So for those of you who are genuinely curious about my writing outside of Persona 4 and fandom, here’s a teaser to what I’m working on now.

Short Synopsis:  Gable and Avery have been together all through college, something that Gable’s parents have no knowledge about.  As the two lovers get closer to graduation, they’ve made plans on moving in together and having a future with one another.  Gable needs to tell his parents soon, but he’s worried about their reaction, especially since Avery’s parents have completely disowned him over the fact that he’s gay.  Gable often tells Avery to not be around when his parents are visiting, putting off their inevitable meeting.  Avery has no problem with it, still remembering the day his parents turned their backs on him.  

Sadly, Gable has no idea that this time, when he tells Avery to make himself scarce, it will be the last time he will ever see his partner.  

Avery goes missing and is found a week later, dead.  As Gable cries himself to sleep he thinks of the last time he saw Avery, trying to cling to the good memories of his boyfriend.  Unbeknownst to Gable his dreams are not like ours.  His dreams seem to have an effect on time itself.  The next time he opens his eyes he’s back in his room, a week before Avery’s disappearance.  This gives him a chance to save his lover’s life, but is he strong enough to use this power to save Avery and stop a killer who targets young, gay men? 

(yeah, because I can’t just have a romance story, or just a gay romance story, or just a story about being afraid to come out… it has to be a supernatural murder thing, too, cuz… you know, that’s how my brain works  ^^;;;  If you want to leave feedback, that would be wonderful, since this is a work in progress)

Prologue
Day Eight

           The sun attempts to peak into Gable Peterson’s dorm room, trying to wake him despite the blinds that are closed tight like bodyguards in front of his windows.  There’s that one asshole blind that’s a complete slacker, not staying closed all the way and open just enough for the light to slip into the room and caress Gable’s closed eyelids.  He makes a mental note to fire that blind from its bodyguard status before he turns on his side and presses his face against his pillow.  
           He’s been wearing the same shirt for two days, long sleeved and gray, a small stain of ketchup on the chest area from the hamburger he ate last night – the other half is tucked in his mini-fridge next to an energy drink and a bottle of cold coffee he’ll have for breakfast.  He’s got on a pair of loose sweatpants, the drawstring missing and probably buried somewhere in his dresser.  His hair is unwashed, scattered waves of dirty blond resting against the pillow, a few knots in desperate need of a comb’s embrace but he doesn’t care.  
           It’s been five days since he’s cared about anything.

The knock on his door coaxes him to finally opens his eyes.  He fumbles around his nightstand for his glasses and ends up knocking them over, the black frames thumping against the dull carpet.  He sighs and leaves them on the floor, stretches – creak, pop, freaking cheap university issue mattress always makes his back ache – and heads for the door.  

           There’s a man on the other side of the door who he vaguely recognizes, but it’s too early for his brain to function well enough to remember things.  The man looks just as tired as he does, a navy blue suit jacket thrown on in an attempt to look professional.  It does a poor job in hiding the wrinkles of the button-down shirt he’s wearing.  The tie is another pathetic attempt to look like he gives a crap in the morning but it only makes him look more disorganized as it hangs limply around his neck.  “Gable Peterson?”  He asks.
           “Yes, that’s me.”
           “Detective Maurice Ashford,” he reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out a badge, showing it to him.  Gable now remembers where he has seen him before.  The detective had been at the police station when he had gone a few days ago, sitting at a desk and talking on the phone as Gable talked to the woman at the front desk.  
           Five days.  It had been five days ago to be exact.
           Now Gable’s stomach is starting to grow nauseous, last night’s burger suddenly feeling like it’s molding inside of his body, “Is there something I can help you with?”  But he really doesn’t want to hear what the detective has to say.  He can already feel the back of his throat tingling, the disgusting bile crawling up and trying to coax him into throwing up all over the man’s snow covered shoes, the carpet outside damp around his feet.  
           “I understand that you know a young man named Avery Blair.”  
           “Y-yes.”  Here it comes.  His heart is jumping, thrashing around and making his stomach feel worse.  “He… he went missing a week ago.”  He still remembers going down to the police station after a full two days had passed – one day could be forgiven; sometimes Avery forgets to check his phone, but two days of no phone calls and Avery’s roommate not having seen him had urged Gable to go to the police.  The officer at the front desk had said that they’d look into it, giving him false words of reassurance he’ll probably turn up, kids today always forget to call or somethin’.  But 24 hours had turned into 48, then 48 had quickly turned into 72…  
           “Ah yes, you had filed the missing person’s report,” the detective runs a hand through his scraggly black hair, a thick goatee growing around his face in desperate need of a trim, “I… have just spoken with Avery’s parents.  You two were lovers?”  When he had spoken to Avery’s parents they seemed uneasy with the term.  He had sensed a bit of conflict with it, but he didn’t want to push at the time.  
           Gable’s eyes are starting to water, a wet shade the color of hazelnuts that threatens to send tears down his cheeks.  The back of his mind tells him were, he said were but he’s trying not to jump to conclusions.  He nods and the man speaks again, “You were the last person with Avery, am I right?”
           “Yes,” he stops, taking a shaky breath.  He doesn’t want to ask but he has to,  “Detective… where is Avery?  Have you found him?”
           “I… son, I’d hate to be the one to say this…”
           No.  No no no no no.  Gable shakes his head, the tears falling and burning his face with scalding hot despair, “… did… d-did you find him?”  He isn’t sure why he’s asking again, why he’s even bothering with sounding hopeful because he knows what’s coming next.  
           “I’m sorry, son, but he’s dead.”
           Anything else the detective says is reduced to a numb buzzing after that moment.  The only thing that circulates in his mind is Avery’s dead.  Avery’s dead Avery’s dead Avery’s dead.  
           The detective watches the boy in front of him, takes in every tear that falls down his face.  It always gets to him to see the young ones deal with a loss.  Seeing Avery’s mother and father was one thing; he’s seen enough mothers bawling their eyes out, enough fathers embracing the women and trying to comfort them.  But there’s something about young kids like Gable.  He’s got his whole life ahead of him but it’ll now be put on hold until further notice, “I promise to keep this short, o.k.?  I have to ask you some questions.”
           Gable lets the detective into his room and the man closes the door behind him.  Gable sits on the bed while the man looks around, taking everything in.  There’s a basket full of dirty laundry that hasn’t been tended to, a mini fridge that has a 12-pack of green colored caffeine sitting next to it.  Next to that is a couple of boxes of instant food that tastes like watery mac and cheese when it’s microwaved along with the ever popular Ramen noodles.  A small T.V. sits on top of the fridge, a game system plugged in and set on top of a storage bin, “The games were his,” Gable says, a few boxes with price stickers ripped off scattered on the floor by the system.  He’s not sure why he feels the need to tell the detective that, but it’s out there and the older man can do whatever he wants with the information.  
           “Ah.  I take it he was over here a lot?”
           Gable nods, “We’ve been together since freshman year.”  
           “And what year are you now?”
           “Senior,” he lowers his head, “Next semester is graduation.  Same for Avery.”  Not anymore his mind whispers back, bitterly, not anymore.
           Ouch.  The detective swears softly and makes a note of it in his notepad.  He goes back to looking around the room, spotting a framed picture that sits on the computer desk of Gable and Avery – the detective remembers seeing a copy of his picture back with the missing person’s report.  The boy is smiling brightly in the picture, one arm wrapped around Gable’s shoulders, the other hand throwing up a peace sign with his fingers.  He’s got the bluest eyes the man has ever seen, clear like ocean waves that wash up on gorgeous white sands.  His hair is shaved on one side, the rest swooped to the opposite side in loose strands the color of those black ink pens that like to annoyingly soak through paper.  He looks thin compared to Gable, who looks like he’d be perfect athletic material but the stacks of marketing books next to his laptop say otherwise.    
           “When was the last time you saw Avery?”
           “A week ago,” his voice is starting to sound numb, robotic, all of the emotion has been drained away.  “He spent the night over here then went back to his dorm in the morning.  I tried calling him but he didn’t call me back.  I started to worry and went to the police station two days later.”
           “Could he have gone anywhere else besides his dorm?”
           “That’s where he said he was going.”  
           “Were you two on good terms?  Did you have a fight or anything to make him not want to cal-”
           “No!”  His voice is shaking, angry and sad, his eyes glaring at the man in front of him, “We were planning on moving in together after graduation.  We’ve been talking about it for a while now.  But…” now his voice gets softer, another emotion washing over him: guilt.  “…my parents were coming to visit and I told him he couldn’t stick around.  I hadn’t told them about him yet, I was scared to tell them because Avery’s parents had taken it so hard and now-”  Dead.  Avery’s dead.  He has nothing to tell his parents because Avery’s dead.  At this point all he wants to do is tell this Maurice Ashford to leave him alone, to go away and let him be miserable in peace.  
           The detective makes notes on everything that Gable has just shared with him.  He wants to ask more questions but the boy in front of him certainly isn’t in any condition to talk anymore. Still… “Just one more question.  Can you tell me where Avery’s dorm is?”  Gable nods, gives him the building name, address, and Avery’s room number.  The detective writes it down and nods to Gable, “Thank you for your time, son.”  He pauses as he heads for the door and looks at the boy one more time, frowning, “I’m sorry for your loss.”  
           Gable doesn’t respond because there are no more words that he can speak.  His voice is shattered and pathetic, the only sound in the room the soft click of his door as the man leaves.  He lays back in his bed, staring up at the ceiling.  The bland white paint looks back at him, watching as he squeezes his eyes shut, whispering Avery Avery as he cries so hard that his nose is filling up with snot.  Beside him his phone rings but he ignores it, the sound echoing around the room that suddenly feels incredibly cold and empty.  Gable pulls his blanket over his body, wrapping himself up like a cocoon as his phone continues to ring.  
           He doesn’t want to answer.  He doesn’t want to talk.  All he wants to do is sleep and dream.  Dreaming makes everything better, ever since he was a child, five years old and sad that he’d never hear Grandpa Peterson’s stories again while eating Grandma Peterson’s homemade peanut butter cookies.  He would dream of his grandfather, sitting in front of him as he rocked back and forth in his chair, telling him stories about his days of war.  He could always smell the cookies in his dreams, hear his grandmother humming as she stirred the batter with her old wooden spoon.  
           Gable closes his eyes and lets himself dream, lets himself be taken back to a couple days ago when Avery was laying in his bed, that gorgeous smile spread across his face.  He embraces the dream, becomes lost in it, taken into a place where Avery is still alive.