Here Be Dragons (Completed)

Intrusion

"Oi, I can fucking close!" Gabriel cried in a outrage and I bit my lip to keep from laughing. "I can close like nobody's fucking business." Silas's deep laughter rumbled through the room as Sean continued to poke and prod at Gabriel's temper until Gabriel finally snapped. "Fuck you, Sean! I can get laid anytime I want, I just don't sleep around with every thing that walks like you and the Greek god over there."

"Hey, I didn't say anything." Silas commented sounding almost hurt.

"You were laughing!" Gabriel snarled and Sean burst into cheerful laughter. "Fuck you both, get out!"

I decided maybe this was a good time to make my appearance in hopes of stopping a a possible fight between them. I opened the bathroom door and entered the room, causing the three guys to freeze in their movements as their eyes locked on me. I let them look their fill for a moment before I walked up to Gabriel, who was currently standing in front of the closet with his hands on his hips. He'd been glaring at Sean but his bright eyes were now to glued to me as I walked up to him in nothing but his orange towel.

"Don't worry, Gabriel." I said, placing a chaste kiss to his cheek. "I'm sure you close just fine." 

His face transformed from angry to elated as a smug grin spread over his face and he shot Sean a cocky look as I brushed past him to enter the closet in search of clothes. It wasn't that I didn't trust my naked self in the room with three ridiculous attractive, crazy men, but...okay, I could admit it, I didn't trust myself.

"If you think you're dressing that fine ass yourself, Trouble, you've got another thing coming." Gabriel followed me in soon after, immediately taking control as he tossed different scraps of material at me. "Where's that damn sweater?"

He stormed from the closet and I used his absence to drop the towel and step into the matching set of black and pink underwear and bra. My hair was still wet and I hated the feel of it on my neck so I searched over the shelves for a hair tie, though I was unsuccessful. I spotted an ornate jewelry box made of a light wood that had been carved with vines and flowers. I noticed a few heart shapes hidden within the design and I wondered if it had been done on purpose or by happenstance. 

I didn't know why I felt so drawn to the box but, after glancing to make sure Gabriel was still stalking around the room in search of a mystery sweater, I lifted the lid carefully to peek inside. The moment the light from the closet illuminated the contents, I recoiled, dropping the lid shut with an audible clack. There was still no Gabriel coming inside to investigate and I slowly, carefully lifted the lid again, preparing myself for what was inside. 

Nestled in the box, lying in perfectly straight lines and stacked up one on top of the other were countless small braids. They were in differing shades, from whitish blond to ginger to deep ebony, all tied off at one end by a small white hair tie. The other ends were frayed from where the hair had been snipped from someone's head and my fingers trembled as I reach a hand inside and slid my pointer finger along the ridges of one of the braids. The hair had been treated to keep it soft and shiny, and I pulled my hand back as a fearful excitement rolled over me. I'd found Gabriel's trophies, and it both elated and terrified me. 

A hand flew into my line of vision making me flinch and stumble back as it slammed the lid of the box closed with a bang. Gabriel watched me with a stormy expression and I schooled my features to appear unaffected, both by my discovery and his dark annoyance. He studied me a moment before throwing a light pink sweater at me almost violently. He grabbed the box of women's hair and trudged out of the closet without a backwards look, and I heard the door to his bedroom open and slam shut, rattling the pictures on the walls. So, Gabriel had his demons, too, it would seem. Not unsurprising, but still unnerving. 

I dressed in the pink sweater and dark yoga pants that Gabriel had given me before brushing my hair and leaving it hanging wet over my shoulder, soaking into the heavy fabric of my top. Much to my surprise, Gabriel's room was empty when I exited the closet and I stood frozen for a few moments in confusion. Was I supposed to wait for him to come back? He seemed quite distraught over my finding his special box and I supposed I could understand. I didn't particularly want anyone to find my own box of hidden treasures that I kept hidden in the recesses of my closet that I despised. 

Feeling like I should take advantage of my solitude, I searched through Gabriel's room. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, it was just good old fashioned curiosity that drove me, but what I did find was interesting to say the least. Gabriel wore boxers, all in varying shades of orange with a few more muted colors thrown in. He had a whole dresser drawer full of art supplies for drawing and painting, and I wondered if the artwork on the walls had been done by his own hand. If so, he was quite talented. 

Though he had numerous ear piercings, he didn't have many earrings, which I found strange. If he'd done them for simply aesthetic reasons, then he would have more earrings to trade out for differing the looks, leading me to believe that the piercings weren't just for show but that they perhaps meant something deeper. It was yet another question to add to my already heaping pile, but I brushed it off as I continued my snooping. 

I found boxes under his bed filled with old photographs and I was shocked to see some of them were old enough to show him as a child. Of course, the fact that he had at one time been a child wasn't what surprised me, it was who sometimes accompanied him in the pictures. A young Luke stared happily out at me from some of the photos and I dug through the piles to see if I could find more, which I did. Gabriel and Luke smiled cheekily at the camera, their faces young and rounder from baby fat, their bodies pudgy and small from youth. They were around the same age as me if I had to guess so it's not like they were old, but it was still shocking for me to see that they'd been friends far longer than I'd assumed. 

Searching through the rest of the boxes and I found yet another photo that made my heart rate skyrocket, both from an odd sort of jealousy and unknown fear. It was a picture of five boys, aged around twelve or maybe fourteen. Their bodies were less childlike but still not quite men, in that awkward in between stage of growing up and I swallowed thickly as I recognized all five of them. 

Luke was making a silly face at the camera, his tongue sticking out comically as Gabriel stood next to him laughing, though it looked forced. Nathan, his shoulders already broadening with puberty, smiled along but the happiness didn't reach his baby blue eyes. Victor stood beside Nathan stoically, his face not a frown but neither a smile; there was almost something mocking in the expression, and his eyes were lit from a fire deep within. Kota stood at the end watching the camera distrustfully, his hands in the pockets of his khaki slacks as his glasses slipped down his nose. They were friends; they'd been friends since they were kids. For some reason, this knowledge made my gut twist sadly.

But the thing that most made my chest constrict and my dried out heart writhe were the injuries and bruises I saw littering their bodies. Nathan's were the most obvious, his right eye surrounded by blue and purple skin, and even though he smiled at the camera, I could tell from the hunch to his shoulders that he most likely had matching colors under his shirt. Victor had discoloration on his jaw, though it looked light, possibly days old or maybe there'd been make up involved to cover it up. Kota's bicep held an imprint of a hand, like he'd been grabbed too hard by unkind hands and his glasses had been taped together in the middle as if he'd been hit in the face hard enough to snap them. Gabriel couldn't hide the bruising around his nose like it had been broken and Luke, though his expression was the silliest, had a wrist brace and an ugly looking scratch on his cheek.

Of course, all these things could've had normal explanations but, in the same way that their eyes shared the same glint of insanity now, their younger eyes all held the same bitter emptiness that accompanied pain. It was a look I knew well; it was a look I'd had in my own eyes as a child-it wouldn't turn into insanity until much later of course, until I'd emerged after two days from the closet that held the headless body of my boyfriend, but it had come all the same. 

These boys, they were me-different places, perhaps, and different times; different abusers and different ways of coping, but in the end, the same. We'd been hurt, we'd been broken, and piece by bloody piece our sanity had been forcibly stripped from us. I thought I had no idea who these guys were, but staring at the photo before me, I realized that was a lie. I knew exactly who they were. I was them and they were me, we were one and the same. 

I guess it really was a small world, after all.