Libere

A/N: So, hello readers. Bear with me.

Feel free to skip the next two paragraphs. I'm just looking for particular reviews and making sure that people who are unnerved by mild language/characters who are not romantic heterosexuals evacuate.

First, there's some mild language in this and depressing imagery. I'll also warn you: if the words homoromantic or demisexual unnerve you--well, I'm having bloody fun. I'd apologize, but I needn't.You're writers. You should like new words and ideas. And, after all, you write about unicorns, a bloke liking blokes only in a lets-exchange-flowers or you're-pretty-can-we-watch-Doctor-Who way is less than half as exciting as unicorns. But I'd figure I'd warn those that were already confused. Platonic love story? What is that? It sounds uncomfortable.

Second, while this is a stand alone short story--about four and a bit more pages, I think--it is part of a bigger story, which I refer to as HAZEverse. Basically, this stems from the fact I'm working on making something out of the novella, short stories, and partial novel I have in this same universe. Making something publishable. I'd love to see, in particular, what yout think about the relationship between the characters and whether or not you find Jacksin or Blaze more interesting. Either would make a fine protag, or maybe both could be, but I'm unsure whether or not I want to split an already confusing idea into a few POVs. Tell me what you think about this, particularly, if possible.

Thanks for giving me a minute. Maybe you skipped that mess. Whatever.

Libere

Blaze had always been told he worked like blackberry bramble, his charm and looks there to hide his thorns. He’d always tried to be loving and kind. He cared for his mother, even if she just sat in his dad’s chair, combing her long, straight black hair as soon as she got off work, almost never talking, only asking things of him.

She’d been ruined by his father.

Blaze looked just like his father. He’d gotten his mother’s color, at least. But his eyes and his face were all his dad. His father, the ice king with the eyes on fire. Too tempting for his mother to resist. So tempting all the signs of what an arsehole he was were ignored.

Blaze had grown up poor and half-literate and wanting.

Jacksin had swooped in like some hero, like the Superman or Batman of those rare shows that made it through the TV’s fuzz. One day he’d just wanted to try and read that book Mrs. Tin had asked them to, just once, on the playground and all the other boys had decided it was open season on the only half-white kid. Open season on the kid who had to sound out little four letter words. Jacksin had come in and the bullies scattered like roaches. Blaze’d been confused. He’d never seen bullies back down from tormenting. Either they found someone new and the bullying slowly stopped, or it escalated.

It took Blaze far too long to realize Jacksin’s parents were some of the richest people in their beatdown East Coast town. Blaze figured the bullies’ parents had known they were nasty little snits, but maybe they worked for one of Jacksin’s parents and they knew better to piss them off. Blaze was poor and it wasn’t like he was black, so the abuse was fine.

After Jacksin, it was like Blaze was untouchable. Jacksin and him became fast friends. He didn’t really know how. They had to be maybe seven or eight and Blaze always wore the same corduroy jacket in winter and barely fit his feet into a pair of muddy sneakers. He wasn’t sure how Jacksin had forced his parents to accept Blaze as his friend, but they did. Grudgingly. At first, Blaze could remember thinking of Jacksin as just a bodyguard and someone whose pantry had more than some canned pasta and Gushers. Things progressed when Blaze finally became open to the idea Jacksin hadn’t been punking him. He’d liked Blaze. Blaze had no clue why Jacksin had taken a shine to him, but he had and Blaze would be forever grateful for it. Hell, Jacksin had helped him finally read well.

They’d stayed friends. Even in junior high, where everyone was mocking Jacksin, star of the soccer team then, about his “boyfriend.” Jacksin had just given them this unique icy look and told them to shut up and stop being backwoods hicks unless they wanted him to quit the soccer team. They didn’t quit with the tormenting, though. They just harassed Blaze and left Jacksin alone. Blaze’d been used to it and didn’t want to ruin things, so he stayed quiet. It was like muscle memory. At the end of the year, though, Jacksin caught someone calling Blaze names.

God, Blaze wouldn’t forget how calm Jacksin had been. Scary calm. Just like Jacksin’s mom and dad, an ice queen and king but of the rich kind. The kid, Tony or something, had almost pissed himself.

In high school, Jacksin hadn’t played soccer. The team never went regional or even state. The coach kept asking him back, but Jacksin always refused.

Blaze had felt something then. He’d have called it love, but wasn’t that the reason why Jacksin was always so pissed when someone said they were together? Because he found it disgusting? Mind you, Blaze hadn’t wanted to sleep with him, because no and that’d ruined everything. He’d be back, staring at television fuzz with his vacant mom. Or maybe he’d take up chain-smoking, because he’d picked up the habit a bit even though Jacksin made a point to fake-cough real loudly when he could smell it on him.

Maybe it was hero-worship. Like Jacksin was Batman and Blaze was Robin, always in danger and a sidekick. Even though Blaze was built like a brick shithouse. He’d been told so by a variety of people, from a freshman he ran into to a black-lipped Goth senior girl. Jacksin was puny compared to him. But Jacksin was golden-haired and rich. He was pretty. He had girls clamoring for him. Guys hated him or thought him awesome. He was everything Blaze knew one wanted to be.

He was what Blaze always wanted to be and would never be.

God, he was always so guilty then, as a freshman and sophomore. Just finally questioning their relationship. They doted on each other, if one was sick the other was bringing over whatever they thought would help and company. They were never apart at school, if at all possible. They chatted about their lives like the girls did. It wasn’t normal.

Then again, neither of their lives had ever been normal. Not even Jacksin, the golden boy with the posh-spelled name. Their parents hadn’t been too good. They both went home to an ice locker environment, only Jacksin’s house was truly freezing and Blaze’s A/C had broken in seventh grade.

They hadn’t had anyone but each other. Even when they adopted Booker, the nerdy kid that both saw as child-Blaze, no matter if either denied it. For the first time, Blaze hadn’t been jealous of Jacksin spending time with another person. They’d started to drift a little then--Blaze doing nothing but being reckless, Jacksin starting to prepare for college and doing photography and shit. Blaze would be stuck in town. Jacksin was going somewhere big. Blaze was pretty sure Jacksin didn’t feel enough of it to take him with him.  

Blaze had felt a little depressed then.

Then the seven months of horror came and went. Left them broken, mentally and physically, with the whispers of demons’ words in their brains and marks left by monsters’ claws on their bodies.

Blaze could remember it. Escaping. Through a hatch, flames licking at their ankles, and then closing it. Remembered screaming at the sky, maybe. Of falling back, against pines, then sinking to the snow-covered earth. Jacksin’s hair had had snowflakes in it, dazzling in the fading light, and he’d looked gorgeous. For once, he didn’t look pained or sick. It was glorious.

Blaze had been stupid and made a bloody snow angel on the ground, shivering and teeth-chattering but not even caring because they were free.  

Jacksin had stayed smart and bundled them up for the night in an igloo-like thing. It’d been pink with blood and half-melted in the morning.

They’d gone home, to what was left of it for either of them. Blaze’s mother, for the first time in his life, hadn’t been able to shut up. Hadn’t been able to stop trying to mother.

It was jarring and it then hit him that life would never be the same. He’d gone from one world and come back to another. Jacksin, too.

Jacksin.

Jacksin had fallen for a girl in hell and watched her die.

He hadn’t been happy or joyful or welcoming the night of their escape. He’d been cold, stoic, and forceful.

Blaze had shivered. His mother had given him a blanket.

The world tipped off its axis.

Today, Blaze stood, scared, with two black lab puppies on leashes. He’d never not fear dogs after hell, but he had to face his fears.

Jacksin had on a backpack and had another bag tucked under his arm. His face had a few lines that shouldn’t be there, his gray eyes were dull, and his hair was flaxen-gray, not gold. His skin was paler than ever.

Blaze knew, without being told, Jacksin was leaving him.

“So, where are you headed?” Blaze asked.

Jacksin paused. Opened his mouth, then closed it. He seemed unfocused, for once. “Far as twenty bucks will take me on the first bus, I guess.” He smiled uneasily.

Blaze was sure his heart had shattered a few times in his life. It made this time a little less painful. A little. “Not going to finish high school, go to college and double major or be a lawyer and whatever?”

“Blaze--”

“Fine.” Blaze handed him the red leash. The female pup, the sister. “Take this.”

Jacksin looked horrified, staring down at the dog. Like Blaze had given him a dead raccoon.

“I know,” Blaze admitted, “but she can protect you. She’ll love you. She’ll miss her brother, though. They’re like socks. Meant to be together.”

Jacksin looked up. His eyes flashed. “I see.”

“They’ll have to have playdates,” Blaze added, “once in awhile.”

Jacksin gave him a truer smile, the one that reminded Blaze he was a soppy dumbass. Blaze didn’t mind.