I Scream For Everything That I've Loved

Once I had knocked to let Austin know it was just me, I didn't hesitate to open the door, letting myself in. 
I kicked my shoes off next to the door and set my keys on the table before I heard his voice speak up from behind me. 

"Hey, Al." 
I turned around with a smile. "Hey Austin. Whatcha been up to?" The smile on his face wavered a bit, but remained in it's place. 
"Uh... N-nothing. Just s-sitting around. Not, um, really m-much to do." He laughed a bit shortly, then turned back to walk into the living room, fondling with his pant legs. I noticed he was stuttering more than usual. Well, more than he usually did around me. 

"You?"I took a seat next to him on the couch.

"Pretty much the same thing. I just, I was getting kind of bored and Kait went out with her friend so I thought I'd come hang out with you." I smiled at him.
Why was he wearing all these clothes? He has a sweatshirt and flannel pants on in the middle of summer? 
He was so weird.

"Oh..." He gave me a small smile, but it really looked more sad than happy.  "So, what do you want to do?" 
 
"I dunno. Wanna watch a movie? I can run down and get one." 
He thought about this for a moment, twisting his fingers in the ends of his hair like he always does.
 
"I'll drive." He grinned at me before jumping to his feet. I smiled and followed him to his truck, then he made the quick drive to the store. 

We ended up getting some new lame horror movie. From the first few minutes I could already tell how it would end. All the people would go in the house, they'd get stuck in, a murderer would kill them off one-by-one, the bitch would make it out alive and tell kids her story. 
Same old, same old. 
The bowl of popcorn we had made was gone in about ten minutes, if that, and by half way through the movie I was getting restless. Austin looked just as amused as I was, slouching back into the couch with his arms folded across his chest. 

He seemed to be dazing off, not really comprehending what was going on on the screen. Seeing he was zoned out and the only light in the room came from the television, I let my vision move along his body. His hair was pushed to one side, sticking up in various places like he just got out of bed. It could have been the lack of lighting, but it looked like he had dark circles beneath his eyes, like he hadn't gotten much sleep. Welcome to the club. 

I had nightmares all the time. Almost every night, in fact. There was no real theme to them, none were really the same. A lot of them involved the same people, but never the same happenings. 
Austin seemed to be in a lot of them lately. And it was weird because when I was here, I didn't have them. Except that one time a few days ago- or was it yesterday?- I had had one, right on the living room couch. That was weird. 
I felt bad, I slept so much when I was here, 
I wasn't getting sleep at home and I could actually sleep here so I guess I kind of used it to my advantage. 

I brought myself back to where I was watching Austin. 
He had been getting bigger lately in the muscle department I had noticed; the muscles of his arms could be seen slightly beneath the sleeves of his sweatshirt, not too big, but not too small. He was still skinny as fuck, just more defined. 
I still don't understand that little bit of skin that hung beneath his chin, kind of like a double-chin, when he was so skinny. It was the only piece of 'fat' on him. 

I worked my way down to his torso where it gently curved against the couch cushions, his hips poking up a bit beneath his shirt.
Even though his torso was long, it seemed short against the length of his legs, which stuck out off of the couch in sharp angles. His legs were so long and so very thin, and damn did they look good in skinny jeans; I envied them.
Even with the baggy pants covering them, you could see how bony his knees were. Or his whole legs, for that matter. 

I looked back to his face, where he was still staring into nothing. The lights from the tv flashed across his brown eyes, causing them to shine. I never really noticed until now, if you look at his eyes- REALLY look at his eyes, he looks so... Sad. The way his eyes sort of slanted down, the way his eyelids looked so heavy and tired. 

Just then his eyes darted towards me, and I looked away quickly as possible, hoping he hadn't seen me looking at him. 

"You checking me out, Ashby?" He teased.
He saw. 
"Only cause you're so Godamn sexy" I shot back with a wink. His eyes fell to the floor, smiling, his hand flying up to his hair, running his long fingers through it. 
 
"N- um, not as sexy a-as you." He almost giggled, his hand over his mouth. 
I struck a pose, arching my back with my hands on my hips and my head turned to the side.
"No one's sexy as moi." I made a kissy-face at him, laughing. 

"You got that right." He leaned forward, laughing with his hands covering his smile, though I could still tell he was smiling from the way his eyes scrunched up at the outside corners. 

The weird mood he had been in a while ago had vanished now, and we joked like that off and on the rest of the night, not even noticing when the movie had ended. 

We ended up going to bed at about 2, though I think it was only because I was tired, even though he claimed he was too. He didn't seem tired to me at all, but either way. 

-&-

Over the next week, Austin and I hung out every day. We just sat around at eachother's places when Kait wasn't home and a few nights we went out even when she was home. We went out to eat and tried to see a movie on Wednesday, but found it was sold out that night so we rented another and watched it at his apartment again. 

The next day I woke up feeling a bit guilty. I hadn't been spending very much time with Kaitlyn lately, and the time I had wasn't all that great. We hadn't done anything together in quite a while. 
Letting the guilt get to me, I told Austin I was going home to spend some time with her. 

"Talk to you later, Al?" He looked down at me, holding the door open for me to exit. 
"Yeah of course." I smiled at him. 
He gave a half hearted smile back, and I turned to walk down the stairs to the parking lot with a frown. 

Now I felt bad about leaving Austin... 
But he'd understand that I had to be with Kait, even though a large part of me didn't want me to leave either. 
I sighed, opening the car door to start the short drive home. 

Considering I went to bed late, I of course woke up late; which meant Kait was due home in just minutes and I wanted to be there when she arrived. It'd just feel less awkward that way. 

Getting home, I found that the place was the same as I had left it yesterday, meaning either Kait went out last night or just didn't bother picking up- which I don't blame her. It wasn't her mess. 

I started picking up, and I realized: One, Austin and I could pack down the food. And two, we were extremely messy. 
By the time she got home I had a large trash bag full with pizza boxes, soda and beer cans, sandwich wrappers, candy wrappers, pretty much anything you could think that could hold food. With the room finally clean I had sat myself on the couch, just waiting. 
I heard the short squeak of the front door and a pair of heels click across the entrance floor before they hit the carpet of the living-room I was sat in.

"Alan, you're home!" She grinned, as she came towards me. I smiled back, rising to my feet to give her a squeeze. 

"Yeah, baby. How was work?" 
She pulled back, taking off her jacket and placing her shoes by the door before responding. 

"Ohhh... It was okay. Same old same old, haha. Did you have fun with Austin?" 

"Yeah. We watched a movie, pretty much just sat around the whole time, but I swear- I could go a whole week without eating now." I smacked my stomach, laughing. 
"Yeah, so I saw this morning when I stepped out of bed. Your fries are lucky I'm not blind." She laughed, letting me know that she wasn't really upset.

"Heh... Yeah, sorry about that." I leaned in to kiss her cheek. She hummed in return, and we continued to have a normal night together 

Because I felt bad about not being home pretty much all week, I cooked us supper. It was nothing special, and probably nothing good because I honestly can't cook, but it was food. I set the plate of spaghetti in front of us, not even bothering to use separate plates. 
I had just noodles and spaghetti sauce, then some frozen meatballs on top and some cheese like we both liked. I hadn't put any vegetables or anything in it because I knew she didn't like them. 

"Looks good, babe." She smiled, picking up her fork. 
I sat down next to her, looking at her like she was crazy. 
"HA! Yeah, right." I scoffed. 
She rolled her eyes and we began eating. 
It wasn't bad. It wasn't great, either, just normal. 

Half way through the plate, both of us were spinning our forks, the noodles wrapping around the tines, when both of us stopped twisting the utensils. 
Both of our forks had been working at the same noodles, and were now stuck together in a large ball of spaghetti. We both laughed, and I took the butter knife I had grabbed and cut them down the middle, taking the bulk of the noodles. 
She pouted at me and I smirked at her. 
"You took my noodles!" She exclaimed, but I knew she was just joking with me. But I still surprised her by putting my own fork to her mouth, where she opened her mouth for me to feed her like a baby. 
"Heaw comes da twain~" I cooed, making a kissy-face.  She laughed, covering her full mouth, her other hand resting lightly on my elbow. 

"We should sign you up to work on those baby shows, you could feed babies all day. Then you'd be rich." I didn't have to even look at her to know she was smirking 
"Very funny, maybe you should sign up to be the baby." 
She grinned but tried to cover it, lightly punching me in the shoulder. 
"Hey! You're gonna pay for that!" I grinned at her, then wrapped my arms around her waist, tickling her sides. 
She leaned over laughing, trying to push my hands away. 

"Haha! Al, stop! Stop, you know how ticklish I am!" She laughed, twisting on the couch cushions in my grasp. 
"Too bad so sad! That's what you get when you punch me!" I laughed with her, and after a few more seconds of torturing her I let go, leaning over her. 
She was on her back, me leaning above her. 
She quickly replaced her smile with a pout, crossing her arms. 

"You're so mean to me." She fake-whined. I smiled, rolled my eyes, and leaned in to kiss her pout. But right as I was about to, she turned her head to the side causing me to kiss her cheek instead. 

"Oh, I see how it is." I smirked, sitting up and away from her, crossing my arms. 

"Baby come back!" She half sung, half yelled, her arms outstretched towards me.
I stuck my tongue out at her, feeling like a little kid. I of course wasn't mad at her at all, we were both just playing around. 
But when she sat up to actually hug me, a burning feeling crept it's way into my stomach and I almost wanted her to get off. I don't know why that kept happening, but it needed to stop.