Disclaimer: I own nothing. At all. Nothing. Not even the pebbles on the ground these people walk on. Not mine. Nope.

Hm. This is slowly headed towards the 'Rated M' Category, people. ((WonkaGiggle))

Willy sighed, staring at James, who was playing fetch with his enormous dog in the park the next afternoon. He could never remember the name of the beast; James had talked about it several times when they were…well, they weren't necessarily together. Although, they weren't exactly friends, either. Whatever their relationship was called, most of it was spent talking about the dog.

What is it, Willy thought, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully at the dog. Carpathian? Othello?

"That's it, Porthos. Good boy."

Or that.

Suddenly, James looked up, spotting Willy sitting on the bench a few feet away. Of course, he was hard to miss, what with his top hat, sunglasses, needlessly large overcoat, and cane. The playwright sighed and gave the great bear of a dog a loving rub, then stood up.

Willy gasped, hoping James wouldn't come towards him…oh, indeed, he was.

"Why are you here, Willy?" James asked, looking over Willy's top hat and sliding his hands in his pockets. Porthos sniffed at the ground behind him.

Willy looked down at his knees, beginning to fidget (which he'd seemed to have gotten down to a science by then). "I…I wanted to…apologize."

James looked down sharply at him, narrowing his eyes. "'Apologize?' For what?"

"I hurt your feelings."

James sniffed. "Well, it's about time one of us acknowledged that, eh?"

An enormous silence followed, and Willy bit his lip. He wasn't sure how to reply to that; nor was he sure he wanted to. He really didn't know what to say. He wasn't even altogether sure what had happened that night to make him so spastic. Well, besides Willy's first date…first kiss…first—

"Is that all?" James asked, trying very hard to remain polite. Willy was staring at him for a while, and James knew it regardless of the fact that forty percent of his face was completely obscured. "Because I have the strangest feeling that's not all you wanted to talk—"

"Do you forgive me?"

This brought the playwright to a halt rather abruptly. The chocolatier had asked this question in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, and he could hear the equally appalling self-loathing. Willy was spilling crazy tears behind those odd goggles, yet he appeared to be expressionless. Had James known this, things probably would have gone a bit different.

"No."

Willy's jaw nearly fell right off his face just then. "Wh-why?" James was walking away. "Why, James? James…!"

The aforementioned person stopped and said to Willy over his shoulder, "Why, pray tell, should I forgive you? What, pray tell, is there to motivate me to forgive you?" He turned around, and Porthos—sensing anger—walked a few yards down the path and sat, waiting. James, suddenly in an extraordinary livid rage, could hardly be understood past his thickening accent. "You're right, Willy, you hurt my feelings. Wait, a little bit more than that, mate, you broke my heart!"

He jumped down to his knees, startling Willy, and grabbed the man's hands in his own. "Here's the reality for ye'," he said, narrowing his eyes and lowering his voice to a venomous whisper. "I wasn't sure 'bout what happened in that theater, Willy. 'How far does he want to go? Should I wait?'" James almost villainously removed one hand from Willy's hand and held on to the bewildered chocolatier's knee. "'How far is he going to allow me to go?'"

As James was saying this, he was slowly sliding his hand up Willy's thigh, and Willy gasped quietly, grabbing the wandering hand and holding it tightly. He was very aware of what the consequences would be if he had allowed James to continue.

There was a silence. "And yet he didn't tell me to stop," murmured James, indicating that what just happened at that moment was a physical simile. "The only difference…was that I kept going. The only difference was that you told me you wanted it. You told me."

Willy closed his eyes. "You're right," he whispered. "I…I did want it."

"How can I trust that?"

"Please…."

James stood up. "I can't trust that."

The conversation, apparently, was over.

And Willy fell into a painful flashback.

'Kay. Heads up, people.