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Fears Turned Dreams
*** Friend Now Enemy ***
“Watch your ass guys, fag
walking!” Tom warned voice
carrying easily across the halls
Chuck just kept walking, ignoring the comments. High
school had a way of making your skin a bit tougher unless you
wanted it happening the old fashioned way, getting the
shit
beat out of you till your whole body was calloused.
“Tom, knock it off,” Jeff said carelessly to his
friend,
“Ooh, You turning fruit on us, Jeffie-poo” Carl laughed,
leaned up against a locker
Jeff rolled
his eyes, “You guys are assholes” his words
meant to be taken lightly
The two boys punched his arm laughing.
*** When New Friends Wondered About The Old ***
“Weren’t you two friends once?” Patrick
asked as he
tinkered with settings on his camera
Chuck chewed his sandwich before nodding. It was lunch
time at
the high school of hell.
Chuck swallowed, “Yeah, back in middle school. Not best
friends, but we hung out. It
wasn’t that hard to grow apart.”
Patrick frowned looking up from his camera finally,
“Still, to go
from him as a friend to him as a dick in a matter
of what a couple of years? That’s pretty impressive.”
Chuck
stared at his chips and didn’t answer, ears
turning red.
“I mean,” Patrick continued oblivious to
his friend’s
discomfort, “You couldn’t have done anything to make him hate
you just suddenly decide
to hate you, could you?”
Chuck chewed a chip thoughtfully before answering,
“No...” chip crumbs flying
out of his mouth
“Hey!” Patrick said yanking his camera away, “Watch
where you’re spraying
that shit!”
Chuck laughed lightly, tension relieved.
*** Back When They Were Still friends ***
An eighth grader Chuck sat next to Jeff on the old
ratty
couch in Chuck’s basement, the small TV in front of
them displaying the game Jeff was currently whooping Chuck’s
ass at.
“Who’s da man?!” Jeff cried out as the game showered
confetti across the screen.
Chuck
slumped back groaning, “You always win”
Jeff grinned broadly, “That, my friend, is because you
suck
at this game.”
Pride offend, Chuck leapt forward tackling the bald kid
teen. Jeff laughed, twisting and the both
fell onto the floor.
Jeff sat atop of Chuck’s torso, effectively pining the boy to
the floor.
“Ha!”
Jeff triumphed, arms raised above his head, “I win
again.”
Chuck groaned in irritation, “Damn it,
Jeff. Get off of
me!”
Jeff laughed and just let the rest of his weight rest on
the boy.
“Jeff…”
Chuck whined
“Not till you admit you suck major ass at that game and
that I am a God,” Jeff challenged
crossing his arms across his
chest.
“Never!” Chuck answered dramatically as if saying it
would be the
death of him
Jeff grinned dangerously, “Are you sure?”
Chuck bucked forward trying to unseat him. Instead
of
unseating Jeff it only caused him to fall back against Chuck’s
legs back lying flat against Chuck’s crotch.
Jeff
jumped off of Chuck as if he had been burned, “What
the fuck?!”
Chuck went bright red realizing what Jeff
had just found,
“I...uh…”
Jeff’s eyes went wide in understanding, “You’re a fag
aren’t you?”
Chuck whole face fell and his stomach churned nastily,
“I….”
“You
are, aren’t you?” Jeff accused in horror, “Fuck,
I’m out of here.”
Jeff didn’t wait
for an answer and made his wait to the
door
“Jeff, no…” Chuck began.
Jeff ignored him and kept
walking, leaving a distraught
Chuck in his wake.
*** Clearing Up The Past ***
After school, Chuck sat at the drum set in the band room
beating
out a rhythm to one of the songs they had been for the
Winter Concert. He as determined to have it perfect by the time
Jazz band was playing.
He finished with a large crash of the cymbals. He breathed
in a bit quicker than he normally
did.
“You’ve gotten a lot better.” A sarcastic voice said from
the door.
Startled, Chuck looked
up to see Jeff standing there
guitar bag across his back
“When did you get here?” Chuck said quietly
Jeff
moved toward one of the amps was set up and said
in a mocking voice, “About the time you started that solo,
that
I’m sure isn’t in the music”
“Oh” Chuck answered tonelessly
Jeff plugged his guitar into
the amp, ignoring the
drummer. Chuck shook his head in irritation and stood grabbing
his bag.
He walked to the
door and opened in, before pausing to
speak anger flowing freely for once, “Don’t flatter yourself . I
never
fucking liked you. We were wrestling around; it was a
natural fucking reaction.”
The door slammed shut behind
Chuck “Not for me.” Jeff
answered sadly
*** Where Forgiveness Is Asked For ***
Chuck sat on grass outside of the school waiting for his
ride,
who he wasn’t expecting to show for another hour. He wrote
quickly in a battered notebook, inspiration
obviously striking.
“Writing angsty lyrics for a non-existent band?”
Chuck’s hand clenched around
the pencil, “I have a band, thank
you very much”
Jeff raised an eyebrow, “Then why waste your time
in the crappy
school band.”
“Practice,” Chuck said simply and went back to his writing
Jeff frowned
and sat down next Chuck causing Chuck’s whole body
to tense. Jeff looked down at what he was writing.
“You
don’t mean anything to me; you’re what I never want to be?”
Jeff read and sarcasm seeped into his voice,
“eloquent.”
Chuck looked over at him, lip ring and all, “What do you want?”
Jeff actually looked
vaguely abashed, “I wanted to say…”
“Yes?” Chuck inquired voice mockingly
Jeff rubbed
his head, “Well I wanted to say, I’m sorry.”
Chuck made a smile that dripped like poison, “Great,
now that
you’ve done that, you can go back to the hole you crawled out of.”
Jeff stood frustration evident,
“What is your problem, man?!”
Chuck stood up anger showing, “My problem…? My problem is that
you’re
trying to apologize for treating your best god damn
friend like shit for two years over the fact that I might be
gay!”
Chuck took a breath and Jeff made the mistake of not stopping
the roll Chuck was on, “My problem is that, you
aren’t
apologizing for being a homophobic prick, you are apologizing
for thinking I was gay. If I hadn’t
told you that it was god
damn mistake, you would still be treating me shit!”
Chuck was glaring at Jeff, eyes
burning with hatred.
Jeff stared at him in shock.
“Fuck, when did you grow a set of balls?” Jeff murmured
not meant to be heard.
“About the time you lost yours.” Chuck spat grabbing his
stuff ready to walk
again.
“I didn’t apologize because I thought you were gay.” Jeff
said suddenly, not really wanting
to chase after Chuck again.
Chuck gave him an expectant look, “Then why did you
apologize?”
Jeff sighed
heavily, “Like you said, because I lost the
balls to be honest.”
Chuck frowned, confusion marring his features,
“What are
you talking about?”
Jeff licked his lips nervously, “I was thirteen, all could
think
about was where I could stick my dick“
Chuck raised an eyebrow, but Jeff plowed on, “Problem was, my
compass
wasn’t pointing towards what I was expecting it to.”
Chuck processed that quickly and eyes went extremely
wide
and his answer came out incredulous, “You treated me like
shit, because you were afraid you were the same way?”
Jeff
raised his hands in surrender, “It was stupid, but
I was a pretty stupid kid.”
“I wouldn’t say
much about your high school self,
either.” Chuck replied
Jeff chuckled, “Yeah I'll give you that.”
“Why
didn’t you say something sooner?” Chuck asked hurt
creeping into his voice
“No chances and well…I
fucked up, I was a bit nervous.”
Jeff answered honestly before asking a return question, “Are
we cool…
Or at least on the way there?”
Chuck smiled, “I think we’re on the way, you have an
amazing amount
of apologizing to do, but we’ll be fine
eventually.”
“Fucking ‘A’, man.” Jeff grinned,
“So you have a band?”
Chuck laughed at that, “Yeah man…They’re called Simple
Plan. Though
we kind of need another guitarist….”
*** Fears Turned Dreams ***
Chuck plopped next to Jeff on the couch in the bus grinning
like
an idiot, holding their first album, “We did it man, we fucking
did it.”
Jeff grinned back widely,
“Yeah man just gotta sell it.”
Chuck laughed in fake arrogance, “Piece of cake.”
Jeff mock chided,
“Fame has gone straight to your head.”
“Has not!”
“Has to!”
“Has not!”
“Has
to!”
“Has no…Oh fuck it.” Chuck tackled Jeff
Jeff being not so dim of a bulb, was expecting
this and shifting,
making both of the fall to the ground, but with Jeff on top
instead.
Chuck stared up at Jeff
as Jeff stared down at Chuck.
“Jeff, get off of me,” Chuck said trying to keep the nervousness
out of his
voice. This scene was all too familiar for him.
Jeff bit his slip nervously, “No”
“Jeff…”
Chuck warned voice breaking.
Jeff leaned down and whispered, “You suck at this game,”
Chuck wrapped his
hand slowly around Jeff’s neck and Jeff didn’t
seem to care, “But I won’t say you’re God.”
“Yeah,
but I always win so it doesn’t matter.” Jeff teased still
whispering
Chuck didn’t answer, instead
pulled Jeff to him, kissing him for
the first time and Jeff just pulled him closer.
******
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