Heaven's Ablaze - Chapter 21
Title:: Heaven's Ablaze
Genre:: AU Vam Fanfic
Rating:: R
Summary:: His heaven is ablaze in my eyes
Notes:: This story is based on the album Dark Light. All lyrics are taken from that album, and are copyright of Ville Valo. I do not know or own the characters in this story. The storyline itself is property of me and me alone. This story deals with the themes of religion and a degree of pedophilia. If you have a problem with the themes, dont read it.
NB:: Lyrics have been ommitted this time due to inherent laziness. Hit me.
Links under the cut.
Links
Prologue
Chapter 1 - Accident
Chapter 2 - Pot Luck
Chapter 3 - Warmth
Chapter 4 - Joseph on Wheels
Chapter 5 - My First Christmas
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 6 - Beginnings
Chapter 7 - Music
Chapter 8 - Time
Chapter 9 - Unfortunate Meetings of Unfortunate Friends
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 10 - Journies
Chapter 11 - First Crush
Chapter 12 - Contemptible
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 13 - Bath Tubs
Chapter 14 - Labyrinth
Chapter 15 - Pure Mornings
Chapter 16 - Angels
Chapter 17 Angels
Chapter 18 - Coffee
Chapter 19 - Refuge
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 20 - Dirty
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 21 - Discovery
Slowly but surely, winter faded, the last snows melted, flowers started pushing up through the earth, and spring exploded upon the world one warm Sunday, the trees bursting into bloom with full force and the birds singing and the whole world was young, fresh, new. The snow had once again worked its magic, taken all the dreary ugliness of winter away with it and left a sparkling young world behind.
I wanted to smile with the birds and I wanted to be happy and refreshed with the rest of the world, but the fact of the matter was that that just wasn’t happening.
I wish I could say that it was because I knew how upset and confused Bam was that I couldn’t cheer up. I wish I could say that it was because I was worried about him, because I was scared for him, because I was wondering what on earth would happen to us - I wish I could say it was something like that.
But it wasn’t. In true selfish style, so much of a second nature to me that I never even noticed it in myself, I wasn’t thinking about him. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about how screwed up I would be if everything went wrong. I was thinking about how worthless my life would be, how much of a mess it would make, how bad it was, how stupid I was, how I wished I could just get out even though I didn’t really want to at all. I was thinking about how much I wanted him, how much I needed him, how I couldn’t have him.
I didn’t stop to think about how much turmoil he might have been in. I didn’t stop to think about how scared he might have been after that dream of his. I didn’t think. I didn’t offer to help him, nor did I step back to let his mind get sorted, to let him come to terms with what was happening to him and to us, to let him prepare himself for the next level.
I didn’t think about any of that, and I should have. I should have realized. I should have seen it; it was so obvious, so plain in my face now that I look back, but back then, during that startling spring, I didn’t notice a thing. I didn’t notice that his praying became more frequent, more frantic, more desperate and more hopeless. I didn’t notice that look in his eyes before he kissed me, or after we broke off from a particularly passionate, heated kiss. I didn’t even notice that the kisses were getting more passionate, more needy, less based on simply kissing for love and more based on kissing for the sake of kissing.
Though even now I don’t doubt that he loved me just as much as ever, if not more. I just want to hit myself for not taking care of him properly, for not fulfilling my promise to look out for him, to protect my guardian angel, because he needed protecting, and I don’t think either of us realized that.
I didn’t notice a thing off place - he was tired, but I thought that was down to his school work, and he was stressed, but again, I put the blame on his school work - until, I think, it was too late to fix the damage done.
And I can’t even take the credit for realizing myself.
No.
I had to be told that Bam, my guardian angel, my one and only true love, my heart and soul - I had to be told that he was a mess, that he was falling apart, that he was going crazy.
And it wasn’t even by Ben, or someone who I knew knew about our situation.
No, I didn’t even have the dignity of that.
Because of course it wasn’t Ben that told me. It wasn’t Bam that told me. It definitely wasn’t my own observation.
It came from his 19 year old brother, Jess.
From someone who was supposed to be clueless, for whom it was vital to be clueless - from someone who was not supposed to know anything at all except for the fact that we were good friends.
Jess was the black sheep of the Margera family. Drummer for a rock band, whose lyrics were definitely not accepted with his mother and frowned upon by his father; he drank and he did some drugs and he had tattoos. He wasn’t a bad kid, he did as his mother asked and he obeyed her in most respects, but he definitely had the air of the rebel. We got along normally, me and Jess. He was more like me than Bam, really. He knew more about the world, he’d seen some of the kinds of things that I’d seen, he’d experienced some of the same things I had, he had a love for music that I could completely commiserate with.
We weren’t anywhere near as close as myself and Bam had ever been, but I would have said we were friends. I didn’t say anything about the things I knew he did and he didn’t say anything about the things he knew I’d done. Mutual respect of secrets - we both knew that we knew each others’ secrets and we were content to keep them like that - secret - as long as the other kept the same premise and didn’t try to bring the subject up in conversation of any kind.
But Jess had always been very protective of Bam, and they loved each other like I’ve never seen two brothers love each other, even though they were complete opposites.
To find things out about Bam of the nature of the things that he told me from him was a shock. And to find out just how many of my secrets he knew… my world was turned upside down.
How did it happen? How did he tell me what he knew? My stomach still quakes at the thought of it. It was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life.
It was Sunday, the third Sunday of spring. Bam was at church with his family, he’d driven my car there - my new car, the one I’d bought as soon as I had enough money to afford the down-payments and the gas - and was going to come back that afternoon. I was laying on my couch, reading the newspaper, trying to do the crossword - I was stuck on a 6 letter word for Supply Boat - when there came a frantic, aggressive banging of fists against my door.
“Valo, I know you’re in there, now let me in!” I frowned, put my paper down, crossed to the door. He was still pounding against it, as if he thought I wouldn’t let him in.
“Jesus, Jess, calm down, I’m coming, stop trying to break my door down.” I unlocked the door and he burst in, glaring at me, his eyes wild and his hair standing up - or at least, it seemed to, though I’m sure it didn’t really. He stood there, seething at me, just seething, not doing anything else, just glaring at me like I was the spawn of Satan himself.
“Jess, are you going to tell me why you’re acting like I just killed someone? Or are you just going to stand there looking like you’ve got rabies?” I raised an eyebrow, put my hand on one hip, waited.
“I… you…” He just shook his head, overcome with what I could only call rage. And then it came, the explosion that I thought we would never have to hear, the outrage and disgust that I thought we could escape.
“What the hell are you doing with my little brother?! Seriously?! What the fuck is this all about?!” He pulled a letter - one of my letters to Bam which I wrote sometimes, when I was overcome with love for him - out of his pocket and waved it in my face. “Tell me, seriously, what the fuck are you doing with him!? He’s fucking 16! And this isn’t it, is it? There’s more of these! And the phonecalls?! Bam forgets sometimes, but there’s only one line in our house, we can listen in whenever we want! I’ve heard you… I…” He reached out to land a punch on my face but I read his actions and caught his fist in mid air, staring at him. The only thing going through my mind was Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck….
“Jess! Calm down!”
“No, I won’t fucking calm down, you fucking faggot pedophile. Get the fuck off me!” He shook me off and stepped farther back, still seething, red in the face.
“You know, I kept all your secrets safe for you. I never told anyone what I knew. I knew you were gay for much longer than they did. I know all about your history, Ville, I know what you did in Vegas and I know all about your addictions, but I wasn’t going to tell anyone. I thought you were better than that. But then… then…. I find out you’re… you’re… fiddling with my little brother…”
“Jess, for fuck’s sake, will you breathe and hear me out?!”
“What’s there to hear?! I don’t really want to hear just exactly how you’re screwing around with my 16 year old brother, sorry. I’m not interested. But I will tear you limb from fucking limb for it.”
“Jess, shut the fuck up, what the fuck do you know about me and Bam? Jack shit, is what.”
He rolled his eyes at me. I was in a terror.
“I know enough, Valo. I know enough to know just what you’re trying to get at, just what you’re trying to do with him.”
“Oh, and what’s that then?” The protective sarcasm was back in my voice, it was my buffer for pain and anger, it absorbed them all, left a nice, burning sting, threw people off. It came in handy sometimes. I hoped it would work here. I hoped that I could talk to him, I hoped that I could get him to listen.
“You’re… meddling with him! Trying to get him into bed to satisfy your pathetic, disgusting needs and fantasies.”
“I’m doing nothing of the sort, you blind fuck,” I spat, rolling my eyes at him, turning around to affect disinterest. I wasn’t disinterested. I wasn’t as nonchalant as I tried to make out I was. I was terrified.
“Oh no? So what are you doing then? What else could keep you interested in a 16 year old for so long? Huh? Oh come on Ville, we both know your history, we both know that you were a wh-“
I whirled around and slapped him clean across the face.
“You shut the fuck up. Don’t ever, ever say that to me again, or I will kill you.” We locked eyes and fury and anger flowed between us like electricity. I wanted to strangle him. No-one, no-one but myself was allowed to call me a whore. No-one but I was allowed to bring that topic up in conversation. No-one was allowed to talk to me like that.
“You fucker,” he spat, clutching his face with his hand.
“That’s rich, coming from you, bursting into my house yelling at me for something I haven’t even done!” I glared, I was yelling, I was so angry and scared that I felt viable to spontaneously combust.
“What do you mean that you haven’t done!? You’re not going to try and tell me that you and Bam don’t have something going, are you? Ville, I share a wall with him, I hear the name he shouts at night sometimes. It’s yours, you disgusting pervert, yours!”
The information was a shock, but I was too angry to be shocked about it. That would come later.
“If you would listen to me for 10 fucking seconds, Jess, you ignorant twat, I would explain. Fucking hell.”
“Alright then, explain. Go on. I’m really interested in what you have to say for yourself.” He crossed his arms, raised an eyebrow, waited.
“I’m not going to deny that me and Bam have a … relationship. But Jesus, I would never even think of touching him. Not like you’re trying to make out I am. Not like you think. I love him, Jess. In an honest way. I’m not a pedophile. I’m not a pervert. I’m in love with him!”
Jess rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, whatever. So you going to explain the cries of your name that happen all the time while he’s on the phone with you?”
“What do you mean, while he’s on the phone with me?” Now I was confused.
“Well here’s the deal. You call, then about an hour later Bam’s up in his room and he’s moaning your name, and I can hear it, I can hear it.”
“Jess, I never… I wouldn’t… I don’t… I can’t explain that… I’m never on the phone with him while he…” I shook my head, had to sit down.
“You aren’t?”
“No. Never.”
“So you’ve never you know… touched him?”
“Not like that, no. Jesus.” I shook my head again, sighed, put my head in my hands. “You don’t understand… you don’t know how much I love him… you can’t understand… I couldn’t do that… couldn’t do that with him. Not yet. He’s not ready for it yet…”
“No shit, Sherlock.” Jess sighed, sat down at the table across from me. He sounded tired, so tired, so confused. “So you’re not trying to screw around with him?”
“God no. I… I love him Jess… and he loves me…”
“He’s 16, how does he know what love is?” I shrugged, bit my lip a bit.
“I knew what love is when I was 16. It’s not that impossible. He’s not a kid. He’s 16.”
“And you’re almost 30.” He said it in such a short tone of voice that it made my stomach twinge.
“Yeah, you don’t have to remind me.” I sighed and put my head in my hands again. It was a mess, it was all a mess.
“So if you’re not screwing around with him, then why is he such a mess right now? If you two are in love or what the fuck ever, why is he so fucking screwed up?”
“He’s not… he’s just stressed out with school…” Jess shook his head, laughing bitterly.
“You blind fuck,” he said, still shaking his head at me like he pitied me. “He’s a fucking mess. Can’t you see? All he ever does is talk to you, spend time over here, and then he comes home and he doesn’t leave his room, and whenever you walk in he’s on his fucking knees, praying his Goddamned heart out to some God who, lets face it, doesn’t exist but who is his only way of making sense of things. I know my brother, Ville, and I love him, and I have never seen him like this. Ever.”
I stared at him. There was this weird tone of urgency in his voice, desperation. Worry.
And if Jess was worried there was something wrong.
And if there was something wrong, then I should have realized, I who spent more time with Bam than anyone else in the world.
And if I hadn’t realized, that meant I was blind, I was horrible, I was stupid, I was dumb, I was going to kill myself if he wasn’t okay, if he really was in as much as of a mess as Jess said.
“You… you’re sure it’s not just from school?” Jess threw his head back and laughed, a poisonous, spiteful laugh.
“Since when has Bam ever cared about school that much?” And as he said it, I realized he was right. I was stupid for not realizing. Stupid for not knowing that no schoolwork could ever turn Bam into the mess of nerves he’d been.
I stared at Jess for a while. I don’t remember what I was thinking; I probably wasn’t thinking anything, the shock and terror had taken over and I was probably just staring at him and my mind was probably refusing point blank to do anything - until finally it processed what had happened, what Jess had said and what it meant…
“…fuck,” I said quietly, biting my lip, closing my eyes. I wished the ground could swallow me up. I wanted to escape from Jess’s contemptuous glare, his hateful and disgusted glare. But I felt like I owed him something. Why, I didn’t know. But I felt like I did. Maybe because he’d found out, he had to deal with the thought of his little brother in a relationship with me. Maybe because I was recognizing the fact that it was wrong what I was doing and that I owed him something for his silence. Maybe I realized that I was stealing his little brother away from him.
I owed him something, that much was clear. So I didn’t run away. I didn’t hide. I didn’t throw him out. I sat, and I waited for him to say something, ready to bear the brunt of anything he could have to say, because he had the right to speak his mind.
But nothing came.
I think we were both a bit lost for words. It was a situation neither of us had ever imagined ourselves in and now that we were here, we didn’t know what to do.
And then he spoke, finally, splitting the silence.
“We gotta do something. You gotta do something. He’s … a mess and… I guess, well, you know, it seems, that you might just be the only one who can get through to him right now.”
I nodded, bit my lip again.
“I… I don’t know what’s wrong, Jess, I honestly don’t, he’s never said anything.”
“Well he wouldn’t, would he? He wouldn’t want to upset you.” I nodded - of course, Jess was right. That’s exactly what Bam would do; hide it from whoever it concerned and try and keep it hidden. He hated hurting people. He didn’t want to make anyone upset. He wanted everyone to be happy, he wanted to make sure everyone was alright. He served the role of guardian angel for all of his friends and he never tired of it. Especially for me. He always, always wanted to look out for me.
“I’ll… I’ll talk to him. Fuck.” I rubbed my eyes, groaning a bit. What a mess. What a fucking mess.
“You know, if you think I’ve accepted the fact that you’re having a relationship with Bam, you’re wrong.”
I looked up at Jess; his face was stone cold. Just as I’d expected it to be.
“I know. But there’s nothing I would or could do to change that, so you’re going to have to deal with it. That’s one thing in which nothing you could say would budge me. And I think we both know where we stand, don’t we?”
I raised an eyebrow at him, and he had no choice but to nod. If his parents found out some of the things I knew about him… he didn’t want that to happen, just like I didn’t want them finding out about me.
“He’s sixteen,” Jess said again, looking at me like I was crazy. I sighed.
“That doesn’t make him any less of a person. That doesn’t mean I don’t love him just as much as I would if he were my own age. Do you not get that?”
“No, I don’t get it. I don’t get any of it. I don’t get why it wasn’t enough for the two of you just to be friends, like normal people.”
“Jess, let me tell you something.” I leaned forward, looking him straight in the eye. “I am not a normal person. Normal people are people like your mom and your dad, Bam even, hell, you are a normal person. You have a family and you have a home, you’ve had a relatively nice life, you’re peachy keen and spiffy. I don’t have any of that. I don’t have jack shit. And until your brother came along, I had even less. I am so far beyond caring about what’s normal or not now. I can’t afford to think about it. If I was trying to avoid abnormality, I’d have to kill myself. Normal people don’t run away from home, normal people don’t sleep with people to get visas, normal people don’t spend two years selling themselves just to get their next fucking fix.” I looked at him, waited for a reaction, got none, carried on: “Get that? Maybe I should spell it out for you, so you don’t have to go around with notions that you got from god-knows-where about me. Yeah, I ran away from home cuz I was gay and my parents hated me. I was a call-boy, I was a crack-whore. But there again, I’m not normal. I escaped, didn’t I? How many crack-whores do you know who end up teaching high-school? Not many. Most of them die.”
“Ville, why the hell are you telling me this? I knew it all already. You’re not as hard to read as you think you might be.”
Why was I telling him? I don’t know. To put us on the same page? That was probably it.
“I’m not going into some soppy explanation of why I love your brother. But I do. And it’s not because he’s only 16. It’s not because of some sick need to fulfill myself of my lost childhood or what the fuck ever- do you even realize the kind of things I was doing when I was Bam’s age?! No, I bet you don’t, I’ll bet you’ve never even imagined the kind of things…” I had to stop. I hated talking about this. I hated talking like this. I hated this whole thing. “But I promise you that I have no intention of “messing” with him. I have no intention of laying a single finger on him in any kind of way that you’re scared of. Not now.”
“That’s all very well and good, but I still don’t like it.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Well then, what are we arguing about?”
“I have no fucking clue.”
“Me neither.” We stared each other in the eyes; he was sometimes so much like Bam it was uncanny. They looked so similar sometimes.
We were locked in that stare, some kind of male thing, where the one tries to stare the other down, but it’s not official, its not planned, you just know that you have to stare stolidly back, don’t break the gaze or you have to recognize defeat… and… I refused to do anything of the sort - we were locked in this gaze when car tires crunched, doors clicked open, the stairwell echoed and there was a knock at the door. I ignored it until Jess finally broke the stair, looking towards the door. I said nothing, stood up.
“That’s Bam,” I said, took one last glare at him, and went to open the door.
Bam’s arms flew around my neck before he was even in the door, his lips were on mine before I could say anything, and the whole time he was pressing himself to me all I was painfully aware of was Jess’s stare of disgust burning into us. I had to stop it, I pushed back at him, “Bammie, stop, Bam, you’ve got to stop… Jess is here.”
That stopped him. He took a huge step backwards, his eyes flew open in shock. I could see the thoughts running through his head - he was thinking, what had he done? What had Jess seen? What would happen?
“Bammie? Bam, darling… he… he knows…”
“He does?” I nodded. “How?”
“He figured it out…I don’t know…” Jess was standing up from the table now, I could hear his chair scrape against the tiled floor.
“Ville…” Bam began uncertainly, his tone almost begging for help… but it was too late, Jess was next to us now, looking at Bam in disbelief.
“Can I talk to you? Alone?” He looked pointedly at me, and I looked at Bam, who looked so scared that I wanted to whisk him off to somewhere safe and happy, I wanted to punch Jess in the face, kick him out, tell him to leave us alone, to never come back. I wanted to pile Bam into my car and drive with him, just drive, far far away, be with him forever without ever even talking to anyone ever again.
But I knew what I had to do. I knew they needed to talk. I knew when it was my cue to leave, stage left, as fast as I possibly could.
“Talk to him, sweetheart,” I whispered into his ear. “Just tell him the truth, tell him what you need to.”
“Ville don’t leave me…” I shrugged at him; he threw his arms around me again and I just held him, patting his back. I saw Jess’ face over Bam’s shoulder and I didn’t know what to make of it… I let Bam go, kissed him softly, and told him I would be waiting in the living room. And I left them to talk. Because I had to. I had no choice. It was the only thing to do.
Genre:: AU Vam Fanfic
Rating:: R
Summary:: His heaven is ablaze in my eyes
Notes:: This story is based on the album Dark Light. All lyrics are taken from that album, and are copyright of Ville Valo. I do not know or own the characters in this story. The storyline itself is property of me and me alone. This story deals with the themes of religion and a degree of pedophilia. If you have a problem with the themes, dont read it.
NB:: Lyrics have been ommitted this time due to inherent laziness. Hit me.
Links under the cut.
Links
Prologue
Chapter 1 - Accident
Chapter 2 - Pot Luck
Chapter 3 - Warmth
Chapter 4 - Joseph on Wheels
Chapter 5 - My First Christmas
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 6 - Beginnings
Chapter 7 - Music
Chapter 8 - Time
Chapter 9 - Unfortunate Meetings of Unfortunate Friends
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 10 - Journies
Chapter 11 - First Crush
Chapter 12 - Contemptible
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 13 - Bath Tubs
Chapter 14 - Labyrinth
Chapter 15 - Pure Mornings
Chapter 16 - Angels
Chapter 17 Angels
Chapter 18 - Coffee
Chapter 19 - Refuge
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 20 - Dirty
Interlude - Bam
Chapter 21 - Discovery
Slowly but surely, winter faded, the last snows melted, flowers started pushing up through the earth, and spring exploded upon the world one warm Sunday, the trees bursting into bloom with full force and the birds singing and the whole world was young, fresh, new. The snow had once again worked its magic, taken all the dreary ugliness of winter away with it and left a sparkling young world behind.
I wanted to smile with the birds and I wanted to be happy and refreshed with the rest of the world, but the fact of the matter was that that just wasn’t happening.
I wish I could say that it was because I knew how upset and confused Bam was that I couldn’t cheer up. I wish I could say that it was because I was worried about him, because I was scared for him, because I was wondering what on earth would happen to us - I wish I could say it was something like that.
But it wasn’t. In true selfish style, so much of a second nature to me that I never even noticed it in myself, I wasn’t thinking about him. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about how screwed up I would be if everything went wrong. I was thinking about how worthless my life would be, how much of a mess it would make, how bad it was, how stupid I was, how I wished I could just get out even though I didn’t really want to at all. I was thinking about how much I wanted him, how much I needed him, how I couldn’t have him.
I didn’t stop to think about how much turmoil he might have been in. I didn’t stop to think about how scared he might have been after that dream of his. I didn’t think. I didn’t offer to help him, nor did I step back to let his mind get sorted, to let him come to terms with what was happening to him and to us, to let him prepare himself for the next level.
I didn’t think about any of that, and I should have. I should have realized. I should have seen it; it was so obvious, so plain in my face now that I look back, but back then, during that startling spring, I didn’t notice a thing. I didn’t notice that his praying became more frequent, more frantic, more desperate and more hopeless. I didn’t notice that look in his eyes before he kissed me, or after we broke off from a particularly passionate, heated kiss. I didn’t even notice that the kisses were getting more passionate, more needy, less based on simply kissing for love and more based on kissing for the sake of kissing.
Though even now I don’t doubt that he loved me just as much as ever, if not more. I just want to hit myself for not taking care of him properly, for not fulfilling my promise to look out for him, to protect my guardian angel, because he needed protecting, and I don’t think either of us realized that.
I didn’t notice a thing off place - he was tired, but I thought that was down to his school work, and he was stressed, but again, I put the blame on his school work - until, I think, it was too late to fix the damage done.
And I can’t even take the credit for realizing myself.
No.
I had to be told that Bam, my guardian angel, my one and only true love, my heart and soul - I had to be told that he was a mess, that he was falling apart, that he was going crazy.
And it wasn’t even by Ben, or someone who I knew knew about our situation.
No, I didn’t even have the dignity of that.
Because of course it wasn’t Ben that told me. It wasn’t Bam that told me. It definitely wasn’t my own observation.
It came from his 19 year old brother, Jess.
From someone who was supposed to be clueless, for whom it was vital to be clueless - from someone who was not supposed to know anything at all except for the fact that we were good friends.
Jess was the black sheep of the Margera family. Drummer for a rock band, whose lyrics were definitely not accepted with his mother and frowned upon by his father; he drank and he did some drugs and he had tattoos. He wasn’t a bad kid, he did as his mother asked and he obeyed her in most respects, but he definitely had the air of the rebel. We got along normally, me and Jess. He was more like me than Bam, really. He knew more about the world, he’d seen some of the kinds of things that I’d seen, he’d experienced some of the same things I had, he had a love for music that I could completely commiserate with.
We weren’t anywhere near as close as myself and Bam had ever been, but I would have said we were friends. I didn’t say anything about the things I knew he did and he didn’t say anything about the things he knew I’d done. Mutual respect of secrets - we both knew that we knew each others’ secrets and we were content to keep them like that - secret - as long as the other kept the same premise and didn’t try to bring the subject up in conversation of any kind.
But Jess had always been very protective of Bam, and they loved each other like I’ve never seen two brothers love each other, even though they were complete opposites.
To find things out about Bam of the nature of the things that he told me from him was a shock. And to find out just how many of my secrets he knew… my world was turned upside down.
How did it happen? How did he tell me what he knew? My stomach still quakes at the thought of it. It was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life.
It was Sunday, the third Sunday of spring. Bam was at church with his family, he’d driven my car there - my new car, the one I’d bought as soon as I had enough money to afford the down-payments and the gas - and was going to come back that afternoon. I was laying on my couch, reading the newspaper, trying to do the crossword - I was stuck on a 6 letter word for Supply Boat - when there came a frantic, aggressive banging of fists against my door.
“Valo, I know you’re in there, now let me in!” I frowned, put my paper down, crossed to the door. He was still pounding against it, as if he thought I wouldn’t let him in.
“Jesus, Jess, calm down, I’m coming, stop trying to break my door down.” I unlocked the door and he burst in, glaring at me, his eyes wild and his hair standing up - or at least, it seemed to, though I’m sure it didn’t really. He stood there, seething at me, just seething, not doing anything else, just glaring at me like I was the spawn of Satan himself.
“Jess, are you going to tell me why you’re acting like I just killed someone? Or are you just going to stand there looking like you’ve got rabies?” I raised an eyebrow, put my hand on one hip, waited.
“I… you…” He just shook his head, overcome with what I could only call rage. And then it came, the explosion that I thought we would never have to hear, the outrage and disgust that I thought we could escape.
“What the hell are you doing with my little brother?! Seriously?! What the fuck is this all about?!” He pulled a letter - one of my letters to Bam which I wrote sometimes, when I was overcome with love for him - out of his pocket and waved it in my face. “Tell me, seriously, what the fuck are you doing with him!? He’s fucking 16! And this isn’t it, is it? There’s more of these! And the phonecalls?! Bam forgets sometimes, but there’s only one line in our house, we can listen in whenever we want! I’ve heard you… I…” He reached out to land a punch on my face but I read his actions and caught his fist in mid air, staring at him. The only thing going through my mind was Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck….
“Jess! Calm down!”
“No, I won’t fucking calm down, you fucking faggot pedophile. Get the fuck off me!” He shook me off and stepped farther back, still seething, red in the face.
“You know, I kept all your secrets safe for you. I never told anyone what I knew. I knew you were gay for much longer than they did. I know all about your history, Ville, I know what you did in Vegas and I know all about your addictions, but I wasn’t going to tell anyone. I thought you were better than that. But then… then…. I find out you’re… you’re… fiddling with my little brother…”
“Jess, for fuck’s sake, will you breathe and hear me out?!”
“What’s there to hear?! I don’t really want to hear just exactly how you’re screwing around with my 16 year old brother, sorry. I’m not interested. But I will tear you limb from fucking limb for it.”
“Jess, shut the fuck up, what the fuck do you know about me and Bam? Jack shit, is what.”
He rolled his eyes at me. I was in a terror.
“I know enough, Valo. I know enough to know just what you’re trying to get at, just what you’re trying to do with him.”
“Oh, and what’s that then?” The protective sarcasm was back in my voice, it was my buffer for pain and anger, it absorbed them all, left a nice, burning sting, threw people off. It came in handy sometimes. I hoped it would work here. I hoped that I could talk to him, I hoped that I could get him to listen.
“You’re… meddling with him! Trying to get him into bed to satisfy your pathetic, disgusting needs and fantasies.”
“I’m doing nothing of the sort, you blind fuck,” I spat, rolling my eyes at him, turning around to affect disinterest. I wasn’t disinterested. I wasn’t as nonchalant as I tried to make out I was. I was terrified.
“Oh no? So what are you doing then? What else could keep you interested in a 16 year old for so long? Huh? Oh come on Ville, we both know your history, we both know that you were a wh-“
I whirled around and slapped him clean across the face.
“You shut the fuck up. Don’t ever, ever say that to me again, or I will kill you.” We locked eyes and fury and anger flowed between us like electricity. I wanted to strangle him. No-one, no-one but myself was allowed to call me a whore. No-one but I was allowed to bring that topic up in conversation. No-one was allowed to talk to me like that.
“You fucker,” he spat, clutching his face with his hand.
“That’s rich, coming from you, bursting into my house yelling at me for something I haven’t even done!” I glared, I was yelling, I was so angry and scared that I felt viable to spontaneously combust.
“What do you mean that you haven’t done!? You’re not going to try and tell me that you and Bam don’t have something going, are you? Ville, I share a wall with him, I hear the name he shouts at night sometimes. It’s yours, you disgusting pervert, yours!”
The information was a shock, but I was too angry to be shocked about it. That would come later.
“If you would listen to me for 10 fucking seconds, Jess, you ignorant twat, I would explain. Fucking hell.”
“Alright then, explain. Go on. I’m really interested in what you have to say for yourself.” He crossed his arms, raised an eyebrow, waited.
“I’m not going to deny that me and Bam have a … relationship. But Jesus, I would never even think of touching him. Not like you’re trying to make out I am. Not like you think. I love him, Jess. In an honest way. I’m not a pedophile. I’m not a pervert. I’m in love with him!”
Jess rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, whatever. So you going to explain the cries of your name that happen all the time while he’s on the phone with you?”
“What do you mean, while he’s on the phone with me?” Now I was confused.
“Well here’s the deal. You call, then about an hour later Bam’s up in his room and he’s moaning your name, and I can hear it, I can hear it.”
“Jess, I never… I wouldn’t… I don’t… I can’t explain that… I’m never on the phone with him while he…” I shook my head, had to sit down.
“You aren’t?”
“No. Never.”
“So you’ve never you know… touched him?”
“Not like that, no. Jesus.” I shook my head again, sighed, put my head in my hands. “You don’t understand… you don’t know how much I love him… you can’t understand… I couldn’t do that… couldn’t do that with him. Not yet. He’s not ready for it yet…”
“No shit, Sherlock.” Jess sighed, sat down at the table across from me. He sounded tired, so tired, so confused. “So you’re not trying to screw around with him?”
“God no. I… I love him Jess… and he loves me…”
“He’s 16, how does he know what love is?” I shrugged, bit my lip a bit.
“I knew what love is when I was 16. It’s not that impossible. He’s not a kid. He’s 16.”
“And you’re almost 30.” He said it in such a short tone of voice that it made my stomach twinge.
“Yeah, you don’t have to remind me.” I sighed and put my head in my hands again. It was a mess, it was all a mess.
“So if you’re not screwing around with him, then why is he such a mess right now? If you two are in love or what the fuck ever, why is he so fucking screwed up?”
“He’s not… he’s just stressed out with school…” Jess shook his head, laughing bitterly.
“You blind fuck,” he said, still shaking his head at me like he pitied me. “He’s a fucking mess. Can’t you see? All he ever does is talk to you, spend time over here, and then he comes home and he doesn’t leave his room, and whenever you walk in he’s on his fucking knees, praying his Goddamned heart out to some God who, lets face it, doesn’t exist but who is his only way of making sense of things. I know my brother, Ville, and I love him, and I have never seen him like this. Ever.”
I stared at him. There was this weird tone of urgency in his voice, desperation. Worry.
And if Jess was worried there was something wrong.
And if there was something wrong, then I should have realized, I who spent more time with Bam than anyone else in the world.
And if I hadn’t realized, that meant I was blind, I was horrible, I was stupid, I was dumb, I was going to kill myself if he wasn’t okay, if he really was in as much as of a mess as Jess said.
“You… you’re sure it’s not just from school?” Jess threw his head back and laughed, a poisonous, spiteful laugh.
“Since when has Bam ever cared about school that much?” And as he said it, I realized he was right. I was stupid for not realizing. Stupid for not knowing that no schoolwork could ever turn Bam into the mess of nerves he’d been.
I stared at Jess for a while. I don’t remember what I was thinking; I probably wasn’t thinking anything, the shock and terror had taken over and I was probably just staring at him and my mind was probably refusing point blank to do anything - until finally it processed what had happened, what Jess had said and what it meant…
“…fuck,” I said quietly, biting my lip, closing my eyes. I wished the ground could swallow me up. I wanted to escape from Jess’s contemptuous glare, his hateful and disgusted glare. But I felt like I owed him something. Why, I didn’t know. But I felt like I did. Maybe because he’d found out, he had to deal with the thought of his little brother in a relationship with me. Maybe because I was recognizing the fact that it was wrong what I was doing and that I owed him something for his silence. Maybe I realized that I was stealing his little brother away from him.
I owed him something, that much was clear. So I didn’t run away. I didn’t hide. I didn’t throw him out. I sat, and I waited for him to say something, ready to bear the brunt of anything he could have to say, because he had the right to speak his mind.
But nothing came.
I think we were both a bit lost for words. It was a situation neither of us had ever imagined ourselves in and now that we were here, we didn’t know what to do.
And then he spoke, finally, splitting the silence.
“We gotta do something. You gotta do something. He’s … a mess and… I guess, well, you know, it seems, that you might just be the only one who can get through to him right now.”
I nodded, bit my lip again.
“I… I don’t know what’s wrong, Jess, I honestly don’t, he’s never said anything.”
“Well he wouldn’t, would he? He wouldn’t want to upset you.” I nodded - of course, Jess was right. That’s exactly what Bam would do; hide it from whoever it concerned and try and keep it hidden. He hated hurting people. He didn’t want to make anyone upset. He wanted everyone to be happy, he wanted to make sure everyone was alright. He served the role of guardian angel for all of his friends and he never tired of it. Especially for me. He always, always wanted to look out for me.
“I’ll… I’ll talk to him. Fuck.” I rubbed my eyes, groaning a bit. What a mess. What a fucking mess.
“You know, if you think I’ve accepted the fact that you’re having a relationship with Bam, you’re wrong.”
I looked up at Jess; his face was stone cold. Just as I’d expected it to be.
“I know. But there’s nothing I would or could do to change that, so you’re going to have to deal with it. That’s one thing in which nothing you could say would budge me. And I think we both know where we stand, don’t we?”
I raised an eyebrow at him, and he had no choice but to nod. If his parents found out some of the things I knew about him… he didn’t want that to happen, just like I didn’t want them finding out about me.
“He’s sixteen,” Jess said again, looking at me like I was crazy. I sighed.
“That doesn’t make him any less of a person. That doesn’t mean I don’t love him just as much as I would if he were my own age. Do you not get that?”
“No, I don’t get it. I don’t get any of it. I don’t get why it wasn’t enough for the two of you just to be friends, like normal people.”
“Jess, let me tell you something.” I leaned forward, looking him straight in the eye. “I am not a normal person. Normal people are people like your mom and your dad, Bam even, hell, you are a normal person. You have a family and you have a home, you’ve had a relatively nice life, you’re peachy keen and spiffy. I don’t have any of that. I don’t have jack shit. And until your brother came along, I had even less. I am so far beyond caring about what’s normal or not now. I can’t afford to think about it. If I was trying to avoid abnormality, I’d have to kill myself. Normal people don’t run away from home, normal people don’t sleep with people to get visas, normal people don’t spend two years selling themselves just to get their next fucking fix.” I looked at him, waited for a reaction, got none, carried on: “Get that? Maybe I should spell it out for you, so you don’t have to go around with notions that you got from god-knows-where about me. Yeah, I ran away from home cuz I was gay and my parents hated me. I was a call-boy, I was a crack-whore. But there again, I’m not normal. I escaped, didn’t I? How many crack-whores do you know who end up teaching high-school? Not many. Most of them die.”
“Ville, why the hell are you telling me this? I knew it all already. You’re not as hard to read as you think you might be.”
Why was I telling him? I don’t know. To put us on the same page? That was probably it.
“I’m not going into some soppy explanation of why I love your brother. But I do. And it’s not because he’s only 16. It’s not because of some sick need to fulfill myself of my lost childhood or what the fuck ever- do you even realize the kind of things I was doing when I was Bam’s age?! No, I bet you don’t, I’ll bet you’ve never even imagined the kind of things…” I had to stop. I hated talking about this. I hated talking like this. I hated this whole thing. “But I promise you that I have no intention of “messing” with him. I have no intention of laying a single finger on him in any kind of way that you’re scared of. Not now.”
“That’s all very well and good, but I still don’t like it.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Well then, what are we arguing about?”
“I have no fucking clue.”
“Me neither.” We stared each other in the eyes; he was sometimes so much like Bam it was uncanny. They looked so similar sometimes.
We were locked in that stare, some kind of male thing, where the one tries to stare the other down, but it’s not official, its not planned, you just know that you have to stare stolidly back, don’t break the gaze or you have to recognize defeat… and… I refused to do anything of the sort - we were locked in this gaze when car tires crunched, doors clicked open, the stairwell echoed and there was a knock at the door. I ignored it until Jess finally broke the stair, looking towards the door. I said nothing, stood up.
“That’s Bam,” I said, took one last glare at him, and went to open the door.
Bam’s arms flew around my neck before he was even in the door, his lips were on mine before I could say anything, and the whole time he was pressing himself to me all I was painfully aware of was Jess’s stare of disgust burning into us. I had to stop it, I pushed back at him, “Bammie, stop, Bam, you’ve got to stop… Jess is here.”
That stopped him. He took a huge step backwards, his eyes flew open in shock. I could see the thoughts running through his head - he was thinking, what had he done? What had Jess seen? What would happen?
“Bammie? Bam, darling… he… he knows…”
“He does?” I nodded. “How?”
“He figured it out…I don’t know…” Jess was standing up from the table now, I could hear his chair scrape against the tiled floor.
“Ville…” Bam began uncertainly, his tone almost begging for help… but it was too late, Jess was next to us now, looking at Bam in disbelief.
“Can I talk to you? Alone?” He looked pointedly at me, and I looked at Bam, who looked so scared that I wanted to whisk him off to somewhere safe and happy, I wanted to punch Jess in the face, kick him out, tell him to leave us alone, to never come back. I wanted to pile Bam into my car and drive with him, just drive, far far away, be with him forever without ever even talking to anyone ever again.
But I knew what I had to do. I knew they needed to talk. I knew when it was my cue to leave, stage left, as fast as I possibly could.
“Talk to him, sweetheart,” I whispered into his ear. “Just tell him the truth, tell him what you need to.”
“Ville don’t leave me…” I shrugged at him; he threw his arms around me again and I just held him, patting his back. I saw Jess’ face over Bam’s shoulder and I didn’t know what to make of it… I let Bam go, kissed him softly, and told him I would be waiting in the living room. And I left them to talk. Because I had to. I had no choice. It was the only thing to do.