WHITE PICKET FENCE 3/?

[perfectfigure]

Trigger warning in later parts for mention of abuse.

Regular warnings for relatively non-explicit sexy times.

----

Her hair was a wild mane around her shoulders. Her body was soft and full. He undressed her slowly, forcing a patience he didn't feel, and she watched him with a bemused look on her face. He kissed her stomach, just above the button of her jeans, his hand on her thigh. "It's been a long time," he said. "A really, really long time."

She ran her finger down the bridge of his nose, touched his lips. "That's cute."

He laughed self-consciously. "I don't have any condoms."

"Good thing I do."

She grabbed him, dragged him upwards to kiss him with tongue, her hands working quickly down the buttons of his shirt, hiking up the sleeveless undershirt beneath.

It was incredible. Nick had to admit to himself that he hadn't even known sex could be like this, but after all, he was just a kid the last time. They took their time. He couldn't get enough of her body, her laugh, her toes rubbing up his back. It had been too long and once he was inside her it was all over, but they shared a glass of wine and then went again, sucking dried sweat off of each other's skin, kissing and laughing and gasping.

After the second time they shared another glass of wine, lounging on the pillows under the fan. "That was really fun," Cassandra said, rubbing a hand over her belly. Her hair was a tangled mess.

"Yeah, it was," Nick said, reaching to work out one of the tangles. "You're really beautiful," he said.

She looked at him for a long time. "Thank you," she said, finally.

He kissed her lips. "I should get going. I don't like to leave them alone all night."

"You have more than one now?"

"Tyler and his, uh, friend."

She arched an eyebrow at him.

He shifted away from her and started to pull on his clothes, separating them from hers. "Do you think I could call you?"

"I don't usually date men."

He paused, shirt in his hands, still turned away from her. "Oh." His bare back felt vulnerable and he pulled his undershirt over his head, shrugged into the button-up but didn't bother doing any of the buttons. "Ok."

Her hand was on his arm. "Come here, you goof," she said. He let her pull him back into the bed and they kissed, long and sweet. "Sometimes I make exceptions."

He smiled. She smiled. She touched his exposed collarbone. "If you have your phone, I'll put in my number," she said.

"Don't forget I know where you work. And live," he said, "if you think you're going to put in a fake one."

"Don't be a creep," she said, but she was laughing and punching in the numbers.

Tyler and Elliott were asleep on the couch, an empty pizza box on the coffee table and a DVD menu coloring their faces. Elliott was curled up tight, hugging a pillow, and Tyler was slumped towards him, arm over Elliott's shoulder.

Nick looked at them for a long moment, biting at his lower lip. He wasn't used to needing to be quiet, but he still managed to tip-toe to turn off the tv and then down the hall to his bedroom without waking Elliott.

Nick and Cassandra sat over Mexican martinis and a tray of nachos. He carefully picked all the jalepeño slices off her half of the nachos and tossed them into his mouth.

"That's not normal," she said.

Nick just grinned at her. Her hair was a mess and she wasn't wearing any makeup, but she was still the most beautiful woman in the restaurant, he thought.

"So," she said, poking at the olive in her drink. "You think your son might be gay."

He stopped, pepper halfway to his mouth. "Yeah," he said, and ate it. "I don't know. Maybe."

"What would you do if he was?"

"I don't know. I mean, what do you do?"

Cassandra shrugged. "My parents sent me to church camp."

"That's cruel, unusual, and outlawed by the Geneva Convention."

"A lot of pretty girls, though." She looked up, her smile gone. "I've got to be honest. I like you. But if you've got issues with gay people, this will end right here."

"That's not it," he said. At least it was important to him that that wasn't it. He didn't want to be that kind of person. "I just don't know what the rules are. I wouldn't let him have a girlfriend stay over, so should I be making this boy go home? Or -- I have a good friend who's gay, and I know it was real tough for him as a kid. I don't want Tyler to be like that. I don't want him to hate me."

"Has he talked to you about it? At all?"

"He quit talking to me awhile ago."

Cassandra grabbed his hand, leaned over the table and kissed him. "Do you love your son?"

"Yes."

"No matter what?"

"Of course."

"Even if he's gay?"

"Cass, he's my kid. My whole life, everything I do, is for him."

She smiled. "Then tell him that, and wait. When he's ready, he'll talk to you."

"Are you sure you're not a counselor?"

She laughed and threw a straw wrapper at him. "Just a queer who's been around the block a few times."

At home, the boys were in the backyard, chasing fireflies or maybe each other.

"Tyler, can I borrow you for a minute?" Nick signed. He was still warm all over from dinner with Cassandra and especially the kiss they had shared between their cars, his hands in her hair and her fingers gripping the beltloops on his jeans.

Tyler gave Elliott a look that Nick didn't know how to read. Once upon a time -- not even that long ago -- Nick and Ty had a secret language like that. It made Nick's heart ache to know that was gone now, probably forever.

"How was your date?" Tyler asked.

"Good."

"So you like her and everything? Did you kiss her?"

"That's not what I want to talk to you about."

"I just figure if I'm going to get a stepmom I should--"

"Ty." Nick's face made Tyler's hands stop moving.

"Do you have cancer or something?"

"What?" Nick laughed, his grave mood suddenly lifted the way only Tyler could do it. "No one has cancer. I just wanted to tell you -- I'm proud of you, and I love you more than anything, no matter what. There's nothing you can do to make me stop loving you."

"The other day I saw this girl on Intervention who huffed like ten cans of canned air a day. I'm thinking about taking up that hobby."

"Love will not stop me from throwing your ass in rehab. Canned air is expensive."

Tyler grinned. "Touché."

"I didn't even know you could get high off that."

"I know. Has the whole world gone mad? Can I leave now?"

"Yeah."

Tyler went through the door, but stopped and grabbed Nick's attention again. "Do you like her? Did she like you?"

"I think so," Nick said. He couldn't help but smile. "Her name is Cassandra."

Elliott didn't ever tell Tyler when his birthday was, but Tyler wheedled the information out of Joel even before school let out.

When the date rolled around, Tyler hadn't seen Elliott in days. That was ok: he spent most of the day before making a cake from scratch, layered and everything, even with homemade cream icing. Nick helped, at least for the part of the afternoon he wasn't on the phone with his new girlfriend, blabbing away like a dumb teenager. (Tyler was really only bitter about it because he wanted to be on the phone with Ell, but couldn't.)

The cake turned out pretty good. Tyler even managed to ice it pretty evenly and Nick dug out some tupperware thing so Ty could get it over to Elliott's house without ruining it.

The house Elliott lived in looked extra sad with all the grass dead from the summer heat. There were faded plastic toys in the front yard and part of the rain gutter had come unattached, swinging down towards the ground.

Tyler knocked on the door with one hand, the cake carefully balanced on the other. Through the door, Tyler heard a woman yell hoarsely, "Mattie! Get the door!"

A little boy, too old to be sucking his thumb but doing it anyway, opened the door. "Who are you?" he said.

"Hi, I'm Tyler, um, Elliott's friend. Is he here?"

"Come on in!" the same female voice yelled.

Tyler stepped into the house. It reeked of cigarette smoke, so thick he could hardly breathe. A woman was on the couch in boxers and a t-shirt, empty beer bottles strewn all around her. The ashtray had dumped off the coffee table and lay upside-down on the carpet, ringed in ash and cigarette butts. Crappy daytime tv blared.

"Get me a beer, Mattie," the woman -- Patty, Elliott had called her, the few times he'd mentioned his pseudo-mother -- said. The little kid wandered off towards the kitchen dutifully. "Elliott's friend, huh? I didn't realize he had any."

"Is he here? I can come back."

She shrugged, yelled, "Elliott!" in a shrill voice. "Get in here, boy!"

Elliott appeared from down the hall. His hair was dirty and there was a big green bruise on his cheek. "Ell! What happened?"

"Take him back to your room, will ya? I'm watching this," Patty said, turning back to the tv, a fresh beer in her hand.

"You shouldn't be here," Elliott signed. Something like panic was in his eyes.

"It's your birthday," Ty said, signing awkwardly with only one hand. "I made you a cake but -- what happened to your face?"

"Quit hovering!" Patty craned her neck around to glare at Elliott, as if Tyler wasn't even there.

"Come on," Elliott said miserably. He led Tyler down the short hallway to his bedroom.

If you could call it that, Ty thought. There were two twin-sized mattresses on the floor on opposite sides of the room. The blankets were old and tattered. On one side, the walls were covered in posters of half-naked women posing on expensive sports cars. On the other was an upside-down crate with a lamp on it and a small stack of books. The only thing on the wall was a black-and-white printer copy of one of Tyler's photographs, one of the zombie pictures with both of them in it. Tyler had been the zombie and was coming after Elliott as the flash went off, teeth bared to bite at his face, but Elliott was laughing, a full laugh with his eyes closed and his head tilted back, even as Tyler's teeth grazed his ear.

Tyler stood staring at the picture, taped right over the head of Elliott's bed, while Elliott sat down on the mattress. Even when Tyler sat next to him, Elliott wouldn't raise his gaze from the stained carpet.

"What happened to your face?"

"It's nothing. I just tripped and -- and hit the door, it's almost gone now though."

"Let me see."

Elliott turned his face towards Tyler obediently, still not looking him in the face. Elliott clenched his jaw as Tyler probed the bruise.

"Why didn't you tell me it was like this?" Tyler said.

"Like what?"

"This!" Tyler said, gesturing around the room.

"It's not that bad."

"Do they even know it's your birthday?"

Elliott scraped a nail over the knee of his jeans. "Look, Ty, I -- I don't need you to come in here and rescue me, ok? Your life is perfect and you have no idea how much worse this could be for me."

Tyler looked down. "I'm sorry. I just wanted -- I made you a cake --"

Elliott gave him a weak smile. "No one has ever made me a cake before."

The bedroom door flung open, smacking against the wall before rebounding almost shut again. In came a boy with a shaggy mohawk and piercings all over his face, several of them red and swollen. "Great," he muttered. "Hey Elliott, this your boy-toy?"

"Please, Trey--"

"What if I was?" Tyler said. He didn't stand up but his eyes were hard and cold as ice.

"Christ, dude, have a cow. Just a joke." Trey flopped on his mattress, shoved headphones in his ear, and turned his music up until even Tyler could hear the screeching guitars.

"Do you want to come over to my house?" Tyler said.

Elliott gathered up everything on his side of the room -- even the picture off the wall -- and shoved it into his backpack. Tyler had always wondered why he carried so much stuff in his bag. Elliott said, "If I leave anything it'll disappear," and walked out ahead of Tyler.

Elliott was laughing again by the time they got to the house and started on the cake, not even bothering with slices but digging in with forks straight from the cake tray. Nick sat at the table with them and had some too, and he didn't even comment on Elliott's bruise after a warning glare from Tyler.

"This is really, really good," Elliott said. He ate like he hadn't eaten in days. Between the three of them, they'd eaten half of it already.

"I kind of outdid myself," Tyler said, "considering I've only ever made cake out of a box before."

"Gotta agree, man," Nick said. "Maybe you should start cooking dinner."

The doorbell rang. Nick snagged a last bite and went to the door.

"The girlfriend, I think," Tyler signed, and Elliott's eyes widened.

Nick had told Tyler she was pretty, but Tyler wasn't at all prepared for the woman that came in the door: tall, motorcycle boots over skinny jeans, hair wild like Elliott's. And Nick, all flustered and embarrassed, hurrying to introduce them: "Cass, this is Tyler and his friend Elliott; boys, this is Cassandra."

Cassandra shook hands with Tyler and then Elliott, giving Nick a quick look, eyebrows raised.

"We'll be back in the morning," Nick said. "Be good." He ruffled Tyler's hair and left hand-in-hand with Cassandra.