Author's Notes- Goodness gracious me, how cruel I was last chapter! Such a cliffhanger! Well, for me, anyway. In any event, I couldn't just leave you there, could I? Well, at least, not with a guiltless conscience. And besides, this story has grown on me. I'm rather interested to see how it turns out. So, without (much) further ado, I give you chapter number five.
Disclaimer- Alas, I am not the sole owner of Outlaw Star. Not even a partial owner. As a matter of fact… I truly own nothing Outlaw Star related. How very sad for me… Would anyone care to donate?
Warning- … If you haven't caught on by now, you've either been skipping chapters (which is a no-no) or you're so thick that another warning will do nothing for you. Either way, you don't deserve to be helped.
Gene stared at the doorknob. It didn't look all that threatening, truly. He reached out for the inanimate object slowly, as if expecting it to leap out of the wood and bite him at any second. However, soon his fingers were safely around the cheap brass, and it was still as stationary as ever. No sharp edges to be found, and quite assuredly nothing resembling jaws.
The redhead wondered momentarily if he was going insane.
He gulped, almost audibly (he had to look into that; there had to be something wrong with his throat, considering all of this noisy swallowing), as his fingers tightened around the doorknob. He had to do this. There was no turning back now. He was going through this door, and he was going to apologize. Yes, he was. Most definitely. Without a doubt.
His fingers didn't move.
Gene glared. This was not the time to chicken out. The time to chicken out was long gone, and it was entirely too late to be re-considering now. He gripped the doorknob as if it were a lifeline. He would go through with this. He had to. He needed to. He wanted to.
Slowly, millimeter by millimeter, he began to twist the knob. Gene found that, even if he tried to speed up the insanely sluggish action, the pace would not be rushed. Nor could he pull away. He was forced, by some small part in the back of his mind, to go through with this, but at the same time, by another small part somewhere else in his mind, he was forced to torture himself.
Why the hell did I have to say that in the first place… Azure eyes narrowed, shooting the doorknob a glare that certainly would have withered a lesser household object. It wasn't even the truth. Damnit.
He paused, though his hand remained on its slow trek. The doorknob continued to turn at a snail's pace as Gene turned that last thought over in his mind. It was true. He had outright lied to Fred. Why the hell had he done that?!
Because you're a coward. The redhead scowled, shoving the thought to the back of his mind. He'd deal with it later. Right now, there were more important things to focus on besides berating himself. There would be plenty of time for that after he apologized to Fred.
Speaking of which…
The latch clicked, and the door started to swing forward. With Gene still attached.
Flailing slightly to keep his balance, Gene finally released the accursed doorknob, looking into the kitchen with a certain amount of apprehension. He didn't know what to expect… would Fred be angry? Sad? Would he have to worry about cutlery, or tears?
Before the redhead could quite decide, he was greeted with reality. Reality quickly gave his over-active imagination a slap to the head before going about its business.
Fred was standing in front of the stove, cooking. Gene blinked once before remembering what his roommate had said earlier, about dinner. It seemed he hadn't been joking. No real reason to think he was. But still… Was he all right? Had he not been hurt by Gene's verbal barrage at all? Had it been an act?
Pushing these dark musings aside, the redhead took a step forward. Fred stopped what he had been doing, and turned his head toward the sound Gene's foot had made on the linoleum of the kitchen floor. "Oh, Gene…" His gaze quickly returned to the pan on the stove. "I started dinner."
"Fred…" It hadn't been an act. Gene could practically feel the pain oozing out of the other man, and had most certainly heard it in the few words he had spoken. He couldn't quite understand why, but… He didn't want Fred to be hurt. He wanted to make the pain go away, and damnit, that's what he was going to do.
The part of his mind that seemed so dead-set against anything involving Fred was being uncharacteristically silent. Gene had a sneaking suspicion that it had been somehow mutilated—if not completely and totally eliminated—by the other part of his mind. He was somewhat glad. At least now he didn't have arguments in his head to worry about. He really didn't want to add schizophrenia to his list of problems.
"Hm...?" In truth, Fred didn't sound all that interested in getting an answer to his mild inquiry at Gene's pause. In truth, it sounded as though he would much rather be far, far away. Now, of course, this was all based on the redhead's interpretation of his roommate's tone, but he was pretty sure that his thoughts were very close to hitting home, and if not, at least giving it a very firm tap.
The problem was, he had to think up something really, really good to complete his apology with. Something that would counteract his previous lie. Something that… something that would somehow remove Fred from this sudden depression. Gene shifted slightly. He had never seen his dark-haired roommate like this before. It unnerved him. It unnerved him even more to think that it was his fault.
So fix it.
Gene began thinking about the cutlery again, but ultimately decided that it would be very hard to apologize to Fred while also trying to stab his inner voice with a cleaver. Especially considering a cleaver wasn't exactly something you'd want to stab with. No, for stabbing, he'd probably use the ice pick…
You're going off on a tangent, nimrod.
There was a mental pause. Gene wondered at his inner voice's insult of choice.
And wasting time.
A scraping sound from the stove managed to pull Gene from his reverie. Fred was scraping the bottom of the pan to get the dinner (which, apparently, was chicken teriyaki) to cook in a more even fashion.
I… I don't know what to say… Well, that was his fault, wasn't it? It was hard to go back on such a blatant lie that someone had so readily believed. And why? Well, that was his fault as well. The hole just got deeper and deeper. And someone was always throwing him a bigger shovel.
Then don't say anything.
The idea had merit.
Giving a quick mental nod of encouragement (presumably to himself) Gene hesitantly reached out, placing a hand lightly on Fred's shoulder. The navy-haired young man paused his culinary works, his body freezing almost completely. Well, this is a change… Gene's thoughts were practically dripping with bitter humor. For once, I'm the one shocking him. Huh.
The redhead tightened his grip on Fred's shoulder gently, slowly turning the other man around to face him. His roommate's face was a veritable plethora of emotions; shock, hope, fear, confusion, and even a very small amount of joy. Well, that was to be expected… It was quite the miracle the Gene had gotten this far. He made a mental note to give thanks to whatever deity might be listening later if this all worked out well.
"…Yes?" Fred's voice was soft, hesitant. Almost as if he was afraid speaking would somehow ruin everything. Oddly enough, Gene felt exactly the same way. He, however, wasn't brave enough to make use of his vocal chords. He admired his roommate's courage. He'd have to mention it later. But now…
Actions spoke louder than words, didn't they?
Inhaling deeply, Gene made his move.
Slowly, he leaned forward, planting a sweet, chaste kiss on Fred's lips.
The meeting of mouths was short, and the redhead pulled away before either of them could quite comprehend what exactly it was that was happening. However, he had done it, and although it took a moment or two, Fred knew precisely what it was that had occurred.
"I…" Gene dropped his gaze after their lips parted, finding himself unable to meet the other man's eyes. "I didn't mean it." He stared at the ground, for once ignoring anything but his own shame at what he had done. "I don't know why I said it… but I didn't mean it."
The redhead felt cool fingers wrapping around his own, lightly holding his hand in place on Fred's shoulder. He blinked, confused, then looked up to see what was going on.
You could have lit up a city with Fred's smile. Or at least a large town.
Gene eyes widened slightly, and he suddenly found himself beginning to melt in the heat of that smile. To think that he had been the cause of it… No need to get sappy. His inner voice was laughing at him, laughing at him! But still… It was a good feeling, to know that he had fixed what he had so openly prevaricated about.
"Really?" It took him a moment to realize that Fred had said something, and another moment to realize what that something had been.
"Really."
The navy-haired young man's smile widened, his eyes narrowing slightly in his mirth.
"I'm glad."
Gene stared at his dinner, using his fork to push it slowly around his plate. It wasn't that the food wasn't good… It was just that his appetite wasn't really making loud demands at the moment. He mixed pieces of chicken and vegetables with his rice, then separated them out again absently, not even seeing the edibles anymore.
"Gene?" The voice was soft, but it still managed to give the redhead a small jerk as he abandoned his mild reverie for the real world. Fred smiled as a faint blush colored his roommate's cheeks, wondering what it was that he had been thinking about. "You're not eating."
"Oh. Right." Gene quickly shoveled a few forkfuls into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. His apology earlier had fixed things, he knew that. However, he didn't know exactly what Fred had gotten from it, besides relief. Did he think that Gene wanted things to go further? That he appreciated the dark-haired man's advances? Did he in the first place?
It might have helped if Gene himself knew the answer to that question. He kind of missed the little arguments in his head; they kept the major cogitation at bay. Now, he was stuck working things out on his own. It was harder than he had thought.
"Is it good?" He really needed to stop with those inner monologues while people were around.
"Oh, yea. Really good." Silence reigned for a few moments, but it wasn't all that uncomfortable. Indeed, a permanent grin had seemed to settle onto Fred's face, and one could just imagine happy little hearts floating above his head. If one was prone to that kind of thinking, that is.
"Ah, so you like my cooking!" Fred rested his chin in his hand, looking at Gene through half-lidded eyes. "I'm flattered." The redhead risked a quick glance up at his roommate, but immediately regretted it. He couldn't bring himself to repeat some of the thoughts that had gone through his mind; indeed, the very hint of such ideas made the tips of his ears go pink.
O-k, now things are getting odd. Gene took another bite of his dinner, trying to distract himself. I don't want to hurt him, but I don't really want to get deeply involved… He risked another glance up, and found that Fred had also gone back to his meal, giving the redhead a chance to study the other man.
… Do I?
Shaking his head (in what he considered to be a very surreptitious manner), Gene returned to eating, making a very valiant effort to clear his mind of any and all thoughts that didn't concern food.
Unfortunately, food didn't prove to be all that interesting. Even that one piece of chicken that kind of resembled Lenny Kravitz on a bad hair day. Gene pointedly avoided said piece of meat, shoving it to the side of his plate. Now he had to focus on not thinking about food…
The clock ticked, slowly counting out the seconds in a monotonous and repetitive series of ticks and tocks, pendulum swinging back and forth in perfect sync with the hollow noises. The rustic, almost lulling sound permeated throughout the room, giving it a milieu similar to that of a quiet and peaceful lodge nestled somewhere among snow-crusted mountains.
Gene wondered why the hell he hadn't just gone out and invested in a nice, silent digital model.
"I'm sure the clock did nothing to deserve such a look, Gene." The redhead blinked once, and turned to see his roommate grinning at him from the other side of his bed. His fingers instinctively gripped the bed-sheets in quite a violent manner as Gene realized that Fred always seemed to misplace his shirt before bed.
The clock ticked at least fifteen more times before the red-haired young man managed to find his vocal chords again and put them to use.
"Maybe, but one can never be too sure." Fred laughed softly.
"Oh yes, one never can trust those clocks… Very shady appliances." He smiled warmly, eyelids drooping slightly as he looked at Gene. "Very shady indeed."
The redhead swallowed, suddenly finding his throat to be very dry.
"Precisely."
Fred slowly began to cross the room, feet falling silently on the floor with every tick of that damnable clock. Gene didn't know what exactly to expect, but he could hazard a few guesses. He was torn between wanting to hide under his covers and wanting to stick around to see what exactly it was that Fred was going to do.
He settled for a compromise, grabbing his sheets with one hand but remaining in place.
Well, Fred was pretty close now, and he didn't look to be on the verge of pouncing… Still, one could never be sure, could one. Gene wondered what would happen if he just curled into a ball suddenly.
Before he could contemplate this course of action to its full extent, it had become superfluous. Fred, upon reaching the redhead's bedside, bent over slightly, gently pressing his lips against Gene's left temple.
Gene could only stare, nearly open-mouthed in shock as his dark-haired roommate meandered back over to his own bed, a confident smile resting comfortably on his lips.
"Good night, Gene."
Fred had turned the light out, crawled under his own covers, and fallen asleep before Gene had quite understood what had just happened.
And that gods-accursed clock had the audacity to just keep ticking.
Gene's pencil scribbled furiously across the sheet of paper in front of him, jotting down random numbers that he hoped would make sense to someone; namely, his teacher. He also hoped that said someone couldn't tell that he was trying to bull shit his way through n trigonometry mid-term.
He severely doubted that, but it wouldn't be for lack of effort.
So, you square n, take the cubed root of pi, and put it all over three hundred and fifty one… He eyed his equation critically, not even for a moment considering that he wouldn't be going through all this if he had just studied. Studying was for the weak and uncreative.
Then you add phi, and multiply the result by the cosine of negative theta… His work looked pretty, if nothing else. He hoped his teacher would be impressed by his knowledge of Greek letters. He vaguely wondered if the lessons they had covered in the past few months had even involved Greek letters as variables. Hey, it was trig, there was always some kind of weird symbol stuck in somewhere.
… Yea, I'm screwed. The redhead scanned over the test morosely, looking for something that looked remotely familiar. Finding a small handful of problems that looked somewhat doable, he began to half-heartedly attack them, not really paying attention to what he was doing.
It was a severe injustice that a music major should have to take any math classes anyway. Especially ones like trig. Would he EVER, in his ENTIRE life, need to know about vectors? No. Case closed. This was a worthless class and people were morons for having created it.
Satisfied that his position on the matter was thoroughly stabilized, Gene glanced up at the clock. Five minutes until the bell rang. He went through the test again, filling up all the problems he had skipped with bogus work that he considered to be so near-authenticity that no one would care anyway. Well, no one should care. There was bound to be someone who did, contrary to all reason.
That was a severe injustice too. Gene felt he should be making a list.
Finally, the bell rang, and the professor shouted to the room in general that if their writing utensils were still in hand, there would be hell to pay. In the politest way conceivable, of course.
Rolling his neck, Gene stood slowly, test in hand. He sauntered to the front of the classroom, placing the paper down on the professor's table as delicately as possible. He shot the elderly man a pleasant grin before walking off, taking the look he received in return as evidence that the teacher would no sooner look at his exam than give him a failing mark.
The redhead shrugged to himself as he picked up his bag, exiting the classroom with as much gusto as he could manage. Maybe I'll glance over my notes before the next major examination…
Staring at the ground instead of paying proper attention to where it was his feet were taking him, Gene collided with someone. He grunted a swift apology before continuing on his little trek, and didn't realize that a hand on his elbow was holding him in place for a good five seconds. "Hey…"
"Hey yourself." He knew that voice. The redhead turned around to look into the smiling face of his roommate. "Eat lunch with me?"
"Oh." Gene blinked, trying to pull his thoughts away from his sure-to-be depressing math scores. "Sure." He allowed Fred to pull him along, for once not at all perplexed by the other man. Quite the opposite, really… he found himself almost glad to be in the other's presence.
Knowing full well what would happen, the redhead immediately blocked off his mind from delving any deeper into the matter. At the moment, he was just going to enjoy the nice, warm feeling in his stomach instead of thinking about it and giving himself a headache.
There would be time to worry later.
Author's Notes- Wow. This chapter came out pretty quickly in comparison to the last, ne? Aren't you all so lucky. I'm afraid the next may take a while, though… my creativity for this story at the moment is nil. I have no idea why… I know how I want it to end, it's just the getting there that's the problem. How the hell do people write those 20-someodd chapter stories… I just don't understand it. I should eventually though, considering I want to be a novelist… Dearie dearie me.
Right, anyway. Just to address a few things: No, I have nothing against Lenny Kravitz. His hair just amuses me. (Speaking of which, confused about the chapter title? It's a Lenny Kravitz song. Clever, ne?) And yes, I am taking trigonometry, and yes, my final is this week. But I, unlike Gene, actually have some idea of what I'm doing. That was just spawned from a conversation that my friend and I have on the occasion about b-sing math problems. Stick a square root of pi in, and you're good! (Note: I do not condone the bull-shitting of math tests. Save it for the essays, kiddies.)