T H E E X C H A N G E
by Dean Lidster =======================================================================
PART EIGHT
(Chapters thirty-two to thirty-four)
DISCLAIMER ~~~~~~~~~~
This story contains sexual acts between boys. If this is not to your tastes, then why in God's name are you reading this in the first place, huh? If you're curious, then that's fine by me - just remember: an open mind and an open heart is the secret to a good and happy life. If you are UNDER the age of concent for state / geographical location / planet that you're in / on etc, please leave now (unless you want to be educated and have an open mind that is!)
I spose this story is copyrighted. By this, I mean that I wrote it and would not particularly want anyone to subtly alter it and pretend it is their own. However, you MAY post it to any newsgroups, archives etc, print it, give it to friends without my prior permission PROVIDED THAT I STAY ACCREDITED AS THE AUTHOR AND YOU DO NOT CHARGE FOR DOING SO. Easy :-)
The story is fiction, and whilst there are references to real live people in here, none of this took place outside of my hormone-driven mind...
If you like this story, mail me at dean@deans-domain.nu. If you don't like it, mail me anyway and tell me why!
The latest version of this saga may be found at my web site: http://www.deans-domain.nu/ourplace/stories
Cheers, Dean
Dedicated to Lee - I will love you forever.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Spen woke with a start, sitting bolt upright, then gently lying down again as he remembered where he was and the wonderful offer Taylor had made. Damn that guy was so nice...
He smiled to himself and rolled over, expecting his arm to come across his sleeping lover, but instead he simply found an empty, cold sleeping bag. Once again he sat up with a start, looking round for Mack and, when he couldn't immediately see him, wriggled out of his sleeping bag and turned on the lights. In the mess of the blue sleeping bags, a scrap white paper stood out like a sore thumb. Almost afraid to do so, Spen picked it up, unfolded it and began to read the scrawl that was unmistakably Mack's.
Dear Spen,
I've gone to try to talk to my dad one last time - if he won't listen to me now then I promise I'll never go back there again, and I'll be with you forever.
Love you,
Mackie.
Spen looked at his watch. 2:04am. When did he leave?! Not wanting to take any chances, Spen leapt up the stairs and ran towards Tay's room.
To say Spen surprised us was a bit of an understatement: to have someone leaping into your room at two in the morning yelling and babbling ant a completely incomprehensible rate is a little disconcerting to say the least, and by the time we had woken up and managed to calm him down assorted other people in the house came to see what all the fuss was about.
Tay and I related to Walker what had happened earlier that afternoon, and it was decided we would go to Mack's house straight away to make sure he was OK.
We all pulled the clothes that were nearest to hand on and leapt into the car, an obviously concerned Diane ushering the other lads back into the house.
Walker gripped the steering wheel with a kind of grim determination as we sped along the freeway to the other side of Tulsa, Spen just hugging on to us both as if we were life itself. We did our very best to comfort him but for some reason we both had this feeling at the back of our minds that something bad had happened. How, I don't know, but there seemed something peculiar about the whole scenario - the whole night felt uneasy to me. I looked over at Tay who was gently rocking with Spen in his arms and saw the same look of apprehension in his eyes as I felt.
That apprehension was confirmed as we turned into Mack's road, flashes of blue from the police and MediVac vehicles streaking across our faces as we approached. Spen half moaned, half cried out as he opened his eyes and saw the scene painted before him, a sound that embodied the feeling of having a part of you forcibly ripped away.
Even before the car had stopped, Spen leapt from his seat and jumped out of the car, barely managing to stay upright as he madly ran for the door of the house. Just before he made it, he was fielded by Mack's mother who hugged him tightly to her, sobbing uncontrollably.
"I'm so sorry," she wept, holding on to the last living remnant of her son.
Spen tried to pull away and enter the house again, but she held on to him. "Please, don't go in there... Remember Mackie as he was..."
"Bu... But I want to s... see him," sobbed Spen, locking eyes with her.
Just then, there was a metallic clank as the wheels from a medical stretcher dropped into place. On it was a black, zip-up bag.
Spen could do nothing but watch in horror as the body of his best friend was wheeled to the back of the MediVac and unceremoniously loaded as if he were a consignment of meat for the butcher's.
The police's timing couldn't have been worse for Mack's dad as it was at this moment they escorted him, handcuffed, from the house. All the emotion that was running through Spen immediately manifested itself as pure rage, his soul purpose in life to do to him what he had done to Mack.
Tay and I raced over to him, but he had already charged at Mack's dad and with a cry that reverberated off the surrounding houses, delivered a punch that carried the force of all his weight and momentum to the man's genitals.
He fell to his, muscles tensing as he tried to cup the bruised organs with his shackled hands. We grabbed Spen, doing our utmost to prevent him from killing the guy but the strength that is present in someone as emotionally driven as Spen was then is never to be underestimated. Even with all our might, he managed to deliver two further frighteningly accurate kicks to his face, the first one dislocating his jaw, the second one sending his nose to a forty-five degree angle to the front of his face.
I eventually managed to tackle Spen to the ground whilst Tay held his upper body in an arm lock so severe I thought he had broken his arm. The police took their cue and dragged the injured man to the back of the patrol vehicle and sped off into the night, sirens blaring, leisurely followed by the MediVac.
"Is he still out there?" asked Zac, not looking up from the huge sketchpad he was busily scribbling on.
"Yeah," sighed Gareth, his breath fogging the cold kitchen window as he stared aimlessly through it into the garden. "Been there for almost four hours now, poor lad."
"How does shit like that happen?" asked Zac, putting the pad down on the table, his pencil rolling across the table and bouncing softly on the carpet beneath.
"I dunno," he replied, focusing his gaze on the still form of Spen sitting by himself on the bench in the garden. Zac stood up and went and sat by Gareth.
"I dunno what I'd do if anything happened to you," he said, the sincere sound of his voice shocking himself as well as Gareth. He really meant that. Gareth smiled and gave Zac a peck on the lips and held his hand.
"Nothing's gonna happen."
I had never seen Tay so distracted. He was pacing up and down the garage like a caged tiger.
"Tay? TAYLOR!"
"Hmm?"
I shuffled to the edge of the beanbag I was lounging on and patted the freshly vacated section of material.
He smiled weakly and came and sat by me, gently pushing his golden hair back behind his ears.
"I feel so guilty, ya know?" he said, quickly turning his head to look at me.
"Tay, it wasn't your fault! There was nothing we coulda..."
"Not about that as such... More about us..."
"Eh? In what way?"
"Boy is gay. Boy comes out to parents. Parents still love boy as much as they have ever done. Boy meets stunningly gorgeous British boy. Boy falls in love with boy. Boy finds boy's parents ALSO love him even though he is gay. Boy and boy live happily ever after. I have everything, Dean: You, my parents, YOUR parents, a wonderful family... Spen's got nothing now - the one and only thing he did have just decided he wasn't worth the time of day and topped himself... This is one fucked-up world, man..."
"OK, so we'll un-fuck it."
"What?" asked Tay, a hint of a laugh entering his voice as his mind visualised the bizarre concept of something being un-fucked. "How?"
"Well, we could start by putting Mack's arsehole of a father behind bars for as long as we can."
"Dad?"
"Not now, Taylor, I'm on the phone..."
Tay stood obediently in the doorway, feeling slightly guilty for asking his obliging father for yet another favor, this one being somewhat larger than the previous ones. He looked over his shoulder at me and I smiled back to reassure him, then decided that wasn't enough and hugged him from behind, kissing his neck.
Walker had the same frustrated look on his face as Tay had had, and was even walking up and down the room in the same manner obviously not hearing what he wanted to hear from the guy on the other end of the line. As he turned for his umpteenth stride back down the room, he caught sight of us in the doorway and stopped in his tracks.
"PETER! CAN IT!" he yelled into the phone. "I want that asshole put away for as long as you can swing it, you hear me? No, this is non- negotiable... THEN MAKE A BETTER CASE AGAINST HIM!" and with that he hit the hang-up button and chucked the cordless phone onto the sofa.
Tay and I just stood there, frozen to the spot. I'd never seen Walker angry before and from the way Tay had tensed as I hugged him, it wasn't a sight he was accustomed to either.
He dropped down onto the couch and promptly swore as he lifted himself up slightly and hurled the phone across the room.
Tay turned round and motioned for me to leave Walker in peace for a while to let him cool off.
"Hey guys, c'mere a second..."
Walker was rubbing his face and then allowed his hands to continue upwards, running his fingers through his hair.
We tentatively stood in front of him, side by side, not quite sure what to expect.
"You two really love each other, huh?" he smiled.
I looked at Tay just as he looked at me and we both nodded our heads vigorously, smiling.
He shuffled to one end of the sofa, and asked us to sit with him for a moment. Tay sat down nearest his Father and I plopped down beside him, subconsciously putting my arm around him. I quickly realised what I'd done, and pulled my hand back as if I'd been scalded, which made Walker laugh.
"Don't worry about it, Dean," he smiled. "Listen, I wanna tell you something. Tay, when you told me you were gay it... well, it didn't quite 'register' with me, ya know? Don't as me why but I guess I thought it was some kinda stunt to get my attention, and I didn't think you were serious serious about it. But when I see you guys together... Oh man..." he threw his head back and laughed slightly. "Do you know how much you two remind me of me and Diane? I suppose we were about the same age as you two when we met in highschool. It may have been a crush at the time, but I swore then and there I was gonna spend the rest of my life with her. I just see so much of us in you," he smiled, but the smile gradually drifted from his face, being replaced by a frown.
"I want you to know that I will never, EVER let anything happen to you like it has to poor Spen and Mack. I love you both more than you can realise, even if I didn't know it first... I promise you guys that if I can stop something hurting you, I will. I... I'm sorry I didn't say that sooner..."
"Oh dad," smiled Tay, leaping into his father's lap and hugging him tightly, tears rolling down his cheeks. "Thankyou,"
Walker hugged his son tighter than he could ever remember and felt a closeness more vivid than he ever had done before. I felt honored to be able to witness that and, although it sounds corny, it was beautiful. It was the way things should be. Taylor was right, we do have everything.
They broke the hug and Walker immediately hugged me tightly too. "You're family now, Dean - remember that. I'm here as much for you as I am for Taylor."
"Who was that you were on the phone to, dad?"
Walker sighed. "I called Mack's mom this morning and offered to help in any way I could: Jesus Tay she's in a mess... I swear at one stage she sounded as if she was going to follow Mack's example. She said she was sorry for ever marrying 'that asshole' - apparently he was real unkind to her when Mack wasn't around and he threatened if she ever let on to anyone she'd get it..."
"Sooo... What are you doing? To help I mean..."
"I'm gonna try to keep that shit in prison for as long as we possibly can... The lawyer was trying to coax me out of being involved, but the family was already mixed up in it, so what difference does it make?"
"What can we do about Spen?" I asked. "He's just... Existing at the moment..."
"Just be a friend, Dean: He sure as needs as many as he can get right now. He'll pull through eventually, but he needs guys like you to look after him right now... How long are you with us, Dean?"
"Uh, until the end of next week," I said, a kind of reality storming into my disoriented mind with all the subtlety of a Rhino in heat.
"OK... Go see if you can make contact with Spen, but don't push it - he has to take it at his own pace."
Tay and I thanked Walker and left him in the Den, thinking.
We pulled on our coats, walked into the garden and saw Spen still sitting, motionless, on the bench. We walked over to him and sat down, me nearest him.
"Listen, Spen - if you ever want to talk, man..."
The unbelievable noise of absolute silence surrounded us for three or four very long minutes, all three of us now sat staring vacantly at the dark green hedge at the bottom of the yard, thinking about what had happened.
Then I noticed that Spen was crying: Not sobbing, but tears were rolling down his cheeks. Taking a gamble, I put my arm round his shoulders and almost immediately he collapsed into me, his crying muffled by my fleece.
"Why?" he sobbed, not daring to move from me.
That flawed me. I really didn't know why he'd done it, or at least could never really understand how someone could possibly get themselves into that state of mind.
"I should've told him I loved him more..."
"Spen, listen to me - you did everything you possibly could for Mack: I saw you two together - he was genuinely happy when he was around you. You made everything worth while - you were what he lived for."
"S... So why did he do it?"
"When people are upset, they do crazy things, Spen... Mack's dad is an arsehole. I don't know what he said to him or what he had done to him, but whatever it was I can guarantee that it wasn't true. The guy is narrow-minded and can't accept anything outside what HE believes to be right, never mind the rest of the world... Remember that Mack knew his dad for a lot longer than he knew you, AND he was his father... I know it sounds harsh, but even though you might know your dad is lying to you or saying things about you that deep down you knew weren't true, because he's your dad you may believe for a while that what he said was Gospel..."
"But why did his dad say that shit?"
"I don't know, Spen... There are some evil people in this world: That bastard's one of 'em."
The conversation seemed to leap all over the place as it followed the random emotions and thoughts that were streaming through Spen's distraught mind. He was perpetually blaming himself: What if I, if I had said, if I had done... It was a long haul, but we gradually managed to convince him that he hadn't done anything wrong - hell, he had probably been the best thing that could have ever possibly happened to Mack: He had the same love for Mack as Tay and I did for each other. Spen was his guiding light - the one thing that kept him on the straight and narrow. Mack had lived for Spen, and it was because he had been blindfolded from Spen's absolute devotion to him for that short period of time by his arsehole of a father that he had done what he had done.
"But what if I had been there with him? I could have told him that I still loved him..."
"His father would have shouted you down, Spen... The man was full of hate and because of who he was, Mack would have listened to him first... You mustn't blame yourself..."
We carried on talking and eventually managed to steer the conversation round to the good times he and Mack had shared in the past. He remembered sitting in one of the Cafes in the Tulsa mall and wolf-whistling at any cute boys who walked past, and then just pretending to be talking to each other as the lad looked round for whoever it was whistling at them.
He remembered the time that they arranged for Mack to sleep over at his house while his mother was in hospital for a couple of days for a check-up: They had managed to 'obtain' a few bottles of beer and decided to stay up all night watching TV. They had ordered pizza and he remembered how Mack, being slightly drunk, managed to embarrass the hell out of the pizza delivery lad by making a couple of very un- subtle passes at him...
Then there was the hour they had spent before coming to the Hanson's house carefully painting their message on each others' buttocks before getting rather more excited than they had planned to, nearly missing their bus in the process...
Spen sighed and rubbed his red-ringed eyes and smiled a feint smile. "I'll miss him," he breathed, just managing to utter the sentence before he cried once more.
Spen had asked to be taken back home that evening, so naturally Walker obliged. We offered to go with him, but he said that we'd already done more than enough. He smiled genuinely, thanked us once again and gave us both a peck on the cheek before following Walker out to the car.
Tay and I meandered back down to the garage.
"D'you think he'll be OK?"
"I hope so," replied Tay. "I told him to call whenever he needs to talk, even if it sounds really dumb..."
"It's usually the dumb things that are the most important,"
"Yeah..."
Tay sat himself down infront of his Kurzweil keyboard and flicked the power switch, a soft thud emanating from the monitor speakers on the floor infront of him.
The instant I heard the first chord, I knew what he was playing and it practically made me burst into tears there and then, Taylor himself having a hard job fighting them back.
"If I'm gone when you wake up, please don't cry
And if I'm gone when you wake up, it's not goodbye. Don't look back at this time as a time of heartbreak and distress
Remember me, remember me,
'Cause I'll be with you in your dreams, woah..
I'll be with you.
If I'm gone when you wake up, please don't cry
And if I'm gone when you wake up, don't ask why. Don't look back at this time as a time of heartbreak and distress
Remember me, remember me,
'Cause I'll be with you in your dreams
Don't cry, I'm with you,
Don't cry, I'm by your side,
Don't cry, I'm with you,
Don't cry, 'cause I'm by your side:
And though my flesh is gone, wow-woah,
I'm still be with you at all times
And though my body's gone, wow-woah,
I'm gonna be there to comfort you at all ti."
Tay's voice failed him, the reverb applied to the keyboard's sound echoing earily away as he stopped playing. I rushed over to him and sat facing him in his lap, hugging him to me.
"Dean, you must promise me something: Promise you'll never do anything like that, no matter what happens to you, me or to us..." he sobbed, pulling my shirt into bunches with his shaking hands.
"Only as long as you promise that too," I whispered.
We relaxed the embrace slightly and made that infinite eye-contact that allowed us to communicate without words, seeing that we truly meant what the other said.
"I promise," we both said in unison, then sealed the pact with a kiss.
Chapter Thirty-Three
"Hi, could I speak to David Lidster, please,"
"Speaking,"
"Oh hi, David - it's Walker Hanson here, Taylor's father,"
"Hello, Walker, good to speak to you at last! Is Dean OK?" asked my dad, immediately assuming that the only reasons warranting an international phone call would be something terrible happening to me, or me doing something terrible. Terrible? Moi?
"Yeah, he's fine - I don't think I've ever seen Taylor so happy! Don't those two look just great together?"
"You're right - they act just like Fran and I did when we were their age."
"You too? Man - I only just told them that I thought they were like Diane and myself! Thing is, I'd like to do anything I can to keep it that way: I've seen teenage crushes before and this seems a whole lot deeper than that, ya know?"
"I've thought the same... Four thousand four-hundred and forty-five miles is a long way, though..."
"Four thousand four-hundred and forty-five?" chuckled Walker.
"Dean's corrected me on the distance so many times I've kinda remembered it..."
"I see... Dean tells me you're in computers, right?"
"Yeah - I'm in what you could call a dead-end job right now - over here you can only move sideways within a company - not up - if you're anything to do with I.T. I'm giving serious thought to going freelance before I'm too old to break out of the loop..."
"Really? Well in that case I have a proposal for you..."
"Zac WATCH OUT FOR..." yelled Gareth as Zac leapt. Too late.
I opened my eyes to see a lump of junior Hanson flying at an alarming speed directly over the back of the couch, his arse heading straight for my and Tay's mid-sections.
Give him his due, he did try his best to alter his trajectory, but Newton's laws were not to be argued with. He landed on us with all his weight, producing a combined "umph!" from both of us.
"Morning guys," he grinned.
Tay pulled a cushion over his head and groaned. "Zac, can't you go fuck Gareth for a half hour or sommat?"
"Or what?"
"Huh?"
"You said 'sommat'... Hahahah Tay's even talking like Dean now!"
"I never said 'sommat',"
"Did too,"
"Did not!"
"Did freakin' too!" bounced Zac. Tay brought his right leg up sharply behind Zac's back, levering him abruptly from his sitting position and onto his feet.
"Did too," I whispered into his ear. "But I think it sounded cute."
"Yeah, well, as long as I don't start talking like Ringo Starr - just ask Ike about that one!"
"Huh?"
"He's just got something" said Tay, shooting a glance at Zac, "about Ringo right now."
"And Puff Daddy,"
"Yeah, and Puff Daddy..."
"Anyweih," I said, putting on the broadest Derbyshire accent I could, "ahm teachin' Tay the speak proper,"
"Oh, that's good - we can sing 'Bloke from Burminum' and 'I'll be wiv yer when yer kippin''..."
"Just coz you're upset you ain't got English as eloquent as wot I got."
"So," said Tay, butting in to diffuse the mad 'kill Zac' session he could see rapidly approaching, "what are we gonna do today?"
"How about we go trawling?"
Now this had me confused. Was my geography so naff as to have misclassified the state of Oklahoma as non-coastal? And going trawling?
"Hey yeah! We haven't tried that for ages,"
Tay hauled himself off the couch and slumped himself in front of the PC that was presumably buried within the mixing console. A few mouse clicks later, the oh-so-familiar sounds of a modem warbling and chirruping to some distant computer over the phone.
"Trawling?"
"Yeah - for stuff about us! Some of the shit the fans come up with is seriously funny... I mean the stuff they write about: It's so... well, intense; so real to them it's almost as if it really happened!"
Tay surfed over to Yahoo and did a search for Hanson. A few moments later, yahoo spat back a page full of links, declaring it had found about thirty thousand matches.
Tay raised his eyebrows and flicked through the first five or so pages, then clicked on a link at random. Again after a short pause (quite horribly unlike the Internet I loved to hate) the screen was filled with mini-windows full of the advertising blurb that seems intrinsic to the "free" web hosts. After the standard ritual of "X" clicking, Tay eventually managed to unearth a half-decent site.
The page began with a large banner declaring that its owner was the ultimate Hanson affectionado and, as such, knew everything there was to know about Hanson. Surprisingly, the page did seem rather levelheaded about Tay and his brothers and after the initial skepticism we all held, we decided it was actually a very good site.
"It's a pity Hansonline can't come up with some stuff like this," said Zac. "The best they seem to be able to do is tell everyone where we happen to be in the globe, as if people need to know..."
"The fact that the guy who runs it hates our guts doesn't help matters," grinned Tay.
"Huh?"
"The Hansonline Web Master - the guy freakin' hates us! Of course, he'd never say that to our faces - he's too weak-willed - but we've heard enough from our 'moles' to know the truth. I dread to think what would happen if he actually wrote the page,"
"You mean he doesn't?"
"He'd have problems writing his own name! No, he sub-contracts all the work out to a few web design outfits..."
"That's so cheap!"
"Thing is, for some reason Mercury seem to think he does a good job! You win some..."
We clicked our way through the site and ended up on a links page, listing another twenty-odd pages that the author thought worthy of being her site. Instead of leaping off to another site from that links page, Tay clicked on the e-mail link and typed a short message to her.
"How will she know it was from you?"
"She won't - but she'll enjoy the concept that it might possibly be..."
Tay sent the message and went back to Yahoo, this time doing a search for "Gay Hanson". A few moments later, a whole new set of links were presented to us, Tay clicking on another one at random. We were whisked away to a completely different style of site: This one seemed 'tatty' in comparison with the previous site, but something about it caught Tay's attention. It was run by a lad about our age in Canada and, as we read a little, found he was very gay, very out and had a very big crush on Taylor. Just below his 'mission statement' was his picture: He was also very cute!
Tay scrolled down the page slightly and clicked a link, a smile appearing on his face as we were presented with "Taylor and me" - a story that this guy was in the process of writing.
"Fancy a storytime?" asked Tay?
"Yeah! Storwy!" grinned Zac as he pulled Gareth to him in a hug.
Spen smiled weakly back at his mum as she thanked him for the cup of coffee he'd just made for her.
"You're a good boy, Eugene - I don't know what I'd do without you."
Spen did his level best to keep the smile on his face as memories of Mack surged to the forefront of his mind once more. What would he do without him? It would've been bad enough for him to have moved or something but this... It was so ultimate - no comeback, no negotiation: Mac was gone. Forever.
"Eugene, I... I'm sorry about what happened to Macaulay. I know he was a very dear friend to you."
Spen looked up through teary eyes, a transparent prism forming from one of them, hanging precariously from the end of his nose before falling gracefully, twinkling as it fell.
"Mom I have to tell you something... You remember I told you I thought I may be gay?"
Mrs. Spencer smiled reassuringly back at her son. Life was hard enough for teenagers nowadays without the added agro of having to deal with their sexuality. She cared not a jot if Spen was gay, bi or whatever else there was to be. He was her little boy, and she wouldn't hear a single word against him.
"Yes, dear,"
"Well, I... I guess..." damn this was hard... "I guess Mac was my boyfriend," he sniffed.
The realisation of why Spen was so upset suddenly became all too clear to her - Spen wasn't just fond of Mac - he had... no - did love him! He had lost the love of his life and, all too well, she understood what that meant.
She put the cup of coffee down on the table next to her chair and spread her arms to her baby who was hurting so much and embraced him as tightly as she could.
She just hoped that her cancer would hold off long enough for him to come to terms with his loss slightly more before she had to be taken back into hospital...
"He can be charged with what?"
"Pre-meditated murder," confirmed Walker's lawyer.
"But he didn't kill him as such... What evidence do you have against him?"
"We have the testimony of the mother, and the phone was left off the hook after the boy dialed 911 - the whole thing is on tape."
"Peter, you're a star! That is wonderful! So there's no chance of him getting off lightly?"
"None - in a case this severe the judge will, in all likelihood, sentence him straight off without a trial and revoke all applications for parole. He'll never see the light of day again. No one takes crimes against minors lightly. It may be a while before the case comes to court, but that shouldn't be cause for concern."
"How often do you do this?" I asked as Tay connected to an IRC server.
"Quite often - unless we want to make people think it's us, no-one has any idea who I am on IRC... But I fancy some fun today," he grinned.
PiRCH informed him that he was connected to the server and Tay started typing.
/nick JordanTH
/join #HansonChat
NOTE: JordanTH (Taylor@hansonline.com) has joined #HansonChat
JordanTH Hi guys! What's up?
TAYLOvR Don't be so SAD!!!
JordanTH Who?
TAYLOvR YOU!! I wish people would quit pretending to be Tay...
JordanTH Who said I was pretending?
^Denver^ Yeah, right!
JordanTH Finger me
TAYLOvR I'd rather not
NOTE: JordanTH bashes his head against a brick wall that has miraculously appeared in just the right place.
"Have you ever managed to get anyone to believe it's you?"
"Nah - but it's always fun trying!"
NOTE: DCC Request from ^Denver^ (sublime@prodigy.com)
Tay clicked 'accept' and opened a private chat window with this Denver bloke.
JordanTH Hi.
^Denver^ Err - hi Taylor...
JordanTH So why do you believe it's me? :-P
^Denver^ Well, I checked your IP address and it came from HansonLine, so I guess it really is you!
^Denver^ I really don't know what to say!
JordanTH Well, as long as you don't start yelling "I LOVE YOU!" all over the channel we'll get along fine!
^Denver^ LOL! I think I can curb that desire...
JordanTH So, stats and location, please :-)
^Denver^ 16/m 5'10" alburn hair (:P) and I live in Colorado.
JordanTH Denver, right?
^Denver^ How did you guess? :)
^Denver^ Is Dean with you? I saw you guys on TV - it was soooo cool the way you handled that!
^Denver^ is proud :)
JordanTH Be who you wanna be, say what you wanna say... :-)
^Denver^ Yeah! Listen, I got to go because my mom's got the lunch ready... Cool talking to you, Taylor! Send my best to Ike, Zac and Dean...
JordanTH Will do: Take care man... See ya!
NOTE: DCC session closed.
Just then, Walker came rattling down the stairs into the garage with a rather large grin over his kind face. Tay immediately smiled back and raised his eyebrows in anticipation.
"Guess what, guys?"
"Your beard's been eventually classified as a wildlife reserve?" Quipped Zac. Walker grabbed Zac, flipped him upside-down and draped him over his shoulder provoking screams of mock outrage from him.
"Peter reckons that getting Mack's dad behind bars is almost a hundred percent certain - he can be had for murder one!"
"Does Spen know?" asked Tay, torn between the good feelings of 'revenge' against Mack's dad and the horrible emptiness created by the recollection of his suicide that he had temporarily forgotten about.
"Not yet... Peter needs to have a proper talk with him and possibly even use him as a witness to the way Mack's father acted around him to prove that the whole thing was pre-meditated malice. I'm going to give him a call now..."
"Perhaps it'd be better if we called him," volunteered Tay.
"Yeah, probably... Tell me what he says, OK?"
"Sure dad, thanks,"
Walker smiled and turned and walked back towards the stairs, chucking Zac onto the sofa as he did so.
Chapter Thirty-Four
"He's offered you what?"
"A job."
"Doing what, exactly?"
My mum was being her usual cautious self as my dad recounted the contents of Walker Hanson's second phone call to him.
"Well, he says he wants to take his oil company into the twenty- first century technology-wise: He has one of his employees running their computer systems at the moment and, good though he is, Walker needs him to do just his job, not that of an IT manager too."
"And he's going to fly us over and give us a house and a car?"
"Yes."
"Just like that?"
"No, not just like that. I suppose it's Dean we have to thank for this."
The thinking behind Walker's seemingly bizarre choice for a computer guy suddenly made sense: My mum reasoned that if she had as good as unlimited funds available to her, she'd do anything she could to keep her son happy. He didn't want to see Taylor and I split up.
"Well, what about the family over here?"
"How often do we see them, Fran?"
"I suppose. What could I do over there? I mean we'd have to sort out all sorts of bits and pieces. Emigrating can't be done overnight!"
"Walker says we just have to give him the go-ahead and 'his people' will take care of everything for us, even the packing!"
"So, we're just going to up-sticks?"
My dad wrapped his arms round my mum and gave her a hug.
"Remember twenty years ago? We used to just leap in the car and drive somewhere whenever we felt like it - do whatever took our fancy whenever we wanted too. I'm stuck in a rut here, Fran - it's a dead- end job and in all realism I don't have the wherewithal to set up the business without re-mortgaging the house. He's giving me a break. If you don't want to go, we won't go - things usually turn out for the best."
My mum sighed and looked around at the old Tudor house they had lived in for the last sixteen years and sighed.
"I'll miss this place,"
My dad smiled and kissed her. "I love you."
"MOM! Zac won't give me the Maple syrup!" whined Avie as the offending Hanson continued to squeeze extortionate amounts of the sticky liquid onto his pancakes.
"Zac, that's enough syrup - give it to your sister,"
"Almost. done." he replied as he tried to finish off the near- perfect geometric shape he'd been tracing with the bottle's excretion.
"NOW Zac!" snapped Diane, causing him to jump and send a string of syrup in completely the wrong direction. Gareth giggled at Zac's reaction.
"What's so funny?" he asked defensively as he relinquished control of the syrup bottle to his sister.
"You messed up," he grinned. "That looks really kack now!"
"Yeah? Not as kack as your face," he retorted.
"Knock it off, you two," smiled Walker over the top of his newspaper.
I was completely stuffed on pancakes, my body still not used to eating more than a half-bowl of cereal for breakfast.
"You eating that," mumbled my gorgeous boyfriend through sticky lips and a mouthful of pancake, motioning at the abandoned food I simply could not manage.
I shook my head 'no' and watched as he deftly lifted it off my plate, timing the drips precisely so that not a single one soiled the tablecloth and then proceeded to eat it. It was a simple action, but because it was him doing it, I was enchanted.
He noticed me looking and froze.
"What?"
"Just watching you," I admitted.
"Uh. OK," he smiled. "Why?"
"Because I like watching beautiful things," I smiled back.
"Oh please!" groaned Zac, shoving two fingers into his mouth and pretending to wretch.
Before the standard routine of Zac-suppression could be deployed, the doorbell rang. Walker looked up from his paper again, then at his watch and then asked me to answer the door.
Seeing as I was the only one not eating, it seemed only fair that I go and see who it was calling so 'early' in the morning and ambled out of the kitchen into the hall.
Two silhouettes were being projected onto the frosted glass by the early morning sun - somehow, they seemed strangely familiar. I dismissed the thought in my mind and opened the door.
My parents spun round to face the door as I opened it and smiled broadly as our eyes met.
"Mum! Dad! What are you doing here?" I smiled, giving them both a tight hug and ushering them into the house.
"Well, we were looking for our house but got slightly lost," smiled my mum.
"Huh?"
"David! Frances! Great to see you! Good flight I trust?" smiled Walker as he shook their hands vigorously.
"Hang on a second - your house?."
"Hi Mrs. Lidster, Mr. Lidster," smiled Tay as he joined us in the hall, hugging them both.
"Does someone want to expla."
"Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?" interrupted Walker, evading my question.
"Tea would be good,"
"Two teas," added my dad.
"Do you know what's going on?" I asked Tay. He just shrugged his shoulders and smiled back.
"Dean, I think you should congratulate your father on his new job," smiled Diane.
"Huh?" Something strange was going on here, but by the smiles on everyone's faces it was a good strange. Being kept in the dark about things is one of my pet-hates, and I was getting more and more wound up by the second.
"You are looking at the new Director of Information Systems for my business," smiled Walker.
"You quit LanLogic? Cool!" I knew how much my dad had grown to hate the monotony and distinct lack of career prospects that that company had provided him with, and was genuinely pleased for him. "So we've moved over here? I mean, moved permanently?"
"Well, yes! You know what they say: 'A change is as good as a rest.'"
"But what about all our stuff? What's happening to the house?"
This whole thing seemed to be going a little to quickly to be practical and I still couldn't quite believe that they were serious.
"Well, when you lot go back to school next term we'll go over with you so that we can have time to get everything packed and so that you're not left in England 'by yourself'."
"So we're going back to school in England?" asked Zac, eyes lighting up like a Christmas tree.
"Just for the rest of this term," affirmed Walker. "The headmaster seemed more than happy to have you back. Why I'm not quite sure," he smiled.
"We do have seats in the house, you know," smiled Diane as she realised we were just standing round in the hallway, my parents still with their coats on and holding a suitcase each.
"Kiss the boy to the left if you think you're the luckiest lad in the world,"
Tay leant up on one elbow and planted his luscious lips directly on mine, his hair tickling my upper chest in the way only his could.
He settled back down next to me and hugged me, his hot breath rumbling gently in my right ear.
"It feels so weird to be sleeping without Zac and Gareth," smiled Tay, the sound of his voice almost echoing around the bare room that we were sleeping in. Tay and I had decided to christen 'my' new house, just across the road from his. This arrangement was given the blessing of the Hanson parents as it greatly relieved the congestion in their house now that the young'uns were back and space was at a premium.
"What did I do to get you?"
"Huh?"
"I mean why did the powers that be decide that we should be together?"
"You know," said Tay, stretching his arms and allowing his left to come to rest over my shoulders, "the quickest way to end a miracle is to ask it why it is or what it wants."
"I spose so. Taylor?"
"Mmm?"
"I love you."
"Love you more."
"Like hell you do!"
"Do too!"
"Do not!"
"Too!"
"Not!" I yelled, digging my fingertips into his ribs causing the comforter to fly rather ungracefully into the air as his limbs began to flail around. Tay's hidden muscles very soon came into play as he managed to get on top of me and we rolled in a giggling heap onto the floor with a thump that reverberated around the all but empty house.
We rolled, wrestled and tickled until we were both breathing hard, the light but remarkable smell of our sweat making itself known to the other's nostrils. That universally beautiful blue-white glow of the moon was the only lighting available, but it was more than enough for me to pick out the silhouette of Taylor's beautiful face, coated in a delicate sheen of sweat. He gently lowered himself onto me, his dick making its presence known as it came into contact with my own.
"I've got you now," he whispered, the feintest of smiles on his lips.
"Always, forever."
"Dean?" asked a strange voice, one that I knew, but somehow didn't fit.
"DEAN!" the voice repeated. The room Tay and I were in started to swirl into darkness and I felt myself being shaken.
"DEAN!" yelled my dad for the third time. My eyes slowly began to open and a horrible reality began to dawn.
"We're here: better get your stuff before they send you back to France!"
I was on the EuroStar.
I was back where I started
This ain't the end - it's just the beginning :-) Watch out for the next story - "Better than a Dream" coming to a Nifty mirror site near you soon!
Hope you've enjoyed it so far,
Dean