All the characters and events in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, either living or dead, is entirely unintentional.
The story is copyrighted and may not be reproduced in any way without the express permission of the author who can be contacted at:
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PJ
D'n'M Part 7.
From Chapter 5:
"Please, D. On my life. I swear to you." Milo was desperate, and sounded it. "You are everything to me." He could barely get the words out of his mouth. "You are the reason I breathe." He swallowed hard. "Every day you make me want to be the best person I can be. I know that sounds cheesy and worse than a bad RomCom, but it's true. I would rather hurt myself than ever do anything to hurt you. Please, you've got to believe me." Milo sobbed.
"Well, I don't!" Dan's voice was as unforgiving and as rigid as his back. "I don't believe that you didn't have sex with Nico in a flashy hotel room in Buenos Aires."
Milo slumped. He knew it was over. "I didn't." He paused to draw one more breath into his lungs. "I didn't," his voice trailing away. And again. "I didn't."
"He's right, he didn't!" The new voice came from the open door.
Chapter 6:
"I tried my best to make him fuck me, but he wouldn't."
The words landed like a rock in a pond.
A few seconds of confused silence followed, in which the sound of a dropped pin would have thundered around the room. Then the fall-out began to spread out in unstoppable waves. First there was a sudden outbreak of movement and noise. Milo's head snapped up as he rose from his knees while Dan pushed himself, one-handed, from where he'd been sitting on the couch. Neither could quite believe what they were seeing and the reality of hearing Nico speak had them both, temporarily, speechless themselves. Separately they each began to move forwards, at the same time noticing Gerry standing close behind the boy. Almost immediately Helen and Roger appeared, making the space suddenly very crowded. Equally suddenly, the brief silence was broken by several voices all speaking at once and all trying to make themselves heard above the others.
"Nico! Did you really just ... ?"
"He didn't?"
"Wonders will never ... "
"Go easy on the boy."
"Finally!"
It was Gerry who, eventually, managed to get a grip on the situation. He did it by pulling Nico towards him and, holding him close, pushing past everyone else and marching into the sitting room. He went and stood in front of the hearth, facing into the room and with a protective arm still held firmly around Nico's shoulders and chest. The jumble of emotions reflected in the boy's eyes wasn't easy to read, but worry was definitely there, along with nervousness and insecurity. Helen moved forward, clearly intending to wrap him in a massive hug but Gerry held up a restraining hand as he spoke.
"Let's all calm down and give Nico some space, eh? He knows you've all got a shed-load of questions that you want answering but, right now, we need to take things slow and steady. This isn't easy for him and having you all crowding in won't make it any easier." He looked down. "That's right, eh son?"
Nico nodded.
Earlier, after they'd got up from the grass and walked back together into the house, Gerry sat Nico down at the kitchen table and just looked at him. Neither of them spoke for two, maybe, three minutes. But it wasn't an awkward or uncomfortable silence, more like a necessary moment of quiet, giving each of them an opportunity to get his thoughts into some semblance of coherent order.
Eventually Gerry decided to risk asking the question which had been banging at the inside of his brain ever since he'd first heard the news of Kate's death.
"Kate, your mum, how was she at the end? You know, when she ... ?"
"Died?" There was no use of a comfortable euphemism to soften the blow.
Gerry nodded.
"Pretty much out of it really. All the shit she'd been taking, you know? Her body wasn't really what you'd call functioning normally."
Gerry nodded again. He would dearly like to have known more about the whole drugs thing but knew that this was not the time to ask.
"But I wasn't there right at the end, in the hospital. They wouldn't let me go with her when she was wheeled away. I keep thinking that she shouldn't have died all alone. She would have been frightened. I should have been with her. I feel really bad about that." Nico's voice was unsteady and Gerry could see the tears forming in the corners of his eyes, which were deep, deep pools of sadness. He stretched a hand across the table and placed it on top of the boy's.
"You shouldn't feel that. It wasn't your fault. It's simply the way hospitals work, what with you being just a kid." He was trying to be as reassuring as he could, all the while thinking that the boy had been forced to cope with one hell of a shitty situation. He couldn't help but think that much of that was down to Kate. "You must have been really scared."
It was Nico's turn to nod.
Gerry decided to risk probing a little deeper. "So, things were really bad for the two of you, in the place you'd been living?"
"Villa 31?" Nico noticed Gerry nodding in agreement. "Yeah, it was the worst, just about as low as you could get without actually being on the streets. But we got by," he added, defensively.
"Mostly down to you, eh? It doesn't sound as if Kate was much of a mum at the end."
As soon as those words were out of Gerry's mouth Nico pulled back his hands and stood up and looked directly at him. "She did her best." His words were clipped and aggressively defensive. "We both did. We helped each other out. Like I said, we got by." Everything about his words and the way he was holding himself made it clear that Gerry's criticism of his mum had instinctively triggered Nico into `fight or flight' mode, with an emphasis on the fight option.
"I'm not criticising her, son. Or you." Gerry knew he needed to de-escalate the situation as quickly as possible. "Just the opposite. You have no idea just how proud of you I am and how much I admire you for the way you kept everything together for so long, for you and for your mum."
Slightly reassured by Gerry's words, Nico relaxed his body a little but his mind was still on high alert. Once again it seemed to him that his grandpa knew a surprising amount about how things had been for him and his mum back in Buenos Aires. And, once again, he couldn't make any sense of it. Even if Gerry had been in touch with the Argentine Social Services, Nico knew that there was a lot about his life in BA that the Senoras Lopez and Gomez had no clue about. He needed to know what was going on and how everyone seemed to know so much about him and his life. And he wasn't prepared to wait any longer.
"Who told you?!"
Gerry wasn't expecting such a direct and out-of-the-blue question. "Told me what?" He tried to keep the tone of his voice as neutral as possible but he had a strong hunch what it was that Nico wanted to know.
"About me. Us. Me and my mum. How do you know so much about our lives before ... ?"
"Before your mum passed and you came to live here, with Uncle Milo and Dan?"
"Yeah. That."
Gerry let out a breath. "Fair enough. You deserve to know the truth. If you sit back down, I'll do my best to answer all your questions." He smiled, he hoped encouragingly. "You've probably got a few."
"Just that one. About you knowing what our lives were like - personal stuff that I've never told anyone."
Gerry paused to get his thoughts in order and then began. He explained about the letter. He said that Kate had written to Milo with all the sad and sorry details about how she and Nico had lived. How she'd suspected that she hadn't long to live and had wanted Nico (he didn't say that she'd begged) to come home to live with her little brother. How she'd acknowledged that blame wasn't a one-way street and that she was sorry for the way her teenage self had behaved all those years ago. Gerry didn't attempt to explain or elaborate. He simply and calmly re-told the facts that Kate had set out in the letter. Yes, he may have smoothed off some of the rougher edges but he justified that by telling himself that Nico didn't need the warts-and-all version. At least, not yet. Not today, although he mentally acknowledged that such a day would surely come. Yes, that he'd need to read the letter for himself sometime in the future when things were less raw.
Throughout this explanation, Nico sat with his attention fixed 100% on Gerry. He didn't speak, he barely moved. The only sign that his grandpa's words were having any impact was the gradual sagging of his shoulders and, as the minutes passed, the silent flow of tears down his face and onto his hands and the table on which they rested.
Gerry stopped when he felt that there was nothing more that could usefully be said. He was expecting to be bombarded with questions, but none came. Nico stayed silent but his gaze was still fixed on Gerry.
Eventually (and it seemed like an age), "So, you know it all, every disgusting and fucked-up detail?" Gerry simply nodded. The silence returned. Then, with a shocking and totally unexpected vehemence, Nico was on his feet.
"So you know everything. You know that I'm a total fuck-up. That I'm just like the whores at Los Suenos."
Gerry, too, was on his feet, reaching out to take the boy into his arms.
"No, don't touch me. You know what I am. I'm just dirt."
"Don't you say that. Don't ever say that. You're a wonderful, wonderful boy who's been forced to see and do stuff that no fourteen-year-old should ever have to experience." Gerry took a deep breath. "And I love you more than I thought was humanly possible." He went to move forwards but Nico immediately backed away.
"No! You're lying. I'm just a pile of crap. You must hate me!" And with that. all of Nico's remaining strength seem to flood out of him and he slumped forwards, only prevented from falling to the floor by the chair he'd been sitting on until a few minutes before.
At first Gerry stood as if rooted to the spot, shocked into stillness by the sudden turn of events. Then he was on the move again, bundling Nico into his arms and carrying him through to the sitting room where he laid the boy on the sofa, supporting his head with a large cushion. On balance, he decided, he wouldn't be telling his heart doctor about any of the day's exertions. Or Milo, for that matter. Then he sat himself down, careful not to disturb Nico as he gently stroked the boy's head.
And he began to talk, softly, almost to himself, unsure whether Nico was listening, or even if he was awake enough to hear. He talked about Kate as a young girl and her love of stuffed animals and everything pink. He described his pride in her glowing school reports and the way she'd tip her head to one side and squint upwards whenever she asked for something she knew she shouldn't really have. but safe in the knowledge that her besotted dad would give it to her anyway (despite whatever Grace might say). He talked about how, when they were young kids, Kate and Milo had ridden their bikes round the local neighbourhood or set off for the park loaded up with picnics and fishing nets. He explained how the breakdown of his relationship with Grace had increasingly affected both children and how, at the time, he'd felt powerless to do anything about it but how, later, he'd stayed away out of an overwhelming sense of guilt and uselessness. Then, very quietly, he told of how he'd been shaken down to his core when he'd found out about Kate's betrayal of Milo, and of Grace's irrational and hate-filled response to finding out that he was gay. Finally, he explained how Kate had kept in occasional touch over the years -- usually when she needed money -- but that she'd never even hinted at Nico's existence and of how the discovery that there'd been an unknown child for all those years had filled a gaping void in his heart that he hadn't even known was there. So, yes, he needed Nico to know that he did love him, loved him with every atom in his body and how his beautiful grandson was as far from being dirty or a pile of crap as it was possible to be.
Eventually Gerry became aware that his left hand, the one that hadn't been stroking Nico's head for the past few minutes, was now being held, tentatively at first, but then more firmly. He stopped stroking and looked down. Nico was looking up with eyes that were now not so much pools of sadness as wells of hope. "What happens next?" he asked in a small voice.
"We could eat."
Nico shook his head. "Nah. Too nervous to eat."
"Nervous? Why?"
"`Cause I need to say sorry to everyone and I don't know if I've got the balls."
"What?!" Gerry pulled back and sat up straight on the edge of the sofa. "You're joking me. Believe me, son, to survive everything you've been through in your short life you must have the cajones of an elephant!"
Nico smiled. "Then I must take after my other grandpa in the balls department, whoever he was!" His smile turned into a very cheeky grin.
"Why you little sh..!" Gerry leapt to his feet, pretending to be outraged by Nico's teasing. "For that, maybe I'll send you back to Senora Lopez." The look on Nico's face immediately told Gerry that he'd gone too far. He reached forward and wrapped the boy in his arms.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. Me and my stupid mouth. Nico, listen to me. I'd die if I were to lose you now." He held him at arms' length. "Do you hear me? I'd die!" He pulled Nico into a hug once more.
"I believe you. But please let me go, grandpa. I can hardly breathe."
Gerry relaxed his grip and aimed a nervous smile in Nico's direction. The smile was returned. Gerry's heart rose again.
"Well, even if you're not hungry, I could certainly eat, and I bet you could if you tried. How about a sandwich?" Nico nodded. "Ham and cheese?" He nodded again. "Okay. Then, we'll go over to Helen and Roger's place and make a start at the whole `saying sorry' thing." Nico's face fell once again.
"Do they know everything about me, too?"
Gerry smiled. "They do, and I don't think saying what you have to say will be anything like as hard as you imagine. Everyone just wants you to be settled and happy. And I'll be there to back you up. You won't be on your own."
"Do you think they'll forgive me? I've been nothing but deliberately horrible to all you `Nico Minders'."
Gerry looked surprised that Nico seemed to know the nickname they'd given themselves. "You know about that, huh?" Nico nodded. "Well, we `Minders' are a strong bunch and we completely understand how strange and difficult everything has been for you. Like I say, we just want you to be happy and to settle down with Milo and Dan so you can start putting your life back together. Okay?"
"I guess."
"Right then, let's get those sandwiches made."
Once everyone had settled down - Gerry and Nico still standing by the fireplace and all the others seated on the two big sofas, with Dan and Milo very obviously as far apart as it was possible for them to be -- a strange and uncomfortable silence fell on the room, with all attention focused on the slight figure of the boy. It was Roger who broke it.
"You're right, Gerry, I can't speak for anyone else but I've certainly got a lot of questions to ask Nico here ... "
Nico automatically tensed, even though the tone of Roger's voice was calm and more or less neutral. Helen also looked momentarily alarmed, clearly anxious about what he might be about to ask. The room seemed to hold its breath.
" ... but the most important one is, Nico, are you okay?"
There was an audible sigh that went around the whole group as the breath was released. Roger continued, "I mean, you look and sound like a different boy from the one we last saw yesterday. Has Gerry here put some sort of spell on you?" He was smiling.
Nico hesitated, looked at Gerry, who nodded, and then began in a small voice, "Look, I know you all know that I'm not dumb, I mean that I can actually speak. And I know that I've been really shitty to you all, right back to that first time, you know, when you spoke to me on the video call." His voice strengthened. "And I'm sorry. Really, I am."
"You don't need to apologise," said Helen. "We understand."
"I do need to apologise." Nico paused. "And you don't understand. None of you does. Not even grandpa understands, and we've been doing a whole load of talking about stuff."
Milo's child psychotherapist's eyes could see the strain Nico was under. "Nico, you don't have to say anything you don't want to. Nothing that makes you feel bad or uncomfortable. We're all just so relieved to hear you speak to us."
Everyone nodded.
"No. I do need to say sorry, to you all, and I need to try to explain to you why I've been such a mean and ungrateful little shit." He shrugged off Gerry's arm which had continued to hold him close and moved across to where Milo was sitting. "Especially to you, ... Uncle Milo."
Uncle Milo. On hearing those two words Milo very nearly lost it completely. They were words he'd pretty much given up hope of ever hearing. Just two words, but they represented such a huge amount. He so wanted to take the boy into his arms, to make him realise that no apologies were necessary, that there was nothing to forgive, to grab this moment and put it at the centre of their new life together as a family. But he did none of those things. He knew enough about the inner workings of traumatised teenage kids that this was a breakthrough moment for Nico and that he needed to be allowed to take control of events.
For the next ten, fifteen, twenty minutes (no-one was clock-watching), virtually the only sound in the room was that of Nico's voice. Sitting on the arm of the sofa beside Milo, he explained that he had spent his entire life being told by his mum how badly she'd been treated by her family; how he was better off having never had anything to do with them; how none of them could be trusted; how they might appear to be upright and respectable but that was just for show; how they'd make his life a misery, just as they had hers, if they ever found out about him. Then he told them that, because he'd believed every lie that he had been told, he'd convinced himself that Milo, Dan, Gerry -- all of them -- had just been biding their time until they'd got Social Services off their back before hitting the jackpot by selling his body to whoever was willing to pay for the privilege of fucking him senseless. When she heard this, Helen gasped but stopped herself from crying out by pushing one fist against her mouth. Roger grasped her other hand in a tight grip.
Milo, too, reached out a hand, not towards Helen but to Nico, silently telling him that everything was okay and that he didn't need to continue, but Nico just shook his head and carried on. When he started to explain that Gerry had told him about Kate's letter, Dan muttered a barely-audible expletive which was severely shushed by his dad. Nico, however, wasn't put off although he was visibly struggling with whatever it was he was about to say. He turned towards Dan. His voice was steady but very quiet.
"And that's why I tried to get Uncle Milo to fuck me. I thought he must be a real sicko, so I decided that, if I could get him to like me in that way, you know, for sex, then he'd want to keep me for himself and not whore me out to every other pervert with enough cash to pay for me. Maybe, I thought, he'd want to share me with you, Dan, in a dirty three-some, which wasn't great but at least it would mean that I wouldn't end up being the world's shag-rag, getting raped and beaten up every day."
Helen wasn't the only one in the room who had given in to the tears which were flowing freely down her face.
"So," Nico continued, "Like I said, it was me that came on to Uncle Milo in that hotel, not the other way around. I tried really hard to get him interested but I'll never forget the look on his face when he wrapped me up in some sort of blanket and pushed me back into my own bedroom. It was like he'd been slapped hard or punched in the guts."
He turned to face Milo. "And what happened back then is another reason why I've been such a little shit towards you. I knew that you were a fa... "
He glanced to the side and caught sight of Gerry glowering at him. He remembered his promise. "I knew you were gay, so I couldn't understand why you'd push me away like that. I `spose I was trying to get back at you in the only way I knew how."
Again he looked towards Dan. "Then I realised how much he loves you, Dan, and I knew there was no way he'd ever look twice at me." Dan stared back with an unreadable expression on his face. "And that's something else my mum never told me, that you and Uncle Milo were together. The only gay men I've ever known have been complete bastards who only wanted one thing from me, and that's another reason why I was sure I could get Uncle Milo to have sex with me. So when he made it clear that he wasn't interested, well, that was another reason to hate him. And all the rest of you."
Nico paused. "I guess I've got everything completely fucking wrong." He took a deep breath and scanned the room, but soon his breathing became shallow and rapid and his shoulders dropped. "I'm so, so sorry for being such a fuck-up." He could barely hold himself upright. "Please believe me."
As he gave in to the sobs that had overtaken him, he collapsed and toppled sideways onto Milo, who folded him into his arms. No-one spoke. Everyone was lost in their own thoughts. `What next?' they all wondered.
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