I know...this is quite late. But...it's up! I hope you like it! FF is being really stupid and not letting me put in line breaks so I am going to play with little symbol things to make a transition thing that looks like this: -"-"-"- Sorry!
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My arm was thrown over Ash's shoulders and his hand was lightly placed on my thigh. His head was pressed against my neck, half resting and half nuzzled. I thought he had fallen asleep until he changed the channel on the too-loud TV set when the commercials came on. He changed it to some chick flick that I didn't recognize. I let my eyes wander from the TV screen down to the piercing yellow digital clock display. It read 3:28, bright against the washed out black of the rest of the room.
"I…I should probably go…" I murmured. I didn't want to be too tired when driving back to my apartment.
"No." He dropped the remote and slid his hand up my body to my chest, gripping my shirt. "Stay."
I sighed. If he wanted me to be with him that badly, I'll stay. "Okay."
"Good." He breathed, sounding as if just saying the one syllable of that word tired him out. He must be really exhausted.
Just as I had let my eyes droop (I was sure that Ash had fallen asleep) my cell phone cut through the peaceful silence of the night with its ring set to maximum volume. I jumped, feeling Ash jump with me. I muttered "shit" under my breath, and leaned down to grab my phone off the floor.
"What?" I hissed at her.
"Paul, where are you?" She sounded scared and desperate; exactly how I wanted her to sound.
"Um…" I thought about what to tell her. I couldn't decide on anything. She probably assumed I was at the bar. "Around."
"You're not at that bar, are you?"
I was right. How surprising. "No, Dawn, I'm actually not."
"Hmm…you sound sober enough. But you're tired. Why didn't you come home?"
Ah! She just gave me inspiration for a flawless story. "I was driving home, and I got too tired. I didn't want to crash, so I parked it and relaxed." Ash's eyes stared up at me, pleading me to touch him again. I hooked my arm around his neck.
"Okay. So you expected to just stay there all night? I could've come and got you!"
"What would we have done with my car?" My newfound ability to lie to Dawn successfully was proven useful.
"I…I don't know," she admitted.
"Now," I glanced at Ash, "you woke me up."
"Sorry. I'll let you go. But come home first thing in the morning! I'll wait for you to make sure you're okay!"
"Alright."
"Bye! I love you!"
"Bye." I shut the phone and turned it off, throwing it on the floor, this time farther away then before. "Sorry." I said to Ash. "That woke you up."
"No, it's okay. I'd rather wake up and see you than wake up with no one there."
That almost made me feel guilty for planning on leaving before he woke up.
"You're not leaving now, are you?"
"No," I told him. "I'm leaving tomorrow."
"Okay." He nestled into my side again, comfortably positioning himself. "That's good."
"If you hadn't fallen asleep, we could call this our first all-nighter."
He yawned. "I've never pulled one of those. I always lose all my energy by one."
"I noticed."
There was silence, then:
"Hey, Paul?"
"What?"
"Have you always been this…mean…to Dawn?"
That wasn't what I had expected. "What?"
"You seem to be really uncaring and mean to Dawn. Have you always been like that?"
Now that I thought about it, I really was only that cold after I met Ash. Or…discovered that I was gay…or bisexual…or whatever. Now that I had Ash, I didn't really need Dawn anymore. "No," I told him. "Mostly after I found out that I'm gay. And then after I met you. I don't need Dawn as much as I used to anymore."
"So…you were nicer to her before?"
"Well…just not as careless as I am now. I used to be really careful with everything I would say or do around her. To make sure that I didn't anger her or make her sad."
"Oh. So now you don't care if you hurt her feelings?"
"No. I still care about her a lot. I wouldn't want to hurt her severely. I'm just not spoiling her anymore."
"Okay. Well…she is my friend…and I just don't want to be what causes you to hurt her." He paused, then said, "But I do want to be with you. A lot."
"So…what are you saying?" A whirl of nervousness ran through me. Was he trying to end this before it fully began?
"I just don't want you to go too hard on her because of me is all. And it seems like you won't, .so I'm okay."
"Oh." I tried to hide the plain relief in my voice, but it ended up coming out in a questioning way.
"D-do you not believe me?"
"No, no, my voice came out wrong." It sounded like a lie, even though it wasn't.
"Okay…." He obviously came to the conclusion I'd wished he wouldn't.
"Really," I told him. "I believe you." Honestly, I had no legitimate reason to believe him, since I barely knew him. But something seemed right about it….
Before I knew it, I was kissing him again. I think it's my way for showing that I'm telling the truth. His tired eyes didn't even open from surprise, and he seemed to lack kissing-back energy. I could tell he was trying, though. Eventually, he pulled away, heavily breathing. "I'm too tired, Paul." He explained. "Tomorrow."
"Okay." I agreed.
Before long, he was asleep again.
The first thing I noticed about Ash's apartment was how bright it was at the break of dawn. I've never seen the inside of a building be so bright from just sunlight. And unluckily for me, Ash was still asleep in my arms. Now I was stuck here, waiting for him to wake up, and I couldn't even get up and find something to eat. Who knew how long it would be until Ash woke up.
The next thing I noticed is that Ash wasn't against my side anymore. Now, he was sprawled out on my lap, his head on the arm of the couch and his back across my legs. My hand was on his chest. I wondered how comfortable that was for him. Surprisingly, his weight wasn't too much for me. He was actually pretty light; like Dawn. As if he belonged in my lap. It actually felt kind of nice…right, even.
And my phone wouldn't even disturb it. Because this time, I turned it off. I'm so smart.
"Paul, lets go to a movie! Let's go to a movie!"
Huh? I think I fell asleep. How did that happen? Hmm…well, Ash was jumping up and down in front of me with a crazed smile across his face. Did he have coffee? Possibly…but how did he get up without waking me up? Well…that probably wasn't that hard for him since he completely repositioned himself while we were sleeping and I didn't wake up.
"So, so, so, so, what do ya say?"
To what, again? Oh…oh…the movie thing. Hmm…a movie. That didn't sound so bad...
Wait. Dawn is everywhere. Maybe she would happen to be at that movie when we were there. Then we would have problem.
I refused to picture all her possible reactions. "Ash…we can't. What if Dawn's there?"
"Dawn won't be there. If she is, say I found you and decided to take you to a movie."
"I'll say you dragged me to a movie," I clarified. "But whatever."
"So you're coming?!"
"Sure. It'll be fun. We've never gone anywhere…public…before."
"And if we need to make out we can go to the boy's bathroom."
"Yes." Honestly, it surprised me that Ash would suggest something like that. Or…state something like that, anyway.
"What movie?"
"Anything that won't be crowded."
"Well…." He thought for a few moments, then said: "it's still early in the day…so we don't have to worry about school kids."
"Just take me there and buy me tickets. I don't care what they're to." I was getting a little impatient with him. The new idea of going on a date seemed to be the only thing I wanted at the time. I actually didn't care about Dawn for a moment; I just wanted to leave this apartment.
Ash smiled, grabbed my hand, briefly kissed my lips, then pulled me out the door.
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We arrived at the theater around noon. We bought tickets to some gory movie that Dawn (or any other girl for that matter) wouldn't be caught dead in. We skipped popcorn even though we hadn't had lunch or breakfast (or…one of us hadn't had breakfast yet. I'm sure Ash made himself a nice meal). Salt and buttery kisses weren't exactly what we wanted.
We made it before the previews started. The screen was a soft pink while playing some love song show tune. We took seats in the back row, just in case someone wanted to sit behind us and get a full-on view of what was going on.
Once the previews finally started, two girls that looked about 18 each walked in. They looked around, spotted us, smiled, then began walking towards us. The taller one had dark green hair that was nicely waved. The other was a brunette with obviously fake blonde streaks. As they approached us, they looked more and more like models. Their breasts shook with every step and their hips perfectly swayed from side to side as they walked.
"Hey, boys. Where are your girls?" the green haired girl pressed.
I didn't know how to respond to that.
"Are you two here all alone? Looking for some girls?" she asked.
"Actually, we're taken," Ash told them mater-of-factually.
"Oh. Well, you're not with them now. Want some hands to hold? One movie with another girl won't be minded." Her voice was seductive, like Dawn's when she tried to seduce me.
"That's alright." Ash said.
"Well…okay…but if you want us, we'll be right there." She pointed towards the front rows of the theater. She turned and began walking there, followed by the brunette who gave me a pleading look, then turned and rushed after her friend.
The previews were easy to sit through. There were only about four because of the lack of inspiration for new movies that the world seemed to have at the time. The movie had just begun when I felt Ash's hand slink over to mine. Instead of holding my hand like I'd thought he would do, he just rested his fingers over my skin. I looked at him.
"Let's piss off these girls," he prompted.
I slowly lifted up the arm rest between us and leaned toward him. He closed his eyes. I smiled and pounced on him, knocking him into the armrest behind him. I'm sure it would've severely hurt his back if I wasn't distracting him with my tongue. I licked his lips and then slid it into his mouth, still pressed against his chest. We tongue-chased for several moments until he pulled away, gasping for air. I rested my head against his chest, panting. That's when I saw those girls. The one with the blonde streaks had her hand on the green haired one's shoulder, both their faces staring up at us in utter shock. I gave them the finger, as they whipped their heads back towards the movie screen. I had a feeling they wouldn't bother us anymore.
-"-"-"-
After the movie, I remembered that I was supposed to go back to my apartment to show Dawn that I was alive. I waited until we were walking across the parking lot towards Ash's car.
"Ash, can you drop me off at my apartment?" I reluctantly asked.
"Okay," he said, sighing. I hoped he didn't think I wanted to get away from him after the public display of affection we had just presented in the movie theater. I actually wanted to save Dawn from an anxiety attack. I placed my hand on his shoulder and delicately kissed his cheek. "Don't worry. I'll see you tomorrow. I promise."
"Okay." Ash unlocked his car once we were about five feet away from it. We both got into it and Ash began to back out of the parking space. I could feel in the silence that something wasn't right.
"Are you…mad at me?" I asked him quietly.
"No. It's nothing. Ignore it."
"I can't."
"I shouldn't tell you. Forget it."
"Now I want to know more."
"Fine. I'm just…disappointed that you have to go. But I shouldn't be. I'm too selfish."
"Oh." Did he really want me that much? I guess I kind of knew that already, but it was odd to hear it (or a variation of it, anyway) come out of his mouth.
"Sorry. I should just be happy you like me. I shouldn't want more."
Want more. Want more? Wait…did he mean not wanting me to leave…or…something else? I decided not to question as we drove in silence the two miles or so that took us to my apartment.
"Have fun," he said heartlessly as I got out of the car. He knew Dawn and I would be doing stuff. He knew it well. And he had agreed to tolerate it back in the beginning. But it still hurt him, nonetheless, to see it happening and know that there's nothing he can do to stop it.
"I will…bye." I closed the car door and walked into the apartment building, careful to not turn back and see Ash's pained face.
-"-"-"-
I stepped into the apartment, ready for anything Dawn was going to throw at me. The door slowly swung open, and there was silence. I closed the door behind me and looked around. Then I saw her. She was sitting on my couch, her knees pulled up to her chest, her hair matted and tangled, dark bags under her eyes from lack of sleep. Her cell phone was nearly crushed in her fist, as she stared at it with wide eyes. I walked over to her, my heart pounding from the guilt. I did this to her. It was my fault.
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I hope you Ikarishippers like how Dawn's in this one. There will be more of Dawn...don't worry! I began chapter 8 already. I have an idea for it. :3 Well...tell me what you think!
