I'm Scott Malkinson

32- Visions of the Past

Clyde is transported back in time. He's still in the church, but no longer is he a drunk and pathetic forty-one year old man sleeping in the pews. He's fourteen again, laying on the couch in the library, with his head in Scott's lap. Clyde feels Scott's finger tips massaging his scalp as he plays with his hair.

He stares up at Scott's face, smiling contentedly as he attempts to count every single freckle on his round cheeks. Scott's eyelids are drooping as he struggles to keep them open.

"You have a really cute sleepy face," Clyde tells him.

He can see the blush that comes to Scott's cheeks then, and a giddy feeling starts to rise up in his chest. Clyde reaches up, attempting to boop Scott on the nose, but his limbs feel awkward and heavy and he ends up missing entirely.

"Oops."

This isn't the first time Clyde has dreamed his way back into the past. He finds that when he's at his lowest, this brief teenage romance always seems to sneak its way inside his head.

The scene plays out exactly as it did back then, Clyde takes a hit of Kenny's vape sending Cherry flavored steam directly into Scott's face. "Sorry Scott," he apologizes with a laugh, holding the vape up in the air. His limbs feel heavy and his arms wobble as he does so. "Did you want to try?"

Scott cautiously takes it out of his hands, studying it closely, turning it over to look at it from every angle. His tongue is poking out the corner of his mouth in the way it always did when he was concentrating.  Part of Clyde wishes he could live in this moment forever. The memory was bittersweet as he knew that when he woke up Scott would be gone and he'd be all alone.

"Clyde?"

He jolts awake at the sound of his name, accidentally rolling himself off of the pew, hitting the ground with a loud thud.

"Fuck," Clyde groans automatically, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. As he blinks them open, he's shocked by the sight in front of him. Scott was there, he hadn't disappeared.

Of course he was there. Clyde had fallen asleep in Scott's church. Why was he so surprised to see him?

Wait, had Clyde just dropped the F-bomb in a church? Not just any church, in Scott's church. Surely he wouldn't approve. Suddenly Clyde was embarrassed and he murmured an apology to Scott for his language.

"Sorry Scott, you surprised me."

Scott's response is a bit stiff, as if just being near Clyde was enough to put him on edge. When Scott once used to look at Clyde with what had always felt like love, now his gaze showed more sorrow, regret, maybe disappointment too. Clyde couldn't fully read the expression, and momentarily became self conscious about how he must look to Scott. Was his old friend disappointed in what he'd become?

"Is there a reason why you're hungover and sleeping in the pewth, Clyde?" Scott frowns, and his eyes sweep over Clyde, as if searching for the answer to his own question. "Should I be concerned?"

Clyde shifts his eyes away, feeling too embarrassed to look Scott in the eye as he answers honestly. "Jade and I got in a fight last night, so I went to Zest for some drinks to get my mind off it. Stan called a handicar to take me home, but when I got there Jade was still mad and wouldn't let me in the house. So I wandered around until I ended up here, you know, since the door is always open."

He offers up a weak smile as he repeats Scott's own line back to him, finally working up the courage to look at him again. This time it's Scott who's looking away.

Clyde finally pulls himself up off the floor, using the pews to lift himself up to his feet. His knees crack as he puts weight on them, and his back aches. Sleeping in the pews has definitely messed it up, and he absently wonders how long it'll be sore for this time. "I'll go ahead and get out of here though, I'm sure she's cooled off by now."

He steps past Scott, making his way to the door when he feels a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back. He stops, turning to face Scott. Clyde can see him nervously chewing the inside of his cheek, one fist balled tightly against his own chest, gripping the fabric of his shirt.

"I don't want you thleeping in here drunk anymore," Scott tells him.

A wave of some sort of feeling washes over Clyde and he can't quite identify if it's guilt at being bothersome or disappointment that Scott had stopped him just to push him further away. "Yeah, no problem. Won't happen again," he says, feeling tears start to prickle in the corners of his eyes.

Scott still isn't looking at him. How disgusting must he think Clyde was to not even be able to let his eyes rest on him for a single moment?

Clyde starts to turn around again and he hears Scott speak up again. "If you have no place to go you can take the couch at my houthe."

He feels a flutter in his chest, a glimmer of hope that they can return to the friendship they had all that time ago. Clyde's life has felt so empty without Scott in it, he craves him, longs for any semblance of normalcy between them.

"You'd really let me do that? I wouldn't be overstepping? We're not exactly close anymore." Partially he wishes he could take back his words as soon as they leave his mouth, as if reminding Scott of the distance that has grown between them will change his mind. To his surprise, Scott doesn't take the out, he doubles down.

"I cannot in good faith leave a person alone in their time of need. If you need a place to thleep, then I'll provide it, no questionth asked."

"Thank you," Clyde tells him solomley. "That means a lot to me." He wants to add that he's missed him, but holds it back, afraid of scaring him and chasing him away after their first real conversation in years.

"I'll keep you in my prayers, Clyde."

"Thank you," Clyde says again. "I'm gonna head home, but it was nice seeing you again."

Clyde heads to the door, pausing only for a moment when he reaches it to turn and look at Scott. Their eyes lock for a moment before Scott looks away. Clyde feels a heaviness in his chest, the weight of all his life's regrets crushing him. Things between them would probably never feel normal again, and for the first time in his life Clyde wishes to be wrong.