I think you should probably hug me right now

[Brayden Smith]

Bray didn't fall back but he did reach out to slide a hand over Jack's hand, over his heart. Gently he undid the fist that Jack had formed and smoothed out his fingers before lacing them together with his own. He kept his eyes on the stars; the glow had faded already, since they were merely trivial illusions not sustained by much magic. Nothing more than a little party trick to amuse the humans—the muggles—on any given occasion.

"Were those the only people you could find to be friends with?" Were those kinds of kids the only ones who would accept him, Bray wondered? He turned to look down at Jack with soft eyes. Back to his childhood again, and the little pieces of the picture that Jack was issuing to help him piece it all together. Jack was actively giving him this information, as though trying to bring him into his past life—and integrating him into his present life.

"I thought you were a burglar the first time you brought out your lockpicks," he said with a small laugh, recalling his fury at the time. Quiet fury, though—silent outrage. But no anger, surprisingly. Bray did get angry, he was human too, but with Jack there wasn't anything like that. Nothing negative. Hm (as Jack would say). Bray eased down to lay on his side facing Jack, propping his head up on one hand; the other still rested with Jack's on his chest.

"Why did you keep them? The lockpicks. If they're a part of a darker past, why didn't you throw them away?"

[Jack Ripley]

Jack, he was trying. He didn't know quite when the best time to share things was. It was true, though, what he told Margie, that he'd only given a fraction of his story. Everything was rooted in what he'd already shared--in the loveless mother and the abusive father. His family of origin, that he'd brought up to Brayden once before. They were the people who were supposed to raise him, to provide an example on how to live, what to become.

In a lot of ways, he ended up like them, especially his mother. For years, he didn't know what else to be. Was this not normal? For him to numb his great pain with the same vices as his mother? God, the fights they got into when he broke into her stash and stole her things. Her drugs, her alcohol, her money. For some years, the tender years when he ought to have been naive, innocent, and young... Jack was jaded, hateful, hard. He was unhappy, too. Utterly miserable but with no real path to follow than the one he knew.

Jack wanted desperately to share everything with Brayden. He wanted... proof, somehow, that no matter what horror story he told him, that Brayden would say what he said before. Remember. Remember that no matter what, they were here. Him and Margie.

"I thought so," he said softly. He didn't know if there were better people for him to befriend. A part of him felt protected by the older kids, the ones that knew how to navigate the slums of Boston better than he did. They knew where to go to get anything they wanted. They were shitty people, though. They were part of Jack's destruction, before he really knew better.

His thoughts went back to Brayden, when he said he would have liked for them to meet as kids. What would have changed? Jack thought he was much less... tolerant. He would have done anything for the older kids to like him, and that would have meant being a bully to sweet, shy Brayden.

"...worse than that," he said softly. So softly that it was barely audible, even in the quiet of the ridge. Jack was so much worse than a burglar. Jack stroked Brayden's hand on his chest with his thumb. "I kept the lock picks because I don't think they're inherently... dark. The skill's still useful." He half smiled as he looked at Brayden. "It helped you in a pinch, right?"

[Brayden Smith]

"Only if you remember them," Bray said quietly, smiling down at Jack. The lockpicks didn't come into play until the morning after, giving them only a few frantic hours to finish up all the paperwork before Bray had to run off, leaving Jack with a hurried peck and a Love you that mortified Bray in the car ride to college. But that was the precursor to all of this, he thought. Without that... there would be none of this.

Still, keeping things that reminded him of his childhood, it didn't seem healthy. Bray curled around him, cuddling up to him for warmth and comfort and just to be close to him. "What's worse than a burglar?" He did hear Jack's softly uttered words. He had been thinking about them as he made jokes about lock picks coming into play a day too late.

Bray's head came to rest lightly against Jack's. "Did you hurt people?" He asked because he couldn't think of anything worse than hurting people purposely. But in his mind it was things like maybe beating up other kids, or getting involved in gang wars. Kids off the streets did silly things like that. Formed gangs, played games of life and death in their childish belief that they were more grown up than they really were.

Gently he kissed the side of Jack's head. "It's okay." Bray kept his words to a bare whisper, like even the stars and trees and grass had ears. "You can tell me anything, remember?"

[Jack Ripley]

And who could argue with that? Jack let out a soft laugh; if he forgot about them, they were worthless, this was true. But! They were remembered in the nick of time and they were able to salvage the day--and all because of those lock picks. Jack couldn't fault the tools themselves for that.

His heart stopped, however, at Brayden's question. Natural as it was, after what Jack murmured to himself, he felt trapped. Brayden was asking him directly and Jack, who admitted to being a filthy liar, didn't want to have to lie to Brayden. Somehow, too, he thought Brayden would know. He would sense it, maybe, with his magic. Or just by virtue of getting to know Jack so well.

"Yes." He swallowed hard, then licked his suddenly dry lips. Part of him wished he'd brought cigarettes or alcohol but that was just his addiction talking. As they said about bad habits... Jack closed his eyes instead, letting the kiss against the side of his head sink in. The gentle tingle of warmth where his lips met his head gave him strength but it also ramped up the worry of really, actually pushing Brayden away--forever.

[Brayden Smith]

"I see."

Bray didn't follow that up with another question about who or how many times or why or how Jack hurt people. He didn't want to push any more than he already had, because he saw that... that look of fear on Jack's face. It was there but only briefly; blink and you'd miss it. Bray was afraid too, that if he pried too much before Jack was ready, that he would push Jack away. Push him back into the way he was, flirtatious and ostentatious, all armor and glitz and glitter.

"It's okay." He captured Jack's lips for a long, slow kiss. "It's okay. You don't have to tell me everything tonight." His fingers splayed against Jack's jaw as he turned his head fully, so that they could kiss again, longer this time, deeper, more intimately. Lovingly. It was fine not to know everything. He could be patient; his mother told him to wait for Jack to open up to him, not for him to push and push for answers.

[Jack Ripley]

Thank those lucky stars, Brayden didn't chase for answers. He left it out there, in the air between them. And then he swiftly swept them away with a kiss. A lover's kiss. A meaningful kiss, as if it said all the things Brayden wanted to say. Jack closed his eyes, to revel in the moment. To love in the moment. No other time mattered except right now. He told himself that all the time but right now, he felt protected by some magic bubble. He wouldn't lie to Brayden. But Brayden wouldn't push and that was something.

Jack rose up into the kiss, a hand on his chest, on his shoulder, around the back of his neck. Close was never close enough. There were times he just wanted to melt into somebody else, to combine their two essences, their existences, their souls, and their hearts. But never more than now. Brayden was something special. Beyond special. Everybody before him paled in comparison, disappearing...

As another kiss naturally ended, Jack's eyes slowly opened and he regarded Brayden with soft eyes and he smiled. He stroked his hair and his cheek, touched his lips with his fingertips. For once in his life, he wasn't just here to get laid. (Although that was always nice.) He savored the kisses and the closeness, the things he didn't ever have before with all those who came before.

Things were different this time. There was no... crazed need to protect that built into a sick crescendo of violence. It wasn't there, he realized in awe as his gaze remained on Brayden. It wasn't there at all--he didn't feel it. That oily, filthy darkness, that need to control the situation, to keep all things he thought he loved away from some perceived harm. He didn't understand it; why it wasn't there now. But he was relieved--so relieved he could have cried. A breakdown for a whole different reason.

"Why do I feel so different when I'm with you?"

Although he posed the question to Brayden, looking directly at him, into his warm brown eyes... He didn't expect Brayden to have an answer. How could he know? How could either of them know?

[Brayden Smith]

As tempting as it was to want to know everything about Jack, Bray knew that there was a time and a place for certain things. Some things Jack seemed overly eager to share with him, like those episodes about his past or more recent anecdotes where he—naturally—came out smelling of roses and on top. Some things he let slip almost reluctantly, fearfully, inspiring a need in Bray to protect him. To reassure him. Whatever those dark, deep secrets were that he kept close to his heart, Bray knew that in time they would be revealed.

How did he know?

Because—look at the way Jack touched him. Kissed him. Felt him, drew him close and kept him close. Jack needed him, that was never more apparent than in that very moment, after the kisses broke and Jack still held on to him. Look at the way Jack gazed up at him, as though only seeing Bray for the first time. He was discovering something new in Bray but also in himself, wasn't he? Bray could only smile, feeling the emotion rising up to form a knot in his throat. He swallowed hard.

"Maybe because you've changed. You're different now."

[Jack Ripley]

"Not the man you fell in crazy love with?" he teased, although that was kind of a genuine concern. How much had he changed? If Brayden noticed it? Jack knew he was different than when he'd lived in Ohio--his last residence. And he most definitely was different from the place before that and beyond. Something within him had fundamentally changed and he couldn't help thinking it was because of Brayden.

Was it... magic?

Or something else? Jack remembered when he was with some guy that was really into the idea of alternative medicine and meditating. Shit like that. He said that love was a form of medicine. "You know how they say laughter is the best medicine? While that's almost true, it's really love. Love can cure anything." Jack had scoffed at that thought. Love? Love as a cure for what ails you? Maybe he was magic. Maybe love was a kind of mundane magic.

"I... hurt people I cared about," he said after a long silence. He couldn't look at Brayden when he said it, so he looked away, over the ridge and then up... up at the sky and all those pretty, twinkling balls of gas up there. Stars. Magic stars. He slowly raised Brayden's hand to his lips to kiss it. "But I can't imagine... I don't feel like... I can't see hurting you. It's like... the minute we locked eyes, you banished it... this... feeling that's been with me for so long."

[Brayden Smith]

"Hey, that's not what I meant!" Then, as he realized belatedly that Jack was teasing him, 'Oh-oh you..." He knew what Bray meant! Being together had changed them both much for the better, he was sure. The Jack of a few months ago wasn't the same one that laid with him here, now, speaking softly about his troubled past instead of loudly laughing and telling amusing stories that strengthened the image of a big-city slicker with a Havard degree. Jack made it seem as though he breezed through university, as if he didn't have to struggle to get in, to stay in.

And was it only a few months ago that they were silently nodding to each other as they passed in the hallways and making desultory smalltalk in passing through the courtyard? Was it only a few months ago that they would sneak glimpses of one another, and when Bray would look over his shoulder as he passed and then furtively turn away, worried about being too obvious?

See, they had changed. Bray had changed, too. He kissed Jack in the middle of a cafe, right out there in public. They held hands through a park, strolling along like lovers would. He no longer thought as long or as hard about everything; sometimes he just said what was on his mind and didn't worry about how it would come across. They were here now, laying together, communicating and sharing intimate details about their lives.

"I'm glad you feel that way," he said softly, kissing the lips that had kissed his hand so tenderly. "That you don't want to hurt me. But that was never... never something I questioned. I never saw it in you." Jack had hurt others perhaps, but he never touched a hair of Bray's head. There was never any indication of a violent nature, of harmful tendencies. If anything Jack hurt himself more than he hurt Bray, with his vices, with the drinking and the random people he brought home to warm his bed—but not his heart.

"Is that why you have nightmares, Jack? Because you—you hurt people in the past?" Bray couldn't breathe—he was so tense, so anxious. He wanted to know so that he could help, so that he could make sure that... that feeling Jack spoke of never came back.

[Jack Ripley]

He wondered, when Brayden said that--that he was glad Jack didn't want to hurt him--if he was half afraid that Jack could have felt that way. That there had been a possibility that he could have run into a Jack that could react violently towards him. Did it scare him, to know Jack hurt people? Wouldn't it scare him far more to know how much worse it was?

Jack could feel it again. The emotions coming from Brayden. Palpable. Like he could touch them, they were so strong. The anxiety. The tension in the air between them. The way Brayden hesitated when he used the term hurt made Jack aware. That perhaps Brayden knew more than he let on. Swallowing hard, Jack sat up, drawing a knee up to his chest but he turned to look at Brayden.

"Have you seen them?" he asked softly. "My nightmares?"

His gaze was searching. Not angry, not betrayed. Perhaps afraid, though. Of what might have translated over to Brayden. What might have been revealed unwittingly. They slept together enough times, enough times for Jack to have nightmares in his presence. And they were almost a nightly occurrence, especially after meeting Brayden. The truth wanted so badly to reveal itself, to show itself to somebody that could still love him. But Jack knew better. Nobody could love anybody that did those things to somebody. That was why Jack couldn't love himself. Why he hated himself. Not even the person himself could love him for that.

"You've seen them, haven't you?" His searching gaze tore away from Brayden, not waiting for a response. "I had to protect them. And I didn't see any other way. It was... the only way."

[Brayden Smith]

"Yes." Bray couldn't lie—he did see Jack's nightmares. He walked through one in full and others, maybe there were snippets. Unsettling things that he either half-forgot when he woke up or that he pushed away because he didn't know what to make of them, didn't know where the dots connected back to. Back to Jack's past, he realized now. Back to neglect and hurt and being unloved, not knowing how to treat others because he had never been treated right by others. There was his home ec teacher, yes, but she wasn't his mother. Having a mother who formed such a large part of who he was in the present day, Bray knew that Jack couldn't have found a substitute for his own mother. He wouldn't have known how to begin searching for a surrogate at that age.

Again, there was a kind of fear in Jack's eyes. He rolled up into a smaller version of himself, curled up, a leg drawn as if to make a smaller target of himself. Or maybe to protect himself as he looked away and spoke of protecting them. More than one person that he hurt? That he... hurt badly? Bray couldn't think the word—killed. It hurt too much to think that Jack could have done... that.

"I—yes. I saw them. There was... there was blood. A body. Eyes staring at-at me. You." Slowly he reached for Jack and slipped both arms around his shoulders. Bray pulled him close but felt as if somehow Jack was slipping away a little in the moment. Or maybe it was him; maybe he was the one who... who died inside, just a little.

"I love you, Jack." His voice was the barest, smallest whisper. "Tell me how I can help you stop the nightmares."

[Jack Ripley]

There it was. The other shoe.... dropping. Jack was withdrawing because instinctively, he felt like the same would happen with Brayden. Not that he'd be hurt by Jack... that fear was long gone now. He'd tried, in his fear, to warn Brayden away. Several times. But Brayden was insistent. But now that he knew. He knew. Before, with those nightmares, whenever he saw them, there must have been suspicions. But suspicions and confirmation were two different things.

Jack realized that his hands were shaking. Holding in emotions had become old hat for him but with the cracks in his armor chipped away, it was becoming harder and harder to hold onto them. He was so... afraid of losing the only good thing he ever had. But he realized, too, that he had always known this was how it was going to end for them. It was better to end like this than the alternative. Brayden somehow fixed the most broken part of him... but that didn't mean he was going to stick around to find out where he went next.

The heat was back there, behind his eyes, threatening to spill out and he fiercely blinked them away. Because he had no right. He had no right to hang onto something so beautiful. To somebody so beautiful; he knew that from the start. He tried, though. He tried to protect Brayden and then he tried to protect himself.

Even though he could feel Brayden's arms around him, somehow, it only made him feel so much worse. What Brayden was describing wasn't just a nightmare. It was a memory. A sickening memory. I love you, Jack was too much for him. His shoulders shook uncontrollably and the ugly, terrible sound of a sob escaped without his permission. He didn't want to be seen like this. Somehow, it was so much worse than the cafe.

"You can't. You shouldn't. The nightmares are my punishment. My guilt. My regret." He raised his hands to his head, grasping at his hair with shaking hands. He'd never done this in front of Brayden. A breakdown. He could feel it coming. The kind that he usually quelled by chain smoking, by drinking. And back when he was a drug addict, by snorting, shooting up, whatever he could to make it go away faster.

"God, Brayden, they were people. With families that loved them." He couldn't stop it now. No matter how hard he blinked, his sorrow spilled over and he slid his hands over his face. "I thought... I really thought they were too good for this world. Somebody had to save their smiles and their soft hearts. This ugly world... they never knew anything about it. And I loved them for it. But they were going to get hurt. One day, somebody was going to take their smiles away and stab them in their soft hearts. I really thought I was sparing them, Brayden but I was just the monster I wanted to save them from."

He could never look Brayden in the face again.

"......believe me when I say.... I wanted to keep you safe. But you wouldn't stay away." His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper, "I would do anything to save you, Brayden. But I would never do that to you... I never..."

[Brayden Smith]

Bray didn't say much; he didn't have much to say. He started thinking again because that was what he did best, as he struggled to cope with Jack's admissions. He... didn't know what to make of it all. It was too sudden. Their night started off so beautiful and it... It wasn't ugly but it was messy. Everything was messed up and switched around. Loving words turned into stark admissions. The stars that shone so brightly dimmed as a wet salty heat built up behind his own eyes, the more Jack talked.

Jack was hysterical, almost, as he kept talking, kept trying to explain himself. Innocent ones he tried to protect. People he wished could stay sweet and pure forever. It didn't make sense to Bray but it must have to Jack. In that moment, in those relationships, it made sense to him to—hurt them. To hurt them in order to keep them save from harm. It was a paradox, it was nonsense.

He didn't stop holding on to Jack even while Jack grasped at his own hair, as tears fell and as the torment of his actions came back in full force. Bray could see the contrition there, the regret and the pain. That was the pain he saw early on in Jack, which he couldn't understand. That was the source of the nightmares and Bray... he couldn't... fix it. Now that he knew, he couldn't fix it because there was no way for Bray to offer absolution to Jack. It wasn't his place to forgive Jack so that he could ease his conscience, either—the people who could were... no longer here.

"I couldn't stay away," he finally said at last, responding to the only thing he could respond to. "I was already in love with you." His lips pressed feather-light against Jack's temple, feeling him shaking, feeling his emotions like a tidal wave, dragging him under. "I still... love you." He couldn't stop himself from loving Jack any more than he could stop the stars from shining down on them. Bray lowered his head and let his own tears fall too, taking in a ragged breath. "I still love you, Jack."

[Jack Ripley]

Once upon a time, it all made perfect sense to him. Jack could see it as clear as day at the moment in time. When he knew. He felt the urge deep inside, a dark, ugly oily sort of feeling that gripped him, the more he spent with these beautiful, loving, happy people. While they were getting closer to Jack, Jack was getting more and more afraid. For them. Everywhere he looked, danger lurked. Voices that whispered in the back of his mind, that told him that he had to do something.

They were interposed with Jack as a child. The moment his innocence was lost. When his own father wrapped his hands around his throat and told him his mother was right, that they should have just aborted him, what a miserable waste of space he was. He could only cause trouble. He was nothing but a pain in the ass to everybody around him. Go fucking walk in traffic you little shit. Before then, Jack had an impression that his dad, at least, loved him, even if he showed it in a mean way.

It wasn't long after that he left. And his mother blamed Jack for it. How was she going to live now? She had no job, no money. Fuck you Jack! Get the fuck out of my way! Stop crying, you don't even know what pain is, do you? You've never felt real pain in your entire life. Cruel laughter. Jack didn't cry much after that. He learned how to bottle it up deep inside. Any time he felt like he might, he just held it in. Held it in deep. So deep that he couldn't touch it.

But it found its way out. It had to. Things like that didn't just disappear. They had to go somewhere.

He didn't... understand. He couldn't wrap his head around the way there were still warm arms embracing him or a gentle kiss to his temple. He didn't understand how there could be such a loving, soft voice speaking to him, without even a hint of disgust or even fear. He didn't understand it. Yet Jack still couldn't bring himself to look at him, because he was sure he would see it. Fear. Disgust. Apologies. I'm sorry, I thought I could do this. But I can't. He had been waiting for those words from the moment Brayden admitted his feelings for him.

Jack just wanted to be happy, like everybody else. But deep down, he knew... he didn't deserve it. And he punished himself over and over again for it. His subconscious did it for him, too, when he dared to forget to. He couldn't get rid of it, the burden, the weight, the disgust and self-hatred.

"Why?" His voice shook and he wished he hadn't spoken at all but it had to free itself. Why? Why did he still love him? "Why? Why?"

[Brayden Smith]

"Because I do."

No one could explain love. Love was. Period. Love was, it existed not to be explained but to be felt, to be experienced, to be given and received and shared between two hearts, equally cracked. Bray shook his head. He didn't know why. Why? Why? Why did he love someone who hurt? Someone who hurt him in that moment because his pain was palpable and overwhelming? Why didn't he stumble away and run off back to the safety of his boring life and his apartment with all of those worn and old things that he couldn't bear to throw away?

How could he throw Jack away?

Bray hadn't even thrown out the chipped cup his mother gave him when he was 12. How could he throw away a person if he couldn't even get rid of a goddamn cup?

"I don't know. I don't know Jack. I just do." His tears fell with his shaking words, with the tightening of his arms around Jack, so tight that it had to hurt both of them. And an ugly-sounding sob escaped him too, right from the depths of his broken heart because he knew that this star he had chosen was his destiny, and he was helpless in the face of his own fate. He couldn't escape the orbit of a star--nor that of a black hole. The two were one and the same-a dark star. His dark star, his black star.

"I love you. I love you. I love you Jack." He kept saying it and he kept crying because it was... so painful. The love he had for Jack was so painful and so sharp that it scared him. It scared him to tears.