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The door to the warehouse opened as a young young man walked in. His red converse squeaked slightly on the cement ground while he adjusted his beanie. The slight breeze that made it’s way through caught the open plaid shirt and went through the white muscle shirt causing him to shudder a bit.
“There you are Barry.” A smooth female voice spoke up. Barry looked over to see a young woman lounging on a couch wearing a black tank top and black jeans.
“Hey Lis, where’s Len and Mick?” Barry asked as he grabbed the offered beer from a young man, “Thanks Mark.”
“They got arrested again.” Lisa shrugged. Barry rolled his eyes with a fond smile on his face.
“What did they do?” He questioned as he dropped down onto a seat.
“They picked a fight with Detective West's’ soon to be son-in-law.” Barry chuckled into his drink.
“They picked a fight with Eddie? About what?”
“Think they were smoking under the bleachers or sumthin’.” Mark replied.
“Is that a new piercing?” Lisa suddenly asked leaning forward. The new piercing in question was anti-targus in his right ear. He already had a conch along with a few helix and auricles in his ears as well as an eyebrow and nose piercing. A pair of spider bite piercings, loops, rested on the opposite side of his madonna piercing.
“How can you even tell when he has a new one?” Mark asked, squinting at the other man.
“Because I don’t recall ever seeing one on his tongue.” Lisa remarked.
“A tongue one?” Barry stuck his tongue out to show the silver ball. Mark shook his head in exasperation.
“I swear Barry. You love piercing too much. Next thing we know you’re going to get your-” Mark was cut off by the door opening once again. This time two young men walked in. The first wore all black while the second had a dirt smudged white shirt and a brown jacket.
“Hey Len, Mick. How did you guys get out so soon?” Barry questioned.
“Axel.” Len responded.
“I thought he had school.”
“Hey, you’re ditching too.” a teen walked in. He had a blue jacket, a skull shirt and yellow pants.
“Don’t get so high strung. Just asking. I thought your mom had you on lock down.” Barry responded, glaring a little as Len stole his beer.
“She did, but good looks aren’t the only things I got from my dad.” Axel had an impish grin as he plopped down on Barry’s legs since the other had stretched out on couch. Len had joined Lisa leaving Mick having to sit with Mark.
“What did we miss?” Mick asked, catching the beer thrown to him.
“Barry got a new piercing.” Lisa supplied. Len raised a brow in question. Barry stuck his tongue out again. Len sighed as Axel high fived Barry.
“You aren’t going to have a piece of skin left that hasn’t had a needle to it.” Len drawled out.
“What are you talking about? I really don’t think he’s piercing everything.” Lisa asked.
“He has tattoos as well.”
“What?” Lisa looked between Barry and her brother in shock.
“Oh yeah! I forgot you were a girl,” The bottle thrown at Axel barely missed, “You haven’t seen the tats yet.”
“May as well show her.” Len sighed.
“Yeah, remember what she did to Mick when she found out he had one?” Mark spoke up. Barry shuddered at the memory. He kicked Axel off of him then stood. He removed both shirts. On his front there were four tatoos. One was on his bicep and chest on his right side. It was black and red, looking like muscles and bone. Below that near his hip was an hourglass with red sand and deep blue peace lilies on either side. Vines climbed up along it while the ribbon at the bottom said ‘Nora Allen’ with her date of birth and death. Right where his heart beat was strongest (the left side) was a red heart made of disjointed lines. The name was in dark green, almost black, hurt me font. Right below that, along his side, was a demonic dragon.
“Kind of miscellaneous.” Lisa noted, “Why not put some on your back?”
“I already have a full back one.” Barry responded, turning around to show it. It was colorful with dark lines of lightning and darker spots where the others knew his spine was.
“I had it tattooed on after I was hit by lightning, a reminder that I lived.”
“The lightning would have probably stayed.” Lisa pointed out.
“I know but I wanted the whole thing to remember.”
“What’s with the other stuff?” She asked as Barry turned back around. Barry proceed to point to the muscle and bone tattoo.
“Another ‘oh my god I lived’ moment.”
“When you were on that road trip with your current ex, Mick accidentally hit him with the truck.” Mark responded. Barry ignored Lisa’s angry comment to point to the hourglass.
“My mom had an hourglass like that. This is in her memory.” He pointed to the dragon image on his side.
“My brother had drawn that and I thought it was cool.”
“Wait a minute, you have a brother.” Axel squaked. Barry waved off the confused looks from everyone.
“Not that important.”
“Like hell it’s not.” Len glared at him. Sighing Barry explained,
“I have an older brother. Sebastian is my twin but he lives with our mom’s sister. Uncle Anthony is that big hot shot lawyer in Ohio. Bastian goes to a boy’s prep school… Dalton I think. Anyway. I stuck around here, managed to get my Uncle Rafael to agree to take me in since he lives here though he isn’t around much. He keeps trying to patch things up with his own kid. Not that it really mattered. I got to stay here so who cared if he wasn’t around?” Barry shrugged. No one commented on that. Everyone there had family issues. Len’s mother had walked out and never looked back while Lisa’s mother had at least came back every once in a blue moon until she turned seven. That left them with their abusive drunker of a father. Mark’s mom was an addict and his father was hardly ever home, tending to forget that he even had children. When he was younger Mark had found his brother, Clyde, dead in their home. Axel didn’t even know his dad. His mother never spoke about him, instead yelled obscenities at him. Mick had caused a fire in his house which resulted in the injuries of his parents who then sent him to live with his uncle.
~
~
Barry knew that it was one of the unspoken rules about their group. It had started after they had found Len nearly bleeding to death while Lisa frantically tried to stop it. After that it became expected for everyone to share about their families and any new problems that occurred. When Axel joined Len had taken it upon himself to explain everyone's family situation so when Axel joined he told them his. Everyone was expected to follow through.
“B-”
“I know.” He cut Len off, “I know. Look I meant to tell you guys. I really did, but whenever I was going to something more important came up.”
“Oh?” Len didn’t look like he fully believed him.
“Yeah because the fact that Mark’s mom almost OD or that your dad broke your arm again? The fact that my brother is a few states away wasn’t the most important thing.”
“When are we finally going to get you to realize that what happens to you is just as important as what happens with us?” sighed Lisa. And with that Barry knew he was forgiven. Barry just shrugged.
“Anyway. We write sometimes and Bastian sent me this doodle and I got it tattooed on.”
“So who’s Hartley?” Axel asked with a teasing grin.
“He’s not my boyfriend.” Barry answered at once, knowing that’s what they all assumed.
“Then who is he?”
“It’s… complicated.” Barry responded as he grabbed thee white shirt to slip on.
“How so?” Taking his time to think of an answer he slipped on the plaid then laid back on the couch, this time using Axel as a foot rest.
“I do love him.” Barry finally said, “And he has told me that he loves me as well, but we aren’t dating or anything.”
“What? Is he dating someone already?” Mark inquired. Shaking his head Barry adjusted his feet before continuing,
“No he isn’t. We’re both single.”
“Then why-?” Lisa looked so confused and Axel wasn’t much better. Shrugging Barry responded,
“We don’t feel the need to label ourselves or what we have and neither of us feel like we need to date, we already know each other.”
“So… you’re…”
“Do you have a friendship or is it hostile?” Len spoke up.
“Nah, it’s pretty neutral. Granted we have good days and bad days like any normal person.”
“Do you plan to marry him?”
“We know what we mean to each other without having to add legalities or a silly ring. Maybe we will, just for the fact of ‘in case something happens’ but that would be the only reason we actually tie the knot.”
“Do you guys have any physical stuff?” Axel awkwardly moved his hands as he asked that.
“We don’t kiss or have sex. We hold hands, hug, that kind of stuff.”
“So neither of you are going to end up seeing anyone new? How do you know this isn’t going to just end?”
“It won’t.” the confidence in that sentence was startling to the group, “And no we won’t see anyone new. Probably not even if one of us dies. ‘Least that’s the sentiment Hartley’s portrayed, and I’ll admit that it’s a nice one.”
“Does that make you gay then?”
“Gay is a sexuality. I already told you I’m not interested in that. If it happens it happens. Simple as that. I suppose I would either fall under asexual or demisexual.”
“Demisexual?”
“I don’t feel sexual attraction until a strong bond has formed.”
“But you said you didn’t.”
“I never said I didn’t. I said we didn’t do that sort of thing and we’re content. We might end up having sex and not liking it, or liking it or even not have sex at all.”
“I still don’t get it.” sighed Axel, slumping in defeat.
“Told you it was complicated.” Len was looking at him as if trying to figure out what he meant but then Mick spoke up,
“If we’re done with this girl talk, I’m going to go burn something.” and just like that the little group was back to normal.
~
~
A few weeks later everyone, except Len, were lounging. Axel was playing a game of poker with Mark and Mick while Lisa was messing with Barry’s hair. Just as Lisa was about to tie a pink bow Len walked in followed by a young man. The young man had short brown hair with blue eyes shielded by a pair of glasses. The jeans he wore were ripped by the knee and the hoodie was obviously one of Len’s. Immediately Barry was up and running over, eyes full of worry. Neither boy spoke as Barry pulled the unknown teen into a tight hug.
“This is Hartley.” Len introduced, catching everyone's attention, “He’s one of us.” Hartley had his head leaning against Barry as he spoke.
“My parents were never really around, always expecting the staff to keep me entertained though even they wanted to spend minimal time with me. I barely saw my parents a total of a month each year and the staff completely disregarded me once I was six. The only good thing is that my parents didn’t want to learn sign language, I was born deaf, so they got me these hearing aids which allow me to hear clearly.” Hartley tightened his grip on Barry, “A few days ago they had guests over. One, a girl about my age, asked if I was seeing someone. When I answered my parents asked who the girl was. I informed everyone there it wasn’t a girl. My parents disowned me and kicked me out.”
“He’ll be living here until we can figure out something else.” Len stated.
“So you're Hartley?” Lisa asked walking over. Hartley raised a brow in question.
“Barry told us about you, kind of. He tried to explain your relationship.” Lisa elaborated. Hartley looked to Barry in question.
“They saw the tattoo.” Hartley nodded, leaning back into Barry’s embrace, “COme on.” Barry led Hartley to the couch where the shorter boy pressed close to Barry.
“Deal me in.” Len said as he took a seat across from Mick. Just like that everyone was back to mostly their own business. They asked Hartley questions every once in a while, but other than that it was an easy atmosphere. Smiling a touch Barry tightened his grip around Hartley’s shoulders.