John MacTavish, though just being a young seventeen year old boy, already found his life to be anything but enjoyable. He felt constantly miserable after his mother stopped showing up in his life, in damn elementary school. She was always running around with different boys and on any drugs she could find. Disgusting. And no life a child should have to deal with.

His father was no saint either, anything but. He neglected John terribly, any wrong move received a smack on the back of his hand or his bottom. But as he grew older it became a slap to the face or a swat with a belt, even over the littlest things. His father always just said it was because he didn't want John to end up as a sissy boy, and that it was all John's fault his mother left - that John would have to try harder to keep a woman for himself if he couldn't even keep his mother's love. A mother's love should never die.

He failed classes terribly, teachers were forced to push him through anyway just because they couldn't deal with him. He came in stinking of weed, falling asleep in class, swaying back and forth when he'd gone too long without a drink or a hit of something good. He wanted to get out of it all, but addition was hard to deal with when nobody is there to try for you. When you only have yourself.

But then he met you, the only one that could possibly match him and narrow him down straight. You'd compare the two of you to fire and wind. The two at a constant competition to put each other out, a fire polluting the air, the wind blowing down the fire. A constant circle of restlessness that would never end, but kept both of you on your toes nicely.

But that's when John realized that it wasn't just a dumb idea when he looked at boys in Playboy magazines or in the stores when he was younger... He really was into guys. But it was something he would forever have to keep secret. Well... Something you would both have to keep secret together.

Really, you only shared your home lives with each other as well, always meeting somewhere private after school. "You look so pretty, and I look so mean" he would whisper to you during the night as you filled our bodies with amphetamines. But you'd just sit and you'd just talk about your daddies and your faults.

The two of you sat underneath the bridge one night, bringing blankets to sit on and wearing each other's hoodies he would whisper, beating himself up after a day of his father's relentless shouting like always. "Well, I'm a jackass, I'm a dog. How many more of these sad stories can one boy share?"

He paused, eyes flicking to yours, filled with sadness, "Well, nothing is, but something was. And I believe it still can be," he took your hand in his, "If you would sit, if you would talk."