Come Back To Me

//



The journal was clutched in his right hand so tightly it was as if by some act of God that it didn\'t crumble beneath his white knuckled fingers. He knocked on the door to his apartment and waited patiently for Marissa to come to the door. When it finally opened her face was masked in confusion.



"Why did you knock? I mean I know you haven\'t been home lately, but you still have your key right?" She asked and his grip tightened on the journal as he heard the hope in her voice. He could fall to his knees and apologize and she would forgive him. He could hear it in her voice. It was so tempting that he almost did, but it was as if the journal was physically pulling him away from her.



"I wasn\'t sure I could use it anymore." He said quietly not meeting her eyes.



"Oh baby of course you can. You\'ve just gotten yourself too wrapped up in the shop lately." She cried happily pulling him into the house thinking that things were finally turning around for their relationship.



"You may change your mind about that." Patrick said sitting down on the couch in the living room.



"Why?" She asked now doubtful.



"I can\'t do this to you anymore Rissa. There\'s something wrong with me lately and it\'s not getting any better. I might even be losing my mind, and I have to believe that it\'s true because even if it means that I\'m crazy it\'s what I want so I guess I want to be crazy." Patrick said sadly.



"What do you mean?" She asked sitting down genuinely confused.



"I mean that I\'m in love with a book, well actually a man in a book and I\'m seeing things that happened before I read them and I\'m so obsessed with the book that I forget to come home at night. I\'m saying I can\'t put you through this anymore because I\'m losing it and I may not love you in the way I used to but I still care about you enough to make you see that I\'m no good for you anymore." Patrick said dropping his head into his left hand tiredly.



"We could get you help. It\'d work out, I just know it would."



"No I don\'t want help. I want this Rissa, I want that life and as much as I hate it you aren\'t a part of that life in the way you want to be. So I\'m going to pack up my stuff tonight and stay at the shop from now on. You can have the apartment and everything and I\'ll just take my things and go." Patrick mumbled standing up.



"But why?!" She sobbed tears running down her face.



"Because I fucking love the man I see in this book so much that I\'d rather lose my mind then lose what it feels like to be with him, to remember him. Do you have any idea what that feels like?!" Patrick exploded.



"Yeah actually I do." Marissa said so quietly he almost missed it.



"Don\'t say that Rissa. Please just hate me or something because I hate doing this to you, but I don\'t know what else to do and no matter what all I end up doing is hurting you."



"Well fine, I hate this, I hate you! I wish Tim never gave you that fucking book!" Marissa yelled grabbing for it. Patrick pulled his hand away from her and his eyes turned to pure ice.



"Don\'t fucking touch it. If you do I\'ll smack you across this room." He growled with a fierceness he\'d never felt before and it scared even him.



"You really are going nuts." She said sadly and walked into the kitchen and out of sight. He took that as a dismissal and moved into the bedroom grabbing everything he could find that he wanted to keep and shoved it into his duffel bags.



//



Two hours later his whole life was in the trunk of his car, as he sat parked across the street from Renari just staring and wondering what it would be like if Colin really was his Philip. He pulled his eyes away from the restaurant and grabbed the journal. He was nearing the end and was terrified of what he\'d see next. He knew that they\'d been discovered and then both subsequently died but he wasn\'t sure he was ready to feel that. As he opened the journal he was almost immediately pulled into a vision for the final time.



//



Philip lay curled up in Luke\'s arms and they kissed languidly their naked bodies tangled together in a mass of limbs.



"Luke you have to go or someone will find us." Philip begged with fear in his eyes. It had become harder and harder to make Luke leave him each time they found time alone together.



"My dear Philip, I don\'t think you understand. I\'d rather stay with you tonight and die tomorrow than never know what it\'s like to wake up with you in my arms." Luke said cupping Philip\'s cheek in his hand.



Philip\'s breath caught in his throat as the tears came to his eyes and all he could do was snuggle closer and tuck his head under Luke\'s chin. This man loved him enough to die to know what it felt like to hold him in his arms all night and he wasn\'t going to take that away from him. Luke watched as Philip drifted to sleep and lay there continuing to memorize his every feature until he couldn\'t keep his eyes open any longer.



The next morning Luke\'s well trained body awoke him as the sun was rising and he watched the rising sun bathed Philip in its colorful light. He felt happier and more complete than he ever had. It was almost funny how all this time he\'d thought he\'d need to leave his station to find this kind of happiness when all he\'d needed to do was open his heart to those around him.



He wasn\'t at all surprised when the door creaked open and he found himself meeting his father\'s eyes as they filled with blazing anger.



"Luke what in God\'s name are you doing? Get out of that bed this instant." His father yelled loud enough to wake both Philip and the rest of his household.



"I\'m lying in bed with man I love father." Luke said calmly as Philip looked around slowly comprehending what was going on around him.



"That is disgusting Luke and if you don\'t get out of that bed this instant I will take to Mr. Van Buren myself." His father growled grabbing him by the neck and roughly dragging him from the bed only to gasp and stumble back in disgust as he realized both Philip and son were naked.



"You will do no such thing Andrew or I will have you dismissed immediately." Philip yelled finally finding his voice. Luke shook his head and closed the gap between himself and Philip to quickly plant a kiss on his lips.



"Philip, we knew this was inevitable the minute I decided to stay with you last night. I\'ll go with my father and receive my punishment with courage, and if I should die today then I\'ll die a happy man knowing that I found you and having known such a splendid love." Luke said kissing Philip\'s forehead much to his father\'s chagrin. He quickly pulled on his discarded pants and crossed to where his father stood. He simply accepted it as his father smacked him hard across the face, his hand leaving a burning red mark across in its wake. He then grabbed his son by the neck once again and roughly dragged him away from the room.



Philip watched in horror as Luke disappeared from his sight. He jumped up realizing he had to do something. He pulled on his clothes haphazardly as he ran in the direction of his father\'s room. He was about to pound on the door when he heard the voices through the door and he stopped frozen as he listened.



"I found him in bed, naked, with young Master Philip." Luke\'s father told Mr. Van Buren.



"You what?!"



"Luke and Philip were in bed together when I entered Philip\'s room this morning."



"You mean to tell me that my son is ... LIKE THAT?!" Mr. Van Buren yelled with such anger that Luke knew that he could not let Philip face that wrath.



"No sir. Philip was having one of his episodes again and I took advantage of him in his weakened emotional state. He refused me but I forced myself on him." Luke said bringing up the sore subject of the emotional breakdowns Philip had had periodically since his mother\'s death and playing up Mr. Van Buren\'s fierce protection of his only son. Outside the room Philip\'s knees buckled beneath him. Now his father would have Luke hung for sure, and Philip would walk away unscathed, the seeming victim of a heinous act.



"For that you will die." Mr. Van Buren growled and Luke felt his blood run cold with fear, but he forced himself to only nod calmly.



Philip barely managed to crawl into the dark corner of the hallway before the doors burst open and Luke was dragged out of the office by his arms, as he fought desperately against their grip needing to see Philip\'s face once last time. He finally spotted him the corner, shaking with silent tears. He met his eyes and mouthed \'I love you\' before he was dragged down the back stairwell.



As Philip disappeared from his line of sight Luke let all the fight drain from his body as he resigned himself to his fate. He numbly followed as his father and Mr. Van Buren dragged him down to the front gates. His father disappeared into the gardener\'s shed as Mr. Van Buren took out his aggression on Luke through his fists. When his father returned a few minutes later with a length of rope that had a noose fashioned on one end he was crumbled on the floor clutching his stomach as the blood poured from his face. Mr. Van Buren smiled happily as he slipped the noose around Luke\'s neck and pulled it tight. His own father then threw the other end of the rope over the top of the archway in front of the large iron gates and then together they pulled. Luke could feel the rope crushing his windpipe as his feet lifted off the ground but he wouldn\'t let them break him. He had made his decision and he was going to live and die by it. The last of his life was leaving him and looked back at the house only to see Philip sobbing hysterically on his balcony. As the darkness was closing in on him he managed to mouth \'I love you\' one last time to Philip who simply collapsed in a quivering heap of a broken boy.



//



Patrick was startled when he awoke from the dream and found himself lying on his back in the street. He rubbed his neck trying to rid himself of the feeling of a rope pulled tightly around it as he sat up. Only then did he notice Colin staring at him with concern and fear painting his face as he sat next to him.



"Phi...Colin what happened? Why am I out here?" Patrick asked and Colin\'s face only grew more concerned.



"Are you ok? Did something happen?" Colin asked staring into his eyes intently.



"I broke things off with Marissa."



"Really? Should I call Tim?"



"No I\'m fine, but what happened?" Patrick asked and Colin finally broke eye contact turning away from him.



"I was coming into work and I looked around as I was going into the restaurant and I saw you in your car freaking the fuck out, thrashing around and clawing at your neck. I didn\'t even know it was you, and I ran over and I saw who it was and I got scared. I pulled you out of the car and it got worse and worse and then it just stopped and you said \'I love you Philip\'. I didn\'t know what to do you weren\'t moving and you wouldn\'t wake up and then just as fast you were awake and what the fuck happened?"



"It\'s this journal; I\'ve been dreaming myself into to it." Patrick said sheepishly not wanting Colin to know the real levity of the situation.



"That was no dream." Colin said and Patrick heard the fear in his voice.



"Hey Colin I\'m ok I promise." Patrick said touching Colin\'s hand. Colin shook his head as if shaking something away from his mind.



"Yeah well don\'t fucking scare me like that again. Why were you here anyways?"



"Well I don\'t know, I was kind of upset about the whole Marissa thing and Tim isn\'t too happy with me at the moment so here I am, and apparently I made quite and entrance." Patrick said cracking a smile and Colin smiled back at him.



"I know a place where we can get a cup of coffee and talk."



"Really? I think I know the owner maybe I could get it for us for free."



"Maybe." Colin said smiling as he helped Patrick stand up. No matter what he did though he couldn\'t get the picture of Patrick\'s limp body hanging from large iron gates out of his head.



//



Patrick read the last few pages as Colin made them some coffee. He knew that there would be no more visions because there was no more of that life to remember. He felt the tears spring to his eyes as he read the last page. Philip talked of going to his grandmother\'s house to kill himself because he no longer felt his life was worth living without Luke. Patrick read the last few words and shut the book, letting the tears fall silently. He wanted to feel that love again, he wanted that type of love in this life too, but in this life everything was falling apart.



The girl he was supposed to have been in love with was now sitting at home probably crying because he\'d just broken her heart. The man he most looked up to hadn\'t spoken to him in days, and the guy he\'d fallen in love with thought he was crazy. Now he didn\'t even have the journal\'s world to fall into. Patrick felt his shoulders begin to shake as the sobs overtook him. He had nothing left anymore. This journal had ruined his life, he wanted to take it all back, start everything over again. He felt Colin pulling him into his arms silently and Patrick let himself curl into the embrace as he only began to cry harder.



"Hey, hey calm down it\'ll be ok, I promise. You\'ll find someone new. What about that guy you have a crush on? He\'ll be happy to know you\'re single." Colin offered trying to get Patrick to stop crying. Patrick started laughing at that, he buried his face in Colin\'s neck as he tried to catch his breath.



"I think I just need sleep." He mumbled pulling himself together barely enough to speak.



"I have a couch in my office. Why don\'t you sleep there?" Colin suggested unwrapping himself from Patrick and leading him by the hand farther into the kitchen.



"Yeah, ok. Here take this." Patrick said tiredly handing Colin the journal.



"You\'re finally done?" Colin asked smiling and Patrick found it harder to breathe once again as the tears that had been residing came back in full force and just nodded. Colin sat him down on the couch holding him until Patrick cried himself to sleep. He picked up the journal and opened it.



//