Brian and Me

Hey all, here's the next one. Actually, it was originally going to be the next two, but I didn't like the way they were split up, so I put them together.

Blah blah blah... story's fictional, and not meant to in any way represent anyone mentioned, particularly any members of any music groups. Blah blah blah, don't read this if you shouldn't go ahead if you're allowed and want to.

Big thanks to Matt and Scotty for their help in reading through this one and making suggestions. It makes more sense and is certainly more enjoyable with their input, and it's much appreciated, as I'm sure they both already know.

As usual, there is an html version of this installment, and all of the previous ones, on my website, located at: dls-stories.homepage.com. Also posted tonight on the site is part three of my new story, 'I'll Never Stop'. The installments are shorter, but that's the way the story is coming so far. I'm not sure whether that will last or not. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to email and let me know what they think of either story, and the webpage in general.

Enough from me. Enjoy! :)

PART 101

"Okay," I said, once we had returned to the apartment. "Brian, you come with me."

"Where are we going?"

"You said you wanted to meet my parents," I smiled, and watched as he remembered that we were going searching for a picture of my parents.

"What?" Erron asked, looking at the silent exchange between us.

I turned to face Erron. "Brian wanted to know what my mom looked like, but all of the pictures I have are in storage. I'm going to take Brian out there to find one and show him. I want to take a look around and maybe pick out a few things to bring back to the apartment, too. I think it's about time."

Erron nodded his understanding. "I've always wondered what your parents looked like to get a cutie like you for a son."

How could I say no to that? "If you want to come, there's no reason not to. How about you, Nick? Feel like a side trip?"

"I'm easy," Nick agreed from the living room. He was busy searching through the movie collection.

"We know," Brian and I said at the same time. Our laughter was what finally made him look up from the shelf. It was obvious that he hadn't been following too closely.

"Okay," I said, taking charge. "Then we may as well get packed up and everything before we go, then just keep going from the storage space. I'll go back for whatever I want to take when we get back. Agreed?"

Three heads nodded at me. One of them winked at me.

"Erron, why don't you go and finish packing then? Nick, your stuff is already downstairs. Brian and I will go and rent a bigger vehicle."

"A bigger vehicle?"

"Well, we're going to have us and all of our things. I don't think it will all fit in the car," I smiled.

"I could sit in your lap," Brian suggested, winking again.

"That might distract me from driving, don't you think? Now get that cute little ass of yours out the door. There's somewhere else we have to stop, too."

Brian arched his eyebrow, but followed orders and stepped out into the hall. "We'll be back in bit," I called behind us as I closed the door. Not that it mattered. Erron had already disappeared down the hall, and Nick was engrossed in the movies again.

I grinned at Brian as he pressed the elevator button. I started swinging my hands at my side, letting one of them gently brush his leg with each pass. After a few brushes, Brian stepped toward me in mid-swing. Rather than slide lightly against his leg, my hand came to a jarring halt on his backside.

He grinned and backed up into it until I withdrew it completely, crossing my arms at my chest and trying not to laugh.

"Pervert, feeling my bum like that," Brian whispered, making it harder to keep a straight face. "Do you always molest innocent bystanders while you're waiting for the elevator?"

The doors opened and he stepped inside first. "Only when I think that there's a reasonable chance that I can get them to sleep with me," I said back conversationally as I joined him. "Unfortunately, I'm usually waiting for elevators with hideously ugly pop stars. But I still do it, in case someday I find an attractive one."

Brian grinned and pressed the button for the garage. "And would you still sleep with these hideously ugly guys?"

"That depends."

"Depends on what?" He smiled and turned to face me.

"On what their reaction to my touching their bum is," I replied, leaning against the wall.

"What reaction is a good one?"

"I'll let you know when I find one," I laughed. "So far, you've been very disappointing. I can't even tell if you liked it or not."

"Well, I hate to be unclear." Brian smiled and pressed himself against me, putting his hands in the back pockets of my pants.

"Why Mr. Littrell, is that a banana in your pants, or are you..." Brian's lips cut off the rest as he pushed me into the wall of the elevator harder. I was beginning to wish I had strategically placed myself closer to the emergency stop button.

I don't know whether Brian was counting the bells, or whether he instinctively knew when we were nearing the parking garage, but seconds before the doors started to open again, he released me and stood back against the other wall, seeming very pleased with himself.

There was a couple waiting to get on the elevator when we were getting off.

Just as we passed them, Brian spoke again, as casually as though we were discussing the weather. "How was that for a reaction?"

I laughed and waited for the doors to close behind us before answering. "I'll let you know when my heart stops pounding."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Brian grinned.

"I thought you might." I pressed the button on the keychain to turn off the car alarm, and automatically unlocked the doors.

"So what's this stop that we have to make?" Brian asked, getting into the passenger seat.

"I want to stop and see my parents, if that's okay." I looked at him closely before putting the keys in the ignition. "I don't want to wait until next week, since we don't know how much time we'll have."

"Of course it's okay with me," Brian said, frowning a little bit. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well, it can't be all that exciting for you, you know," I countered, starting the car. "We could go to the rental place first, and then you could come back here while I go to the cemetary."

"No." Brian placed his hand on my knee to keep me from moving yet. "I want to go with you, if that's okay with you."

"Of course it's okay with me," I said, echoing him and making him smile.

"It's just that they're your parents, you know." He rubbed my leg comfortingly. "I can wait with the car if you want."

"You'll do no such thing," I answered him, throwing the car in reverse and backing out of the space with my name on it. "If they are around somewhere, I want them to get to know you."

"They are."

I wasn't sure about that, but didn't feel like arguing the point. "Then, I want you with me when I visit them. As much as you can be, anyway." I pulled out onto the street, and merged with the surprisingly light noon-time traffic.

"Okay, it's settled."

I nodded and switched on the turn signal with a smile, glad that he was going to be there with me. I wasn't expecting as much emotion as there had been last time, but I was still comforted by the fact that he wanted to be there.

Brian suggested that we get some flowers - something that I mentally smacked myself for not thinking of - and so, after a quick stop at a nice little florists on the way, we pulled into the small parking lot of the cemetary.

Brian started looking around him as we pulled in and I shut off the ignition. It had been dark the last time he had arrived, and he hadn't been able to take in the real feel of it. Though it was a little strange to think about, there was a majestic feel to the place.

I parked the car and got out, walking around to Brian's side. He got out as well, and turned to look at the large gates that marked the entrance. "ROSEDALE VALLEY ROAD CEMETARY" was spelled out in huge iron letters in the arch that created the top of the gate.

"Are you sure that you want me to come with you?" Brian asked as I stepped toward the wrought-iron gates, which were both standing wide open. I was trying not to think about that being a gesture of welcome.

"Yes, I'm sure. But if you want to wait here, that's okay too. I don't need you there with me, Brian, but I'd like it."

"Then let's go." He started to reach out to take my hand, then thought better of it and merely stepped to my side instead.

I smiled to myself at the gesture and started under the arch. It was strange how different this place seemed at different times of the day. I remembered it being very spooky during my parent's funeral, which had been mid-morning, and the mist hadn't had a chance to clear from the ground, giving the whole affair an ethereal quality that had haunted many of my nightmares in the months following.

Last time I had come, it had been late-afternoon, turning to dusk, and the grounds had seemed strangely alive, with the gold-tinged light hitting the rows of stones, and the large statue in the middle of the lot. It had had an eternal feel to it, which I supposed was fitting.

When Brian had arrived the last time, it had been almost full-night, and I had to admit that he was a better man than I would have been. I don't think you could have dragged me past the gates after it started to get dark. Being inside when the sun went down was different. Actually entering in the dark would have been damn-near impossible for me.

Now, it was still close to noon, and everything appeared to be, I suppose, exactly what it was. There was no spectral quality to the place, really. It looked like rows of stones loosely organised around the knoll in the centre, where the statue was located. I decided that this was my favourite time to be here. The only emotions that it evoked were those that you brought with you, and that seemed better, somehow. Like doing something daunting on your own terms.

I was thinking exactly this as Brian and I stepped together under the arch and onto the path that wound its way through the plots in its regular, but seemingly unplanned route. The path itself was well-tended, but devoid of any sort of debris or decoration. I thought briefly that they might put down some crushed gravel for aesthetic reasons, but when my mind supplied me with the sound of walking on crushed gravel, I decided that, given the surroundings, it was probably best the way it was.

As we walked, Brian remained silent. I know that he felt a little daunted by the appearance and size of the place, but I think he was also aware on some level of the thoughts going through my head. He was letting me work through them on my own.

When we made it to the knoll, and the place where the path circled it, I stopped and looked down into the little dip in the ground where my parents had been buried.

"Okay?" Brian asked.

"Yeah."

"Really?" He turned my head to make me look him in the eyes.

I gave him the smile that he obviously wanted to see, and surprised myself in finding that it didn't feel out of place. I was happy. There were, of course, places that I would rather be then standing on a bare path looking down on a sea of tombstones, but I was where I needed to be, and I was with someone I cared deeply for and who cared just as much for me.

There was a sadness there as well, of course, but nothing on the scale of what had been there before. For that, just as much as anything else, I smiled.

"Yes, really. Just thinking, but they're not bad thoughts."

Brian nodded and fell silent, apparently unwilling to interrupt those thoughts.

We had passed by two small groups of people paying their respects but, looking around, I didn't see anyone within view of the part of the cemetary that my parents had been buried in. Cautiously, I reached out and took Brian's hand.

He closed his hand around mine without so much as glancing around him in his eagerness to comfort me, and I felt my love for him grow from that one simple act. Especially with what we had recently been through because of semi-public displays of affection. Stepping forward with a smile, we left the path and started to weave our way down the small hill.

Brian's hand tightened on mine as we approached the stone, though I think it was more in anticipation of mine tightening than out of his own anxiety. When he discovered that mine wasn't going to clench his, he loosened his grip again.

We came to a stop in front of the large double marker, and the first thing that I noticed was that the rose that Brian had left there had been removed.

Realistically, I hadn't believed that it would still be there, but the fact that it was missing got to me unexpectedly. His placing it there had meant so much to me, and now the only evidence that he had done it was in our memories. Thinking on it like that, I wasn't quite as upset. I couldn't really think of a better place for it to be.

I knelt, still holding Brian's hand, in front of my mother's name and lay my small bouquet of tulips - her favourite - on the grass before me, then ran my hand lightly over the ground in front of them. Brian knelt beside me and placed his bouquet - my father didn't, to the best of my knowledge, have a favourite, so Brian was carrying a small assortment of late-blooming flowers - beside mine, in front of my father's name. I heard him mutter 'Sir' under his breath as he did so.

"Nick and Erron are waiting for us back at the apartment," I said, feeling the need for an explanation. "So we can't stay long. I know that you don't know who either one of them are, or maybe you do now, I don't know. But I couldn't not come and see you before we left."

Brian's hand slipped from mine as he stood back up and moved off behind me a few paces. I noticed that he stayed close enough that I could feel his presence and know that he was there for me, but far enough that I could have a private moment with them.

"Told you," I whispered to my mother as I smiled at his thoughtfulness. "I guess that there's not a whole lot to say that I didn't say last time I was here, but I wanted to come by again. Just so that you know that I'm doing okay, and that I'm still very happy. I'm going to take Brian, Nick, and Erron out to the storage space where I put all of your things."

Saying it out loud to them like that made storing their stuff seem like a hideously cold thing to do. I suddenly felt like the worst son ever, but decided to continue and hope that, wherever they were, they would understand my motives.

"Brian wants to know who you were, and what you looked like, and I figured that if you're anywhere, it's out there with the things you loved so much. I didn't get rid of anything, by the way. Graham and Tommy took what you left them, but I haven't heard from them since. I don't really expect to, either."

By now, I was sitting cross-legged between their names, speaking with both of them and trying to decide if I could feel them with me, or whether I got the impression that they knew I was there on some level. Running my hand back and forth across the grass in front of me, but being careful not to pick any of it in nervousness, I realised that there wasn't a whole lot left to say.

"I guess I'll go now. But I'll be back soon. I'll try to get here to visit after we get back from the cabin, but I'm not sure what the plan for that is yet. We may not even have time to do more than drop Erron off. But if I can, I'll be here." There was something missing. Something that I hadn't said that I needed to say. I sat silently for a moment, refusing to leave until I had thought of it. It fell into place for me as I thought about Brian standing quietly behind me.

"I love you both," I whispered as I felt the first tear of the afternoon slowly wind its way down my cheek.

I was about to get up when I discovered Brian's hands hovering in the air in front of and above me. Reaching up, I took them and let him pull me to my feet. He remained standing behind me, his hands holding me with his arms wrapped around me, until he was sure that I was okay.

Turning me around and dropping one of my hands, he looked back down at the fresh flowers we had left and promised them once again that he would look after me for them. Afraid to try my voice, I squeezed his hand and led him back up to the path overlooking the shaded area we had just left.

The walk back to the gates was a silent one. Once he knew that I was fine, Brian was content to let me sort through the emotions on my own. Truthfully, the main emotion in me at that moment was relief. Relief in the knowledge that Brian loved me, and relief in the belief that my parents would have accepted us together if they could have seen that love.

As we climbed into the car again, I decided that the solemnity had been done to death, if you'll pardon the expression. "Just the one tear," I commented. "Much better than the blubbering that greeted you last time, wouldn't you say?" I grinned for him.

Brian smiled and shook his head, then became serious again. "I'm proud of you, you know."

That surprised me. "Why?" I asked, bunching my brow in confusion.

"Why not?" was the only answer that he would give me. I waited for more, but he just smiled at me until I started the car and pulled back out of the parking lot.

"So are we stopping for groceries too?" Brian asked, probably wishing that he had brought along his hat and sunglasses.

"Well, I've been thinking about that," I said, turning down a side street to avoid the heavier traffic that I could see up ahead. "And I think we might as well wait until we get up there. There's stores and stuff like that around, and there's less of a chance of anyone knowing who you and Nick are."

Brian nodded his approval. "Sounds good. It'd be nice to be able to just wander around without being recognised."

I grinned. "I just hope that they have chocolate chip Eggos, or Erron's going to kill me."

"What?"

I remembered that he had been sleeping when the Eggos had been discussed and just shook my head to let him know it wasn't important. "Never mind."

"'kay," he said, shrugging as he turned to watch the buildings move past us.

We rode for a few minutes without talking. I liked the fact that we didn't feel the need to fill every silence. Not that I didn't like talking with Brian, but sometimes it was nice to just sit and be with him too. His hand found my thigh again, but we didn't exchange anything but a look as I meandered through the city.

When I pulled into the rental lot, Brian's hand fell from my thigh. "It's probably a good idea if I wait here," he smiled.

"Yeah. You can drive this back, and I'll drive the rental. If you think you can keep up with me, that is," I grinned.

"I think I'll be able to manage," he returned. "We don't do all of our travelling in a limo, you know."

"All right, but don't be calling my cell when you're lost in downtown Toronto." I got out of the car and shut my door, seeing Brian decide to scoot across the seat rather than get out. I laughed as the horn sounded quickly when he accidentally bumped it.

One nice side-effect of it, and one that I was sure would make Brian insist that he had done it on purpose, was that the salesman came out to greet me, drawn by the noise. We shook hands and I told him exactly what I was looking for.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the rental process was surprisingly quick. In what seemed like no time, I was walking back out onto the lot. I waved to Brian to get his attention and then headed for the SUV that had been brought around for me. Since they hadn't had green, I had gone with black, and I took a minute to marvel at how shiny it was.

Climbing in, I knew I was going to like driving it, and made a vow to myself that my next vehicle was going to be one of these. I took a minute to acquaint myself with the different gadgets, and to tune the radio in to a good station, then waved to Brian again and put it into gear.

He did a very good job of following me back to the apartment, no matter how hard I tried to lose him. And believe me, I tried. I had been really looking forward to that phone call telling me that he was lost, but I just couldn't shake him. Finally, I gave up and simply headed back to the apartment.

I parked in the closest visitor space to the elevator, and Brian pulled the car into my reserved space and climbed out.

"Is it just me, or were we going in circles back there?" he asked with a smile as I came to stand beside him.

"Must be just you," I shrugged innocently. "I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary."

"I bet," he grinned, knowing full well what I had been trying to do. "You know, I wouldn't have called you anyway. I'd have called Erron."

I laughed and took the keys from him, opening the trunk. "Well then, you can just call Erron for all your needs from now on," I sniffed, pulling out Nick's luggage.

"But there are some that require your personal touch," Brian cooed, sliding his hand down my arm.

"Too late now," I laughed. "Grab some of this stuff. We might as well put it into the rental now."

Brian sighed and picked up the remainder of Nick's things from the concrete, following me across the lot. I hit the button on the keychain and unlocked the back door, then opened it and threw Nick's stuff inside. "He can organise it when he gets down here."

"Works for me," Brian grinned, tossing his load in as well.

I slammed the door shut again and Brian followed me back to the elevator doors. I pressed the button and turned to find Brian smiling at me.

"What?"

"You're not going to touch my bum this time?" he asked with a smirk.

"Nope."

"Please?"

"Nope," I said again, smiling primly.

"I'll touch your bum if you'll touch mine," he offered, trying not to laugh.

"Well if you're willing to touch a bum, and want yours touched, why don't you just touch your own bum?" I suggested as the doors opened and we stepped inside.

Brian sighed as they closed again. "I got a boyfriend so that I wouldn't have to do stuff like that alone anymore."

"Boy, that doesn't cheapen the relationship at all," I laughed, nudging him in the side and sending him into the wall of the elevator.

"This from the guy who was deliberately trying to ditch his boyfriend in a strange city."

"That's just your theory," I grinned. "You can't prove a thing."

"Maybe, but that doesn't make it any less true."

"Tell it to the judge," I smiled as the doors opened again to admit an elderly gentleman.

"I'll do that," Brian said, as the man pressed a button on the panel. "Excuse me, sir?"

"Yes?" he asked, seemingly surprised that someone was breaking the unwritten code of silence in elevators.

"I was wondering if you would be able to help me settle an arguement with my bo... my friend here," Brian said, and I smiled as I watched the slight blush come to his face.

"Well, I suppose I could give it a try," the man returned, not catching Brian's close call. "What is it that you're arguing about?"

Brian gave the man the name of the rental agency, and then asked him how far away it was, and how long it should take to get there.

"Shouldn't take long at all. It's only about four blocks from here." He proceeded to give Brian directions - very simple directions - on how to get there.

Brian arched his eyebrow toward me to let me know that he had me, and then smiled at the man. "Thank you. My friend here thought it would be at least a ten minute drive."

"Oh no," he responded, looking at me sympathetically. "It wouldn't even be a ten minute walk from here."

"Oops, my mistake," I mumbled, looking away before he saw the smile on my face.

"Thanks again, sir," Brian said as he dragged me off of the elevator and into the hall on my floor. He waited until the doors had closed completely before smacking me on the shoulder.

"What?" I asked innocently. "The man's obviously senile."

"Nate! Admit it, you were trying to get me lost."

"Paranoia is such an ugly thing, Bri," I said, making the tsk tsk sound that my mother had been so fond of when I did something she disapproved of. I opened the door and held it for him to walk through.

Brian laughed and passed by me, walking right on through into the living room. I joined him and found Nick leafing through the copy of IT that I had left on the coffee table.

"Hey," he said without looking up. I noticed with a smile that there was now a third bookmark caught in the pages. "This was a cool movie."

I sighed and dropped onto the couch beside him. "If you thought that movie was good, you've got to finish reading the book," I told him. "Just don't go back and see the movie again afterward. Knowing what the story was originally makes the movie really hard to sit through."

"Thanks for the tip," Nick grinned, moving his bookmark - part of a different flyer, by the look of it - and closing the book. "So how'd it go?

Took you guys long enough to rent a car."

"Jeep Cherokee," I corrected him. "And we had a couple of other stops to make."

Nick looked inquisitively at me. Brian kicked my feet out of the way and sat in the chair with a smile. "Only one other stop really. The rest of the time was my boyfriend trying to get me lost in the concrete jungle."

"Sweetie, why on earth would I want to lose you out there?" I asked with my most innocent smile. It was the one I used when everyone knew I wasn't anywhere close to being innocent.

"Because you could. And because you wanted me to have to admit that I needed you."

"Well, it is nice to be needed," I agreed with him, being careful not to admit any wrongdoing.

"You're going to be needing an ice pack if you keep this up," Brian warned, making a fist.

"Did you see that Nick?" I asked, grinning. "He raised his hand to me. You're a witness!"

"I'm a witness. Saw the whole thing, officer."

"Hit them both!" Erron laughed, coming into the room with a suitcase. "Anything to shut them up!"

"Bitch," I growled, standing up. "You need any help?"

"I don't think so. I've just got another bag and my computer."

"I'm taking my computer," I offered, not seeing the point of having two.

"Brian says you're going to work. Besides, I'm still not over the newness of it. I'm still playing around with it."

Brian smiled brightly at seeing how much Erron was enjoying his gift. I motioned for him to stand up too. "Let's get our stuff and get out of here.

Nick, we already chucked your stuff into the Jeep. Now's the time for a bathroom trip if anyone's got to go." Grabbing Brian's hand, I pulled him after me down the hall to retrieve our things.

"Yes mom," I heard Nick and Erron say together from behind me, and started to laugh.

"Fine, but we're not stopping on the way," I warned. Then, in an inspired moment during which I'm sure I was channelling my father, I added "I want to make good time."

Just as we entered our room, I heard Nick groan and get up off of the couch, commenting under his breath. I smiled to myself and made for the suitcases. Brian and I each had one, and we had combined our personal things into one bag. He took that while I picked up my computer bag.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Yep."

"You have to pee?"

"No, I don't have to pee," he laughed.

"You sure? We're not stopping," I reminded him.

"Not even for me?"

"Not unless you've learned something more than you knew last night," I laughed as we walked back out into the hall.

Brian grinned. "Always leave them wanting more," he quoted.

"You don't have to worry about that," I told him, adding a kiss on the cheek.

"There are two ways to take that, you know."

"I know," I said, nodding and nudging him down the hall.

Erron had his things sitting just inside the door, and Brian and I both unloaded there as well. "What about food?" Erron asked from the kitchen. He came out holding a bag of apples. "Thought we would take these with us, to eat on the road."

"We're going to get what we need when we get there," I told him. "That way, we get on the road, and Brian gets the chance to shop like a normal person."

"Famous or not, he could never pass as normal," Erron grinned, passing by us and patting Brian on the shoulder.

"You'd know," Brian shot back weakly. He definitely needed to hang around Erron and Andy more.

"Ooooh, good one," Erron laughed, pretending like he was wounded.

"Do we have to bring him?" Brian turned to ask me with a smile.

"Yes," Nick answered for me, joining us again. "I need someone to hang out with while you two are off doing whatever it is that you two do."

"Oh, honey, you'll find out for yourself one of these days," I laughed, pinching his cheek.

"I've seen quite enough of the both of you, if you recall," he grinned, slipping into his shoes. "Now are we leaving?" He bent over and grabbed both my computer and Erron's and headed for the door.

We gathered the rest of our things and joined him in the hall, where he had the elevator waiting for us. It was a bit of a tight squeeze with the four of us and our luggage, but judging from the hand on my ass, Brian - I think it was Brian - was choosing to make the most of a bad situation.

Nick didn't seem too happy to see the state of his luggage when I popped the back door of the Jeep open to load our things. One suitcase actually fell out as the door opened, one bag was hooked over the passenger seat headrest, and the last one had managed to catch on one of those little hooks for you to put hangers on to avoid wrinkling your clothes.

"What did you guys do? Just open the door and throw?"

Brian and I looked at each other and nodded. "Yep," I said. "That's pretty much exactly what we did."

Nick sighed dramatically and jumped into the vehicle to sort his things and pack ours as we passed them to him. Once he had everything to his satisfaction, he announced that we could leave, and dropped into the back seat.

Brian and I shared another grin as we walked to the front of the Jeep and climbed in. Just before he could open his door, Erron called shotgun, sparking a heated debate.

They argued good-naturedly about the specific rules of shotgun, each trying to invent a couple to gain the upper hand, until I stepped in. "Brian gets shotgun," I ordered, putting the window on his side down and clearly playing favourites. "Under the little-known 'boyfriend of the driver' rule."

Brian grinned and started to open the door, but Erron slapped his hand away again with a grin. "I'm Nate's boyfriend too," he reminded us. Nick started to laugh behind me, and I had to smile. "In fact," Erron continued, "this marks the second time that I've been his boyfriend. So I believe that means that I get shotgun."

Realising that I had been tricked with my own imaginary rule, I shrugged helplessly at Brian. "Sorry, sweetie."

Brian laughed and gave up, getting in beside Nick while Erron climbed up with me. He immediately started to play with the radio. Trying to ignore the barrage of station changes, I pulled out of the space and headed for the street.

I regretted the various options on the vehicle as soon as we were properly underway. Erron was still playing with the radio, and now Brian and Nick had gotten into the act. They seemed fascinated by the power windows and locks. Not only did I have to contend with constantly changing music bits, but now I had to put up with sudden changes in air pressure inside the car as well as the thunk of the doors locking and unlocking repeatedly.

We got about three blocks before I snapped. Slapping Erron's hand away from the radio, I put it back on the station that I had tuned in at the rental lot and warned him not to touch it again if he wanted to retain use of his fingers. I then locked the back-seat access to the windows and locks and used the controls up front to close them both. That drew complaints from the backseat, but I just turned the volume on the radio up some more until they stopped, petering out into laughs.

They were quiet for about seven blocks, then Erron broke the silence. "Nate?"

"Yes?" I asked without taking my eyes off of the traffic in front of me.

"Can I put on a CD?" He asked it in such a cautious tone that I couldn't help but laugh.

"Depends on what you want to put on," I told him with a smile. "If it's your Kenny G CD, no."

Erron grinned and pulled out his small CD carrying case and started to look through it. He laughed a bit, drawing my attention. Pulling the CD out carefully, he turned it so that only I could see it. I laughed and nodded my approval. Ten seconds later, the opening to 'Larger Than Life' came belting out of the speakers.

"Noooooo!" Nick laughed, struggling against his seat belt to get into the front and shut it off.

I looked into the rear-view mirror to find Brian chuckling and nodding his approval. After a moment, I got tired of Nick's flailing hands grabbing my shoulder, and reached out to eject it. The hands fell back and I heard him sigh.

Erron, dejected, pulled the CD out and replaced it with Our Lady Peace. I wholeheartedly agreed with the decision, since it had been ages since I'd heard it. It didn't seem that Brian and Nick had heard much from them before, though. They stopped talking almost immediately so that they could listen.

Erron and I chatted about a few things as we drove out of the city proper. Mostly about school, and how different people that I hadn't had a chance to see in a while were doing. Mainly those who no longer lived in the city. He was much better at keeping in touch with them than I was. Especially now that I was touring with Brian and trying to get another book written.

As we drove, I started to get a bit nervous. It wasn't that I wasn't happy, but it had been a long time since I had seen any of the items in the storage space. In truth, I hadn't even been out there since the day I had rented it. I wasn't sure how I would react to seeing all of those memories again. Whether it would bring back the comfort or the pain, I didn't know.

Everyone seemed to sense my nervousness, though, because the closer we got, the more they quieted. Except for the stereo, it was totally silent when I pulled into the parking lot and drove around to the rear of the huge building. Erron reached out and turned even the music down as I pulled to a stop in front of a large orange door.

"Well, this is it," I announced, shutting off the engine and opening my door. I remembered that they were locked in and thumbed the power lock before closing my door again.

Digging in my pocket for the small keyring I had grabbed at the apartment earlier, I headed for the smaller door placed beside the big one. I had just managed to twist the key in the lock when Brian joined me. I gave him a hopeful smile and crossed my fingers, then threw open the door, surprised by the relatively sedate pace of my heart.

As I groped for the light switch, I turned and smiled for Brian, then looked past him to find Nick and Erron standing in front of the Jeep rather than behind Brian as I had expected. They both looked as though they didn't know exactly what they were supposed to be doing.

"You guys coming?" I asked.

"You sure you want us to?" Nick returned, heading over with Erron at his heels. "It's sort of a private thing."

I shrugged and stepped inside to allow them to enter behind me. "Suit yourself, but it's bound to beat standing out there." My fingers found the switch and flicked it. There was a moment where nothing happened, and then the flourescent lighting overhead started to flicker. After a couple of seconds of that, they came on full, throwing their harsh light everywhere.

There were covered humps of furniture and boxes lying everywhere. It was a large space, so at least things weren't piled to the cieling, or crammed in.

Everything had been neatly laid out in rows, and I took a moment to appreciate the mover's thoughtfulness. I hadn't come with them to put the things away, but had trusted their judgement. I was glad that my trust hadn't been misplaced. My parent's things deserved that much at least.

"They're mine now," I said aloud. I think I said it more to convince myself of the fact that any of them.

"Wow," Nick commented, looking at all of the things piled around us. "How would you ever find anything?"

"You're about to find out." I was so far doing just fine, though once we started digging, I wasn't sure if it would last. "Let's split up. We're looking for a big box," I put my hands out to show them the dimensions of the box. "It's labeled 'photo albums'." I pointed Nick toward the back of the room, and sent Erron into the opposite corner. Brian tagged along behind me as I searched through the pile of boxes piled just inside the large door.

We had been looking for about ten minutes before we all heard Erron let out a laugh. Converging on him, we found him standing in front of a group of paintings and holding one up to get a better look at it.

"You were so cute," he grinned, turning the painting around.

It was the portrait that my mother had had painted when I was a little boy.

When I was seven, to be exact. She had been a big fan of getting the entire family a Christmas present each year, usually labelled (even in the last few years she had been alive) 'from Santa'. The portrait had been the family present for my seventh Christmas.

"Awww," Nick laughed, nudging me. Brian was smiling as he looked at the picture.

My father and I were standing behind my mother, each of us resting a hand on one of her shoulders and each wearing a dark blue suit. Mother had thought it too morbid to be wearing our black ones, which had been my first choice. "I remember standing there," I said, smiling to myself and thinking about how soft my mother's dress had been under my hand. "I hated that stupid suit. And he guy made us try a million different poses before settling on that one. He had horrible breath."

Brian laughed and put his arm around my waist. "You're adorable," he smiled.

Erron took another look at the painting, and then set it down again and continued his search. Nick also left us to go back to where he had been before Erron had discovered the portrait. "She was beautiful," Brian said, not moving. His gaze was fixed on the canvas before him.

"Yes, she was," I agreed, remaining at his side and taking in the portrait myself. "I forgot just how beautiful until now. Even the picture in my head doesn't do her justice."

"You look like her. I think this is one of the things you should keep," Brian whispered. "I don't want to tell you what to do, but it's so beautiful, and it obviously meant a lot to her to have it done. It shouldn't just be sitting out here."

I moved behind him and put my arms around him, resting them on his stomach as I put my chin on his shoulder. "You're right. I want it. I don't know where I'm going to hang it, but I don't want to leave it here any more."

We both continued to stand there, though I don't think either one of us were looking at the portrait any longer. Personally, I was lost in my past, thinking about both the day we had stood for it, and the day my father had hung it above the mantel in our apartment. I began to wish that my apartment had one.

My mother had loved that painting. She had loved everything about it. During the sitting, both my father and I had fidgeted whenever we could, but she had sat there, straightbacked, until the man had told us we could move. He had taken several photos from different angles and with different lighting, and had insisted on sketching a rough outline of the final portrait while we tried to stand as still as possible.

I remembered wondering why we couldn't have just had a regular family photo taken, like all of my friends at school had. I hadn't quite realised yet that my parents tried to do whatever they could not to be like everyone else. It had to be bigger, better, shinier or more expensive, or it wasn't worth having.

The portrait had always been the first thing that my mother brought a guest's attention to. I never figured out what the draw was for her while they were still alive, but I thought I understood it better now. She had managed to capture us at a time when everything was perfect. My father wasn't away as much as he had been a few years earlier, but still enough to appreciate us when he was home. I had been a smiling young man with my hand on her shoulder and my father's arm around my shoulders. She had been a happily married woman with a good-looking son who scored well enough to brag about on the tests they gave us at school. It was probably one of the last times that we were all really smiling at the same time.

"He loved you, you know," Brian said suddenly, drawing my attention again.

"What?"

"Your father. He loved you," Brian repeated, turning his head to smile at me.

"Yeah, I suppose he did," I agreed, not sure what he was getting at.

"You told me that he wasn't a loving man." Brian pulled my hands apart and turned to face me. "But the man in that picture is a loving one. You can see it on his face, and the way he's got his arm around you."

I looked at the picture again, trying to see what Brian was. I remembered the day that we had posed very clearly, and I remembered how pleased the man had been when we had tried the pose that we had ended up going with. He had been about to tell my father to put his arm around me when he had found it already there. I smiled to myself as I thought about the way my father had given that shoulder a squeeze as his hand fell on it. The smile on his face, the one that I had just been thinking about, was the one that you only saw when he was either drunk or on vacation. The rest of the time I remembered his smile being cold and business-like.

I sighed as I thought of these things, and remembered how far downhill they had gone by the time they were killed. "Yeah," I said, agreeing with Brian.

"He was then. That was while he was still in the military. He didn't get to see us much. He wasn't quite as sick of me back then."

I winced as I said it, knowing that it sounded much worse than I had meant it to. It was like one of those things that your brain slips in to show your true feelings without you asking it to.

"I'm sure he wasn't sick of you," Brian said softly, hugging me again. "He just forgot how to see how remarkable you are."

I laughed without much humour. "I wasn't all that remarkable at the end," I said quietly, picking up the portrait and taking his hand. I didn't want to talk about this anymore. I had been doing well to keep my composure, and I didn't want to lose it now. "Come on, let's see if we can't find those albums." I noticed the worried expression on his face, but he didn't say anything as he followed me back to the doors. I pulled the cover off of what appeared to be boxes of kitchen stuff and set the portrait on them, throwing the cover back over it. I'd know where it was when I came back for it.

Brian and I struck out in our corner of the room, and moved on to another group of things. Throwing the cover back, I coughed a little as the dust rose. Brian's eyes immediately settled on one item.

"Nice," he commented, picking up my father's golf bag. "I didn't know he golfed."

"What successful business man doesn't?" I asked, finding my smile again, even if it was subdued. "He didn't really care for it much, but everyone he worked for and with played, so he took it up. I don't know if he was very good at it, but knowing my father, I'd say he could hold his own. There wasn't a lot of things that he couldn't do well."

Brian nodded and started checking the clubs over. "These are really nice," he said, pulling one out and looking at it. I had no idea what kind of club it was. Golf was never one of my interests. My father and I hadn't shared many interests.

"They were the best you could get at the time. He always had the best."

"I can believe it," Brian said, moving off a little to take a practise swing.

I grinned at the happiness on his face and decided that I had found Brian's Christmas present. I knew that he must already have his own clubs, judging from his enthusiasm over my father's, but I also knew that he would understand and appreciate the sentiment behind the gift. When you could afford to have just about whatever your heart desired, sentiment became even more important.

I moved on down the row, checking under the tarps, until I came across my father's prized possession. Reaching out, I ran my hand down the polished front of it, making long smudges as I went and laughing a little at the sight.

"What are you doing?" Brian asked from behind me, making me jump. "And what's that thing?"

I smiled. "It's like a cross between a bar and a stereo, sort of," I said, realising that I had never needed to explain what it was.

I reached out and slid the glass door open, showing Brian where the bottles sat, and the small shelves at the back for shot glasses were. "You had to keep the larger glasses somewhere else," I commented, sliding it closed again. I turned a bit and slid open the wood panel door that now had my fingerprints on it. Inside, we found a turntable and an AM/FM radio. The speaker ran all the way across the bottom of the unit.

"Looks old," Brian commented, getting a nod from me. "Now why were you smudging it up like that?"

I laughed and stood back up, hearing my knees pop. "This was my father's most prized possession. I don't know why, and I don't know where it came from. Couldn't even tell you how old it is, as a matter of fact. But I can tell you that he was very proud of this thing, and I wasn't allowed to so much as breathe on it. It was totally off-limits.

"I remember one time I bumped into it while they were out. It was one of the first things that he noticed when he got home. Aparently, my arm ruined the shine."

"You're kidding."

"I swear," I said, giving him the scout salute. "The very first thing he said to me that night was 'did you touch this?' Then I got a big lecture on how I couldn't keep anything nice."

Brian frowned. "Because you bumped the stereo?"

"In my house, that was like spitting on your grandmother. This thing was like some sort of sacred artifact to him. I never thought to ask him why, though."

"So the smudges?"

"To remind me that it's mine now," I laughed. "Though I'm already feeling guilty about doing it. Like he's hiding just out of sight, getting ready to cuff me in the back of the head for it."

Brian grinned and pulled his hand up into his sleeve, rubbing the smudges away for me. I didn't have the heart to tell him that if my father had seen him doing that, he would have been in more trouble than I was for putting them there in the first place. There was a cloth in a little baggie inside that was the only thing to be used for such things.

Instead of telling him this, I smiled and thanked him, then pulled the cover back over it. I knew that if I had to look at it much longer, I would have to break down and get out that little cloth. It was one of those things that was bred into my nature.

"Check it out!" Nick said, catching our attention. I smiled at Brian and followed him to where Nick was standing. Erron joined us just as I realised what it was that he had found. I groaned and tried to grab the box away from him.

"Nate's report cards!" Nick laughed as he moved back a step to avoid my arms. Once Brian found out what it was I was trying to get at, he grabbed me and held me back.

Erron lifted the stack out of the box and started leafing through them. "A+, A, A+, A+, A..." he stopped talking and just flipped through them. "Did you ever screw up?" he asked, looking at me.

I stopped struggling against Brian and smiled. "Nope, practically perfect in every way," I answered.

"A, A+, A..." Erron continued, ignoring me. "D!" he shouted suddenly, the sound echoing back to us from the bare walls. "Nate got a D!" I laughed as Nick and Brian both turned to look at me. "Nate got a D in grade eight English!" Erron announced, turning the card around so that we could see it.

"English?" Brian asked me, arching his eyebrows.

I shrugged. "It was an experiment. I wanted to see what my father would do."

"You got a D on purpose?" Nick asked.

"Pretty much," I said, nodding. "I wanted to see if they noticed or not."

"Did they?"

"I was grounded for two weeks," I laughed, making him smile.

"I'd say your expermient blew up on you, then," Brian grinned.

"I wouldn't say that."

"Why?"

"Because it was originally a month grounding. My father lessened it because 'it wasn't one of the important ones like math and science.'" I said, imitating my father so well that it actually frightened me a little. Reaching out, I grabbed the box from Nick and the stack from Erron and put them back together. I handed it to Brian to hold, telling him that I wanted to take it with us.

"Now," I said. "The photo albums should be right around here, if those were. They were always kept together. Let's find them and get out of here before any other ghosts come around and bite me on the ass."

"Ghosts or Brian," I heard Erron mutter before turning to the pile of boxes in front of us. Nick started to giggle until I kicked him in the shin.

It took about five minutes to find the box that we were looking for. I dragged it out into the little aisle between groups and flipped it open, making sure that it was indeed what we were looking for. Finding the albums that I so clearly remembered, each bound in brown leather, I closed it again.

"Okay, this is it. We can come back and play if you want when we get back next week, depending on how much time we've got." Looking around to find them all nodding, I motioned for Nick to grab one side of the box. It was just big and heavy enough to be too awkward for one. He grabbed it and together we walked back to the door, which was still slightly ajar.

I toed it open and we managed to load the box into the back of the Jeep without difficulty. Brian and Erron emerged behind us, and I noticed that Brian had stopped to get the portrait as well.

"I figured that, just in case we don't have time to come back, you'd at least have this," he said, handing it to me, along with the box of report cards.

"Thank you," I said, giving him a kiss. "Now let's get out of this city."

Erron offered to drive, and Nick called shotgun this time. Seeing as how that meant that Brian and I were going to be together in the back seat, I didn't see much reason to argue with either one of them. I just passed the keys to Erron and climbed in, Brian at my heels.

PART 102

The trip didn't seem like it was very long at all, though Erron and Nick both assured me that it took a good three hours to reach the cabin. I suppose that Brian might have distracted me a little, though. We tried to pass it off as our kind-hearted and selfless effort to let Nick and Erron get to know each other without our interference, but I don't think that they bought it.

Since I was the only one who had been there, I did occasionally have to come up for air long enough to tell Erron which road to take. Once we actually got close, there were several of them, so I had to pay more attention. Brian, having absolutely no knowledge of our surroundings, didn't have that problem, which led to more distractions.

Finally, I had to ask him to stop, as much as it pained me to do so. He grinned at me and let his hand play with my hair while I tried to keep my eyes in front of us so that we wouldn't get lost.

"Right here, Erron," I said, pointing. "Turn right onto this road."

Erron obeyed, and soon we were on a small private road. Jeff and Cindy paid a local man to look after the cabin and the road for them, and it was obvious that he had been at work the last few days, making sure that the road was passable for us 'city folk'. Those who lived out here year-round could have driven through just about any conditions, but we were apparently being provided every advantage.

I smiled as I thought about this, wondering if there might not be the makings of a story here, if not a book. I reminded myself to keep an eye out for characters when we went into town to shop.

Town was about a ten minute drive away. The cabin was, basically, in the middle of nowhere. Cindy had warned me that we might see the caretaker, but even that wasn't likely. There was a very good chance that, aside from our trip to town, we wouldn't see another living soul the entire time we were there. I knew Brian and Nick were looking forward to that as much as anything else.

My mind was brought back to the task at hand as we pulled around a corner and the cabin came into view. Cabin really didn't begin to describe it. It was basically a house in the woods. Two full stories, with a garage on the back, it was certainly a lot more than most people thought of when they heard the word cabin.

I knew from the last time that I had been there that there was a large deck on the back of the house that we couldn't see from where we were, and that there was a hot tub in one corner of that deck. I didn't know whether or not the caretaker would have set that up or not, but I found myself hoping that he had.

From the deck, there was a pretty sharp drop down to a small lake. The lake, apparently, was purely for show. There were no fish in it, and the bottom was so silty that you'd sink out of sight if you tried to stand up. At least, that was what I had been told last time I had been there.

"If I had known that this is what Jeff meant when he said cabin, I would have come with you guys last time."

"Maybe that's why Jeff didn't make himself clearer," I laughed as Erron pulled around in front of the garage. When he stopped, I got out and dug in my pocket for the key that Jeff had given us. Once I unlocked the door, I reached inside and found the automatic door button and pressed it. I also found the remote for it, and grabbed it to put into the Jeep for our stay.

Erron pulled into the garage and shut down the engine. "All the luxuries of home," he mused, getting out and stretching.

"And then some," I agreed, using the remote to shut the door again and flicking on the lights. I handed the remote opener to Erron, who clipped it to the sunvisor inside, then popped the back door.

Brian and Nick got out and stretched as well, then we gathered up our things. Mine were going to take a couple of trips, since I had a huge box of photo albums as well. I opened the door into the cabin and stepped inside, kicking it open for the rest of the guys behind me.

The first thought to come to mind was that the place had obviously been aired out. There wasn't a trace of that smell that houses get when they've been closed up for a long time. I walked through the small entrance way - there was a larger one at the front door - and into the kitchen.

The kitchen led into the living room through a set of double doors, which was where our things got dropped as we collapsed into chairs.

"So the bedrooms are upstairs?" Brian asked, dropping into my lap with a grin.

"Can't you wait?" Nick teased with a laugh.

"Just wondering," Brian said innocently.

"Yes, bedrooms are upstairs. Bri and I call the master bedroom," I added quickly, seeing Erron get ready to do it. He sighed and nodded his agreement. "You guys can battle it out for the other two."

"When do we eat?" Nick asked. "I'm starving."

I looked from Erron to Brian and found them both nodding. "Have an apple," I suggested with a smile. "We won't have anything until we go shopping."

"Then why don't you and Brian go and do that, and we'll get unpacked," Erron suggested. "And then you can come back and make us dinner."

"Oh, well, that sounds fair enough," I laughed. "I tell you, sweetie, one of these days I'm going to teach you to cook."

"Don't count on it," Brian and Erron - my two sweeties - said together.

I laughed and pushed Brian off of my lap. "You feel like a grocery run?"

"Are you sure I won't be recognised?"

"I doubt it. You're in Garth Brooks country now, boy. I'm more popular than you are," I laughed.

"You wish," Nick grinned, grabbing his luggage. "How many body parts have you had to sign?"

Brian laughed and pulled up his shirt. "Mr. Healy? Would you sign my belly?" he asked in his best awestruck fan voice. I noticed Erron snickering and checking out Brian's belly.

"You guys are funny. Really you are," I smiled, pulling Brian's shirt back down and shoving him toward the door. "We'll be back in a bit. Try not to burn the place down. Erron? I'm talking to you."

"Yeah yeah," he said, heading up the stairs. "You start one little accidental fire, and they never let you hear the end of it," he grumbled over his shoulder at Nick, who was following with his suitcase.

Nick shot me a somewhat frightened look that made me laugh, then he disappeared around the corner.

"Let's go, stomach boy," I said, slapping Brian's ass to get him moving. "And I'm driving."

"I like it when you're forceful," Brian said with a wink.

"I like it when you like it," I returned, pushing him out the door.

The drive into town was uneventful. There wasn't much to look at for the most part until you were right in town. Even then, it was just a different sort of nothing much to look at. I pulled into the parking lot for the small grocery store and we headed inside.

The first thing I checked for was Erron's Eggos. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw them, and picked up two boxes. They seemed like the kind of thing that would be right up Nick's alley too.

Brian spent the first ten minutes in the store being shy and trying to look inconspicuous. Once it became clear that no one had a clue who he was, he opened up. It was quite the transformation. He went from shying away from people to stopping them in the aisles just to say hello.

That came to an abrupt halt when we happened to catch sight of a mother and her two kids pushing their cart ahead of us. They looked like they were tourists stocking up, and one of the kids, a girl, appeared to be wearing a Backstreet Boys t-shirt. I started to laugh as Brian turned and looked for a place to hide.

"Would you relax? You've got your hat on, and there's no way in hell that she's going to be expecting you to be here of all places. You could probably go up to her and tell her who you are and she wouldn't believe you."

"How about we not try that one out?" Brian smiled, keeping his eyes low until the woman had left our aisle.

"Okay, she's gone, you can stop staring at your shoes now," I laughed.

"Hey," he said, smacking me. "This isn't funny, you know. If people find out I'm around here, they'll be searching all over the place for me."

"Not if we just leave the cashier with directions to the love nest," I laughed, picking up a package of spaghetti from the shelf.

"Nate!"

"Relax," I said again. "She's gone, and she didn't see you. We'll make sure to shop really slow and we probably won't see her again. Now calm down or you'll draw a whole lot more attention to us than she would."

Brian didn't say anything else, but he didn't seem any calmer until we were back outside and in the Jeep. After what had happened in Memphis, I didn't blame him. It had been on my mind as soon as we spotted that girl and her mother in the store as well, but I was trying to focus on the fact that we were practically in the middle of nowhere, and the odds of being recognised by someone who could really do any damage were very slim.

We took a quick run through town, but there was nothing else that caught our attention, so we decided to head back. No one we had met had sparked any ideas for characters in my head, which kind of disappointed me.

Brian checked out Erron's CDs on the way back to the cabin, and settled on one by Tom Petty. By the time we were half way there, we were both smiling and singing along softly with Tom. Brian's hand had once again found it's way to my thigh, which gave me even more to smile about.

Pulling back into the garage, I noticed that Brian's smile had grown into a grin. As the door rolled down behind us and I shut the engine off, he just sat there looking like the cat that ate the canary.

"What?" I asked him finally.

"I got to hear you sing," he smirked, then opened the door and climbed out.

The realisation slowly came to me, and it dawned on me that I had been tricked. "You little bastard!" Brian laughed and ran for the door. "Hey! We've got food to carry in, you know!"

Nick came out to meet me with a smile on his face. "I don't know what he just did, but he's pretty happy with himself."

"Yeah, well, we'll just see how happy he is sleeping on the couch. Can you give me a hand with this stuff?"

"Sure," he agreed, taking a couple of armloads out of the backseat. We got inside and unloaded, then went back out to bring in the albums that had been left in the back. Once they were sitting in the living room, I turned to look for Brian.

"Where'd he go?"

"He's in your room, laughing to himself," Erron said with a grin as he came down the stairs. "I think he's unpacking."

"What the hell did he do?" Nick asked as he unpacked the grocery bags. "Must be something pretty good."

"Surprisingly, no," I laughed. "He managed to trick me into singing."

"So?" Erron asked. "I've heard you sing lots of times."

I shrugged. "Brian seems to have developed this need to hear me sing, and the more he wants to, the more self-conscious about it I am," I explained. "On the way home, he put on a CD, and we were both singing along. I didn't even think about it until he mentioned it."

"That's it?" Nick asked. "That's what he's so pleased about?"

"That's it," I said, nodding. "Don't ask me why he got such a kick out of it."

"You're dating a freak," Nick said, shaking his head and putting some stuff in the fridge. His eyes lit up when he came across the Eggos. "Chocolate chips!" he said excitedly, making me laugh. Erron came running when Nick held up the box. They both cheered when he held up the second box.

"You boys have fun," I told them both with a smile. "I'm going to go and see if I can't round up my boyfriend."

"Don't get distracted," Erron said, pointing at me. "You're cooking, and I'm hungry."

I gave him the finger as I climbed the stair, then smiled my way down the hall until I came to the room Brian and I were going to be in. "Hey, sexy," I said, leaning against the door frame.

"Hey yourself," Brian said, turning from the closet.

"You tricked me," I stated, walking into the room. I made sure to leave the door open so that there was less of a chance of us getting distracted.

"I did not. I just put on a CD and started singing. I didn't know you were going to join in. I don't know what you were so worried about anyway. You've got a nice voice."

"Please," I said, shrugging. "Compared to you I sound like a dying rabbit." He frowned, obviously not familiar with that particular sound. "Let's just say it's not pretty."

"I'm telling you, you're not that bad," he smiled, sitting down on the bed.

"You shouldn't feel uncomfortable singing just because I'm in a group."

I sat down beside him. "Brian, if I asked you to, would you write me a story?"

He looked surprised. "I don't know. I suppose if you really wanted me to, I'd give it a shot. But you're the author." And that was when he saw my point.

I nodded. "That's right, and I know that if you did write a story for me, you'd be nervous about showing it to me. Even though I think we both know you could manage to do it, and probably do a fairly good job of it, you wouldn't be keen on giving it to me to read, would you?"

Brian nodded. "Okay, I see what you're getting at, but this is different. You can sing. Pretty well, if not great. I can't write."

"I think you'd find you're wrong about that," I smiled. "You write songs, and they're just little stories. They're probably harder, actually. You have to say everything you want to in just a few words. I get chapters and chapters to yammer on and on." Brian reluctantly nodded his agreement that I had a point.

"So, I don't feel entirely comfortable singing in front of you. I'm sure it's bound to happen, like it did today, and maybe eventually I won't feel uptight about it at all. Right now, though, it's a little daunting to think of singing for my superstar boyfriend."

"Okay," he said, running his fingers over mine on the quilted bedspread. "I won't push you anymore. Well, maybe a little, but not much."

"And I won't ask you to finish the chapter I'm working on," I laughed, grabbing his fingers on their next pass.

"But I could do it!" he said excitedly. "I could just turn the whole thing into a huge sex scene!"

"Sweetie, those aren't nearly as easy to write as you would think," I grinned, getting up to help finish with the unpacking.

"Nate?"

"Yeah?"

"How do you know how hard it is to write a sex scene?"

I blushed and turned toward the closet, pretending to look for another hanger. "Hello? Are we forgetting the wonderfully flexible and imaginative hooker Jamie?" I asked.

I heard him snicker from behind me. "They weren't real sex scenes," he argued. "You just sort of alluded to stuff that she did. No details."

"You disappointed?" I asked with a grin.

"Eww. No," he laughed. "But I think there's a story there that I need to know," he said, coming up behind me and putting his hands on my waist.

"I'm not admitting anything," I laughed. "If there was a story there - and I'm not saying that there is - I wouldn't be telling you about it."

"I can be pretty persuasive," Brian argued, pulling me back against him and wrapping his arms around me. His hands settled on my belt, his thumbs slipping under the waistband of my pants.

"Not that persuasive," I grinned, elbowing him in the gut. "Besides, you don't have time to work your magic on me right now. We've got two hungry men downstairs."

"You've got a hungry man right here," Brian growled, biting my ear.

"Don't start something you can't finish."

"Oh, I can finish," he laughed, pressing himself against me again. "If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that."

"Fine," I said, pulling his hands away. I stepped away from him, threw the door shut and jumped on the bed, throwing my arms out to my sides. "Have your way with me, but you've only got three minutes." I lay there prone, watching him process.

"Three minutes isn't going to be enough," he said through his grin.

"I knew you weren't man enough," I said, raising myself up on my elbows. "All talk, no action. That's your problem."

"Is that right?" The grin got larger as he stepped to the foot of the bed.

"Yep. No action. Very disappointing."

"I hate to disappoint," he said, pulling off his shirt and throwing it to the floor.

"Tick tick," I smirked, pointing at my watch. "Time's a wasting."

"Did anyone ever tell you that you're really annoying when you're all smug like that?"

"I think Andrea might have mentioned it once or twice," I nodded.

"How much time do I have left?"

I glanced at my watch. I hadn't really been timing him, though, so it was an empty gesture. "Two minutes now."

Brian nodded, looking like he was considering it. Then he smiled and turned to the door. He threw it open and leaned out into the hall. "Nick!"

I heard the "What?" come up the staircase.

"We'll be down in fifteen minutes!" he yelled.

I heard both Erron and Nick laugh, then Nick's confirmation that they understood.

Brian was the one smirking when he turned back around and shut the door, leaning back against it. "That's better."

"You cheated," I told him.

"No, I improvised. Now hand me your watch."

I smiled as I took it off my wrist and passed it to him. "Cheater."

Brian set the alarm on the watch and put it on the dresser beside the closet. "You complaining?"

"I don't know. Depends on whether or not it was for a good cause." I eyed him up and down, taking in his naked upper body.

"Well, how good of a cause is your complete and total gratification?" he asked, pulling off his socks.

"Ah, me. I'm the best cause there is," I laughed, throwing my hands out again.

Brian threw his socks at me and then climbed up onto the bed, stopping to take mine off as well. "Nothing too involved, right?" he asked, running his hands as far up my pantlegs as he could, massaging my calves.

"No time," I agreed, smiling down at him as his hands came back to rest on top of my feet.

"Then why are you still dressed?" He moved himself further up the bed, his fingers moving to the buttons on my shirt.

"Um, my total and complete gratification does not involve undressing myself," I said haughtily. "That's your job."

"I thought this was my job," he laughed, undoing the last button and leaning in to plant a kiss in the center of my chest. He slid his hands from the bottom of my shirt to my stomach, running them gently down my sides and then repeating the movement as his lips made their way up to my neck.

"Well, that's your job too," I agreed with a moan. "It's just that you're so multi-talented. It's a shame to let it go to waste."

"Uh huh," he breathed against me, as he moved his hands under me and lifted me from the bed, pulling the shirt from my back. I threw my now-bare arms around his shoulders and brought him down with me as he set me back on the bed.

Brian's lips pressed to mine, his tongue darting into my mouth. He exhaled slightly, his breath mingling with mine as his hands kneaded the muscles in my back. I rubbed my feet back and forth against his, using my toes to pinch him.

"Ummmm," I moaned, my hands finally managing to get his belt unbuckled. I pulled it out of the loops with one jerk and sent it flying off the end of the bed, then started on the button. He quickly got the idea and pulled back up a little, taking his weight off of me and giving me better access.

He took the opportunity to relieve me of my belt as well, which joined his somewhere near the door. He waited until I had the button of his pants undone, and the zipper down, then pulled back some more, out of my reach.

"I said your total and complete gratification," he said softly, putting a hand to my chest when I started to rise in order to be able to reach him again. He then grabbed the pockets of my pants and slid them down off my hips without unbuttoning them. It was the simplest thing, really, but for some reason, I found it incredibly erotic. I raised my hips a bit so that he could finish removing them, then settled again.

"What's this?" he asked, grabbing me through my boxers and making me suck in a breath. He moved his hand back and forth slightly, watching my face as I reacted to him. "We should name him," he said suddenly with much enthusiasm.

Despite his still-moving hand, I had to laugh. "We're not naming him. I refuse to be one of those people."

"He's mine for the moment," Brian pointed out, squeezing him again to prove his point. "And I say we name him. How about George?"

"We're not naming him," I insisted with a smile. I tried to move away, but Brian just squeezed again, appearing quite pleased with his position of power.

"No, not George," he said, as though I hadn't spoken. "Maybe Timmy? No. Mr. Happy?" Brian started to laugh, then shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Spunky?"

I laughed until Brian finally put his other hand over my mouth. Then I resorted to shaking my head.

"No, you're right," Brian said, taking his hand away from my mouth carefully, ready to put it back if I showed any signs of laughing again. "How about Pokey? I like Pokey," he said definitively. "What do you think."

"I don't think you're going to name him anything."

"Pokey it is then," he grinned, moving back in for a kiss. He made sure to lay down more beside than on top of me, keeping his hand where it was, and beginning to move it slightly again.

I sighed and decided that he could name it anything he wanted, as long as he didn't stop what he was doing. He sat up a little, still leaning over me, and released me, his hands going to the waistband of my boxers. "See?" he said, lifting it and looking inside. "He looks like a Pokey."

I brayed laughter again until he kissed me to get me to be quiet. I wondered briefly what Nick and Erron thought we were doing up here, with me laughing so loudly, and then Brian swept just about every thought out of my head as he slowly started to grind himself against me.

"Well what do you know?" he whispered directly into my ear, biting quickly at the lobe. "They like each other." His lips moved to the spot behind my ear and started to pay particular attention to it as I writhed beneath him.

I slipped my legs around his, crossing them at the knees. "Oh god, Bri," I panted, lifting my hips off of the bed to press against him harder.

"Something you wanted?" he chuckled softly into my ear before kissing me again. I was considering biting his lower lip in answer when the thought was driven out of my head as his hands slipped inside my boxers and introduced themselves to Pokey personally.

Brian used his wrists to pull down the waistband of my boxers, then released me briefly to practically rip them off of me before returning to the task at hand, so to speak. He moved himself lower on the bed, sliding his body through my gripping legs.

"Hello," he said gently before quickly kissing the head. The only response he got to his salutation was a quiet moan from me. Pokey wasn't much of a conversationalist, apparently.

Not that Brian seemed to mind. He smiled up at me when he heard my reaction, then bent his attention back to his little companion. I closed my eyes again and leaned my head back, losing myself in the sensation. I felt Brian's hands release me at the same moment that he took me in his mouth, and he moved them to my stomach.

With the dual sensations, I knew that I wouldn't last long. I moaned much louder than I would have liked when I felt Brian's lips release me and his tongue started to quickly circle the head. I was afraid that the noise I was making would carry downstairs. One of his hands continued to gently rub my stomach as the other returned to where it had started, moving slowly in time with his mouth as he once again engulfed my member.

I completely lost track of time as Brian did his best to drive me over the edge. I tried to hold on as long as I could, knowing that if I could only last until the alarm went off I would win this little battle of wills. Then Brian started to swirl his tongue again, and I decided that if I had to lose, I could think of worse ways.

Hearing my breathing change, Brian must have realised I was close. Both his hand and his tongue started to move faster, and his other hand stopped rubbing my stomach, coming to a rest on my hip.

I tried to warn him anyway, but I couldn't manage to form the words. I arched my back as I came, taking a split second to enjoy the look of surprise on Brian's face before my eyes closed involunatrily, lost in the moment. Apparently he hadn't been as aware of the situation as I had thought. I collapsed back down on the bed, releasing the breath I hadn't known I had been holding, and felt his hand slip into mine.

Once my heart had slowed back down to something resembling a steady rhythm, I opened my eyes and looked down at Brian. He was looking back up at me with a definite glint in his eye. When he saw my gaze, he let Pokey go and smiled for me. "Hi," he said softly, his breathing almost as heavy as mine was.

"Hi," I said back. I pulled him back up the bed until he was lying half beside me and half on top of me. The alarm went off on my watch just as our lips met, and we both started to laugh. "Time flies when you're having fun," I grinned, getting a nod from him.

"Well? I told you. Total and complete gratification in fifteen minutes," Brian bragged, raising his head to smile down on me.

I shook my head briefly, getting a confused look from him. "Not quite total." I smiled as his face fell a bit.

"What was wrong?"

"Nothing. We're just not finished yet," I said, looking down the bed at the condition Brian was in.

"I'm fine," he said. "And we don't have time."

"Let me worry about that," I told him, spinning around and getting up off the bed. Walking over to the door, I opened it a little and stuck just my head out. "Nick!"

"What?" came his slightly exasperated reply.

"Ten more minutes!"

I heard him sigh and smiled. "Do you really need it?"

I laughed and peeked back at my boyfriend. His condition hadn't changed. "Brian does!" I yelled back, hearing him gasp behind me. I knew he was looking for something to throw at me.

"Eww!" Nick yelled back. "You have ten minutes." I could hear the smile in his voice.

"Thanks!" I yelled back, then closed the door and turned to face Brian again. He was indeed preparing to throw his balled-up socks at me. I pointed at him to get him to stop. "Now now," I told him. "We've got ten minutes. Do you really want to waste them on a sock fight?"

Brian laughed and dropped the ball to the floor. "You're about due for a spanking."

"Later," I laughed, standing at the foot of the bed. "This is all about you now."

"We really don't have to, you know. I'll be fine," he said, sitting up at the head of the bed. "Give me a few minutes, and I'll be fine," he corrected, looking down at himself.

"'To love is to place our happiness in the happiness of another,'" I quoted, making him smile. It was the same quote I had spoken the first night we had been together, back in LA. "I love you, now let me make you happy."

Brian grinned and opened his arms.

PART 103

I came downstairs tucking my shirt back in. Brian had insisted that I remain barefoot, though, and the floors were kind of cold. I walked quickly over the hardwood floor to where Erron and Nick were sitting and jumped into a chair.

"Um, sweetie?" Erron asked, getting my attention. As soon as he saw that he had it, he mimed wiping his mouth.

It took me a second to figure out what he was telling me, and then it clicked. Blushing immediately, I wiped at my lips, only to send both Erron and Nick into fits of laughter.

"Told you," Erron laughed at Nick, who just laughed harder and high-fived him, pointing at me. I was beginning to wonder if it was such a good thing for them to be getting along.

"You're both bitches," I grumbled, trying to will the blood out of my face.

"You fell for it," Nick grinned, his laughter trickling into the occasional chuckle.

"Fell for what?" Brian asked, coming around the bend in the stairs and smiling at me. He hadn't bothered to tuck in his shirt.

"Nothing," I assured him, then looked over to find Erron again wiping at his mouth, this time in Brian's direction. I was about to try to signal not to do anything when Brian grinned and licked his lips dramatically.

Nick and Erron laughed harder than they had at me, if that were possible. Brian just chuckled and sat down in the chair beside mine. "You didn't really fall for that, did you?"

I rolled my eyes and nodded. "Though I don't think that they enjoyed it quite as much as your little show."

"Simple pleasures," Brian grinned.

"Simple minds," I completed for him, reaching out and taking the remote off of the coffee table.

Brian laughed and pointed at me. "See? I told Jeff you'd be the first person watching it."

"Well those two aren't holding up their end of a conversation well," I laughed, indicating the nitwits on the couch. "And you've entertained me enough for a little while. TV's the only thing left."

Brian smiled and shrugged, urging me to start flipping.

I stopped at MTV, seeing that they were playing "Larger than Life". I grinned as Brian's image flashed across the screen, then I looked over at him sitting in the seat next to mine. That was a bit disconcerting.

"Change it please."

"No no," I insisted, holding the remote tightly. "You look pretty damn sexy in orange and yellow." The screen changed. "But I don't know what Nick was thinking. No offense, my dear, but you look horrible."

"Shut up!" Nick said, throwing a pillow at me.

I caught it and put it behind me to rest my head on. "Hey, I said no offense," I laughed. "But you've got to admit that you've looked better."

"He's got you there," Erron piped up, supporting me. "I much prefer the real you to the robot you."

Nick grinned and blushed a little, and I felt Brian's hand nudge me. I nodded without looking at him. Nick and Erron really did seem to be getting along well. Whether there were sparks there to be found remained to be seen, but at least it appeared that they were going to become friends.

Nick caught us looking and scowled comically, making us both laugh. Erron didn't seem to understand what was going on, but he didn't ask either. "So what are you making for dinner?" he asked instead. "I'm still hungry."

"Me too," I heard Brian mumble under his breath, and smiled.

"I don't know," I said, answering Erron. "What do you want?"

He shrugged. As ever, he was completely useless. I looked around the room at the other two, who both shrugged as well. "Fine. I'll decide. But you keep in mind," I added, pointing at Erron. "I know everything that you don't like."

At my so skillfully-veiled threat, Erron started to suddenly come up with ideas, but I assured him it was too late. Getting up, I handed Brian the remote and started for the kitchen.

"You want help?" he offered, setting the remote on the table.

"Yeah," I answered. "But Nicky's going to do it." I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him off the couch.

"Hey Nate? You want some help?" he offered as I dragged him toward the kitchen.

"How nice of you, Nick. Thanks," I laughed, pushing my way through the doors and into the kitchen.

It was a very nice kitchen. Quite a bit bigger than the one back at the apartment. Nick hopped up on the island while I searched through our newly-stocked cupboard and tried to decide on what to make.

"So?" I asked Nick, pulling out the potatoes and digging through a cabinet for a baking sheet.

"So what?" he asked, pointing it out from his vantage point. For his sharp eyes, I awarded him the honour of cleaning the potatoes.

"So Erron. You guys seem to be hitting it off pretty well, eh?"

Nick grinned and looked away for a second. "He's nice. Really nice."

"So you going to jump him?" I asked casually as I pulled four steaks out of the fridge and set them on the counter.

"Nate!"

"What? Simple question," I defended myself with a grin.

"Simple question, difficult answer," Nick mumbled.

I looked up at him. "Okay, serious now. You like him, don't you?"

"Yeah, Nate, I do. I don't know how much or anything yet, but I like him already."

"Good. I thought you two would get along pretty well."

"But that doesn't mean that anything's going to happen," he said, making sure I understood. "I like him and everything, but I don't know if I'm ready for that."

"Then don't worry about it," I told him, peeling a couple of onions. "If something happens, it happens. Just make sure that you're both sure where things stand before anything happens. I don't want either one of you getting your hopes up and blowing things out of proportion."

"Don't you mean you don't want me leading Erron on and then hurting him?" Nick asked, a little sadly.

"No. If that was what I meant, that would have been what I said. I just want to make sure that you both are on the same page. Erron's got a bit more experience in this than you do. Hell, he's got more experience in this than I do. But he's just as capable of hurting you if you're not both careful."

Nick smiled. "He is cute."

I rolled my eyes and grabbed a butcher knife.

"Whoa!" Nick laughed. "Okay, okay, he's not cute!"

I grinned and started slicing the onion into rings. "Trust me sweetie, if I were going to hurt you, I wouldn't need a knife."

"Yeah yeah, tough guy," he laughed. "So what do I do about Erron?"

"What do you want to do about Erron?"

"I asked you first."

With a sigh, I put down the knife and took out a couple of frying pans. "Look, I'm not going to lie to you Nick. Brian and I sort of invited Erron along hoping that the two of you might hit it off and have some fun." I put up my hands to stop him from speaking. "Not so that you could be a couple, but just have a little fun."

Nick arched his eyebrow, but remained silent.

"Now, I'm not telling you to march in there and tell him that you want to rip his clothes off of him. But if you want to give it a try and see where it goes, or even just fool around for a few days and have some fun, go for it. Just make sure that Erron knows what's going on first. You're right. I don't want him getting hurt. But I think you'll find that he'll be a willing participant if you explain the situation to him."

Nick considered that for a minute and then nodded. "Okay, I'll think about it."

We were quiet for a few minutes as I got everything started cooking. Knowing that Erron loathed corn, I made sure to pick it as our vegetable for the evening. Once things were well underway, I leaned against the counter and looked at Nick.

"So? You going to jump him?"

"Nate!" he said again, then joined in the laughter. "No, I'm not going to jump him," he said when he could continue. "Regardless of whatever else happens, that's not going to happen this week. Trust me on that."

"Cool," I said, nodding. "Just don't expect Brian and I to show the same willpower," I grinned.

"Don't want to think about that," he said, smiling. "Just keep it behind closed doors."

"Spoiled sport," I groused. "I guess that kills our plans for the big four-way orgy later tonight."

"Ugh."

"Save the grunting for Erron, big boy," I laughed, checking the food.

"Almost done?" Nick asked. We had been sitting together at the small kitchen table for over half an hour, talking about Brian, Erron, AJ, Kevin, Howie, and just about everyone else that came to mind. Nick was always willing to just sit and talk, and I was glad to find that he was becoming much more secure with himself. That had become clear when we started talking about the possibilities involving Erron.

"Yeah, not too much longer," I told him. "Why don't you go and tell the sisters in there to set the table for us?"

Nick grinned and stood up. "Thanks Nate," he said before slipping through the doors and back out into the living room.

"Welcome," I called after him, smiling.

Dinner went over well. Once Erron got over the fact that we were having corn, that is. I had made sure to make only four steaks and four baked potatoes, which meant that any extra room he had would have to be filled with corn. He complained about it until Nick finally offered him half of his potato just to shut him up.

Aside from the motivation, it was a pretty sweet little moment that they shared. I got another nudge from Brian, and he got another smiling nod from me.

"So what do we want to do tonight?" I stood up and started to pick up my plate to take it into the kitchen.

Brian stood and took it from me, then pushed me back into the chair. "You and Nick can go and sit down for a few minutes, and Erron and I will clean up."

"We will?" Erron asked with a grin.

"I didn't really do anything to help Nate much," Nick said, also standing. "I'll give you guys a hand and we'll be done faster."

"Whatever," Brian agreed. "But you go and sit down," he nodded toward the living room

I nodded and stood up again, leaning over to kiss Brian briefly. "You sure you don't want some help?"

"Go and sit down."

"I'm going, I'm going," I smiled, pushing my chair back in and heading up the couple of small stairs to the living room.

I took a minute to look around me, trying to decide where I wanted to sit. There was a small reading nook in one corner, between the doors to the kitchen and the doors to the deck. The far corner, on the other side of the patio doors, had a loose collection of furniture gathered in front of the large fireplace, which looked inviting as well. Opposite the doors to the deck was the TV and the chairs set in front of it that we had been sitting in earlier. I opted for the fireplace, even though there wasn't a fire set in it yet.

On the way to the couch there, I gathered a few of the photo albums from the box to look through. Looking at the cover of the first one as I sat down on the couch, I smiled. Each album was bound in brown leather, and each had a label on the front. Each label had an embossed letter 'H' on it, as well as a number written in my mother's careful script.

I knew that somewhere in that box there was a book that looked like the other albums, but was actually a notebook. In it, my mother had kept track of the album numbers, and what pictures each contained. An avid photographer, she had taken these albums very seriously.

I curled up with my feet under me and opened the cover on the first one I had picked up - number seven. My smile returned as I looked at the photos on the first page. They were of my parent's first vacation after their honeymoon. They had saved up for three years to be able to afford to go to Scotland and visit relatives of my father, if I recalled correctly.

Nana and Papa would have offered to pay for it, and could certainly afford to do so, but Mother wouldn't have allowed it. She had come from money, but my father hadn't, and she would have felt like she was rubbing his nose in it. Instead, they had both worked, and saved every penny that they could.

I wondered for a moment who had been taking the pictures, and then remembered that Uncle Graham and Aunt Karen had gone on that vacation with them. Turning the page, I came across a picture of them with my father, pointing to some sort of statue as though it were important.

I sighed. While it was interesting to see the way my parents had been then, and the scenery was breathtaking, none of the pictures jumped out at me. None of them seemed true, exactly. These weren't the parents that I had known. I was still... I sat up quickly, glancing at the date my mother had scrawled below the pictures.

I was still nine months away. Assuming that my mother had carried me for nine months, it was completely possible that I had been concieved on that trip. Foolishly, I started to see a certain glow about my mother in each of the remaining pictures. The last photo in the album was of my father hugging her from behind as they looked off of the top of a hill and out on the rolling green landscape in front of them. It was an incredible picture, and I couldn't help but wonder if he had been hugging me as well, without knowing it.

I stared at that photo for a few minutes, as though mesmerised. I hoped that my aunt had taken it, because I didn't want to be taking this much enjoyment out of anything Graham had done. Thinking about him, probably standing just out of the picture, sort of ruined it for me and I finally closed the album, setting it aside.

The next one was album twelve, though the numbers were useless to me without going searching for the notebook. When I opened the front cover, I almost closed it again and moved on to another one. This was the album that she had kept my school photos in. I was about to move on when my eye caught on the very first picture.

I was standing outside of my public school. It was my very first day of school, according to the writing beneath the photo. I had on a hideously ugly - though undoubtedly fashionable at the time - powder blue suit, and my mother was standing beside me, holding my hand. Her long dark hair was hanging loosely over her shoulders, and she looked so proud. It was the kind of expression that I had yearned to put on her face in the last few years of her life, and hadn't been able to succeed.

Holding my little black bookbag, I looked proud as well. I was finally a big boy, on my own. I wanted to reach into the photo, grab myself by the shoulders and warn me about what was going to happen. What being a big boy on your own really meant. Looking at the expectation, the hope on my own face brought a tear to my eye. Knowing that that hope would be entirely gone a decade later was a sobering thought to say the least.

There was a larger picture below that one. One of my entire Kindergarten class. To occupy my mind and get it onto a different track, I tried to name each of the kids in the photo. I got about six of them, out of a class of twenty or so. I had spent a year of my life with these people, many of them more than that, and that was the extent of my recollection of them.

"Sorry," I told them with a slight smile, thumbing the next page before flipping it. "You should have been more interesting, I guess."

There were three photos on the next page, and for the next several after that. Each page seemed to be dedicated to a different grade. Generally two different poses from my school photos, and then a larger one beneath them with the whole class. Each year, I tried to name my classmates. I got better as the years progressed, but I was still surprised by how many of them I had forgotten.

It was interesting and frightening at the same time, looking through those pages. Interesting in that I got to see myself develop through the years. I had definitely taken after my mother, but as each grade passed, I could see more and more of my father in me as well. The frightening part was that I could see myself becoming more withdrawn as well. Maybe it was all in my mind, but I could swear that each time I flipped a page, I found a me that looked more disconnected and introverted.

I was thinking about this rather than the grades as I turned another page and unexpectedly came across the photos for my grade nine year.

I gasped as I saw them, and felt the tears come back. Before long, I had a wet track down both cheeks and I could hear myself whimpering softly, though couldn't seem to get myself to stop it.

"Nate?" Erron was suddenly sitting beside me, his hand on my arm. I had the album closed on my index finger, but I was staring straight ahead and couldn't manage to look at him.

"Nate?" he said again, shaking me slightly. I could hear the fear in his voice, but I was unable to respond to it. If I could have responded, I don't know whether I could have reassured him anyway. "Brian!" Erron yelled, pulling me against him and holding me. Until he did that, I hadn't been aware that I had been rocking back and forth slightly.

It seemed to take Brian less than a second before he was crouching in front of me, his hand on my knee. "Nate? What is it?" he asked gently. I was still making that strange whimpering sound, though. It seemed like the only sound I could make.

"Nate, sweetie," Brian tried again. Erron released me and stood up again, allowing Brian to sit beside me and pull me to him. He stopped talking and put his arms around me, lightly rubbing my back. He reached out and tried to take the album from my hand, but I jerked my hand away, clutching it to me instead.

"Nate," he said more forcefully, trying to get through to me. He took my head in his hands and physically forced me to look at him. "What is it? What's wrong?"

But that was just it. Nothing was wrong. Things weren't the way I would have thought they would be, but they weren't wrong. And yet everything was wrong. I didn't know how to explain it any better than that, and I still don't. He stared into my eyes for what seemed like days before I finally managed to get my tongue to work.

"She kept them," I whispered hoarsely, looking at him but still not really seeing him.

"I'm sorry, sweetie. I don't understand."

"She kept them," I repeated, managing to get a little bit more force behind the words. Not that hearing me would help his understanding much, but it was the only thing I could get out. "Brian, she kept them."

"Who kept what, Nate?" he asked, his thumbs wiping away the tears that refused to stop falling. His gaze flickered briefly from my eyes to the album that I was still holding against my chest. Dropping his hands from my face, he reached out tentatively and took hold of the book, inserting his finger beside mine.

"Can I see it? I just want to take a look, okay?" he asked, gently pulling the album out of my hands. I let it go and blinked for what felt like the first time in ages.

"She kept them, Brian," I said again, seeing him open the album to the page I had been holding. "See?" I asked, pointing at the two pictures there.

"I see them," he said gently, looking at them. Both were of me, in different poses. My mother had always ordered two poses of me from the proofs that they sent home with us. Both pictures had been torn into pieces, and had been put back together before being put into the album.

"They shouldn't be there," I said, my voice gaining strength. The colour seemed to be coming back into the world as well. I blinked again and looked at Brian, then at Erron. "Those pictures shouldn't be in there."

"Why not, Nate?" Erron asked. He was crouching in front of me where Brian had been a few minutes ago. Nick was sitting on the arm of the chair behind him, watching me closely.

"Nate?"

I turned my head back to look at Brian.

"Who ripped these up?"

I swallowed a lump in my throat that felt like it was vaguely the size of Nunavut. "I did."

"Why?" Nick asked, then blushed when I turned to look at him, as though ashamed of having spoken.

"They're his grade nine photos," Brian said, as though that explained everything. I suppose it did, really. Though that didn't stop me from trying to elaborate.

"I was bringing them home," I told them, fixing my gaze back on the pictures that were where they should never have been. "That last day, you know. I was bringing them home when they... when they..."

"We remember," Brian said softly, putting his hand on my arm to stop me.

I took a moment to gather my thoughts. "They were in my jacket pocket when I got home. I found them when I went to put it away."

"And you tore them up," Erron concluded.

I nodded again. "There were a lot of them. She always ordered a lot. Nana had to have one, and she always sent them out west too. And she kept two for the album, and one large one to go on the wall, and copies for each of their wallets, and for their desks, and..." Brian's hand settled on my arm again and I stopped to gather myself again.

"I tore them up," I said simply. Looking at them, I found that they had relaxed noticibly. Relieved that I was talking in full sentences again, I suppose. "I took them back to my room, and I tore each one of them up and threw them in the garbage can. They shouldn't be there," I said again, pointing at the album.

"She must have found them later, when you were in the hospital," Nick said with a slight frown. "Why are you so surprised?"

"Nick," Brian said, "that was when they pulled away from each other."

"She must have gone through every scrap to find the pieces that fit together," I said. "That's why I'm so surprised. I didn't think, after what I did and what came after, that she would have bothered to even think about it. I can't believe she kept them after all." I was coming around quickly now, which seemed to set them at ease a little more.

"She was your mother," Erron said, not understanding.

"You didn't know her," I told him. "This is completely out of character for her. Especially after what I did. She never ordered school photos again. I used to find the order forms crumpled up in the garbage. The rest of that book is blank, Erron. The last photos she kept of me are the ones that I ripped up that day."

"No it's not."

"What?"

Brian looked at me. "The rest of the book isn't empty, Nate." He handed it back to me. "Look."

Turning the page, I was surprised to find more photos of me. I flipped quickly through the remaining pages in the album, and each was covered in pictures of me. All of them looked to be from before I hit puberty, and they were all of me laughing. My mother had filled the rest of my album with pictures of me when I was happy, as though they could somehow undo the damage that I had done to the ones preceeding them.

"I can't believe this," I whispered, going back and looking through them again. I remembered some of them, but others looked like she had just snapped them without my knowing that she was watching. I felt a smile come to my lips as I found one of me sitting on my father's lap. It was my birthday, according to the hat I was wearing, and it looked to be about my sixth or seventh. Just like the portrait, it had captured us when we were all at our happiest.

"She missed me," I said softly, talking to myself more so than to anyone else. "She missed me."

"Just like you missed her," Brian said, hugging me to him again. "You didn't always show it either, but you missed her."

I let myself go and cried on his shoulder, holding him to me tightly. I had gone looking for an image of my mother to give to Brian. Just something so that he would know what she looked like; where I came from. Instead, I had found a more substantial picture of her than I had been carrying with me for the last six years. I had discovered a depth to her that I hadn't known since I was a child.

To Be Continued...

There you go! :) I told you they'd get to the cabin this time. :) Sorry for the slight delay in posting, all. What can I say? I'm a slacker. :P

Thanks for reading :)

~D~