Calming A Racing Heart

Chapter Nine

           "THAT MAN IS NOT YOUR FATHER!" He repeated. He didn't mean to yell like that. He could see Joshua was in a very fragile state.  He was so angry, so outrage at what that man had done to Joshua, to both of them, that it just poured out.

           "I don't know what happened to your real parents or how that man got his hands on you. What he did by not returning you to our people was criminal, worse than criminal. The pain he caused you, caused us." Larcin's words were full of venom.  "Ten years I've searched for you. Ten years of emptiness, painful disappointment, unfulfilled longing. You know what it was like. You want through it too. The only thing that made it a little better for me was I understood why I was like this. I can't imagine how it was for you all those years. Worse off than the Lost because you didn't know why you were suffering. He did that to us. On Joong the worse possible crime you can commit is keeping a half from uniting with their other."

          Joshua suddenly got up and began nervously pacing around the small room. His hands were fisted at his sides. He was muttering to himself but loud enough for Larcin to hear.

          "Stop it! Just STOP! I can't take this right now. The man I called father all my life is nothing to me? A criminal? Was it all a lie? Twenty-six years of my life, nothing but lies?"

          Joshua' voice began to rise.  His pacing quickened, prowling back and forth like a caged animal. The anguish on his face was painful for Larcin to see. The man he thought was so accepting of everything was suddenly falling apart before his eyes.

          "You are telling me that everything I have ever believed about myself Is wrong! I'm supposed to be some whole other person. A part of some alien race that no one knows anything about." A storm of conflicting emotions tore at the veneer Joshua tried so hard to hold on to. He never cried in public and he hated feeling the tears that were welling up in his eyes. He felt more lost and alone than he ever had before.

          "The emptiness inside me has filled but at what price, turning the rest of my life into an empty abyss?" he continued. " Without my father, I mean without Jonathan, who am I? He's the only family I've ever had. How do I possibly go back knowing what I know now? My whole life has been taken from me. And what do I get in return? I get to spend the rest of my life tied to a man who can't stand to be near me. Can't bear for me to even touch him." At that moment he could have hated Larcin if his desire for him hadn't been so strong.

          Joshua collapsed on the pillow covered floor. He pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face in them. Anguish tore at the back of his throat, trying to claw its way out in a scream Joshua didn't dare let escape. His body shook as he fought to hold back his bitter tears.

           Instantly Larcin was beside him. It wasn't a conscious move on his part. Every instinct in his body cried out to comfort Joshua.   Seeing Joshua in pain like that destroyed the walls Larcin had worked  so hard to build up inside himself.  He wrapped his arms around Joshua's broad shoulders and pulled his him close, Joshua's head resting against his chest. Rocking him like a small child, Larcin stroked Joshua's fine blond hair. Joshua's body was rigid in his embrace, fighting against the comfort Larcin offered him.  After a brief struggle, Joshua succumb to the emotions tearing him apart. With a tormented cry he let his tears fall. Larcin felt Joshua's tears soaking through his shirt to wet his chest. His tears burned like fire.

          "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Larcin murmured to the man in his arms. "I can't begin to image how painful this must be for you. And I'm so, so sorry if I am making this harder for you. I don't mean to. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. Please understand. So much of this is new to me too."