MIT: Minors in Trouble Part 2/2
CONTINUATION OF PART 1: http://me-under-glass.livejournal.com/141631.html
Please read Part 1 first.
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It's dark by the time he gets back, having spent another few hours over dinner not only getting his car back to it's glossy black perfection but also finding a quiet, out-of-the-way eatery and easing his tension with a glass of wine and a perfectly bloody steak. The campus has emptied save for a few wandering pockets of students and he's able to pull into a spot much closer to their room. He feels... empty again. His face neutral and eyes cold. This is the way he should feel, this is how he feels comfortable. The throbbing ache of his cheekbone and eyesocket fuels a simmering heat of anger in his gut, of resentment, but it also reminds him to be cautious, and with every suppressed wince of hurt, it also brings a pang of regret. He can't quite decide why he might feel that, but maybe, he thinks, this pain is something he deserves.
The echoing electronic beep of his car alarm follows him up the concrete sidewalk to the dorms and the heavy metal doors to the hall thunk with a heavy finality as they open for him and then shut behind him. He sees no one on the way to their room, although he hears the muffled sounds of voices behind other doors before he reaches his own silent one. His thin fingers rest against the handle for a moment, listening, before he tests the handle - locked though he hadn't locked it when he'd left - then slips the key from his pocket and unlocks the door with a soft jingling twist and eases inside. The room is dark, with just a hint of moonlight filtering through a small window, but he can already make out a soft shape on the bottom bunk at the back, a long shadow on top of the covers, and his breath leaves him in a long relieved sigh that barely registers as a sound in the dim room.
The shape on the bed turns and he can feel Con looking at him, watching him. "So you came back..." is all he says though, voice even and calm, "Good. And alone, no less... should I thank you? Or were you just unlucky?"
"Why do you always have to be such an asshole?" Con's gravelly voice rolls out of the shadows with a slow sigh as he shifts on the bed, stretching as Ty moves slowly into the room, shutting the door behind him and heading towards the bag Con had clearly moved over to the cluttered desk, a noticeable, larger shadow in the mess, "I'm not going to apologize, so you can stop waiting for it."
"Fine." The word ringing with a crisp note of annoyance and sufferance as Ty lifts his shirt off over his head, folding it carefully and laying it over the back of the desk chair as he sifts through his bag looking for the pair of black-silk pajama bottoms he'd brought with him. His jaw sets harder with the annoying statement and he can feel a mix of regret, again, and anger build warm in his gut. Outwardly though, his pale skin shines cold in the light from the window, lean muscles taught and tense with a perfectly controlled, emotionless movement as he unsnaps his jeans. He can feel Con watching but he doesn't turn around, not entirely sure what he'd see in his friend's eyes if he did - lust, sorrow, anger? He doesn't want to know. He doesn't expect it's good. "Don't then. You don't have to. Just forget about it."
"Forget?" the bed creaks as Con shifts, sitting upright, swinging his feet to the floor, "I'm not going to just forget it, either." A hint of anger spreads heat into Con's next words, "You. Had. No right..."
"I know."
The silence that follows Ty's easy admittance stretches, filling with an awkward uncertainty and disbelief. "What do you mean, you know? ... You know? If you knew, why did you--?"
"Because I wanted to," again Ty's voice is cold and calm as lean legs slip out of his jeans and tight boxers and slip into the dark silky pool of his pj bottoms, settling them loosely along the ridge of sharp hips and lean muscle before setting the knot in the belt tie. His face is set, neutral and cold and matter-of-fact as he finally turns back to Con's slanted, narrowed eyes and thin-lipped frown. "What more do you want? What other answer could you possibly have expected? I... wanted to." The soft denim of his jeans folded neatly atop his shirt, he turns slowly back to face Con, letting his fingers slip from the soft fabric to pace slowly and steadily over to the bottom bunk, kneeling down in front of Con and working to keep the calm expression on his face even as a spike of anger surges when Con shifts back away from him and into the shadow of the bunk, bringing his legs up to cross them on the sheets, between them. "I wanted to kiss you... so I did," he can feel his jaw tense despite his best efforts, but the slightly pinched look in his ice-blue eyes betrays an uncertain look of angry fear instead of just simple anger, at least to someone who knows him well, "I didn't want you to leave."
"You didn't want me to leave so you thought you'd do the one thing I specifically warned you not to do? Ya," Con's scoff seems harsh, sharp, and the accusation in his voice cuts with a searing anger, "That was real smart, wasn't it? Just as smart as the last time. Do you ever learn?"
The simmering fury and hurt in Con's words backs him up a touch, rocking back on his heels as the pinched look in his eyes deepens, his own cool voice a smooth counterpoint to Con's rough gravel, "I stopped, didn't I?"
"Ya..." another scoff, and this time it backs up Ty again as his pale, lean shape stands again, "'Cuz I fucking hit you this time. 'Cuz I fucking learned. Christ... Hit you before you could hit me..."
Bristling at the muttered words, Ty can feel tension pouring through his fingers and tingling in his spine. He shakes his head hard, "I wouldn't have... I wouldn't have hit you--"
"What? This time?"
"Yes." He can feel himself starting to shiver with tension, feel the mix of anger and desperation inside him as he grips the edge of the top bunk, leaning down lower to look Con in the eyes, to meet shadowy green that, with a start, he realizes hold a shimmer of checked tears that send a jolt right down to the pit of his stomach, making his fingers go white-knuckled with the effort of not reaching out... not... touching Con, "Yes. I promised you, didn't I? Never again, Con... I promised. Fuck! What the hell am I supposed to do to make you believe me?"
"Why should I?" Con's voice muffled with a sudden sniffle and a hurried swipe at his eyes as he realizes Ty's seen the shimmer in his eyes. His breathing trembles as he breathes out slow, getting his low voice under control and even, "Since when do your promises mean anything? You say whatever the hell you please to get what you want... you always have."
Exasperated, his white-knuckled grip pushes him hard away again from Con, pushing him upright, "Fuck... Fine. Whatever." He'd almost forgotten how fucking irritating it is to argue with someone who knows him as well as Con. Fact is, he knows, Con's right - he's always said whatever he needed, whatever he'd wanted, to twist people to his side, to manipulate a situation... what is he supposed to say to that? 'It's different this time?' Gripping the edge of the bunk with both hands he takes a quick short hop and pulls himself up onto the top bunk, rolling onto the soft comforters with a boneless grace. He can hear Con shifting below him, the revving heat of his body warming the bed beneath him as he stares at the dirty ceiling. For a while it's nothing but silence, uneasy and tense, then finally, "You know... I may have lied to a lot of people... but... I don't think I've ever lied to you..."
Another long pause fills with tension and disbelief as Con says nothing and even Ty has to start wondering if it's true. Somehow... it doesn't feel true. The seconds tick by in silence as he lies atop unfamiliar sheets with his muscles tense, trying unsuccessfully to work the tension from his jaw, "Except... maybe once." If he's going to be honest...
"Ya?" Con's gravelly prompt from below, calmer now and thick with tension and too many thoughts. It seems to bounce around in Ty's skull for a while before registering.
"Ya... maybe once." Only now he's opened his mouth, it doesn't seem like such a good idea to be honest, anymore. What the hell good is honesty, anyway? Really? Much better to just say what you know other people want to hear, right? Except he's kind of gone past the point of no return on that one, he thinks... and besides, he'd already said he'd never lied to Con... and he's pretty sure Con hadn't believed him, anyway. "Maybe... when I said... when I told you..." Stuttering is not something Ty does often. Or fidget. But the nervous tension in his limbs and gut is making his fingers cramp and he can feel his foot start to tap silently on the soft comforter, "When I told you I didn't... mean to hurt you. That time... When I hurt you."
"You mean when you raped me..."
The words fall into the heavy silence, echoing in the hollow spaces of his heart until his chest aches with the cold hard truth of that day, the desperate disbelief of his mind saying he couldn't have and that's not what happened and he hadn't done that to his friend, couldn't have done that to someone he was supposed to care about, that if he'd done that, he really would have to be a monster but... "Yes..." Of course. He is, isn't he - he has the Devil inside of him, that's what his Grandmother had said, and his Grandfather. Even his own Mother - he is a monster. "Yes..." but still he can't quite say it himself, "Then... then, I did want to hurt you. I wanted you to hurt... like I hurt... I wanted you to know what it felt like to be... betrayed."
"I didn't betray you--"
"Yes." Ty interupts Con's sudden burst of angry words, his own rising to meet them in a clash, "Yes, you did. You fucking did!"
Slim fingers grip the rail of the bunk as he turns himself, glaring down into the darkness below, seeking eyes that are suddenly much nearer than he'd anticipated as Con too is flowing up from his bunk, grabbing the edge of the bed beside his own fingers to pull himself up and into his face, fierce green shining and filling his vision, "When? Huh?! How the fuck did I hurt you?! You mind explaining that to me?"
"You..." ice blue eyes seethe with cold fire as they narrow in fury at the question, the indifference inherent in it that hurts in such a familiar way, "You have no idea what I went through, do you? Did you ever even think to ask?" Con's eyes flash open wide as his fingers lash out, snake out to grasp at the short waves of hair at the back of his neck and pull him up and off his feet enough to make him stumble in his sheets, putting Con off balance enough for him to shove him back into the bed below and out of his face. With a casual twist, he's off the bed again, jumping down lightly and kneeling down over Con as the other boy backs up towards his pillow and out from under him. "I came back for you. For you! There is absolutely fuck all in that city of yours for me aside from you. Do you get that?!"
'So?!" Con shouts back, and he's shaking, Ty can see it in the soft moonlit dark, and for a moment he thinks he must be scaring him, and the tension of his own body stills, the anger in his face draining as he backs off a touch, leaning back to put some air between them, but then... he sees something else in the moonlight, a silver spill of tears shimmering unshed in Con's eyes, and it confuses him.
"So?" His voice softens, uncertainty making him hesitant, "So I told you... I promised you I would come back for you. When my... my fucking Mother packed us into that damned car, her parents making the sign of the fucking cross in the front seat as she pulled me away from your fucking crying face, I promised you!" He's breathing hard with resentment, a bitter swell of anger in his chest as he recounts the memory that had kept him going for years, thin lips burning with the remembered taste of tears on Con's lips as he'd kissed him that one last time, "Do you remember... do you remember what you promised me?" And at the same time his lips ache with that memory, his mind seethes with another, driving away in a packed car smelling of old sweat and grease and unfamiliar people, his grandfather pulling out the car lighter and handing it to his mother, telling her that men kissin' men was a sin, and sins had to be burned outta sinners.
His own icey eyes filling with that remembered pain, Con's frightened gaze finally sheds its tears, "I couldn't..."
"You couldn't?" disbelief and a huff of disappointment leaves him at the useless excuse.
"I couldn't wait for you..."
"You have no idea what I went through..." his words a whispered menace in the close air, eyes cooling, cold in the moonlight as they harden, "Every fucking day was just another piece of hell. I wanted to leave, but I wouldn't leave--" he almost chokes on the admission, another foolish choice in a line of too many in his life, it seems to him.
"Your Mom?" Con supplies as he falters, his jaw clenching with the shame of weakness as he shuts his eyes for a minute to collect himself, feeling Con's fingers shaking as they curl over his arm.
Eyes opening again, harder, colder to make up for the glimpse of weakness a moment before, he nods, "Ya... my fucking Mother. They broke her... Con..." his voice a sharp, steeled accusation, "Broke her. She wasn't as strong as me... She was weak. They twisted her until she couldn't even recognize herself anymore... until maybe she thought she was killing somebody else in that bathtub. But you know what?"
"Ty..."
He shakes off the sympathy in Con's voice, teeth gritting with renewed anger as his eyes flash and steel-strong fingers tighten around Con's wrist and pull comforting fingers from his skin, "No... it's really too late for you to care now, Con. Just listen. I was angry with her... I was disappointed. She left me... she took me into Hell and then she fucking left me there alone... but I thought hey... at least now there's no more reason to stay. I thought, finally, I could get back to you. Because I thought of you every fucking day in that place... but then what do I find when I get back? Hm? Did you wait for me? Did you think of me? Ever? At all, since the day I left?"
Wincing from the pain in his wrist where Ty grips it, Con shakes his head, denying the accusation, fear, but also guilt, in green eyes as his low voice rumbles, "Of course, I thought about you."
"When? When you were running around town fucking every guy you could get your hands on?!" Seeing Con's wince of pain, he checks himself once again, shoving the other's arm away as his jaw clenches in a frustration that goes nowhere, stuck inside his head and burning in his eyes. "Kev told me... everybody's fucking told me... they said when I left, if anything you started sleeping around even more than you did when you were with me. So when did you ever think about me? In between fucks?"
"You were gone!"
Con's voice seems to echo in his head, low and loud; angry as a child's tantrum and just as logical. "It's not like I had a choice!" And they're both screaming now, a familiar blaze of anger and heat; they've played this game a thousand times, over and over.
"Well what the fuck did you expect me to do?! You always fucked around when you were with me... and so did I! Did you think I was going to stop just because you weren't there to yell at me for doing it?! Did you stop?! Are you seriously trying to tell me you weren't fucking every choir boy you could out there?!"
Con's eyes have narrowed again, the momentary pain in his wrist clearly forgotten as his fists clench in the sheets and he moves up on to his knees to yell at him better. He can feel his own pale skin start to flush with anger, gaze blazing, narrowed to match Con's. "That's different!" he yells, shifting to his knees, too, slender fingers curling in the silk of his pants.
"Why?!"
"Because I didn't fucking fall in love with anybody else!"
When his ears stop ringing with the echoes of his words he realizes he's trembling, rage and betrayal flooding his veins as he watches Con grow quiet, watches the anger in the other's eyes dim, watches him question himself as he realizes what they're now talking about, or perhaps who, "Leave Al out of this..." Con's voice is quiet but firm as he shakes his head at him, as if he could change the flow of this conversation now.
"How am I supposed to do that when he is what I'm talking about...? You asked how you betrayed me." His teeth grind as he forces his own words quiet to match Con's, "He's it." It's a simple statement of fact but the hissing words seem more like a threat from his lips, he can hear it and he's not entirely sure he means them to be, but the truth is, he hates the skinny little shit... blames Al as much as Con for his loss. "You told me you'd wait for me... but when I came back, you told me you'd found someone else. Just like that... I came back from hell for you... and you... found... someone... else." And that wasn't even the worst of it, "And... you loved him. Really loved him. You weren't even fucking around, anymore... for him."
"It was different with Al..."
Con's quiet rebuke infuriates him, knowing it must have been... different. Con loved Al... probably still does. It was different, he knows now, different than anything Con had ever felt for him. And knowing that, after believing something else for so long, needing it to be something else... is the final betrayal. His muscles tense and he can feel himself wanting to lash out, seething at the boy in front of him. But he doesn't. His hand slaps out to hit the wall beside Con's head as the other surges forward to grip the hard, rounded edge of Con's jaw, pushing the boy onto his back, into his pillow as he kneels over him, straddling his waist, furious words barking in his startled face, "I know that!" His arm shaking in his steeled grip, his fingers tremble and his breathing is shallow, almost panicked as his vision blurs. "I know it was different..." He blinks to clear his vision, feeling a strange wetness on his cheeks as he looks down into the slightly sharper image of Con's widened eyes and slack, almost surprised mouth, "You loved him."
Not understanding why Con should look so startled except to think he must be frightening the boy again, he forces his fingers to relax and ignores the shaking as they brush back gently through short, bright orange hair, reminding him of better days when he used to do the same thing just for fun, just to feel the way the other's hair felt tickling against his fingertips. He remembers he used to laugh, then, and not the same way he does now, but lighter, as if the world were actually a good place. Leaning down, he rests his forehead against Con's, shutting his eyes as he whispers, low and even, "You loved him... and you forgot me. Everyone I talked to told me you were different with Al... Jack said you'd finally 'found something good' and I should just leave you alone and let you be happy for once... did you know that? Actually, Bobby said something similar. Jynx and even Kev, too... begged me to forget about you... said you deserved someone really... good, in your life... finally."
"Ty..." Con's voice comes slowly, as if he doesn't know what to say, and he feels him reaching up to slide uncertain hands against his sides, as if he were thinking about wrapping his arms around him but not sure about it, yet. Fear holding him back, maybe, a lingering fear set deep in the other's skin.
"Was I not?"
"What?"
"Was I not good... for you?" Feeling his chest tighten, it seems to be harder to breathe. He noses along Con's cheek, feeling how the fullness of his face has thinned, sharper and more defined than it once had been. So close, he can feel the way Con stops breathing for a moment before the other shakes his head.
"No... Ty, what we had... it wasn't good. Not for either of us."
"Bullshit!" He jerks up again, eyes flying open and narrowing at Con's wavering green, tense muscles cording as he grips the sheets beside Con's head, "Don't you speak for me." His voice seethes but it's husky with hurt, an emotion so rarely expressed this openly and plainly for him that it seems strange to hear himself, "Having you... made me feel like I was okay. Like the way I was, was okay... because you loved me. If you loved me, I couldn't really be as twisted as my Dad thought I was... I couldn't really be the monster I sometimes felt like I was... but it was a lie! Now I know it was a lie... because you never did love me... You loved that fucking, starving waif of a boy... but you never loved me. You lied to me... You made me believe you loved me... then you betrayed me, with him."
As he speaks, words hissing past his teeth as his stomach tenses, shaking and nauseas with the ache of his betrayal, he watches Con's face beneath him turn from the pinched look of frightened denial, the half-shake of his head, lips parted as if to say 'no', to the hesitation of uncertainty, the possibility that what he's hearing is true, doubting himself... He sees the doubt and it feels like an admission in itself, as if he's having all of his fears confirmed, every word he's saying hoping it isn't true... hoping the other boy will change his mind, hoping he will say it isn't right... but it is, it's confirmed. His arms continue to shake, with tension, as he holds himself still, barely breathing, his eyes emptying of everything but the momentary need for Con to take back the hesitation... to tell him it isn't true. But pained green only pinch with concern, strong fingers reaching up to smooth over the short bristle of his hair, resting in the corded hollow at the back of his neck as he shuts his eyes with the familiar feeling, longing for that familiar feeling to turn back time. "Ty..." Con's voice, a low, comforting rumble in his ear as the other boy pulls him down lower, the pull hesitant at first, but it gains strength. Ty can feel the heat of his forehead brush Con's temple as his elbows bend and buckle, pressing his body into Con's muscled frame as a firm arm wraps around his shoulders, "You are not a monster."
"No? Then what am I?" He doesn't want to be fed lies, comforting or not, and he tenses in Con's arms, pulling himself free of the half-embrace to push himself up again on his hands, Con's arm slipping from his shoulders, though one heavy hand continues to rest distractingly on the back of his neck, as if it's determined to stay there, "What kind of person is so awful his own Mother can't love him... or the first guy he was ever with, ever cared about? What kind of monster isn't good enough for them? Can't make them happy no matter how hard he tries? Hurts them...?" His last words painful to utter, his heart catching, hurting as his eyes narrow with confusion and a continuous anger.
"Your Mom, Ty..." Con's head shakes, fingers trembling as they stroke Ty's hair, the other set resting lightly against one trembling arm. He shrugs beneath Ty before he goes on, "Your Mom had a lot of problems... from way before you were even born. You know that. It's not that she didn't love you... and you did make her happy. Christ, you spent half your life trying to make her happy... She just didn't know how to... accept that some things were out of her control. Like who you were, as a person... was out of her control. And she had a lot of messed up ideas of right and wrong and good and evil... it was just fucked up, Ty... You can't blame yourself for that. You did your best. You didn't mean to hurt her..."
"But I did." Ty's voice gritted out through his teeth, "I did hurt her. I wasn't good enough for her. I wasn't right... And I hurt you..."
"Ya... You hurt me. And you meant to, too... I know." Con sighs, jaw tightening along with the grip of his fingers for a moment, losing fear for anger, pausing as if mulling over how pissed off he still is about it. How angry. Even still, how scared... "And you are a god-damned son-of-a-bitch for it."
The statement takes him back for a moment; he knows it's true but it's different to hear it. Somehow he'd been expecting Con to tell him it was okay... Why would the other boy be here if it wasn't? "I know..."
"Ya... I know you know. And do you know why I don't hate you for what you did? Why everyone else, even you, hates you for what you did... and I don't?"
"No..." and this is it, this is the moment, Con tells hims it's over, that he doesn't know either and he never wants to see him again. Why the hell hasn't he already?
"Because... as much as you hurt me... you hurt yourself, too."
Con's answer seems simple, but to Ty it makes no sense. He blinks in his confusion, tension pouring out of him with the sudden loss of direction, no longer having any idea where this conversation is headed, "What the hell are you talking about?"
Con breathes out slow, clearly trying to order his thoughts and push down the anger that stirs in his chest remembering that day... Ty knows things had always been complicated between them, but watching Con try to explain himself, he realizes just how much had changed when he'd gone away... Everything. Everything had changed. He always used to know what Con was thinking, or he'd thought so... now, he has no idea.
"I remember... when were together," Con starts, "I thought you were the coolest guy I'd ever known... You knew everything. You were always in control, never had a doubt, you just knew... you were the best. At everything. You were the best hacker, and you taught me everything you knew. You were the best lover..." Con's smile picks up at that, a sideways smirk of remembrance that only makes Ty's brow lower, unsure of where this is going, "And you taught me everything you knew. You lied through your teeth, but your Mom adored you... she fucking adored you like you were the next coming of the Christ you had her so wrapped around your finger... just like me. Just like everyone. You were... invincible."
"Not invincible..." Ty's voice wavering, unsure.
"No... turns out not. But I thought you were. Fuck... you were amazing." Con's green eyes shimmer in a well of tears, forgetting now to be afraid as they make a clean double-line down his cheeks, and Ty's heart leaps frantically as he wipes them away, apologizing, just 'I'm sorry,' simple and concise, but Con shakes his head, "No... don't apologize for that. My point is I thought you were hot shit... and fuck did I love you... I was so incredibly and stupidly, blindly in love with you... but while I was busy loving you, then, I think you were too busy being in love with yourself. Hear me out on this, okay?" Con adds quickly as Ty starts to interupt, "I loved you... and were so busy trying to prove how awesome and invincible you were, that you were fucking every guy you could get your hands on. And then you'd tell me all about it... and me? I was so fuck-blind over your awesomeness that I honestly think I thought that was normal. That my being jealous was ridiculous, and you were clearly too cool to be stuck with just one guy... I thought that to be with you, I had to put up with it, be okay with it... be as cool as you. So I fucked around, too... 'cuz I was copying you... and then you got pissed off when I did. And it's not even that I liked it really, at first... but I liked it when you got angry, I liked thinking you did want me all to yourself. That maybe I wasn't so strange for not liking it when you screwed around... But you wouldn't stop. So I wouldn't stop. I wanted you to realize what it felt like, to realize I felt the same way... But you didn't... You just kept fucking other guys..." Now Con's voice is ringing with exasperation and Ty is backing up a step as he pulls himself further up to straddle Con's legs as the other sits up to face him on a more even level, finally getting angry the way Ty's been expecting him to for a while, and the other boy isn't crying anymore, "It's like you had some kind of stupid chip in your head that made you retarded! You didn't like it when I fucked around, but you couldn't comprehend that I didn't like it, either! And eventually I stopped being hurt and I stopped wanting you to understand and I just started getting really fucking pissed off! But no matter how fucking pissed off I got, I still couldn't get away from you, because no matter how hard I tried not to, I still fucking loved you, because I don't know! Maybe I was fucking stupid, too!"
Con's breathing hard as he stops suddenly, risen to his knees, hands hard on Ty's shoulders as he shakes him roughly with each sentence until... "Where the hell was I going with this again?"
"I don't remember..." Ty's voice holds stunned amazement as he lets Con slump against him, letting him dig hard, frustrated fingers into his shoulders without complaint. Half of him is stunned just from the words coming out of Con's lips, 'I loved you' the boy says, and it stuns him... He's heard the words before and he knows they are very definitely in the past tense, but... even just hearing them again makes the other half of him sit up, alert, and on a knife's-edge of anticipation to hear them said again when he'd been beginning to think they'd never ever been true in the first place. But maybe... they were.
"Wait. I remember..." Con breathes, slumping back down on his heels and loosening his nails from Ty's skin, letting his fingers fall down leanly-muscled arms to take hold of stunned, unresponsive fingers. Watching Ty, Con's eyes are tired, angry but tired... more frustrated, really, "We got so good at hurting each other... We fought and fucked and fought and fucked... and I still loved you... but then you went away... and at first life was just empty without the fighting... without you... but then... I met Al." Con's voice is sympathetic, a soft rumble as he sees Ty's face crumble, as if he'd lost some inner hope, "Al taught me you don't have to always be fighting to love somebody... He taught me you don't have to make someone jealous to know that they love you... if they just tell you... if you don't always have to be second-guessing because of all the stupid shit that not everybody has to pull when they're in love. All the stupid shit that you do... but he doesn't."
"So what you're saying is..." Ty's voice is hard, and he's trying to tell himself to suck this up and pull himself together because he's acting like a weak little shit, but his vision is blurring again and it's hard to breath, "Is that he's... he's better than me."
Con smiles softer, a little sadder, but he shrugs a yes as he says, "Ya... better at love than you. Definitely... and he taught me how to be better at it, too."
"Great... Fucking wonderful..."
"And that is why I can forgive you... for what you did. Because the fact is, you fucking suck at love. Al did teach me that... but you are not incapable of it. I've always known that. All on my own..." Ty's eyes meet Con's with a breathless, almost fearful anticipation of what comes next. Silent for once as he hangs on every word. Con's hands come up to brush his temples, sliding lightly down his cheeks, avoiding Ty's swollen eye as he winces, and down his neck to hold him loosely in place, fingertips kneeding the hollow at the back of his neck, watching Ty melt with the touch with an expression like he knows what he's doing but isn't quite sure what he's going to do about it, yet, "When you hurt me... I know it was because you loved me... and you were angry, and fucking lost without me." Con's smile, sad, wistful, softly chiding, but somehow understanding enough to keep Ty breathless, "And you just fucking suck so bad at love... that you didn't realize that hurting me would hurt you, too... because... you're a fucking moron, Ty... just like I used to be when I thought hurting myself was worth it if I hurt you back when you hurt me first. But that kind of thinking just spins around and around and goes nowhere... If we both did that, we'd just hurt each other forever. So... you hurt me. But I'm not going to hurt you back. So it stops. Okay? It stops with me."
"I'm sorry..."
"I know."
"I mean," Ty says, vision blurring as he feels his body shake, a feeling so horrible it curdles in his gut blossoming, and for once not bothering to hide the guilt, "I really am sorry..."
"I know you are," Con wipes gently at the tears in his eyes with a soft rebuke of a sigh, "Fuck... come on, look at you... You look so different when you cry... it's kind of freaking me out."
"I'm not crying." He can't be crying... he doesn't cry; he doesn't care enough to cry; he doesn't feel enough to cry. His eyes narrow in irritation as he pushes Con's hands down from his face and he can almost make out the twisted questioning eyebrows on the other's blurry face as he brings up a hand to feel at his wet cheeks, confusion stopping him as he realizes... he is. "Fuck..."
"Ya," Con's slow rumble and sigh warm in mutual surprise, with an undercurrent of what he thinks must be a smile, "I know, right? Freaky..."
Sitting knee to knee with Con as the tears - Fuck... Tears... Fucking crying... I'm fucking crying, he continues to obsess - dry on his cheeks with his confusion and stunned shock, he doesn't do anything but sit for a long while, and Con just sits with him. He's not sure if anything's changed, or if anything is better... but somehow he feels like he's accepted something he hadn't before. That maybe... things are okay. That he'd fucked up, and he is fucked up... but that maybe, just maybe Con really doesn't hate him. That maybe it's okay to be sorry. And maybe it's okay to admit he made a mistake. Maybe it's okay to tell someone that he knows he's fucked up - not a monster, just plain old fucked up - and maybe the world hasn't ended because someone else does know. Maybe... he's okay. Or, as okay as he's ever been. He sighs as the tears stop and he takes a deep breath as his vision clears and he looks up at Con, who's looking right back at him, waiting, and he wants to ask him, 'So you loved me... but do you still?' And he wants to tell him, 'You're right... I suck at love. But I think I still love you, anyway.' But neither option passes his lips. Somehow, he still feels like he doesn't have the right to ask. "So what do we do, now?" is what does come out, licking thin lips that suddenly seem dry.
Con shrugs and reaches for Ty's wrist, tugging him forward gently as he shuffles his feet under the blanket and pulls an edge back for Ty. He shakes his head with a sigh as Ty resists, unsure, and his eyes are blank with exhaustion as he says simply, "Look... I don't know what the fuck is happening or not happening, but I am fucking tired... and I'm just sayin'... I don't think I mind if you bunk down here with me."
"Just to sleep?"
"Ya... just to sleep."
Ty pauses, unsure whether he likes the idea of trying to sleep next to Con without doing anything, and scared of his own impulse control, after what he's done before... that night, and then the kiss today... he thinks maybe, just maybe, he really might be an idiot like the boy says... when it comes to Con, anyway. Fuck, and he used to think he understood him. He's realizing, now, though... that he never really had. And it's throwing his confidence straight out the window. "Okay..." Still. Sleeping next to Con, or above him? Given the choice...
He lets Con pull him down by his side and cover them both with the heavy blanket. Con's soft shove turns him and allows the other boy to spoon up behind him, Con's heat at his back, the soft brush of Con's mouth at the nape of his neck as a newly muscular arm wraps around his leaner chest and pulls him closer, and then stays wrapped around him. It's an awkward feeling at first, unusual and weird, and it's been so long and Con feels... different, bigger for one, taller, and with a lot more muscles, but also... incredibly and unexpectedly... the same. And he remembers how they used to sprawl out on his bed at home... back when he had one, awkward teenagers falling asleep any old way, with or without clothes, books strewn over one or both of them, game controller jammed under someone's back just waiting to turn into a horrible muscle cramp in the morning... and the same feeling now, of falling asleep beside Con, makes him think maybe... maybe you can turn back the clock. Sometimes... Maybe sometimes. And he smiles, a wry little twist of his lips at the unexpectedness of the situation, as his body relaxes, breathing deep and pulling Con's arm more firmly around him as he presses back into the other's body, now even taller than he is - another difference, but not one he minds. And just like that, he's back to normal, a mercurial switch. Everything's okay so he's okay. He's where he wants to be, so he forgets to be upset...
* * *
Well... that conversation was unexpected. Shit, this whole weekend was unexpected. What the fuck is he doing here? No one would blame him if he'd never wanted to see Ty again. No one would even have thought it strange if he'd wanted to kill him after what he did... Doyle had wanted to. His sister still does. Now, Christ, now here he is with the other boy in his arms, nose tickling in the soft bristle of pale blond hair as Ty pulls him even closer, settling his lithe, lean body against his, burning hot as always as if the other boy burns with some internal fire, and that heat pulsing against his skin is starting to drive him nuts, making his skin itch to touch, to glide over more of it. He shouldn't feel this way, surely... He has got to be insane. If Ty's nuts, maybe it was catching back when they were kids and now he is, too. Maybe he always has been; it would explain a lot.
He really isn't anything like Al... the thought pops into his head seemingly from nowhere, or maybe it's just the moonlit sight of pale blond hair blocking his vision as he stares out at the room, contemplating. At any rate, the comparison steals all stirrings of lust from his body in an instant. Where Al had been small and soft, slender and supple, where the other boy had laughed and smiled, bright and warm, where he'd looked at him and wanted him, just him, only him, where the other boy had known, almost instinctively, how to love... Ty... fuck, Ty wasn't anything like that. Cold and hard, sharp and always so full of anger... and yet always so seemingly sure of himself, confident, arrogant even. He'd thought he was done with that. He'd thought maybe he'd finally, at long last, gotten sick of Ty's arrogance, lost the taste for it... and then the boy goes and fucking cries. Fuck... He'd never seen Ty do that before. Not ever. And it had shaken him more than he had ever imagined it could. He'd known Ty was full of shit, of course... for a long time. His arrogance nothing more than oversimplification of things he doesn't understand, like people, down to basic math that the boy thinks he understands, thinks he can predict. Bullshit, all of it... even if he is right more often than he's comfortable with admitting, knowing how the boy operates... still, it's all just bullshit. He was done with bullshit. He was.
Crying wasn't fair. And yet, he's pretty sure Ty hadn't even known he was doing it. And it had made him wonder - like an idiot, he thinks - if maybe there was actually more to the boy than he'd thought. He'd started wondering if maybe Ty wasn't just complete bullshit. Not totally, anyway. What had happened to Ty while the boy had been gone? Ty was right in that at least, he hadn't even asked, he doesn't know... he'd been too convinced when Ty had shown back up that he had to sever all ties just to get by, keep his distance, no serious topics of conversation, make sure he didn't do anything stupid like fall in love with him again when he had someone so much better, then... But whatever had happened, someone had hurt him, more than he'd ever been hurt before... and maybe that hurt had finally cracked Ty's shell, made the boy realize he wasn't invincible, wasn't perfect, couldn't do anything... Was it his Mom? He'd heard about that, at least, from Kev actually... that Ty's Mom had killed herself in Christ's Cross.
Ty's Mom... what a piece of work that woman had been... but Ty had still looked at her as if she were the perfection of Motherhood. Anything she disapproved of, he hid. To him, she was never wrong. If his Mom thought Ty should be a straight A student, then that's what he had to be. If he got something less than an 'A', he hid it, or threatened the teacher until it was changed. The news never reached his Mom. If Ty's Mom was disappointed, it wasn't that her expectations were too high. No. It was just that he wasn't good enough. He had to try harder. He had to be a better son. Someone she could be proud of. He was always so... terrified, of disappointing her, as if his entire self-worth hinged on her approval. And then she'd found out he was gay... Finally, something Ty was smart enough to realize he couldn't change. Or maybe was just selfish enough to realize he didn't want to. But being gay was a sin... One of the most terrifying moments of his own life is being chased out of Ty's house with Ty's Mother close behind, swinging a fat leather belt at his head and screaming bloody murder with Ty's arms weighing her down, gripping her waist with one and the banister with the other as he yells at him to leave, to get out... Christ, he can still hear it if he closes his eyes. Shivering with the recollection, he opens his eyes again and lifts a hand to stroke the soft bristle of Ty's hair, feeling the other twitch, already asleep. If it had been frightening for him, what must it have been like for the other? He moves his fingers to his own temple, rubbing in circles as he sighs, feeling a headache growing.
So... so fucking stupid. We both are... just so, so fucking stupid. Maybe that's all there is to it. Ty had been his first love, his first obsession really, but maybe, in his very first star-struck madness of love, he'd missed just who the other boy really was beneath all the bullshit, the confidence and arrogance. Maybe he'd seen Ty's fierceness, the sharpness, the hard unbreakableness, and gotten stuck in the thought that he was just amazing and perfect and the fucking sexiest boy he'd ever known... without realizing just how much that confidence masked - how brittle Ty was, how vulnerable, because he was so hard... because nothing seemed to affect him... maybe he'd just overlooked how much really did underneath. Or maybe... maybe Ty is just fucked up. And maybe he's fucked for caring...
So now what?
Laying his arm back down around Ty, his body finally relaxes against the other and he sighs in Ty's ear, making him mumble in his sleep and shift back toward him, twisting towards him a bit until he settles again with his face in full view this time, strong jaw and sharp features outlined in silver light, and he is just so... fucking... beautiful. Different... than Al's soft features, but even more achingly beautiful and fragile somehow, and... familiar in a way Al's, no matter how much he may have wanted them to be, never were... because these angles, these edges, this face... is the first one he'd ever known... and like it or not, there's no getting your first out of your head. Not ever. "Fuck you, Ty. Why the hell did you even come back for me, eh?" he whispers aloud to himself with another sigh. It's not like he'd asked Ty to come back... Not like he'd even wanted him to. He was over him. He'd found better... "I don't want to love you anymore... And what about you? You don't want to be with me... Why would you want to be with me? I didn't even get you the first time around, you think I'm going to be any better at understanding you if we try again? Christ... this is fucked up."
What if all we do is hurt each other, again? Running a finger along Ty's cheek and over the thin, burning heat of Ty's lips, he licks his own, contemplating... I had better... You had better, too... didn't you? So why are we here in this place, again? He'd heard the stories about Rom... he'd heard that Ty had picked up some of his slightly scary stalker-esque habits again. Just the way he used to follow Con when he thought Con was cheating... and generally was cheating, Ty had been showing up at concerts, he'd heard, even after Rom and him had split... and Ty doesn't go out of his way to be near somebody and not hurt them unless he's invested in the person... unless he wants something... unless he genuinely likes something about them. And come to think of it... this whole new side of Ty, a little more emotionally open, a little less sure of himself... hadn't shown up until after Rom... so maybe the drifter had been good for Ty. Really good for him... Maybe he's the reason Ty has changed... So why then? Why so obsessed with me?
Fucked up. This is fucked up, that's all there is to it.
Resolved to his thinking, Con sighs and turns onto his back, arms above his head as he settles into a position where he's not touching Ty as much as possible in the narrow bunk and tries to ignore the heat pouring off the other's body.
Please read Part 1 first.
* * *
It's dark by the time he gets back, having spent another few hours over dinner not only getting his car back to it's glossy black perfection but also finding a quiet, out-of-the-way eatery and easing his tension with a glass of wine and a perfectly bloody steak. The campus has emptied save for a few wandering pockets of students and he's able to pull into a spot much closer to their room. He feels... empty again. His face neutral and eyes cold. This is the way he should feel, this is how he feels comfortable. The throbbing ache of his cheekbone and eyesocket fuels a simmering heat of anger in his gut, of resentment, but it also reminds him to be cautious, and with every suppressed wince of hurt, it also brings a pang of regret. He can't quite decide why he might feel that, but maybe, he thinks, this pain is something he deserves.
The echoing electronic beep of his car alarm follows him up the concrete sidewalk to the dorms and the heavy metal doors to the hall thunk with a heavy finality as they open for him and then shut behind him. He sees no one on the way to their room, although he hears the muffled sounds of voices behind other doors before he reaches his own silent one. His thin fingers rest against the handle for a moment, listening, before he tests the handle - locked though he hadn't locked it when he'd left - then slips the key from his pocket and unlocks the door with a soft jingling twist and eases inside. The room is dark, with just a hint of moonlight filtering through a small window, but he can already make out a soft shape on the bottom bunk at the back, a long shadow on top of the covers, and his breath leaves him in a long relieved sigh that barely registers as a sound in the dim room.
The shape on the bed turns and he can feel Con looking at him, watching him. "So you came back..." is all he says though, voice even and calm, "Good. And alone, no less... should I thank you? Or were you just unlucky?"
"Why do you always have to be such an asshole?" Con's gravelly voice rolls out of the shadows with a slow sigh as he shifts on the bed, stretching as Ty moves slowly into the room, shutting the door behind him and heading towards the bag Con had clearly moved over to the cluttered desk, a noticeable, larger shadow in the mess, "I'm not going to apologize, so you can stop waiting for it."
"Fine." The word ringing with a crisp note of annoyance and sufferance as Ty lifts his shirt off over his head, folding it carefully and laying it over the back of the desk chair as he sifts through his bag looking for the pair of black-silk pajama bottoms he'd brought with him. His jaw sets harder with the annoying statement and he can feel a mix of regret, again, and anger build warm in his gut. Outwardly though, his pale skin shines cold in the light from the window, lean muscles taught and tense with a perfectly controlled, emotionless movement as he unsnaps his jeans. He can feel Con watching but he doesn't turn around, not entirely sure what he'd see in his friend's eyes if he did - lust, sorrow, anger? He doesn't want to know. He doesn't expect it's good. "Don't then. You don't have to. Just forget about it."
"Forget?" the bed creaks as Con shifts, sitting upright, swinging his feet to the floor, "I'm not going to just forget it, either." A hint of anger spreads heat into Con's next words, "You. Had. No right..."
"I know."
The silence that follows Ty's easy admittance stretches, filling with an awkward uncertainty and disbelief. "What do you mean, you know? ... You know? If you knew, why did you--?"
"Because I wanted to," again Ty's voice is cold and calm as lean legs slip out of his jeans and tight boxers and slip into the dark silky pool of his pj bottoms, settling them loosely along the ridge of sharp hips and lean muscle before setting the knot in the belt tie. His face is set, neutral and cold and matter-of-fact as he finally turns back to Con's slanted, narrowed eyes and thin-lipped frown. "What more do you want? What other answer could you possibly have expected? I... wanted to." The soft denim of his jeans folded neatly atop his shirt, he turns slowly back to face Con, letting his fingers slip from the soft fabric to pace slowly and steadily over to the bottom bunk, kneeling down in front of Con and working to keep the calm expression on his face even as a spike of anger surges when Con shifts back away from him and into the shadow of the bunk, bringing his legs up to cross them on the sheets, between them. "I wanted to kiss you... so I did," he can feel his jaw tense despite his best efforts, but the slightly pinched look in his ice-blue eyes betrays an uncertain look of angry fear instead of just simple anger, at least to someone who knows him well, "I didn't want you to leave."
"You didn't want me to leave so you thought you'd do the one thing I specifically warned you not to do? Ya," Con's scoff seems harsh, sharp, and the accusation in his voice cuts with a searing anger, "That was real smart, wasn't it? Just as smart as the last time. Do you ever learn?"
The simmering fury and hurt in Con's words backs him up a touch, rocking back on his heels as the pinched look in his eyes deepens, his own cool voice a smooth counterpoint to Con's rough gravel, "I stopped, didn't I?"
"Ya..." another scoff, and this time it backs up Ty again as his pale, lean shape stands again, "'Cuz I fucking hit you this time. 'Cuz I fucking learned. Christ... Hit you before you could hit me..."
Bristling at the muttered words, Ty can feel tension pouring through his fingers and tingling in his spine. He shakes his head hard, "I wouldn't have... I wouldn't have hit you--"
"What? This time?"
"Yes." He can feel himself starting to shiver with tension, feel the mix of anger and desperation inside him as he grips the edge of the top bunk, leaning down lower to look Con in the eyes, to meet shadowy green that, with a start, he realizes hold a shimmer of checked tears that send a jolt right down to the pit of his stomach, making his fingers go white-knuckled with the effort of not reaching out... not... touching Con, "Yes. I promised you, didn't I? Never again, Con... I promised. Fuck! What the hell am I supposed to do to make you believe me?"
"Why should I?" Con's voice muffled with a sudden sniffle and a hurried swipe at his eyes as he realizes Ty's seen the shimmer in his eyes. His breathing trembles as he breathes out slow, getting his low voice under control and even, "Since when do your promises mean anything? You say whatever the hell you please to get what you want... you always have."
Exasperated, his white-knuckled grip pushes him hard away again from Con, pushing him upright, "Fuck... Fine. Whatever." He'd almost forgotten how fucking irritating it is to argue with someone who knows him as well as Con. Fact is, he knows, Con's right - he's always said whatever he needed, whatever he'd wanted, to twist people to his side, to manipulate a situation... what is he supposed to say to that? 'It's different this time?' Gripping the edge of the bunk with both hands he takes a quick short hop and pulls himself up onto the top bunk, rolling onto the soft comforters with a boneless grace. He can hear Con shifting below him, the revving heat of his body warming the bed beneath him as he stares at the dirty ceiling. For a while it's nothing but silence, uneasy and tense, then finally, "You know... I may have lied to a lot of people... but... I don't think I've ever lied to you..."
Another long pause fills with tension and disbelief as Con says nothing and even Ty has to start wondering if it's true. Somehow... it doesn't feel true. The seconds tick by in silence as he lies atop unfamiliar sheets with his muscles tense, trying unsuccessfully to work the tension from his jaw, "Except... maybe once." If he's going to be honest...
"Ya?" Con's gravelly prompt from below, calmer now and thick with tension and too many thoughts. It seems to bounce around in Ty's skull for a while before registering.
"Ya... maybe once." Only now he's opened his mouth, it doesn't seem like such a good idea to be honest, anymore. What the hell good is honesty, anyway? Really? Much better to just say what you know other people want to hear, right? Except he's kind of gone past the point of no return on that one, he thinks... and besides, he'd already said he'd never lied to Con... and he's pretty sure Con hadn't believed him, anyway. "Maybe... when I said... when I told you..." Stuttering is not something Ty does often. Or fidget. But the nervous tension in his limbs and gut is making his fingers cramp and he can feel his foot start to tap silently on the soft comforter, "When I told you I didn't... mean to hurt you. That time... When I hurt you."
"You mean when you raped me..."
The words fall into the heavy silence, echoing in the hollow spaces of his heart until his chest aches with the cold hard truth of that day, the desperate disbelief of his mind saying he couldn't have and that's not what happened and he hadn't done that to his friend, couldn't have done that to someone he was supposed to care about, that if he'd done that, he really would have to be a monster but... "Yes..." Of course. He is, isn't he - he has the Devil inside of him, that's what his Grandmother had said, and his Grandfather. Even his own Mother - he is a monster. "Yes..." but still he can't quite say it himself, "Then... then, I did want to hurt you. I wanted you to hurt... like I hurt... I wanted you to know what it felt like to be... betrayed."
"I didn't betray you--"
"Yes." Ty interupts Con's sudden burst of angry words, his own rising to meet them in a clash, "Yes, you did. You fucking did!"
Slim fingers grip the rail of the bunk as he turns himself, glaring down into the darkness below, seeking eyes that are suddenly much nearer than he'd anticipated as Con too is flowing up from his bunk, grabbing the edge of the bed beside his own fingers to pull himself up and into his face, fierce green shining and filling his vision, "When? Huh?! How the fuck did I hurt you?! You mind explaining that to me?"
"You..." ice blue eyes seethe with cold fire as they narrow in fury at the question, the indifference inherent in it that hurts in such a familiar way, "You have no idea what I went through, do you? Did you ever even think to ask?" Con's eyes flash open wide as his fingers lash out, snake out to grasp at the short waves of hair at the back of his neck and pull him up and off his feet enough to make him stumble in his sheets, putting Con off balance enough for him to shove him back into the bed below and out of his face. With a casual twist, he's off the bed again, jumping down lightly and kneeling down over Con as the other boy backs up towards his pillow and out from under him. "I came back for you. For you! There is absolutely fuck all in that city of yours for me aside from you. Do you get that?!"
'So?!" Con shouts back, and he's shaking, Ty can see it in the soft moonlit dark, and for a moment he thinks he must be scaring him, and the tension of his own body stills, the anger in his face draining as he backs off a touch, leaning back to put some air between them, but then... he sees something else in the moonlight, a silver spill of tears shimmering unshed in Con's eyes, and it confuses him.
"So?" His voice softens, uncertainty making him hesitant, "So I told you... I promised you I would come back for you. When my... my fucking Mother packed us into that damned car, her parents making the sign of the fucking cross in the front seat as she pulled me away from your fucking crying face, I promised you!" He's breathing hard with resentment, a bitter swell of anger in his chest as he recounts the memory that had kept him going for years, thin lips burning with the remembered taste of tears on Con's lips as he'd kissed him that one last time, "Do you remember... do you remember what you promised me?" And at the same time his lips ache with that memory, his mind seethes with another, driving away in a packed car smelling of old sweat and grease and unfamiliar people, his grandfather pulling out the car lighter and handing it to his mother, telling her that men kissin' men was a sin, and sins had to be burned outta sinners.
His own icey eyes filling with that remembered pain, Con's frightened gaze finally sheds its tears, "I couldn't..."
"You couldn't?" disbelief and a huff of disappointment leaves him at the useless excuse.
"I couldn't wait for you..."
"You have no idea what I went through..." his words a whispered menace in the close air, eyes cooling, cold in the moonlight as they harden, "Every fucking day was just another piece of hell. I wanted to leave, but I wouldn't leave--" he almost chokes on the admission, another foolish choice in a line of too many in his life, it seems to him.
"Your Mom?" Con supplies as he falters, his jaw clenching with the shame of weakness as he shuts his eyes for a minute to collect himself, feeling Con's fingers shaking as they curl over his arm.
Eyes opening again, harder, colder to make up for the glimpse of weakness a moment before, he nods, "Ya... my fucking Mother. They broke her... Con..." his voice a sharp, steeled accusation, "Broke her. She wasn't as strong as me... She was weak. They twisted her until she couldn't even recognize herself anymore... until maybe she thought she was killing somebody else in that bathtub. But you know what?"
"Ty..."
He shakes off the sympathy in Con's voice, teeth gritting with renewed anger as his eyes flash and steel-strong fingers tighten around Con's wrist and pull comforting fingers from his skin, "No... it's really too late for you to care now, Con. Just listen. I was angry with her... I was disappointed. She left me... she took me into Hell and then she fucking left me there alone... but I thought hey... at least now there's no more reason to stay. I thought, finally, I could get back to you. Because I thought of you every fucking day in that place... but then what do I find when I get back? Hm? Did you wait for me? Did you think of me? Ever? At all, since the day I left?"
Wincing from the pain in his wrist where Ty grips it, Con shakes his head, denying the accusation, fear, but also guilt, in green eyes as his low voice rumbles, "Of course, I thought about you."
"When? When you were running around town fucking every guy you could get your hands on?!" Seeing Con's wince of pain, he checks himself once again, shoving the other's arm away as his jaw clenches in a frustration that goes nowhere, stuck inside his head and burning in his eyes. "Kev told me... everybody's fucking told me... they said when I left, if anything you started sleeping around even more than you did when you were with me. So when did you ever think about me? In between fucks?"
"You were gone!"
Con's voice seems to echo in his head, low and loud; angry as a child's tantrum and just as logical. "It's not like I had a choice!" And they're both screaming now, a familiar blaze of anger and heat; they've played this game a thousand times, over and over.
"Well what the fuck did you expect me to do?! You always fucked around when you were with me... and so did I! Did you think I was going to stop just because you weren't there to yell at me for doing it?! Did you stop?! Are you seriously trying to tell me you weren't fucking every choir boy you could out there?!"
Con's eyes have narrowed again, the momentary pain in his wrist clearly forgotten as his fists clench in the sheets and he moves up on to his knees to yell at him better. He can feel his own pale skin start to flush with anger, gaze blazing, narrowed to match Con's. "That's different!" he yells, shifting to his knees, too, slender fingers curling in the silk of his pants.
"Why?!"
"Because I didn't fucking fall in love with anybody else!"
When his ears stop ringing with the echoes of his words he realizes he's trembling, rage and betrayal flooding his veins as he watches Con grow quiet, watches the anger in the other's eyes dim, watches him question himself as he realizes what they're now talking about, or perhaps who, "Leave Al out of this..." Con's voice is quiet but firm as he shakes his head at him, as if he could change the flow of this conversation now.
"How am I supposed to do that when he is what I'm talking about...? You asked how you betrayed me." His teeth grind as he forces his own words quiet to match Con's, "He's it." It's a simple statement of fact but the hissing words seem more like a threat from his lips, he can hear it and he's not entirely sure he means them to be, but the truth is, he hates the skinny little shit... blames Al as much as Con for his loss. "You told me you'd wait for me... but when I came back, you told me you'd found someone else. Just like that... I came back from hell for you... and you... found... someone... else." And that wasn't even the worst of it, "And... you loved him. Really loved him. You weren't even fucking around, anymore... for him."
"It was different with Al..."
Con's quiet rebuke infuriates him, knowing it must have been... different. Con loved Al... probably still does. It was different, he knows now, different than anything Con had ever felt for him. And knowing that, after believing something else for so long, needing it to be something else... is the final betrayal. His muscles tense and he can feel himself wanting to lash out, seething at the boy in front of him. But he doesn't. His hand slaps out to hit the wall beside Con's head as the other surges forward to grip the hard, rounded edge of Con's jaw, pushing the boy onto his back, into his pillow as he kneels over him, straddling his waist, furious words barking in his startled face, "I know that!" His arm shaking in his steeled grip, his fingers tremble and his breathing is shallow, almost panicked as his vision blurs. "I know it was different..." He blinks to clear his vision, feeling a strange wetness on his cheeks as he looks down into the slightly sharper image of Con's widened eyes and slack, almost surprised mouth, "You loved him."
Not understanding why Con should look so startled except to think he must be frightening the boy again, he forces his fingers to relax and ignores the shaking as they brush back gently through short, bright orange hair, reminding him of better days when he used to do the same thing just for fun, just to feel the way the other's hair felt tickling against his fingertips. He remembers he used to laugh, then, and not the same way he does now, but lighter, as if the world were actually a good place. Leaning down, he rests his forehead against Con's, shutting his eyes as he whispers, low and even, "You loved him... and you forgot me. Everyone I talked to told me you were different with Al... Jack said you'd finally 'found something good' and I should just leave you alone and let you be happy for once... did you know that? Actually, Bobby said something similar. Jynx and even Kev, too... begged me to forget about you... said you deserved someone really... good, in your life... finally."
"Ty..." Con's voice comes slowly, as if he doesn't know what to say, and he feels him reaching up to slide uncertain hands against his sides, as if he were thinking about wrapping his arms around him but not sure about it, yet. Fear holding him back, maybe, a lingering fear set deep in the other's skin.
"Was I not?"
"What?"
"Was I not good... for you?" Feeling his chest tighten, it seems to be harder to breathe. He noses along Con's cheek, feeling how the fullness of his face has thinned, sharper and more defined than it once had been. So close, he can feel the way Con stops breathing for a moment before the other shakes his head.
"No... Ty, what we had... it wasn't good. Not for either of us."
"Bullshit!" He jerks up again, eyes flying open and narrowing at Con's wavering green, tense muscles cording as he grips the sheets beside Con's head, "Don't you speak for me." His voice seethes but it's husky with hurt, an emotion so rarely expressed this openly and plainly for him that it seems strange to hear himself, "Having you... made me feel like I was okay. Like the way I was, was okay... because you loved me. If you loved me, I couldn't really be as twisted as my Dad thought I was... I couldn't really be the monster I sometimes felt like I was... but it was a lie! Now I know it was a lie... because you never did love me... You loved that fucking, starving waif of a boy... but you never loved me. You lied to me... You made me believe you loved me... then you betrayed me, with him."
As he speaks, words hissing past his teeth as his stomach tenses, shaking and nauseas with the ache of his betrayal, he watches Con's face beneath him turn from the pinched look of frightened denial, the half-shake of his head, lips parted as if to say 'no', to the hesitation of uncertainty, the possibility that what he's hearing is true, doubting himself... He sees the doubt and it feels like an admission in itself, as if he's having all of his fears confirmed, every word he's saying hoping it isn't true... hoping the other boy will change his mind, hoping he will say it isn't right... but it is, it's confirmed. His arms continue to shake, with tension, as he holds himself still, barely breathing, his eyes emptying of everything but the momentary need for Con to take back the hesitation... to tell him it isn't true. But pained green only pinch with concern, strong fingers reaching up to smooth over the short bristle of his hair, resting in the corded hollow at the back of his neck as he shuts his eyes with the familiar feeling, longing for that familiar feeling to turn back time. "Ty..." Con's voice, a low, comforting rumble in his ear as the other boy pulls him down lower, the pull hesitant at first, but it gains strength. Ty can feel the heat of his forehead brush Con's temple as his elbows bend and buckle, pressing his body into Con's muscled frame as a firm arm wraps around his shoulders, "You are not a monster."
"No? Then what am I?" He doesn't want to be fed lies, comforting or not, and he tenses in Con's arms, pulling himself free of the half-embrace to push himself up again on his hands, Con's arm slipping from his shoulders, though one heavy hand continues to rest distractingly on the back of his neck, as if it's determined to stay there, "What kind of person is so awful his own Mother can't love him... or the first guy he was ever with, ever cared about? What kind of monster isn't good enough for them? Can't make them happy no matter how hard he tries? Hurts them...?" His last words painful to utter, his heart catching, hurting as his eyes narrow with confusion and a continuous anger.
"Your Mom, Ty..." Con's head shakes, fingers trembling as they stroke Ty's hair, the other set resting lightly against one trembling arm. He shrugs beneath Ty before he goes on, "Your Mom had a lot of problems... from way before you were even born. You know that. It's not that she didn't love you... and you did make her happy. Christ, you spent half your life trying to make her happy... She just didn't know how to... accept that some things were out of her control. Like who you were, as a person... was out of her control. And she had a lot of messed up ideas of right and wrong and good and evil... it was just fucked up, Ty... You can't blame yourself for that. You did your best. You didn't mean to hurt her..."
"But I did." Ty's voice gritted out through his teeth, "I did hurt her. I wasn't good enough for her. I wasn't right... And I hurt you..."
"Ya... You hurt me. And you meant to, too... I know." Con sighs, jaw tightening along with the grip of his fingers for a moment, losing fear for anger, pausing as if mulling over how pissed off he still is about it. How angry. Even still, how scared... "And you are a god-damned son-of-a-bitch for it."
The statement takes him back for a moment; he knows it's true but it's different to hear it. Somehow he'd been expecting Con to tell him it was okay... Why would the other boy be here if it wasn't? "I know..."
"Ya... I know you know. And do you know why I don't hate you for what you did? Why everyone else, even you, hates you for what you did... and I don't?"
"No..." and this is it, this is the moment, Con tells hims it's over, that he doesn't know either and he never wants to see him again. Why the hell hasn't he already?
"Because... as much as you hurt me... you hurt yourself, too."
Con's answer seems simple, but to Ty it makes no sense. He blinks in his confusion, tension pouring out of him with the sudden loss of direction, no longer having any idea where this conversation is headed, "What the hell are you talking about?"
Con breathes out slow, clearly trying to order his thoughts and push down the anger that stirs in his chest remembering that day... Ty knows things had always been complicated between them, but watching Con try to explain himself, he realizes just how much had changed when he'd gone away... Everything. Everything had changed. He always used to know what Con was thinking, or he'd thought so... now, he has no idea.
"I remember... when were together," Con starts, "I thought you were the coolest guy I'd ever known... You knew everything. You were always in control, never had a doubt, you just knew... you were the best. At everything. You were the best hacker, and you taught me everything you knew. You were the best lover..." Con's smile picks up at that, a sideways smirk of remembrance that only makes Ty's brow lower, unsure of where this is going, "And you taught me everything you knew. You lied through your teeth, but your Mom adored you... she fucking adored you like you were the next coming of the Christ you had her so wrapped around your finger... just like me. Just like everyone. You were... invincible."
"Not invincible..." Ty's voice wavering, unsure.
"No... turns out not. But I thought you were. Fuck... you were amazing." Con's green eyes shimmer in a well of tears, forgetting now to be afraid as they make a clean double-line down his cheeks, and Ty's heart leaps frantically as he wipes them away, apologizing, just 'I'm sorry,' simple and concise, but Con shakes his head, "No... don't apologize for that. My point is I thought you were hot shit... and fuck did I love you... I was so incredibly and stupidly, blindly in love with you... but while I was busy loving you, then, I think you were too busy being in love with yourself. Hear me out on this, okay?" Con adds quickly as Ty starts to interupt, "I loved you... and were so busy trying to prove how awesome and invincible you were, that you were fucking every guy you could get your hands on. And then you'd tell me all about it... and me? I was so fuck-blind over your awesomeness that I honestly think I thought that was normal. That my being jealous was ridiculous, and you were clearly too cool to be stuck with just one guy... I thought that to be with you, I had to put up with it, be okay with it... be as cool as you. So I fucked around, too... 'cuz I was copying you... and then you got pissed off when I did. And it's not even that I liked it really, at first... but I liked it when you got angry, I liked thinking you did want me all to yourself. That maybe I wasn't so strange for not liking it when you screwed around... But you wouldn't stop. So I wouldn't stop. I wanted you to realize what it felt like, to realize I felt the same way... But you didn't... You just kept fucking other guys..." Now Con's voice is ringing with exasperation and Ty is backing up a step as he pulls himself further up to straddle Con's legs as the other sits up to face him on a more even level, finally getting angry the way Ty's been expecting him to for a while, and the other boy isn't crying anymore, "It's like you had some kind of stupid chip in your head that made you retarded! You didn't like it when I fucked around, but you couldn't comprehend that I didn't like it, either! And eventually I stopped being hurt and I stopped wanting you to understand and I just started getting really fucking pissed off! But no matter how fucking pissed off I got, I still couldn't get away from you, because no matter how hard I tried not to, I still fucking loved you, because I don't know! Maybe I was fucking stupid, too!"
Con's breathing hard as he stops suddenly, risen to his knees, hands hard on Ty's shoulders as he shakes him roughly with each sentence until... "Where the hell was I going with this again?"
"I don't remember..." Ty's voice holds stunned amazement as he lets Con slump against him, letting him dig hard, frustrated fingers into his shoulders without complaint. Half of him is stunned just from the words coming out of Con's lips, 'I loved you' the boy says, and it stuns him... He's heard the words before and he knows they are very definitely in the past tense, but... even just hearing them again makes the other half of him sit up, alert, and on a knife's-edge of anticipation to hear them said again when he'd been beginning to think they'd never ever been true in the first place. But maybe... they were.
"Wait. I remember..." Con breathes, slumping back down on his heels and loosening his nails from Ty's skin, letting his fingers fall down leanly-muscled arms to take hold of stunned, unresponsive fingers. Watching Ty, Con's eyes are tired, angry but tired... more frustrated, really, "We got so good at hurting each other... We fought and fucked and fought and fucked... and I still loved you... but then you went away... and at first life was just empty without the fighting... without you... but then... I met Al." Con's voice is sympathetic, a soft rumble as he sees Ty's face crumble, as if he'd lost some inner hope, "Al taught me you don't have to always be fighting to love somebody... He taught me you don't have to make someone jealous to know that they love you... if they just tell you... if you don't always have to be second-guessing because of all the stupid shit that not everybody has to pull when they're in love. All the stupid shit that you do... but he doesn't."
"So what you're saying is..." Ty's voice is hard, and he's trying to tell himself to suck this up and pull himself together because he's acting like a weak little shit, but his vision is blurring again and it's hard to breath, "Is that he's... he's better than me."
Con smiles softer, a little sadder, but he shrugs a yes as he says, "Ya... better at love than you. Definitely... and he taught me how to be better at it, too."
"Great... Fucking wonderful..."
"And that is why I can forgive you... for what you did. Because the fact is, you fucking suck at love. Al did teach me that... but you are not incapable of it. I've always known that. All on my own..." Ty's eyes meet Con's with a breathless, almost fearful anticipation of what comes next. Silent for once as he hangs on every word. Con's hands come up to brush his temples, sliding lightly down his cheeks, avoiding Ty's swollen eye as he winces, and down his neck to hold him loosely in place, fingertips kneeding the hollow at the back of his neck, watching Ty melt with the touch with an expression like he knows what he's doing but isn't quite sure what he's going to do about it, yet, "When you hurt me... I know it was because you loved me... and you were angry, and fucking lost without me." Con's smile, sad, wistful, softly chiding, but somehow understanding enough to keep Ty breathless, "And you just fucking suck so bad at love... that you didn't realize that hurting me would hurt you, too... because... you're a fucking moron, Ty... just like I used to be when I thought hurting myself was worth it if I hurt you back when you hurt me first. But that kind of thinking just spins around and around and goes nowhere... If we both did that, we'd just hurt each other forever. So... you hurt me. But I'm not going to hurt you back. So it stops. Okay? It stops with me."
"I'm sorry..."
"I know."
"I mean," Ty says, vision blurring as he feels his body shake, a feeling so horrible it curdles in his gut blossoming, and for once not bothering to hide the guilt, "I really am sorry..."
"I know you are," Con wipes gently at the tears in his eyes with a soft rebuke of a sigh, "Fuck... come on, look at you... You look so different when you cry... it's kind of freaking me out."
"I'm not crying." He can't be crying... he doesn't cry; he doesn't care enough to cry; he doesn't feel enough to cry. His eyes narrow in irritation as he pushes Con's hands down from his face and he can almost make out the twisted questioning eyebrows on the other's blurry face as he brings up a hand to feel at his wet cheeks, confusion stopping him as he realizes... he is. "Fuck..."
"Ya," Con's slow rumble and sigh warm in mutual surprise, with an undercurrent of what he thinks must be a smile, "I know, right? Freaky..."
Sitting knee to knee with Con as the tears - Fuck... Tears... Fucking crying... I'm fucking crying, he continues to obsess - dry on his cheeks with his confusion and stunned shock, he doesn't do anything but sit for a long while, and Con just sits with him. He's not sure if anything's changed, or if anything is better... but somehow he feels like he's accepted something he hadn't before. That maybe... things are okay. That he'd fucked up, and he is fucked up... but that maybe, just maybe Con really doesn't hate him. That maybe it's okay to be sorry. And maybe it's okay to admit he made a mistake. Maybe it's okay to tell someone that he knows he's fucked up - not a monster, just plain old fucked up - and maybe the world hasn't ended because someone else does know. Maybe... he's okay. Or, as okay as he's ever been. He sighs as the tears stop and he takes a deep breath as his vision clears and he looks up at Con, who's looking right back at him, waiting, and he wants to ask him, 'So you loved me... but do you still?' And he wants to tell him, 'You're right... I suck at love. But I think I still love you, anyway.' But neither option passes his lips. Somehow, he still feels like he doesn't have the right to ask. "So what do we do, now?" is what does come out, licking thin lips that suddenly seem dry.
Con shrugs and reaches for Ty's wrist, tugging him forward gently as he shuffles his feet under the blanket and pulls an edge back for Ty. He shakes his head with a sigh as Ty resists, unsure, and his eyes are blank with exhaustion as he says simply, "Look... I don't know what the fuck is happening or not happening, but I am fucking tired... and I'm just sayin'... I don't think I mind if you bunk down here with me."
"Just to sleep?"
"Ya... just to sleep."
Ty pauses, unsure whether he likes the idea of trying to sleep next to Con without doing anything, and scared of his own impulse control, after what he's done before... that night, and then the kiss today... he thinks maybe, just maybe, he really might be an idiot like the boy says... when it comes to Con, anyway. Fuck, and he used to think he understood him. He's realizing, now, though... that he never really had. And it's throwing his confidence straight out the window. "Okay..." Still. Sleeping next to Con, or above him? Given the choice...
He lets Con pull him down by his side and cover them both with the heavy blanket. Con's soft shove turns him and allows the other boy to spoon up behind him, Con's heat at his back, the soft brush of Con's mouth at the nape of his neck as a newly muscular arm wraps around his leaner chest and pulls him closer, and then stays wrapped around him. It's an awkward feeling at first, unusual and weird, and it's been so long and Con feels... different, bigger for one, taller, and with a lot more muscles, but also... incredibly and unexpectedly... the same. And he remembers how they used to sprawl out on his bed at home... back when he had one, awkward teenagers falling asleep any old way, with or without clothes, books strewn over one or both of them, game controller jammed under someone's back just waiting to turn into a horrible muscle cramp in the morning... and the same feeling now, of falling asleep beside Con, makes him think maybe... maybe you can turn back the clock. Sometimes... Maybe sometimes. And he smiles, a wry little twist of his lips at the unexpectedness of the situation, as his body relaxes, breathing deep and pulling Con's arm more firmly around him as he presses back into the other's body, now even taller than he is - another difference, but not one he minds. And just like that, he's back to normal, a mercurial switch. Everything's okay so he's okay. He's where he wants to be, so he forgets to be upset...
* * *
Well... that conversation was unexpected. Shit, this whole weekend was unexpected. What the fuck is he doing here? No one would blame him if he'd never wanted to see Ty again. No one would even have thought it strange if he'd wanted to kill him after what he did... Doyle had wanted to. His sister still does. Now, Christ, now here he is with the other boy in his arms, nose tickling in the soft bristle of pale blond hair as Ty pulls him even closer, settling his lithe, lean body against his, burning hot as always as if the other boy burns with some internal fire, and that heat pulsing against his skin is starting to drive him nuts, making his skin itch to touch, to glide over more of it. He shouldn't feel this way, surely... He has got to be insane. If Ty's nuts, maybe it was catching back when they were kids and now he is, too. Maybe he always has been; it would explain a lot.
He really isn't anything like Al... the thought pops into his head seemingly from nowhere, or maybe it's just the moonlit sight of pale blond hair blocking his vision as he stares out at the room, contemplating. At any rate, the comparison steals all stirrings of lust from his body in an instant. Where Al had been small and soft, slender and supple, where the other boy had laughed and smiled, bright and warm, where he'd looked at him and wanted him, just him, only him, where the other boy had known, almost instinctively, how to love... Ty... fuck, Ty wasn't anything like that. Cold and hard, sharp and always so full of anger... and yet always so seemingly sure of himself, confident, arrogant even. He'd thought he was done with that. He'd thought maybe he'd finally, at long last, gotten sick of Ty's arrogance, lost the taste for it... and then the boy goes and fucking cries. Fuck... He'd never seen Ty do that before. Not ever. And it had shaken him more than he had ever imagined it could. He'd known Ty was full of shit, of course... for a long time. His arrogance nothing more than oversimplification of things he doesn't understand, like people, down to basic math that the boy thinks he understands, thinks he can predict. Bullshit, all of it... even if he is right more often than he's comfortable with admitting, knowing how the boy operates... still, it's all just bullshit. He was done with bullshit. He was.
Crying wasn't fair. And yet, he's pretty sure Ty hadn't even known he was doing it. And it had made him wonder - like an idiot, he thinks - if maybe there was actually more to the boy than he'd thought. He'd started wondering if maybe Ty wasn't just complete bullshit. Not totally, anyway. What had happened to Ty while the boy had been gone? Ty was right in that at least, he hadn't even asked, he doesn't know... he'd been too convinced when Ty had shown back up that he had to sever all ties just to get by, keep his distance, no serious topics of conversation, make sure he didn't do anything stupid like fall in love with him again when he had someone so much better, then... But whatever had happened, someone had hurt him, more than he'd ever been hurt before... and maybe that hurt had finally cracked Ty's shell, made the boy realize he wasn't invincible, wasn't perfect, couldn't do anything... Was it his Mom? He'd heard about that, at least, from Kev actually... that Ty's Mom had killed herself in Christ's Cross.
Ty's Mom... what a piece of work that woman had been... but Ty had still looked at her as if she were the perfection of Motherhood. Anything she disapproved of, he hid. To him, she was never wrong. If his Mom thought Ty should be a straight A student, then that's what he had to be. If he got something less than an 'A', he hid it, or threatened the teacher until it was changed. The news never reached his Mom. If Ty's Mom was disappointed, it wasn't that her expectations were too high. No. It was just that he wasn't good enough. He had to try harder. He had to be a better son. Someone she could be proud of. He was always so... terrified, of disappointing her, as if his entire self-worth hinged on her approval. And then she'd found out he was gay... Finally, something Ty was smart enough to realize he couldn't change. Or maybe was just selfish enough to realize he didn't want to. But being gay was a sin... One of the most terrifying moments of his own life is being chased out of Ty's house with Ty's Mother close behind, swinging a fat leather belt at his head and screaming bloody murder with Ty's arms weighing her down, gripping her waist with one and the banister with the other as he yells at him to leave, to get out... Christ, he can still hear it if he closes his eyes. Shivering with the recollection, he opens his eyes again and lifts a hand to stroke the soft bristle of Ty's hair, feeling the other twitch, already asleep. If it had been frightening for him, what must it have been like for the other? He moves his fingers to his own temple, rubbing in circles as he sighs, feeling a headache growing.
So... so fucking stupid. We both are... just so, so fucking stupid. Maybe that's all there is to it. Ty had been his first love, his first obsession really, but maybe, in his very first star-struck madness of love, he'd missed just who the other boy really was beneath all the bullshit, the confidence and arrogance. Maybe he'd seen Ty's fierceness, the sharpness, the hard unbreakableness, and gotten stuck in the thought that he was just amazing and perfect and the fucking sexiest boy he'd ever known... without realizing just how much that confidence masked - how brittle Ty was, how vulnerable, because he was so hard... because nothing seemed to affect him... maybe he'd just overlooked how much really did underneath. Or maybe... maybe Ty is just fucked up. And maybe he's fucked for caring...
So now what?
Laying his arm back down around Ty, his body finally relaxes against the other and he sighs in Ty's ear, making him mumble in his sleep and shift back toward him, twisting towards him a bit until he settles again with his face in full view this time, strong jaw and sharp features outlined in silver light, and he is just so... fucking... beautiful. Different... than Al's soft features, but even more achingly beautiful and fragile somehow, and... familiar in a way Al's, no matter how much he may have wanted them to be, never were... because these angles, these edges, this face... is the first one he'd ever known... and like it or not, there's no getting your first out of your head. Not ever. "Fuck you, Ty. Why the hell did you even come back for me, eh?" he whispers aloud to himself with another sigh. It's not like he'd asked Ty to come back... Not like he'd even wanted him to. He was over him. He'd found better... "I don't want to love you anymore... And what about you? You don't want to be with me... Why would you want to be with me? I didn't even get you the first time around, you think I'm going to be any better at understanding you if we try again? Christ... this is fucked up."
What if all we do is hurt each other, again? Running a finger along Ty's cheek and over the thin, burning heat of Ty's lips, he licks his own, contemplating... I had better... You had better, too... didn't you? So why are we here in this place, again? He'd heard the stories about Rom... he'd heard that Ty had picked up some of his slightly scary stalker-esque habits again. Just the way he used to follow Con when he thought Con was cheating... and generally was cheating, Ty had been showing up at concerts, he'd heard, even after Rom and him had split... and Ty doesn't go out of his way to be near somebody and not hurt them unless he's invested in the person... unless he wants something... unless he genuinely likes something about them. And come to think of it... this whole new side of Ty, a little more emotionally open, a little less sure of himself... hadn't shown up until after Rom... so maybe the drifter had been good for Ty. Really good for him... Maybe he's the reason Ty has changed... So why then? Why so obsessed with me?
Fucked up. This is fucked up, that's all there is to it.
Resolved to his thinking, Con sighs and turns onto his back, arms above his head as he settles into a position where he's not touching Ty as much as possible in the narrow bunk and tries to ignore the heat pouring off the other's body.