Brand New/Kevin Devine::Vin Accardi/Kevin Devine::NC-17::Seventy Times Seven was written for as much
[Title] Seventy Times Seven was written for as much.
[Author] dejectedmadness
[Pairing] Vin Accardi/Kevin Devine
[Band] Kevin Devine and the Young Duns (or Brand New/Kevin Devine if you prefer)
[Prompt] 070 Jealous
[Rating] NC-17
[Summary] Since Kevin plucked his cherry, since he went back to Jesse's bed, Vin isn't so sure anymore. Vin isn't so sure he's straight.
[Warnings]
[Author's Note] The sequel to If It's Not Me On Your Mind, Get Outta Here.
Since Vin's cherry skittered off with a wink and a wave thanks to a dazzling redheaded boy with guitar-worn fingers and a dangerous tongue, it has been twelve days, sixteen hours and fifty-eight minutes, give or take a few. Vin had been a little preoccupied at midnight of the date in question and hadn't had a watch on him at the exact moment of penetration, besides. He's rounded up a little. After all, it feels longer to him.
They've been travelling for a hundred years, but at last they've reached California, where they were meant to stay a few nights, again. Another hotel. The first since Texas. Vin doesn't like to think about Texas. The memory surges like the bile through his stomach into the forefront of his vision. It overtakes the gorgeous beach landscape next to which they all stand. It makes him blink, glance down. It makes him do everything in his power not to look at them.
Jesse's a sucker for the coast. His songs indicate as much. And the West Coast? At sunset? His hand is tucked into Kevin's. And Vin knows that this is the only time his friend would have been caught dead holding hands like a sixth grader, only at a romantic time like this, with a picturesque setting. And Vin knows he'll end it with a kiss. He won't wait around to watch that. He is the first to turn back. Only one pair of eyes turns to watch him leave.
***
It's cool tonight, not cold because it's California, and it's never cold here as far as he can tell. He throws a sweater on before their set, and takes the stage after Jesse to the screams of a thousand fans. He muses to himself while he plays, while he screams, while he croons along with his best friend. He thinks the same thoughts he has been lately, the ones that plague him, the ones that won't relent. After seven years of friendship, seven years of bad performances, inter-band arguments, petty grudges, shitty relationships, appendicitis, countless epidemics of laryngitis, and even fucking scarlet fever... for the first time in Vincent Accardi's life, he is jealous of Jesse Lacey. And furthermore, he isn't terribly fond of him, either.
It's a weird realization to come to, that he's upset with his best friend. Jesse hasn't done anything, not intentionally. He's just continued to be himself. His regular, careless, self-absorbed, insensitive, sexual, oblivious self. It's even worse that he doesn't know. Clearly, Kevin's neglected to mention the little incident between them. And obviously, he's assumed by Vin's lack of communication on the subject that Kevin had simply gone home from the bar thinking Jesse annoyed with him. Far be it for him to think that he's doing wrong in pushing his best friend into bed with his boyfriend. As far as Jesse knows, it's just a wet dream in the back of Vin's subconscious, and Kevin's still got his boyfriend's best friend's naked ass in his head when they fuck. Jesse's got no idea, Vin is sure. He's got no idea, and Vin's certain because of the way he still teases him every time he catches the stylish Italian eyeing up his thin, pretty, redheaded boyfriend.
"You know," Jesse says to him later that night. They're all sitting outside on the picnic benches out back, Vin and Brian smoking while they wait for the fans to find the way from the entranceway to the alley leading behind the venue. "You know," he repeats, "I don't know why you're so scared to try new things." Vin sets his teeth and tries not to grind. "It's not as bad as you make it out to be." He chuckles. "It's defily," he misses consonants, "defily," definitely, "not bad at all, Vinnie. You should think about it."
Rage mounts. Vin suppresses it as best he can. He knows he's just ribbing him. Jesse just wants a rise from him. Jesse has no idea, no idea whatsoever, that it's all he's been thinking about.
Kevin steps down from the backdoor, off the step and onto the pavement. Only one of them looks up. "Hey baby," he says.
Kevin messes up Jesse's hair, shoves him over far enough to sit down on the edge of the bench. "Hey," mumbles back the folk singer.
With a quick glance around for fans, Jesse presses his lips to Kevin's already blushing cheeks. Kevin turns his head into the kiss and catches his lips the second time. Vin stares intently across the table. Garrett is watching him, or staring blankly at his face, off in his own little world, which is the more likely. He tries not to react. But he hates it! God damn it! Anger flares inside of him again as Vin struggles to hold Garrett's eyes. He watches Jesse’s right hand flatten on the table. The wet sound of lips- Vin can’t take it!
He stifles the urge to put his cigarette out on that hand, aims for the table instead, and without a single word, he leaves. At Garrett’s soft, “Where’s he going?” Vin realizes how stupid the action was, but by then he’s back at the bus, and he isn’t about to fumble for some sorry excuse. He wishes he could slam the door behind him, but he’s afraid of breaking the window.
***
Evasion is the only solution Vin can see, after that. He stays as far away from the two boyfriends as he can, whether they’re together or not. It’s been eating away at him for days already, but the only thing he can think of is the fact that Jesse’s stringing Kevin along, and Kevin thinks there’s really something to this loyalty thing that Jesse has. Jesse’s just a fucking voyeur. He doesn’t care if Kevin fucks the whole goddamn band, or hell, even the whole Goddamn Band while he’s at it, just as long as he gets to hear about it.
He wishes it didn’t bother him so much. He knows that the reason it does isn’t so simple, nor so easy to admit, and so he pretends. Vin pretends like everything is okay because he doesn’t want to tell anyone either, not just for Kevin’s sake, although he has tried time and again to convince himself that that’s all it is. ‘Come on,’ he thinks to himself, ‘add it up.’ But he won’t. Vin Accardi is not a jealous man. He has never resented another person for having something he couldn’t. He watched his friends blow the fuck up before Brand New got big and thought only, “That’ll be us, someday.” But he knows, without admitting it to himself, he knows that he’s feeling the green-eyed monster settling into him, shifting things around, making Vin’s body its home. He resents that feeling. It’s not right. It’s not him.
He hears the door and knows that someone’s coming to bug him about meeting fans and getting over himself for ten fucking seconds to appreciate all those preteen girls who shell out their parents’ hard earned bucks to come and watch them do their thing up under the limelight. He rolls his eyes and stares at Garrett’s empty bunk above him. The curtain shifts and he feels someone sit on the edge of his mattress, but he doesn’t look up.
“Jesse doesn’t know, you know.”
Vin sits up so fast he almost knocks his head off of the low ceiling. Kevin’s face exhibits the slightest indication of shock; Vin’s reaction is slightly more violent than he’d been expecting.
Kevin waits. Vin supposes he is supposed to respond. He already knew, though, so what does he want him to say?
Kevin clears his throat. “He’s just… teasing you.”
“I’m familiar with Jesse Lacey, but thanks.”
Kevin frowns. “Did you want me to tell him? Would it make it easier?”
“No! Fuck, Kevin, what the hell are you doing here?”
“I…” Silence. “I guess I’m apologizing.”
Vin raises an incredulous eyebrow. “For what?”
“I didn’t think you’d have such a hard time with this.”
He rolls his eyes and slides out from his bunk. He doesn’t want to have this conversation.
“Vinnie, please!” He stops dead in his tracks. His hair is standing on end, a little. He feels a little rush flow through him. “Vin….” Kevin steps behind him and the electricity that he thinks he feels grows into static on his skin. His heart won’t listen when he tells it to slow the fuck down. “Vin, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have talked you into it. I just want us to be friends.”
“So you can add another name to your list of reasons why Jesse won’t leave you when he gets tired of being someone’s boyfriend?” He can’t help the way he bites off his words. He feels guilt flood him immediately. It’s a low blow, even if Kevin doesn’t take it as such.
Kevin doesn’t say anything for a while. Quite a while. Vin doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t know if he even can. It feels as though this conversation was long in coming, and they need it.
“I did a bad thing that night, Vinnie. Vin. You’re straight. You were a virgin. I took complete advantage of you-”
“Oh Kevin, don’t give me your fucking guilt-ridden apologies. If you’ve spent the last two weeks hiding your indiscretion from your boyfriend because you think I’m too fragile to handle the rumours and the teasing, then grow the fuck up, alright?” He finally turns around. He notices, for the first time since Kevin came outside to sit with them, how pale Kevin is, and how defeated he looks. “Tell him. Tell everyone, I don’t care!”
“Vin, why are you being like this?” His voice is higher than usual, but quiet, too. Kevin’s upset.
Vin can’t help it; he laughs. It’s a sad and pathetic chuckle that sounds as beaten as the other man looks. “God damn it!” he yells suddenly. It frightens even him, although Kevin’s eyes are the wide ones. “I can’t do this, okay? I can’t be around you!”
“Vin-”
“Or around him! Or when you two are together!” Kevin’s open mouth is motionless. “I can’t fucking stand it!”
“Stand what-?”
“You!” He steps forward until he’s invading Kevin’s personal space, forcing Kevin to lean away if he wants breathing room. “Him! This whole thing! I can’t watch him pretend he gives a good god damn about you while you fawn all over him like fucking everyone does because he’s Jesse motherfucking Lacey!” Kevin’s face becomes stony, but Vin pushes. He pushes too far, “You’re an idiot, Kevin!”
“Obviously I am, Vin, so please explain to me what the fuck you’re so fucking upset about!” Kevin shouts in his face. “If it’s not us having sex, then what the hell is your problem?”
Panting, fuming, Vin wants to scream again. Shout, yell, holler until Kevin sees his point, but he can’t. He can’t, he just can’t. Kevin’s eyes are shifting back and forth between his, trying to understand, frantic, and he realizes all at once that he’s too close. He’s so close. Kevin’s right there, right fucking there, and Vin’s breathing changes, his flush shifts, his heartbeat alters, and it’s all the same because he’s still panting and blushing with a rapid throb in his chest, and he still doesn’t know if he can control himself. Kevin watches him for a moment, for a second maybe, and it clicks. Vin sees it click, sees it in his face the instant that he realizes that it isn’t blood lust and anger anymore.
“I can’t do this, Kevin. I can’t be around you. I can’t fucking watch you with him,” desperate, now. Pathetic.
“Vin-”
“I wish I knew what to say…. It’s driving me crazy, Kevin,” and honest.
“Oh, God, Vin-”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s just… it was just the one night.” He has to look away, finally. He turns his head and steps aside. He turns away. You and Jesse, you’re a thing, and I get that. I don’t know, though. I don’t know what to do.”
“Vin, stop.” But he doesn’t know how. Now that it’s coming out of him, pouring out, he doesn’t remember how to bottle it up again. He feels helpless and ridiculous, and he’s shaking his head as if he can negate it all that way. “Vinnie….” And then? Then Kevin’s hand is on his arm. He stops dead. He lets Kevin come around to face him again. ‘What’s he going to say?’ Vin wonders. ‘What can he do?’
“Vin,” he whispers, secretly, softly, “I can’t stop thinking about you.” ‘What?’ “Come on, Vin. We were both there. I know you remember that I didn’t want to leave anymore than you wanted me to.”
“But you’re with Jesse, so you couldn’t.”
Kevin doesn’t even answer. Vin’s staring into his eyes, finding himself wondering if this is okay, and upon deciding that no, it isn’t, wonders whether he can think of an excuse valid enough to do it anyway. “Goddamn you, Kevin Devine.”
Kevin smirks, but it fades quickly. Vin knows he’s wondering, too, what they’re going to do. “Vinnie,” he whispers, like it’s their secret, their illicit little secret. And then he kisses him. Because it is.
“Kevin,” he sighs. But he doesn’t want words. He grabs Kevin’s shoulders and stands an inch or two taller, not slouching, on the balls of his feet, and their mouths crash together again.
Kevin thrusts his tongue between Vin’s teeth, fingers gripping, wrapping around his thin upper arms. Balance is lost, and Kevin’s back is against the wall. He’s moaning. He’s hard. Vin wants to tear his clothes off all over again.
Of course, that’s when the front door opens and they fly apart, Vin into his bunk. Kevin’s turned around, his back to the door, and they’re pretending that they were just talking, just talking all along.
Brian tosses back a remark about fans asking for Vin, but he says to tell them he’s on the phone and he’ll be out in a little while, when there are fewer of them.
“Kevin?”
“Hmm?”
“You coming?”
Light eyes glance over at Vin who nods. He has to go, and he does. It’s okay though, because it’s all wrong, and Vin knows it, and Kevin knows it, and they had both known before they started anything. It’s all wrong. The wrong time, the wrong place. They needed to do it later, somewhere more discreet.
***
“What am I going to do?” Kevin whispers into his ear. “I don’t know how to make this right, Vinnie.”
“Please don’t have an attack of conscience right now, Kev. Please.” His tongue dips into Kevin’s clavicle, slides up his throat to his Adam’s apple.
“This is so bad, Vinnie.”
It is, and he knows it, but fuck if it doesn’t feel like the best mistake he’s ever made. Kevin catches his lips when they hover over his mouth. Vin’s tongue meets Kevin’s and it’s all he can do not to tear that fucking cardigan off him bodily. Kevin snags Vin’s hands in midair, somehow having known they’d been about to pull that sweater to pieces. He slides his fingers between Vin’s fingers and turns him on his heel. Vin’s back’s against the wall, wrists pinned as high above his head as Kevin can reach, and he rocks his pelvis forward, grinding into him.
“Kevin!” Urgent, needy.
“Vinnie! Oh, Vinnie!”
They do it there, pants shoved down around his thighs, Kevin’s cock pulled through the hole in his underwear. Kevin wraps his fingers around them both at the same time. Vin’s panting and moaning because this is the hottest thing anyone’s ever done to him, and there’s only one word in his vocabulary that he can recall, and he can only manage the first syllable of that one, so he says it over and over, even as he’s coming. “Kev!” he whispers. “Kev!”
***
Vin taps ash onto the pavement. Jesse’s got one arm slung around Kevin’s waist because he’s just walked up to join the conversation, and it’s Jesse’s way of saying hello. It’s clear by the glance he gives Vin that he isn’t really comfortable standing there like that beside his boyfriend and across from his lover. Vin wishes he could choke down the resentment that’s risen in him. Instead, he just turns his head away and refuses to make eye contact with either of them. He knows if he does Jesse will just poke fun at him later, and Vin’s gotten sick, so, so sick of that in recent days.
Someone joins, someone leaves, and eventually they’re all splitting up to get ready to go. Jesse releases Kevin and in seconds has him by the arm, dragging Vin away.
“What the fuck, man?” he asks, but really his heart is breaking apart his chest with its urgency. Weren’t they careful enough? How could Jesse know?
“You and me, Vinnie,” condescending again, “we’re gonna chat.”
Outside, where Vin lights another smoke, under the light from the exit door, Jesse faces him. ‘Here it comes,’ he thinks. ‘We’re ruined.’
But Jesse smirks at him. “Your dog just die or somethin’, Vin?” He doesn’t react, so Jesse shrugs. “What’s up?”
A shake of the head and a mumbled, “Nothing,” doesn’t satisfy.
“You’ve been a jackass for weeks, man. You used to talk to me. What the hell’s going on?”
He tries again, “Nothing.” Jesse doesn’t take the bait.
He sighs. “Alright, I’m sorry, then.”
“Huh?” Vin says stupidly, and Jesse’s eyes roll.
“For being a jerk about Kevin.” When Vin says nothing for long enough that his ash falls on its own, Jesse continues, “I figure that’s gotta be it. Why else would I suddenly feel like my best friend wants me dead?” Vin takes a hasty drag trying for an excuse not to speak. Jesse helps him out and continues, “I just don’t believe, Vin, that you’re not curious. He’s pretty, you know, and he’s into you. Remember that night you watched him from the crowd? Yeah? Well, he watches us every night. Every show, he’s right there, and his eyes? On you, man. You, not me.”
“Jesse,” he finally cuts in, “I don’t think-”
“Nah. Nah, he’s totally into you. But Kevin’s so sweet, you know? He’s so proper. He thinks I’d get mad!” Jesse laughs. “I never told him the story about John, right, so he doesn’t even… he doesn’t even know.”
Vin presses his lips into a thin line. It’s hard for Jesse to talk about John like that. To just mention his name with the right connotation, that’s a feat, a real feat.
“He wants me to bring a date to the wedding. He says it’s gotta be a girl, too.” Jesse laughs, his voice is harder, now, and it’s not Jesse at all anymore, but the man Jesse became after he and John split up. Hard and cold, that’s this Jesse. No room for jokes, no room for emotion. John stole all that away. “He wants me to be best man.”
Vin reaches out for him, just a hand on the shoulder, nothing too flamboyant, nothing too touchy-feely sensitive. Jesse wouldn’t like it, and it isn’t really Vin.
“And Kevin’s this sweet guy, you know? He’s really a country boy at heart. You’d never guess he’d grown up in fucking Brooklyn ‘cept that filthy fuckin’ mouth he’s got. ‘Specially when he’s got your clothes off. Shit, you should hear him then.” Vin shifts a little and doesn’t make eye contact. “He couldn’t do something wrong, I mean something morally wrong, not in a hundred years. He’d stay with me until doomsday out of loyalty and sacrifice the prospect of real love just out of a sense of duty.” Jesse snorted. “But he doesn’t even want to be there, anymore, Vin. He stands next to me so he can stare at you.”
“Jesse-”
“Look, I know, okay? I know.” Vin’s chest implodes as his heart crushes itself in haste. “You’re not into guys. Except, Vin, you are. You are,” he stresses. “I just wish that was okay with you. I wish you didn’t feel so damn ashamed of it. It actually kind of hurts, Vinnie. It really does.”
Vin’s mouth is opened a crack in mild disbelief and startling realization. “Jesse-”
“Nah, it’s okay. I know you didn’t realize. I know you didn’t mean it like that. It’s kind of a scary thing, you know?”
“Jess, no. Really, really… I never meant-”
“Vin, it’s okay. I know. It’s scary. Please don’t apologize. When you’ve been with girls all your life and then suddenly there’s this boy? Maybe you’ve known him forever, or maybe you just met, but suddenly you’re staring and your heart’s racing, and you’re afraid to death to let yourself do what you fucking really want to do all over again because it’s new. Vin, I see how you look at him, okay? You don’t have to admit it to me, or to him, or to anyone, but just try to see it, okay? I haven’t seen you so worked up over anyone in literally years.”
Vin glances at the cigarette in his hand. It’s gone out. He drops it uselessly and crosses his arms over his chest.
“You don’t believe in love, do you Vin?”
He blinks at Jesse.
“Do you?”
Vin shrugs. “I’ve never thought about it.”
Jesse laughs then. It’s as refreshing as it is out of place. It almost gives Vin chills. “That’s such bullshit. Everyone’s thought about it.” Vin shrugs again and shakes his head. “Well think about it now. What do you think? Do you think that there’s someone out there who is so perfect for you that you can’t stop thinking about them? You can’t stop doing little stupid things to see them around. Maybe you plan your day to run into them just so you can hear them laugh when you bump into them and say, ‘are you stalking me?’ Do you think that there’s someone out there who would just click with you, and you’d suddenly find yourself a different person, doing things you’d never thought you would ever do in a hundred years because of them?”
Jesse looks on expectantly, but Vin isn’t sure what to say. He would feel stupid saying yes, but he would feel dishonest saying no. He would have a harder time if Jesse asked if he’d ever felt like that.
“Do you know how hard it is for guys like us to run into girls on the road, on tour, who could have that kind of connection with us? That’s not easy. Girls like us are hard to find. Guys are easier. So really, if you think about it, it’s not that strange a thought that maybe we’d turn to one of them, a friend, maybe just someone else on tour, a guy who, if you let him, might help you feel a little bit.” Jesse cocks his head to the side. “I just… Vin, I just want you to be happy. I mean, I don’t want to get in anyone’s way. I already had my chance, you know, to be with someone I loved, and that’s kind of done, now.” Vin frowns, but Jesse pushes on. He isn’t trying to talk about himself, after all. “So… let him court you, Vin. I mean, when you’re ready. He’ll do it old school, with fucking roses and chocolate, or he’ll do it casual with like pizza and beer. Whatever you want, Vinnie. Whatever makes it feel ok.”
Vin has a sick feeling in his gut as he hears Jesse lament his failed relationship with John and openly acknowledge that every subsequent one is doomed to fail. He knows that Jesse is never going to get over his high school love, even when John is happily married with kids and a house in the suburbs of Manhattan. It weighs him down even more when he tries to talk to him about Kevin. He wants to speak, but he doesn’t think he can past the bile in his throat.
“I just want you happy, Vin. You aren’t very often. I think Kevin can make it happen.”
“Jesse, please stop.” His friend’s mouth closes obediently, something Jesse rarely is. “Jess… Kevin… I… we slept together. In Texas.”
A sad smile breaks across Jesse’s face.
“And we’ve been sneaking around, kind of, for a couple days. I was just… I couldn’t tell you. I hardly know… what this is. I don’t know. I didn’t mean to-”
“Kevin told you our arrangement, Vin. If you’ve been listening to me for weeks, I haven’t been able to get over the idea of you two together.”
“But it’s more than that, Jesse! You and he are together! And now, now what you’re saying is that you want me to have him?”
“Yes. Exactly. Vin, I want you to have him. Why are you so confused?”
“I don’t understand how you’re just handing me your boyfriend.”
Jesse laughs, much to Vin’s chagrin. “I’m not handing him to you. I’m not giving him up for trade or anything. I just… fuck, why is this so complicated, Vin? I just want you to be happy, and I can see that you’re both so into each other that it hurts. If you’ve been sneaking around together behind everyone’s backs, it makes it even more reasonable to suggest you make it legit.” Vin stares, not entirely satisfied with this answer, but now almost ashamed to want more explanation. Jesse makes it sound like there isn’t the first thing wrong with this arrangement, like Vin should just thank him and then suddenly he’s entitled to Kevin Devine. “I’m going to break up with Kevin tonight, and I’ll tell him what I told you. I’ll tell him that you two deserve each other, and since I’m too lost to be true love, he should explore this thing with you further.”
“Wait, what? You’re going to break up with him?”
“Of course. I thought that bit was clear.”
“How do you figure?”
Jesse laughs. “Well you can't get very far with him thinking he's hopelessly entangled with the wrong man, Vin."
Vin wants to refute that, but he thinks maybe it would be tasteless to remind Jesse that he had gotten plenty far with Kevin.
"Jess... you don't need to..." Vin begins, but he finds it hard to say the words. They fall flat and Vin resorts to the same silence.
"Don't look so sad, Vinnie. You don't have to sneak around anymore."
He snorts, hopeless, speechless. "Jess... I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to steal your boyfriend. Not for this. I don't even know... I don't know what this is, Jesse. What if it's nothing?"
Jesse shrugs. "Well then it's nothing, and you'll figure it out when you figure it out. But," he cocks his head, "what Kevin and I have... that really is nothing. Don't think about it, alright? I'll see you later."
Without feeling any better, Vin watches Jesse walk away, and he stares after him until there's nothing there but the absence of light. He puts a cigarette in his mouth, and he smokes the shit out of it before lighting the next from its butt. He's on his third when he hears footsteps. He doesn't need to look to know who it is.
"I feel like an asshole," he tells him. He takes another drag.
The steps stop beside him, beside where he's sitting on the concrete stairs outside of the venue's back exit.
"I didn't know what to say to him. He just... kept going on about how I needed to be okay with how I felt and let myself act on it, and about how you'd stick with him 'till judgement day because you'd think it wrong to leave him for his best friend." Vin inhales another quick lungful of smoke. "I couldn't listen to him like that and... say... nothing." He grinds the butt out on the concrete and flicks it into the encompassing black. "I'm sorry. I wish I hadn't had to tell him. I mean, for you. For your sake. It was your secret, too. I'm just... I'm really sorry, Kevin. I-"
"Vin," he sits, "it's really okay."
He doesn't look. He doesn't want anyone seeing how distraught he actually is about it all. "Yeah... that's what he said, too." Is he anything but a disappointment, he wonders?
"Vinnie." Silence. He's waiting to be acknowledged. Vin holds off as long as he can, but ultimately has to turn, has to see. "Are you okay?" He opens his mouth, but Kevin interrupts. "I mean really okay, Vin. Are you okay with this? It doesn't have to be like that, not if you don't want it to."
Kevin's face is steady, concerned. Vin knows he's trying not to let him see what this means to him. Staring into those eyes, watching them flick over his face, trying to read him, Vin realizes, all at once, all of a sudden, without warning, that all he has to do is let himself want this, want something, anything, and maybe this doesn't have to be about angst and secrets. It can be, just like Jesse said, what finally makes him happy, what makes him smile instead of grimace at every passing stranger and every new morning.
He starts to speak without having added everything up in his head yet. Instinctually, he says, "I don't know how to do this." He admits his lack. "You'll have to teach me."
Kevin laughs, but it's not malicious. It never is with Kevin. "It's easy," he says. "You just..." his lips close in on Vin's, and they kiss.
***
Kevin's a good teacher, Vin finds. He's incredibly detailed and has a number of wonderful examples, so that showing Vin exactly what to do turns into a game easily. Of course, it helps that Vin is such a sponge for knowledge. He soaks up every word, retains them all, because he's paying close attention, and when it comes time for Vin to demonstrate all he's learned, Kevin finds he's a model student.
For instance, Vin has learned just how to slide in between Kevin's legs, pressing his thighs against the parts that count and pushing his tongue past swollen lips so that he's rewarded a sigh, maybe a groan. And he's definitely figured out how much boys' nipples are just like girls' nipples in that he can rub them and lick them and suck on them and make a body moan wantonly under him, writhe up against him until they're both hard. He's learned how easily Kevin will spread his legs once he got him that way, wanting, delirious with sensation, too. That one was easy to find out.
"Tell me what to do," Vin instructs. Kevin blinks as his brain slowly identifies the language as English and processes the words.
Kevin lickes his lips so they glisten, and Vin can't help but kiss them. Of course, he presses down with his hips at the same time so that Kevin's smirk turns into a grunt and he lets him suck on the end of his tongue, which proves Vin even more observant than Kevin could even have known, for this is something the red-headed boy thoroughly enjoys. It makes him squirm and squeeze his fingers into Vin's shoulders until he's released. Then, with a shaky breath, Kevin orders, "Touch me," then begs, "Please, touch me."
Vin trails his fingers down Kevin's torso to his bellybutton. "Here?" he asks innocently. Kevin just breathes and watches him decide that no, that wasn't where he meant. He slides his fingers through Kevin's hair. "Here?" He tries Kevin's chest, those nipples he was playing with only moments before, then his fingertips graze his wet, red lips. Vin obviously isn't expecting them to open like they do, or Kevin's tongue to dart out and flick across his index fingertip, or him to lean forward and wrap those damn lips around it and suck on it.
"Oh, Jesus," he moans as he feels his dick surge with life. He's never considered himself to have a hand fetish before, but then again, Kevin Devine had never sucked on his fingers before now. He isn't able to do anything, not move, not speak, until Kevin pulls away. Vin's naturally dark eyes are black when he looks down at Kevin. He puts aside all games and teasing, and with another soul sucking kiss, he gets to the goods.
Vin's long fingers wrap around Kevin for the first time. He feels, gauges, examines to sate his curiousity, but he does it quickly because Kevin's already breathing hard, and they've barely started. And Vin? Yeah, he's fucking ready to go, too.
Kevin guides him through the preparation. More lube, another finger, pushing, pulling, stretching. "Fuck, Vin, I want you so fucking bad, so fucking- oh God!- Vinnie, please!"
The hint is more than enough. Vin agrees. It's been too long, and he's ready for this. Lined up, Kevin nods, and he pushes in, as slowly as Kevin had for him his first time, but no. The redhead is not satisfied with this fucking torturous pace.
"Just, it's okay, Vin. I've done this before, I can handle it. Just- oh!" He does. "Oh Jesus fucking Christ, Vinnie! Hard! Please, fuck me hard!"
This part? Yeah, Vin's done this part before. He knows all about pacing himself and angles, even if Kevin doesn't have a g-spot for him to aim for. He remembers how to fuck, and he's always been the head of his class at it. A hole is a hole, he thinks, and Kevin's isn't so different from the girls he's been with. The only difference of substance that he knows lies deep inside of him, it's the one Vin didn't believe in, like he didn't believe in Santa Claus after he turned eight, until he felt Kevin hit it, until Kevin abused it until Vin couldn't even fucking see. That was his goal: Kevin's prostate. Lucky for him, it wants to be found.
Kevin's a screamer. Vin hasn't really realized as much until now. Legs over Vin's shoulders, head thrown back and mouth wide, to release some of the most vulgar phrases he'd ever heard from anyone and the highest-pitched screams he never imagined could come from a boy. Then, with Kevin on his knees, bracing himself against the wall and Vin slamming their hips together as rapidly as his spindly little body can manage. Finally, with Kevin on top pinning Vin down, his backside crashing down against Vin's body, 'Fuck he's loud,' Vin thinks. He likes it.
"Oh, fuck, Kevin," Vin wheezes. He's getting close, and there's no way he can hold back with him losing it on top of him.
"Vinnie," he whispers. "Oh fuck, Vin!"
They swap positions again. He's on his knees with Kevin straddling him. The angle is such that he hits his prostate every time, every damn time. He knows because he can feel it against the end of his cock, and because Kevin can't seem to stop shrieking. Vin takes his cock in hand; from this angle it isn't too difficult, and Kevin lets out one long moan.
A moment later, Kevin gets quiet again, his voice seems utterly gone. He's whispering over and over, only whispering, and only, "Vinnie! Vinnie!"
"Kevin!" he kisses his throat, because he's so fucking close and he doesn't think he can manage to remember how to say it, but he needs to breathe and can't keep it up. Vin bites him, then, hard enough to bruise without a doubt.
"Vinnie!" he hears once more, a whisper in his ear, and then a short, soft cry before he feels the crush of Kevin's body around him and the splash of semen against his stomach.
He releases the flesh in his teeth and comes, himself, shuddering as waves of pleasure course down his entire body.
They're lying there, under the sheets together, and Kevin curls up at his side. Vin's arm automatically moves to accomodate him. Vin loses his tongue in Kevin's mouth for a good long time, until finally, exhaustion overwhelms them both.
***
It's breakfast in the lobby of the hotel they've scored while they're in California, and Jesse's just joined them. He slept late, he explains.
"No wonder, man," Garrett blurts, and everyone's attention is drawn. "Shit, what the fuck do you do to make him scream like that all fucking night?"
Jesse laughs. Vin's face is flaming, moreso, even, than any of those present at the table. "The power of my mind, man. I drove out to the beach last night and slept in Kevin's van."
Garrett's face pales as he wonders, clearly, who he just killed with his big mouth. Jesse doesn't look at Vin until long after attentions returned to breakfast. He's still blushing.
Then Kevin arrives. He sits down between Garrett and Vin, across from Jesse. He sits down carefully, wincing once or twice, and then hissing when he leans forward for the syrup. Garrett's smirking into his eggs.
"So," Jesse says conversationally, "I hear you had the ride of your life last night."
Kevin doesn't miss a beat. With a chuckle and a wink he responds, "What can I say? You ever fucked an Italian? They're fucking relentless."
Cue Garrett choking to death on his orange juice and Brian dropping his fork. Vin stares intently down at his plate, hoping that a void might open up and swallow him before anyone says anything. Unfortunately, Vin, never a patient man, looks up despite his reticence. Kevin's is the first face he sees.
"What? No good morning?" he chirps.
"Morning," Vin mumbles, but before he can turn back to his meal or to see the expressions of mild horror on the faces of his bandmates, Kevin's ducking down for a kiss. Vin tries to make it a quick peck on the lips, already mortified in front of his friends, but Kevin, after getting his peck, hovers next to Vin's face until he can't help but smile and give in. As early as it is for sexual antics, he teases Vin with a little tongue that tastes a bit like maple syrup. Vin likes it enough to get just a little carried away, smiling into Kevin's equally smirking lips.
"Guys!" Brian blurts after a moment more. When they part to attend to him, he glances warily at Jesse and scolds, "No one wants to watch that while we're trying to eat, here."
"Yeah. Ew guys," Garrett says past his open staring. "Ew."
The world paused, and then Jesse: "I could stand to see a little more."
[Author] dejectedmadness
[Pairing] Vin Accardi/Kevin Devine
[Band] Kevin Devine and the Young Duns (or Brand New/Kevin Devine if you prefer)
[Prompt] 070 Jealous
[Rating] NC-17
[Summary] Since Kevin plucked his cherry, since he went back to Jesse's bed, Vin isn't so sure anymore. Vin isn't so sure he's straight.
[Warnings]
[Author's Note] The sequel to If It's Not Me On Your Mind, Get Outta Here.
Since Vin's cherry skittered off with a wink and a wave thanks to a dazzling redheaded boy with guitar-worn fingers and a dangerous tongue, it has been twelve days, sixteen hours and fifty-eight minutes, give or take a few. Vin had been a little preoccupied at midnight of the date in question and hadn't had a watch on him at the exact moment of penetration, besides. He's rounded up a little. After all, it feels longer to him.
They've been travelling for a hundred years, but at last they've reached California, where they were meant to stay a few nights, again. Another hotel. The first since Texas. Vin doesn't like to think about Texas. The memory surges like the bile through his stomach into the forefront of his vision. It overtakes the gorgeous beach landscape next to which they all stand. It makes him blink, glance down. It makes him do everything in his power not to look at them.
Jesse's a sucker for the coast. His songs indicate as much. And the West Coast? At sunset? His hand is tucked into Kevin's. And Vin knows that this is the only time his friend would have been caught dead holding hands like a sixth grader, only at a romantic time like this, with a picturesque setting. And Vin knows he'll end it with a kiss. He won't wait around to watch that. He is the first to turn back. Only one pair of eyes turns to watch him leave.
***
It's cool tonight, not cold because it's California, and it's never cold here as far as he can tell. He throws a sweater on before their set, and takes the stage after Jesse to the screams of a thousand fans. He muses to himself while he plays, while he screams, while he croons along with his best friend. He thinks the same thoughts he has been lately, the ones that plague him, the ones that won't relent. After seven years of friendship, seven years of bad performances, inter-band arguments, petty grudges, shitty relationships, appendicitis, countless epidemics of laryngitis, and even fucking scarlet fever... for the first time in Vincent Accardi's life, he is jealous of Jesse Lacey. And furthermore, he isn't terribly fond of him, either.
It's a weird realization to come to, that he's upset with his best friend. Jesse hasn't done anything, not intentionally. He's just continued to be himself. His regular, careless, self-absorbed, insensitive, sexual, oblivious self. It's even worse that he doesn't know. Clearly, Kevin's neglected to mention the little incident between them. And obviously, he's assumed by Vin's lack of communication on the subject that Kevin had simply gone home from the bar thinking Jesse annoyed with him. Far be it for him to think that he's doing wrong in pushing his best friend into bed with his boyfriend. As far as Jesse knows, it's just a wet dream in the back of Vin's subconscious, and Kevin's still got his boyfriend's best friend's naked ass in his head when they fuck. Jesse's got no idea, Vin is sure. He's got no idea, and Vin's certain because of the way he still teases him every time he catches the stylish Italian eyeing up his thin, pretty, redheaded boyfriend.
"You know," Jesse says to him later that night. They're all sitting outside on the picnic benches out back, Vin and Brian smoking while they wait for the fans to find the way from the entranceway to the alley leading behind the venue. "You know," he repeats, "I don't know why you're so scared to try new things." Vin sets his teeth and tries not to grind. "It's not as bad as you make it out to be." He chuckles. "It's defily," he misses consonants, "defily," definitely, "not bad at all, Vinnie. You should think about it."
Rage mounts. Vin suppresses it as best he can. He knows he's just ribbing him. Jesse just wants a rise from him. Jesse has no idea, no idea whatsoever, that it's all he's been thinking about.
Kevin steps down from the backdoor, off the step and onto the pavement. Only one of them looks up. "Hey baby," he says.
Kevin messes up Jesse's hair, shoves him over far enough to sit down on the edge of the bench. "Hey," mumbles back the folk singer.
With a quick glance around for fans, Jesse presses his lips to Kevin's already blushing cheeks. Kevin turns his head into the kiss and catches his lips the second time. Vin stares intently across the table. Garrett is watching him, or staring blankly at his face, off in his own little world, which is the more likely. He tries not to react. But he hates it! God damn it! Anger flares inside of him again as Vin struggles to hold Garrett's eyes. He watches Jesse’s right hand flatten on the table. The wet sound of lips- Vin can’t take it!
He stifles the urge to put his cigarette out on that hand, aims for the table instead, and without a single word, he leaves. At Garrett’s soft, “Where’s he going?” Vin realizes how stupid the action was, but by then he’s back at the bus, and he isn’t about to fumble for some sorry excuse. He wishes he could slam the door behind him, but he’s afraid of breaking the window.
***
Evasion is the only solution Vin can see, after that. He stays as far away from the two boyfriends as he can, whether they’re together or not. It’s been eating away at him for days already, but the only thing he can think of is the fact that Jesse’s stringing Kevin along, and Kevin thinks there’s really something to this loyalty thing that Jesse has. Jesse’s just a fucking voyeur. He doesn’t care if Kevin fucks the whole goddamn band, or hell, even the whole Goddamn Band while he’s at it, just as long as he gets to hear about it.
He wishes it didn’t bother him so much. He knows that the reason it does isn’t so simple, nor so easy to admit, and so he pretends. Vin pretends like everything is okay because he doesn’t want to tell anyone either, not just for Kevin’s sake, although he has tried time and again to convince himself that that’s all it is. ‘Come on,’ he thinks to himself, ‘add it up.’ But he won’t. Vin Accardi is not a jealous man. He has never resented another person for having something he couldn’t. He watched his friends blow the fuck up before Brand New got big and thought only, “That’ll be us, someday.” But he knows, without admitting it to himself, he knows that he’s feeling the green-eyed monster settling into him, shifting things around, making Vin’s body its home. He resents that feeling. It’s not right. It’s not him.
He hears the door and knows that someone’s coming to bug him about meeting fans and getting over himself for ten fucking seconds to appreciate all those preteen girls who shell out their parents’ hard earned bucks to come and watch them do their thing up under the limelight. He rolls his eyes and stares at Garrett’s empty bunk above him. The curtain shifts and he feels someone sit on the edge of his mattress, but he doesn’t look up.
“Jesse doesn’t know, you know.”
Vin sits up so fast he almost knocks his head off of the low ceiling. Kevin’s face exhibits the slightest indication of shock; Vin’s reaction is slightly more violent than he’d been expecting.
Kevin waits. Vin supposes he is supposed to respond. He already knew, though, so what does he want him to say?
Kevin clears his throat. “He’s just… teasing you.”
“I’m familiar with Jesse Lacey, but thanks.”
Kevin frowns. “Did you want me to tell him? Would it make it easier?”
“No! Fuck, Kevin, what the hell are you doing here?”
“I…” Silence. “I guess I’m apologizing.”
Vin raises an incredulous eyebrow. “For what?”
“I didn’t think you’d have such a hard time with this.”
He rolls his eyes and slides out from his bunk. He doesn’t want to have this conversation.
“Vinnie, please!” He stops dead in his tracks. His hair is standing on end, a little. He feels a little rush flow through him. “Vin….” Kevin steps behind him and the electricity that he thinks he feels grows into static on his skin. His heart won’t listen when he tells it to slow the fuck down. “Vin, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have talked you into it. I just want us to be friends.”
“So you can add another name to your list of reasons why Jesse won’t leave you when he gets tired of being someone’s boyfriend?” He can’t help the way he bites off his words. He feels guilt flood him immediately. It’s a low blow, even if Kevin doesn’t take it as such.
Kevin doesn’t say anything for a while. Quite a while. Vin doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t know if he even can. It feels as though this conversation was long in coming, and they need it.
“I did a bad thing that night, Vinnie. Vin. You’re straight. You were a virgin. I took complete advantage of you-”
“Oh Kevin, don’t give me your fucking guilt-ridden apologies. If you’ve spent the last two weeks hiding your indiscretion from your boyfriend because you think I’m too fragile to handle the rumours and the teasing, then grow the fuck up, alright?” He finally turns around. He notices, for the first time since Kevin came outside to sit with them, how pale Kevin is, and how defeated he looks. “Tell him. Tell everyone, I don’t care!”
“Vin, why are you being like this?” His voice is higher than usual, but quiet, too. Kevin’s upset.
Vin can’t help it; he laughs. It’s a sad and pathetic chuckle that sounds as beaten as the other man looks. “God damn it!” he yells suddenly. It frightens even him, although Kevin’s eyes are the wide ones. “I can’t do this, okay? I can’t be around you!”
“Vin-”
“Or around him! Or when you two are together!” Kevin’s open mouth is motionless. “I can’t fucking stand it!”
“Stand what-?”
“You!” He steps forward until he’s invading Kevin’s personal space, forcing Kevin to lean away if he wants breathing room. “Him! This whole thing! I can’t watch him pretend he gives a good god damn about you while you fawn all over him like fucking everyone does because he’s Jesse motherfucking Lacey!” Kevin’s face becomes stony, but Vin pushes. He pushes too far, “You’re an idiot, Kevin!”
“Obviously I am, Vin, so please explain to me what the fuck you’re so fucking upset about!” Kevin shouts in his face. “If it’s not us having sex, then what the hell is your problem?”
Panting, fuming, Vin wants to scream again. Shout, yell, holler until Kevin sees his point, but he can’t. He can’t, he just can’t. Kevin’s eyes are shifting back and forth between his, trying to understand, frantic, and he realizes all at once that he’s too close. He’s so close. Kevin’s right there, right fucking there, and Vin’s breathing changes, his flush shifts, his heartbeat alters, and it’s all the same because he’s still panting and blushing with a rapid throb in his chest, and he still doesn’t know if he can control himself. Kevin watches him for a moment, for a second maybe, and it clicks. Vin sees it click, sees it in his face the instant that he realizes that it isn’t blood lust and anger anymore.
“I can’t do this, Kevin. I can’t be around you. I can’t fucking watch you with him,” desperate, now. Pathetic.
“Vin-”
“I wish I knew what to say…. It’s driving me crazy, Kevin,” and honest.
“Oh, God, Vin-”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s just… it was just the one night.” He has to look away, finally. He turns his head and steps aside. He turns away. You and Jesse, you’re a thing, and I get that. I don’t know, though. I don’t know what to do.”
“Vin, stop.” But he doesn’t know how. Now that it’s coming out of him, pouring out, he doesn’t remember how to bottle it up again. He feels helpless and ridiculous, and he’s shaking his head as if he can negate it all that way. “Vinnie….” And then? Then Kevin’s hand is on his arm. He stops dead. He lets Kevin come around to face him again. ‘What’s he going to say?’ Vin wonders. ‘What can he do?’
“Vin,” he whispers, secretly, softly, “I can’t stop thinking about you.” ‘What?’ “Come on, Vin. We were both there. I know you remember that I didn’t want to leave anymore than you wanted me to.”
“But you’re with Jesse, so you couldn’t.”
Kevin doesn’t even answer. Vin’s staring into his eyes, finding himself wondering if this is okay, and upon deciding that no, it isn’t, wonders whether he can think of an excuse valid enough to do it anyway. “Goddamn you, Kevin Devine.”
Kevin smirks, but it fades quickly. Vin knows he’s wondering, too, what they’re going to do. “Vinnie,” he whispers, like it’s their secret, their illicit little secret. And then he kisses him. Because it is.
“Kevin,” he sighs. But he doesn’t want words. He grabs Kevin’s shoulders and stands an inch or two taller, not slouching, on the balls of his feet, and their mouths crash together again.
Kevin thrusts his tongue between Vin’s teeth, fingers gripping, wrapping around his thin upper arms. Balance is lost, and Kevin’s back is against the wall. He’s moaning. He’s hard. Vin wants to tear his clothes off all over again.
Of course, that’s when the front door opens and they fly apart, Vin into his bunk. Kevin’s turned around, his back to the door, and they’re pretending that they were just talking, just talking all along.
Brian tosses back a remark about fans asking for Vin, but he says to tell them he’s on the phone and he’ll be out in a little while, when there are fewer of them.
“Kevin?”
“Hmm?”
“You coming?”
Light eyes glance over at Vin who nods. He has to go, and he does. It’s okay though, because it’s all wrong, and Vin knows it, and Kevin knows it, and they had both known before they started anything. It’s all wrong. The wrong time, the wrong place. They needed to do it later, somewhere more discreet.
***
“What am I going to do?” Kevin whispers into his ear. “I don’t know how to make this right, Vinnie.”
“Please don’t have an attack of conscience right now, Kev. Please.” His tongue dips into Kevin’s clavicle, slides up his throat to his Adam’s apple.
“This is so bad, Vinnie.”
It is, and he knows it, but fuck if it doesn’t feel like the best mistake he’s ever made. Kevin catches his lips when they hover over his mouth. Vin’s tongue meets Kevin’s and it’s all he can do not to tear that fucking cardigan off him bodily. Kevin snags Vin’s hands in midair, somehow having known they’d been about to pull that sweater to pieces. He slides his fingers between Vin’s fingers and turns him on his heel. Vin’s back’s against the wall, wrists pinned as high above his head as Kevin can reach, and he rocks his pelvis forward, grinding into him.
“Kevin!” Urgent, needy.
“Vinnie! Oh, Vinnie!”
They do it there, pants shoved down around his thighs, Kevin’s cock pulled through the hole in his underwear. Kevin wraps his fingers around them both at the same time. Vin’s panting and moaning because this is the hottest thing anyone’s ever done to him, and there’s only one word in his vocabulary that he can recall, and he can only manage the first syllable of that one, so he says it over and over, even as he’s coming. “Kev!” he whispers. “Kev!”
***
Vin taps ash onto the pavement. Jesse’s got one arm slung around Kevin’s waist because he’s just walked up to join the conversation, and it’s Jesse’s way of saying hello. It’s clear by the glance he gives Vin that he isn’t really comfortable standing there like that beside his boyfriend and across from his lover. Vin wishes he could choke down the resentment that’s risen in him. Instead, he just turns his head away and refuses to make eye contact with either of them. He knows if he does Jesse will just poke fun at him later, and Vin’s gotten sick, so, so sick of that in recent days.
Someone joins, someone leaves, and eventually they’re all splitting up to get ready to go. Jesse releases Kevin and in seconds has him by the arm, dragging Vin away.
“What the fuck, man?” he asks, but really his heart is breaking apart his chest with its urgency. Weren’t they careful enough? How could Jesse know?
“You and me, Vinnie,” condescending again, “we’re gonna chat.”
Outside, where Vin lights another smoke, under the light from the exit door, Jesse faces him. ‘Here it comes,’ he thinks. ‘We’re ruined.’
But Jesse smirks at him. “Your dog just die or somethin’, Vin?” He doesn’t react, so Jesse shrugs. “What’s up?”
A shake of the head and a mumbled, “Nothing,” doesn’t satisfy.
“You’ve been a jackass for weeks, man. You used to talk to me. What the hell’s going on?”
He tries again, “Nothing.” Jesse doesn’t take the bait.
He sighs. “Alright, I’m sorry, then.”
“Huh?” Vin says stupidly, and Jesse’s eyes roll.
“For being a jerk about Kevin.” When Vin says nothing for long enough that his ash falls on its own, Jesse continues, “I figure that’s gotta be it. Why else would I suddenly feel like my best friend wants me dead?” Vin takes a hasty drag trying for an excuse not to speak. Jesse helps him out and continues, “I just don’t believe, Vin, that you’re not curious. He’s pretty, you know, and he’s into you. Remember that night you watched him from the crowd? Yeah? Well, he watches us every night. Every show, he’s right there, and his eyes? On you, man. You, not me.”
“Jesse,” he finally cuts in, “I don’t think-”
“Nah. Nah, he’s totally into you. But Kevin’s so sweet, you know? He’s so proper. He thinks I’d get mad!” Jesse laughs. “I never told him the story about John, right, so he doesn’t even… he doesn’t even know.”
Vin presses his lips into a thin line. It’s hard for Jesse to talk about John like that. To just mention his name with the right connotation, that’s a feat, a real feat.
“He wants me to bring a date to the wedding. He says it’s gotta be a girl, too.” Jesse laughs, his voice is harder, now, and it’s not Jesse at all anymore, but the man Jesse became after he and John split up. Hard and cold, that’s this Jesse. No room for jokes, no room for emotion. John stole all that away. “He wants me to be best man.”
Vin reaches out for him, just a hand on the shoulder, nothing too flamboyant, nothing too touchy-feely sensitive. Jesse wouldn’t like it, and it isn’t really Vin.
“And Kevin’s this sweet guy, you know? He’s really a country boy at heart. You’d never guess he’d grown up in fucking Brooklyn ‘cept that filthy fuckin’ mouth he’s got. ‘Specially when he’s got your clothes off. Shit, you should hear him then.” Vin shifts a little and doesn’t make eye contact. “He couldn’t do something wrong, I mean something morally wrong, not in a hundred years. He’d stay with me until doomsday out of loyalty and sacrifice the prospect of real love just out of a sense of duty.” Jesse snorted. “But he doesn’t even want to be there, anymore, Vin. He stands next to me so he can stare at you.”
“Jesse-”
“Look, I know, okay? I know.” Vin’s chest implodes as his heart crushes itself in haste. “You’re not into guys. Except, Vin, you are. You are,” he stresses. “I just wish that was okay with you. I wish you didn’t feel so damn ashamed of it. It actually kind of hurts, Vinnie. It really does.”
Vin’s mouth is opened a crack in mild disbelief and startling realization. “Jesse-”
“Nah, it’s okay. I know you didn’t realize. I know you didn’t mean it like that. It’s kind of a scary thing, you know?”
“Jess, no. Really, really… I never meant-”
“Vin, it’s okay. I know. It’s scary. Please don’t apologize. When you’ve been with girls all your life and then suddenly there’s this boy? Maybe you’ve known him forever, or maybe you just met, but suddenly you’re staring and your heart’s racing, and you’re afraid to death to let yourself do what you fucking really want to do all over again because it’s new. Vin, I see how you look at him, okay? You don’t have to admit it to me, or to him, or to anyone, but just try to see it, okay? I haven’t seen you so worked up over anyone in literally years.”
Vin glances at the cigarette in his hand. It’s gone out. He drops it uselessly and crosses his arms over his chest.
“You don’t believe in love, do you Vin?”
He blinks at Jesse.
“Do you?”
Vin shrugs. “I’ve never thought about it.”
Jesse laughs then. It’s as refreshing as it is out of place. It almost gives Vin chills. “That’s such bullshit. Everyone’s thought about it.” Vin shrugs again and shakes his head. “Well think about it now. What do you think? Do you think that there’s someone out there who is so perfect for you that you can’t stop thinking about them? You can’t stop doing little stupid things to see them around. Maybe you plan your day to run into them just so you can hear them laugh when you bump into them and say, ‘are you stalking me?’ Do you think that there’s someone out there who would just click with you, and you’d suddenly find yourself a different person, doing things you’d never thought you would ever do in a hundred years because of them?”
Jesse looks on expectantly, but Vin isn’t sure what to say. He would feel stupid saying yes, but he would feel dishonest saying no. He would have a harder time if Jesse asked if he’d ever felt like that.
“Do you know how hard it is for guys like us to run into girls on the road, on tour, who could have that kind of connection with us? That’s not easy. Girls like us are hard to find. Guys are easier. So really, if you think about it, it’s not that strange a thought that maybe we’d turn to one of them, a friend, maybe just someone else on tour, a guy who, if you let him, might help you feel a little bit.” Jesse cocks his head to the side. “I just… Vin, I just want you to be happy. I mean, I don’t want to get in anyone’s way. I already had my chance, you know, to be with someone I loved, and that’s kind of done, now.” Vin frowns, but Jesse pushes on. He isn’t trying to talk about himself, after all. “So… let him court you, Vin. I mean, when you’re ready. He’ll do it old school, with fucking roses and chocolate, or he’ll do it casual with like pizza and beer. Whatever you want, Vinnie. Whatever makes it feel ok.”
Vin has a sick feeling in his gut as he hears Jesse lament his failed relationship with John and openly acknowledge that every subsequent one is doomed to fail. He knows that Jesse is never going to get over his high school love, even when John is happily married with kids and a house in the suburbs of Manhattan. It weighs him down even more when he tries to talk to him about Kevin. He wants to speak, but he doesn’t think he can past the bile in his throat.
“I just want you happy, Vin. You aren’t very often. I think Kevin can make it happen.”
“Jesse, please stop.” His friend’s mouth closes obediently, something Jesse rarely is. “Jess… Kevin… I… we slept together. In Texas.”
A sad smile breaks across Jesse’s face.
“And we’ve been sneaking around, kind of, for a couple days. I was just… I couldn’t tell you. I hardly know… what this is. I don’t know. I didn’t mean to-”
“Kevin told you our arrangement, Vin. If you’ve been listening to me for weeks, I haven’t been able to get over the idea of you two together.”
“But it’s more than that, Jesse! You and he are together! And now, now what you’re saying is that you want me to have him?”
“Yes. Exactly. Vin, I want you to have him. Why are you so confused?”
“I don’t understand how you’re just handing me your boyfriend.”
Jesse laughs, much to Vin’s chagrin. “I’m not handing him to you. I’m not giving him up for trade or anything. I just… fuck, why is this so complicated, Vin? I just want you to be happy, and I can see that you’re both so into each other that it hurts. If you’ve been sneaking around together behind everyone’s backs, it makes it even more reasonable to suggest you make it legit.” Vin stares, not entirely satisfied with this answer, but now almost ashamed to want more explanation. Jesse makes it sound like there isn’t the first thing wrong with this arrangement, like Vin should just thank him and then suddenly he’s entitled to Kevin Devine. “I’m going to break up with Kevin tonight, and I’ll tell him what I told you. I’ll tell him that you two deserve each other, and since I’m too lost to be true love, he should explore this thing with you further.”
“Wait, what? You’re going to break up with him?”
“Of course. I thought that bit was clear.”
“How do you figure?”
Jesse laughs. “Well you can't get very far with him thinking he's hopelessly entangled with the wrong man, Vin."
Vin wants to refute that, but he thinks maybe it would be tasteless to remind Jesse that he had gotten plenty far with Kevin.
"Jess... you don't need to..." Vin begins, but he finds it hard to say the words. They fall flat and Vin resorts to the same silence.
"Don't look so sad, Vinnie. You don't have to sneak around anymore."
He snorts, hopeless, speechless. "Jess... I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to steal your boyfriend. Not for this. I don't even know... I don't know what this is, Jesse. What if it's nothing?"
Jesse shrugs. "Well then it's nothing, and you'll figure it out when you figure it out. But," he cocks his head, "what Kevin and I have... that really is nothing. Don't think about it, alright? I'll see you later."
Without feeling any better, Vin watches Jesse walk away, and he stares after him until there's nothing there but the absence of light. He puts a cigarette in his mouth, and he smokes the shit out of it before lighting the next from its butt. He's on his third when he hears footsteps. He doesn't need to look to know who it is.
"I feel like an asshole," he tells him. He takes another drag.
The steps stop beside him, beside where he's sitting on the concrete stairs outside of the venue's back exit.
"I didn't know what to say to him. He just... kept going on about how I needed to be okay with how I felt and let myself act on it, and about how you'd stick with him 'till judgement day because you'd think it wrong to leave him for his best friend." Vin inhales another quick lungful of smoke. "I couldn't listen to him like that and... say... nothing." He grinds the butt out on the concrete and flicks it into the encompassing black. "I'm sorry. I wish I hadn't had to tell him. I mean, for you. For your sake. It was your secret, too. I'm just... I'm really sorry, Kevin. I-"
"Vin," he sits, "it's really okay."
He doesn't look. He doesn't want anyone seeing how distraught he actually is about it all. "Yeah... that's what he said, too." Is he anything but a disappointment, he wonders?
"Vinnie." Silence. He's waiting to be acknowledged. Vin holds off as long as he can, but ultimately has to turn, has to see. "Are you okay?" He opens his mouth, but Kevin interrupts. "I mean really okay, Vin. Are you okay with this? It doesn't have to be like that, not if you don't want it to."
Kevin's face is steady, concerned. Vin knows he's trying not to let him see what this means to him. Staring into those eyes, watching them flick over his face, trying to read him, Vin realizes, all at once, all of a sudden, without warning, that all he has to do is let himself want this, want something, anything, and maybe this doesn't have to be about angst and secrets. It can be, just like Jesse said, what finally makes him happy, what makes him smile instead of grimace at every passing stranger and every new morning.
He starts to speak without having added everything up in his head yet. Instinctually, he says, "I don't know how to do this." He admits his lack. "You'll have to teach me."
Kevin laughs, but it's not malicious. It never is with Kevin. "It's easy," he says. "You just..." his lips close in on Vin's, and they kiss.
***
Kevin's a good teacher, Vin finds. He's incredibly detailed and has a number of wonderful examples, so that showing Vin exactly what to do turns into a game easily. Of course, it helps that Vin is such a sponge for knowledge. He soaks up every word, retains them all, because he's paying close attention, and when it comes time for Vin to demonstrate all he's learned, Kevin finds he's a model student.
For instance, Vin has learned just how to slide in between Kevin's legs, pressing his thighs against the parts that count and pushing his tongue past swollen lips so that he's rewarded a sigh, maybe a groan. And he's definitely figured out how much boys' nipples are just like girls' nipples in that he can rub them and lick them and suck on them and make a body moan wantonly under him, writhe up against him until they're both hard. He's learned how easily Kevin will spread his legs once he got him that way, wanting, delirious with sensation, too. That one was easy to find out.
"Tell me what to do," Vin instructs. Kevin blinks as his brain slowly identifies the language as English and processes the words.
Kevin lickes his lips so they glisten, and Vin can't help but kiss them. Of course, he presses down with his hips at the same time so that Kevin's smirk turns into a grunt and he lets him suck on the end of his tongue, which proves Vin even more observant than Kevin could even have known, for this is something the red-headed boy thoroughly enjoys. It makes him squirm and squeeze his fingers into Vin's shoulders until he's released. Then, with a shaky breath, Kevin orders, "Touch me," then begs, "Please, touch me."
Vin trails his fingers down Kevin's torso to his bellybutton. "Here?" he asks innocently. Kevin just breathes and watches him decide that no, that wasn't where he meant. He slides his fingers through Kevin's hair. "Here?" He tries Kevin's chest, those nipples he was playing with only moments before, then his fingertips graze his wet, red lips. Vin obviously isn't expecting them to open like they do, or Kevin's tongue to dart out and flick across his index fingertip, or him to lean forward and wrap those damn lips around it and suck on it.
"Oh, Jesus," he moans as he feels his dick surge with life. He's never considered himself to have a hand fetish before, but then again, Kevin Devine had never sucked on his fingers before now. He isn't able to do anything, not move, not speak, until Kevin pulls away. Vin's naturally dark eyes are black when he looks down at Kevin. He puts aside all games and teasing, and with another soul sucking kiss, he gets to the goods.
Vin's long fingers wrap around Kevin for the first time. He feels, gauges, examines to sate his curiousity, but he does it quickly because Kevin's already breathing hard, and they've barely started. And Vin? Yeah, he's fucking ready to go, too.
Kevin guides him through the preparation. More lube, another finger, pushing, pulling, stretching. "Fuck, Vin, I want you so fucking bad, so fucking- oh God!- Vinnie, please!"
The hint is more than enough. Vin agrees. It's been too long, and he's ready for this. Lined up, Kevin nods, and he pushes in, as slowly as Kevin had for him his first time, but no. The redhead is not satisfied with this fucking torturous pace.
"Just, it's okay, Vin. I've done this before, I can handle it. Just- oh!" He does. "Oh Jesus fucking Christ, Vinnie! Hard! Please, fuck me hard!"
This part? Yeah, Vin's done this part before. He knows all about pacing himself and angles, even if Kevin doesn't have a g-spot for him to aim for. He remembers how to fuck, and he's always been the head of his class at it. A hole is a hole, he thinks, and Kevin's isn't so different from the girls he's been with. The only difference of substance that he knows lies deep inside of him, it's the one Vin didn't believe in, like he didn't believe in Santa Claus after he turned eight, until he felt Kevin hit it, until Kevin abused it until Vin couldn't even fucking see. That was his goal: Kevin's prostate. Lucky for him, it wants to be found.
Kevin's a screamer. Vin hasn't really realized as much until now. Legs over Vin's shoulders, head thrown back and mouth wide, to release some of the most vulgar phrases he'd ever heard from anyone and the highest-pitched screams he never imagined could come from a boy. Then, with Kevin on his knees, bracing himself against the wall and Vin slamming their hips together as rapidly as his spindly little body can manage. Finally, with Kevin on top pinning Vin down, his backside crashing down against Vin's body, 'Fuck he's loud,' Vin thinks. He likes it.
"Oh, fuck, Kevin," Vin wheezes. He's getting close, and there's no way he can hold back with him losing it on top of him.
"Vinnie," he whispers. "Oh fuck, Vin!"
They swap positions again. He's on his knees with Kevin straddling him. The angle is such that he hits his prostate every time, every damn time. He knows because he can feel it against the end of his cock, and because Kevin can't seem to stop shrieking. Vin takes his cock in hand; from this angle it isn't too difficult, and Kevin lets out one long moan.
A moment later, Kevin gets quiet again, his voice seems utterly gone. He's whispering over and over, only whispering, and only, "Vinnie! Vinnie!"
"Kevin!" he kisses his throat, because he's so fucking close and he doesn't think he can manage to remember how to say it, but he needs to breathe and can't keep it up. Vin bites him, then, hard enough to bruise without a doubt.
"Vinnie!" he hears once more, a whisper in his ear, and then a short, soft cry before he feels the crush of Kevin's body around him and the splash of semen against his stomach.
He releases the flesh in his teeth and comes, himself, shuddering as waves of pleasure course down his entire body.
They're lying there, under the sheets together, and Kevin curls up at his side. Vin's arm automatically moves to accomodate him. Vin loses his tongue in Kevin's mouth for a good long time, until finally, exhaustion overwhelms them both.
***
It's breakfast in the lobby of the hotel they've scored while they're in California, and Jesse's just joined them. He slept late, he explains.
"No wonder, man," Garrett blurts, and everyone's attention is drawn. "Shit, what the fuck do you do to make him scream like that all fucking night?"
Jesse laughs. Vin's face is flaming, moreso, even, than any of those present at the table. "The power of my mind, man. I drove out to the beach last night and slept in Kevin's van."
Garrett's face pales as he wonders, clearly, who he just killed with his big mouth. Jesse doesn't look at Vin until long after attentions returned to breakfast. He's still blushing.
Then Kevin arrives. He sits down between Garrett and Vin, across from Jesse. He sits down carefully, wincing once or twice, and then hissing when he leans forward for the syrup. Garrett's smirking into his eggs.
"So," Jesse says conversationally, "I hear you had the ride of your life last night."
Kevin doesn't miss a beat. With a chuckle and a wink he responds, "What can I say? You ever fucked an Italian? They're fucking relentless."
Cue Garrett choking to death on his orange juice and Brian dropping his fork. Vin stares intently down at his plate, hoping that a void might open up and swallow him before anyone says anything. Unfortunately, Vin, never a patient man, looks up despite his reticence. Kevin's is the first face he sees.
"What? No good morning?" he chirps.
"Morning," Vin mumbles, but before he can turn back to his meal or to see the expressions of mild horror on the faces of his bandmates, Kevin's ducking down for a kiss. Vin tries to make it a quick peck on the lips, already mortified in front of his friends, but Kevin, after getting his peck, hovers next to Vin's face until he can't help but smile and give in. As early as it is for sexual antics, he teases Vin with a little tongue that tastes a bit like maple syrup. Vin likes it enough to get just a little carried away, smiling into Kevin's equally smirking lips.
"Guys!" Brian blurts after a moment more. When they part to attend to him, he glances warily at Jesse and scolds, "No one wants to watch that while we're trying to eat, here."
"Yeah. Ew guys," Garrett says past his open staring. "Ew."
The world paused, and then Jesse: "I could stand to see a little more."