Left Turn

((Well... last chapter was thrown out there, unedited, a fact I apologize for. Time is not so kind at present and I\'m often giving you chapters as I write them. I\'ll go back and fix them up later. If I can, eh?

And Chancey! We all love Chaney. I love Chancey. He\'s so cute.

::Lin: :) All of your questions shall be answered! I promise!

Enjoy the next chapter of...))

Left Turn

\"So you\'re okay? You are, right, Chance?\"

The sound of his sister\'s voice on the phone made Chance teary eyed for home. He nodded soberly and then realizing she couldn\'t see him, voiced, \"Yeah... I\'m okay, Babs. How\'s Oline?\"

Babs\' laugh sounded too far away. \"She\'s just fine. She keeps asking about her uncle. She missed you while you were gone. So you\'re going to come and visit us for Christmas? Or do we have to wait for Spring Break?\"

\"Spring Break, I\'m afraid,\" Chance sighed. \"I can\'t afford the fare.\"

Babs sighed. \"And neither can I. It would be nice if we could get Dad to cough up a few bucks, but...\"

\"But I\'m not about to let you go by the house and be forced to talk to him, Babs. Look, I\'m here. That\'s enough. I\'m going to go to Sean\'s house.\"

\"Sean... you know, this is the third call in a row that you\'ve mentioned his name,\" Babs was digging and she chuckled.

Chance blushed. \"Well... he\'s been really nice. He doesn\'t know my... tendencies. He\'s straight, I\'m pretty sure.\"

\"Too bad,\" Babs sighed. She and he had talked lightly over what had happened in Europe. A one night stand wasn\'t about to change her brother from a hermit into a boy magnet but she\'d voiced her desire that he\'d see someone, open his eyes a bit to the world around him.

Chance grinned and then stretched. \"So I have to go. I\'ve got a huge paper to get done, Babs. I\'ll call you next time, okay?\"

\"No. You\'re not to spend a dime of that money on me.\"

\"Sean..\" Chance paused at the laugh from his sister\'s end of the phone, \"said I could use his cell phone on the weekend. It\'s free for him.\"

\"I have to work this Saturday and Oline will be at a friend\'s. Call us on Sunday, so we both can talk to you,okay?\"

\"Sure thing. And Babs?\" Chance worried at his lower lip, gods he missed her!

\"Yeah?\"

\"Love ya.\"

\"Awe, you\'re so cute, little bra. I love you too, honey. Keep safe. And don\'t let any of those big college boys pick on you.\"

\"Sure thing.\"

Chance set the phone back down on the receiver and sighed into the quiet of his dorm room. He let his eyes sweep over the single that he\'d managed to procure. It had cost him more money but both he and Babs decided it was better. He wouldn\'t have to worry about another boy. Somehow, that made a lot of sense at the time. But now that he was living the single room life, apart from all of the other guys on his floor, he was realizing how little it helped him now that he was here. He was damned lonely and there was no one there to relieve him of his memories.

Well, there hadn\'t been anyone until Sean had chosen to interrupt his slow, excruciating descent into loneliness. It had happened at the library.

He had been at school for two months then. He wasn\'t on any of the teams, he wasn\'t in many of the core classes because he\'d taken a lot of college courses while he was in highschool. He would be a sophomore by winter semester. And he had little in common with any of the outgoing, boisterous boys that seemed to have taken over his hall. If there were any other quiet boys in the dorm, he never saw them. They were probably hiding like he was.

But even hermits have to come out of their caves now and again. And in order to get some research done for a lit class, he\'d done just that. He\'d hunkered down into back of the stacks over a pile of books for a week working on a project. A week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday...

Not Friday. Something happened on Friday.

The jostling of his table only made his finger skip on the page he was reading.

\"Shit.. sorry.. sorry man.\" The voice was one of those easy going, simple voices, the kind that he\'d lumped in with boys like Jack Ivenson. Only thinking of Jack Ivenson caused a pain and Chance pulled away from it as if he\'d been burned. He glanced up and gave a short smile.

\"Oh wait,\" the nattering voice, the tall boy he\'d given a glance to drew up a chair and settled in, athletic pants making that zip zip sound that would be annoying if Chance didn\'t find the sound erotic in much the same way other men find the sound of nylons rubbing together sexy. \"Hey, you\'re the guy at the end of the hall, in the solo room. I\'m Sean.\"

The hand was too insistent to be ignored. Chance took it, leaving his book. \"Chance,\" he gave his name, glad for once he didn\'t have to go by Charlie or Charles as he\'d done while he was under his father\'s thumb. He peered at the young man next to him. Tall, breezy, with sandy blond hair and laughing brown eyes. Nice. Athletic. Jock. Cute, of course. Straight. Those things were written over him in bold invisible, indelible ink.

Sean shook his hand calmly and then grinned. \"So what\'re you studying? I mean, you\'ve been here since like.. Tuesday. I\'m best friends with the check out girl. That\'s Cindy. She\'s sweet, we went to school together and I\'m talking too much. I do that. Don\'t let it bother you. So you wanna hang sometime?\"

Chance blinked hard at the boy who suddenly had turned into something resembling a thirteen year old girl, only with a deeper voice and fewer nervous tics. \"What?\" he\'d asked intelligently.

Sean laughed. \"Sorry. Let me break that up for you. One. Cindy\'s noticed you. She thinks you\'re cute and interesting and she told me to come back and introduce myself. Two. I have known Cindy since high school. Grade school, actually, but don\'t let anyone else know that. And three. Do you want to hang out sometime? I\'d ask another way, but it\'s my first year here and I\'m a little desperate for real conversation and some friends. So I\'m sorry if I\'m pushy.\"

Chance could process that a little better but for one sticking point. \"Why?\"

Sean blinked. \"Why am I pushy?\"

\"No. Why do you want to hang out with me?\" He was blushing now, he could feel it. Jack would have... smiled and thought it was... said it was...

Dammit. He could feel his stomach turning and twisting into knots again.

\"Umm... well, that\'s a fair question,\" Sean nodded. \"My best friend in school was a really shy bookworm. He was really cool too. And I think I miss him most. He went to Oxford, stupid prick, and left me here in West Virginia State. So I don\'t mind the guys that seem to have mobbed our dorm floor, but sometimes I wish someone would sit down with me and crack up about Terry Pratchett or maybe want to discuss what I\'m gonna do when I get this biology major, since I haven\'t a fuckin\' clue.\"

Chance frowned. \"I don\'t know how Terry whoever that is, is.\"

Sean grinned. \"Lucky for me! That means I get to introduce you to him! You\'re so in for it, man!\"

And that had begun it. They\'d met at the library for a week or so until Sean openly announced that he was sick of being sly about it all and had dragged Chance to the food coralle and there given him a book called \"Color of Magic\" (not a fantasy book, he assured Chance at the look of disgust on the smaller boy\'s face - he\'d lied, but then, it was funny and worth it, despite the overtones of magicians and elves and the like) and introduced him to the rest of the guys at the table.

It was the most excruciating dinner Chance had ever had. And it got worse because after that, it was assumed he\'d go to dinner with them. If it wasn\'t Sean, it was one of the other guys, Trace or Leon or Mike or Warren.. one of the four would show up at the door and grunt or grin or push him or smirk or just shout through the closed door and he\'d end up sitting in the large table across from the cereal bins eating dinner with the five of them.

They were all basket ball players. All on some kind of athletic scholarship. They were basic creatures for the most part. They liked basketball, booze, and women, not necessarily in that order. They were not stupid though. Sean seemed able to choose the less idiotic of boys to hang out with. Leon was going into psychology, Trace wanted to be a teacher, Mike was going into pre-med, and Warren wanted to be a basketball coach. Warren proved to be the dumbest one in the bunch. The rest of them didn\'t mind him much and oftentimes he proved to lend a certain humor to the group. And the feeling of pain that Chance felt every time he was summoned to eat with them slowly began to diminish as he realized that he was neither going to get pounded nor was he expected to be as excited about athletics as they were. He wasn\'t expected to like anything they liked, actually. And that took a lot of pressure out of the interactions.

Still, Chance worried about when they\'d figure out his sexual preferences. He held back his true self, remaining shy and quiet. He couldn\'t figure out why they demanded he show up with them, why he was expected to go to dinner and then later encouraged to go to watch games and hang out with them at the gym (which he refused, there were only so many things his body could handle - watching a pack of beefy men pumping iron was not one of them).

In the end, it didn\'t seem to matter. The five boys weren\'t overly worried about his shyness and they bugged at him so much that he found it impossible not to just go with the flow. Eventually he would have had to all but fight them physically to get them to leave him be.

It helped... with the feeling lonely.

He longed for a few more minutes on the phone with his sister. But he also understood and often would get off the phone before she had to close off the call to spare her the pain of having to be the one every time. Each minute cost her and she couldn\'t very well afford it. She was working so hard as it was and her efforts were keeping him afloat along with her own small family. She, Oline, and her new baby, Jerry, needed every cent she could make, yet she\'d insisted on helping pay his tuition when the scholarships hadn\'t quite covered the more expensive tuition.

The knock at the door was a nice interruption to his thoughts and Chance left his paper lounging on the desk to get the door. The way the knock continued made him grin. Some of the guys had their own knock. Trace was the \"shave and a haircut\" type while Sean had an insistence to his knock that made Chance always laugh.

Laughter died on his lips as the door opening revealed a haggard face set upon downturned shoulders. Sean\'s face was red and he blinked hard as he pushed his way into the small room, falling on Chance\'s bed and dragging the large teddy bear in the corner up to his face.

After the door closed with a gentle click, Chance stood at a loss, staring at the too large man laying on his bed, body tense. He frowned then shoved the heel of his hand into his temple, pushing his hair back from his face. Plucking a chair from before his desk, he dragged it to near the bed and sat on it backwards, hooking his arms over the top.

\"So...\" he broke the silence.

Sean\'s words were muffled by the bear on his face.

\"What?\" Chance leaned forward, then drew back as Sean rose up on his elbows suddenly, glaring at him.

\"I said, why the fuck didn\'t he tell me? I mean... fuck! I am his fucking best friend!\" Sean stared at him. \"If you were gay. You woulda told your friends, wouldn\'t you? And what the fuck would you have done if you\'d caught something? What did he think I\'d do? Did he think I\'d just... just...\" Sean\'s anger crumbled and just as Chance caught the beginning of tears, the lithe boy shoved his face back into the bear. \"Oh God!\"

Chance swallowed. This was his fear. That one of his friends would find out. But then... \"I... I don\'t follow,\" he slowly stated, not quite willing to assume just yet that this was a matter of gay and straight.

It was silent and Chance let it be that way. Silence was something he\'d come to be comfortable with. Then, when the silence seemed to have stretched almost too thin to bear, even for someone as patient as Chance could be, Sean sat up, folded his legs, and tucked the bear between them. He looked like an overgrown toddler, his fingers plucking at the bear\'s ear absently as he chewed on his lower lip. \"Neil is gay.\"

\"I got that much,\" Chance hazarded.

\"Well, he just told me. And it\'s not him being gay that I\'m mad about. I don\'t give a flying fuck who he likes to stick it to. I don\'t expect him to stop talking to me if I reveal I like to fuck dogs. I expect him to get my dogs away from me, but...\" he snorted in a dejected laugh. \"I don\'t fuck dogs,\" he said, peeping up at Chance. \"I\'m just using it for an illustration.\"

Chance didn\'t say anything, just nodded.

\"The thing is, he didn\'t tell me about how he\'s been fucking around. That I would have said something to him about. I mean, I wouldn\'t have stopped him. But I\'d have talked to him about using condoms and shit. I do care about my friends. I take their keys from them if they drink and try to drive and I give them condoms and shit like that if they\'re messing around seriously. Just ask Warren. That guy seems to have a new girlfriend every two weeks. I have already slipped him packets of condoms.\" He grinned sloppy and shrugged. \"He bopped me once but I got him to admit he\'s using them. That\'s enough for me. But fuck! I mean, he\'s gay.. he\'s sleeping around, which is weird because Neil is like you. He\'s quiet and shit. He\'s not the type to sleep around. I can\'t figure out why the fuck he\'d be sleeping with just anyone who wanted to stick it in him. Well.. or...\" he blushed, \"or let him stick it in. It\'s different for guys. This isn\'t bothering you, is it?\" Suddenly Sean stared at Chance, studying him.

Chance blushed again, shaking his head. \"No. No, it doesn\'t bother me. I\'ve had plenty of gay friends.\" He could count his friends on two hands and one foot, not counting the five new friends he had at present, but out of that number, at least half were gay or bi. It was just something about being a gay teen. It was easier to relate to other kids who were having the same difficulties fitting in because of sexual preferences.

Sean nodded. \"Okay. That makes sense. I mean, you\'re so accepting, I\'m sure lots of people talk to you.\" That seemed to be reason enough because Sean left the subject as if it were closed. Instead of continuing and asking if Chance was, he tucked his arms around the bear and then closed his body over it, shutting his eyes tightly. \"God... this... it just hurts so much... why the fuck didn\'t he tell me?\"

\"Tell you what?\" Chance resisted the desire to touch Sean\'s knee.

Sean shuddered. \"That he was HIV positive. He\'s known. He found out two years ago! What\'s the deal? Two fucking years and he doesn\'t tell me! He tells me over the fucking PHONE!\" and Sean threw the bear against the wall with his roar of pain, standing suddenly and stalking the small room, almost running Chance over. Loquacious to a fault, Sean seemed at a loss as to what to say to relieve the pain that was evident on his face. \"He... he was fucking crying. He\'s fucking hundreds of miles away, Chance! What the fuck am I supposed to fucking do? I can\'t afford to call him and he can\'t afford to call me. He\'s not going to be back for another month and he was thinking of not coming home for Christmas because he was going to call his mom after and tell her. He said she\'d probably shit bricks and tell him not to bother. I said fuck her. He could stay with me. But fuck! He\'s... \"

Chance moved his chair against a wall and watched as Sean tried to reason out a subject that was irreversibly unreasonable. Death, oncoming death, didn\'t make sense to anyone. It wasn\'t about to explain itself to a nineteen year old boy who\'d just found out his best friend was dying.

\"Just don\'t punch a hole in my wall,\" Chance whispered and Sean shot him a glance then laughed, a broken sob shifted into the laugh.

\"A hole... I could... knock the whole... fucking... building...downohGOD!\" and Sean took a quick step across the room, crumpled to the ground in front of Chance and grabbed the other boy\'s legs, setting his face into Chance\'s knees. It was an awkward position and couldn\'t have felt too good. But Chance suddenly realized just what it was that Sean was looking for.

Praying that he wasn\'t going to get decked for this, Chance fitted his hands under Sean\'s arms. \"C\'mon... stand up.\"

The other boy didn\'t make a protest and instead, slowly stood, being easily moved to the bed where he fell to his side and curled into an overly large ball. Chance\'s first impressions of a toddler weren\'t far off. Sean proved it too when Chance climbed onto the bed and sat down next to the ball of teenaged boy. At the feel of someone against his back, Sean turned over and tucked his face into Chance\'s waist, his arm and leg curling over Chance until he was as close as he could manage with his six foot four frame, and there, sobbed his heart out.

How long they remained there, Chance couldn\'t say because he couldn\'t say when they\'d first gotten there. But the knock was Leon\'s for dinner and Chance pulled himself out of Sean\'s sleeping arms and went to open the door.

\"Hey... we\'re heading out. You seen Sean?\" Leon\'s voice dropped, seeing the large boy on the bed behind and his eyes all but popped out of his head. \"Oh... umm...\"

Chance stepped out, shoving Leon before him. \"He\'s having a bad day. Let\'s go.\"

Leon blinked hard, looking confused before he nodded. It was hard to tell if he was blushing because his skin was darker than most, but he definitely looked abstracted as they took the stairs to the lower level.

Before they could leave the building, Leon reached out and stopped Chance. \"Hey... umm... are you guys... I mean, I\'m okay with it. But I sure would like to know and... I\'m gonna be a psych. You know nothing can bug me.\"

Chance laughed. \"No. Sean\'s just having a rough day. He got a bad phone call.\"

Leon grimaced but didn\'t ask for more information. \"I\'m the psych. Wonder why he went to you?\"

Chance couldn\'t see what that had to do with anything so he gave a noncommital shrug.

\"Probably because you remind him of his bud back home,\" Leon answered himself. \"Sean\'s always felt more at ease with you. That\'s one of the reasons we\'ve been keeping you around. Well, and because you\'re really cool. It\'s just, at first none of us got why he wanted you around so much.\"

Chance smiled. It made sense. His being there had been originally for Sean\'s benefit. Effervescent, charismatic Sean had forced the rest of them to just accept his being there and they, all easy going as it was, had been more than willing to allow another into their group for the sake of one.

\"Not that we don\'t want you around for your own sake now, you understand,\" Leon assured him. \"Don\'t think we don\'t. It\'s just at the beginning we thought it was weird.\"

\"You thought I was weird?\" Chance teased with a laugh.

\"Dude, you still are weird!\" Leon grinned and gave him a shove into the wall, heading out to the front of the dorm where the other three were waiting. \"Sean\'s feeling sick, guys,\" Chance heard him call and smiled. Leon was all right. And, he mused as he went to join them, so were the rest of them. Somehow, through the horrible circumstances that had led to Sean\'s almost passing out in his room, the world had opened itself to Chance. And it was a bit more friendly of a picture than he\'d ever have supposed it could have been.

((There you are! Votes... would you rather I stuck with Chance or is anyone interested in Jack\'s adventures while they\'re apart? Let me know!

I\'ve got to run and haven\'t had a chance to go over this one either, nor will I probably. So I hope the spelling errors don\'t completely deter anyone from enjoying the story.))