"I think he'd like this one better."

"Are you sure? it's a bit more expensive than the first model I showed you."

"I'll take it."

King's birthday was approaching in just days. Peter had braved the crowds of the nearby shopping mall for about two hours. It was Black Friday and the sales were impressive enough to get even the most reclusive individuals to leave the security of their private homes. Peter looked forward to King's birthday more than King himself. This was because King meant the world to him. It had been years since he first met the older man. During these years, Peter began to look at King like the father he never had. Sure he had a father, but Peter's real father died when he was still a young boy. In spirit anyway. He physically died when Peter was a young teenager.

At first, he mourned the loss daily but over time, he began to feel no more remorse. This was because his father was abusive and a poor excuse of a man. Peter always had to dig deep for fond memories of him. The deeper he searched, the more he realized that these memories were rare. Instead of smiles and the warm embrace of his father, he remembered tears and the cold, shivering embrace of his own arms wrapped around his ribs after a beating. Instead of fishing trips on Father's Day, he remembered his old man watching television and keeping to himself. He remembered being attacked by bees in the backyard at just four years old and screaming for "daddy". Daddy never came. Daddy was too busy taking a nap.

He remembered watching as his mother hid in the bathroom, door locked, listening to her cries and screams as his father pounded on the door to get after her. The sting of a plastic cup ricocheting off a wall and hitting him instead of his mother. The way his knees would tremble whenever he received a poor test grade and knew he would be verbally abused and deemed not intelligent enough to be his kid. He remembered the feeling of his face against the floor, his father jumping on top of him and beating his small frame until it felt nothing anymore. So in a way, his father's untimely death was a chance at freedom for Peter. Months after the bastard died, sighs of relief would often leave Peter's lips when he looked out of the window.

However, one thing remained. He still wanted a father to guide him. Someone to give him tough love and motivate him to move forward. Someone to tell him that everything would be okay, that one day he would look back on this and laugh. Someone to take him fishing and to show him old photos from his college days. A man to teach him to be independent, to fight for what he believed in and to defend himself against anyone who disrespected him. A father figure to remind him which tools to use when looking under the hood of his car. No such man existed.

Peter went through life knowing that something was missing. He knew he lacked a piece of his heart. This piece would be the thing that often held him back from being a better person. However, this all changed one day when Peter met King. At first, he thought it was a crush on the mysterious older man. This was due to the fact that his heart knew no form of love for too long, and he didn't know what his heart was trying to tell him. It took a few months, but he eventually started to realize that this man was something more than that. He was the father figure that Peter would often go to sleep and dream about having been given to at birth. The man that he would've loved to go fishing with. The one that he could've gone camping with. The father that he could've made special cards for on Father's Day or taken out to dinner on his birthday. He had almost exactly everything that Peter thought he would want from a father.

What helped him feel this way was the fact that King seemed to trust him and open up to him with information that would be for his ears only. King would be stressed and tell him secrets and parts of his life that not many others were privileged enough to hear. King wanted kids of his own, but due to unfortunate incidents, he never received his wish. He himself even acknowledged the bond, told Peter that he didn't know why he told him these things, but that he wanted them to remain with Peter alone. And so he did as he was asked to do; guarding King's thoughts, jokes, and young life experiences like gems hidden beneath the sand. Peter wanted to become the son he never had.

King protected him from others and stood up for him when no one else would. He taught him how to be a stronger person, to rise from a scared little hurt boy and stand into the role of an intelligent and tough young man. He taught him how to fight, how to defend himself from those who would want to hurt him like so many others had done in the past. And in some ways, he was successful. King's constant pushing caused Peter to get a license, buy his first car, look into higher education. Because of King filling in the empty void he once felt, Peter found himself wanting a better future.

Before meeting King, Peter actually spent months contemplating suicide. He would sit in his bed and imagine what it would feel like to sleep forever, what it would be like to never feel pain again. That was the future he had seen for himself. He pictured himself dying much too young; having barely started to ascend the roller coaster of life, but being okay with getting off the ride early. At the tender age of thirteen, he had already attempted to take his own life. He took a belt and wrapped it around his throat as tight as he could, strapping the buckle so far against his skin that he could feel the air halt deep within his lungs. Tears fled his eyes when he saw nothing and nobody to live for. Somehow, something told him to stop. Something told him to push on. Even now at the age of twenty-four, he liked to think it was because he was meant to meet King someday. He was meant to find a father figure to make up for all the harsh realities he had been forced to endure.

And here he was today, holding a brand new watch for the man he considered his father. But something was wrong. As he went home and began to wrap the birthday gift, he struggled to see the paper through tear filled eyes. During the past few months, his depression had worsened to the point where he no longer knew who he was. Unfortunately, after years of looking after Peter, this began to make King distance himself a bit. Peter was left to believe that King no longer cared about him, though he knew that couldn't be true. King had done too much for him in the past, had taught him too many lessons, had too many personal conversations with him to have never cared. He even told Peter that he was like the son he never had. Hearing that made Peter the happiest he had ever been in his life. He remembered a year ago being told that and walking around the rest of the day feeling indestructible, invincible. He had finally done it. He had proven himself to King and finally achieved the impossible. King saw him as his own. Countless nights, Peter would watch the sky and wish upon stars. As juvenile and childish as it sounded, it gave him a sliver of hope that he would be able to change his destiny. He would have a father, he would show King how much he loved and appreciated him. All the stars he wished upon, all the coins he tossed into fountains in the mall when nobody else was looking; those moments all seemed to resonate deep within his head.

But now, things seemed to be getting bumpier than normal. His depression seemed to be pushing people away. And now it seemed to be pushing King away. But the thing was, the more he tried to make things right between the two, the worse they seemed to get. He tried everything; talking to King about his condition, joking around, buying him snacks, getting him Father's Day gifts and personalized cards, expensive birthday presents. But it was to the point that lately, King seemed to not even want to deal with him. Often, they would bump into each other in public places and Peter would pretend not to see him. To his surprise, King would leave as soon as he could, thinking in his mind that he had not been seen. This caused a deep swelling in Peter's already destroyed heart. Was he going to lose another father? Was he going to lose the man who gave him reason to live again? Was he going to lose the friendship that had kept him motivated, the same one that kept him thirsting to get back on that roller coaster called life?

He'd been here before with King. They had their fair share of fights, one of which ended physically leaving Peter injured. But King would always come around and apologize in his own little way, and Peter would always forgive him and continue to do his best to protect his father. There had been so many times that Peter protected King from danger that he never even knew about. From people who tried to bad mouth him, people who tried to betray him. He felt like he would die for him if need be. Never before had he felt such a strong attachment to someone like this, someone who he felt saved his life and gave it meaning.

Now every time someone made King laugh, every time someone made King smile, made a joke for only him to hear, sat down with him to enjoy the view; Peter found himself angry and jealous. What was he going to do to get back King's approval and love? He knew it was there but how to pull it back? This, he didn't know. Once again, he found himself slipping into darkness. His mind tickled his negativity, whispered to him that King didn't care anymore. Told him that he was just like everybody else and that he would leave him alone to suffer just like his birth father did.

It was to the point where Peter found himself wanting to give up. Again, he would sit in bed and wonder what it would feel like to sleep forever. What would it feel like to feel no more pain, no more betrayal? At this point, Peter finally finished wrapping the watch that he had bought for King's birthday. He had done a horrible job, as he was never that good with any sort of arts and crafts. It was another small detail that he knew King wouldn't even notice, but to him it gave a feeling of accomplishment. King deserved the best in his mind, because this was the man who gave him hope, the man who showed him fatherly love, the man who made him want to get out of bed every morning and face life guns blazing. The man that no matter how this whole situation turned out, no matter if he never talked to Peter again; Peter would always secretly watch over him. This was because the term 'father' didn't make him think of the bastard rotting under the ground back home. It made him see King in his mind first and foremost. No matter what King choose to do, Peter would always know him as one thing and one thing only:

Dad.