Love you Both, Love me Too

Thomas: Trust and Doubt

"Listen, I get that Dash is an i***t, but he's my i***t, so lay off the threats, OK? I'll get it fixed for you by the end of the day, no worries. Come back at 6, and I'll have it ready."

The man left the repair shop grumbling, and I picked up his discarded laptop, determined to figure out exactly how Dash could have messed up something as simple as an OS reinstall. He had been more distracted than I was lately, and I knew it had to be his refusal to see his therapist that was messing him up.

I had offered to drive him to his appointments in the city, but he had shrugged it off, claiming that he would just wait until we got back to DC. But a weeklong break had turned into nearly four months, and I didn't know how much longer we could put off returning to the department that was waiting for us to come home.

We had been given leave to take as much time as we could after we recovered from The Fire, the one that had taken Conner from us and left both Dash and I scarred and desperate for a place where we didn't have to risk our lives on the daily.

We had come home, as much of a home as we had to call, both broken and weary of life. I had opened up a computer repair business with Dash, but he had taken more and more shifts with the local volunteer fire department lately, leaving me to run things mostly on my own.

I didn't much mind, as I knew Dash didn't have a mind for computers; but it had kept him out of trouble, and where I could keep a close eye on him.

It would have been easier, if he were here, to break the bad news that I had for him.

I wasn't sure how much more bad news the guy could take. He had lost everyone when Conner died; his brother, his protector, and his purpose.

The truth was, so did I.

Conner had been the glue that stuck us together, the quiet strength that had helped us grow from boys into men without the guidance we so desperately needed. He had made sure we had a path after we were released from state care, and both Dash and I had followed him to Washington DC to try and change the world.

None of us had a stomach for politics, as it turned out, and so we followed Conner through the Fire Fighting training school and onto something that was finally bigger than just ourselves.

We saved lives, and we were damn good at it.

But the dream had come crashing down in a fiery hail of wood and ash that had separated and changed the three of us forever.

Dash was still fragile of both mind and heart. I had to be careful with what I let him bear, and even now I struggled with how much I should tell him.

I had gotten a call earlier that day, a message from one of the other wards; The Director had been murdered. The boy's home that the three of us had grown up in was finally being shut down. Dash needed to know, but I didn't know exactly how to tell him.

He had looked up to the director with a quiet fear that we all shared, but being the younger of the three, Dash had seen the Director as the father he had not been allowed to have. He loved the old man, just as the old man had loved and cared for all of us as best as he knew how. To be honest, I was heartbroken at the thought that someone would take his life, but I was more worried about the aftermath; what Dash would do when he found out.

The man with the broken laptop came back at six on the dot, and I turned over a (thankfully) working laptop with minutes to spare. I closed up early, knowing there wouldn't be any other customers so late on a Friday afternoon.

I knew exactly where I would find my best friend; knew that he would be with Sela at the library, talking her ear off as the sun set low after his shift ended at the fire hall at 5 on the dot. I held no jealousy towards Dash's obvious attraction, knowing that if there was anyone on this Earth that I could trust, I could trust him.

I felt slightly guilty at loving her, knowing that Dash had simply not been capable despite his desire to do so.

He had seen Sela first in the grocery store, but as was his way, Dash refused to act on his obvious attraction to the beautiful woman who had practically fallen into our laps. He had gone mute and his eyes fell to the floor, and I felt a pang of guilt as her eyes drifted away from him and onto me, and the electricity that passed between us at that moment was unlike anything I had ever felt before in my life.

She had kept me at a distance at first, but lately, I felt her opening up little by little to my love, and I had so much love to give her. I had waited my whole life for someone like her, and each time I found myself in her arms or the recipient of one of her rare, heated kisses; I felt as if I were in a dream I was afraid to wake up from.

I walked the short distance from my shop on Main Street to the library that sat next to the lonely police/fire substation where Dash worked, and the street was almost deserted and most of the shops had closed up for the night. Many of the residents would be at the festival tonight, a celebration of the town, the Boys School, and the heroes that had been created there.

We were practically royalty, but I felt like a sham.

Had it not been for me and for my mistakes on that terrible night; Conner would still be alive.

I still saw his face, still heard his voice screaming for me as the fire melting the protective suit off of his body. Soon, the flames had grown so high that I could no longer see him; only hear the last pitiful dying wails of a man on fire.

It was a secret I had held, even from Dash, and it threatened to tear me apart every single time I thought about it. I had kept enough secrets from him, and the news of the Director would find its way to him eventually.

I had to tell him soon, but I worried what kind of trouble it would bring.

Dash would search for the murderer, and he would undoubtedly find him. There was a very short list of people who might have wanted the Director dead, all of whom had grown up with us in the tiny, six-room house that had been converted into an orphanage in the mid-seventies.

Babies and young children had ended up on the doorstep of the Director's home at an alarming rate. More children than were women to birth them in a town so small. Fifteen children, all boys, had ended up being raised three to a room in the Directors converted home. He had no prior experience with children, and he had been a harsh but caring protector, though some of the boys hadn't seen it that way.

At least three that I could remember had aged out of the home with a chip on their shoulders that neither Dash, Conner, nor I could seem to figure out. He had treated us all with the same measure of respect, and the other boys had been given no reason to hold such hatred for him.

Still, the threats came year after year as the boys left one by one. Soon it was only the three of us, and Conner had convinced me to stay an extra few years as he waited for Dash to finally age out as well.

As the youngest of the lot, Dash had endured his fair share of teasing and neglect, but Conner had taken him under his wing and made sure the small boy had been able to grow up unharmed.

Now that Dash was twenty, and I was nearing twenty-four, we had been the only three that had returned home to visit him as the years passed by. He had grown lonely as his nest had emptied, and it had warmed his heart to see the old man's face light up whenever we showed up.

"None of the other's come. Just the three of you. I don't know where I went so wrong. I tried my hardest for all of you."

He had been hurt by their neglect, and I had been even more hurt by the thought that one of them may have hurt him. He hadn't deserved such a terrible end, and I feared it was only the beginning of some terrible chapter of our lives that we were now entering.

I could see Dash leaning on the front counter above her desk as I neared the transparent building, and I noted the ease of comfort between them that made my heart ping slightly with jealousy. Sela's trust had been hard-won on my part, so I wondered how she had come so easily to share that same trust with Dash.