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From Ice Cream to "Topping" | Arc 2, Chapter 8

Just write Charlie. It is shameful, and hard to admit, but there is no point in denying it happened this way now anymore...

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Just a little over a half hour had passed since I first began to carefully comb my way through the cobwebs of my childhood home. Not for a lack of trying, I accidentally began to reminisce then, for both good and bad memories sake, before tenuous and ample grunts of frustration mixed with an anger I had not experienced for what seemed like a long while now.

Moreover, with these feelings only further bulging and contrasting within my core, I found I could only continuously kick angrily at the doorway to my parents bedroom door, which -as luck would have it- might as well have been nailed shut from top to bottom, thanks to fire that had consumed and morphed this place beyond recognition.

Both this mental and physical barrier in no way stopped me however, in my pursuit of the truth I had come here to confirm. With every passing second that followed, I found I only persisted harder, and with greater fervor too, as I tried my damndest to make my way inside to the lair of where the origins of the words discontent and discord came from.

"Charlie, I don't really get why we're here man. I mean, yeah sure, you've kind of told me how and why you ran away and all that now, and seriously no judgment on my part here alright, but why come back here anyway?" Ty questioned of me with his back against a nearby wall, as every breath I drew alternatively went towards getting the door open. "I mean, I guess it just doesn't sit right with me, you know? Being inside an obviously condemned building..."

Without missing a beat, I stared at him silently with a glare of irritation, even though deep down conversely I knew that everything he had been questioning up until that point made sense, which truth be told I hated to admit.

Honestly, were I a better man, I might have listened to him too. However, in-between every labored gasp and exhausted breath I endured, each growing more shallow and deep by the second, I unrelenting pressed on, like a madman hell bent on getting what I wanted. "I just have to be sure Ty..."

"Of what Charlie?" Ty asked more pointedly while grabbing at my back, which broke me out of my concentration as I rushed at the door with my shoulder now, instead of continuously failing at kicking it open. "Come on. Stop. Talk to me for a second here."

"You don't want to know about this Ty. Not even Daniel knows about it. I mean... this..." I grunted with both an uneasiness and unwillingness afterwards, but not before I took a short reprieve finally and fell backwards onto my butt, with the dust from such action creating an eerie effect that almost perfectly contrasted with the haze I felt consumed both my heart and mind.

"This is... fear for me, Ty. You know, real fear... and hate... worry... and so much regret. And it's still all here. Waiting just right behind this door. This stupid fucking door!" I yelled as I threw nearby chunks of anything I could reach at it, hoping that something, anything really, would work in helping me to get it open.

"It's just... it's hard to explain..." I began to admit with defeat as I ran one of my paws through my fur in frustration.

"I just have one question then Charlie. _Why_did you need to get it open so badly?"

His sudden inquiry surprised me, and phrased in such a way, through both its tone and personality, I could've sworn a shrink had asked it.

For these reasons ultimately, coupled with this way of his was why he held my attention -from his well intentioned gaze, to his genuine sadness for my own feelings- as he sat himself down next to me, and then held his paw pressed down against my own.

With so simple an action, he restrained me softly, yet affectively too, which unintentionally kept me from throwing the rather large brick I had come across while blindly fishing around the area.

Despite his best intentions however, the snow leopard hadn't entirely managed to curb my anger and bitterness, which became more increasingly noticeable as I began to fume openly over the sum total of the whole event. "Because Ty! Cause I could've... I could have... I mean, I should have... gods, how I wanted to... but... meh! You just wouldn't understand!"

Every sentence began to flush away with each beginning thought following, and unfortunately so, as every road of contemplation led down a path my mind registered with nothing but hurt and dismay; if I even dared to recall how it all went down now.

"Why do you need this door open Charlie?" Ty asked again, to which my paws instantaneously found their way wrapped around my now flustered and emotional filled face. In fact, I could almost feel the heat of my burden imaginatively mix in with the base of my fur then, as I kept my hands pushed up against my forehead forcefully, as though I was trying to push out a bad thought, which I had never managed to successfully do up until this point.

Moreover, as my boiling point reached its peak, I finally caved that day, as I let Ty in on perhaps my deepest and darkest secret, which nobody has ever known about me before...

"Because Ty... I left my parents to die!" I confessed aloud for the first time in my life, with its catharsis as heart breaking as I had envisioned it was going to be, while the realization of why I thought as much began to preamble within my mind. "I knew all this -I said while pointing around the area- was gonna happen someday. I knew it deep in the center of my spirit, but I let it happen anyway... because I felt like they deserved it." I admitted amidst almost a whispered hush before I angrily kicked at a nearby collection of empty beer cans. "I could've stopped it, had I wanted too... but maybe the truth is I wasn't even strong enough to pretend to care."

"I mean, I was weak back then; more so than even I care to admit at times now. To which because of such, in the present, I just feel powerless... and useless most of the time in fact... and almost every day since I left this place, to tell you the truth. Nevertheless, you wanna know what's really twisted? At some point, after I ran away and experienced life on my own, I realized I actually wanted to come back here someday, and try to change it for the better; to make it right."

I wept as sadness swelled up in my voice now, making my muzzle grow drier by the second as I bantered on. "I wanted all this, and I really tried to turns ambitions into dreams... But I can't now, can I?" I whimpered as I jostled and thrashed about in all my anger and pain. It all felt too heavy for me, and I would've rather, a hundred times over, had faced anything else in the world... but this.

However, I knew I had to do this, to say how I really felt, before the cork metaphorically popped off the champagne completely. After all, it was in this moment here that my last chance came, which I had wanted for so long: to say goodbye, like how I never got to before...

"Please, don't hate me! Mom... dad... I didn't want to leave! I wanted to stay and... be a family. Be your son! That's all I ever wanted you know; your understanding, acceptance and love!" I yelled at the wooden edifice, half expecting someone was actually listening on the other side.

"You guys were always so busy with yourselves, and your own problems, you forgot about me... too many times for me to handle, as a matter of fact. And for awhile there, a very long one indeed, I hated you both so much because of that. But... there were good memories here too, right? I mean, you may have forgot, but I never did..." I lamented as I clenched a fist tightly.

"And just so you can know, a day hasn't gone by where I don't remember some of them. I mean, yeah sure... Dad, you called me a faggot, and slapped me around for it from time to time, but you were also the one who taught me how to ride a bike, and throw a snow ball... and in your own weird way, to also never take crap from anyone. I remember those types of things. I own up to that last bit for sure, even now. And I will forever remember it because of you, or maybe despite you..."

"And mom... you drank so often and heavy, I could never tell when you were sauced or sober, but you always did find a way to take care of me, especially whenever dad was at his worst, and that gave me validation at times, you know. To think at one point or another you protected me, your little boy. And in that regard, I guess it could be said you left your scar on my heart too." I spoke with conflicting emotions then as I rambled on, realizing how, even amongst my confusion, everything I was saying made sense its own strange way.

"But it wasn't enough for me! Everything's so messed up in my head now cause of it, all of it, and maybe... maybe the break is not entirely all your fault. I'll own up to my half of the dysfunction, especially as I say it to you guys out loud now, but... it's who we were to each other; I knew no other way!"

I licked at my lips as a sniffle hanged off the edge of my nose, myself wiping it away before I punched at the ground unexpectedly and unrelentingly forged on; the render from my fist causing the door to shake loose, if only for but a brief moment.

"I've hated you both for so long, for leaving me alone in this world like you did! Shame on you! Moreover, when I had found out... what had happened to you... it almost tore me completely apart. I mean, how could you both have been so stupid? To think, after years of drinking, binging, and other reckless bullshit, you let a single cigarette be your end? So careless... and wasteful too..."

I barreled on as I frustratingly hit the floorboards again, this time with a greater force that even startled the snow leopard that stood next to me, patiently waiting in his silent observation.

"Dammit! Didn't you even realize how much I needed you? Because I really did..." The entirety of my sadness spilled out afterwards as my tone lowered, all while I refused to look at the door any more. "I mean, do you even know how many times there was when I just wanted to give up pretending to be strong, and just come back home? And all I wanted in return from you... was just for us to see eye-to-eye, more often than we ever had before. That's all. Cause the truth is, I didn't need your money, respect, or protection. I just needed to know... you wanted me..."

My heart squeezed and compressed, just like my soul, while my body shivered in sadness afterwards. Devoid of any want to move from where I was, I allowed myself to remain frozen in my own lost time, with the only warmth left to me coming from a nearby snow leopard who, while not even looking at him then, I knew, and regretfully so, cared about me more than he let on.

"Ty. Would you just... please... just... go away. I can't... I just can't deal with us right now." I stumbled with my words as I delivered them softly and weakly to him then, as if there was actually something going on between us, to which all Ty did after was let go of my paw almost immediately and -after a seconds contemplation- stood up, took a deep breath, and then started kicking at the bedroom door himself now.

"What are you...?"

"Idiot! You want to get in there right? Well then, let's do this together... my friend." Ty exhaled sharply, and with a burning fire in his eyes too, as he extended out his hand so he could help me up. "Ignore the fact that I care about you, and all the ways I've wronged you before now. None of that matters anymore. What does is how you feel, and I just... I want to help you."

I looked up at the snow leopard while he smiled at me - which accidentally merged fantasy with reality right then for me- as I imagined it was actually Daniel instead who was looking back at me. "Thank you, Ty. I... I misjudged you!"

I concluded with full confidence as I clasped for the leopards open palm, him pulling me up with his rather surprising and unpronounced strength, before we both simultaneously laid waste to the doorway in front of us together, in perfect unison almost, as kick after kick stymied the wooden edifice until we finally busted our way in.

In the aftermath there we both stood silent, in a room filled with nothing but cobwebs and ash, as I looked around at everything carefully and meticulously, which unfortunately brought me almost immediately down to my knees, and for good reason too.

For you see, it was in here, in a room I symbolized with nothing but hopelessness and hate before, and for so many years, was where I started to turn around in my way of thinking. Almost involuntarily too as I saw glimpses of charred, yet familiar belongings amongst the rubble, but with nothing in that room left the way which I remembered it from before.

"Ty... this is my room."

"Wait, what?" Ty questioned quickly and confused as we both looked around together; the entirety of the room, even amongst the burnt wreckage, an obvious thing to me that it had indeed not belonged to my parents at the moment it was lost to time.

"Wait a minute... this doesn't make any sense." I said as I pawed away at some soot, trying my best to clean off objects both memorable and in close proximity to me. "Did they... did they do this for me?"

I refused to keep myself held up any longer as the weight of the world pulled me down finally, dragging me even deeper under the invisible waves of gravity, as realizations set in that only further broke my heart, and in many a way, I never needed to know existed. "Why did they...?"

From then on, all I could do was look around, and carefully observe, as my body locked up on me afterwards. As though I had somehow become paralyzed from participating in the event. Confused and perplexed at the notion that my parents, at some point unbeknownst to me, had actually missed me. Enough to even move me into their old room, in hopes of -I dreamt and prayed then- was their way of apologizing to me, perhaps to begin to make up for years of prior sorrow.

"Charlie, look..." Ty motioned before he walked over to my nearby still recognizable headboard, and grabbed for what looked to be the only ash free object that hadn't seemed to catch ablaze when everything else did. "It looks like a lockbox."

"Wait a minute! I remember this!" I exclaimed excitedly as Ty handed it to me, while I hoped in the background that its old combination had remained unchanged from the days of my youth. "Yeah... this was my father's. He kept a lot of stuff from his late father in here. Man, I swear... it kind of seemed like this was the only thing that ever made him happy." I admitted with a smile that rivaled the memory of his.

"He never let me see what was in here honestly." I smirked before I flipped the last wheeled combination into place and heard the lock click open successfully. "Not that that ever stopped me from learning the code and looking inside myself..."

I opened the lockbox slowly -not wanting to damage the box's rather heavy contents- following, with both a chuckle of confidence and a hint of fondness too, while I sat there in the center of the room and readied to embrace its familiar contents. In its place however, I was met with nothing short of what I'd call a supernatural awe, as if the gods had just reached down and slapped me right across the maw. Because there sat -replaced in the middle of the container- were not the memories of old, but instead rather pictures of me, in almost a real time setting. So recent in fact, at the top of the pile sat one of me working at the ice cream parlor, which couldn't have been taken any longer back than just a couple years ago; discerned by remembering the sale that was posted on the window beside me in the picture itself.

"What is this? What does... this mean?" I questioned with a mix of regret and sadness in my voice, with everything in this box completely throwing my head into a full on tailspin. "Did they... did they miss me? Why... didn't they just tell me Ty? That they missed me... This was everything I ever wanted... and I... I..." I was beginning to lose consciousness then as this last bit piled onto my sorrow-addled brain.

"Charlie!" Ty snapped out at me before he dropped down to his knees and pulled me into his person, letting my head rest against him as tears began to work their way out of me finally, sapping the last of my strength as I just sat there with Ty for awhile afterwards. "I'm sorry."

"What are you apologizing for Ty? It's not like it's your fault. I mean... I just never knew. I never even dreamed... of something like this happening." I cried as my face buried deeper into his person now. "This is wrong. It's all wrong. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. I needed to hate them okay! And to learn how to finally let go of them too. I needed that closure. That's why I came all the way out here!" I argued stupidly and halfheartedly as I looked down at the ground in contemplation. "But how can I now? This was... supposed to fix me..."

The confusion of it all was too much for me to process, as the entirety of me almost gave up on ever feeling good about myself again after this point. That was, anyway, until Ty said something heartbreakingly stupid, yet smart, for the second time since we've reconnected...

"What's so wrong with you that you think you need fixing huh?" The snow leopard admitted as his paw propped up my head, raising my face in the direction of his own, while I felt his soft breaths blow against me. "You're perfect to me just the way you are Charlie. I've never stopped feeling that way about you. And I think you know I feel that way now too; don't you?"

So there it came finally: Ty's eventual confession of adoration and adulation I knew, and for a while already, was never too far away from transforming from stagnant worry, to serious reality. Moreover, with this experience pending -and just like clockwork and not in any way unexpected- it came at never a more opportune moment for him, this very one which left ultimately me at the weakest I've ever felt, as his muzzle inched closer and closer to my own.

What will I do now? Is this what I want? Let's see what happens next...

_ Authors notes: _

Alright you guys, now we've come full circle. After all, it was this chapter, and subsequent story arc too, was where I officially stopped posting this story back over 6+yrs ago, as some of my oldest and dearest watchers may remember.

There were many complications in my own life which prevented me from coming back to this, but now... I'm more driven than ever to see this story through to its completion!

Honestly though, I do miss the discussions/comments of posts past, wherein people would make guesses as to what the next chapter would contain. So please, whether you've been following along only recently, or have stuck around for a long time now, waiting to see this stories eventual conclusion, I ask that you comment below and let me know what you believe will happen from here on out. Are you for Team Daniel/Ty/or maybe even Derek?

In addition, at the end of this discussion, I just wanna thank anyone who has ever invested any time of theirs into reading all this mess. What started out as a pet project over almost 10 yrs ago grew to be my baby, and I never once forgot about all the wonderful things many people said about it leading up to today. So thank all of you for being/staying on this ride with me. It means more than maybe you'll all ever realize!!!

~Core