Life, 10 Whatever Goes Up...
#10 of A Little Thing Called Life
This chapter took forever, and im sorry about that. In this chapter, Draco has growing concerns as the school year draws to a close, plus a brief in depth look at Diesels life. If you guys can think of any edits, I would appreciate your feedback :)
Things were starting to accelerate, so fast that sometimes it made Draco's head spin. He and Diesel had managed to set a date for the wedding, August 5th of that year, just before school started back up.
In the meantime, school was starting to come to a close, he just had one last hurdle to jump before he could take it easy. His production of "House of Blue Leaves". they were all ready, the stage was set, and they only had one dress rehearsal left to go before the night of the production.
Draco sat out on his front porch alone smoking a cigarette, and going over everything in his mind, making sure everything was as perfect as he could make it. He looked out at the stars, wondering if his parents would be proud of how far he had come. One star shone brighter than the rest, giving him a warm feeling in his chest.
By now he had the stage setup memorized in his head right down to the masking tape on the floor, used to mark where all the props are located. He knew the script as well as all his little notes and markings almost by heart, and felt confident that each of his students knew exactly what they were doing.
But something was eating at him in the very back of his mind, he just couldn't place a tallon on it. He swished his tail back and forth following it with both of his eyes as he exhaled a stream of smoke from his nose. He was just over thinking it, as he had always done, even when he was just a high school student getting ready for even some of the smaller plays.
He reassured himself that their was nothing to worry about as the front door opened and Diesel walked out wearing only a pair of sleep pants and hugged him from behind. His fur smelled of shampoo, and was slightly damp from his shower.
"You always show up just when I need you the most..." Draco stated as he melted into the huskies arms, like butter on a fresh piece of toast.
"You're just overthinking it babe, you always do this, but everything always turns out right anyway, right?" Diesel said as he started to rub the dragons broad back trying to work out some of the stress knots he found there. "Just do your best, and let me handle the rest. I love you Drake, and I'll always be here for you."
It was the moments like these that made Draco fall in love with the amazing husky all over again. When he started to over stress on something, Diesel was right there to make him melt like hot wax and remove all his stress. He felt much better now, and felt ready to open the curtains the next evening.
The next day he took it easy on all his classes, accept for the advanced theater class, in which they ran through the play one last time to knock out a few rough spots to try and improve the flow a bit more.
For the rest of his classes, he played Shakespeare Abridged, where a group of men did comedic renditions of a few of William Shakespeare's famous plays.
His mind, however, wasn't on Shakespeare's plays, or even on his students. His mind really wasn't on the director's notes and script that he had been looking through, though that's what he made himself think his mind was on.
Draco was worried about something else, something far more important. His family. He knew he was doing the right thing by marrying Diesel, just as he had done the right thing when he adopted Marco after his birth father's arrest, so why was he so worried about them? it was a gut wrenching kind of uneasiness. His mind felt like a tornado or a hurricane was running through it, making a mess of all of his thoughts and throwing his emotions around like a ragdoll.
The dragons worry was starting to show through, even Jason seemed to notice, because that day the crocodile showed up with the Drake's favorite pizza, double meat lovers and pineapple, and a large double chocolate shake to try to put his mind at ease, which got him through the rest of the day and that whole night.
Draco was bothered by something, and no one could see or sense it more than Diesel. He knew his favorite dragon had a tendency to overthink things a bit, especially when he was getting ready to put on a show with the theater program. It was no different watching him fret over small details now than it was when they were in high school.
Diesel could feel his mate worrying from the shower the night before the play, so when he got done cleaning his body, he knew just where he would find Draco.
The dragon was of course sitting outside smoking a cigarette, looking out over the stars. Diesel wrapped his arms around Drake, feeling the dragon melt into his arms, like ice cream on a sunny day.
The two of them sat out there for a couple hours, talking for part of the time, and sitting in silence for part, just enjoying the company of the other, smoking cigarettes and leaning into each other's embrace.
That next day at work went just like any other, he spent a couple hours working out with some of the other members of the gym he owns, and paid a few bills. After lunch, he took some time to help his cleaning staff clean the gym a bit. Diesel enjoyed working with all of his employees, he hated for them to feel like they were just another paycheck for him to write, he tried his best to not only make his guests feel welcome, but his staff as well.
After work, he met up with Draco at the school auditorium to surprise him with a boquet of his favorite roses then took his seat as everyone was starting to show up waiting for the show to start.
The show was very well put together, it had all the darkness one would expect from a play about a man who was cheating on his insane wife. The lead character, played by Marco, spent most of the play trying to get his wife thrown into an asylum, which would have been very fitting as she was extremely batty, so that he could marry a new woman. during all this, the man's son showed up and was planning to bomb the pope, who was coming to visit New York.
By the end of the play, the new woman ran off with someone else and the lead character murdered his wife while he was kissing her, and wound up in the same asylum he was trying to throw his wife into, which as signified by a falling of blue cut out leaves.
After the play, he gathered with all the students who were in or helped out with the play while Drake went and pulled his bus around.
The school had given permission for him to ride on the bus with the rest of the students to go eat pizza and ice cream, and also to take the rest of the kids home. Since Draco was just going to park the bus at home, he would have to catch a ride back up to school the next morning to get his car, but it didn't bother him any.
Jason could tell something was off with Drake. This had nothing to do with the fact that he was still completely in love with the dragon, this is a sense he had a tendency to get with people he cares about.
In an attempt to cheer Draco up, he bought him his favorite pizza and a double chocolate milkshake, which seemed to do the trick, at least for the moment.
The rest of that day went on about like normal, he was allowing his students to practice some of the labs that they enjoyed throughout the year, just something fun to wind down the end of the school year. This also gave him some more time to grade some of the last minute tests and papers that had piled up over the last few days.
That night, he stayed at work in order to catch the big play of the second semester. He enjoyed watching his students in all their extracurricular activities, plus he was there to give Draco his support.
The play was very well run, each actor did their very best, and he couldn't tell that there were any mistakes at all.
After the show, Draco had asked him if he wanted to join him, Diesel, and the rest of the cast and crew for pizza and ice cream. Normally, he would accept, but he didn't want to cause any more friction between himself and Diesel, as both of them knew deep down how the other felt about Draco.
Having used the not entirely untrue excuse of having to grade papers, he made his own way back home.
Jason had come to terms with his predicament a few months ago, but that didn't make it any easier. Draco and Diesel were great together, he just had to get used to it and move on, he'd much rather have Drake in his life as a friend than to not have him in his life at all.
Jason climbed into bed that night and drifted off into a dreamless sleep, preparing himself for another day of going through the motions.
Finally, the night had arrived. he had been preparing for this night for a very long time, almost half the school year. Draco stood backstage as everyone took their places and stepped into character.
Giving Marco a reassuring smile as he stepped out from behind the curtains to give his spiel about how all the students had worked very hard to make the night possible, and mentioned the awards that the program as a whole had acquired over the year.
Out in the front row, he could see Diesel, Jason, a couple of his students from other classes, and even Mrs. Woolsey the former theater teacher whom he had replaced.
After his short speech, he stepped off stage as the curtains opened up and Marco took the lead role and made it convincing.
He smiled brightly as he watched his students hard work pay off, with very few mistakes, and was pleased to see that all of them had been covered up easily and no one seemed to notice the cover ups. By the end of the play, he had shed a few tears of joy.
After the play was ended, he met up with his students as each of them handed him permission slips signed by their parents. He had decided to treat them each to a reward for doing such a great job by taking them all out on his bus to eat pizza and ice cream, as much as they could stuff in their maws, after which he would take them all home. He had even gotten permission from the school to take Diesel with them on the bus to celebrate with them.
They all had a blast, and were appropriately sleepy by the time they climbed off the bus to go to their respective houses. Drake parked the bus at his house for the night as the family of three wandered off to bed.
His dreams were haunted that night by visions of the ones he cared about most going missing. First he couldn't find Diesel, then Marco vanished. then one by one each of his students started to disappear, both from class and from the bus. Then in the blink of an eye, he was 5 years old again and watched as his mother disappear just as she had done before. Then he watched as his dad's life slipped away after his car wreck.
Everyone was gone, the only person he could find was Jason, the crocodile so willing to hold him as he wept when suddenly he was gone too, leaving the dragon all alone.
Then he woke up, and saw Diesel snoring peacefully beside him, he took a sigh of relief. Draco got up out of bed and quietly walked down the hall and peeked into Marco's room to see the equine had fallen asleep while trying to do some of his home work.
He splashed some water on his face before returning to bed. Once he was back under the covers, Diesel rolled over in his sleep and wrapped his arms around the dragon, and Draco had no problem sleeping after that. His mom was gone, his dad was too, but he still had his own little family here and now, and that was enough for him.