yay you still've managed to find some love or liking for us and wrapped it in hope. we love you Sta_r_obin! ♥♥♥

Chapter Five – Reluctance

We had almost completely moved in by the end of the day (we turned up early in the morning). Clare and I even skipped lunch to hang our posters on the wall. Mr. and Mrs. D. had sent us to bed, but everyone knew we weren't going to go to sleep. It's very difficult to sleep after you move - excitement makes your head swell and you can't dare to lay it down.
"Clare?" I asked, watching him shift around on his bed. He didn't like the new beds, which came with the house. I was already used to them.
"What?" he asked, not meanly, but he was a little bit irritable.
"When... when do you think we're going to tell them?"
"Tell who what?" he asked in that throwaway tone of his, but I saw his face screw up a little.
"You know," I said, and I didn't need to say anything else.



I caught a glimpse of his face before he got back on his feet and turned his back to me. I had seen Clare cry only a few times, and seeing it now shocked me. I sat up instantly, a small jolt riding down to my gut.
"Clare?" I cried, but not loudly, because it was easy to hear through walls in this house.
"It's not your fault," he said right away, and I saw him moving to dry his tears. "Jesus. It's not your fault."
"What's wrong?"
"What's... what's WRONG!? Are you kidding? I can't just go up to my parents and go... God, I don't know, go... 'Hey, by the way, pops, my best friend and I have been sleeping in the same bed for the past six months!"
"You make it sound worse than it is," I told him in a soft, subdued voice.
"No, I really haven't," he said, and he looked at me, and I realized for the first time that he hadn't really come to terms with what he was - what /we/ were. “I haven’t at all. We’re sick, Jareth. There’s something horribly wrong with us, and I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t even know if I want to fix it.”
“You don’t. I know you don’t.”
“You don’t know anything! No one knows anything!”



I wasn't one to take action unless I had to. He wasn't one to let things fester. It was as if we'd suddenly switched places, and neither of us knew exactly what to do, because this wasn't how we were meant to take our lives.
And as I thought about it, I began to worry that maybe this wasn't right after all.
I took him by his shoulders and made me look at me. His eyes were pink around the edges with exhaustion and stress. It seemed almost impossible that just this morning we'd been stalling in the bathroom of the hotel as everyone tried to leave, just to have a few moments alone. And here we were trying to erase the whole thing.
Finally, I just whispered, "What do you want me to say?" I was trying to smile, but it didn't come out right.
He was lowering his eyes. I tried to recapture them but they didn't come back. "There's nothing to say," he mumbled.
So I took a big breath and said to him, "You're gay, Clare."
This was the wrong thing to say.



He finally looked at me, but it wasn't what I wanted. It was a sort of milky, given-up look that I didn't like at all, and there wasn't any hate or love there anymore. He just shook his head and started to slip into bed fully-clothed. "I'll see you in the morning, Jareth," he said in a low, heavy voice. "If I'm lucky." He got into bed in that sort of way where I couldn't have crawled in with him if I had wanted to.
I couldn't think of anything to say, so I turned around and left.



I didn't go far - couldn't go far. Instead, I just walked down the beach, letting my feet squelch in the wet sand, letting the waves roll in to my ankles. I walked until the shore began to bend, and the house went out of sight. Then, I just collapsed onto the beach and cried. I cried until I was all tired out, and even then I just sat there for a while, letting myself get soaked and cold, until finally I trudged back home.



I came back around 1:00 in the morning. I still couldn't sleep, so I did the only thing I could think to do - I knelt down and pressed my elbows to the edge of the bed, and prayed.



-- End of Chapter Five

See? I'm not dead. I think.

Perfect chapter again!! You know how to build up suspense!!! I can´t wait for the next....

I know that Jareth is totally, madly in love with Clare, but perhaps he shouldn't have pushed the issue. Geez, Jareth ... just hang in there a few months longer!

Clare is trying to figure out a lot of things, and hey, I've seen this in hetero relationships, too ... people trying to sort out their feelings for each other. Dealing with those feelings can be tough, no matter what your orientation. Furthermore, Clare might not even have decided whether he was gay or bi or straight.

Methinks the one thing that Jareth COULD do is to have a quiet talk with Clare. Apologize for trying to push things, and tell him that he is there should Clare be ready, and that no matter what, he will always be there as a friend. That their friendship is the most important thing to him. Then drop the subject for a few months and see what develops.

This, of course, can backfire. I've had many relationships where the other person simply was NEVER ready.


And by the way, this should be a FIVE-star story!

Ah yes, I have been stalking your stories since I saw your sims at MTS2. I do luuurve a good shounen-ai ^^

And reall, Jareth shouldn't have pushed it. I mean, come on. It's probably easier to drill a hole through your hand than to come out and tell your family you're gay and your best friend's a whole lot more to you now.
It's also hard accepting on the part of the parents.Some freak out and break down, others can calmly accept it because maybe they had suspicions already. But if they do tell, the parents shouldn't mind. Jareth is good kid. He didn't "corrupt our precious baby." If anything, it's all Danni's fault. ;]

Chapter Six – Christie

Around 3:00, I realized that there wasn't any sleep for me that night. So, I decided to solve all of my heartbreak problems like any kid my age should do: I ate. I ate all of the junkfood I could get my hands on until the movements became mechanical and I couldn't even feel or taste it anymore. I'm sure if someone had swapped out the bologna for a live eel, I wouldn't have noticed until after I'd slurped the whole thing down. My thoughts were firmly elsewhere - on Clare, on me, on Christie, and Danni. Clare's parents, my parents. On my future, on my past. The things that were changed with my first kiss, and the kisses after, the children I may have forfeited, the child I still was. And what was I, anyway, besides a child? A sick, twisted, confused child?



I had just gotten into the last Cheetos bag when I heard a little voice, soft and fragile.
"Jerry? What are you doing up?"
I turned around, feeling guilty very suddenly. My little sister stared back at me through sleepy eyes, rubbing her cheek with the heel of her palm and blinking in the dark.
"Never mind me," I said, putting the Cheetos back on the shelf. "What are YOU doing up? Get back to bed."
"I can't," she replied stoutly, chewing on her fingernail absently, a bad habit she'd picked up from one of the kids at her school. "I had a nightmare."
"What about?" I asked casually enough, but my throat caught.
She just shook her head and looked about worriedly.
I sighed. There wasn't any getting out of this. "Alright," I said. "Come here."



She came half-running, half-walking, and hugged me as tight as she could for being so small. "Go ahead and tell me all about it," I said, stroking her hair, almost relieved to be back to my old habits of acting as her father. "I'm right here."
I've always believed that kids are more perceptive than adults give them credit for, sometimes bordering on psychic. A kid usually knows when something's wrong. I know because she said to me, "You and Uncle Clare were fighting."
I thought that this had been her dream, so I said, "You dream about the things that you're afraid of, Christie. Did Uncle Clare say something that made you upset?"
She shook her head, frowning a little as if annoyed with my stupidity. "Not my DREAM, Jerry," she said, looking up at me pointedly. "I know you really are."
I floundered for words for what seemed like it must have been hours, and finally I managed to say, "Come sit down at the table, and we can talk about it."



So we did. Just seeing all of the snack wrappers lying around, I realized with a sickening feeling in my stomach just how much I'd eaten. I felt nauseas, but I held it back for Christie's sake.
"Gee, Jerry, you sure do make the biggest messes," she tsked at me as she sat down. "I knew something was wrong. You don't do this." She flapped a candy bar wrapper at me. I snatched it away and chucked it over my shoulder.
"I don't know what's got you guys mad," she said conversationally, as children are gifted with making complicated things shockingly simple. "But I woke up and went to peek in your room, maybe sleep in with you guys, since Danni was being mean about it. And I saw that you weren't there. You weren't even in Uncle Clare's bed like you sometimes are."
At this point I had to interrupt her to stammer, "You haven't told anyone about that, have you?"
She smiled at me. "I knew it was a secret."



"Oh, Jesus," I said, covering my face with my hands.
She giggled at me. "It's okay, Jerry. I still sleep with Beatrice, sometimes." Beatrice was her stuffed teddy bear, which had a pair of pink ears sewn on it for Easter. She'd gotten it as a little kid and still loved it.
And that's what she thought my sleeping with Clare was. I relaxed a little hearing this. When she was sure that I'd calmed down, she continued.
"I knew something was bad, too, because he was thrashing around some, and usually you can’t even tell if he’s dead or not, especially when he’s with you. And he was dressed.” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t see how he can do it without his jammies. I love my jammies.”
A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth despite it all. Hearing her say it was like sucking out all of the poison.
“You guys really shouldn't fight," she said suddenly. "I like you too much."
"Yeah," I said. I had a headache and a stomachache now, and they both throbbed in unison. "I know."
"But I just came in here for a glass of water," she said. "You need to go to bed. I can tell that you're sleepy."
She hopped off the chair and headed for the sink. I let my head fall forward and thump onto the table.



-- End of Chapter Six

Slowly but surely we move along.

Oh good update! I can't wait to see what happens next....*sits in eager anticipation*

wow very cute how the bonds of siblings is. but yeah as usual I can't wait for the next update!

I can't wait for the update on this story! Christie is smarter than she seems, kids always seem to be like that. LOL

hey sta r obin, I know its really none of my buisness but who is the sandraleesucks person that keeps leaving those long critiques on your sim stories??

She's a good friend of mine. She critiques a lot of my stories, and I do the same to her, whenever she asks.

YAY! I can't believe I forgot you said you were going to do this.
Reading this has made me say a few things that would make my mom look at me like I just grew into that four armed and legged creature they were for the 'play' if she was actually paying attention!
Now I want to go play these guys. I've been neglecting them for the longest time in my neighborhod and I feel horrible for it suddenly.

Chapter Seven – Twisted

I couldn't sleep, even though I tried. One side of the horizon was starting to get a few shades lighter than the other side, but it was still very dark out. I sat out on the deck and listened to the sounds of the ocean. It was cold, and my clothes were still wet, but I didn't care anymore. The fact that I was utterly alone was soothing in its own respect, and I was content to stay for the rest of the night if it came to it.



After all, no one could hurt me out here.



But soon enough the door swung open and Danni came out fully-clothed and sat in front of me. I didn't say anything to her. I just looked at her stonily. We hadn't talked for two months. I almost wanted to trust her; she had been my best friend, once upon a time. But before I could do anything, she said, "If I ask a penny for your thoughts, and you put your two cents in, where does the other penny go?"
"I don't feel like talking right now, Danni," I replied in a low voice.
"Sure you do," she said. "It's about Clare, isn't it? You haven't even been roomed together in this house for a day and you're already p****d at each other. I guess even best friends can get sick of each other, right? I told you he was an a*****e."
“Dan...”
“But really. He always was a bit of a p***y. He’s probably a f*g, too. Bet that turns you right off, doesn’t it? Rooming with a f*g? It would weird me out something sick. Maybe if we play our cards right we could room together instead.” And suddenly the table was too small. Her knees brushed my knees... there was a hand sneaking under the table... something brushed my thigh, something warm and too human. I jerked so sharply that the table jolted sideways.
"God, would you just shut up and leave me alone?"
She heard the tone in my voice. You should have seen the way her eyes changed. Just like that; they were sharp and bright and hard. I didn't like the way she looked at me then. I had given it away. I'd given all of it away.
The biggest mistake of my life, and it came with the biggest consequences.



"Goodbye, Danni," I said, and smartly got up and left. She didn't watch me leave.



-- End of Chapter Seven

A little short, sorry.

yeah a tad bit short but i wannna see where it goes now

I'm just glad there's anything.
I wouldn't be able to say leave me alone, I would've slapped her!

Same here. I have a bad temper. Hah. Good update!

Sta r obin I really LOOOOVE your short stories! But when it's good, it's always too short!
I can't wait to read the next chapters
Congratulations

oh, and I also read some of your stories at your hompage, THEY ARE GREAT!

>.< *flails* grr Danni! you're evil Sta_r cliff hangers all over D:

Y'know, I'm not sure if she's evil ... or just very, very angry. I'm wondering if in the back of her mind, she has the tinest, tiniest suspicion that Clare and Jareth are in a relationship, and she's still hurt and jealous. She wants a relationship like that ... with Jareth. It mustn't be easy seeing the two of them every day under the same roof, and wanting Jareth so much. I'm not sure if she feels love or lust, but she DOES want him!

Or ... she could just be evil.

to add something to what Gazania said, I think that moreover, Danni's maybe the kind of person needing to be in a perpetual fight with the one she loves, because she's unexperienced or she's simply a disorientated teen

Feel like adding that I've read everything but the 11-chapter story on your fictionpress site. I love all of them, but Chocolate Cake and Wedding Rings is my favorite by far!

wow, I just read the whole story and I love it! Awesome job sta r obin!

My favourite one is "Mickey & me", it shows the beauty someone can find in a kinda rough person, and I'm mad about "love & hate" people...