Bernard Dunnings was born Bernard Abraham Dunnings, which was an indication right off the bat that the boy was going to be trouble, at least for his parents.

He was their second born, after their eldest daughter Alice, and before their youngest son Michael. Growing up in a strong Christian family Bernard was welcomed into the faith by having his head dunked in the water. Naturally, the baby boy with brown eyes had screamed the house down and had continued to do so for the remainder of the day, and throughout his family's party to celebrate his entering into God's House. His grandfather had jokingly said maybe it was a sign he was going to be trouble, no matter what.

The little boy was a quiet child, who kept to himself as he grew. Despite having an older sister, by four years, who coddled him and dragged him around the house while dressing him up in all manner of baby clothes, he never complained or fussed. In fact, despite his screaming fit at the Church on his Christening, little Bernard (Bernie, to his mother) rarely cried. It was obviously not in his nature.

"I don't want to go to school." Bernard started each morning with, once he had to be shuffled off to his religious school. "All we do is pray."

"And that's important!" said his mother as she dressed him in his school clothes, placing the straw hat atop his brown hair. "Remember God loves you, even more than I do."

He would sigh, and head off to school following his sister Alice. Once Michael was old enough to go to school, the younger brother would trail alongside his big brother telling him how excited he was for classes to begin. Report cards from school were always the same, Bernard got top grades in all of his classes, but was a renown 'anti-social'. He refused to join in with the rest of the students when they had little gatherings, always preferred to sit off to the side by himself. During lunch and recess the boy would hurry into the library, buckle down with a book and read for the entirety of the break.

"It isn't healthy." said his teacher, at the parent teacher interview when he was eight. "Bernard is no doubt gifted, but he just... locks everyone out. It's as if we aren't of interest to him."

"What do you suggest?" asked his father.

"I'd recommend involving him in social activities. The Cubs, the Scouts, something along those lines." said the teacher.

And so Bernard was thrust into the Scouts. Despite claiming having no desire to know how to stop, or start, a fire, tie knots, or sing along at camp outs, he was forced into every single one. Despite the Scout's leader doing his best, Bernard continued to remain out of the loop on everything. He would glare, snidely comment on things and out right insult some other boys and made more than half his Scout Group cry at some point or another.

"Just what is wrong with him? It's like he doesn't want to fit in." ranted his father one night, while the children were asleep. "It's as if his soul purpose in life is to make everyone think we're bad parents."

"He's just a child." replied his mother quietly, though she was feeling the same thing. As his mother, she was meant to defend him, wasn't she?

"He's eleven now. He's old enough to know!" snapped the man.

"Adam," she sighed, reaching out and touching his arm. "Bernard's... Bernard's just one of those children. He likes to be alone. You can't force him to be anything he isn't."

He looked at his wife, sighed, and rubbed his forehead. "It feels so maddening Marie. Last week at the Marx family picnic? For Lucy's Holy Communion? When asked what he felt when he had to take Christ' body do you know what he said?"

"No..." Marie replied, bracing herself.

"He said that Jesus tasted like cardboard. Nothing about how... how happy he is to be part of the Church! Nothing at all like that. Only that it tasted like cardboard! Why is he like that? Just, tell me why! Should we take him to see a Priest? What if he's possessed and we've just never known and-" Marie grabbed her husbands arms, pulling him in and narrowed her eyes at him.

"Calm down. Just calm down. He's. He's just different. Don't make me face the sight of watching my son being exorcised when we don't even know if he's possessed. Do not."

Upstairs, holding onto the stairs banisters was Bernard. His glasses fogged from his breath and brown eyes wide he listened as his father complained. He felt as though he was being back stabbed by his father. Was he really that bad a son? He never got into fights, he didn't swear, he didn't bite... he was just. Honest? Was that so wrong? Sniffing once, the young boy got to his feet and returned to the safety of his room, crawled under his bed, and by torchlight he read Charles Dickens Great Expectations.

Everyone just... bored him. He saw no point in spending hours a day praying to a person who never showed himself. There was no point in knowing how to tie sailor knots, since at what point in his life would he need it? Those around him were so uninteresting he wanted nothing to do with them. Even his own family. But how could he tell his parents that? He couldn't.

"...maybe I should pretend to be interested...?" he asked himself before actually snorting, and rolled his eyes. "Yeah. And at the same time I'll praise God and kiss his feet."

And so it continued. He did indeed end up seeing a child psychologist on a few occasions and they gave him some medication, but it did nothing else but makes his mouth feel dry and his stomach fluffy. He could swear his father still seriously considered sending him to see a Priest, but it seemed his mother's defense of him kept him away from acting out The Exorcist and spewing out green pea soup.

But it was during his teenage years that things began to, somehow, both fog and clear at the same time. Of course like any teenager Bernard suffered the changes in his body. Puberty hit with the subtlety of a brick wall collapsing, and soon he was a gangly, tall, bespectacled boy that no girl showed interest in. To be honest, he had no interest in them, either. He watched them giggle and gaggle together like a flock of hens, prancing around in clothes in an attempt to appear sexy yet still wearing the school uniform and felt... well. Nothing at all.

He was more drawn to watching the basketball team. Bernard would often find himself sitting under a tree outside with a book, in full view of the sports area of the oval. There the boys would be practicing all manner of things. Running, basketball, baseball... he found it all the more interesting when they would play shirts vs. skins.

Being the smart boy that he was, Bernard didn't have to question why it felt this way. He knew, that day, fifteen years old and watching the boys in the older classes playing basketball, that he preferred men. Then he realized just what this meant.

"Crap." he said aloud, closing the book he was reading as he did. "This isn't good." Bernard mumbled, lifting a hand and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. This wasn't good at all. His father was against homosexuals; it's who he was all about. Follow the word of God. Adam and Eve. Not Adam and Steve. Or Alice and Eve. Every time something about same-sex marriages came up on the news his father would launch into a tirade of reasons why they shouldn't be allowed, that it was a sin against God, and that they would burn in Hell for their sins.

To think what his father would say, or do, if he found out his oldest son was a queer. He wouldn't put it past him to yell at him, maybe even kick him out the house. So what would Bernard do? Live a lie? Pretend to be interested in girls, maybe even try to get a girlfriend to play the role of his fake love interest to keep his parents off his back? His sister Alice was already engaged to be married, and she was only nineteen and it was the same boyfriend she had gotten when she was sixteen. Groaning, Bernard hid his face in his hands and wondered why things went this way for him.

"Maybe I was a murderer in another live." he mumbled. That would explain why his life had gone the way the way it had, born into a super religious family, an older sister already to marry and have a slew of children, a baby brother who was in choir with the voice of an angel, and parents whose main concern for their middle child was whether or not he'd find a nice girl and get married.

Only he never would. Why should he pretend? Why should he hide who he was? He'd never cared before what his family, or the Church, thought of him. Why would it matter now?

"Because this is bigger then anything." said a little voice in the back of his head.

"I hate it when I'm right." Bernard muttered.

~*~

Bernard completed high school without making a single girlfriend, or boyfriend which was unsurprising to everyone to be totally honest about it. He wasn't exactly the most handsome man around, with that wild brown hair that defied gravity and hair gel and his round glasses. The boy wasn't exactly known for his winning personality either, but they said that probably explained why he had such high grades. He was never distracted by friends, girlfriends, or by kissing.

So he, like the rest of his class graduating, donned the blue gown and cap... and a stupid gold chain with the cross hanging around his neck. He wasn't expecting to be called up though, because his grades were the highest the school had seen in over ten years. Bernard made his way up the stairs to the podium and shook the hands of the school's Priest, and the Principal.

"Would you like to say a few words?" asked the Priest.

"No." Bernard replied honestly, turned, and walked back down to his seat. There were awkward smatterings of applause as he did.

Rather then take a year off to travel aboard or see the world, Bernard instead got work right away. Not a month out of graduating the young man had gotten hired at a telecommunication company. When people's computers weren't working, they would call, and he would talk them through just what they had done wrong, how stupid they were, and just how to fix it. It was easy work, with good enough pay, and he found himself working in a surprisingly male dominated industry.

Which meant he had a lot of guys to look at throughout his day. So he never complained.

"So how's the job coming, Bernard?" asked his father one evening whilst reading the newspaper after another long days work of his son.

"Fine." Bernard replied as he watched the television.

"Making any friends, Bernie?" asked his mother, she herself was doing another one of those stitching you hung onto the walls. Hers read something about God's undying love… or something like that.

"I don't know." he shrugged, having long given up telling his mother to not call him that name.

"You don't know?" asked Adam, lowering his paper. "Don't you talk to people?"

"All day." Bernard said, looking to his father. "I'm on the phone to people who can't begin to process the meaning of the words 'refresh' and 'check your cable connection'. I talk till my mouth is sore and my throat dry."

"You know what I mean." frowned his father.

Bernard sighed. "Yes. I do speak to my work mates."

"Well good to see you're making an attempt at making friends." said the man, nodding and looking back at the paper. "Don't make plans this weekend, Lucy's having Leslie's christening on Sunday and we need to help set up the place on Saturday for the party."

His father always said that. Don't make plans. As if he would make plans in the first place...

~*~

"Hey Bernard, you coming with us?"

Bernard looked up from his magazine at his desk, to see three of his work mates standing around him. The tallest one, Max, was an olive skinned man with a thick accent which brought on thoughts of the Caribbean. Besides him was Damian, a pale skinned man with a beard and glasses, and always wore clothes that seemed too big for him. Last of all was Seth, who was fairly average looking but had the most beautiful eyes Bernard had ever seen in his life.

Course he would never admit this. "Coming where?"

"Seth's throwing a big party on Saturday. Aren't you Seth?" Damian asked, to which Seth nodded.

"And you're inviting me?" Bernard asked slowly, as if trying to process a reason why. They were all at least five years his senior, and yet they were asking him to attend a party?

"Well yeah. Why else?" Seth asked with a lop sided smile, "You're a funny guy. I think my friends would like you."

Nobody had ever said that to him before. He hoped he wasn't blushing, that would be so embarrassing. "Yeah?" he asked.

"They like dry humor and you're full of it." said Seth. "So you gonna come?"

"Yes." Bernard said straight away, surprised at his own eagerness. He didn't want to spend his whole Saturday decorating a hall with his cousins over a baby he could care less about. Yes, that was a horrible thing to feel, but he was dragged into religious family crap every other weekend and it was getting tiresome. "I mean." he reeled himself in. "Sure. I'll come."

"Awesome." Seth grinned before handing him a piece of paper. Bernard tried not to shiver when their fingers touched. "Here's my address, be there by four."

"Four." Bernard echoed and watched as the trio headed off, and looked down at the address in his hot little hands. Seth had asked him to his party. Nobody had ever asked him out to a party who wasn't family related. What was the party for? Was it his birthday? Should he buy him a gift? What would he get him? Should he bring a drink? Crap, he couldn't buy drinks could he. He was still eighteen. Maybe he could take something from his father's wine cabinet? As if he would miss anything.

His heart began to beat wildly. A party. An actual party. With people who weren't souped up on God and family crap. Seth would be there. It was an adult party. He would finally find out whether or not Seth was interested in girls or just guys, it would all matter on the ratio of how many girls there were in comparison to guys. What if it was a guys night in! That would be even better. He could ask him if he has a girlfriend, be casual and sound uninterested which was not too hard for Bernard to pull off at all. Or, maybe he would find somebody even more interesting at the party, too. While the idea of finding a guy more interesting than Seth seemed next to impossible he didn't rule out the possibility.

For the first time in his life, Bernard was excited.

He wasn't sure if he was going to throw up or not, but he was excited.