Somewhere I Belong

By Suchan deFamine

Notes: Charlie Bone, not mine. Thank you, Mark of CTown for your review. I know how fucked up FFN is being. It's frustrating, no? And what about updating bios? It just off and erases all I had, and when I tried to update, put something more in it, it tells me I have a frucking invalid parameter value: . Do you have this, too?

Dear God. Well, I think you're here to read the story…so you don't have to read my crap up here. Go!....::chandelier falls:: Uhhhh….yeah. definitely a sign I've been listening to the Phantom of the Opera too much…….x.x

:P

Chapter 3

"I wonder what happened to that guy?"

"what guy?"

"The fat guy, with the musket."

"Oh. Probably went off to shoot some poor forest animal."

"But he kind of disapeared…" Asa looked over at the sleepy-eyed boy he loved so dearly. "Like fog…"

"Asa, dearest… you need to stop looking at things so scrutinizingly." He yawned, head propped against the armrest with the backpack for a pillow. Asa smiled, tucking a stray strand of Manfred's long, silky black hair behind his ear.

"You can sleep some more. We won't be there for another hour." But the black eyes were closed already, breathing deeply. "I think you're crazy, darlin', but I'll follow you wherever you go."

:P

"Follicles is a weird word."

"Follicles?"

"Follicles. Like, what your hair grows out of. Sorta thing."

"What brings this up?" Asa held up a pamphlet some nature dweeb had left on the table. It covered the cons of acid rain and the pros of recycling, but none of the pros of acid rain or cons of recycling.

"Something about acid rain burning everything, even your hair follicles."

Manfred stared into his expresso, watching the waves of brown liquid as he stirred it with a cinnamon stick. Asa cupped his hands around a mug of hot chocolate that was cold when he got it.

"This place sucks. I can see the lumps of instant mix they used."

"You focus too much on details."

"And you don't care enough."

"We balance the other out, big deal." Asa stared at his boyfriend, taking in the dark circles beneath his eyes.

And softly, "Manfred, we should find someplace to spend the night. You look exhausted. You're worrying too much."

"Okay." Asa flicked a coin on the table and they left.

:P

Manfred was out like a light once he hit the sheets of the cheap motel bed. Asa lovingly tucked him in and sat down near the bathroom door, picked up the pad of paper and pen left out on the desk.

Thursday—it was Thursday, wasn't it?—took train to London, acquired plane tickets for Denver, Colorado, USA. Checked into a motel 2 miles from airport.

Friday—leave at 8:30 am to get to 9:20 flight.

Sat.—arrive at Denver……

Then what? They both had passports already, that was no problem. But then what? Settle down in a quiet neighbourhood, get a job, attain citizenship…

"That sounds like a great idea, Asa, you writing that down?" Asa jumped. He hadn't realized he had been speaking aloud. He leaned into Manfred's warmth as the black haired boy wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "Don't worry. We'll make this work."

"What are we making work?"

"This life we're headed for. It'll be good, you'll see."

"I hope so," Asa whispered, wrapping his arms around Manfred. "I sure do hope so."

:P

The town was called Moose Creek, even though there were no more moose in the area. The village square held all the little shops, a bakery, the bank, police station, grocery store, drug store, curio shop. Once again, the snow began to fall, frosting the ground with a fine white powder.

Ashley Pearce walked the aisles of the drugstore, trying to find everything on his list. There were only fourteen days until Christmas, after all. Those cookies had to be made by tomorrow, packaged and delivered by Wednesday.

"Hey, Ash." He looked up. Lindy, the girl who worked the checkout, was smiling at him. "How's it going?"

"Not bad. You?" She shrugged.

"Just busy."

"I hear you." He turned into the next aisle, trying to look like he was concentrating on his list. Sure, Lindy was a nice girl and everything but she liked him liked him. He didn't like girls. He liked guys. Or rather, guy. He had a boyfriend. They had been engaged until that stupid president guy had messed up the public union bit.

AN: There ya go, Page of Cups. I do like him. Just that particular frame sets me off. And who can say whether or not we should have gone to war? What would have stopped Hussein if he had had weapons of mass destruction from using them against the USA? Just my two cents. From now on, no more politics. Just romance.

"So…Ashley. Doing anything tonight?" Oh, Lord have mercy. Ashley turned to look at the suave looking guy with his elbow on Ashley's shoulder.

"Baking. Why?"

"Oh," he said, looking only slightly deflated, "just wondered if you'd like to come out to the opening of the new Mexican restaurant with me."

"Jake, you know as well as I do I've already got a boyfriend and I'm not interested in you that way. This is getting really exasperating." Ash shrugged him off and scanned the shelves for almond extract.

"Jeez, Ash… it was just and offer for a friendly outing."

"Not if you're the Jake Creek I know."

He slunk away with a moody, "Well, have a nice Christmas."

"You too."

Man… if Manfred knew how Jake was constantly hitting on him…he'd kill Jake.

:P

"Asa, my darling." Manfred swept into the kitchen and wrapped his arms around his love, careful not to be stabbed with a cookie cutter.

"Jake was hitting on me again today."

"Again?" Manfred sighed. "It's hard to have the prettiest guy in Colorado. Everyone else wants him…"

"Don't try and flatter me. Wash up and help with the cookies."

"Yessuh." Manfred saluted, dodged the towel snapped at him and bounded up the stairs to change; Asa smiled at himself. Four years ago, he had thought that this wouldn't work out. But it was a beautiful life. Their home wasn't big and glamorous, but it was warm and welcoming. Asa's job didn't pay most of the bills, but it was enjoyable.

Manfred's "disowned" father probably had no clue where they were or no intent to find them. They lived in a friendly neighbourhood. The lady next door rattled on and on but she was a pleasant woman and she and Asa and Manfred got along pretty well.

Lost in his thoughts, Asa never heard the front door creak open, or the footsteps that resounded too quietly off the hardwood floor in the hall.

There was a hand on his mouth and a knife almost kissing his throat.

"Erk?"

"You come with me, little lady, and don't make a sound." Little lady?!

But Asa couldn't even nod as he was ushered roughly out of the back door and shoved carelessly into the backseat of a car, gagged and with rope around his wrists. As the warm house lit up with cheerful Christmas lights grew dim in the distance, Asa had only a prayer:

Please don't let me die.

End chapter 3.

:P

Hmm… mystery. How is it?