Chapter 50 part 4 - Gen 2 - Tapestry

    "Mustard ... "
     "SERIOUSLY??!!"
     "Me fading ... it is going to destroy him!!  His number is in my phone ... OH BERRY ... if ever they get into my phone and see our text messages!!"
      "You are pulling my leg right?!"
      "No!!  When I don't turn up he is going to keep phoning, he will come looking for me when he can't get hold of me ...  OHHH, I AM SCREWED!!!"  he starts to look very alarmed.
     "Please tell me you have not been carrying on with Mustard all this time!!"
     "Yeah ..."  he mumbles  "You could say that."  he smirks as he looks down
     "I'm guessing because of the distance, you can't see him that often."  Sunny laughs almost hysterically which worries me.  "You said he will come looking for you, that could take a few days ... he is still in Amber right?!"
     "No he's in Apple Hill ... it will take him fifteen minutes tops."
 

     "What the Hell Sunny!!??"
     "Don't look at me like that Saffy ... I am gay remember, I love him, I can't live without him." he starts to choke  "What the hell was I supposed to do?!"
     "Oh now you finally admit it all freely!!"  I laugh sarcastically  "How the hell have you managed to get away with that all this time."
     "Mom and Dad ... they have made it very easy for me to sneak about and live two lives."
     "Tell me they covered for you?"
     "Not exactly ...  they gave me the opportunity, they were covering for me without realizing it."
     "How?  I don't understand."  I snap at him  "You had better tell me everything from the start, and I mean EVERYTHING Sun!!!"
     "When I came to Sugar Valley, as much as it killed me, I never planned to see him again.   I changed my phone number so he had no way of contacting me and just vanished on him, thinking that was it, it was over and I would never see him again."
      "So did you cave in or did he find you?"
      "He wormed his way in with Mom and Dad to get to me, they told him where I was, even though I'd strictly told them not to.  They gave him my phone number, I think they preferred me being gay rather than colour mixing.  Mustard moved to Apple Hill when Mom and Dad moved to Sugar Falls.  Mom and Dad were furious with me at the time for colour mixing - they have never wanted to have anything to do with my children - only Saffron and Honey because they were completely yellow, but still they kept them at arms length.   Straight away, without even meeting Ruby, they hated her, and would have nothing to do with her, our marriage and especially our visibly colour mixed children.  Her parents were even worse than mine, they totally disowned her and haven't spoken to her since the day they found out she was carrying a colour mixed child.  Me and Mustard helped Mom and Dad move to Sugar Falls, then we went on to Apple Hill.  I was only with Mom and Dad for a few days, in total I was away for three weeks ... we err ... did something during those three weeks ... then I went and did something seriously stupid when I got back to Ruby."  he looks at me sheepishly as he wiggles his wedding ring finger at me.

 
     "PLEASE!!!  Tell me you didn't!!"
     "Yeah I did."  he looks down at the floor
      "Just so I'm understanding this correctly ... are you saying you married Mustard ... then you came back here and married your red whore!!     
      "Yeah ... "  we pull a face at each other  "Don't look at me like that - you know me, stupid as, stupid does!!"  he laughs sarcastically to himself.
      "WHAT THE HELL SUNNY!!!"  I yell at him  "WHY are you SERIOUSLY so STUPID!!" 
       "While I spent the time in Apple Hill with Mustard.   I ... I realized I could not do it, I couldn't carry on living the lie, it was killing me being with Ruby, I was only ever happy when I was with him ... I wanted out.  Me and Mustard getting married was just on impulse, but it felt right - we really do love each other and we were going to spend the rest of our lives together.  I came back here with every intention of telling Ruby the truth, ending us and putting a stop to our wedding which was only weeks away and leaving Sugar Valley to go and live with Mustard in Apple Hill.  Crimson and Cherry were barely toddlers, it would not have affected them so much being so young, and I would have been close enough to still be a part of their life, once Ruby had calmed down."
      "So why didn't you do that?  Why go and marry her instead when you had ALREADY married Mustard?"
      "I bottled it - you seriously don't know what she is like when she goes off on one!!  I was back about a week, trying to pluck up the courage to tell Ruby and everyone else, when she dropped her bombshell ... she told me she thought she was pregnant.  I nearly faded!!  I felt like I was being punished, for those three weeks I had spent with Mustard, our relationship, our marriage and the life I wanted.  We had all the shit going on with Lime, she was sending us all dogdy texts and had threatened all of us.  With another baby on the way, how could I walk away ... I couldn't, I had to stay and protect my kids.  I felt trapped.  That was around the time she faded Cosmic, nearly faded Prelude and Lilly lost the baby.  I just lost my head and let my life here carry on, there was enough going on without me adding to it and rocking the boat.  We were all really cut up about Cos and the state Lilly was in, then she hit Alpine with her car like she did Cos, Bayleaf and Fudge barely escaping from being hit too, we were all scared for our own safetey and needed to stick together.  I didn't want Mustard to get dragged into it, I didn't want Lime to find out he existed, he was out in Apple all alone."

      "So I take it you did not break up with him then or sort out your marriages?"
      "Its not like I could have sorted it out after I'd done it without landing myself in trouble.  He is the one that I love and want to be married to, not her, we have always been together and he has always been there."
      "How the hell do you get to spend any time with him?"
      "You would be surprised, I actually spend a lot more time with him than I do Ruby, although it has been a little more awkward lately because of Shadow!!  I have got a job in Apple Hill, which makes it easier for us to be together, we actually work at the same place."  he laughs  "Work not really being a very good word to describe it, because it is our own business.  At first, it was hard and we did work long hours to get the place going, now we don't have to work at all, other than shuffling paper.  I'm only on the books to earn an income, only half of which they see here, the place virtually runs itself now and we don't really spend a lot of time there these days.  I am home with him all day mostly when they think here that I'm out there working.  Nobody questioned me going to Apple Hill, because they think I work there, and I am not really in any danger of bumping into people from this town, because most of them are mixed berries and trapped here and most pure berries won't set foot in a colour mix town.  I don't have any danger of Ruby or the kids running around Apple or turning up at work looking for me - because of the mixed berry thing, if they need me they phone me on my mobile."
    "Apple Hill is just way too close, not everyone is trapped in this town, surely someone has spotted you there!!"

    
       "Not so far.  We live over on the posh side of town now, we tend to keep to ourselves and venture out - Raspberry Hill, Apple Valley, that's where most of our friends are, we don't tend to hang around Apple Hill too much just in case and its a dump like this place.  I'm known as Sunny Maize in Apple and Sunny Shine here, so even if someone from here talks about me to someone from Apple or visa versa - they are not likely to make the connection of us being the same person.  There I'm a gay married man, here I'm a homophobic straight married man with kids.  There is only really Honey who has worried me, her being completely yellow but she has always been strictly confined to Sugar Valley, because at the end of the day she is still a mixed berry."
      "You are seriously slimy!!  Sunny, you are an idiot!!"  I snap at him  "You do realize don't you, being Married to Mustard first - your marriage to the whore is not worth the paper it is written on and you COULD have been locked up for it, if you had been caught."
      "Yeah I know, I think I've only got away with it legally because of being in Sugar Valley, the coded world don't care what goes on in colour mix towns, so they don't look too closely at what is actually going on.  I TOTALLY shit myself when Crimson decided to go into the police force, because if anyone is going to uncover the truth, he will!!  Cinnamon too - he moved to Apple because of work, I've had to keep a really low profile to avoid him seeing me in Apple and uncovering the truth, especially after he started dating Scarlet!!  Then there was Gravel, I suspected he was a dodgy berry hole, I've seen him slivering around Apple Hill disguised as a brown berry on more than one occasion - that is one bloke I did try to avoid like the plague, here and there!!"
      "How the hell did you never get caught out living a double life?"

     "With Crimson, Cinnamon and Gravel - probably only by luck and the skin of my teeth.  With Ruby and the other kids - I told you Mom and Dad made it easy for me to live two lives.  I have two different identities, two wallets, bank accounts, cards, passport ... everything I do with Mustard I do under Sunny Maize, and I switch clothes and identity when I'm in Apple, I never bring that identity into Sugar, so there is never any evidence left around for Ruby or the kids to find, like bills, bank account activity, credit card payments etc - the only thing I share in both lives is my phone, but the bills go to Apple, she thinks I have my phone through work."  he goes quiet for a moment  "I have had one close shave  ... there is one person here that knows the truth ... Mace.
     "What ... Granites Mace?"  this really confuses me.
     "Yeah.  Mace knows who I am and all about my other life, because he has been a part of it.  I totally crapped myself and was damn confused when he turned up in Sugar Valley with Granite, playing the gay guy.  At first I thought I was going mental, I knew him from Apple as Mace Brownie, and that he was married to Tamarin, and about their daughter Jasmine.  They live in the next street to us, Me and Mustard were really good friends with Mace and his wife, Tamarin, we are actually Jasmines Berry Fathers.  We used to go out with them quite often, we've both been really upset by Tami fading, but of course I couldn't show it here.  Mustard actually went to her funeral, which of course I couldn't without being sussed."  I knew Mace had been missing for five years when he turned up here, the only thing I didn't know is that Gravel was Tami's half brother."
      "So Mace could say something and blow this all open??"
      "Yeah, he knows everything."  he mumbles  "We had words when I bumped into him at Mango and Lilly's, a few days after he landed in town with Granite.  As we were both living a double life and trying to hide it, we agreed to keep each others secret and pretended not to know each other.  After his secret came out I did ask him and he said he would continue to keep my secret.  We were mates and he is actually a genuinely okay guy, I trusted him to keep my secret and so did Mustard."

      "There is nothing stopping him now though is there, and he more than likely will, unless he has the sense not to upset your wife and kids, who I presume he is friends with, some of them at least."
       "Yeah, he's spent a lot of time with Crimson, Saffron, Strawberry ... I've seen his daughter Jasmine round at Cherry's with El a few times ... I don't think he knows Ruby very well, but I should imagine Mace knows all my kids by now, they all visit Saffron regularly ... Mace and Saffron live in the same house remember."
       "For fudge sake, he just found your body, he could go home and quite easily tell Saffron, he could well have already phoned Mustard without thinking it through - does he have Mustards number?"
       "Yeah of course he does, both me and Mustard speak to him regularly over the phone ... he can't go out to Apple because of the danger he's in and I couldn't be seen publically with him, without anyone being suspicious. "  he pulls a face
       "Hell!!  This might all blow up quicker than I thought!!  IDIOT and it probably will if Mace is as stupid as you and he speaks and acts first then thinks later!!  It beats me how you thought your fading would make this all vanish - you are seriously stupid Sun!!  I thought the Scarlet problem was bad enough, now this ... we are going to be very lucky to stop this from getting out."
        "Yeah I know ... Mustard is going to be the problem - keeping him away.  I've always said I wanted to be burried in Amber next to you ..."  he mumbles quietly
        "We need to get Tapestry to sit on both Mace and Mustard to stop this from getting out!!  Berry knows how though, I'm not sure we can stop this one!!  I couldn't give a shit about your red slut, it's your kids I'm worried about, especially Saffron!!"
         "Tell me who she has been sleeping with behind my back."
         "Why are you so bothered Sun - when you say you don't love her and you've been doing exactly the same to her."
          "I'm just curious." he mumbles  "I know who a few of them are, but Cos says there are more that I don't know about."
          "I'm telling you nothing until we have sorted all the Mustard crap out!!  I don't know who is worse you or her!!"  I laugh at him for a moment  "I'm still confused about something.  You still haven't explained to me yet - how did Mom and Dad make it easy for you?"

       "They wanted absolutely nothing to do with Ruby, they wouldn't speak to her, they don't even have her number.   She was not allowed to set foot in their house, they did not even actually see her until Saffron's fifteenth birthday.  When he lived in Sugar Falls with our parents, they allowed her one visit a year on his birthday, and even then they just totally avoided and blanked her.  So it didn't matter what I told Ruby, she had no way of checking and there was no danger of her being told anything by them.  The kids were the same, they never had their Grandparents number and had nothing to do with them.  Safron and Honey were the only two that might catch me out, but I kept them away from Mom and Dad too for the most part, when Saffron lived there I took away his phone and removed all the numbers so he had no way of contacting anyone and they couldn't contact him. I used to tell Ruby I was staying at my parents at weekends, to spend time with Saffron  but I wasn't I was in Apple Hill with Mustard.  I have pulled all sorts of stunts ... working away, holidays with the parents that had me away for weeks, even a month at a time, illness's that haven't existed, family get together's and drama's that have never happened.  I've even staged massive arguments so I could storm out telling her I was going to stay at my parents for a few days to clear my head - any excuse I could find to get away and I wasn't with Mom and Dad I was in Apple Hill with Mustard.  I took trips out to Amber Meadow to visit graves, family or old friends, which I didn't take alone, Mustard used to come with me, most of the time we didn't even go to Amber, we went away on vacation."  I stand there shaking my head at him
      "How did you live with yourself ... all the lies you must have been telling to everyone?"
      "Mustard I've never lied to, he always knows the truth.  At first I felt guilty, I struggled with what I was doing, but once I discovered that Scarlet was not mine it make it so much easier for me ... the bitch deserved it!!  Six years later when I found the truth out, it made me very angry, she trapped me there using a child that was not even mine, by then we had three other kids, Saffron and the identical twins.  I am still angry, my homophobic act getting so nasty, I think was my way of venting my anger, because I couldn't do it any other way.  I was angry with them too, gay people, for being what they are supposed to be ... I guess in a way I was jealous of them living their gay life openly when I was having to hide mine ... even though I know, I have done it to myself. "

      "Do Mom and Dad know you are married to Mustard."
      "Hell no!!  Nobody does, except Mace!!"
      "Was Mustard okay knowing he was sharing you?"
      "Not really, but what could he do when I basically backed him into a corner, obviously he hated it but understood why I had to stay for my kids.  He went totally ballistic when he found out I'd married Ruby, and hes never been happy about the five kids that came after Scaret.  He's come very close a few times over to the years, to finishing us because of how much it hurts him, he's threatened to come here and tell her the truth - but being married to both is what has saved me, he knew if he told her, he would lose me, because I would get locked up for Bigamy.  He always thought there would be a day when I would leave her, because I promised him when the kids had all grown up I would come clean and leave her."
      "But you haven't have you!"  I frown at him   
      "No.  As the time got closer, things started happening, Honey and Taps abduction, the pregnancy, her fake death, all the stuff with Shadow and Crystal, Saffron coming home, Cinnamon fading which has affected Scarlet, all this shit with Maize, Juni, Coral and Poppy ... while I have hated all these things, they have helped to keep me there.   Me and Mustard have been arguing about me not leaving Ruby a lot lately ... I just couldn't do it!!  Not because of Ruby, but because of the kids.  They have had enough going on, besides, I was too scared of what they might think of me, especially ... after how I have been treating Saffron, which they are already seriously down on me about, if they found out the truth, I imagine they would have had nothing to do with me ever again.  Saffron already hates me, and I can't say I blame him, but imagine what he would think if he knew the truth!!  I played and took the game too far - it would have destroyed all of them, but especially Saffron, after what I put him through.  Saffron is one of the main reason why I continued to stay, besides the truth about me being married to Maize all these years was bound to come out in all the uproar ..."
     "Yeah you didn't think about the consequences did you yet again.  Committing Bigamy - you had trapped yourself here for eternity, it's not like you could have ever divorced her from the illegal marriage, that would have landed you straight in prison!!    Did you honesty think you could hide all this and it wouldn't blow up behind you?"  he doesn't say anything, he just looks down at the floor.   "I seriously don't believe you Sunny ... you have always been the stupid one, but this seriously takes the biscuit!!"  I laugh as I shake my head at him  "So come on, there is no escaping it ... Saffron ... why?!"

He sits for ages not saying anything.

    "Oh I don't know ... you know what I am like, I start something, dig myself a hole that I can't get out of and it just gets deeper and deeper - it just spiralled out of control."
    "Yeah and I wasn't there to stop you or to fix your mess, you know what I have always said, I got all the common sense and you got all the stupidity ... the only difference between us is how our brains work."
    "With Saffron it was hard, he was always my favourite and when he was born all yellow, appearing to the eye to be pure, I had high hopes for him, like I did Scarlet and Honey ... and unintentionally, he let me down in a way, I guess.  All three of them did, they had the chance appearing pure to the eye to go out there, go to Uni, get themselves a decent career and life away from this dump, not one of them has any drive or ambition, when poor Crimson is crawling the walls and feels like a caged animal, he does have ambition but he is trapped and he seriously hates me and Ruby because he's colour mixed.    When I first realized Saffron was gay, I panicked, it had never dawned on me that any of my children could turn out to be gay like us.   I worried that more of them might turn out that way, and I know it would have been my fault, its obviously in the genes.   So when I caught Saffron with Bay, I couldn't bare it, I lost my rag with him, hoping I could scare him out of it ... I made the choice to play straight, so I thought so could he ....  The homophobic game, was already well in play, I thought I had no choice but to continue with it publically.  I really did not want to play that game with him, and actually moved him to the parents for his own sake, I needed him away from me, and especially the other kids.  I wanted to put space between him and Bay to remove the temptation and thought once he was away from his family it might make him miss us enough to tow the line and play straight.  I really didn't mean to hurt him."

     "Berry hole!!!  You are so stupid, trying to get your son to do something that you couldn't do yourself!!"  he frowns at me  "You keep saying that you chose to play straight, but that isn't strictly true is it, and at the end of the day, you was still being your gay self in Apple Hill, so WHY THE HELL was you trying to turn him into something that he's not when you have been having such a miserable time with the straight half of your life?"
      "I don't know any more."  he mumles as he looks at the floor.
      "You did more than hurt that boy, you have totally mashed his head up, you know I have watched him, he is STILL self harming ...."
     "STOP!!  I know what I have done to him ... if I could take it all back I would!!"  he mumbles miserably.  "I know I have got no excuse for what I was doing to him, but it got out of hand and never would have gone so far, if it wasn't for his mouth.  I wasn't beating him because he was gay, it was his mouth mostly.  We rile each other, I guess we are too alike, he is stubborn and if he thinks it he says it just like I do.  A lot of time he attacked me verbally before I even opened my mouth and said anything.  He spoke to me in a way none of the others would have dared to.  We fell out big time, and it just got worse and worse to the point where I didn't know what I was doing any more.  We only had to see each other and our backs were up.  I can't remember the last time we even sat down and had a civil conversation ... probably not since he was thirteen years old."
      "You know you are never going to be able to put this right with him now you have faded ... you have left that boy permanently broken ... Atlas is good for him, but I don't think even he is ever going to fix the mess you made of him ... I'm not sure how you are going to live with yourself for eternity IF you stay!!

      "What do you mean IF I stay ... I thought we had sorted that out ... I AM STAYING!!"
      "Fine ... but I'm warning you Sunny - your shit stops right now!!"  I snap at him  "I am not spending eternity cleaning up your mess, and if I have to make a choice between you and Storm ... it definitely will not be you!!"
      "Fine!!"  he snaps

Sunny looks up and he stares behind me, he starts to laugh.  I look over my shoulder and see Storm hovering there with a cheeky grin on his face.

      "It looks like we have some trouble brewing!!"
      "Why what's up Storm, is it Tap?"
      "No.  Mace and Granite are sat back on the bench, me and Cos have just been listening to a conversation going on between them, about HIM."  he points at Sunny  "Either Mace is having a right laugh with Granite and making it up or your brother is an even bigger berry hole than I thought!!  Cos is reeling right now!!"
      "Was Mustard Maize mentioned in this conversation of theirs?"  I laugh at him
      "Yeah.  Please tell me it's not true, because we are finding it very hard to believe!!"  he snaps  "Cos is still there listening, he's sent me to find out if Mace is talking shit or if Sunny has actually been playing gay all this time and is actually married to this Mustard guy in Apple!!."
       "Yeah it's true ..."  I mumble
       "BERRY HOLE!!"  Storms yells at Sunny  "Here was me feeling sorry for you because Ruby has been running round town behind your back bed hopping  ... but I don't any more because you fudgin deserved it!!"
       "What is Mace saying, does it sound like they are going to talk?"  I frown at him
       "We don't thinks so, they seem to care more about his kids that he does!!"  he snaps  "Granite has just come up with a wicked idea to stop this getting out so the kids don't get hurt, especially Saffron!!"  he smiles at me  "I need to get back to Cos, Tap needs to be filled in, so he can phone Mace and help them sort HIS shit out."

Sunny jumps to his feet.

      "What are they planning to do?  They are not planning to hurt Mustard are they?"  he asks Storm  "I should come with you ..."
      "NO!!!  You are the only person round here who hurts anyone!!  You stay there berry hole ... we will sort your mess out!!"  Storm snaps at him  "After what you've done to Saffron ... Cos is likely to MAKE YOU pass over if you get in his face right now, and I'm right behind him!!"

Storm floats through the rocks and disappears.

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