"So, what's the deal with you?"

Gryphon's voice was hard, angry, and had an edge to it. He stood outside, his body shaking as he shoved a cigarette in his mouth, inhaling the sweet nicotine that would calm him down. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, trying to remember what he was doing here. How he'd been sucked in to this strange and elaborate plan.

Orchestrated by a man who looked identical to Minny and had a strange girl by his side. He couldn't believe a thing that was happening to him, but how could he? His life had been a rollercoaster of confusion and hatred and pain.

Life hadn't screwed him over enough when he was sent to Tanner's camp, apparently. Because here he was, standing beside the very man he used to find attractive. The very man who turned him straight.

Something whispered, deep inside him, not true, not true, not true.

"I'm a horrible man, I know." Tanner's voice was resigned, because he knew this about himself. It was no surprise that he was the type of person that people hated. He knew he deserved to be locked up. He knew he was the nightmare fuel of plenty of people.

He thought back to his mother. His love for her was overwhelming. He thought back to Polly, and his desperation to make her love him, to save her from death. He had only wanted the best for her, and he had failed.

"Do you even remember me?" Gryphon turned to Tanner, his face twisted into something so angry, something so fierce, that Tanner had to stumble back. He had to think for a moment if he recognized the boy in front of him.

He did.

"You were in my camp," Tanner's voice was so sure of himself, so confident, "and you were healed. You're straight, now."

Not true, not true, not true!

"You fucked me over big time, do you know that? And the world has a wicked sense of humor because it put me here with you. I'm fighting with you, with Polly, with everyone who you've hurt. Do you even care?"

Tanner flinched from Gryphon's words, taking a step away from the angry boy. "Of course I do! You don't think it kills me to know my misguided sense of urgency to save people was the very thing that ruined them? You don't think I see Polly and hate myself every day because of it? I guarantee that I hate myself more than anyone else does."

Tanner reached into his pocket, his hands shaking and fumbling as he grabbed his wallet. It was a tiny slip of dark leather, and when he opened it, he slipped out a small picture. It was of his mother, smiling at the camera as though she didn't have a care in the world.

"My mother died when I was young. She was gay, and my father manipulated me into thinking that she died because of it. I was young, impressionable. But, I'm not a kid anymore. I can make my own decisions, and I can change my beliefs. I would do anything to see my mother again. Anything to see her kiss her girlfriend."

Tanner slipped the picture back in his wallet, his body shaking as he pulled another picture out. This one was of a small Polly, looking happy in the class photo. "This is of Polly when I first met her. God, I was in love with her. I wanted to save her, to protect her. Don't you think it fucking kills me to know that she doesn't smile like that anymore? Because of me? I've ruined her, and it's my own fucking fault, and I hate myself."

Tanner put the picture back in his wallet, and then he threw the slip of leather against the ground. It bounced back from the force of the throw, but Tanner didn't retrieve it. Instead, he crouched down low, low enough where he could bury his face in his bent knees, and he cried.

He hated himself. He hated himself.

Gryphon was stunned silent. He watched as the man before him, the terrifying man who had haunted his worst nightmares, crumpled on the ground, his body shaking from the sobs. It was out of character for Tanner, and it surprised him to the point of shock.

Gryphon knew the man before him didn't deserve an ounce of pity, but he couldn't help the way he felt sorrow for him. For a man manipulated like a puppet by his father. For a man who lost his mother, was shoved into a house he didn't belong in, and isolated from every other child so he could be a priest. So he could hurt others.

Just like Gryphon was raised to hate himself, to hate gays, so was Tanner. The only difference was that Gryphon never hurted himself.

"Do you think she'll ever forgive me?" Tanner asked, his voice small and filled with tears. That was all he wanted, her forgiveness, but Polly held on tight to the hated she felt, and Gryphon understood why. Why Polly would be terrified by the same man who ruined her life.

Gryphon bent down to Tanner's level, and reached a hand out to touch his shoulder. "Man, I think she'll probably hate you forever. You got to move on. You won't make amends with everyone you hurt."

Tanner looked up at him, and Gryphon thought he looked like a young boy right then, his eyes eyes and trusting, and his face no longer hidden behind the mask of arrogance and confidence. This Tanner was stripped from his power and instead of being the powerful being in the camp, he was just a broken man who hated himself.

Gryphon could relate.

"What about you? Why are you here, with me? You too - you hate me too."

He wasn't wrong, Gryphon did hate him.

"I'm here because Lennard is right. Your father needs to be taken down, and if you're the only way to do so, then man, I'm here to back you up. I don't like it. In fact, I hate it. But, this is for everyone, not just me."

Gryphon reached a hand out to Tanner, helping him stand up. Gryphon inhaled from his cigarette again, needing more than just one to get him through this living nightmare he was living. Working side by side with his torturer.

Fucking hell.

"You go to Minny's school, right?" Tanner asked once the tears were gone, wiped from his smooth cheeks. His face was red, but he had regained a sense of superiority.

"Yeah, but he doesn't go by Minny there. He goes by Benjamin."

Tanner leaned his head back to bark out a laugh. "That's because my father is forcing him to be someone he's not. Just like he forced me to do the same."

The inner workings of Minny were hard to understand from an outsider, but Tanner knew them well. Lennard did as well, for Minny was a boy who liked to do boy things. He liked to skateboard. He liked to eat at the local pizza place. He liked to play video games.

Their father wanted him to be Benjamin, a suit pressed boy in a private school that was prim and proper, that enjoyed politics, and that studied so studiously that he would graduate top of his class. Benjamin and Minny were not the same person.

"Being forced to be Ben must be driving him crazy. But, my father will stop at nothing to destroy all of us. I may have been the golden child, but that doesn't mean my father doesn't have a plan for all of us. Lennard included."

Gryphon knew nothing of their family. He hardly knew Minny, and what he did know of the boy was not all that exciting. The Benjamin at school was quiet, tired, unpleased and uninterested. Gryphon thought he wore a mask, and now he knew he was right.

"So, what's the deal with Lennard then? What's up with the girl?"

"I'm not the one to ask about that. Lennard ran away from home years ago. He was always the troublemaker, always the one who stirred up trouble. He was as evil as Minny was good, but the two of them were always inseparable. Two sides to one coin. Lennard is devious, but in a good way. Devious enough to bring down our father."

Gryphon sat down against the front porch steps, and lit another cigarette. "So then, what's the deal with you? If Benjamin is Minny, and Lennard is a devious bastard, then who are you?"

Gryphon didn't know why he asked, because he wasn't really all that curious. It was just, when presented with the opportunity to look deeper into the family ties of these three boys, Gryphon couldn't help but wonder about them.

Tanner sat beside him, stretching out his long legs in front of him. "When my mom died, I had to move in with my father. An evil man, who manipulated me and worked me like his own puppet. I wasn't allowed to go to public school after that; I was homeschooled. I didn't interact with children. I interacted with adult men who believed exactly what my father believed.

"I thought I was so cool, was so privileged. I rarely saw Minny and Lenny, but when I did, they weren't treated like I was. They got no special treatment, no attention, and it went to my head. I thought I was special. So, when my father asked me to jump, I jumped. And when he asked me to become a priest, I became a priest. And when he told me to open a camp for gays, I did exactly what he told me to do."

Gryphon didn't want to feel sorry for Tanner, but he did. He wished he didn't care about him, or care that he wasn't the man Gryphon once thought he was.

"We all have screwed up childhoods, man. It's all about what we do now that makes a difference."

Tanner agreed with his words, agreed that Gryphon was right. He wanted to make a difference. He wanted to change. And he wanted to protect Polly, except now he knew how to do it properly. 

* * *

whats poppin' my skeleton children?

what do you think of Gryphon? of Gryphon and Tanner?

Do you think this will work? Will they save themselves??

HAPPY FRIDAY :D

love you all, xoxo