Perchance to Dream

Disclaimer: See prologue

Summary:

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At Home V

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I return home Friday evening much to my chagrin. I swung back and forth between returning and not returning several times over the last thirty-six hours. I was actually decided on not returning, until Matt informed me that my staying would ruin his marathon of gay bondage pornos.

I very cautiously pull onto my street. Much to my surprise, Kyle's car is nowhere to be seen. Not in my driveway, not on the curb, not on the opposite curb. If he's here, he walked. Since he doesn't walk anywhere, I think I'm safe for tonight. Maybe the Feds figured out Kyle was behind the volcano exploding and arrested him. Oh if only I had that kind of luck…

I pull into the driveway, get out of the car and walk into the house, where my jaw drops. Over the last three days, Mom and Dad have almost totally re-done the entryway. There's new carpeting, new furniture…I think there's actually still plastic on some of the stuff in here.

"I'm home!" I call, to what seems like an empty house. I walk through a couple of other rooms, noting a new dining room set and a whole new set of kitchen appliances before returning to the living room, where Dad is halfway down the stairs.

"There you are! Come upstairs, son, your mom and I have something to show you!"

"Did you re-do my room too?" I ask, dropping my bags in the hallway.

"Not the whole thing…just…come see, son." I sigh and follow Dad upstairs. I walk into my room and find a plasma screen TV on my wall and a new top-of-the-line desktop computer in place of my old boxy TV and late 90s computer. New lush carpeting, a new desk chair, and what looks suspiciously like a new bed complete the renovations to my room.

"Holy shit!" I exclaim, quite impressed.

"And! The coup-de-grace," Dad says, opening my closet door and pulling something out.

"An amp?"

"For your guitar, Stanley! Here, I've already hooked her up for you…" Dad says, picking up my guitar by the neck and handing her to me. "Have a go?"

"Got anything in particular you want to here?"

"Well…it's by Kansas…"

"Of course…" I say with a wry smile, taking a seat on my bed, which does not creak, indicating further that it is in fact a new bed, and giving a few test strums before launching into "Carry On Wayward Son." The chords fly fast and furious from my fingers.

Once I rose above the noise and confusion

Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion

I was soaring ever higher

But I flew too high

As I normally do whenever I play music, I think more about, and concentrate more on the lyrics I'm singing than the actual notes I'm playing. This song is actually fitting. I wish it wasn't, but in the year or so since I found out what was behind Kyle's years-long distancing from me – or "the illusion", if you will – I've gotten myself into things I'd much rather not have gotten myself into. Even a miserable life hovering around the poverty line, alone and nearly destitute, would be preferable to a life where I'm being pursued by a sex-crazed gay Jew who won't stop until he gets me to be his boyfriend and fuckbuddy.

Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man

Though my mind could think I still was a mad man

I hear the voices when I'm dreaming

I can hear them say

Carry on my wayward son

There'll be peace when you are done

Lay your weary head to rest

Don't you cry no more

Masquerading as a man with a reason

My charade is the event of the season

And if I claim to be a wise man, well

It surely means that I don't know

On a stormy sea of moving emotion

Tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean

I set a course for winds of fortune

But I hear the voices say

Carry on my wayward son

There'll be peace when you are done

Lay your weary head to rest

Don't you cry no more

Carry on, you will always remember

Carry on, nothing equals the splendor

Now your life's no longer empty

But surely heaven waits for you

Carry on my wayward son

There'll be peace when you are done

Lay your weary head to rest

Don't you cry

Don't you cry no more

Mom's standing in the doorway when I finish, holding an envelope in her hands.

"That was good, Stanley!" she says. "I'm sorry I wasn't in here when Randy came and got you, I had to take care of something in the other room. Do you like the new things?"

"Yeah, they're nice," I say. I notice then that she's holding an envelope in her hands.

"What's that?" I ask.

"Oh, this?" Mom asks, holding up the letter. I nod. "It came for you in the mail today. No return address. It's pretty thick."

"I see that," I say, holding my hand out. Mom places the letter in my hand. I open it up and pull out six sheets of expensive-looking paper. One quick glance at the handwriting tells me who it's from, and apparently my anger radiates through the room because both Mom and Dad ask me at the same time if I'm all right.

"It's from Kyle," I say darkly, and that pretty much says it all. "Could I have some privacy, please?"

Mom and Dad both back out of the room at the same time and shut the door behind them, leaving me to read Kyle's latest screed.

My Dearest Stan, it begins, and I'm already about to puke

By now you have probably heard from your Mom and Dad about your Dad's new job with the USGS. I hope I'm the first amongst our old friends to welcome you back to the status quo. It's been far too long without you, and now that you're able to do the type of things we do, I can't wait to see you around.

On a personal note, I hope you don't think that I'm trying to bribe you with this gift. It's becoming very frustrating watching you dither about, clearly in denial about what you want in life and who you want it from. You know and you know that you know that you and I are supposed to spend eternity together. I know this, deep in my heart, and if you'd de-thaw yours for five fucking seconds you'd know it too.

I can't begin to express to you how important it is for you to come to your senses. I'll wait for you until the day you die, but it really will be better for both of us for you to come around sooner, when we're both young and sexy, rather than later, when we won't be. Wrinkly sex just doesn't appeal to me.

I put on one of my patented scowling frowns at this. I can't imagine anyone who wrinkly sex would appeal to, besides my Grampa. And he was, all things considered, a bit of a creep. Deciding against reading further ramblings of Kyle's sex-obsessed mind, I skip ahead until I find what I'm looking for, starting on the bottom of the next to last page.

You probably believe I'm entirely responsible for the volcanic eruption that got your Dad his job back. If you do, I don't need to tell you how utterly ridiculous that belief is. How would I even do it? Lug a giant case of baking soda and a tanker-truck full of vinegar up the side of Mt. Evanston? You can be a real idiot sometimes, you know that Stan?

Bah, I'm digressing. The volcano was going to erupt anyway. I took a geology class my first semester and the professor talked about our volcano when we were discussing the volcanic rocks, and let slip that it was predicted for an eruption sometime before Easter. So I decided then and there that I would try to use that to my advantage. If the volcano had a somewhat big eruption that caused some semi-significant property damage, the government could realize they made a mistake in shutting down the South Park field station, could re-open it, re-hire your dad, and get you back on the road to being the boy you should be now, which is definitely NOT the boy you ARE now.

I'll admit, I nearly jizzed in my pants when I found out who that rancher was related to. That was the missing piece in my plans, where to direct the lava flow? Once I found out the connections he had, I decided to focus my efforts on getting the most of the lava to go in that direction.

My plan worked, thankfully, and succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. I wasn't expecting them to give him that large a hiring bonus, but I suppose that's what you can do when the government's handing out billions of dollars willy-nilly.

Anyway, I hope your mom gets this letter to you before I have to leave this weekend. I'll be waiting for you.

Love with hugs and French kisses,

Your loving bf,

Kyle

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

I want to stab him. I want to stab him over and over again until he is a bloody, unrecognizable mess. Or at the very least yell at him until he's reduced to tears again. That usually works to alleviate my anger at him, and is also mildly satisfying once I finish.

Folding the letter back up, I stuff it in my jeans pocket and storm out of my room. Mom and Dad are in the living room, and are looking at me curiously as I move towards the door.

"I'm going to Kyle's," I say, and they turn away, curiosity satisfied. I stalk outside and over to my car. I know the route by heart, down two streets, hang a left, two more blocks hang a right, a block and a half and there's his house. I put the car into park, stalk up the drive and knock loudly on the door. Ike answers it.

"I need to talk to your brother," I mutter, pushing my way past him and taking the stairs two at a time and walking into his room without knocking, slamming the door behind me. He's laying on his bed, earbuds in his ears and iPod resting on his chest. Of course, the loud bang interrupts whatever fruity-ass music he's listening to, and causes his head to jerk up and look around manically, eyes quickly finding me.

"Evening," I say coolly. He's out of bed quickly.

"I wasn't expecting you this quickly," he says with a smile.

"Save it," I snap. "I'm not here to tell you I love you and jump into bed with you again."

He stops in his tracks.

"I'm here because this," I say, pulling out the letter and brandishing at him, "pissed me off like crazy. I am crazy pissed at you." I pause to let it sink in before I launch into him again.

"Who the FUCK do you think you are, trying to meddle with my psyche ex post facto? You don't like who I am now? Well maybe you should have thought of that BEFORE you decided to be a douchebag and turned me into what I am now! You and your family are obviously well-off, what the fuck stopped you from helping me and my family out when we needed it? That's what friends do, Kyle, they HELP each other, not drop each other like hot fucking potatoes! I wouldn't have cared if you were secretly harboring feelings for me! For Christ's sake, even sleeping in a bed with somebody who dreams of fucking you is better than sleeping in a bed where half the time you're in serious danger of freezing to death! Asking a friend for a ride is better than being the only damn person my age on the bus! ANYTHING is better than eating Ramen Noodles three nights out of the week!" I pause by necessity here, because I need to breathe, but I go back on the offensive as soon as I have the necessary air.

"You simply can't fucking expect me to change myself to suit your desires when I hate you! How many times do I have to punch you in the face before you get the goddamn message that I don't want you in my life!? When will you get it through your fucking SKULL!? I hate you, I hate you, I HATE YOU! You're a selfish, arrogant, inconsiderate douchebag who doesn't consider anything but what you want and how to get it! There's nobody alive who could love a person like that. SATAN wouldn't love you! Who the fuck do you think is ever going to want to be with you, if you're going to be so damn relationship-retarded?

"You need to stay the fuck out of my life, and fucking quit trying to change me into what you want me to be. Don't make me get a restraining order."

With that, I throw the letter at his head and stalk out of the room, only to find my path down the stairs blocked by Ike.

"We need to talk."

"If it's about Kyle, I don't wanna hear it," I say, and move to push Ike out of my way, but the little bastard (well, not so little anymore) won't budge, and instead grabs my arm and drags me towards his room.

"It is about Kyle, and you NEED to hear it," he says, his grip on me iron-strong. He locks the door when he gets me into his room, and shoves me into his desk chair.

"Get ready to have the door closing your mind kicked in."

-.-

Notes: This took TOO. DAMN. LONG! Now to keep the schedule, I'm going to have to combine the next two chapters into September's installment so that I can wrap it up on October 21. Damnit.

On a brighter note, I am encouraged by all the reviews, even the late ones =P If we can get this story to 250 reviews or, dare I say it, 300, I will be astounded!

Thanks and see you next time,

Phoenix II