Notes: It's chapter four, which I'm sure everyone is just dying to read. -___- I may seem like an uber-bitch on the review page as I argue my case, but in real life I'm a very nervous person and this scares the hell out of me. I don't like confrontation, especially when I honestly don't think I've done anything wrong or done anything to hurt anyone.

By the way, this title was going to be called "What Makes You Think You Are Unique?" Yes, a rather blatant and deliberate dig on current circumstances. ^^;; But I decided it didn't fit the chapter at all and would have to wait…  The title I settled on is from the song "Top" by Live.

In the Name of God and Love (It's the Distribution of Fear)

He was right. I didn't understand. Not at all. There were a thousand questions running through my mind and each one of them seemed crass and inappropriate. What did it feel like to fuck someone and get paid for it? How did he feel when he was given the money? Did he ever become aroused? How did he first start taking heroin? Why? Did he really think he'd be able to go on like this forever? Did he really think it helped him?

And then I felt his fragile, skinny arms loop around my shoulders. So thin, so delicate from months of weight loss and ennui. His face was buried in my shirt, which he was busily using as a makeshift tissue as he sobbed through a mood swing of epic proportions. I held him gently, almost afraid he'd break apart in my arms. But his sobs were huge, causing his entire body to quake; I finally figured that if they weren't going to rip him apart, then a tighter hug couldn't cause him any greater damage. So I engulfed his tiny body in my arms, trying to shield him, protect him from the huge, frightening world that was threatening to take him away.

Soon, however, the sobs slowed to sniffles and I could see one red-rimmed eye peering up at me from the folds of my t-shirt. "Well," he mumbled, voice muffled by mucus and cloth, "This is fucking awkward."

I grinned in spite of myself. "Yeah," I smiled down at him, "But we'll get through it."

"Maybe," he shrugged and pushed me away, turning to examine his puffy, tear-streaked features. "Maybe I'll just die and solve everyone's problems."

Swallowing a heavy lump of guilt, I placed one hand on his shoulder. "Do you have any more?"

"Any more what?" He turned to face me, eyes crinkling with annoyance.

"Any more… drugs…" I didn't feel authoritative with him staring at me so viciously. But I decided this was one instance where I'd have to hold my ground… so to speak. "Look… did you think you'd never get caught?"

"I don't know," he answered, staring glumly into the mirror.

"Did you want to get caught?" A confused and startled expression crossed his face, followed by a more suspicious one.

"Who wants to get caught being 'naughty'?" He taunted. I shrugged and scuffed the toes of my boot on the linoleum.

"You know… you don't have to do drugs to get my attention," I whispered, casting a surreptitious look of compassion in his direction. His eyes widened for a moment, and I expected a major outburst; it did not come. His eyes shined, huge and glassy with tears, reflected momentarily in the mirror for me to see. Then he closed his eyes, wiped his hand across his brow, and reached into his pocket. Two more packets were withdrawn and he handed them to me without protest, without regret. Before I could say a word, he left the bathroom, purposefully striding into the hallway.

I followed him out to watch as he disappeared into his room. It was an uncharacteristically long few minutes before he emerged and pressed two small glass vials into my palm. One by one, he closed my fingers over them. I tipped my hand back and forth and felt the familiar slosh of liquid. "Already mixed with water?" He nodded solemnly. "Go lie down in my room, ok?" He nodded again, not looking hostile or unhappy, but just very, very tired. Then he turned his back and left me.

I toyed with the tiny glass jars, flipping them back and forth and feeling the water hit the sides with little power. I pressed my thumb into the packets, feeling the resistance of the powder and the smoothness of the white paper. It frightened me. Even though it wasn't dangerous or potent in the form of the objects I was holding, I knew that it had the potential. And that was enough.

I hurried back to the bathroom sink, turned the cold water on full blast, and quickly disposed of the drug in both of its forms; after I finished, I threw the containers into the trash. Hard. I head the glass shatter as it hit the bottom of the trashcan.

I didn't care. I knew I was losing the control I'd thought I had earlier; that was what was really frightening. I looked back and was amazed that I was able to say what I did say when I said it. No, I couldn't give the good anti-drug speeches. But it certainly could have been worse. I know it could have.

It was the anger. The anger was the problem, and I just thanked god that it hadn't gone beyond the single punch and our vicious words to each other. I felt guilty, even if I wasn't. And the anger was still simmering inside of me; I could feel it festering. I was so fucking mad and it just wouldn't stop. I was so fucking scared.

I felt responsible, responsible for Pietro, and his life and well-being. What a responsibility. I could barely keep control of my own life, survive in a household with no adults and only other adolescents for company. No one to turn to. No stability. This was too difficult, everything was too difficult, my life was too difficult. I let out a long, slow breath and stared resolutely at the ceiling. I regarded it with suspicion, as if I could see god in its cracked and broken tiles.

"This will work," I muttered aloud, "This will work. We can fix this. We can do this."

"I can handle this." What a lie. I couldn't handle it. When I look back, I realize that thinking that was one of the stupidest things I could ever have done. I used to be an optimist, or at least a pragmatist. I knew that sometimes stuff turned out shitty and that was ok; I always thought there was a way to move on, a way to fix the bad things and move on.

I'm not sure what I believe in now. I still know that some things in life are good and others are bad. I just don't assume that the bad things can be fixed anymore. I believe in apathy now. Because I can't find the energy to be earnest.

When I was growing up, one of the foster homes I was shoved into was filled with very devoted Catholics. By default, I guess I became a Catholic too, for the time being anyway. After baptismal and what not.

The Catholics, the true Catholics, take their religion very seriously. They take god seriously, they take the Pope seriously, they take not eating meat on Fridays seriously. And if you do something bad, really bad… they can take all that away from you. And we're not talking venial sins, or even mortal sins. It has something to do with offending the Church directly, or causing harm or desecration. Or something.

Well, I was never the one who took Sunday school particularly seriously.

Anyway, what the Church can to is excommunicate you. Exclude you. Shut you away from services, confession, and whatever the hell else is a part of believing these days. Damn your immortal soul, under certain circumstances. It's pretty much the worst thing that could happen to a devout Catholic.

I used to wonder how those people felt. Did they feel like outcasts? Did they feel wronged? Did they feel on the edge of their society, an odd species of social leper?

I looked back; I thought about it again. And I realized that was how I felt. A social miscreant, a ne'er do well. But I wasn't excommunicated from the Catholic church, I was excommunicated from normal life. I felt like every time I came close to leading a life that could be widely accepted as 'normal', I met with an immobile wall. And coming to that wall would actually push me farther back. Back and back and back.

This was just another wall in my life, another setback that caused a further rift between me and the life I wanted.

A further rift between Pietro and me, and the life I thought I wanted us to live.