dearest, Niki.

Vasilis read the letter and understood that the stains were actually tears
as Niki was writing the letter.

By the end of it he was shaking in silent rage. He heard his mother's voice
in the distance.

"No! Don't read that!" She sounded anxious, in fact in full despair.

He looked at her, a blank desolate look on his face, his fists by his sides
vibrating with energy.

He swallowed hard as he met her gaze. She took a step back at the intensity
of the anger displayed in his eyes.

"You...you knew, all this fucking time you knew and did NOTHING!? This
proves his innocence, and you've allowed him and the WHOLE FUCKING ISLAND
TO BELIEVE HE DID THIS!?" Vasilis could barely control his emotions.

"Yes. What would you have me do? I have no other evidence Thanos did
anything, the only rape victim that we know of lies inside a watery grave,
all evidence of any wrong-doing lie with him and this letter would not be
accepted in a court of law or even by the police to even start an
investigation even if I paid or threatened them. What would you have me do?
Show this to Romanos? He would have needed no evidence. He would have
marched into Thanos' house and beaten or strangled him to death. What good
would have that done? There would still be no evidence and he would be in
jail for murder. What good would that have done? All those old or young
bitches that gossiped him and riled the rest of the island would have had
actual evidence of wrong doing and things might have gone so bad we might
have had the need to leave the island altogether. Go on then, you fashion
yourself almost an adult, show me then what an adult you are, what would
you have done in my stead?  You are a single mother now, your husband dead,
your brother accused without evidence of raping his own child, your child
is not even a teen,
 what would you have done?" Surpassing her initial state of shock at seeing
her son being so angry at her and the knowledge that he now knew what she
knew and spoke firmly at her.

There was a lengthy, stale silence between them before Vasilis attempted to
speak.

"I...Romanos has gone so long thinking...he lives in exile for fuck's
sake."

"Yes, and that was all I could do for him, have you any idea what I had to
do to get him that job?"

".." Vasilis breathed. "Why not tell him now? Why not show this..."

"Show him the letter? With Thanos back? He'll kill him still. His anger
will not have been tempered by a few meagre years. Show the letter to who?
The villagers? It means nothing to those that gossip, it is not legal
proof, anyone can say I forged Niki's handwriting and wrote the letter
myself."

"This is not fair!" Vasilis exasperated.

"No, it is not. But this is what being an adult is. Life throws shit at you
and you have to react not with emotion but with logic and do the most with
what each situation has instore for you. You think that being an adult is
drinking, fucking and having fun? Think again mister."

"I...I need some air." He told her and stormed out of the basement still
holding on to the letter.

Vivi tried to stop him but he just shook her hand away and left.

He run in autopilot to Andronicus' house and rang the bell erratically,
constantly.

Christine answered the door looking vexed.

"I am not in mood for your usual shit, let me in I know Andronicus is
here." Vasilis declared to her before she could open her mouth.

"I will not be talked to like this by a filth like you. Go away." She
raised her hand, presumably to slap him. The look on his face stopped her.

"Go on, do that." His voice barely above a whisper. She stepped aside
seething.

He walked up the stairs, Andronicus found him mid-stairs.

"What is it? You look awful."

"Ca...can you please come with me...I need to talk to someone and you are
the only one I can think of..." Vasilis whispered to him.

"Sure, my room?"

"No...come with me." Vasilis grabbed his hand and lead him outside, to the
far side of the port, past the old admiralty and right at the end of the
pier. They sat on the huge rocks placed there to break the waves.

Neither of them spoke for a while before Vasilis extended his hand and gave
Andronicus the letter. Andronicus read it before looking up with tears
streaming down his now swollen eyes.

"Why..." The question left unasked was the same Vasilis had asked his mum.

"Doesn't matter anymore, but we have...we know who did it. This changes
everything, no more searching blind for who raped my cousin, for who killed
all these people. Only problem now is that I know for a fact that Thanos
doesn't know shit about boats or engineering. He has never worked a day in
his life, has lived so far by spending his parents' money and he dropped
out of university where he was studying literature. He doesn't even know
how to sail much less how to sabotage something as complicated as a ferry
boat in twenty to thirty minutes without anyone finding out. And how did he
found out about Niki and my father...she lied about that as well, my father
did not die in a coast guard drill gone wrong, he drowned in that
wreck...how did Thanos learn of this when my father used a fake name to
book the tickets?"

"There are only so many professions or categories of people who could have
had access to Pavlos...did Pavlos do any sports? A teacher perhaps?"

"No, the teachers so far as I can remember have all been women, Pavlos had
swimming lessons and..." Vasilis paused as if something or someone had hit
him in the head.

"What?" And?"

"Sailing lessons..."

"Vangelis would never..."

"No, he wouldn't but he came here after the wreck, after the old instructor
left. In fact I know for a fact that he left the very next day after the
wreck without even saying why or leaving a message, two weeks later a truck
came from a moving company with the keys to his house and a legal document
authorizing them to open up and move his things to a new undisclosed
location. The old instructor had also served in the military and before and
after had partaken to sailing races. He would have all the knowledge he
would have needed to do this."

"But why? What would...oh he was the second man?"

"Who else? He brought Pavlos to Thanos or Thanos to the sailing club after
hours, somehow convinced Pavlos to stay and..."

"Then why not also..."

"Maybe he liked to watch as someone else raped a kid, made him cry...how
the fuck should I know...but it makes sense doesn't it?"

"Yes, how do we prove it? `Cause so far it is only the speculations of two
teenagers."

"Oh, now I know exactly where and what to look for. When I go to that
campus I know which databases to hack and my coding internet friends can
and will help me once I show them what we have found and the letter...I
won't even have to ask."

They stayed there in silence Andronicus hugging him close, until it got
dark and col.

"Can you please spend..."

"Yes, of course." Andronicus answered the unasked question.

They walked back home, ate mostly in silence, Vasilis mostly still in
shock.

"Is there a picture of Pavlos, we've been doing this for him as well all
these months and I still don't know what he looks like." Andronicus asked
Vasilis when in his bedroom.

"Yes, sure, I found some old pictures of me and him earlier today." Vasilis
searched through the pictures he had found earlier and brought up to his
room and found one.

He handed it over to Andronicus who looking at it gasped.

"That...that's me..." Vasilis looked at the picture, its' colours fade by
time it was one of him, Pavlos and another boy.  They were in their
speedos, in one of the island's beaches looking up at the camera
grinning. They looked wet, happy and carefree.

"That's the boy...the first boy I had feelings for, even if I did not
understand them at the time. Pavlos, he...was my first fantasy."

"Iraklis was right, we are all connected and those who did this will pay."

Andronicus nodded before hugging him.

They were connected by their past and they would make Thanos and his
partner in crime pay.



End of chapter 9. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed
writing it and that you felt what I felt while writing it.

Send your comments, critique, feedback and correspondence to the email addy
at the beginning.