(no subject)
Banner by gloryunderhill
Title: Brownie Points (Pt. 13)
Pairing: C/Z
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Don't own!
Warning(s): Bullying, offensive language
Synopsis: Casey gets an unexpected hero and some affirmation.
Story tag-listing
Zeke had been right; dinner, dishwashing and TV watching had gone by without any mention of what his father had come across when he’d gotten home. He’d even given Casey a quick, wry smile when Mrs. Connor has asked Casey how his day had been. There had been times in Casey’s life where he and his father shared a secret or two, and kept it from the woman of the house. That was the way father-son relationships went, and Casey had enjoyed it… even if he had to endure some good-natured ribbing at the same time.
As luck would have it, new shoes were in order for his father, and he was hopeless when it came to shopping. With Mrs. Connor grumbling that he ‘could’ve mentioned this when the mall WASN’T closing in an hour’, they had left together, promising Casey that they’d get him new socks.
‘Whoop-dee-shit,’ Casey thought as they left the driveway. Now alone in the house, he went to his room and sat at the computer. There were things he needed to tend to; that he’d needed to do since he’d gotten into the GTO.
He pulled up one of the eight hidden folders and settled into his seat. After typing ‘zekerocks’ (Zeke’s suggestion of course, and Casey was sure to remember it), he pulled up the first picture, which had him biting his lip and squirming. It was surprisingly classy, in a nice, dirty way. Casey gazed at the black and white close-up of a man’s mouth, with his tongue extended to take a long string of cum which was still suspended from the head of a large cock. This was something Casey wouldn’t mind photographing, not at all. He put a hand between his thighs and squeezed the muscles around it. It made him irk out a groan and put the pictures on the slideshow setting.
The jeans needed to go. Casey stood up, unbuttoned and slid them down and off. With no dangers of getting caught, he disrobed entirely, feeling almost giggly in doing so. He sat back down, liking the feel of the worn fabric of the chair on his ass; he parted his legs and thought, ‘Zeke would like this. He’d fuck the living hell out of me if he found me doing this…’
The first three pictures held his attention; two guys sucking one man off, a color photo of a barely-legal getting licked all over by three men, a rimming scene… he palmed his cock as the fourth came into view, but he started drifting off in his mind.
Zeke would like this. Casey gave up on the imagery and closed his eyes. His head lolled as he fell into a pleasurable rhythm, with his free hand sliding up and down his chest and stomach. He wanted nothing more than to have Zeke walk in, to find him in the throes of self-love… and Casey wouldn’t stop upon being discovered. He’d move to a kneel, turn and present his ass to the young man, all while he kept on jerking himself off. This imagery made a pearl of pre-cum form at the tip of his dick; Casey’s ass and thigh muscles clenched in excitement.
He was wanted--sexy, even. Never mind Friday nights; Zeke would have him any day of the week at this point. Casey had something here…
Power. The word slipped into his mind just as he came.
~*~
The streets were quiet and lonely, but that was the way Casey wanted them. He scuffed his shoes on the sidewalk as he went along, tired and listless, though he was grateful to leave school unscathed. It didn’t matter if he and the bullies had separate detention rooms, because they’d find a way to get to him. It was no mystery that they were angry and ready to pound Casey’s face in for what had happened. Seeing as Wednesdays weren’t practice days, Casey had taken refuge in the darkroom, hiding away for ten minutes before daring to leave the school. He still felt nervous, as if at any moment one of them could pop up in front of him and start trouble. The tension eased with every step and the birds singing in the trees above. Casey allowed himself to look around in wild wonder at the branches, finding them almost completely bare. Fall was here all right, and it had him hugging his jacket closer to himself.
He turned the last corner that led to the bus stop that sat next to the parking lot of the ‘Court Street Plaza’. With him coming up on it quickly, Casey reached into his pocket to grab his change and count it, but stopped at the feel of something papery. He turned the pocket inside-out and beamed. So these had been the jeans he’d worn the day he lost five dollars. It wasn’t often that Casey had money, so when he looked towards ‘Peg and Ray’s’, the small homegrown convenience store, he smiled wider. His stomach had made sounds of protest since he’d ignored the egg-salad sandwich his mother had given him, so he headed to the store. Candy bars and grape soda were in order.
The bells on the door sounded off as he stepped inside, alerting the clerk who was stocking cigarettes. She gave him a small smile and continued working. Casey returned it then made a beeline for the candy aisle. He didn’t have to hold back; he could get two large candy bars, eat one on the bus and hide the other in his bag. His mother still gave him trouble if she knew that he’d eaten before supper. It made him feel like a baby, but filling his hands with a king-size Snickers bar, peanut butter cups, and a chilled can of grape soda made him forget about it.
Once at the counter, the woman came down from her stepstool and went to the register. “Is that all today?” she asked.
“Yea,” Casey said, slapping down his five.
“--Not around Friday night, and I know where he keeps the liquor cabinet’s key.”
“Sweet, we’re there.”
Casey froze. He didn’t want to look over to the three guys who’d just walked into the store. Gabe, Charlie and Jacob had spotted him, however, shown in their sudden stop and silence.
“Oh, hey. Connor-boy,” Charlie said with a snigger. Casey swallowed and stared ahead at the woman ringing him in. He felt crowded, knowing that they were standing around him. “What’s up?”
“Not much,” Casey managed to mumble.
“All right, that’s two-ninety-seven,” the clerk said. She took the five, put it in the register and went to hand him his change. Just as the bills were about to go in his hand, Gabe reached over and snatched them from the woman, who blinked and frowned.
“He owes me. Don’t cha, Casey?”
Casey didn’t reply. He grabbed his things and turned to the door, just in time to see his bus roll past the empty bus stop. He swore tears were pricking his eyes; he was trapped. Where had the good luck gone?
“Aw, miss your bus?” Jacob teased. Again, Casey stayed quiet and scurried to the door, nervous at the derisive chuckling they made as he left.
Perhaps they had better things to do instead of bothering him--but it was always ‘any opportunity’ with them. Casey scowled in passing by Gabe’s SUV, wishing he had a key to scratch down the side of it a few times. He’d die for that, however. It was best to pretend that nothing had happened and prepare for a twenty-minute wait. Why he hadn’t grabbed a bus schedule before now he didn’t know, but he was sure to remember one this time around.
He found the metal bench freezing cold, making him shiver. The thought of eating his candy made him sick, now; he opened his bag with trembling hands and stuck them inside, leaving the soda out. He needed something fresh and sweet to calm his nerves, even if it added yet MORE cold. As cars whizzed by in front of him, he cracked the can open and began sipping. He wished he had a car--his license, for fuck’s sake. He was going to have to be more diligent with his parents, who babied him in every which way.
“I’d offer you a ride, but I don’t need your ass leaving a cum-spot on the leather seats.”
Gabe’s voice and the sound of more chuckling made Casey’s teeth chatter. He was surrounded yet again; Charlie sat on one side, Jacob on the other and Gabe stood in front of him. There was no escaping this, even in his head.
“We haven’t had the chance to talk to you; and we’ve wanted to talk to you,” Jacob said, giving a light nudge with his foot to Casey’s. Most would see it as a friendly gesture--Casey knew it as a prelude to bloodshed.
“Really… what made you jump me Monday? Huh?” Gabe chimed in. He stretched an arm up and held onto the rim of the stop’s small roof. “Got a death wish, Connor?”
“Leave me alone,” Casey dared to say.
“Don’t wanna talk, huh? Any reason for that?” Charlie said.
“No,” Casey coldly replied.
“It’s too bad that we don’t know where Zeke lives. If we did, we wouldn’t have to put you through this. But hey, you’ll take a beating for your boyfriend, right?” Gabe said with a sneer. Casey darted his eyes up to him and made a deep frown.
“Wha…?” he muttered.
Gabe raised his eyebrows. “Yea, your boyfriend. The one who almost fuckin’ crippled our linebacker. It’s been goin’ around that Zekie-boy started shit because Bob threw a fist at you.”
“A well deserved one, no doubt,” Jacob added.
“I…” Casey tried, but could only shake his head.
“I wouldn’t put it past Zeke. He doesn’t date chicks at school… he probably goes out to the city to troll around for Nancy boys… like you,” Gabe said. “Is that it, Casey?”
“Yea. Are you Zeke’s fag-boy, Casey?” Charlie asked. Casey could feel his hot, angry breath by his neck and face. “You can tell us.”
“Fuck you,” Casey snapped. Gabe’s knee-jerk reaction of reaching over and smacking Casey upside the head made him bump shoulders with Charlie. This, of course, made Charlie shove him. He caught himself before he smacked into Jacob… not that it mattered, as he joined right along. Bracing himself against the next push, Casey closed his eyes, clenched his fingers along the bench and held his breath. It was a childish attempt at escape, and he knew how it looked to these three.
“Fuckin’ baby. You’re such a fag,” Gabe said. He leaned in now, Casey feeling his angered breathing. Casey visibly shook, expecting the worst…
“HEY.”
Everything stopped, but Casey didn’t open his eyes yet. The angry heat around him dissipated.
“What?”
Casey finally dared to take a look at who had called out. His lower lip trembled at the sight of Justine, who was now between Gabe and the stop’s wall. A little brown-haired boy stood at her side, holding her hand and sucking a lollipop. Justine said nothing; she looked down at Casey and sighed. “Need a ride, Casey?” she asked.
It seemed like another trap, though he realized that not even Gabe would make a scene in front of a little kid. He made one quick nod, stood and went to her side. Her eyes were set on the bullies for a moment, until she turned away with Casey in tow.
“See you tomorrow, Connor,” Jacob called.
Casey curled his arms over his chest, hung his head and kept walking. It wasn’t fear filling him now, but embarrassment.
“Over here, Hon,” Justine said, motioning to a red minivan. She went over and opened the passenger side door, then moved to the back. As Casey seated himself, the little boy started chattering.
“Hambuggers!” he yelped.
“Honey, maybe. We’ll see, okay?”
“Hambuggers!”
“Ugh…”
Casey looked in the rearview and couldn’t help a smile. Justine was backing away from the strapped in child, who was now tapping his nose with his bright blue pop. When Justine shut the door, it became eerily quiet. Casey cleared his throat. “Hi… is your name Kyle?” he asked, recalling the conversation with Zeke.
The boy said nothing, choosing to stare ahead at the mirror at Casey’s image. Justine entered the car then, which stole his attention. “Hambuggers!” he cried.
“What did I say, Kyle?”
“Hambuggers!”
“I said maybe.”
As she started the car, Casey caught sight of his three ‘friends’ getting into Gabe’s car. He could see them snarling in the corner of his eye; he ignored it, and breathed a little easier when Justine pulled out of the spot and headed to the lot’s exit.
“Um… where do you live?”
“Oh! Sorry… seventy Ash Street,” he replied. Justine nodded and turned the van onto the main road. Casey put his head back and stared blankly at the street flying by. “Thanks… for the ride.”
“It looked needed,” Justine said. She darted her eyes to him quickly, then looked back to the road. “Are you okay?”
“I will be.”
“Well…”
“Hambuggers!”
Now Casey had to chuckle. “Wow, he’s insistent.”
“Jesus…” Justine murmured under her breath. Putting on a wide, exaggerated smile, she looked in the rear view. “We’ll SEE, little darling!”
“Jeep gets me hambuggers!”
“Good god…”
“‘Jeep’?” Casey inquired.
“Yes--believe it or not, I’m desperate, and I have to rely on ‘Jeep’ to watch the fruit of my loins while I cover a third shift call-out,” she said. Her smile softened. “That’s Zeke, to Kyle, anyway. He’s taking him for the night, if you’ll believe it.”
“Oh… wow,” Casey said.
“Jeep gets me hambuggers!” the boy repeated.
“Yes, he probably WILL, baby. Jeep can’t cook to save his life,” she said.
“So you trust him that much, huh?” Casey asked with a note of amusement.
“Oh, I trust him… he’s been good to Kyle. But when my boy came home after his last visit with ‘Jeep’, stubbed his toe on the stairs and yelled…” she paused to lower her voice. “‘Jesus fucking Christ, OW!’, I had a few things to say to that young man. Then I found out that he let Kyle have a few thousand marshmallows, so I refused to cook for the next get-together.”
“Ooh… that’s cold,” Casey said with a chuckle.
“Damn right.” Justine smiled slyly. She stopped at a red light and looked to her left. “Bell Ave. is actually closer… and I am in a rush. Would you mind if we stopped at Zeke’s first?”
Great. Now Casey felt like a burden. “I can walk from Zeke’s, if you can’t swing by my place…?”
“No, it’s not a problem. I’d much rather get this perfect little angel off my hands as soon as possible, that’s all,” she hissed. “Christ, he’s been difficult today.”
“’K,” Casey said. “How old is he?”
“About two and a half.”
“Aw.”
“Mean boys!” Kyle suddenly cried out. Casey frowned and looked in the rearview, seeing him wagging a finger and staring at the back of Casey’s seat. Justine sighed.
“He’d pointed out what was happening… he saw them pushing you around and asked why. I said they were mean,” Justine said in a soft voice.
This made Casey sink back into embarrassment; he curled into himself a little and went quiet. As Kyle murmured “hambuggers” over and over in a sing-song voice, they turned onto Zeke’s street. Nervousness filled Casey to the core. He hadn’t expected on seeing him today--maybe even the whole week. Before he could hunker down in his seat and ask Justine to not say anything, they pulled in front of the house, where Zeke was sitting on his porch having a cigarette. ‘Shit…’ Casey thought as Zeke spotted him. He stood up slowly; Casey could see his frown.
“Hambuggers!” Kyle cheered happily. While Justine groaned her way out of the car and made her way over to Kyle’s door, Zeke went down the porch steps and sidewalk. Casey tried his best to put on a smile, but it seemed impossible.
“Hey,” Zeke said once at Casey’s opened window. “What’s goin’ on?”
“Nothing. Justine saw me at the bus stop and gave me a ride,” Casey said in a rush. He knew it sounded suspicious; Zeke must have heard it, as well.
“What happened?”
God…
“Jeep, hambuggers!” Kyle yelled. With Zeke turning away to face the boy with a smile, Casey hoped that the persistent little boy would provide enough distraction.
“Here’s ten bucks, get this kid a Happy Meal,” Justine blurted, shoving a bill into Zeke’s hand.
“I don’t want your money,” Zeke scoffed. He knelt down to the boy and grinned. “We’ll go to McD’s, kiddo. You can have a hundred hamburgers if you want--”
“Zeke. Stop it,” Justine warned. Zeke rolled his eyes and stood.
“He barely eats one, Justy,” he said. While he ruffled Kyle’s hair, he looked back to Casey. His smile faded. “The side of your face is all red. What the hell happened?”
Before Casey could come up with something… any-thing to say, Kyle started wagging his finger again. “Mean boys!” he cried. “No hitting!”
Casey clenched his teeth. He turned away and stared through the windshield. Whatever look Zeke was giving him, he could feel it.
“Thanks, Justy,” Zeke then said.
“Um… thank you, Zeke. You’re a lifesaver,” she replied. Casey watched in the corner of his eye as Justine gave Zeke a kiss on the cheek and handed him a few bags. She then knelt down and took Kyle in a tight hug. “You be good, okay? I’ll be here to pick you up in the morning.”
“’K, Momma,” Kyle said.
“A’right,” she said. With one last kiss and squeeze, she stood and looked to Zeke--then Casey--then Zeke again. “I’m gonna take him home… you have my cell.”
“Yup. Bye, Case.”
Casey nodded and bit his lip. Justine left the walk and went to the driver’s side, while Zeke hoisted Kyle up onto his shoulder. “Wave bye to Momma,” he said once at the stairs. Kyle waved both hands erratically; Justine waved back then set off on the road again.
They said nothing for about a block; the tension in Casey’s body was terrible. He watched leaves flutter about in the wind, slapping into asphalt, running along curbs and flopping in the grass. His hands were cold.
“Zeke likes to pretend he doesn’t give a shit.” Justine broke the silence. She glanced to Casey and took a deep breath. “He fails miserably at it, because he’s one of the sweetest guys I know… but he tries too hard to keep up the front.”
“Oh yea?” Casey mumbled, unmoved. The cold was starting to creep into his arms, and it hurt.
“I joke around, saying that I won’t let my son be around Zeke’s ‘badness’, but the fact is is that Kyle wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for Zeke,” Justine said.
This grabbed Casey’s attention. “Um… what?” he stared at the woman, whose lips were pursed and her expression blank. “Why?”
With another deep breath, Justine continued. “Kyle’s father had left me the day after I told him I was pregnant, so I was all alone. I had just started my catering job, working a million hours a week and just… I ended up working too hard. People kept telling me to slow down, but how the hell was I gonna support myself and a kid without taking a much work as I could? So about seven months into my pregnancy, I went into early labor and Kyle was born,” she explained. “I had crappy insurance and no money. Nothing. I didn’t even know where Kyle’s father was, I was considering selling my small house and… just… yea.”
“Jesus,” Casey muttered. “But how does Zeke…?”
A tiny smile found Justine’s lips. “That little bastard… he’d been ditched by his parents a couple weeks before, and Kyle just happened to be born on his seventeenth birthday. In the middle of my accepting the fact that there was no way I could keep Kyle alive, he shows up at the hospital to let me know that being seventeen meant that his trust fund was up for grabs.”
“So… he…?”
“He dropped check after check on that hospital counter and told the doctors that if Kyle died, he’d ‘fuck shit up’. He always says that he just wanted to share a birthday with my kid, that it was his ‘awesome influence’ or something crazy like that, whatever goes on in his head. He’ll never, ever tell me how much everything cost, but I did a roundabout guess. If it’s anything close to how much I was originally told… I almost don’t wanna know.”
The cold in Casey’s body was leaving him, replaced with a warmth so immense he needed to unzip his jacket. “Wow,” was all he could say.
“He helped a bit afterwards, too. If Kyle needed some specialist, he said he’d cover it. Things like that. After I made head cook, I told him to stuff it. But Kyle‘s grown up into a healthy, happy kid; you wouldn’t be able to tell that he was a preemie that almost… didn’t make it,” Justine said. She gave Casey a pointed look. “Never let him tell you that he doesn’t care. He’s done more for me, for all of us than anyone else could, and he expects nothing in return. And I know he doesn’t just start up schoolyard fights if he doesn’t have a good reason to.”
“Yea, that…”
“The minute he said, ‘it was just some football fuck’, I knew that it was because of you. It was, wasn’t it?” she asked. Casey parted his lips, but said nothing. Justine nodded. “The last time he ‘exacted revenge’ was for Holly… and let me tell you, he loves Holly with all of his heart.”
~*~