Behind the Net: Across the Distance (A Sequel) - Chapter 19
Title: Behind the Net: Across the Distance (A Sequel)
Author: shmorgenheigen
Chapter: Nineteen
Rating: R
Pairing: Pierre/David
Word Count: 9897
Summary: The continuation of the story Behind the Net, picking up right where the original story left off. David and Pierre explore their new relationship while navigating a long distance relationship. While Pierre is in Anchorage in his first year of college and playing college hockey, David is stuck back in Juneau to finish his senior year of high school. When an unlikely person from David’s past shows up and forces their way back into David’s life, things take a turn for the dramatic. Will David and Pierre be able to maintain their love for each other while separated and stave off those pesky feelings of loneliness, jealousy, and depression?
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own, didn't happen!
Author's Note: When I started to re-write Behind the Net from Pierre’s perspective, I started to think about how much story there would be to tell when Pierre went off to college, leaving David alone in Juneau. I became obsessed with the idea of writing the next chapter in their story and now that it’s finished, I am absolutely in love with how it turned out and the original characters I added into the story! If anyone reads this, leave me a comment and let me know!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
When Pierre’s alarm sounded the next morning to get up and get ready to head to the airport, his eyes opened mechanically and he immediately looked at his phone on the pillow next to him, seeing that the call from David was still connected. He picked it up and listened, not hearing any sound and figuring David was asleep. Still, he felt bad just hanging up and he very quietly said, “David?”
David jumped awake with a startled yell and looked around, confused at first about where he was having fallen into a deep sleep against his will. Then he saw his phone on the floor next to his leg and he picked it up, holding it to his ear as he said, “Pierre.”
Pierre sighed quietly, glancing over to Jay and seeing that he was sound asleep. “I have to head to the airport soon, okay?” he said softly.
“Okay,” David replied, leaning back against the wall of his closet which he hadn’t left all night.
“I’ll call you when I get to your house so you know it’s me and can come let me in,” Pierre told him gently.
“But I’m supposed to come pick you up,” David remembered, blinking himself more awake at the thought.
“Don’t leave, just stay there and sleep,” Pierre told him firmly.
David sighed quietly and nodded, his eyes falling closed again as he replied, “Okay.”
“Okay, I’m gonna hang up now. Just stay where you are and try to get some sleep.”
“Okay,” David replied again, his body already beginning to fall back into sleep.
“I love you,” Pierre added gently.
“I love you too,” David mumbled before rolling to his side and curling his face into the corner of his closet.
Pierre sighed and hung up, before getting up and getting himself ready. He wasn’t planning on bringing much, just a carry-on with some clothes and his toiletries, knowing he’d be able to do laundry at David’s house when he inevitably ran out of clothes during the two weeks he was going to be staying with him. He had been excited to get to show David that he had learned how to do his own laundry, though now all he could think about was getting to David’s house and seeing him, assessing what kind of damage had been done, finding out the whole story, and tracking down Hunter and hurting him. That rage was all he could focus on throughout the morning.
He was tense and angry throughout the flight, unable to stop hearing the way David’s voice had sounded, incoherent and screaming, sobbing and terrified. He glared at the headrest in front of him, not watching the movie that was playing, not bothering with headphones to hear it, his mind completely absorbed with memories of the night before and the way David had continuously woken up screaming and crying. By the time he had gotten off the plane and was getting in a taxi to head to David’s house, he was completely worked up and lost in his fury.
He stood at David’s door and didn’t knock but instead called his phone, not wanting to scare him. He didn’t know if Hunter knew where David lived or not but as they had dated for such a long time and David had lived in that house his entire childhood, he couldn’t imagine that Hunter didn’t know how to find him. David answered the phone and he sighed in relief, telling him, “I’m at the door.” He heard David acknowledge him and hang up and he waited, his stomach tying itself into knots wondering what he was going to find when David opened the door. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.
The door swung open and Pierre’s eyes widened sadly and his mouth fell slowly open as he stared at David, horror washing over him as he took in his appearance. He stepped inside the door, unblinking, his eyes never leaving David’s face, his shaking hands lifting in the desire to hold his cheeks but afraid to hurt him with his touch. The entire right side of David’s face was scratched and cut, covered in dried blood and scrapes that extended to his ear. He had small round bruises along his jaw that were clearly from fingertips, four fingers on the right side, a thumb on the left. The left side of his face bore a black eye and bruise that extended down onto his cheekbone, clearly from a fist. The left side of his neck was littered with bruises, bite marks, and what were very clearly hickeys. And this was just the damage he could immediately see.
David had wanted to throw himself into Pierre’s arms the moment he saw him but was stopped at the look of devastating heartache on Pierre’s face, watching in horror as he looked at him, his face becoming sadder, his eyes filling with tears, and for the first time he saw tears begin to spill down his cheeks. David’s own tears followed immediately after and he walked forward into Pierre’s chest, hugging him tightly and wrapping his arms around him. He had yet to look at himself but based on Pierre’s reaction, he knew it wasn’t good. “I fought him as hard as I could,” David whispered, wanting Pierre to understand that he hadn’t just given up, that there had been no part of him that wanted any of it.
Pierre leaned his head down, his tears falling harder at these words, and reached his hand up to hold the back of David’s head, though David’s quiet and sudden intake of air and the feeling of dried blood in his hair immediately told Pierre that he had been hurt on the back of his head, as well. His hand flinched back and he moved instead to the back of David’s neck, though immediately he felt scratches there as well and pulled his hand back again. Where could he hold David that it wouldn’t hurt him? He could feel as David’s breathing got more ragged, could hear as he began to lose control of himself, and suddenly he was sobbing again, his fingers digging into Pierre’s back for support.
Pierre kicked the door shut behind him and leaned back to lock it before pulling David into his bedroom and laying down with him. He could see that David hadn’t done anything to clean himself up but he also knew it could wait a little bit longer. David was sobbing into his chest and clinging to him desperately; in that moment what he needed most was to be held and to cry. This time, however, Pierre couldn’t stop himself from crying with him, for the first time not caring at all if David saw this emotion leave him. The thing that was most precious to him in the world had been hurt so badly, and he knew that even after these physical injuries healed David would walk around with emotional scars that would never heal at all. Seeing David, the person he loved more than his own life, so badly damaged hurt more than he would ever be able to describe.
Eventually the sound of David’s cries stopped and his breathing slowed down and became more shallow. Pierre glanced down at him, seeing that he had fallen asleep and was laying against his chest with a peaceful look on his face. He noticed that David’s hand on his chest was covered in scratches that matched those on his face though they seemed deeper and more plentiful. His eyes traveled down and noticed bruises on his wrist, and his heartbreak got the better of him and he started to cry again. He could almost picture it, Hunter’s hands around David’s wrists, holding him against something that was scratching him, whether it was a building or the ground he didn’t know. One thing that seemed clear from the severity of the cuts and bruises was that David had truly fought against Hunter as hard as he could, just as he had said. If David had simply gone limp and given up and let Hunter do what he wanted, his injuries wouldn’t have been nearly as bad.
He wondered what other injuries there might be that he couldn’t see, and how far Hunter had gone. Had he raped him? Had he touched him? Had David managed to fight him off before he could go that far? What had let him get away? There were so many questions that he was dying for the answers to but he couldn’t bear to wake the smaller boy now that he was peacefully asleep, his mind calling back to all the times he had woken to the sound of David screaming and crying over the phone throughout the night. He knew he needed sleep desperately and didn’t want to interrupt him.
His eyes traveled again to David’s neck, unable to stop looking at the bruises and bite marks and hickeys that Hunter had left on him. He felt sick at the idea that David had been screaming and crying and fighting against him and Hunter had been so demented that he was turned on enough to give him hickeys. He couldn’t understand the mindset that would lead to this behavior and wondered if Hunter had always had this in him and had been waiting for his moment to strike, or if there was something else to it that had led him to ignoring David’s cries and continuing on despite how badly he didn’t want it.
After a while he became aware that David was awake when his fingers began fidgeting with the material of his t-shirt and he looked down at him, seeing that David’s eyes were open but looked far away like he was lost in thought. Pierre instinctively reached a hand up to touch his face but stopped himself, realizing with a pained expression that doing so would more than likely hurt the other boy. David’s head tilted up toward him and his eyes flicked up to Pierre’s, staring at him sadly. “I’m sorry I’m not stronger,” he whispered, his eyes flooding with tears again. “I really tried.”
Pierre’s eyebrows pulled together in pain and he shook his head quickly, whispering, “This is not your fault.”
“I shouldn’t have tried to run to my car,” David said quietly, tears falling down his cheeks again. “I should’ve found someone working at the library and told them I needed help but I ran instead and he…” He closed his eyes and tilted his head down so Pierre couldn't see, though the pressure on his scratched and torn skin was painful as he did.
“You can’t blame yourself for the terrible thing he did,” Pierre told him firmly. He wanted to grab onto his chin and pull his attention back up but the bruises on his skin stopped him and he worried that any small action of forcing his face up might remind him of what had happened to him the previous night. He had never felt so scared to touch David before but suddenly he felt like David was a porcelain doll that sat cracked in front of him and could break with the slightest pressure. He sat up slowly, watching as David looked at him and did the same and he said with a soft sigh, “We should go get you cleaned up a little.”
David nodded and together they stood, David following after Pierre to the bathroom. He kept his eyes down for a long moment, afraid to look at himself and to see what Hunter had done to him. Knowing he needed to look, however, David stood in front of the mirror and forced his eyes up; the sight of himself felt shocking. He took in his own features, seeing the scratches and cuts, seeing the dried blood, seeing the bruises, seeing the bite marks and the hickeys; it made him feel nauseous and broken and dirty.
Pierre didn’t want to watch David’s reaction to seeing himself and instead started looking under the bathroom sink for something he could use to clean David’s cuts. When he stood with a small first aid kit, he looked at David with a grimace, “It’s gonna hurt but we have to clean these.”
David nodded and moved to face Pierre, but a thought occurred to him and he said, “Wait… take pictures first. Just in case I need it, I’ll have some kind of proof I was hurt.”
Pierre nodded and with shaking hands pulled out his phone. David stood still and Pierre began to take pictures from different angles, pictures from straight on of his face, pictures of each side of his face, pictures of his neck, pictures of the backs of his hands and his wrists, pictures of the back of his head (though it was harder to see those cuts through his hair) and the back of his neck. He let out a shaky breath and looked at David nervously as he asked, “Are there more anywhere else?”
David shrugged and shook his head a little, saying honestly, “I don't know. He didn’t get far enough to… he didn’t take off any of my clothes before he ran away so probably not.” Pierre felt a sense of relief wash over him at these words. So Hunter hadn’t taken off any of David’s clothes. That meant he hadn’t gone so far as to rape him then, right?
“You should probably just take a shower first,” Pierre told him gently, getting a nod from David that seemed far off like he was lost in thought again. “You can get the majority of the blood and dirt off with the water and it’ll make sanitizing with the alcohol easier and faster.”
“Don’t leave,” David requested suddenly, and Pierre nodded in response. He couldn’t help himself as he watched David undress, searching his body for more damage but gratefully not seeing much else. There were some light scratches down his back and some scratches and bruises on his knees from all the times he had fallen, but other than that the rest of his body appeared to be unscathed.
David kept the water luke warm as he got in, scared that water too hot would sting his cuts. Though it did sting a little when he first let the water run over his skin, he quickly got over the sensation and allowed the water to cleanse him. He grabbed his bar of soap which was luckily unscented and worked a gentle lather in his palms before very gently beginning to wash his scrapes and cuts, wincing a little at the sensation but continuing on. He found the back of his head felt the most tender and though he knew his hair would hate it, he used the soap to clean the back of his head as well, knowing that shampoo and conditioner would feel way worse.
Soon he had finished and was turning off the water and he pulled open the shower curtain, glad to see Pierre standing there with a towel ready for him. Pierre wrapped the towel gently around David’s body and stood there hugging him for a moment. David’s eyes fell closed and he leaned against him, getting his shirt wet but it didn’t seem that Pierre cared even a little bit. He pulled back and began to step out of the tub, watching as Pierre moved back to the counter to pick up several packs of sterilizing pads which were pre-soaked with alcohol which he had gotten from the first aid kit.
Pierre opened one of the sterilizing pads and unfolded it, his hand shaking as he turned to look at David who had walked up to him and stood waiting. He hesitated, looking sadly into David’s eyes and saying, “This is gonna hurt. Do you want to do it yourself so it’s not a surprise?” David shook his head and Pierre steeled himself with a nod. His shaking hand continued forward and as gently as he could manage he swiped the pad along David’s forehead. The reaction was immediate as searing pain ran across David’s skin. David closed his eyes tight and made a strangled noise of pain, his hands finding Pierre’s shirt and grabbing fistfuls of it. Pierre’s hand jumped back and he stared at him with concern, though when David continued to stand there unmoving and keeping his eyes closed, he took a deep breath and continued, doing his best to work fast.
Luckily the cuts and scrapes were fairly superficial with only a few here and there that were deeper so he imagined that they would heal quickly and wouldn’t leave scars. It also didn’t seem that they would need any sort of bandages, which was good as it would have been difficult to bandage the entire right side of David’s face and his ear, the backs of his hands and his neck. As he finished he tossed several red and dark brown stained sterilizing pads in the bathroom trash before looking back at David and letting his eyes wander his face. He wished he could touch him but he was too scared of hurting him; he wished he could kiss him but he was too worried it would trigger him. He just stood and looked at him, feeling his heart breaking all over again, not knowing what to do or how to help.
“You need to report this to the police,” Pierre told him again, his voice gentle and sad.
David shook his head and looked down, running his fingers delicately over the bruises on one of his wrists. “There’s just no point. He didn’t…” he trailed off, wanting to express that Hunter hadn’t raped him but unable to get the word out of his mouth. “There’s none of his DNA on me or… o-or in me… or anything. I don’t have any proof that it was actually him. All I have is my beat up face and my word, and that’s not gonna be enough. All he has to do is lie and say it wasn’t him… and why wouldn’t he lie?”
“You don’t know they won’t believe you or that they can’t do anything,” Pierre offered, and again he wanted to touch David but he was too afraid of what it could cause the other boy to feel. David just shook his head, unable to look up. Pierre gave a quiet sigh and dropped his head, looking down at David’s fingers on his own wrist. “You should eat something,” he said gently.
“I feel sick,” David replied dismissively.
Pierre looked back up at him, seeing the way he looked so beaten down and broken and his heart aching. “I’m sure you didn’t eat anything last night after what happened…” he reasoned, not wanting to push but knowing without a doubt it had been too long since the other boy had put any sustenance in his body.
David nodded, unable to look up at Pierre, unable to admit that he hadn’t eaten a single thing the entire day before. Pierre reached forward slowly, his fingers gently curving under to touch the underside of David’s palm. David lined up his hand and locked his fingers with Pierre’s, glad for his comforting touch, soothed by how gentle it was. Gently Pierre pulled on his arm and led him out of the bathroom and to his bedroom, finding him clean underwear, pajama pants and a shirt and handing them to him. David’s eyes were far away as he got dressed and soon he felt Pierre’s hand holding his again and leading him out to the couch in the living room. “Sit here and relax, okay? I’m gonna take your car and run to the store.”
David’s eyes looked into Pierre’s sadly and he reached forward, grabbing onto his shirt. “You’re leaving?” he asked, feeling like a child but too upset to be ashamed.
“Just for a few minutes. I have to find something you can eat. Just trust me, okay? You need it, it’ll help even if you don’t feel like it will,” Pierre told him reassuringly.
David nodded and sat on the couch, watching as Pierre grabbed his car keys and left without another word. He heard as the lock slid into place and leaned back against the cushions, his eyes staring out across the silent living room. He vaguely had the thought of turning on the TV or some music to fill the silence but he felt overwhelmed by the idea of even moving and before he knew it, without knowing how much time had passed, the door was clicking unlocked again and Pierre was walking back through the front door with a plastic grocery bag in his hand.
Pierre walked over to David and set the bag down on the coffee table, kneeling down as he pulled three different protein shakes from it. “Chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry?” he asked, looking into David’s eyes and making it clear that not choosing one wasn’t an option.
David smiled a little weakly and said, “Vanilla, I guess,” figuring it would be the easiest for him to stomach.
Pierre nodded and shook the bottle before opening it and handing it over to him. “Just sip on it,” Pierre told him, before turning around to put the other two in the fridge. Before he left he would be going to an actual grocery store and buying the biggest box he could find of whatever flavor David wanted, determined that he was going to force some calories in the other boy. When he came back to the living room, he saw that David was sitting there staring out across the room and sipping idly on the shake. He sat next to him on the couch and watched him, hating how completely shattered he looked. “Do you think… you can tell me what happened?” Pierre asked delicately.
David looked over at him, searching his eyes and seeing a longing for answers behind them. He nodded and pulled the bottle from his lips, his fingers pressing into the plastic and turning it in circles in his hands out of nerves. “I think this has been coming on for a little while,” he admitted, moving his eyes down to the bottle in his hands. “I’ve kind of been… keeping some stuff from you the last few weeks… about Hunter and the way he’s been acting,” he admitted, and he swallowed hard, afraid to look at Pierre and see his reaction.
Pierre’s brow furrowed and he felt his stomach clench at these words. “Why?” he asked, his voice quiet.
“I didn’t want to upset you and mess up your games,” he admitted sheepishly.
“David, it’s just hockey,” Pierre pressed, unable to keep an edge of frustration out of his voice.
“It’s not just hockey,” David replied quietly. “It’s your future. A-and… I also didn’t want you to hurt him and get in trouble.”
This, Pierre had to admit, was the better of the two reasons. Even in that exact moment, if he knew where Hunter was he would have been there already beating him until he couldn’t stand anymore. “What has he been doing?”
“After our fight at the college fair things were honestly really good for a while and everything was starting to feel normal,” David started quietly. “He was doing really well and wasn’t being weird or jealous, he wasn’t making crappy comments about you or saying your name with an attitude… He was really just acting like my friend. I started to lower my defenses and started to feel like I could trust him and for a while we were just… normal,” he said the word again, unsure of how else to put it.
“But then… The Monday before I came to see you, we were at the library,” David continued nervously, and no matter how much he didn’t want to tell Pierre this part he thought it was important to the timeline of events. His eyes were still focused on the plastic bottle in his hands, pressing on it and twisting it in circles in his fingers, restlessly fidgeting with it. “He asked if my dad would be home for Thanksgiving and I told him no, and I mentioned that my dad avoids coming home for any holidays since my mom died,” he continued, his last words coming out just barely above a whisper.
Pierre had never thought about it before, had never stopped to question the reason that David had been alone the previous Christmas, or to think that he was alone for Thanksgiving, or would be again this Christmas; he had also never stopped to wonder if David’s father was gone for these days intentionally. Suddenly it made sense and Pierre was able to see the pattern that he had missed before, and though he could understand not wanting to face family holidays after losing his wife, didn’t he stop to think about what it would do to David to spend those days all by himself in an empty house?
“I didn’t mean to mention her, the thought just came out and I almost started crying so I just got quiet and tried to stop, but he… he held my hand and he said he was sorry and it just made it worse.” David shrunk into his shoulders now, feeling ashamed that he had let Hunter touch him and even more so that he hadn’t admitted it to Pierre before now. The jealousy Pierre felt at the idea of Hunter holding David’s hand was dampened by the reality of how everything had ended up but he couldn’t stop himself from picturing it and feeling a twinge in his body.
“He kept talking even though I just wanted him to stop because I didn’t want to cry and then he… he hugged me and I… I hugged him back and I just lost it.” David stopped talking, feeling himself start to shake as the scene of that night replayed in his mind and his sense of shame grew at the fact that it had happened at all and also that he had kept it a secret for a month. Pierre stopped breathing for a second as David’s words washed over him, hating that he could picture it too easily - Hunter holding his boyfriend, comforting his boyfriend as he cried on his chest. His jealousy began to push through the overwhelming sadness and he was feeling it more strongly now despite the damaged boy sitting in front of him.
“He just held me until I stopped crying and even… for a while after… until I could calm down enough to realize it was inappropriate… and that it would hurt you if you could see us…” David whispered, his fingers really beginning to crush the plastic bottle in his hands now as tears pricked in his eyes. Pierre was watching David, a strange mixture of hurt and betrayal and sadness and pity and understanding all coursing through him at once; he was left feeling unsure what he was supposed to feel but unable to speak given the circumstances.
“It didn't mean anything to me,” David whispered truthfully, shaking his head a little. “He just kept pushing the topic when I wanted him to stop and as soon as he hugged me I couldn’t keep it in anymore. That would have happened if anyone had done that to me, it could have been you or Jenny or anyone. If any of you had ever pushed me to keep talking about it after I got emotional and closed up, the exact same thing would have happened. I promise it’s not because it was him or because I have some kind of pushed down feelings for him, I swear,” he continued, sounding desperate now for Pierre to believe him though he never once took his eyes off of the bottle in his hands.
Pierre nodded though he knew David didn’t see. He wanted to respond verbally, to make himself say that he believed him, but there was the smallest doubt in the back of his mind now driven by the fact that David had come to see him just a few days after and hadn’t told him about any of it. Still, he reminded himself that when Hunter had pushed himself on him David had rejected him and fought him as if his life depended on it. That had to mean something.
“I apologized for crying and he told me I shouldn’t be sorry for my emotions… and he even said I should share them with you and let you see how much I’ve been suffering,” David continued, his voice calmer and quieter again. “He said if I love you as much as I say I do that I have to share all of myself with you or there’ll always be this one thing separating us.. And I-” Shame at what he had done next stopped his voice in his throat and he worried that it would make it seem like he wasn’t being honest about the way he felt about Hunter. “I hugged him again,” he admitted, shame heavy in his voice. Again jealousy and distrust began to tear through Pierre’s body, stronger now, picturing David throwing himself back into Hunter’s arms. “It really didn't mean anything to me, I just appreciated what he said and it finally felt like we were actually something like friends and like he was actually thinking about my relationship with you and trying to help me,” David continued, sounding desperate again. Again, Pierre found himself struggling to believe him entirely despite how much he wanted to.
“But… I could see it in his eyes that it meant something to him,” David continued, and despite what had happened the night before, he still felt frustratingly sad for Hunter as he remembered the way his eyes had looked after David had pulled away and tried to go back to doing his homework, like he had wanted to say and do something more, like he was fighting an urge inside of himself. “I could see… his pain… and I realized what I was doing to him and… I realized he was in love with me still and he was wanting more.” For a moment David chewed on his bottom lip as the guilt of this realization and the fact that he hadn’t told Pierre about it tore through him. Pierre just stared at him, feeling betrayed in a way he couldn’t quite explain to himself despite David’s assurances that he didn’t feel the same way.
“I just went back to doing my homework but I realized I couldn’t keep doing this to him and that no matter how much I only wanted to be friends or tried to ignore his feelings, they were just gonna keep growing and he was gonna keep hurting until eventually he lost control and did something stupid. I knew I was gonna have to start pulling away from him for his own good,” David said quietly, his guilt tearing at him. “I knew if I tried to confront him about his feelings or tell him we couldn’t be friends he would freak out and it would be way worse so I thought when I got back from seeing you I would just start distancing myself as discreetly as I could until eventually we didn’t see each other anymore.” Pierre took a deep breath and let it out slowly, comforted slightly that David had planned to pull himself away and had thought out how to do it as peacefully as possible.
“But when I got back and I saw him… I felt so guilty I couldn’t look at him,” David breathed, shrinking into his shoulders. “I just felt so bad for him. I knew how much it would hurt him if he knew we had slept together and I wouldn’t make eye contact with him… And he just knew.” David swallowed hard and chewed on his lip again as the memory of that day came back to him, making his stomach hurt and his heart pound. David’s guilt over sleeping with him was not something Pierre was prepared to hear and it jabbed at his heart. He told himself to understand David’s meaning, that it was simply because he didn’t want to hurt the boy he had come to think of as his friend, that it was truly driven out of empathy and nothing else, but it hurt more than he could comprehend.
“He said something really fucked up to me… he said… ‘you let your boyfriend fuck you for the first time and now you can’t even look at me?’ And I…” David trailed off, remembering his words perfectly, still able to hear them in his mind and the hurt and anger that had been behind them. “I couldn’t say anything to him because I was hurt and I was angry that he could be so crass and heartless, and that he didn’t seem to care that it was because I cared about his feelings and didn’t want to hurt him.” Again, David’s level of caring for Hunter hurt Pierre deeply and he had a hard time believing that it was strictly out of friendship that David had felt these feelings, no matter what he said. “He walked away and then I avoided him the rest of the week,” David explained quietly. “I was so angry I didn’t want to see him, and I knew it was for the best that we just… let it fall apart there, but then…”
He squeezed the bottle hard in his fingers again, his hands shaking as the memory replayed for him. “He came to my locker that Friday morning and he told me to stop avoiding him. And when I turned around he was right there, with his hand on the locker by my head and he was way too close and I got really scared,” he recalled, his voice in a shaky whisper. “I tried to push him away but he just grabbed my hand and he wouldn’t let go and he got closer like he was going to ki-” David stopped talking suddenly, a shudder running through his body at the memory. Pierre felt a flame rip through his body at this, wondering how this could have happened and David could have kept it from him. Based on the timeline he had given, this had happened two weeks prior and he knew the only reason he was hearing about it at all was because Hunter had ended up attacking David.
“I thought he was about to kiss me and I tried to get away from him but he wouldn’t let go of my hand and he pulled me back to him,” David continued, tears in his eyes now and his voice shaking as the fear he had felt rushed through him again. “I told him to let go of me and I tried to push him away but he just grabbed my other wrist and wouldn’t let me go, even though people were staring and I told him he was hurting me.” At these words tears began to fall down his face and he reached a hand up to wipe them away, his fingers shaking as he did. “He accused me of ending our friendship because I let you fuck me and he said it loud enough that all the people around heard what he said and I just kept trying to get away from him,” he breathed, his voice thick with tears now. “And then a teacher came down the hall and he let go of me and I fell and then just got up and ran away, and I went to my class, and when people who had seen what had happened came in I could hear them telling other people about it and I saw everyone staring at me and I ran out of the classroom and went home and just… hid in my room.”
At this, Pierre couldn’t help himself anymore and he said, “Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”
At these words David finally mustered up the courage to look at him, staring into Pierre’s eyes and begging for understanding. “You were in Michigan and I knew you were in your head about your last away games not going how you wanted and I didn’t want to upset you and make you lose your games,” he responded quietly.
“God damn it, David!” Pierre yelled suddenly, though he immediately regretted the outburst at the way David flinched and he sighed and put his face in his hands. “Your safety is so much more important than any hockey game could ever be.”
“I’m sorry,” David whispered, reaching over to curl his fingers around Pierre’s hand, pressing into his palm.
Pierre dropped his hand and very gently laced his fingers with David’s, shaking his head and staring into his eyes. “I could have come home and scared him away,” Pierre said desperately. “I could have done something before he ever-”
“Yeah and I was scared of that too,” David cut him off, squeezing his fingers into Pierre’s hand. “Don’t get me wrong, I wanted you to do it. I wanted you to beat the snot out of him and get him to leave me alone forever but… I knew you’d do it and if you got caught… and you got in trouble… I figured there was just six months left until I’d never have to deal with him again and it would all be over. I thought if I could just avoid him until then, it would be okay, so I just… avoided him again. But I… I couldn’t make myself eat breakfast because I felt so sick, and I couldn’t go to the cafeteria because I was scared he’d be there so I wasn’t eating lunch and…”
Pierre sighed heavily again. “David…” he muttered, shaking his head slowly.
“I know,” David replied, looking back down at the protein shake in his hand. He pulled his other hand from Pierre’s grasp and went back to squeezing the bottle, shame welling up inside of him again. “I started to feel really weak and sick… and the more it went on the worse it got. I couldn’t pay attention in class, I was paranoid and scared all the time, I felt depressed and empty… I just went from one class to the other and avoided everyone and shut everything out, but I didn’t see him for the next two weeks and it seemed like it was working, no matter how often I got dizzy or my heart felt weird or I couldn’t catch my breath…”
Pierre hated this. He hated hearing of the way that David had failed himself and his body, of how he had starved himself of nutrition and by doing so made it easier for Hunter to attack him. He had weakened himself for the other boy and made himself an easier target without even realizing what he had done. There was part of him that wanted to point this out but it felt too cruel in light of what had happened and he just stayed silent, knowing David had already suffered enough.
“Then yesterday I ran into Ezra in the hall and he asked what I did to Hunter… and I got so angry, because I didn’t do anything to him, and I told him he should ask Hunter what he had done to me. Ezra told me Hunter hadn’t been to school in a week and when he came to band practice he was wasted and wouldn't stop talking about me. He said it was my fault for leading him on and that even though I’d said I just wanted to be friends I had sent him messages that I wanted to be together, and he mentioned me… eye-fucking him at their show last month, which I did NOT do! I’ll admit I did really only watch Hunter on stage but I was just so into the music, it had nothing to do with him and I didn’t feel turned on or attracted to him or anything that night,” David rambled, recalling his argument with Ezra and feeling indignant again at the way that the other boy had put all of the blame on him.
Still, the term ‘eye-fucking’ caused jealousy to shoot through Pierre’s chest and his brow furrowed again, even more so at David admitting that he had watched Hunter all night on stage, despite him saying that he hadn’t felt any sexual attraction toward him. Hunter - and even his friends, apparently - had picked up on it. He wondered if David was entirely aware of himself and if he had in fact been sending mixed signals to Hunter without realizing it. As much as he wanted to know, he knew he could never speak about these worries after what had happened.
“He accused me of knowing that Hunter was in love with me and not caring if it hurt him because I would get to run off to you, and he brought up me spending every lunch with Hunter and spending long nights at the library together, and crying in his arms and I don’t know what came over me but I just slapped him.” David looked down at his hands, the memory of it still shocking him. Pierre’s eyes widened a little, unable to picture David acting out in aggression like that toward anyone. “I’ve never hit anyone before ever but I just… I was so worn out and angry that he was blaming me for Hunter’s shitty behavior and it felt so over the line and personal to bring up me crying about my mom and I just… slapped him.” David was silent for a long moment as shame coursed through him. “And then I ran away before he could say anything else and went to my next class and just tried to forget it.”
“And then after school, I decided to go to the library because I didn’t want to just go home to my empty house and sit in silence and I honestly figured since he hadn’t been coming to school he wouldn’t be there. I parked down the street so my car wouldn’t be right outside and I sat in a different part of the library but… he still found me.”
At this, David’s whole body began to shake and immediately he was crying again. “He found me at one of the shelves and he begged me to just talk to him and there was something wrong with him,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “He smelled like alcohol really strong and he was all twitchy and agitated. He kept blinking his eyes really hard and his nose was twitching and he was pale and sweaty and clammy and his eyes were huge a-and… I realized he was on drugs. I don’t know what he took, I asked but he didn’t tell me, he just kept begging me to talk to him, and he grabbed my wrists and wouldn’t let go, and he told me he loved me and begged me to admit that I love him too.” David shook his head frantically, rejecting the idea. “I told him I don’t love him and that he was fucked up and needed to go home and sleep it off but he grabbed my face a-and-”
David put the bottle on the coffee table and pulled his knees up to his chest, hiding his face in them as the memory of Hunter’s lips hard against his ran through his mind and made him feel sick and defiled. Pierre swallowed hard and moved closer to David, reaching a hand over and delicately placing it on his back. “You don’t have to keep going if you don’t want to,” Pierre told him, no matter how desperately he wanted to know everything that happened.
“He kissed me,” David continued in spite of Pierre’s words, feeling like he had to get it out, like had to admit that someone else’s lips had touched his own. Pierre’s eyes looked down at the other boy with sadness, hating how weak he sounded. “I tried to push him away but he was so strong, he just pushed me up against the bookshelf and he wouldn’t stop. I pushed on his face but I couldn’t get him off of me… and then I hit him under his jaw with my palm and it was enough and he fell back and I grabbed my stuff and ran for it, but… he caught up with me outside and he picked me up and dragged me down the alley a-and he threw me against the building a-and…” David's words became distorted, tears falling faster out of his eyes and he gripped his arms around himself, his fingers digging into the material of his pajama pants.
Pierre closed his eyes and leaned down to rest his forehead against David’s shoulder, wishing he could get the images out of his mind, wishing he could do something to make it all better, but unable to do anything other than listen.
“He just started kissing me again and he was holding my face so I couldn’t get away from him. I kept hitting him and pushing on him and trying to get him to stop but he didn’t care… He didn’t care that I was screaming in his mouth, or that I was hitting him… It didn’t seem like he even noticed. It was like he was gone and replaced by a monster and I couldn’t get through to him. He just grabbed my thighs a-and forced himself between my legs and picked me up and held me against the building with his body so he could grab my wrists to make me stop hitting him…” David’s body was shaking hard and his words were coming out fast and sloppy, distorted with tears, close to the screaming sobs of the night before as it all washed over him again. Pierre closed his eyes tighter and wrapped his arm gently behind David’s back and around his side, grabbing onto his shirt and holding him tightly, his own limbs shaking now. He wished suddenly that David would stop, afraid of what he would hear next, but he also didn’t think he could handle not knowing.
“I got my face away from him and he started kissing and biting my neck. I screamed for him to stop but he just… he yelled at me to kiss him back and to… let myself see that I wanted it a-and… to stop lying to myself… and no matter how hard I fought him I just couldn’t get away. He grabbed my face and kissed me again and I started hitting him again and screaming in his mouth and he… he dropped me and punched me and yelled at me to stop screaming…” David curled further into himself as he remembered how helpless he had felt. “I was so scared,” he whispered. “The hit made me so dazed and dizzy and I was so tired from fighting him that I… I thought that was it… I wouldn’t be able to fight him off anymore…” Pierre clutched tighter to David, rubbing his forehead against the other boy’s shoulder, wishing he had been there to help him.
David lifted his eyes from his knees and looked out across the room, remembering the way Hunter hadn’t come after him again and the look on his face of terrified realization. “But then he stopped… and he seemed like he realized what he’d just done. I think looking at me… and seeing me bleeding on the ground… he came back and he was him again… He looked scared and… he ran away.”
So that was the explanation for why it hadn’t progressed further - Hunter had seemingly come to his senses and ran away in fear. Pierre hated him more than he’d ever felt before, disgusted by what he’d done, disgusted that he could injure David so badly and just leave him there on the ground, alone in the cold of December, late at night, bleeding and dizzy. Rage pulsed in his veins and he felt the edges of his vision go blurry as he thought of him, pictured his face, imagined himself holding him down and hitting him over and over until he stopped moving. His fingers dug deeper into David’s sides as he imagined it, wanting to hurt Hunter, wanting to feel his blood on his knuckles and know that David would be safe from him.
“I got up and ran back to my car and that’s when I called you,” David finished his story, his voice calmer now, sounding nasally and thick, still hoarse from all the screaming he had done the night before.
“Where can I find him?” Pierre asked darkly, his eyes still closed, his head still pressed to David’s shoulder, his hand still clinging to him protectively.
David’s eyes opened wider and he pulled away, watching as Pierre sat up straight and stared into his eyes with an anger he’d never seen before. David shook his head quickly, fear in his eyes and instinctively he reached out and grasped onto Pierre’s shirt. “You can’t,” he told him seriously.
“How can I not?!” Pierre yelled suddenly, and again David flinched away from him and he regretted losing control of himself. He softened his gaze and reached up, touching his hand as delicately as he could to the bruised, left side of David’s face. “How can I not? Look what he did to you,” he said, his voice much more delicate and his face betraying the full depth of his heartache.
“Be honest… do you really think if you started hitting him you could stop?” David asked him, his voice barely above a whisper. Pierre didn’t respond and instead just stared at David, knowing that the answer was no and not wanting to say it out loud. “If you seriously hurt him and you got caught… or if you killed him…” David trailed off and shook his head. He reached over to the protein shake and took a sip on it for something to do, though the bottle was a bit mangled from how much he had been messing with it while he had been talking.
“Fine,” Pierre said quietly, unable to believe what he was saying. “But I still think you should report this to the police. I know you think they won’t be able to do anything, but you don’t know that for sure. Why not try?”
David shook his head, looking across the room without seeing it. “I just don’t believe they’ll do anything at all… And then he’ll know they won’t do anything and any leverage I have over him to get him to leave me alone will be gone. If I can use it to threaten and scare him, I can get him to leave me alone. That’s what I did last time he did something like this… I told him I’d tell his parents what he did to me if he ever talked to me again and he didn’t try to contact me after that even once.”
“So he did hurt you,” Pierre replied, his voice low. David turned to look at him, sad acknowledgement on his face. “That’s why you broke up with him, because he tried to do this before.”
David looked down and nodded, squeezing the bottle between his hands again. “It wasn’t so… violent,” he said quietly. “But… yeah. In his room, we were just hanging out, not even talking. He was playing his guitar and I was just listening and it felt really peaceful. And then out of nowhere he just jumped on me and started trying to make out but he was too rough and I didn’t like it, and he forced my knees up and he started… grinding against me and touching me… and I tried to get away from him but even then when he was pretty much the same size as me he was still stronger than me and I couldn’t get away from him. He didn’t stop no matter how much I cried or begged him to stop… It was just like last night, how I couldn’t get through to him, like he was gone and some monster had taken over him… Like he just got tired of waiting because I wouldn’t have sex with him and he decided he was going to take it.”
David shook his head at the memory, able to see and feel it like it had just happened to him… Though he supposed in a sense it had just happened to him. “He only stopped because his dad knocked and came in… If he hadn’t I’ve always thought that he probably… wouldn’t have stopped.” David paused for a moment, turning the bottle in his fingers. “He was so mad at me because I didn’t get up fast enough, I had put my legs down but I was still on my back when his dad came in, and I couldn’t stop crying… so he was mad at me. He said I almost got us caught and I just… it was the last I could take from him, and I ran away. And when he came to my house later that night I told him I was done and that if he ever talked to me again I’d tell his parents what he did.” David shook his head at the memory and took another drink from the squished bottle.
“Why would you even consider being his friend again?” Pierre asked, not wanting to sound as if he was blaming David but completely baffled by the decision.
“I don’t know,” David whispered back, tears springing into his eyes again. “I was so distrustful of him at first and I just kept glaring at him and trying to ignore him and when that didn’t work I would just get up and leave, and when that didn’t work I tried yelling at him… And when he told Ezra right in front of me that we used to date it completely disarmed me because before he had been so afraid of anyone finding out and he just said it to his friend who had been making fun of me like it wasn’t a big deal, and even after Ezra was shocked he just said ‘he’ll be fine’ like he wasn’t concerned that he had just come out at all…” David shook his head slowly as he thought of it.
“And then he apologized and he really seemed like he meant it. He admitted he was messed up to me and he said he regretted it and realized he’d been a bad person and had worked to change. He had just proven that he had changed a huge part of who he used to be and I just… I was so lonely that I let myself believe him. I was cautious at first and I still didn’t trust him, and I was honestly really mean to him for the first few weeks, but he just kept hanging around and I guess he just… wore me down until at some point, without ever realizing it, I had let him back in again fully.” David put the protein shake back on the coffee table and hid his face in his hands. “I feel so stupid.”
Pierre pulled David into his arms, careful to avoid anywhere that he knew was cut or bruised, and kissed him gently on the side of his head. “You’re not stupid and none of this is your fault,” he told him, his voice soft. “Don’t blame yourself for having a big heart and believing he could change. It’s his fault he’s a fucking selfish monster.” David knew there was truth to Pierre’s words but he also didn’t think he would ever fully stop blaming himself or feeling that he was stupid for giving Hunter another chance. “Though honestly… if you had told me from the start what he had done to make you break up with him, I would have told you not to be his friend,” Pierre admitted quietly. “I wanted to so bad but I didn’t want to be controlling… but if I had known…”
“I’m sorry I kept it from you… and everything that’s happened since before Thanksgiving. I promised you when we got together that I’d never lie to you again… and maybe I didn’t technically lie but I didn’t tell you some really big stuff and look where it landed me,” David said quietly. He kept his eyes closed and his forehead pressed against Pierre’s shoulder and chest, tilted ever so slightly to avoid resting his scratched and scraped up skin on him.
Pierre pulled back, his hands moving to David’s upper arms and forcing him gently to look into his eyes. “You have to tell me if he doesn’t leave you alone this time.” David nodded but Pierre didn’t release his grip and he refused to break eye contact. “I’m serious. If I’m going to go along with how you want to handle this and not call the cops myself, you have to tell me anything that happens, no matter how small it might seem. No keeping it from me because you don’t want me to hurt him and get myself in trouble. No keeping it from me because you don’t want to mess up my hockey games. If he even so much as looks at you again, I need to know.”
“I promise, I’ll never keep another thing about him secret from you ever again,” David told him firmly.
Pierre stared at him for a moment longer before he pulled him back into a hug, grateful that David was still sitting there with him, able to talk, able to move, that Hunter had come back to himself and hadn’t finished what he started. The two sat there for what felt like hours, not speaking, not moving, just holding each other. Pierre didn’t know where they were supposed to go from there or how they were going to recover from this, and he especially didn’t know how he was supposed to feel comfortable with leaving David alone again in two weeks without that piece of shit locked up in jail. He knew, however, he couldn’t bring these concerns up with how fragile David was, and that no matter how much it killed him he was going to have to continue to trust the other boy and that his decision was the right one to make. Still, as he sat there holding David who was shaking in his arms, he also didn’t know how he was going to be able to do any of that at all. Nothing felt right anymore, and he didn’t know what to do about it.
Author: shmorgenheigen
Chapter: Nineteen
Rating: R
Pairing: Pierre/David
Word Count: 9897
Summary: The continuation of the story Behind the Net, picking up right where the original story left off. David and Pierre explore their new relationship while navigating a long distance relationship. While Pierre is in Anchorage in his first year of college and playing college hockey, David is stuck back in Juneau to finish his senior year of high school. When an unlikely person from David’s past shows up and forces their way back into David’s life, things take a turn for the dramatic. Will David and Pierre be able to maintain their love for each other while separated and stave off those pesky feelings of loneliness, jealousy, and depression?
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own, didn't happen!
Author's Note: When I started to re-write Behind the Net from Pierre’s perspective, I started to think about how much story there would be to tell when Pierre went off to college, leaving David alone in Juneau. I became obsessed with the idea of writing the next chapter in their story and now that it’s finished, I am absolutely in love with how it turned out and the original characters I added into the story! If anyone reads this, leave me a comment and let me know!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
When Pierre’s alarm sounded the next morning to get up and get ready to head to the airport, his eyes opened mechanically and he immediately looked at his phone on the pillow next to him, seeing that the call from David was still connected. He picked it up and listened, not hearing any sound and figuring David was asleep. Still, he felt bad just hanging up and he very quietly said, “David?”
David jumped awake with a startled yell and looked around, confused at first about where he was having fallen into a deep sleep against his will. Then he saw his phone on the floor next to his leg and he picked it up, holding it to his ear as he said, “Pierre.”
Pierre sighed quietly, glancing over to Jay and seeing that he was sound asleep. “I have to head to the airport soon, okay?” he said softly.
“Okay,” David replied, leaning back against the wall of his closet which he hadn’t left all night.
“I’ll call you when I get to your house so you know it’s me and can come let me in,” Pierre told him gently.
“But I’m supposed to come pick you up,” David remembered, blinking himself more awake at the thought.
“Don’t leave, just stay there and sleep,” Pierre told him firmly.
David sighed quietly and nodded, his eyes falling closed again as he replied, “Okay.”
“Okay, I’m gonna hang up now. Just stay where you are and try to get some sleep.”
“Okay,” David replied again, his body already beginning to fall back into sleep.
“I love you,” Pierre added gently.
“I love you too,” David mumbled before rolling to his side and curling his face into the corner of his closet.
Pierre sighed and hung up, before getting up and getting himself ready. He wasn’t planning on bringing much, just a carry-on with some clothes and his toiletries, knowing he’d be able to do laundry at David’s house when he inevitably ran out of clothes during the two weeks he was going to be staying with him. He had been excited to get to show David that he had learned how to do his own laundry, though now all he could think about was getting to David’s house and seeing him, assessing what kind of damage had been done, finding out the whole story, and tracking down Hunter and hurting him. That rage was all he could focus on throughout the morning.
He was tense and angry throughout the flight, unable to stop hearing the way David’s voice had sounded, incoherent and screaming, sobbing and terrified. He glared at the headrest in front of him, not watching the movie that was playing, not bothering with headphones to hear it, his mind completely absorbed with memories of the night before and the way David had continuously woken up screaming and crying. By the time he had gotten off the plane and was getting in a taxi to head to David’s house, he was completely worked up and lost in his fury.
He stood at David’s door and didn’t knock but instead called his phone, not wanting to scare him. He didn’t know if Hunter knew where David lived or not but as they had dated for such a long time and David had lived in that house his entire childhood, he couldn’t imagine that Hunter didn’t know how to find him. David answered the phone and he sighed in relief, telling him, “I’m at the door.” He heard David acknowledge him and hang up and he waited, his stomach tying itself into knots wondering what he was going to find when David opened the door. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.
The door swung open and Pierre’s eyes widened sadly and his mouth fell slowly open as he stared at David, horror washing over him as he took in his appearance. He stepped inside the door, unblinking, his eyes never leaving David’s face, his shaking hands lifting in the desire to hold his cheeks but afraid to hurt him with his touch. The entire right side of David’s face was scratched and cut, covered in dried blood and scrapes that extended to his ear. He had small round bruises along his jaw that were clearly from fingertips, four fingers on the right side, a thumb on the left. The left side of his face bore a black eye and bruise that extended down onto his cheekbone, clearly from a fist. The left side of his neck was littered with bruises, bite marks, and what were very clearly hickeys. And this was just the damage he could immediately see.
David had wanted to throw himself into Pierre’s arms the moment he saw him but was stopped at the look of devastating heartache on Pierre’s face, watching in horror as he looked at him, his face becoming sadder, his eyes filling with tears, and for the first time he saw tears begin to spill down his cheeks. David’s own tears followed immediately after and he walked forward into Pierre’s chest, hugging him tightly and wrapping his arms around him. He had yet to look at himself but based on Pierre’s reaction, he knew it wasn’t good. “I fought him as hard as I could,” David whispered, wanting Pierre to understand that he hadn’t just given up, that there had been no part of him that wanted any of it.
Pierre leaned his head down, his tears falling harder at these words, and reached his hand up to hold the back of David’s head, though David’s quiet and sudden intake of air and the feeling of dried blood in his hair immediately told Pierre that he had been hurt on the back of his head, as well. His hand flinched back and he moved instead to the back of David’s neck, though immediately he felt scratches there as well and pulled his hand back again. Where could he hold David that it wouldn’t hurt him? He could feel as David’s breathing got more ragged, could hear as he began to lose control of himself, and suddenly he was sobbing again, his fingers digging into Pierre’s back for support.
Pierre kicked the door shut behind him and leaned back to lock it before pulling David into his bedroom and laying down with him. He could see that David hadn’t done anything to clean himself up but he also knew it could wait a little bit longer. David was sobbing into his chest and clinging to him desperately; in that moment what he needed most was to be held and to cry. This time, however, Pierre couldn’t stop himself from crying with him, for the first time not caring at all if David saw this emotion leave him. The thing that was most precious to him in the world had been hurt so badly, and he knew that even after these physical injuries healed David would walk around with emotional scars that would never heal at all. Seeing David, the person he loved more than his own life, so badly damaged hurt more than he would ever be able to describe.
Eventually the sound of David’s cries stopped and his breathing slowed down and became more shallow. Pierre glanced down at him, seeing that he had fallen asleep and was laying against his chest with a peaceful look on his face. He noticed that David’s hand on his chest was covered in scratches that matched those on his face though they seemed deeper and more plentiful. His eyes traveled down and noticed bruises on his wrist, and his heartbreak got the better of him and he started to cry again. He could almost picture it, Hunter’s hands around David’s wrists, holding him against something that was scratching him, whether it was a building or the ground he didn’t know. One thing that seemed clear from the severity of the cuts and bruises was that David had truly fought against Hunter as hard as he could, just as he had said. If David had simply gone limp and given up and let Hunter do what he wanted, his injuries wouldn’t have been nearly as bad.
He wondered what other injuries there might be that he couldn’t see, and how far Hunter had gone. Had he raped him? Had he touched him? Had David managed to fight him off before he could go that far? What had let him get away? There were so many questions that he was dying for the answers to but he couldn’t bear to wake the smaller boy now that he was peacefully asleep, his mind calling back to all the times he had woken to the sound of David screaming and crying over the phone throughout the night. He knew he needed sleep desperately and didn’t want to interrupt him.
His eyes traveled again to David’s neck, unable to stop looking at the bruises and bite marks and hickeys that Hunter had left on him. He felt sick at the idea that David had been screaming and crying and fighting against him and Hunter had been so demented that he was turned on enough to give him hickeys. He couldn’t understand the mindset that would lead to this behavior and wondered if Hunter had always had this in him and had been waiting for his moment to strike, or if there was something else to it that had led him to ignoring David’s cries and continuing on despite how badly he didn’t want it.
After a while he became aware that David was awake when his fingers began fidgeting with the material of his t-shirt and he looked down at him, seeing that David’s eyes were open but looked far away like he was lost in thought. Pierre instinctively reached a hand up to touch his face but stopped himself, realizing with a pained expression that doing so would more than likely hurt the other boy. David’s head tilted up toward him and his eyes flicked up to Pierre’s, staring at him sadly. “I’m sorry I’m not stronger,” he whispered, his eyes flooding with tears again. “I really tried.”
Pierre’s eyebrows pulled together in pain and he shook his head quickly, whispering, “This is not your fault.”
“I shouldn’t have tried to run to my car,” David said quietly, tears falling down his cheeks again. “I should’ve found someone working at the library and told them I needed help but I ran instead and he…” He closed his eyes and tilted his head down so Pierre couldn't see, though the pressure on his scratched and torn skin was painful as he did.
“You can’t blame yourself for the terrible thing he did,” Pierre told him firmly. He wanted to grab onto his chin and pull his attention back up but the bruises on his skin stopped him and he worried that any small action of forcing his face up might remind him of what had happened to him the previous night. He had never felt so scared to touch David before but suddenly he felt like David was a porcelain doll that sat cracked in front of him and could break with the slightest pressure. He sat up slowly, watching as David looked at him and did the same and he said with a soft sigh, “We should go get you cleaned up a little.”
David nodded and together they stood, David following after Pierre to the bathroom. He kept his eyes down for a long moment, afraid to look at himself and to see what Hunter had done to him. Knowing he needed to look, however, David stood in front of the mirror and forced his eyes up; the sight of himself felt shocking. He took in his own features, seeing the scratches and cuts, seeing the dried blood, seeing the bruises, seeing the bite marks and the hickeys; it made him feel nauseous and broken and dirty.
Pierre didn’t want to watch David’s reaction to seeing himself and instead started looking under the bathroom sink for something he could use to clean David’s cuts. When he stood with a small first aid kit, he looked at David with a grimace, “It’s gonna hurt but we have to clean these.”
David nodded and moved to face Pierre, but a thought occurred to him and he said, “Wait… take pictures first. Just in case I need it, I’ll have some kind of proof I was hurt.”
Pierre nodded and with shaking hands pulled out his phone. David stood still and Pierre began to take pictures from different angles, pictures from straight on of his face, pictures of each side of his face, pictures of his neck, pictures of the backs of his hands and his wrists, pictures of the back of his head (though it was harder to see those cuts through his hair) and the back of his neck. He let out a shaky breath and looked at David nervously as he asked, “Are there more anywhere else?”
David shrugged and shook his head a little, saying honestly, “I don't know. He didn’t get far enough to… he didn’t take off any of my clothes before he ran away so probably not.” Pierre felt a sense of relief wash over him at these words. So Hunter hadn’t taken off any of David’s clothes. That meant he hadn’t gone so far as to rape him then, right?
“You should probably just take a shower first,” Pierre told him gently, getting a nod from David that seemed far off like he was lost in thought again. “You can get the majority of the blood and dirt off with the water and it’ll make sanitizing with the alcohol easier and faster.”
“Don’t leave,” David requested suddenly, and Pierre nodded in response. He couldn’t help himself as he watched David undress, searching his body for more damage but gratefully not seeing much else. There were some light scratches down his back and some scratches and bruises on his knees from all the times he had fallen, but other than that the rest of his body appeared to be unscathed.
David kept the water luke warm as he got in, scared that water too hot would sting his cuts. Though it did sting a little when he first let the water run over his skin, he quickly got over the sensation and allowed the water to cleanse him. He grabbed his bar of soap which was luckily unscented and worked a gentle lather in his palms before very gently beginning to wash his scrapes and cuts, wincing a little at the sensation but continuing on. He found the back of his head felt the most tender and though he knew his hair would hate it, he used the soap to clean the back of his head as well, knowing that shampoo and conditioner would feel way worse.
Soon he had finished and was turning off the water and he pulled open the shower curtain, glad to see Pierre standing there with a towel ready for him. Pierre wrapped the towel gently around David’s body and stood there hugging him for a moment. David’s eyes fell closed and he leaned against him, getting his shirt wet but it didn’t seem that Pierre cared even a little bit. He pulled back and began to step out of the tub, watching as Pierre moved back to the counter to pick up several packs of sterilizing pads which were pre-soaked with alcohol which he had gotten from the first aid kit.
Pierre opened one of the sterilizing pads and unfolded it, his hand shaking as he turned to look at David who had walked up to him and stood waiting. He hesitated, looking sadly into David’s eyes and saying, “This is gonna hurt. Do you want to do it yourself so it’s not a surprise?” David shook his head and Pierre steeled himself with a nod. His shaking hand continued forward and as gently as he could manage he swiped the pad along David’s forehead. The reaction was immediate as searing pain ran across David’s skin. David closed his eyes tight and made a strangled noise of pain, his hands finding Pierre’s shirt and grabbing fistfuls of it. Pierre’s hand jumped back and he stared at him with concern, though when David continued to stand there unmoving and keeping his eyes closed, he took a deep breath and continued, doing his best to work fast.
Luckily the cuts and scrapes were fairly superficial with only a few here and there that were deeper so he imagined that they would heal quickly and wouldn’t leave scars. It also didn’t seem that they would need any sort of bandages, which was good as it would have been difficult to bandage the entire right side of David’s face and his ear, the backs of his hands and his neck. As he finished he tossed several red and dark brown stained sterilizing pads in the bathroom trash before looking back at David and letting his eyes wander his face. He wished he could touch him but he was too scared of hurting him; he wished he could kiss him but he was too worried it would trigger him. He just stood and looked at him, feeling his heart breaking all over again, not knowing what to do or how to help.
“You need to report this to the police,” Pierre told him again, his voice gentle and sad.
David shook his head and looked down, running his fingers delicately over the bruises on one of his wrists. “There’s just no point. He didn’t…” he trailed off, wanting to express that Hunter hadn’t raped him but unable to get the word out of his mouth. “There’s none of his DNA on me or… o-or in me… or anything. I don’t have any proof that it was actually him. All I have is my beat up face and my word, and that’s not gonna be enough. All he has to do is lie and say it wasn’t him… and why wouldn’t he lie?”
“You don’t know they won’t believe you or that they can’t do anything,” Pierre offered, and again he wanted to touch David but he was too afraid of what it could cause the other boy to feel. David just shook his head, unable to look up. Pierre gave a quiet sigh and dropped his head, looking down at David’s fingers on his own wrist. “You should eat something,” he said gently.
“I feel sick,” David replied dismissively.
Pierre looked back up at him, seeing the way he looked so beaten down and broken and his heart aching. “I’m sure you didn’t eat anything last night after what happened…” he reasoned, not wanting to push but knowing without a doubt it had been too long since the other boy had put any sustenance in his body.
David nodded, unable to look up at Pierre, unable to admit that he hadn’t eaten a single thing the entire day before. Pierre reached forward slowly, his fingers gently curving under to touch the underside of David’s palm. David lined up his hand and locked his fingers with Pierre’s, glad for his comforting touch, soothed by how gentle it was. Gently Pierre pulled on his arm and led him out of the bathroom and to his bedroom, finding him clean underwear, pajama pants and a shirt and handing them to him. David’s eyes were far away as he got dressed and soon he felt Pierre’s hand holding his again and leading him out to the couch in the living room. “Sit here and relax, okay? I’m gonna take your car and run to the store.”
David’s eyes looked into Pierre’s sadly and he reached forward, grabbing onto his shirt. “You’re leaving?” he asked, feeling like a child but too upset to be ashamed.
“Just for a few minutes. I have to find something you can eat. Just trust me, okay? You need it, it’ll help even if you don’t feel like it will,” Pierre told him reassuringly.
David nodded and sat on the couch, watching as Pierre grabbed his car keys and left without another word. He heard as the lock slid into place and leaned back against the cushions, his eyes staring out across the silent living room. He vaguely had the thought of turning on the TV or some music to fill the silence but he felt overwhelmed by the idea of even moving and before he knew it, without knowing how much time had passed, the door was clicking unlocked again and Pierre was walking back through the front door with a plastic grocery bag in his hand.
Pierre walked over to David and set the bag down on the coffee table, kneeling down as he pulled three different protein shakes from it. “Chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry?” he asked, looking into David’s eyes and making it clear that not choosing one wasn’t an option.
David smiled a little weakly and said, “Vanilla, I guess,” figuring it would be the easiest for him to stomach.
Pierre nodded and shook the bottle before opening it and handing it over to him. “Just sip on it,” Pierre told him, before turning around to put the other two in the fridge. Before he left he would be going to an actual grocery store and buying the biggest box he could find of whatever flavor David wanted, determined that he was going to force some calories in the other boy. When he came back to the living room, he saw that David was sitting there staring out across the room and sipping idly on the shake. He sat next to him on the couch and watched him, hating how completely shattered he looked. “Do you think… you can tell me what happened?” Pierre asked delicately.
David looked over at him, searching his eyes and seeing a longing for answers behind them. He nodded and pulled the bottle from his lips, his fingers pressing into the plastic and turning it in circles in his hands out of nerves. “I think this has been coming on for a little while,” he admitted, moving his eyes down to the bottle in his hands. “I’ve kind of been… keeping some stuff from you the last few weeks… about Hunter and the way he’s been acting,” he admitted, and he swallowed hard, afraid to look at Pierre and see his reaction.
Pierre’s brow furrowed and he felt his stomach clench at these words. “Why?” he asked, his voice quiet.
“I didn’t want to upset you and mess up your games,” he admitted sheepishly.
“David, it’s just hockey,” Pierre pressed, unable to keep an edge of frustration out of his voice.
“It’s not just hockey,” David replied quietly. “It’s your future. A-and… I also didn’t want you to hurt him and get in trouble.”
This, Pierre had to admit, was the better of the two reasons. Even in that exact moment, if he knew where Hunter was he would have been there already beating him until he couldn’t stand anymore. “What has he been doing?”
“After our fight at the college fair things were honestly really good for a while and everything was starting to feel normal,” David started quietly. “He was doing really well and wasn’t being weird or jealous, he wasn’t making crappy comments about you or saying your name with an attitude… He was really just acting like my friend. I started to lower my defenses and started to feel like I could trust him and for a while we were just… normal,” he said the word again, unsure of how else to put it.
“But then… The Monday before I came to see you, we were at the library,” David continued nervously, and no matter how much he didn’t want to tell Pierre this part he thought it was important to the timeline of events. His eyes were still focused on the plastic bottle in his hands, pressing on it and twisting it in circles in his fingers, restlessly fidgeting with it. “He asked if my dad would be home for Thanksgiving and I told him no, and I mentioned that my dad avoids coming home for any holidays since my mom died,” he continued, his last words coming out just barely above a whisper.
Pierre had never thought about it before, had never stopped to question the reason that David had been alone the previous Christmas, or to think that he was alone for Thanksgiving, or would be again this Christmas; he had also never stopped to wonder if David’s father was gone for these days intentionally. Suddenly it made sense and Pierre was able to see the pattern that he had missed before, and though he could understand not wanting to face family holidays after losing his wife, didn’t he stop to think about what it would do to David to spend those days all by himself in an empty house?
“I didn’t mean to mention her, the thought just came out and I almost started crying so I just got quiet and tried to stop, but he… he held my hand and he said he was sorry and it just made it worse.” David shrunk into his shoulders now, feeling ashamed that he had let Hunter touch him and even more so that he hadn’t admitted it to Pierre before now. The jealousy Pierre felt at the idea of Hunter holding David’s hand was dampened by the reality of how everything had ended up but he couldn’t stop himself from picturing it and feeling a twinge in his body.
“He kept talking even though I just wanted him to stop because I didn’t want to cry and then he… he hugged me and I… I hugged him back and I just lost it.” David stopped talking, feeling himself start to shake as the scene of that night replayed in his mind and his sense of shame grew at the fact that it had happened at all and also that he had kept it a secret for a month. Pierre stopped breathing for a second as David’s words washed over him, hating that he could picture it too easily - Hunter holding his boyfriend, comforting his boyfriend as he cried on his chest. His jealousy began to push through the overwhelming sadness and he was feeling it more strongly now despite the damaged boy sitting in front of him.
“He just held me until I stopped crying and even… for a while after… until I could calm down enough to realize it was inappropriate… and that it would hurt you if you could see us…” David whispered, his fingers really beginning to crush the plastic bottle in his hands now as tears pricked in his eyes. Pierre was watching David, a strange mixture of hurt and betrayal and sadness and pity and understanding all coursing through him at once; he was left feeling unsure what he was supposed to feel but unable to speak given the circumstances.
“It didn't mean anything to me,” David whispered truthfully, shaking his head a little. “He just kept pushing the topic when I wanted him to stop and as soon as he hugged me I couldn’t keep it in anymore. That would have happened if anyone had done that to me, it could have been you or Jenny or anyone. If any of you had ever pushed me to keep talking about it after I got emotional and closed up, the exact same thing would have happened. I promise it’s not because it was him or because I have some kind of pushed down feelings for him, I swear,” he continued, sounding desperate now for Pierre to believe him though he never once took his eyes off of the bottle in his hands.
Pierre nodded though he knew David didn’t see. He wanted to respond verbally, to make himself say that he believed him, but there was the smallest doubt in the back of his mind now driven by the fact that David had come to see him just a few days after and hadn’t told him about any of it. Still, he reminded himself that when Hunter had pushed himself on him David had rejected him and fought him as if his life depended on it. That had to mean something.
“I apologized for crying and he told me I shouldn’t be sorry for my emotions… and he even said I should share them with you and let you see how much I’ve been suffering,” David continued, his voice calmer and quieter again. “He said if I love you as much as I say I do that I have to share all of myself with you or there’ll always be this one thing separating us.. And I-” Shame at what he had done next stopped his voice in his throat and he worried that it would make it seem like he wasn’t being honest about the way he felt about Hunter. “I hugged him again,” he admitted, shame heavy in his voice. Again jealousy and distrust began to tear through Pierre’s body, stronger now, picturing David throwing himself back into Hunter’s arms. “It really didn't mean anything to me, I just appreciated what he said and it finally felt like we were actually something like friends and like he was actually thinking about my relationship with you and trying to help me,” David continued, sounding desperate again. Again, Pierre found himself struggling to believe him entirely despite how much he wanted to.
“But… I could see it in his eyes that it meant something to him,” David continued, and despite what had happened the night before, he still felt frustratingly sad for Hunter as he remembered the way his eyes had looked after David had pulled away and tried to go back to doing his homework, like he had wanted to say and do something more, like he was fighting an urge inside of himself. “I could see… his pain… and I realized what I was doing to him and… I realized he was in love with me still and he was wanting more.” For a moment David chewed on his bottom lip as the guilt of this realization and the fact that he hadn’t told Pierre about it tore through him. Pierre just stared at him, feeling betrayed in a way he couldn’t quite explain to himself despite David’s assurances that he didn’t feel the same way.
“I just went back to doing my homework but I realized I couldn’t keep doing this to him and that no matter how much I only wanted to be friends or tried to ignore his feelings, they were just gonna keep growing and he was gonna keep hurting until eventually he lost control and did something stupid. I knew I was gonna have to start pulling away from him for his own good,” David said quietly, his guilt tearing at him. “I knew if I tried to confront him about his feelings or tell him we couldn’t be friends he would freak out and it would be way worse so I thought when I got back from seeing you I would just start distancing myself as discreetly as I could until eventually we didn’t see each other anymore.” Pierre took a deep breath and let it out slowly, comforted slightly that David had planned to pull himself away and had thought out how to do it as peacefully as possible.
“But when I got back and I saw him… I felt so guilty I couldn’t look at him,” David breathed, shrinking into his shoulders. “I just felt so bad for him. I knew how much it would hurt him if he knew we had slept together and I wouldn’t make eye contact with him… And he just knew.” David swallowed hard and chewed on his lip again as the memory of that day came back to him, making his stomach hurt and his heart pound. David’s guilt over sleeping with him was not something Pierre was prepared to hear and it jabbed at his heart. He told himself to understand David’s meaning, that it was simply because he didn’t want to hurt the boy he had come to think of as his friend, that it was truly driven out of empathy and nothing else, but it hurt more than he could comprehend.
“He said something really fucked up to me… he said… ‘you let your boyfriend fuck you for the first time and now you can’t even look at me?’ And I…” David trailed off, remembering his words perfectly, still able to hear them in his mind and the hurt and anger that had been behind them. “I couldn’t say anything to him because I was hurt and I was angry that he could be so crass and heartless, and that he didn’t seem to care that it was because I cared about his feelings and didn’t want to hurt him.” Again, David’s level of caring for Hunter hurt Pierre deeply and he had a hard time believing that it was strictly out of friendship that David had felt these feelings, no matter what he said. “He walked away and then I avoided him the rest of the week,” David explained quietly. “I was so angry I didn’t want to see him, and I knew it was for the best that we just… let it fall apart there, but then…”
He squeezed the bottle hard in his fingers again, his hands shaking as the memory replayed for him. “He came to my locker that Friday morning and he told me to stop avoiding him. And when I turned around he was right there, with his hand on the locker by my head and he was way too close and I got really scared,” he recalled, his voice in a shaky whisper. “I tried to push him away but he just grabbed my hand and he wouldn’t let go and he got closer like he was going to ki-” David stopped talking suddenly, a shudder running through his body at the memory. Pierre felt a flame rip through his body at this, wondering how this could have happened and David could have kept it from him. Based on the timeline he had given, this had happened two weeks prior and he knew the only reason he was hearing about it at all was because Hunter had ended up attacking David.
“I thought he was about to kiss me and I tried to get away from him but he wouldn’t let go of my hand and he pulled me back to him,” David continued, tears in his eyes now and his voice shaking as the fear he had felt rushed through him again. “I told him to let go of me and I tried to push him away but he just grabbed my other wrist and wouldn’t let me go, even though people were staring and I told him he was hurting me.” At these words tears began to fall down his face and he reached a hand up to wipe them away, his fingers shaking as he did. “He accused me of ending our friendship because I let you fuck me and he said it loud enough that all the people around heard what he said and I just kept trying to get away from him,” he breathed, his voice thick with tears now. “And then a teacher came down the hall and he let go of me and I fell and then just got up and ran away, and I went to my class, and when people who had seen what had happened came in I could hear them telling other people about it and I saw everyone staring at me and I ran out of the classroom and went home and just… hid in my room.”
At this, Pierre couldn’t help himself anymore and he said, “Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”
At these words David finally mustered up the courage to look at him, staring into Pierre’s eyes and begging for understanding. “You were in Michigan and I knew you were in your head about your last away games not going how you wanted and I didn’t want to upset you and make you lose your games,” he responded quietly.
“God damn it, David!” Pierre yelled suddenly, though he immediately regretted the outburst at the way David flinched and he sighed and put his face in his hands. “Your safety is so much more important than any hockey game could ever be.”
“I’m sorry,” David whispered, reaching over to curl his fingers around Pierre’s hand, pressing into his palm.
Pierre dropped his hand and very gently laced his fingers with David’s, shaking his head and staring into his eyes. “I could have come home and scared him away,” Pierre said desperately. “I could have done something before he ever-”
“Yeah and I was scared of that too,” David cut him off, squeezing his fingers into Pierre’s hand. “Don’t get me wrong, I wanted you to do it. I wanted you to beat the snot out of him and get him to leave me alone forever but… I knew you’d do it and if you got caught… and you got in trouble… I figured there was just six months left until I’d never have to deal with him again and it would all be over. I thought if I could just avoid him until then, it would be okay, so I just… avoided him again. But I… I couldn’t make myself eat breakfast because I felt so sick, and I couldn’t go to the cafeteria because I was scared he’d be there so I wasn’t eating lunch and…”
Pierre sighed heavily again. “David…” he muttered, shaking his head slowly.
“I know,” David replied, looking back down at the protein shake in his hand. He pulled his other hand from Pierre’s grasp and went back to squeezing the bottle, shame welling up inside of him again. “I started to feel really weak and sick… and the more it went on the worse it got. I couldn’t pay attention in class, I was paranoid and scared all the time, I felt depressed and empty… I just went from one class to the other and avoided everyone and shut everything out, but I didn’t see him for the next two weeks and it seemed like it was working, no matter how often I got dizzy or my heart felt weird or I couldn’t catch my breath…”
Pierre hated this. He hated hearing of the way that David had failed himself and his body, of how he had starved himself of nutrition and by doing so made it easier for Hunter to attack him. He had weakened himself for the other boy and made himself an easier target without even realizing what he had done. There was part of him that wanted to point this out but it felt too cruel in light of what had happened and he just stayed silent, knowing David had already suffered enough.
“Then yesterday I ran into Ezra in the hall and he asked what I did to Hunter… and I got so angry, because I didn’t do anything to him, and I told him he should ask Hunter what he had done to me. Ezra told me Hunter hadn’t been to school in a week and when he came to band practice he was wasted and wouldn't stop talking about me. He said it was my fault for leading him on and that even though I’d said I just wanted to be friends I had sent him messages that I wanted to be together, and he mentioned me… eye-fucking him at their show last month, which I did NOT do! I’ll admit I did really only watch Hunter on stage but I was just so into the music, it had nothing to do with him and I didn’t feel turned on or attracted to him or anything that night,” David rambled, recalling his argument with Ezra and feeling indignant again at the way that the other boy had put all of the blame on him.
Still, the term ‘eye-fucking’ caused jealousy to shoot through Pierre’s chest and his brow furrowed again, even more so at David admitting that he had watched Hunter all night on stage, despite him saying that he hadn’t felt any sexual attraction toward him. Hunter - and even his friends, apparently - had picked up on it. He wondered if David was entirely aware of himself and if he had in fact been sending mixed signals to Hunter without realizing it. As much as he wanted to know, he knew he could never speak about these worries after what had happened.
“He accused me of knowing that Hunter was in love with me and not caring if it hurt him because I would get to run off to you, and he brought up me spending every lunch with Hunter and spending long nights at the library together, and crying in his arms and I don’t know what came over me but I just slapped him.” David looked down at his hands, the memory of it still shocking him. Pierre’s eyes widened a little, unable to picture David acting out in aggression like that toward anyone. “I’ve never hit anyone before ever but I just… I was so worn out and angry that he was blaming me for Hunter’s shitty behavior and it felt so over the line and personal to bring up me crying about my mom and I just… slapped him.” David was silent for a long moment as shame coursed through him. “And then I ran away before he could say anything else and went to my next class and just tried to forget it.”
“And then after school, I decided to go to the library because I didn’t want to just go home to my empty house and sit in silence and I honestly figured since he hadn’t been coming to school he wouldn’t be there. I parked down the street so my car wouldn’t be right outside and I sat in a different part of the library but… he still found me.”
At this, David’s whole body began to shake and immediately he was crying again. “He found me at one of the shelves and he begged me to just talk to him and there was something wrong with him,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “He smelled like alcohol really strong and he was all twitchy and agitated. He kept blinking his eyes really hard and his nose was twitching and he was pale and sweaty and clammy and his eyes were huge a-and… I realized he was on drugs. I don’t know what he took, I asked but he didn’t tell me, he just kept begging me to talk to him, and he grabbed my wrists and wouldn’t let go, and he told me he loved me and begged me to admit that I love him too.” David shook his head frantically, rejecting the idea. “I told him I don’t love him and that he was fucked up and needed to go home and sleep it off but he grabbed my face a-and-”
David put the bottle on the coffee table and pulled his knees up to his chest, hiding his face in them as the memory of Hunter’s lips hard against his ran through his mind and made him feel sick and defiled. Pierre swallowed hard and moved closer to David, reaching a hand over and delicately placing it on his back. “You don’t have to keep going if you don’t want to,” Pierre told him, no matter how desperately he wanted to know everything that happened.
“He kissed me,” David continued in spite of Pierre’s words, feeling like he had to get it out, like had to admit that someone else’s lips had touched his own. Pierre’s eyes looked down at the other boy with sadness, hating how weak he sounded. “I tried to push him away but he was so strong, he just pushed me up against the bookshelf and he wouldn’t stop. I pushed on his face but I couldn’t get him off of me… and then I hit him under his jaw with my palm and it was enough and he fell back and I grabbed my stuff and ran for it, but… he caught up with me outside and he picked me up and dragged me down the alley a-and he threw me against the building a-and…” David's words became distorted, tears falling faster out of his eyes and he gripped his arms around himself, his fingers digging into the material of his pajama pants.
Pierre closed his eyes and leaned down to rest his forehead against David’s shoulder, wishing he could get the images out of his mind, wishing he could do something to make it all better, but unable to do anything other than listen.
“He just started kissing me again and he was holding my face so I couldn’t get away from him. I kept hitting him and pushing on him and trying to get him to stop but he didn’t care… He didn’t care that I was screaming in his mouth, or that I was hitting him… It didn’t seem like he even noticed. It was like he was gone and replaced by a monster and I couldn’t get through to him. He just grabbed my thighs a-and forced himself between my legs and picked me up and held me against the building with his body so he could grab my wrists to make me stop hitting him…” David’s body was shaking hard and his words were coming out fast and sloppy, distorted with tears, close to the screaming sobs of the night before as it all washed over him again. Pierre closed his eyes tighter and wrapped his arm gently behind David’s back and around his side, grabbing onto his shirt and holding him tightly, his own limbs shaking now. He wished suddenly that David would stop, afraid of what he would hear next, but he also didn’t think he could handle not knowing.
“I got my face away from him and he started kissing and biting my neck. I screamed for him to stop but he just… he yelled at me to kiss him back and to… let myself see that I wanted it a-and… to stop lying to myself… and no matter how hard I fought him I just couldn’t get away. He grabbed my face and kissed me again and I started hitting him again and screaming in his mouth and he… he dropped me and punched me and yelled at me to stop screaming…” David curled further into himself as he remembered how helpless he had felt. “I was so scared,” he whispered. “The hit made me so dazed and dizzy and I was so tired from fighting him that I… I thought that was it… I wouldn’t be able to fight him off anymore…” Pierre clutched tighter to David, rubbing his forehead against the other boy’s shoulder, wishing he had been there to help him.
David lifted his eyes from his knees and looked out across the room, remembering the way Hunter hadn’t come after him again and the look on his face of terrified realization. “But then he stopped… and he seemed like he realized what he’d just done. I think looking at me… and seeing me bleeding on the ground… he came back and he was him again… He looked scared and… he ran away.”
So that was the explanation for why it hadn’t progressed further - Hunter had seemingly come to his senses and ran away in fear. Pierre hated him more than he’d ever felt before, disgusted by what he’d done, disgusted that he could injure David so badly and just leave him there on the ground, alone in the cold of December, late at night, bleeding and dizzy. Rage pulsed in his veins and he felt the edges of his vision go blurry as he thought of him, pictured his face, imagined himself holding him down and hitting him over and over until he stopped moving. His fingers dug deeper into David’s sides as he imagined it, wanting to hurt Hunter, wanting to feel his blood on his knuckles and know that David would be safe from him.
“I got up and ran back to my car and that’s when I called you,” David finished his story, his voice calmer now, sounding nasally and thick, still hoarse from all the screaming he had done the night before.
“Where can I find him?” Pierre asked darkly, his eyes still closed, his head still pressed to David’s shoulder, his hand still clinging to him protectively.
David’s eyes opened wider and he pulled away, watching as Pierre sat up straight and stared into his eyes with an anger he’d never seen before. David shook his head quickly, fear in his eyes and instinctively he reached out and grasped onto Pierre’s shirt. “You can’t,” he told him seriously.
“How can I not?!” Pierre yelled suddenly, and again David flinched away from him and he regretted losing control of himself. He softened his gaze and reached up, touching his hand as delicately as he could to the bruised, left side of David’s face. “How can I not? Look what he did to you,” he said, his voice much more delicate and his face betraying the full depth of his heartache.
“Be honest… do you really think if you started hitting him you could stop?” David asked him, his voice barely above a whisper. Pierre didn’t respond and instead just stared at David, knowing that the answer was no and not wanting to say it out loud. “If you seriously hurt him and you got caught… or if you killed him…” David trailed off and shook his head. He reached over to the protein shake and took a sip on it for something to do, though the bottle was a bit mangled from how much he had been messing with it while he had been talking.
“Fine,” Pierre said quietly, unable to believe what he was saying. “But I still think you should report this to the police. I know you think they won’t be able to do anything, but you don’t know that for sure. Why not try?”
David shook his head, looking across the room without seeing it. “I just don’t believe they’ll do anything at all… And then he’ll know they won’t do anything and any leverage I have over him to get him to leave me alone will be gone. If I can use it to threaten and scare him, I can get him to leave me alone. That’s what I did last time he did something like this… I told him I’d tell his parents what he did to me if he ever talked to me again and he didn’t try to contact me after that even once.”
“So he did hurt you,” Pierre replied, his voice low. David turned to look at him, sad acknowledgement on his face. “That’s why you broke up with him, because he tried to do this before.”
David looked down and nodded, squeezing the bottle between his hands again. “It wasn’t so… violent,” he said quietly. “But… yeah. In his room, we were just hanging out, not even talking. He was playing his guitar and I was just listening and it felt really peaceful. And then out of nowhere he just jumped on me and started trying to make out but he was too rough and I didn’t like it, and he forced my knees up and he started… grinding against me and touching me… and I tried to get away from him but even then when he was pretty much the same size as me he was still stronger than me and I couldn’t get away from him. He didn’t stop no matter how much I cried or begged him to stop… It was just like last night, how I couldn’t get through to him, like he was gone and some monster had taken over him… Like he just got tired of waiting because I wouldn’t have sex with him and he decided he was going to take it.”
David shook his head at the memory, able to see and feel it like it had just happened to him… Though he supposed in a sense it had just happened to him. “He only stopped because his dad knocked and came in… If he hadn’t I’ve always thought that he probably… wouldn’t have stopped.” David paused for a moment, turning the bottle in his fingers. “He was so mad at me because I didn’t get up fast enough, I had put my legs down but I was still on my back when his dad came in, and I couldn’t stop crying… so he was mad at me. He said I almost got us caught and I just… it was the last I could take from him, and I ran away. And when he came to my house later that night I told him I was done and that if he ever talked to me again I’d tell his parents what he did.” David shook his head at the memory and took another drink from the squished bottle.
“Why would you even consider being his friend again?” Pierre asked, not wanting to sound as if he was blaming David but completely baffled by the decision.
“I don’t know,” David whispered back, tears springing into his eyes again. “I was so distrustful of him at first and I just kept glaring at him and trying to ignore him and when that didn’t work I would just get up and leave, and when that didn’t work I tried yelling at him… And when he told Ezra right in front of me that we used to date it completely disarmed me because before he had been so afraid of anyone finding out and he just said it to his friend who had been making fun of me like it wasn’t a big deal, and even after Ezra was shocked he just said ‘he’ll be fine’ like he wasn’t concerned that he had just come out at all…” David shook his head slowly as he thought of it.
“And then he apologized and he really seemed like he meant it. He admitted he was messed up to me and he said he regretted it and realized he’d been a bad person and had worked to change. He had just proven that he had changed a huge part of who he used to be and I just… I was so lonely that I let myself believe him. I was cautious at first and I still didn’t trust him, and I was honestly really mean to him for the first few weeks, but he just kept hanging around and I guess he just… wore me down until at some point, without ever realizing it, I had let him back in again fully.” David put the protein shake back on the coffee table and hid his face in his hands. “I feel so stupid.”
Pierre pulled David into his arms, careful to avoid anywhere that he knew was cut or bruised, and kissed him gently on the side of his head. “You’re not stupid and none of this is your fault,” he told him, his voice soft. “Don’t blame yourself for having a big heart and believing he could change. It’s his fault he’s a fucking selfish monster.” David knew there was truth to Pierre’s words but he also didn’t think he would ever fully stop blaming himself or feeling that he was stupid for giving Hunter another chance. “Though honestly… if you had told me from the start what he had done to make you break up with him, I would have told you not to be his friend,” Pierre admitted quietly. “I wanted to so bad but I didn’t want to be controlling… but if I had known…”
“I’m sorry I kept it from you… and everything that’s happened since before Thanksgiving. I promised you when we got together that I’d never lie to you again… and maybe I didn’t technically lie but I didn’t tell you some really big stuff and look where it landed me,” David said quietly. He kept his eyes closed and his forehead pressed against Pierre’s shoulder and chest, tilted ever so slightly to avoid resting his scratched and scraped up skin on him.
Pierre pulled back, his hands moving to David’s upper arms and forcing him gently to look into his eyes. “You have to tell me if he doesn’t leave you alone this time.” David nodded but Pierre didn’t release his grip and he refused to break eye contact. “I’m serious. If I’m going to go along with how you want to handle this and not call the cops myself, you have to tell me anything that happens, no matter how small it might seem. No keeping it from me because you don’t want me to hurt him and get myself in trouble. No keeping it from me because you don’t want to mess up my hockey games. If he even so much as looks at you again, I need to know.”
“I promise, I’ll never keep another thing about him secret from you ever again,” David told him firmly.
Pierre stared at him for a moment longer before he pulled him back into a hug, grateful that David was still sitting there with him, able to talk, able to move, that Hunter had come back to himself and hadn’t finished what he started. The two sat there for what felt like hours, not speaking, not moving, just holding each other. Pierre didn’t know where they were supposed to go from there or how they were going to recover from this, and he especially didn’t know how he was supposed to feel comfortable with leaving David alone again in two weeks without that piece of shit locked up in jail. He knew, however, he couldn’t bring these concerns up with how fragile David was, and that no matter how much it killed him he was going to have to continue to trust the other boy and that his decision was the right one to make. Still, as he sat there holding David who was shaking in his arms, he also didn’t know how he was going to be able to do any of that at all. Nothing felt right anymore, and he didn’t know what to do about it.