And with each mile
CHAPTER 14: STRIP TEASE
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Zaylor / Hancest
Pairing: Zac & Taylor
Credits & many Thanks to: Honor @beyondthethorns
About the story: Zac & Taylor's relationship broke up when they got caught kissing by the press and their career were over in a split of a second. To continue a normal life and to take a break from his brother, Taylor starts to study at a College in London but the long distance between them can't stop their feelings for each other.
I rolled awake the next morning to find Zachary’s arm slung across my chest. He was fast asleep and although he’d deny it if I informed him, he was gently snoring.
I noticed I still had an hour and a half until my class, so I tried to fall back asleep until my alarm went off, but I couldn’t. My mind was still spinning with thoughts of Zac. He’d been in London for two days, but it was still hard to believe he’d actually flown across an ocean for me. The person I’d ran away from had followed me and I couldn’t be happier.
I ended up laying in bed for 45 minutes, running my fingers along Zachary’s side and waiting for him to stir but he never did. He must have been exhausted. I considered for the first time that he was probably suffering from major jet lag. Poor guy…
When my alarm clock went off, which I stupidly forgot to turn off, Zac’s eyes popped open and he sat up. He glanced at the ringing alarm and then fell back against the bed.
“Turn that fucking thing off,” he grumbled and rolled over onto his stomach. I actually felt sort of guilty about waking him. Those Double Diamonds had really knocked him out. It was nice to actually see him sleeping for once. “What time is it anyway?”
“10:15.”
“Too early…” he moaned. It sounded funny coming from the guy who usually only slept a few hours a night.
“Maybe for you because you’re probably still plastered,” I chuckled. “But I feel completely rested and ready to start the day.”
I couldn’t see him since his face was completely submerged in the pillow, but I figured he rolled his eyes before he said, “Well congratulations. I feel like shit.”
Then he mumbled something I couldn’t decode but it sounded like it was something about feeling nauseas. Because his nausea was his own damn fault, I just patted his back and got up. “I’ll be in the shower. Be awake and decipherable when I return.”
As I walked over to the bathroom and took one of Zachary’s damp, used towels off the ground, he mumbled something else that I couldn’t understand. I laughed at the irony.
Showering felt amazing. The entire time the hot water was pouring down my back, I couldn’t help but stand there thinking that I was in a shower Zachary used. I was toweling down with a towel he rubbed across his body. God, I felt like a 12 year old school girl. It was ridiculous because I spent my childhood sharing a bath with him and sharing his underwear. But things had changed so much since childhood. He wasn’t just my brother. He was everything I wanted but feared I could never have no matter how much he made it seem like I could.
When I came out of the shower with a towel around my waist I saw that he was curled up in a ball on what had become my side of the bed. Clutching his stomach, he glanced up at me and the steamy bathroom I was stepping out of. Despite his obvious misery, he smirked and mumbled, “Looking good.”
I felt heat rising to my cheeks so I turned away from him so he couldn’t see me blush like the prepubescent girl I was feeling like. I had no clean clothes and wearing the same pair of dingy underwear was nothing short of disgusting for me.
“Can I borrow a pair of boxers?”
Zachary grinned. “Wow. Moving fast aren’t we? Sharing underwear and everything.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be nauseous or something?”
“I am,” he groaned. “I think I might puke.”
He peeled himself off the bed and wandered into the steam. I noticed he closed the door so he could probably puke in privacy. Kneeling in front of a toilet isn’t the sexiest activity in the world, so I understood. I tried to imagine he wanted to impress me as much as I wanted to impress him, but I doubted it. Zachary never really tried to impress anyone or at least he didn’t act like it. He always acted like he didn’t give a two fucks about what impression he gave off because people were going to think what they liked anyway. I wondered if he was always like that or if that was a result of… anyway, I went over to the door and listened to see if he was okay. I didn’t hear anything.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine, Tay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Taylor.”
That was a no. He wasn’t okay but he wanted me to pretend it was a yes. For Zachary’s dignity, of course I would.
“Alright, just making sure. So can I?”
“Can you what?”
“Can I borrow some boxers?”
I think he chuckled… or gagged a little. One of the two.
“I told you so... Look in my bag.”
I located his black duffle bag in the corner of the room and pulled the flap up over the top to see a neat pile of Zachary’s clothing. He wore the most simple things- jeans, loose t-shirts, collared shirts… but it was strange. He could pull off anything. It was something Isaac and I had always resented but I’d eventually learned to appreciate about him.
I found a pair of white boxers, which was all Zac really ever wore, and fingered the wrinkly fabric before sliding them on. A trip across the Atlantic had taken its toll on his usually pressed boxers. I’d once asked him, when we were still together, if he actually ironed his boxers when I wasn’t around.
“It’s called convincing Mom to do my laundry,” Zachary had grinned. “It always comes out better.”
I heard the faint sound of gagging coming from the bathroom and my immediate reaction was to go running over and ask him again if he was fine, but I stopped myself before he could lose his patience with me. Zac was gay, sure, but he was still a man. Men don’t like to be babied especially by other men; it’s like castrating them.
I quickly became distracted by Zachary’s Blackberry phone that he never let leave his side. It was sitting on the nightstand blinking like it always was as if it was beckoning me to go over and look at it. I found his contacts list and immediately noticed he had hundreds of people in his phone. I didn’t even know Zac knew that many people. I guess he was really social when he was Los Angeles. Aaron Schwartz, Adam OK, Adam Deiter, Aidan, Alex S., Aimee, Andy, Andrew, Austin 1, Austin 2, Avery… holy crap, was that just the A’s? Who the hell knew more than one Austin well enough that they had to label them differently in their phone? I tried to ignore the voice in the back of my head screaming at me that I was reading Zachary’s directory of fuck buddies.
I clicked over to his text messages and against my better judgment began to read them. I rationed that I was his older brother. I was allowed to be intrusive and nosey, right?
The first text I was from a Braxton character and it said, “I broke up with Matt. Call me. I just need to talk to you.” The second text was Zac’s reply that said, “I’ll call when my brother is in class. I’m really sorry to hear.”
I had no clue who Braxton was because Zac never talked about any of his new friends either in Tulsa or in Los Angeles, but I didn’t like the fact that he just needed to talk to Zac. Who the hell did he think he was? I wanted to keep scrolling through Zachary’s Blackberry but I heard the toilet flush so I threw the phone down on the night stand probably a lot harder than I should have.
Zachary opened the door a moment later and glanced out at me. “Find a pair?”
“A what?” I backed away from his phone with what was perhaps the guiltiest face in the world.
“A pair? Of boxers?”
I yanked my towel off to show him the white boxers I had taken from his bag.
“What is this? A strip tease? You really don’t have to but if you insist...”
I rolled my eyes and threw the wet towel at his head. Yeah right. Me? Strip tease? That would require actually feeling confident about my body and feeling sexy. And besides, he was my brother. It didn’t matter that we’d shagged before, which is a term I’m allowed to use considering my time spent in London. The thought of strip teasing Taylor was just way too awkward.
“Shut up,” I told him and began to get dressed in the same dirty clothing. They smelled like cheap beer and cigarette smoke from the night before.
“Why are you even going to class?” Zachary sighed and flopped down on the bed. He laid there, legs wide, staring up at the ceiling.
“What do you mean why am I going to class? Why wouldn’t I? I have to go to class if I want to graduate from college, Zac.”
He sighed again, even more dramatically. “Says who? I’m sure you could pass your tests without attending class at all.”
“Yeah… right,” I snorted. “I’m not one of those students.”
“I am,” he grinned.
“That's why you've been an Analphabet until you were 14. You have never attended a college class in your life,” I pointed out, sitting down next to him on the bed and pulling on my dirty socks. “How do you know?”
Zachary shrugged. “I never studied during high school and I passed fine.”
“And Mom never actually graded everything so that doesn’t count,” I laughed, because truthfully, the second MMMBop went to number one our educations plummeted. We hardly did any schooling because we were just too damn tired to and we bitched and moaned when Mom and Dad tried to force us.
“Just admit that I’m smarter than you,” he said confidently and puffed his chest a bit for effect. After a second he glanced over at me with a warm smile to make sure I knew he was joking and I wasn’t taking any offense. I wasn’t offended. He was smarter than me. I’d always known that.
“You’re just incredible in every way,” I humored meaning it more than he thought I did.
“I’ve been told.”
I pretended to gag and stood up to put my shoes on. I was going to be late if I didn’t hurry. English professors, by what I could tell at my school at least, were not cool about arriving late. You either showed up on time or you didn’t show up at all.
“C’mon Taylor, don’t be so serious. Don’t go to class. Play hokey. Lay around in bed with me.”
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Zaylor / Hancest
Pairing: Zac & Taylor
Credits & many Thanks to: Honor @beyondthethorns
About the story: Zac & Taylor's relationship broke up when they got caught kissing by the press and their career were over in a split of a second. To continue a normal life and to take a break from his brother, Taylor starts to study at a College in London but the long distance between them can't stop their feelings for each other.
I rolled awake the next morning to find Zachary’s arm slung across my chest. He was fast asleep and although he’d deny it if I informed him, he was gently snoring.
I noticed I still had an hour and a half until my class, so I tried to fall back asleep until my alarm went off, but I couldn’t. My mind was still spinning with thoughts of Zac. He’d been in London for two days, but it was still hard to believe he’d actually flown across an ocean for me. The person I’d ran away from had followed me and I couldn’t be happier.
I ended up laying in bed for 45 minutes, running my fingers along Zachary’s side and waiting for him to stir but he never did. He must have been exhausted. I considered for the first time that he was probably suffering from major jet lag. Poor guy…
When my alarm clock went off, which I stupidly forgot to turn off, Zac’s eyes popped open and he sat up. He glanced at the ringing alarm and then fell back against the bed.
“Turn that fucking thing off,” he grumbled and rolled over onto his stomach. I actually felt sort of guilty about waking him. Those Double Diamonds had really knocked him out. It was nice to actually see him sleeping for once. “What time is it anyway?”
“10:15.”
“Too early…” he moaned. It sounded funny coming from the guy who usually only slept a few hours a night.
“Maybe for you because you’re probably still plastered,” I chuckled. “But I feel completely rested and ready to start the day.”
I couldn’t see him since his face was completely submerged in the pillow, but I figured he rolled his eyes before he said, “Well congratulations. I feel like shit.”
Then he mumbled something I couldn’t decode but it sounded like it was something about feeling nauseas. Because his nausea was his own damn fault, I just patted his back and got up. “I’ll be in the shower. Be awake and decipherable when I return.”
As I walked over to the bathroom and took one of Zachary’s damp, used towels off the ground, he mumbled something else that I couldn’t understand. I laughed at the irony.
Showering felt amazing. The entire time the hot water was pouring down my back, I couldn’t help but stand there thinking that I was in a shower Zachary used. I was toweling down with a towel he rubbed across his body. God, I felt like a 12 year old school girl. It was ridiculous because I spent my childhood sharing a bath with him and sharing his underwear. But things had changed so much since childhood. He wasn’t just my brother. He was everything I wanted but feared I could never have no matter how much he made it seem like I could.
When I came out of the shower with a towel around my waist I saw that he was curled up in a ball on what had become my side of the bed. Clutching his stomach, he glanced up at me and the steamy bathroom I was stepping out of. Despite his obvious misery, he smirked and mumbled, “Looking good.”
I felt heat rising to my cheeks so I turned away from him so he couldn’t see me blush like the prepubescent girl I was feeling like. I had no clean clothes and wearing the same pair of dingy underwear was nothing short of disgusting for me.
“Can I borrow a pair of boxers?”
Zachary grinned. “Wow. Moving fast aren’t we? Sharing underwear and everything.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be nauseous or something?”
“I am,” he groaned. “I think I might puke.”
He peeled himself off the bed and wandered into the steam. I noticed he closed the door so he could probably puke in privacy. Kneeling in front of a toilet isn’t the sexiest activity in the world, so I understood. I tried to imagine he wanted to impress me as much as I wanted to impress him, but I doubted it. Zachary never really tried to impress anyone or at least he didn’t act like it. He always acted like he didn’t give a two fucks about what impression he gave off because people were going to think what they liked anyway. I wondered if he was always like that or if that was a result of… anyway, I went over to the door and listened to see if he was okay. I didn’t hear anything.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine, Tay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Taylor.”
That was a no. He wasn’t okay but he wanted me to pretend it was a yes. For Zachary’s dignity, of course I would.
“Alright, just making sure. So can I?”
“Can you what?”
“Can I borrow some boxers?”
I think he chuckled… or gagged a little. One of the two.
“I told you so... Look in my bag.”
I located his black duffle bag in the corner of the room and pulled the flap up over the top to see a neat pile of Zachary’s clothing. He wore the most simple things- jeans, loose t-shirts, collared shirts… but it was strange. He could pull off anything. It was something Isaac and I had always resented but I’d eventually learned to appreciate about him.
I found a pair of white boxers, which was all Zac really ever wore, and fingered the wrinkly fabric before sliding them on. A trip across the Atlantic had taken its toll on his usually pressed boxers. I’d once asked him, when we were still together, if he actually ironed his boxers when I wasn’t around.
“It’s called convincing Mom to do my laundry,” Zachary had grinned. “It always comes out better.”
I heard the faint sound of gagging coming from the bathroom and my immediate reaction was to go running over and ask him again if he was fine, but I stopped myself before he could lose his patience with me. Zac was gay, sure, but he was still a man. Men don’t like to be babied especially by other men; it’s like castrating them.
I quickly became distracted by Zachary’s Blackberry phone that he never let leave his side. It was sitting on the nightstand blinking like it always was as if it was beckoning me to go over and look at it. I found his contacts list and immediately noticed he had hundreds of people in his phone. I didn’t even know Zac knew that many people. I guess he was really social when he was Los Angeles. Aaron Schwartz, Adam OK, Adam Deiter, Aidan, Alex S., Aimee, Andy, Andrew, Austin 1, Austin 2, Avery… holy crap, was that just the A’s? Who the hell knew more than one Austin well enough that they had to label them differently in their phone? I tried to ignore the voice in the back of my head screaming at me that I was reading Zachary’s directory of fuck buddies.
I clicked over to his text messages and against my better judgment began to read them. I rationed that I was his older brother. I was allowed to be intrusive and nosey, right?
The first text I was from a Braxton character and it said, “I broke up with Matt. Call me. I just need to talk to you.” The second text was Zac’s reply that said, “I’ll call when my brother is in class. I’m really sorry to hear.”
I had no clue who Braxton was because Zac never talked about any of his new friends either in Tulsa or in Los Angeles, but I didn’t like the fact that he just needed to talk to Zac. Who the hell did he think he was? I wanted to keep scrolling through Zachary’s Blackberry but I heard the toilet flush so I threw the phone down on the night stand probably a lot harder than I should have.
Zachary opened the door a moment later and glanced out at me. “Find a pair?”
“A what?” I backed away from his phone with what was perhaps the guiltiest face in the world.
“A pair? Of boxers?”
I yanked my towel off to show him the white boxers I had taken from his bag.
“What is this? A strip tease? You really don’t have to but if you insist...”
I rolled my eyes and threw the wet towel at his head. Yeah right. Me? Strip tease? That would require actually feeling confident about my body and feeling sexy. And besides, he was my brother. It didn’t matter that we’d shagged before, which is a term I’m allowed to use considering my time spent in London. The thought of strip teasing Taylor was just way too awkward.
“Shut up,” I told him and began to get dressed in the same dirty clothing. They smelled like cheap beer and cigarette smoke from the night before.
“Why are you even going to class?” Zachary sighed and flopped down on the bed. He laid there, legs wide, staring up at the ceiling.
“What do you mean why am I going to class? Why wouldn’t I? I have to go to class if I want to graduate from college, Zac.”
He sighed again, even more dramatically. “Says who? I’m sure you could pass your tests without attending class at all.”
“Yeah… right,” I snorted. “I’m not one of those students.”
“I am,” he grinned.
“That's why you've been an Analphabet until you were 14. You have never attended a college class in your life,” I pointed out, sitting down next to him on the bed and pulling on my dirty socks. “How do you know?”
Zachary shrugged. “I never studied during high school and I passed fine.”
“And Mom never actually graded everything so that doesn’t count,” I laughed, because truthfully, the second MMMBop went to number one our educations plummeted. We hardly did any schooling because we were just too damn tired to and we bitched and moaned when Mom and Dad tried to force us.
“Just admit that I’m smarter than you,” he said confidently and puffed his chest a bit for effect. After a second he glanced over at me with a warm smile to make sure I knew he was joking and I wasn’t taking any offense. I wasn’t offended. He was smarter than me. I’d always known that.
“You’re just incredible in every way,” I humored meaning it more than he thought I did.
“I’ve been told.”
I pretended to gag and stood up to put my shoes on. I was going to be late if I didn’t hurry. English professors, by what I could tell at my school at least, were not cool about arriving late. You either showed up on time or you didn’t show up at all.
“C’mon Taylor, don’t be so serious. Don’t go to class. Play hokey. Lay around in bed with me.”