Defcon 5: the scorched-earth approach, death on the horizon
In Shamal's point of view.
“You don’t seem like the type to likes sweets.” I stated with an uncaring monotone.
“I don’t. These are an exception.” He stated while dipping the package of rainbow skittles into his palm and picking out the red ones.
That was a long time ago.
For years I’ve spent time asking myself, ‘is this real? Or is this just some fantasy my homophobic mind has created?’
I’ve spent years, too many years, living through my paranoia. I’ve slept with too many women to count and unsuccessfully chased hundred of other pretty faces. But for what?
I’m beginning to not be able to dismiss my aging. I look around my apartment in Italy and all I see is furniture. It’s empty and cold. Every piece, haphazardly selected without care. Each is polished to perfection. Every ounce of my spotless apartment reflects my image as I look down on it.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the small bag. I rip it open as I sit uncomfortably on my leather sofa. Looking down at my coffee table it mirrors my face and with a grunt I scatter the colored hard candies across the hard wood of the table.
Each piece slams to the oak with a cacophony of mismatched clatters. A rainbow of displeasure before me; and with each individual skittle I consume, I slowly feel my sanity melting away.
Why did he stay so attached to me? Why me? Ever since the training we did for his battle over the ring Gokudera made sure that he was a constant in my life, even despite the hard times I gave him.
I tried to ignore his glances, the way he hovered, his incessant appearances throughout the rest of my life.
At first it was easy. I pushed him away just like I did the rest of the male population. It became commonplace and felt necessary. As time went on it got harder to ignore him but I overlooked that fact and let the delusions overtake me.
He was too stubborn for that though and I suppose that youth will do that to a person.
I eventually opened a new clinic and even then, his visits got more frequent.
I began fingering the little purple skittle and I watch as some of the sticky glaze coats the tips. The only thing I ever saw him eat were skittles and that weirded me out even more for some reason. He always ate the red ones first. He’d offer them to me for some reason and I would always decline and tell him to leave. I easily shoved him away.
He got a little bolder, nothing serous, yet I still viewed it as an attack. Just a handshake here or there, a removal of something from my unkempt hair, or the brush of a hand when shoving dropped or needed items into my palm. It was a lot like young romance in which the boy offers the girl a neck rub even though his hands are tired and he really doesn’t want to. He really just wants that one chance to be allowed physical contact without being stigmatized. I noticed all of this -of course- but I quickly attributed it to my paranoia and let it all slide.
I finally let myself realize what was happening a few years later when he asked if he could help around the clinic. God, he even offered himself as a test subject. The illusion I’d created and stood behind finally dissipated.
From then on, things only got worse. Blinded by my built up fears and twisted ideologies, things began to get really bad.
First came the name calling. Fag, homo, and numerous other slanderous terms became so unnervingly natural for everyday use. It started out sarcastic but it turned mean and vindictive real fast. Gokudera would scowl at me and play it off as an insult to his masculinity but under it all, I could see the pain I was inflicting.
Reverting back, I let myself believe it wasn’t really there, so it continued.
The touches stopped, as well as the looks, and he kept a considerable amount of distance from me at all times. For some reason though, that stubborn bastard kept visiting. I would look at him and I found that the whole charade was really wearing him down. An old river was flowing through him and tearing down the weaker parts until something new lied in its wake. I’m pretty sure I heard that from some old drunkard in a bar down the street. One of those guys who thinks that old age is a natural harbinger of wisdom. Well it isn’t.
I squeeze another skittle between my fingers and let the white almost iridescent insides spew out the casing of the candy now softened from the warmth of my fingers. With all of this reflection I can see now that regardless of how I treated him, I really had gotten used to the fact that he was always around.
I hated that he kept coming around, and I think that we both secretly saw the action as a weakness. Sadly, I think I figured that that wouldn’t change.
Eventually, when he finally hit his twenties, the visits became sporadic and soon they stopped altogether.
I fell hard into my research and my clinical work. There was a new woman every night but I blindly didn’t make any connection.
I pushed aside every stray thought I had concerning him and I soon found myself thinking of Gokudera more than ever before. I began to get confused, sloppy even. Nothing seemed right but I couldn’t get myself to change anything. I should have.
It’s so easy to think retrospectively. It’s all I do now. Along with sitting alone in my empty apartment guzzling skittles in silence. It’s only going to get worse after tonight. I suppose that this is the beginning of all of it.
Most people find themselves when they’re young. They travel, try new things and essentially realize what type of person they are. It’s incredibly depressing to think that I’m just now realizing who I truly am.
He came to me tonight and oddly enough when I heard the knocking I knew it was him, even despite his long absence. Now that I think about it, it was probably more hope than an intrinsic form of mystic intuition.
The hardest thing for me to grasp is the fact that I know that if the situation had been a different one, I would have slammed the door in his face. All that soul searching and realizations would have been for nothing, that is, until I twisted that handle and pulled my office door open.
He fell through the doorway, a mass of blood and sounds of pain. He was motionless in front of me, face down. His breathing was ragged and uncontrollable gurgling sounds escaped his lips due to blood-filled lungs.
My mind stopped functioning at that moment. When he began to move my heart leapt and I exhaled deeply. His head lifted from the pooled blood on the floor and he looked up at me with a smile. The last thing I wanted to see on that face was a smile. It was an expression that said, ‘I knew you’d be here because I know you’. But Gokudera would never have said anything remotely as sentimental as that.
I checked what wounds I could see and quickly moved him to the couch in the corner. I knew that with his head wound it wasn’t smart to move him but he looked like he was on the brink of death. I idly wondered how the hell he’d gotten to my place.
Every inch of him was covered in blood, his blood. He was dying.
I pulled off his stained clothing and attempted to stop the bleeding. He had multiple gun-shot wounds and it looked as if a bullet had grazed the side of his head.
His eyes never left my face. I hadn’t been able to look at him though.
I remember him saying, “I don’t want to die.” It made me finally look up at him. Despite what he said, the look on his face told me that he wanted death to come.
He told me at that moment that he had always loved me and I told him that I’d always known.
Throughout all of the years that I’d inflicted pain on the kid I’d never seen him look as hurt as he did at that moment.
With that one look, my entire life changed. I’m not sure of how much yet, but I knew that it did. And, for the first time since I was young, I began to cry.
We both knew that he was going to die but I still tried everything that I could to stop the bleeding. My vision was blurred and I began to choke around the lump in my throat.
He finally looked away from me while saying that nothing really mattered.
I was shocked, even more so than when I first found him slowly dying on my doorstep. I wiped my eyes and turned his face to look at me.
I told him that I was sorry for everything I put him through. I talked about how stupid and ignorant I’ve always been. That I shouldn’t have pushed him away when I knew that I needed him more than anyone else. He smiled kindly at what I’d said and my crying continued because I knew that I really didn’t deserve it.
I bent down and tilted his face a little for a kiss. Then more kisses came. Short pecks surrounded by repeated apologies.
He didn’t respond, he didn’t cry or speak. He just lied there and watched me.
The last thing I wanted him to think was that I was just catering to a dying kid’s only real wish and I knew I wasn’t, but I also knew that that was how it seemed to him.
I kissed him one last time and it was during that kiss that I felt the last remnants of life leave him.
Blinking a few times, I look around my empty apartment. I avert my eyes from my less than subtle solitude and look down at my bloodied hands wondering how different things would have been if I had just admitted to needing another man. I shoved my hand into my hair and rubbed at my face roughly. Where would we be if I had just pushed aside all of my stupid little fears and barriers and just accepted him?
I moved all of the red skittles aside and ate the rest.
Where would the wind have blown?
.........
Thanks!
“You don’t seem like the type to likes sweets.” I stated with an uncaring monotone.
“I don’t. These are an exception.” He stated while dipping the package of rainbow skittles into his palm and picking out the red ones.
That was a long time ago.
For years I’ve spent time asking myself, ‘is this real? Or is this just some fantasy my homophobic mind has created?’
I’ve spent years, too many years, living through my paranoia. I’ve slept with too many women to count and unsuccessfully chased hundred of other pretty faces. But for what?
I’m beginning to not be able to dismiss my aging. I look around my apartment in Italy and all I see is furniture. It’s empty and cold. Every piece, haphazardly selected without care. Each is polished to perfection. Every ounce of my spotless apartment reflects my image as I look down on it.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the small bag. I rip it open as I sit uncomfortably on my leather sofa. Looking down at my coffee table it mirrors my face and with a grunt I scatter the colored hard candies across the hard wood of the table.
Each piece slams to the oak with a cacophony of mismatched clatters. A rainbow of displeasure before me; and with each individual skittle I consume, I slowly feel my sanity melting away.
Why did he stay so attached to me? Why me? Ever since the training we did for his battle over the ring Gokudera made sure that he was a constant in my life, even despite the hard times I gave him.
I tried to ignore his glances, the way he hovered, his incessant appearances throughout the rest of my life.
At first it was easy. I pushed him away just like I did the rest of the male population. It became commonplace and felt necessary. As time went on it got harder to ignore him but I overlooked that fact and let the delusions overtake me.
He was too stubborn for that though and I suppose that youth will do that to a person.
I eventually opened a new clinic and even then, his visits got more frequent.
I began fingering the little purple skittle and I watch as some of the sticky glaze coats the tips. The only thing I ever saw him eat were skittles and that weirded me out even more for some reason. He always ate the red ones first. He’d offer them to me for some reason and I would always decline and tell him to leave. I easily shoved him away.
He got a little bolder, nothing serous, yet I still viewed it as an attack. Just a handshake here or there, a removal of something from my unkempt hair, or the brush of a hand when shoving dropped or needed items into my palm. It was a lot like young romance in which the boy offers the girl a neck rub even though his hands are tired and he really doesn’t want to. He really just wants that one chance to be allowed physical contact without being stigmatized. I noticed all of this -of course- but I quickly attributed it to my paranoia and let it all slide.
I finally let myself realize what was happening a few years later when he asked if he could help around the clinic. God, he even offered himself as a test subject. The illusion I’d created and stood behind finally dissipated.
From then on, things only got worse. Blinded by my built up fears and twisted ideologies, things began to get really bad.
First came the name calling. Fag, homo, and numerous other slanderous terms became so unnervingly natural for everyday use. It started out sarcastic but it turned mean and vindictive real fast. Gokudera would scowl at me and play it off as an insult to his masculinity but under it all, I could see the pain I was inflicting.
Reverting back, I let myself believe it wasn’t really there, so it continued.
The touches stopped, as well as the looks, and he kept a considerable amount of distance from me at all times. For some reason though, that stubborn bastard kept visiting. I would look at him and I found that the whole charade was really wearing him down. An old river was flowing through him and tearing down the weaker parts until something new lied in its wake. I’m pretty sure I heard that from some old drunkard in a bar down the street. One of those guys who thinks that old age is a natural harbinger of wisdom. Well it isn’t.
I squeeze another skittle between my fingers and let the white almost iridescent insides spew out the casing of the candy now softened from the warmth of my fingers. With all of this reflection I can see now that regardless of how I treated him, I really had gotten used to the fact that he was always around.
I hated that he kept coming around, and I think that we both secretly saw the action as a weakness. Sadly, I think I figured that that wouldn’t change.
Eventually, when he finally hit his twenties, the visits became sporadic and soon they stopped altogether.
I fell hard into my research and my clinical work. There was a new woman every night but I blindly didn’t make any connection.
I pushed aside every stray thought I had concerning him and I soon found myself thinking of Gokudera more than ever before. I began to get confused, sloppy even. Nothing seemed right but I couldn’t get myself to change anything. I should have.
It’s so easy to think retrospectively. It’s all I do now. Along with sitting alone in my empty apartment guzzling skittles in silence. It’s only going to get worse after tonight. I suppose that this is the beginning of all of it.
Most people find themselves when they’re young. They travel, try new things and essentially realize what type of person they are. It’s incredibly depressing to think that I’m just now realizing who I truly am.
He came to me tonight and oddly enough when I heard the knocking I knew it was him, even despite his long absence. Now that I think about it, it was probably more hope than an intrinsic form of mystic intuition.
The hardest thing for me to grasp is the fact that I know that if the situation had been a different one, I would have slammed the door in his face. All that soul searching and realizations would have been for nothing, that is, until I twisted that handle and pulled my office door open.
He fell through the doorway, a mass of blood and sounds of pain. He was motionless in front of me, face down. His breathing was ragged and uncontrollable gurgling sounds escaped his lips due to blood-filled lungs.
My mind stopped functioning at that moment. When he began to move my heart leapt and I exhaled deeply. His head lifted from the pooled blood on the floor and he looked up at me with a smile. The last thing I wanted to see on that face was a smile. It was an expression that said, ‘I knew you’d be here because I know you’. But Gokudera would never have said anything remotely as sentimental as that.
I checked what wounds I could see and quickly moved him to the couch in the corner. I knew that with his head wound it wasn’t smart to move him but he looked like he was on the brink of death. I idly wondered how the hell he’d gotten to my place.
Every inch of him was covered in blood, his blood. He was dying.
I pulled off his stained clothing and attempted to stop the bleeding. He had multiple gun-shot wounds and it looked as if a bullet had grazed the side of his head.
His eyes never left my face. I hadn’t been able to look at him though.
I remember him saying, “I don’t want to die.” It made me finally look up at him. Despite what he said, the look on his face told me that he wanted death to come.
He told me at that moment that he had always loved me and I told him that I’d always known.
Throughout all of the years that I’d inflicted pain on the kid I’d never seen him look as hurt as he did at that moment.
With that one look, my entire life changed. I’m not sure of how much yet, but I knew that it did. And, for the first time since I was young, I began to cry.
We both knew that he was going to die but I still tried everything that I could to stop the bleeding. My vision was blurred and I began to choke around the lump in my throat.
He finally looked away from me while saying that nothing really mattered.
I was shocked, even more so than when I first found him slowly dying on my doorstep. I wiped my eyes and turned his face to look at me.
I told him that I was sorry for everything I put him through. I talked about how stupid and ignorant I’ve always been. That I shouldn’t have pushed him away when I knew that I needed him more than anyone else. He smiled kindly at what I’d said and my crying continued because I knew that I really didn’t deserve it.
I bent down and tilted his face a little for a kiss. Then more kisses came. Short pecks surrounded by repeated apologies.
He didn’t respond, he didn’t cry or speak. He just lied there and watched me.
The last thing I wanted him to think was that I was just catering to a dying kid’s only real wish and I knew I wasn’t, but I also knew that that was how it seemed to him.
I kissed him one last time and it was during that kiss that I felt the last remnants of life leave him.
Blinking a few times, I look around my empty apartment. I avert my eyes from my less than subtle solitude and look down at my bloodied hands wondering how different things would have been if I had just admitted to needing another man. I shoved my hand into my hair and rubbed at my face roughly. Where would we be if I had just pushed aside all of my stupid little fears and barriers and just accepted him?
I moved all of the red skittles aside and ate the rest.
Where would the wind have blown?
.........
Thanks!