Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

coughing fit. "You are right on that one." He shifted around a bit more, turning every available bit of skin towards the light. "Do you think I could take a nap out here for a while?"
    "Sure. I won't let you burn."
    "I know you won't."
    Daren went quiet again for the rest of the day, but it wasn't the depressed quiet or even a tired quiet. Sebastian hadn't known there could be so many flavors of quiet; it was one more thing he was learning. This was a quiet that had Daren staring into random points of space while releasing the occasional long sigh.
    Sebastian was also learning just how embarrassing it could be giving a bath to another man who was having a perfectly normal morning biological reaction. While Daren was letting him and his washcloth and rubber gloves venture a little further into the no-go zone, there were some things that were just way too private, so he just did his best to ignore it while Daren hunched over himself, not moving.
    Daren was still quiet as they sat in the sun that day. He didn't sleep, but rather spent an hour twisting around a dried leaf that had been sitting in his chair. He studied it from all angles as if it held the answers to some deep secrets of the soul then let it blow away in a gust of wind.
    Later, when he was tucking Daren back into bed, Sebastian had to ask. "Everything okay? Relatively speaking?"
    "Yeah, just been thinking a lot the last few days."
    "Anything interesting?"
    Daren looked up at him. "I'm not really sure who I am."
    "Literally or metaphorically?"
    "More existentially I think." Sebastian tried not to look amused but obviously failed. "What? I read La Nausée ." Daren defended.
    "Fair enough."
    "I've just been thinking; this is the longest I've been sober since I was thirteen. I gave up the drugs the same day I walked into the FBI. I didn't want to let something slip while I was baked or high. But being just flat-out sober is kinda new."
    "Most people would consider that a good thing."
    "I guess, but it's like I'm standing outside my life now and… Fucking hell." Daren used his left hand to rub at his temples as if they ached. "I mean, take my girlfriend."
    "Okay." The thought of Daren having a girlfriend sat uncomfortably with Sebastian even though there was no reason why it should.
    "Her name is Kendra. I don't love her. I don't even really like her. She decided she was my girlfriend after we'd fucked a few times. My dad had been nagging me to find a decent girl. I mean she's not decent, but she's no worse than the rest. In fact, she's just like the rest. Totally interchangeable with fifty other Kendras I know, or Heathers or Tiffanies. Same stupid clothes, giant sunglasses, bleached hair, awful little dogs. Boring to talk to, boring to party with, boring as fuck to fuck. I mean, I have to be seriously baked to make any of them halfway interesting. It's like there are giant Gucci cloning vats somewhere spitting out these girls, but it doesn't really matter because I might as well be one of them. I am one of them! I mean do you know how many shoes I own?"
    Sebastian was a little taken back by Daren's rant. "No."
    "Neither do I! But you can't show up at a party looking like last week when you're the one deciding what last week was. The thing is, even when I was at my worst, which wasn't that long ago, it was always like there was this little extra person in the back of my head just screaming all the time. And now sitting here I can see what all that screaming was about. What a total joke of a life Gerald Delaware lives."
    Daren's voice cracked and tears pricked at his eyes.
    "I mean on the very slim chance I get out of all this… I feel like I'm going schizophrenic or multiple personalities or something, and I just want to go back in time and do it all over, or at least fucking yell at myself."
    Daren's chest was starting to heave as his hands balled up the sheets.
    "I know the day. I was thirteen, and I know the exact fucking day I just chucked it all and… Gerald Delaware is the most useless waste of space in the history of… and I don't want…"
    Sebastian placed his hand on Daren's shoulder. Daren scrubbed at his face, trying to wipe away the tears.
    "Sorry. I keep forgetting I had my brains half kicked out. I guess it's not really important."
    Sebastian handed him a tissue from the bedside table to wipe his eyes. He was quiet for a moment. "When I was in the Navy there was this kid who'd had an accident, compound fracture of his femur. Most painful