FIC!!!!! And the muses deliver, once again!!
Can I get a WHOO and a HOO?!?!?
I'm so pleased that I was able to finish this section at last. lucifrix, I trimmed down the beginning. See what you think.
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8 / ?
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In the weeks to come, John decided that self-knowledge was for the fucking birds.
He just wasn’t ready for one more way that he was different . . . one more thing that set him apart from everyone else he knew.
Don and Ronnie didn’t really count - after all, John couldn’t discuss his new-found feelings with them, not after practically promising to keep his mouth shut. And he was trying so hard to play it cool, to act like it didn’t matter, whether he or anybody else liked boys or girls or both, and talking to the two of them about it would pretty much blow his cover.
Besides, those guys had known each other all their lives. They’d grown up together in a small town, with small schools, and as far as John knew, they’d probably been best friends forever, with the security of roots dug deep.
On the other hand, John had been thrilled to be in one place for the last three years. The prospect of actually being able to graduate with the same people he’d known since his freshman year filled him with unparalleled joy.
Finally, *finally*, he’d had a chance to make friends, to fit in, to be just like everyone else . . . and now, it turned out that he was fundamentally doomed to always be an outsider.
The one person - the *only* person who had made John feel safe, and secure, and like he could be accepted just as who he really was - was Rodney, and there was no way in hell that John was going to say a fucking *word* about it to him.
He’d already seen what happened when the people he’d thought were his friends just jumped to conclusions . . . he was *not* going to hand those conclusions all gift-wrapped and shiny to Rodney, and then wait to be socked one in the eye.
The thing was, really, that John felt like he’d spent his entire life hiding. Rodney was the first person John had ever met who didn’t make him *want* to be someone different.
Who, in fact, made John want to be the kind of person who was brave enough, strong enough, to really *not* care about what other people thought and to break all the rules with a grin and laugh.
But every time John looked at Rodney and tried to be that person he dreamed of being, the terror rose up in his throat and choked him into silence like a chronic smokers’ cough that had Rodney regularly confiscating John’s Marlboros and lecturing him on the evils of developing bad habits.
The summer was flying by, halfway through July already, and John tried hard to keep to what had been his regular routine for the last three summers, with sunny, sandy days on the beach and warm, noisy nights on the boardwalk, a couple of beers on Friday nights and long jogs in the misty dawn on the sand.
He’d never realized before just how boring all that *sameness* was.
The very things he’d always craved, the customs that gave him comfort and the habits that seemed to soothe his very soul, now made John feel ever more restless and edgy, uncomfortable in his own skin.
Nothing seemed to give him satisfaction.
He’d always felt at home with the guys, relaxed and easy, but now John realized that he actually had to watch every word he said, carefully editing his language to delete any mention of Rodney.
He *knew* that it could happen again, so easily, all it would take would be one sideways glance and maybe this time nobody would be there to intervene, and maybe John wouldn’t walk away.
Maybe he didn’t *want* to walk away.
It was just like how it had always been, everywhere John had ever been . . . once again, he was on the outside, just pretending that he belonged and wishing for everything, somehow, to be different.
So because John was absolutely going crazy and because, goddammit, he desperately needed something *different* in his life, he went out alone on a Wednesday night and got himself hammered, plastered, and nailed-to-the-wall drunk, because it always seemed to solve everything for the other guys and John figured that he might as well try it.
The bar was called The Harbor, a little hole-in-the-wall that everyone knew never carded no matter how young a kid looked, down towards the Crest, on either Spencer or Spicer Avenues . . . John always got those two streets confused. It was a long, narrow room, paneled in dark wood to shoulder height and tarnished, cloudy mirrors above that, filled mostly with a long, wide wooden bar, lined with stools and crowded with people, even on this midweek night.
Off on one side was a tiny, parquet wooden dance floor and an even tinier DJ booth, containing a guy wearing a Flock Of Seagulls ‘do and a Flashdance sweatshirt, spinning twelve-inch dance remixes of Madonna’s first album and Duran Duran’s second. A small horde of giggling, drunken girls with North Jersey accents and North Jersey hair lurched from side to side, trying to dance and utterly failing.
At the very back of the room, John thought he might have glimpsed pool tables through the haze of smoke that washed through the dim lights like streams of milk. There were a bunch of guys back there, redfaced and loud with drink and sunburn, and John turned away, because he’d left a houseful of guys just like that a half an hour ago and he wasn’t looking for more of the same.
He smelled beer and sweat and perfume and cigarettes, and someone jostled him and spilled most of a pitcher down John’s chest. The laughing Irish university student apologized and before John knew what had happened, he was lighting up smokes and drinking shots of whiskey with Rory and Carl.
Rory was the redheaded and freckle-faced fellow, with a sturdy, compact build, half a head shorter than John and looking no older as he laughed and gestured expansively.
Carl was tall and slim, dark like John and with a serious twist to his mouth, even as his eyes twinkled with good humor.
Their strong Belfast accents blurred and thickened with drink and time as the night wore on, and John nodded along with drunken incomprehension, grinning when it seemed appropriate and nearly sliding off his stool when Carl nudged him a bit too sharply.
Rory caught him from the other side and murmured something in his ear, something that John couldn’t understand as the world tilted around him.
He heard Carl’s voice. It sounded like he was yelling from far away, and John rested his cheek on the damp, sticky wood of the bar to try to hear better. Rory’s arm curled around his waist and his fingers slipped beneath John’s shirt, stroking the skin where his polo had ridden high.
God, it felt good, strong masculine fingers knowing just how to touch. “Rodney,” John said to the hand.
Someone chuckled, and John was hauled vaguely upright. “*Rory*.”
John blinked owlishly at the hazy face topped with red hair. “Where’s Rodney?”
Rory turned to Carl and said something in his unintelligible accent.
Carl seemed angry. His response to his friend was clipped and too quiet to be heard, but he seized John’s left arm and ducked beneath it, and the two Irish boys propelled him out of the bar and into the night.
John breathed deeply of the fresh ocean air. It was a sea breeze tonight, blowing in cool and steady from the ocean, clearing his mind a little, although he was still staggering and clutching Rory’s heavier frame.
The two of them reeled along unevenly between the halos of light cast by the widely spaced streetlamps for several blocks. Carl was clearly the most sober of the trio, and he walked a few steps ahead, leaving them to make their way the best they could.
John burst into helpless laughter as Rory’s hands, searching for a firm grip, drifted over a ticklish spot. He tried to twist away, but Rory had both arms wrapped around him now, and John couldn’t seem to coordinate his limbs enough to stand on his own, let alone break free.
Laughing and tripping over his own feet, John braced his hands on Rory’s shoulders while he untangled himself and tried to catch his balance.
Rory tightened his hold and steadied John, pulling him closer, until their bodies were touching from shoulder to hip, and John realized dimly that his own knees weren’t doing such a good job holding him up any more.
His head was swimming, his ears buzzing, and he heard himself say breathlessly, “I’m *so* fucking drunk.”
Rory smiled and murmured something in that musical accent. It might have been a question, but everything out of the Irish boys’ mouths tonight carried with it the lilt of their home country, and John couldn’t tell a question from a curse.
Instead, he just relaxed, and it was so easy to sag just a little, to grin into Rory’s shoulder and just let him take his weight, so easy and so good, and Rory put his strong hands on the small of John’s back and pulled him in, warm lips kissing wetly along John’s throat.
Maybe John should have been freaking out, because it was another guy’s mouth sucking on his neck, another guy’s cock pressing up against his own, but God, it just felt so fucking good to be wrapped up tight in strong arms, held close as they ground together.
“Oh, oh, harder, *please*,” John whimpered, not caring if he sounded stupid or pathetic, just wanting the hard male hands and mouth and hips, turning him on and turning him up, making him hot and desperate and more than a little crazy.
All he could do was hold on, too drunk to do more than beg as Rory’s fingers dug into his ass, Jesus, so fucking wonderful, head spinning with whiskey and passion, heedless and hot, oh so fucking hot -
Then just as suddenly *cold*, cold and goddamn it, fucking *wet*, and what the hell was going on?
Another blast of cold water hit John in the face, and he staggered, groping for a way to catch his balance. His arms were unexpectedly empty, and he cried out wordlessly as he slipped and fell to his knees.
Somewhere a voice was shouting, in loud and angry French. There was more cold water, and then there was pain, in John’s hand, his side, and finally his head.
Then streetlights fading to dark, and muffled quiet.
************************
Well? Opinions? Ideas? Suggestions?
Bueller?
I'm so pleased that I was able to finish this section at last. lucifrix, I trimmed down the beginning. See what you think.
************************
8 / ?
************************
In the weeks to come, John decided that self-knowledge was for the fucking birds.
He just wasn’t ready for one more way that he was different . . . one more thing that set him apart from everyone else he knew.
Don and Ronnie didn’t really count - after all, John couldn’t discuss his new-found feelings with them, not after practically promising to keep his mouth shut. And he was trying so hard to play it cool, to act like it didn’t matter, whether he or anybody else liked boys or girls or both, and talking to the two of them about it would pretty much blow his cover.
Besides, those guys had known each other all their lives. They’d grown up together in a small town, with small schools, and as far as John knew, they’d probably been best friends forever, with the security of roots dug deep.
On the other hand, John had been thrilled to be in one place for the last three years. The prospect of actually being able to graduate with the same people he’d known since his freshman year filled him with unparalleled joy.
Finally, *finally*, he’d had a chance to make friends, to fit in, to be just like everyone else . . . and now, it turned out that he was fundamentally doomed to always be an outsider.
The one person - the *only* person who had made John feel safe, and secure, and like he could be accepted just as who he really was - was Rodney, and there was no way in hell that John was going to say a fucking *word* about it to him.
He’d already seen what happened when the people he’d thought were his friends just jumped to conclusions . . . he was *not* going to hand those conclusions all gift-wrapped and shiny to Rodney, and then wait to be socked one in the eye.
The thing was, really, that John felt like he’d spent his entire life hiding. Rodney was the first person John had ever met who didn’t make him *want* to be someone different.
Who, in fact, made John want to be the kind of person who was brave enough, strong enough, to really *not* care about what other people thought and to break all the rules with a grin and laugh.
But every time John looked at Rodney and tried to be that person he dreamed of being, the terror rose up in his throat and choked him into silence like a chronic smokers’ cough that had Rodney regularly confiscating John’s Marlboros and lecturing him on the evils of developing bad habits.
The summer was flying by, halfway through July already, and John tried hard to keep to what had been his regular routine for the last three summers, with sunny, sandy days on the beach and warm, noisy nights on the boardwalk, a couple of beers on Friday nights and long jogs in the misty dawn on the sand.
He’d never realized before just how boring all that *sameness* was.
The very things he’d always craved, the customs that gave him comfort and the habits that seemed to soothe his very soul, now made John feel ever more restless and edgy, uncomfortable in his own skin.
Nothing seemed to give him satisfaction.
He’d always felt at home with the guys, relaxed and easy, but now John realized that he actually had to watch every word he said, carefully editing his language to delete any mention of Rodney.
He *knew* that it could happen again, so easily, all it would take would be one sideways glance and maybe this time nobody would be there to intervene, and maybe John wouldn’t walk away.
Maybe he didn’t *want* to walk away.
It was just like how it had always been, everywhere John had ever been . . . once again, he was on the outside, just pretending that he belonged and wishing for everything, somehow, to be different.
So because John was absolutely going crazy and because, goddammit, he desperately needed something *different* in his life, he went out alone on a Wednesday night and got himself hammered, plastered, and nailed-to-the-wall drunk, because it always seemed to solve everything for the other guys and John figured that he might as well try it.
The bar was called The Harbor, a little hole-in-the-wall that everyone knew never carded no matter how young a kid looked, down towards the Crest, on either Spencer or Spicer Avenues . . . John always got those two streets confused. It was a long, narrow room, paneled in dark wood to shoulder height and tarnished, cloudy mirrors above that, filled mostly with a long, wide wooden bar, lined with stools and crowded with people, even on this midweek night.
Off on one side was a tiny, parquet wooden dance floor and an even tinier DJ booth, containing a guy wearing a Flock Of Seagulls ‘do and a Flashdance sweatshirt, spinning twelve-inch dance remixes of Madonna’s first album and Duran Duran’s second. A small horde of giggling, drunken girls with North Jersey accents and North Jersey hair lurched from side to side, trying to dance and utterly failing.
At the very back of the room, John thought he might have glimpsed pool tables through the haze of smoke that washed through the dim lights like streams of milk. There were a bunch of guys back there, redfaced and loud with drink and sunburn, and John turned away, because he’d left a houseful of guys just like that a half an hour ago and he wasn’t looking for more of the same.
He smelled beer and sweat and perfume and cigarettes, and someone jostled him and spilled most of a pitcher down John’s chest. The laughing Irish university student apologized and before John knew what had happened, he was lighting up smokes and drinking shots of whiskey with Rory and Carl.
Rory was the redheaded and freckle-faced fellow, with a sturdy, compact build, half a head shorter than John and looking no older as he laughed and gestured expansively.
Carl was tall and slim, dark like John and with a serious twist to his mouth, even as his eyes twinkled with good humor.
Their strong Belfast accents blurred and thickened with drink and time as the night wore on, and John nodded along with drunken incomprehension, grinning when it seemed appropriate and nearly sliding off his stool when Carl nudged him a bit too sharply.
Rory caught him from the other side and murmured something in his ear, something that John couldn’t understand as the world tilted around him.
He heard Carl’s voice. It sounded like he was yelling from far away, and John rested his cheek on the damp, sticky wood of the bar to try to hear better. Rory’s arm curled around his waist and his fingers slipped beneath John’s shirt, stroking the skin where his polo had ridden high.
God, it felt good, strong masculine fingers knowing just how to touch. “Rodney,” John said to the hand.
Someone chuckled, and John was hauled vaguely upright. “*Rory*.”
John blinked owlishly at the hazy face topped with red hair. “Where’s Rodney?”
Rory turned to Carl and said something in his unintelligible accent.
Carl seemed angry. His response to his friend was clipped and too quiet to be heard, but he seized John’s left arm and ducked beneath it, and the two Irish boys propelled him out of the bar and into the night.
John breathed deeply of the fresh ocean air. It was a sea breeze tonight, blowing in cool and steady from the ocean, clearing his mind a little, although he was still staggering and clutching Rory’s heavier frame.
The two of them reeled along unevenly between the halos of light cast by the widely spaced streetlamps for several blocks. Carl was clearly the most sober of the trio, and he walked a few steps ahead, leaving them to make their way the best they could.
John burst into helpless laughter as Rory’s hands, searching for a firm grip, drifted over a ticklish spot. He tried to twist away, but Rory had both arms wrapped around him now, and John couldn’t seem to coordinate his limbs enough to stand on his own, let alone break free.
Laughing and tripping over his own feet, John braced his hands on Rory’s shoulders while he untangled himself and tried to catch his balance.
Rory tightened his hold and steadied John, pulling him closer, until their bodies were touching from shoulder to hip, and John realized dimly that his own knees weren’t doing such a good job holding him up any more.
His head was swimming, his ears buzzing, and he heard himself say breathlessly, “I’m *so* fucking drunk.”
Rory smiled and murmured something in that musical accent. It might have been a question, but everything out of the Irish boys’ mouths tonight carried with it the lilt of their home country, and John couldn’t tell a question from a curse.
Instead, he just relaxed, and it was so easy to sag just a little, to grin into Rory’s shoulder and just let him take his weight, so easy and so good, and Rory put his strong hands on the small of John’s back and pulled him in, warm lips kissing wetly along John’s throat.
Maybe John should have been freaking out, because it was another guy’s mouth sucking on his neck, another guy’s cock pressing up against his own, but God, it just felt so fucking good to be wrapped up tight in strong arms, held close as they ground together.
“Oh, oh, harder, *please*,” John whimpered, not caring if he sounded stupid or pathetic, just wanting the hard male hands and mouth and hips, turning him on and turning him up, making him hot and desperate and more than a little crazy.
All he could do was hold on, too drunk to do more than beg as Rory’s fingers dug into his ass, Jesus, so fucking wonderful, head spinning with whiskey and passion, heedless and hot, oh so fucking hot -
Then just as suddenly *cold*, cold and goddamn it, fucking *wet*, and what the hell was going on?
Another blast of cold water hit John in the face, and he staggered, groping for a way to catch his balance. His arms were unexpectedly empty, and he cried out wordlessly as he slipped and fell to his knees.
Somewhere a voice was shouting, in loud and angry French. There was more cold water, and then there was pain, in John’s hand, his side, and finally his head.
Then streetlights fading to dark, and muffled quiet.
************************
Well? Opinions? Ideas? Suggestions?
Bueller?