The Danger ABC's

Chapter 11: Hate the Way I Love You

"Call."

"Aaron-"

"Don't." Green eyes pierced to his very soul, stabbing his heart with a jolt of pain.

"Why did you come back for me?" Call said, digging his fingernails into the soft skin of his palm.

"Because even after all the shit you did, I still care about you."

"You've known me for 2 weeks, at best! Why would you risk everything just to save a nobody like me?" Call said, staring into the pools of emerald that reflected his own image. Aaron smiled, a small, sad, perfect smile of a boy that had been through too much for too little.

"You still don't understand, do you?" Aaron said, taking a step towards him.

"Understand what?" Call replied, face heating at Aaron's proximity. A flash of an emotion that Call couldn't identify came over him, but the spark died out as quickly as it had come into his eyes. Aaron turned around and walked back towards Call's bed, shrugging his head into his hands, hair falling into his face like a golden halo.

"I didn't realize that you didn't want to be saved." Aaron said, after a while.

"Look, Aaron I did what I did because they- they-" Call's throat choked with emotion.

"What." Aaron said with more venom than Call had ever heard him use.

"They said if I didn't join them they were going to kill my dad. And you. I didn't ask for any of this." Tears were running down his cheeks now, but he couldn't stop them. He was ashamed. Aaron looked up at him with a mixture of pity and regret.

"I'm sorry." Aaron murmured, barely audible across the thick silence.

"It's not your fault. You didn't know." Call muttered.

"So what he told me wasn't true?" Aaron asked hopefully.

"What did he tell you?" Call said, wary of just how much Constantine knew.

" He said you were the one who kidnapped me, and that you were a thief before any of this went down, and that you... killed a man? It sounds so stupid, now that I think about it." Aaron's eyes went from Call's face to the floor, as if the very mention of Constantine scared him. Call felt sick.

"Look, there was no other way... My dad was getting worse. I had to put him up in this... clinic. A part-time job couldn't cover everything, and I wasn't old enough anyway. I just needed to finish highschool. Aaron, please believe me when I say-"

"And the last one?"

"Aaron-"

"The last one?"

"I was young, I was scared, and he was going to call the cops. But Aaron-"

"Did he attack you? Did he do anything to suggest he would even try to hurt you?" Call noticed Aaron's voice breaking too. Suddenly, something in Call just snapped.

"GOD DAMN IT AARON! I WAS 14! YOU CAN'T PRETEND YOU HAVE SUCH HIGH MORAL STANDARDS WHEN YOU'RE IN JUST AS DEEP SHIT AS I AM! I'M SORRY! I HAVE BEEN SORRY EVERY SECOND OF EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY FOR THREE YEARS. Look, I understand you're perfect. Everything about you is perfect. But I'm not. I hate myself for it, but that changes nothing." Call rubbed the tears from his eyes and made sure he dropped the tone of his voice low enough so that Joseph couldn't listen in.

"If you think that I'm a monster, if you think I don't deserve to live, then just tell me and I'll do everything I can to get you out of this hell before I end up getting shot. But if you think there's even a chance that I can redeem myself, then we can at least try to make a clean break before Constantine changes his mind and decides to kill us both." Call didn't realize he had made a decision until he said it out loud. He wasn't like Constantine, and he never wanted to be. He wanted what he couldn't have. He wanted Aaron.

"I don't hate you, Call. I don't think you're a monster, either." Aaron said in a hoarse voice.

"You don't?" Call said, trying not to sound surprised.

"God knows I've sinned enough for the both of us. I just didn't realize.... I could have helped you." Call laughed.

"How, holding people at gunpoint while I took their wallets? Hiding the body while I counted the cash?" Aaron looked up at him and smiled, hair in glorious disarray.

"I would have figured something out. Do you have a plan?" Call shook his head.

"We're gonna die." Call said, remembering what Joseph told him about escaping.

"At least we're going to die together." Aaron said, grinning.

"So what are they planning to do to me once you say we're done talking?" Call turned a shade of dark red he thought wasn't humanly possible.

"Well, I said I wanted to keep you around, so Constantine thinks..." Aaron looked very confused. Call realized he would have to elaborate.

"I think he thinks that I want to, um..." Aaron looked even more confused, and Call was getting exasperated.

"He thinks I want you to be my lover. Or mistress. Or both at once." Aaron immediately looked down at his shoes and blushed, which Call found both adorable and embarrassing.

"I mean I understand if you wouldn't want to put up the pretense that you and I were engaging in... that, but desperate times call for desperate measures." Oh, god.

"I mean, if you're willing. To pretend, I mean. I mean it's kind of the only way we can get out of here, so..."

Call was definitely making things worse. A lot worse. Aaron coughed once, declared he was going to take a shower and he would be out in 20 minutes, and Call decided to drop the subject until further mention. He was probably exhausted, anyway.

"Um, Call." Aaron said, getting off of the bed to face him.

"Yeah?"

"Where am I going to sleep tonight?" Call ruffled a hand through his hair and said like the gentleman that he was:

"I'll sleep on the floor." Call said.

"No, dude. It's fine. Just making sure there wasn't like a spare bedroom in your little bachelor pad or anything."

Call changed into the pajamas Constantine had given him, and after a couple of minutes Aaron came out of the shower with nothing but a towel around his waist. It took every square inch of willpower Call had to keep his eyes pinned on Aaron's face.

"Um, you can borrow some of my clothes. Pajamas are in the bottom drawer. I only have the one toothbrush, though."

"Thanks." Aaron said, ambling over to the opposite wall. As much as the little creep in his head wanted to see what Aaron looked like in the nude, he went to the bathroom to go brush his teeth. By the time he was done, Aaron was already in bed and half-asleep. He climbed into the covers, hoping that tomorrow, everything would be ok.