Yep, another partially finished draft that I think will go nowhere.

This was the first real gay romance I wrote, done over the course of a month when I was coming out to myself and really working things out in my head. It was therapy of a sort, though it's always a tossup how well that worked. It's got all sorts of problems, the biggest being it switches first-person viewpoints and even throws itself into third person occasionally. Hey, what can I say, I was reading a good chunk of Nifty at the time and thought it was OK. I know better now.

There are a lot of themes running through this that come out in a lot of the other stuff I've poked around at, including the martial arts competency of two of the characters. Yeah, yeah, I know, but I'm of the opinion that, while violence is usually the wrong answer, if you're in a situation where asses are being kicked you should be in a position to make sure that at least some of those asses aren't yours.

The entire draft's almost 20K words, but that's too big according to the blog software, so here's part one of possibly no more. (Which, if so, would be a mild pity. I've always wanted to see "Why, feeling insecure in your homosexuality" in print...)

The formatting is a little odd. I think I've confused the rich text editor. Sorry 'bout that.

Strangest Places

"So she just up and dumped me!" "Really? What'd you do, Tris?"

"Nothing, that's what she said was the problem. She said I wasn't paying enough attention to her."

"Well, you didn't notice the day she had her hair cut."

"Yeah, well, it was only a haircut."

"Dude, she'd cut it short, spiked it, and bleached it blond. You'd have to be blind to miss it." Scotty eyed his friend for a moment. "Or stupid, I suppose."

"Thanks," replied Tristan sarcastically. "I knew I could count on you. Tell me again, why are we best friends?"

"Because without me you'd have an ego the size of Montana. There's only room in this school for one ego that big, and I don't want any competition." Scotty gave his friend a playful punch in the shoulder. "Now, where did you say you parked again?"

Tristan looked around the school parking lot for a minute.

"Dunno. Around here somewhere." The lot was about half full of cars, with mounds of snow and bare trees scattered through it. There were a few other kids around, and a knot of leather-clad guys milling around the motorcycles.

"Geez, how can you lose your own car in a half-empty parking lot? I was wrong, you are blind."

"Well, there's all this snow. Maybe they buried it when they plowed the lot."

"Your car's not that small. Well," said Scotty, "maybe it is. But still... Whuf!"

Whatever he was going to say was thumped out of him as a leather-clad shape darted out from between two cars and ran right into him. They both fell to the pavement, backpacks and books flying everywhere.

"Ow! Hey," said Scotty, "watch where you're going!"

"Sorry," mumbled the stranger as he scrabbled around, gathering scattered magazines and books and shoving them into his backpack. He was dressed in a black leather jacket, torn jeans, and a pair of work boots. He looked sixteenish, about the same age as Scotty and Tristan.

"Here," said Tristan helpfully, handing a few books over.

The stranger snatched them from him, stuffed them in his pack, and ran off across the lot.

"What was that all about?" asked Scotty as he grabbed the last of his stuff off the ground, brushing the damp sand off the book covers.

"Beats me," replied Tristan. "Hey, look, there's my car!"

"Hey, you!" A shout came from the next row over. The biker horde had made their way over. "You see a punk go by here?"

"Yeah," said Tristan. "He went that way." He pointed down the row cars, the opposite way that the kid had run.

[Tristan]

It was four o'clock by the time I got out of school. I'd run late tutoring, so I was late to swim practice, which meant an extra twenty laps around the pool, so now I was really late. And it was pouring rain on top of it. It was cold and wet and nasty, like you'd expect from a January downpour. At least it'd melt some of the snow, though we'd end up with ice in trade.

I stood by the parking lot exit under the canopy, looking out at the lot. The rain was coming down in sheets, and the wind was kicking up a storm too. We had a real nor'easter going, though luckily for me the entrance faced away from the wind. At least it was keeping things a little dry. I had an umbrella, but I knew the wind would rip it to shreds if I tried to use it.

There was another kid waiting under the canopy, smoking a cigarette. He looked kinda familiar, though I couldn't place him. He was looking at me looking at him, which was fair enough.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," he said back. The voice sounded real familiar. That's when I realized who he was