The Idea of Home

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Uprooted.

Displaced.

Removed.

That's what he was. That's all he ever seemed to be.

Dillon Quartermaine's entire existence had been a systematic upheaval from one place to the next. He grew up not knowing where he would wake up in the morning or where he would go to school -if he decided to go.

Ever heard that expression: 'the home is where the heart is?' Dillon heard that bloody phrase almost every day of his entire sixteen years on this wasted earth. Good old mommy dearest always used her overbearing cliches on him when he got--as she liked to say--'tediously stable'.

'Dillon', she'd cackle in that dry voice of hers, 'where is your sense of adventure? It's not going to kill you to see the world. What do you need to settle down for anyway? You'll do enough of that when you're old and boring. Be a dear and bring mother a drink.'

He'd sneer, then smirk that poetically cruel smile and contemplate for a second too long about slipping some arsenic into her scotch. He'd fetch it like a good son and most of the time he wouldn't even spit in it. Most of the time.

When his mother, Tracy, or heinous bitch as he affectionately called her behind her back, told him of her plans to return to Port Charles for good, to build a home; he was, to say the least, sceptical.

But they'd packed up for what was going to be the last time and boarded a plane to Port Charles. Halfway there, he'd begun to feel sick. What the hell did he know of home and family? After all, the only person he had in life was his mother; a woman he practically hated and the only real person he attempted to socialize with using his true persona. Not that he was shy. He was extroverted; unreserved about communicating with outsiders, but that was only because each and every time he invented himself as someone else.

His own father didn't even know what he was like.

Father. The term was laughable. The man they'd assumed to have laid the seed that spawned him, was never around.

The few times he'd ever seen him, he would call him Dill and dance around nervously like he was going to catch adolescence. Dillon acted like the angel people thought he was, but secretly stared and wondered if the guy had a fixation with 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. He supposed there was some resemblance by way of their shared dramatic storytelling and late night runaway antics and he'd tried to coax his fair share of Boo Radley types out in his youth--looking for that eternal innocence, he never seemed to possess or understand for that matter--but still it was unsettling.

He'd created what people thought he should be. Now it was time to find himself.

And then on his first day in the city, he'd already found something worthy of his time. Something...someone that was worth sticking around for, he hoped.

Georgie.

She was going to be his. From the moment he saw her, the moment he felt her lips on his, he knew.

She was complicated, despite what people thought of her. She teetered between childhood and adulthood, in that weary place where intellect was something to be ashamed of among her peers and never quite enough among adults. He knew it well.

If anyone could understand his plight, he was sure she was the one. But first he'd have to woo her. There was no way she was going to make it easy. Her heart, she'd told Dillon belonged to the dim-witted, brown-eyed schmuck, Lucas. Chivalry was certainly not his specialty, but for his age, he was experienced enough to steal the girl and leave her breathless. And that's what the planned to do.

For the time being, all he had was a dingy bathroom where his fist pumped voraciously as he tried his best to control the too quick breaths and pants that came strangled from his throat.

Family apparently wasn't a term the rest of the Quartermaine's were too comfortable with either. So instead of that lush, thirty bedroom estate, he and his mother checked in at the motel down the road.

The mold grew thick above the shower head that looked down at him like a disapproving eye while he jerked off. When he was too bored to think and too alone to get laid, he didn't mind masturbating.

The rattle of the rusty toilet and the clang of water on the tub basin were the sounds he would have came to. He'd heard that offbeat drone thousands of times, while his body convulsed and shattered against the tiles; but instead, it was her face he saw, her youthful voice that had filled his ears while he gripped himself so tight it bordered on painful. He jerked and squirmed through a powerful orgasm and her name soundlessly escaped his puckered lips.

Ever since that kiss in the diner--the purest thing he'd ever felt on his lips--he couldn't get her out of his mind. She was in there, taking up space that normally was filled with dark thoughts, but now there is only too much teen angst even for his liking. The sad thing is, he actually does like it. As much as he tries to deny that natural instinct to forget about her, he can't.

When he thinks of her, his pulse races like a dammed river newly released and his head pounds like bolts of thunder clapping in the sky. The thud of his chest and the panicky tightening when he sees her is what he lives for now. He doesn't even sink to backhanded insults when his mother tries to talk to him anymore.

It was...weird.

Almost...freeing. And he couldn't wait to feel it again.

He dressed and felt clean, looking at himself in the mirror where his eyes narrowed with scepticism. He'd never been himself before. He didn't know if she'd understand his sarcasm and the tainted way he viewed the world, or his passion for old Hollywood classics. He just knew he wanted to tell her about his obsessions, his fears, his aspirations and hoped she'd see the future like he did; without pretense or unreliable pessimism.

Grabbing a pen he jotted down a note so his mother wouldn't worry. That in itself, he thought odd, but ignored his impulse to crumple it up.

He yanked out the message, hastily scribbled, ignoring the perforated lines that would have given the paper a nice clean edge and taped it to his mother's door. She'd long passed out and wouldn't mind, he thinks, if he took the car.

There was one destination on his mind and one person he wanted to see and until he found her, he'd search the whole town.

The idea of home wasn't such a scary thing anymore. In fact, he liked the sound of it.

End

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