Blah Blah Civil War [Rhett]

[Talen Trahan]

He’d rather be outside than here.

Anything that this would be better, the boy mused as he took notes in History. Blah blah, Civil War. Tal rolled his eyes as his hand took notes against his will, wanting a good grade on the next test. Sure, he got good grades, but he wanted to keep it that way. As soon as the bell would ring, he would get out of this seat and follow the routine he would always do; find an empty classroom and read or sketch during free period until lunch.

The bell rang and Talen packed up his bag, taking his time so the other students would leave before he did. He finally stood and walked into the busy hallway, looking this way and that for an empty room. He smiled at some passing people and waved to his friends before sneaking into a dark room, sighing as the noise closed out when the door closed.

He sat in a desk by the door and drew out his iPod and notes, leaving his sketchbook in his bag for right now. Settling himself comfortably, he started studying while listening to the Transformers score.

[Rhett Goddard]

"Hello Talen." Rhett's voice sounded from behind Talen after he got comfortable. He had been waiting for the dark-haired boy in there for some minutes now.

One thing to know about extrasensory perception, ESP, is that it is, more accurately, a type of meta-ability and not really a specific power per se. The name references, and means, the gain of information by a person without the need of the five senses. Easy, but too general. Abilities like clairvoyance, clairaudience, retrocognition, precognition, and others are specific abilities alike are all, actually, specific focused manifestation of ESP. Now, in Rhett's case, however, he only had the first and third of the specific abilities mentioned above: clairvoyance and retrocognition. They weren't, however, as powerful as a meta with the specific ability would, and it actually worked quite differently: retrocognition for example works with touch, while Rhett's ESP worked in a range of a hundred meters.

In anyway, Rhett did not have precognition, and yet he knew Talen would enter that particularly dark classroom some minutes after he did. How? Well, that was easy, Rhett knew the dark-haired boy had as routine to go to empty classrooms and study and/or draw in solitude. No stalking was involved to know this, though, it was all ESP, chance, and opportunity: he knew the boy was around, also thanks to a rather active ESP, and there was only one empty classroom in the vicinity. Since it was a meeting that he was meaning to do at some point, he took the opportunity and there they finally were: together and alone.

Now all it took was to refrain himself from violently attack Talen and, well, avoid making him leave early.

"No, I'm not stalking you, don't worry." He stood up from his chair and sat in the one just next to Talen. "You know about my power, I knew you were going to be here." He let silence step in. Rhett clearly didn't know what to say, he didn't have anything planned, and he preferred it that way. "I... We need to talk, don't we? So let's talk... more... because, well, we are, clearly, doing so at the moment anyway."

[Talen Trahan]

It hadn’t been long before Talen heard his name and turned to see the boy behind him. Recognizing the voice and the face, the dark-haired boy narrowed his ebony eyes and took his iPod headphones out of his ears. “Rhett,” Talen said coolly, keeping his anger under check.

The last time he and the boy had been in company, Rhett had called him a manwhore and Talen had almost choked him.

Talen watched as the other came and sat in the one next to him, looking at him with those eyes of his. His voice echoed in the dark room, making Talen curious as to why Rhett was here in this room. “Yes, we do need to talk,” Talen said in a clipped voice, closing his history book. His dark eyes looked menacing in the dim room, hopefully enough to make Rhett think about what he was talking about. “So talk.”

[Rhett Goddard]

Rude. Rhett rolled his eyes with Talen's, rather, short reply. But it was fine, Rhett knew the boy was not going to happy to see him here after what happened the last time they met. He wished to apologize at that instant, to say he was sorry, and he was indeed, but remembering that Talen had a girlfriend now... Rhett couldn't manage himself to apologize to him if he had a girlfriend. He deserved getting tackled. He didn't, Rhett knew he didn't.

"Dieu, really?" Rhett said loudly while facepalming. "Ok. I guess you can listen now, but I hope you are aware that the definition of talking includes a conversation, which by definition too, means two people or more talking. Otherwise it'd be speaking, and you said you'd talk. We'll talk."

There were a million things inside Rhett's head now. If Talen were a telepath, his ears would be bleeding by listening to Rhett's thoughts. What to say, how to say it, why saying it, why not, what else, what not to say. He couldn't organize them, he had no idea where to go from here, wherever 'here' was.

"You know, I don't know what to say or where to start." By far, probably the most honest thing he has ever said in his whole life. "I once read that endings were hard, whereas beginnings were easy. They're not, at least not for me, no. Endings are way easier, you just cut the string and walk away." Rhett wasn't looking at Talen, he preferred to look somewhere else in the room and avoid all eye-contact. "But to walk in. Walking into something is not as easy as it sounds. You don't just put one foot in front of the other, even if that's what you're supposed to do when you walk. You have to think it through... You have to choose a path or choose none and walk blindly, but even that is a path too." He was swaying away from the topic at hand, he knew it, he couldn't avoid it, apparently. "Do you like her? Adrianna? How do you know you... like her?" It wasn't like Rhett didn't know a thing about relationships, he was an expert at analyzing people, but it was the first time he wasn't seeing the whole thing as an equation filled by readable variables. He was a variable in this game, or so he thought, and so, he just couldn't read the whole equation from his position. He was vulnerable now, he was as everyone else, he didn't know anything, and that was the worst feeling he could ever had: lack of knowledge, and by extension, lack of control. "She's the path you took. Why?"

[Talen Trahan]

Talen listened to the boy, not really paying attention. Talen was born of two of the Southern elite, raised to be a perfect gentleman to everyone, and this blonde had to accuse him of being a manwhore when all he was doing was making new friends and seeing new faces. His finger tapped on the desk, the small muscle under his eye ticking with every word Rhett said. Now, Talen wouldn’t normally be this angry, since he was a laidback kind of guy, but this one pushed his buttons.

However, his questions registered in his ears, and Talen’s anger faded. Rhett needed help? From him? Talen’s eyes focused on the blonde for the first time since he had entered the room and he gave his answer a thorough mental check. “Of course I like Adrianna,” Tal replied, although the words made him feel uneasy. Was he speaking the truth? “She wouldn’t be my girlfriend otherwise.” Those words made him uncomfortable too. Did he say those words with complete honesty?

He sat back in his chair and looked at the boy head-on, letting him see the intensity of his eyes. “It was the path that was most comfortable for me, Rhett,” he said matter-of-factly. “Would you rather I go after a boy?” That statement, however, made the nervous bubbling in his stomach reside, and he was confused.

What the hell was going on with him?

[Rhett Goddard]

"Maybe." Rhett replied only to Talen's last sentence.

Rhett's chest pained a little. A knot formed in his throat. What did I just say? Oh mon Dieu, what have I done? It was a bit complicated. Rhett hadn't even accepted to himself that he liked some people, now accept that he liked someone else? It was hard, even if it also was painfully obvious. But to admit that he wanted Talen for himself? That was crossing all the lines that defined who and how Rhett was. Rhett couldn't possibly imagine himself in a relationship, not even friend relationship, he couldn't date Talen. He didn't know how to, and most of his own self was telling him that he didn't want to. For it to happen, a miracle would have to happen first, or Rhett's mind would have to agree that there was a logical explanation of how that was the best approach, the best path.

It was true, though. Rhett indeed preferred if Talen went after boys.

"No. No. Scratch that. Why would I want you to go after boys?" I don't want you to do anything. Anything at all. "Look, ok. There's no real point of lying, it is quite obvious, way too obvious, actually, that apparently I seem to like you." Eyes still focused somewhere different than on Talen. "Truth be told, then, I'd prefer if you didn't like Adrianna." He couldn't get himself to say that it was what he wanted instead of what he preferred. It sounded more selfish like this, and he preferred it that way. "And I'd prefer if you didn't go after girls. Nor Boys, as a matter of fact." Now, it was true that Rhett suffered from a very verbose way of talking, often saying things as they appear in his mind without attempting to simplify himself. It was also true that sometimes, he ends up saying things he doesn't meant, usually due to echo-related effects of his ESP, but what came out of his mouth then... he couldn't believe it himself. "Just me."

Realizing, in a split second what he had just said, Rhett felt, for what like seemed the first time, his heart pumping more adrenaline than he had ever felt in his life. If he could see himself in a mirror, he would have seen himself freeze, blush and sweat immediately, just before his head collapsed in a very cartoonish instance of 'headdesk'.

[Talen Trahan]

“Maybe.”

That word rocked Talen’s world and spoke volumes for their relationship, if you wanted to call it that. Did Rhett really want him to go after boys? The notion made his head reel with thoughts and wishes and words and ideas and just plain confusion. Rhett’s next words, however, made everything settle in the dark-haired boy’s brain, clicking in place like a puzzle interlocking to show him the bigger picture. He was almost calm when Rhett told him that he didn’t want Talen to like Adrianna, and to not go after any girls or boys.

Just Rhett.

“Let me…get this straight,” Talen said slowly, looking at Rhett with confusion and a little wariness. “You’re saying…that I should not like Adrianna, or go after any other girls, or even boys…all because you like me? You, Rhett Goddard, have a crush on me?”

Oh boy.

[Rhett Goddard]

Why does he has to be like this? Why does he has to ask? It's obvious, I know it, he knows it. Face still in his desk, Rhett painfully sighed. How was he supposed to answer this question now? In his head, there was no answer. Well, there was an answer, it was just not an answer he could say out loud, he couldn't even answer it in his mind. It was simple. It was just an 'yes'. But he couldn't picture it. It was not simple at all.

"I didn't actually say that, but if you want to take it like that, and assume that was the meaning of it all," It was. "because it may or may not have been that, then you can go ahead and do so. It's a free country." Rhett took the strength to lift his head from the desk, and for the first time in conversation, look at Talen at his eyes. "I tried to forget you, you know? Literally, I tried to convince a memory manipulator into doing so. Didn't happen, obviously, but it will." The knot in his throat was slowly going away now. "This whole set up. I wanted to tell you what you now know. And ask you this: It's likely that the next time we meet I won't recognize you. Remember I've forgotten you, that way we'll avoid any more... anything. I would ask something like 'is that ok?', but I won't, it's your choice anyway."

[Talen Trahan]

Now the boy was confusing him, twisting it around so that Talen was running in mental circles trying to keep up. He looked when Rhett lifted his head, and looked into the other boy’s eyes without backing down His next words, however, made Tal’s heart start breaking. He never meant to hurt the boy’s feelings, or hurt him in any way, but the fact of the matter was…

His existence made the boy suffer.

Gathering his strength, Talen sighed and looked at Rhett. “I never meant to hurt you.” Words spoken in a low, raspy tone, meant to soothe the blonde in front of him. “I…I didn’t know you felt that way about me, Rhett. I wanted you to come forward and tell me a long time ago, but everything that’s happened has happened and we can’t go back in time and change it.”

Then Talen did the only thing he could think of at the moment.

He stood and moved over to the boy’s desk, leaning over the blonde as his hand cradled the other’s cheek, tilting his head back so his lips met the other’s. It was small and chaste, meant to console and soothe rather than stirring passions, but it was the only thing the dark-haired boy could think of in the situation like this. He released his hold on Rhett after a few moments and sat on the desk he had been sitting in, looking at the blonde with unreadable eyes, waiting for the consequences of his actions.

[Rhett Goddard]

Rhett's mind was blank. It was something he had never experienced before, there was not a single thing in his mind, nothing. Not even the emptiness of the color black, or the soothing of white, there was just nothing. Time seemed to stop for a hours and by the time he got himself together, Talen was already sitting back in his desk.

He had no idea what to do. He wasn't used to that feeling either. Suddenly the world didn't seem as strict and foreseeable as it once looked. He felt uneasy, tired, out of place, and yet, he felt perfect, hyperactive and excited. He felt something, he had feelings after all, and they warm. They soothed him. It was comfortable. But it was too warm, it was hot. He felt something burning inside of him. It was uncomfortable. He wondered how people deal with this? He had seen it a thousand and one times, and for the first time, he just didn't understand it. He didn't know.

"Why?" He couldn't look at Talen now, so he faced away, still frozen in his desk. "This is not meant to happen. I mean, this wrong. You like Adrianna, you said it yourself. I won't..." Rhett remembered how heated the situation was the last time he mentioned the other boy's flirts. "I won't be another flirt. Life may be a game, but you're not playing with me, Talen." He dared to look at Talen at the eyes again.

If it weren't because his lower limbs were still shaking, he had stood up by now and left. Perhaps it was something bigger than him holding down, perhaps it was, indeed, meant to happen.

[Talen Trahan]

“No, I’m not playing with you,” the darker boy murmured in agreement, looking at his fingers thoughtfully before touching them to his lips. They were tingling because of the kiss, and a warm sensation spread throughout his body. Was this what it was like to kiss another boy? It felt like kissing a girl, only more powerful in its aftereffects. Talen didn’t disagree with the heady rush going through his body, but it was still new to him.

“As to why, I’m still trying to figure that one out myself,” Talen replied, standing from the desk and putting his hands in his pockets. He looked down at the blonde with his dark eyes, trying to decipher what was going on. “This thing with Adrianna is temporary, as relationships go, Rhett. Nothing is ever set in stone with the first person you date, I’ll tell you that much.” He sighed and looked away, now rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yes, it wasn’t meant to happen, but it did, and now we’re both going to live with it, you understand?” He asked Rhett, still looking at his shoes. He glanced up afterwards.

[Rhett Goddard]

He was such a cliche now. The typical cold character with a heart of stone that at the sudden rush of love, or whatever else, really, becomes a different person, a complete and real person. The thought made Rhett tremble from head to toe. He didn't want to be that cliche and he didn't want to be that person. He wondered what usually happens next, the couple dates and, at some point, as Talen said, it all ends. Did Rhett want to date Talen? Did he want it all to end at some point? Did he want to stay with him forever? In his minds, they were only questions and the answers weren't there.

"What happens now, then?" Rhett carefully looked for the answers as his eyes and Talen's met... Maybe he knew the answer.

[Talen Trahan]

“What happens now, then?”

“I don’t know,” Talen replied honestly, running his fingers through his dark hair. The very same question was running in circles around his brain too. “I mean, I’m still dating Adrianna, and it’s not normal for me to go around kissing boys, and it isn’t every day that another boy confesses their feelings to me.” It was one thing to say those things, but it was another for Talen to observe what he was saying and analyze the words he spoke.

Talen sighed and looked at Rhett with a small smile. “Let’s play it by ear, shall we?” Tal suggested, moving to put his history book in his backpack. “I mean, you have feelings for me, right? And now, me kissing you…well…let’s just say I kinda know what you feel like.” Insert nervous chuckle here. “So we’re good now, right?” He turned and faced the blonde boy.

[Rhett Goddard]

"Wait, I didn't confess anything!" Rhett analyzed every word he had said, his words meant that, but he actually hadn't said any literal affirmation of him liking Talen. It was the only thing that was keeping him together, if he still had a small, very small, benefit of the doubt, even if it only worked in his subconscious. "And I've noticed you haven't said so either." We don't know what we're doing here. "And what on whatever gods' names are upon us mean to play it by ear?" His voice was getting louder, maybe a little bit of anger was escaping out of him. "I don't know. How are we good? How can we be good?" How can we be better? "I don't really... know what that's supposed to mean."

Rhett sighed and looked away. He didn't even know why he was still there, asking these silly questions which didn't really make sense for him or Talen. His legs were still shaking, yes, but he took strength from everywhere he could and stood up. Things weren't going in any direction in particular and Rhett didn't know where he wanted them to go. It was all... too confusing.

"You can't just have a girlfriend and be around kissing guys, Talen." He walked and stopped in front of the dark-haired boy. "It's not fine. Not with her, not with me." I'm am NOT jealous. I'm not. "I think we both have enough things to think and figure out in the coming days by now."

[Talen Trahan]

“Play it by ear means winging it, seeing how it goes, Rhett,” he told the blonde, sighing and turning back to face him. His dark eyes sought out the other boy’s and held them. “And by us being good, I mean us being friends again, or whatever you want us to be.” Trahan, think about what you’re saying. You’re telling him that he’s free to pursue you, when you’re not single and you don’t even swing that way…

Do you, Trahan?

Talen stopped when Rhett stood in front of him, looking down at the blonde. “What do you want me to do, hm?” Tal asked, letting a slow smile color his face. Deciding to play with Rhett, he leaned over the boy and placed an arm down, caging him against the other. “Tell me what I should do, Goddard,” he pushed, his smile growing wider. His voice grew husky as he continued. “What do you want from me, Rhett?”