Been a while, eh? I'm actually good for hugging at the moment, but feel a bit down. Work is work, I am being pushed to accept a promotion I don't really want and in the meantime doing a lot of extra work because we're short a trained person. Plus, working the night shift wears me out. Also, there were a lot of somewhat depressing chapters released this week, and the combination of all that has me feeling gloomy. I plan to reread the entirety of The Ordinary Us, in hopes that will get me over it. Tommorow, I will hope for sunnyish weather and possibly a trip to a mall.

As you might have guessed, I also had a dream this afternoon that weighs heavy on my mind. I was tempted to try and turn it into a story, but the protagonist needs work. To set the stage, imagine a 16 year old sophomore with two older brothers from different marriages (I think they may have been fraternal twins, but didn't look a lot alike, so here I change things) and a best friend, all four of whom are on the high school wrestling team. Imagine this kid, gay of course, got introduced to gay sex his freshman year when his older brothers took him and his friend aside one afternoon and "initiated" them into their JV captaincy. "The JV team always helps out the varsity, whatever we need," Mike, the eldest brother says, as he enters the boy Peter. The middle brother Aaron just grunts as he enjoys the best friend, whom everyone calls by his last name Larenwood (name is straight from my dream, and was spelled out several times, so I'm going to go with it). This incident has a lasting effect on Peter, who in addition to starting to mess around with Larenwood on an occasional basis, does everything in his power to ensure he is not placed on varsity for his sophomore year. He succeeds brilliantly, and plays it just well enough that he's made co-captain again. Larenwood, however, is placed on varsity, doing so well that the cocaptaincy for the first time is shared by three guys, and I'm betting you can all figure out who they are.

None of this is earth shattering, yet, but Peter is a bit put out to be isolated from all three guys he's at all close to. Especially when Larenwood puts a complete stop on their sex games, and further starts coming to their house to be with his older brothers much more often than he wants to be around Peter, and all three begin excluding him more and more. By February, Peter is openly hostile to them all, Mike above all, whom he had openly idolized before all this. They are very confused, but assume whatever it is he'll get over. On Valentines Day, Aaron attempts to reconcile a little bit, partly because of that confusion, but mostly because he's horny and hopes Peter might be up for some fun. "You seemed to enjoy it those times last year." "f**k off." "Aw, come on, don't be like that. Help your brother out, please? I'm hurting bad, and Mike is all off with his boyfriend, so neither of them are interested in anything but each other." Peter snaps his head up, quite surprised, and then realizes what has happened without his noticing.

"It's that f**king son of a bitch Larenwood, isn't it?"

"Um, duh. They've been dating for months now. Where've you been?"

"On my own, since you all dumped me!"

"No we didn't, you've just been off on your own." Aaron realizes the stupidity of this statement. "Alright, maybe we have been a bit caught up, but those two have kind of been romancing each other, and all couples go crazy into each other when they first start out. They're opening up, why, they've let me play along since New Years. Mike said he wanted a little variety, and Larenwood is just too sexy to resist." Aaron smiles. "But like I said, they're busy. I was thinking about those times last year though, and how sexy you are too, and I just thought, if you were into it..."

Peter punches Aaron. He's actually a fair bot stronger than his older brother, so Aaron goes down cursing, but bright enough not to get up. By the time he's able to see straight again, Peter has already left the room. Thirty minutes later, he's packed up and left the house entirely, not willing to spend another second in a place where the two boys he always loved and always lusted after only have eyes for each other, and didn't even want him for a pity f**k.

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Edited to add: The actual scene in the dream was very quick, almost totally the conversation with Aaron, but with a bit of flashback mixed in. And one scene later, which I didn't explicate, of Peter running away to live with his Aunt and Uncle, and somehow convincing them to put him up without alerting his brothers, though his mom gets a telephone call. Maybe they'd seen he was being excluded, too, and made an offer over Christmas?

My actual problem that I had was motivation. What does the character want, but would resolve this conflict? While I was still dreaming, I couldn't see any way for him to win. That frustration truly ruined my morning coffee, let me tell you. I've since teased it out in my head a bit, but I'm still unsure how it would translate into a story. Still got some things to think about, I suppose.