The Deep End

When Alan went down stairs in the morning he was greeted the overly concerned face of his mum, and his dad flipping pancakes quietly, yet he radiated a certain happiness that was hard to ignore.

"Hey." Alan greeted, and with one glimpse of the clock he realized he had got up an hour earlier than he usually would have. He had already discovered that no matter how much time it took for him to get ready in the morning, he was never prepared in the slightest at the repetitive speeches and boredom he would have to endure when they went to church.

"Good morning, Alan. Want a pancake?" His dad smiled pleasantly at him, holding the pan in such a way as to ask if he wanted it. Alan returned a smile, and nodded. "Yes please." He grabbed a plate and settled down at the table across from his mum. He grinned at her, and muttered thanks to his dad when he dished up the pancake.

Soon enough his dad joined them, and so they sat in a mutually forced silence, with nothing but the scrape of cutlery on plates to appease the mind numbing lack of sound. His mother suddenly straightened up after examining Alan for a few moments. "Alan, honey, we think it would be best if you had a chat with your uncle, you haven't in a while. You never know, it might be good to get things off your chest." Alan just nodded, and grumbled in hesitant agreement. He supposed it was the least he could do, and it certainly beats having to converse with Carl any time soon. He's sure that Carl probably knows about the whole Alan's-mum-found-Alan-and-that-goth-from-nextdoor-spooning situation, Carl's mum is good friends with Alan's mum, there is not a single doubt he would know.

They would probably never look at him the same again. His mum probably can't either. His dad just shot him a sympathetic look. They finally all dispersed into different rooms to get ready for church.

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Another week; the same shit. Salvation; forgiveness; no homo and all that jazz. That is what it seemed like anyway. Alan had never really gotten the hang of religion; it was all a bit too much to take in. From a larger perspective it seemed pretty good and civilised but then when you squint the detail kind of taints it a bit. Some of it is good; heck some of it is amazing. Healing people, and helping those in need, and equality; then it starts talking about not wearing clothes with two materials mixed together and you start to wonder if they could have cut out that shit and made the bible a lot less effort to read.

The service had ended, and slowly people started to trickle out, leaving Alan to send his final, pleading looks to his parents before his fate was sealed. He really didn't want to be having one of -those- conversations with his uncle.

Alas, his mum didn't notice, so he headed to where ever his uncle was to have the lecture. Soon enough he found him, and they settled down in two chairs with a bible resting in his uncle's hands. "Alan, I am sure you have probably had this conversation before, and if I repeat myself, please know I am sorry. Your mother feels as if she is not getting through to you, and so I offered to help so that maybe God could get through to you." Alan just mumbled a 'right' in reply. His uncle started again:

"Your mother has told me of your.... situation, and so I was wondering if you would care to give your side of the story." His uncle was attempting to look at him in a comforting way, but he was sort of staring straight into Alan's soul and to say it was frightening would be an understatement.

Alan shrugged. "We're friends, he's a nice guy. As you are aware I don't have many friends, so we hang around a lot and we just happened to fall asleep on the sofa and mum came back and... yeah." His uncle nodded in deep contemplation, before saying:

"Do you understand that your parents are hesitant of letting you remain friends with this man because they are concerned of your safety?" Alan nodded. "Alan, I am not saying he isn't a nice man, but is there anything that you could tell me of where you suspected that he might have been trying to take advantage of you, or attempted to?" Alan almost couldn't contain his laughter, he could barely imagine Austin being the 'big bad wolf' character that his family thought he was, he was like a kitten. "No, not once. He is too nice to do something like that, I am sure of it." His uncle seemed frustrated at the lack of surfacing evidence to keep Austin away from Alan. "Well, it has been nice to talk to you anyway, Alan." Alan departed with a quick hug before walking back to his parents. Thank fuck that was over.

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He wasn't sure how he had done it but Alan had snuck out undetected. His mum used the excuse of Austin's tattoos and his possible satanic tendencies, as well as rumoured homosexual ones, to forbid Alan from being friends with him. Alan wasn't going to let that stop him. There is a super volcano due to erupt under Yellowstone that could potentially wipe out half of the world's population. There was no way he was going to let his parents make him miserable, he was going to take the chance because life was not always guaranteed. He threw a rock lightly at Austin's window; there was a faint light on even though it was almost one in the morning. Austin's face appeared moments later, his previously sleepy expression morphed into a full blown grin. He left the window and unlocked the door, ushering Alan in.

They were sat on Austin's sofa, sipping hot chocolate when Alan finally raised the topic of the whole 'forbidden' deal. "I'm scared." He admitted, letting Austin pull him into a hug and whisper in his ear. "It's okay. I won't let them hurt you." Alan smiled, but wasn't entirely convinced. Hurt was inevitable. He accepted the support and comfort Austin was offering however, they were having a moment and he would be an idiot to ruin it.

They set their mugs down, and they sat facing each other, talking about nothing particularly important because it didn't matter what it was they were talking about, they were with each other and that was all that mattered.

A distinct sense of Déjà Vu hit Alan as they started to gravitate towards each other, their faces alarmingly close. Austin was just about to rest his hand on Alan's cheek, when, surprise, the phone rang. Who is fucking calls at one in the morning, anyway? Austin didn't hide his looks of disappointment, but before he could move to get the phone Alan decided he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't do something.

So he grabbed either side of Austin's face; then pulled him in for a kiss.