“Oh, God.” Val whispered out. “I don’t want to do this, Trist.”

“It’s only weakness that makes a man run away from a problem. Buck up boy, life isn’t going to get any easier.”

Val could literally feel the blood drain from his face, he knew he must be as white as a sheet. “What did you say?”

“Huh?” Trist blinked surprised. “Sorry, zoned out for a moment, don’t freak out on me Val, it happens. You okay?”

He only shook his head but under the table his hands were clenched into tight fists.

“Do you want me to pass on what he’s saying word for word?”

The thought of that made Val sick. “Paraphrase, please.”

“He says he was an ass.” Trist paused and sighed. “Well, you were! Just shut up or I’ll shut up, you’re lucky I’m doing this at all.”

Val found himself glancing around the room, suddenly uncomfortable.

“Fine, look, he says he’s sorry he didn’t know the first thing about kids and didn’t like them. It wasn’t personal. He just saw that the whole fucking world was a little nutso and didn’t want you going down the wrong path. He knew about the girl you lost your virginity to and was more pissed that you’d been drunk at the time.”

“Oh, God.”

“He wanted to talk to you about it, tell you that sex isn’t something to rule you but that he understood you were a seventeen year old boy and were going to fuck around. Only, he dropped over cold dead before he found the balls to talk to you about it. He hates that his bullshit standards have fucked you up so much, says you need to just be happy. That so long as you’re not hurting anyone, it’s okay.” Trist sighed and shook his head. “That’s his big thing, he knows, he knows about Matt, about us, about that cold bitch that left you. The only thing he’s upset over is that you’ve been torturing yourself because of him. Oh fuck this I doubt you’ll believe this but he says he’s proud of you and that he did love you and he’s sorry.”

Val sat, stunned and silent. There was little doubt that if he opened his mouth he’d snap and loose all control.

“Generally, you’re supposed to take what they say and use it to forgive them and move on, but he’s an utter ass so stay pissed at him all you want.” Trist frowned at the unhappy, haunted look Val was wearing.

“Why him? Why not my parents?” Val would have given his left arm to have five minutes with his parents again. He was starting to understand why people paid such insane amounts to meet with Trist.

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “They felt content when they passed, overlooking the whole, horrific, terrible fucking cave in thing. Generally, people that are happy with their lives, move on pretty smoothly. It’s the miserable shits that stick around, or the busy bodies.”

“Are we done?” Val managed to ask, wanting to escape and work on denial of what Trist knew.

“Not likely, sorry. I warned you. Speaking of busy bodies, I keep hearing Matt.”

“Please, don’t do this.”

“I’m sorry.” Trist was frowning now. “Look, he didn’t mean to overdose, he knows how it was reported but he hadn’t been trying to kill himself. He had a problem, says the only reason he stayed pulled together senior year was because of you. Says that’s why he let you walk away after graduation, because he liked the parties too much and you didn’t and he didn’t want to drag his pony down with him. Fuck, I’m sorry Val, he says to tell you that he did love you, that you were the one.” Trist frowned. “This is stupid but he’s saying there can be only one, and Pony was the one.”

Val gripped the edge of the table and refused to let any of the swirling emotions escape. “Please, no more.”

“He says to tell you that he didn’t mean to fuck you up even more. He didn’t know the bullshit your uncle had fed you, didn’t know his whole ‘we’re not gay this is just what men do together’ line fed into all the shit that was already in your head.”

“Tell him, I’ll be keeping a watch over him until he’s happy.”

Trist shook his head. “No, this is plenty.”

“Tell him!”

“Sorry.” He said to Matt but aimed it at Val so the frightfully pale man across from him wouldn’t suspect he was holding something back.

“Damn you! Tell him!”

Not now! Look at him! Trist thought back as loudly as he could and felt Matt fade away a little, which left only the last voice to be spoken. The least demanding or vocal but the most heart wrenching.

“Val?”

“No more.”

“I’m sorry, there’s only a little more.”

Val sighed and hung his head, not wanting to make things more difficult for Trist but not wanting to hear any more.

“Val, your niece and nephew,”

“No, I don’t want to hear this.” He interrupted.

“Val, please, they were dead before your sister made it home. They were murdered, there were men in the house. I, oh, wow…” Trist’s eyes glazed over but the scanned the room as he watched something only he could see. His breathing grew shorter, almost hyperventilating and his skin grew clammy and flushed. “Uncle Val? Please, you need to listen, please.” Trist spoke softly with a slight lisp.

The voice was different but Val heard another’s over it. He stood up and pushed away from the table. “Stop this!” He shouted and the angry voice broke whatever focus Trist had been in. “Stop it! I don’t want this! It’s cruel!” He kept shouting, he just couldn’t stop and he felt the scalding fire of tears and grief lurking behind the anger.

“Val?” Trist asked, confused at the outburst but not overly surprised. “I’m sorry.”

Val held out his hands, palms toward Trist, begging in silent pleas for an end. He shook his head and hurried from the room. 

He didn’t really know where he was going, he just knew he had to move. It was too much, everything was suddenly too much and it all felt like it was falling apart. He froze in the living room, his mind shocked into stillness.

“Val!” Trist pushed from his office, panicked at the terrified look Val wore and more panicked at the sudden, stillness.

Val blinked. “I should go over and check on Gavan in person, make sure everything’s okay.” He had something to do now, he’d be okay so long as he kept busy.

“What? No!” Trist pushed forward and darted across the room. He snatched Val’s keys from the counter before the taller man could reach them.

“Give me my keys.” Val demanded, low and threatening.

It was like thunder, loud and echoing, to Trist’s mind. Everything in Val was right there, building, being pushed down, building some more. He swallowed hard, knowing he was going to get the tar beat out of him, and hide the keys behind his back.

“Give me my keys, Trist.”

“No.” There was no defiance in his voice, just acceptance.

Val’s hands bulled up into fists. “Give me my God damned keys!”

It would have been easier to stand up to Val’s anger if he’d been caught in it too. Only, this time, Val had his rage so tightly wrapped around himself that it only lapped out in teasing touches to Trist’s senses. He shook his head in denial and held tighter to the sharp keys.

“Give me my keys.” Val hissed, darkly, taking a step forward, moving in slow, steps that dripped in rage and hate toward Trist.

“No.” Trist whispered back and retreated as Val advanced. He wasn’t really afraid. There was little doubt Val was going to, at the least, smack him around and Trist had accepted that. It wasn’t fear he felt, just small, tight acceptance.

Trist’s back hit the wall, there was no where left to go. He glanced down at could almost see the anger swirling around Val’s body, lapping at his legs, cresting up to his shoulders like a surf breaking over rocks. It took courage to raise his eyes to meet Val’s but he wasn’t going to back down.

“My keys.”

Trist shook his head.

It wasn’t a shout, or a growl, but a sound that rose from deeper inside of Val. It wasn’t loud, but it blocked out all sound, there was some element in it, the broken twisted pain buried as anger, that made Trist tremble at it’s fierceness. Val’s arm pulled back, drew back so his elbow was bent, and he lashed out. The loud smacking sound made Trist jump, startled like a cornered rabbit but no pain followed the sound. His eyes went wide, and drifted to the side where Val’s fist had landed into the wall by his head.

“Oh, Val.” Relief washed over him, making him breath deeper and try to still his thudding heart. The relief disappeared when he looked to Val.

The taller man was breathing as hard as Trist was, his eyes were half squinted shut but that didn’t hide the pain in them. “Let me go.” He forced out between clenched jaws.

Trist shook his head. “No, I’m not going to do that. You can’t keep running, Val, you can’t.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” He hung his head, his fist still tightly pressed to the wall.

“You won’t.” Trist dropped the keys and wrapped his arms around Val’s trembling hand, the fist not pressed to the wall. “Come here.” He tugged and pulled and slowly, Val followed.

It took some wrangling to get Val to cross the living room to the sofa, the man was stiff legged and reluctant to move, but Trist managed it. “Hit the sofa, it won’t break your hand.”

“I don’t want to hit something.”

“Bullshit you don’t. Hit the fucking sofa!” He snapped back, yelling as loudly as Val wanted, needed, to.

Val’s squinted shut and he shouted in tormented rage, he fell forward and brought his hand down into the soft cushions. There was a pause, the only sound being both of their strained breathing, before Val snapped and hit the sofa again. The cries that wrenched from his body were pure anger, pent up pain and they wrenched out of Val’s body with brutal force. Every movement, every expressive sound, was hard won and the more Val surrendered to it, the easier it became.

“It’s not fair!” He railed, on his knees, collapsed before the sofa. His hands were tearing at a pillow, straining to pull it apart and destroy something. “It’s not fair! I can’t take more, I can’t!” The anger was fading, leaving quaking pain and sobbing grief. “I can’t.” Val sighed out, falling forward, struggling not to weep in front of Trist.

Trist hadn’t attended school past the seventh grade but he didn’t need to have Val’s master’s degree to know people. Emotion, life, memory, pain, those were his stock in trade and he knew better than anyone that pain, grief, pushed down and denied turned into depression or anger. There was no way Val could grieve until the anger was drained off, like lancing an infected wound. He merely had to push a little to tip Val over his own edge and then stay out of the way.

But there was a time when he had to step in and as Val collapsed forward, leaning on the seats of the sofa, Trist knew the time had arrived. He moved carefully to kneel beside him and rubbed a light hand across the tense, uneasy shoulders. Val flinched from the touch, pulled away, frightened at being undone further.

“Right now, you can’t, you’ve had too much pain and grief. You’re right, it’s not fair but neither is it fair that you hurt yourself either. Grief is meant to be worked through, not buried and hidden. I bet you never really grieved for your parents.” He kept rubbing light circles across Val’s shoulders and slowly Val eased at the contact.

“Please, Trist, please, I can’t fall apart.” He wanted to push the gentle comfort away.

“Of course you can, I do it all the time. You don’t think less of me for it do you?”

Val shook his head, his breathing starting to slow. “No.”

“Then why think less of yourself? Shhh, baby, shhhh, I’m so sorry you’ve had so much dumped on you.” He toyed a little with the slightly sweat damp hair. “I’m so sorry you’ve never felt safe enough to mourn.”

With his face hidden in his arms and against the sofa, the first of the tears escaped. It was too much. It wasn’t easy on a good day to stay in control, it became impossible with someone telling him it was okay to let go. Just knowing someone else knew the weight he carried and cared about it, broke the last of his restraint.

Trist felt the sob, shuddering and soul deep, in his hand that was tracing across Val’s back. “That’s it, let it go, Val, let it go. I’m so sorry you lost your parents, I know how much you loved them.” That wrenched more hitching, stuttering grief heavy breaths out. “I’m sorry your uncle didn’t know how to love you. I’m sorry that Matt, who did love you, didn’t know how to love you back. I’m so deeply sorry that something bad happened to your sister and her family.”

His hands twisted back up into fists but it wasn’t from anger, it was from his struggle to keep from coming apart at the seams. “I miss them so much!”

“I know, sweetheart, I know.” Trist petted the hair. “No wonder you don’t let people close to you, but Val, that’s not an answer. Let me love you, please?” The words spilled out and hung in the air between them. He knew he could joke them off, pretend he meant it in a lewd way, but Trist knew the truth. There was no doubt, no denying, he was in love with Val. It was okay, he knew it was okay, because he didn’t require Val to love him back. That was a powerful feeling, knowing he loved even if it wasn’t returned. He stroked the tense body that huddled in it’s solitary grief. “Please?” Trist whispered again.

How many people had offered Val their sympathies in his lifetime? Too many for him to remember, really, far too many and it never did anything. He hated sympathy almost as much as he hated weeping but somehow, this time, from Trist, it felt different.

It wasn’t superficial, Trist really was sorry. He really did understand. Someone knew the burden of pain, loneliness and grief he’d been carrying around, saw past his carefully built masks and the half truths and lies he passed to the world around him. Trist saw him, and made no excuses for what he saw, he just accepted and loved.

Love was a horrible word. Val wasn’t ready for that word. Kelly had said she loved him and then tossed in his face that he wasn’t capable of loving her in return. She’d been right, he didn’t know how to let go and love. It wasn’t fair to inflict that coldness, that lack of the simple skill of loving, on anyone. Loneliness pierced him, pulling new wrenching sobs from his chest and making his lungs ache with the need to hold in howling screams of pain and rage.

Only, Trist wasn’t asking Val to love him. The meaning of the simple request was slow to sink in. Trist had asked permission to love Val, without asking Val to love him back. Even if his meaning was only as a friend, it was something Val needed desperately. He was drowning in grief, in isolation and suddenly Trist had thrown hope at him. He clung to it as surely as anyone drowning.

There was no answer to Trist’s question, not in words. He sat, steady, trying to sense just what might be swirling about in the huddled man but found himself unable to reach past the pain and grief. There was a long moment of emptiness, of muffled sobs, quelled grief and Trist started to wonder if Val was even alert enough to have heard him speaking or aware enough to make sense of the words.

He did receive an answer. The muscles in Val’s shoulders bunched up again, tensed as if waiting for a blow that never landed and it was the only warning before Val pulled from the sofa. He kept his head bowed so Trist wasn’t able to see into the tormented face but when he opened his arms, Val tumbled against him.

They sat there, leaning against the sofa. Val buried his face against Trist’s loose hair, tucked against the slender shoulders. Trist’s arms enveloped him, concealed him from the world outside and he mocking lies that men shouldn’t cry. Val dug his hands into the front of Trist’s shirt and clung on for his life. There was no turning back no, the floodgates had been opened. Grief, old and new, raw and scabbed over, consumed him and he felt against Trist’s unhurried strength and sobbed.

Maybe, Trist thought, he was a sick bastard to smile a little at Val’s collapse. He couldn’t help it, he leaned against the sofa, petting soothing touches across the shaking body, and smiled lightly. Val had spent a lifetime being told to stay in control, to be ashamed of his hidden tears, that now to have him let go and surrender was the most healing thing that could be done. He was proud of the man he held, as salt tears soaked his shirt, proud of the courage it took to give in, proud of the courage it took to take the risk and allow someone to love him.

“That’s it, let it out, let it all out. We’ve no where to go, sweetheart.” He kissed the top of the hidden head. It hadn’t been a lie, what he’d said that morning in the shower, sheltering Val made him feel strong, needed, almost loved even. “Shhhh, it’s okay, you just let it all out.”