[fic] And Our Time, And Our Blood - 1/3
Title: And Our Time, And Our Blood
Author:
garnetice
Part: One of Three
Pairing: James/Logan, James/Kendall, minor Kendall/Jo
Rating: M
Word Count: 23, 549 - (8,028 Part One)
Warnings: Bad words, love traingles, angst, sex, underage, barebacking, unneccessary metaphors
Summary: She whispers, so soft that she probably thinks James can’t hear it. “Maybe it’s better not to love anyone at all.” Those are the words James learns to live by.
Author's Notes: This is the companion piece to A Song You'll Regret (Found Here: Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3). I use the word companion lightly here, because obviously it's nearly twice as long. It uh...kind of got away from me. I owe a million thanks to jblostfan16 for being my truly awesome beta on this. She has listened to me gripe for over a month and calmed my nerves and basically been the most fantastic person on earth. This story would not have seen the light of day without her. Title is from the song Virgin by Manchester Orchestra.
---
“Our family is cursed, James,” his mother says, trailing her fingers through the tepid bathwater. Her crimson nails stir bubbles, ducklings, and battleships.
“Cursed?” James stumbles over the word. He’s eight years old, and he doesn’t like to see his mom look so very sad.
“Your father is leaving.”
“I know,” James replies meekly, and he does. He’s known for months, ever since he first met the pretty girl with laughing eyes and glossy hair that has taken Brooke Diamond’s place in his father’s heart. He reaches out for a duck and a destroyer, pitting them against each other in a sea of rainbow foam. He tries to decide who would win while his mom strokes an idle hand over his wet hair.
“We fall in love with people who leave. I thought I escaped it.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I was wrong.”
“All of us?”
“Your great-great grandmother and your great grandfather and my mother and…me,” his mom’s voice cracks a little. She looks like she wants to cry. When James cries, Logan kisses his knees and makes him feel better. But that usually only happens when he falls off his skateboard. His mom doesn’t even own a skateboard, and James has no idea where to kiss.
“It’ll be okay, mommy.”
“Oh, baby boy.” His mom forces a smile. “I don’t want you to ever hurt like this.”
“Maybe I won’t be cursed.”
“I hope so, sweetie.”
James shivers, drawing his knees to his chest. The duck and the destroyer float up and over his scrawny arms, out into the great wide open spaces of the bathtub. His mom picks up the battleship, tracing her fingers over the gray plastic. She whispers, so soft that she probably thinks James can’t hear it. “Maybe it’s better not to love anyone at all.”
Those are the words James learns to live by.
---
The sunlight playing over the trees is turning the leaves different colors, green and gold and green-gold, and it’s all kind of pretty, like a painting.
“We could be astronauts,” Logan says, pointing to the sky. His finger traces the outline of the sun, even though he isn’t actually looking at it. Logan has been James’s next door neighbor and best friend since they were tiny. He always does the things he’s told, and the two of them have been told many, many times by their teachers and their moms not to stare at the sun or they’ll go blind. James though, he’s bad at following directions. He looks straight at the thing, every single time, until dots dance behind his eyelids like flashing lights.
It’s a good thing he stole a pair of his dad’s old wayfarers for this trip. With them perched on his nose, Logan can’t see that he’s staring and berate him about it. Logan lectures like someone’s mom.
“Don’t you have to like science for that?” James asks, his palms flat against the warm surface of the big rock. They’re sitting in the middle of the lake, soaking wet and sick of squabbling over who’s going to be King of the Mountain. They both know they’re going to come up with a tie. Instead they’re talking about what they’re going to do when they grow up, which has always been one of their favorite games. James likes to imagine that he’s going to be a popstar or a ninja or James Bond, but now that they’re on the verge of the third grade, Logan’s gotten all serious business about life choices. He keeps saying that James Bond isn’t a real spy, which is really mean. James doesn’t go around bashing Logan’s dream career.
“I do like science.”
“I don’t,” James objects.
“Do we have to do the same thing when we’re old? Maybe we could do different stuff.”
“No.” On this point, James is adamant. “You promised, we’re always going to be together.”
“I know, but like-“ Logan huffs, his tiny little ribs puffing out and then in. He’s so scrawny. James is already as big as some of the middle school kids, but Logan still looks like he’s in kindergarten. “Couldn’t we still be together if you’re singing and I’m a, I don’t know. A doctor?”
“You want to be a doctor now?” James tilts the shades down his nose, peering over the top of them with as much skepticism as he can muster. “Blood makes you puke.”
“Shut up.”
“You shut up,” James shoves Logan lightly, careful not to send him careening off the rock. Their moms might make them go back home if they fight too much, and James isn’t ready to leave the lake yet. He leans back against smooth stone, and with a loud, pained noise, Logan pillows his head against James’s side.
His hair is soft against James’s skin. James runs his fingers through it, relishing the way Logan shivers into his touch like a bunny rabbit getting petted. In the sunlight, every strand of brown shines golden and ruby red between James’s fingers; highlights like precious metals. The rock feels good against his skin, like oven-warm tortillas, and he can hear their mothers laughing off on their rafts, sweeping around the lazy currents of the lake. James kicks his feet in the water, just to listen to the splash.
“Stop moving,” Logan murmurs, his lips a butterfly flutter over James’s skin.
“Okay,” he says. Even though he’s looking away, he can still see his best friend’s image in the reflection of his stolen shades, like an old Kodak snapshot. He smiles, letting the sun soak into his skin.
This summer is perfect. James wants the rest of his life to be just like this; one long, lazy day of Logan after another. And soon, he’ll be famous, and Logan will be at his side, taking care of his sniffles or whatever, and it won’t just be this tiny little rock.
They’ll rule the world, just like they’ve always planned.
---
It’s this freaky little scene of domesticity, a bright, loud parody of the way his mom and dad used to have silent exchanges over coffee and the newspaper. Stepmommy dearest forces James’s dad down into his seat, shoving a plateful of eggs and bacon up in front of his face.
James waits for his dad to start lecturing about how his body is a temple and do you even know how much Trans Fat there is in a strip of bacon? But instead he shoves a piece in his mouth and smiles all soft and fond up at the witch.
It isn’t right.
Nothing about this is right. James loves his dad, and the stepwitch is fine for someone who just graduated high school like, a day ago, but there is a big, glaring error here. James thinks about his mom the morning before, clutching a cup of cold coffee while she absently tapped her nails against the table.
No one made her eggs.
No one smiled at her except for James.
He’s only nine, but he knows it’s not fair that his mom is getting shafted when his dad’s the one that cheated. She loved him, and he left her for a teenage girl. James may not be old enough to understand the mechanics of a relationship, but he understands that his dad probably isn’t in love with his perky little wife.
James isn’t sure that his dad is in love with anyone outside of his own reflection.
All his life, he’s been taught that it’s wrong to cheat and lie and deceive. But if that’s true? Then why is his dad the perfect picture of happiness while his mom spends her nights crying into her pillow?
There’s a lesson to be learned here.
---
Less than a month after summer ends, James meets Kendall.
Logan’s the one who finds him first, on the playground at their school. He coerces Kendall and his spastic little friend, Carlos, to eat lunch with the two of them. The kid convinces James in seconds flat to come out for the school hockey team. It doesn’t take much; James’s dad was varsity before he graduated high school and went into music. Everyone says that he was good enough to have gone pro. He’s taught James everything he knows. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, James thinks that trying out for the team is a thing that will make his dad proud.
He forces Logan to come along for the ride. Now they’re standing on the side of the rink, about to see if they’ll make the team for real or if they’ll just be those dorks that the team keeps around because they’re still too young for exclusivity to have set in. James stares at his breath puffing like steam in the air and decides he isn’t nervous. Not even a little bit.
Except he maybe sort of is. His skates keep quaking over the surface of the ice, like he didn’t grow up rink side. It’s only Logan’s presence behind him, familiar and comforting, that stills his trembling fingers when they close around the stick.
Of course they make the team, and of course he feels silly for being nervous.
Kendall skates over to them afterwards, all smiles and celebrations. “You guys rocked. Want to come to my house to celebrate? We’ve got pie.”
James’s eyes light up. He really loves pie.
“Can’t,” Logan says, and James frowns at him. “What? It’s my grandma’s birthday.”
Oh. Yeah. His grandma. James’s grandparents are all dead, and even though it’s stupid, he kind of wishes that Logan’s were too. He’s always running off to visit his grandma, three towns over in a nursing home. James doesn’t actually want the lady to like, die, but he doesn’t get why Logan has to visit her so much. She’s old. It’s not like she can actually do stuff.
James isn’t sure what it is old people get up to in their free time, but it probably has something to do with talking really, really loud about jam. Boring.
“Bummer,” Kendall says. He turns to James. “What about you?”
“Uh, I don’t-“
“Go,” Logan kicks him in the shin, the side of his blade nearly nicking through James’s pants. As it is, he can feel the impact like a bruise.
Ow.
“But I’m supposed to go home with your mom-“
“Go. She knows Mrs. Knight. She’ll be cool with it.” Neither of them say what they’re thinking, which is that James’s mom won’t care either way. James is her world, but so is the fast paced cosmetic market, and as a result she’s not around much. If James goes home right now, it will be to an empty house and a microwavable dinner. His neighbor will pop in every ten minutes to make sure James hasn’t burned anything down, and that will basically be the most exciting part of his night.
Logan hates the idea of James home alone. He’s told James so a whole bunch of times.
“Are you sure it’s okay?” James asks Kendall, tentative, because their friendship barely even exists yet.
“’Course.” Kendall grins. He grabs his duffel bag and walks with James out to his mom’s car. Mrs. Knight looks surprised to see James, but she doesn’t seem to mind his presence. At least not until James is buckled into the back seat of her sedan and Kendall says, “Hey mom, James and I want to go to the park.”
This is news to James, but he likes the park. Whatever.
“Not tonight, Kendall.” Mrs. Knight grips the steering wheel tight in her hands. James can tell by the way her knuckles go all white.
“What? Just for a couple of hours. Come on.”
“Not tonight,” Mrs. Knight repeats, her brow creasing. “Not until your father comes home.”
“Dad’s not coming home,” Kendall bites out. James can see his profile in the passenger seat, and he’s struck by how very unfamiliar this kid is; golden one minute, shadowed by dusk in the next.
“He’s due at the airport in an hour. Honey, of course he’s going to come and see you and Katie-“
“Stop lying!” Kendall actually shouts, and James is surprised by his new friend’s sudden anger. He doesn’t get what’s going on here, but he recognizes it, somehow. He recognizes what it’s like to be really, really mad at your dad.
James doesn’t understand all of Kendall’s anger until they’re up in his living room, jabbing at the keys on his Playstation. Mrs. Knight is rattling around in the kitchen, cooking something that smells like it’s burning when James works up the nerve to ask, “Your dad’s in the army?”
He saw a couple of ribbons around the house in glass frames, and he’s pretty sure he’s seen soldiers wear them on TV.
“He’s a marine,” Kendall says, eyes focused on the TV, but there’s a hint of pride creeping into his voice. “One of the best. When I grow up, I’m going to be just like him.”
“I thought you wanted to be a hockey player.”
“That’s my fallback plan, for when I come home. Can’t be in the service forever, right?”
James doesn’t know anything at all about the military, so he nods.
“He’s not coming home, though,” Kendall insists, actually breaking from the game to glare up at James, like he’s daring him to challenge the idea. “He’s dating some bitch he met on leave last time. Mom just doesn’t get it.”
James doesn’t get what the word bitch means, but he doesn’t want to embarrass himself by asking. He jabs his fingers into the plastic controller and watches Mario jump onto a pile of bricks. James can feel Kendall’s eyes on him for a minute, watching him for some kind of reaction that James just doesn’t know how to give. Later, he’ll realize that Kendall is waiting for James to yell at him. In their town, good boys are only ever supposed to have good thoughts about their dads. But the thing is, James hasn’t been a good boy for a long, long time. He still has words, tucked in the back of his head, even when he lies on sun-heated rocks with Logan or sits through lessons at school or even now, playing Mario Kart with Kendall.
Maybe it’s better not to love at all.
---
James has this idea of his dream house.
It’s a rock mansion, a virtual mancave of cool shit. But in his head, it’s also home. It’s a place that belongs to him and whoever it is that he’ll one day spend the rest of his life with, if he can beat the curse. He’s got every room mapped out, an entire blueprint in his head that he walks through whenever he’s feeling down.
He tells Logan about it, once, when they’re eleven.
“Is there going to be a guest room for me?” Is Logan’s first question.
“Of course,” James replies, because he’s already plotted out where everyone’s going to sleep. Kendall and Carlos will have their own rooms too, but Logan’s will be right next door to James’s. James isn’t sure why, but he feels more comfortable with Logan nearby.
He needs him to make the dream complete.
When James tells Logan that, his face turns kind of red.
---
Kendall says, “My dad is coming home.”
Kendall means I need you. He’s too young to have to deal with the burden of disappointment, the guilt and the pressure that comes from balancing his parents failed relationship, even if it is amicable. His heart is a stone, and he is suffocating beneath the weight of it pressing the air from his lungs. James can see the panic in his eyes.
He follows Kendall back to his house to play video games or build forts or distract him however he can.
He’s not sure if he can ever be enough to lessen the weight, but he sure as hell is going to try.
---
“You’re shallow and stupid and your glasses are dumb!” the girl shouts, throwing her smoothie in James’s face. She proceeds to make an impressive show of marching away, all foot stomping and hair flouncing.
“What was that all about?” Logan asks, mirth dancing in his eyes. They’re thirteen, and Logan knows absolutely nothing at all about dating girls.
“The curse,” James mumbles, cross. He really liked that girl, but they’d been hanging out for a couple of months. It was time to end it, before she walked away.
“The what now?”
“Nothing,” James says dismissively. Logan has enough to say about his mom.
“Okay. So, we’re studying?”
“We’re studying,” James confirms, even though studying is the last thing he wants to do. He promised his mom that if he fails a single subject this year, he’ll drop hockey. That is not even close to an option. He slings his arm around Logan’s shoulders, walking alongside him all the way back to his house. Once there, Logan curls onto James’s bed. James sits at his desk, watching while Logan breaks out a math text. The next thing James knows he’s bopping around in his seat, earbuds in. It might actually be the cutest thing James has ever seen in his life.
He grins and tries to focus on his essay. He’s supposed to be writing a paper on the military, but every time he sets his pen to paper, all he can think about is Kendall’s dad. As his friendship with Kendall grows and stretches, he’s started to get it; how, for most people, wars are make-believe.
People see images on the news, clips of explosions and death and insurgents and they shake their heads. They say what a shame. Then they go back to stuffing their face with fast food and driving their SUVs; the ones with stickers on the back that give you a stick figure body count of their family unit. Which is perfect pre-reconnaissance for a serial killer, if you think about it. Not the point. James blinks, trying to focus. War, and how the distance between it and real life makes it feel like pretend. That’s what Kendall lives with, every day.
They’ve been friends for nearly four years, and Mr. Knight has been stationed overseas for almost the whole time. It’s sad.
Sadness makes it hard to concentrate.
“I’m stupid and I’m going to fail,” James declares, shoving his homework off of his desk in a dramatic fit. Or, at least, it’s supposed to be dramatic. Logan barely bats an eye. James decides it’s because he can’t hear him. He repeats himself. Loudly.
Logan yanks out an earbud and rolls his eyes. “You’re not stupid. Stop looking at me like that, you’re not. You just don’t learn the same way I do."
“I’m going to fail,” James reiterates, even though Logan’s faith in him feels warm, like something in his chest is melting. Logan scrambles up from the bed and leans over James’s shoulder, scanning the essay.
“You’re not. I promise. I won’t let you,” Logan tells him, running his fingers over James’s knuckles reassuringly. James wants to hug him, but in that moment he thinks, our family is cursed.
It’s the weirdest idea.
He bats it away like a fly.
James tries to show Logan the places he’s stuck, and Logan listens, eyes lit with intelligence. James is kind of in awe; the kid’s got a whole universe going on in his brain. Things James will probably never really understand. He listens to Logan’s lecture for a bit. Normally, James doesn’t really care about much outside the realm of his mirror and men’s magazines, but something about Logan’s geek voice catches him. Maybe it’s the comfort and familiarity of a sound that he’s known since before he can remember, or maybe it’s just that Logan’s squeaky little voice is kind of- adorable. James tastes the word.
He’s never really been a stuffed animals kind of kid, except for Princess Sparkly Buttercup, his favorite purple unicorn, but- maybe that’s because he never needed a stuffed animal when he had Logan right in front of him.
James bats that thought away too. Obviously all this learning is turning his brain to mush.
“Work is boring. Let’s do something different.” He makes a play for the remote sitting on top of his dresser before Logan can object, turning the TV on. He switches to MTV almost immediately, upping the volume when a video he likes comes on.
James leaps to his feet, letting Logan take over the chair he vacated.
And then he dances.
Logan laughs, watching as James shimmies his hips in a truly horrendous approximation of the singer on the screen. “Dude, stop. You’re going to break something.”
James glances between the nearest lamp and his hockey trophies, lining a bookshelf, confused.
“In your body,” Logan clarifies, howling with laughter.
“Please,” James says, self-assured. “I am a professional.”
He turns his dance into something like a mock striptease, something he saw on HBO one evening when his mom was out too late. Again.
Logan’s shoulders cease their quivering, and he is watching James’s hips like they’re hypnotic. “Professional. Right.”
“You doubt me?” James demands, his voice haughty and impetuous.
“No, sir,” Logan mocks. But then something in his expression changes, and he asks, “Do you do this for girls?”
“Do what?”
He’s still moving, still swaying, and Logan reaches out, a palm flat against his sides. James can feel the warmth of his hands through the denim of his jeans. Logan has always been so small, but the older they get, the bigger his hands have grown. He’s got a pretty good grip on James’s hips. He quirks an eyebrow and clarifies, “Dance?”
James cocks his head to the side and thinks. It takes him a little bit, but the answer is, “Nope.”
“You only dance for me?”
The truth is, James is too embarrassed to dance for anyone else. He’s been working on his popstar moves in the privacy of his own home, but right now Logan is the only one he trusts enough to show off for.
He won’t tell him that, though. Instead he breaks free of Logan’s grip and shakes back and forth, doing his ridiculous dance again. He grabs Logan by the hand, pulling him to his feet and forcing him into the routine. It doesn’t take much to break his best friend’s solemnity.
For a genius, Logan moves like he was made to do it.
Maybe doctoring isn’t his only calling.
---
It’s the worst blizzard they’ve had in years. Snow coats everything in this thick, wet layer that feels like powder on James’s skin, but slips like slush beneath his boots. The only thing keeping him from slipping is that the snow’s already built up high enough that he can braces his knees against it on each and every step. Which makes walking kind of hard, but whatever. They’re almost there.
Logan is at his grandmother’s, again, and James is walking Kendall home from school. It’s gotten to be a kind of tradition of theirs. James doesn’t have any reason to be home, and Kendall doesn’t do so well with the whole being alone thing. Mrs. Knight has started taking later shifts at the diner to make ends meet, and Katie’s got an after school program. Kendall hides the loneliness well, but James can see right through his poker face. He is a professional actor.
Or, he’s hoping to be. He started drama this year, and he’s trying to land a part in the spring play. Even if it’s not a big role, it’s sure to look good on James’s acting resume.
James rubs his hands together, fingerless gloves doing little to keep him warm, but man, he is the most stylish dude in Minnesota. He’s a freshman in high school now. His image is important.
Which is why he’s kind of pissed when Kendall shoves him face first into the snow.
“Dude,” he yells, anger leaping into his chest. He can feel ice slide down his cheeks, puddle in the hollow above his lip and the curve of his nose. Kendall is laughing his ass off, arm clutched to the middle of his stomach, smile brighter than anything else in their snow-sodden world.
He’s such a dick.
James finds his footing and takes a flying leap, tackling Kendall straight down into a snow bank.
“Hey!” Kendall yelps, breath whooshing out of his chest in a hot burst onto James’s neck. James pays him no mind. Revenge is sweet.
They wrestle around for a bit, flailing arms and legs until the ice soaks through their jeans and James is pretty sure he’s bruised a rib.
That’s okay. Kendall’s eye is starting to blacken from an accidental-on-purpose elbow to his face.
They practically run the rest of the way to Kendall’s house, but when they get there, they don’t go inside. They sit on the stoop, red faced and winded; smiling like it’s going out of style.
“Asshole,” James mutters without any venom.
“Brat,” Kendall counters. His green eyes are sparkling. “James?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m- um.” Kendall stumbles over his words, and it’s cute, because Kendall doesn’t stumble over much. “I’m glad we’re friends.”
“Me too, dude.”
“Yeah, but. I’m- really glad, okay? Before I met you guys, I never had anyone.”
“You had Carlos,” James objects.
“I met Carlos like, two months before you and Logan.” Kendall laughs. “All three of you- it was like I wished for you and fate made it happen.”
James can’t tell if Kendall is blushing beneath the bright red, sweaty sheen of exertion, but he probably is. They’re not really the kind of guys who go in for the deep emotional crap. But he doesn’t mind.
Sometimes he feels like Kendall and Carlos and Logan were tailor-made for him too.
He reaches out and squeezes Kendall’s hand. Then he says, “You owe me a cup of hot chocolate. With huge marshmallows.”
“I can do that.” Kendall beams, shaking the snow off his hair like a wet dog. He helps James up to his feet and for the rest of the night, neither of them can shake their smiles.
Life isn’t perfect, but it’s close.
---
Logan is sad.
He looks so tiny in his little black suit. Logan is small in all the places that James has grown strong and broad, but he’s not scrawny. He’s built like a hockey player, same as the rest of them. His muscle is wiry and hard and his skin is as familiar as James’s own from a million days spent touching and wrestling and tackling and tickling and dancing and just plain being together. He’s not ever supposed to look tiny.
James wants to hold him close to his body and never, ever let him go. Thing is, that probably won’t help. Logan was close to his grandma. So close that James has resented the woman more than once for stealing Logan’s time away from him. He feels bad about it now, because she’s dead, and because he’d give up countless hours with Logan just to wipe that expression off of his face.
He doesn’t know what to do, and he doesn’t like feeling so helpless. He, Kendall, and Carlos stage a sleepover at Logan’s house the night of the funeral, but it hasn’t boosted anybody’s mood. Logan said that he’d come up to sleep when he was ready, but it’s well past midnight, and his bed sits cold and empty. James knows because he’s curled up in the sheets, alone. A storm is raging over their small town, and
James has been listening to the steady drumbeat of the rain for hours now. It sounds like the sky is sobbing. Each drop of rain is like an amplified gunshot. It’s loud, sloppy weather that suits James’s mood.
Kendall and Carlos are laid out in sleeping bags on the floor, completely unbothered by Logan’s absence. Heartless bastards. Carlos makes this little snuffling noise in his sleep, and every once in a while Kendall will mumble nonsense words. The two of them are driving James insane.
He watches the silhouette of the hall nightlight frame the door for close to fifteen minutes before he actually gets up, deciding he’s had enough of this whole waiting gig. James needs to find out if Logan’s okay. He shucks the comforter, trying to avoid stepping on Carlos’s face as he makes his way out the door.
Logan’s in the kitchen with no lights on. He’s standing in front of the window, still dressed in the suit that swamps him. He is swimming in black, in grief. James hates it.
“Dude. Are you ever coming to sleep?”
“Can’t,” Logan says, staring dully at the rain out the window. It slaps against the windows like it wants inside the house.
“Why not?” James demands, crossing his arms. He sounds petulant. He doesn’t mean to. It’s just so late, and the tile beneath his feet is cold. He wants to sleep, and he wants Logan asleep beside him so that he can know he’s safe and warm and maybe not happy, but definitely not crying his way through the night. How is James supposed to take care of him when Logan won’t even come up to his room and let James hug him?
“I just can’t, okay?”
Logan makes this noise that’s halfway between a choke and a sob. The sound of it pierces James’s ear drums, sharp like a shard of glass in his chest, and he’s never done well with sadness. All he wants is to make the keening cry stop, and he stumbles forward, thinking that he’s going to cover Logan’s mouth with his hand. He’ll murmur comforting things, wordless things, like a song with no lyrics until
Logan quiets. That’s the plan.
Except James’s body doesn’t seem to really comprehend the finer details of the plan, because he’s got Logan pinned against his own kitchen counter, sandstone colored marble pressed into the edge of Logan’s ass and oh yeah, he’s kissing him.
Logan tastes salty, like tears and grief and the peanuts he ate at the reception. Which isn’t the point, because the point is James is kissing him and what the fuck is he doing? He waits for Logan to shove him away, slowing the kiss down until it’s nothing more than a soft brush of their lips and their shared exhalations, but Logan doesn’t do anything more than wind his fingers in the hem of James’s Ramones T-shirt, the one he stole from his dad to sleep in. He’s kissing James back, hesitant, clumsy.
Most of Logan’s experience with girls is a direct result of the dates that James set him up on, and the kid may be a fast learner, but he obviously hasn’t picked up much. Secure in the knowledge that he’s not about to get his head smashed into the refrigerator, James takes over the kiss, coaxing Logan’s mouth open with his lips and then his tongue until he’s got him panting, tongue slick and pliant against James’s. That’s okay for a little bit, but before long James can’t help kissing him harder, deeper, and Logan makes this noise and it’s nothing at all like grief.
It makes James’s hips twitch forward until he’s pressed up to Logan, whose entire body is scorching heat compared to the freezing cold kitchen. He’s hard. James can feel the shape of his cock through his dress slacks, against the thickness filling his own pajama pants. Logan doesn’t miss a beat, striving to recreate the spark of friction that ignited between their dicks, rutting forward until he’s rubbing up against James like he’s forgotten how to do anything else.
James groans and wraps his arms around Logan’s waist, lifting him up so that he’s actually sitting on the countertop. He rocks forward into the space he’s created between Logan’s legs, thighs tight at his hips and fuck, that is so much better.
Logan obviously agrees. He’s the one who makes the first move for something more, his fingers fisted in the bottom of James’s shirt deftly
yanking it up until it’s rucked into the spaces between his armpits. James obediently lifts his arms, letting Logan pull it up and over his head. For a second James stands there, Logan staring at him as he shivers, half naked. James can’t figure out what’s going on inside of his head, and while it’s not exactly a first to wonder what the hell Logan’s genius brain is thinking, it’s disconcerting to do it like this, when there’s actually something to lose. He can’t take the staring or the wondering, so he steps back into the hollow between Logan’s legs. He untucks Logan’s shirt and carefully undoes the buttons, giving him time to back out.
Logan doesn’t seem interested in running back up to his bedroom and hiding underneath the covers, too focused on the way James moves from the shirt to fumbling open the buckle of his dress pants.
“Don’t be sad,” James pleads, but it sounds like an order.
Logan’s gaze snaps up to him, glare turning sharp as broken glass, eyes watering. “You don’t get to dictate my grief.”
“Don’t be sad,” James repeats, undoing the zipper of his slacks. He reaches inside the opening of Logan’s boxers, palming a hand over his cock.
It ends the discussion.
This sound like a mewl rips from Logan’s throat, raw edged and sexy. He lifts his butt off the counter, letting James slide his pants and boxers off in one easy movement, and then he’s sitting there, naked except for his unbuttoned, wrinkled white shirt.
He looks scared, but he is no longer small or vulnerable. Lust makes Logan look bigger than he is, like a feral animal of a boy instead of James’s nerdy best friend.
James slides the shirt off of Logan’s shoulders, kissing his neck and circling his fingers around his dick until the tension eases from Logan’s thin shoulders. He is building up a rhythm, his mouth sucking a mark into Logan’s throat, his hand moving in an up down pattern that’s almost familiar from his own nights beneath the covers of his bed.
The whole thing is shattered when Logan reaches forward and skims his fingers over James’s cock. James has to stop everything that he’s doing, his inhalation sharp and completely unhelpful, because it’s impossible to get air in his lungs when Logan is touching him like that. The feather light brush of his fingers turns into a tight, hot circle of heat as Logan tries pumping light over the shaft. James thinks he might actually die from the contact. He presses forward, kissing Logan long and deep, until neither of their hands are doing much, but their dicks are pressing together, fever hot and unbearable friction.
James doesn’t have a single clue what he’s doing, and he has no idea where this is going. He’s got a vague idea of how gay sex works, gleaned from health class and crude locker room taunting, but it’s not like he’s ever done research on it or anything. He’s never given any thought to banging a boy, not until now, with Logan willing and eager against him. That doesn’t seem to matter to Logan, whose silhouette is backlit by a flash of lightning in the sky when he mumbles, “D’you wanna-“
“Yes,” James gasps, because whether the end of that question is fuck or just plain cum from a handjob alone, James wants it. He nearly passes out when he finds out it’s the former, when Logan, still rocking against him in slow, electric undulations takes one of James’s hands and presses it up against his ass, like he expects him to- oh. Oh.
He tries to push in a finger dry, but the action makes Logan flinch, his face contorting with pain. James immediately withdraws, certain that he’s fucked up, but Logan pants, “I think it has to be wet.” James doesn’t even bother asking how he knows that. Logan takes like, college level biology. He knows his shit.
James’s first thought is to turn on the sink, but he thinks about how water feels on his dick when he jacks himself off in the shower before school. It’s never as good as lube, or- James sticks his fingers in his own mouth, not caring that his index finger has already dipped inside his best friend’s ass. He lathers each digit in turn with his tongue, coating them with saliva until they’re as wet as he can possibly get them.
Logan watches him, eyes dark and wanting. James has this stray thought that oh, this is what desire looks like on Logan’s face. It’s pretty intense.
He goes slow this time around, testing what Logan will tolerate and what makes his face scrunch with discomfort. Once he’s got his index finger pressed in all the way to the knuckle, he tries wiggling it around, trying to figure out his next move. It can’t be too different from fingering a girl, can it? James crooks his finger this way and that, and it is actually different from girls.
It doesn’t seem to be doing much for Logan other than making him uncomfortable until James curls the tip of it against- something.
Logan’s face goes completely blissed out, surprise and pleasure blossoming over his features and okay. James tries to recreate whatever it is he just did. It takes a couple of attempts, but Logan’s pretty helpful about it, rocking down against him in this way that it is at once shy and fervent. James works another finger inside of him, figuring he’ll get the angle right if he has more digits to work with, and even though
Logan winces against the stretch, his expression almost instantly transforms to shock and pleasure. He actually yelps James’s name, hands clenching hard at his shoulders.
James tries out a couple of things, scissoring his fingers apart and twisting them together, different movements and sensations that make Logan writhe against him. He uses his free hand to pump against Logan’s dick, and that must really feel good, because Logan starts babbling incomprehensibly, and in between the nonsense words James catches his name, do it, and fuck me. Logan’s actually begging for it. James has to catch his breath again.
He’s never done this before. Not just with a dude. With anyone. He’s had girls ask him for it more than once, but it’s always seemed like this thing that he would deal with when he had to. No Big Deal. He never expected the moment would come in Logan’s dark kitchen, when the sky has cracked open, and his hands are shaking so much that he thinks something must be wrong.
It is a big deal.
It’s Logan.
The storm outside rages like it’s trying to tear apart the house, and every time lightning brightens the sky Logan flinches as though he’s been hit. James has never been so scared in his entire life. He doesn’t want to hurt Logan.
He doesn’t ever, ever want to hurt him.
Logan’s pupils are huge, his irises darker than James has ever seen them. His breath is coming out ragged, like he’s run miles and miles just to reach this place, just to have James’s hands on his body. He says, “James,” and his voice is foreign. It sends shivers up James’s spine.
He uses a third finger to shut Logan up, at the same time licking his own palm until it’s slick enough that he can slide a thin coat of saliva over his own dick. He is ridiculously turned on. James presses Logan back until his head and his neck are resting against the kitchen wall, pulling his hips forward so that he’s not actually sitting on the marble anymore. Most of his weight is resting on James, and yeah, he’s a hockey player, he can take it, but it doesn’t make it any less awkward. He toys with the idea of throwing Logan over his shoulder and taking him on the dining room table, or better yet, the couch, but this tiny, fragmented part of his brain says that if they change the locale, Logan might change his mind. There’s something like magic in the kitchen, transformed by shadows and the raging of the storm, the shudder of thunder and the thrill of lightning.
James shifts Logan’s weight, lining up the head of his cock against his asshole, focusing on the places where Logan’s hands are gripping the side of the sink and James’s arm so tightly that his knuckles are white. James’s arm kind of hurts, but it’s a dull kind of ache compared to the warmth of Logan’s ass against the slit of his dick.
And then he pushes in.
Logan squeezes around him so tight that it’s actually painful, and James winces. He stills his hips.
“You have to relax, man.” He kisses the line of Logan’s jaw and says softly, “Relax.”
Logan grunts and captures his lips, pulling James into a kiss that is wet and slick and dirty. Their tongues slide together without any rhythm, but it feels so fucking amazing that James can’t help thrusting forward a little.
Logan gasps into his mouth, and James immediately tries to pull back, hard as hell, but still so scared that he’s going to hurt his best friend. Logan stops him with a sharp, “No.”
He pulls insistently at James’s chin, kissing him, not seeming to mind the awkward angle or the way that he’s got the head of James’s dick hot inside of him. Every time the kiss gets deeper, it’s like Logan opens up a little, and they go like that, centimeter by centimeter, until
James is fucking deeper inside of his best friend than he ever thought he could.
Experimentally, James tries pulling back. Logan keens high in his throat, clawing at him, trying to get him back, and James pushes forward. They do it like that, inches in and inches out until it’s almost rhythmic, and the slide of it is easier. James strokes a hand over Logan’s cock, trying to make it good for him too. That seems to help.
“James,” Logan whimpers each time James pulls out farther and pushes in deeper, until it’s like electric building along the hair of his arms.
It’s James’s first time, and it has to be Logan’s too (it has to be). Neither of them last very long. Logan comes with a gasp so quiet that James nearly misses it. He does not miss the way Logan stripes white across his stomach and hand in hot, short bursts as James keeps pumping his dick inside of him. He can’t stop, not even if he wanted to. Thunder shakes the kitchen, but it is not as important as the way Logan is trembling around him, prying his own orgasm from his grasp. He shudders long and hard, blissed out from the pleasure of it, from the places where Logan’s skin touches his.
He doesn’t want to let him go. Logan is a miracle, love and beauty and stardust wrapped up in one perfect package of a boy. And he’s watching James like maybe he is too, like he is lightning and thunder and something earth-shaking. James sags against his body, bringing his arms around Logan and tugging him as close as he can, given the angle. There is a big awkward space between their chests, but to close it James would have to withdraw his softening, oversensitized dick, and he’s not ready for that yet. He presses a kiss to Logan’s forehead, and Logan shifts, ass squeezing. In a distant way James begins thinking that it will only take him a minute to get hard again, and then they could do that again and again and again until Logan is wrecked.
James likes the idea of wrecking his best friend, of turning him pliant and malleable and gorgeous beneath his fingers. He wants to make Logan pant his name, to say it exactly the same way he had when James first pushed into him.
Logan, apparently, has different plans. Carefully, he pries himself away from James, until James can no longer feel the heat of his ass or his chest or his breath.
He distances their bodies and stutters out something that sounds like goodnight.
James wonders if this is what the curse is; being left cold and alone and half in love in the middle of a night by a boy that he never thought would abandon him. He hears his mom’s words like a whisper in his ear.
We fall in love with people who leave.
The next morning, James watches Logan across the breakfast table and wants to kiss him. But Logan won’t even look him in the eye.
He meets Kendall’s gaze.
He has no trouble glancing in Carlos’s direction.
It’s only James that isn’t worthy of his attention.
James understands, instinctively, that they are not supposed to talk about this thing that they did. So James doesn’t bring it up. Mentally, he pictures his imaginary rockstar mansion. He shuffles Logan down a few rooms. Out loud, James chatters on about hockey and some random scientific fact about elephants that he picked up from the magazines Logan hides under his bed instead of porn, and a whole slew of gossip about who’s dating who in Hollywood until Logan is willing to just look at him again. And once he does, James tries to keep the things that he feels from leaping to his throat. He keeps the words he wants to say from spilling out onto the breakfast table, uncivil like. He wills himself to wall off his heart, brick by brick, because this is what a curse feels like.
If he opens himself up to the things that he feels, Logan will leave.
Sex wasn’t supposed to be a big deal, but James secretly thinks it’s a tragic way to lose his virginity; one second he realizes he’s in love and the next, he realizes he can never actually have this boy again. After all, Logan leaving is the one thing that James can never, ever allow to happen.
---
James has sex with girls. Well, first he tries to build a relationship with them out of a mutual appreciation for making out, and that doesn’t work. But James can sure as hell try, and he does, often. Making out eventually turns into to hooking up, and he likes that.
It’s never quite right, though. It’s just not the same.
He tries fucking a boy, hot and hard behind the bleachers at school. There are no storms. There is no lightning.
No one can replicate the way that Logan said James’s name. It’s a gasp in the back of his head every time he gets off. James thinks that the only way to quiet the voice so deeply ingrained in his memory is to replace it with many, many, many others. So he takes what he can.
He bangs a string of boys and girls until sex becomes as familiar and simple as breathing.
He embraces his reputation. He’s always had it, but it’s never been true until now. It’s easier to be the filthy hot mess that everyone expects him to be than to make an attempt at normalcy. What even is normal? James isn’t sure, and he doesn’t really care. He familiarizes himself with the name-calling and the condescension that comes with being a player. James has heard all the words. Slut. Whore. He’s been called a homewrecker more than once. He doesn’t take offense to any of it. He learns to let insults bounce off of his skin. Isn’t this what being young is about? Having fun?
There are days where guilt sticks to his insides like moss. The idea that he’s doing something wrong slides through his mind, leaving a slimy slug trail. But James refuses to allow anything to stop him from living.
Even his conscience.
---
Author:
garnetice
Part: One of Three
Pairing: James/Logan, James/Kendall, minor Kendall/Jo
Rating: M
Word Count: 23, 549 - (8,028 Part One)
Warnings: Bad words, love traingles, angst, sex, underage, barebacking, unneccessary metaphors
Summary: She whispers, so soft that she probably thinks James can’t hear it. “Maybe it’s better not to love anyone at all.” Those are the words James learns to live by.
Author's Notes: This is the companion piece to A Song You'll Regret (Found Here: Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3). I use the word companion lightly here, because obviously it's nearly twice as long. It uh...kind of got away from me. I owe a million thanks to jblostfan16 for being my truly awesome beta on this. She has listened to me gripe for over a month and calmed my nerves and basically been the most fantastic person on earth. This story would not have seen the light of day without her. Title is from the song Virgin by Manchester Orchestra.
---
“Our family is cursed, James,” his mother says, trailing her fingers through the tepid bathwater. Her crimson nails stir bubbles, ducklings, and battleships.
“Cursed?” James stumbles over the word. He’s eight years old, and he doesn’t like to see his mom look so very sad.
“Your father is leaving.”
“I know,” James replies meekly, and he does. He’s known for months, ever since he first met the pretty girl with laughing eyes and glossy hair that has taken Brooke Diamond’s place in his father’s heart. He reaches out for a duck and a destroyer, pitting them against each other in a sea of rainbow foam. He tries to decide who would win while his mom strokes an idle hand over his wet hair.
“We fall in love with people who leave. I thought I escaped it.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I was wrong.”
“All of us?”
“Your great-great grandmother and your great grandfather and my mother and…me,” his mom’s voice cracks a little. She looks like she wants to cry. When James cries, Logan kisses his knees and makes him feel better. But that usually only happens when he falls off his skateboard. His mom doesn’t even own a skateboard, and James has no idea where to kiss.
“It’ll be okay, mommy.”
“Oh, baby boy.” His mom forces a smile. “I don’t want you to ever hurt like this.”
“Maybe I won’t be cursed.”
“I hope so, sweetie.”
James shivers, drawing his knees to his chest. The duck and the destroyer float up and over his scrawny arms, out into the great wide open spaces of the bathtub. His mom picks up the battleship, tracing her fingers over the gray plastic. She whispers, so soft that she probably thinks James can’t hear it. “Maybe it’s better not to love anyone at all.”
Those are the words James learns to live by.
---
The sunlight playing over the trees is turning the leaves different colors, green and gold and green-gold, and it’s all kind of pretty, like a painting.
“We could be astronauts,” Logan says, pointing to the sky. His finger traces the outline of the sun, even though he isn’t actually looking at it. Logan has been James’s next door neighbor and best friend since they were tiny. He always does the things he’s told, and the two of them have been told many, many times by their teachers and their moms not to stare at the sun or they’ll go blind. James though, he’s bad at following directions. He looks straight at the thing, every single time, until dots dance behind his eyelids like flashing lights.
It’s a good thing he stole a pair of his dad’s old wayfarers for this trip. With them perched on his nose, Logan can’t see that he’s staring and berate him about it. Logan lectures like someone’s mom.
“Don’t you have to like science for that?” James asks, his palms flat against the warm surface of the big rock. They’re sitting in the middle of the lake, soaking wet and sick of squabbling over who’s going to be King of the Mountain. They both know they’re going to come up with a tie. Instead they’re talking about what they’re going to do when they grow up, which has always been one of their favorite games. James likes to imagine that he’s going to be a popstar or a ninja or James Bond, but now that they’re on the verge of the third grade, Logan’s gotten all serious business about life choices. He keeps saying that James Bond isn’t a real spy, which is really mean. James doesn’t go around bashing Logan’s dream career.
“I do like science.”
“I don’t,” James objects.
“Do we have to do the same thing when we’re old? Maybe we could do different stuff.”
“No.” On this point, James is adamant. “You promised, we’re always going to be together.”
“I know, but like-“ Logan huffs, his tiny little ribs puffing out and then in. He’s so scrawny. James is already as big as some of the middle school kids, but Logan still looks like he’s in kindergarten. “Couldn’t we still be together if you’re singing and I’m a, I don’t know. A doctor?”
“You want to be a doctor now?” James tilts the shades down his nose, peering over the top of them with as much skepticism as he can muster. “Blood makes you puke.”
“Shut up.”
“You shut up,” James shoves Logan lightly, careful not to send him careening off the rock. Their moms might make them go back home if they fight too much, and James isn’t ready to leave the lake yet. He leans back against smooth stone, and with a loud, pained noise, Logan pillows his head against James’s side.
His hair is soft against James’s skin. James runs his fingers through it, relishing the way Logan shivers into his touch like a bunny rabbit getting petted. In the sunlight, every strand of brown shines golden and ruby red between James’s fingers; highlights like precious metals. The rock feels good against his skin, like oven-warm tortillas, and he can hear their mothers laughing off on their rafts, sweeping around the lazy currents of the lake. James kicks his feet in the water, just to listen to the splash.
“Stop moving,” Logan murmurs, his lips a butterfly flutter over James’s skin.
“Okay,” he says. Even though he’s looking away, he can still see his best friend’s image in the reflection of his stolen shades, like an old Kodak snapshot. He smiles, letting the sun soak into his skin.
This summer is perfect. James wants the rest of his life to be just like this; one long, lazy day of Logan after another. And soon, he’ll be famous, and Logan will be at his side, taking care of his sniffles or whatever, and it won’t just be this tiny little rock.
They’ll rule the world, just like they’ve always planned.
---
It’s this freaky little scene of domesticity, a bright, loud parody of the way his mom and dad used to have silent exchanges over coffee and the newspaper. Stepmommy dearest forces James’s dad down into his seat, shoving a plateful of eggs and bacon up in front of his face.
James waits for his dad to start lecturing about how his body is a temple and do you even know how much Trans Fat there is in a strip of bacon? But instead he shoves a piece in his mouth and smiles all soft and fond up at the witch.
It isn’t right.
Nothing about this is right. James loves his dad, and the stepwitch is fine for someone who just graduated high school like, a day ago, but there is a big, glaring error here. James thinks about his mom the morning before, clutching a cup of cold coffee while she absently tapped her nails against the table.
No one made her eggs.
No one smiled at her except for James.
He’s only nine, but he knows it’s not fair that his mom is getting shafted when his dad’s the one that cheated. She loved him, and he left her for a teenage girl. James may not be old enough to understand the mechanics of a relationship, but he understands that his dad probably isn’t in love with his perky little wife.
James isn’t sure that his dad is in love with anyone outside of his own reflection.
All his life, he’s been taught that it’s wrong to cheat and lie and deceive. But if that’s true? Then why is his dad the perfect picture of happiness while his mom spends her nights crying into her pillow?
There’s a lesson to be learned here.
---
Less than a month after summer ends, James meets Kendall.
Logan’s the one who finds him first, on the playground at their school. He coerces Kendall and his spastic little friend, Carlos, to eat lunch with the two of them. The kid convinces James in seconds flat to come out for the school hockey team. It doesn’t take much; James’s dad was varsity before he graduated high school and went into music. Everyone says that he was good enough to have gone pro. He’s taught James everything he knows. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, James thinks that trying out for the team is a thing that will make his dad proud.
He forces Logan to come along for the ride. Now they’re standing on the side of the rink, about to see if they’ll make the team for real or if they’ll just be those dorks that the team keeps around because they’re still too young for exclusivity to have set in. James stares at his breath puffing like steam in the air and decides he isn’t nervous. Not even a little bit.
Except he maybe sort of is. His skates keep quaking over the surface of the ice, like he didn’t grow up rink side. It’s only Logan’s presence behind him, familiar and comforting, that stills his trembling fingers when they close around the stick.
Of course they make the team, and of course he feels silly for being nervous.
Kendall skates over to them afterwards, all smiles and celebrations. “You guys rocked. Want to come to my house to celebrate? We’ve got pie.”
James’s eyes light up. He really loves pie.
“Can’t,” Logan says, and James frowns at him. “What? It’s my grandma’s birthday.”
Oh. Yeah. His grandma. James’s grandparents are all dead, and even though it’s stupid, he kind of wishes that Logan’s were too. He’s always running off to visit his grandma, three towns over in a nursing home. James doesn’t actually want the lady to like, die, but he doesn’t get why Logan has to visit her so much. She’s old. It’s not like she can actually do stuff.
James isn’t sure what it is old people get up to in their free time, but it probably has something to do with talking really, really loud about jam. Boring.
“Bummer,” Kendall says. He turns to James. “What about you?”
“Uh, I don’t-“
“Go,” Logan kicks him in the shin, the side of his blade nearly nicking through James’s pants. As it is, he can feel the impact like a bruise.
Ow.
“But I’m supposed to go home with your mom-“
“Go. She knows Mrs. Knight. She’ll be cool with it.” Neither of them say what they’re thinking, which is that James’s mom won’t care either way. James is her world, but so is the fast paced cosmetic market, and as a result she’s not around much. If James goes home right now, it will be to an empty house and a microwavable dinner. His neighbor will pop in every ten minutes to make sure James hasn’t burned anything down, and that will basically be the most exciting part of his night.
Logan hates the idea of James home alone. He’s told James so a whole bunch of times.
“Are you sure it’s okay?” James asks Kendall, tentative, because their friendship barely even exists yet.
“’Course.” Kendall grins. He grabs his duffel bag and walks with James out to his mom’s car. Mrs. Knight looks surprised to see James, but she doesn’t seem to mind his presence. At least not until James is buckled into the back seat of her sedan and Kendall says, “Hey mom, James and I want to go to the park.”
This is news to James, but he likes the park. Whatever.
“Not tonight, Kendall.” Mrs. Knight grips the steering wheel tight in her hands. James can tell by the way her knuckles go all white.
“What? Just for a couple of hours. Come on.”
“Not tonight,” Mrs. Knight repeats, her brow creasing. “Not until your father comes home.”
“Dad’s not coming home,” Kendall bites out. James can see his profile in the passenger seat, and he’s struck by how very unfamiliar this kid is; golden one minute, shadowed by dusk in the next.
“He’s due at the airport in an hour. Honey, of course he’s going to come and see you and Katie-“
“Stop lying!” Kendall actually shouts, and James is surprised by his new friend’s sudden anger. He doesn’t get what’s going on here, but he recognizes it, somehow. He recognizes what it’s like to be really, really mad at your dad.
James doesn’t understand all of Kendall’s anger until they’re up in his living room, jabbing at the keys on his Playstation. Mrs. Knight is rattling around in the kitchen, cooking something that smells like it’s burning when James works up the nerve to ask, “Your dad’s in the army?”
He saw a couple of ribbons around the house in glass frames, and he’s pretty sure he’s seen soldiers wear them on TV.
“He’s a marine,” Kendall says, eyes focused on the TV, but there’s a hint of pride creeping into his voice. “One of the best. When I grow up, I’m going to be just like him.”
“I thought you wanted to be a hockey player.”
“That’s my fallback plan, for when I come home. Can’t be in the service forever, right?”
James doesn’t know anything at all about the military, so he nods.
“He’s not coming home, though,” Kendall insists, actually breaking from the game to glare up at James, like he’s daring him to challenge the idea. “He’s dating some bitch he met on leave last time. Mom just doesn’t get it.”
James doesn’t get what the word bitch means, but he doesn’t want to embarrass himself by asking. He jabs his fingers into the plastic controller and watches Mario jump onto a pile of bricks. James can feel Kendall’s eyes on him for a minute, watching him for some kind of reaction that James just doesn’t know how to give. Later, he’ll realize that Kendall is waiting for James to yell at him. In their town, good boys are only ever supposed to have good thoughts about their dads. But the thing is, James hasn’t been a good boy for a long, long time. He still has words, tucked in the back of his head, even when he lies on sun-heated rocks with Logan or sits through lessons at school or even now, playing Mario Kart with Kendall.
Maybe it’s better not to love at all.
---
James has this idea of his dream house.
It’s a rock mansion, a virtual mancave of cool shit. But in his head, it’s also home. It’s a place that belongs to him and whoever it is that he’ll one day spend the rest of his life with, if he can beat the curse. He’s got every room mapped out, an entire blueprint in his head that he walks through whenever he’s feeling down.
He tells Logan about it, once, when they’re eleven.
“Is there going to be a guest room for me?” Is Logan’s first question.
“Of course,” James replies, because he’s already plotted out where everyone’s going to sleep. Kendall and Carlos will have their own rooms too, but Logan’s will be right next door to James’s. James isn’t sure why, but he feels more comfortable with Logan nearby.
He needs him to make the dream complete.
When James tells Logan that, his face turns kind of red.
---
Kendall says, “My dad is coming home.”
Kendall means I need you. He’s too young to have to deal with the burden of disappointment, the guilt and the pressure that comes from balancing his parents failed relationship, even if it is amicable. His heart is a stone, and he is suffocating beneath the weight of it pressing the air from his lungs. James can see the panic in his eyes.
He follows Kendall back to his house to play video games or build forts or distract him however he can.
He’s not sure if he can ever be enough to lessen the weight, but he sure as hell is going to try.
---
“You’re shallow and stupid and your glasses are dumb!” the girl shouts, throwing her smoothie in James’s face. She proceeds to make an impressive show of marching away, all foot stomping and hair flouncing.
“What was that all about?” Logan asks, mirth dancing in his eyes. They’re thirteen, and Logan knows absolutely nothing at all about dating girls.
“The curse,” James mumbles, cross. He really liked that girl, but they’d been hanging out for a couple of months. It was time to end it, before she walked away.
“The what now?”
“Nothing,” James says dismissively. Logan has enough to say about his mom.
“Okay. So, we’re studying?”
“We’re studying,” James confirms, even though studying is the last thing he wants to do. He promised his mom that if he fails a single subject this year, he’ll drop hockey. That is not even close to an option. He slings his arm around Logan’s shoulders, walking alongside him all the way back to his house. Once there, Logan curls onto James’s bed. James sits at his desk, watching while Logan breaks out a math text. The next thing James knows he’s bopping around in his seat, earbuds in. It might actually be the cutest thing James has ever seen in his life.
He grins and tries to focus on his essay. He’s supposed to be writing a paper on the military, but every time he sets his pen to paper, all he can think about is Kendall’s dad. As his friendship with Kendall grows and stretches, he’s started to get it; how, for most people, wars are make-believe.
People see images on the news, clips of explosions and death and insurgents and they shake their heads. They say what a shame. Then they go back to stuffing their face with fast food and driving their SUVs; the ones with stickers on the back that give you a stick figure body count of their family unit. Which is perfect pre-reconnaissance for a serial killer, if you think about it. Not the point. James blinks, trying to focus. War, and how the distance between it and real life makes it feel like pretend. That’s what Kendall lives with, every day.
They’ve been friends for nearly four years, and Mr. Knight has been stationed overseas for almost the whole time. It’s sad.
Sadness makes it hard to concentrate.
“I’m stupid and I’m going to fail,” James declares, shoving his homework off of his desk in a dramatic fit. Or, at least, it’s supposed to be dramatic. Logan barely bats an eye. James decides it’s because he can’t hear him. He repeats himself. Loudly.
Logan yanks out an earbud and rolls his eyes. “You’re not stupid. Stop looking at me like that, you’re not. You just don’t learn the same way I do."
“I’m going to fail,” James reiterates, even though Logan’s faith in him feels warm, like something in his chest is melting. Logan scrambles up from the bed and leans over James’s shoulder, scanning the essay.
“You’re not. I promise. I won’t let you,” Logan tells him, running his fingers over James’s knuckles reassuringly. James wants to hug him, but in that moment he thinks, our family is cursed.
It’s the weirdest idea.
He bats it away like a fly.
James tries to show Logan the places he’s stuck, and Logan listens, eyes lit with intelligence. James is kind of in awe; the kid’s got a whole universe going on in his brain. Things James will probably never really understand. He listens to Logan’s lecture for a bit. Normally, James doesn’t really care about much outside the realm of his mirror and men’s magazines, but something about Logan’s geek voice catches him. Maybe it’s the comfort and familiarity of a sound that he’s known since before he can remember, or maybe it’s just that Logan’s squeaky little voice is kind of- adorable. James tastes the word.
He’s never really been a stuffed animals kind of kid, except for Princess Sparkly Buttercup, his favorite purple unicorn, but- maybe that’s because he never needed a stuffed animal when he had Logan right in front of him.
James bats that thought away too. Obviously all this learning is turning his brain to mush.
“Work is boring. Let’s do something different.” He makes a play for the remote sitting on top of his dresser before Logan can object, turning the TV on. He switches to MTV almost immediately, upping the volume when a video he likes comes on.
James leaps to his feet, letting Logan take over the chair he vacated.
And then he dances.
Logan laughs, watching as James shimmies his hips in a truly horrendous approximation of the singer on the screen. “Dude, stop. You’re going to break something.”
James glances between the nearest lamp and his hockey trophies, lining a bookshelf, confused.
“In your body,” Logan clarifies, howling with laughter.
“Please,” James says, self-assured. “I am a professional.”
He turns his dance into something like a mock striptease, something he saw on HBO one evening when his mom was out too late. Again.
Logan’s shoulders cease their quivering, and he is watching James’s hips like they’re hypnotic. “Professional. Right.”
“You doubt me?” James demands, his voice haughty and impetuous.
“No, sir,” Logan mocks. But then something in his expression changes, and he asks, “Do you do this for girls?”
“Do what?”
He’s still moving, still swaying, and Logan reaches out, a palm flat against his sides. James can feel the warmth of his hands through the denim of his jeans. Logan has always been so small, but the older they get, the bigger his hands have grown. He’s got a pretty good grip on James’s hips. He quirks an eyebrow and clarifies, “Dance?”
James cocks his head to the side and thinks. It takes him a little bit, but the answer is, “Nope.”
“You only dance for me?”
The truth is, James is too embarrassed to dance for anyone else. He’s been working on his popstar moves in the privacy of his own home, but right now Logan is the only one he trusts enough to show off for.
He won’t tell him that, though. Instead he breaks free of Logan’s grip and shakes back and forth, doing his ridiculous dance again. He grabs Logan by the hand, pulling him to his feet and forcing him into the routine. It doesn’t take much to break his best friend’s solemnity.
For a genius, Logan moves like he was made to do it.
Maybe doctoring isn’t his only calling.
---
It’s the worst blizzard they’ve had in years. Snow coats everything in this thick, wet layer that feels like powder on James’s skin, but slips like slush beneath his boots. The only thing keeping him from slipping is that the snow’s already built up high enough that he can braces his knees against it on each and every step. Which makes walking kind of hard, but whatever. They’re almost there.
Logan is at his grandmother’s, again, and James is walking Kendall home from school. It’s gotten to be a kind of tradition of theirs. James doesn’t have any reason to be home, and Kendall doesn’t do so well with the whole being alone thing. Mrs. Knight has started taking later shifts at the diner to make ends meet, and Katie’s got an after school program. Kendall hides the loneliness well, but James can see right through his poker face. He is a professional actor.
Or, he’s hoping to be. He started drama this year, and he’s trying to land a part in the spring play. Even if it’s not a big role, it’s sure to look good on James’s acting resume.
James rubs his hands together, fingerless gloves doing little to keep him warm, but man, he is the most stylish dude in Minnesota. He’s a freshman in high school now. His image is important.
Which is why he’s kind of pissed when Kendall shoves him face first into the snow.
“Dude,” he yells, anger leaping into his chest. He can feel ice slide down his cheeks, puddle in the hollow above his lip and the curve of his nose. Kendall is laughing his ass off, arm clutched to the middle of his stomach, smile brighter than anything else in their snow-sodden world.
He’s such a dick.
James finds his footing and takes a flying leap, tackling Kendall straight down into a snow bank.
“Hey!” Kendall yelps, breath whooshing out of his chest in a hot burst onto James’s neck. James pays him no mind. Revenge is sweet.
They wrestle around for a bit, flailing arms and legs until the ice soaks through their jeans and James is pretty sure he’s bruised a rib.
That’s okay. Kendall’s eye is starting to blacken from an accidental-on-purpose elbow to his face.
They practically run the rest of the way to Kendall’s house, but when they get there, they don’t go inside. They sit on the stoop, red faced and winded; smiling like it’s going out of style.
“Asshole,” James mutters without any venom.
“Brat,” Kendall counters. His green eyes are sparkling. “James?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m- um.” Kendall stumbles over his words, and it’s cute, because Kendall doesn’t stumble over much. “I’m glad we’re friends.”
“Me too, dude.”
“Yeah, but. I’m- really glad, okay? Before I met you guys, I never had anyone.”
“You had Carlos,” James objects.
“I met Carlos like, two months before you and Logan.” Kendall laughs. “All three of you- it was like I wished for you and fate made it happen.”
James can’t tell if Kendall is blushing beneath the bright red, sweaty sheen of exertion, but he probably is. They’re not really the kind of guys who go in for the deep emotional crap. But he doesn’t mind.
Sometimes he feels like Kendall and Carlos and Logan were tailor-made for him too.
He reaches out and squeezes Kendall’s hand. Then he says, “You owe me a cup of hot chocolate. With huge marshmallows.”
“I can do that.” Kendall beams, shaking the snow off his hair like a wet dog. He helps James up to his feet and for the rest of the night, neither of them can shake their smiles.
Life isn’t perfect, but it’s close.
---
Logan is sad.
He looks so tiny in his little black suit. Logan is small in all the places that James has grown strong and broad, but he’s not scrawny. He’s built like a hockey player, same as the rest of them. His muscle is wiry and hard and his skin is as familiar as James’s own from a million days spent touching and wrestling and tackling and tickling and dancing and just plain being together. He’s not ever supposed to look tiny.
James wants to hold him close to his body and never, ever let him go. Thing is, that probably won’t help. Logan was close to his grandma. So close that James has resented the woman more than once for stealing Logan’s time away from him. He feels bad about it now, because she’s dead, and because he’d give up countless hours with Logan just to wipe that expression off of his face.
He doesn’t know what to do, and he doesn’t like feeling so helpless. He, Kendall, and Carlos stage a sleepover at Logan’s house the night of the funeral, but it hasn’t boosted anybody’s mood. Logan said that he’d come up to sleep when he was ready, but it’s well past midnight, and his bed sits cold and empty. James knows because he’s curled up in the sheets, alone. A storm is raging over their small town, and
James has been listening to the steady drumbeat of the rain for hours now. It sounds like the sky is sobbing. Each drop of rain is like an amplified gunshot. It’s loud, sloppy weather that suits James’s mood.
Kendall and Carlos are laid out in sleeping bags on the floor, completely unbothered by Logan’s absence. Heartless bastards. Carlos makes this little snuffling noise in his sleep, and every once in a while Kendall will mumble nonsense words. The two of them are driving James insane.
He watches the silhouette of the hall nightlight frame the door for close to fifteen minutes before he actually gets up, deciding he’s had enough of this whole waiting gig. James needs to find out if Logan’s okay. He shucks the comforter, trying to avoid stepping on Carlos’s face as he makes his way out the door.
Logan’s in the kitchen with no lights on. He’s standing in front of the window, still dressed in the suit that swamps him. He is swimming in black, in grief. James hates it.
“Dude. Are you ever coming to sleep?”
“Can’t,” Logan says, staring dully at the rain out the window. It slaps against the windows like it wants inside the house.
“Why not?” James demands, crossing his arms. He sounds petulant. He doesn’t mean to. It’s just so late, and the tile beneath his feet is cold. He wants to sleep, and he wants Logan asleep beside him so that he can know he’s safe and warm and maybe not happy, but definitely not crying his way through the night. How is James supposed to take care of him when Logan won’t even come up to his room and let James hug him?
“I just can’t, okay?”
Logan makes this noise that’s halfway between a choke and a sob. The sound of it pierces James’s ear drums, sharp like a shard of glass in his chest, and he’s never done well with sadness. All he wants is to make the keening cry stop, and he stumbles forward, thinking that he’s going to cover Logan’s mouth with his hand. He’ll murmur comforting things, wordless things, like a song with no lyrics until
Logan quiets. That’s the plan.
Except James’s body doesn’t seem to really comprehend the finer details of the plan, because he’s got Logan pinned against his own kitchen counter, sandstone colored marble pressed into the edge of Logan’s ass and oh yeah, he’s kissing him.
Logan tastes salty, like tears and grief and the peanuts he ate at the reception. Which isn’t the point, because the point is James is kissing him and what the fuck is he doing? He waits for Logan to shove him away, slowing the kiss down until it’s nothing more than a soft brush of their lips and their shared exhalations, but Logan doesn’t do anything more than wind his fingers in the hem of James’s Ramones T-shirt, the one he stole from his dad to sleep in. He’s kissing James back, hesitant, clumsy.
Most of Logan’s experience with girls is a direct result of the dates that James set him up on, and the kid may be a fast learner, but he obviously hasn’t picked up much. Secure in the knowledge that he’s not about to get his head smashed into the refrigerator, James takes over the kiss, coaxing Logan’s mouth open with his lips and then his tongue until he’s got him panting, tongue slick and pliant against James’s. That’s okay for a little bit, but before long James can’t help kissing him harder, deeper, and Logan makes this noise and it’s nothing at all like grief.
It makes James’s hips twitch forward until he’s pressed up to Logan, whose entire body is scorching heat compared to the freezing cold kitchen. He’s hard. James can feel the shape of his cock through his dress slacks, against the thickness filling his own pajama pants. Logan doesn’t miss a beat, striving to recreate the spark of friction that ignited between their dicks, rutting forward until he’s rubbing up against James like he’s forgotten how to do anything else.
James groans and wraps his arms around Logan’s waist, lifting him up so that he’s actually sitting on the countertop. He rocks forward into the space he’s created between Logan’s legs, thighs tight at his hips and fuck, that is so much better.
Logan obviously agrees. He’s the one who makes the first move for something more, his fingers fisted in the bottom of James’s shirt deftly
yanking it up until it’s rucked into the spaces between his armpits. James obediently lifts his arms, letting Logan pull it up and over his head. For a second James stands there, Logan staring at him as he shivers, half naked. James can’t figure out what’s going on inside of his head, and while it’s not exactly a first to wonder what the hell Logan’s genius brain is thinking, it’s disconcerting to do it like this, when there’s actually something to lose. He can’t take the staring or the wondering, so he steps back into the hollow between Logan’s legs. He untucks Logan’s shirt and carefully undoes the buttons, giving him time to back out.
Logan doesn’t seem interested in running back up to his bedroom and hiding underneath the covers, too focused on the way James moves from the shirt to fumbling open the buckle of his dress pants.
“Don’t be sad,” James pleads, but it sounds like an order.
Logan’s gaze snaps up to him, glare turning sharp as broken glass, eyes watering. “You don’t get to dictate my grief.”
“Don’t be sad,” James repeats, undoing the zipper of his slacks. He reaches inside the opening of Logan’s boxers, palming a hand over his cock.
It ends the discussion.
This sound like a mewl rips from Logan’s throat, raw edged and sexy. He lifts his butt off the counter, letting James slide his pants and boxers off in one easy movement, and then he’s sitting there, naked except for his unbuttoned, wrinkled white shirt.
He looks scared, but he is no longer small or vulnerable. Lust makes Logan look bigger than he is, like a feral animal of a boy instead of James’s nerdy best friend.
James slides the shirt off of Logan’s shoulders, kissing his neck and circling his fingers around his dick until the tension eases from Logan’s thin shoulders. He is building up a rhythm, his mouth sucking a mark into Logan’s throat, his hand moving in an up down pattern that’s almost familiar from his own nights beneath the covers of his bed.
The whole thing is shattered when Logan reaches forward and skims his fingers over James’s cock. James has to stop everything that he’s doing, his inhalation sharp and completely unhelpful, because it’s impossible to get air in his lungs when Logan is touching him like that. The feather light brush of his fingers turns into a tight, hot circle of heat as Logan tries pumping light over the shaft. James thinks he might actually die from the contact. He presses forward, kissing Logan long and deep, until neither of their hands are doing much, but their dicks are pressing together, fever hot and unbearable friction.
James doesn’t have a single clue what he’s doing, and he has no idea where this is going. He’s got a vague idea of how gay sex works, gleaned from health class and crude locker room taunting, but it’s not like he’s ever done research on it or anything. He’s never given any thought to banging a boy, not until now, with Logan willing and eager against him. That doesn’t seem to matter to Logan, whose silhouette is backlit by a flash of lightning in the sky when he mumbles, “D’you wanna-“
“Yes,” James gasps, because whether the end of that question is fuck or just plain cum from a handjob alone, James wants it. He nearly passes out when he finds out it’s the former, when Logan, still rocking against him in slow, electric undulations takes one of James’s hands and presses it up against his ass, like he expects him to- oh. Oh.
He tries to push in a finger dry, but the action makes Logan flinch, his face contorting with pain. James immediately withdraws, certain that he’s fucked up, but Logan pants, “I think it has to be wet.” James doesn’t even bother asking how he knows that. Logan takes like, college level biology. He knows his shit.
James’s first thought is to turn on the sink, but he thinks about how water feels on his dick when he jacks himself off in the shower before school. It’s never as good as lube, or- James sticks his fingers in his own mouth, not caring that his index finger has already dipped inside his best friend’s ass. He lathers each digit in turn with his tongue, coating them with saliva until they’re as wet as he can possibly get them.
Logan watches him, eyes dark and wanting. James has this stray thought that oh, this is what desire looks like on Logan’s face. It’s pretty intense.
He goes slow this time around, testing what Logan will tolerate and what makes his face scrunch with discomfort. Once he’s got his index finger pressed in all the way to the knuckle, he tries wiggling it around, trying to figure out his next move. It can’t be too different from fingering a girl, can it? James crooks his finger this way and that, and it is actually different from girls.
It doesn’t seem to be doing much for Logan other than making him uncomfortable until James curls the tip of it against- something.
Logan’s face goes completely blissed out, surprise and pleasure blossoming over his features and okay. James tries to recreate whatever it is he just did. It takes a couple of attempts, but Logan’s pretty helpful about it, rocking down against him in this way that it is at once shy and fervent. James works another finger inside of him, figuring he’ll get the angle right if he has more digits to work with, and even though
Logan winces against the stretch, his expression almost instantly transforms to shock and pleasure. He actually yelps James’s name, hands clenching hard at his shoulders.
James tries out a couple of things, scissoring his fingers apart and twisting them together, different movements and sensations that make Logan writhe against him. He uses his free hand to pump against Logan’s dick, and that must really feel good, because Logan starts babbling incomprehensibly, and in between the nonsense words James catches his name, do it, and fuck me. Logan’s actually begging for it. James has to catch his breath again.
He’s never done this before. Not just with a dude. With anyone. He’s had girls ask him for it more than once, but it’s always seemed like this thing that he would deal with when he had to. No Big Deal. He never expected the moment would come in Logan’s dark kitchen, when the sky has cracked open, and his hands are shaking so much that he thinks something must be wrong.
It is a big deal.
It’s Logan.
The storm outside rages like it’s trying to tear apart the house, and every time lightning brightens the sky Logan flinches as though he’s been hit. James has never been so scared in his entire life. He doesn’t want to hurt Logan.
He doesn’t ever, ever want to hurt him.
Logan’s pupils are huge, his irises darker than James has ever seen them. His breath is coming out ragged, like he’s run miles and miles just to reach this place, just to have James’s hands on his body. He says, “James,” and his voice is foreign. It sends shivers up James’s spine.
He uses a third finger to shut Logan up, at the same time licking his own palm until it’s slick enough that he can slide a thin coat of saliva over his own dick. He is ridiculously turned on. James presses Logan back until his head and his neck are resting against the kitchen wall, pulling his hips forward so that he’s not actually sitting on the marble anymore. Most of his weight is resting on James, and yeah, he’s a hockey player, he can take it, but it doesn’t make it any less awkward. He toys with the idea of throwing Logan over his shoulder and taking him on the dining room table, or better yet, the couch, but this tiny, fragmented part of his brain says that if they change the locale, Logan might change his mind. There’s something like magic in the kitchen, transformed by shadows and the raging of the storm, the shudder of thunder and the thrill of lightning.
James shifts Logan’s weight, lining up the head of his cock against his asshole, focusing on the places where Logan’s hands are gripping the side of the sink and James’s arm so tightly that his knuckles are white. James’s arm kind of hurts, but it’s a dull kind of ache compared to the warmth of Logan’s ass against the slit of his dick.
And then he pushes in.
Logan squeezes around him so tight that it’s actually painful, and James winces. He stills his hips.
“You have to relax, man.” He kisses the line of Logan’s jaw and says softly, “Relax.”
Logan grunts and captures his lips, pulling James into a kiss that is wet and slick and dirty. Their tongues slide together without any rhythm, but it feels so fucking amazing that James can’t help thrusting forward a little.
Logan gasps into his mouth, and James immediately tries to pull back, hard as hell, but still so scared that he’s going to hurt his best friend. Logan stops him with a sharp, “No.”
He pulls insistently at James’s chin, kissing him, not seeming to mind the awkward angle or the way that he’s got the head of James’s dick hot inside of him. Every time the kiss gets deeper, it’s like Logan opens up a little, and they go like that, centimeter by centimeter, until
James is fucking deeper inside of his best friend than he ever thought he could.
Experimentally, James tries pulling back. Logan keens high in his throat, clawing at him, trying to get him back, and James pushes forward. They do it like that, inches in and inches out until it’s almost rhythmic, and the slide of it is easier. James strokes a hand over Logan’s cock, trying to make it good for him too. That seems to help.
“James,” Logan whimpers each time James pulls out farther and pushes in deeper, until it’s like electric building along the hair of his arms.
It’s James’s first time, and it has to be Logan’s too (it has to be). Neither of them last very long. Logan comes with a gasp so quiet that James nearly misses it. He does not miss the way Logan stripes white across his stomach and hand in hot, short bursts as James keeps pumping his dick inside of him. He can’t stop, not even if he wanted to. Thunder shakes the kitchen, but it is not as important as the way Logan is trembling around him, prying his own orgasm from his grasp. He shudders long and hard, blissed out from the pleasure of it, from the places where Logan’s skin touches his.
He doesn’t want to let him go. Logan is a miracle, love and beauty and stardust wrapped up in one perfect package of a boy. And he’s watching James like maybe he is too, like he is lightning and thunder and something earth-shaking. James sags against his body, bringing his arms around Logan and tugging him as close as he can, given the angle. There is a big awkward space between their chests, but to close it James would have to withdraw his softening, oversensitized dick, and he’s not ready for that yet. He presses a kiss to Logan’s forehead, and Logan shifts, ass squeezing. In a distant way James begins thinking that it will only take him a minute to get hard again, and then they could do that again and again and again until Logan is wrecked.
James likes the idea of wrecking his best friend, of turning him pliant and malleable and gorgeous beneath his fingers. He wants to make Logan pant his name, to say it exactly the same way he had when James first pushed into him.
Logan, apparently, has different plans. Carefully, he pries himself away from James, until James can no longer feel the heat of his ass or his chest or his breath.
He distances their bodies and stutters out something that sounds like goodnight.
James wonders if this is what the curse is; being left cold and alone and half in love in the middle of a night by a boy that he never thought would abandon him. He hears his mom’s words like a whisper in his ear.
We fall in love with people who leave.
The next morning, James watches Logan across the breakfast table and wants to kiss him. But Logan won’t even look him in the eye.
He meets Kendall’s gaze.
He has no trouble glancing in Carlos’s direction.
It’s only James that isn’t worthy of his attention.
James understands, instinctively, that they are not supposed to talk about this thing that they did. So James doesn’t bring it up. Mentally, he pictures his imaginary rockstar mansion. He shuffles Logan down a few rooms. Out loud, James chatters on about hockey and some random scientific fact about elephants that he picked up from the magazines Logan hides under his bed instead of porn, and a whole slew of gossip about who’s dating who in Hollywood until Logan is willing to just look at him again. And once he does, James tries to keep the things that he feels from leaping to his throat. He keeps the words he wants to say from spilling out onto the breakfast table, uncivil like. He wills himself to wall off his heart, brick by brick, because this is what a curse feels like.
If he opens himself up to the things that he feels, Logan will leave.
Sex wasn’t supposed to be a big deal, but James secretly thinks it’s a tragic way to lose his virginity; one second he realizes he’s in love and the next, he realizes he can never actually have this boy again. After all, Logan leaving is the one thing that James can never, ever allow to happen.
---
James has sex with girls. Well, first he tries to build a relationship with them out of a mutual appreciation for making out, and that doesn’t work. But James can sure as hell try, and he does, often. Making out eventually turns into to hooking up, and he likes that.
It’s never quite right, though. It’s just not the same.
He tries fucking a boy, hot and hard behind the bleachers at school. There are no storms. There is no lightning.
No one can replicate the way that Logan said James’s name. It’s a gasp in the back of his head every time he gets off. James thinks that the only way to quiet the voice so deeply ingrained in his memory is to replace it with many, many, many others. So he takes what he can.
He bangs a string of boys and girls until sex becomes as familiar and simple as breathing.
He embraces his reputation. He’s always had it, but it’s never been true until now. It’s easier to be the filthy hot mess that everyone expects him to be than to make an attempt at normalcy. What even is normal? James isn’t sure, and he doesn’t really care. He familiarizes himself with the name-calling and the condescension that comes with being a player. James has heard all the words. Slut. Whore. He’s been called a homewrecker more than once. He doesn’t take offense to any of it. He learns to let insults bounce off of his skin. Isn’t this what being young is about? Having fun?
There are days where guilt sticks to his insides like moss. The idea that he’s doing something wrong slides through his mind, leaving a slimy slug trail. But James refuses to allow anything to stop him from living.
Even his conscience.
---