(no subject)
Hi... I've been writing some KOL slash and normally keep it hidden away in my journal. Thought I'd share some of the finished stuff. I can't promise its any good, but this is a great fandom so would like to be involved.
Title: Rememo
Rating: R-NC17 (depends how hardcore you are)
Pairing: Matthew/Jared
Summary: How soft childhood is, and sometimes how harsh. Jared rememembers in moments, pictures, bits-and-pieces. Jared POV. I've messed with Matthew's age a bit here as I wanted him older so apparently thought, "damn biology, he's older!"
Remember : Domesticity
Oftentimes I imagine life without them. No one to take and deal out punches for me, when I’m too weak and too babyface for anything but tears and red-swollen cheeks. There’d be no weird stories about church escapades, no soft baritone gospel drifting through the rooms, from someone’s dry throat. No laughter over leather backseats of cars and adolescent torsos hanging outta truck windows, waving the aerial to maybe, maybe get a radio station.
Oh, there’d be no singing, coughing and more singing from Caleb, peering up from under some aged hat. I think I’d miss fingers looping in my hair, thumbs gentling all the snags away and Nathan’s murmur- “messy boy, Jared”. I’d miss being stroked and tickled out of sleep, miss opening my eyes to see someone’s legs loping away, and hearing bare feet trampling down the stairs. Who would call me ‘small-thing’, pet my cheek and make me pancake breakfasts to grow me up strong? I know I’d miss all these warm bodies, these beating hearts and delicately boned shoulders, I’d miss the softness of threadbare jeans and the salt of old cotton shirts I can press my face against and into, almost melt my nose into and smell tobacco, sweat and guitar cleaner.
When I try to imagine life without them, I imagine life with them instead. Life with brothers’ bruises, laughing midnights and being kindly (sometimes, sometimes just laughed at) nursed through hangovers. Jesus, just being sprawled dog-like on the springless couch and having one of them wind like a scarf ‘round me, talking about nothing, face creasing up like cracks in dry earth. I’d kill myself without this. No Matthew.
Remember : In the light of the flash
In photographs when we were just small, just ten or something like it, momma would say, “now you mind you keep your hands to yourselves now, you just mind that” and she’d tie our hands behind our backs with scarves or neckties, or whatever she had like a rope of beaded necklace. Just for the sake of a picture where we weren’t holding hands, or had arms about waists, or blowing bubble gum in each other’s ears.
“And none of your petting, y’hear? Too old for it now anyhow. Hear me, now? Too old.” She’d spit-slick my hair down, and Matthew’s too. We were the worst. Always thought Matthew was my brother, I think momma maybe thought so too, sometimes. “Alright boys… Caleb - what’s that in your mouth? Spit!” And out’d come this big black beetle, like something being born from his lips, spiky legs still waving round like automatums, wings broken (he never had the manners to look guilty). Right out of Caleb’s mouth, and momma’d drop it to the ground and step on it with her sandal without even surprise. She’d back away from us slowly, watching through the camera lens as she went and we’d watch her too, hands wriggling all tied behind our backs. And we’d -
“Smile!”
And that’d be that for another year. After we got untied, we were allowed peppermint soda and Matthew and me always shared. Cuz I was the youngest and couldn’t finish a whole big glass on my own, and you either finished it or you didn’t start it at all. So Matty shared his with me, and let me have three seconds on the straw, then he’d get five seconds, cuz he was almost twice my height. But that was then, when I was just ten or so, and Caleb ate beetles, and Nathan didn’t chase after things in skirts.
Remember : Youth
And Matty would pet my hair and my cheek, and when he went out nights, came back smelling of things I knew would make momma cross, he’d sit on the side of my bed, almost falling off. As if he really knew he weren’t meant to be on it at all, barely denting my throws, barely wrinkling them. His feet were big and covered in man’s trainers, planted wide on the floor, he’d lean forward and put his head in his hands, drag his fingers through his long hair and just breathe. So loudly, he’d breathe and whisper,
“I dunno, I just dunno… I just - Jesus Christ in a pickup.” I didn’t ever know what to do. Just maybe kiss his forehead a little, and try to make my small, plump hands work proper enough to neaten up his hair. He’d say, “you aint my momma” in such a hard tone, y’know, so hard. And I had to say back, “No, cuz no-one knows where your momma is,” and watch him scrape up and get out so, so fast. And me sat alone in the half-dark, looking at the covers and wondering if he’d ever been there. I coulda only been eleven or twelve then, and he just a teenager. He was just a child still, all growing and wanting.
We got older quickly; Caleb fell in love with miss Aretha Franklin, and tried to sing like her. He sang like he still had those flying beetles in his throat. Nathan’d laugh and say,
“Oh boy, you’ve got no ears!” He’d go back to watching the game on the portable black’n’white and tap out the rhythm of the static on the kitchen unit. Caleb kept goin and goin till even momma stopped screaming for him to quit. Matthew wandered in and out, sometimes he’d bring smoothies and sometimes he’d magic some money from his back pocket and slip it to momma when we weren’t looking. But I was always looking at him, how the bills were crisp and new, and probably still smelt like real money. He’d always take me out to a soda place, and buy me something with caramel and say, “you like caramel, Jared” and I believed him.
Sometimes at night we’d sit outside the trailer, Nathan tapping out some odd stuttering rhythm on his seat, Caleb singing about these two-dollar whores who travelled round on horseback, he’d make up the words, chase them out of the air and onto his tongue. Matthew played this old guitar, impressed me so much that he could make it play. I’d curl up into his side, just make myself small as a baby and press myself against his ribs. When the fire died down and the songs were over he’d turn just a little to his left and put an arm round me like a sling for a broken arm. And momma’d spring up and say,
“Time for bed y’all, up-up-up-up!” and she’d chase me inside with a dishcloth, thwacking it against my legs. If I looked back I’d see her, all of five foot two, starin up at Matty, almost looking up to the sky to see his eyes. She glared at him so hard.
Remember : Cherrystones
In June of the next year, Caleb stopped being able to lift me and tip me upside-down. Nathan never even tried, just laughed and lifted his weights that he’d bought back in ‘Louis. Matty visited less, sometimes just on Saturday, never on a Sunday. One of those late Saturday nights he came into my room and sat on the edge of my bed, like he had when I was what, eleven. He had a brown paper bag, all disintegrated where he’d scrunched it up to hold it closed.
He met my eyes, just a little, “brought you something. Cuz y’know you’re growin.” And spilt the bag onto the bed. Tumbling out, like rocks in a quarry but glistening and plump and ripe, fertile. All these fat, fat cherries. I didn’t even smile or say thank you, didn’t even look at him. Saw them lying there like pursed lips or hearts cut out of tiny, loveless little bodies and had to, had to get rid of them. I ate fast, coating my tongue with juice and the insides of my teeth with stringy, tough cherry skin.
Matty watched me.
His eyes glittered even in the dark, he observed me in some new, unexpected way. I noticed his hand rested on his own leg, fingers moving ever so, ever so slightly. I watched him watch me forget how to chew and how to make my face move. What is there to say when you realise you’ve suddenly gone from wanting nothing to wanting everything, everything there is even though it might crack your head open or loosen and rip you along the seams?
I could have waited for him to move for hours and days, and maybe even until the rains came. I could have been so patient and good, and grown up for him. I didn’t. I kissed his cheek, made my lips as much like soft fruit as I could as I brushed them against him, and then moved like a thundercloud down to his neck. I could barely feel his skin; just taste the promise of saltiness, centimetres away from my tongue.
Jesus. In that moment I knew that tonight, tonight I’d have him and it would be wonderful and we’d lay like that forever, until the sky split apart. I knew... until his hands came up and pinched my shoulders, moved my whole body back to lie on my bed. He tucked the covers around me as if he was fighting me, jerkily, too tightly round my neck, trapping me. Left me alone with his anger and guilt.
Remember: So soft.
I lay, not crying. Lay not crying so hard it shook my whole ribcage. Till he came back to my door, leaned on the jam like a broken puppet and said,
“I can hear you from across the hallway, Jared. I can hear you.” And released me from my blanket-prison, slipped in beneath the covers and wrapped me up in his arms and his mouth. Locked me in his body, running his tongue over my bottom lip, sucking it until it throbbed and hurt and bled under the thinnest layer of skin. I kept crying, and cried into the kiss and onto both our tongues. When we had to breath, he bent his head down to my chest and licked stripes across it, wet and sticky. He whispered, “every time I see your mouth I want to run my tongue over it… and then I want to run my cock over it”.
He did it. He ran his cock over my lips, the lower and then the upper. Me sitting against the headboard and him kneeling on the mattress, one naked knee on either side of my hips. I remember touching it, with just three fingers, feeling this one, big vein and the wet at the head. I remember him thumbing the side of my mouth, sliding his cock onto my tongue, pressing it down with the heaviness of it. I remember wondering if I’d ever breathe again, swallowing down the thickness and the mammoth taste that leaked down my throat and flooded up behind my eyes. He dragged it out, the vacuum in my mouth hollowing out my cheeks, and then pushing it back in, stoppering me up with himself. The rush of air, the little sound I made, that my hands were suddenly tight and white on his hips.
When I looked up at him, his eyes and mine met and he found some sort of rhythm in me. I kept my eyes open and my mouth as open as I could, embracing the friction and watching his face, for once certain and without guilt. He said, “Jared, Jared, Jared” and kept saying it with every stroke in and I started to believe it. Bitter. Not like lemon or anything organic, like something completely chemical-alien, all in my mouth and down my throat and out my nose, everywhere. And his noises, these grunts and moans and always, “Jared, Jared, Jared” until he slipped off me, to the side and lay sunken on the bed. He’d have finished me, I know, but there was nothing left to finish.
Remember : These days
These days, I try to imagine life differently. Life without beer, life without cigarettes. I try to imagine being the sixteen I am now and not knowing orgasm. Can’t do it. I imagine a Caleb who can’t sing, who isn’t note perfect, a Nathan whose rhythm is erratic. Impossible. I imagine myself small and young, vulnerable and giving myself up to Matthew, just cutting out all of me and throwing it at him until he grabbed it from me in desperation. These things are so far away I can’t even see them anymore.
I can see outside, the rain is thick and steady, falling off trees and street-lamps, and the white windowsill. The leaves sleeping like gopher skins on the ground. I can see a beetle crawling under the glass table; I can see my feet wriggling out from underneath a cushion. Somewhere far away I can hear people laughing, men. I don’t know, maybe I can even smell the warmth in this room, the hands on my shoulders, the kiss pressed under my jaw. “Small-thing,” he says, “babyboy” and wraps me up in his arms.
End
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