The Only Way Back Home

Im here, im queer, and i wanna go home

April 22nd, 1993, 9:01 pm
  Camden, Maine

Azeryiah Charboneau

How in the name of the gods did I end up in Maine? And how did I end up here with Cornelius Romanov? It's a question I ask myself all too constantly, since less than 5  years ago, I would have gotten a voluntary lobotomy before I got even 6 feet close to the man. He was a Hellenistic Pagan, I was a christian boy....We would never work. Well, that's what I thought. But here we were. Curled up in a hotel together, attempting to flee from a murder. Well...maybe assisted suicide is the right word. For all the town knows, he sacrificed himself to his "god".

I felt guilty. I mean, he was my dad, even if he was a bed person. Cornelious kept telling me it wasn't my fault and I shouldn't feel like I was the murderer or whatever...He was a bad person. He deserved dying, he had poisoned and killed hundreds of people. Even then, I felt his blood on my hands.

    I guess I was supposed to feel free now that I had gotten out of the cult I was forced into. Yet something deep down inside me was pulling me back to that god awful altar. I closed my eyes, and that night came rushing back to me.

~

It was late, My father had woken me up because we had someone interested in the "church". So I slipped on my robes and stood next to him, seeing two guards of the seraph walk in, dragging a woman between them. They brought her up to the altar table and laid her down. One of the guards pulled a flower from the gardens lining the walkway. An opium flower. They took off the bulb and crushed it up with some holy water, then my father took out a syringe and filled it up with the blue colored liquid.

Candles were lit, the full moon shining directly upon the altar. My father muttered a prayer as he slid the needle into the woman's arm. I hadn't noticed until then that she was pregnant. Somehow, I wasn't phased. He injected the liquid and it took a moment before her heart rate jumped, then slowed, her body softly trembling on the stone tablet. My father spoke, asking me to turn, and I did, obeying him without another thought. I closed my eyes as I heard that familiar sound of a knife being drawn, and the holy prayer being mumbled. Then was the sound of the knife piercing the flesh of her stomach, drawing the insignia of the church. I could only stand there motionless as she screamed, yelling for them to not hurt her baby. My father didn't listen. Then I heard the sickening rip of skin, the crying of a baby, and then bones cracking and crumbling.

I hadn't realized till then that I wasn't just picturing something in my mind. I was looking at the actions being performed, taught. My father telling me to turn around was all I had been picturing. One of the guards had turned me back around.

    I raised my hands to my mouth, the body laying on the altar making me sick. There was just...blood, flesh, and bones and god knows what else. My father was talking through all the steps to me. How to insert the needle right, how to pierce the flesh with the right precision, how to hold the ribs of a child gently but with the grip that made it easy to crack them a moment after. It made bile rush to my throat. Then I took a step back and started moving, running as fast as I could out of the church, probably a mile or so into the forest.

I dropped to my knees when I stopped, my nails digging into the ground. Vomit spilled out of my mouth a moment later, mixing with my own falling tears and the rain on the forest floor. Then I realized where I was. Well, I didn't know where I was for a matter of fact. But I knew my dad was sure as hell going to punish me for running away like this.

~

I was pulled from that memory a moment later when Cory sat up next to me, his hand running up and down my back. He said something, but I didn't register it.

"Huh...?"

He sighed. "I asked if you were okay." He said quietly, as if trying not to disturb the peace of the night.

"Oh....yeah, I'm okay. Just a bad dream." I muttered, trying to convince him I was okay. He knew me better than that though, and he gave me a little look.

"Don't give me those bullshit excuses. I know what you were thinking about." He reached down and grabbed my hand. "You're okay. He's dead. He can't hurt anyone anymore."

I knew that. He had said it a million times over. But something, maybe the part of me that reminded that he was my dad, told me that even though we stopped him, the effects of his work wouldn't die with him. Cory gave my hand a squeeze. I looked over at him with a little smile. "Thanks."

He grinned. "It's my duty as your boyfriend, you know. To protect you."

I giggled a little. "Yeah yeah, you're weird."

He placed a hand on his chest, gasping and acting dramatically. "WHAT? How dare you! I am not weird, I am the most normal out of everyone. "

Cory spent the next five minutes playing into the role of some kind of distraught wife or someone, and I don't know what it was about him, but the thoughts I had about our past just...went away. I sat there laughing with him for a few minutes, and it helped. He always had that effect on people. No matter how bad of a mood you were in, he always found a way to cheer you up.

He was in the middle of saying something when I leaned forward, cupping his cheek in my hand and kissing him. I felt him let out a soft gasp against my lips, but he reciprocated a moment later. His hand came up grabbing the front of my shirt and pulling me closer to him as we kissed. It wasn't making out with his tongue jammed down my throat though, it was little pecks and just affectionate moves. Thats how he had always liked it. Nothing serious. Even then, the urge to make him mine was overwhelming. I had always kinda wanted to see what he tasted like...in more places than one.

Anyways, I probably shouldn't be thinking like that. Even if he is my boyfriend, I don't think either of us are ready for that.

Maybe he is, but I just haven't asked.

He pulled me from my thoughts as he pushed me down onto the bed. For a moment, I got excited, thinking maybe we would finally do something more, but those thoughts were pushed to the back of my mind as he laid down next to me, burying his face into my collarbone.

"I forget how warm you are sometimes. You're like my little heater." He muttered.

I chuckled, wrapping my arms around him. "I forget you're my little freezer. It doesn't matter if it's 90 degrees and humid, you're always cold."

He snuggled against me and I pressed a kiss to his forehead. After several close calls of dying and being forced apart, we were here. And even if he didn't want everything I did, I was at least glad he was mine.

My eyes fluttered closed again, and we were pulled into sleep again, this time, not having to worry about anything but what we were gonna do the next day.