Author's notes: Anyway... after soliciting this site for so long, I thought it was high time to submit a story of my own. So, here it is, my first fan fic. I know it's short. Forgive me. The first few chapters are mostly exposition, but I'll get to the juicy part eventually. R/R, PLEASE!111!111
Disclaimer: It all belongs to L.J. Smith.
Chapter 1
Zach did not know where to turn. His mind was black with panic. He needed to move! He needed to think! Those magnificent azure eyes were drawing ever closer and he was frozen to the spot. It was those eyes… they seemed to pierce his very soul, reaching inside to rip him apart. A wave such immense sorrow washed over him that he felt his sanity might snap under its force.
With a cry, Zach flew into a sitting position, his bare chest heaved under a slick sheen of sweat. Eyes stinging with tears, he threw his legs over the side of the bed and rose to his feet. He had been dreaming again. Dreaming of him. That made three nights in a row, but tonight had been the worst. Zach sighed and shook his head as if to clear it. Ever since the events of two years before, the memory of Julian and his amazingly blue eyes had been lingering in the back of his mind. But was that so odd? After all, Julian was a hard person to forget. Recently though…recently those fading memories had gate crashed his dreams. This sudden reemergence of old memories had Zach stressed to the breaking point. It wasn't just his sleep that was suffering. He was beginning to notice some rather unpleasant changes in the quality of his artwork. That was very bad.
The year after The Doll House Incident, as he had come to think of it, Zach had been accepted into a prominent University of the Arts on a full ride scholarship. He had been elated when he had received his letter of acceptance, he thought moving across the country might help him forget. Now in his second year, he was working on his first art show, or had been. Before the dreams. It wasn't just the dreams, though. It was the feelings they aroused that frightened him. He had thought for sure that he had been over it. But those feelings were back. With a vengeance.
Zach had known he was gay from the time he was twelve. That life-changing epiphany had come to him in the as his head was being shoved ruthlessly into a toilet. Eighth-grade retribution for popping wood in the gym shower surrounded by naked adolescent males. Coming to grips with his sexuality had taken a while, but acceptance had come with time. He was perfectly happy with is sexuality under normal circumstances, but crushing on an immortal being of pure evil? That was just too odd. With or without the gender discrepancies. Even so… Thinking about him—Julian—made him feel weak at the knees. It was an impossible dream, he knew that. Julian was in love with someone else, Zach's own cousin. Jenny. Where was she now? Last year she had cracked. Broken up with Tom, said goodbye to her friends, and just…vanished. Occasionally she wrote, but for the most part there was only silence. Zach could understand that.
After the ordeal, they had all just gone on with there lives. It was as if nothing had happened. Even Zach thought he had been over it. There were weeks that went by when he didn't even think of the shadow world, and the horrible beings that dwelt there. But Jenny… It had been different for her. After that final confrontation she had gone into a noticeable decline. The radiant happiness that had always surrounded her had faded and she became like a shell of her former self. Poor Jenny. Now he knew how she had felt. Unfortunately, running away would do him no good; he could not escape his own mind. His own feelings. He knew it was wrong, but still… Julian…
"Oh God," he shook his head fiercely, "Oh God, help me…" And with that, Zach began to pull on his clothes. There would be no more sleep for him tonight.