Greg slowly drifted off to sleep once the Vicodin really began taking its full effect, and the combination of the consistent hum of the huge engine, the straight, boring roads, the soft sound of the music coming from the radio, and the soft vibrations lulling him into an initially peaceful slumber.
"Greg," the familiar slurred voice with a heavy Southern drawl awakening him with a shake of his shoulder. Greg blinked and rubbed his eyes to find himself awakening in his childhood bed back at the ranch outside of Aberdeen, SD, confused, he wiped his eyes and mumbled sleepily, "dad?"
"Yeah, it's your dad," he slurred, his father stripped back the blankets and Greg looked down to see his navy blue fleecy winter pyjamas, a long sleeve button up top and long pants to keep him warm. His mother had always stressed to him and John how important it was for Greg, as a child, to stay warm on the cold winter nights.
"Dad… it's cold," Greg mumbled, going to pull his blankets back over him, but his father paused him with a cold hand on his arm; Greg could feel his chilled skin through the fabric of his pyjamas. "I know its cold, Greg, that's why I'm here. Your pathetic waste of a mother kicked me out of the bed. Come on, help your dear old dad out, won't you?" John hiccupped and the stench of rotten beer filled Greg's nostrils and made him feel nauseated.
"What do you want me to do?" Greg wiped the sleep from his eyes with the sleeve of his pyjama arm; knowing better than to simply refuse his father at the first attempt; knowing on the off chance that his father wanted something simple than to refuse him was only going to cause more issues than it was worth.
"I want somewhere warm to sleep, Greggy boy, I want a warm body to sleep next to," he slurred, stumbling while standing still, and Greg's blood ran ice cold. He was five now, he'd been experiencing this for two years now, he knew what his father meant, and he didn't like it. It hurt and it made him feel sick. His father pushed his son over on the bed and clambered in next to him. Greg just kind of laid there, understanding the reality of the situation that there was nothing that he could do about it right now.
John had been standing over Greg in his underwear; "here Greg, help your dad out," he slurred, as he grabbed his son by the wrist and shoved his hand down underneath his underwear waistband, and murmured in pleasure as he felt the tiny hand jerking his cock, just as he had trained his boy to do over many experiences. Once John was hard and excited, he pulled down his son's pyjama pants and roughly grabbed him by the hips as he tried to force his adult cock into his young son. "Let me in, Greggy, come on, help your dad feel good," he slurred as he thrust himself much rougher and forced his way in, causing Greg to automatically cry out in pain, to which John just slapped him hard across the back of the head; "shut up and stop being such a motherfucking pussy, boy, you'll wake your mother up. Imagine then, how disappointed she'd be," John thrust himself harder and deeper into his boy, who tried to close his eyes but was slapped again and ordered to keep his eyes open, "imagine how disappointed your mother would be," John panted as he continued, "to know that she raised a faggot,"
"I'm sorry, daddy," Greg whimpered, but had his neck throttled for talking and distracting his father so harshly so that little Greg couldn't breathe, Greg grasped and clawed at the bedsheets to no avail. His lamp was on, but slowly his eyesight was blurring so he could hardly make out his father's face, and the edges of his eyesight were blacking out, and encroaching inward, the pressure on his throat increased, as John felt the pleasure of orgasming, making sure to not let a drop come out onto the bedsheet before he grabbed a couple of used tissues out of his pocket and immediately wiped his son clean and ordered him to put on underwear and stuff his underwear with toilet paper so that his mother would never find out, would never discover that her son was a faggot. The word rolled off John's tongue like a bitter poison. Greg did as he was told, before climbing back into his bed. John abused Greg twice more that night, but Greg would never dare tell his mother, out of fear that his mother would discover what his father had told him that he was, a faggot. He knew that he could never break his mother's heart like that…
"Greg!" a loud voice shook him awake and he jumped, immediately ready to fight off another dream attacker. Confusion instantly took over and he frowned deeply, looking around the car, he looked down at his body, the body of an adult? With a cane of all things resting in the footwell of the seat, he glanced next to him to see a middle-aged woman, not his mother, but with curly black hair, and blue-grey eyes staring back at him in deep concern. Greg spun his head around to see another middle-aged person, this one a man; with longish brown hair, deep chocolate brown eyes and a solid build; not skinny by any means, but not fat either, definitely a solid build however. They were all sat in a pickup truck however, his uncle Henry drove a pickup truck, and so did his father; but this one was much nicer looking inside; suggesting it was a different truck.
The look of panic must have shown on his face as the man in the back seat sighed, "Greg, you had another nightmare,"
Greg ignored that statement and looked around, they were pulled over on the side of the road, in a truck stop on the highway, but where exactly he wasn't sure, it certainly didn't seem familiar at all. "Where are we?" he asked suspiciously. The two other people in the truck exchanged nervous glances before the woman spoke, "we're going to South Dakota, Greg, don't you remember? We're going to go visit your parents and your aunt and uncle,"
It took Greg another few seconds to recognise himself in time and place, and with who, before he nodded numbly, "okay,"
"You need to tell her, Greg," James shook his head, "and you need to tell her soon. Like today or tomorrow soon,"
"It'll be fine," Greg grumbled as he paced about the hotel room that evening; "she doesn't need to be burdened with my problems,"
James let out a hearty, dry laugh, "since when have you worried about dumping your problems and complications onto Cuddy?"
Greg regarded James coldly, which stopped James in his tracks; "this is more complicated than any of the other matters; this isn't sticking a chicken in a CT scanner or blowing up an MRI machine because I shot a corpse, or impersonating her, or thinking that I could handle a hostage situation on my own. This is big, James,"
"Okay, ignoring the fact that all those other things are 'big' too; you're deliberately and knowingly setting Lisa up for failure here. Think about it this way, if you don't tell her before we get to Aberdeen; ideally with enough time for her to come to terms with it- I'm still coming to terms with it. But if she doesn't know, Greg, then she doesn't know, and imagine how much resentment you're going to feel towards her when socialite Cuddy goes ahead and mingles and meets and laughs with all your relatives; including the ones who molested and raped you. How are you going to feel about her then? How is she going to feel about herself when she finds out afterwards? How's she going to feel when she realises that you deliberately kept it from her that she was mingling and mixing with at least two paedophiles who interfered with one of her closest friends? Repeatedly!" James ranted.
"She's not going to care," Greg waved his hand dismissively, "she doesn't care, why would she?"
"Greg, she's literally taken all of her leave off to drive you and I across the country to attend this event; she's putting thousands of miles on her brand-new truck and hasn't complained a word about any of this; she's just done it because you asked her to come. She cares, Greg. Sometimes she can be a bit funny about it, but trust me, she cares. I care. We wouldn't be the only two long term friends you have if we didn't," James continued.
Greg sighed, flinching a bit at the harsh reality of James' words; he and Lisa were the only two friends, the only two people, who had consistently stuck by his side through thick and thin for years. "She deserves to know," he relented, "but I have absolutely no idea on how I'm supposed to tell her. How do you tell someone something like that?"
James smiled warmly, "the same way that you told me,"
"Hmmm," Greg considered, "I'll think about it," he tapped the rubber stopper of his cane repeatedly on the carpet; "I have to do it properly" he looked away and saw his reflection in the dark television screen and sighed, "when did I become so old? When I think of myself in my head, that," he pointed at the reflection, "is not the man I see,"
"Well, I don't know what you're seeing, but the man I see sitting in front of me, he's the man that I love. He's the man I picture myself spending the rest of my life with," James smiled down at Greg, who blushed bright red, and James felt his heart melting, then Greg frowned, looking a bit suspicious.
"You… love me? Even, even after… everything? You still want to spend the rest of your life with me?" Greg asked with a note of misbelieving in his voice.
"Yes! Why wouldn't I? Greg, you're brilliant, smart, sexy, and you just have the most beautiful mind… even if you don't always let other people see it. Why do you think I've stuck around after all these years?" James comforted with a gentle laugh.
"I don't know. Inertia?" Greg responded, to which James just laughed and shook his head before Greg added something quietly, that temporarily stilled James to his spot.
"You still love me, even though I'm… a faggot?" Greg's voice was barely above a whisper at this as he felt a wave of sickening shame rise and rush through his body.
James wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at this, so he settled on a sad, almost defeated sigh; "firstly, we don't say the F word, secondly, what about me, Greg? Am I a 'faggot' too? I mean I have sex with you, you're a man,"
Greg paused at this to think, James was right in a way; but he just couldn't rid his mind of his father's words, still fresh from his latest nightmare and rattling about in his brain, faggot.
"I guess not-" his sentence was cut off when James leant down and kissed him, muting his mouth, and Lisa walked in the front door; "oh, Jesus Christ," she muttered, slamming the dinner down on the table, "stop that right now, I don't want to see that!"
Greg broke away, looking down in deep shame, before he leant back, rolled over and faced away from both James and Lisa before addressing them both, "I'm tired, I'm going to have a nap,"
James shot Lisa another cold, nearly threatening stare; she could feel the rage radiating off him, saw his fists clenching and unclenching as he walked out the hotel room door and slammed it hard behind him; Lisa saw Greg's body jump and flinch somewhat, but she needed to sort this out first. She hesitantly followed him outside, "I'll be back in a minute," she called over her shoulder to Greg, who gave her no reaction in response.
Frightened, she approached the furious, pacing man walking up and down the pathway above the carpark, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides; this isn't good. I don't know what's been setting off his temper lately, but it's been scaring me. It's scary enough when Greg gets in a mood… but that's usually petulant and childish, or over something pointless… with James, it's something else fuelling him… something darker, more sinister and menacing. Not to mention that he's still about six feet tall, and probably has a good fifty or sixty pounds on Greg… or about a hundred pounds on me, she thought with growing nerves as she approached him and tried pausing him with her hands, "James, I'm sorry, just, please, listen to me. I didn't mean to upset you,"
"Yeah, well, you did! Congratulations!" he bellowed, shoving her aside, "leave me the hell alone, Lisa!" as she staggered into the railing, making a loud metallic sound as she fell into it.
"James, wait, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you; I shouldn't have said anything… I'm sorry," Lisa grabbed his arm, which James raised up, trying to flick her off.
"If you know what's good for you, Lisa, you'll stop right now," he snarled, "let me calm down on my own time, or so help me. You just don't know when to stop do you?" he sneered down at her, standing over her, his nearly black eyes flashing with such fury and internalised rage that Lisa was genuinely afraid at what he could do if it went any further, if she protested this too much; "now, just get out of my sight before I do something we both regret!" and he resumed his furious pacing.
She wanted to run after him, but then thought better of it. She watched as he pulled a cigarette of all things out of his pocket, lit it, and started pacing back and forth, smoking furiously as he stomped up and down the concrete balcony. Lisa felt tears well up in her eyes at the whole situation; what he'd said, how threatening he sounded, and how distressed he clearly was.
An external motel room door opened behind Lisa and a woman's voice questioned her, "are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah," she wiped her eyes, "I'll be fine. I just said something that upset him, that's all. It's my fault, really. He'll calm down," not taking her eyes off James.
"Do you need me to call the police? You can wait in my room until they get here. You don't have to put up with this," the woman said, placing a gentle hand on Lisa's arm.
"Oh, no, no, it'll be okay," she muttered, then it flashed in her head what this woman must've thought was going on; to this stranger, it probably seemed like they were a couple and she was a victim of domestic violence; "it's not what it seems," Lisa added on so quickly, her words were toppling over one another; "we don't need any help, we'll be fine but thank you,"
"Are you sure?" the woman frowned towards James, who had stopped pacing and was now standing a few doors down, leaning over the barrier of the balcony, finishing his cigarette illuminated by the sunset, casting long shadows and dousing him in pink, red and orange light, his body language still screaming not to approach, "he's a big guy, and he sounded really, really angry, and he looks really angry too,"
"He was angry," Lisa confirmed without thinking, "but we're fine now, please don't call the police, its just a huge misunderstanding. We don't need any help but thank you. Believe it or not, he wouldn't hurt a fly," Lisa plastered on a fake smile.
The woman gave Lisa a disbelieving, sceptical look before she nodded and headed back into her room, she doesn't believe me that he's totally harmless she thought with concern, and honestly, I'm starting to doubt that myself.