[advent 08] december twelve
Okay, so, this is the last excerpt from my novel. I promise. I spent all day baking and I'm not home (at quatredeathlady's again), so I don't have anything new. I'M SORRY. God, I fail at Advent. Anyway, this excerpt is HAND SELECTED by quatredeathlady. It takes place in between the first and second one that I posted, but since no one is reading these, that shouldn't be a problem XD
After a really stressful Christmas at home, Alan comes back to Beaumont and ignores Dan. They get into a fight at Shaw's and Doug takes Alan on a walk to clear his head.
***
advent - day twelve
original - alan freaks out a little, and then alan and doug freak out together over something completely different.
***
After a few yards of picking through brush and trees, something resembling a path seemed to open up in front of them. It was just wide enough across for Doug and Alan to walk side-by-side. Doug didn't say anything, didn't pressure Alan into saying anything, and that in and of itself was refreshing. But Doug was right--the outdoors were refreshing, too. The harsh winds from the day before had died down, leaving the air cool and brisk without biting too hard at the extremities. Stretching his muscles felt nice, too. He'd spent nearly every day since break started either in his apartment, in the car, or in his father's house. He wasn't exactly a gym rat, quite the opposite, really, but the walk between the faculty housing and the school had become something he looked forward to day after day.
They had been walking for almost thirty minutes, the school nothing but a grey, red, and white blur in between the trees, when Doug finally cleared his throat.
"I'm not taking sides," he said, "but I thought you should know that Dan called me last night to ask me what the hell your problem was."
Alan winced. "Yeah. I figured he'd do that eventually. What did you tell him?"
"I told him that your problems were your business and I reminded him that you warned him about it when you started dating," Doug said. A beat. "It's none of my business either, but just so you know, I am your friend, and I have noticed that you've been... off. I can tell there's something bothering you. Like I said, that's your business, and I'm not going to push, but know that I am here if you need to talk."
Alan forced a smile. "I feel like we've had this conversation before," he said.
"We have," Doug said simply. "I want to remind you the option is still there."
Alan was silent as they continued down the path, into a denser section of the forest. The word "path" was becoming a misnomer. Walking was still easy with snow weighing down the underbrush, but Alan could tell that it wasn't an area often tread.
"About, god, almost eight years ago, I met this guy," Alan said. Doug glanced over at him, but otherwise showed no signs of interest. "His company made a donation to the school I was working at and I was in charge of managing the funds for the project." He paused. "I don't know, things like 'love at first sight' sound so idiotic, but we went out on a date that night and were living together six months later. It was intense and fast, but... six years." He sighed. "I mean, that's how long we were together. Six years. And we weren't supposed to--obviously we're not together anymore, and it's not because we didn't love each other so much it fucking hurt."
They continued on. Alan twisted the tassels on scarf and swallowed.
"Why did you break up?" Doug asked gently.
"Because he was a coward," Alan said, with only a hint of the edge he still thought those words deserved. He rolled his shoulders, trying to get rid of the tension building up there. "Because... because he was still in the closet to his family and his co-workers and he was given a promotion that would have taken him to California, right by his parents' house. That did take him there. He was contractually obligated to take the transfer and I had to choose. Live alone and in the closet on the other side of the country or live alone and out of the closet here."
"And the choice fell entirely to you?" Doug asked skeptically. "He couldn't decide to come out?"
"Apparently not," Alan said, rubbing his temples absently. "It was... brutal. I mean, at least people who are getting divorced genuinely don't want to be together anymore." He kicked absently at the snow and swallowed past the lump in his throat.
"You still have feelings for him." It wasn't a question.
"That's putting it lightly," Alan said darkly. "I just. Losing Danny because he wouldn't come out and then starting a new job where they forced me back into the closet? Irony aside, I just... I feel like I've been lost in a fog for the past year and a half and I thought I'd find my way out of it once I left Durst but... nothing is right. Still. And even in the moments that I'm the least sad, I'm a far cry from really happy and... Jesus, Doug, I don't know. It's a struggle, and a relationship just seems like another chore half the time. I'm not--Dan isn't someone I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. And it's hard to reconcile the part of me that's having fun with the part of me that feels older and older and stagnant."
Blinking rapidly--it was the cold, the cold was just making his eyes tear, really--Alan glanced over his shoulder. He couldn't even see the school anymore and he didn't care. He felt--not good, but better for having spoken it all out loud, despite the fact that he could feel his heart hammering away and his chest seizing up.
"It's easier staying stagnant than it is to move forward," Doug said quietly.
"Yes," Alan said. He glanced over at Doug, who was frowning thoughtfully.
"You know I'm--" he started to say. He stopped and then said, "You know my wife died."
Alan nodded. "I--yes. You've mentioned it."
"It's not exactly the same," Doug said. "I can't entirely relate to the hatred you feel towards Danny, but I think it's similar. I've been there and I get it. I know there's nothing that I can say to make it better. Time will make it bearable, but it's not going to happen over night and it's not going to go away, ever."
Alan laughed humorlessly and tilted his head back, staring up at the treetops. "I was afraid you were going to say that," he admitted.
"I'm going to throw a suggestion out there," Doug said, "and I don't want you to be offended. Knowing you're a man of science, I feel pretty confident, but still."
"Okay," Alan said. He shrugged and crossed his arms. "It's not like I have anything to lose."
"I find that the thing that helped me the most was seeing my therapist," Doug said. He stopped walking and leaned against a tree, pinning Alan down with a steady but sympathetic gaze. "Therapy and medication. It's not perfect and it doesn't have to be forever, but you'll stop feeling like there's not enough air in the room."
Alan nodded almost manically, his teeth digging into his lower lip. He sucked in a breath. "Yeah," he said, his voice cracking. "Yeah, my sister said--over Christmas, my sister said--" He covered his eyes with one hand, realizing that he was losing the internal battle with tears. "Shit," he said. "Shit." He sat down hard on a lump of snow, probably a log. He could care less what it was, interested only in trying to keep himself together. Trying and failing. "God," he said, choking on a sob, "I'm sorry, Doug, I just--"
"Nonsense," Doug said, crouching down next to him and laying a hand on his back. "It's your due."
He did his best to keep himself quiet, leaving his glasses next to him in the snow so he could wipe better at his eyes with the hand that wasn't pressed to his mouth to muffle his sobs. It was exhausting, and in the end, he was too tired to be embarrassed about the fact that he was crying and snoting all over the scarf that Doug had given him not three days beforehand. He leaned on Doug's shoulder a little more heavily then he would have liked, but began to straighten up once he was relatively sure the outburst was coming to an end.
Doug handed him some tissues as he wiped at his eyes one last time.
"I'm sorry," he said again, clearing his throat. "It's been a hard couple of days."
"It's fine, Alan," Doug said. "Do you feel better?"
"I do," Alan admitted. He laughed a little. "I also feel colder. Christ. I shouldn't have stopped moving and sat down in the snow."
Doug chuckled and stood up, brushing the snow off of his pants. "If you want," he said, "I can give you my therapist's number. She's in Burlington, so it's a little out of the way, but if nothing else, she could recommend someone a little closer."
Alan grabbed his glasses and did his best to wipe them off on a dry bit of his scarf. "I... I don't want to commit to anything yet, but sure, I'd really appreciate that," he said. He slid his glasses on and looked back up at Doug, startled by the stunned look on Doug's face.
"Alan," Doug said slowly, "get up and come over here." Alan cocked his head to the side and frowned.
"What?" he asked.
"Alan, just get up and come over here," Doug repeated, his voice sharp and commanding. Alan nearly leapt up at that. He had never heard Doug raise his voice before. Once he had crossed over to Doug, Doug threw an arm out in front of him and was already dialing his cellphone with his other hand. Alan turned back and felt his stomach bottom out.
The log that he had been sitting on hadn't been a log at all. It was what looked sickeningly like a body.
A human body.
"Oh my god," he said, clutching Doug's arm. "Oh my god."
"Yes," Doug said into the phone, "I'm--hello? Yes, I'm sorry, I'm on a cellphone, I'm in the woods behind Beaumont Academy over in Field's End and I've just... well, my friend and I have just found a--a person. A dead person." Alan could feel Doug tense as he paused, the tinny sound from the other end of the phone echoing in the silence of the forest. He strained to make out the words, but it was too far away. "Yes," Doug said, "I'm positive I can--yes, of course. Of course, we came in right--hello? Yes, right behind the faculty housing. The Drew Street entrance. Yeah, we'll start heading that way now--hello? Hello? Shit." He slammed his phone shut and shoved it back into his pocket.
"Oh my god," Alan said again, faintly. He could feel panic start to bubble up in his chest.
"We need to walk back," Doug said. He was shaking. "We need to--I told them we'd start to walk back, that we could find our way back here and... my god, Alan, I think..." He trailed off, but grabbed Alan's wrist and started walking briskly back the way they came. Alan stumbled, but managed to keep up, just barely. For someone a little soft around the middle, Doug was quick.
"Was that really--" Alan started to ask, but stopped himself before he could finish, realizing how stupid he sounded.
"I think--" Doug started to say again. He began to walk even faster. "Alan, I can't be sure. I couldn't really... the snow and the cold, I couldn't really--it was hard to--"
"What?" Alan shouted desperately, rushing to keep up, feeling Doug's grip tighten, bruising his wrist.
"I think that was Donna Ashby."
After a really stressful Christmas at home, Alan comes back to Beaumont and ignores Dan. They get into a fight at Shaw's and Doug takes Alan on a walk to clear his head.
***
advent - day twelve
original - alan freaks out a little, and then alan and doug freak out together over something completely different.
***
After a few yards of picking through brush and trees, something resembling a path seemed to open up in front of them. It was just wide enough across for Doug and Alan to walk side-by-side. Doug didn't say anything, didn't pressure Alan into saying anything, and that in and of itself was refreshing. But Doug was right--the outdoors were refreshing, too. The harsh winds from the day before had died down, leaving the air cool and brisk without biting too hard at the extremities. Stretching his muscles felt nice, too. He'd spent nearly every day since break started either in his apartment, in the car, or in his father's house. He wasn't exactly a gym rat, quite the opposite, really, but the walk between the faculty housing and the school had become something he looked forward to day after day.
They had been walking for almost thirty minutes, the school nothing but a grey, red, and white blur in between the trees, when Doug finally cleared his throat.
"I'm not taking sides," he said, "but I thought you should know that Dan called me last night to ask me what the hell your problem was."
Alan winced. "Yeah. I figured he'd do that eventually. What did you tell him?"
"I told him that your problems were your business and I reminded him that you warned him about it when you started dating," Doug said. A beat. "It's none of my business either, but just so you know, I am your friend, and I have noticed that you've been... off. I can tell there's something bothering you. Like I said, that's your business, and I'm not going to push, but know that I am here if you need to talk."
Alan forced a smile. "I feel like we've had this conversation before," he said.
"We have," Doug said simply. "I want to remind you the option is still there."
Alan was silent as they continued down the path, into a denser section of the forest. The word "path" was becoming a misnomer. Walking was still easy with snow weighing down the underbrush, but Alan could tell that it wasn't an area often tread.
"About, god, almost eight years ago, I met this guy," Alan said. Doug glanced over at him, but otherwise showed no signs of interest. "His company made a donation to the school I was working at and I was in charge of managing the funds for the project." He paused. "I don't know, things like 'love at first sight' sound so idiotic, but we went out on a date that night and were living together six months later. It was intense and fast, but... six years." He sighed. "I mean, that's how long we were together. Six years. And we weren't supposed to--obviously we're not together anymore, and it's not because we didn't love each other so much it fucking hurt."
They continued on. Alan twisted the tassels on scarf and swallowed.
"Why did you break up?" Doug asked gently.
"Because he was a coward," Alan said, with only a hint of the edge he still thought those words deserved. He rolled his shoulders, trying to get rid of the tension building up there. "Because... because he was still in the closet to his family and his co-workers and he was given a promotion that would have taken him to California, right by his parents' house. That did take him there. He was contractually obligated to take the transfer and I had to choose. Live alone and in the closet on the other side of the country or live alone and out of the closet here."
"And the choice fell entirely to you?" Doug asked skeptically. "He couldn't decide to come out?"
"Apparently not," Alan said, rubbing his temples absently. "It was... brutal. I mean, at least people who are getting divorced genuinely don't want to be together anymore." He kicked absently at the snow and swallowed past the lump in his throat.
"You still have feelings for him." It wasn't a question.
"That's putting it lightly," Alan said darkly. "I just. Losing Danny because he wouldn't come out and then starting a new job where they forced me back into the closet? Irony aside, I just... I feel like I've been lost in a fog for the past year and a half and I thought I'd find my way out of it once I left Durst but... nothing is right. Still. And even in the moments that I'm the least sad, I'm a far cry from really happy and... Jesus, Doug, I don't know. It's a struggle, and a relationship just seems like another chore half the time. I'm not--Dan isn't someone I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. And it's hard to reconcile the part of me that's having fun with the part of me that feels older and older and stagnant."
Blinking rapidly--it was the cold, the cold was just making his eyes tear, really--Alan glanced over his shoulder. He couldn't even see the school anymore and he didn't care. He felt--not good, but better for having spoken it all out loud, despite the fact that he could feel his heart hammering away and his chest seizing up.
"It's easier staying stagnant than it is to move forward," Doug said quietly.
"Yes," Alan said. He glanced over at Doug, who was frowning thoughtfully.
"You know I'm--" he started to say. He stopped and then said, "You know my wife died."
Alan nodded. "I--yes. You've mentioned it."
"It's not exactly the same," Doug said. "I can't entirely relate to the hatred you feel towards Danny, but I think it's similar. I've been there and I get it. I know there's nothing that I can say to make it better. Time will make it bearable, but it's not going to happen over night and it's not going to go away, ever."
Alan laughed humorlessly and tilted his head back, staring up at the treetops. "I was afraid you were going to say that," he admitted.
"I'm going to throw a suggestion out there," Doug said, "and I don't want you to be offended. Knowing you're a man of science, I feel pretty confident, but still."
"Okay," Alan said. He shrugged and crossed his arms. "It's not like I have anything to lose."
"I find that the thing that helped me the most was seeing my therapist," Doug said. He stopped walking and leaned against a tree, pinning Alan down with a steady but sympathetic gaze. "Therapy and medication. It's not perfect and it doesn't have to be forever, but you'll stop feeling like there's not enough air in the room."
Alan nodded almost manically, his teeth digging into his lower lip. He sucked in a breath. "Yeah," he said, his voice cracking. "Yeah, my sister said--over Christmas, my sister said--" He covered his eyes with one hand, realizing that he was losing the internal battle with tears. "Shit," he said. "Shit." He sat down hard on a lump of snow, probably a log. He could care less what it was, interested only in trying to keep himself together. Trying and failing. "God," he said, choking on a sob, "I'm sorry, Doug, I just--"
"Nonsense," Doug said, crouching down next to him and laying a hand on his back. "It's your due."
He did his best to keep himself quiet, leaving his glasses next to him in the snow so he could wipe better at his eyes with the hand that wasn't pressed to his mouth to muffle his sobs. It was exhausting, and in the end, he was too tired to be embarrassed about the fact that he was crying and snoting all over the scarf that Doug had given him not three days beforehand. He leaned on Doug's shoulder a little more heavily then he would have liked, but began to straighten up once he was relatively sure the outburst was coming to an end.
Doug handed him some tissues as he wiped at his eyes one last time.
"I'm sorry," he said again, clearing his throat. "It's been a hard couple of days."
"It's fine, Alan," Doug said. "Do you feel better?"
"I do," Alan admitted. He laughed a little. "I also feel colder. Christ. I shouldn't have stopped moving and sat down in the snow."
Doug chuckled and stood up, brushing the snow off of his pants. "If you want," he said, "I can give you my therapist's number. She's in Burlington, so it's a little out of the way, but if nothing else, she could recommend someone a little closer."
Alan grabbed his glasses and did his best to wipe them off on a dry bit of his scarf. "I... I don't want to commit to anything yet, but sure, I'd really appreciate that," he said. He slid his glasses on and looked back up at Doug, startled by the stunned look on Doug's face.
"Alan," Doug said slowly, "get up and come over here." Alan cocked his head to the side and frowned.
"What?" he asked.
"Alan, just get up and come over here," Doug repeated, his voice sharp and commanding. Alan nearly leapt up at that. He had never heard Doug raise his voice before. Once he had crossed over to Doug, Doug threw an arm out in front of him and was already dialing his cellphone with his other hand. Alan turned back and felt his stomach bottom out.
The log that he had been sitting on hadn't been a log at all. It was what looked sickeningly like a body.
A human body.
"Oh my god," he said, clutching Doug's arm. "Oh my god."
"Yes," Doug said into the phone, "I'm--hello? Yes, I'm sorry, I'm on a cellphone, I'm in the woods behind Beaumont Academy over in Field's End and I've just... well, my friend and I have just found a--a person. A dead person." Alan could feel Doug tense as he paused, the tinny sound from the other end of the phone echoing in the silence of the forest. He strained to make out the words, but it was too far away. "Yes," Doug said, "I'm positive I can--yes, of course. Of course, we came in right--hello? Yes, right behind the faculty housing. The Drew Street entrance. Yeah, we'll start heading that way now--hello? Hello? Shit." He slammed his phone shut and shoved it back into his pocket.
"Oh my god," Alan said again, faintly. He could feel panic start to bubble up in his chest.
"We need to walk back," Doug said. He was shaking. "We need to--I told them we'd start to walk back, that we could find our way back here and... my god, Alan, I think..." He trailed off, but grabbed Alan's wrist and started walking briskly back the way they came. Alan stumbled, but managed to keep up, just barely. For someone a little soft around the middle, Doug was quick.
"Was that really--" Alan started to ask, but stopped himself before he could finish, realizing how stupid he sounded.
"I think--" Doug started to say again. He began to walk even faster. "Alan, I can't be sure. I couldn't really... the snow and the cold, I couldn't really--it was hard to--"
"What?" Alan shouted desperately, rushing to keep up, feeling Doug's grip tighten, bruising his wrist.
"I think that was Donna Ashby."