
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/490346.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Aspen_Extreme_(1993)
  Relationship:
      T.J._Burke/Dex_Rutecki
  Character:
      T.J._Burke, Dex_Rutecki
  Additional Tags:
      Rape, Non_Consensual, Drug_Use, Child_Abuse
  Series:
      Part 7 of Aspen_Extreme
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-08-19 Words: 5575
****** Therapy ******
by Amarok_(ButterflyGhost)
Summary
     Talking to people about it doesn't always help.
TJ moved out the week after he turned eighteen. He loved his Mom, but he knew
he'd broken her heart, and it hurt too much to see it everyday. So, yeah... he
was selfish. But he couldn't help it. She said she'd forgiven him, and she said
she'd forgiven Dexter, and maybe that was even true... but he could tell that
she hadn't been able to forget it. And he couldn't forget it when they were in
the room together, because sometimes when she looked at him, it was there
behind her eyes.
 
He blamed the therapy, actually. Even though the only pictures they had of him
as a kid were those really innocent ones at the lake, they seemed to think
there must have been others, and that he and Dexter had got rid of the
evidence. No matter how often TJ insisted that he hadn't been touched when he
was little, nobody ever believed him. His mother came back from her therapy
sessions with books about repressed memory syndrome, and sometimes she would
get her courage up, and use some 'exercise' to try to get him to talk. He'd
respond by ignoring her, pretending that he didn't know what she was doing, but
sometimes, if he was feeling lousy enough, he'd slam out of the house, go find
Dexter, and come back drunk. He tried not to do it too often, because Dex had a
curfew, but... sometimes he just couldn't stay away. Besides, what gave anyone
the right to keep them apart in the first place? Once, just for the sheer
fucking hell of it he stayed out with Dex till seven in the morning, and came
back home, as high as a kite. But there was Mom, pale, and pinch-faced, sitting
on the stairs as he came in. He turned around, slammed the door, put his fist
through the window, and ground his hand on the glass. Later, when he was coming
down, he sat in A and E, staring at his bandaged hand and realised how damned
lucky he was not to be back in the mental. “Sorry, Mom,” he said uselessly,
like it made a difference.
 
She started going to church a lot more.
 
Sometimes he almost wondered if everyone was right, if he really had repressed
his memories. Sometimes the therapist would ask him something, gently, and he'd
have a flash of those pictures with Dexter in them, only his head painted them
wrong, and it was him instead. And when Mom started coming to his sessions it
was worse, because he'd get flustered, and she'd sit there looking sad, like
she didn't blame him for lying, but was going to wait forever till he finally
told the truth. And he was telling the truth, had been all along. Why could
nobody believe that?
 
The third time his Mom came to one of his therapy sessions, he'd puked. Mrs
Thoreau, the therapist ('call me Lucy') was trying to get him to 'open up'
about his relationship with Dexter, and TJ was brick red and sweating with
shame. He knew she was seeing Dexter too, and wondered what Dexter said about
him. He wouldn't blame him for sharing any secrets... this woman had a way of
crawling in under your skin. He'd already told her too much, but there was no
way he was saying anything with his mother in the room.
 
“I see in my notes,” the woman said, “that the first time you remember a sexual
encounter with Dexter you were... fourteen?” Next to him, Mom hitched in a
breath, and TJ froze, not knowing where to look. He wouldn't have told the
fucking woman if he'd known she'd ever tell his Mom.
 
“I'm sorry to ask you these questions,” Thoreau said, kindly, “but we really do
need to explore these issues.”
 
“My Mom...” he stuttered, “my Mom's right here.”
 
“Yes,” the woman said. “As you know, I've been seeing her separately, as well
as these joint sessions. And, I've explained this before, but just to clarify.
After some discussion with colleagues we decided it would be helpful for your
mother to attend these particular meetings.” Yeah... great. He remembered her
telling him that... How many fucking colleagues had she talked about him with?
“It's important that you realise your mother loves and supports you, no matter
what.” Thoreau gave a warm and reassuring look to TJ's Mom, and TJ blinked.
They were only trying to help. The woman continued. “Your Mom feels very badly
about not being able to help you when you were a child, and she would have
done, if she had known, but she's here for you now.”
 
“I am, son,” Mom said, and grasped his hand. “And there's nothing you can tell
me that will make me stop loving you. You know that, don't you?” He looked at
her small hand around his big one, fragile as a leaf, and wondered when she'd
got so old. A silence stretched between them, and he didn't move, though he
wanted to squeeze her fingers, to offer her even some mute reassurance. But he
was rooted to his seat, and couldn't move.
 
“So,” Mrs Thoreau said, “you tell me you were fourteen.”
 
“It was just us,” TJ whispered. “Nobody else was there. Nobody made us.”
 
“Tell me about it.”
 
“No.”
 
Mrs Thoreau nodded, that mild expression on her face. She never sighed, or
looked cross, or surprised, or insulted. It might have helped if she had,
because then he'd have felt like he was having a real conversation, instead of
being a bug pinned to a board.
 
“So, what do you want to talk about?”
 
“I don't even want to be here,” he said, his voice growing stronger. “I'm only
coming 'cause it was mandated. How many more of these do I got to come to
anyway?”
 
“As many as you need,” Mrs Thoreau said. TJ closed his eyes, feeling his
mother's hand still resting on his own. As many as he needed? What the hell did
that mean?
 
Shit. It was like being in hospital. He was never getting out.
 
“Okay,” Mrs Thoreau was talking again. “We'll try some word association.” TJ
laughed, eyes still shut. Blots, word association, hypnosis (which was a crock,
they'd tried it, it didn't work, and people just had to be putting it on.) What
a waste of fucking time.
 
“Mother,” she said.
 
“Father.”
 
“Guilt.”
 
“Trip.”
 
“Friend.”
 
“Lover.”
 
“Bed.”
 
“Handcuffs.”
 
Oh... oh... oh shit. Mom's hand flinched, and his eyes flew open, staring at
Thoreau. All the blood drained from his face. What the hell had he just said...
 
“I mean... I mean...” And there it was, the bed they'd raped Dexter on, in that
nice little room, with its nice little curtains, and its nice shiny mirror, and
its cuffs.
 
“TJ,” Mom said, “TJ? It's all right.”
 
And under the mattress, pictures of him and Dexter that men had wanked off to,
and... It was him on the bed.
 
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he said, and stumbled to his feet, yanking his hand away
from his Mom's. “That's not... it's not like that. That didn't happen.”
 
And then he'd puked.
 
When they got back home Mom started trying to talk about it again, and he ran
to his room, and started throwing things. When there was nothing left to break
he thumped the pillows and screamed into the mattress till his throat was raw,
and then, when he'd calmed down he was appalled with himself, for being so
selfish, and so damned stupid, and throwing a tantrum like a child. There was
no way anyone was ever going to believe him now, when he said it didn't happen.
Mom bought him up cookies and milk, like he was a kid with a cold, but he
couldn't eat them. He just lay there, staring at the milk, wondering what the
hell he had to do to get things back the way they were supposed to be. She'd
been crying. She was always crying, and it was always his fault. “I'm sorry
son, I wish I'd known...” And he couldn't say anything, because she'd never
believe him, no matter what he said, and she thought she'd let him down. That
wasn't right, not at all. Because he'd had a good childhood, for the most part.
He'd had parents who were happy together, and a best friend he played with
through the eternal days of youth, and all this crap was like toxic filth,
spreading across his whole history like crude oil on the water. He couldn't
even walk past the lake any more, the one where he and Dexter had swum in the
summer, and skated on in the winter, without wanting to throw up.
 
After he'd smashed up his room, Thoreau tried him out on meds. He quite liked
them, actually, because when he took them in the morning, they stopped him
thinking for a while. They made him a little bit sleepy, and a little bit
vague, but Mom didn't seem to mind. He was smiling more, and she thought he was
getting better. After a while, though, the pills at bedtime started to give him
nightmares. He didn't put two and two together for a while, didn't realise it
was the meds, thought it was him. He would wake up, shaking, heart pounding,
wondering where the hell he was. When he started to wake up screaming, Mom was
always in the room. He slept with the lights on.
 
He couldn't keep doing this to her.
 
When he finally got the courage to move out of the house it was like the whole
world sighed with relief. He stopped going to therapy, and even though the
courts had ordered it, it wasn't like they were going to enforce it. He'd not
been convicted of a crime, after all, and as far as he could tell, he'd done
his time. He stopped taking the mood stabiliser and anti psychotic. There were
a few horrible weeks when he couldn't sleep properly and he snapped at
everyone, and kept seeing things from the corner of his eye. He nearly... very
nearly went to see Dex's friends to get himself fixed up, because this felt
exactly like coming off junk... and hey, maybe the junk would fix it. That was
why they called it a fix, wasn't it?
 
But he didn't like Dex's friends, and if he fucked things up this time, his
parents would know that they'd been right. He gritted his teeth, and stuck it
out, and things finally settled down. He woke up about six weeks after going
cold turkey to realise he'd slept through the night, and had his first proper
appetite in ages. They had the first good snow of winter, and he didn't have to
ask anyone's permission to go up and practice on the slopes with Dexter. They
actually got to have fun, trying out snow tricks like when they were kids,
before TJ had realised how fucked up the world was.
 
Of course, Dexter had never had that, but at least they could be happy. For a
while they were careful round each other, like they were scared to have sex,
but TJ had his own apartment now, and if he wanted someone to stay over, it was
his business. He hoped Mom didn't get to hear about it, but the whole point of
getting an apartment was to get out from under her wing.
 
Dex was always the one to stay over at TJ's, when they did it, because now that
Dex wasn't in care any more, the places he lived in were always dumps. But
then, there were enough women who stayed over with TJ the rest of the time that
nobody could say for certain he was still queer for Dexter, even if they
suspected something. TJ told himself that they weren't queer, not really,
because he'd seen Dexter fucking the brains out of that Estelle woman, in all
sorts of different ways. Fuck's sake, he musta got it up five times a day. Ha,
he thought, and tried not to laugh. The feds even had a video to prove it. TJ
tried not to think about what else was on that video.
 
These days, of course, he was careful to use a condom, unless he was with
Dexter. Because Dexter wasn't having sex any more. “Just you, Teej. I ain't met
the right woman yet, and... you know. I've had enough sex for the next ten
years.” That made sense. And it was flattering that Dexter wanted him despite
all that. So, yeah... maybe once or twice a month Dex would stay over, and
they'd eat pizza, drink some beer, and fuck for old time's sake. And they'd
learned to be quiet, so the neighbours never complained. “We're just fuck
buddies anyway,” Dex said, maybe a little bit sadly. “You know, one day we'll
meet some actual women.”
 
“Hope so.”
 
“Hey, I'm talking shit,” Dex scowled at him, enviously. “You meet plenty of
women, what are you worried about?”
 
“I just wanna meet a nice one.”
 
“Here's hoping.” Yeah. Hope. TJ smiled back at Dexter, and they raised their
beers to clink them.
 
After he'd flunked out at school, he'd got a job at the factory, which kept him
busy all day, on days when he didn't have therapy. After he moved out he
started working full time, and they shifted him over from boxing to the heavy
lifting. It was sorta sad. He was spending so much time working on the same
floor as his father, something he'd always wanted to do as a kid... and yet
here they were, and Dad didn't talk to him a whole lot, and he was looking
older than he should. And it was boring work, and hard work, but at least he
could float away in his brain, and make up stories. He had a thousand stories
in his head, and after he moved out he started scribbling them down when he had
a free minute, so he could write them when he got home. He'd stopped writing
for ages, after he ran away with Dexter. The cops had been in his bedroom,
looking for clues as to where he might have gone, and found the stories he'd
been writing, including all the ones about a bad man beating up a kid, and how
the kid's best friend murdered the bad man, and they ran away together and
lived happily ever after. Even though he'd changed the names, and even though
the kids were a boy and a girl, they all knew who he meant, and yeah... that
had been a lot of fun to talk about in therapy. He couldn't have anyone reading
his stories, not after a thing like that.
 
The best thing about the factory was that it was loud, so he didn't have to
make small talk if he didn't want to. After a while people started to treat him
like a regular guy again, or at least, most of them did. Even his Dad started
nodding at him when he walked in. Then they had a few months when they were on
the same shifts, and they started sitting in the break room, and having coffee.
Which was... nice. They were talking. Not about anything important, which TJ
was grateful for. Work, and pallets, and metal rivets, and cars. They didn't
talk much about Mom, but TJ was glad when Dad started seeing her again. 'Cause
he loved his Mom and Dad, and they'd always been good to him.
 
The only thing was... after what happened, nobody in this stupid town ever
treated Dexter like a regular guy again. They'd always thought he was a bit of
a freak, but now... Well, some of them treated him like a moron, and some of
the older generation thought he was that pervert who'd corrupted the Burke's
nice little boy. Everyone seemed to forget that Dexter was actually four months
younger than TJ. And TJ knew that Dexter wasn't a moron, wasn't stupid, even if
Dex thought so himself, even if he acted like he was. He'd just switched off
half his brain at some point when he was a kid. Who could fucking blame him?
 
And as time passed, TJ wished to God that they hadn't testified, because
although they'd been told their testimony would be anonymous, it seemed
everyone found out anyway. Yeah, it was anonymous, but enough was reported in
the papers that folks could put two and two together. The whole damn town knew
that they'd been found in a brothel, and they all thought they knew about
videos and pictures, and some of them looked at them like all they could see
was sex. For some reason it didn't damage TJ's rep... the girls who put out
talked about him like he was a porn star, and told everyone how good he was,
but the gossip did damage Dexter.
 
TJ wrote his stories at night, sometimes in his apartment alone, sometimes when
the girls were asleep, stories about small towns, and spite, and gossip. He'd
try to clear from his brain any images of a boy on a bed, and wrote instead
about a boy and girl falling in love, and running away from it all. Then he'd
screw the paper up and toss it on the floor, because the stories were shit. It
was no better than the damned crap he'd written when he was fourteen, and he
couldn't figure out who was the boy, and who was the girl. It was Dexter and
him though, he knew that much now. And... shit, he needed to say something
real. Only real was messed up, and who wanted to read that?
 
He mightn't want to read it, but he needed to write it. He kept on trying.
 
About a year and a half after he moved out, TJ got seriously drunk, and ended
up in a fight. It wasn't his fault, he told the cops, as they hauled him off to
emergency. To their credit, they believed him. It helped that he hadn't freaked
out, or bitten any of them, or kneed them in the nuts this time. He wasn't even
under arrest. Fucking hell, he thought. I really do get away with everything...
Part of it, he knew, was that they'd had a major overhaul of the local police
department, and all these guys knew (or thought they knew) about him and
Dexter. Probably felt guilty about the dirty cops, like they owed him or
something. Because he'd raised hell a few times, and he hadn't been arrested
since he was sixteen. But yeah... it really wasn't his fault this time, not
really. He'd got angry for his friend. The investigation into the paedophile
ring in the area was finally coming to an end. (And, Jesus Lord God, as his
mother would say in her more pious moments, it had taken forever.) The
prosecution had been trying to persuade him and Dexter to testify.
 
“No,” TJ said, because he wasn't making that mistake again. “You lot said we'd
be anonymous, and it was a load of bull. Just go out and ask anyone, 'cause
everyone knows.”
 
“We can handle things differently this time,” the guy said, smoothly.
 
“No, you can't. 'Cause the papers are gonna have a field day. They've got a
doctor, and cops fucking kids, you think you can keep people from talking in a
town like this? And we're older now, people won't think 'poor little victim',
they'll think 'sick fucking perv.'” He realised too late that he had said 'we',
and was talking like he'd been abused by these guys himself. He cringed, and
looked sideways at Dexter. For once it was almost a good thing that he was in
one of his trances... He hadn't noticed. Shit... TJ hated himself, sometimes.
Those fucking therapy sessions had done a real number on his head. Even though
the doctor and those cops, and all those other guys had never actually touched
him, it damned well felt like it sometimes. Thing was... it was Dexter who was
really hurting here.
 
“We can subpoena you,” the lawyer said. “You'll have to testify. You'll be
treated as hostile witnesses, but you'll have to testify.”
 
“Fuck you,” TJ said. “Look at him,” he jerked his thumb at Dexter. “You wanna
kill him? 'Cause he'll never survive it.”
 
“What about you?”
 
TJ twisted his lip. “Me? I don't remember anything.”
 
The lawyer glared at him. “You don't want them to get away with it, do you,” he
asked, in an accusing tone.
 
“You got pictures, don't you?”
 
And yes, they did. Lots and lots of fucking pictures. Pictures of Dexter, that
he'd never wanted to see again, and pictures of them swimming as children in a
forever corrupted lake. Worse though... somehow one of the local perverts had
even got pictures of him and Dexter as kids, fourteen maybe, after they'd
started groping and blowing each other. He'd had no idea anyone might have
followed them.
 
“That was consensual,” TJ said, shoving the pictures back.
 
“Maybe. What about these?” And the lawyer shoved a stack of photos toward him.
“One of the guys we arrested worked in records, copied these during the first
trial. We found them on his computer. I take it you recognise them.”
 
TJ looked at Dexter, but Dexter was staring at the wall, like it was a window
to a more beautiful place. No help there. TJ passed his hands over his face. He
should be grateful that Dexter didn't have to see it, but he wished suddenly,
bitterly, that there was some fucking medicine that would make the whole world
go away.
 
He looked down at the pictures.
 
There they were. Him and Dexter, doing Estelle and doing each other, and in
some of them they were crying. He flushed with shame at how stupid they looked,
and ground his teeth. It didn't look consensual at all. And then... there was
one more. One he'd not even known about, where he was passed out, and someone
he'd never met before was fucking his ass. The image should have upset him
but... he was numb.
 
“You're trying to bully me,” he said, drearily. “You think if you show me this
I'll have no choice, but, there's no fucking way I'm gonna put my parents
through this shit again. 'Cause my Mom will think she's gotta be there for me,
and I am NOT gonna let her see this.”
 
“It's not in your hands. As the prosecution our first duty is to serve justice,
not worry about people's feelings. We want to put bad men away. We may well
decide to ask for your mother's testimony, and if so there is every chance that
she will see these photographs.”
 
TJ went very cold, and very angry. “You hurt my Mom,” he said, “and I'll hurt
you.”
 
The guy went stiff in his seat, then released something in a sigh. “Look, your
testimony will help. Please?”
 
Dexter made a noise, and turned his head, staring like a blind man. TJ
carefully turned the pictures face side down. “S'alright, Dex,” he said, and
put his hand on his friend's face, to turn his head away. Dexter let it happen,
mutely.
 
No... no way even these bastards could put Dexter through this... They were
bluffing. Had to be. Surely they could see what it would do to Dex? To TJ's
Mom? And they wouldn't need their testimony, would they? No. Not really. He'd
read the notes. Semen stains had been recovered, and computers had been raided,
and some of the guys had ratted each other out. “You don't really need us,” TJ
said calmly. The lawyer didn't deny it, and TJ relaxed. Yeah... the case was
strong enough. 'Cause if it came down to it, he would have done it... but he
didn't know that much about it, and right now, Dexter was practically fucking
catatonic.
 
“Okay,” the lawyer said, resigned. “If you change your mind...”
 
“We won't.”
 
And TJ put his arm over Dex's shoulder, led him out of the place, and took him
for a drink to unwind. 'Cause... well, they'd just had a really bad day, and
they deserved it.
 
The drink was a mistake.
 
Turned out, of course, that he'd been right about small towns knowing
everything. About halfway through the evening, a bunch of guys came in, and
swaggered up to Dexter and him, sneering. “Hey, fags,” one of them said, “hear
you guys like to take it up the ass.” Dexter had been relaxing, finally, but
when the guy loomed into their personal space, he hunched up, the way he always
did when people bullied him. TJ ordered another scotch. He was drunk already,
drunker than he'd planned on, but he still had some self control. Ignore them,
he told himself, and knocked his drink back, hooked his little finger at the
bartender, gesturing for a refill. He knocked that one back too, grimacing.
Ignore them, and they'll go away.
 
They didn't.
 
“Hey,” TJ said to them, eventually, while trying to attract the barman's
attention for another scotch. “We're just trying to watch the ball game.” The
bartender was ignoring him... he musta thought he'd had enough to drink. Prick.
 
“We don't really got a problem with you,” the ringleader said. TJ knew him from
the factory. “It's this perv here.”
 
TJ swung round, slowly, on his stool.
 
“So, fag,” the guy said to Dex, “you like taking it up the ass?”
 
Dex was blinking at the television, and TJ knew that he was zoning out, that he
couldn't even see the screen. Shit... Dex looked like he was gonna crack any
minute, or break into tears... and that would be bad. Really fucking bad.
 
TJ lost it.
 
“Hey, retard. Just so you know? I'm the one who takes it up the ass, not Dex.
And maybe you should try it sometime, you limp dicked fuck, 'cause Dex here is
really fucking good at it, and it's the only way you'll ever get hard.”
 
He'd ended up in A and E, getting stitches, but then, so did the other guy.
After the cops left Dex turned up, and TJ felt his face break into such a
stretch of a smile it hurt his cheeks.
 
“I can't believe you said that.” Dex was staring. “What are people gonna
think?” “Who cares,” TJ said, still drunk, but he'd have said it anyway. “I
don't care. It's true.” He smirked at the nurse, as he put his hand
affectionately on Dex's crotch. She blushed, and looked away. “You are fucking
good at it.” And Dexter stuck his thumbs in his belt hoops, and leant against
the wall, grinning like he thought he was James Deane. So... it was totally
worth it, even though they did keep him overnight for observation (because he'd
been knocked on the head) and even though he did wake up in hospital the next
day with the hangover from hell, and even though they could never go back to
that bar again.
And yeah, it went all around the factory, and people talked, and his Dad had to
keep it from his Mom, and couldn't look at him for a week... But... shit. Even
after all that his part in the story faded, until it was just Dexter who was
the perv. TJ could live anything down. Not because of who he was, or that he
deserved it or anything... it was just because of how he looked. Some mornings
he'd pause as he was shaving, stare in the mirror, and wish he was ugly. He'd
pull the 'baby-blue' face on himself, then sneer at his reflection,
contemptuously, thinking how easy it was to take people in. Maybe if he cut
himself across the cheek they'd stop falling for it... It wasn't his fault that
people were gullible, or that he looked good, and it wasn't fair that he got
all the breaks.
 
Dex didn't help himself much though. Jeez. TJ loved the stupid bastard, but he
kept fucking up. He'd lose one job after the other. When he got himself
arrested for stealing telegraph poles (and who the hell steals telegraph poles)
TJ went into a long funk, and, not for the first time, almost went to see one
of Dexter's friends, just for something to help him get through the days. What
stopped him were the little white scars on his hand from when it broke through
glass, the memory of his mother's sad eyes, and that damned hospital, how bad
he'd felt coming down.
 
Six months later, Dex was out of prison, and obviously back on something. TJ
took eight sick days (all he could afford) dragged Dex home, and locked the
doors. And after a few hours he realised it was one of the stupidest ideas he'd
ever had. They had nothing to do but climb the walls, and shout at each other,
until Dex solved the problem by grabbing his dick, and blowing him till he
forgot his own name.
 
So they fucked like rabbits in between ordering takeaway and watching
television. By the third day they had drunk all the beer. They spent the fourth
day throwing up, and wishing they were dead. The fifth day they started fucking
again, and when TJ went back to work on the ninth, and Dex went back to his
crummy apartment, everything seemed to be good. Dex even managed to stay off
the junk this time.
 
TJ only realised there was a problem when it started hurting to pee. Maybe it's
just cystitis, he told himself. But a week later it hurt even worse, and then,
to top everything, he started to smell bad, and his dick started dripping.
 
“You gave me fucking VD,” he told Dexter, next time he saw him. “What the fuck?
You said you weren't doing anybody.”
 
“I wasn't,” Dexter said. “I mean, until I got to prison.”
 
“What, you met the love of your life and forgot to tell me?”
 
Dexter gave him a very bitter look. “See how you like prison,” he said. “If
your cell mate takes a shine to you, you can't run away.”
 
“Oh,” TJ stuttered. “Oh... Shit. I didn't...”
 
“Hey, I'm sorry, Teej.” And Dexter did sound really, really sorry. “I didn't
think he'd be dirty. I mean, they got prison doctors, I thought he'd like, be
checked out or something. And it's not like... it's not like he raped me.”
 
“No. It's never like anyone ever raped you. Tell me who he is, and I'll go kill
him.”
 
“Better not. You're pretty. You murder someone, and you end up in prison,
you're everyone's bottom boy.”
 
TJ swallowed a sour lump in his throat. “Listen,” he said. “You need to get
yourself checked out. Get some antibiotics.” He stared at his friend. “And
anything ever happens to you again, I mean if anyone ever... You know, just let
me know.”
 
“So I don't keep giving you the clap,” Dexter laughed, like it was an old joke.
 
No. So I can kill the fucker, TJ thought. Who the hell were these people
anyway?
 
By the time he was twenty one, his Mom and Dad were back together again. When
he'd visit them, usually on a Sunday, they'd talk politely, and Mom would make
cookies, and she hardly ever cried any more. When he left, Dad would put an arm
over his shoulder at the front door, and thank him for the visit. Sometimes
they'd have a look under the hood of the car, if she needed tinkering with, and
it was almost like old times. But even then, the visits mostly left him sad.
 
“Dexter doesn't visit these days,” Mom said, one Sunday.
 
“Would he be welcome if he did?” TJ didn't mean it to sound nasty, but it came
out wrong. Mom sighed, and Dad gave him a stern look. 'Don't make your mother
cry,' he was saying with his eyes.
 
“Yeah,” was what he said out loud. “Yeah, he'd be welcome.”
 
Really? TJ felt something lift in his chest. “I'll ask him,” he said. “Maybe
he'll come next week.”
 
It was five weeks before Dex got up the courage to come, and it wasn't Mom who
cried, it was TJ. He locked himself in the bathroom till he'd stopped, then
waited some more for the hiccups to pass, and when he came out, everything was
nice, and normal, and Dexter was laughing at Dad's baseball jokes, and eating
Mom's cookies, and there was a casserole on the stove, and...
 
It was a good day. After that, Dexter started going round regularly, more even
than TJ did, and Mom looked happier, and Dad... well, Dad astonished him,
because he didn't seem to mind at all. And then, Dexter got a job, and almost
never got high. The week Dexter got his job, maintaining the ski slope, TJ
bought flowers, and drove over to see his Mom.
 
“What are these for,” she asked, smiling at the bouquet.
 
“The best Mom in the world,” he said, and kissed her. “You know, just in case
you didn't know. 'Cause you're beautiful.”
 
And it was nice. Nice to make Mom happy. If only...
 
If only he could be happy himself.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!
