Black Fire

-Shane-
As I was torn from my very pleasant slumber by that solitary sliver of sunlight that makes it through the blinds, which is always directly across your eyes no matter how you sleep, everything hit me like a mobile home doing 60 down a steep hill that I just happened to be at the bottom of.
'F*ck,' I thought to myself as I sat up and scooted back against my headboard.
'All coming back to you now, isn't it?'
'F*ck. My. Life.'
With a sigh I let my head fall back, which meant that I hit my head against the wall...hard.
"F.M.L., F.M.L., F.M.L.," I whisper-shouted, clutching the point of impact.
'Maybe I could just stay in my room all day - he probably forgot we were even supposed to talk, anyway.'
'Breakfast,' my better half aka 'the voice in my head' reminded me.
In another whisper-shout I cursed, "Defel-frakking pancakes!"
'Don't forget the sausage!'
"Maybe if I stay in here, and don't answer the door or anything, they'll think I died and I can just sneak back to Kansas come nightfall."
'Right,' the voice said skeptically. 'I'm sure you could actually leave your family, Shane. Jake would tear through the door if he thought you were dead, anyway.'
'I hate when you - er I, er whatever - are/am right.'
Just then I heard a timid knock at my door. "Shaney?" called a small voice - thank gods, he felt as weird as I did, I could hear it in his voice.
"Come on in, Jakey," I called back.

He entered with a very faint sigh and a half-hearted smile. I smiled back more confidently, drew my knees up further toward my chest (though still a foot or so away), and patted the space just past my feet on the bed.
He sat down and it was just silent for a moment.
"So," I said. Last night I could talk about it comfortably and even joke about it, but now I could hardly think about what we had to discuss without a wave of guilt crushing me.
"So."
"Um, so," I said, "how do we talk about this? What's a good place to start?"
"I'm not really sure," he said. "I, uh, I guess it might be good to know where it all kind of, y'know, began. I mean, when, how, or why we started feeling...differently for each other. You think?"
His question kind of snapped me out of my own little world. The whole time he was talking I was extremely distracted with noticing how his hair was still a bit wet, his skin was glistening just slightly, and his clothes were clinging to his body a little bit - he definitely just got out of the shower. He used that shampoo that smells like Dragon's Blood incense, too - I could smell it. I adored that scent, especially on him.
"Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a good way to start," I agreed. I could tell he wanted me to go first. Crap. "Well, on my side," I said, "I really started to feel...differently, um, early during my last visit." His expression screamed 'surprised', but I went on, "That's when I noticed it at least. I may well have started feeling that way before and never realized."
"Oh," he said. That was longer than he had expected.
"Yep." I tried not to look too ashamed, but I was.
"I only noticed on the first day of this visit," he explained. There was a pause, an uncomfortable, loaded pause, and I thought for a second he was waiting for me to say something.
But, he went on, "I never for a second considered that anyone ever felt that way for their brother or sister. If I thought back...yeah," he said seeming to have done all the thinking back he needed to, "yeah, thinking back on things with the fact in mind of what I know now that I feel...definitely, I felt the same for a long time before now." He flashed me a smile and I couldn't help returning it.

"Okay," I said. "So, we know when. Any idea how or why?"
"Not really," he replied, actually chuckling. "Um, I think for me it probably had a bit to do with how you kind of swooped into my life right after my mom died and you made me feel better than anyone else could. But, I think it was that you were kind of a part-time sister. When you weren't here and we were just writing and calling I guess I thought of you more as a pen-pal - a long distance friend," he explained.
"Yeah, I know what you mean," I agreed. "I kind of had the same mindset."
"So, it didn't really seem as wrong, I guess. Wrong enough that I wouldn't admit to myself how I felt, but not wrong enough to not feel it."
"Exactly," I said. "We had the closeness of siblings without any strong subconscious sense of the limitations."
"That's the gist," he agreed.
"For me," I said, "I think you were something new, different, promising, but inherently mine. I mean, you were new to me, but you were from a part of my life - just not one that I ever knew very well before I came to La Push. You were the most solid, definite, promising piece of my life away from my life - my second family, my real family. I always felt like I belonged more here with you and dad and the Quileutes than I ever did in Wichita, and you were always a big part of that."
"Wow," he said. "I never even thought about it, but you did always seem a lot happier after you got dropped off here."
"I love my mom, Matt's okay, and I absolutely adore Frankie, you know. But, I just feel more at home here," I explained. "Anyway, I think we've covered the past, we've got the present defined well enough,"
"All that's left is the future," he finished. "In other words: 'what do we do about it?'"
"The big question," I agreed. "And the big questions in pursuit of that big answer are 1. What can we do about it? 2. What are the consequences of those options," I said, then sighed. "And 3. What do we want to do about it?"
"Options, most to least extreme," I suggested. "I'll start. I pack up all my stuff, drive away, I'm back in Wichita by tomorrow, I never speak to you or dad again."
"You speak to dad, not me," he provided, catching on to the listing system.
"I write to you rarely, never speak." Benefit of still talking, but no voices to complicate things.
"You speak rarely, never see." Face-to-face would be harder than voice-to-voice.
"I speak regularly, never see."
"You speak regularly, see on major holidays." There are only a few of those in a year, doable.
"I stay," I said. "Not with you and dad, just in the area, and we have an awkward friendship, we never mention this." I could move into my graduation-gift house.
"You stay in the area, comfortable friendship, never mention it."
"I stay in the area, occasional awkwardness or mention, but relatively comfortable."
"You stay here, we never mention it," he provided. I had to half-smile at that; it would be better to be here with them without ever mentioning it than live elsewhere while being comfortable enough to let it slip out.
I surprised even myself by saying, "I stay, we never mention it to anyone else, and nothing changes."
"You stay, we never mention it to anyone else," he said, "but things do change." That one caught us both off-guard. It was coming - we both knew it, we both waited for it, we both wondered who would say it, and it still caught us off-guard.
"What do we want," I asked.
"I thought consequences came before wants."
"Screw question order," I replied with a shrug. "Which do you think is the more important factor?"
"I think I like giving chances," he answered, having obviously chosen to reply to the 'want' question.
"So," I said, a smirk beginning to spread, "that's option number..." I counted off on my fingers quickly, "12?"
"Things change?"
"Things change," I agreed. We both understood my agreement was both that number 12 was the option of things changing and that it was my preferred option, too.
"What are the consequences?"
"We're not planning on telling anyone on purpose," I said. "At least not in the foreseeable future. But, anyone who does find out by way of some kind of slip will absolutely sh*t a brick."
"Point," he agreed. "Does 'everyone' include dad?"
"Dad is the king of 'everyone'," I said. "The spokesperson, the poster-boy, the first and foremost," I listed.
"I get it, I get it," he said.
"I just mean that he is the absolute last person we would want to know about it - considering, of course, that I don't care in the least bit that if the Dawsons knew they'd want me stoned to death. Dad's reaction wouldn't be half as bad, but I actually give a d*mn what he thinks."
"Feels sort of wrong," he sighed. "But, I agree. Any other consequences?"
"Not immediate enough to be relevant at this exact moment," I replied. For the time being we were only talking about...what? Dating? We'd tackle the beyond if we came to it.
"Okay," he sighed. "What else do we need to talk about, then?"
"Well," I said, "we decided upon an option, but I do believe it needs to be made official," I said with a smirk to lighten the mood.
He chuckled and a small smile remained on his face as he took my hands in his, rested his chin on my knees, and looked up at me through his eyelashes in an adorably innocent way. "Shane Azraea Dawson-Black," he asked with genuine sweetness though he was exaggerating the drama just a bit to be humorous, "will you go out with me?"
I couldn't help but chuckle just a little. "Most definitely," I replied. "But, not right now, because I need to make pancakes and sausage before dad wakes up."
He let go of my hands, moved his chin from my knees, and I stood from my place on the bed and started toward the door. I didn't turn back toward him, but looked over my shoulder. "Are you gonna help, or just watch me walk away," I teased.
He practically jumped up from the bed and followed me down to the kitchen, chuckling the whole way.