SATURDAY: All The Corners That Are Left

[rokofages]

It's one of those quiet afternoons that Brian hasn't had with someone in a while. The random chill music playlist he pulled up an hour ago is still running low and inconspicuous in the background, and dusk happened so subtly that they haven't gotten up to turn on any more lights. Just the desk lamp and the one on his nightstand are lit, creating

Comments

[detentionkid]

AJ shrugs. "It's been a while." He watches as Brian turns back to his notebook, and flips through a couple more pages. It's strangely intimate - he's never shown this to anyone else before - but AJ's not thinking about that. Brian looks up when AJ doesn't go on, raises an eyebrow in an impatient little and? gesture that makes AJ almost crack a smile. He rolls his eyes instead. "Middle school, I guess, I don't know." Things were bad at home, and he'd just figured out that there were books they didn't have in their own library. That the same words could be put together in different ways and come out on the other side meaning more. "I was in the library a lot."

[rokofages]

"I don't know if I can condone vandalizing library books," Brian remarks, grinning lightly as he comes across another taped-in page with rip marks along the side. "I bet the copier was just despairing at you from the corner, all, 'I'm right here, use me!' Poor copier. Poor books."

[detentionkid]

AJ gropes around in his backpack for his pen so he can chuck it at Brian's head. "Uh huh, because you've only used the library for reading and research."

[rokofages]

Brian laughs, ducking away from the attack. "Touché," he says happily, turning to another page. "But no innocent books were harmed in the process."

[detentionkid]

AJ tucks his hands under his head and goes back to staring at the ceiling. "It was that, or spend more time writing emo teenage poetry. I was doing the world a favor."

[rokofages]

Brian smiles to himself, but doesn't reply. He thumbs through a few more pages, reading every word carefully. He's never fully appreciated the nuances of poetry, even though various English teachers have tried to drill rhythm and iambic pentameter into him, but it's an artform that he respects.

A short poem by Langston Hughes makes him huff out a tiny laugh, and when he feels AJ's eyes on him he tries to read it out with the proper intonation:

"Folks, I’m telling you,

birthing is hard

and dying is mean-

so get yourself

a little loving 

in between."

[detentionkid]

AJ doesn't even try to resist his smirk that time. "Langston Hughes is never wrong."

Brian laughs again, a quiet, half-breath of a thing, and AJ pushes up onto his elbows and grabs his phone, which is half under Brian's bed where AJ had tossed it when he first got here. "I'm serious. He was a genius. The godfather of jazz poetry." He starts pulling up a video on YouTube on his phone and leans over to show Brian, talking over the jazz intro. "People were starting to move away from rhyming verses, but then he set it to jazz instead of classical music like everyone else was doing, and suddenly it was -- accessible. Relevant. Hugely controversial. He shook up the entire community and made them all sit up and listen."

He lets out a quiet noise as Callahan starts reading the poem, reverent and enthralled all at once. "I mean, that rhythm is just -- mindblowing."

[rokofages]

Brian doesn't look away from AJ's face at first. He's mesmerized by the excitement he sees there, and his eyes drop to AJ's mouth without him really realizing it.

He snaps out of it before AJ can notice though, and leans in closer so he can watch. AJ's holding up his phone right between them, but they're shoulder to shoulder anyway. Brian watches, and listens, to The Weary Blues, and gets caught up in the atmosphere of the smooth music, the low voice reciting, and the sad, melodic words.

When the video's over he nods a little. "Yeah," he says, still watching AJ's screen. "I like that. I'm always really bad at reading poetry to myself, but when someone who knows how to do it reads it out, then it can really be something."

[detentionkid]

"Wait till you hear some performance poetry. It's not even about the words sometimes, or the music, or the frills. It's just the poets, and a stage, and getting their message across."

He has a whole playlist saved on YouTube. He's been curating it for years: Kate Tempest, Benjamin Zephaniah, Jay Bernard. Daniel Beaty and John Cooper Clarke. The list is endless. He means to stop the clip, but autoplay kicks in, and when he hears 'Talking Turkeys it always feels like the first time, never mind that he may as well have it memorized with the number of times he's watched the performance. When he looks up again, the sun's almost sunk, and the room is dark save for Brian's lamps and the glare from the screen of his phone, suddenly too-bright in the room. He catches Brian watching him with a faint half-smile, and when he blinks down at his phone, it's forty minutes later than he remembers it being

[rokofages]

Brian's smile widens slowly. "I liked that a lot," he says, voice quiet, watching AJ fidget. Sparks have been growing in the pit of his stomach, and now they fan out in a slow trickle all the way to his fingertips. He feels as warm as the flush on AJ's cheeks. It's a nice realization that AJ has never blushed around him as much as he has in the last couple of days, and also more addicting than it should be.

"What about Shakespeare?" he asks, thumbing at the edges of AJ's notebook again. "I mean," he adds, grinning as AJ looks at him, "I know you like Shakespeare, obviously, but I haven't seen any of his sonnets in here so far." His eyes crinkle a little as he opens the book again. "The nightingale one. Is that a sonnet?"

[detentionkid]

They're still shoulder to shoulder, and their arms brush every time Brian moves to turn a page. AJ clears his throat. "My love is strengthened," he murmurs, half to himself. He's never needed to keep Shakespeare in this book. "Though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear."

Brian's face is doing something complicated, and AJ ducks his head on a smile. "Unless you're talking about the one from Romeo & Juliet. Then - no. That's not a sonnet."

[rokofages]

Brian's always been a little helpless in the face of AJ's voice, smoky and low as it is, but he's never felt anything quite like this before from hearing him speak. The self-conscious dip of AJ's head makes shadows grow longer along his jaw and cheekbones. He looks the same as always, although softer, and Brian will never not love looking at him.

Once again his eyes drop involuntarily to AJ's mouth. When AJ looks up this time Brian lingers there, and he deliberately takes his time meeting AJ's gaze again. He smiles more with his eyes than his mouth, tilting his head just a bit. "Pretty different from Macbeth," he says.

[detentionkid]

It catches AJ off guard, that once-familiar look in Brian's eyes and the instinctive tug in his blood that responds. His mind is all over the place, he hadn't even really been thinking about it, has been trying to repress it for weeks, but the sudden flare of want doesn't feel bad. "Pretty different," he agrees, voice still quiet.

Brian's still just looking at him, and suddenly it's like a switch has been flipped. Like that's the okay sign he didn't realize his body's been waiting for this whole time. Okay to think about Brian again, to want him, to show him, without feeling like he isn't allowed. Like maybe he shouldn't be allowed. This feels like blanket permission to ignore all of that.

But there's that voice in the back of his head again. Are you sure? It's too soon. Maybe he doesn't want -- do you? Or is this another thing you want because you think he wants--AJ clears his throat again, and looks away, to the posters on Brian's wall - basketball players AJ should probably recognize, a couple of movie posters, one, inexplicably

[rokofages]

Brian watches as AJ flops down on his back again, avoiding Brian's gaze by studying the ceiling. He worries at his lower lip, lost in thought for a moment. Then he nudges his elbow gently into AJ's arm and redirects his focus back to AJ's notebook. "I like how you think I'm ever gonna be done surprising you," he replies, smiling knowingly. "It's cute."

[detentionkid]

It's almost reflexive to say, "You're cute," like a preschooler, but the sudden swoop in his stomach is enough to make AJ bite it back. His arm is warm where Brian touched it. "You're an onion," he says, after a beat too long. "I get it."

[rokofages]

"I prefer layer cake, thank you very much."

Brian flips through a couple more pages until he's over halfway through the book. Some of the poetry is modern and goes straight over his head, but he still reads them. Then at the turn of the next page, he feels himself start to smile. "Knew you'd have this in here," he says quietly. When he looks at AJ he's got an eyebrow raised in question, and Brian's smile is all dimples as he turns to the book again. "I like my body when it is with your body," he reads out, his tone mild mix between teasing and intrigued.