FIC: Cut It Loose or Drag You Down (1/1) R Brothers & Sisters/RP
TITLE: Cut It Loose or Drag You Down
AUTHOR: Laura Smith
PAIRING: Kevin/OMC
RATING: R
SUMMARY: Darkness on the edge of town
DISCLAIMER: Brothers & Sisters and all the characters therein belong to people who are not me. I make no profit from this, I just like playing with them.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The character of John is from RP. This is an AU, obviously, but go with it. Thanks to inlovewithnight for the beta and for being the only person likely to care about this at all.
Kevin waits in the tent, watching the shadows fall on the olive green nylon. The square of light from the kitchen window flickers like a candle as someone walks back and forth in front, disembodied like some sort of demented puppet show. It’s summer, so the windows are open, and he can hear John’s father’s voice, muffled so he can’t distinguish the words, but the angry tone carries loud and clear.
Kevin never tells John how scared he gets at times like this. He never says a word, because when John finally escapes to the tent - when his sister and mother are safely asleep, when his dad’s either too drunk or too angry to fight anymore, or when John’s at the point where fighting him means killing him and Mr. Evans won’t go that far - he’s bruised and angry and everything in the world but scared, and Kevin knows if John’s not afraid than he has no right to be, even if he’s afraid for John.
Tonight’s fight ends earlier than normal in a sudden and almost shocking silence. Kevin creeps to the front of the tent, jerking back as the screen door slams shut. The zipper is loud in the quiet, and John closes the flap behind him, not bothering with the flashlight as he makes his way over to his sleeping bag. He doesn’t look at Kevin at all, just stares down at his hands. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Kevin nods and comes back to settle on his own sleeping bag. “Did you finish that book for English?”
“Do it on Sunday.” John digs a mangled pack of cigarettes out of the back pocket of his jeans, the cellophane crinkling. “You wanna smoke?”
“No thanks.” Kevin’s at a loss sometimes as to why John likes him. All of John’s other friends are either jocks or stoners, John bridging that outsider cool between the two. Kevin’s a geek at best, so he and John have nothing in common between being next door neighbors.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” Kevin feels the familiar heat flush his face, that embarrassment that he feels for John’s sake, for being stuck with a complete loser as a friend. They don’t really hang out at school enough for anyone to really know, but John gives him a ride home every day, which Kevin feels is probably damning enough.
“Suit yourself.” John has a Zippo lighter Kevin found in a pawnshop and bought him for his birthday. It’s got the logo of some British motorcycle company on it, which Kevin didn’t realize; he just thought it looked cool. John recognized it right off and went on about it like Kevin knew what he’d done. John plays with the lighter all the time, rubbing the spines of the flint wheel against the pad of his thumb. Kevin watches him in the darkness; his eyes acclimated to it now, until the sudden flare of light half-blinds him.
John’s face glows for a moment and Kevin stares at him. There’s something about John that arrests Kevin, especially when John catches him off guard. Kevin suspects what it is, and that scares him more than John’s father ever could.
“Are you bleeding?” Kevin asks, noticing darkness in the flare of the light.
The lighter dies, so it’s just the strange afterglow and the red pinpoint of John’s cigarette shining. “Maybe.”
“John.” Kevin moves to John’s sleeping bag and fumbles for the flashlight, setting it on the ground and shining it upward so he can see. John’s lower lip is split and red in the center, and John chases a trickle of blood in the corner of his mouth with his tongue. Even in the bad lighting, Kevin can see the bruise darkening around John’s eye. Kevin’s fingers shake slightly as he reaches out to touch the skin carefully. “He hit you.”
“He always hits me, Kevin.”
There are things they don’t talk about, and this is one of them. John’s a year older, so Kevin’s never had gym with him or seen the bruises he knows must be there, but he’s spent enough nights here in the tent, listening to John shift in the sleeping bag where the groans and whimpers of pain are telling enough. “Never there.”
“No. Not where you can see.” John takes a long hit of his cigarette and holds it, finally exhaling. Kevin breathes when he does, but his chest hurts from more than that. “Guess I pissed him off, huh?”
Kevin traces John’s cheekbone. “Are you okay?”
“We’ve had this discussion before, Walker.” There’s a slight hint of laughter in John’s voice, belied by the way he closes his eyes and leans in to Kevin’s touch. “I’m always okay.”
“No. You’re not.” Kevin’s voice is thick as he traces the black eye, biting his lower lip when John hisses in pain. “Please, John.”
“Nothing to do about it, Kevin. Besides, you know me. Complete smart-ass. Can’t keep my mouth shut.” His eyes go to Kevin’s, pleading for him to drop it.
Kevin wants to press the issue - it’s what his family does, after all - but he’s learned that John can’t work that way. He has to bottle it all up inside until it eats away at everything until he can’t take it any more. He curves his fingers around John’s cheek, his thumb stroking John’s cheekbone just below where the skin has darkened to a purplish black. “I wish you’d tell me things.” What he really wishes is that John trusted him. Kevin knows he does, at least more than he trusts anyone else, but he still feels like there are secrets John feels like he can’t share, or maybe just simply won’t. Kevin knows he has a reputation for telling secrets, but those are family secrets, not John’s. “Let me help.”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
Kevin nods, his gaze falling to John’s mouth as John leans into Kevin’s hand and closes his eyes again. Kevin can’t breathe and it’s becoming desperately clear why as he feels his cock harden, his chest hurt from how fast his heart is beating. He needs to move back to his sleeping bag and not screw up the one friendship he has in this world, but he can’t move, can’t take away what little comfort John allows him to give. Instead, he raises his other hand and traces along the edge of John’s lower lip with his thumb, swallowing hard as John’s lips part on a soft exhalation of air.
Kevin closes his eyes on the hot flash of tears and drops both his hands. John makes a soft noise that’s probably entirely involuntary, and Kevin leans in to give him an awkward hug. “It’ll be better in the morning, maybe,” Kevin says
“That’s what my mom always says.”
“Moms don’t lie.”
“Your mom doesn’t lie, Kevin.” John gives him a smile that’s so painfully sad that Kevin’s grateful for it, because it helps kill a significant portion of his erection. “Mine does. To me. To Elizabeth. To herself.” John turns off the flashlight as Kevin makes his way back to his sleeping bag and stubs out his cigarette in the small metal ashtray he stole from the bus station the first time they went scouting, researching how he might be able to run away and how far he could get. “Night.”
“Night.” Kevin zips himself into the bag, and tries not to think about all those late night horror movies John likes to watch, where the scientist or professor or whoever it is possessed by something evil tries to contain himself as best he can, even though they and the audience know the evil will easily break the chain or the straps or the zipper that might hold it in. He reminds himself it’s not evil, though it feels like it sometimes. A dirty secret you don’t admit, don’t tell, don’t have if you try hard enough.
They lay there in silence for a long time, and Kevin listens to John breathing. John always takes forever to fall asleep, like he’s afraid of the things that get loose in the night too, but for the opposite reason Kevin is. John’s afraid of them coming for him, Kevin’s afraid of being one. Eventually John’s breathing shifts into the steady rise and fall of sleep and Kevin closes his eyes and turns on his side away from John. He matches his breathing to John’s, slow and methodical until he falls asleep.
**
The sound of the zipper wakes him, and Kevin stays as still as possible. This tent is their inner sanctum and no one violates it. It takes a few moments to realize it’s the sleeping bag and not the door. “Kevin? You awake?”
“Yeah,” he whispers, turning over to find John right next to him, kneeling beside his sleeping bag. Kevin can feel the slight breeze from where John’s unzipped it, holding the corner up a little bit. “You okay?”
“Nightmare.” John shrugs it off, but there’s enough ambient light that Kevin can see the wildness in John’s eyes. “Can I climb in with you?”
Every self-preservation instinct says no, and every honest instinct says yes, so Kevin just nods, unable to say one way or the other. John smiles, wincing a little as it stretches his lower lip, and then wriggles into the sleeping bag as Kevin shifts over to the opposite edge. John’s taller than him, so Kevin’s toes brush his ankles, and he blushes, trying to move farther over. John lays on his side, one hand buried underneath the pillow as he rests his head on it, the other on his hip. Kevin imitates his pose, though he can’t close his eyes like John. He has to look at him, see him up close and unguarded.
John is beautiful, which is a word Kevin knows John would object loudly to, but it’s the only one that works. He’s got thick, dark, curly hair that he keeps trimmed short most of the time, though occasionally he lets it get too long and the curls fall over his forehead and into his eyes. His lashes are long and dark against his pale skin and he’s all arms and legs, gangly and foal-like. John’s dad wants him to play football, but John plays baseball and runs track, loping across the field or around the track like some sort of gazelle, all legs and arms and muscle. When he does smile, John’s mouth is wide and his smile is bright. When he laughs, he tilts his head back and gives himself over to it and Kevin needs to stop, needs to stop thinking and sure as hell needs to not think about John’s eyes or any other parts of him or it’s going to get very embarrassing very fast.
Kevin shifts back a little more, trying to put more distance between them, though there’s really nowhere else for him to go. John opens his eyes and looks at him, the dark brown warm and endless up close with small flecks of green that Kevin can’t see right now, but he knows are there. “You okay, Kevin?” He nods again and closes his eyes, wondering if he can will himself to sleep. He can feel John watching him, can sense more questions hanging in the air between them. He thinks maybe John will let it drop, but he tries once more. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” Kevin’s voice sounds strange to his own ears. “Yeah. ‘m okay.” He clears his throat and looks at John for a second. The sleeping bag is too warm and he’s too close. Kevin wants to run away and hide, but this is his safe place as much as it’s John’s. “I think…”
John tilts his head and offers the beginnings of a smile, something like encouragement and curiosity. Kevin wonders for a brief second if it’s a safe place because they simply don’t talk about anything that can hurt them.
The words come out in a whisper. “I think I’m gay.”
“What?” This time it’s John’s turn to try and move away, and since the zipper’s open he manages to put distance between himself and Kevin. “What did you say?”
Kevin’s chest hurts, like when an arm or a leg falls asleep and then wakes up and sharp painful tingles course through the skin. That’s how his chest feels, wave after wave of needles jabbing at him. “Nothing.”
“You think you’re a fag?”
The sensation spreads to his arms and goose bumps break out all along his skin. Tears burn at the back of his eyes and he blinks, trying to get rid of them. “I’m…I’m gonna…I’m gonna go.” He pushes the sleeping bag up as John scoots back further, putting more distance between them. The cool air hits his skin and the goose bumps get worse as he reaches for his shoes and tugs them on. He can’t look at John, but he can see the expression on John’s face in the corner of his eye - hurt and betrayal and disgust - and it’s enough to let him know that he should have kept his mouth shut.
He doesn’t say anything as he leaves the tent, hurrying across John’s lawn and through the opening in the fence that leads to the Walker back yard. His sneakers slip on the dew-slick grass and he hurries to the pool house, slipping inside and closing the door behind him. It’s not warm, but it’s not too cold so he unfolds one of the lawn chairs and lays back, tugging a couple of towels over him, shivering until he falls asleep.
**
Kevin expects it to be all over school by Monday, but no one says a word to him. Tommy didn’t bitch too much when Kevin hitched a ride in the morning, dropping him off at the entrance while he went around to park his car in the seniors’ parking lot. There’s the usual whispering in the halls, but none of it seems to touch on him. He goes to his locker and switches out books, grabbing all the stuff he needs for his first classes. He shuts his locker and stops, surprised to see John standing there. “H-hi.”
“Hi.”
Kevin shifts slightly, putting more space between them. John’s mouth turns up in a slight smirk and Kevin looks at the ground. “Don’t worry. I won’t bother you anymore. You know, here or at home.”
“Do you want a ride this afternoon?”
John’s stoner friends are down the hall, and Kevin imagines a ride home is a ride to some deserted back road and a five on one fight he wouldn’t win even if he knew how to fight. “No thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” John shrugs and walks off toward his group of buddies, falling in with them and transforming to fit in like some sort of quick-change artist. Kevin watches until he’s gone around the corner and then hurries to his class. His only talent is how he disappears, and right now he’s grateful for it as he fades into the crowd.
The pattern doesn’t change for the rest of the week, though Kevin can tell that his mother’s worried about him. She doesn’t say anything, but she looks at him and then out the kitchen window towards John’s house. Kevin knows she says something to Tommy though, because Tommy still hasn’t complained about having to take Kevin to school, and he hasn’t said a word on the drive about why Kevin’s not riding with John anymore. Tommy probably assumes John just realized how completely un-cool Kevin is and told him to find his own ride, and Tommy’s stuck, given that he’s related to Kevin, but at least that gives him an excuse as well.
Kevin walks home though, which he kind of likes. It’s infinitely preferable to listening to Tommy and his friends talk about girls and football and sex, jammed in the back seat between two linebackers who forget he’s even there. Friday afternoon, he’s almost halfway home when John’s beat-up Chevy pulls off the road, angled just in front of Kevin. John’s alone and he leans across the seat and rolls down the window. “Get in.”
“I don’t want a ride.”
“Get the fuck in the car, Kevin.” He shoves the door open and glares at him, and Kevin swallows hard. It’s not like it’s hard for John to find him, so maybe when the odds are closer to even it’s just better to get it over with. Of course, there’s nothing to say that John’s friends aren’t hanging out somewhere, getting stoned and waiting for John to bring him along like a lamb to slaughter.
“Okay.” He climbs in the car and shuts the door, settling his backpack between his feet. John waits until he’s buckled in to pull back onto the road and his knuckles are white from how tight he’s gripping the steering wheel. There’s Bruce Springsteen coming from the speakers, but then, there always is in John’s car. John has tapes scattered all around the car, but the Springsteen ones have a place of honor in the glove box along with John’s stash of joints and a box of condoms. “Why do you have other tapes in here?”
“What?” John jerks and glances at Kevin for an instant before looking away. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you’ve got all these other bands.” Kevin picks a few cassettes from the console between the seats. “Ozzy Osbourne. Motley Crue. I don’t get why you have them in the car, because you only ever listen to Springsteen.”
“You want to listen to something else?” There’s pure confusion in John’s voice and Kevin wants to smile at the innocence of it. “I mean, other than Bruce?”
“No.” Kevin sets the tapes back down and looks down at his hands so he won’t focus on John’s profile, won’t look at him at all. “Bruce is fine.”
“Did you do your report in English?” English is the one class they share because Kevin’s in advanced placement English, which means he sits in with the juniors instead of the sophomores. “Catcher in the Rye?”
“Yeah. You?” Kevin tightens his hand around the strap of his backpack, rubbing his thumb over the canvas.
“Yeah. I suppose it’s a stereotype to say I identify with this guy, right?” John laughs and the sound is bitter and sharp. “I guess we all do to some extent. I mean, teenagers are just a mess, right?”
“I guess. Yeah.” Kevin sees John nod out of the corner of his eye. Turning his head, he looks out the window and watches the buildings go by. “Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you home.”
“You don’t have to lie.” The feeling is back, that same sensation of needles puncturing his skin, his organs. Pain echoing and flaring sharp in his shoulders. “I know your friends are out here somewhere.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Kevin?”
He shrugs and brings his left hand up to his right shoulder, trying to massage the feeling away. “It’s okay.”
“You think I’m taking you out to get beaten up or something?” John looks over at him and his brow is furrowed and he looks angry. “Is that what you think?”
“Aren’t you?”
“First off all, even if that were the case, Kevin? It’s not ‘okay’ that I do that. And secondly, I’m not taking you anywhere but home.” He unclenches his hands on the steering wheel and then tightens them again. “Is that what you think, really? That I’m going to drag you off somewhere and let a bunch of buddies beat the shit out of you?”
Kevin shrugs, his hand still rubbing his shoulder. “Aren’t you?”
“I told you I wasn’t. Jesus.” John pulls into a fast food joint and parks the car, turning to face Kevin. “Why would you think I’d do that?”
He shrugs again, the feeling burning in his chest. “Because I’m gay.”
“You think I’d beat you up for that?”
Kevin laughs softly, sadly. “You say it like it doesn’t happen.”
“Well, yeah. It happens. But I don’t do it.” John rubs his hand across his mouth. “I promise, I’m not taking you out to get beaten up or anything like that. I thought we’d get a hamburger in the drive-through and then I’d take you home. Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.” The feeling subsides slightly and he makes sure to keep his eyes on his backpack, not on John. He can feel John’s stare, but he refuses to look up and meet his eyes. “You need some money?”
“No.” John starts the car and backs out, pulling into the drive through. He orders a meal for both of them, though Kevin knows John will end up eating most of it. He looks half-starved half the time, his body metabolizing food faster than he can eat it, and Kevin knows he has a family dinner to make it through, and if he doesn’t eat his mother will corner him to find out why. Kevin picks at his cheeseburger, watching John shove multiple fries in his mouth and then suck the salt from his fingers. “So, look…about…”
“Don’t worry.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry.” Kevin shrugs. “I get it, okay? You don’t have to make a big speech or anything. Just…you know, I appreciate that you haven’t told anyone, and I hope you won’t, but…”
“Quit it.”
Kevin frowns at him. “Quit what?”
“Assuming you have any clue what I’m going to say.” John takes a long drink from his Coke and then rubs a napkin across his mouth. “Because you don’t, and you’ve been wrong every time so far, so just quit it.” Kevin nods and takes a bite of his burger. John watches him for a moment then continues. “So about this weekend. Are you doing anything?”
“No.”
“So we’re on for tonight?”
“On?” Kevin’s brow furrows harder, and he can feel the tension tightening like a band around his forehead. “On what?”
“For tonight. Tent. Our Friday night ritual.”
“You want me to come over tonight?”
“Um, yeah.” John shrugs and eats another handful of fries. “Like always.”
“Really?”
“God, Kevin, are you going to question everything I say?” John tosses a fry at him and rolls his eyes. “Just because you’re going to be a lawyer doesn’t mean you have to act like one all the time.” John drives for a while in silence and then looks over at him. “So, are you?”
“Yeah.” Kevin smiles and nods, relaxing back against his seat. “Yeah. I’ll be there.”
**
Kevin zips up the tent door as he climbs in, surprised that John’s already there. Normally John doesn’t show up until later, either sneaking or slamming out the back door. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Where’s your Dad?”
“Out with Mom. It’s their anniversary.” John’s sitting cross-legged on his sleeping bag, ashtray beside him. There’s an envelope beside it and John digs a joint out as Kevin sits across from him. “You want?”
“No.” John asks every time and Kevin refuses every time, even though he knows he still gets high from John’s smoke. John shrugs and lights the joint, the slightly oily smell of the lighter replaced by the sickly sweet smell of pot. John inhales deeply and holds it, tilting his head back and swallowing before he exhales. Kevin watches the motion of his throat and then looks down at his hands, twisting his fingers together. “So…”
“So.” John smiles at him, slow and lazy, and Kevin’s pretty sure this isn’t the first joint he’s had. “I have a question.”
Kevin swallows as well. “Okay.”
“Last week you said you thought you were gay. Today you said you were. Why’d that change?”
“It was just semantics.” Kevin shifts uncomfortably on the sleeping bag and he wants to climb inside and zip himself up, not let anything out. “Nothing’s changed.”
“You went from thinking to knowing. Something changed.” John takes another hit and holds it and Kevin finds himself holding his own breath until John exhales. It’s a habit he’s fallen into, and he knows he should stop. He should stop a lot of things. “Was it saying it out loud?”
“It wasn’t anything, John.” It was saying it to him, to the only person whose opinion actually mattered, if Kevin’s honest, which he can’t be. The sheer physical want that came in the instant of confession - wanting John to understand, to accept, to want in return - made it all clear, so stunningly and painfully clear. “Just words.”
John takes another hit from the joint and leans back a little, his shirt making a slick sound against the tent. “But you are.”
“Yeah.” Kevin’s chest feels tight again, and he keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop. He feels like he did when Sarah, whom he idolized, came up to him when he was five and told him that she didn’t want him to be a boy, so she was just going to pretend he didn’t exist, and then proceeded to ignore him for two months. “I am.”
“How do you know?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, is it just that you look at guys and get a hard on? Or what?”
“No. I mean, well.” He can feel the blush and ducks his head. “It’s not just about that. I mean, that’s part of it, but…well, I feel different. I feel like I don’t fit.”
“Jesus, Kevin. That’s being a teenager. Didn’t you read that dumb book?” John laughs and takes another hit, dragging on the joint until it’s nothing but a red flare, burning through the paper like a wildfire. “None of us fit in.”
“It’s different.”
“How?”
Kevin doesn’t know the words to explain it, and he wants to just pass it off the way parents do when they don’t know - because it is, because I said so - but John’s looking at him so seriously, so intent, like he’s actually trying to understand. “It’s not about not fitting in with my family or with other kids. It’s not about feeling disenfranchised. It’s about not fitting into society. Like…you feel guilty because you don’t get all the things you’re supposed to. You don’t feel things the way people tell you you’re supposed to feel. You don’t match those people on TV, and not in the way you’re not like the people on 90210. I mean, you see teenagers on TV or in the movies, and the guys are looking for their older brother’s stash of porn, right? Or they’re trying to watch porn movies on the scrambled channels, right?”
“Yeah.” John’s cheeks are slightly pink and Kevin looks away, surprised at how much the thought of John being one of those guys hurts. “We all do that.”
“No, John. We don’t.” Kevin rubs his forehead with two fingers, trying to rub the beginnings of the headache pot always gives him away. “Straight guys do. I don’t. I don’t care about the things that make all of you teenage guys. I don’t care about getting laid or getting to feel up the head cheerleader’s boobs. I don’t want to peek into the girls’ locker room and see what kind of bras and panties they’re wearing. I don’t want to go to the high school dance and that’s the truth, not a lie I give when I don’t have a date. I don’t daydream about Playboy Bunnies, and I don’t want to watch two girls getting each other off. I want different things. Different…things.”
“Like what?”
“Guys.” It’s the easiest explanation and the one that doesn’t really explain anything at all. People think ‘gay’ and they think you’re a guy who wants to sleep with guys. That’s all it is to them, that’s all it means. “I think about guys. I want guys.”
“Guys turn you on.” John kills the joint and digs another one out, and Kevin turns his head away, closing his eyes against the heat burning them. There’s a long pause and the crisp sound of paper burning. “Do I?”
“Don’t ask me that.” The tears have slid down, burning Kevin’s throat. “If I matter to you at all, if I’m your friend, please don’t ask me that.”
“So I do.” John doesn’t say anything for a long time. “Okay. That’s kind of flattering.”
“I need to go.” Kevin gets to his feet to leave, but John’s quicker than he has a right to be and grabs his wrist. “Let me go, John.”
“We’re talking.”
“No. We’re not. You’re just…” He shakes his head and fights the thickness in his throat, tears congealed and choking him. “You’re the only friend I have, and now I don’t have that. Okay? Because now it’s all fucked up, and I did it, I know I did it, and I can’t undo it, and you’re not making it easier. You think it’s flattering that I have to work at not looking at you when we’re hanging out together? You think it’s flattering that I get a hard on when I’m trying to comfort you when your dad beats you up? You think any of that is flattering, John? No. It’s sick. Sick and sad and that’s what I am. I wish I could take it back, okay? I wish I could just take it all back and keep my mouth shut. So let me go.”
“I’m your friend. That’s why you told me.”
“I’m an idiot, that’s why I told you.” He wrenches his hand free and unzips the tent and slips out. “I’ll see you in school.”
**
Kevin walks out of the house and John’s sitting there in his Chevy, Springsteen loud enough to be heard through the closed doors and windows. Tommy’s car is already pulling out of the driveway, so if Kevin wants to get to school on time he’s riding with John. Opening the door, he slings his backpack in and climbs in, slamming the door shut. John winces since he’s disproportionately fond of his car and then manages a smile. “Hey.”
“Why are you here?”
“It’s Monday. There’s school.” He shrugs and turns the engine over, humming along with Thunder Road. Kevin folds his arms over his chest and stares out the side window, not looking at John at all. Bruce is the only thing that fills the silence on the ride and Kevin’s out of the car before John’s even fully parked. “You’re going to hurt yourself that way, Walker.”
Kevin flips him off and hurries into the building, putting as much distance as he can before John gets out and uses his long legs to catch up with him. He doesn’t have anything to worry about, since he hears John start talking to some of his friends that Kevin passes on the way in, and so he walks the rest of the way to his locker, taking the time to catch his breath.
He spends the rest of the day avoiding John until fifth period English where he can’t manage it. John’s already in his desk by the time Kevin gets there from the physics lab across the school, and there aren’t many desks left. Kevin sits next to him and opens his book, doing his best to ignore John completely.
“So, are you going to meet me in the parking lot after school or am I going to have to try to run you down on the side of the road again?” John talks softly, under his breath so no one else can hear them. Their teacher, Mrs. Gunderson, is notoriously late for class, so Kevin knows he can’t get away without answering.
“I don’t need a ride home.”
“Do you have a ride home?”
“No.”
“Then you need a ride home. Meet me in the parking lot.” He leans back in his chair as Mrs. Gunderson comes in, and opens his book as well. Kevin gives him a look that he hopes conveys that John is go gin to be waiting until hell freezes over for Kevin to show up, but given that John’s not looking at him, Kevin’s pretty sure all he’s doing is looking stupid.
There’s a surprise quiz, so there isn’t any more talking, and Kevin keeps his eyes on his paper so that he won’t be tempted to glance at John. John, for his part, leans forward so Kevin can’t help but see him out of the corner of his eye, chewing on the end of his pencil. Afterwards, as they file out, John grabs his wrist and pulls him back, keeping Kevin from leaving the room.
“I mean it, Kevin. Meet me in the parking lot. You think we can’t be friends anymore, but you’re wrong, and I’m going to prove it to you.” He smiles widely, his dark eyes bright. “Whether you like it or not. Got it?”
Kevin nods. “Yeah.”
“Good. I’ll see you then.”
**
The week progresses just the same. Silent rides that feel vaguely threatening to and from school with brief interludes of homework discussions. On Friday, John stops at the McDonalds and glances over at Kevin. “Okay, look. This is weird.”
“It’s not weird. It’s stupid. You don’t have to give me rides.” Kevin wants out of the car. His skin feels like it’s on fire when he’s around John now, and every glance over seems to be met with one of John’s own. He feels like he’s being tortured somehow, driven slightly mad.
“We should skip school.”
“We can’t skip school.”
“Sure we can.” John turns in his seat and rests his elbow next to his headrest, his fingers resting on the back of Kevin’s seat next to his head. “We just don’t go.”
“Where would we go instead?”
“It doesn’t matter where you go, so long as it isn’t school.” John starts the car and pulls out, turning onto the road in the opposite direction of the school. “What do you think? Museum? Mall? Beach?”
“I want to go to school, John.”
“No. You don’t. Trust me.” John heads to the west, hitting the freeway toward the beach. “You’re going to be a lawyer, so you’ll have plenty more opportunities to go to school. You’ll be in school until the prime of your life is over, Walker. Just trust me this once, okay?”
“What are we going to do at the beach?”
“Do you need an itinerary, Kevin? Come on. It’s the beach. We’ll lay in the sun. We’ll go in the water. If we find a couple of hot girls, we’ll steal their surfboards and impress them. We’ll build fucking sandcastles. We’ll people watch. We won’t be at school. See, that last thing? That’s sort of the whole point.”
“I want to go to school.”
“You want to go and spend half your day listening to a bunch of jerks yell for a bunch of jocks? You want to go and watch cheerleaders bounce around in their short skirts and try to figure out which ones are wearing bras?”
“I want to do that about as much as I want to find a couple of hot girls on the beach.”
“Fine then. You can look at all the hot surfer dudes.” John snaps and Kevin shuts up, folding his arms over his chest. Blowing out a breath, John slams his hand against the steering wheel. “Look, I’m trying, okay? I’m trying to be your friend again, to show you it doesn’t matter. We’re friends. No one ever said it was conditional. So just…just shut up and go along with it.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.” John reaches out and twists the radio dial, turning the music up. Nothing feels comfortable and finally Kevin grabs his backpack and throws it in the back of the car and stretches his legs out. John glances over at him and then back at the road. “Have you told anyone else?”
“Because this has gone so well?”
“Quit being a dick.” John snaps. “Jesus, it was just a question. I’m not fucking attacking you.”
Kevin’s quiet for a long time until they settle onto the highway, riding along the cliffs. Kevin stares out at the water, watching it change color from blue to white and everything in between. “No.”
“We can still be friends if you let us.”
“I don’t know how.”
“How to let us or how to be friends?” John’s voice reminds Kevin of when he talks to his little sister, Elizabeth, trying to calm her down after their parents have had a fight. Taming a wild animal, John calls it, talking her down.
“Either. Both.” Kevin rubs the knee of his jeans with his thumb. “It’s there in the middle, you know? Not just what I am but that…well, that I look at you. Or have. In the past.”
“I don’t care that you’re gay. It doesn’t change who you are. I mean, you’re still the same guy I was hanging out with for the past…what? Six years or so? I mean, you were gay then too, even if you didn’t know it yet, right? I mean, it’s not like you suddenly became gay. It wasn’t like you woke up one morning and decided girls weren’t for you, right?”
“Right. I guess. Yeah.”
“So, see?” John smiles as if he’s solved the problem and Kevin can’t help but smile in answer. “We can still be friends. As for the other…well…The way I see it, I mean, I see a girl that I like, even as a friend, I still try and picture her naked. Doesn’t mean I do anything about it. We’re teenagers.”
“Yeah, but you don’t tell the girl that you pictured her naked.”
“But she knows.”
“But you don’t tell her.”
“She still knows, Kevin. So basically all you did is confirm that gay guys do the same thing straight guys do. You see someone and you picture them naked.” John taps the steering wheel with his thumbs in time to the music. “So how did you know?”
“Know I was gay?”
“No. How did you know that you wanted to be a lawyer. Yes, how did you know you were gay. Jesus, what are we talking about here?”
“Okay. Okay.” Kevin laughs as John pulls off into the paved parking lot and stops the car. There’s hardly anyone parked there, just a few dedicated surfer vans, braving the overcast day and wind. “How did you know you were straight?”
“I don’t know. I just was. Am.”
“Right.” Kevin turns to face John, his knee against the back of his seat and his head against the headrest. “You just started noticing girls, right? I mean, you were minding your own business when hormones kicked in and suddenly you saw a girl and got a hard on.”
“Yeah, I guess. Roughly.”
“Well, it’s the same for me. I started looking around when I hit puberty and the girls didn’t do anything for me. I mean, I could appreciate if they were pretty or not, but that was about the extent of it. Even Tommy’s porn magazines didn’t do anything for me. And then one day I was at this Ojai picnic, right? Big family thing with all the workers and everything, and I look over and there’s this guy, Diego. He’s the son of the head truck driver. He’s in his mid-twenties and he’s playing volleyball and he takes off his shirt. His girlfriend and a bunch of the other girls sort of swoon, acting it up and all the guys start giving him a hard time, and all I can think about is that I’m not going to be able to stand up for the rest of the afternoon, because I’ve got a raging hard on.”
“Diego, huh?”
“And then, remember how you said when you first noticed girls it was like suddenly they were everywhere? It was the same. Suddenly there were half-naked guys everywhere. Hot guys. Not so hot guys. Every guy was suddenly judged on this whole new scale of what he did to me, how he affected me. I mean, I tried not to think about it, but then…well, then at night when I went to bed, it was suddenly all I could think about.”
“You jerk off to guys? I mean, thinking about them?” Heat suffuses Kevin’s face as their conversation comes home to him, and he shuts his mouth, pressing his lips together. John laughs softly. “Dude. Come on. Did you not think I’d make that logical leap there? I’m not brilliant, but I’m not stupid.”
“It’s just…”
“Hey, I talk to you about girls, right?”
“Well, yeah. But I’m not one.” Kevin bites his lower lip and then sighs. “It’s different, you know? Like…well, if I told you I had the hots for your sister.”
“You’re gay.”
“Yeah, well, pretend for a minute I’m not and I came to you and told you I had a thing for Elizabeth. You’d freak out, right? Because you don’t want to think about me doing stuff to your sister.”
“No. No one is allowed to do stuff to my sister.”
“Right. So…I mean, it’s sort of like that. Just like you don’t want to think about some guy jerking off to Elizabeth…”
“Stop saying that, okay?”
“I don’t want you to think about me jerking off to some guy.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s weird.”
“Why?”
Kevin blows out an exasperated breath. “It just is.”
“Because I’m a guy.”
“Yes.”
“So it’s like I’m your brother.”
“No.”
“It’s like…other guys are my brother.”
“Right.”
“But not me.”
“You can’t be your own brother unless you fuck around with the space/time continuum.”
“No, I mean…you do think about me. Right?”
“We’re not talking about you.” Heat burns at Kevin’s cheeks and the tips of his ears. “If you want to be friends like you say you do, we’re not talking about you. We’re never talking about you. We’re never ever talking about you in conjunction with what I do or do not think about when I jerk off at night. It’s off limits. In fact, I think the subject of jerking off is off limits no matter who or what we’re talking about. Deal?”
“Okay.” John pulls the keys from the engine. “You want to go hang out for a while? Then we’ll get lunch and go see a movie or something?”
“Sure.”
“And no more questions about jerking off.”
“Ever,” Kevin warns.
John smiles. “Ever.”
**
Eight hours later, they’re holed up in the tent with a bowl of popcorn courtesy of Kevin’s mom and a bag of joints courtesy of John’s friend, Rico. John’s already had two and his shoulder is warm against Kevin’s. “C’n I ask you a question?”
Kevin nods, his eyes closed. He’s relaxed enough that John’s smoke isn’t bothering him, and the warmth and closeness actually feels better than he knows he should let it. “Sure.”
“Would you really take it back? Telling me?”
“Hmm.” Kevin turns his head slightly and watches John take a long hit off the joint. His eyes feel heavy. His whole body feels heavy. “Maybe?”
John nods, not willing to exhale the smoke just yet. “You ever done anything with a guy?”
“Have you ever done anything with a girl?”
John laughs, the smoke dribbling out between his lips. “Fuck, no. Tried once and got slapped for the trouble.” He turns his head and looks at Kevin. “Your turn.”
“No.” John takes another deep lungful of smoke and holds it, not looking away from Kevin. Heat coils in Kevin’s stomach and lower, tightening his cock, pumping blood southward. John’s eyes fall to Kevin’s mouth and Kevin licks his lips, swallowing hard. “John…”
John shakes his head and leans in, closing the short distance between them. Kevin’s heart beats in overdrive, pounding in his chest as John’s mouth closes over his, his tongue pushing past Kevin’s lips. He tastes like smoke and ash and heat and Kevin makes a noise he can’t help. John doesn’t move and doesn’t push the kiss further, just stays there, mouth molded to Kevin’s until neither of them can breathe and they break apart. “This,” John says, holding up the joint, “is some very good stuff.”
“Don’t do that.” Kevin’s voice is thick, and not from the smoke. “Please.”
“What?” John stubs out the nub of the joint and leans back against the tent, turned to face Kevin. He reaches out and touches Kevin’s lower lip, rubbing it softly as he looks at him with half-closed eyes.
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“Oh, Kevin. ‘m not.” John leans in again, slowly so that Kevin can stop him if he wants to, so that the intent is clear. “Couldn’t make fun of you if I tried.” His mouth is warm against Kevin’s, just lips against lips until John’s tongue snakes out and runs against the seam of Kevin’s, parting them just enough for it to slide through. It’s slow and soft and Kevin closes his eyes tight, not wanting it to end. He reaches out, his fingers grazing John’s t-shirt, scratching at the material. John makes a soft noise and slides his hand to the back of Kevin’s head and deepens the kiss, holding him close.
“John.” Kevin half moans the word, overwhelmed with sensation and need. His hand fists in John’s shirt and he’s caught between pushing him away and pulling him closer.
“Taste good,” John murmurs against Kevin’s lips. “Butter and salt.”
“You’re stoned,” Kevin whispers softly, pushing him back and holding him at bay. “Don’t do this because you’re stoned.”
“Not making me do it,” John assures him with another kiss, his hand at the base of Kevin’s neck pulling him forward. “Letting me. C’mon, Kevin. Want to make you feel good.”
Another noise escapes Kevin and he gives into the kiss. He knows he shouldn’t. He knows that he doesn’t want this to be about gratitude for being John’s friend or anything else, but it feels so good, feels so right that he can’t help but press his tongue against John’s, stroking and tangling them together. It doesn’t feel anything like he imagined it would, but it’s better and he wants more. Perspiration beads on his skin as he shifts closer to John, nuzzling at his mouth between kisses that seem to get longer and deeper each time their lips meet.
“God,” John gasps against Kevin’s mouth, his breath hot and rough. He reaches for Kevin’s hand, untangling it from his now-wrinkled shirt and pushes it down, letting Kevin feel the hard bulge of his cock. “God, Kevin.”
Kevin shudders and moves in, kissing John hard and pushing him back down onto the sleeping bag, bracing himself over him. John goes willingly, his hands sliding to Kevin’s hips and pulling him down against John’s body so their cocks are rubbing through their jeans. Kevin’s whole body jerks and he thrusts down hard against John, muffling the groan that slips past his lips with another kiss, lips and teeth against John’s as he tries to get closer, deeper, harder all at once.
“God. Fuck.” John’s hands rake up Kevin’s sides, tugging at his t-shirt and finding the warm skin beneath it. He slides his palms along Kevin’s flesh and Kevin barely manages to breathe, panting roughly as John touches him. “Feel so…”
Kevin shuts him up with another kiss, and holds him in it until his lungs feel like they’re going to explode from the need for air. John’s hands move back down, settling against Kevin’s hips and the waistband of his jeans and Kevin rolls off of John, looking at him as they lay side by side on the sleeping bag. “We should stop.”
“Why?” John leans in, teeth scraping Kevin’s lower lip before catching it, pulling it into his mouth and sucking on it. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”
“You’re not gay.”
“No. But I’m something.” John catches Kevin’s hand again and smoothes it over his erection, letting him feel the hardness, pressing it down against him. “Pretty sure straight guys don’t do this.” He lets Kevin’s hand go and unbuttons his jeans, moving Kevin’s hand so he can undo his fly. Kevin can’t think at all, and every logic circuit in his brain has given way to his libido. John arches off the bag and shoves his jeans and boxers down. Kevin holds his eyes for a moment and then looks down, watching as his hand touches John’s cock, watches himself stroke the hard flesh with nervous, shaking fingers. John’s whole body jerks. “God, Kevin.”
Kevin traces the head, finger easing across the wet slit before sliding down to follow the curved edge that tapers into the shaft. He wraps his hand lightly around John and strokes him, his breath rough and quick as John’s body tightens and he arches up into his touch. Kevin swallows hard and runs his hand up, catching the rounded edge of the head before moving his hand back down, shivering as John jerks hard. “Oh.”
“W-want to touch you.” John’s hand fumbles for Kevin’s fly, working to get the button and zipper undone. Kevin uses his free hand to help, unwilling to stop touching John’s silky smooth skin to use both to expedite it. “Kevin.” John manages to push his jeans out of the way, reaching past the waistband of his boxers to wrap his hand around Kevin’s cock. Kevin moans, thrusting into John’s grip. His head falls back and he responds in kind, tightening his hand around John’s shaft and stroking him in earnest.
They both stop talking then, stop everything but the movement of their hands and the hard, loud breathing they manage, both of them panting roughly with every stroke. Kevin’s eyes are barely open so John’s haloed by the beam from the flashlight and the fan of Kevin’s lashes. His body is tensed and arched and Kevin can feel the blood pulsing beneath his hand. He slides his hand up John’s shaft and rubs his thumb across the head, earning a groan from John. The sound is accompanied by the tightening of John’s fist and the hard, heavy jerk of his stroke that pushes Kevin right to the brink of orgasm.
“C’mon,” John begs, his hand stroking hard, matching the rhythm of Kevin’s. “C’mon. C’mon.”
“Yes.” Kevin nods and rolls his hips into John’s hand, striving toward the edge. “Yes.” He squeezes and John groans wordlessly, spilling hot come over Kevin’s still moving hand. Kevin’s hips jerk reflexively and he comes as well. They keep stroking, unwilling or unable to stop until they’re both shuddering masses of sensory overload and they fall apart out of self-preservation more than anything else.
They lay there for a long time, no noise but the rough edges of their breathing until it regulates, falling into patterns that make Kevin wonder if John’s drifted off to sleep. He lifts himself up on his elbow, surprised at how drained he feels and looks down at John, memorizing the lines of his face, the curve of his neck and the planes of his stomach, his shirt pushed up and his pants pushed down, affording Kevin a view of the dark hair sprinkled over John’s thighs as well as shading the base of his cock.
Words stick in Kevin’s throat, so he reaches out, his fingertips barely brushing the curve of John’s hip. John’s body jerks at the light touch and he huffs a laugh. “Ticklish.”
“Are you?” Kevin touches him again and John doesn’t move.
“Being stoned. Makes me ticklish.” John’s eyes are closed and Kevin can’t help but keep touching him, wanting to feel every inch of him. “You gonna stay here tonight?” The question catches Kevin off guard, and he pulls his hand back. “Was thinking I’d go inside, since Dad’s off on a business trip.”
“Oh. Yeah. Um.” Kevin sits up, feeling the cold wetness of his orgasm on his boxers as he pulls them back into place. “Yeah. I should probably go home.”
“I’ll see you Monday, okay? Pick you up?”
Kevin knows this stage well, the quick fade that John goes through when the joints start to wear off and all that’s left is the remnants of a buzz and the vague memories of what went on before. John loses conversations, loses time when he’s like this, and Kevin realizes, whether John’s being honest or faking it, Kevin’s the one who’s losing this time. “Yeah. I’ll see you Monday.”
John tugs up his boxers and his jeans and Kevin wonders how he can not know, how he can pretend. “Your secret’s safe with me, Kevin. I promise.”
Kevin nods and sits there until John slips out and the screen door closes behind him. “No,” Kevin whispers. “You won’t tell anyone, but nothing is safe with you.”
AUTHOR: Laura Smith
PAIRING: Kevin/OMC
RATING: R
SUMMARY: Darkness on the edge of town
DISCLAIMER: Brothers & Sisters and all the characters therein belong to people who are not me. I make no profit from this, I just like playing with them.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The character of John is from RP. This is an AU, obviously, but go with it. Thanks to inlovewithnight for the beta and for being the only person likely to care about this at all.
Kevin waits in the tent, watching the shadows fall on the olive green nylon. The square of light from the kitchen window flickers like a candle as someone walks back and forth in front, disembodied like some sort of demented puppet show. It’s summer, so the windows are open, and he can hear John’s father’s voice, muffled so he can’t distinguish the words, but the angry tone carries loud and clear.
Kevin never tells John how scared he gets at times like this. He never says a word, because when John finally escapes to the tent - when his sister and mother are safely asleep, when his dad’s either too drunk or too angry to fight anymore, or when John’s at the point where fighting him means killing him and Mr. Evans won’t go that far - he’s bruised and angry and everything in the world but scared, and Kevin knows if John’s not afraid than he has no right to be, even if he’s afraid for John.
Tonight’s fight ends earlier than normal in a sudden and almost shocking silence. Kevin creeps to the front of the tent, jerking back as the screen door slams shut. The zipper is loud in the quiet, and John closes the flap behind him, not bothering with the flashlight as he makes his way over to his sleeping bag. He doesn’t look at Kevin at all, just stares down at his hands. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Kevin nods and comes back to settle on his own sleeping bag. “Did you finish that book for English?”
“Do it on Sunday.” John digs a mangled pack of cigarettes out of the back pocket of his jeans, the cellophane crinkling. “You wanna smoke?”
“No thanks.” Kevin’s at a loss sometimes as to why John likes him. All of John’s other friends are either jocks or stoners, John bridging that outsider cool between the two. Kevin’s a geek at best, so he and John have nothing in common between being next door neighbors.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” Kevin feels the familiar heat flush his face, that embarrassment that he feels for John’s sake, for being stuck with a complete loser as a friend. They don’t really hang out at school enough for anyone to really know, but John gives him a ride home every day, which Kevin feels is probably damning enough.
“Suit yourself.” John has a Zippo lighter Kevin found in a pawnshop and bought him for his birthday. It’s got the logo of some British motorcycle company on it, which Kevin didn’t realize; he just thought it looked cool. John recognized it right off and went on about it like Kevin knew what he’d done. John plays with the lighter all the time, rubbing the spines of the flint wheel against the pad of his thumb. Kevin watches him in the darkness; his eyes acclimated to it now, until the sudden flare of light half-blinds him.
John’s face glows for a moment and Kevin stares at him. There’s something about John that arrests Kevin, especially when John catches him off guard. Kevin suspects what it is, and that scares him more than John’s father ever could.
“Are you bleeding?” Kevin asks, noticing darkness in the flare of the light.
The lighter dies, so it’s just the strange afterglow and the red pinpoint of John’s cigarette shining. “Maybe.”
“John.” Kevin moves to John’s sleeping bag and fumbles for the flashlight, setting it on the ground and shining it upward so he can see. John’s lower lip is split and red in the center, and John chases a trickle of blood in the corner of his mouth with his tongue. Even in the bad lighting, Kevin can see the bruise darkening around John’s eye. Kevin’s fingers shake slightly as he reaches out to touch the skin carefully. “He hit you.”
“He always hits me, Kevin.”
There are things they don’t talk about, and this is one of them. John’s a year older, so Kevin’s never had gym with him or seen the bruises he knows must be there, but he’s spent enough nights here in the tent, listening to John shift in the sleeping bag where the groans and whimpers of pain are telling enough. “Never there.”
“No. Not where you can see.” John takes a long hit of his cigarette and holds it, finally exhaling. Kevin breathes when he does, but his chest hurts from more than that. “Guess I pissed him off, huh?”
Kevin traces John’s cheekbone. “Are you okay?”
“We’ve had this discussion before, Walker.” There’s a slight hint of laughter in John’s voice, belied by the way he closes his eyes and leans in to Kevin’s touch. “I’m always okay.”
“No. You’re not.” Kevin’s voice is thick as he traces the black eye, biting his lower lip when John hisses in pain. “Please, John.”
“Nothing to do about it, Kevin. Besides, you know me. Complete smart-ass. Can’t keep my mouth shut.” His eyes go to Kevin’s, pleading for him to drop it.
Kevin wants to press the issue - it’s what his family does, after all - but he’s learned that John can’t work that way. He has to bottle it all up inside until it eats away at everything until he can’t take it any more. He curves his fingers around John’s cheek, his thumb stroking John’s cheekbone just below where the skin has darkened to a purplish black. “I wish you’d tell me things.” What he really wishes is that John trusted him. Kevin knows he does, at least more than he trusts anyone else, but he still feels like there are secrets John feels like he can’t share, or maybe just simply won’t. Kevin knows he has a reputation for telling secrets, but those are family secrets, not John’s. “Let me help.”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
Kevin nods, his gaze falling to John’s mouth as John leans into Kevin’s hand and closes his eyes again. Kevin can’t breathe and it’s becoming desperately clear why as he feels his cock harden, his chest hurt from how fast his heart is beating. He needs to move back to his sleeping bag and not screw up the one friendship he has in this world, but he can’t move, can’t take away what little comfort John allows him to give. Instead, he raises his other hand and traces along the edge of John’s lower lip with his thumb, swallowing hard as John’s lips part on a soft exhalation of air.
Kevin closes his eyes on the hot flash of tears and drops both his hands. John makes a soft noise that’s probably entirely involuntary, and Kevin leans in to give him an awkward hug. “It’ll be better in the morning, maybe,” Kevin says
“That’s what my mom always says.”
“Moms don’t lie.”
“Your mom doesn’t lie, Kevin.” John gives him a smile that’s so painfully sad that Kevin’s grateful for it, because it helps kill a significant portion of his erection. “Mine does. To me. To Elizabeth. To herself.” John turns off the flashlight as Kevin makes his way back to his sleeping bag and stubs out his cigarette in the small metal ashtray he stole from the bus station the first time they went scouting, researching how he might be able to run away and how far he could get. “Night.”
“Night.” Kevin zips himself into the bag, and tries not to think about all those late night horror movies John likes to watch, where the scientist or professor or whoever it is possessed by something evil tries to contain himself as best he can, even though they and the audience know the evil will easily break the chain or the straps or the zipper that might hold it in. He reminds himself it’s not evil, though it feels like it sometimes. A dirty secret you don’t admit, don’t tell, don’t have if you try hard enough.
They lay there in silence for a long time, and Kevin listens to John breathing. John always takes forever to fall asleep, like he’s afraid of the things that get loose in the night too, but for the opposite reason Kevin is. John’s afraid of them coming for him, Kevin’s afraid of being one. Eventually John’s breathing shifts into the steady rise and fall of sleep and Kevin closes his eyes and turns on his side away from John. He matches his breathing to John’s, slow and methodical until he falls asleep.
**
The sound of the zipper wakes him, and Kevin stays as still as possible. This tent is their inner sanctum and no one violates it. It takes a few moments to realize it’s the sleeping bag and not the door. “Kevin? You awake?”
“Yeah,” he whispers, turning over to find John right next to him, kneeling beside his sleeping bag. Kevin can feel the slight breeze from where John’s unzipped it, holding the corner up a little bit. “You okay?”
“Nightmare.” John shrugs it off, but there’s enough ambient light that Kevin can see the wildness in John’s eyes. “Can I climb in with you?”
Every self-preservation instinct says no, and every honest instinct says yes, so Kevin just nods, unable to say one way or the other. John smiles, wincing a little as it stretches his lower lip, and then wriggles into the sleeping bag as Kevin shifts over to the opposite edge. John’s taller than him, so Kevin’s toes brush his ankles, and he blushes, trying to move farther over. John lays on his side, one hand buried underneath the pillow as he rests his head on it, the other on his hip. Kevin imitates his pose, though he can’t close his eyes like John. He has to look at him, see him up close and unguarded.
John is beautiful, which is a word Kevin knows John would object loudly to, but it’s the only one that works. He’s got thick, dark, curly hair that he keeps trimmed short most of the time, though occasionally he lets it get too long and the curls fall over his forehead and into his eyes. His lashes are long and dark against his pale skin and he’s all arms and legs, gangly and foal-like. John’s dad wants him to play football, but John plays baseball and runs track, loping across the field or around the track like some sort of gazelle, all legs and arms and muscle. When he does smile, John’s mouth is wide and his smile is bright. When he laughs, he tilts his head back and gives himself over to it and Kevin needs to stop, needs to stop thinking and sure as hell needs to not think about John’s eyes or any other parts of him or it’s going to get very embarrassing very fast.
Kevin shifts back a little more, trying to put more distance between them, though there’s really nowhere else for him to go. John opens his eyes and looks at him, the dark brown warm and endless up close with small flecks of green that Kevin can’t see right now, but he knows are there. “You okay, Kevin?” He nods again and closes his eyes, wondering if he can will himself to sleep. He can feel John watching him, can sense more questions hanging in the air between them. He thinks maybe John will let it drop, but he tries once more. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” Kevin’s voice sounds strange to his own ears. “Yeah. ‘m okay.” He clears his throat and looks at John for a second. The sleeping bag is too warm and he’s too close. Kevin wants to run away and hide, but this is his safe place as much as it’s John’s. “I think…”
John tilts his head and offers the beginnings of a smile, something like encouragement and curiosity. Kevin wonders for a brief second if it’s a safe place because they simply don’t talk about anything that can hurt them.
The words come out in a whisper. “I think I’m gay.”
“What?” This time it’s John’s turn to try and move away, and since the zipper’s open he manages to put distance between himself and Kevin. “What did you say?”
Kevin’s chest hurts, like when an arm or a leg falls asleep and then wakes up and sharp painful tingles course through the skin. That’s how his chest feels, wave after wave of needles jabbing at him. “Nothing.”
“You think you’re a fag?”
The sensation spreads to his arms and goose bumps break out all along his skin. Tears burn at the back of his eyes and he blinks, trying to get rid of them. “I’m…I’m gonna…I’m gonna go.” He pushes the sleeping bag up as John scoots back further, putting more distance between them. The cool air hits his skin and the goose bumps get worse as he reaches for his shoes and tugs them on. He can’t look at John, but he can see the expression on John’s face in the corner of his eye - hurt and betrayal and disgust - and it’s enough to let him know that he should have kept his mouth shut.
He doesn’t say anything as he leaves the tent, hurrying across John’s lawn and through the opening in the fence that leads to the Walker back yard. His sneakers slip on the dew-slick grass and he hurries to the pool house, slipping inside and closing the door behind him. It’s not warm, but it’s not too cold so he unfolds one of the lawn chairs and lays back, tugging a couple of towels over him, shivering until he falls asleep.
**
Kevin expects it to be all over school by Monday, but no one says a word to him. Tommy didn’t bitch too much when Kevin hitched a ride in the morning, dropping him off at the entrance while he went around to park his car in the seniors’ parking lot. There’s the usual whispering in the halls, but none of it seems to touch on him. He goes to his locker and switches out books, grabbing all the stuff he needs for his first classes. He shuts his locker and stops, surprised to see John standing there. “H-hi.”
“Hi.”
Kevin shifts slightly, putting more space between them. John’s mouth turns up in a slight smirk and Kevin looks at the ground. “Don’t worry. I won’t bother you anymore. You know, here or at home.”
“Do you want a ride this afternoon?”
John’s stoner friends are down the hall, and Kevin imagines a ride home is a ride to some deserted back road and a five on one fight he wouldn’t win even if he knew how to fight. “No thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” John shrugs and walks off toward his group of buddies, falling in with them and transforming to fit in like some sort of quick-change artist. Kevin watches until he’s gone around the corner and then hurries to his class. His only talent is how he disappears, and right now he’s grateful for it as he fades into the crowd.
The pattern doesn’t change for the rest of the week, though Kevin can tell that his mother’s worried about him. She doesn’t say anything, but she looks at him and then out the kitchen window towards John’s house. Kevin knows she says something to Tommy though, because Tommy still hasn’t complained about having to take Kevin to school, and he hasn’t said a word on the drive about why Kevin’s not riding with John anymore. Tommy probably assumes John just realized how completely un-cool Kevin is and told him to find his own ride, and Tommy’s stuck, given that he’s related to Kevin, but at least that gives him an excuse as well.
Kevin walks home though, which he kind of likes. It’s infinitely preferable to listening to Tommy and his friends talk about girls and football and sex, jammed in the back seat between two linebackers who forget he’s even there. Friday afternoon, he’s almost halfway home when John’s beat-up Chevy pulls off the road, angled just in front of Kevin. John’s alone and he leans across the seat and rolls down the window. “Get in.”
“I don’t want a ride.”
“Get the fuck in the car, Kevin.” He shoves the door open and glares at him, and Kevin swallows hard. It’s not like it’s hard for John to find him, so maybe when the odds are closer to even it’s just better to get it over with. Of course, there’s nothing to say that John’s friends aren’t hanging out somewhere, getting stoned and waiting for John to bring him along like a lamb to slaughter.
“Okay.” He climbs in the car and shuts the door, settling his backpack between his feet. John waits until he’s buckled in to pull back onto the road and his knuckles are white from how tight he’s gripping the steering wheel. There’s Bruce Springsteen coming from the speakers, but then, there always is in John’s car. John has tapes scattered all around the car, but the Springsteen ones have a place of honor in the glove box along with John’s stash of joints and a box of condoms. “Why do you have other tapes in here?”
“What?” John jerks and glances at Kevin for an instant before looking away. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you’ve got all these other bands.” Kevin picks a few cassettes from the console between the seats. “Ozzy Osbourne. Motley Crue. I don’t get why you have them in the car, because you only ever listen to Springsteen.”
“You want to listen to something else?” There’s pure confusion in John’s voice and Kevin wants to smile at the innocence of it. “I mean, other than Bruce?”
“No.” Kevin sets the tapes back down and looks down at his hands so he won’t focus on John’s profile, won’t look at him at all. “Bruce is fine.”
“Did you do your report in English?” English is the one class they share because Kevin’s in advanced placement English, which means he sits in with the juniors instead of the sophomores. “Catcher in the Rye?”
“Yeah. You?” Kevin tightens his hand around the strap of his backpack, rubbing his thumb over the canvas.
“Yeah. I suppose it’s a stereotype to say I identify with this guy, right?” John laughs and the sound is bitter and sharp. “I guess we all do to some extent. I mean, teenagers are just a mess, right?”
“I guess. Yeah.” Kevin sees John nod out of the corner of his eye. Turning his head, he looks out the window and watches the buildings go by. “Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you home.”
“You don’t have to lie.” The feeling is back, that same sensation of needles puncturing his skin, his organs. Pain echoing and flaring sharp in his shoulders. “I know your friends are out here somewhere.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Kevin?”
He shrugs and brings his left hand up to his right shoulder, trying to massage the feeling away. “It’s okay.”
“You think I’m taking you out to get beaten up or something?” John looks over at him and his brow is furrowed and he looks angry. “Is that what you think?”
“Aren’t you?”
“First off all, even if that were the case, Kevin? It’s not ‘okay’ that I do that. And secondly, I’m not taking you anywhere but home.” He unclenches his hands on the steering wheel and then tightens them again. “Is that what you think, really? That I’m going to drag you off somewhere and let a bunch of buddies beat the shit out of you?”
Kevin shrugs, his hand still rubbing his shoulder. “Aren’t you?”
“I told you I wasn’t. Jesus.” John pulls into a fast food joint and parks the car, turning to face Kevin. “Why would you think I’d do that?”
He shrugs again, the feeling burning in his chest. “Because I’m gay.”
“You think I’d beat you up for that?”
Kevin laughs softly, sadly. “You say it like it doesn’t happen.”
“Well, yeah. It happens. But I don’t do it.” John rubs his hand across his mouth. “I promise, I’m not taking you out to get beaten up or anything like that. I thought we’d get a hamburger in the drive-through and then I’d take you home. Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.” The feeling subsides slightly and he makes sure to keep his eyes on his backpack, not on John. He can feel John’s stare, but he refuses to look up and meet his eyes. “You need some money?”
“No.” John starts the car and backs out, pulling into the drive through. He orders a meal for both of them, though Kevin knows John will end up eating most of it. He looks half-starved half the time, his body metabolizing food faster than he can eat it, and Kevin knows he has a family dinner to make it through, and if he doesn’t eat his mother will corner him to find out why. Kevin picks at his cheeseburger, watching John shove multiple fries in his mouth and then suck the salt from his fingers. “So, look…about…”
“Don’t worry.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry.” Kevin shrugs. “I get it, okay? You don’t have to make a big speech or anything. Just…you know, I appreciate that you haven’t told anyone, and I hope you won’t, but…”
“Quit it.”
Kevin frowns at him. “Quit what?”
“Assuming you have any clue what I’m going to say.” John takes a long drink from his Coke and then rubs a napkin across his mouth. “Because you don’t, and you’ve been wrong every time so far, so just quit it.” Kevin nods and takes a bite of his burger. John watches him for a moment then continues. “So about this weekend. Are you doing anything?”
“No.”
“So we’re on for tonight?”
“On?” Kevin’s brow furrows harder, and he can feel the tension tightening like a band around his forehead. “On what?”
“For tonight. Tent. Our Friday night ritual.”
“You want me to come over tonight?”
“Um, yeah.” John shrugs and eats another handful of fries. “Like always.”
“Really?”
“God, Kevin, are you going to question everything I say?” John tosses a fry at him and rolls his eyes. “Just because you’re going to be a lawyer doesn’t mean you have to act like one all the time.” John drives for a while in silence and then looks over at him. “So, are you?”
“Yeah.” Kevin smiles and nods, relaxing back against his seat. “Yeah. I’ll be there.”
**
Kevin zips up the tent door as he climbs in, surprised that John’s already there. Normally John doesn’t show up until later, either sneaking or slamming out the back door. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Where’s your Dad?”
“Out with Mom. It’s their anniversary.” John’s sitting cross-legged on his sleeping bag, ashtray beside him. There’s an envelope beside it and John digs a joint out as Kevin sits across from him. “You want?”
“No.” John asks every time and Kevin refuses every time, even though he knows he still gets high from John’s smoke. John shrugs and lights the joint, the slightly oily smell of the lighter replaced by the sickly sweet smell of pot. John inhales deeply and holds it, tilting his head back and swallowing before he exhales. Kevin watches the motion of his throat and then looks down at his hands, twisting his fingers together. “So…”
“So.” John smiles at him, slow and lazy, and Kevin’s pretty sure this isn’t the first joint he’s had. “I have a question.”
Kevin swallows as well. “Okay.”
“Last week you said you thought you were gay. Today you said you were. Why’d that change?”
“It was just semantics.” Kevin shifts uncomfortably on the sleeping bag and he wants to climb inside and zip himself up, not let anything out. “Nothing’s changed.”
“You went from thinking to knowing. Something changed.” John takes another hit and holds it and Kevin finds himself holding his own breath until John exhales. It’s a habit he’s fallen into, and he knows he should stop. He should stop a lot of things. “Was it saying it out loud?”
“It wasn’t anything, John.” It was saying it to him, to the only person whose opinion actually mattered, if Kevin’s honest, which he can’t be. The sheer physical want that came in the instant of confession - wanting John to understand, to accept, to want in return - made it all clear, so stunningly and painfully clear. “Just words.”
John takes another hit from the joint and leans back a little, his shirt making a slick sound against the tent. “But you are.”
“Yeah.” Kevin’s chest feels tight again, and he keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop. He feels like he did when Sarah, whom he idolized, came up to him when he was five and told him that she didn’t want him to be a boy, so she was just going to pretend he didn’t exist, and then proceeded to ignore him for two months. “I am.”
“How do you know?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, is it just that you look at guys and get a hard on? Or what?”
“No. I mean, well.” He can feel the blush and ducks his head. “It’s not just about that. I mean, that’s part of it, but…well, I feel different. I feel like I don’t fit.”
“Jesus, Kevin. That’s being a teenager. Didn’t you read that dumb book?” John laughs and takes another hit, dragging on the joint until it’s nothing but a red flare, burning through the paper like a wildfire. “None of us fit in.”
“It’s different.”
“How?”
Kevin doesn’t know the words to explain it, and he wants to just pass it off the way parents do when they don’t know - because it is, because I said so - but John’s looking at him so seriously, so intent, like he’s actually trying to understand. “It’s not about not fitting in with my family or with other kids. It’s not about feeling disenfranchised. It’s about not fitting into society. Like…you feel guilty because you don’t get all the things you’re supposed to. You don’t feel things the way people tell you you’re supposed to feel. You don’t match those people on TV, and not in the way you’re not like the people on 90210. I mean, you see teenagers on TV or in the movies, and the guys are looking for their older brother’s stash of porn, right? Or they’re trying to watch porn movies on the scrambled channels, right?”
“Yeah.” John’s cheeks are slightly pink and Kevin looks away, surprised at how much the thought of John being one of those guys hurts. “We all do that.”
“No, John. We don’t.” Kevin rubs his forehead with two fingers, trying to rub the beginnings of the headache pot always gives him away. “Straight guys do. I don’t. I don’t care about the things that make all of you teenage guys. I don’t care about getting laid or getting to feel up the head cheerleader’s boobs. I don’t want to peek into the girls’ locker room and see what kind of bras and panties they’re wearing. I don’t want to go to the high school dance and that’s the truth, not a lie I give when I don’t have a date. I don’t daydream about Playboy Bunnies, and I don’t want to watch two girls getting each other off. I want different things. Different…things.”
“Like what?”
“Guys.” It’s the easiest explanation and the one that doesn’t really explain anything at all. People think ‘gay’ and they think you’re a guy who wants to sleep with guys. That’s all it is to them, that’s all it means. “I think about guys. I want guys.”
“Guys turn you on.” John kills the joint and digs another one out, and Kevin turns his head away, closing his eyes against the heat burning them. There’s a long pause and the crisp sound of paper burning. “Do I?”
“Don’t ask me that.” The tears have slid down, burning Kevin’s throat. “If I matter to you at all, if I’m your friend, please don’t ask me that.”
“So I do.” John doesn’t say anything for a long time. “Okay. That’s kind of flattering.”
“I need to go.” Kevin gets to his feet to leave, but John’s quicker than he has a right to be and grabs his wrist. “Let me go, John.”
“We’re talking.”
“No. We’re not. You’re just…” He shakes his head and fights the thickness in his throat, tears congealed and choking him. “You’re the only friend I have, and now I don’t have that. Okay? Because now it’s all fucked up, and I did it, I know I did it, and I can’t undo it, and you’re not making it easier. You think it’s flattering that I have to work at not looking at you when we’re hanging out together? You think it’s flattering that I get a hard on when I’m trying to comfort you when your dad beats you up? You think any of that is flattering, John? No. It’s sick. Sick and sad and that’s what I am. I wish I could take it back, okay? I wish I could just take it all back and keep my mouth shut. So let me go.”
“I’m your friend. That’s why you told me.”
“I’m an idiot, that’s why I told you.” He wrenches his hand free and unzips the tent and slips out. “I’ll see you in school.”
**
Kevin walks out of the house and John’s sitting there in his Chevy, Springsteen loud enough to be heard through the closed doors and windows. Tommy’s car is already pulling out of the driveway, so if Kevin wants to get to school on time he’s riding with John. Opening the door, he slings his backpack in and climbs in, slamming the door shut. John winces since he’s disproportionately fond of his car and then manages a smile. “Hey.”
“Why are you here?”
“It’s Monday. There’s school.” He shrugs and turns the engine over, humming along with Thunder Road. Kevin folds his arms over his chest and stares out the side window, not looking at John at all. Bruce is the only thing that fills the silence on the ride and Kevin’s out of the car before John’s even fully parked. “You’re going to hurt yourself that way, Walker.”
Kevin flips him off and hurries into the building, putting as much distance as he can before John gets out and uses his long legs to catch up with him. He doesn’t have anything to worry about, since he hears John start talking to some of his friends that Kevin passes on the way in, and so he walks the rest of the way to his locker, taking the time to catch his breath.
He spends the rest of the day avoiding John until fifth period English where he can’t manage it. John’s already in his desk by the time Kevin gets there from the physics lab across the school, and there aren’t many desks left. Kevin sits next to him and opens his book, doing his best to ignore John completely.
“So, are you going to meet me in the parking lot after school or am I going to have to try to run you down on the side of the road again?” John talks softly, under his breath so no one else can hear them. Their teacher, Mrs. Gunderson, is notoriously late for class, so Kevin knows he can’t get away without answering.
“I don’t need a ride home.”
“Do you have a ride home?”
“No.”
“Then you need a ride home. Meet me in the parking lot.” He leans back in his chair as Mrs. Gunderson comes in, and opens his book as well. Kevin gives him a look that he hopes conveys that John is go gin to be waiting until hell freezes over for Kevin to show up, but given that John’s not looking at him, Kevin’s pretty sure all he’s doing is looking stupid.
There’s a surprise quiz, so there isn’t any more talking, and Kevin keeps his eyes on his paper so that he won’t be tempted to glance at John. John, for his part, leans forward so Kevin can’t help but see him out of the corner of his eye, chewing on the end of his pencil. Afterwards, as they file out, John grabs his wrist and pulls him back, keeping Kevin from leaving the room.
“I mean it, Kevin. Meet me in the parking lot. You think we can’t be friends anymore, but you’re wrong, and I’m going to prove it to you.” He smiles widely, his dark eyes bright. “Whether you like it or not. Got it?”
Kevin nods. “Yeah.”
“Good. I’ll see you then.”
**
The week progresses just the same. Silent rides that feel vaguely threatening to and from school with brief interludes of homework discussions. On Friday, John stops at the McDonalds and glances over at Kevin. “Okay, look. This is weird.”
“It’s not weird. It’s stupid. You don’t have to give me rides.” Kevin wants out of the car. His skin feels like it’s on fire when he’s around John now, and every glance over seems to be met with one of John’s own. He feels like he’s being tortured somehow, driven slightly mad.
“We should skip school.”
“We can’t skip school.”
“Sure we can.” John turns in his seat and rests his elbow next to his headrest, his fingers resting on the back of Kevin’s seat next to his head. “We just don’t go.”
“Where would we go instead?”
“It doesn’t matter where you go, so long as it isn’t school.” John starts the car and pulls out, turning onto the road in the opposite direction of the school. “What do you think? Museum? Mall? Beach?”
“I want to go to school, John.”
“No. You don’t. Trust me.” John heads to the west, hitting the freeway toward the beach. “You’re going to be a lawyer, so you’ll have plenty more opportunities to go to school. You’ll be in school until the prime of your life is over, Walker. Just trust me this once, okay?”
“What are we going to do at the beach?”
“Do you need an itinerary, Kevin? Come on. It’s the beach. We’ll lay in the sun. We’ll go in the water. If we find a couple of hot girls, we’ll steal their surfboards and impress them. We’ll build fucking sandcastles. We’ll people watch. We won’t be at school. See, that last thing? That’s sort of the whole point.”
“I want to go to school.”
“You want to go and spend half your day listening to a bunch of jerks yell for a bunch of jocks? You want to go and watch cheerleaders bounce around in their short skirts and try to figure out which ones are wearing bras?”
“I want to do that about as much as I want to find a couple of hot girls on the beach.”
“Fine then. You can look at all the hot surfer dudes.” John snaps and Kevin shuts up, folding his arms over his chest. Blowing out a breath, John slams his hand against the steering wheel. “Look, I’m trying, okay? I’m trying to be your friend again, to show you it doesn’t matter. We’re friends. No one ever said it was conditional. So just…just shut up and go along with it.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.” John reaches out and twists the radio dial, turning the music up. Nothing feels comfortable and finally Kevin grabs his backpack and throws it in the back of the car and stretches his legs out. John glances over at him and then back at the road. “Have you told anyone else?”
“Because this has gone so well?”
“Quit being a dick.” John snaps. “Jesus, it was just a question. I’m not fucking attacking you.”
Kevin’s quiet for a long time until they settle onto the highway, riding along the cliffs. Kevin stares out at the water, watching it change color from blue to white and everything in between. “No.”
“We can still be friends if you let us.”
“I don’t know how.”
“How to let us or how to be friends?” John’s voice reminds Kevin of when he talks to his little sister, Elizabeth, trying to calm her down after their parents have had a fight. Taming a wild animal, John calls it, talking her down.
“Either. Both.” Kevin rubs the knee of his jeans with his thumb. “It’s there in the middle, you know? Not just what I am but that…well, that I look at you. Or have. In the past.”
“I don’t care that you’re gay. It doesn’t change who you are. I mean, you’re still the same guy I was hanging out with for the past…what? Six years or so? I mean, you were gay then too, even if you didn’t know it yet, right? I mean, it’s not like you suddenly became gay. It wasn’t like you woke up one morning and decided girls weren’t for you, right?”
“Right. I guess. Yeah.”
“So, see?” John smiles as if he’s solved the problem and Kevin can’t help but smile in answer. “We can still be friends. As for the other…well…The way I see it, I mean, I see a girl that I like, even as a friend, I still try and picture her naked. Doesn’t mean I do anything about it. We’re teenagers.”
“Yeah, but you don’t tell the girl that you pictured her naked.”
“But she knows.”
“But you don’t tell her.”
“She still knows, Kevin. So basically all you did is confirm that gay guys do the same thing straight guys do. You see someone and you picture them naked.” John taps the steering wheel with his thumbs in time to the music. “So how did you know?”
“Know I was gay?”
“No. How did you know that you wanted to be a lawyer. Yes, how did you know you were gay. Jesus, what are we talking about here?”
“Okay. Okay.” Kevin laughs as John pulls off into the paved parking lot and stops the car. There’s hardly anyone parked there, just a few dedicated surfer vans, braving the overcast day and wind. “How did you know you were straight?”
“I don’t know. I just was. Am.”
“Right.” Kevin turns to face John, his knee against the back of his seat and his head against the headrest. “You just started noticing girls, right? I mean, you were minding your own business when hormones kicked in and suddenly you saw a girl and got a hard on.”
“Yeah, I guess. Roughly.”
“Well, it’s the same for me. I started looking around when I hit puberty and the girls didn’t do anything for me. I mean, I could appreciate if they were pretty or not, but that was about the extent of it. Even Tommy’s porn magazines didn’t do anything for me. And then one day I was at this Ojai picnic, right? Big family thing with all the workers and everything, and I look over and there’s this guy, Diego. He’s the son of the head truck driver. He’s in his mid-twenties and he’s playing volleyball and he takes off his shirt. His girlfriend and a bunch of the other girls sort of swoon, acting it up and all the guys start giving him a hard time, and all I can think about is that I’m not going to be able to stand up for the rest of the afternoon, because I’ve got a raging hard on.”
“Diego, huh?”
“And then, remember how you said when you first noticed girls it was like suddenly they were everywhere? It was the same. Suddenly there were half-naked guys everywhere. Hot guys. Not so hot guys. Every guy was suddenly judged on this whole new scale of what he did to me, how he affected me. I mean, I tried not to think about it, but then…well, then at night when I went to bed, it was suddenly all I could think about.”
“You jerk off to guys? I mean, thinking about them?” Heat suffuses Kevin’s face as their conversation comes home to him, and he shuts his mouth, pressing his lips together. John laughs softly. “Dude. Come on. Did you not think I’d make that logical leap there? I’m not brilliant, but I’m not stupid.”
“It’s just…”
“Hey, I talk to you about girls, right?”
“Well, yeah. But I’m not one.” Kevin bites his lower lip and then sighs. “It’s different, you know? Like…well, if I told you I had the hots for your sister.”
“You’re gay.”
“Yeah, well, pretend for a minute I’m not and I came to you and told you I had a thing for Elizabeth. You’d freak out, right? Because you don’t want to think about me doing stuff to your sister.”
“No. No one is allowed to do stuff to my sister.”
“Right. So…I mean, it’s sort of like that. Just like you don’t want to think about some guy jerking off to Elizabeth…”
“Stop saying that, okay?”
“I don’t want you to think about me jerking off to some guy.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s weird.”
“Why?”
Kevin blows out an exasperated breath. “It just is.”
“Because I’m a guy.”
“Yes.”
“So it’s like I’m your brother.”
“No.”
“It’s like…other guys are my brother.”
“Right.”
“But not me.”
“You can’t be your own brother unless you fuck around with the space/time continuum.”
“No, I mean…you do think about me. Right?”
“We’re not talking about you.” Heat burns at Kevin’s cheeks and the tips of his ears. “If you want to be friends like you say you do, we’re not talking about you. We’re never talking about you. We’re never ever talking about you in conjunction with what I do or do not think about when I jerk off at night. It’s off limits. In fact, I think the subject of jerking off is off limits no matter who or what we’re talking about. Deal?”
“Okay.” John pulls the keys from the engine. “You want to go hang out for a while? Then we’ll get lunch and go see a movie or something?”
“Sure.”
“And no more questions about jerking off.”
“Ever,” Kevin warns.
John smiles. “Ever.”
**
Eight hours later, they’re holed up in the tent with a bowl of popcorn courtesy of Kevin’s mom and a bag of joints courtesy of John’s friend, Rico. John’s already had two and his shoulder is warm against Kevin’s. “C’n I ask you a question?”
Kevin nods, his eyes closed. He’s relaxed enough that John’s smoke isn’t bothering him, and the warmth and closeness actually feels better than he knows he should let it. “Sure.”
“Would you really take it back? Telling me?”
“Hmm.” Kevin turns his head slightly and watches John take a long hit off the joint. His eyes feel heavy. His whole body feels heavy. “Maybe?”
John nods, not willing to exhale the smoke just yet. “You ever done anything with a guy?”
“Have you ever done anything with a girl?”
John laughs, the smoke dribbling out between his lips. “Fuck, no. Tried once and got slapped for the trouble.” He turns his head and looks at Kevin. “Your turn.”
“No.” John takes another deep lungful of smoke and holds it, not looking away from Kevin. Heat coils in Kevin’s stomach and lower, tightening his cock, pumping blood southward. John’s eyes fall to Kevin’s mouth and Kevin licks his lips, swallowing hard. “John…”
John shakes his head and leans in, closing the short distance between them. Kevin’s heart beats in overdrive, pounding in his chest as John’s mouth closes over his, his tongue pushing past Kevin’s lips. He tastes like smoke and ash and heat and Kevin makes a noise he can’t help. John doesn’t move and doesn’t push the kiss further, just stays there, mouth molded to Kevin’s until neither of them can breathe and they break apart. “This,” John says, holding up the joint, “is some very good stuff.”
“Don’t do that.” Kevin’s voice is thick, and not from the smoke. “Please.”
“What?” John stubs out the nub of the joint and leans back against the tent, turned to face Kevin. He reaches out and touches Kevin’s lower lip, rubbing it softly as he looks at him with half-closed eyes.
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“Oh, Kevin. ‘m not.” John leans in again, slowly so that Kevin can stop him if he wants to, so that the intent is clear. “Couldn’t make fun of you if I tried.” His mouth is warm against Kevin’s, just lips against lips until John’s tongue snakes out and runs against the seam of Kevin’s, parting them just enough for it to slide through. It’s slow and soft and Kevin closes his eyes tight, not wanting it to end. He reaches out, his fingers grazing John’s t-shirt, scratching at the material. John makes a soft noise and slides his hand to the back of Kevin’s head and deepens the kiss, holding him close.
“John.” Kevin half moans the word, overwhelmed with sensation and need. His hand fists in John’s shirt and he’s caught between pushing him away and pulling him closer.
“Taste good,” John murmurs against Kevin’s lips. “Butter and salt.”
“You’re stoned,” Kevin whispers softly, pushing him back and holding him at bay. “Don’t do this because you’re stoned.”
“Not making me do it,” John assures him with another kiss, his hand at the base of Kevin’s neck pulling him forward. “Letting me. C’mon, Kevin. Want to make you feel good.”
Another noise escapes Kevin and he gives into the kiss. He knows he shouldn’t. He knows that he doesn’t want this to be about gratitude for being John’s friend or anything else, but it feels so good, feels so right that he can’t help but press his tongue against John’s, stroking and tangling them together. It doesn’t feel anything like he imagined it would, but it’s better and he wants more. Perspiration beads on his skin as he shifts closer to John, nuzzling at his mouth between kisses that seem to get longer and deeper each time their lips meet.
“God,” John gasps against Kevin’s mouth, his breath hot and rough. He reaches for Kevin’s hand, untangling it from his now-wrinkled shirt and pushes it down, letting Kevin feel the hard bulge of his cock. “God, Kevin.”
Kevin shudders and moves in, kissing John hard and pushing him back down onto the sleeping bag, bracing himself over him. John goes willingly, his hands sliding to Kevin’s hips and pulling him down against John’s body so their cocks are rubbing through their jeans. Kevin’s whole body jerks and he thrusts down hard against John, muffling the groan that slips past his lips with another kiss, lips and teeth against John’s as he tries to get closer, deeper, harder all at once.
“God. Fuck.” John’s hands rake up Kevin’s sides, tugging at his t-shirt and finding the warm skin beneath it. He slides his palms along Kevin’s flesh and Kevin barely manages to breathe, panting roughly as John touches him. “Feel so…”
Kevin shuts him up with another kiss, and holds him in it until his lungs feel like they’re going to explode from the need for air. John’s hands move back down, settling against Kevin’s hips and the waistband of his jeans and Kevin rolls off of John, looking at him as they lay side by side on the sleeping bag. “We should stop.”
“Why?” John leans in, teeth scraping Kevin’s lower lip before catching it, pulling it into his mouth and sucking on it. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”
“You’re not gay.”
“No. But I’m something.” John catches Kevin’s hand again and smoothes it over his erection, letting him feel the hardness, pressing it down against him. “Pretty sure straight guys don’t do this.” He lets Kevin’s hand go and unbuttons his jeans, moving Kevin’s hand so he can undo his fly. Kevin can’t think at all, and every logic circuit in his brain has given way to his libido. John arches off the bag and shoves his jeans and boxers down. Kevin holds his eyes for a moment and then looks down, watching as his hand touches John’s cock, watches himself stroke the hard flesh with nervous, shaking fingers. John’s whole body jerks. “God, Kevin.”
Kevin traces the head, finger easing across the wet slit before sliding down to follow the curved edge that tapers into the shaft. He wraps his hand lightly around John and strokes him, his breath rough and quick as John’s body tightens and he arches up into his touch. Kevin swallows hard and runs his hand up, catching the rounded edge of the head before moving his hand back down, shivering as John jerks hard. “Oh.”
“W-want to touch you.” John’s hand fumbles for Kevin’s fly, working to get the button and zipper undone. Kevin uses his free hand to help, unwilling to stop touching John’s silky smooth skin to use both to expedite it. “Kevin.” John manages to push his jeans out of the way, reaching past the waistband of his boxers to wrap his hand around Kevin’s cock. Kevin moans, thrusting into John’s grip. His head falls back and he responds in kind, tightening his hand around John’s shaft and stroking him in earnest.
They both stop talking then, stop everything but the movement of their hands and the hard, loud breathing they manage, both of them panting roughly with every stroke. Kevin’s eyes are barely open so John’s haloed by the beam from the flashlight and the fan of Kevin’s lashes. His body is tensed and arched and Kevin can feel the blood pulsing beneath his hand. He slides his hand up John’s shaft and rubs his thumb across the head, earning a groan from John. The sound is accompanied by the tightening of John’s fist and the hard, heavy jerk of his stroke that pushes Kevin right to the brink of orgasm.
“C’mon,” John begs, his hand stroking hard, matching the rhythm of Kevin’s. “C’mon. C’mon.”
“Yes.” Kevin nods and rolls his hips into John’s hand, striving toward the edge. “Yes.” He squeezes and John groans wordlessly, spilling hot come over Kevin’s still moving hand. Kevin’s hips jerk reflexively and he comes as well. They keep stroking, unwilling or unable to stop until they’re both shuddering masses of sensory overload and they fall apart out of self-preservation more than anything else.
They lay there for a long time, no noise but the rough edges of their breathing until it regulates, falling into patterns that make Kevin wonder if John’s drifted off to sleep. He lifts himself up on his elbow, surprised at how drained he feels and looks down at John, memorizing the lines of his face, the curve of his neck and the planes of his stomach, his shirt pushed up and his pants pushed down, affording Kevin a view of the dark hair sprinkled over John’s thighs as well as shading the base of his cock.
Words stick in Kevin’s throat, so he reaches out, his fingertips barely brushing the curve of John’s hip. John’s body jerks at the light touch and he huffs a laugh. “Ticklish.”
“Are you?” Kevin touches him again and John doesn’t move.
“Being stoned. Makes me ticklish.” John’s eyes are closed and Kevin can’t help but keep touching him, wanting to feel every inch of him. “You gonna stay here tonight?” The question catches Kevin off guard, and he pulls his hand back. “Was thinking I’d go inside, since Dad’s off on a business trip.”
“Oh. Yeah. Um.” Kevin sits up, feeling the cold wetness of his orgasm on his boxers as he pulls them back into place. “Yeah. I should probably go home.”
“I’ll see you Monday, okay? Pick you up?”
Kevin knows this stage well, the quick fade that John goes through when the joints start to wear off and all that’s left is the remnants of a buzz and the vague memories of what went on before. John loses conversations, loses time when he’s like this, and Kevin realizes, whether John’s being honest or faking it, Kevin’s the one who’s losing this time. “Yeah. I’ll see you Monday.”
John tugs up his boxers and his jeans and Kevin wonders how he can not know, how he can pretend. “Your secret’s safe with me, Kevin. I promise.”
Kevin nods and sits there until John slips out and the screen door closes behind him. “No,” Kevin whispers. “You won’t tell anyone, but nothing is safe with you.”