Moving back to Dayvidsvill was a mistake, a huge one.
"My boy! I'm so happy to see you! How are you! You've grown so much wow look at all this muscle what even are you? Are you really my son?"
"Yes mom." Darius laughs leaning down because his 6 foot 2 height makes him a whole foot taller than his mom.
"Is that my boy?" His father asks turning the corner freezing when seeing his son." Woah son what happened in the 3 years you were gone! Did you get into the NFL? You really beefed up son." The father hugged his son squeezing him lightly before letting go an arms length to study him." And those tattoos oh my god son what has living in a city done to you?
"It's made him a real man!" Nick, Darius's younger but only by a year brother, says clapping his hand on his wide shoulder pushing past him one strong arm carrying Darius's bags. " You should have seen me in the airport looking like a doofus trying to find the scrawny pimpled face brother I remember."
Darius rolled his eyes at that." Come on guys I haven't changed THAT much."
They all give each other a look before looking back at him with raised eyebrows." Okay okay." He says with a playful smile a dimple popping out of his left cheek.
"Is the guest of honor here yet! You guys stop hogging him we want to see him too!" Aunt Alessia says hugging the boy with a wine glass in her hand. She grabs his wrist and pulls him into the living room. He gasps surprised at the turn out. His cousins aunts uncles take up half the room and the rest is filled with childhood friends,neighbors, co-workers all staring with open mouths. Darius realizing just how much older he must look to them awkwardly itched the back of his neck but that only resulted in the loose sleeve of his hoodie to fall down a bit exposing some of his sleeve of tattoo's causing a chorus of whispers "-uh." He pulls down the fabric so it's covering up his artwork before waving at everyone." Hi."
And then everyone started talking at once excitedly hugging him talking to him about how different he looks or how low his voice has gotten, yes it's obvious his puberty hit late, like extremely late but he's back and here now, still basically the same long limbed clumsy child that everyone was friends with because he tried so hard perhaps to hard to be everyone's friend and then mysteriously moved as far as he could get as soon as he turned 18 not even finishing high school at that school.
And no, he will never tell anyone why he truly left Dayvidsvill. Nor, why he moved back.
The familiarity in his sharp mature features should have scared people off, should have them running away from him. The bloody knuckles, the cut lip, the stormy blue eyes harsh cheek bones and equally harsh bushy eyebrows should have scared Darius off, but they only allured him. That's exactly what he does, he allures people like a mermaid does to a pirate. They sing to them their sweet cavity causing words suck people in before they drag them down suffocating them with water and their mad laughter. And yet, people still love to surround themselves with these modern mermaids. People have this misplaced hope that he's fixable, that he's someone that needs love and that's all he needs to be fixed. And that he won't drown you, that at the last second he'll save you, love you.
But love is his water. Just like the sailor fears death by water he fears death by love because once someone has his heart, then they'll crush it just like she did. And so he only goes after men, the thought of loving another girl physically makes him sick brings him back to the horrifying memory of what she did.
This man shouldn't be alluring, shouldn't be so fucking attractive to Darius but he is. It's the first time Darius has ever felt something other than friendship toward a man but this thought doesn't scare him, no not at all if anything it does the obvious. It allures him.
Darius young and far from home falls in an instant. It only takes two days before the alluring man gets what he wants. And the next day he leaves.
Darius leaves that is because it's then that he realizes what's so familiar about this mans features. He knows who this alluring boy is, known him since he was 5 before the summer of their 8th grade year when his family moved out into the city.
He knows this boy, the boy he just let fuck him. Knows why the kid is scrambling to find comfort, company with out the possibility of drowning. But it's impossible and the kid's already drowning.
And so Darius leaves because he doesn't want to drown either, doesn't want to find out either what it's like to fear death by water, death by love.
"Darius dammmm you can eat!" Joy, his 17 year old younger sister yells her mouth full of waffles. Literally plural she put two in her giant ass mouth while their twin brothers Freddie and Eddie were eating like they just survived a zombie apocalypse and hadn't eaten anything throughout it. But that was normal them being 15 year old hockey beasts.
Darius laughs, it's gravely, low, and controlled way different then his Goofy like laugh he used to have.
"You're so cute." His mom coo's watching her son eat through half the food in the house.
"Mom." He starts before swallowing down the rest of his food patting down his face with a napkin." I am not cute I am 22 years old." He says with a laugh." Anyway, Nick and I are going to go downtown do you need anything from there?"
His mom blinks back her shock at Darius's extremely foreign manners." I-uh yes I have a list I'll umm g-go get it."
"So how was your sleep? Did you sleep better now that you're home? In your own bed?" Nick asks walking passed mom into the kitchen his blond hair sticking up everywhere his bare chest doing nothing to hide the fating hickeys around the base of his neck.
Darius coughs before saying with a smirk."Seems that you were able to sleep well." His artful dodging of the question isn't at all noticed because Nicks pink face is now the center of attention. But Darius can't find it in himself to relax back into his seat like how he was before Nick walked in.
There is such a thing as being addicted to sex. And there are meetings much like alcohol anonymous, that he went to. But it did nothing, completely nothing with helping him. He would get frustrated with the people around him, their reasons for acting the way they do aren't even reasons but excuses. They know what they're doing know what they're destroying who they're hurting. And every time he points this out they try to tell him that they're all on the same boat and that's a load of shit so it only lasts for 8 weeks before he's back at it again.
The city is full of cracks, of hiding places where people come together to party whether it be outside under a bridge, in an abandoned building, or a small apartment building, somehow he was their drinking smoking slurring staggering falling giggling fucking vomiting.
He doesn't care if he's bottom or top, he just likes feeling the harshness of muscles against his own. He likes if rough, harsh, with marks, with pain. And he can only achieve that with men he realizes and so he easily comes to terms that he's gay.
The reality of that doesn't hit him until two years later when he frantically packs his shit up to visit home for Christmas.
