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efraincrayhorn · 5 years

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Weasel’s Waylay

21 years ago (Efrain age 15), 3487 AT, The Crayhorn’s Mansion in Itresa.

tw: child abuse, domestic abuse

Efrain wondered, albeit briefly, but not for the first time, if his father would truly notice if he threw the book into the fountain and let the ancient paper disintegrate. “Beguillis’ Bargaining and Banking” held no relevance to Efrain’s interest of study nor did it seem relevant to his inevitable knighthood. The awful and dull book could, however, be used as an incredibly relevant example of irrelevance. His father had ordered him that morning to have it read by the time he returned, and before their guests arrived, and Efrain intended to do so. He always intended to follow his father’s orders, but he also seemed to have a gift for not doing so.

Some days he wondered why his father fixated so doggedly on his training and research as if Efrain himself held no interest or drive to do it. He’d already secured squireship under one of the few knights more highly regarded than Eobald himself, Sir Torlamarian. He’d even done it by himself and weeks before his fifteenth birthday, which had come and gone with hollow fanfare a few days ago, and he’d done it without prompting from Eobald. Most nobles didn’t even begin inquiring after a squireship until after their birthdays.

Efrain had nearly burst with pride as he told his father, of how Sir Torlamarian had made him debate ethics, strategy, and humanity with him for him to even consider Efrain, how he’d managed to prove himself and become the ancient elf’s first squire in a century, how he’d done it without ringing his hands or tugging on his shirtsleeve like his father had ordered him not to do. Efrain had done so many things well, perfectly even, and he thought that his father would be proud too. Eobald had only nodded and walked away without a word and quite suddenly the whole affair seemed unremarkable and too difficult. If he’d been more prepared, the debate wouldn’t have been so tough to keep up with and Sir Torlamarian wouldn’t have been so unimpressed at first. Maybe then Eobald would have said something or smiled back.

He was deep in a daydream, gaze fixed on the fountain in front of him and book laying open and forgotten on his knees, the rest of the Itresa Estate garden fading out, when a rustling snapped him to attention. He felt his shoulders stiffen and his gaze dart to the backdoor as if Eobald himself would be there in all his disapproving glory. Instead, Efrain remained alone. He slumped back to the stone bench with a frown, but straightened as the noise happened again.

The rustling grew inexorably closer and Efrain leapt up from the bench, heedless of how the book fell. An orange head popped out through the nearby foliage and regarded the young man with disdain. The recent rain had matted the poor thing’s fur and made his face appear skeletal and sickly. Water droplets hung off its whiskers and clung to his ears. Undaunted by Efrain’s defensive stance, the cat ambled up to him and wiped his soaking wet fur across the young half-elf’s pantleg.

“Hello there,” said Efrain and dropped to his knees in the muddied earth. Eobald would have his head for shirking his research and dirtying his clothes knowing that company was coming, but for the time being the arduous night ahead remained a far-off task and the wily cat demanded his attention. “Where did you wander in from?”

The cat in question bristled at the attention and burbled low in his throat. He looked a wreck and seemed to know it, his discomfort rolling off of him in waves. His paws were near black with dirt and his coat had missing patches and debris stuck in it. Meowing all the while, he let Efrain gently card his fingers through his fur and pick out the larger sticks and brambles. Yellow eyes squinted at him as if trying to see past his skin and bones and into his soul. Efrain didn’t know cats very well, but he figured that was just what cats were like.

“I suppose you couldn’t tell me even if you wanted to,” he continued, more to himself than to the cat. Eobald had been gone the entire day, and most of the last, and the staff of this house had no interest in the son of a noble. As such, Efrain felt entirely neglected and without a better option for a conversation partner, the cat would have to do. “I can get you clean, though, if you want? Chef Marjorie probably has something you’d eat. What do cats eat? I know you’re omnivores, but maybe cats are picky.”

Slowly, as to not startle him, Efrain slipped his arms around him and scooped him up as one would a child. The cat first tensed as tight as a bowstring before relaxing into a puddle in his arms. Grime now stained his white shirt across his chest and down his arms. He’d have to be quick. Eobald would be home in only a few hours.

Without a backwards glance to the fountain or his book, Efrain ducked back inside the hulking mansion and up into his wing of the house. To his surprise, the cat didn’t mind getting washed in his sink nor did he mind the lavender scented shampoo that Efrain found soothing. Luckily, he suffered no wounds and found anything Efrain offered him to eat pleasant enough. It was strange, thought Efrain, as he coaxed the cat out of his nest of now wet towels so he could put them in his laundry, he had always assumed cats to be more finicky. Perhaps this one was just more desperate than the average house cat or more tolerant of Efrain’s bumbling.

He didn’t notice how the afternoon flew by as he tended to the animal, or how long it had taken him to clean the grime from its pelt, and when he finally looked away from the now very clean, very full, and very contented cat, his stomach flipped.

Outside it looked as if the a god had scooped the ocean up and dumped it over their garden all at once. Water poured from the sky and battered the foliage and dirt into submission. From high up in his bedroom, Efrain watched as the rain pummeled and destroyed the ancient tome he’d forgotten, the ink bleeding out into the grasses and the paper turning to mulch.

Fear curled deep in his stomach as he watched. As he heard the telltale slam of the front door downstairs, the awful feeling crawled into his chest and mutated into stinging apprehension. Efrain hadn’t meant to leave the book outside, but the cat had looked so sad and he had figured he had time to go fetch it. The sky had been cloudless a few hours ago.

Eobald shouted up to him, his words lost and garbled by the many floors and hallways between them.

Grass-stained knees, wet trousers, and a dirtied shirt were not the products of a day well-spent in research. Neither was the priceless and ruined tome he’d been given guardianship over, but he’d receive hell for that regardless. Now it was time for damage control.

Efrain had become practiced in the art of quick changes and it only took him until the second time his father bellowed his name from downstairs to be dressed smartly in a new shirt and pant, but he forgot to tuck in his shirt. His muddy boots were discarded on the floor beside his other clothes and his new cleanliness felt akin to armor against the ire already present in his father’s tone. Surely he hadn’t noticed the remnants of the book yet, but he would, and his tone would become the least of Efrain’s worries.

“Stay,” he ordered, voice lacking all assertiveness, and pointed at the feline. “Out of sight, ok?” The orange cat swiped at his leg from his place on the bed and watched as the teenager slipped out of the room like a skulking ghost.

The cat who was not a cat remained on the boy’s bed, content enough and warm enough not to flee the scene as shouts erupted from downstairs. He heard a bang and perhaps it was furniture, a door, or a fist, but it was unpleasant all the same. He sat some more as the cacophony died down and he listened as the guests arrived. The boy had prattled to him about them all earlier. They were some kind of vapid merchants seeking investments. Faint sounds of dinner, of cutlery and reserved conversation, floated up through the floorboards and the cracks in the masonry.

As night fell, an oblivious servant entered to start the fire. They took no notice of him and left the moment their task was through. Only then did the cat move to one of the armchairs by the joyous flames and allow the unfamiliar warmth seep over him.

The dinner ended, pleasantries were presumably passed along, and then cavernous silence. A heartbeat passed, and then several more did. The cat knew the sound of a slap when he heard it and heard it he did. He heard no more shouting, but a rumble of a voice far deeper and darker than the boy he’d decided was his droned on for several minutes. Another heartbeat passed in silence, a younger voice asked something, and then a chair skuddled across the floor and all at once Efrain, cheek pink and eyes red-rimmed, returned and shut the door so carefully that it barely made a click.

He glanced at the cat, offered a wobbly smile, and collapsed onto the bed in a heap. It quickly become clear that he had no intention of removing his boots or shifting position. The cat rejoined him on the bed, his movements slow and laborious.

What did cats do to their young? Or their friends? The cat didn’t know if cats had friends or if they even bothered to do anything with them if they had them. He should probably do something though and offering a shelter, a literal one like Efrain had offered him, was sadly impossible.

The young man shifted from his stomach to his back but did nothing else. He simply stared at the ceiling. His thoughts stayed caged and chained in his mind and the cat doubted that he’d ever offer the key to anyone. His chest tremored as he breathed. In through the nose, slowly, and out through his mouth somehow even slower. In and out, over and over.

The cat wasn’t sure why he did it, but he’d found in recent months that whatever instincts he had, whether they were feline or not, could prove helpful and he’d begun to rely on them.

He stepped, without grace or tact, onto Efrain’s chest and collapsed in a heap. He could feel the too-fast beating of his heart echo through his own bones and he felt how the boy stiffened at his sudden weight. He wished he knew how to purr, but it was a cat skill he’d yet to master, and so he stayed silent and let the crackle of the fire and the other being’s shaky breath fill the silence. After a moment the boy dragged his fingers idly through his fur and after an hour of hiccuping breaths he fell asleep.

The cat stayed on his chest until he was forced off by the shifting of the half-elf, but he stayed by his side to him until the wee hours of the morning. The cat thought all through the night and came to one conclusion: he would stay by this boy’s side whether he liked it or not.

#efrain crayhorn #weasel the cat #self para #tw child abuse #tw domestic abuse #(did I write nearly 2000 words just about this yes don't question it

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xxisxxisxxis · 4 years

Text

La fin

Inspired by this ask.

Present day Duff and Vivian reflect on their romantic relationship

I sat down with my best friend to discuss our affair for the first time in 26 years…and gain a final piece of closure the two of us have yet to attain from one another.

"This is gonna be interesting because both of our spouses are here." I say as I sit down, at my kitchen bar and Duff takes a sip of his water before joining me.

"Nah, Su's as cool as a cucumber. We got this." He replies. "...I don't know about Sixx but me, you and Su can handle it." He teases.

"If you get war flashbacks, baby, just remember you're sober." I tell Nikki and he chuckles.

"I'll just go to the bathroom and sing 'Kumbaya'." Nikki adds and Susan laughs.

"It won't be that bad." She assures him. "I got my waterproof mascara on. I'm ready."

"I'm getting through this without crying." I state.

"You cry over google commercials, Viv." Duff informs me.

"Because they know how to market. This happened…" I have to do the math. "...thirty-two and a half years ago. I won't cry."

"Okay, well, just in case, I came prepared." Susan tosses me a pack of Kleenex.

"Thank you." I say to her, doubting I'll need it.

"I'm about to start the camera." Nikki tells us, going to press start on the camera he's got set up to film this. "Oh, it's already started." He states.

"It's okay, people won't care." I shrug, taking a sip of my Pepsi. "Okay, Hey, Guys." I say to the camera. "This is a very special occasion because I'm here with my best friend, and the father of my first child, Michael Andrew McKagan a.k.a Duff McKagan a.k.a Daddy McKagan according to some of you nasty, freaky, bastards." I pipe and Duff rubs his face.

"Oh my God." He chuckles.

"Do you read your instagram comments?" I remind him and he nods.

"It's just so weird to hear it in real time." He explains. "I think that's one of the most odd things you can call a sexual partner. Like…'daddy'..."

We just stare at each other for a moment and I look at the camera.

"He just single handedly dragged me in the nicest way possible." I say to him as Nikki and Susan try not to laugh.

"No, I jus--well, you can say whatever the hell you wanna say and call him whatever you wanna call him because you've earned it with the shit you've been through, but it's just odd for me to go online and there's, like, girls 30 years younger than me calling me 'daddy.' Like, I'm not sure if you realize this, sweetie, but I have daughters your age." He points out and I start laughing. "I-I could actually be your dad. Careful now."

"I think Vince has a higher chance of being these horny girls' father." I state.

"I know, but it's just food for thought, you know?" He shrugs.

"I don't even know how to transition from that to the topic--which is a serious topic, but this is just...oh my gosh." I giggle out, not able to stop.

"Speaking of 'food for thought'," He creates a transition for us to go into what we're talking about and I take the opportunity.

"Yes, we will be discussing our weird relationship-but-not-really-because-I-was-married-and-confused situationship in honor of my book coming out 'Verbatim: The Truth, The Whole Truth, & Nothing Left Unsaid', which tells everything that happened from 1981, to early 2000s, that people have already read about in everybody else's books." I explain. "I've had this, 'it isn't anybody's business' mindset and now, I feel like I'm in a place where I can tell what happened, including our thing--which is something, believe it or not, we have not talked about as much as people think we have."

"No, we haven't."

"I don't know exactly why we haven't spoken about it much, like it happened, it obviously happened because we got a son out of it...we just haven't acknowledged it happened, really. Which is why we're gonna ask the tough questions and hopefully get through some stuff."

"Which is nice because I honestly think the last time we even alluded to it was 1994, right after I got sober, and was advised to resolve things in my friendships, and even then we didn't get everything out there." He replies. "At least I didn't, and I feel like a lot of people have something to say about it, and we spent so many years letting other people define what that time was to us--which it was such a private and personal thing between the two of us that other people's two cent shouldn't have had the impact on us that it did--but we let it get to that point where we lost sight of what it meant to us and let it be defined however the fuck people wanted to call it. And that wasn't good for either of us, and I think that's one of the things that's kept me from bringing it up again. Especially now that, ya know, I'm married, have two grown daughters with Susan, you have Nikki and your children, and I've always thought there's no point in bringing something up that happened--like you said--thirty-two, almost thirty-three--years ago.

"Because you don't want to hear the b.s."

"Because I don't want to hear the b.s." He agrees. "But the more I've thought about it, there are parts of me that feels like I didn't get to say what I wanted to say when we decided to go separate ways, and that just gets fucking heavier and heavier with each year, and I'm sure you might, too."

"Oh, definitely." I agree completely, able to relate to it. "I feel like one of the main reasons for me, why I haven't tried to talk to you about it is because, like you said, people will automatically start something out of absolutely nothing, but also because I felt like I never had the right to." I state and he furrows his brows a little. "Why did you wait so long to tell me how you really felt about me?

He lets out a breath before thinking a moment.

"I refused to hinder what little happiness you had left in your relationship with Nikki. I knew you guys were struggling, I knew you were fighting like hell to get your relationship back on track, and I didn't want you to have any more confusion going on than what was already being put on you and if I would have told you how I felt, that would've done that. And then I was with Mandy for a while and that kinda helped me feel like I was over those feelings, but I realized I wasn't when she and I broke up."

"Did anybody else know about how you felt or..?"

"Well, I--yeah, Stevie thought it was just a little, like, I had a crush on you, but Izzy knew I loved you...which is why he wasn't shocked when they found out about us." He says. "...Of course he wasn't surprised because all the Nikki/Vanity stuff happened, so he was kinda expecting you to do something, which--okay, I don't know how to ask this." He admits, thinking of how to word it, glancing at Nikki.

"What?" I ask him.

"I just don't want to come across as an asshole for asking this because I'm assuming it's a lot deeper than just...okay, whatever, I'm asking it." He decides.

"Okay." I prepare for it and he sighs.

"Why did it take that level of public humiliation for you to realize you weren't in a good marriage?" He asks and it nearly makes the breath leave my body, Nikki and I looking at each other.

"Because it was public." I confess. "Everything else that had been done, had been done in private. There was no public input on it, there was nobody watching the situation unfold under a microscope, everything that happened up to that point was private. So, he could trip during a crack binge and shoot me and I could stay with him because I didn't have the public watching me, giving their opinions. But when his mistress announces it on TV, I can't just gloss over that because now everybody knows and has an inkling that 'uh oh, they're not this perfect relationship they've made people believe they are' and yes we came out and said it was a lie and tried to undo that damage that Denise caused, so physically I was still in the marriage, mentally I was drawing up divorce papers. And I'm not completely sure it was just the very public aspect of it, I think it was the fact it was her. And I realized, 'I can't compete with a woman who has absolutely everything about her that Nikki is addicted to: she knows how to have a good time, she's equally as wild as him, she's got the sex appeal, she's got all the drugs, she's on the same level as him in terms of entertainment industry' just everything that I wasn't...she was. And I was too exhausted at the point to try to compete with her so I gave up when that came out."

"I remember Izzy ranting, 'she's fucking comparing herself to Vanity and there's no reason to'." He impersonates Izzy and I chuckle.

"He drilled into my head for years to follow that I was fine the way I was, I didn't need to change anything about my looks, my personality, my hobbies, my sobriety, like it was like 'The Help' when she's constantly reassuring the little girl 'you is smart, you is kind, you is important'." I quote. "Anytime Izzy could see me struggling with myself or not feeling my best he'd be like 'seventeen outta ten, Viv. Seventeen.'"

Duff looks enlightened, and points to the space behind my right ear.

"That's why've got '17' right there." He realizes and I nod. "In his writing." He adds.

"In his writing." I confirm.

"That's--wow. I didn't know you struggled with that for so long because there was no competition." He assures me.

"Well, I already had shitty self-esteem and then that made it worse, and then even when you and I were together I still had this fear a little bit that you were only with me to help yourself get over Mandy."

"Abso-fucking-lutely not." He doesn't even think before saying and I feel myself tear up a little. "No way. No freaking way. I loved you, Viv, I really, really did. When you told me that you were filing as soon as the tour was over I started planning out our lives together, as crazy or cheesy that makes me seem, like, I was really going for it." He tells me.

"Duff." I feel guilty, my heart aching a little.

"I remembered, 'okay, she wants this many kids, she says she likes dogs but really wants a cat, too, she doesn't want to live in the middle of the city, she doesn't want an over-the-top house, she wants to go back to school at some point so I'll put away some savings for that', like, I was planning out everything and fitting Guns N' Roses in wherever there was time in that whole plan. I was ready to be with you and start a life with you. I really, really was." He adds and I see Susan's sympathy for him, only adding to my guilt.

"Well, just rip my heart out, why don't you?" I ask him to add some relief and Susan giggles, her bright smile coming back to her lips.

"Right?" She asks. "Geez, babe."

"I'm just saying." Duff tells us.

"Nikki didn't even plan his days out when he woke up back then, and then you were there with a calculator adding up how much money you probably needed to put away for my schooling."

"We wouldn't have had any money to go to school, anyway, Viv, 'cause it was all going to taxes and heroin." Nikki points out and I think for a moment.

"And house payments."

"And house payments." He agrees as I look back to Duff, who looks like he's thinking about something.

"Okay, sorry if this is a weird question, but what did you mean you felt like you had 'no right' to talk about our relationship?"

"Okay, well, we broke up, I was working on things with Nikki, you married Mandy four months after we broke up...I felt like 'okay, you've already gotten your husband back, he's gotten Mandy back, they're married, who the--' pardon my french ''--fuck are you to bring up your relationship and how it affected your friendship when you're both married to other people and doing your own things? Who are you to be worried with your time with him when you're with Nikki and he's got a wife, now?'."

"Ohh, yeah. Yeah." He knows what I'm talking about, nodding. "So, you kinda felt like it was disrespectful to dwell on it too long." He adds.

"Exactly. And I didn't want to disrespect Nikki, or Mandy, or Linda, and now Susan, by trying to work on us again, as friends, because we are exes, whether we want to admit it, we are. We dated. And I feel like it's easy to forget that sometimes because it was so long ago and that freaking sucks because I don't want…" My voice cracks and he looks at me pointedly as tears come to my eyes and I take a deep breath. "...I don't want to forget that time. And I'm not trying to be rude to my marriage or yours or make it seem like I still have those feelings for you, because I don't, but I don't want to forget there was a time in that hellacious cycle my life was in at that moment, that for a few months, I was genuinely happy in the midst of my life falling apart." I explain, sniffling. "And that wouldn't have been the case, if not for you. And I don't want to forget that."

"Vivian." He says as I grab at a tissue and I see Susan knuckle a tear in her tear duct.

"I don't know, it just felt like there was never a right time to address what happened fully because everything was happening so fast in our personal lives, for you and Guns, for Nikki and the band, I started having kids, and you got married a second time and your drinking was worse and worse, so it just never happened."

"Can I ask you something else?" He says and I nod. "When do you think we should have said, 'look, we were together, it happened, and it's okay'. Because we avoided it like the plague for years and still do at times, and that's practically due to--like I said earlier--listening to how people defined it. Like you were called a 'whore' and a 'slut' and just awful shit in public and in papers and tabloids for years after it happened and I feel like because of that, there was that element of 'we should be ashamed of ourselves and just pretend it never fucking happened' surrounding it, even though we had Monroe who's breathing proof of what happened at some point, but we just treated it as if we adopted him together as friends or something like--" I laugh, wiping a tear, and he laughs with me for a few seconds. "--it's the truth, though, we never talked about our relationship. We went on Howard Stern in '88 right after Monroe was born, and he grilled us about it, but we just shut the fuck down after that and didn't speak of anything again for a couple years until we got in that fight over you limiting my time with Monroe, and then again in '94, and that was it--and none of those times really accomplished anything. At all."

"We should have had that conversation before you got married to Mandy that May." I point out.

"That was so, so soon." He smiles nervously. "That was too soon, way too soon, to get married."

"You proposed to her the day after we broke up." I recall and he nods.

"I sure did. I sure as hell did. So stupid." He states. "I learned not to make important decisions when I'm in pain. 'Cause I married two different women when I was going through some painful stuff and only made it worse." He explains.

"And see that's the thing because you had me completely convinced you wanted Mandy. Like I felt so much better when we broke up, knowing you were with who you really wanted to be with, and I was with who I wanted to be with, and then I found out in an argument with you that you were miserable and married Mandy to try to make yourself excited about being back together with her."

"And that's exactly why I told you that because I needed you to be happy and if I would have told you how I really felt about you, you wouldn't have been happy because you would've felt guilty for staying with Nikki and fixing things with him. And I wouldn't have forgiven myself if I would have put you through that so I married Mandy so fast because I was hurt, and I thought I loved her as much as I loved you, and I held on to that and ran with it." He tells me. "Why wasn't I good enough for you to stay?"

I go to answer, before the weight of what he's asking really hits me, and several tears topple down my cheeks before I'm wiping them away.

"I can't begin to put into words how highly you surpassed 'good enough'." I inform him when I finally speak. "Um, my decision to stay with Nikki had absolutely nothing to do with you. That was all me, and issues I thought were resolved within myself that weren't resolved at all, I was just ignoring them." I say. "And something in me was telling me not to stay with you...and I fully believe that was God telling me to back the hell off because he had a plan for you and I had no business accompanying you in that plan as your significant other." I explain. "And I hate to say this, but I really feel like we would have gotten divorced."

His eyes widen and his brows raise, a knowing smile on his lips as his nods his head.

"And I hate to think that but we would have made it, maybe, up until '92 because I wasn't even your wife or your girlfriend but just being around you made me so miserable." I admit. "I-It was like--you would get up and start drinking until you passed out that night. I was watching the person who had his shit together the most in my life, fall apart, and that was scary for me because we had a son who was witnessing his dad spiral."

"Yeah." He rubs his lips together.

"And getting you to take accountability for what you were doing was like trying to bathe a cat." I add.

"And it took me months after getting sober to evaluate what went wrong in my life with the band, what went wrong in my relationships, what went wrong in my parenting with Monroe, what went wrong in my friendship/co-parentship with you, and own up to what I played a part in because none of it imploded on it's own, or just because of other people, like I played a part in all of it, too, and admitting that took a lot of time to swallow my pride and just accept that I became the very thing I got pissed at Nikki for being, years prior to that, and saying, 'okay, I made all those mistakes, I fucked up, how can I do better and learn from it to better myself, to better my friendships, to better my relationship with my son, and just do what I'm supposed to do?' And I even ended up going to Nikki, and apologizing for what happened between us," he motions between me and him, "because even before you and him were separated over the Vanity thing, knowing you went to me for shit, over him, made him feel less than, made him feel like he wasn't a good enough husband and I kinda felt the same way when he stepped up for Monroe when I was going through my drinking, and it made me feel like I wasn't adequate enough as a father because Monroe was leaning a bit more on him than he was on me, and for the shit I was going through in my life with my alcoholism and drugs, I was doing the best I could do as a dad. And it made me realize that Nikki was doing the best he could do as a husband back when he was in the thick of his heroin addiction, because he was sick and couldn't fucking help himself, just like I was sick and couldn't help myself, and neither of us wanted to hear we had a problem, neither of us wanted help. And I know people are gonna, 'well, Nikki cheated and was mean to her and this and that', I know what you looked like when Nikki was hurting you. I know the look you would get on your face...I know that I hurt you as much as Nikki did through my drinking because you would look at me the way you would look at him when you weren't recognizing the person in front of you due to how royally they had fucked themselves up."

"Yes." I nod, not even arguing.

"And that fucking hurt to realize that I was hurting you as bad as he had, and I remembered getting so pissed at him for doing that back in '86/'87 as he got worse, but then I did it, too, and that experience really opened my eyes when I got sober because I wouldn't have been humbled in that way had I not had a drinking addiction and reached that low, and I do think that's one of the reasons that was allowed to happen to me." He finishes and I take a deep breath before asking:

"If Monroe wouldn't have been conceived, if we wouldn't have had a child to come out of our relationship, knowing what we know now, how we ended up not staying together, the public slander and stuff we had to go through...would you still have had a relationship with me, if you could go back and change it?"

"Without a doubt, yes." He says, matter-of-fact. "It would have been a waste of a blessing to not have taken the opportunity to love someone as recklessly--maybe even stupidly, at times--unconditionally, with the magnitude I loved you with, at such a young age. Like, usually you can expect to find something like what we had when people get a little older, and get through all their bullshit relationships before finding the person that loves them for them fully, but I had the chance of experiencing that when I was, like, in my early twenties...and I didn't experience that again, and so much more, until I met Susan." He says and I nod. "And I don't want you to think that because we haven't spoken about it, maybe as much as we should have, that I'm ashamed of you or us or embarrassed, because I'm not proud that we did what we did in that timing--because it was really shitty timing and we both can agree on that, I think," he raises his brows and I agree, "but I will never be ashamed, or apologetic, or embarrassed that I ever had that with you. I felt like one of the most fortunate people to even know you, and then to have that relationship we had--even for the few months it lasted--was just...it was such a short time compared to how long you've been with Nikki and how long I've been with Su, but we spent it loving each other the best that we could. And we really did love each other, and we do still love each other--even if it's not in that same way, the spirit of it, I guess, is still there. There's still that 23 year old kid in me that'll kick somebody's ass over you, and wants to see you happy, and is in absolute love with you. And don't get me wrong, there's a 56 year old me that wants to see you happy and that'll still kick somebody's ass over you." He clarifies, making me laugh. "I'm just pointing out that even when those feelings went away, I don't think that bond ever did."

"Yeah." I nod, sniffling as I press a tissue to under my eye to catch more tears. "Do you, um...do you remember our break up?"

He exhales and gives me a little smile, nodding, before tears come to his eyes.

"I--yeah, I...I remember it…" He informs me.

"We had just gotten done messing around, and if we did anything before we went to bed we would just stay in bed and go to sleep, but if we did anything in the afternoon or whatever we'd get up shortly after and clean up and go about the day. And we got done, it was, like, 2:00pm, and it was this odd feeling in the midst of it that 'this is gonna be the last time we ever do this with one another', and neither of us said a word, we just laid there with each other for four hours when we were done, taking in every second that we could. Well I finally got up to go back home and check on Nikki because he had OD'd the night before." I explain.

"And you went to the door to leave and I stopped you, and was like, 'I know you're going to make things right with Nikki, and I'm going to fix things with Mandy, and I want you to know that I love you, and I'm proud of you, and I always will and always will be'. Of course you can understand me a little better now because I was crying when I choked those out, but, um," he laughs and I smile back more tears. "And you said, 'thank you, I love you, Duff' and gave me a kiss and a hug and then you were gone."

"And we rarely spoke about it, again."

"And we rarely spoke about it, again." He confirms and I let out a breath, feeling more tears swell in my eyes. "What a fucking way to end a relationship." He adds.

"This is where I'm really gonna start crying, um…" I start, chuckling nervously. "...I wasn't thanking you for being understanding, I was thanking you for everything that you'd done for me, and it took me a while to understand that that was one of the things I felt like was unresolved because that 'thank you' had a lot of weight behind it." I tell him.

"Okay." He tells me, listening intently.

"This is so freaking stupid and unhealthy but I wrote suicide notes for when Nikki finally OD'd and died, because I knew if he were to go, I'd have to go with him, I couldn't live without him." I tell him and he looks a shocked. "You taught me that I could live without him when I didn't think that I could, and you brought me so much peace and rest in a time when I couldn't remember the last time I was at peace, and I sure as hell couldn't get any rest. And I felt, and still feel, so indebted to you for those months that you spent trying your hardest to fix what you didn't break--you risked your career over me, you protected me, you defended me, you supported me, you loved me--and that's what I was thanking you for that day, and I feel like I've got a weight off my shoulders now because I have never told you that and I've always wanted to but didn't think it was a good time."

"Holy shit, Viv." He wipes a stray tear, and I see Susan doing the same, Nikki just smiling at me like he's glad I've gotten that weight off of me, because he knows I've been wanting to say it for years.

"And I'm sorry it was such a shitty breakup that kind of came out of nowhere."

"The way you were screaming and crying and begging God whenever we were trying to get Nikki to wake up, I knew if he lived you were gonna fix things. I was prepared for it, I promise." He assures me. "And I'm really glad we got to do this and get this out there with each other and I really hope you were able to get some closure with this, because I really did."

"I did, too." I nod, wiping more tears.

"I love you." He tells me as we get out of our chairs, giving me a quick, innocent, peck on the lips, before hugging me tightly.

"I love you, too."

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