Just a Mask {open}

[sterling oliver erstweiler]

"Enjoy your movie, theatre four is on the left."

The words came from his mouth a systematic drone as he tore the tickets, handing the stubs back to the movie-goers- a middle-aged couple going to see some sort of crappy romantic comedy- without a smile. Sterling hated being in this position, he'd rather be the one to have to clean the mess left behind after the showings by the unnecessarily filthy patrons than to actually have to talk to them. Most people disregarded him anyway. Truth be told, the position which Sterling was currently manning could likely be made obsolete by technology, he was simply filling up space with ceremony or some crap. Though the clock was ticking down to when he'd finally be allowed to leave...

"Head on out, Erstweiler, that's the last of them," said the manager. Sterling nodded to the man, and wasted no time abandoning his post to go and clock out. In two minutes flat he had vacated the building and the engine of his motorcycle roared to life as he made a beeline for the exit of the parking lot- as if afraid the manager might come chasing after him and asking him to stay to fill in for some stupid no-show. Though he did have reasonable concern that it may happen, as Sterling had been drafted for involuntary overtime and weekend shifts before- apparently while he was not the most friendly employee, he was still one of the better ones at the theatre.

Wind ruffling through his hair (he never wore a helmet), Sterling passed where he would normally turn to go home, he didn't feel like it just yet. He'd only walk in to his mother complaining about his motorcycle again, she really did hate that his father had gotten it for him. "So much noise, it sounds like the devil!" he could hear her voice clearly in his mind, to which his father would respond that the Lord never spoke ill of motorcycles, and that it was good for Sterling to have it. He'd rather stay out a little later instead, and at any rate, he did enjoy his bike, loud rumbling motor and all, it cleared his head when he rode, he felt like he finally got to relax. Carrying on his slightly jerkish act was exhaustive- it was just a mask, but it was so heavy...

But Sterling knew the minute he let his guard down he'd get the biggest verbal beating of his life. Even if it might be amusing at first to see his devout, extremist parents' reactions to learned they'd raised a gay son. Though immediately after he thought of it, the shouts of hell and eternal damnation came to mind. Sterling didn't really know what to believe in regards to religion, he'd been raised in it all his life, and while he might not admit it he did find comfort in his faith, but he had a hard time believing, that if God cared for him the way the bible said, he would be condemned for something as simple as not liking men instead of women... If that were the case, Sterling wasn't so sure he wanted to believe anymore.

It was all a terribly complicated affair. Sterling shoved it from his mind as he pulled into the parking lot of the local park, silencing his bike and kicking down the stand as he dismounted. He wasn't really sure what had brought him here- it was evening, the sun hung low in the sky, barely poking over the peaks of the mountains, and as such, there wasn't anybody around. Maybe it was for the best, Sterling had been looking for a little time alone before he went back to the chaos that was his house- what with his parents and his two brothers. Sterling was sandwiched right between them- Sawyer was two years older than him, and then there was Slater who was younger than him by almost nine months to the day. Sterling had been born in July, and Slater had come around the following April.

Sterling had used to be closer to his brothers, but lately this hadn't been the case- he figured they would immediately take their parents' side if they found out. Life would be easier if he just stayed behind his mask... Plopping down on a bench, Sterling slouched a bit, allowing his mind to wander, and completely ignoring his surroundings...

[dixon everett conway]

Dixon seemed to put in a mask his self, but this mask that he wore was for a totally different reason than actually being accepted because he knew that he wasn’t accepted. His own parents didn’t seem to accept him for whom he was, and the minute he turned fourteen he knew that things between him and his parents had changed. It all started when he told his parents that he liked guys, they just seemed to think that it was a joke and that if he continued speaking like that they would kick him out. For a while he really did keep things a secret, and he was even doing really well at faking that he was straight because he had a fake girlfriend and everything but he wasn’t happy with it.

He didn’t like lying to himself, which was why one day he really came out to his parents and made them realize that he wasn’t joking like they thought he was and when he finally got them to understand all hell broke loose. He remembered the day like it was yesterday, his parents couldn’t even look him in the eye when they told him that they loved his but he was sick and they couldn’t have a gay child living in their house. Sick, he seemed to wonder if that was just what he was for such a long time when people would turn and walk the other way when they saw him, so many people were against gays and high school just sucked for him.

It seemed that at the time he was in school, he was the only gay kid there. Sure he was sure it wasn’t true, but being gay in high school was hard and he was bullied a lot for it and it never did feel good and living basically on the streets or with friends his life only seemed to go downhill for him from there. It was when he was a senior in high school when he met the boy that he was dating though, and at first they were actually taking things slow and it was a pretty decent relationship and Dixon being the type of person he was he fell pretty fast. Looking back he knew that he was just stupid and foolish, but at the time he just needed someone to finally understand what he was going through as another gay kid. That was the only thing he had ever thought of when he thought back, he wanted someone who finally accepted him.

It didn’t start out bad either, in fact in the beginning things went well for the two boys and they had been living together and Dixon really thought that he was in love. It wasn’t in till his boyfriend started always wondering where he was, and just became controlling that things really seemed to change and ended up to where they were today. Dixon had an abusive boyfriend, he knew just what it was and he was afraid to leave him because he knew what could happen if he did. He knew that his boyfriend could easily kill him if he wasn’t careful; he could deal with the beatings and the never being able to eat what he wished. It didn’t matter to him because he had a place to live, and he was still able to dance, write, and paint, and those were the things that he would never let his boyfriend take from him.

Staring in his mirror he sighed rubbing foundation on his face trying to cover up his latest bruise, sliding down the sleeves of his shirt to hide the ones on his arms running his fingers through his hair practicing his fake smile. It seemed that every day he would stand here and practice his fake smiles, but they only seemed to look just what they were, fake. The only good thing about today was the fact that for once his boyfriend was in a good mood and he was able to leave the house before he had his first bottle of alcohol and his mood shifted, it was always such a fast shift. Sometimes it seemed that one minute he was fine, and the next minute the guy was a different person. Dixon figured this was just the way that things worked out and pulling on his shoes and stuffing his phone in his pocket he was out the door and fast.

He wasn’t sure where he was going, or what he was going to do but he knew that he wanted to be out of the house and he didn’t have work for a few hours so he knew that wasn’t an option. With his head down he just seemed to walk, he wasn’t sure how long he was walking or just how he got to the park but once he finally got there and had a chance to look around he was sure he knew someone sitting on a bench. “Sterling” he said, now he wasn’t sure so he said it almost more to his self but he just was sure it was him.

[sterling oliver erstweiler]

Sterling leaned forward a bit, propping his forearms on his knees and absently looking out over the abandoned park. It was certainly odd to see it void of activity, no kids running around, no parents standing around talking. There wasn't even the surplus of runners, when normally in a Colorado town they could be counted on to be out in full force, regardless of the time of day. Sterling usually mocked them, however. He simply did not run, even if he was in a hurry, he would probably only do so if it were a life-or-death situation. Sterling would simply say that humans weren't designed to run unless something was chasing them.

Like some sort of primal instinct, a response held by the early humans in a "holy crap there's a bear right behind me" sort of situation- not something to stay in shape. Sterling mocked the ones who got really into it even more, like the ones with their iPod armbands, top-of-the-line running shoes that could feed an entire third world country if pawned at the right place, and those funny little pedometers strapped to the waistbands of their pants. They just looked ridiculous to Sterling. Though now that he was completely alone, their absence almost unnerved him.

It was like the calm before a storm, where everything went suddenly still and unnaturally silent. It seemed trite to even think that, like in the horror movies where the protagonist would comment "it's quiet... too quiet." Sterling lightly shook his head at himself, the things that went through his mind when he was alone... It was as if he couldn't really focus on anything for longer than two seconds when he didn't have any immediate tasks to deal with. It was almost pitiful in a way, he might have the dyslexia and dyscalculia, but he did not have ADHD, at the very least he should be able to keep his thoughts straight.

Even if both letters and numbers turned to mush in his brain, try as he might to make sense of them. Though Sterling had given up on trying, he'd graduated high school by the skin of his teeth, and made his peace with the fact that he simply wasn't an academic. Surprisingly, his parents hadn't given him hell for his decision to not pursue college, even though Sawyer had jumped in straight away. For once their ultra-religious nature had worked in his favour, and they had gone on their whole rant on how if it wasn't God's calling then it was for the best that he didn't go, and they had left the matter. Of course, Sterling wasn't sure that he was supposed to be working in a movie theatre, tearing tickets and sweeping up popcorn for a living either.

He honestly didn't know what direction his life was taking. Eighteen and here he was, still at home with no real plans to do anything, unless keeping his homosexuality a complete secret counted... At least long enough to the point where he could get the hell out of his parents' house, that was the last thing he wanted to do- go straight up to two people who supported the likes of Westboro and tell them that he wasn't really in to the whole vagina thing. Even if it was extremely tempting just to see the reaction that he would get from doing so...

Sterling finally managed to jar himself from his own thoughts when he finally took notice of the fact that he wasn't so alone in the park after all, a blonde figure was walking his way, and even at a distance he'd recognize him anywhere. Dixon. The blonde boy was probably Sterling's only real friend, the only person that got to see who he really was, though not quite completely... Sterling was still deep in the closet regarding his sexuality, though he wondered if Dixon could see it, even if he'd never expressly mentioned it, he wondered if it were obvious.

If it were then he might need to rethink his act, he couldn't afford to have his parents find out right now, minimum wage, even if he had shifts four or five days a week, was nowhere near enough for him to make it on his own, and he didn't have anywhere to go. Dixon, he knew, was in a similar situation, though to Sterling it seemed graver. As the boy approached, he carefully analyzed him, from the gait in his steps to the way he held himself when walking, looking for any sign of injury- of course, it might not be entirely obvious, Dixon had gotten very good at hiding it.

Though he took some comfort in the fact that he hadn't been able to detect anything too serious, but he hated that Dixon was with someone who hurt him... It often filled Sterling with rage, he wanted to pummel his friend's boyfriend, so he could see what it was like, but he knew it was foolish. His image might project devil-may-care, but he knew how much of a wimp he really was. "Hey," Sterling returned, still keeping in his hunched position with his arms on his knees.

[dixon everett conway]

Life seemed bearable for Dixon when he thought about it, sure he really had to think about it because he dealt with a lot but compared to some people he had it pretty good and he was at least alive. He had heard of thousands of people who were killed everyday due to abuse, and though he was terrified of the very thought of that possible happening it hadn’t yet and for that he had to at least be grateful. He could live another day, and perhaps he was selfish for complaining because there were always someone worse off than he. There was also the fact that he never thought of actually getting out of the situation that he found his self being stuck in, so perhaps he deserved just what was brought to him. He deserved it for sticking with the guy who was abusing him in the first place, it did seem fit.

Each and every day he would sit there and listen to his boyfriend call him these names, he would take the abuse and he never found it in his self to even try and fight back. He just didn’t even see the point in trying to anyway; he knew that it would never do any good. He was basically just a prisoner in his own him, like his boyfriend said all the time “he owned him” and even though it just sounded so awful he knew it was true. He had it in his self to run but he never did, and even if he did try to he always ended up coming right back anyway. He was like a puppet and his boyfriend was the one that was pulling his strings, and he sure liked putting on a show for everyone around him and he did it well.

He always played the role of a boy in love, he always claimed that he loved his boyfriend and sometimes he really thought he did but then something happened that just seemed to make him question it. He really questioned a lot of things lately though, so many things happened and he just felt different about his self when these things happened. Did his boyfriend really love him, he would do so many things to him and watching romance movies he was certain that no one else would do these things to the person that they seemed to claim that they loved. What was so different about Dixon that his boyfriend found the need to abuse him he always seemed to wonder, he always gave him the best and he never did ask for anything in return. The main reason why was he never knew how, he never knew how to confront him about these things without angering him and he hated angering him.

He hardly even talked around his boyfriend, he wasn’t allowed to without being told to anyway because talking seemed to be the same thing as back sassing and talking back. That always ended up with a nice smack in the face, he was always told to behave but it seemed that no matter what he did it wasn’t enough. He could cook dinner and clean the entire house on top of working all the time, and he would be told that he wasn’t doing enough around the house. He just told his self anywhere was better than being with his parents, his parents who he hadn’t even spoken to in years. Since he was fourteen years old and was basically kicked out of his house on the streets, and he didn’t have any attention of ever actually speaking to them again either. In his head he didn’t even have parents anymore, and that was how he wanted it to stay.

He never did like his parents, they were never actually there for him and they just were basically two people he use to live with every time he happened to think about them. He wasn’t even sure if they even wanted kids when they had him, but being against abortion they did and they didn’t have the heart to just put him up for adoption so they decided to just keep him in the end. They were probably wishing that they didn’t, since the boy turned out being gay in the end and the years spent raising him meant basically nothing anymore. It was like he had a disease, something that was contagious even though he knew it obviously wasn’t. Being gay wasn’t something that you choose or something that was contagious, that was far from being it. He just wished that other people could see that, see that he wasn’t some creepy spawn of the devil and he was human too but he wasn’t going to wait around for that to happen.

He didn’t have many friends, it seemed that people didn’t really like being around him so the friends that he had he was actually really close to and the friend he was closest to was probably Sterling. It was funny sometimes how they were such good friends, because in most aspects they really seemed to be a lot different but he really enjoyed being friends with him. He gave him someone to talk to and he was the only one who actually knew his secret, it wasn’t actually one that he liked to tell people and it wasn’t something he liked other people knowing. He knew that it was dangerous being with someone who hurt him, and he didn’t need other people telling him that because it only got annoying in the end and he actually managed to avoid it by just hiding it the best that he could. It was hard to do in the beginning but now he liked to believe he was pretty much a pro at it, he was a pro at hiding things.

Sure some things were hard to hide though, like how when he walked if you looked at him long enough you could notice there was a very slight limp when he walked because his ankle was hurting him. It was funny how never seemed to actually notice it though, because no one seemed to pay much attention to him and right now he tried his best to hide his lip as best as he possibly could because he knew if Sterling noticed it he would only really worry and he didn’t want that to happen. Worrying Sterling was about the last thing that he wanted to do, but he knew each time he told him something that his boyfriend did to him he always ended up worrying and he never really did know why. It was almost as if he actually care, even just a little bit and that was what confused him the most because people hardly ever cared about him.

Sitting down on the bench Dixon had to stare down at his feet, mostly due to the fact that being so close now he was sure that if he looked up and Sterling say his eye it was a lot easier to tell that it was bruised and covered with makeup and his cheek was the exact same way. He was good with covering things, but sometimes things were hard to cover completely. “So um, how are you Sterling?” he mumbled toying with his hands out of almost habit really. It was his nervous habit in fact.

[sterling oliver erstweiler]

Sterling narrowed his gaze a bit, in a way of deep concentration rather than anything unfriendly or suspicious- his gaze swept his friend carefully, lingering longer on things that were out of place. The slight, hardly noticeable limp in his walk, the long sleeves like always, and now that he had sat beside him on the bench the makeup concealing what likely was another bruise. It made anger stir up in the pit of his stomach, he just didn't understand how anyone could hurt someone like Dixon. The boy who was his closest friend was such a kind soul, he didn't deserve the crap that his boyfriend put him through.

It worried him greatly, knowing that Dixon was in that sort of position. There wasn't a day that went by where he didn't. Though the most infuriating part of the whole ordeal was that there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Sterling wanted to see the blonde boy out of there, living in a safe place where he wasn't called names, wasn't beat, was treated the way that he treated everyone else. Honestly, he deserved so much better, but Sterling couldn't provide that for his only friend, which only made matters worse.

It wasn't as if his parents would extend their generosity to someone like Dixon- not when they had just spent the weekend picketing down at the capitol building in Denver in response to some pro-gay legislation that was floating around. It honestly made Sterling sick. Though what made him sicker was knowing that he went along with the act. He wouldn't go and be amongst the vile protesters, he didn't think that he would be able to stomach it, but he still managed to be just as bad as them. In high school he had picked on the gay kids, expressed disgust at even the most innocuous of their demonstrations of affection.

Sterling had even been suspended a time or two for purposefully bullying, but it had done its purpose at the time- and his parents still had no idea of his true identity. Sterling knew he'd be out on the street the moment they figured it out, and he was keen on delaying that as long as possible. But for the time being, he would do what it took to keep them off his case, even if it meant going on blind dates that his mother arranged for him with girls from the church. Heaven forbid he even have a cover relationship with a girl that didn't think just like his parents.

It was exhausting to have to keep up with it all the time. Sterling had never once enjoyed any of his forced dates. He was just glad the church he had grown up with was more into the courtship ideal- they weren't dating, they were "courting," whatever the hell that was honestly supposed to mean. All Sterling knew was that it meant he could be spared from the whole making out thing, which honestly didn't appeal to him. Sure, he'd done it, mostly in high school, brazenly in the corridors so people could see how very not gay he supposedly was, but he'd never really enjoyed it.

A lot of the time he had felt only the lips of whatever girl he was using against his own, and nothing more. Sterling called romantic talk of seeing fireworks or whatever behind closed eyelids a bunch of crap, but surely, if he genuinely liked girls, he would have felt something. If not the mushy types of affectionate joy then at the very least some form of primitive lust- anything other than nothing at all. It had been odd to say the least, to encounter absolutely nothing, when the sight of the right guy could make his throat involuntarily constrict and an odd, suddenly unsettled feeling generate deep in the pit of his stomach; and all those other things put into the cheesy novels and romantic comedies that Sterling wrote off as being mushy or stupid.

But he couldn't help the way he felt, he knew that much, no matter how much his parents had shoved their beliefs down his throat, casually said that all gays were on the path to hell no matter how righteous they were otherwise. Sterling didn't like believing in that sort of a God, it didn't make sense to him. If He had made them all individually, then surely he would have decided to make some people gay, and if that were the reasoning- why would He purposefully make people just to send them to hell? Being gay wasn't a choice, it was just the way that someone was or was not, simple as that.

His parents failed to see that particular reasoning, however, even if there was no controlling it. It was as erroneous as saying that everyone who had green eyes was defective. Life simply shouldn't work that way. Sterling had been questioning his religion more and more since he had discovered that he liked guys instead of girls, though perhaps it wasn't Christianity on a whole that he had a problem with, maybe it was just his parents' denomination. In some of his late night research, after everyone else in the house had gone to bed, he'd found there were some branches that even let openly gay people become pastors...

The idea of that was comforting to Sterling- even if he might have his doubts, he did still find comfort in being able to pray or read his bible... He turned his head to look at Dixon as he spoke, though his friend's gaze was directed stubbornly downward, so he couldn't really see his face... "I'm okay, just got off work," said Sterling, briefly pinching his uniform polo, pulling it away from his chest momentarily before releasing it. It was a red and black polo shirt, in an uncomfortable polyester blend that didn't allow his skin to breath, kept his sweat trapped beneath its scratchy, yet somehow slippery surface.

Just below his right collarbone there was a name tag, proclaiming that his name was Sterling, and that his favourite movie was The Shawshank Redemption. Honestly, Sterling didn't really care, he had seen the movie and it was good, but he hadn't seen in it ages, and he couldn't really say it was his favourite. It was just the first thing that had come to mind when they asked what he wanted them to put on the name badge, and he hadn't bothered to change it. It wasn't like anyone commented anyway. Or they might have if he was one of the friendlier people who worked selling tickets or at the concession stand.

But his managers knew of his unfriendly nature, hence why he was normally stuck with the brief interaction of tearing tickets, or on cleanup duty after the showings. "What about you?" Sterling returned, narrowing his gaze again, wanting to add something to the effect of "and don't you dare lie to me," though he figured that it wouldn't be of much use. Sterling knew what happened to Dixon on a daily basis, there was no hiding from him. Though all the same he wished he could see his friend's face better, but his gaze was directed downward so Sterling couldn't look him in the eye...

[dixon everett conway]

There always seemed to be something wrong with Dixon, it came with the abuse and the way that he was always treated at home. He might end up with a limp due to having a sprained ankle, and bruises were always there and some of them were hard to cover up even with the makeup that he would try to use on them. It always ended up becoming harder each time he tried, and it was exhausting trying to hide all the time too that it came to the point he just wished that he didn't have to hide but he knew that he had too. He knew just what happened if anyone became suspicious as to just what was going on, and he knew that people already questioned it. He had been asked questions before, and it was just a good thing that he was always able to lie about it.

He hated lying all the time too, to people who he liked to call his friends but he knew that he had to for the very sake of his sanity and sometimes even for his life because he knew that his boyfriend could easily kill him. There had been a time when his boyfriend had even had a knife on him, and was very close to killing him but had stopped. He had told him again that day though, that if he didn't do what he says he easily could end his life and no one would even care about the loss. He told him all the time that no one even cared about him so his death would be like a dream to some people, it would be getting rid of a lot of unneeded space and his boss would quickly find someone else to take his job.

Dixon always did seem to wonder what people would think if he did die, in the hands of his boyfriend since he never did say much about it. Only one person knew that anything was going on, and he just seemed to wonder what everyone would say if he was dead. Would the people he worked with care that he was gone, that this was going on and they didn't even know. He did have friends at work and he always seemed to wonder if they would mourn his death if he died and a part of him liked to believe that they would, that his boyfriend was wrong and people did care about him but it was always hard to even believe that. It was actually hard to believe a lot of things anymore, because of everything his boyfriend told him.

His boyfriend told him so many things, that it even made what people told him in general a lot worse because he had enough of the name calling. He heard all of the things about being gay, he was use to it but it still did hurt because people seemed to forget that he had feelings and that he was human no matter what they said. He wasn't a fag and he wasn't a horrible person for being gay, he was just Dixon and that was all that he would ever be and that was all that he could be. He got enough crap at home too, and it was even harder to deal with what people said about him all the time everywhere else. He worked as a waiter, and often times people didn't even want to be waited on by him just because he was gay so that was less money he would be getting. It was stupid really, and he never did understand why people were like that.

Dixon was not a bad person, in fact he was far from it. He was the type of person who would give you the shirt off of his back, and he never did understand how people could be so cruel to him and thing that their words never hurt when they did. He was a lot more sensitive than he would ever let off and that was something he tried to keep from everyone, it was something that no one knew about him no matter who they were. It came out when he was kicked out of his parent's house at fourteen, he was so young and afraid so he went and stayed with a friend whose parents were luckily accepting of him being gay. He didn't seem to understand how they could accept him when his own parents couldn't and it really hurt him, he had often stayed up at night thinking about him.

It was even something that he thought about even today, how was it that so many people were so accepting of him but his parents weren't. There were so many parents out there that accepted that their kids were gay, they thought nothing of it but his parents did and it was always just something that he didn't understand and it was something that had just always hurt him and he never told anyone about it. He was always that person to keep things inside even though he knew that it wasn't healthy, he had just decided that he had no one to turn to when it came to how he felt anyway so it never came up. His feelings just didn't seem to matter to people, he didn't seem to matter to people and that was just what he had his self thinking when he thought about his self. He knew it was a horrid thing to thing, but it really was just what he thought.

What he liked the most was not having to pretend, and try and be something that he wasn't to make other people happy. When he was hiding his gayness he always hated when his parents would say things about gay people in front of him, it just always seemed to piss him off and he was sure that was just what had pushed him into coming clean and it was almost funny now that he thought they would accept him. They were never ones to accept anyone for certain reasons, and to have them accept even their own son as being gay, he thought it was silly now, he felt so stupid when he told them. They said they loved him regardless, that he was just sick, but he knew they didn't and that he wasn't. If anything his parents were the ones that were sick, they just couldn't see that love was love.

In their eyes love wasn't love, if a man loved a man it wasn't love it was something foul and something sick and it was just something they couldn't stand for. He never seemed to understand it though, he tried to have feelings for girls in the past and nothing seemed to happen. He always liked guys, and he had it in his head that there was something wrong with him because people said there was, people said it was wrong to be gay and that they chose to be this way and for that they were possessed by the devil. That was what he never seemed to understand the most, why was being gay so wrong? He never hurt anyone being gay, and it was far from being a choice and it was silly that so many people seemed to think that it was a choice in the first place and he had a good reason to think that way.

His reason was, why would a person chose to be hated by other people? He had to ask people that when they said it was a choice, because no person would chose to be hated, beaten, and even killed just for loving someone and he knew that because it happened to people so many times. So many people would take their lives just for the hate they would get for being gay, so many people would be beaten and killed for being gay and it was sick. It was just so sick and Dixon just couldn't even seem to understand it, he couldn't seem to make light of it all and he refused to anyway. Maybe he didn't even want to understand just what went through their heads when they did such things, when they said that loving who you loved was wrong.

He also refused to believe that god hated gay people, because it was said that god was supposed to love all people no matter who they were and this was the twenty first century now and it was time to wake up. People were just blind to the things that they didn't understand, that religion couldn't always be the answer to everything and they were just all being silly and even stupid when it came to their opinions about these kinds of things. All of his life he was told by people that being gay was gross, and he always asked them why. He just always wanted to know why they thought that it was so gay, and they never seemed to have a reason why. They could never seem to tell him just why they thought that it was so gross, why is was so wrong to be the way that he was.

The one reason he knew of, the one reason everyone seemed to say was it was in the bible. The bible also seemed to say to love your neighbor, and he was pretty sure it meant to love them no matter who they were and yet it didn't seem to happen that way. People seemed to sin every day, and yet they had something to say about gay people and it just made him sick. Their one true reason was because they just wanted to be ignorant, and sure it was just an opinion and it sounded really rude when he went and thought it was just what he thought. People were just so ignorant lately and he was just basically sick of them, in fact he was basically just sick with most people in general and he just wished that they would all go and leave him be.

Sure he wasn't religious, that was obvious just by talking to him since he didn't really go to church anymore. He use to all the time, but ever since everything happened with his parents he just didn't even seem welcome there anymore and people just always glared at him when he walked by or they would quickly get up and move when he would sit by them he just decided not to go to church. He prayed, that was enough for him now. He had his beliefs like everyone else did, but he just couldn't say he was religious. He even refused to do so and he didn't care what people seemed to think, his boyfriend was atheist after all. He only seemed to wonder what people would say about that, and then he remembered that he didn't care what they had to say.

He stared down at his shoes for some moments swinging his legs a little bit as thoughts just seemed to roam around in his head, when he had looked at Sterling he could tell just by his polo that he had just gotten out of work and felt silly now that he asked his question moments before about his day. "Of well, I'm not going to ask you how work was because I'm sure it was probably pretty boring because work always is pretty boring" he just seemed to play with his fingers. His thumb even seemed to be more interesting than normal today as he picked at a lose piece of skin near his nail biting on his lip ever slightly, he was nervous and it was obvious to tell by just looking at him now. He had to get something off of his chest, and in a way he didn't even know how.

That was when he was asked the question, and he just seemed to bite down on his lip even more and he closed his eyes as he tried to think of what to say. He always seemed unable to lie to Sterling, he never understood why but every time he talked to him the truth always seemed to come out no matter how hard he tried to think of some lie. It was just impossible for him to do so, and in a way he just really hated it. He glanced up before looking up his bruises on his face covered by far too much makeup, "you know how I am" he mumbled plainly as a way to begin just what he had to say. He was obviously abused again, the abuse was basically happening everyday now and when it didn't happen it was still very verbal.

"He hit me again, and he made me fall and I ended up twisting my ankle really badly so it just really hurts" he glanced down at his ankle quickly. "After that he just passed out so I left, I didn't want to be there when he woke up. I never want to be there when he wakes up" he sighed, it just seemed to be the same thing every say now and he just never seemed to be able to escape it. He was doomed to maybe even die in the hands of his boyfriend and in a way that really did scare him; he knew it was just so possible. He knew that with his boyfriend that really anything was possible, and when it came down to it his boyfriend really wasn’t afraid to kill him.

[sterling oliver erstweiler]

Sterling shifted a little, changing his folded position to one that was reclined in the opposite direction, sliding down on the bench a little and resting his back against it, looking out over the park. It was almost eerie when it was so lifeless, and even with Dixon right beside him it was unnaturally quiet. Normally there was some sort of activity going on- Sterling liked to come here when there were others around and simply observe what they were doing. For being someone as solitary as he was, Sterling enjoyed people-watching quite a bit, seeing the way that people interacted with each other. Significant others, friends, parents with their children.

Though he did like to watch kids, not in a creepy sort of predator way, but he had always liked children. It was definitely an unexpected trait for someone of his demeanour, always grouchy and withdrawn all the time, but he worked well with kids. Honestly, Sterling found them hilarious most of the time, like having a little alcoholic following you around all day, commenting on anything shamelessly as the words came to mind. Particularly younger ones, like those between the ages of three and six, before they learned shame and social etiquette. He was one of those odd young people that actually enjoyed babysitting.

Sterling hadn't had a job doing it in a long while, most of the time those sorts of things went to girls his age. But a time or two he had worked for one of the families at church who had little kids running around. It had been nice to be able to cut loose around the kids and just act like his normal self, and he was sure that they had gone quite successfully, though for whatever reason people were reluctant to hire a boy to watch their kids. Not that he could exactly blame them, teenage guys didn't exactly have the best track record for being mature and intelligent individuals.

Though Sterling knew how to hold down a house- his mother had made sure of that. And working with kids... Well, that came naturally to him. The only times where he got a little iffy with them were with really small babies and kids beyond ten or so. Babies almost scared Sterling, they were so fragile, and they needed to be cared for so intensively... Sterling was scared to death that he would do something to cause harm to a baby, something so small and innocent. The few occasions he'd been passed so-and-so's baby at church he had immediately tensed- fearing above all else dropping it.

At least those weren't often, as the new mothers stuck to the other women, but it was inevitable that he would get sucked into social things in the church- simply from how long his family hung around after services each week. His mother talking to every person in the building, kissing up to them all the time to increase their standing, and she had been quick to put his father and brothers up to the same thing. Sterling, however, refused to let her break him, and had been spending the Sunday mornings after the sermons in his customary corner of the church lobby.

He would busy himself with the mediocre refreshment offerings, mostly just the sub-par coffee that was likely instant. It tasted of liquefied cardboard and the senile, arthritic-handed old ladies who brewed it every week always managed to burn it. It tasted awful, but Sterling needed something to do with his hands in the awkward moments spent milling around after service while he listened to his mother's annoyingly fake laughter, even over the sound of everyone else talking. Sterling lightly tugged a hand through his hair, trying to ignore the irritating feeling of his work shirt.

He might act like something of a douchebag when his image needed to be protected, but he had never progressed into the territory of walking around shirtless. At any rate, he was almost self-conscious of his frame. He wasn't scrawny, nor was he overweight, but he looked pitifully weak. So Sterling would put up with the scratchy polyester-blend until he got home, where he would switch it out for a t-shirt for bed. In thinking on it, the shirt could probably do with being washed... Sterling tentatively took a section between his fingers again, bringing it to his nose to smell it.

The cheap fabric smelled strongly of the scents that lingered in the movie theatre- mostly popcorn and some odd lingering sort of sweetness, like the combination of several different flavours of soda. He also caught the faint smell of cigarettes. Sterling liked the act of smoking well enough, though his low amount of income prevented him from making a habit out of it. Sometimes, though, he could bum a cigarette or two off someone at work, they really did help. They soothed his nerves, took the edge off his mental exhaustion and let him relax.

That and he did a lot of subtle things to defy his uptight upbringing- he could imagine how his parents would freak if they knew that he partook in the occasional social cigarette, whenever anyone was willing to let him have one for free. He'd worked hard enough to get his motorcycle, he wasn't sure if he could ever justify smoking to them. But Sterling did like it, and really, anything that fed into his badass sort of image was worth doing for the time being. Whether that be the motorcycle, which he genuinely did enjoy, or spending his break behind the back of the movie theatre trying to give himself lung cancer.

Honestly, though, Sterling didn't view smoking as a problem at his level of frequency, it was so very rare that he got to go on break at the same time as someone else, even rarer when that person was a fellow smoker. Though honestly, sometimes he didn't even have to ask anymore. A coworker might slip a cigarette into his pocket while he wasn't paying attention, saying something to the effect of "you need this, man," and he supposed that a lot of the time it was true. His posture was nearly always tense (except at church where he slouched around and tried to avoid looking worthy of talking to), his demanour generally curt and sharp.

It wasn't exactly something that could be helped, however, he had been in this act for the better part of five years, ever since he had figured out that he liked boys. And the act of needing to keep it up all the time for the sake of keeping his secret to himself... It was so exhaustive, it really was no wonder why he was so short with people all the time. He had been denying himself for years, and was continuing to do so, though Sterling didn't see any other possible options that wouldn't have him ending up precisely where he didn't need to be.

If his parents threw him out, he wouldn't have anywhere to go. And he knew that Dixon was essentially in the same spot as he was, only his situation seemed more perilous. The blonde boy was getting abused day after day, but had nowhere to turn to if he were to leave his boyfriend. It made Sterling sick- the boy was so sweet and giving, he just couldn't see how anyone could find it in themselves to be rude to him, let alone sling terrible verbal attacks at him or beat him. Sterling often fantasized about being the one to be able to save Dixon, swoop in like a knight in shining armour and take him away from that hell.

He just didn't know how, he was powerless with no means in which to be able to help his only real friend. Ideally, he would have enough money to afford a small apartment, and the blonde could come and live with him. Then Dixon would be taken care of for once, instead of having to scurry around tending to everything in the house, all the cooking and cleaning, as well as trying to not so much as breathe the wrong way, or else get the crap beat out of him. Sterling just needed money, or some sort of obscure relative who would be willing to take them in...

Though as far as he knew, the rest of his family were of the same bible-thumping baptist breed, and none of them were particularly close. His father's brother lived all the way in Loveland, and he had a cousin who lived in a loft down in Denver, but he didn't think either of them would by sympathetic in Dixon's case. Sterling knew he did have an aunt who he wasn't supposed to talk about, but she was essentially homeless and he hadn't seen or heard from her in years. Though she really was the antithesis of his entire family, which he absolutely loved.

She practiced Wicca, and lived in what might be able to be referred to as a traveling gypsy caravan where she smoked all sorts of weird stuff, claiming to be a prophetess. Sure, it was sacrilegious, and the mere idea of actually believing something like that made him uncomfortable, but he was glad that she had broken away from the family tradition. At least someone had the guts to do it, and it didn't have to be him. At any rate, it served only as proof that the overbearing way in which everyone in the family had been raised could truly make someone entirely insane.

Sterling just hoped that he could find a way out of it before he reached that point himself. Though he didn't see himself snapping in the way that his aunt had, going off the deep end and prancing about in brightly-coloured clothes that probably belonged at a Renaissance Fair, proclaiming that he could talk to the dead and see what was to come in the future. He would probably go a different route, get into drugs and drinking, hell, maybe end up driving just a little too fast on his motorcycle and stop paying attention, or shoot up just a little too much...

Sterling blinked the thoughts away, that didn't seem right to him. It might coincide with the tough image he was projecting, but that wasn't him, and he never wanted that to be him. He did remember seeing a help wanted sign in the window of the library when he had stopped at a red light on his way to work, apparently they were looking for someone to spend a few hours on a couple of days a week to put books on the shelf, perhaps he might be able to apply for that, even if the thought of working with the Dewey Decimal system about made him want to start crying.

All the numbers turned to mush in his mind, and he wasn't good with letters either- meaning that a book labeled as 685 SMI might end up where 983 SWI was supposed to go. Such was the pain of his dual learning disability. Perhaps the library wasn't such a good idea, even if he could do with all the work he could get. But Lipton was a small town, and the library wasn't terribly extensive, and surely the little old librarians wouldn't mind him being slow in exchange for his youth, strength, and height... Sterling made a mental note to see about filling an application in the morning, he had to at least try if he was ever going to be able to help Dixon the way he wanted...

Sterling's gaze narrowed again as his friend spoke, at the very least he was being truthful, but that didn't make hearing it any less painful for him, didn't make him any less worried, or recently, any less angry. He honestly hated the man that Dixon was with, he was a vile human being for doing such harm to someone who was so harmless and innocent... Sterling was quiet as his blonde friend explained that he had been hit again, and wound up twisting his ankle. That would explain the limp... He frowned, fighting back his anger, not at Dixon, but at the sorry excuse of a man who had done that to him.

He would feel a lot better if the boy at least went to a doctor to get it checked out- if he was able to walk on it it likely wasn't broken, but it wouldn't be healthy to go around putting weight on a sprain, either. Sterling again felt the urge to swoop in and do whatever he could to take care of his friend, but his hands were bound in this situation- he didn't want to do something that might aggravate Dixon's boyfriend again and make him hit him some more. Sterling's stomach churned. "Right," said he, clenching his jaw a moment as he fought back that same anger.

Though after a moment he got it to calm, and instead transform into his usual worry and concern and he frowned again. "Did you at least wrap it up? If you're going to be walking on it you should brace it," said Sterling. He really wished that he could force his friend to go and see a doctor, but he knew his chances of getting his parents to accept that he was gay was greater than getting Dixon anywhere near a hospital. His stomach churned some more.

[dixon everett conway]

Dixon was normally one of those people who just seemed to hate the quiet, it was unsettling to just sit there and if nobody said anything nothing was heard. It always seemed to bring a odd feeling in the pit of his stomach and sometimes it even gave him that feeling that he almost wanted to throw up and no matter what he tried to do to rid his self of that feeling it wouldn't work and he hated to feel this way. This was just how he seemed to feel now as he let his eyes scope the park trying to see if anyone was actually around and spotting nobody, sure it was probably better that no one was around to try and listen in on what the boys were saying but he never did have a problem with other people. He even liked when other people were around because at least then he wasn't so alone, he hated being alone and even though only Sterling was here even that one person made him at least a little better.

Normally when he was at the park, he was here with his boyfriend and he would just stare at the little kids playing and he would smile at just how cute they always were. It made him realize that he missed being young, when you were young you didn't have to worry about responsibilities and who you were friends with didn't matter, you could be friends with who you wanted to be friends with regardless of who they were and sometimes he missed that. People changed a lot in high school, and the friends you had a a kid you no longer seemed to have anymore and he just seemed to think that it was sad just how that seemed to all turn out in the end. He just seemed to wish that everything was different, and people saw what was on the inside and not the out or that they didn't care about all those other things that wasn't even that important but he knew that was impossible and it would always be impossible.

Being around kids also made him realize that someday he wouldn't mind actually having a kid or two of his own, and that would mean adopting and he knew as a gay guy adoption was really hard because people thought it was wrong for a gay person to adopt. He didn't understand why, he was obviously capable of raising a kid, he loved kids after all and the only real issue was that his boyfriend seemed to just hate kids. He didn't understand why, and he never asked why either because he knew that asking why would only lead to issues and he tried his best to avoid issues whenever it was possible too. It saved him from an entire day of beatings sometimes when he decided not to ask questions and not to talk back and those were the days that he really liked to just call his good days and those were always the days that he enjoyed, because he had one less wound to take care of and one less bruise to hide and it was the less the better always.

When he had less bruises to hide, that meant that he was able to be out in public a lot more because when there was a lot of bruises he had to cover it was really hard to cover them all and that ended in him just staying at home in till some of them cleared up and he just hated staying at home. He knew that staying at home just wasn't safe for him with his boyfriend awake and drinking, he always hated when the guy drank because that was when he was at his worst. He was a horrible drunk, the smell of alcohol on his breath with each and every kiss as his hands just seemed to wander the blonde's body not even sure where to go and it just made Dixon sick. He hated when his boyfriend was drunk but he knew that trying to stop his wasn't worth it because he would always find a way to get his wonderful alcohol and when he did he would be angry with Dixon for trying to hide it in the first place and it happened before so he already knew it all.

He would beg with the guy to stop drinking, tell him that he would leave him if he didn't and sometimes he would for a little while just to humor Dixon really and shortly after he would start drinking again and Dixon would never leave because he just didn't have the guts too. He would always say that he would leave if his boyfriend didn't change but it always seemed to just be words and words just seemed to get him nowhere, words weren't actions and what really needed to happen was action and perhaps he was just to chicken to even do any kind of action because every time he tried it always ended up with him telling his boyfriend that he was sorry and that he loved him. Something Dixon questioned that he really did love him but the Blonde knew the boy was all that he got, and if he was forced to leave now there was no way he would be able to make on his own. He would sooner find his self dead on the streets, and that was just not what he wanted to happen.

That simple fact seemed to be the main reason why he always stayed, he knew that if he did leave he had nowhere to go so he would end up right back with his boyfriend anyway. His boyfriend really did have full control over him and he always seemed to use that to his advantage, he knew that he did. He would say that he was his and no one else could have him and plant these thoughts into his head. He knew that the thoughts weren't true, that what was said wasn't true at all but he seemed to believe it anyway and in the end he would always feel so stupid. He was stupid, he had to be stupid because he always seemed to believe what people told him no matter what it was. He was a blonde after all, and he held truth to the fact that blondes could be pretty air headed and even dumb because sometimes he really could be. Sure he was naive, he was like a lost puppy even. He was just Dixon really and he was scared.

He was far more like a little boy than a teenager and anyone who knew him well enough seemed to always tell him that, he was just the type of person that couldn't hurt a fly and he always seemed to wonder why people hated him so much for things he didn't do. He heard all these awful rumors going around about him and it hurt his feelings a lot because people seemed to just make up such awful lies that Dixon just knew couldn't be true because they were about him after all and sometimes his boyfriend would even hear these rumors and that would only make things a lot worse because his boyfriend was actually pretty stupid and he would believe a lot of the things that the people would say and that would just make him angry. He would always go home after work to his boyfriend asking him where he was because someone had told him something that was obviously not true and he would believe it like the idiot that he was and he would blow things totally out of proportion.

It always ended in another beating, and in fact these beatings were a lot worse than the others because they were for his supposed lying. These were the beatings that also got him the most upset because they were over things that he never even did and his boyfriend just didn't seem to listen to him when he tried to explain his self, that was always how it started. Some days he would even be beaten to the point that he would black out, and when that happened at least he wasn't awake to feel the pain. The only bad part is when you were knocked out you couldn't try and cover your face and you couldn't try to defend yourself, you were basically just defenseless and that was a way that Dixon just hated to be. It made him feel weak when these things happened, and sure he didn't have a body made for fighting he wasn't at all weak. Dixon was just more into dancing, and painting than anything like that and he was a good dancer and he liked to believe he was pretty good at painting too.

Working at a restaurant though it was a great job, it was a job and the hours that he worked were pretty decent judging by the fact that he had been able to pick them his self when he was asked when he wanted to work. He always chose to work as many hours ad he possibly could just so he was in the house as little as possible and for the most part it really seemed to work in his favor and no one ever seemed to really complain all that much about it, he was a good worker and he did his job well. Sure sometimes he had that person that would give him a hard time about his sexuality but he always seemed to handle it without getting to upset and he would just go and have a cigarette to try and calm his nerves so he could get back in there and make it through the rest of the day, and yes he knew smoking was a nasty habit. He only smoked when he was under extreme stress and that was only during certain circumstances, he had to make them last after all.

His money was always tight, his boyfriend seemed to think that he didn't deserve the money that he worked very hard to make because he was afraid that he would use it to leave him so he was only given a certain amount each time he was paid to do what he had to with. His main thing was food, he was given money to buy things for the house because he was always the one that was supposed to cook and he was always the one that was supposed to clean. He almost felt like a house wife in the way that he seemed to live, because that was just what he seemed to be to his boyfriend even though it would never really be official because he refused to let it be and he was sure that his boyfriend didn't want it to be either. The guy didn't seem the type to be all for those kinds of things, and for that he actually had to be pretty glad because at least he would never have to say he was that awful man's husband, the very thought actually made him sick.

A lot of things seemed to make him sick though, like alcohol. It was funny really, the boy was Irish and not one for drinking but after having a boyfriend who would always drink his self stupid he seemed to have a good reason not to drink and he was just glad that no one seemed to question it. Sure he would have sips of wine here and there, but that was about it and that was never enough to make the boy drunk. He refused to ever let it get that far, he even felt disgusted at the very thought of being drunk because he never wanted to feel like his mind could be all fuzzy like that. He didn't understand how anyone could ever want to actually feel that way, but he wasn't one to question it either. People did things, and sometimes they tended to just do a lot of crazy things and he seemed to just have no problems with it. He was even just fine with it, because at least when they drank they left him alone unlike some people did and yes that was a jab at his wonderful boyfriend there.

His boyfriend was far from being wonderful though, each and every day he would just make his life a living hell and it was so hard for him to just deal with it like nothing was really wrong when he knew that was far from the truth. He was always getting abused, and as much as he liked to believe that he deserved what he got he knew for a fact that he didn't and he just had to try and believe that no matter how hard it was. He would watch tv shows where the women got away from their boyfriend and always wished that it was him, that he had the guts to truly leave but he knew for a fact that he didn't no matter what he had to say about really wanting to just be out of here once and for all. He knew that words were only words and they were never actions, he could say anything that he wanted but if he would never actually do anything it really just meant nothing and he would always be stuck in the same place being treated like crap by someone that claimed they seemed to love him.

Love, he really seemed to question just what love was anymore when the days were worse than others and he just seemed to wish that he was dead. He knew that people didn't hurt the ones that they loved, because that was wrong so he did seem to question just if he was truly loved. He heard all the rumors of being cheated on, he even saw the signs but he didn't want to believe it for some reason. Sure it gave him a reason to hate the guy even more, that after he believed the things said about him he cheated on him, while Dixon didn't. No Dixon always stayed true to his boyfriend even though it just seemed so stupid to do so anymore because the guy just wasn't even worth his breath, he always did wonder just what would happen if he did cheat. He wondered just how the beatings would be, would he finally just take it to far and end it all. He always just seemed to wonder, and a part of him just seemed to wish that he would. That he would just end all this hell for him, just like that.

A part of him really seemed to wonder just who would care if he died, since his family threw him out of his life he wasn't even sure anymore. He didn't have many friends at work, his boss would just get someone else and life went on. Sometimes he liked to think that no one would care if he was dead, he was just a strange little blonde kid after all. People even went as far as calling him a waste of space, he bit his lip and glanced at Sterling for a moment. He seemed to wonder if he would miss him if he had died, but he was far to afraid to ask such a question because he didn't want to worry him even more than he knew that he already did. Oh yes how Dixon just hated to worry people, but he knew that he did all the time and he really just couldn't seem to help it. It was just how he was and it was just how things seemed to turn out and it was just as simple and as easy as that, and he tried his best not to be a bother. He knew that he was though, he just had to be.

He was a lot of things, because people said he was these things and he just seemed to believe them now. They said them all the time after all, and no one seemed to tell him anything different so that was just what he seemed to think about his self even though he knew that think in such a way meant that he thought poorly of himself. It wasn't really something that could be helped though, it was more like something that just came to be on its own after years of being beaten down by just so many people to the point where nothing seemed to matter to him anymore but the words people said. It was almost as if he couldn't hear anything but those very words, they just seemed to drone on and on in his head like the buzzing of bees and sometimes it drove him mad. He would sit there with his hands over his ears in tears to try and escape it but he knew no matter how hard he tried he tried he just could seem to escape it and it just sucked because he didn't live like this anymore.

He just seemed to talk, he always talked so easily to Sterling which was weird because he was never good with talking to people. The words just flowed from his mouth as he spoke of just what his boyfriend did to him, it was different everyday and some days were better than others and some days the things he went through he didn't even want to think about yet again. He would bite his lip, as he did now staring down at his pants let that concealed his swollen ankle that just seemed to be bothering him now he sighed. He knew there was a whole lot more to the story, things that he had to know find the way to say. His boyfriend was always extremely rough when it came to the things that they did together, in fact he always raped him because Dixon was never ready for sex, he always said no. The guy just never seemed to take no as an answer and playing with his hands like he always did tears filled his eyes at the very thought.

It was about a lot of things now, the tears in his eyes, it was the pain in his ankle, the bruises on his skin, and the fact he was in this situation in general. "Yeah I did wrap it up, I know what I'm supposed to do in these situations. I always know what I'm supposed to do in these situations, I've lived it for a while now I mean. I should be use to this, everything my boyfriend seems to do to me. I know I have gotten a lot better at hiding it, I have to be because no one seems to even question me anymore. I mean maybe it is because they are just done with caring, I don't know but they don't ask questions so I don't say anything. I let these things happen to me time and time again and I don't do anything about it because I just I can't, I know just what will happen if I do. He's told me so many times before, I can't even try to leave him because he told me that if I did he would kill me Sterling and I guess I'm scared" he whispered. "I'm so scared of just everything really, this whole situation" he added. He swallowed hard now, "I'm also pretty sure saying no and still having the person do things to you counts as rape" he had to mumble it, just almost hoping he wasn't heard.

[sterling oliver erstweiler]

Sterling felt very tense as he attempted to keep calm, reign control over his raging emotions, he almost didn't know what to do with himself. It was so very difficult to know what Dixon was going through, yet not being able to do anything about it. He was stuck. Sterling worked maybe twenty hours a week, sometimes less, sometimes more, making only minimum wage. His parents, of course, what with how devout they were, pretty much forced him to tithe the biblical ten percent, and another fifty percent went into a savings account he wasn't allowed to touch, leaving him with the leftover, measly forty percent.

And nearly all of that went into his motorcycle, not that he was obsessive about the thing, they were simply the costs of keeping it operational- things like insurance and gas. While his father had been the one to allow him to get it in the first place, the man had refused point blank to contribute a single cent to the thing, deciding that it was good for his son to learn some independence and how to use his money. Though Sterling couldn't help but wonder if maybe he ought to get rid of it, even if he liked it, that way he could start saving up to get his own place to take Dixon away from the hell that was his boyfriend.

He also figured that the savings he had was probably close enough to a deposit, and maybe a month or two of rent depending on how much the place cost- but he knew it would be sucked dry pretty quickly, and he didn't make anywhere near enough to replenish it in time to make the next payment. And that was just rent alone, it didn't include things like utilities or food, he'd start floundering within a week, he just wasn't in the right place in that particular moment, far from it. The job posted at the library was beginning to look a lot more tempting now...

It wouldn't be all that many hours, but Sterling needed all the funding he could get. And perhaps it might allow him enough room to take on a third position somewhere else in town, that way he might get to his goal of being able to provide a place for Dixon and himself that much closer to his grasp... Sterling couldn't deny that the idea of having to tend to three jobs was exhausting to even think about, but he was willing to sacrifice all his time if it meant getting his only real friend out of an abusive relationship, someplace safe where he didn't have to worry about physical and emotional injury.

It honestly did make Sterling sick to his stomach to think about what happened to Dixon behind closed doors, he imagined his poor, sweet, innocent friend was quite defenseless, powerless against a man who didn't have a nice bone in his body, and clearly was bigger and stronger. He did know what happened, maybe not any specifics, but he knew enough to make an absolutely bone-chilling mental image. Sometimes the thoughts alone were enough to keep him awake at night for hours, driving away any feeling of tiredness and instead replacing it with his near frantic worry.

Sterling was normally a very level-headed, albeit a bit grouchy, kind of guy, so the fear he felt for Dixon was almost foreign. He never really knew how to cope with it, he wasn't a man of many fears, though the ones that he did have were near-crippling. Like worrying over Dixon, if he was all right, if that terrible man hadn't gone just an inch too far, done real damage- or worse, ended up killing him. Sterling didn't know what he would do if he didn't have Dixon. In a way, the blonde boy was the only thing that kept him sane- he was, after all, the only one that knew about the real him.

Dixon was the only one who had ever seen his gentle side, the one that cared about people, the one that adored little kids and animals, and didn't have a problem with being emotional. Everyone else got to see his thick mask- the surly, intolerant young man who seemingly didn't give a damn about anything. The one who turned his nose up at the same things that his parents did, acted just as despicable as everyone else in the congregation of his church. Though he liked to think that he was different than they were. He was just pretending to act that way, he didn't genuinely believe the things that they did.

Sterling almost couldn't handle the thought of not having Dixon in his life, the boy meant so much to him, more than anyone ever had before. He didn't know if he could handle a funeral- or just knowing that there was one; he probably wouldn't be able to go. If he did, then everyone would know that he had been faking who he was for so long, then he would be stuck in a very different situation, but without his best friend to turn to. Sterling suppressed an involuntary shudder at the idea, he didn't like thinking that way about someone who, quite literally, meant the world to him.

His fear of losing Dixon was likely the biggest one that he had, trumping even his phobias of clowns and going to the dentist. He kept those buried the best that he could to keep up with his tough guy image, but nothing could send Sterling running quite like a clown... He didn't know what it was, but he found them absolutely horrifying, the inhuman proportions, permanent grins etched onto their corpse-white faces with bright red paint- the over sized, well, everything, and that horrible laughter that sounded like it came from the bowels of hell- like some sort of demon stuffed into the body of some dude in an outrageous costume...

Sterling fought back a chill yet again, even thinking about clowns was enough to do him in, of course, dentists weren't all that great, either... He hated everything about going to see the dentist- the tools that looked like they should belong in a medieval torture chamber rather than on one of those sterile metal trays, and then the sounds, oh dear Lord the sounds were probably the worst part. The mechanical whine of the thing that polished the teeth, and the sound of that hooked thing that Sterling didn't know the name of scraping away the plaque until they made his gums bleed...

They insisted that it was because he didn't floss, but Sterling was coming to the conclusion that they were doing so on purpose. He took meticulous care of his teeth to avoid going to the dentist any more often than was absolutely necessary- spending up to ten minutes in the evening brushing, flossing, gargling mouthwash, and sometimes going back and brushing a second time again. He would be damned if he ever got a cavity and needed to have it filled... The thing that polished teeth was bad enough, he could hardly imagine needing a drill in his mouth and what that would sound like...

The thought alone was nearly enough to send him into convulsions. He tried not to let it show, but even thinking on the idea of needing to lay in that chair more than annually, be subjected to whatever form of psychological torture he was sure that it qualified as more than he needed to... So he would continue with his very intense routine of oral hygiene to avoid repeat visits. Honestly, Sterling couldn't say what it was that had sparked his fear of going to the professionals for the care of his teeth, he could simply never remember feeling comfortable with someone else's hands inside his mouth...

When he was a kid his mother had needed to forcibly drag him into the office while he fought her vice grip on his arm, and a time or two he had needed to be held down. Sterling had gotten better about it as he got older, though the near crippling fear remained. He just tried to breathe through it, even if his heart pounded and his brain freaked at him to get the hell out of that sweaty vinyl reclining chair and as far away from those sinister-looking tools as possible. Sterling might have blamed it on having his wisdom teeth removed, the procedure hadn't exactly gone smoothly and he'd needed a week to recover- though his disdain had existed long before then.

His phone buzzed lazily from his pocket and Sterling absently crinkled his nose, quickly pulling it out and looking at the ID, fully expecting it to be his mother, though surprisingly, it was Sawyer. His older brother never called... Nevertheless, he was here with Dixon, and not even his ever loathsome mother could drag him away. He tapped the ignore button before sliding it back into his pocket, only thinking vaguely for a moment what his brother could possibly want. It wasn't like he needed anything from him specifically- his parents were throwing all sorts of money at their eldest son.

His brother Sawyer was nearing the end of his junior year of college, and had recently gotten engaged to a girl named Rachel from the church. His parents were absolutely fawning over the young couple, showering them with whatever funds they needed for the wedding which would be in the next month. It really was outrageous to him, how they could spend so much money on something as trivial as a party, when there was someone in their own town who could do something so much better with those resources, it could honestly mean the difference between life or death.

The thoughts made his stomach churn uncomfortably yet again, he couldn't help it... Honestly, he couldn't even feel happy for his brother at this point, not when it seemed like they had rushed into their relationship at a downright unnatural pace- he seemed to remember them being together for only the past six months, hardly the foundation that Sterling would think necessary for a marriage, there was likely still a lot that they didn't know about each other yet. Six months seemed like a woefully inadequate amount of time to get to genuinely know someone and be willing to decide that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with them.

Maybe he had knocked her up. The idea was almost enough to make Sterling laugh, and he would definitely love to see that happen before they had gotten married. Sawyer, the oldest son who had always been the golden child, making a mistake that his parents would consider along the same lines as his homosexuality. Even the notion of premarital sex made his mother gasp audibly, as if it were something that was completely awful, rather than what, in mainstream society these days, seemed entirely normal. Of course, his parents were the type to openly rebuke people who lived together without getting married...

Honestly, he couldn't say that he was surprised, what with how they so vocally pursued other things that the church deemed un-Christianly, but that seemed to be taking it just a step too far, just a bit too extreme... But at any rate, picturing Sawyer, who could seemingly never do any wrong by his parents, in a situation such as that was almost laughable. Though Sterling couldn't help but wonder what that might do for his standing in the family, if his older brother went and "disgraced" them like that, by creating a life out of wedlock. Perhaps he might be granted the opportunity to be the good child for once, or they might skip right over him and go to the baby in the family.

Sterling really saw it as no secret that his brothers got more favour than himself. Sawyer was the oldest, and as such would always be perfect, and then Slater was the youngest, and definitely had their mother wrapped around his finger with hardly any effort at all. The kid was smart, though, ridiculously so, he was so clever that it seemed nobody noticed he was manipulating them but since he was just so seemingly sweet and innocent (in a deceptive sort of way, rather than a genuine one like the way that Dixon was) that nobody had believed Sterling when he caught on to his brother's antics.

They had been written off as him trying to sabotage his younger brother even though time and time again they fell for his ploys. Honestly, however, Sterling had learned to be impressed with how he could get away with doing crap like that- he himself had neither the guts nor the intelligence to pull off anything like that. He was simply glad that he could see when he was being duped, even if it might take him a little longer than he would like to catch on to the fact that his brother was using him to get something that he wanted. Most of the time now Sterling wasn't home anyway to fall into those traps.

Not that he was always working, but he found some sort of excuse to spend as little time in the house as possible. And Slater was definitely busier than he'd been in a while, he was due to graduate high school shortly, and as such was running around securing the random odds and ends. But he wasn't scrambling nearly as much as Sterling had been when he reached the end of his final year of high school. He had never been a good student, his learning disabilities and disinterest in academia in general had made sure of that. As such he had barely graduated by the skin of his teeth.

And he was drastically under qualified to get any sort of scholarship to advance on to college... Not that Sterling had ever wanted to go anyway. He still had no idea what he wanted to do with his life beyond getting enough money to have his own place so he could help Dixon the way he wanted, but other than that, no real ambitions or desires... Sterling just wasn't sure what he was good at and enjoyed enough to make a career out of it. He liked kids, and he liked animals, but he knew people would think him wanting to be a nanny or a pet-sitter or something would be laughable.

And honestly, Sterling had to agree with that assessment. It just seemed very far off from what his public image projected, like it was the last thing that he would ever be doing, even if it was really the only career beyond whatever random minimum-wage job he could get in town, something that people actually did for a living instead of what they did to keep themselves occupied as a teenager. Sterling was quiet as Dixon spoke, knowing that it would be better to let his friend get all of this off his chest rather than interrupt him, even if his brain was screaming at him to do so.

He prickled slightly at his words. Dixon shouldn't have to be used to something like that, it was hell, honestly, nobody should ever have to put up with that quietly. Or even put up with that at all. Couldn't the blonde boy see how much he really was worth? Anybody would be lucky to have someone as kind as him, as generous and forgiving... Yet again he tensed- Sterling was nowhere near being done with caring, Dixon meant more to him than anyone else, he was his only friend in the world, the only person that he felt that he could trust, he cared more than he could even wrap his head around.

Many a time he had questioned if he felt something more, but Sterling had never allowed himself to indulge in those particular thoughts, life was difficult enough as it was, he didn't need anything like that making everything more complicated. But if that wasn't the case, why would he want nothing more than to save him... Sterling wondered if Dixon even knew that he was gay, if he could pick up on the way that he cared, though he doubted it, that side of him was still very well hidden. Sterling knew that he could unleash a whole sticky mess of problems on himself if he openly admitted it, even to just Dixon.

And right now the blonde boy had more than enough on his plate, he didn't have the heart to burden him with anything else. Right now Sterling needed to be the strong one for his friend, who sure as hell wasn't going to be strong for himself. As Dixon uttered his last words, Sterling felt his heart breaking, he hadn't known that the abuse extended into something that despicable... Honestly, he ought to have expected it, but that didn't make the blow any less severe, didn't make the tears that had come to eyes any less stinging...

Sterling blinked them back, he wasn't afraid to be emotional around Dixon, but he didn't need that right now. At the moment, what his friend needed was stability, someone to help him shoulder this burden until he was in the proper position to be able to take it away... "It does," Sterling said grimly, his stomach churning even more as he spoke. He hated knowing that Dixon was hit and called named, but with it expanding into the territory of him being hurt in that manner... He almost couldn't take it, but he needed to keep himself together.

Apprehensively, Sterling reached over and took Dixon's hand in his own, keeping his grip light and loose so the blonde could pull away if he wanted. Sterling wasn't a physical person by nature, but he had needed to do it in that moment, as if to provide physical confirmation that he was there, and always would be. At any rate, it did help to calm him as he collected his own thoughts, trying desperately to think of what he needed to say... "You shouldn't have to be used to it," Sterling said quietly, "and I will always care. It kills me to know what's happening and that I can't help."

He tried not to sound bitter, but he still pulled a face that rivaled the unpleasantness that he felt on the inside. If Sterling had it his way, they would be able to run away tonight, he would have a place for his best friend to be safe- a door with multiple locks, so he would never need to worry about that horrible man again- a place where Sterling could take care of him and give him the attention that he deserved... Though it seemed at that point an unattainable dream. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place, there was nowhere for them to go.

"I'm going to take another job, and I promise that I'll get you out of there as soon as I can," Sterling said, his words felt like they weren't enough, but he was offering his best, that was all that he had. He just hoped that it would be good enough, and not too little too late. Sterling wanted to urge Dixon to go to the authorities, but he knew that wasn't going to happen, even after all the laws that his boyfriend had broken regarding how he treated the blonde, even after all the pain he had been subjected to... Sterling lightly squeezed his hand, taking great care to be very gentle.

[dixon everett conway]

<sup>Dixon honestly didn't seem to know how to handle everything that was going on in his life, because when he was young he never thought these kinds of things could possibly happen to him. He grew up with parents that seemed to love him, but the minute that he figured out that he was gay he was terrified of telling his parents. His parents were the religious type and he knew that, he had been going to church every week since he was a kid even though he was never one to pay much attention to anything they had to say. He wasn't the type to really be that religious, and when he admitted to his parents that he was gay and they kicked him out he lost his faith completely. He just didn't want to go to church and face people he knew hated him, it was just so hard for him to do and he knew if he had to he would break. He was only as strong as he could possibly be and that wasn't very strong at all.

He was weak, and he knew that he was weak because he just always seemed to let his boyfriend do such awful things to him and he didn't even try to fight back. He just took it, like the coward that he was and perhaps that was all that he was. He was such a coward, and the very thought of that put him in such an awful place sometimes. There were times when he even thought he was better off dead, and he knew it was such an awful thing to think about and he shouldn't be thinking that way but he couldn't seem to help it. There was a time when things just seemed to become to much and he was slowly getting to his edge, he didn't think there was a way he could handle much more of it. He was through with all his tears and all of this feeling sorry for his self when he knew that no one really seemed to care, people out there had it so much worse than he did and perhaps he was just really being selfish for feeling this way and even just acting this way.

It was hard sometimes for him to handle his emotions, people would say things to him at work and they would just tear him down all the time and it was hard to take it all with a smile. He was always the person who would just smile through it all, all the shit he went through even though it was so hard for him to do so sometimes. It was so frustrating to just bite his tongue when so many people gave him shit all the time, it was just so frustrating and so stupid. Maybe dying really did sound like a good idea, but that was a thought he always pushed out of his mind. The thought of taking pills, or hanging yourself also seemed to scare him and he wasn't sure if he even had the courage to do such a thing like that anyway. Besides, perhaps someone would take notice and care if he was gone. He just had to keep thinking that for the very sake of his sanity, or at least what he had left of it and that really wasn't all that much at all.

He imagined his self finally snapping on someone and going over the deep end, he knew he was prone to having panic attacks and if he was angered enough he was even bipolar but that was a side of his self that he tried really hard to hide and he had medication for it too. He had to make sure to take his medication everyday and he only seemed to wonder just what a day without it would be like and he realized that he didn't even want to think of that, he didn't want to think of himself in that kind of state feeling like the world was out to get him. He felt awful enough and he just didn't want to have to add on to those feelings, it just felt silly almost and he refused to ever have to feel that way no matter how many people just seemed to hate him. He never gave people the reason to hate him or fear him, and he just hated when people that use to be in his church would stare at him like he was from another planet or they would pull their kids away from him. It was almost as if he wasn't a human, and they never did realize that the things that they did just seemed to really hurt him.

He sighed wiping his tears from his eyes, he just felt so silly for crying over this when he knew there was no point in feeling this way because it wouldn't change anything anyway. Being upset with what was going on wasn't going to make anything better for him and he knew that, but at least when he cried he could actually remember that he was alive at least for a little bit. He had come to realize that just being numb was better than any other feeling, because at least when you were numb everything just felt so much better and easier for him. When he was numb he didn't seem to feel the pain as much, he just just sit there and imagine he was just somewhere else and he did that all the time. He just had to put his self in his happy place. A place where he was no longer hit and he didn't have to fear his life each day, he could just spend time with his friends. Sure he only have one friend, but Sterling still meant a a lot to him.

Sterling was basically his best friend and sometimes it seemed like he was his only friend because he really was the only person he could talk to about really anything, and when the boy took his hand he bit down on his lip a single tear falling down his face onto his jeans. A tear he was just to upset to even try and wipe away, he just didn't seem to understand why this happened to him and a part of him wasn't even sure if he really wanted to understand either. He was just done with trying to understand just what was going on in his life, he was done with trying to make sense of everything because he just knew that there was no point. What was happening was going to happen one way or another and he just had to dead with it, that was really just all that was to it. He was fighting a war he was just destined to lose and that was just his life, and perhaps that would just always really be his life and he had to live with it.

His boyfriend was sick, and he had to realize that. Sterling had told him that before, and all he did was defend him because he felt as his boyfriend he had to at least be a little loyal to the guy and say that he wasn't as bad as everyone said. He use to be suck a nice guy and Dixon seemed to wonder what happened to him, that nice guy he use to know. "He use to be so much nicer, he would call me everyday to make sure I was doing okay and he would give me flowers and kiss my head. He really loved me back then, and I just don't understand what I did wrong. What did I do to deserve this? i just don't get it, he just started drinking and that was the end of it" he just bit his lip his tears falling as he stared down at the ground listening to Sterling speak. "Sometimes I wonder how you can be friends with such a piece of shit as me, because I just feel so bad about myself sometimes and just sometimes I guess I just want it all to end. I know you want to help me, and I hope that one day things can be different but I just I don't know. Sometimes I just want to die" he whispered.</sup>

[sterling oliver erstweiler]

Sterling chewed lightly on his tongue, he wished that he knew what to do. He honestly couldn't say that he had any experience with something this serious. All he had was the threat of what could happen if his parents found out that he way gay, and honestly, in comparison to what Dixon went through it was positively tame. Sterling could live with being homeless, he might not have much money, but he would still be able to work and feed himself, even if it meant sleeping under a bridge or something. He wouldn't need to fear for his life, he wouldn't be beaten by his parents, simply exiled.

Sterling had never known someone who was abused in that manner, and it made him sick to his stomach to know that anyone was capable of that. He might have been downright cruel in high school to anyone who was openly gay, but he had never hit anyone. He wouldn't be able to stomach causing someone physical pain. Though his stomach tightened in its series of knots as he thought about the emotional pain he might have caused anyone. He really was sorry, but he wasn't able to say so, lest he expose who he really was...

He kept chewing on his tongue, feeling the stress coming back to him again, he worried like crazy over Dixon, and it was enough to keep him up at night. Enough to drive him to cigarettes that he really didn't have the money for... Sterling thought vaguely of the single cigarette in the breast pocket of his polo shirt, nestled against the cheap two dollar lighter that he carried around. It had been given to him by a coworker earlier that day after he had visibly needed to hold back a string of harsh words to a manager who criticized the specific way in which he had been tearing tickets.

The single Marlboro had been given to him by a girl named Laurie, she was older than him by about three years, and she was in college, studying mathematics. She had a snappy attitude and wild curly hair, she walked with a dramatic swing in her hips and popped her gum constantly. But for whatever reason, Sterling liked her, or at least the side that everyone else got to see liked her, and not just because of the cigarettes. She honestly didn't seem to care, she strutted around acting like she owned the place, and her bravery was admirable.

She was the kind of girl that he might go for if he liked women. And that day, Laurie had really seemed to be able to read him, rather than drawing attention to herself like she normally did, she had simply slipped up beside him once the manager had stalked off to go and yell at someone else, and slipped it into his pocket with a smile and a wink before going to slip back behind the concession stand again. Sterling definitely appreciated the gesture, though he hadn't had the opportunity to light it up yet- but in looking at Dixon... The boy seemed more of a wreck than he was, maybe he needed it more.

Sterling was sure he could calm himself enough just inhaling the second-hand smoke, a lot of the time that was all he had- most people weren't willing to share their precious cigarettes. Not that Sterling could blame them, he didn't think anyone at the theatre besides the managers made more than minimum wage, and with most brands being above four dollars a pack... People didn't usually have any to spare. But he would appreciate anything he could get, even if Marlboros weren't his preferred brand. He was partial to Lucky Strikes himself, but those were difficult to come by, and generally more expensive.

At any rate, Sterling figured that beggars couldn't be choosers. He couldn't afford to turn down a nicotine fix whenever he needed one for something as trivial as brand or the way that the smoke tasted. In his current situation, a smoke was a smoke, and that was the end of it. Sterling stopped chewing on his tongue and instead switched it for biting his lip, the feeling of being powerless was almost all too consuming, he hated this spot, he felt worthless for not being able to provide what it was that Dixon needed- he couldn't be that knight in shining armour, not now.

All Sterling could do was hope and pray that he would be able to get himself into the right position before it was too late. And Lord knew that the boy did pray, it brought him a good amount of comfort to be able to get down on his knees when he was alone and simply spend time with his spiritual side. Supposedly during the quiet times he took he was supposed to listen for God to tell him what to do, but he, in all his years, had never heard anything, no matter what the issue was and how much he pleaded. Never even a single word, no sudden divine intervention, no angels, no sudden epiphanies.

But what he did get was almost a sense of peace, and a renewed feeling of trust in his own gut instincts, and he had to wonder, if God was real, perhaps that was the way that He talked to people. Sterling found that he really was questioning the religious thing more and more, especially his church's stand on people like him, if they were all God's children, why should they be so unfairly condemned by fellow men? Those who were so quick to spout the all-too-familiar passage from Leviticus about men lying with other men seemed to forget the other side of the equation- love your neighbour as yourself, judge not lest ye be judged.

Funny, how people always picked and chose what they specifically wanted to hear from the Bible, as if they were under the impression that just because they didn't like something, that it didn't apply. Or they otherwise took everything at face value, never stopping to think about what it might really mean. Sterling's throat constricted as Dixon spoke again, and his heart slipped several notches when he noticed the tears. He hated to see his only friend cry, hated that it was his stupid boyfriend who had caused it, and not over some trivial thing. He could see in his friend's eyes and hear in his voice that he genuinely was afraid for his life.

Sterling dug his teeth more furiously into his lip, though his grip on his friend's hand remained as gentle as ever, and he began to lightly stroke the back of it with his thumb, trying to be of some comfort, though knowing it probably didn't do much good. "You didn't do anything to deserve it, Dixie," Sterling said softly, turning his body a little so he was facing his friend rather than looking out over the park. There wasn't anything to look at that way, anyway, and the blonde deserved his full attention and support. Or at least all he had to offer.

Cautiously, he took the thumb of his free hand and began lightly wiping away Dixon's tears, making sure to avoid the areas that had makeup on them, likely to cover bruises, he didn't want to hurt him any more than he had been already. Sterling normally wasn't of this doting sort of character, but he had a great need to have to care for Dixon in such a ginger, cautious sort of way, as if he felt he needed to show him how people could act- that not everyone was going to hurt him, that some people genuinely did care.

"Don't talk like that," said Sterling when Dixon said he wanted to die sometimes, he hated hearing him speak that way, it about made him want to break down crying himself... "You mean more to me than anyone else," Sterling added, his throat constricting slightly, he had never said anything like that before, though he did mean it... He waited a moment before reaching into the pocket of his shirt for the cigarette and the lighter he had stowed there. He held them out for his friend. "I think you need this more than me," Sterling said quietly.

[dixon everett conway]

Sometimes Dixon seemed to wonder what his life would be like if his parents had accepted him for who he was, he knew that he never would have had to leave him which once upon a time was a place where he actually almost felt welcome and in some cases even wanted. He use to think that his parents loved him, they did treat him kindly and they never said rude things to him and he heard often times about child abuse in school and he never had his parents do the things the families he would hear about did and he always seemed to think he had that perfect family all the time. He use to think that perhaps they would accept him because he was their son, he tried his best to always make them happy and to tell them that he loved him every chance that he got but it never did seem to work and in the very end none of it really meany anything to them and they just kicked him out of their lives like he never even mattered to them and now he even seemed to question if he actually ever did and he imagined that he really just didn't.

Him telling his parents he was gay was that one thing that changed his once great home into a living hell, sure his parents didn't beat him once they had figure out they were obviously not really nice to him either. He heard first that it was obviously just some phase that he was going through, thinking that he liked boys but he knew that it was no phase and he tried to explain his self that he was gay and he knew that he was but that only seemed to make things so much worse for him. It was then when he began to hear that he was going to hell for being gay, he just didn't seem to understand was so wrong with being gay and shortly after they even started talking he had zoned them out. It wasn't in till they had said that he couldn't stay here when he finally decided to stay anything again and honestly Dixon was hurt that they would kick their own son out for being gay like he was some diseased freak. He would have been able to dead with being abused by them, anything was better than having them kick him out of their lives but that was just what they did that day and it just seemed to really break his heart. After all he did for his family, they just didn't seem to care anymore.

Honestly when it came down to it, he was just done with caring his self. He hadn't seen anyone in his family for years and lately it wasn't like he really wanted to anyway, they had all shunned him a long time ago so he didn't bother with them and they clearly didn't bother with him. His old friends didn't even bother with him that much anymore, sure it was mostly because of his boyfriend but the fact that they hardly bothered to check up on him still seemed to hurt and it was one of those many reasons why he just seemed to like Sterling so much. He seemed to stick around and be his friend no matter what was going on in his life, he never seemed to judge him either and lately that was just the kind of friend that he really needed because he didn't have many friends in general anymore. Sterling was his best friend, which was almost funny since they did seem awfully different but Dixon liked to believe that was just why they were such good friends. It was simply the fact that the two boys were just so different, and Dixon didn't have a problem with that either. He was happy with their friendship how it was, and he basically just hoped that nothing about it would ever change because he didn't want anything to ever change. He just hated change, he hated change so much.

He knew that change happened all the time, people changed everyday and even though he liked to believe that he wasn't doing to change he knew that he was going to change in one way or another and sometimes he seemed to fear just what that change might actually be. He only hoped that the change would be a good change, but he knew that there was always that chance that this change would be bad and it would change his life forever. Those were the types of thoughts that kept him up at night, he would lay there unable to move because his boyfriend would always find a way to keep him trapped in bed finding it hard to breath. He would just lay there trying to catch his breath with all these awful thoughts in his head, and these were the thoughts that just seemed to drive him mad. He knew that he was going to go over the edge if things didn't change, he knew that and he had always just seemed to know that. It didn't seem to matter just what other people would seem to say to him, he was only as strong as he possibly could be and in his case he was just so weak and he always felt that way. In the end he always felt stupid, stupid for feeling the way he would always feel.

His tears could fall, and they would always fall but he would always feel stupid for crying this way because at least he was alive. At least he could stand here and say that he hadn't been killed like some people were, he had it good even though he was always beaten. His stomach would catch in his throat, but he would fight the thoughts and the feelings because there was always the chance things could get worse and he had to remember that at least it had never gotten to that and he had to remember that. He would just cry when no one else was around, he didn't want to look silly and really didn't want to worry people by crying. So he always just acted like nothing was going on, he acted like everything was perfect all the time even when he knew that it wasn't. Behind closed doors his life wasn't what people seemed to think, it was nothing even close to that and it showed in the way he looked and just how he was acting right now. He didn't look like the person who was in this great relationship and he wasn't going to pretend that he was, not to Sterling who was the one person that he could trust with his secret. He knew that Sterling would never tell anyone what was going on unless things got worse, or Dixon asked him too and he had to be glad for that. In a situation like this, you never really knew just who you could trust.

Even when Dixon had more friends he never felt like he could really trust them or tell them things, he always seemed to have that fear that they would tell someone and he knew that this was something that any of his old friends would tell and having them do that would perhaps equal his death. The thought of that just seemed to make his breath catch in his throat, and made him realize that he was almost glad none of his old friends talked to him much anymore because he just didn't want them to see what his life was like now. He didn't want them to pit him, or feel sorry for him because they shouldn't have to feel that way in his mind. They should never have to feel bad for him, he just seemed to hate when people felt bad for him. His tears just seemed to fall though, and he didn't even try to stop them because he just didn't seem to want to. He felt tired, of everything really and just sitting here crying was proof of that. It was proof that he had enough of all of this shit, and he was only slowly inching his breaking point each and everyday. This was just all so hard to take and he was just never sure how he could possibly do it all. It was just so hard for him, and the very thought of just how sucky his life really was just seemed to make him feel sick to his stomach.

He just seemed to look down almost, he didn't want to look up and have Sterling see him crying. Crying showed weakness and he just didn't want to show any form of weakness but it just seemed so silly doing so and he just sighed biting down on his lip, "I watch all these shows about abuse and how they never deserved it. They never deserved what they get, it was the boyfriends fault because they were sick and just plain not right in the head and I can never believe it. It had to be the other person's fault, they could get away, they could run but they never do and I wonder why they never do. I just I guess they are scared, just like I am about just what could happen if they do run" he whispered taking a deep breath feeling his tears being wiped clean from his face almost confused really. No one had ever done such a thing like that to him, no one really showed him that they cared and it just seemed like such a nice feeling. He felt like someone actually wanted him around for once and he just seemed to smile a little bit at the thought of that. At the very thought of someone actually giving two shits about him, and he stared down. "I have never been use to people actually caring about me, it seems like all my life people would say that they would care and I would always think that they did but they never truly would" he sighed looking at the cigarette when Sterling pulled it out. He wondered why he would give it up, just like that since he knew just how expensive they could be. "Cigarettes are expensive though Sterling, you and I both know that" he mumbled even though through his tears and stuffy nose it was hard to make out.

[sterling oliver erstweiler]

Sterling wanted to tug his hands through his hair, or get up and start pacing back and forth, or both, he honestly didn't know what to do with himself or how to channel all the worry that was swelling up inside of him- like a balloon made of lead. It took up every amount of available space, weighing him down with things that he wasn't used to feeling. Sterling had honestly never cared about anyone as much as he did about Dixon, there was something about the boy that made him want to be the hero of the situation, be the one to be able to pull him out of what was, in his mind, a living hell.

Sterling didn't really know what to do with what he felt, other than keep it buried down. Now was not the time to act on anything, regardless of whether or not he wanted to. He wasn't smart academically, but he had a healthy dose of social prowess. Right now was the precise wrong time. Sterling would need to wait until he was properly situated. And hopefully, that would be soon, once he had secured himself the position in the library, maybe even taken on a third position after that... Sterling was willing to do whatever it took to get where he needed to be for Dixon.

If that meant working however many jobs he could possibly cram into his schedule, so be it. And there was still the silver lining, being that it could at the very least keep him out of his parents' house, and that in and of itself was a positive spin to the situation. Sterling had never really liked being at home, even as a kid, and especially not after he figured out that he liked men instead of women. The house was always so stuffy, he and his brothers had always been expected to be on their absolute best behaviour, their parents had never really allowed them to simply be kids.

He was required to say "yes ma'am" and "no ma'am," and his father was always called "sir." They only had one television, and even now they were only allowed to watch what their parents deemed appropriate, which wasn't really much of anything now that he was thinking on it. Honestly, the whole situation was entirely ridiculous, especially given that himself and his brothers were grown now. Slater had just turned eighteen at the end of April, Sterling would be nineteen come July, and the golden child Sawyer was nearly twenty-one and engaged.

It just didn't make that much sense to him, he figured that they could be trusted, or at least himself- Sterling might on some deep level care for his brothers genuinely, but presently he didn't trust either of them as far as he could throw them, Slater in particular. Sterling always felt the need to watch out for his younger brother, the boy was simply so crafty, sometimes it was almost alarming, though others he was slightly envious for not being able to pull anything like that himself. Of course, Sterling was likely managing something much greater than his baby brother ever had...

Five, nearly six, long years, and his parents still had no idea that he was gay. Sterling didn't think that anyone did, which was the beauty of the situation. Though perhaps that was not entirely true, one person had figured it out- that being a girl he had gone out with his senior year of high school. She had been a sophomore, a rebellious redhead that he had dated for the sole purpose of keeping people off his tracks. Things had been going fine in that regard until she had started pestering him for sex, as if under the impression that it was what he had wanted her around for.

Sterling was almost repulsed by the idea, and time and time again he rejected her advances, though she had finally accused him of his sexuality when she had surprised him wearing nothing but lacy underthings and he had shot her down again. Sterling, of course, had furiously rejected the notation, which had turned into the fight that had ultimately ended whatever relationship that they did have- though he had to wonder if she still believed that he was gay; or if she had bought into the story that everyone else seemed to believe, about him being highly religious and all.

Sterling had thought that Kylie, who he had dubbed Red, given the colour of her hair, her tough personality, and the fact that she hated the nickname, would have been gone from his life for good, though just the previous Sunday she had turned up at his family's church. She had sought him out in the corner to which he had retreated after the sermon, hoping to avoid talking to anyone whilst his parents and brothers mingled among the congregation, and they had talked. He had forgotten until then about her fierce attitude, and he had found her company at least halfway worthwhile.

Her presence alone, after all, had kept the pastor's daughter, a vapid blonde that made Sterling look like a genius, at bay. The girl, who was around his age, maybe a year or two younger, had been eyeing him with interest for some time, and Sterling was taking great strides to avoid being around her, and thus having to talk to her and feign interest. Honestly, aside from his parents and maybe his brothers, she was the last person that he wanted to spend any amount of time with. Sterling didn't even know her name, he just knew it was something common that only added to her dimness, something like Courtney or Katherine.

Sterling couldn't be bothered to remember, even though he knew the blonde was interested in him, and that his mother had been spending months pulling strings trying to get him set up on a date with her. Sterling would rather gouge out his own eyes, so he knew that he would have to get another cover girlfriend soon, to keep his mother off his back for a while, even if that was the last thing that he wanted to do. Sterling would rather be with the likes of Kylie for a couple of weeks than spend one evening with the pastor's daughter.

And he subconsciously knew that it would infuriate his mother, who had been spending months kissing up to the pastor's wife. He was pretty sure that was the only reason that she hosted the ladies' bible study in their living room every Thursday afternoon, and taught Sunday School for the little kids alternating Sundays. While she was quick to go and picket against things that she considered to be of the devil, he found that she didn't really genuinely enjoy helping where she was needed. In a way, his parents put on an act just like he did.

Sterling had to wonder if God really did appreciate such things, or if it saddened him to see that their hearts weren't really in it. Not that he felt that he was deserving of any favour, in a way, Sterling was probably as bad as they were for going along with his own act for the sake of covering his own ass. Honestly, the whole situation was a complete mess, he didn't really know what to do with it- other than continue doing exactly as he was now, and hope for the best. Sterling was quiet as Dixon spoke, even if he wanted to say a thousand things, he wanted the blonde to be able to speak his mind for once, maybe alleviate some of the metaphoric weight simply by having someone to talk to.

Sterling simply reassuringly held Dixon's hand, rubbing the back of it lightly with his thumb, glad that the blonde hadn't pulled away from him, he wasn't sure what he would do if they couldn't have contact. To Sterling, it was almost as if he needed it, it was definitely helping him to calm down, if only slightly, but it was something.He couldn't find any words to say in response to that, Sterling knew the danger in the situation, it made his heart start pounding against his ribcage and his throat involuntarily constrict again. He hated the thoughts of what could happen, hated that the very thing that was hurting Dixon could end up killing him if he tried to end it.

More emotions were steadily joining his lead balloon of worry, none of them particularly pleasant. Sterling worked hard to keep a strong face for Dixon, the blonde needed someone to lean on, he would suck it up and be strong. He might end up crying when he got back to the privacy of his room, but for now he would be strong. It was almost too much to ask, though Sterling told himself that it was a necessity at this point. He would be Dixon's shoulder to lean on for as long as he needed- no matter how hard it was for him to keep everything he felt bottled up.

The knots in his stomach tightened when the blonde admitted that he wasn't used to people caring about him. Now that really made Sterling sick, couldn't anyone else see how kind of a soul that Dixon was? He was sure that his friend would be willing to give the shirt off his back to help someone out, but now that he was in his own hour of need, nobody was willing to step up. Sterling was willing, he just was not able, but he was determined to be there at some point, as soon as he possibly could. "I'll always care," Sterling said softly, squeezing his friend's hand a bit mroe firmly than he had the last time, though still going to great lengths to be gentle.

He frowned a bit when Dixon tried to reject the cigarette, and fought the temptation to light it up himself, it had been a while since he had gotten his hands on a smoke, and it would definitely help to soothe what he felt. Though if Sterling's position was bad, he was sure that Dixon's was a lot worse. "I didn't pay anything for it," Sterling said insistently, "someone at work gave it to me. You look like you need it, just take it, will you?" He offered the cigarette and cheap lighter again, willing that his friend would take it, let the nicotine dull all of his rampaging emotions...

[dixon everett conway]

Dixon's situation was dim, and he knew that because everyday he would go home to be yelled at and beaten and after he would just lay and bed and some days he even cried his self to sleep because he just had to deal with a lot in a way and it just really sucked and he just hated it. He hated the fact he just had nothing that he could do about it, all he could do was take what he was given and hope things didn't go to far. If he thought it was possible, that things could maybe go to far one night he always found a way to lock his self up somewhere safe, at least in till his boyfriend had calmed down and he could leave the room without being hurt anymore than he already was. Those were the better days, the days that he was able to actually escape receiving a few bruises that night and sure he ended up falling asleep in that place but it was a lot better than sleeping in bed where his boyfriend snored and always ended up basically on top of him. He wanted to make sure Dixon couldn't run away when he was sleeping and honestly when Dixon seemed to think about it, that would actually be something he would do because that way his boyfriend couldn't try and follow because he would go into hiding and if it was possible even leave town but then he remembered that he did actually like this place and he just couldn't get up and leave just like that. It was impossible, to leave and never look back no matter how much he wanted too.

Running away didn't seem like the right answer though, in fact running away seeming like the cowardly thing to do because it just proved that he wasn't strong enough to fight through all of this and it meant that his boyfriend really did win and he was going to try his hardest to make sure that didn't happen. He couldn't let his boyfriend know that the abuse really got to him, because it would only make things would and prove this his boyfriend really did have total control over him and that was something that he just couldn't let happen. He couldn't let his boyfriend see him cry, around his boyfriend Dixon almost refused to cry no matter how much he wanted too. He knew that if he cried the names would only get worse, and the beatings would only get worse because he was showing weakness when he cried and Dixon refused to be weak. Around other people it was a different story, the Dixon that he showed his boyfriend was a lot different then the Dixon anywhere else. Outside he was a lot quieter and basically just kept to his self, he even seemed almost sad all the time. He was sad too, he was upset and angry at his self all the time and he couldn't do anything to really change the way that he felt. He just had to deal with feeling this way all the time and hope for the best, he was always one for wishing that tomorrow would be a better day and sometimes he was lucky. Sometimes his days weren't all that awful, he liked those days.

He liked those days when he was just left alone, and he could just basically sit there and be lazy for once because he really didn't have those days often. His days were normally filled with cooking and cleaning in the mornings, he would wake up at the same time every morning and make breakfast and after breakfast he would clean up. He was normally hit for making something wrong, or for accidently spilling a glass of water on the rug, as he would clean it up and tend to his bruise his boyfriend would go into his act and say it wouldn't have happened if he was more careful and he'd kiss his lips and leave to do whatever he had to do as Dixon cleaned the whole place in the way his boyfriend wanted it. He would spend hours straightening things, and dusting, vacuuming, just in hopes to please his boyfriend when he got home and it always seemed that the minute he got home he was never pleased with his work and he was hit for that too and the guy would also do his routine of checking Dixon's phone, luckily Dixon always deleted his messages off his phone before he came home so he wasn't hit for that anymore. He remembered the one time his boyfriend happened to find a text message from someone and even now he just happened to shudder every time he thought about it, because he was beaten unconscious that night and woke up in his own blood. He was sure that night his boyfriend would have killed him, if he hadn't decided he had enough and just went off to bed shortly after.

He always seemed to wonder just why he stayed, even when his boyfriend would beat him till he was black and blue he just seemed to stay. He would imagine the day when he could finally be free from him, finally be able to say he wouldn't be hurt anymore but everyday it just seemed harder to imagine. He seemed stuck really, because a part of him just seemed to love him and that part of him would always love him no matter what happened even though it seemed silly to even call what they had together love. He knew that it wasn't love on his boyfriends part, you wouldn't love someone you love right but it didn't start like this and he had to remember that. His boyfriend wasn't always into drinking like he was now, and he held all to that little glimpse of hope that he might be able to stop if he came to see that he was really doing harm to the bot that he claimed that he loved. He just always seemed to hope that there was a chance that his boyfriend would change his ways but he knew that it was impossible, his boyfriend didn't want to change and he had to realize that and just do something about it before it became to late and he knew that it was becoming to late really quickly. The beatings were always getting a lot worse than the last, and he would end up with more bruises and more wounds than the last time and each and every time he would look into the mirror and ask his self 'why cam you let this happen' and he would just feel so silly and stupid really and it just really sucked for him. This just all really sucked for him, everything sucked for him.

He could pretend that everything was okay all he wanted but he knew that in the end nothing was truly okay, he was just fighting a battle he was never going to win. It was like going into a war with feathers as weapons, it was hopeless trying to fight it and he didn't fight it. His cuts and bruises were the main sign of the fact that he just didn't try fighting, fighting was just exhausting and it only made things worse. He knew that from enough experience, he hated the punishment for trying to fight back. It was probably the worse punishment his boyfriend could come up with and it was also the most painful, it involved a knife and one time he had threatened to slit his throat. That was the night that he had come to the fact that his boyfriend really was insane, and he really wasn't afraid of killing Dixon and spending the rest of his life in jail. His boyfriend always seemed to place it in his head that no one would care if he died anyway, his death could be slow and painful or quick and easy. He always told him that he would pick slow and painful, and once he even cut the boys arm and let him bleed just to prove that point. His boyfriend could always cause him pain, and he was sure that he even liked to cause him pain. He liked to believe that the very act gave the guy pleasure, and that was one of the things that seemed to just make Dixon sick, the very fact that his boyfriend could do these things to him so simply and easily and not even really seem to care about just that happened in the end. It was like the gut had no feelings at all and a part of Dixon liked to believe that he didn't, it sounded like a possibility.

He was surprised that Sterling was holding his hand, but unlike with his boyfriend it didn't seem forceful and Dixon didn't want to pull away as soon as he felt his touch. It felt weird really, that Sterling could make him feel better when his boyfriend obviously couldn't and he seemed to actually give two shits about him and he was glad for that. He knew that he really needed someone like that in his life because no one had ever been willing to even being close to that and the very thought upsetted him, all he seemed to really want was a friend or even just someone to talk to and for a long time he really didn't have that. For the longest time it seemed like he had no friends at all, because everyone just seemed to push away when he would ask to do something with them or they would say that they had plans with someone else. It always seemed to make him feel bad about his self, almost like no one seemed to really care so when he met Sterling he just wanted a friend and he just valued their friendship a lot. The boy he liked to call his best friend meant a lot to him, and he really did pull him out of a rough spot because he really did want to end his life once. It was just a really bad day, and he was feeling awful and Sterling was the person he had turned to and talking to him had really helped so Sterling had been the person he went to when he needed someone to talk to for a while now because he really did make him feel a lot better about his self. He wasn't afraid to cry around Sterling, the boy knew most of his secrets and just what he went through so he was one who really just seemed to understand that Dixon wasn't as strong as he thought he was and he just needed that moment.

He was also happy to finally have that person who really cared about him, because he had never had that person before. He was nice to everyone, and he would help anyone who needed his help but it always seemed to be for nothing in return. He was always ignored when he would ask for help, it was as if he was a shadow really, sure people would say thank you when he helped them but after that it was as if he wasn't even there and it really did just get on his nerves all the time. It was as if his feelings didn't care, and sighing he just tried to stop crying. His eyes were starting to hurt from his tears, "just thank you for caring really Sterling" he said quietly with a small smile. He wanted to say, thank you for stopping me all the time, everyday I just want to die and you are always the one to stop me but he didn't. When he was offered the cigarette again he bit down on his lip taking it slowly, "I ran out last week, I have been having panic attacks at work, I almost flipped out on my boss the other day because he just said something that really upsetted me. Afterwards I hid somewhere and I just broke down. That was the day my boyfriend tried to drown me in the bath tub, I just couldn't take him yelling at me too. I almost lost my job" he whispered.

[sterling oliver erstweiler]

Sterling continued to dig his teeth into his lip, forcing back all of his emotions for Dixon's sake. It wouldn't help either of them if he caved to what he was feeling in that moment. Honestly, if he did he might end up trying to beat the hell out of the blonde's boyfriend, but Sterling, even in his heightened state knew that would be a stupid idea. He wasn't exactly small, and not a complete weakling, but he wasn't all that strong, either. And if he was being real he didn't have the first clue about brawling, which was saying something given that he had grown up with two brother around his age.

Sure, they had done the fairly physical sort of rough housing that was common with boys, but his mother refused outright to let it get beyond playful grappling and shoving each other around. She had always said that boys should be allowed to be boys, but their upbringing had been fairly strict regarding play, mostly because of his mother, however, not his father. The man had always insisted that it was good for them to just be boys, though he had very seldom won that argument- for as much as he insisted that they ought to be able to do what boys did, he didn't act like much of a man.

It really wasn't a secret that his mother wore the metaphoric pants in their relationship. The slightly pudgy woman acted sort of as a bulldog, it was always her way, what she said went, and nobody was allowed to question it. It really was annoying, Sterling found that he was beginning to loathe her as much as he hated to say it. Honour thy mother and thy father... Did that apply when one's parents were like his own? It probably did, as irksome as it might be living with them, and extreme as their views may be, at least they didn't hurt anyone, not physically like Dixon's boyfriend did.

So Sterling had never really learned how to fight- but he liked to think that if he confronted the person who caused so much suffering to his best friend that he would figure it out pretty damn quickly. Though on a subconscious level he knew that would do more harm than it would any good. If he were to stand up for Dixon it would probably make that horrible man hurt him more, punish him for having told or something... It made Sterling sick, and he hated the utterly helpless feeling that he got about it, it was the worst feeling in the world, he didn't know what to do with it, or even how to channel it into something productive.

It was simply something that loomed over his head constantly, like his own personal rain cloud, try as he might to not dwell on it. Sterling simply couldn't help himself, he hated the spot that he was in, all he wanted to do was be able to help; and not being able to do so was enough to drive him crazy. To the point where he could be up for hours in the middle of the night, simply lying in his bed, staring up at the ceiling whilst his thoughts raced a thousand miles an hour about what he could possibly do to get from where he was now, to a spot in which he could be of actual assistance...

There was the open position at the library that he was going to apply to, and perhaps he might be able to find something else... He strained his memory, sifting through the windows of the businesses in towns, which ones- if any- had had "Help Wanted" signs in their windows... His memory was failing him, he felt that he should at least remember a couple of them. Sterling figured he ought to stop zoning out so often when he was on his motorcycle- he certainly rode through town often enough where he should be able to remember...

Though there were a few places that were almost always hiring, the grocery store, the gas station convenience store... Retail places that usually had a high turnover rate owing to the fact that it sucked to work there. But at this point there probably wasn't a job that Sterling would turn down, even if he got treated like crap by his superiors and the customers alike. Hell, he would probably scrub toilets as long as he got paid for it. Just like the saying went, any port in a storm, he'd take what he could get his hands on as far as employment went- anything that would give him enough hours and a little money.

Hell, he would probably even elect to take a job where he would need to work nights every day, even if his job at the theatre often had him doing morning or afternoon shifts. At least it would keep him out of the house and keep the money coming in... Of course that would dramatically cut down on the time that he had to spend with Dixon, and he wasn't sure what to think about that. He didn't like the idea of his friend not having anyone to go to for comfort when he needed it. As far as Sterling knew, he was the blonde's only lifeline in this godawful situation- he couldn't have all of his time soaked up with working, what if the blonde needed him?

But he also needed to get the hell out of that house, surely Dixon was capable of being strong while Sterling worked however many hours he needed to in order to get them an apartment... And at the very least when he was working at the theatre nobody got after him for texting on the job, likely because everyone did it, not just him. It wasn't like they were ever all that busy, anyway, Lipton was a small town. He couldn't remember the last time there had been a showing that had been sold out- and that was saying something given how small the theatres were.

Sterling figured it was one of those large-scale, somewhat artsy movies that had drawn a sizable crowd, like Les Miserables or something. And he had been one of the unfortunate ones stuck working when they had shown Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 at midnight on the release date. He was sure that it had been a profitable move, but he had hated being there until close to four in the morning, it had taken forever to clean up all that mess. He certainly hadn't been used to it, he was sure that was the only time the small theatre in town had done a midnight premiere.

Which Sterling took as a good thing, meaning that he wouldn't have to do that every time some sort of summer blockbuster-type film was released. Though he had been paid overtime since he had worked a full day before the showing... He almost wished that something like that might happen again, overtime pay was certainly a lot more luxurious than his typical, bare minimum wage. Honestly, he felt he deserved more, he had been there two whole years, which was more that could be said than most of the staff, always worked his shifts and a lot of the time the shifts of other people, he felt he deserved a raise.

Sterling knew it would be pointless to ask, however, he was still at the very bottom. He might have seniority over, say, the high school kid who had gotten hired a week ago, but he had no authority whatsoever. He used to not care, only viewing work as a means to get out of the house, but now that it seemed his position might last a bit longer than something temporary, it was irritating to be on the bottom all the time. All the work and all the hours he put in for those people and it seemed he hadn't earned even an ounce of respect. Though he would keep quietly working.

His facade might suggest that he would have a problem with not being in charge and start to raise hell about it- but Sterling really was a lot more passive than his act suggested. He didn't need to be the one running the show, he just needed to feel as if he were more important than some random peon that could be fired and replaced over the course of a day. Of course, that was pretty much all he had ever been, so by now he ought to have been used to it. It was still difficult, however, though there was relatively little he could do to change that; especially since he was looking at getting another job or two, and thus would be starting over at the bottom all over again.

He just hoped his parents, more specifically his mother, wouldn't get in the way of him taking on multiple positions. Sterling figured that he might be able to talk them out of getting on his back about it- he could just give some sort of bullshit reason, like he felt that God was calling him to take these jobs in order to better serve the community since nobody else would take them, or something along those lines. It really wasn't all that hard to justify, even if he had to lie in order to do so. Sterling knew there was no way he could come out and say that he was going to take a second, or even a third, position so he would be able to get a place for him and Dixon to stay...

That would wait until he had the money to pay the rent, bills, and cover food costs. Sterling did know that Dixon worked, but he didn't think that the blonde exactly had anything around. It wouldn't surprise him if his friend's scumbag of a boyfriend took over his paycheck and not let him have anything, it seemed like just the sort of thing that the cruel man would do. Though Sterling was determined to do everything he could to make up for that, show Dixon that there was at least one person who really did care for him and wanted him to be safe and happy, and taken care of instead of having to be the one who was doing all of that for someone else while at the same time needing to fear for his life...

Sterling's stomach churned a little more, he wished that things were different. If his parents weren't so zealous in their religion, maybe they would be all right with the fact that he was gay, and maybe they would be able to open their hearts and their home to Dixon- give him someplace safe to come to when he needed it. Then perhaps Sterling might not have to worry to the point where it made him sick to his stomach or difficult to sleep at night, then maybe him and Dixon could be happy together, and their greatest worries would be about the assholes they worked with, or rude patrons at the establishments at which they worked...

Then, Dixon wouldn't have to fear for his life. Sterling smiled a little unsteadily as Dixon thanked him for caring, it really was disheartening to know that he was the only one that did. The blonde boy was so sweet and caring about other people, why was it that nobody else could find it in themselves to return the kindness that he gave to everyone else? It was baffling. Sterling merely gave the boy's hand a gentle squeeze in return, finding that his words were a bit difficult to track down at the moment. He released his friend's hand when he took the cigarette, so the blonde would be able to light up more easily.

Sterling's throat tightened even further at Dixon's next words, honestly, he didn't know how much more of this he could handle. It was slowly killing him, knowing that all this was happening... Try as her might to beat down his emotions, Sterling couldn't keep them all completely down anymore, and he felt a thin film of tears coming to his own eyes. But he wouldn't allow them to fall, not right now. "God, Dixie, I'm... I'm so sorry," Sterling said softly, tugging his now free hand through his hair as he returned to biting his lip.