Snippet: Perception
Here's a little snippet that's been banging around my head for, oh, the past two months. Be warned: it's absolutely random and plotless.
JD knows that people don't get him and Mitchell. Their relationship is the pink elephant in the room -- there when they meet new people, when he talks to Sam, when Cam talks to his parents. New people are the most annoying, since most can't hide their surprise, their curiosity or outright disapproval. It was particularly obvious when they were still in Colorado Springs, home to one of the nation's largest evangelical churches. There JD watched middle-aged women in the supermarket glance at them and then away, mouths twisting, and knew that they were branding Mitchell a pederast, and himself as the sort of boy that led other boys astray.
JD really liked making out in public in Colorado Springs.
In Austin the problem was different. Their neighbors across the cul-de-sac, two little white-haired ladies who have lived together for thirty years, brought by a plate of brownies when they were still settling into the house. Cam was understandably charmed, especially when they agreed with him on what color they ought to paint the living room.
So the gayness wasn't the problem, not in Austin; if anything, the city was too friendly. Every time they walked through downtown -- Cam moving along doggedly with his cane, JD running interference just a half-step behind -- JD felt the stares hot between his shoulder blades, both appreciative and curious. JD knows that he's good-looking, that he could use his face and body as currency to get just about anything he wants. And he knows that people can be shallow and petty, and that most see the cane and the limp before they notice Cam's blue eyes, the strong muscled line of his shoulders.
So they were perverted in Colorado and confusing in Austin, and now they're in freaking North Carolina, where Cam's family is just waiting for JD to run off with the paper boy. North Carolina is maybe the worst of them all, because the Mitchells and their kin aren't interested in his sins or his body. No, the Mitchells want to know him, all of him, even the bits of him that he would rather not talk about or can't talk about or dearly wishes he could forget. He has fragmented memories of growing up in the 50s, of his mother silently drinking a tumbler of sherry every afternoon before his father came home, of the long, droning Lutheran sermons every Sunday. He doesn't think he ever had a frank and open conversation with his father, not even when the old man was insensible in his final hospital bed. But the Mitchells have nothing but frank and open conversations, say "I love you" right to each other's faces and wrestle like puppies in the front yard mud. And they expect him to do the same and are suspicious when he can't quite keep up; he knows that they all think he's just biding his time, waiting for something better to come along.
And that pisses him the hell off. He has to grit his teeth every time someone tells Cam "no, I'll get that," or grabs his arm without asking, because he knows they don't mean anything by it. He knows what the Mitchells see when they look at Cam -- their first-born broken and not quite whole, the scars and the pills and the cane that they think hold Cam together. And there's just no way to show them what he knows -- that Cam in their bed, straining to keep quiet even as he shudders apart under JD's hands, is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.
JD knows that people don't get him and Mitchell. Their relationship is the pink elephant in the room -- there when they meet new people, when he talks to Sam, when Cam talks to his parents. New people are the most annoying, since most can't hide their surprise, their curiosity or outright disapproval. It was particularly obvious when they were still in Colorado Springs, home to one of the nation's largest evangelical churches. There JD watched middle-aged women in the supermarket glance at them and then away, mouths twisting, and knew that they were branding Mitchell a pederast, and himself as the sort of boy that led other boys astray.
JD really liked making out in public in Colorado Springs.
In Austin the problem was different. Their neighbors across the cul-de-sac, two little white-haired ladies who have lived together for thirty years, brought by a plate of brownies when they were still settling into the house. Cam was understandably charmed, especially when they agreed with him on what color they ought to paint the living room.
So the gayness wasn't the problem, not in Austin; if anything, the city was too friendly. Every time they walked through downtown -- Cam moving along doggedly with his cane, JD running interference just a half-step behind -- JD felt the stares hot between his shoulder blades, both appreciative and curious. JD knows that he's good-looking, that he could use his face and body as currency to get just about anything he wants. And he knows that people can be shallow and petty, and that most see the cane and the limp before they notice Cam's blue eyes, the strong muscled line of his shoulders.
So they were perverted in Colorado and confusing in Austin, and now they're in freaking North Carolina, where Cam's family is just waiting for JD to run off with the paper boy. North Carolina is maybe the worst of them all, because the Mitchells and their kin aren't interested in his sins or his body. No, the Mitchells want to know him, all of him, even the bits of him that he would rather not talk about or can't talk about or dearly wishes he could forget. He has fragmented memories of growing up in the 50s, of his mother silently drinking a tumbler of sherry every afternoon before his father came home, of the long, droning Lutheran sermons every Sunday. He doesn't think he ever had a frank and open conversation with his father, not even when the old man was insensible in his final hospital bed. But the Mitchells have nothing but frank and open conversations, say "I love you" right to each other's faces and wrestle like puppies in the front yard mud. And they expect him to do the same and are suspicious when he can't quite keep up; he knows that they all think he's just biding his time, waiting for something better to come along.
And that pisses him the hell off. He has to grit his teeth every time someone tells Cam "no, I'll get that," or grabs his arm without asking, because he knows they don't mean anything by it. He knows what the Mitchells see when they look at Cam -- their first-born broken and not quite whole, the scars and the pills and the cane that they think hold Cam together. And there's just no way to show them what he knows -- that Cam in their bed, straining to keep quiet even as he shudders apart under JD's hands, is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.