Strumming My Pain

I'm not calling either of them "Dad."

Love of mine some day you will die
But I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark

No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark
If heaven and hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles brusied by a lady in black
And I held my toungue as she told me
"Son fear is the heart of love"
So I never went back

If heaven and hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

You and me have seen everything to see
From Bangkok to Calgary
And the soles of your shoes are all worn down
The time for sleep is now
It's nothing to cry about
Cause we'll hold each other soon
The blackest of rooms

If heaven and hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
Then I'll follow you into the dark

ooc: Seriously? I meant to write them a fic to this AGES ago, then Kelci gave it to me for the lyric2lit challenge. So. Um. Not sure what fic will get written, but Devin said "Remember? That's the song that made me cry..." And then Methos says, "Um, no, it's our song. Me and Wes." And there is war in my head. 'Cause now Caleb wants it, too. But anyway. Devin gets dibs on posting. :)

Devin took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "Seeks success, stimulation, and a life full of exp..." Click here to read the rest of the results.

The last time I took it was FAR more depressing.

See, Warren? You have changed things....

He'd tried so hard to be good, for so many months now. It hadn't been easy, wasn't easy still. Too long with things in his system, and even Warren's warmth couldn't take away the chills sometimes. He'd hid the worst of it, and there had been distractions. Helping Warren. Loving Warren. Living with Warren. Touring with Warren. Enough good things that he hadn't felt the aching emotional need. High on love was enough, most days.

Most days.

Other days there was agitation he tried to disguise as hyperactivity. He couldn't sleep some nights, and others he tried to hide how sick he felt. He had the crowds now, and they fed his basic needs, which helped. Warren there battled the depression, but he had to cling to him, sometimes inexplicably it would seem, hold on to the one thing that kept the box tucked away. The anger that Warren had lashed out at him last time was enough to keep him straight, most days.

But there were days when he wanted. Days he missed the high. Missed how easy that sweet smoke could make everything. The agitated light that rested usually in Byron's eyes did not help. Knowing it was right there did not help. Temptation beckoned more than he'd let anyone know, but day by day it got a little easier, and he hoped that one day he'd be strong enough to throw the box away for good.

He'd had enough. Enough of Warren feeling guilty. Enough of Aislinn's tears and clinging. Enough of Warren's fear. Enough of Aislinn's fear.

There really wasn't anything more unpleasant than being caught between one's lover and one's mother, especially when both of them needed taking care of and you weren't really the taking care of people type. Byron...could deal on his own for now. He had other people to watch over him, Doc, the blonde girl, him--the Sorcerer, but who watched over Aislinn or Warren but Devin?

Watching over Aislinn was habit by now. Danu knew someone had to. It had been easier when he could trust Byron to do it, but that hadn't been the case for a while now, so. He convinced her to come to the hotel they were staying in while Warren had run out to pick them up some more snacks. She was quieter, more subdued than she had been, and it occurred to him he hadn't seen her for a couple of days. He could occasionally go months without seeing her (and more than once, years), but lately she'd been clinging to him and unwilling to go very far.

"Where've you been?"

She shrugged, curling up on the end of the sofa.

"Are you all right?"

A nod.

"Eating?"

Another shrug. "I went to a poetry reading last night."

"Haven't you got anyone regular?"

"He died."

Oh. Well, that explained some of it. She tended to be mopey for a while when one of her artists shuffled off the mortal coil.

"You could go to..."

"No." She looked up sharply. "He doesn't want me and I won't go where I'm not wanted."

It was such a familiar sentiment that there wasn't anything he could do but settle next to her and wrap his arms around her loosely, snuggling up. She leaned her head on his shoulder, hand over his heart.

"Want me to sing?" he offered softly. If she wasn't eating...well. He'd had some very successful gigs the last month. He was fine.

She bit her lip, then nodded a little. He had a gig later that night. He could recharge then. He smiled a little and kissed her forehead, then sang to her softly until Warren came back, letting her take what she needed.

It was Saturday. He'd spent all day Friday packing, just to be ready. Of course, he'd been ready Wednesday night, but for Warren and Alma's sake, he'd curbed his impatience. But the principal's accusations still rang in his ears. The idea that he'd done something to Warren hurt, not entirely because he'd been unable to, even to prove a point. But he wouldn't ever have put them into this situation, even if he could and the fact that she thought he was strong enough to still hadn't registered under the hurt that she thought he could. That he would. It was likely that even if the thought did register, he'd dismiss it as putting on a good show. All show, no substance.

But they were going on tour and so, really, that didn't matter. He could play the game well enough, and had enough natural musical talent, that tour would give him what he needed. What he loved and craved and maybe the hurts would be soothed and insecurities at what he couldn't do be eased. He hoped so, at least. It...felt broken somehow that he didn't know how to fix. Didn't know how to fix himself and...

He pushed the thought away as he started carrying things downstairs to the van. If he got his in and done, they'd have less to do together with Warren's.

He bounced at that thought. They were going on tour. Just him and Warren and the people who thought they were wonderful. The show and the music and the lights and the make up. The groupies and the fans and the energy. And then just the road, and them. Hotel rooms and wide open spaces and something new to see every day. Something new to show Warren, to experience with him for the first time.

He was ready.

You Are The Moon

You represent the unconscious side of life, what happens in dreams. You are capable of great genius - but also of great madness. Emotions tend to be primal for you, both your fears and your fantasies. Your intuition is always right, listening to it is the difficult part. Your fortune: You are about to embark on a very important journey - and a very difficult one. Some of your deepest dreams will be realized, as well as some of your deepest nightmares. Follow your creativity and visions; stay away from your weaknesses. You are taking a voyage to the center of yourself, and you may be pleasantly surprised by what you discover.

...Huh.

You are my home
You make me strong
And in this world of strangers
I belong to someone
You are all I know
You're all I have
I need you so
I won't let go
You are my home

He hasn't had a home in more years than he cares to count. Possibly never if you consider that his grandmother's house wasn't ever really a home. But he likes to cling to the illusion that it was.

If you asked him where home is, he would have told you Ireland. He hasn't been there in a few year, but there's something about the land that sings in his blood. Ultimately, always, it will be home, and when he decides that it's time to go, he'll go home to the land of his father, where his mother's people dance under the stars.

But it's not his first answer now. Home's shifted. It's not a where anymore. It's a who. Ask him where home is now, and he'll tell you it's wherever Warren is. Wherever Warren goes. There's a simple peace to it and a burning need underneath it. He wonders sometimes, if Warren understands, really understands what life was like before him.

The world will always be divided now into before-Warren and after-Warren. He doesn't think further than that, that Warren may be a capsule in a life that stretches on after he's gone. He can't think that way, because when he does, he thinks that when that happens is when home will become a where again. When it does is when he'll go home one last time.

OOC/Author's Note: Lyrics are from "You are My Home" in The Scarlet Pimpernel.

It galled him to be treated so, twisting his stomach into knots of bitterness. It was all well and good to joke about them all being five. It was all well and good to ruffle his hair and joke about him being a child compared to the others. But the truth of the matter was that he wasn't a child. Perhaps he wasn't thousands of years old, but he had nearly 150 years under his belt and despite hardships that had sometimes seemed overwhelming, he hadn't been overwhelmed. He was still here, and that said something in and of itself. He'd survived more than the Watcher. Far more than the actress or the mechanic. Perhaps not as much as the prince and princess, but really, what had Fergus gone through trial and tribulation wise besides having to take care of his Prince? The assassin...he could relate to, well, even if she had a century or two on him. They didn't treat her like a child, even when she sobbed about her baby being evil because of her father's blood or whatever.

With him, they fretted about balconies and they fretted about drugs and they acted like there was no way he was going to make it without careful watching. But where were they when he stood sobbing on the edge of a cliff screaming into the wind about what he'd done to Eileen? Where were they when Wilde had given him opium for the first time and he'd thought he saw her ghost mocking him for what he'd become? Where were they when he'd tried to cut the demon out and nearly found out whether he could heal before he bled to death? Well, all right, he'd been there then to sigh and patch him up and utter some seemingly profound nonsense about living and growing stronger and fighting another day. But they had not been. Not been born, not been twinkles in their grandparent's eyes, their great-grandparent's eyes even.

Just because they had categorized him as one of "them" and fine, they were probably right about that, did not mean that they got to treat him like an incompetent baby. Yell at him. Tell him he was being an idiot. Call him out on things. Be afraid for him. Of him. Any of those things, he could accept. But they'd reduced him to less than, or he'd allowed himself to be reduced to it, he wasn't sure which, but they both made him furious.

He didn't know when it had happened beyond the fact that it had always felt a bit like she was indulging him. A curiosity, and then perhaps a new pet. A new shiny. He'd let himself be that, because it was a convenient way to get what he needed, but it had gone beyond that now. He was not a glass doll destined to shatter without their tender mercies. He'd been doing quite fine, in point of fact, before they came along. He'd been happy, and if that happiness was a pale shadow of emotion compared to what he felt around Warren, no matter. He wasn't thinking of regret, or of wanting things back as they were. He wouldn't give up Warren even if it meant being free of their condescension. But, by the goddess, they needed to learn or remember what he was.

Devin sighed, kicking the chair hard enough to send it flying across the room. He was confused. He didn't understand how a real relationship would work. He was terrified Warren would leave, especially as he kept insisting he was straight. He was disappointed his fantasy, the one bloody thing he'd plotted and planned for and turned down a god for got cut short because of someone had to be sensible, and then they tried to orchestrate something else to ease him out of a sulk as if it were the act itself that mattered. All right. Perhaps disappointed was an understatement for pissed off. But it wasn't...gods. Running off and fucking in some other dressing room would not make the disappointment of Warren choosing to cut the first time short go away. He knew that, why didn't they? You lived with it, you accepted that things rarely turn out the way you think they will in fantasies, which is the danger of acting them out, and you can never get the first time back. If you were disappointed for a little while about that fact, sad even, perhaps, it was not the end of the world. You did not just try and re-do it, you didn't force it. You let it ease and you moved on. But sometimes it took time and that you needed that time did not make you a child. It made you, and he shuddered mentally at the thought, at least partly human.

He hated that his issue, and he knew it was his issue and it was his to get over, was transmitting to Warren, because it wasn't Warren's fault that he couldn't come out and say what was bothering him. And it wasn't Warren treating him like a child, not really. It wasn't even Warren's fault that he was disappointed. He hadn't told him how much it meant, to have something be a first time for both of them when so few things were for him after so long. He hadn't told him that he'd wanted it to be something more...mutual. Something more than Devin getting Warren off. It wasn't about the reciprocity, as Warren had reciprocated within, hell, a half hour. It had been about that...there...the two of them flushed and clinging in the space where they shouldn't have been, glowing when they came out, and...he didn't even know exactly. Just that yes. He'd never blown anyone in a dressing room before, and Warren had never been blown in one, so there. Fine. They'd had a first together. It just wasn't what he'd...had in mind, he supposed. But it was HIS to work out because he hadn't bothered to tell Warren what he'd had in mind. If he'd told him, he had no doubt Warren would have found a way to make it so, because Warren was not selfish and Warren wanted to make him as happy as he wanted to make Warren. So it was all his fault that he felt this way and HE had to get over it, not them, not Warren. And he didn't need to be babied about it. He needed to learn the lesson to speak up about what he wanted instead of just focusing on his partner. He needed to learn the lesson to ask if something was important to him instead of just assuming that Warren would pick up on the non-verbals.

And besides, Warren had his own issues to deal with about responsibility and being the good boy versus bad boy and not seeing that the world didn't really work that way outside of his upbringing in a world divided into hero, villain or sidekick. There was no middle ground in hero-land. Warren had been regarded as a freak because Alma fell in love with Baron Battle and had a son with him. How could a hero love a villain? Because outside the realm of the black and white thinking of the denizens of Sky High, the world didn't work that way. Baron Battle likely had good qualities in there. He loved his wife, his son. And Stronghold was a fucking idiot, so, there's your proof "good" isn't all good. But that was something he hoped to show Warren. That there were shades out there. That he could cut loose, be a little wicked without worrying that he was suddenly going to want to take over the world. That an admonishment from a store clerk or a police officer for public indecency was something to giggle over later and not the end of the world. That it didn't mean you were wicked and irredeemable. But how do you convey all that with a pout and a desperate kiss? That he wasn't used to asking for things wasn't Warren's fault. That it went against his very nature to ask for something when his partner seemed reluctant about wasn't Warren's fault. He...that reluctance would shut him up every time because it went against all he was to try and do something when someone was uncomfortable with it. Their discomfort translated to him, and made him uncomfortable and it was all a wash anyway.

But the being treated like a child after... The being forced...he hated that just as much. It was his fault that it wasn't spontaneous, and now he'd upset Warren by being reluctant. And maybe it was childish to not want to just find the nearest dressing room and try again when the disappointment was so sharp, but the memory of the ache of the disappointment could taint this one, too. Already had, and if he did explain it to Warren, Warren would blame himself, and it wasn't his fault, so that meant Devin needed to stay quiet about it. Because really, what could he say? "I don't want to have sex in the next dressing room we see because in my head it was all built up with the leather one and the smell of leather surrounding us and in the room and pressing into our skin and we had to buy a pair because we might have stained them, but they'd always be there as the memory of the pants we'd just pulled down recklessly because we couldn't wait to have each other until we were somewhere private, and I need some time to come down from that disappointment or the next dressing room with bathrobes in a department store with the smell of perfumes and makeup and the discussion of a father and his two year old in the next room is just going to seem off after the fantasy I'd built up for this morning." How could he say that to Warren? Make him think he'd done something wrong and that Devin hadn't enjoyed what they had done? Make him feel like he'd been selfish? No. He wouldn't. But he didn't know how to get around the second disappointment that such an encounter would bring, forever sealing and ruining the damn fantasy in his head. But simple reluctance had caused a near fight and now no one knew what was going on and Warren thought he'd done something wrong and he hadn't.

He'd slipped off tangent of the rant in his head. Children. Treating him like a child. That he felt all of this didn't make him a child to be coddled and fixed. There was nothing broken to be fixed, not here, not in this. And what was broken in him, what they could fix...didn't make him a child. It made him broken because of things done and said when he was a child. Because of things he'd gone through that left him battered and bruised. Because of walls he'd built that Warren was tearing down and leaving shattered around him and he wasn't sure how to be without the walls. That meant he was learning, that he was doing something new, that he wasn't as confident as he was in other areas, but it didn't mean he was a child. It didn't mean he couldn't take care of himself or that he couldn't take care of Warren.

He didn't know what, yet, or how, but something had to change. His eyes were far icier than they normally were when he glided out of the room.