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*dances* I wrote a little bit about this in my journal. For no apparent reason other than I wanted to. I can't WAIT for part five; it's gonna be SOOOO cute! But I gotta end this one and do part four first. Not that those aren't gonna be amusing either.
Dedicated to: Kittiminx, inarifox, Posed To Death, Wunderwulfe, Bitter Berry, Et Incarnatus Est, TalentlessMoo, Alemirel, fin, Jezza Belle, Eresteizulim, ty-rant84, Slim, Quip Clip, Angel's Feathers, Set Aiidoneous, love&peace, Artemis1000, Genuine, Kuma Karie, Layla Knight, fire fly and Azghul
Special Mention To: Averil, for inspiring me to come up with a name for the whole series. I haven't decided totally yet, but it's gonna be something like the 'Acidic Dustbin Hearts' arc.
If you can come up with something better, which I KNOW you can, PLEASE help me out! Thank you.
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Warning: Emotional recapping.
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'Even in his youth he was nothing/Kept his body clean going nowhere/Daddy
was ashamed/Disgraced the family name'
Even In His Youth- Nirvana
'And I'm eaten alive by what I hold inside/All the things that I live with I can't easily hide/ And I'm left here with nothing, nothing to live for/
But you/ It's not easy to hide/All this damage inside/I'll carry you
with me/ Until I'm not alive'
Excess Baggage - Staind
'Bruise, pristine, serene, we were born to lose'
Bruise Pristine- Placebo
'Chances blown, nothing's free/Longing for what used to be/ Still it's
hard, hard to see/Fragile lives, shattered dreams'
The Kids Aren't Alright - The Offspring
'Your chasing the dragon, your chasing the high/A bird with one wing whose
still trying to fly/You're all out of spirit, a dead man alive/A born
again junkie, you'll never survive'
Junkie- Ozzy Osbourne
'Get back on your feet again/You always seem down'
Lullaby- Starsailor
'Pink pill/Feels good/Finally/Understood/Take me in your warm
embrace/I am trying/I am trying'
Electro-shock Blues- Eels
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Chapter Eight
Ricki moved back off the bed to show Desty he meant no harm, and then sighed heavily before speaking.
"That's not entirely true. I avoided ever telling you 'cause I didn't wanna lose you as a friend... and then when I found out you were okay with it, I... I just couldn't, I don't know."
Desty was watching him. "So you're...?"
"Bi. Bisexual. I find girls attractive, some girls, sometimes... but... Desty, since I met you on my first day, that day I asked you for directions, there's been something... I was content to let us just be friends, cause I didn't think anything more could come of it... but Desty, I really like you. A lot. Probably more than is healthy." He ended with a weak joke.
Desty still looked uncertain, but the fear and the hurt look was gone. He poked at the bed covers distractedly. "Why are you telling me this now?" He asked eventually.
"I don't know." Ricki ran a hand through his hair, but Desty seemed to require an answer. "Maybe, after I found out YOU liked guys that way. I thought you wouldn't beat me up if you found out?" he said, again with the faux humour in his voice. "Maybe. it was because I had enough of not telling you. When I thought about everything we COULD be having, and weren't." He slid a hand across the bedspread and carefully, slowly stroked Desty's fingers. "Because I looked at you just now and it nearly killed me with how much I feel for you."
Desty looked down at their connected fingers, but didn't move. He looked back up at Ricki with questions in his eyes and speech on his tongue, but Ricki shook his head to stop what was coming.
"We could be something good together." He said. "But first... I want to show you something. Before you say anything back, before you tell me to leave or to stay, I want to show you this because you need to know. I want to show you how much I trust you, how much faith I have in us... and who I really am."
Desty sighed, but didn't pull away from Ricki's touch. "You're getting slightly cryptic on me..." he said, with diluted amusement."But go ahead."
Ricki sighed, and then spilled.
"Illkitt should have known me. The fact that he didn't recognise who I was just goes to show what kind of state he's in, but then other people have never exactly been something to remember where Illkitt's concerned. I took a year out of high school before my final year. I'll get to the why later. I was alone, something I'd never been before, cause I've always been a popular kid." He said honestly, with no trace of boast, for it was the truth and that's what he was giving Desty.
"For some reason, Illkitt interested me. There was something about him that made me want to know him. You should know that Illkitt was the outcast of the school; NOBODY liked him, at all. Anyway... I got to talking with him. He's seriously in need of some therapy or counselling or something, because he's been through a LOT of shit and hasn't had anyone to help him through it. To be honest, I think he's crazy, but I can't really make that judgement on someone else. He needs help though."
Ricki ran a hand through his hair and continued.
"Illkitt is a masochist." Desty started at that coming out so suddenly, although he'd assumed that Ricki had had sex with the other boy by now. "I mean, seriously. At our first meeting, he begged me to hit him. One thing led to another and before I knew it I was having sex with him."
Desty nodded, and his quiet acceptance of that made it easier for Ricki to continue.
"I won't go into it, but he was the one who made me realise who I am. That I was bisexual. He explained it all in terms of having more sex, but in the end he made me accept the fact that I wanted to be with other men."
Both boys were silent for a while, Desty while he absorbed this and waited for Ricki to go on and Ricki while he gathered his thoughts and prepared himself to tell the rest.
"One night we slept together. It was in a bed for the first time."
Desty raised an eyebrow in something like amused scandal, but kept quiet.
"Kitt had freaked out a bit but we'd... we'd almost made love instead of fucking. But he still needed me to hurt him, and I realised then that he'd always need it. But it didn't matter to me. And the next morning I told him that I loved him."
Desty drew a sharp intake of breath, but Ricki squeezed his hand and shook his head.
"I was young." He explained. "Well, younger. And I didn't know how else to describe my feelings to him. So I told him."
"What happened?" Desty asked after Ricki was silent.
"I scared him." Ricki sighed. "Scared him away. I saw him a few days later being fucked by some guy who was always bullying him."
Now Desty squeezed Ricki's hand.
"It's okay. At first I was angry. I mean, I told him how I felt and now there he was... but I realised something. Illkitt wouldn't have said it back to me ever. Not then. He was too hurt and confused and, I dunno, screwed up at the time. I had some fancy idea that I could save him, make him turn round after saying those three words, but of course, it wasn't going to happen. I didn't see him again until last night at the club."
"I'm sorry." Desty said in a solemn voice. Ricki shrugged. "It's alright." He looked down and away and finally moved his hand from Desty's. He didn't want to feel the revulsion he knew he would get when he told Desty this. But as he'd said... he was showing Desty all of him, and that meant the dirty side too.
"There's more." He said, then steeled himself and started, the story he hadn't told anyone since he'd started his last year of high school with Illkitt.
"Like I said before, I used to be a popular kid. I was in the swim team, I had tons of friends; kids would even try and be my friend just to get MORE popular. That's how popular I was. Okay. there was this boy; his name was Seritroe Illyanas."
The name was burned forever in Ricki's mind.
"He had a crush on me. I mean, a SERIOUS crush, he used to look in while I was having gym, and follow me around, just stupid little things like that. Anyway, one day, I found a letter he'd written on the back of his homework, it got stuck to my foot. I read it and found out that he DID like me, and then. someone bet me to do something really bad."
He stood up and paced a bit before sitting back down. Desty waited patiently to hear Ricki out.
"Some guy who wasn't even my friend. He bet me to go out with Seritroe, and then dump him. And I know it was underhanded and mean, but I did it."
He was quiet, listening for any tell-tale signs of disgust from Desty, but the other boy was as silent as he was. And now he HAD to go on.
"He wasn't bothering anyone. All he did was fall in love with me. I told him that I had a crush on him, and walked him home after school and we ended up having sex." He cleared his throat. "That was my first time with a boy. And his first time as well. I told him I loved him. And then, the next morning, I got up, left him a note telling him it had all been a bet and then walked out while he was still asleep."
Ricki covered his face with his hands, hunched over, wishing more than ever that he could go back and change things.
"I went back to school and told all my friends that I'd made him think I liked him and then left while he was stripping to have sex. I never told them I'd actually done it. I didn't want them to think I was gay. He came up to me at break though, and he told everyone I'd slept with him. He'd hurt himself, mauled himself more like, gouged his arm open. He told me I'd made him do it. And then he left, because I couldn't tell him, couldn't tell him that I loved him. I couldn't deny it was just a bet, 'cause it was."
Ricki hiccoughed a sob, but had to keep going. It was like confession.
"I went to class and the fire bell went, and we all thought it was a drill. We were standing outside, and then he spoke. He was on top of the building, high up on the roof, and he told everyone, told the whole school what I had done to him. And then he jumped off." He sobbed harder. "He fucking committed suicide, and it was my fault. I killed him Desty; I fucking killed a boy all because I was selfish and afraid. I killed him, I did it, and if it wasn't for me he'd still be fucking alive."
He jumped when Desty put an arm over his shoulder, and then pulled him down into a hug. He buried his head in Desty's shoulder and just cried. It was messy, it was indulgent, it was- in the back of Ricki's mind where he could be bothered with such things-embarrassing, but most of all it was cathartic. Liberating. This was doing what a year of counselling couldn't.
Because most of all, he'd needed someone to forgive him.
Desty petted through his hair and rubbed his back and let him cry it all out until he was reduced to the occasional sniffle. The blond then reached over to the bedside table for a tissue and handed it to Ricki, who cleaned his face.
Desty then leaned in and gave Ricki a gentle, almost chaste kiss. Ricki lifted his hand to Desty's face for a second, but then Desty pulled away.
Ricki was confused.
"Was that a goodbye kiss?" He asked, seriously believing that it was.
"No." Desty said. "It was our first kiss as proper boyfriends." He studied Ricki to make sure this was sinking in. "What you did was pretty fucked up." He said, and Ricki winced, but Desty continued. "But it's obvious you regret it. We all make mistakes. you're not holding anything against me for doing what I did, are you?"
"God no!" Ricki exclaimed.
"Well then. Why should I hold what you did against you? That kid chose to kill himself. Sure, maybe what you did had some involvement, but he could have done any number of things. He could have left, could have gotten his own back some other way. You didn't want him to kill himself, it wasn't your intention, and as far as I'm concerned you're sorry for it. Knowing you, you'll be carrying the guilt of that around with you until you die. I'm not going to punish you anymore for it."
Ricki stared at him in astonishment, afraid that he was dreaming. He quickly pinched himself in case he was. "Ow!"
Desty's laugh was cut off by Ricki's mouth once again pressing against his own, and this time the kiss was much more serious.
They broke it and found that they had moved, Ricki lying full length across Desty, Desty lying back on Ricki's bed. Desty yawned.
"It's late." He said, indistinctly. "We should be going to sleep."
Ricki grabbed Desty's cover off the pull-out, curled up behind Desty, threw the covers over them both and then spooned, one arm pulling Desty against him, their legs entwine d together.
"When you're right, you're right." He grinned, then kissed Desty one more time. "Goodnight."
"Night, Ricki." Desty mumbled, as he fell asleep, feeling actually happy.
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And that's the end. I'm not kidding, that's it. We shall be seeing more of the couple though, after the fourth series. (Evil laughter) Ah, the fourth series. It's gonna be different from these three, that's for sure.
In the meantime, I love you all for reading, and I love my reviewers even more.
It's been crap, but you've stuck by me. I hope I haven't let you down. Look out for Part Four coming very soon.