Aaron didn't know where to go from here. To his right was a bottle, one of those small brown ones that children's eyes widened at. To his left was a gun, one of those black things that made everyone run when they came out. Really, nothing in the room was his. The chair he sat on, the floral one that used to have the blue flowers on it, was someone else's. The wallpaper, the peeling pieces of skin-like paper that used to be white, weren't put up by him. Aaron wasn't even the one who had turned on the light that hung too calmly above his head.
Still, that didn't stop him from reaching for the brown bottle and tipping it back with his head. And it didn't stop his neck from constricting when he swallowed the bitter liquid inside. It didn't really matter at this point. Not at all, not when the he could already hear the sirens.
He looked down at the floor, blankly, thin lips turned down at the corners. Idly he remembered that the carpet was supposed to be blue, to match the chair. It wasn't really blue now.
He recalled the first time he had seen this carpet, when he had met the man sleeping on it. He had spent a great amount of time staring at it while the man stared at him. The man had smiled, he had blushed. There were dents in it from where he had kicked it repeatedly. It was a very soft carpet.
The man didn't like things spilt on his carpet. Aaron had spilt his drink on it once. He had made the man upset. He didn't yell though, like he expected. No, he just shook his head, and leaned down, and comforted Aaron in the way that he did. It had something to do with his mouth and the man's, and Aaron liked the way that the man had comforted him. Though, it did scare him a little.
Guns scared him too, but that man had one. He knew that. It was always in the locked drawer at the bottom left of the cabinet in the basement. The man clearly didn't like his gun very much either.
Though, the man liked Aaron, and Aaron liked him too. He had always thought that the man was very pretty. Even now, he was pretty, as he lay on the floor and slept. Aaron was waiting for him to wake up. He had spilt some red on the carpet, and he wanted the man to comfort him and let him know it was okay.
The man was very pale. That was okay, Aaron thought, he's probably just dreaming. I won't wake him up. He's fine.
Aaron drank from the bottle again, and then it was empty, and his head was kind of fuzzy. That was okay too, it might make the waiting easier.
It then occurred to Aaron that, perhaps, he should clean. The man liked his home orderly, and Aaron had spilt some of the red on the chair. And the walls. And himself. There was some on the man too, but Aaron couldn't possibly clean that. He would wake the man up.
So Aaron stood from the chair that should have had flowers on it, and he moved to the kitchen and grabbed the towels from where the man kept them, in the cabinet above the sink. And he wet them, making sure to turn the hot water on first or else the tap didn't work because this house was strange. Some people called Aaron strange too. Perhaps that was why he liked the house.
The red was hard to clean, and it kept turning the towels pink. That was okay. It was Friday, the man always did the light wash on Friday. Aaron frowned a bit when he realized that the walls were pink too, and scrubbed a bit harder. His hands were sore.
He would ask the man if he could sleep in the strange house when he woke up. He had had a fight with his dad, and very much didn't want to go home. His dad didn't like the man. His dad said a lot of mean things. Aaron could still hear the mean things. They were louder when he spilt all the red. That was okay. The man would comfort him in his way when he woke up, and he would tell him that the mean thing weren't true, and that it was perfectly okay for them to sleep in the same bed as a little more than friends. His dad didn't think it was, but the man did, so it was okay.
The red was everywhere. They would have to throw the carpet out, Aaron realized, because if I can't get the red out of this wall then I certainly can't get the red out a carpet. That would make the man sad. The man rather liked his carpet.
The pounding on the door came while Aaron was still cleaning, trying to get the stains out of the chair that should have been blue before the man woke up. There were shouts coming from outside the door as well, and the sirens were very loud. Aaron wondered if there was a fire somewhere in the building, and leapt up from where he knelt to get the door. He left the man asleep, because the red had stained his hands and the man was already dirty enough.
Aaron was very confused when the men in black uniforms on the other side of the door attacked him. The pointed their weapons at him. and Aaron remembered that he still had to put the man's gun away.
The men in the uniforms had found the gun while they attacked him, and they started poking around the man's house. That wasn't right. It was the man's house, not theirs, they shouldn't snoop. Snooping was rude.
One of the men knelt down by the man, and Aaron wanted to tell him to get away because he'd wake the man up. He must have said it out loud, because one of the uniforms looked at him and told him that the man couldn't wake up. That was ridiculous, of course, because the man always woke up.
He would wake up, Aaron knew. He would wake up, and come to the place where the uniforms were taking him. The man would follow the flashing car that he was shoved into, and he'd get Aaron and they'd throw out the carpet and they'd clean the red and do the wash and they'd complain about his dad and his mean words about them and they'd sleep and wake up together. And everything would be okay.
