moving signs, mark/theo (cape wrath/clapham junction), r
So, you probably have no idea what this is. But...do you think maybe you could read it anyway? I spent a stupidly long time on it and only just realised that was probably pointless due to the lack of fandom for both of these shows. D: FAIL.
It was fun, though. I like how it's kind of twincest because it's Luke and Harry only NOT REALLY.
Title: moving signs
Author: likecharity
Pairing: Mark/Theo (Cape Wrath/Clapham Junction crossover)
Rating: R
Warnings: Voyeurism, underage sex-Theo is fifteen.
Summary: His mother only raises her eyebrows, and gives him a curt nod. "Well," she says, "I think we've had our fair share of mentally ill neighbours, don't you?"
A/N: ...It seemed to make sense in my mind?
It seems fitting that he's watching him right from the beginning. He's sitting there in the living room trying to care about whatever's on TV when he sees the car pull up next door and the four-piece family climb out.
His eyes are instantly drawn to him.
It's something about the way he holds himself, and the way he blinks into the sunlight at the house they've just drawn up to, like he doesn't expect to see it right away.
Later, Theo will discover that Mark Brogan lives a lot of his life like he's used to having a blindfold wrapped over his eyes.
***
"New neighbours," says his Mum that night at dinner, speaking in a sort of disapproving tone.
"Hm?" says his Dad, disinterested.
"They seem a bit odd, don't you think?" The words waver in the air in that stupid way his Mum's always do, like she's trying to seem cool and casual, and failing, always failing.
"Mm," his Dad adds, agreeing, but only, Theo knows, to avoid aggravating her.
***
It's two days before their paths cross.
He's just passing his bedroom window when he sees a figure out of the corner of his eye, and he looks, and sees the boy there, standing by his bedroom window, shirtless, his black fringe obscuring one eye as he looks out between the houses.
Theo is about to offer a smile, but for some reason the muscles of his face constrict and contract and he just finds himself looking back instead, expressionless.
The boy tilts his head, subtle and watchful. Theo finds himself looking at his pale, smooth torso, down to the waistband of the plaid pajama trousers he's wearing, slung low on bony hips. It's an instinct, that's all, and when his eyes flicker back up to the boy's face he sees a hint of a smile on his lips before the curtains are being pulled quickly closed.
***
"I don't like them," his Mum's decided by day five, spooning peas onto Theo's plate. "They haven't even come round to introduce themselves."
"I think we're the ones who are supposed to do that, dear," says his Dad absentmindedly.
"I hate peas, Mum," says Theo crossly, but of course, she doesn't listen.
"The couple, they're always fighting," she tuts, "out in the street, no dignity. Airing their dirty laundry," she shakes her head, "and the girl, she's already making moves on the Hatchell boys across the road. That skirt she was wearing yesterday left nothing to the imagination." She takes an angry bite of her steak. "And the boy," she says, her mouth full, "have you seen him? He looks like-"
"I think he's autistic, Nat," his father cuts in, a little sharply.
His mother only raises her eyebrows, and gives him a curt nod. "Well," she says, "I think we've had our fair share of mentally ill neighbours, don't you?"
Theo leaves the table without finishing his meal, and without saying a word.
***
He sees the boy again that night, standing there looking out the window. He's only wearing those pajama trousers again and-something Theo notices for the first time-a pair of skin-tight, shiny black gloves.
He does offer a smile this time, and gets one in return.
He thinks about Tim, and how nice it is to have somebody looking back at him through panes of glass once again.
***
It's day seven before he learns any names. They all turn up on the Sunday evening with a pasta bake that the Mum-Evelyn-has made. Theo's almost embarrassed for his own parents, that the new neighbours are the ones bringing them gifts. His Mum's all fake niceties and Theo knows she'll be gossiping about them all the second she shuts the door.
"Danny," says the Dad, and Theo notices an edgy nervousness about him like he's used to speaking through gritted teeth. The boy and girl step out from behind him and Theo sees them close-up for the first time, notices how similar they look, the echoes of each other in each other's pale faces.
"Nice to meet you," says Theo's Dad gruffly, shaking Danny's hand, and Theo hovers back, watching as his Dad introduces the three of them.
"Mark," says Danny then, gesturing, "and Zoe." And then he adds, "Evelyn's kids," and it's impossible to ignore the way the family shift uncomfortably, fidgeting, their heads dropping.
"Just wanted to drop by and say hi, you know," Evelyn says nervously, handing the Clingfilm-wrapped dish forwards to Theo's Mum, who takes it, holding it gingerly like it might poison her.
"Where did you move from?" his Dad asks, and the family tense again, twitchy, cautious.
"It was nice to meet you," Danny says loudly, sharply, turning for the door, and Evelyn's smile is forced and strained as she stammers through goodbyes.
Zoe looks back at Theo over her shoulder as they leave, one eyebrow quirked, lips slightly parted. Mark doesn't look back at all.
***
He's just gotten off the bus home from school the next day, halfway down the street, when he sees Zoe coming towards him. He fumbles for his cigarettes, lighting one as she bounds up to him cheerfully.
"Theo, right?" she tucks her straight dark hair behind her ears. "Can I bum one?" she asks, eyelashes fluttering.
Theo shrugs, offers her the packet, and she nudges up to him, subtly flirtatious. She holds the cigarette between her lips and leans in for him to light it off his own, but he hands her his lighter instead.
"So," she says after a pause, "how old are you?"
He decides not to lie. "Fifteen," he says.
She wrinkles her nose. "A bit young for me," she says playfully.
Theo glances up, and spots Mark coming down the road too, his hands thrust deep into his coat pockets and his walk hurried and a little awkward. "I might be more interested in your brother, anyway," he says.
She looks at him and he likes seeing the surprise on her face. "Mark's not gay," she tells him in an undertone, glancing up as her brother approaches.
Theo just laughs.
Mark scuffs the toe of his shoe against the pavement when he reaches them, looking down at the floor.
"Hi," says Theo.
"He's stopped talking again," Zoe tells him matter-of-factly. "He does that sometimes." Theo doesn't really know what to say, but before he has a chance to think of something, she suddenly says, "Can he have a cigarette? He wants a cigarette."
"Oh," says Theo, fumbling with the packet, a little startled, "yeah, okay."
It's his last one, but he plucks it out of the box anyway and offers it to Mark, their hands brushing ever-so-slightly. Mark twirls it awkwardly between his fingers for a moment before slipping it between his lips, and Theo's heart thuds quicker as he comes closer, his hand trembling just a little as he reaches forward to light Mark's cigarette with the burning end of his own.
"Where did you move from?" he asks, forgetting, just for a split-second-just until he sees their reactions-how that question was received once before.
"How long have you lived here?" Zoe asks, as if he never spoke at all.
"Only a few months," Theo replies, but he's looking at Mark, watching the way he takes short little drags on the cigarette, never properly inhaling, his breathing sharp and shallow. "Used to live in Wandsworth. It's not far."
"Why did you move?"
Theo's lips curl around a puff of smoke. "Why did you?" he asks carefully.
Her expression says nothing but when he looks to Mark he sees him grinning, wide and open and honest.
That's when he realises that he should be bothered by their avoidance of his questions, suspicious of them, but he's not. He can't say My parents thought I was being molested by the thirty year old man in the council flat across the road, can't say but really I was the one instigating it and always had been, so he thinks that maybe, he understands their silence. Just a little.
After all, everyone has something to hide.
***
Late the next night, Theo is sitting smoking out of his window, when he sees the curtains shuffle and slide open across the way. Mark stands there in his boxers with a sheet of paper, and Theo watches as he holds it up.
MEADOWLANDS, it says, in messy, blocky capitals.
Theo frowns at the paper held flat against the glass. He frowns at Mark. He waits a moment or two to see if anything else is to come, and then rummages around on his desk for something to write on.
What's that? he scrawls thickly in blue biro on the back of some French revision, and holds it up, cigarette dangling forgotten from his lips.
Mark lets his own sheet of paper flutter to the floor, and presses a finger to his lips before pulling the curtains closed once again.
***
"Well, of course, they're all a bunch of freaks if you ask me," his Mum is saying, animatedly, sipping at her fourth or fifth glass of wine. Theo listens from around the corner, anger boiling up inside him as his parents' friends-round for a dinner party-make noises of agreement.
"We saw the woman on our way in," says a female voice, "sitting there on her doorstep in tears, would you believe, like she didn't care who saw her-"
"Oh, that's how they are all the time," his Mum coos back. "You'd think they want to be the talk of the neighbourhood. The kids aren't Danny's, you know. Apparently he only found out recently."
"And they stayed together?" someone else asks, shocked.
"She'd kept it secret from him all that time, the deceiving little-"
"Nat," Theo hears his father say warningly, and then there's a moment of quiet, a gentle clinking of glasses and silverware, before the talking starts up again.
"That son of theirs, what did you say he has, Asperger's?" a man asks.
"Oh, Mark, god, I don't know," his Mum replies airily. "Something like that. If you ask me, it's all a bit of a ploy to get some special treatment, parents do that these days, you know, bad parents of course, but even so..."
There's another pause; more sounds of agreement. Theo's fists are clenched so tightly it hurts.
"I just don't want Theo becoming friends with them," his Mum sighs. "He's not the best judge of character and I can just imagine him tagging around after the two of them, Mark and his slut of a sister, what's her name, Zoe-he hasn't made any friends at school yet and he's always gotten on better with people older than him." There's an awkward pause, Theo imagines that everybody around the table is remembering Tim, and he himself remembers Tim, his heart twinging just a little before his mother continues. "I really just wish they'd go back to wherever on earth they came from."
Theo turns away. Somehow, he knows, in a way his mother will never be able to understand, that they can't.
***
By the third week, he's thinking of Mark when he wanks off. He can't help it. He thinks about bright blue eyes and he thinks about how those gloves would feel against his bare skin and he tries to imagine the stuttering breaths Mark would make as he took him into his mouth or slid slowly into him. He comes harder this way than when he brings back memories of Tim, because doing that's painful, and it makes him twist and ache and long to be back in that dingy, dirty-hot flat, feeling Tim's sweat-slick skin against his own.
He lies back on the bed, one hand holding a cigarette and the other down the front of his boxers. He squeezes his eyes tightly shut, and conjures up Mark's image in his mind, imagines pressing him face down against the floor like he did Tim, imagines feeling the tensing, quivering muscles of Mark's back beneath him.
Afterwards he sits up, wiping his sticky hands on tissues.
And he glances at the window just in time to see a shape dart out of sight.
***
The next night, he doesn't shut his eyes, and Mark doesn't hide.
Theo stands before the window, cigarettes forgotten, boxers tangled around his ankles, and focuses on the rectangle of dim, yellowish light across the way with Mark in its centre, watching him. Theo watches him back, watches that curious tilt of his head and the way his chest expands and contracts as he breathes, muscles hollowing and stretching beneath the flushed glow of his pale skin.
Theo is fully on show, the windowsill digging into his thighs as he pushes forwards, forehead leaving sweaty smudges on the windowpane.
He comes hard, splattering the glass.
Mark reaches out and drags a gloved finger along the clean glass of his own window, and then Theo watches, stunned and breathless, as he slides it between his lips.
***
"I'm just worried about him," his Mum is fussing, speaking in an angry undertone outside Theo's bedroom door. "He's not fitting in yet, he's not connecting with anyone-"
"Don't you think he might get on well with the Brogan twins?" his father replies, cautiously.
A sharp, shocked intake of breath. Theo tries to block their words out. His palm presses hard against the cold window in front of him, and he peers intently through the rain-splashed glass, the image of Mark blurry. Distracted, frustrated, he fumbles for a cigarette, lights it one-handed and chucks the lighter onto the floor.
"I can't believe you'd even suggest that, are you trying to wind me up, Peter? I don't want poor Theo anywhere near those two-"
His mother keeps it up, tone of voice higher-pitched now. Theo glances over his shoulder, double-checks that his door is locked. He stares fixedly at Mark, watching, watching, and Mark's gloved hand slides beneath the waistband of his pajamas, and Theo inhales and curls his fingers tighter, and exhales and twists his wrist-
"-if you'd start showing in some way that you care about our son's wellbeing-"
Theo gives up, lets go of himself, unsatisfied and still wanting. His parents' arguing grows louder and louder and he smokes and smokes, and watches and watches, until all he can hear is the pattering of the rain against the windows and all he can see is Mark's contorted, gasping face.
***
"It's nice," Theo says, of Mark's house, almost two weeks later. "It's-it's like ours, a bit, it's got, you know, the same layout."
It's strange and nerve-wracking to be right up close to Mark like this, standing on opposite sides of the upstairs hallway. He was invited, free houses for both of them, and he hurried over as soon as he saw Mark beckoning through the window. It seemed easy, something he'd been waiting for, but now it feels so real and wrong, like he's being confronted with a celebrity only viewed on cinema screens.
Their first meeting seems so long ago, and now Theo's seen Mark naked, seen him come, watched him night after night after night-and yet, they still haven't met. Not really.
"Oh, you haven't finished unpacking yet," he says when he's led into Mark's bedroom, and eyes the boxes lined up against the wall. "It took me ages to do that too, Mum kept nagging but-"
He knows that that this is far from a conversation, but he's used to speaking to a mute, or at least he may as well be. He remembers nervously babbling at Tim, about libraries and history and Hitler, and not caring that his words were practically ignored, because he wasn't waiting for a response. That wasn't what any of it was leading to, building up to.
And Theo knows that this is the same, especially when, as he's talking-still talking, on and on-Mark rocks forward and calmly undoes the first two buttons of Theo's shirt. Mark smirks, a crooked sort of smile with that slight tilt of the head. It's little movements like that, jerky and erratic, unusual, that remind Theo that Mark's different, not like him, not like anyone he's ever met. He knows Mark has things broken in his brain, some of them from birth and some of them from something in the recent past, unspoken and simmering there in all of the Brogans' dark expressions, whether they're fighting on the street or sobbing on the doorstep or touching themselves in front of strangers.
And it doesn't matter to him.
Mark cuts him off mid-sentence with the kiss, the force of his lips pressed hard against Theo's for a long moment before slowing to gentle pressure and soft, wet movement and god, it's perfect, it's what Theo's been needing for so long now and it seems like forever since he's tasted someone else like this, felt somebody like this up close, had another body against him and someone else's tongue in his mouth.
Mark backs him up against the window and they grab and pull at their own-and each other's-clothes, until Theo can feel the cool glass of the window against his hot skin. Looking back over his shoulder for a second, he can see through into his own room, dimly lit by the bedside lamp he left on.
They stumble to the bed together, kissing again. Mark has his trousers around his ankles and his boxers around his knees and his shirt caught around his left wrist and Theo feels like he wants to devour him, keep him here forever, stay in this moment. He doesn't want parents and moving vans and phone calls to the police to take Mark away from him.
He fumbles with fabric and buttons and cuffs until they're both naked, and then does the only thing he can think of, the thing that's clouding his mind and blurring his vision and making his whole body feel heavy with arousal. He tries to turn Mark over, onto his front.
Immediately, Mark goes stiff and tense and panicky, thrashing out and then grasping wildly at his own neck, his breathing coming shallow like he's being choked. Theo's heart leaps into his throat and he rolls Mark gently back over, smoothing nervous hands through sweaty black hair, trying to be soothing even though really, he's never known how.
"It's okay, it's all right," he murmurs, but he's unable to hide his own bewilderment, "I'm not going to hurt you, I'm not going to hurt you."
Mark gulps, his eyes still wide and wild and blinking rapidly, and Theo mutters about taking deep breaths and calming down and how he's here and it's okay and everything's all right, until finally Mark relents, and pulls Theo close, breathing steadily.
They kiss, softly, and eventually bring each other off with their hands instead.
Theo keeps hearing cars pulling into driveways and he leaves soon after, scared of what might happen if his parents come home early to an empty house.
***
It's better, the next time.
They're slower and more careful and more aware of each other's presence, somehow, aware that they're each dealing with a real person to touch and feel instead of just watch through a window.
It's the middle of the day. Theo's got the day off school due to a burst water pipe and Mark's just...home. (No one's ever been able to find out why Mark and Zoe haven't enrolled in a college yet, or where Danny and Evelyn have found jobs-if they work at all, that is, and if not, where they go all day. They're things Theo's mother won't stop speculating about.)
"I want to see you," Theo says quietly, a little uncertainly, holding Mark's gloved hands in his and feeling the strange, shiny fabric against his skin.
He means I want to see you completely, entirely. Without these. And Mark understands.
He peels the gloves off quickly with his back turned to Theo, and then swings round, revealing the mottled red and white scar tissue that covers his skin in thin, hard lines twined around his fingers, and thick welts running over his wrist bone, over his knuckles.
"Shit," Theo gasps. "How-" he murmurs, knowing it's pointless but unable to stop himself, the broken sentence hanging in the air.
It doesn't get answered, of course, and it doesn't matter. Theo just wants to feel Mark's hands, feel the pads of his fingertips and the lines of his palms. He doesn't know how bad the damage is, whether Mark can feel him back, but later, when they're touching instead of watching, and Mark's panting into the sweaty crook where Theo's neck meets his shoulder, Theo wants to believe that he can.
They lie there in the wrinkled sheets later, the sun streaming through the window. They're silent. Theo's thoughts nag at him and he worries about someone nipping home from work to pick something up, and he thinks of going back, just in case. But then Mark sits up, and strokes Theo's face gently.
"You're beautiful," he says, and his voice is boyish, hushed and stuttering, awed.
It's everything Theo thought it would be, and he feels a surge of love at that moment, staring up into bright blue eyes and feeling the rough scars against his own smooth skin.
The love builds and builds inside his heart, and he takes a deep breath.
"So are you," he says, his voice breaking a little as Mark dips his head for a kiss.
He lets himself fall.
***
"Mum wanted us to go way out in the middle of nowhere," Mark says, his voice a little lazy and slow as he smoothes his hand down Theo's chest, fingers softly stroking at the skin. "But Dad says big, central cities are the best places to hide. So many people. So many houses."
It's times like these that Theo can't help but be curious, as accepting as he is of the Brogan family's secrets. He wonders what it is they're running from, who they're running from, what they could possibly have done. He wonders if they murdered someone; tries to imagine Mark with blood on his hands. He can't.
"We didn't even change our names, change our names back," Mark goes on, voice dropping to a whisper like he knows he's saying things he shouldn't, "kept what they gave us, they wouldn't expect that..."
Theo wonders what Mark's real name is, tries to imagine him as a John or a Tom or a James. But he doesn't ask, he just listens.
"Dad says they're going to find us soon," Mark says, ever so quietly, the words just a whisper against Theo's ear. "We can't stay in one place for long."
Theo thinks of the boxes stacked up in Mark's room, never fully unpacked.
"So...many...things...to run away from," Mark murmurs, his voice a gentle sing-song as his fingers travel down Theo's torso, dipping beneath the waistband of his boxers and back out again, tracing circles around his bellybutton. "You're running away from something too."
Theo shakes his head.
"Being kept from something," Mark guesses, but it's not really a guess, it's like he knows, can tell from the way Theo's gaze flutters downwards.
Theo wonders if that's right anymore, if it really applies. He wonders if Tim's still living where he used to, wonders if the police have found something they missed in their initial investigations. Wonders if Tim's in jail for crimes he didn't commit.
He wonders if maybe he did commit them after all.
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," Mark whispers, and the words ring in Theo's ears for days afterwards.
***
"So many secrets to keep," Mark says, and he sounds a little angry this time; it's not his usual lilting tone. He's pacing, back and forth across the room as Theo watches from the bed with Mark's shirt on, unbuttoned.
Zoe nearly caught them, coming home to borrow money from Mark before leaving again. Not saying where, of course.
Theo had to hide.
"We don't have to be a secret," Theo says, but even as he speaks he knows it's not true, knows his parents would never accept it. He wouldn't put it past them to move house a second time, to accuse poor eighteen year old Mark of pedophilia, to drag Theo somewhere he wouldn't be able to find any male company at all.
Mark doesn't respond, anyway. He stops still at one side of the room, facing the wall, and thrusts his head forward with a sharp crack against it. Theo jumps up, takes Mark in his arms, but Mark continues, forehead hitting the wall over and over until Theo manages to pry him away.
Mark has tears in his eyes as Theo tucks him into the bed. He's got less than five minutes before his parents are going to be home from work and he kisses Mark firmly on the lips and pulls on his jeans and shoes, hurries out next door to his own home with Mark's shirt still on, open, flapping behind him in the breeze.
***
The next time he goes round when Mark's family are in. It's been too long since he's seen Mark at the window, and he suspects they don't care as much as his own do anyway. He's right-Evelyn answers the door and greets him with a forced smile, and Theo can see that her mascara is smudged all around her eyes like she's been crying for hours.
"Oh, Theo, how lovely, come in," she says, shaking his hand awkwardly and then disappearing off down the hallway, not bothering to ask whether he's here for Mark or Zoe or just because some post got delivered to the wrong house by mistake.
Theo makes his way up to Mark's room uninvited and finds him curled up on his bed, wearing the t-shirt Theo left. Theo climbs in next to him, holds him close. He nuzzles into Mark's neck; inhales.
"I don't want to fuck," Mark says suddenly, thickly, like he's been crying too.
"Okay," says Theo, a little surprised, because it is, because he doesn't want to either, he just wants to lie here with Mark in his arms and not do anything, anything at all else.
But then Mark sits up, his eyes puffy and red, and Theo sits up too by instinct.
"I-I love you," Theo says, and it's too quick, almost catching him off guard.
He doesn't really know if it's true, doesn't know if he's ever loved anyone. Doesn't love his parents, or, if he does it's because he has to. He wonders if he loved Tim, or if that was just a fascination, a crush, just lust maybe. He remembers watching him, watching him all the time and then fucking him, god, fucking him-
But that's all there was, really, with Tim.
Mark looks at him carefully, swings his head to the side to get his fringe out of his eyes. It's grown far too long now, almost obscuring half of his face and he's always having to push it aside. He blinks, and Theo sees tears welling in the corners of his eyes.
"It's okay," Theo says quietly, "that's-that's a good thing."
Mark hangs his head, shaking it almost frantically. "No," he says vehemently. "No."
Theo doesn't know what to say. They sit, and slowly become aware of the distant sounds of argument somewhere else in the house, shrill voices and a lower, furious-sounding one. Feet thundering up the stairs, Zoe slamming her bedroom door. Something being thrown, smashing.
Mark sinks down head-first into Theo's lap, sobs wracking his body, and Theo just holds him, hopeless and helpless and knowing absolutely nothing.
***
The next morning, Mark is gone.
They're all gone.
Theo pulls open his bedroom curtains and looks straight into an empty room, ripped bare, just plain white walls, a vacant box of a bedroom across the way. He peers down, sees the car gone, the house standing there blank and drained like no one's ever lived there at all.
"-think they've done a moonlight flit," he hears his Mum saying to his Dad when he's halfway down the stairs. "So inconsiderate, of course, but then what would we expect from a family like theirs, I mean honestly..."
"Wonder what they're running away from," his Dad remarks. A rustle of the newspaper.
His Mum snorts. "God knows," she says, takes a noisy gulp of coffee. Theo enters the room. "Oh, hello darling. The new neighbours have scarpered, you know. Wonderful news, if you ask me."
Theo turns, goes right back upstairs, tears already threatening. He sits by the window, stares into the empty space in front of his eyes and clutches Mark's shirt. He shuts his eyes, holds it to his mouth and nose, and inhales as deeply as he can.
***
He cries.
He cries so much that it feels like his head is exploding, every second of the day. He barely eats, he barely gets out of bed, he refuses to go to school. His mother's oblivious, stupidly oblivious, bringing Theo soup and thermometers and talking about calling the doctor.
The feeling hits him like nothing else has before, even when Mark was here he never knew he felt so strongly. It bowls him over, knocks him down and keeps him there.
He doesn't see the 'for sale' sign go up but he hears his Mum mention it to someone on the phone, hears her wondering what their next neighbours will be like. It's around then that he thinks he gives up, sinks further and further, suddenly furious at Mark, hating him for arriving and hating him for leaving and hating himself for starting to fall in the first place.
He thinks about you're beautiful and absence makes the heart grow fonder. And then, some days are a little brighter than others, but he's still bedbound and hurting and he just can't-he can't live like this, always being dragged away from what he wants or having what he wants dragged away from him.
One day he forces himself to look up out of the window again. And he looks into the room, and he sees an old woman and boxes lining the walls, and it really hits him that Mark is gone and he's not coming back. For a moment his heart aches like it's going to tear right down the middle.
But then he starts thinking about so many things to run away from and so many secrets to keep, and then, for a long, long time, all he does is hope that Mark is free.
End.
It was fun, though. I like how it's kind of twincest because it's Luke and Harry only NOT REALLY.
Title: moving signs
Author: likecharity
Pairing: Mark/Theo (Cape Wrath/Clapham Junction crossover)
Rating: R
Warnings: Voyeurism, underage sex-Theo is fifteen.
Summary: His mother only raises her eyebrows, and gives him a curt nod. "Well," she says, "I think we've had our fair share of mentally ill neighbours, don't you?"
A/N: ...It seemed to make sense in my mind?
It seems fitting that he's watching him right from the beginning. He's sitting there in the living room trying to care about whatever's on TV when he sees the car pull up next door and the four-piece family climb out.
His eyes are instantly drawn to him.
It's something about the way he holds himself, and the way he blinks into the sunlight at the house they've just drawn up to, like he doesn't expect to see it right away.
Later, Theo will discover that Mark Brogan lives a lot of his life like he's used to having a blindfold wrapped over his eyes.
***
"New neighbours," says his Mum that night at dinner, speaking in a sort of disapproving tone.
"Hm?" says his Dad, disinterested.
"They seem a bit odd, don't you think?" The words waver in the air in that stupid way his Mum's always do, like she's trying to seem cool and casual, and failing, always failing.
"Mm," his Dad adds, agreeing, but only, Theo knows, to avoid aggravating her.
***
It's two days before their paths cross.
He's just passing his bedroom window when he sees a figure out of the corner of his eye, and he looks, and sees the boy there, standing by his bedroom window, shirtless, his black fringe obscuring one eye as he looks out between the houses.
Theo is about to offer a smile, but for some reason the muscles of his face constrict and contract and he just finds himself looking back instead, expressionless.
The boy tilts his head, subtle and watchful. Theo finds himself looking at his pale, smooth torso, down to the waistband of the plaid pajama trousers he's wearing, slung low on bony hips. It's an instinct, that's all, and when his eyes flicker back up to the boy's face he sees a hint of a smile on his lips before the curtains are being pulled quickly closed.
***
"I don't like them," his Mum's decided by day five, spooning peas onto Theo's plate. "They haven't even come round to introduce themselves."
"I think we're the ones who are supposed to do that, dear," says his Dad absentmindedly.
"I hate peas, Mum," says Theo crossly, but of course, she doesn't listen.
"The couple, they're always fighting," she tuts, "out in the street, no dignity. Airing their dirty laundry," she shakes her head, "and the girl, she's already making moves on the Hatchell boys across the road. That skirt she was wearing yesterday left nothing to the imagination." She takes an angry bite of her steak. "And the boy," she says, her mouth full, "have you seen him? He looks like-"
"I think he's autistic, Nat," his father cuts in, a little sharply.
His mother only raises her eyebrows, and gives him a curt nod. "Well," she says, "I think we've had our fair share of mentally ill neighbours, don't you?"
Theo leaves the table without finishing his meal, and without saying a word.
***
He sees the boy again that night, standing there looking out the window. He's only wearing those pajama trousers again and-something Theo notices for the first time-a pair of skin-tight, shiny black gloves.
He does offer a smile this time, and gets one in return.
He thinks about Tim, and how nice it is to have somebody looking back at him through panes of glass once again.
***
It's day seven before he learns any names. They all turn up on the Sunday evening with a pasta bake that the Mum-Evelyn-has made. Theo's almost embarrassed for his own parents, that the new neighbours are the ones bringing them gifts. His Mum's all fake niceties and Theo knows she'll be gossiping about them all the second she shuts the door.
"Danny," says the Dad, and Theo notices an edgy nervousness about him like he's used to speaking through gritted teeth. The boy and girl step out from behind him and Theo sees them close-up for the first time, notices how similar they look, the echoes of each other in each other's pale faces.
"Nice to meet you," says Theo's Dad gruffly, shaking Danny's hand, and Theo hovers back, watching as his Dad introduces the three of them.
"Mark," says Danny then, gesturing, "and Zoe." And then he adds, "Evelyn's kids," and it's impossible to ignore the way the family shift uncomfortably, fidgeting, their heads dropping.
"Just wanted to drop by and say hi, you know," Evelyn says nervously, handing the Clingfilm-wrapped dish forwards to Theo's Mum, who takes it, holding it gingerly like it might poison her.
"Where did you move from?" his Dad asks, and the family tense again, twitchy, cautious.
"It was nice to meet you," Danny says loudly, sharply, turning for the door, and Evelyn's smile is forced and strained as she stammers through goodbyes.
Zoe looks back at Theo over her shoulder as they leave, one eyebrow quirked, lips slightly parted. Mark doesn't look back at all.
***
He's just gotten off the bus home from school the next day, halfway down the street, when he sees Zoe coming towards him. He fumbles for his cigarettes, lighting one as she bounds up to him cheerfully.
"Theo, right?" she tucks her straight dark hair behind her ears. "Can I bum one?" she asks, eyelashes fluttering.
Theo shrugs, offers her the packet, and she nudges up to him, subtly flirtatious. She holds the cigarette between her lips and leans in for him to light it off his own, but he hands her his lighter instead.
"So," she says after a pause, "how old are you?"
He decides not to lie. "Fifteen," he says.
She wrinkles her nose. "A bit young for me," she says playfully.
Theo glances up, and spots Mark coming down the road too, his hands thrust deep into his coat pockets and his walk hurried and a little awkward. "I might be more interested in your brother, anyway," he says.
She looks at him and he likes seeing the surprise on her face. "Mark's not gay," she tells him in an undertone, glancing up as her brother approaches.
Theo just laughs.
Mark scuffs the toe of his shoe against the pavement when he reaches them, looking down at the floor.
"Hi," says Theo.
"He's stopped talking again," Zoe tells him matter-of-factly. "He does that sometimes." Theo doesn't really know what to say, but before he has a chance to think of something, she suddenly says, "Can he have a cigarette? He wants a cigarette."
"Oh," says Theo, fumbling with the packet, a little startled, "yeah, okay."
It's his last one, but he plucks it out of the box anyway and offers it to Mark, their hands brushing ever-so-slightly. Mark twirls it awkwardly between his fingers for a moment before slipping it between his lips, and Theo's heart thuds quicker as he comes closer, his hand trembling just a little as he reaches forward to light Mark's cigarette with the burning end of his own.
"Where did you move from?" he asks, forgetting, just for a split-second-just until he sees their reactions-how that question was received once before.
"How long have you lived here?" Zoe asks, as if he never spoke at all.
"Only a few months," Theo replies, but he's looking at Mark, watching the way he takes short little drags on the cigarette, never properly inhaling, his breathing sharp and shallow. "Used to live in Wandsworth. It's not far."
"Why did you move?"
Theo's lips curl around a puff of smoke. "Why did you?" he asks carefully.
Her expression says nothing but when he looks to Mark he sees him grinning, wide and open and honest.
That's when he realises that he should be bothered by their avoidance of his questions, suspicious of them, but he's not. He can't say My parents thought I was being molested by the thirty year old man in the council flat across the road, can't say but really I was the one instigating it and always had been, so he thinks that maybe, he understands their silence. Just a little.
After all, everyone has something to hide.
***
Late the next night, Theo is sitting smoking out of his window, when he sees the curtains shuffle and slide open across the way. Mark stands there in his boxers with a sheet of paper, and Theo watches as he holds it up.
MEADOWLANDS, it says, in messy, blocky capitals.
Theo frowns at the paper held flat against the glass. He frowns at Mark. He waits a moment or two to see if anything else is to come, and then rummages around on his desk for something to write on.
What's that? he scrawls thickly in blue biro on the back of some French revision, and holds it up, cigarette dangling forgotten from his lips.
Mark lets his own sheet of paper flutter to the floor, and presses a finger to his lips before pulling the curtains closed once again.
***
"Well, of course, they're all a bunch of freaks if you ask me," his Mum is saying, animatedly, sipping at her fourth or fifth glass of wine. Theo listens from around the corner, anger boiling up inside him as his parents' friends-round for a dinner party-make noises of agreement.
"We saw the woman on our way in," says a female voice, "sitting there on her doorstep in tears, would you believe, like she didn't care who saw her-"
"Oh, that's how they are all the time," his Mum coos back. "You'd think they want to be the talk of the neighbourhood. The kids aren't Danny's, you know. Apparently he only found out recently."
"And they stayed together?" someone else asks, shocked.
"She'd kept it secret from him all that time, the deceiving little-"
"Nat," Theo hears his father say warningly, and then there's a moment of quiet, a gentle clinking of glasses and silverware, before the talking starts up again.
"That son of theirs, what did you say he has, Asperger's?" a man asks.
"Oh, Mark, god, I don't know," his Mum replies airily. "Something like that. If you ask me, it's all a bit of a ploy to get some special treatment, parents do that these days, you know, bad parents of course, but even so..."
There's another pause; more sounds of agreement. Theo's fists are clenched so tightly it hurts.
"I just don't want Theo becoming friends with them," his Mum sighs. "He's not the best judge of character and I can just imagine him tagging around after the two of them, Mark and his slut of a sister, what's her name, Zoe-he hasn't made any friends at school yet and he's always gotten on better with people older than him." There's an awkward pause, Theo imagines that everybody around the table is remembering Tim, and he himself remembers Tim, his heart twinging just a little before his mother continues. "I really just wish they'd go back to wherever on earth they came from."
Theo turns away. Somehow, he knows, in a way his mother will never be able to understand, that they can't.
***
By the third week, he's thinking of Mark when he wanks off. He can't help it. He thinks about bright blue eyes and he thinks about how those gloves would feel against his bare skin and he tries to imagine the stuttering breaths Mark would make as he took him into his mouth or slid slowly into him. He comes harder this way than when he brings back memories of Tim, because doing that's painful, and it makes him twist and ache and long to be back in that dingy, dirty-hot flat, feeling Tim's sweat-slick skin against his own.
He lies back on the bed, one hand holding a cigarette and the other down the front of his boxers. He squeezes his eyes tightly shut, and conjures up Mark's image in his mind, imagines pressing him face down against the floor like he did Tim, imagines feeling the tensing, quivering muscles of Mark's back beneath him.
Afterwards he sits up, wiping his sticky hands on tissues.
And he glances at the window just in time to see a shape dart out of sight.
***
The next night, he doesn't shut his eyes, and Mark doesn't hide.
Theo stands before the window, cigarettes forgotten, boxers tangled around his ankles, and focuses on the rectangle of dim, yellowish light across the way with Mark in its centre, watching him. Theo watches him back, watches that curious tilt of his head and the way his chest expands and contracts as he breathes, muscles hollowing and stretching beneath the flushed glow of his pale skin.
Theo is fully on show, the windowsill digging into his thighs as he pushes forwards, forehead leaving sweaty smudges on the windowpane.
He comes hard, splattering the glass.
Mark reaches out and drags a gloved finger along the clean glass of his own window, and then Theo watches, stunned and breathless, as he slides it between his lips.
***
"I'm just worried about him," his Mum is fussing, speaking in an angry undertone outside Theo's bedroom door. "He's not fitting in yet, he's not connecting with anyone-"
"Don't you think he might get on well with the Brogan twins?" his father replies, cautiously.
A sharp, shocked intake of breath. Theo tries to block their words out. His palm presses hard against the cold window in front of him, and he peers intently through the rain-splashed glass, the image of Mark blurry. Distracted, frustrated, he fumbles for a cigarette, lights it one-handed and chucks the lighter onto the floor.
"I can't believe you'd even suggest that, are you trying to wind me up, Peter? I don't want poor Theo anywhere near those two-"
His mother keeps it up, tone of voice higher-pitched now. Theo glances over his shoulder, double-checks that his door is locked. He stares fixedly at Mark, watching, watching, and Mark's gloved hand slides beneath the waistband of his pajamas, and Theo inhales and curls his fingers tighter, and exhales and twists his wrist-
"-if you'd start showing in some way that you care about our son's wellbeing-"
Theo gives up, lets go of himself, unsatisfied and still wanting. His parents' arguing grows louder and louder and he smokes and smokes, and watches and watches, until all he can hear is the pattering of the rain against the windows and all he can see is Mark's contorted, gasping face.
***
"It's nice," Theo says, of Mark's house, almost two weeks later. "It's-it's like ours, a bit, it's got, you know, the same layout."
It's strange and nerve-wracking to be right up close to Mark like this, standing on opposite sides of the upstairs hallway. He was invited, free houses for both of them, and he hurried over as soon as he saw Mark beckoning through the window. It seemed easy, something he'd been waiting for, but now it feels so real and wrong, like he's being confronted with a celebrity only viewed on cinema screens.
Their first meeting seems so long ago, and now Theo's seen Mark naked, seen him come, watched him night after night after night-and yet, they still haven't met. Not really.
"Oh, you haven't finished unpacking yet," he says when he's led into Mark's bedroom, and eyes the boxes lined up against the wall. "It took me ages to do that too, Mum kept nagging but-"
He knows that that this is far from a conversation, but he's used to speaking to a mute, or at least he may as well be. He remembers nervously babbling at Tim, about libraries and history and Hitler, and not caring that his words were practically ignored, because he wasn't waiting for a response. That wasn't what any of it was leading to, building up to.
And Theo knows that this is the same, especially when, as he's talking-still talking, on and on-Mark rocks forward and calmly undoes the first two buttons of Theo's shirt. Mark smirks, a crooked sort of smile with that slight tilt of the head. It's little movements like that, jerky and erratic, unusual, that remind Theo that Mark's different, not like him, not like anyone he's ever met. He knows Mark has things broken in his brain, some of them from birth and some of them from something in the recent past, unspoken and simmering there in all of the Brogans' dark expressions, whether they're fighting on the street or sobbing on the doorstep or touching themselves in front of strangers.
And it doesn't matter to him.
Mark cuts him off mid-sentence with the kiss, the force of his lips pressed hard against Theo's for a long moment before slowing to gentle pressure and soft, wet movement and god, it's perfect, it's what Theo's been needing for so long now and it seems like forever since he's tasted someone else like this, felt somebody like this up close, had another body against him and someone else's tongue in his mouth.
Mark backs him up against the window and they grab and pull at their own-and each other's-clothes, until Theo can feel the cool glass of the window against his hot skin. Looking back over his shoulder for a second, he can see through into his own room, dimly lit by the bedside lamp he left on.
They stumble to the bed together, kissing again. Mark has his trousers around his ankles and his boxers around his knees and his shirt caught around his left wrist and Theo feels like he wants to devour him, keep him here forever, stay in this moment. He doesn't want parents and moving vans and phone calls to the police to take Mark away from him.
He fumbles with fabric and buttons and cuffs until they're both naked, and then does the only thing he can think of, the thing that's clouding his mind and blurring his vision and making his whole body feel heavy with arousal. He tries to turn Mark over, onto his front.
Immediately, Mark goes stiff and tense and panicky, thrashing out and then grasping wildly at his own neck, his breathing coming shallow like he's being choked. Theo's heart leaps into his throat and he rolls Mark gently back over, smoothing nervous hands through sweaty black hair, trying to be soothing even though really, he's never known how.
"It's okay, it's all right," he murmurs, but he's unable to hide his own bewilderment, "I'm not going to hurt you, I'm not going to hurt you."
Mark gulps, his eyes still wide and wild and blinking rapidly, and Theo mutters about taking deep breaths and calming down and how he's here and it's okay and everything's all right, until finally Mark relents, and pulls Theo close, breathing steadily.
They kiss, softly, and eventually bring each other off with their hands instead.
Theo keeps hearing cars pulling into driveways and he leaves soon after, scared of what might happen if his parents come home early to an empty house.
***
It's better, the next time.
They're slower and more careful and more aware of each other's presence, somehow, aware that they're each dealing with a real person to touch and feel instead of just watch through a window.
It's the middle of the day. Theo's got the day off school due to a burst water pipe and Mark's just...home. (No one's ever been able to find out why Mark and Zoe haven't enrolled in a college yet, or where Danny and Evelyn have found jobs-if they work at all, that is, and if not, where they go all day. They're things Theo's mother won't stop speculating about.)
"I want to see you," Theo says quietly, a little uncertainly, holding Mark's gloved hands in his and feeling the strange, shiny fabric against his skin.
He means I want to see you completely, entirely. Without these. And Mark understands.
He peels the gloves off quickly with his back turned to Theo, and then swings round, revealing the mottled red and white scar tissue that covers his skin in thin, hard lines twined around his fingers, and thick welts running over his wrist bone, over his knuckles.
"Shit," Theo gasps. "How-" he murmurs, knowing it's pointless but unable to stop himself, the broken sentence hanging in the air.
It doesn't get answered, of course, and it doesn't matter. Theo just wants to feel Mark's hands, feel the pads of his fingertips and the lines of his palms. He doesn't know how bad the damage is, whether Mark can feel him back, but later, when they're touching instead of watching, and Mark's panting into the sweaty crook where Theo's neck meets his shoulder, Theo wants to believe that he can.
They lie there in the wrinkled sheets later, the sun streaming through the window. They're silent. Theo's thoughts nag at him and he worries about someone nipping home from work to pick something up, and he thinks of going back, just in case. But then Mark sits up, and strokes Theo's face gently.
"You're beautiful," he says, and his voice is boyish, hushed and stuttering, awed.
It's everything Theo thought it would be, and he feels a surge of love at that moment, staring up into bright blue eyes and feeling the rough scars against his own smooth skin.
The love builds and builds inside his heart, and he takes a deep breath.
"So are you," he says, his voice breaking a little as Mark dips his head for a kiss.
He lets himself fall.
***
"Mum wanted us to go way out in the middle of nowhere," Mark says, his voice a little lazy and slow as he smoothes his hand down Theo's chest, fingers softly stroking at the skin. "But Dad says big, central cities are the best places to hide. So many people. So many houses."
It's times like these that Theo can't help but be curious, as accepting as he is of the Brogan family's secrets. He wonders what it is they're running from, who they're running from, what they could possibly have done. He wonders if they murdered someone; tries to imagine Mark with blood on his hands. He can't.
"We didn't even change our names, change our names back," Mark goes on, voice dropping to a whisper like he knows he's saying things he shouldn't, "kept what they gave us, they wouldn't expect that..."
Theo wonders what Mark's real name is, tries to imagine him as a John or a Tom or a James. But he doesn't ask, he just listens.
"Dad says they're going to find us soon," Mark says, ever so quietly, the words just a whisper against Theo's ear. "We can't stay in one place for long."
Theo thinks of the boxes stacked up in Mark's room, never fully unpacked.
"So...many...things...to run away from," Mark murmurs, his voice a gentle sing-song as his fingers travel down Theo's torso, dipping beneath the waistband of his boxers and back out again, tracing circles around his bellybutton. "You're running away from something too."
Theo shakes his head.
"Being kept from something," Mark guesses, but it's not really a guess, it's like he knows, can tell from the way Theo's gaze flutters downwards.
Theo wonders if that's right anymore, if it really applies. He wonders if Tim's still living where he used to, wonders if the police have found something they missed in their initial investigations. Wonders if Tim's in jail for crimes he didn't commit.
He wonders if maybe he did commit them after all.
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," Mark whispers, and the words ring in Theo's ears for days afterwards.
***
"So many secrets to keep," Mark says, and he sounds a little angry this time; it's not his usual lilting tone. He's pacing, back and forth across the room as Theo watches from the bed with Mark's shirt on, unbuttoned.
Zoe nearly caught them, coming home to borrow money from Mark before leaving again. Not saying where, of course.
Theo had to hide.
"We don't have to be a secret," Theo says, but even as he speaks he knows it's not true, knows his parents would never accept it. He wouldn't put it past them to move house a second time, to accuse poor eighteen year old Mark of pedophilia, to drag Theo somewhere he wouldn't be able to find any male company at all.
Mark doesn't respond, anyway. He stops still at one side of the room, facing the wall, and thrusts his head forward with a sharp crack against it. Theo jumps up, takes Mark in his arms, but Mark continues, forehead hitting the wall over and over until Theo manages to pry him away.
Mark has tears in his eyes as Theo tucks him into the bed. He's got less than five minutes before his parents are going to be home from work and he kisses Mark firmly on the lips and pulls on his jeans and shoes, hurries out next door to his own home with Mark's shirt still on, open, flapping behind him in the breeze.
***
The next time he goes round when Mark's family are in. It's been too long since he's seen Mark at the window, and he suspects they don't care as much as his own do anyway. He's right-Evelyn answers the door and greets him with a forced smile, and Theo can see that her mascara is smudged all around her eyes like she's been crying for hours.
"Oh, Theo, how lovely, come in," she says, shaking his hand awkwardly and then disappearing off down the hallway, not bothering to ask whether he's here for Mark or Zoe or just because some post got delivered to the wrong house by mistake.
Theo makes his way up to Mark's room uninvited and finds him curled up on his bed, wearing the t-shirt Theo left. Theo climbs in next to him, holds him close. He nuzzles into Mark's neck; inhales.
"I don't want to fuck," Mark says suddenly, thickly, like he's been crying too.
"Okay," says Theo, a little surprised, because it is, because he doesn't want to either, he just wants to lie here with Mark in his arms and not do anything, anything at all else.
But then Mark sits up, his eyes puffy and red, and Theo sits up too by instinct.
"I-I love you," Theo says, and it's too quick, almost catching him off guard.
He doesn't really know if it's true, doesn't know if he's ever loved anyone. Doesn't love his parents, or, if he does it's because he has to. He wonders if he loved Tim, or if that was just a fascination, a crush, just lust maybe. He remembers watching him, watching him all the time and then fucking him, god, fucking him-
But that's all there was, really, with Tim.
Mark looks at him carefully, swings his head to the side to get his fringe out of his eyes. It's grown far too long now, almost obscuring half of his face and he's always having to push it aside. He blinks, and Theo sees tears welling in the corners of his eyes.
"It's okay," Theo says quietly, "that's-that's a good thing."
Mark hangs his head, shaking it almost frantically. "No," he says vehemently. "No."
Theo doesn't know what to say. They sit, and slowly become aware of the distant sounds of argument somewhere else in the house, shrill voices and a lower, furious-sounding one. Feet thundering up the stairs, Zoe slamming her bedroom door. Something being thrown, smashing.
Mark sinks down head-first into Theo's lap, sobs wracking his body, and Theo just holds him, hopeless and helpless and knowing absolutely nothing.
***
The next morning, Mark is gone.
They're all gone.
Theo pulls open his bedroom curtains and looks straight into an empty room, ripped bare, just plain white walls, a vacant box of a bedroom across the way. He peers down, sees the car gone, the house standing there blank and drained like no one's ever lived there at all.
"-think they've done a moonlight flit," he hears his Mum saying to his Dad when he's halfway down the stairs. "So inconsiderate, of course, but then what would we expect from a family like theirs, I mean honestly..."
"Wonder what they're running away from," his Dad remarks. A rustle of the newspaper.
His Mum snorts. "God knows," she says, takes a noisy gulp of coffee. Theo enters the room. "Oh, hello darling. The new neighbours have scarpered, you know. Wonderful news, if you ask me."
Theo turns, goes right back upstairs, tears already threatening. He sits by the window, stares into the empty space in front of his eyes and clutches Mark's shirt. He shuts his eyes, holds it to his mouth and nose, and inhales as deeply as he can.
***
He cries.
He cries so much that it feels like his head is exploding, every second of the day. He barely eats, he barely gets out of bed, he refuses to go to school. His mother's oblivious, stupidly oblivious, bringing Theo soup and thermometers and talking about calling the doctor.
The feeling hits him like nothing else has before, even when Mark was here he never knew he felt so strongly. It bowls him over, knocks him down and keeps him there.
He doesn't see the 'for sale' sign go up but he hears his Mum mention it to someone on the phone, hears her wondering what their next neighbours will be like. It's around then that he thinks he gives up, sinks further and further, suddenly furious at Mark, hating him for arriving and hating him for leaving and hating himself for starting to fall in the first place.
He thinks about you're beautiful and absence makes the heart grow fonder. And then, some days are a little brighter than others, but he's still bedbound and hurting and he just can't-he can't live like this, always being dragged away from what he wants or having what he wants dragged away from him.
One day he forces himself to look up out of the window again. And he looks into the room, and he sees an old woman and boxes lining the walls, and it really hits him that Mark is gone and he's not coming back. For a moment his heart aches like it's going to tear right down the middle.
But then he starts thinking about so many things to run away from and so many secrets to keep, and then, for a long, long time, all he does is hope that Mark is free.
End.