I jiggled the door handle of my apartment door. Collins was behind me, probably very nervous by now. We had got a lot of looks from people on the way out. They weren't bad ones though. Everyone in my building new I was a drag queen, so they were never surprised if I brought a boy home. Sadly, none of those boys where good boys. They were just out for my drag acts, or just incredibly drunk. Sometimes it was a mixture of the two. Everyone knew this, so when I heard one of my neighbors say, "maybe this time Angel!" I was a bit embarrassed. I couldn't look at Collins until we got into my apartment. I opened the door, and walked in, and looked back at him for the first time in about five minutes. I wouldn't have even been surprised if he had left. However, I was very reluctant to see his handsome self behind me.

"Come on in sweetie, and take a seat on my couch while I get something to clean you up with." I told him, and motioned towards the squishy couch that limped on the floor. It was missing one leg, which made everything interesting, because it rocked. "Watch out when you sit down though." I warned him right before he sat. The couch tilted a bit, and he gave a small jump of surprise. "Sorry." I told him, and sighed. "I don't have the money to get that fixed…well…not until now." I mumbled to myself, remembering that my bag was now full of a thousand dollars. "I'll be right back." I said, and he nodded. I walked into the…bathroom, and looked through the medicine box. This was the most extensive thing I had here, minus my wardrobe. I needed to have a lot of medication on hand, because, well, I have AIDS. If I got even the littlest bit sick, I needed to get over it fast, or I could die.

I looked through the cabinet, and found a bottle of Neosporin, generic of course, and a few ACE bandages. I grabbed them, and wet a washcloth in the sink. I took the items back into the…livingroom, and saw Collins still sitting on my couch. I smiled, he didn't look too nervous anymore. I sat down next to him, and placed the bandages and Neosporin on the coffee table beside me.

"Now, I'm just going to clean up those brutal cuts on you." I told him, and he shook his head.

"I'd rather you not touch my cuts." He told me sheepishly. I frowned.

"You don't have to be nervous sweetie, I won't hurt. You'll find that I'm very gentle…" I said, but before I could say or do anything else, Collins interrupted.

"I can imagine that you're as gentle as any other Angel in heaven," And, so I blushed again. "But I can't have you touch then for your sake." He told me, nerves getting back to his voice again.

"Why not?" I asked him, confused. "I'm not squeamish or anything." I told him. Squeamish was that last thing I was.

"No, it's not that…I…Angel, I have AIDS." He said, and sighed, almost in relief. I assumed he needed to get that off his chest. I looked into his eyes and shrugged. I, once again, attempted to wash him up, but he moved away again. "Angel, don't you get it? Don't you know what AIDS is?"

"The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Yes, I know what that is. It's taken to be a longtime guest in a home I refer to as my bloodstream." I told him, and averted my eyes from his. I rarely talked about this. I only did once, and that was during Life Support meetings, but that was-SHIT.

"Oh…Angel…I'm sorry…" Collins began to mumble, but my eyes looked at the clock. He saw the change in my expression. "What's the matter?" He asked me, concern in his voice. I looked back at him.

"Nothing, I just remembered a Life Support meeting I had to go to, but it's not for another few hours. Just enough to get you cleaned up, and for me to get changed." I told him, and placed the cloth on his, catching him this time. He seemed very stressed out, stiff and nervous. I looked up at him. "I'm not going to hurt you Collins, don't worry." I told him, and sat closer, wiping off some blood. The poor dear, covered in bruises and cuts that hurt his perfectly dark skin.

"Sorry…it just stings." He told me, and I nodded.

"I'll try to be gentle." I told him, whispering, as if trying to prove it to him.

"You're perfectly gentle." He told him, and I couldn't help but smile. He gave me another grin. I giggled lightly.

"Now, stop distracting me with that gorgeous smile of yours so I can clean you up before you get sick." I told him, and sat closer, wiping his face clean. I felt his cheek, it was hot. I hope I wasn't making him nervous or anything. That wasn't what I wanted at all. I wanted him to feel as comfortable as possible here, with me. As I cleaned him, he was quiet; I cleaned a bit of blood off his collar, where his skin just hid away in his shirt. I cleared my throat, and giggled. He looked up at me.

"What is it?" He asked me.

"This is the hardest part of the battle." I told him softly, and he just looked into my eyes.

"What is?" He asked just as softly.

"Asking you to take your shirt off so I can get the rest." I told him, and giggled again, putting a hand up to m mouth.

"Well…I'm usually against this on the first date Angel." He told me, and my giggles busted into laughter. He laughed with me, and I grinned at him, holding his shoulders.

"Oh you dirty birdie." I mumbled lightly, looking down at him. He stopped laughing, and then just grinned. Wow. What just happened? I don't think I was feeling too well, because my breath just got very short. Come to think of it, I was getting a tad warm. I wish he would stop looking at me like that, it made my head spin. I looked into his eyes, and he looked back. I don't think I could have helped but to do what I did, and that was to lean down, and get so close to his face that we were nearly touching. He noticed the invitation, but hesitated, and looked down. I bit my lip. "Shit…" I mumbled, and lowered myself. I felt my cheeks get hot, and his eyes fell on me. His hand took mine.

"No…no…don't be…Angel, I'm sorry." I heard Collins say, I looked at him.

"No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that…"

"Yes, you should have. It was me. I'm just, scared." He said softly, and sighed.

"I don't scare you, do I?" I asked him, frowning. I knew it. I freaked him out.

"No! No, of course you didn't scare me…my heart scares me." He admitted, and looked into my eyes. "I'm afraid of…well…I just haven't accepted of it yet." He explained to me. "I'm afraid to get into something too deep and one of us getting hurt." He told me, and his face got close to mine. "I don't want to hurt you Angel." He whispered softly.

"You won't." I whispered back, and nuzzled my face towards his. "I don't think it's possible to hurt me." I told him, and held his arm. He didn't say anything, but he continued his gazed into my own, and I sat back up on my knees. "Now…let me clean you up, you still haven't taken your shirt off." I told him, and giggled. He shook his head.

"Alright, but I'm warning you…" He muttered, as if anything could possibly be wrong with his torso minus bruises and cuts. He was ever so wrong. When he took that shirt off, I almost died. Thank God I was wearing pants, because that boy…damn. Thank God he's clumsy and couldn't get his shirt off his head because he forgot to take his glasses off, because…well, I was staring like a ten year old in a sex class. Of course, when he finally got the shirt off, I had to giggle to cover up my drooling. I sat closer to him, and began to clean up a cut on his arm.

"How long had you been sitting there honey?" I asked him softly, trying to pay attention to the cut and not his abs. Or his chest. Or the rest of his arms. Or the fact that his pants would have to come off next. Angel. Shut up.

"Only for about…ten minutes I guess." He told me. I felt his eyes on me, but I didn't look up, because I would have died. "I don't know how long I would have lasted if you didn't come to get me." He told me, and I smiled.

"Well, I couldn't have left you out in the cold. It's getting dark…I didn't want you to be eaten by rats or anything." I told him, and finally got the courage to look up at his face, while reassigning my washcloth to his chest. "Glad I saw you." I told him, and realized how I did find him. Actually, I was originally running from him. This made me giggle lightly, and he looked at me curiously.

"What are you giggling about?" He asked me, and I smiled.

"Well, I was thinking about how I got to where you were." I told him, and that seemed to peek his interest. "You see, I was actually running for my own life." I told him and smiled. "I just came back from being a hit man, at the price of a dog's life for a thousand dollars." I explained, and smirked. His face was wild in confusion. "A woman in a limousine asked me if I could kill a dog for her, who had been barking nonstop for months now. She gave me a thousand dollars for it." I told him, and he looked at me for a second, and then laughed. I got a lot of relief, because while I was explaining my situation, I realized that what I had done was infact a horrible thing, even though I didn't mean to make a dog fall to its death.

"Oh my GOD, you're kidding right?" Collins asked me, laughing so hard, I thought it must hurt. I laughed with him.

"No, completely serious, and she wouldn't let me refuse. So, I'm a thousand bucks richer, and I intend to splurge every penny of it." I told him, and smiled. He just shook his head at me.

"You're truly a spectacle, Angel. You drum on the streets for a dollar a day and you don't seem to mind, you pick me, a complete and total stranger off the streets, bring me in and heal my wounds for nothing but company, and you finally get a grand, and you're just going to blow it." He said, and chuckled. "You're one of a kind Angel. On of a kind."

"Well, the list does infact continue, but you'll know about those kinds of things later. I want to know about you. You know too much about me." I told him and giggled. He sighed.

"There isn't much to tell." He told me, and I frowned.

"I bet there is. Tell me where you were before you came to visit your friends." I told him, and looked at him, barely paying attention to the cloth, or his chest, thank God.

"Well, I just got fired from my job at MIT." He told me, and smirked.

"Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry…how did you get fired?" I asked, and then remembered, I needed to wash this boy up before he become anemic.

"Well, before I explain anything, I should tell you, I'm an anarchist." He said, and looked into my eyes. I smirked, I couldn't help it. I always thought anarchy was kind of a weird thing. Complete an utter chaos, but hey, I dressed like a woman everyday. If I could defy anatomy, he can defy government all he wanted. "And, I do infact, believe it or not, happen to be gay." All right, now, this made me snort. NO DUH TOM COLLINS. You're a flaming faggot, making me one lucky son of a bitch. "So, when administration found out about my being gay, they began to treat me differently. They would take out money from my department's budget, penalize me for small things, I even got a big pay cut, and they tried to cover it up, saying our student population was getting smaller. It was MIT for God's sake!" He said, as if he were trying to argue with me about it. I actually don't know a thing about MIT. I knew it was in Massachusetts, but I knew nothing else. "So, I set up the virtual reality equipment so at a set time, it will explode." He told me, and I giggled.

"You what?" I asked him. Why the hell would anyone do something like that?

"I rewired the equipment. That's just the kind of thing I do. Actually, when I was still on the streets…which I am," That made me incredibly sad. He didn't even have a home. "I made a living by rewiring ATMs for some spare cash." He told me, and my mouth opened wide. I laughed.

"No suh!" I said, and laughed.

"It's true. Never been caught though." He said, and smiled. "Anyway, I rewired the equipment to explode, and when it did, it would shout, 'Actual Reality, Act Up, Fight AIDS!'" I smiled at him. Wow, this boy was amazing. What a rebel, no wonder he was fired though. "So, they fired me. I had enough of it there anyway. I just didn't want to quit. You don't get unemployment if you quit." He said, and I laughed.

"You are the smartest guy I have ever met." I told him, and smiled, and then thought. "Then again…I don't know many people who know anything past make-up and clothes." I mumbled, and he chuckled. "So, you're here to visit your friends all the way from Massachusetts?" I asked him, and wrapped his other arms in a bandage.

"Yeah, New York is where I'm from. There's no hiding that." He told me, and relaxed under my hands. "Speaking of them, I should really meet up with them, they're probably worried sick about me." I frowned.

"I don't want you going alone, not so late." I told him. Truth was, I didn't want him to leave my apartment. Or my sight. He smiled at me.

"Well, I was wondering if you'd like to go." Collins offered, and I smiled.

"Alright, but then I have to go straight to my Life Support meeting at 9:30." I told him, and he nodded.

"Where's that at?" He asked me.

"The elementary school a few blocks from here. You should go." I told him, and he nodded again, and sat foreword, thinking.

"This just might be the thing to get Roger off his ass." He mumbled a bit. I figured Roger was one of his friends.

"The more the merrier!" I told him, and smiled. "Well, you seem like you'll be set for a while. I'll go change, and then we can go to your friends' place, but before we do," I said and stood up. "Is go get those guys something nice and warm to eat." I told him, and Collins looked at me funny.

"You don't have to do that." He told me, and I shook my head.

"I know I don't. I want to. It's almost Christmas!" I told him. "Just an early Christmas present is all."

"But you don't even know them." He told me, and tried to stand, but I held him down.

"Just because I don't know them, doesn't mean they shouldn't get Christmas presents." I told him, and walked to my bedroom. "I should be right out, just make yourself comfortable, and if you want anything to eat or drink, the kitchen is yours for whatever you wish." I told him, and then stopped. I turned to face him, he was looking right at me. "But, don't use any of my appliances to create any explosions, please." I said, and he laughed.

"I'll leave that for electronics, just for you." He told me, and smiled. I laughed a bit, and walked to the bathroom. I turned the faucet on, and once the water was making noise against the walls around it, I jumped in the air and shrieked happily at the Christmas present sent to me this year, a lovely Tom Collins.