There are approximately ten steps to the entryway of Bubba Gumm's house. Each one is paved with something sad on it, but by the time the final brick was put in place, the picture got all muddled, and now no one can see much of anything. But Marshall felt it. He felt every step in his chest as well as his legs, he felt them in the worn out soles of his muddy maroons. This feeling was so beyond physical that it was cosmic, like infinities leaping through Lee's head space.

Marshall counted each one as he walked, counted them as if they were the fingers on his hands. He was so content in his counting that he was disappointed when he reached the door, disappointed for a multitude of reasons.

You see, his situation was wholly paradoxical. As much as he fetishized being stooped in his own pain, Marshall could not take the agony associated with it. The anxiety that came with all of his hurtful experiences. To feel anguish was romantic, but the reasons for which he felt it were traumatizing. Reasons such as last night.

Marshall knew that as he knocked on the door, he was submitting himself to the possibility that his lover was dead. And even that may have been wishful thinking. Assuming he had not been murdered, and he had not used the weapon on himself, Marshall had to accept that he was either some type of comic book villain, or that he was just a loon who had fled town with the courtship of a considerably large blade. Lee was not sure which fate he preferred, and with his knocking, those worries only increased the intensity of their rattle.

He looked like a bride standing there, just beyond that door. Wearing only the color of clouds, and the face of an avenging angel. Several slivers of surprise swept across the small of Marshall Lee's back. They crawled up his external regions and found a home in the fold of his face, molding the physical exertion of his disbelief. When he spoke, he spoke simply.

"You're not wearing pink."

It was the least shocking of Marshall's recent realizations, therefore it was the easiest one to vocalize. (He wasn't at total openness yet.)

Bubba scoffed, His eyes penetrated as his warm lips danced in conversation.

"But of course I am."

It isn't really possible to argue with Bubba. If he tells you the sun is cold, than you put on your jacket come summertime. Marshall knew this better than anyone, so he dropped the subject. One would think he would use the ending of that conversation to inquire about last night, but he wasn't quite there yet. Instead, he coughed, and shuffled his shoes.

"Can I come in?"

…

Bubba was walking with such expeditiousness that his hips snapped from left to right, as if he were dancing. The jarring movements reminded his company of those playful puppets pulled by stick and thread. (What was the word again? Marionette?) Marshall was struggling to keep up and to communicate at the same time.

"I've never seen you answer your own door before," he commented, trying to sound casual, as opposed to irritatingly intrusive.

"My butler had...other matters to attend to. My aunt takes on a lot of hours at the shelter. As far as I know, we are the only residents of this house. (That means there is a total of three of us, Marshall. Can you count to three?) As of now I am the only one home. "

Marshall did not remember the house to have so many staircases. Couldn't people such as these afford an elevator? Or did modern technology fuck with the feng shui? Marshall wasn't an aristocrat, he knew nothing of sophisticated beauty. But if learning to be prim and proper was way it took to win over his affections, Lee would cast aside his own normalities in a heartbeat.

When they finally stopped, Marshall was so incredibly grateful to his host. Maintaining his breath had grown difficult. He was also just a generally impatient and curious person, so long mysterious walks kept him antsy.

As they walked into the new room, Marshall began to wonder as to who this room was entitled to. The air smelled of roses, and the walls were so white that one could easily believe they'd been painted yesterday. There were candles. There was a vintage tv in a bookcase, The bed was pushed back and centered, and it had one of those aging blankets on it, the kind your grandmother owns but never uses. As if reading his mind, Bubs began to speak,

"This is my room. Well, one of them. Clearly not one that you have been in before. It is the room of my childhood. More accurately, my childhood post-trauma". Marshall saw this to be true. There was a teddy bear in the corner of the little bed. There were two tiny sneakers at the foot of it, shoes that clearly had not been worn in years. For some reason they sat neat, untied, and prominent. For some reason, they had not been discarded or put away.

This all made Marshall very uncomfortable. He was eager, yet he was afraid. It was as if the two of them were reliving it all. It was as if the two of them were mourning.

"Why have you brought me here?"

Bubba inhaled slowly. The rivers of his lips parted. The roses softened.

"I don't know," he said, and began to wander the room in search of answers, "remember when you told me that I wasn't wearing any pink?"

Marshall nodded. Bubba stopped all his rifling, and he stood up real straight, as if he were proud. "I am, it just isn't in any place you can see."

Marshall mused on that for a moment, and Bubba drew nearer. He took Marshall's hand and looped it into his waistband. He coaxed the hand to tug, a performer training their stray mutt to jump the hoop.

"Don't you want to see?"

But all Marshall could see was that teddy bear behind him, all he could see was the white walls and the white garments and he was beginning to feel sick thinking of it all, thinking of a body without love, a child without innocence. Thinking that it was all some sort of sick cycle and Bubba kept having bits of purity stolen, bits of body tainted. Every man that was supposed to protect him hid the devil under their skin, and Marshall refused to desecrate that one bit of childhood that had remained unsoiled.

Not in this room. Never in this room.

Maybe even never again.

Marshall snagged his hand back. The offending palm went deep into his pocket, ensuring safety for the both of them.

"I'm not in the mood."

The man stared at him. He adjusted himself, as if the way he looked had been the sole reason for Marshall's rejection. "What do you mean, not in the mood," he said, "don't you love me?"

It was a strange sight. His dream boy begging for his love. Looking as if he were going to cry, as if all he needed or wanted was Marshall himself. But it wasn't true. Marshall was his vessel of choice, but he'd settle for any man's confession, any man's hands massaging his tender flesh. It wasn't an act of romance, it was an act of general desperation. And Lee would rather feast on corpse munching maggots than take advantage even more than he already had. Now that he knew all, there was no justifiable reason for him to continue to defile a person with such trauma. This wasn't healthy sex. It had never been.

All he could see was the child of the room, the poor ghost of what every person was supposed to have developed.

"I do love you. And that's why I'm not in the mood. Bubba, I...I think you brought me to this room for a reason. But that wasn't the reason."

"Spare me the therapy session, will you? Am I not allowed to blow off steam? Is it a sin to be sexual? Must every feeling be put on paper instead of bodies?"

"I'm not saying any of that. I don't mind whatever...unique coping mechanism you resort to. But you have to have more than this. I think. You spent your whole youth in adulthood, can't we have one second of something more gentle? I think it isn't healthy. I'm sorry, but that's what I think."

Peppering in all those anxious "I thinks" likely did little to abate his companion's rage. Marshall half expected to be slapped silly, and he found himself closing his eyes for a blow that never came.

"You're right."

Time froze.

"Excuse me?"

"I said that you're right. I'm not stupid, you know. I know...I know that I have problems."

Marshall had not dared to dream of this day. It was obvious to both himself and his partner that he was both pleased and taken aback, as his mouth twitched awkwardly with his attempt to calm himself.

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that?"

Bubba scoffed at him, as if he were asking something atrocious. He then went on with his spiel, ignoring whatever mutated mixture of shock and pleasure that Lee was experiencing.

"What do you want me to do, hold your hand? It isn't as if I can cancel my past, as if I can just skim over my habitual nature. Though I recognize I've been in the wrong all this time, there is no changing who I am, or what I've done."

Bubba reached for the shoes parked at the side of his bed. They were so little and susceptible to damage, their skin stretched so thin from years of wear. He can cradle both units quite easily in his palms, as if they belong to a doll. But no doll would ever claim an item so stained by time's fluid.

Marshall placed his hands on the others, sort of cupping the palms and the shoes and everything beyond. His hands were calloused. But they did not shake. "And why can't you," he asked, "why can't you apologize and move on?" He wasn't asking the the shoes.

Bubba thought this was an audacious request. He thought he had never before been asked something so impossible and uncomfortable. But what he thought and what he knew were two different things. Are two different things.

He put the sneakers down gently, as if afraid to break them. He was holding Marshall's hand. And he was walking out the door.

/ Read my other stories and follow my tumblr if you would like. I feel like this story has been completed at last. I feel like things are finally as they should be. I am considering a sequel, or epilogue. But it will be a different kind of story. And Marshall and Bubba will be different kinds of boys. For now, I am letting them grow up. I had so many ideas that I did not include in this story, ideas that I may strengthen and develop for next time. For now, we let them be happy, and we let them grow. I hope you enjoyed at least some of what I have created. I hope you got to feel something. I know I did, as I learned a lot in the process, Thank you for all the support, all the messages and kind words. Thank you for sharing my story with those around you. It isn't my proudest piece, but it still means something. Have a great 2019. /