Atreyu ran as fast as he could back to his dad’s camp. There wasn’t a moment to lose. He had to rescue Bastian. He had grown up around the market world and he knew Tom and Bobby were bad news.
Meanwhile, Tom and Bobby had a very compliant teen in their trailer. The drugs he had taken with the alcohol made him easily persuaded. The men had no trouble at all in getting the boy to take off his pants, leaving him sitting on the sofa in nothing but his underwear.
"Aren’t you much cooler now, baby boy?" Tom said to the boy.
"You look better to me," Bobby added. "You look good enough to eat. Oh, look at the boy blush. Isn’t that cute?"
"He sure is cute, Bobby," Tom agreed. "Too cute to wait any longer." The older man dropped to his knees in front of the teen and began pulling the tight white underwear away from the firm hairless stomach. "Come on baby boy, let Uncle Tom get you ready for bed," Tom added as he stood the boy up to remove his last piece of clothing.
"How you feeling, kid?" Bobby asked Bastian as he rubbed his rough hand across the boy’s butt and down into his crack. The teen merely moaned in response as he felt the finger circling his tight hole. "He’s good to go, Tom."
"Well lay him across the bed then," Tom ordered. "I want to sink this in his ass so bad, I’m about to blow just thinking about it."
"You ain’t kidding," Bobby agreed. "I’m going to ride that cute little butt until I cum dry."
"I want to taste him first," Tom said. "You know me; just can’t get enough of that sweet cream."
"You can suck him while I fuck him then," Bobby announced. "I ain’t waiting for this one."
"You will do as you’re told," Tom snapped.
"Dad!" Atreyu yelled as he got to his parent’s camper. "Dad, you have to help Bastian!"
"What’s going on son?" his father asked sleepily. "Did you boys get in too big a hurry?"
"No, Dad; Tom and Bobby have him!" Atreyu answered through the tears that were starting to flow from his eyes.
"Lindsay, call the cops!" Jack yelled as he ran from the camper. "Where are they Atreyu?"
"This way, Dad," the teen called as he ran into the night.
When Atreyu and his father arrived at the trailer Tom and Bobby traveled the show circuit in, they could hear voices inside, but couldn’t tell what they were saying. Jack signaled his son to stay quiet and stay back as he crept up to the trailer and tried to peek in the windows. He still had trouble hearing the men, but one phrase was clear enough.
"I’m not waiting one more minute, old man, that ass is mine now!" Bobby yelled.
That was when Jack ripped the door off the trailer. "Get the hell away from that boy!" he yelled as he stepped into the trailer with his survival knife drawn.
"Well, well, well, if it ain’t Injun Joe," Bobby sneered.
"I said get away from him," Jack repeated.
"I don’t think so," Tom countered. "You see it’s just like an ignorant injun to show up with a knife at a gun fight," he said as he raised a shotgun from the cabinet beside him.
"It’s just like a stupid white man to underestimate how many Indians he’s facing," Atreyu said from the open doorway as he threw an empty beer bottle at Tom. The man dodged it easily but he wasn’t able to dodge the knife that Jack threw at the same time. It lodged in his arm and he dropped the gun. Bobby and Jack both dove for the gun.
At that moment, the sheriff’s patrol burst in behind Atreyu. Tom and Bobby were arrested for attempted assault with a deadly weapon, and child sex charges. Pictures were found in the trailer of several missing teenagers and children. The photos showed the kids being brutally raped and tortured.
Atreyu had run to Bastian’s side and hadn’t left him since. The police wanted to question Bastian, but he was still out of it. Atreyu had managed to dress his boyfriend again. Jack was told that they would need to take Bastian to the hospital for blood tests to determine what the men gave him. Bastian didn’t want to go, and would have preferred to just go to the tent with Atreyu and forget all about it, but he still wasn’t coherent enough to argue.
It was early morning when Bastian, Atreyu, and Jack returned from the emergency room. Bastian was feeling much better as they left the hospital, but when he saw the time on the clock on the dash of Jack’s truck, he started crying and apologizing.
"You listen to me, son," Jack said sternly. "This was not your fault. Those men were evil and they were trying to take advantage of you. You have nothing to apologize for, Hair of Sunlight."
"Dad, you called him son," Atreyu pointed out.
"Yes, I did," Jack confirmed. "What happened between you two tonight proves that even if he isn’t my son-in-law yet, he will be at some point."
"But nothing happened between us," Atreyu told his father.
"You led a raid on an enemy camp to save the one you love," Jack reminded them both. "I was just the muscle you brought along. You were the one that rescued Bastian, not me."
"You called me Hair of Sunlight?" Bastian questioned.
"That Injun talk for Blonde," Jack joked in his movie Indian voice. Atreyu tried not to laugh, he really did. He stopped quickly when he saw fresh tears in Bastian’s eyes.
"Just a dumb blonde," Bastian mumbled.
"You are not dumb," Atreyu tried to reassure him. "I saw all those awards on your Mom’s wall from your school. You’re much smarter than me."
"Well, let’s just say he applies himself better in school," Jack said pointedly. "Maybe he takes notes in class instead of drawing pictures of dancers at the last pow wow." Bastian couldn’t miss the blush of Atreyu’s cheeks.
"Drawing dancers, huh?" the blonde teen teased. "Well, I see I will have to keep an eye on you."
"Not that kind of pictures," Atreyu defended. "I just like art more than Math, that’s all. Of course, if you want to pose for some of those kind of pictures…."
"Atreyu!! Your father!" Bastian hissed. This time both boys blushed profusely just as they got back to the camper where Lindsay was waiting.
"Are you alright?" she questioned as she crushed Bastian in a backbreaking hug. "Your mother will kill us all if you got hurt while you were with us and on your first night."
"I’m fine, Mother," the boy gasped as he struggled to breath.
"Mother?" Lindsay asked as she pulled back to study the blonde’s face.
"Well, Mother-in-law sounds like I don’t like you," Bastian told her.
"Do you mean…. I mean are you sure?" Atreyu asked nervously.
"I’m sure if you still want me," Bastian announced. He was instantly enveloped in another bone-crushing embrace, this one from Atreyu.
"Of course I do," Atreyu assured him. "More than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life."
"Son, do you want Bastian to share your life, or do you want him to share your bed?" Jack asked seriously.
"Dad!" Atreyu cried out as his face turned red.
"You’re talking about a serious commitment here, son," Jack pointed out. "This is something that in the eyes of the tribe, you can’t undo."
"I’m completely serious," Atreyu answered, but he did it while staring into Bastian’s eyes. "I found the missing part of my soul, and I don’t want to ever live without him."
"Atreyu," Bastian whispered as he tried to pull away from the other boy’s arms and more importantly the lips that were trailing down his neck. "I think we need more privacy for this."
Atreyu blushed more than Bastian had ever seen. He grabbed Bastian’s hand and pulled him toward the tent. "Goodnight Mom, goodnight Dad," he called out quickly.
"Goodnight my sons," Jack answered. Lindsay couldn’t answer because she was too emotional. Jack laughed at her as he took her hand, but his other was wiping a tear from his own eye. "Our son is a man," he mumbled. "Come on old woman, let’s go inside."
"Old? Did you just call me old?" Lindsay demanded playfully.
"Dad is so dead," Atreyu giggled as he closed the flaps of the tent behind them.
"Yeah and so are you if I catch you eyeing those dancers again," Bastian informed him.
"What, it was just the artist’s eye," the boy protested. "They were nothing more than a picture I wanted to draw."
"Oh really? And what were these dancers wearing?" Bastian asked him pointedly.
"Ceremonial costumes," Atreyu answered with an attempt at innocence that was spoiled by the flush of color to his cheeks.
"Did those ceremonial costumes consist of animal skin leggings?" Bastian asked him and got a nod. "And fancy beaded vests over their naked tanned chests?" Again Atreyu nodded. "Were those leggings topped off with loin cloths?"
"Oh yeah," Atreyu whispered.
"Sweet dreams, Atreyu," Bastian announced as he started to leave the tent.
"What? Where are you going?"
"I’m sleeping in the camper with your parents," Bastian told him. "You need to think about what your dad asked you again. Am I your life partner, or just your bed partner?"
"Wait! Bastian, don’t leave me," Atreyu begged. "I’m sorry. I admit that I have had some fantasies about a couple of the guys before, but that was before I met you. When I saw you going in that trailer with Tom and Bobby tonight, my heart started breaking. I thought you were going in there by your choice at first. Then I noticed they were holding you up. I was so angry that I wanted to kill them. I couldn’t take them on by myself so I ran back here to get Dad. I was so afraid of what we’d find when we got back there. I’ve heard of boys that went into that trailer and were never seen again."
"I was so stupid," Bastian wept as the tension of the night finally caught up to him. He collapsed on the floor of the tent in tears. "I’m such an idiot. I thought all the carney folks stuck together and watched out for one another."
"You’ve been watching too many movies," Atreyu told him. "A lot of the folks we work around will be like that, but there’s plenty that will gladly turn on you at the drop of a hat if they think they can get a buck out of the deal, or something else, like Tom and Bobby." He reached out to take Bastian into his arms, but the other boy pulled away.
"Atreyu, I…. I can’t…. Please understand, it’s not you," he begged in a whisper. "I just feel so dirty after tonight."
"Do you think it would be alright if I just hold you?" Atreyu asked. "I promise not to do anything. I just want to have you in my arms where I know you’re safe."
"I think I need that too," Bastian agreed.