Maybe This Town Isn't So Bad, Chapter 10
Title: Maybe This Town Isn't So Bad
Author: shmorgenheigen
Chapter: Ten
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Pierre/David
Word Count: 6914
Summary: After coming out of the closet to his friends in Canada and getting disowned by them, Pierre Bouvier moves to a hick town in the states to escape. Life is dull and grim for the twenty-one year old Canadian until he meets David Desrosiers, a young man who could change it all for the better.
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own, didn't happen!
Author's Note: OMG. I'm super drunk right now but I really wanted to put this up! So I'm sorry if there are any mistakes.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
“I missed you, David.”
David sighed and closed his eyes, allowing Troy’s words to wash over his senses. They were nice words to hear, despite who they were coming from. He snuggled his face against Troy’s bare chest and clung to his side, feeling strangely out of place laying naked on top of the six-foot-two quarterback, even though he’d been in such a position several times in the past. Nothing felt right without Pierre anymore, and laying with another man certainly felt nothing short of wrong, and yet there he was, his hair ruffled from sex, his body temperature slowly returning to normal as his sweaty limbs dried. Troy’s arms wrapped more securely around David, despite the fact that David ignored his sentiments.
“So… what did he do?” Troy asked gently, and David’s eyes opened again, though he made no movement to get up.
“I don’t want to talk about Pierre,” David said stiffly.
Troy smiled and began to run his fingers gently through David’s soft black hair. “He must’ve done something really bad,” he commented gently.
David’s eyes flashed down to Troy’s chest, which was formed much in the same way as Pierre’s was, though his scent was different. It wasn’t comforting, as Pierre’s was; like everything else about his sexual encounter with Troy, it just felt wrong. Slowly David pushed his torso up and looked down at Troy, who tilted his head to the side and smiled sweetly up at him. “Do you think I’m immature?” David asked, his voice stained with pain.
Troy’s brow furrowed and he shook his head slowly. “You’re probably one of the most mature people I know,” Troy admitted. “Then again, I hang out with football players, so that’s not really saying a whole lot.”
David gave a gentle laugh and nodded. “Thanks for the honesty,” he muttered, before lowering himself to Troy’s chest again.
“So he said you were immature?” Troy asked, resuming his stoking of David’s hair.
“Pretty much implied it,” David said softly. “He called me kid… said I wasn’t a grown up… said I had my head stuck in Magical-Teenager-Land…” David trailed off softly.
Troy’s brow furrowed and his hand stopped with his fingers tangled in David’s hair. “How old is he?”
David bit his lips together and took a long, deep breath through his nose. “Twenty-one,” he muttered quietly.
“Jesus, David,” Troy muttered, his fingers resuming their combing.
“I thought he was really cool, ya know?” David asked weakly, and though he tried his hardest, he couldn’t hide the tears in his voice. “But he just started attacking me… I don’t even know why…”
“I told you he doesn’t care like I care,” Troy reminded David gently.
David scoffed quietly, in that moment wanting to remind Troy of everything he’d ever done to him to prove how little he cared, though at the same time he knew that in his own fucked up way, Troy cared more about David than he’d ever cared about another person in his life.
“I’m serious,” Troy said firmly, and David pushed himself up and looked down at Troy, offering a sad smile. “He doesn’t love you like I do,” Troy told him, staring hard into David’s eyes, as if challenging him to contradict his words. David didn’t bother to respond; what could he say? He knew that Troy meant it when he said he loved him, but there wasn’t a single part of David that returned that love. Instead, David stared into Troy’s deep brown eyes. Doing so made him think of Pierre, however, and soon his eyes were swimming with tears. David missed him already more than he could describe. He didn’t even want to think about the next day and the day after that, days spent without Pierre’s warm smile and soft touch.
When Troy’s hand was on David’s cheek, David blinked rapidly, attempting to clear his eyes of tears, though only managing to let his tears escape. “Please don’t cry,” Troy asked gently. “I’ve already seen you cry enough to last a lifetime.”
David gave a sad nod and wiped his eyes, thinking that had he been with Pierre, the older man would have wiped them gently away for him. Then a thought struck him, something which David couldn’t stop himself from muttering. “Yeah, and most of the time it was because of something you did to me.”
Troy stiffened underneath David and suddenly David was afraid. Troy very obviously wasn’t afraid to hurt him; did he really want to make him angry? “I didn’t want to do any of that stuff, David,” Troy told him, his voice sounding softer than David would have expected.
David blinked rapidly, unsure if he should say what he wanted to say. “You didn’t want to hurt me?” David asked quietly.
“Of course I didn’t,” Troy told him firmly. David, despite his fears of what the other boy might do to him, moved off of him, sitting on the edge of the boy’s bed with the blankets covering his bare hips. “Come on, Dave… you honestly think I got pleasure out of hurting you?” When David did nothing but give a sarcastic laugh, Troy sat up quickly and stared at him angrily. “I didn’t,” he told him firmly.
“Then why’d you do it?” David found himself asking, almost as if his tongue was out of his control.
“You have to understand, I was going crazy without you! I missed you so much! I couldn’t stop myself from trying to talk to you! I just wanted your attention, I wanted to make you see that we’re right for each other, but you wouldn’t talk to me! And when people saw me trying to talk to you…” Troy trailed off, shaking his head slowly. He looked back at David, staring at him hard. “I have a-”
“A reputation to protect, yeah, I know,” David said, his voice flat and unimpressed.
“Look, I’m sorry about what I did. I’m sorry I hurt you. But you have to know, I didn’t like doing it! I did it because I had no other choice!” Troy pleaded.
“Really?” David asked skeptically. “You had no choice but to rip my earrings out? You couldn’t have spared me that?”
Troy was silent for several long seconds, his mind clearly working to come up with a good explanation behind his actions. David stared at him, his eyebrow raised in impatience. “Okay… so it got a little out of control…” Troy muttered, looking down. “But I was fucking hurt! You broke my heart!” He continued, looking up at David again.
Perhaps it was merely Troy’s manipulative effect on David’s mind, but David couldn’t help but feel bad. He bit his lips together, his eyes flicking down as he remembered the pain in Troy’s eyes when he’d told him it was over. “I never wanted to hurt you like that,” David said softly.
“Things were fine! Things were great! And then someone else better came along and you just took off!” Troy accused angrily.
David looked further down, allowing Troy to get into his mind completely. “I’m sorry,” he practically whispered. He looked up when he felt a hand on his face, making sad eye contact with the taller boy. “I’m sorry,” he said again, this time louder.
“I know I shouldn’t forgive you for that… but I can’t help it,” Troy said gently. “You mean too much to me.”
David stared at Troy sadly, giving a weak nod, though soon his eyes were falling closed as Troy moved toward him. When Troy’s lips pressed against his, instead of feeling better, David simply felt worse. Kissing Troy was nothing like kissing Pierre. He thought of Troy’s words, of everything that had ever happened between them, and suddenly everything snapped into proper perspective for him.
He pulled back quickly, pushing Troy away from him as he did. “Wait a minute,” he said, his voice firm. Troy stared at him questioningly. “You shouldn’t forgive me?”
“You have no idea what you put me through, David!” Troy defended himself quickly.
“No, no, no,” David muttered, and immediately he was up and across the room, pulling his boxers back on. “What I put you through?! I don’t even fucking think so! God, you are SO manipulative!” David told him as he reached down and pulled on his jeans and slipped on his shoes.
“What?” Troy asked, dumbfounded by David’s sudden streak of confidence.
“You spent years making fun of me, you beat me up, you raped me, you beat me up some more, you ripped my piercings out, and you think I’m in the wrong?!” David demanded loudly. When Troy opened his mouth to retort, David talked quickly over him. “Don’t even try the ‘you broke my heart’ card, Troy! You have done nothing but mistreat me from the beginning!”
Troy stood, pulling on his own boxers as he did, and walked quickly over to David. David’s eyes widened slightly but he stood his ground, knowing that if he showed even the tiniest sign of weakness, Troy would try to work his way into his mind again, and quite possibly succeed. “I made everyone like you!” Troy pointed out quickly.
“You’re the reason everyone hated me in the first place!” David retorted. “I wasn’t an outcast until you said I was! I even had a few friends, but no! ‘That David has black hair! That David wears tight pants! That David has staples in his face!’ Don’t forget who came up with my clever little nickname!” David reminded him heatedly.
“Okay, so maybe I haven’t always been the nicest guy, but I’m trying to change for you now! I’m trying to be a better man for you!” Troy pleaded, placing his hands on David’s shoulders.
David shook his head and, with all the courage he could muster, pushed Troy’s hands off of him. “You’re not a man,” David said coldly and Troy’s mouth slowly fell open. “You’re a scared little boy who can’t admit that you like dick, but you’d never punish yourself for that, so instead you’ve been spending all this time punishing me, and you’ve been working your hardest to keep me down and to make everyone hate me, including myself, so I would never realize how much better than you I am, and how much better than you I can do!”
When David finished his rant, the two stood in a shocked silence, both completely unsure of what to say. David hadn’t even known most of what he’d said until after he’d said it, and as soon as the words were out, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. “I’m done here,” he said firmly, and reached down to pick his shirt up off of the ground.
“You’re not done until I say you’re done,” Troy warned, his hand finding David’s arm.
David merely pulled his hand out of Troy’s grasp and pushed him away, taking Troy completely by surprise. “No,” David said firmly, before pulling his shirt on over his head. “No, I’m done here because I say I’m done. I should’ve never fallen back into this fucked up mess of a relationship! Maybe you didn’t believe me the first time I said it, because I was scared and hardly believed it myself; maybe you didn’t believe Pierre when he said it, because deep down you think you’re better than he is; but you will sure as hell believe me now when I say that this is over. You and I are over. I am done letting you torture me. Don’t talk to me at school, don’t look at me in the halls, don’t try to do me any favors. This is the end,” David finished firmly.
Troy made no effort to stop David from leaving, too stunned by his words and change in demeanor. It was obvious that he couldn’t bully David anymore - obvious that David had closed his mind to him. It was the end, just as David had said, and for once there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
As terrible as David felt about everything with Pierre, he couldn’t help but feel proud of himself. As he got in his truck, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, allowing the feel of the lifted burden to emanate through his limbs. He needed a moment to really take in what he had just done, what had just happened to him, and what it all meant. He was free of Troy, one hundred percent, for the rest of his life. It was over. He knew it, and finally Troy knew it, too.
That feeling of elation lasted only a few short minutes, however, before his conversation with Pierre from earlier that day rang through his mind, and instantly tears were forming in his eyes. And though he was seconds from crying, he couldn’t help but be filled with a strange feeling of self-empowerment. “I’m not done with you,” he told Pierre firmly, though obviously Pierre had no way of hearing him. “If I can do this… I can do anything. I’m going to make you tell me what’s wrong, and then we’re getting back together, because there’s no way in Hell I’m letting this relationship end without a fight.” And with that, he drove home, his heart pounding and his mind reeling with thoughts of Pierre and how he would approach him the next day, because he was determined to show up on Pierre’s doorstep first thing the next day and force him to listen. He had to try.
And while David had tackled his own demons, Pierre was left standing helplessly in his doorway, staring at the one person who had caused him more grief than any one else in the world, and having uttered only the single word, “Sebastien.” The two stared at each other, Pierre’s face blank, emotionless, while Sebastien had tears swimming in his dazzlingly blue eyes, his chest rising and falling heavily with the attempt to keep himself from breaking down entirely at the mere sight of his ex-best friend.
“I broke the pact,” Sebastien said suddenly, his voice sounding cracked and weak in the absolute silence of the evening.
Pierre’s brow furrowed and his mouth fell slowly open as Sebastien’s words penetrated his mind. “What?” he asked.
Sebastien bit his lips together and looked down for a moment, unable to take the cold, indifferent look on Pierre’s face. “When we were eight, we made a pact…” Sebastien started softly, and Pierre’s heart began to beat faster in his chest. “We made a pact that we’d always be best friends… for the rest of our lives…” Sebastien continued quietly. He looked up at Pierre, fixing him with a sad, watery gaze. Pierre focused his hardest on keeping his face impassive, at not showing Sebastien how his words were affecting him, though inside he was screaming for the other man. “Remember, we cut our right palms and shook hands?” He asked, offering a weak smile. “And our moms flipped out and made us get tetanus shots?”
“I remember,” Pierre told him stiffly, though he was straining so hard to keep tears from his eyes that his voice almost didn’t leave his throat.
Sebastien stared at Pierre, his fingers fidgeting with each other in front of his body. “I broke the pact,” he repeated, so softly that Pierre almost didn’t hear him. The sound of it ripped at Pierre’s insides and he couldn’t stop himself from shaking any longer. “I’m so sorry,” Sebastien whispered, two tears rolling down his cheeks as he did, and suddenly Pierre couldn’t stop himself anymore. He reached forward and pulled Sebastien toward him, wrapping his arms tightly around the smaller man’s body and hugging him with all of his might. Sebastien practically collapsed into Pierre’s arms, hugging him back with everything in him and crying against his chest. Pierre hid his face in the crook of Sebastien’s neck, taking in a slow, deep breath as he re-familiarized himself with how the smaller man smelled and felt.
“I was so scared, Pierre,” Sebastien whispered, though Pierre heard every word. With each word Sebastien spoke, Pierre was losing that battle with himself to not cry. “I didn’t want to lose him,” Sebastien continued, his voice even softer.
Pierre’s brow furrowed and he opened his eyes, though he didn’t relinquish his grip on Sebastien’s smaller body. “Who?”
Sebastien was silent for several long seconds, but when he answered, there was no mistaking the name he’d spoken. “Patrick.”
Pierre pulled back, his hands resting on Sebastien’s shoulders as he stared down at him, his face contorted in confusion. “What do you mean, you didn’t want to lose Patrick?” he asked, sounding slightly offended. Sebastien had reacted the way he had because he hadn’t wanted to lose Patrick as a friend, when he and Pierre had been friends for several years longer?
Sebastien stared helplessly up at Pierre, hating the hurt in his eyes. “When I was in high school… I fell in love with one of my best friends,” Sebastien breathed, and suddenly Pierre understood. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped, though that didn’t stop Sebastien from looking down at the ground and continuing. “Just not the one that wanted me to…” he finished gently.
“Oh my God,” Pierre muttered, blinking rapidly. “David was right.”
Sebastien looked up again, his eyebrows pulled together. “Who’s David?”
Pierre, ignoring Sebastien’s question, took a step back. “Do you wanna come in?”
Sebastien nodded and stepped into Pierre’s apartment, looking around at everything as Pierre shut the door behind him. “You live here alone?” Sebastien asked quietly.
Pierre wanted to say no, to say that David pretty much lived with him and only slept over twice a week, but Pierre just couldn’t bring himself to say it. “Yeah,” he said quietly, before making his way into the kitchen. “Do you want something to drink? Water, juice, soda…” he listed of quietly as he opened the fridge.
“Got anything stronger?” Sebastien asked weakly as he sat down on Pierre’s couch.
Pierre, despite everything else, found himself smiling. “Yeah,” he said, before grabbing two beers from the fridge, his bottle of whiskey from the freezer and two shot glasses.
When he re-entered the room and placed all of the items on the coffee table, Sebastien gave a soft laugh and muttered, “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”
Pierre offered him a smile before screwing the lid off of the whiskey and pouring them both a shot. “So what are you doing here?” he asked as he picked up both shots and handed one to Sebastien.
“I came to apologize,” Sebastien told him with a sad smile, before together they took their first shot. Sebastien grimaced noticeably, but after two hours of drinking the stuff, Pierre merely blinked and cleared his throat. “Ugh,” Sebastien complained, though he set the glass down on the table and filled it again.
“Why now?” Pierre asked, watching as Sebastien added more of the brown liquid to his shot glass. Sebastien looked down, his jaw tensing. Pierre recognized that look immediately; he’d looked that way for years, after all. “You told him, huh?” Sebastien merely nodded in response, not bothering to look up. “I’m guessing it didn’t go so well?”
Sebastien gave a weak laugh and shook his head. As he lifted his shot glass in the air, he looked at Pierre, giving him a sad smile. “To karma,” he said bitterly, before downing his second shot. Pierre watched Sebastien sadly, before nodding and taking his own. “I told him about a month and a half ago… and it was just like what happened with you all over again,” Sebastien breathed, keeping his eyes trained on the coffee table.
“I’m sorry, Seb,” Pierre offered, merely because he didn’t know what else to say. It felt strange to be next to Sebastien and not know the right thing to say; time had certainly done a number on their relationship.
Sebastien looked at Pierre, staring incredulously at him. “After all the shit I did to you, you’re saying you’re sorry to me?” Pierre thought about that, a smile slowly working its way onto his features. “You realize that’s totally nuts, right?” Sebastien asked, smiling weakly in return.
Pierre gave a gentle laugh and nodded his head. “I guess, yeah…”
Slowly Sebastien’s smile faded and he looked down again. “Look… I know it doesn’t make it right… it doesn’t take back what I did to you… but I just want you to know that I’m really sorry about everything.”
Pierre nodded, placing a hand gently on Sebastien’s shoulder. “Trust me… I know love can make you do some stuff you regret,” Pierre told him gently. Sebastien nodded, keeping his head down. “And… for what it’s worth… I’m really sorry it didn’t work out with him.”
Sebastien bit down on his bottom lip, telling himself not to cry anymore than he already had. “Me too,” he whispered.
Pierre gave a soft sigh and poured them both another shot, patting Sebastien on the shoulder before handing one of them to him. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Sebastien said, before downing his third shot.
Pierre took his own before asking the question that was dying to get out of him. “How did you find me? My parents?”
Sebastien laughed and shook his head, before turning his attention to his beer. “Are you kidding? I tried to talk to them, but your dad threatened to call the cops if I didn’t leave,” he said, smiling in spite of what he’d just said.
Pierre couldn’t help but grin at that information. “Seriously?”
Sebastien nodded and took a long drink of his beer. “Yeah.”
“I love my parents,” Pierre muttered as he picked up his own beer and popped of the top. “Okay, so how’d you do it?”
Sebastien flashed Pierre a guilty smile. “I facebook stalked you,” he admitted quietly.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Pierre asked in a low, monotonous tone.
“Nope. It obviously didn’t give me your address, but it told me the country, state and town, and where you work,” Sebastien explained slowly. “So… I went to your work and got your address from one of the night clerks that works there, some teenage girl from the looks of her.”
“Jesus!” Pierre complained. “They’re not supposed to give that shit out! What if you’d been some sort of stalker or serial killer?”
Sebastien laughed and shook his head slowly, though when he did, he noticed the alcohol making the room swish slightly. “She about shit her pants when I walked in,” Sebastien told him honestly. “Being famous is so weird sometimes.”
Pierre nodded, his eyes flicking down to the bottle of whiskey. “I bet,” he said with a nod.
“Did you, uh… you haven’t…” Sebastien started nervously, and Pierre looked back up at him curiously. “Have you heard my new song?” he finished timidly.
Pierre nodded, looking down again. “I heard it today, actually… saw your video on youtube.”
“Did you know it was for you?” Sebastien asked nervously.
Pierre nodded and gave a soft sigh. “Yeah… yeah, I knew. David didn’t… God, I should’ve just told him everything,” Pierre breathed, his voice cracking as he slowly lost control of his emotions.
“Okay, really, who’s David?” Sebastien asked again.
Pierre gave another sigh and sat up, blinking the tears from his eyes. “Until today he was my boyfriend.”
“Oh…” Sebastien said softly. “I’m sorry…”
Pierre shook his head as he reached over and poured himself another shot. “No… it was my fault. I told him about you and what happened, but… I never explained to him that my ex-best friend Sebastien is the same guy in the poster on his bedroom wall.”
Sebastien grimaced lightly. “He’s a fan, I take it?”
“Oh yeah,” Pierre muttered, before taking the shot he’d poured himself. “He’d suck your dick in two seconds flat if you wanted him to.”
“Awkward…”
“Yup.”
Sebastien took a deep breath and let it out slowly, before pouring two more shots and handing one to Pierre. Pierre looked at him, offering a weak smile, before throwing back the warm liquid. “So what happened?” Sebastien asked as he set his shot glass on the table again.
“He showed me the song… and I just totally shut him out,” Pierre breathed, folding his hands in front of him and staring down at them. “He kept pushing and trying to get it out of me and I just lashed out. God, I said so much fucked up shit,” he added, leaning over and resting his forehead on his tightly clasped hands. “I didn’t even mean any of it!” Pierre said, sitting up quickly again and looking at Sebastien with pleading eyes, as if begging for his understanding. “But I think he’s really scared that I think he’s too young for me, so he took it all to heart, and why shouldn’t he? I was fucking vicious! Calling him kid, and all that shit I said about Magical-Teenager-Land or whatever else I said, it’s no wonder he broke up with me!” Pierre ranted hysterically, tears working their way to his eyes again. Sebastien watched with wide eyes as Pierre rambled, leaning back slightly on the couch. Pierre picked up the shot glass, contemplating pouring himself another shot, before his anger got the better of him and he threw it across the room, screaming, “I’m such a fucking IDIOT!”
Sebastien flinched as the shot glass smashed against the wall, glass shards coming to land all over the carpet and littering what was left of Pierre’s small laptop. Sebastien stood, swaying slightly as he did, and walked over to the computer. He picked it up, watching as the bottom piece swung unsteadily on one hinge. “Been throwing a lot of stuff today, eh?” he asked as he turned back to look at Pierre.
Pierre put his face in his hands and shook his head slowly at himself. “I can’t go back to the way it used to be,” Pierre mumbled into his hands, though Sebastien still understood him.
Placing the laptop back on the ground, Sebastien made his way back to the couch and stared at Pierre. He wanted to comfort him, but would Pierre accept it? Would it be inappropriate after all that time and everything that had happened? Nervously, he wrapped his arm around Pierre’s shoulder, who stiffened at first, but soon pulled his face from his hands and rested his head against Sebastien’s shoulder. “I need him,” Pierre said quietly.
Sebastien nodded, knowing the feeling all too well. He wanted Patrick more than anything in the world, but could he ever have him? Deep down he’d always known that Patrick would react that way to his advances, but it didn’t make it hurt any less when it had happened. “Wait… why would you call him kid?” Sebastien asked, pulling back slightly. “And why would you say something about a Magical-Teenager-Land?” When Pierre pulled away and bit his lips together, looking guilty, Sebastien’s jaw dropped. “You’re joking,” he said, the shock apparent in his voice.
“To be fair, I didn’t know how young he was until halfway through our first date,” Pierre defended himself quickly.
“How old is he?” Sebastien asked quickly, thinking that perhaps eighteen or nineteen wouldn’t be so bad.
“He looks older than he is, and he’s really mature for his age,” Pierre continued, not wanting to give Sebastien David’s age in the slightest.
“How old is he?” Sebastien asked again.
Pierre hesitated, holding onto his breath, before he let it out slowly and muttered, “Seventeen.” When Sebastien’s eyes popped, Pierre hastened to explain himself. “He really doesn’t seem that young! And he’ll be eighteen in August!”
“Yeah, and you’ll be twenty two in May!” Sebastien reminded him, as if he’d forgotten.
“I know it seems bad but trust me, you’d never know if you ever met him,” Pierre told him slowly. “Not that you’ll ever the chance…” he added, sadness taking over again. Sebastien watched as Pierre stood and disappeared into the kitchen. When Pierre came back, he held something that truly shocked Sebastien.
“Since when do you smoke?” he asked quickly.
Pierre pulled one of the cigarettes from the pack that he’d just fished from the garbage can and put the pack safely in his jeans pocket. “I’ve smoked for, like, three years,” Pierre told him as he pushed open the sliding glass door and took a step onto the balcony.
Sebastien followed after him, sliding the door shut behind him. “Smoking’s really fucking stupid,” Sebastien told him strongly.
Pierre gave a cynical laugh and shrugged as he lit the cigarette and took a long drag. “I quit cold turkey for about a month,” he said as he blew out his lungful of smoke. “And then all this shit happened with David, and… well…” he trailed off, demonstrating to the lit cigarette between his fingers.
Sebastien nodded, understanding Pierre’s relapse entirely. “So… you were dating a seventeen year old?” Sebastien prompted, and Pierre sighed and took another deep drag of his cigarette. “How’d you meet him?”
“I really don’t wanna talk about David right now,” Pierre admitted stiffly, keeping his eyes trained on the smoldering end of his cigarette.
Sebastien nodded again and placed his hand on Pierre’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he said softly.
Pierre shrugged, flashing Sebastien a sad smile. “C’est la vie,” he muttered. Then, as if he couldn’t stop himself, he groaned loudly and began to rant again. “David’s Canadian! And he’s fluent in French! How fucking perfect is that?! He grew up in Canada with his mom and dad and sister and when his mom died they moved here, and I’m Canadian and I moved here! How does that happen? It just seems like fate, doesn’t it?” he demanded quickly, taking Sebastien entirely by surprise.
Sebastien smiled and leaned back against the banister of the balcony, crossing his arms over his chest. “I thought you didn’t wanna talk about him,” he pointed out gently.
Pierre huffed and nodded. “I don’t,” he said stiffly, before putting out his cigarette and throwing it in the tin can on the corner of his balcony. Pierre’s expression softened and he looked down, leaning against the guard rail and staring down at his shoes. “I miss him already,” Pierre breathed, feeling the tears coming on again, despite his struggle against them.
Sebastien stepped up to Pierre, placing a hand on his cheek. Pierre looked up at him, the proximity between their faces making his stomach squirm nervously. Sebastien swallowed hard at how close he was standing to Pierre; close enough to see individual tears clinging to his eyelashes. “I’m sorry,” he said again for what must have been the hundredth time that night. Those words, mixed with the pain he was feeling, made Pierre’s head swim more than the whiskey had done. Slowly he leaned toward him, his eyes falling closed as he felt his nose brush against Sebastien’s. There was a moment of hesitation from both men, a moment when David flashed into Pierre’s mind and Patrick flashed into Sebastien’s, and both wondered if what they were about to do was wrong. Those several seconds of hesitation made the moment Pierre leaned down and pressed his lips tenderly to Sebastien’s positively explosive.
Sebastien’s body fell against Pierre’s, his hand moving from his face to the back of his head and holding firmly as he leaned up into him. Pierre grabbed hard onto Sebastien’s hips and leaned down further, deepening the kiss as his tongue found the inside of Sebastien’s mouth and pressed against the smaller man’s tongue. Pierre gave a soft moan when he felt Sebastien’s other hand move under his shirt, his fingertips pressing into his back. Sebastien pulled back to speak, though simply let out a soft moan when Pierre’s lips found his neck and began to kiss gently down.
“Pierre,” he moaned.
“Hm?” Pierre asked against Sebastien’s neck.
“We should go inside,” Sebastien told him breathlessly.
Pierre didn’t stop kissing Sebastien’s neck or let go of his hips as he pushed against him and began to walk him toward the door, all thoughts of how wrong this was gone from his mind in his pain and need. So what if he wasn’t in love with Sebastien anymore? So what if Sebastien wasn’t in love with him and never had been? So what if they were only using each other as emotional crutches - bandaids to cover the pain of losing David and Patrick? Pierre had engaged in more than his fair share of meaningless sex, what was one more time? Though sex with Sebastien could never be meaningless. Just because he wasn’t in love with him anymore didn’t mean the sex wouldn’t mean something to him.
He pulled back and looked back down at Sebastien, who stared up at him in much the same way: excited, desperate, scared and a little bit sad. Without a word, he leaned down and kissed Sebastien hard, his body firing up at the way Sebastien’s arms wrapped around his neck and he pulled himself tighter against him. He reached behind Sebastien, his hand groping for the sliding glass door handle and pulling once he’d found it; the only problem was, no matter how hard he pulled, the door wouldn’t budge. His brow furrowed and he pulled harder, though he didn’t stop kissing Sebastien.
“What’s… the problem?” Sebastien muttered between kisses.
Pierre pulled back, though his spare hand continued to hold tight to Sebastien’s side as he looked around him, staring at his hand on the handle. “The door won’t open,” he muttered in confusion.
Sebastien blinked rapidly, turning on the spot and looking at the door. “What?” he asked as he reached over and tugged on the door handle, consequentially brushing his hand against Pierre’s. He swallowed hard and turned to look at him with wide eyes. “We’re locked out?” he asked weakly. His eyes flashed down to Pierre’s lips and he took a deep, shaky breath.
“No, there’s gotta be a way,” Pierre muttered desperately. He wanted to have sex with his ex-best friend - or maybe he was his ex-ex-best friend - and there was no way he could do it while standing outside on the balcony. He pulled his hands from Sebastien’s body and stepped around him, using both hands on the handle, but still it wouldn’t budge. “Fucking old ass ghetto piece of shit apartment,” he grumbled. Sebastien laughed lightly, his hand coming to rest on Pierre’s lower back. Pierre closed his eyes and fought the urge to turn around and take Sebastien right then and there, before turning his attention back to the matter at hand. “The lock must’ve fallen down when you shut it,” he mumbled, and he moved to take off his belt.
“This isn’t my fault!” Sebastien defended himself quickly.
“I never said it was!” Pierre told him, and with one smooth movement, he pulled his belt off entirely.
“…what exactly are you doing?” Sebastien asked skeptically.
“I’m gonna try and shove it in the crack in the door!” Pierre said quickly. “If I can get it in far enough and wiggle it just right, I might be able to get it unlocked!”
“Aaah… well good luck with that,” Sebastien said.
Pierre got down on his knees and tried to wedge his belt between the door and the doorframe, his face scrunched in concentration. He tried for several minutes before sighing and standing. “God damn it,” he grumbled as he turned and faced Sebastien. “It’s not gonna work.” The two stared at each other for several long seconds, both clearly frustrated by the fact that the couldn’t have what they wanted. Pierre leaned against the guard rail and looked down, shaking his head slowly. “This is a sign,” Pierre mumbled.
“A sign of what?” Sebastien asked quietly.
“That this is wrong,” Pierre told him, looking up slowly and giving him a sad smile.
“You know I don’t believe in fate, Pierre,” Sebastien said with a soft smile.
“And you know I do,” Pierre retorted, returning his smile. Sebastien sighed and nodded his head, knowing that Pierre’s mind wouldn’t be changed. “If we were supposed to go inside and do what we were about to do, the door wouldn’t have locked itself,” he explained gently. “And if David and I weren’t meant to be together, we wouldn’t both have moved from Canada to this same Podunk little town in the states. That has to mean something, Seb. It’s just gotta be a sign that we’re supposed to end up together, right?” Pierre asked, sounding almost desperate in his desire for that to be true. When Sebastien merely gave him a weak smile, Pierre sighed and looked down again. “If I wanna fix this with him, I can’t do this with you. You can’t fight fate. And if that means I have to get on my knees and beg for forgiveness… I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Sebastien nodded, though he sighed and looked over the edge of the balcony. “So what now?”
Pierre turned as well, moving to stand next to Sebastien. “Now, we go inside, finish that bottle of Jack and talk about our lives,” Pierre said, nodding once.
Sebastien laughed and turned to glance skeptically at Pierre. “How are we gonna do that?”
“We’re gonna jump,” Pierre said, nudging Sebastien wit his shoulder.
Sebastien stared at Pierre, blinking rapidly at him. “Jump?” Pierre smiled and nodded, before looking over the edge of the balcony. “No way!” Sebastien told him quickly.
“Oh come on, Seb. Don’t be such a pussy,” Pierre said, before sitting on the edge of the rail and moving a leg over.
“Dude! I’m serious! You’re gonna hurt yourself!” Sebastien said urgently, his hands grabbing onto Pierre’s arm in an attempt to pull him back over.
“Stop whining and get over here,” Pierre demanded.
“Why can’t you just jump if you want to so bad and then let me in when you get inside?”
“No! I’m not doing all the work and letting you reap the benefits!” Pierre said with a broad grin.
“What? That makes no sense!”
“Sebastien,” Pierre started. “You want my friendship back?”
Sebastien’s smile faltered and he stared seriously at Pierre. “Yes.”
“Then earn it,” Pierre told him, before swinging his other leg over and sitting on the edge of the railing. “Jump with me.”
Sebastien stood still for several long seconds, contemplating Pierre’s words. Then, with a sigh of defeat, he hopped on the edge of the railing and hung his legs over, holding to the wood for dear life.
Pierre flashed Sebastien a soft smile and gave one firm nod. “Kay, on the count of three we jump,” Pierre told him slowly.
“Kay,” Sebastien replied, his voice shaking and his eyes wide.
“One,” Pierre started, his smile wide.
“Two,” Sebastien continued, his chest now rising and falling heavily and his heart pounding in his chest.
“Three!” The said in unison, and together they jumped.
When he landed, Pierre’s knees buckled underneath him and he fell to the ground. The loud thud next to him told him Sebastien had landed in the same way. Though he was a little bit sore, Pierre was surprised at how easy it had been to jump from the balcony of his second story apartment. Perhaps he wouldn’t have been able to do it alone, but with Sebastien by his side, as it always should have been, he knew he could do anything.
“Holy shit!” Sebastien yelled, giving off a laugh as he finished his exclamation.
Pierre let off an exhilarated scream before bursting into laughter and rolling on his back. He looked over when he noticed Sebastien crawling over to him, laughing so hard tears were streaming down his cheeks. Sebastien collapsed sideways on top of Pierre, squishing the air out of his lungs, though he laughed harder just the same. “Oh my God,” Pierre breathed, when Sebastien rolled to the side and came to lay instead on his back with Pierre’s arm under his neck.
“That was the stupidest thing I’ve done since we were in high school,” Sebastien admitted, grinning madly.
“Me too,” Pierre replied. Slowly he turned to look at Sebastien, who turned and looked at him in return, smiling softly. “Thank you,” he said, his voice gentle with sincerity.
Sebastien smiled and nodded once, staring into Pierre’s eyes for several long seconds, before sitting up and looking around. He stood, turned, and held a hand out to Pierre, who took it and pulled himself up. As they began to walk back to the front of Pierre’s apartment building, Sebastien stopped and turned to face Pierre, his face worry stricken.
“What?” Pierre asked quickly.
“Your door’s unlocked… right?”
When Pierre did nothing but stare at him, Sebastien’s eyes widened. “I think so,” Pierre said uncertainly. “I’m fifty-four percent sure.”
“Well… I guess we’ll see,” Sebastien said with a sigh before continuing up the stairs. A wave of relief washed over them both when he tried the door knob and it opened, and instantly they moved back to the couch, where, as they said they would, they finished that bottle of whiskey and spent the rest of the night talking, catching up on every possible thing they could think of to catch up on, and most importantly, not shedding a single tear more.
Author: shmorgenheigen
Chapter: Ten
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Pierre/David
Word Count: 6914
Summary: After coming out of the closet to his friends in Canada and getting disowned by them, Pierre Bouvier moves to a hick town in the states to escape. Life is dull and grim for the twenty-one year old Canadian until he meets David Desrosiers, a young man who could change it all for the better.
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own, didn't happen!
Author's Note: OMG. I'm super drunk right now but I really wanted to put this up! So I'm sorry if there are any mistakes.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
“I missed you, David.”
David sighed and closed his eyes, allowing Troy’s words to wash over his senses. They were nice words to hear, despite who they were coming from. He snuggled his face against Troy’s bare chest and clung to his side, feeling strangely out of place laying naked on top of the six-foot-two quarterback, even though he’d been in such a position several times in the past. Nothing felt right without Pierre anymore, and laying with another man certainly felt nothing short of wrong, and yet there he was, his hair ruffled from sex, his body temperature slowly returning to normal as his sweaty limbs dried. Troy’s arms wrapped more securely around David, despite the fact that David ignored his sentiments.
“So… what did he do?” Troy asked gently, and David’s eyes opened again, though he made no movement to get up.
“I don’t want to talk about Pierre,” David said stiffly.
Troy smiled and began to run his fingers gently through David’s soft black hair. “He must’ve done something really bad,” he commented gently.
David’s eyes flashed down to Troy’s chest, which was formed much in the same way as Pierre’s was, though his scent was different. It wasn’t comforting, as Pierre’s was; like everything else about his sexual encounter with Troy, it just felt wrong. Slowly David pushed his torso up and looked down at Troy, who tilted his head to the side and smiled sweetly up at him. “Do you think I’m immature?” David asked, his voice stained with pain.
Troy’s brow furrowed and he shook his head slowly. “You’re probably one of the most mature people I know,” Troy admitted. “Then again, I hang out with football players, so that’s not really saying a whole lot.”
David gave a gentle laugh and nodded. “Thanks for the honesty,” he muttered, before lowering himself to Troy’s chest again.
“So he said you were immature?” Troy asked, resuming his stoking of David’s hair.
“Pretty much implied it,” David said softly. “He called me kid… said I wasn’t a grown up… said I had my head stuck in Magical-Teenager-Land…” David trailed off softly.
Troy’s brow furrowed and his hand stopped with his fingers tangled in David’s hair. “How old is he?”
David bit his lips together and took a long, deep breath through his nose. “Twenty-one,” he muttered quietly.
“Jesus, David,” Troy muttered, his fingers resuming their combing.
“I thought he was really cool, ya know?” David asked weakly, and though he tried his hardest, he couldn’t hide the tears in his voice. “But he just started attacking me… I don’t even know why…”
“I told you he doesn’t care like I care,” Troy reminded David gently.
David scoffed quietly, in that moment wanting to remind Troy of everything he’d ever done to him to prove how little he cared, though at the same time he knew that in his own fucked up way, Troy cared more about David than he’d ever cared about another person in his life.
“I’m serious,” Troy said firmly, and David pushed himself up and looked down at Troy, offering a sad smile. “He doesn’t love you like I do,” Troy told him, staring hard into David’s eyes, as if challenging him to contradict his words. David didn’t bother to respond; what could he say? He knew that Troy meant it when he said he loved him, but there wasn’t a single part of David that returned that love. Instead, David stared into Troy’s deep brown eyes. Doing so made him think of Pierre, however, and soon his eyes were swimming with tears. David missed him already more than he could describe. He didn’t even want to think about the next day and the day after that, days spent without Pierre’s warm smile and soft touch.
When Troy’s hand was on David’s cheek, David blinked rapidly, attempting to clear his eyes of tears, though only managing to let his tears escape. “Please don’t cry,” Troy asked gently. “I’ve already seen you cry enough to last a lifetime.”
David gave a sad nod and wiped his eyes, thinking that had he been with Pierre, the older man would have wiped them gently away for him. Then a thought struck him, something which David couldn’t stop himself from muttering. “Yeah, and most of the time it was because of something you did to me.”
Troy stiffened underneath David and suddenly David was afraid. Troy very obviously wasn’t afraid to hurt him; did he really want to make him angry? “I didn’t want to do any of that stuff, David,” Troy told him, his voice sounding softer than David would have expected.
David blinked rapidly, unsure if he should say what he wanted to say. “You didn’t want to hurt me?” David asked quietly.
“Of course I didn’t,” Troy told him firmly. David, despite his fears of what the other boy might do to him, moved off of him, sitting on the edge of the boy’s bed with the blankets covering his bare hips. “Come on, Dave… you honestly think I got pleasure out of hurting you?” When David did nothing but give a sarcastic laugh, Troy sat up quickly and stared at him angrily. “I didn’t,” he told him firmly.
“Then why’d you do it?” David found himself asking, almost as if his tongue was out of his control.
“You have to understand, I was going crazy without you! I missed you so much! I couldn’t stop myself from trying to talk to you! I just wanted your attention, I wanted to make you see that we’re right for each other, but you wouldn’t talk to me! And when people saw me trying to talk to you…” Troy trailed off, shaking his head slowly. He looked back at David, staring at him hard. “I have a-”
“A reputation to protect, yeah, I know,” David said, his voice flat and unimpressed.
“Look, I’m sorry about what I did. I’m sorry I hurt you. But you have to know, I didn’t like doing it! I did it because I had no other choice!” Troy pleaded.
“Really?” David asked skeptically. “You had no choice but to rip my earrings out? You couldn’t have spared me that?”
Troy was silent for several long seconds, his mind clearly working to come up with a good explanation behind his actions. David stared at him, his eyebrow raised in impatience. “Okay… so it got a little out of control…” Troy muttered, looking down. “But I was fucking hurt! You broke my heart!” He continued, looking up at David again.
Perhaps it was merely Troy’s manipulative effect on David’s mind, but David couldn’t help but feel bad. He bit his lips together, his eyes flicking down as he remembered the pain in Troy’s eyes when he’d told him it was over. “I never wanted to hurt you like that,” David said softly.
“Things were fine! Things were great! And then someone else better came along and you just took off!” Troy accused angrily.
David looked further down, allowing Troy to get into his mind completely. “I’m sorry,” he practically whispered. He looked up when he felt a hand on his face, making sad eye contact with the taller boy. “I’m sorry,” he said again, this time louder.
“I know I shouldn’t forgive you for that… but I can’t help it,” Troy said gently. “You mean too much to me.”
David stared at Troy sadly, giving a weak nod, though soon his eyes were falling closed as Troy moved toward him. When Troy’s lips pressed against his, instead of feeling better, David simply felt worse. Kissing Troy was nothing like kissing Pierre. He thought of Troy’s words, of everything that had ever happened between them, and suddenly everything snapped into proper perspective for him.
He pulled back quickly, pushing Troy away from him as he did. “Wait a minute,” he said, his voice firm. Troy stared at him questioningly. “You shouldn’t forgive me?”
“You have no idea what you put me through, David!” Troy defended himself quickly.
“No, no, no,” David muttered, and immediately he was up and across the room, pulling his boxers back on. “What I put you through?! I don’t even fucking think so! God, you are SO manipulative!” David told him as he reached down and pulled on his jeans and slipped on his shoes.
“What?” Troy asked, dumbfounded by David’s sudden streak of confidence.
“You spent years making fun of me, you beat me up, you raped me, you beat me up some more, you ripped my piercings out, and you think I’m in the wrong?!” David demanded loudly. When Troy opened his mouth to retort, David talked quickly over him. “Don’t even try the ‘you broke my heart’ card, Troy! You have done nothing but mistreat me from the beginning!”
Troy stood, pulling on his own boxers as he did, and walked quickly over to David. David’s eyes widened slightly but he stood his ground, knowing that if he showed even the tiniest sign of weakness, Troy would try to work his way into his mind again, and quite possibly succeed. “I made everyone like you!” Troy pointed out quickly.
“You’re the reason everyone hated me in the first place!” David retorted. “I wasn’t an outcast until you said I was! I even had a few friends, but no! ‘That David has black hair! That David wears tight pants! That David has staples in his face!’ Don’t forget who came up with my clever little nickname!” David reminded him heatedly.
“Okay, so maybe I haven’t always been the nicest guy, but I’m trying to change for you now! I’m trying to be a better man for you!” Troy pleaded, placing his hands on David’s shoulders.
David shook his head and, with all the courage he could muster, pushed Troy’s hands off of him. “You’re not a man,” David said coldly and Troy’s mouth slowly fell open. “You’re a scared little boy who can’t admit that you like dick, but you’d never punish yourself for that, so instead you’ve been spending all this time punishing me, and you’ve been working your hardest to keep me down and to make everyone hate me, including myself, so I would never realize how much better than you I am, and how much better than you I can do!”
When David finished his rant, the two stood in a shocked silence, both completely unsure of what to say. David hadn’t even known most of what he’d said until after he’d said it, and as soon as the words were out, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. “I’m done here,” he said firmly, and reached down to pick his shirt up off of the ground.
“You’re not done until I say you’re done,” Troy warned, his hand finding David’s arm.
David merely pulled his hand out of Troy’s grasp and pushed him away, taking Troy completely by surprise. “No,” David said firmly, before pulling his shirt on over his head. “No, I’m done here because I say I’m done. I should’ve never fallen back into this fucked up mess of a relationship! Maybe you didn’t believe me the first time I said it, because I was scared and hardly believed it myself; maybe you didn’t believe Pierre when he said it, because deep down you think you’re better than he is; but you will sure as hell believe me now when I say that this is over. You and I are over. I am done letting you torture me. Don’t talk to me at school, don’t look at me in the halls, don’t try to do me any favors. This is the end,” David finished firmly.
Troy made no effort to stop David from leaving, too stunned by his words and change in demeanor. It was obvious that he couldn’t bully David anymore - obvious that David had closed his mind to him. It was the end, just as David had said, and for once there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
As terrible as David felt about everything with Pierre, he couldn’t help but feel proud of himself. As he got in his truck, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, allowing the feel of the lifted burden to emanate through his limbs. He needed a moment to really take in what he had just done, what had just happened to him, and what it all meant. He was free of Troy, one hundred percent, for the rest of his life. It was over. He knew it, and finally Troy knew it, too.
That feeling of elation lasted only a few short minutes, however, before his conversation with Pierre from earlier that day rang through his mind, and instantly tears were forming in his eyes. And though he was seconds from crying, he couldn’t help but be filled with a strange feeling of self-empowerment. “I’m not done with you,” he told Pierre firmly, though obviously Pierre had no way of hearing him. “If I can do this… I can do anything. I’m going to make you tell me what’s wrong, and then we’re getting back together, because there’s no way in Hell I’m letting this relationship end without a fight.” And with that, he drove home, his heart pounding and his mind reeling with thoughts of Pierre and how he would approach him the next day, because he was determined to show up on Pierre’s doorstep first thing the next day and force him to listen. He had to try.
And while David had tackled his own demons, Pierre was left standing helplessly in his doorway, staring at the one person who had caused him more grief than any one else in the world, and having uttered only the single word, “Sebastien.” The two stared at each other, Pierre’s face blank, emotionless, while Sebastien had tears swimming in his dazzlingly blue eyes, his chest rising and falling heavily with the attempt to keep himself from breaking down entirely at the mere sight of his ex-best friend.
“I broke the pact,” Sebastien said suddenly, his voice sounding cracked and weak in the absolute silence of the evening.
Pierre’s brow furrowed and his mouth fell slowly open as Sebastien’s words penetrated his mind. “What?” he asked.
Sebastien bit his lips together and looked down for a moment, unable to take the cold, indifferent look on Pierre’s face. “When we were eight, we made a pact…” Sebastien started softly, and Pierre’s heart began to beat faster in his chest. “We made a pact that we’d always be best friends… for the rest of our lives…” Sebastien continued quietly. He looked up at Pierre, fixing him with a sad, watery gaze. Pierre focused his hardest on keeping his face impassive, at not showing Sebastien how his words were affecting him, though inside he was screaming for the other man. “Remember, we cut our right palms and shook hands?” He asked, offering a weak smile. “And our moms flipped out and made us get tetanus shots?”
“I remember,” Pierre told him stiffly, though he was straining so hard to keep tears from his eyes that his voice almost didn’t leave his throat.
Sebastien stared at Pierre, his fingers fidgeting with each other in front of his body. “I broke the pact,” he repeated, so softly that Pierre almost didn’t hear him. The sound of it ripped at Pierre’s insides and he couldn’t stop himself from shaking any longer. “I’m so sorry,” Sebastien whispered, two tears rolling down his cheeks as he did, and suddenly Pierre couldn’t stop himself anymore. He reached forward and pulled Sebastien toward him, wrapping his arms tightly around the smaller man’s body and hugging him with all of his might. Sebastien practically collapsed into Pierre’s arms, hugging him back with everything in him and crying against his chest. Pierre hid his face in the crook of Sebastien’s neck, taking in a slow, deep breath as he re-familiarized himself with how the smaller man smelled and felt.
“I was so scared, Pierre,” Sebastien whispered, though Pierre heard every word. With each word Sebastien spoke, Pierre was losing that battle with himself to not cry. “I didn’t want to lose him,” Sebastien continued, his voice even softer.
Pierre’s brow furrowed and he opened his eyes, though he didn’t relinquish his grip on Sebastien’s smaller body. “Who?”
Sebastien was silent for several long seconds, but when he answered, there was no mistaking the name he’d spoken. “Patrick.”
Pierre pulled back, his hands resting on Sebastien’s shoulders as he stared down at him, his face contorted in confusion. “What do you mean, you didn’t want to lose Patrick?” he asked, sounding slightly offended. Sebastien had reacted the way he had because he hadn’t wanted to lose Patrick as a friend, when he and Pierre had been friends for several years longer?
Sebastien stared helplessly up at Pierre, hating the hurt in his eyes. “When I was in high school… I fell in love with one of my best friends,” Sebastien breathed, and suddenly Pierre understood. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped, though that didn’t stop Sebastien from looking down at the ground and continuing. “Just not the one that wanted me to…” he finished gently.
“Oh my God,” Pierre muttered, blinking rapidly. “David was right.”
Sebastien looked up again, his eyebrows pulled together. “Who’s David?”
Pierre, ignoring Sebastien’s question, took a step back. “Do you wanna come in?”
Sebastien nodded and stepped into Pierre’s apartment, looking around at everything as Pierre shut the door behind him. “You live here alone?” Sebastien asked quietly.
Pierre wanted to say no, to say that David pretty much lived with him and only slept over twice a week, but Pierre just couldn’t bring himself to say it. “Yeah,” he said quietly, before making his way into the kitchen. “Do you want something to drink? Water, juice, soda…” he listed of quietly as he opened the fridge.
“Got anything stronger?” Sebastien asked weakly as he sat down on Pierre’s couch.
Pierre, despite everything else, found himself smiling. “Yeah,” he said, before grabbing two beers from the fridge, his bottle of whiskey from the freezer and two shot glasses.
When he re-entered the room and placed all of the items on the coffee table, Sebastien gave a soft laugh and muttered, “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”
Pierre offered him a smile before screwing the lid off of the whiskey and pouring them both a shot. “So what are you doing here?” he asked as he picked up both shots and handed one to Sebastien.
“I came to apologize,” Sebastien told him with a sad smile, before together they took their first shot. Sebastien grimaced noticeably, but after two hours of drinking the stuff, Pierre merely blinked and cleared his throat. “Ugh,” Sebastien complained, though he set the glass down on the table and filled it again.
“Why now?” Pierre asked, watching as Sebastien added more of the brown liquid to his shot glass. Sebastien looked down, his jaw tensing. Pierre recognized that look immediately; he’d looked that way for years, after all. “You told him, huh?” Sebastien merely nodded in response, not bothering to look up. “I’m guessing it didn’t go so well?”
Sebastien gave a weak laugh and shook his head. As he lifted his shot glass in the air, he looked at Pierre, giving him a sad smile. “To karma,” he said bitterly, before downing his second shot. Pierre watched Sebastien sadly, before nodding and taking his own. “I told him about a month and a half ago… and it was just like what happened with you all over again,” Sebastien breathed, keeping his eyes trained on the coffee table.
“I’m sorry, Seb,” Pierre offered, merely because he didn’t know what else to say. It felt strange to be next to Sebastien and not know the right thing to say; time had certainly done a number on their relationship.
Sebastien looked at Pierre, staring incredulously at him. “After all the shit I did to you, you’re saying you’re sorry to me?” Pierre thought about that, a smile slowly working its way onto his features. “You realize that’s totally nuts, right?” Sebastien asked, smiling weakly in return.
Pierre gave a gentle laugh and nodded his head. “I guess, yeah…”
Slowly Sebastien’s smile faded and he looked down again. “Look… I know it doesn’t make it right… it doesn’t take back what I did to you… but I just want you to know that I’m really sorry about everything.”
Pierre nodded, placing a hand gently on Sebastien’s shoulder. “Trust me… I know love can make you do some stuff you regret,” Pierre told him gently. Sebastien nodded, keeping his head down. “And… for what it’s worth… I’m really sorry it didn’t work out with him.”
Sebastien bit down on his bottom lip, telling himself not to cry anymore than he already had. “Me too,” he whispered.
Pierre gave a soft sigh and poured them both another shot, patting Sebastien on the shoulder before handing one of them to him. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Sebastien said, before downing his third shot.
Pierre took his own before asking the question that was dying to get out of him. “How did you find me? My parents?”
Sebastien laughed and shook his head, before turning his attention to his beer. “Are you kidding? I tried to talk to them, but your dad threatened to call the cops if I didn’t leave,” he said, smiling in spite of what he’d just said.
Pierre couldn’t help but grin at that information. “Seriously?”
Sebastien nodded and took a long drink of his beer. “Yeah.”
“I love my parents,” Pierre muttered as he picked up his own beer and popped of the top. “Okay, so how’d you do it?”
Sebastien flashed Pierre a guilty smile. “I facebook stalked you,” he admitted quietly.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Pierre asked in a low, monotonous tone.
“Nope. It obviously didn’t give me your address, but it told me the country, state and town, and where you work,” Sebastien explained slowly. “So… I went to your work and got your address from one of the night clerks that works there, some teenage girl from the looks of her.”
“Jesus!” Pierre complained. “They’re not supposed to give that shit out! What if you’d been some sort of stalker or serial killer?”
Sebastien laughed and shook his head slowly, though when he did, he noticed the alcohol making the room swish slightly. “She about shit her pants when I walked in,” Sebastien told him honestly. “Being famous is so weird sometimes.”
Pierre nodded, his eyes flicking down to the bottle of whiskey. “I bet,” he said with a nod.
“Did you, uh… you haven’t…” Sebastien started nervously, and Pierre looked back up at him curiously. “Have you heard my new song?” he finished timidly.
Pierre nodded, looking down again. “I heard it today, actually… saw your video on youtube.”
“Did you know it was for you?” Sebastien asked nervously.
Pierre nodded and gave a soft sigh. “Yeah… yeah, I knew. David didn’t… God, I should’ve just told him everything,” Pierre breathed, his voice cracking as he slowly lost control of his emotions.
“Okay, really, who’s David?” Sebastien asked again.
Pierre gave another sigh and sat up, blinking the tears from his eyes. “Until today he was my boyfriend.”
“Oh…” Sebastien said softly. “I’m sorry…”
Pierre shook his head as he reached over and poured himself another shot. “No… it was my fault. I told him about you and what happened, but… I never explained to him that my ex-best friend Sebastien is the same guy in the poster on his bedroom wall.”
Sebastien grimaced lightly. “He’s a fan, I take it?”
“Oh yeah,” Pierre muttered, before taking the shot he’d poured himself. “He’d suck your dick in two seconds flat if you wanted him to.”
“Awkward…”
“Yup.”
Sebastien took a deep breath and let it out slowly, before pouring two more shots and handing one to Pierre. Pierre looked at him, offering a weak smile, before throwing back the warm liquid. “So what happened?” Sebastien asked as he set his shot glass on the table again.
“He showed me the song… and I just totally shut him out,” Pierre breathed, folding his hands in front of him and staring down at them. “He kept pushing and trying to get it out of me and I just lashed out. God, I said so much fucked up shit,” he added, leaning over and resting his forehead on his tightly clasped hands. “I didn’t even mean any of it!” Pierre said, sitting up quickly again and looking at Sebastien with pleading eyes, as if begging for his understanding. “But I think he’s really scared that I think he’s too young for me, so he took it all to heart, and why shouldn’t he? I was fucking vicious! Calling him kid, and all that shit I said about Magical-Teenager-Land or whatever else I said, it’s no wonder he broke up with me!” Pierre ranted hysterically, tears working their way to his eyes again. Sebastien watched with wide eyes as Pierre rambled, leaning back slightly on the couch. Pierre picked up the shot glass, contemplating pouring himself another shot, before his anger got the better of him and he threw it across the room, screaming, “I’m such a fucking IDIOT!”
Sebastien flinched as the shot glass smashed against the wall, glass shards coming to land all over the carpet and littering what was left of Pierre’s small laptop. Sebastien stood, swaying slightly as he did, and walked over to the computer. He picked it up, watching as the bottom piece swung unsteadily on one hinge. “Been throwing a lot of stuff today, eh?” he asked as he turned back to look at Pierre.
Pierre put his face in his hands and shook his head slowly at himself. “I can’t go back to the way it used to be,” Pierre mumbled into his hands, though Sebastien still understood him.
Placing the laptop back on the ground, Sebastien made his way back to the couch and stared at Pierre. He wanted to comfort him, but would Pierre accept it? Would it be inappropriate after all that time and everything that had happened? Nervously, he wrapped his arm around Pierre’s shoulder, who stiffened at first, but soon pulled his face from his hands and rested his head against Sebastien’s shoulder. “I need him,” Pierre said quietly.
Sebastien nodded, knowing the feeling all too well. He wanted Patrick more than anything in the world, but could he ever have him? Deep down he’d always known that Patrick would react that way to his advances, but it didn’t make it hurt any less when it had happened. “Wait… why would you call him kid?” Sebastien asked, pulling back slightly. “And why would you say something about a Magical-Teenager-Land?” When Pierre pulled away and bit his lips together, looking guilty, Sebastien’s jaw dropped. “You’re joking,” he said, the shock apparent in his voice.
“To be fair, I didn’t know how young he was until halfway through our first date,” Pierre defended himself quickly.
“How old is he?” Sebastien asked quickly, thinking that perhaps eighteen or nineteen wouldn’t be so bad.
“He looks older than he is, and he’s really mature for his age,” Pierre continued, not wanting to give Sebastien David’s age in the slightest.
“How old is he?” Sebastien asked again.
Pierre hesitated, holding onto his breath, before he let it out slowly and muttered, “Seventeen.” When Sebastien’s eyes popped, Pierre hastened to explain himself. “He really doesn’t seem that young! And he’ll be eighteen in August!”
“Yeah, and you’ll be twenty two in May!” Sebastien reminded him, as if he’d forgotten.
“I know it seems bad but trust me, you’d never know if you ever met him,” Pierre told him slowly. “Not that you’ll ever the chance…” he added, sadness taking over again. Sebastien watched as Pierre stood and disappeared into the kitchen. When Pierre came back, he held something that truly shocked Sebastien.
“Since when do you smoke?” he asked quickly.
Pierre pulled one of the cigarettes from the pack that he’d just fished from the garbage can and put the pack safely in his jeans pocket. “I’ve smoked for, like, three years,” Pierre told him as he pushed open the sliding glass door and took a step onto the balcony.
Sebastien followed after him, sliding the door shut behind him. “Smoking’s really fucking stupid,” Sebastien told him strongly.
Pierre gave a cynical laugh and shrugged as he lit the cigarette and took a long drag. “I quit cold turkey for about a month,” he said as he blew out his lungful of smoke. “And then all this shit happened with David, and… well…” he trailed off, demonstrating to the lit cigarette between his fingers.
Sebastien nodded, understanding Pierre’s relapse entirely. “So… you were dating a seventeen year old?” Sebastien prompted, and Pierre sighed and took another deep drag of his cigarette. “How’d you meet him?”
“I really don’t wanna talk about David right now,” Pierre admitted stiffly, keeping his eyes trained on the smoldering end of his cigarette.
Sebastien nodded again and placed his hand on Pierre’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he said softly.
Pierre shrugged, flashing Sebastien a sad smile. “C’est la vie,” he muttered. Then, as if he couldn’t stop himself, he groaned loudly and began to rant again. “David’s Canadian! And he’s fluent in French! How fucking perfect is that?! He grew up in Canada with his mom and dad and sister and when his mom died they moved here, and I’m Canadian and I moved here! How does that happen? It just seems like fate, doesn’t it?” he demanded quickly, taking Sebastien entirely by surprise.
Sebastien smiled and leaned back against the banister of the balcony, crossing his arms over his chest. “I thought you didn’t wanna talk about him,” he pointed out gently.
Pierre huffed and nodded. “I don’t,” he said stiffly, before putting out his cigarette and throwing it in the tin can on the corner of his balcony. Pierre’s expression softened and he looked down, leaning against the guard rail and staring down at his shoes. “I miss him already,” Pierre breathed, feeling the tears coming on again, despite his struggle against them.
Sebastien stepped up to Pierre, placing a hand on his cheek. Pierre looked up at him, the proximity between their faces making his stomach squirm nervously. Sebastien swallowed hard at how close he was standing to Pierre; close enough to see individual tears clinging to his eyelashes. “I’m sorry,” he said again for what must have been the hundredth time that night. Those words, mixed with the pain he was feeling, made Pierre’s head swim more than the whiskey had done. Slowly he leaned toward him, his eyes falling closed as he felt his nose brush against Sebastien’s. There was a moment of hesitation from both men, a moment when David flashed into Pierre’s mind and Patrick flashed into Sebastien’s, and both wondered if what they were about to do was wrong. Those several seconds of hesitation made the moment Pierre leaned down and pressed his lips tenderly to Sebastien’s positively explosive.
Sebastien’s body fell against Pierre’s, his hand moving from his face to the back of his head and holding firmly as he leaned up into him. Pierre grabbed hard onto Sebastien’s hips and leaned down further, deepening the kiss as his tongue found the inside of Sebastien’s mouth and pressed against the smaller man’s tongue. Pierre gave a soft moan when he felt Sebastien’s other hand move under his shirt, his fingertips pressing into his back. Sebastien pulled back to speak, though simply let out a soft moan when Pierre’s lips found his neck and began to kiss gently down.
“Pierre,” he moaned.
“Hm?” Pierre asked against Sebastien’s neck.
“We should go inside,” Sebastien told him breathlessly.
Pierre didn’t stop kissing Sebastien’s neck or let go of his hips as he pushed against him and began to walk him toward the door, all thoughts of how wrong this was gone from his mind in his pain and need. So what if he wasn’t in love with Sebastien anymore? So what if Sebastien wasn’t in love with him and never had been? So what if they were only using each other as emotional crutches - bandaids to cover the pain of losing David and Patrick? Pierre had engaged in more than his fair share of meaningless sex, what was one more time? Though sex with Sebastien could never be meaningless. Just because he wasn’t in love with him anymore didn’t mean the sex wouldn’t mean something to him.
He pulled back and looked back down at Sebastien, who stared up at him in much the same way: excited, desperate, scared and a little bit sad. Without a word, he leaned down and kissed Sebastien hard, his body firing up at the way Sebastien’s arms wrapped around his neck and he pulled himself tighter against him. He reached behind Sebastien, his hand groping for the sliding glass door handle and pulling once he’d found it; the only problem was, no matter how hard he pulled, the door wouldn’t budge. His brow furrowed and he pulled harder, though he didn’t stop kissing Sebastien.
“What’s… the problem?” Sebastien muttered between kisses.
Pierre pulled back, though his spare hand continued to hold tight to Sebastien’s side as he looked around him, staring at his hand on the handle. “The door won’t open,” he muttered in confusion.
Sebastien blinked rapidly, turning on the spot and looking at the door. “What?” he asked as he reached over and tugged on the door handle, consequentially brushing his hand against Pierre’s. He swallowed hard and turned to look at him with wide eyes. “We’re locked out?” he asked weakly. His eyes flashed down to Pierre’s lips and he took a deep, shaky breath.
“No, there’s gotta be a way,” Pierre muttered desperately. He wanted to have sex with his ex-best friend - or maybe he was his ex-ex-best friend - and there was no way he could do it while standing outside on the balcony. He pulled his hands from Sebastien’s body and stepped around him, using both hands on the handle, but still it wouldn’t budge. “Fucking old ass ghetto piece of shit apartment,” he grumbled. Sebastien laughed lightly, his hand coming to rest on Pierre’s lower back. Pierre closed his eyes and fought the urge to turn around and take Sebastien right then and there, before turning his attention back to the matter at hand. “The lock must’ve fallen down when you shut it,” he mumbled, and he moved to take off his belt.
“This isn’t my fault!” Sebastien defended himself quickly.
“I never said it was!” Pierre told him, and with one smooth movement, he pulled his belt off entirely.
“…what exactly are you doing?” Sebastien asked skeptically.
“I’m gonna try and shove it in the crack in the door!” Pierre said quickly. “If I can get it in far enough and wiggle it just right, I might be able to get it unlocked!”
“Aaah… well good luck with that,” Sebastien said.
Pierre got down on his knees and tried to wedge his belt between the door and the doorframe, his face scrunched in concentration. He tried for several minutes before sighing and standing. “God damn it,” he grumbled as he turned and faced Sebastien. “It’s not gonna work.” The two stared at each other for several long seconds, both clearly frustrated by the fact that the couldn’t have what they wanted. Pierre leaned against the guard rail and looked down, shaking his head slowly. “This is a sign,” Pierre mumbled.
“A sign of what?” Sebastien asked quietly.
“That this is wrong,” Pierre told him, looking up slowly and giving him a sad smile.
“You know I don’t believe in fate, Pierre,” Sebastien said with a soft smile.
“And you know I do,” Pierre retorted, returning his smile. Sebastien sighed and nodded his head, knowing that Pierre’s mind wouldn’t be changed. “If we were supposed to go inside and do what we were about to do, the door wouldn’t have locked itself,” he explained gently. “And if David and I weren’t meant to be together, we wouldn’t both have moved from Canada to this same Podunk little town in the states. That has to mean something, Seb. It’s just gotta be a sign that we’re supposed to end up together, right?” Pierre asked, sounding almost desperate in his desire for that to be true. When Sebastien merely gave him a weak smile, Pierre sighed and looked down again. “If I wanna fix this with him, I can’t do this with you. You can’t fight fate. And if that means I have to get on my knees and beg for forgiveness… I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Sebastien nodded, though he sighed and looked over the edge of the balcony. “So what now?”
Pierre turned as well, moving to stand next to Sebastien. “Now, we go inside, finish that bottle of Jack and talk about our lives,” Pierre said, nodding once.
Sebastien laughed and turned to glance skeptically at Pierre. “How are we gonna do that?”
“We’re gonna jump,” Pierre said, nudging Sebastien wit his shoulder.
Sebastien stared at Pierre, blinking rapidly at him. “Jump?” Pierre smiled and nodded, before looking over the edge of the balcony. “No way!” Sebastien told him quickly.
“Oh come on, Seb. Don’t be such a pussy,” Pierre said, before sitting on the edge of the rail and moving a leg over.
“Dude! I’m serious! You’re gonna hurt yourself!” Sebastien said urgently, his hands grabbing onto Pierre’s arm in an attempt to pull him back over.
“Stop whining and get over here,” Pierre demanded.
“Why can’t you just jump if you want to so bad and then let me in when you get inside?”
“No! I’m not doing all the work and letting you reap the benefits!” Pierre said with a broad grin.
“What? That makes no sense!”
“Sebastien,” Pierre started. “You want my friendship back?”
Sebastien’s smile faltered and he stared seriously at Pierre. “Yes.”
“Then earn it,” Pierre told him, before swinging his other leg over and sitting on the edge of the railing. “Jump with me.”
Sebastien stood still for several long seconds, contemplating Pierre’s words. Then, with a sigh of defeat, he hopped on the edge of the railing and hung his legs over, holding to the wood for dear life.
Pierre flashed Sebastien a soft smile and gave one firm nod. “Kay, on the count of three we jump,” Pierre told him slowly.
“Kay,” Sebastien replied, his voice shaking and his eyes wide.
“One,” Pierre started, his smile wide.
“Two,” Sebastien continued, his chest now rising and falling heavily and his heart pounding in his chest.
“Three!” The said in unison, and together they jumped.
When he landed, Pierre’s knees buckled underneath him and he fell to the ground. The loud thud next to him told him Sebastien had landed in the same way. Though he was a little bit sore, Pierre was surprised at how easy it had been to jump from the balcony of his second story apartment. Perhaps he wouldn’t have been able to do it alone, but with Sebastien by his side, as it always should have been, he knew he could do anything.
“Holy shit!” Sebastien yelled, giving off a laugh as he finished his exclamation.
Pierre let off an exhilarated scream before bursting into laughter and rolling on his back. He looked over when he noticed Sebastien crawling over to him, laughing so hard tears were streaming down his cheeks. Sebastien collapsed sideways on top of Pierre, squishing the air out of his lungs, though he laughed harder just the same. “Oh my God,” Pierre breathed, when Sebastien rolled to the side and came to lay instead on his back with Pierre’s arm under his neck.
“That was the stupidest thing I’ve done since we were in high school,” Sebastien admitted, grinning madly.
“Me too,” Pierre replied. Slowly he turned to look at Sebastien, who turned and looked at him in return, smiling softly. “Thank you,” he said, his voice gentle with sincerity.
Sebastien smiled and nodded once, staring into Pierre’s eyes for several long seconds, before sitting up and looking around. He stood, turned, and held a hand out to Pierre, who took it and pulled himself up. As they began to walk back to the front of Pierre’s apartment building, Sebastien stopped and turned to face Pierre, his face worry stricken.
“What?” Pierre asked quickly.
“Your door’s unlocked… right?”
When Pierre did nothing but stare at him, Sebastien’s eyes widened. “I think so,” Pierre said uncertainly. “I’m fifty-four percent sure.”
“Well… I guess we’ll see,” Sebastien said with a sigh before continuing up the stairs. A wave of relief washed over them both when he tried the door knob and it opened, and instantly they moved back to the couch, where, as they said they would, they finished that bottle of whiskey and spent the rest of the night talking, catching up on every possible thing they could think of to catch up on, and most importantly, not shedding a single tear more.