Fic: Masking.
Masking
FOB, Pete Wentz/Original Character. PG-13 for kissing and cursing.
This story involves a romance between two people of disparate ages, and includes a character who is quite young. Read at your moral peril! This is the boot camp story I mentioned in my WIP post; I'm just dumping it here to get it out of my head for the time being. Unbeta'ed, potentially riddled with mistakes. I yearn to disclaim at length, but all I'll say is that this is very close to being original fic, as the canon is sketchy on what happened with Pete and boot camp. He was 14, it was in New Hampshire, it is usually described as "tough love" camp. Kind and cruel comments both welcome.
-----
"We don't know what to do," his mom says, "There's nothing else we can do, Peter, you--"
There's nothing Pete can do, either. They've already put down the deposit, already signed the waivers. Pete throws a kitchen chair across the room, anyway, because he wants to, and now he can. He's a bad kid, now. Officially. His mom winces and puts her hands up to protect her face, even though the chair wasn't anywhere near her, even though it hit the radiator next to the fridge.
Pete wants to scream, so he does. He puts his hands over his ears and screams as loud as he can. His dad's mouth shapes Peter, that's enough, familiar enough that Pete can read his lips without even trying.
"It's not enough!" Pete kicks over another chair. He runs out of the room, past his brother in front of the television, dodging around his sister on the staircase. They stare after him, but he doesn't tell them anything. They wouldn't understand.
He skipped school. That's all Pete did. He's skipped too much school, and now they're sending him off to boot camp. Pete slams his bedroom door and punches it until paint flakes off, then collapses on his bed and screams into his pillow.
An hour later, his mom taps on his door. Pete doesn't answer, and she doesn't come in. "Pete," she says, muffled by the door. "You'll have to pack. It's eight weeks." Pete rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling.
He falls asleep that way, shoes and jeans still on. When he wakes up in the morning, his shoes are off and there's a blanket draped over him, but his jeans have left red marks on his skin. He strips them off, dumps them at the side of the bed, and sits there, contemplating his knees.
---
He leaves packing until the night before he leaves. He stuffs jeans and a bunch of t-shirts and socks and underwear into his soccer kit. He puts in his toothbrush, and deodorant. He's taking his poster of R.E.M. down off the wall when his mom knocks softly.
"Yeah?"
"I'll wake you at eight," she says, hovering in the doorway. She looks at his hands where they're curled around the rolled-up poster, and at his luggage.
"What?"
"They'll--they'll give you most of your clothes," she says, flushing red. "And you. They don't let you have posters."
"Fuck you," Pete says, and she flinches. "I hate you." He rips the poster in half and leaves the pieces on his floor.
---
Pete's roommate is named Andrew J. Cherry.
"Hey," Pete says, when he first gets there, "I'm your new roomie, I guess."
"Roomie?" Andrew snorts, and when Pete says, "hey, what--" Andrew spits in Pete's face. The spit slides down the side of Pete's nose and around his mouth. Pete just stands there. Andrew laughs and climbs up onto his bed, the top bunk. "Welcome to the good life," he says, and Pete finally wipes at his face with his t-shirt sleeve.
The room is off-white concrete blocks. Pete has three drawers in a heavy wooden bureau, the bottom bunk of a bolted-down metal bunkbed, and his bags. He's not allowed to receive gifts of any kind, the woman had said, just letters once a week. The window in their room looks out on the parking lot.
"You're a fucking dick," Pete says, but Andrew doesn't say anything back. Pete puts his bags down on the lower bunk, sits on the edge of his bed and fights back tears. His roommate just spat in his face, and Pete didn't even punch him. His teammates wouldn't believe it if they heard.
"What's that smell?" Andrew asks, and Pete breathes in.
"Jesus!" Andrew starts laughing. The fart smells like hot dogs and cabbage. Pete gags and covers his face with his pillow, which smells like linty fake flowers.
They wake up every morning at six. Lights go out at nine. That first night, Pete curls up on his side with his hands tucked in between his knees and thinks of all the names he could call his parents, just so he won't cry.
Andrew snores like a dying elephant.
---
Pete's groggy when he wakes up, and only Andrew flinging a shoe at his head gets him up in time to line up. Pete forgets to make his bed, so the guard -- they call themselves counselors, but they're clearly guards -- calls him princess for the rest of the morning exercises.
Andrew smirks at him the entire time.
After breakfast -- watery eggs, thin bitter orange juice -- they have the first session of physical exercises. The guard tells Pete he's not doing jumping jacks right. Pete's been doing jumping jacks since he started soccer. He knows how to do them. "Fuck that," he says to the guy's back.
Apparently it's sixty sit-ups for a curse word. "59, 60," Pete chants, and collapses back onto the ground. "Jesus fuck."
"Another sixty, Wentz," the guard says, and Pete manages a grin.
"1, 2-"
At least he'll get good abs out of the deal.
---
Pete finds out in that first week that no one will ever tell him he's doing it right. He beats everyone during the five mile morning run, and they make him run laps until the last runner comes in. He manages ten pull-ups and the guard timing them tells him he's got too much pride. He does the rope course in good time, and they tell him he needs to work on his team skills.
He can't sleep. He's run out of names to call his parents. Now he just thinks up stories that have nothing to do with home.
Dear Peter:
Today at work I didn't get a whole lot done, but it's going well in general. I spoke with Janice, and she asked after you and sent her best wishes. I'm planning on putting rose bushes in the front yard, and your father has been clearing some of the underbrush for me. He complains about it, of course, you know how he is.
We miss you. I'm looking forward to having you home again. I think the soccer team--
Pete puts the letter down on his bed. Five minutes until their free period is over. Pete laces his fingers behind his head and stares up at the bottom of Andrew's bunk instead.
---
Pete doesn't understand how Andrew can jerk off in a room with someone else. Andrew's not subtle; he makes these stupid grunty noises when he's close. Pete can't bring himself to do it. He's too used to having his own bedroom. It sucks, because he only really discovered it a couple of weeks ago.
He wishes he could ask Andrew to shut the fuck up. He wishes he could at least ask Andrew to give him some pointers, but Pete's pretty sure asking that would only get him another spit shower. Pete really hates spit showers.
---
Pete spots this interesting guy during the second week. The guy is smoking out on the patio by the hallway, one hand braced on his hip, fingertips dipping underneath the waistband of his regulation pants. Pete's in a line of kids being marched to the cafeteria, and he only catches a glimpse of the guy, sleek cornrows and sleepy eyes. Pete wants to break out of the line, wants to go talk to him, but he can't. He turns around instead, watching and walking backwards, and gets thirty pushups and no dessert for his trouble. It's okay, though. His arms look jacked after that, and the dessert was just more fucking canned-peach pie.
---
Pete sees the guy again during the five mile run the next morning. He runs unbelievably slowly, which is why Pete didn't see him before, probably. There's a guard with him, chugging along at his side. Pete slows down so he can listen to them chat.
The guard is actually friendly with the guy, it sounds like. Pete hears the guy asking after the guard's kids. His kids. Ass-kisser, Pete decides, and goes back to his usual pace.
"I suppose you might think that winning means you can get away with anything," Mr. Dickface says, when Pete crosses the finish line first.
"It's true," Pete says back, as sarcastic as he can, and goes to do his laps.
---
Pete can't ask a guard, and he obviously can't talk to the guy himself, so Pete has to find out who the guy is from people in his quad. It takes Pete forever, since some of the kids don't like him for some reason, and they all think he's a fag for asking.
Eventually, though, Pete finds out that the guy's name is Jamie. Jamie gets to smoke outside at least twice a day, from what Pete's seen, but no one knows why. He's trying to get clean, supposedly. Off of, like, actual serious drugs. Lanie tells him that she heard from Sean who heard from Barry who's on speaking terms with one of the guards that Jamie's from New Jersey, and he's a last-chance case.
Most of the important stuff Pete picks up just from watching. They have art period together; Pete didn't see Jamie before because he was off in a corner, doing actual art instead of doodling on himself like Pete does. Jamie doesn't need to doodle, anyway. He's got real ink: there are four very detailed bugs tattooed on the inside of his left forearm, each one about the size of a silver dollar, and he has words inked around his right forearm, spiraling up to his bicep, that almost blend in with the deep color of his skin.
Jamie's waist is sort of soft-looking under his t-shirt. His eyes are always half-closed. He drawls everything, and his laugh is more like a hoarse giggle.
Pete has no idea what he would ever say to Jamie. Pete probably won't ever speak to him, anyway; he'll probably just watch him a lot. It's not like that, though, no matter what Andrew hisses at him in the morning when Pete's doing his hair. Jamie just looks so cool, like he has this whole system figured out. He looks like a model, better than a model, more natural in the way he stands and how he holds his cigarette. He even looks like he's about to fall asleep the one time he gets yelled at. It's fucking classic.
Pete wants to be him. That's what it is; he wants to be Jamie, wants to walk like him. Wants someone to watch him like Pete watches Jamie, to feel like Pete does when he sees Jamie out on the patio, smoking.
---
Pete pauses in coloring in the skull on his wrist to listen to the art teacher rave about Jamie's drawing. She's using a lot of names and terms, like Jamie is a real artist or something; she tells him he uses cheeraskurro nicely, whatever that is. "Right?" Jamie says, "a bit like Richard Prince, except not so blurry."
"I can see that," the teacher says, putting her finger on her lips and nodding thoughtfully. Jamie's looking at her like she hung the fucking moon or something. She has a degree from an art school, she'd told them that, but Pete assumed it was at some community college or something; what would a real artist be doing teaching pastels at a boot camp? But Jamie's smiling at her. Smiling, full out, like she's something special.
Pete goes back to the skull on his arm.
The next art period, two days later, Pete sits two seats away from Jamie so Pete can look over at his stuff, and he doodles on paper instead of his skin. Jamie doesn't look up for the entire half hour, just zones in on his paper and his crayons. Crayons. Like a little kid.
The picture's pretty nice, though, when he gets done with it. It's a woman at a window. She's not wearing a shirt, but it's not like porn or anything, even though she's pretty.
"It's my friend Kee," Jamie says, as they're packing up. Pete can feel heat creeping up his face, but he fakes like he doesn't care.
"Cool," he says, "where'd you meet her?"
"At a concert in someone's basement. She was fucking insane. Crazy dancer." Jamie's smiling down at the picture.
"Like moshing?"
"Yeah, like that," Jamie says. He looks over at Pete, and his lips quirk up like he's got a secret.
Then Jamie sits down next to him at dinner. Pete stares at his green beans, but Jamie pokes at his forearm, where there's an inkstain left. Pete gets a warning whenever he writes on himself, and he covers it up with his hand out of habit.
"You want a tattoo?"
"Yeah," Pete says. He picks his hand back up. "Not something I'd draw, though. Something by a real artist. Like you. Or someone." He looks down at his pork chop. Jamie gives that rough giggle, and it's the same as Pete's heard when he's in art period or passing by him during activity hours, but right there, right next to him.
"Cool," Jamie says. "We should talk about ink sometime, then."
"Sure," Pete says faintly.
Pete's never been uncool before; he didn't realize he was going to be so afraid when he walks over to Jamie during the break period and says, "Hey, we were going to talk about ink."
Jamie could do anything to Pete. He could shut him down, or tell him to fuck off, or worse, not even remember him. But instead he says "Sure, sure," and "What's your name, kid?" and "Oh shit, yeah, that's a good idea."
That night, when Andrew's springs start squeaking, Pete takes a deep breath, bites his lip, and slides his hand down inside his pajamas. He keeps his eyes tightly closed, and he thinks of random body parts, flashes of skin. He's excited, is all. He sometimes gets hard when he's excited, even when it's not about sex. It was just a really good day.
---
Pete wants to hang out with Jamie all the time. He can't, obviously. They have different schedules, and Jamie's got other things to do with his time, and Pete's three or four years younger than Jamie, so he's really way too young. Pete wishes, though. He wishes sometimes that he were older, and that their schedules matched. He tells himself stories at night, sometimes, where he's older, older even than Jamie, and cool too. They meet at a coffee shop, maybe, or at a concert, and Jamie looks at Pete like Pete's someone.
Jamie has this way of standing perfectly still, eyes dead ahead, but still looking so amused by the little shit that Pete has to crack up. One time, one of the guards had toilet paper stuck to his shoe, and even though Jamie wasn't really doing anything, Pete couldn't breathe from laughing. The extra exercises were totally worth it, though; he's happier the rest of the day.
Pete wants to write his parents about Jamie, but every time he puts how he feels down on paper, it stops making sense. He writes about the food, instead.
---
Pete still gets in trouble. More than before, actually, because Jamie's always making him laugh, but it's not like there's much more they can do to him. He doesn't like desserts, the other kids, art, being in his room, or eating the food. He's done so many sit-ups and push-ups that he can take just about anything. They usually set him to cleaning stuff, now, or just yell at him.
The last thing still makes him want to cry, just a little. It's hard not to pull away when someone's yelling at him or criticizing him in a reasonable voice. They own him, here. They could even kill him, if they really wanted to; the waiver had a section on accidental death. Pete can't do anything back, either. The one time he tried to punch a guard for yelling at him, he got slammed into the floor and had to spend a hour in the equivalent of a time out corner.
The last time Pete actually cries is after he flips off another kid for calling him a name. The guard stands there and talks at him, just loud enough that everyone can hear her. Everyone's eating, and staring. Pete's hungry. Jamie is sitting in there, his back to the door, and Pete just wants to go in, and sit down, and eat. That's all he wants. They don't have art class today, just exercise, and this is all he gets with Jamie all day, it's--
"Are you crying?" the counselor asks, trying to sound like she cares. Pete looks away from her, and he has to wipe his cheek or it'll run down his face. He does it quick, like there's a bug on his face. "You must miss your parents," she says, and he shrugs.
"I'm hungry, I guess," he says, and she finally lets him go.
Jamie doesn't say anything when he sits down. They eat in silence. Pete's food tastes like the snot in the back of his throat.
"That's the problem with you half-white boys," Andrew says to him that night. Pete sneers at him, and Andrew smiles. "All the real man's been washed out."
---
Jamie leans over during breakfast, says, "You can't let them get to you like that."
"I know."
"What are you going to do about it?"
Pete almost snaps at him, says something like fuck off, but he just stares down at the flat pancakes on his plate. "Whatever."
Jamie's silent. They eat for a while, and then Jamie says, "Tell you what. Next time they fuck with you, concentrate on one thing."
"Like how much I hate them? I tried that."
"No, man, no. That makes it worse. Concentrate on-- okay, I'm going to say some evil shit to you, worse than anything they could say."
"Okay?"
"And I want you to look right here." Jamie points to the inside corner of his eye. "Just stare at that, think about it really hard."
"All right," Pete says, and Jamie leans in a little further.
"You pussy bitch," he says, "You sad ass faggot, bending over and trying to flirt with me. I'd stick my dick in you, but I got respect for myself."
Pete actually wants to cry, when Jamie says that. He wants the hot feeling behind his eyes to go away, and crying is better than hitting someone, hitting Jamie. Jamie taps the corner of his eye again, and Pete focuses on it instead, looks at the tiny ball of flesh that sits in the corner of his eye, the way the eyelid curves around it. Our skin's like a sock, Pete thinks, that has holes cut in it.
"You're probably too loose from getting fucked so often, you whore," Jamie says, and Pete thinks, and lips are just the edges of an old infected scar. He looks away from the inside corner of Jamie's eye to stare at the pores on the line of his upper lip.
When Jamie pokes him, Pete shakes his head. "What?"
"That's what you need to do," Jamie says, triumphant. "It's like. You pull in, when you do that, and you don't hear them."
"Sure," Pete says. He's still kind of skeptical, but when he bends his head back to his food, he's thinking about the thin veneer of flesh, a hand wielding the knife to open the eyes.
---
Pete looks at the guard's eyes the next time he gets yelled at. He focuses on an eyelash that's fallen on the guard's cheek, on the thin hairs in between his eyebrows. It's like putting the guy on mute. Eventually the guard tires out and sends him off to do his exercises. Pete tells Jamie later, and Jamie smirks. "Fucked him up good, didn't it?" he asks. He doesn't sound proud, like Pete expected; he sounds weird, different. Pete smiles anyway, says, "Fuck yeah."
---
"Read this, too," Jamie says, "this is some fucking crazy shit, the art teacher gave it to me." They're standing in Jamie's room on Pete's last weekend there, during the free hour. Jamie is showing him his books. Jamie flips the one in his hand open, finds a page and reads, 'Constantly risking absurdity/and death/whenever he performs/above the heads/of his audience//the poet like an acrobat/climbs on rime/to a high wire of his own making.'" He looks over at Pete.
"That is so cool," Pete says. He doesn't mean to sound like a little kid, but he knows it comes out that way. "Here, give it."
Jamie hands him the book, and he flips through.
For he's the super realist
his pockets full/of irradiated silver dollars
bent statues bats wings and beaks
"Fuck," Pete says quietly, glancing back over his shoulder, "It looks really awesome."
"He's an old white guy," Jamie says, like he's talking about something rescued from the trash, "but he gets it."
"I'm white," Pete says. Jamie rolls his eyes. "I mean, I'm like, pretty much white. Are you saying I don't get it?"
"No," Jamie sighs, "You know you get it. Shut the fuck up."
"Whatever," Pete mumbles. Jamie laughs, the hoarse warm sound that Pete can't reproduce, and touches the hair by Pete's ear. Pete turns away from it, then back into it, pushing at Jamie's fingers with his cheek. He expects Jamie to take his hand away, but Jamie just rides the movement out. His fingertips are warm on Pete's skin.
"You're-- I don't know," Jamie says, "You kind of remind me of me, when I was younger."
"Thanks," Pete says, and bumps him with his hip.
"It's not really a compliment," Jamie admits. Pete looks at him, at the corner of his eye, where his nose curves into his cheek. Jamie sways forward a tiny bit. He lifts his hand off of Pete's cheek, hesitates. Pete tries swaying forward a little, himself, and Jamie finally kisses him.
Pete's done this, he did this with Katie, so he knows what he's doing. It still feels fumbling and weird, different. He puts his hand on Jamie's side, and Jamie presses his hands into Pete's shoulders. Then he's really pressing, and shoving, and Pete stumbles back.
"What?"
"Fuck, kid." Jamie drags his hand across his mouth and looks over at the door.
"I'm not a kid."
"Yes, you are," Jamie says. "You are. And I'm a smack addict, and--"
"Shut up, you're. You're not, you're getting better," Pete insists.
"No one ever gets better, Pete," Jamie says. "Not an addict, not a fuck-up. It doesn't matter how much money or rope courses you throw at them. They don't get better. It's just a matter of time."
"But you don't have to do drugs again." Jamie just shakes his head. "You don't."
"Kid--" Jamie starts, and when Pete folds his arms, "Pete, I." He stops, touches in between two of his cornrows. "You know, on a plane? If you're going down, they pop those little oxygen bags out of the ceiling?"
"Sure," Pete says.
"That's what heroin is for me," Jamie says, staring hard at him. "The plane's already going down. All you get is a little oxygen to get you high before you go."
"Fuck you," Pete spits, really pissed now, "You're making excuses."
"Maybe," Jamie says, and shrugs. Pete wants to scream at him, maybe punch him.
"If I'm a fuck-up, then--" he says instead.
"You're not that much of a fuck-up."
"But if I am, then there's no hope, right?"
"What," Jamie starts. When Pete slides back into his space, Jamie puts his hands on Pete's shoulders, just resting this time. "Pete, hey, you're--"
"Whatever," Pete tells him, and kisses him.
It's not like they can have some great makeout session. There's no real privacy here, and anyone who saw this could get them into so much shit. But Pete can get Jamie's open mouth, their tongues just pressing together where their lips join; he can get Jamie's stomach trembling just a tiny bit under his hand.
Jamie pushes him away back again after a minute or two, and says, "How old are you?"
"Sixteen," Pete says, strong and sure. Jamie presses his lips together, but he doesn't call him on the lie.
"Okay," he says, instead, kisses Pete again. "Okay."
They break apart when it's time for dinner. Pete tries to give Jamie the book back, but he shrugs, looks away. "Keep it," he says, "I can get a copy for cheap practically anywhere."
"Thanks," Pete says, and Jamie shrugs.
"Whatever."
---
Pete should have a crisis about his sexuality, but all he can think is one more week. They still eat together, sit next to one another during art - although Pete can't talk to Jamie while he's drawing, so it's kind of not like real time together anyway - and Pete hangs out with Jamie during the few free periods they have. A couple of nights Pete even sneaks out of bed in between check ins, meets Jamie outside of his room so they can kiss a couple times in the hallway.
Pete daydreams about what could happen. He feels guilty about it, but at night Pete tells himself stories about Jamie getting clean, getting a job in Chicago and coming to visit him, sitting with him on his own bed in his own bedroom and touching his thigh, kissing his neck.
The last night, Jamie says, "You're really something" to him. That's all that's said, really. Pete tries to tell Jamie how amazing he is, how cool he is, but Jamie keeps kissing him quiet. They don't even say bye; Pete says "Shit, it's almost time for check-in," and Jamie says, "Go, go."
Pete looks for Jamie on the day he gets out. He sees him for a second as he passes by the office where Pete's waiting for his mom to finish filling out the release paperwork. Jamie just waves. He's past the door frame before Pete can lift his hand in reply.
---
"Peter!" his mom says, her voice driving up into a happy squeak. Pete wants to wince, but he holds still, touches her back when she hugs him. His dad nods at him, and Pete nods back. His mom keeps her arm around him as they walk, and their hips bump as they walk.
Pete picks up his bag and puts it in the trunk of the rental car when his dad opens it. "It's so good to see you," his mom says, and "Our plane's on time, I double-checked." Pete smiles at her, opens her door for her, then gets into the back.
His dad's eyes meet his in the rearview mirror. "It's good to have you coming home. We've missed you."
"Thanks," Pete says. He looks at his father's eyes and pulls in, hard.
-
[edited to fix a few things, made public]
FOB, Pete Wentz/Original Character. PG-13 for kissing and cursing.
This story involves a romance between two people of disparate ages, and includes a character who is quite young. Read at your moral peril! This is the boot camp story I mentioned in my WIP post; I'm just dumping it here to get it out of my head for the time being. Unbeta'ed, potentially riddled with mistakes. I yearn to disclaim at length, but all I'll say is that this is very close to being original fic, as the canon is sketchy on what happened with Pete and boot camp. He was 14, it was in New Hampshire, it is usually described as "tough love" camp. Kind and cruel comments both welcome.
-----
"We don't know what to do," his mom says, "There's nothing else we can do, Peter, you--"
There's nothing Pete can do, either. They've already put down the deposit, already signed the waivers. Pete throws a kitchen chair across the room, anyway, because he wants to, and now he can. He's a bad kid, now. Officially. His mom winces and puts her hands up to protect her face, even though the chair wasn't anywhere near her, even though it hit the radiator next to the fridge.
Pete wants to scream, so he does. He puts his hands over his ears and screams as loud as he can. His dad's mouth shapes Peter, that's enough, familiar enough that Pete can read his lips without even trying.
"It's not enough!" Pete kicks over another chair. He runs out of the room, past his brother in front of the television, dodging around his sister on the staircase. They stare after him, but he doesn't tell them anything. They wouldn't understand.
He skipped school. That's all Pete did. He's skipped too much school, and now they're sending him off to boot camp. Pete slams his bedroom door and punches it until paint flakes off, then collapses on his bed and screams into his pillow.
An hour later, his mom taps on his door. Pete doesn't answer, and she doesn't come in. "Pete," she says, muffled by the door. "You'll have to pack. It's eight weeks." Pete rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling.
He falls asleep that way, shoes and jeans still on. When he wakes up in the morning, his shoes are off and there's a blanket draped over him, but his jeans have left red marks on his skin. He strips them off, dumps them at the side of the bed, and sits there, contemplating his knees.
---
He leaves packing until the night before he leaves. He stuffs jeans and a bunch of t-shirts and socks and underwear into his soccer kit. He puts in his toothbrush, and deodorant. He's taking his poster of R.E.M. down off the wall when his mom knocks softly.
"Yeah?"
"I'll wake you at eight," she says, hovering in the doorway. She looks at his hands where they're curled around the rolled-up poster, and at his luggage.
"What?"
"They'll--they'll give you most of your clothes," she says, flushing red. "And you. They don't let you have posters."
"Fuck you," Pete says, and she flinches. "I hate you." He rips the poster in half and leaves the pieces on his floor.
---
Pete's roommate is named Andrew J. Cherry.
"Hey," Pete says, when he first gets there, "I'm your new roomie, I guess."
"Roomie?" Andrew snorts, and when Pete says, "hey, what--" Andrew spits in Pete's face. The spit slides down the side of Pete's nose and around his mouth. Pete just stands there. Andrew laughs and climbs up onto his bed, the top bunk. "Welcome to the good life," he says, and Pete finally wipes at his face with his t-shirt sleeve.
The room is off-white concrete blocks. Pete has three drawers in a heavy wooden bureau, the bottom bunk of a bolted-down metal bunkbed, and his bags. He's not allowed to receive gifts of any kind, the woman had said, just letters once a week. The window in their room looks out on the parking lot.
"You're a fucking dick," Pete says, but Andrew doesn't say anything back. Pete puts his bags down on the lower bunk, sits on the edge of his bed and fights back tears. His roommate just spat in his face, and Pete didn't even punch him. His teammates wouldn't believe it if they heard.
"What's that smell?" Andrew asks, and Pete breathes in.
"Jesus!" Andrew starts laughing. The fart smells like hot dogs and cabbage. Pete gags and covers his face with his pillow, which smells like linty fake flowers.
They wake up every morning at six. Lights go out at nine. That first night, Pete curls up on his side with his hands tucked in between his knees and thinks of all the names he could call his parents, just so he won't cry.
Andrew snores like a dying elephant.
---
Pete's groggy when he wakes up, and only Andrew flinging a shoe at his head gets him up in time to line up. Pete forgets to make his bed, so the guard -- they call themselves counselors, but they're clearly guards -- calls him princess for the rest of the morning exercises.
Andrew smirks at him the entire time.
After breakfast -- watery eggs, thin bitter orange juice -- they have the first session of physical exercises. The guard tells Pete he's not doing jumping jacks right. Pete's been doing jumping jacks since he started soccer. He knows how to do them. "Fuck that," he says to the guy's back.
Apparently it's sixty sit-ups for a curse word. "59, 60," Pete chants, and collapses back onto the ground. "Jesus fuck."
"Another sixty, Wentz," the guard says, and Pete manages a grin.
"1, 2-"
At least he'll get good abs out of the deal.
---
Pete finds out in that first week that no one will ever tell him he's doing it right. He beats everyone during the five mile morning run, and they make him run laps until the last runner comes in. He manages ten pull-ups and the guard timing them tells him he's got too much pride. He does the rope course in good time, and they tell him he needs to work on his team skills.
He can't sleep. He's run out of names to call his parents. Now he just thinks up stories that have nothing to do with home.
Dear Peter:
Today at work I didn't get a whole lot done, but it's going well in general. I spoke with Janice, and she asked after you and sent her best wishes. I'm planning on putting rose bushes in the front yard, and your father has been clearing some of the underbrush for me. He complains about it, of course, you know how he is.
We miss you. I'm looking forward to having you home again. I think the soccer team--
Pete puts the letter down on his bed. Five minutes until their free period is over. Pete laces his fingers behind his head and stares up at the bottom of Andrew's bunk instead.
---
Pete doesn't understand how Andrew can jerk off in a room with someone else. Andrew's not subtle; he makes these stupid grunty noises when he's close. Pete can't bring himself to do it. He's too used to having his own bedroom. It sucks, because he only really discovered it a couple of weeks ago.
He wishes he could ask Andrew to shut the fuck up. He wishes he could at least ask Andrew to give him some pointers, but Pete's pretty sure asking that would only get him another spit shower. Pete really hates spit showers.
---
Pete spots this interesting guy during the second week. The guy is smoking out on the patio by the hallway, one hand braced on his hip, fingertips dipping underneath the waistband of his regulation pants. Pete's in a line of kids being marched to the cafeteria, and he only catches a glimpse of the guy, sleek cornrows and sleepy eyes. Pete wants to break out of the line, wants to go talk to him, but he can't. He turns around instead, watching and walking backwards, and gets thirty pushups and no dessert for his trouble. It's okay, though. His arms look jacked after that, and the dessert was just more fucking canned-peach pie.
---
Pete sees the guy again during the five mile run the next morning. He runs unbelievably slowly, which is why Pete didn't see him before, probably. There's a guard with him, chugging along at his side. Pete slows down so he can listen to them chat.
The guard is actually friendly with the guy, it sounds like. Pete hears the guy asking after the guard's kids. His kids. Ass-kisser, Pete decides, and goes back to his usual pace.
"I suppose you might think that winning means you can get away with anything," Mr. Dickface says, when Pete crosses the finish line first.
"It's true," Pete says back, as sarcastic as he can, and goes to do his laps.
---
Pete can't ask a guard, and he obviously can't talk to the guy himself, so Pete has to find out who the guy is from people in his quad. It takes Pete forever, since some of the kids don't like him for some reason, and they all think he's a fag for asking.
Eventually, though, Pete finds out that the guy's name is Jamie. Jamie gets to smoke outside at least twice a day, from what Pete's seen, but no one knows why. He's trying to get clean, supposedly. Off of, like, actual serious drugs. Lanie tells him that she heard from Sean who heard from Barry who's on speaking terms with one of the guards that Jamie's from New Jersey, and he's a last-chance case.
Most of the important stuff Pete picks up just from watching. They have art period together; Pete didn't see Jamie before because he was off in a corner, doing actual art instead of doodling on himself like Pete does. Jamie doesn't need to doodle, anyway. He's got real ink: there are four very detailed bugs tattooed on the inside of his left forearm, each one about the size of a silver dollar, and he has words inked around his right forearm, spiraling up to his bicep, that almost blend in with the deep color of his skin.
Jamie's waist is sort of soft-looking under his t-shirt. His eyes are always half-closed. He drawls everything, and his laugh is more like a hoarse giggle.
Pete has no idea what he would ever say to Jamie. Pete probably won't ever speak to him, anyway; he'll probably just watch him a lot. It's not like that, though, no matter what Andrew hisses at him in the morning when Pete's doing his hair. Jamie just looks so cool, like he has this whole system figured out. He looks like a model, better than a model, more natural in the way he stands and how he holds his cigarette. He even looks like he's about to fall asleep the one time he gets yelled at. It's fucking classic.
Pete wants to be him. That's what it is; he wants to be Jamie, wants to walk like him. Wants someone to watch him like Pete watches Jamie, to feel like Pete does when he sees Jamie out on the patio, smoking.
---
Pete pauses in coloring in the skull on his wrist to listen to the art teacher rave about Jamie's drawing. She's using a lot of names and terms, like Jamie is a real artist or something; she tells him he uses cheeraskurro nicely, whatever that is. "Right?" Jamie says, "a bit like Richard Prince, except not so blurry."
"I can see that," the teacher says, putting her finger on her lips and nodding thoughtfully. Jamie's looking at her like she hung the fucking moon or something. She has a degree from an art school, she'd told them that, but Pete assumed it was at some community college or something; what would a real artist be doing teaching pastels at a boot camp? But Jamie's smiling at her. Smiling, full out, like she's something special.
Pete goes back to the skull on his arm.
The next art period, two days later, Pete sits two seats away from Jamie so Pete can look over at his stuff, and he doodles on paper instead of his skin. Jamie doesn't look up for the entire half hour, just zones in on his paper and his crayons. Crayons. Like a little kid.
The picture's pretty nice, though, when he gets done with it. It's a woman at a window. She's not wearing a shirt, but it's not like porn or anything, even though she's pretty.
"It's my friend Kee," Jamie says, as they're packing up. Pete can feel heat creeping up his face, but he fakes like he doesn't care.
"Cool," he says, "where'd you meet her?"
"At a concert in someone's basement. She was fucking insane. Crazy dancer." Jamie's smiling down at the picture.
"Like moshing?"
"Yeah, like that," Jamie says. He looks over at Pete, and his lips quirk up like he's got a secret.
Then Jamie sits down next to him at dinner. Pete stares at his green beans, but Jamie pokes at his forearm, where there's an inkstain left. Pete gets a warning whenever he writes on himself, and he covers it up with his hand out of habit.
"You want a tattoo?"
"Yeah," Pete says. He picks his hand back up. "Not something I'd draw, though. Something by a real artist. Like you. Or someone." He looks down at his pork chop. Jamie gives that rough giggle, and it's the same as Pete's heard when he's in art period or passing by him during activity hours, but right there, right next to him.
"Cool," Jamie says. "We should talk about ink sometime, then."
"Sure," Pete says faintly.
Pete's never been uncool before; he didn't realize he was going to be so afraid when he walks over to Jamie during the break period and says, "Hey, we were going to talk about ink."
Jamie could do anything to Pete. He could shut him down, or tell him to fuck off, or worse, not even remember him. But instead he says "Sure, sure," and "What's your name, kid?" and "Oh shit, yeah, that's a good idea."
That night, when Andrew's springs start squeaking, Pete takes a deep breath, bites his lip, and slides his hand down inside his pajamas. He keeps his eyes tightly closed, and he thinks of random body parts, flashes of skin. He's excited, is all. He sometimes gets hard when he's excited, even when it's not about sex. It was just a really good day.
---
Pete wants to hang out with Jamie all the time. He can't, obviously. They have different schedules, and Jamie's got other things to do with his time, and Pete's three or four years younger than Jamie, so he's really way too young. Pete wishes, though. He wishes sometimes that he were older, and that their schedules matched. He tells himself stories at night, sometimes, where he's older, older even than Jamie, and cool too. They meet at a coffee shop, maybe, or at a concert, and Jamie looks at Pete like Pete's someone.
Jamie has this way of standing perfectly still, eyes dead ahead, but still looking so amused by the little shit that Pete has to crack up. One time, one of the guards had toilet paper stuck to his shoe, and even though Jamie wasn't really doing anything, Pete couldn't breathe from laughing. The extra exercises were totally worth it, though; he's happier the rest of the day.
Pete wants to write his parents about Jamie, but every time he puts how he feels down on paper, it stops making sense. He writes about the food, instead.
---
Pete still gets in trouble. More than before, actually, because Jamie's always making him laugh, but it's not like there's much more they can do to him. He doesn't like desserts, the other kids, art, being in his room, or eating the food. He's done so many sit-ups and push-ups that he can take just about anything. They usually set him to cleaning stuff, now, or just yell at him.
The last thing still makes him want to cry, just a little. It's hard not to pull away when someone's yelling at him or criticizing him in a reasonable voice. They own him, here. They could even kill him, if they really wanted to; the waiver had a section on accidental death. Pete can't do anything back, either. The one time he tried to punch a guard for yelling at him, he got slammed into the floor and had to spend a hour in the equivalent of a time out corner.
The last time Pete actually cries is after he flips off another kid for calling him a name. The guard stands there and talks at him, just loud enough that everyone can hear her. Everyone's eating, and staring. Pete's hungry. Jamie is sitting in there, his back to the door, and Pete just wants to go in, and sit down, and eat. That's all he wants. They don't have art class today, just exercise, and this is all he gets with Jamie all day, it's--
"Are you crying?" the counselor asks, trying to sound like she cares. Pete looks away from her, and he has to wipe his cheek or it'll run down his face. He does it quick, like there's a bug on his face. "You must miss your parents," she says, and he shrugs.
"I'm hungry, I guess," he says, and she finally lets him go.
Jamie doesn't say anything when he sits down. They eat in silence. Pete's food tastes like the snot in the back of his throat.
"That's the problem with you half-white boys," Andrew says to him that night. Pete sneers at him, and Andrew smiles. "All the real man's been washed out."
---
Jamie leans over during breakfast, says, "You can't let them get to you like that."
"I know."
"What are you going to do about it?"
Pete almost snaps at him, says something like fuck off, but he just stares down at the flat pancakes on his plate. "Whatever."
Jamie's silent. They eat for a while, and then Jamie says, "Tell you what. Next time they fuck with you, concentrate on one thing."
"Like how much I hate them? I tried that."
"No, man, no. That makes it worse. Concentrate on-- okay, I'm going to say some evil shit to you, worse than anything they could say."
"Okay?"
"And I want you to look right here." Jamie points to the inside corner of his eye. "Just stare at that, think about it really hard."
"All right," Pete says, and Jamie leans in a little further.
"You pussy bitch," he says, "You sad ass faggot, bending over and trying to flirt with me. I'd stick my dick in you, but I got respect for myself."
Pete actually wants to cry, when Jamie says that. He wants the hot feeling behind his eyes to go away, and crying is better than hitting someone, hitting Jamie. Jamie taps the corner of his eye again, and Pete focuses on it instead, looks at the tiny ball of flesh that sits in the corner of his eye, the way the eyelid curves around it. Our skin's like a sock, Pete thinks, that has holes cut in it.
"You're probably too loose from getting fucked so often, you whore," Jamie says, and Pete thinks, and lips are just the edges of an old infected scar. He looks away from the inside corner of Jamie's eye to stare at the pores on the line of his upper lip.
When Jamie pokes him, Pete shakes his head. "What?"
"That's what you need to do," Jamie says, triumphant. "It's like. You pull in, when you do that, and you don't hear them."
"Sure," Pete says. He's still kind of skeptical, but when he bends his head back to his food, he's thinking about the thin veneer of flesh, a hand wielding the knife to open the eyes.
---
Pete looks at the guard's eyes the next time he gets yelled at. He focuses on an eyelash that's fallen on the guard's cheek, on the thin hairs in between his eyebrows. It's like putting the guy on mute. Eventually the guard tires out and sends him off to do his exercises. Pete tells Jamie later, and Jamie smirks. "Fucked him up good, didn't it?" he asks. He doesn't sound proud, like Pete expected; he sounds weird, different. Pete smiles anyway, says, "Fuck yeah."
---
"Read this, too," Jamie says, "this is some fucking crazy shit, the art teacher gave it to me." They're standing in Jamie's room on Pete's last weekend there, during the free hour. Jamie is showing him his books. Jamie flips the one in his hand open, finds a page and reads, 'Constantly risking absurdity/and death/whenever he performs/above the heads/of his audience//the poet like an acrobat/climbs on rime/to a high wire of his own making.'" He looks over at Pete.
"That is so cool," Pete says. He doesn't mean to sound like a little kid, but he knows it comes out that way. "Here, give it."
Jamie hands him the book, and he flips through.
For he's the super realist
his pockets full/of irradiated silver dollars
bent statues bats wings and beaks
"Fuck," Pete says quietly, glancing back over his shoulder, "It looks really awesome."
"He's an old white guy," Jamie says, like he's talking about something rescued from the trash, "but he gets it."
"I'm white," Pete says. Jamie rolls his eyes. "I mean, I'm like, pretty much white. Are you saying I don't get it?"
"No," Jamie sighs, "You know you get it. Shut the fuck up."
"Whatever," Pete mumbles. Jamie laughs, the hoarse warm sound that Pete can't reproduce, and touches the hair by Pete's ear. Pete turns away from it, then back into it, pushing at Jamie's fingers with his cheek. He expects Jamie to take his hand away, but Jamie just rides the movement out. His fingertips are warm on Pete's skin.
"You're-- I don't know," Jamie says, "You kind of remind me of me, when I was younger."
"Thanks," Pete says, and bumps him with his hip.
"It's not really a compliment," Jamie admits. Pete looks at him, at the corner of his eye, where his nose curves into his cheek. Jamie sways forward a tiny bit. He lifts his hand off of Pete's cheek, hesitates. Pete tries swaying forward a little, himself, and Jamie finally kisses him.
Pete's done this, he did this with Katie, so he knows what he's doing. It still feels fumbling and weird, different. He puts his hand on Jamie's side, and Jamie presses his hands into Pete's shoulders. Then he's really pressing, and shoving, and Pete stumbles back.
"What?"
"Fuck, kid." Jamie drags his hand across his mouth and looks over at the door.
"I'm not a kid."
"Yes, you are," Jamie says. "You are. And I'm a smack addict, and--"
"Shut up, you're. You're not, you're getting better," Pete insists.
"No one ever gets better, Pete," Jamie says. "Not an addict, not a fuck-up. It doesn't matter how much money or rope courses you throw at them. They don't get better. It's just a matter of time."
"But you don't have to do drugs again." Jamie just shakes his head. "You don't."
"Kid--" Jamie starts, and when Pete folds his arms, "Pete, I." He stops, touches in between two of his cornrows. "You know, on a plane? If you're going down, they pop those little oxygen bags out of the ceiling?"
"Sure," Pete says.
"That's what heroin is for me," Jamie says, staring hard at him. "The plane's already going down. All you get is a little oxygen to get you high before you go."
"Fuck you," Pete spits, really pissed now, "You're making excuses."
"Maybe," Jamie says, and shrugs. Pete wants to scream at him, maybe punch him.
"If I'm a fuck-up, then--" he says instead.
"You're not that much of a fuck-up."
"But if I am, then there's no hope, right?"
"What," Jamie starts. When Pete slides back into his space, Jamie puts his hands on Pete's shoulders, just resting this time. "Pete, hey, you're--"
"Whatever," Pete tells him, and kisses him.
It's not like they can have some great makeout session. There's no real privacy here, and anyone who saw this could get them into so much shit. But Pete can get Jamie's open mouth, their tongues just pressing together where their lips join; he can get Jamie's stomach trembling just a tiny bit under his hand.
Jamie pushes him away back again after a minute or two, and says, "How old are you?"
"Sixteen," Pete says, strong and sure. Jamie presses his lips together, but he doesn't call him on the lie.
"Okay," he says, instead, kisses Pete again. "Okay."
They break apart when it's time for dinner. Pete tries to give Jamie the book back, but he shrugs, looks away. "Keep it," he says, "I can get a copy for cheap practically anywhere."
"Thanks," Pete says, and Jamie shrugs.
"Whatever."
---
Pete should have a crisis about his sexuality, but all he can think is one more week. They still eat together, sit next to one another during art - although Pete can't talk to Jamie while he's drawing, so it's kind of not like real time together anyway - and Pete hangs out with Jamie during the few free periods they have. A couple of nights Pete even sneaks out of bed in between check ins, meets Jamie outside of his room so they can kiss a couple times in the hallway.
Pete daydreams about what could happen. He feels guilty about it, but at night Pete tells himself stories about Jamie getting clean, getting a job in Chicago and coming to visit him, sitting with him on his own bed in his own bedroom and touching his thigh, kissing his neck.
The last night, Jamie says, "You're really something" to him. That's all that's said, really. Pete tries to tell Jamie how amazing he is, how cool he is, but Jamie keeps kissing him quiet. They don't even say bye; Pete says "Shit, it's almost time for check-in," and Jamie says, "Go, go."
Pete looks for Jamie on the day he gets out. He sees him for a second as he passes by the office where Pete's waiting for his mom to finish filling out the release paperwork. Jamie just waves. He's past the door frame before Pete can lift his hand in reply.
---
"Peter!" his mom says, her voice driving up into a happy squeak. Pete wants to wince, but he holds still, touches her back when she hugs him. His dad nods at him, and Pete nods back. His mom keeps her arm around him as they walk, and their hips bump as they walk.
Pete picks up his bag and puts it in the trunk of the rental car when his dad opens it. "It's so good to see you," his mom says, and "Our plane's on time, I double-checked." Pete smiles at her, opens her door for her, then gets into the back.
His dad's eyes meet his in the rearview mirror. "It's good to have you coming home. We've missed you."
"Thanks," Pete says. He looks at his father's eyes and pulls in, hard.
-
[edited to fix a few things, made public]