Behind the Net: Across the Distance (A Sequel) - Chapter 13
Title: Behind the Net: Across the Distance (A Sequel)
Author: shmorgenheigen
Chapter: Thirteen
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Pierre/David
Word Count: 3561
Summary: The continuation of the story Behind the Net, picking up right where the original story left off. David and Pierre explore their new relationship while navigating a long distance relationship. While Pierre is in Anchorage in his first year of college and playing college hockey, David is stuck back in Juneau to finish his senior year of high school. When an unlikely person from David’s past shows up and forces their way back into David’s life, things take a turn for the dramatic. Will David and Pierre be able to maintain their love for each other while separated and stave off those pesky feelings of loneliness, jealousy, and depression?
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own, didn't happen!
Author's Note: When I started to re-write Behind the Net from Pierre’s perspective, I started to think about how much story there would be to tell when Pierre went off to college, leaving David alone in Juneau. I became obsessed with the idea of writing the next chapter in their story and now that it’s finished, I am absolutely in love with how it turned out and the original characters I added into the story! If anyone reads this, leave me a comment and let me know!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
“Here.” Hunter’s voice pulled David’s attention away from his history homework and he looked up, seeing the other boy standing over him at his usual table at the library and passing him a CD.
David took the CD and smiled, saying, “Hello to you too.” He looked at the CD in his hands and saw that it was Hunter’s band Shattered Silence, as he had requested the previous Saturday. He smiled at the picture of them on the cover, standing in the middle of the snow covered woods and looking very serious and dramatic. Very emo, he thought to himself with a tiny giggle that he couldn’t quite suppress. Hunter sat across from him and began to pull out his own homework without saying anything. “Thanks,” David said quietly, before tucking the CD into his messenger bag. Ever since the show and the electricity that had run through his body, he had honestly been wanting to listen to their music again.
It was the Monday of the week of Thanksgiving and David could feel the days eating away at him. In three days he would be with Pierre again and he could feel his excitement building to an almost unbearable level. Waiting felt like torture; he yearned to touch Pierre again, to kiss him, to smell him, to feel his warmth. And the fact that they were going to hardly be able to contain themselves before tearing each other’s clothes off and having sex for the first time, well, that added to his sense of frustrated impatience. He wished he could just skip the rest of the week and be at Thursday already, but time continued to march on at its own slow pace and as each day got closer he felt that he was losing his sanity a little bit more.
He looked over at Hunter with a smile, his mouth open to say something, but he lost his train of thought as soon as he took in the other boy. Something about him seemed off, and David thought he looked unhappy. He hadn’t seen him at school that day because he had been delivering costumes to the theater department during lunch and ended up eating with them so he couldn’t speak to how he had been during the day, but the last time he had seen him had been Saturday night at the show and he had seemed excited and happy then. What had happened in that time to cause this change?
“Are you okay?” David asked, leaning toward Hunter a bit over the table with a look of concern.
Hunter’s eyes darted over to his and for a moment he looked surprised, then his usual laid back smirk was on his lips and he leaned back in his chair a little. “Yeah, why?”
David blinked at him a few times, his brow furrowed and his lips downturned in a slight frown. “I dunno, you looked… I dunno.”
Hunter just shrugged and flipped open his math textbook and a notebook and made no further comment, though again David thought this was odd. No witty comeback? No sarcastic banter? He continued to stare at the other boy, feeling that something was off but unable to identify exactly what. After a few more seconds Hunter seemed to realize that he was staring at him and he looked back up, still hunched over his textbook, now with a skeptical look on his face. “Seriously, what?”
“I dunno! You just seem… off somehow,” David explained in a whisper.
Hunter raised an eyebrow and shrugged again, saying, “Well I’m not,” before moving his attention back to his work.
David regarded him for a few more seconds before he figured he should let it go, not wanting it to turn into a pointless fight but also knowing without knowing how that something wasn’t right. If Hunter didn’t want to talk about whatever was bothering him, it wasn’t David’s place to force him. He turned back to his history homework and together they worked in silence. Still, David’s mind kept pulling his eyes back up, thinking it was strange how quiet Hunter was being, and how he wasn’t interrupting or bugging him at all, and how no matter how many times he found himself looking at the other boy without meaning to, never once did he catch Hunter looking back at him. It was just unlike him.
They had worked in silence for almost forty minutes before Hunter said anything to him at all, though when he did his voice was light and casual as if nothing was bothering him. “Is your dad gonna be home for Thanksgiving?” he asked out of the blue, surprising David and drawing his attention up from the science homework he had just started on.
“No, he came back a couple weeks ago so he won’t be back again until January some time,” David replied quietly. “He usually avoids the holidays since my mom…” David trailed off, not able to finish the thought and looked back down at his notebook. He felt that familiar pricking sensation in his eyes and he took a deep, slow, steadying breath, unwilling to cry in front of Hunter in the middle of the library. He talked about her so little, however, that anytime he brought her up he had this physical reaction. He hadn’t allowed himself to get to the point where he had gotten enough of that pain out so that he could talk about her without getting emotional. He also realized he had never actually talked to Hunter about his mom dying and wondered if he even knew.
Suddenly he felt Hunter’s hand on his and he knew that he knew, even though he’d never talked to him about it before. The offer of comfort started to break David’s ability to keep his emotions in check and he kept his eyes down on his paper, though suddenly the words he had written were swimming in his vision and he swallowed hard, telling himself he was not going to cry. Stupid Hunter asking about stupid Thanksgiving. Stupid him for talking about why his dad never came home for holidays. Stupid, stupid…
“I heard about what happened,” Hunter said, his voice uncharacteristically soft. David swallowed hard again, his hand under Hunter’s gripping hard to his pencil. “My mom used to work with yours sometimes at the hospital before she went off to Doctors Without Borders and she told me when she found out… She remembered we used to be friends.” Hunter’s grip on David’s hand tightened a little but David couldn’t bring himself to say anything or to look at him. If he did, he knew he would break down and that was the last thing he was willing to let happen. “I wanted to call you but… I knew you didn’t want to hear from me.”
David blinked out of necessity and against his will two tears fell from his eyes and landed on the paper below him, dimpling the page and blurring the words he had written. He felt Hunter’s hand lift off of his and David took a deep breath in again, holding it hard in his chest, tightening his eyes, trying his hardest to push his pain back down his burning throat and into the pit of his stomach where he could go on ignoring it. Then he became aware of Hunter sitting in the seat next to him, and hands on his shoulders, and Hunter’s soft voice in his ear saying, “Come on,” as he pulled him into his arms and against his chest.
David lost the battle against his emotions and he curled into Hunter’s embrace, his arms moving to wrap around his middle, his hands pressed flat into his back, his fingers digging into the cotton of his black hoodie as his body shook with silent sobs. “It’s okay to let yourself cry about it,” Hunter whispered, his hand finding the back of David’s head and cradling him into his neck. David could feel his tears against Hunter’s skin and soaking the collar of his t-shirt but he was powerless to stop it now that Hunter had hugged him. He had cried more hours than he could count over his mother’s death but those tears had been alone in his bedroom into his pillow. He had kept these feelings squished down inside of him at all times, ignoring them until they randomly burst out of him when he was alone and he could handle falling apart.
David had never allowed himself to demonstrate his pain to another person, not to his father, not to Jenny, not even to Pierre. Whenever his mom’s death had started to come up as a topic around anyone else and David had started to feel those emotions come on, he would simply shut down and stop talking about it. Everyone else in those situations had always held back, not pushing him to continue where he clearly didn’t want to, not wanting to make him cry, not wanting to force him to talk about something he didn’t want to, but Hunter was different than anyone else he knew. Hunter was forceful and stubborn and he said what he thought and did what he wanted. His unsolicited words and comfort had drawn out those emotions from David, pulled them up from the depths inside of him where he had buried them, and now they were spilling out of him raw and uncontrollable.
He didn’t know how long he sat there in Hunter’s arms crying as silently as he could manage but he didn’t have it in himself anymore to force himself to stop. He simply continued until his head started to clear, his chest felt lighter, and he suddenly became aware that tears weren’t falling anymore and his body wasn’t shaking. For a while he just sat there breathing, his eyes gently closed, his fingers digging lightly into the material of Hunter’s hoodie. There was part of him that suddenly felt so exhausted that he thought he could fall asleep and he didn’t want to move. Hunter just continued to sit next to him, silent and gently holding him, his hand still on the back of his head and the other wrapped strongly around his back, his chest rising and falling with deep, slow breaths that David found oddly comforting.
Then the reality of where they were and what they were doing came back to David and immediately he thought of Pierre and what he would think and feel if he saw David hugging Hunter like this. Though he hadn’t meant for it to happen, though he hadn’t reached out to Hunter for support, and though there were no romantic or sexual feelings tied up in this for him, he knew Pierre would hate it and he understood why. He dropped his hands and began to pull back, wondering for a brief second if Hunter would let him go, but he was able to pull back without issue and he felt Hunter’s hands slide away from him and back to his own sides, allowing the contact to be severed completely the moment he had signaled for it. He had to admit, for his part, Hunter had been doing really well at respecting his boundaries and not forcing David into any situations or contact that he didn’t want.
He moved his hand to wipe his cheeks but felt that they were stiff and dry, and suddenly he wondered how long he had sat in Hunter’s arms after he had stopped crying, just allowing the other boy to hold him. His eyes moved down to the collar of Hunter’s shirt which was wet with tears and he bit down on his bottom lip, unable to look into the other boy’s eyes, suddenly feeling embarrassed by what he had just allowed to happen. “Sorry,” he whispered, shrinking into himself a little.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Hunter replied, his voice soft but still strong somehow. “David, look at me,” he demanded, though still sounding gentle. As if unable to deny the command, David’s eyes flicked up to Hunter’s gray ones, staring up at him sadly. “Don’t apologize for having feelings.”
David swallowed hard and gave a nod before looking off to the side again. “I’ve never… cried about her in front of anyone else before,” he said quietly.
“Never?” Hunter asked, and David shook his head, keeping his eyes down. “Not even Pierre?”
Again David shook his head, saying, “The couple times she’s come up I almost started crying and I just clammed up and stopped talking, and he didn’t push, and I just shoved it down again. I didn’t want to cry and he didn’t make me.”
“You’re gonna have to get it out before you can move forward,” Hunter said softly.
“I just don’t want other people to see-”
“Your pain? How much you’re suffering?” Hunter cut over him quietly and David began to chew on his bottom lip again. “David, how can he really know you if you don’t share every part of yourself with him?” David looked over at the other boy, surprised by his words. Hunter just stared back at him seriously, though he could see sadness behind his eyes. “If you really love him as much as you say you do, you kind of owe it to him to show him every part of you, even the parts that make you feel weak, or the parts you’re not proud of. You’re gonna have to trust him with all of you, or there’s always going to be this one thing that separates you.”
David felt compelled by a sudden, deep affection and gratitude as he stared at Hunter and without knowing what he was doing he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around the other boy’s neck, hugging him tight, his eyes squeezing closed. He felt as Hunter’s arms hesitantly snaked around him again and he held him much more gently, almost as if he was afraid to reciprocate. “Thank you,” David whispered, his grip not loosening. They sat like that again for several minutes in the gentle lighting and relative silence of the library late at night on a Monday. He was suddenly glad that they were up on a higher floor and that no one else was around to see what had happened, though honestly someone could have walked by and he wouldn’t have noticed, too consumed in his grief.
When he pulled back, again Hunter followed his lead and let him move away, bringing his own arms back to his own sides and not prolonging their contact past David’s signal that it should end, though when he looked at him again he thought there was more sadness behind his eyes than there had been before, and a yearning for something more. Suddenly he felt guilty and the overheard conversation from Saturday replayed in his head, of Ezra clearly accusing Hunter of being in love with David and Hunter not denying it but instead saying it didn’t matter. What was he doing? His stomach twisted and he realized what he had just done to the other boy, and the way he must have been tearing apart inside. David turned back to his homework and tried to move on, telling himself for Hunter’s sake he needed to pull himself away before he hurt him any further.
Without another word Hunter got up and moved back to the other side of the table, sitting back down to his own homework and continuing to work in a silence that felt heavier somehow. They had sat there so long that the sun had long since gone down and he knew they would have to leave soon as the library would be closing, but his guilt over his selfish behavior continued to eat at him and he found it difficult to focus on his work. He was visited by the strong urge to apologize to Hunter, to tell him that they should stop being around each other, that it was unfair of David to continue to enjoy his friendship while he knew the other boy’s feelings were much deeper and stronger, but he also knew that Hunter would never accept it and it would only cause him to try harder, to insist that he could just be his friend; he was stubborn and forceful, after all. He wondered what Hunter would do if he just started gently pulling away, more and more until they hardly saw each other at all. If David slowly faded away from his life, would it be easier for him to accept?
“Why don’t you come over to my house for Thanksgiving?” Hunter asked him suddenly, pulling David out of his guilt ridden thoughts to look up at the boy across from him with cheeks tinted a soft pink. “Since your dad won’t be home, and Pierre’s in Anchorage… My mom’s a pretty good cook, she actually manages to make the turkey taste good,” he continued, a hint of his usual crooked smile on his lips though David thought he still looked sad. He wondered suddenly if the other boy’s off mood when he first sat down earlier that night had been something to do with him, as well.
“Oh, I actually really appreciate that,” David told him, though he knew his tone was that of a gentle denial and he could see the immediate registration of that in Hunter’s eyes. “But I’m going to see Pierre on Thanksgiving, and I’m gonna be there until Sunday afternoon when I fly back.”
The reality of what that meant settled obviously over Hunter and he stared at David for a second, his face blank but that pain still registering behind his eyes, before he nodded and looked back down at his homework. David looked back down at his own work, his guilt tearing at him again, but Hunter’s voice drew him back up. “Where are you gonna stay when you’re there?” Hunter asked, his voice sounding a little forced though David could hear that he had been going for casually interested.
“Um… In his dorm with him,” he responded hesitantly, his voice not wanting to come out of his throat to further hurt the other boy.
Hunter remained leaned over his homework but his gray eyes snapped up to David’s hazel ones suddenly and a look of comprehension passed between them. David couldn’t help the way he blushed and he feared what he was revealing, unable to tear his eyes away from Hunter’s. Then after several seconds Hunter looked back down at his homework and he saw the other boy’s throat move in a hard swallow, before he stiffly said, “Have fun.” He could tell that Hunter had tried to sound genuine but it didn’t work; he could hear the unspoken thoughts behind his words and how badly he wanted to say and do something else, but the other boy didn’t speak again and he didn’t look up again.
David didn’t feel right responding and just looked back down to his own homework, feeling worse than ever and knowing that without ever meaning to, he was hurting Hunter more than he had ever realized by not having feelings for him and by truly feeling nothing for him but friendship. He suddenly found himself wishing he could go back to himself in October and tell himself to hold strong and to refuse to be Hunter’s friend, that he would end up hurting the other boy beyond measure and would regret it. When they finally packed up their bags and headed their separate ways for the night, it was without much else spoken between them and David felt quite possibly the most selfish and awful he ever had.
His phone call with Pierre that night was difficult for him and he felt that he should tell his boyfriend about what had happened at the library but he couldn’t make himself do it. He knew his feelings for Hunter were clear. He knew he wasn’t in love with him, he knew his feelings were nothing more than platonic, and he didn’t even have sexual urges toward the other boy; about that his conscience was clear. There was something about the idea of sharing Hunter’s private heartache with Pierre that just felt wrong and invasive, and though he didn’t want to hide anything from his boyfriend he also couldn’t bring himself to reveal Hunter’s pain like that. He hadn’t said anything, after all, and he hadn’t done anything. He was keeping his word and acting as a friend and nothing more, but David could see him, and he could see how much he was hurting. Unless Hunter tried to do something that crossed a line and was inappropriate, for the time being David felt it was okay to keep Hunter’s deep feelings a secret; they weren’t his to share, and he wasn’t the one that was suffering because of them. Still, he knew he was going to have to change something for Hunter’s sake, and he knew it was going to have to be quick before it all became too much to turn back from and the other boy did something stupid. For Hunter’s own good, he knew he would have to try.
Author: shmorgenheigen
Chapter: Thirteen
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Pierre/David
Word Count: 3561
Summary: The continuation of the story Behind the Net, picking up right where the original story left off. David and Pierre explore their new relationship while navigating a long distance relationship. While Pierre is in Anchorage in his first year of college and playing college hockey, David is stuck back in Juneau to finish his senior year of high school. When an unlikely person from David’s past shows up and forces their way back into David’s life, things take a turn for the dramatic. Will David and Pierre be able to maintain their love for each other while separated and stave off those pesky feelings of loneliness, jealousy, and depression?
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own, didn't happen!
Author's Note: When I started to re-write Behind the Net from Pierre’s perspective, I started to think about how much story there would be to tell when Pierre went off to college, leaving David alone in Juneau. I became obsessed with the idea of writing the next chapter in their story and now that it’s finished, I am absolutely in love with how it turned out and the original characters I added into the story! If anyone reads this, leave me a comment and let me know!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
“Here.” Hunter’s voice pulled David’s attention away from his history homework and he looked up, seeing the other boy standing over him at his usual table at the library and passing him a CD.
David took the CD and smiled, saying, “Hello to you too.” He looked at the CD in his hands and saw that it was Hunter’s band Shattered Silence, as he had requested the previous Saturday. He smiled at the picture of them on the cover, standing in the middle of the snow covered woods and looking very serious and dramatic. Very emo, he thought to himself with a tiny giggle that he couldn’t quite suppress. Hunter sat across from him and began to pull out his own homework without saying anything. “Thanks,” David said quietly, before tucking the CD into his messenger bag. Ever since the show and the electricity that had run through his body, he had honestly been wanting to listen to their music again.
It was the Monday of the week of Thanksgiving and David could feel the days eating away at him. In three days he would be with Pierre again and he could feel his excitement building to an almost unbearable level. Waiting felt like torture; he yearned to touch Pierre again, to kiss him, to smell him, to feel his warmth. And the fact that they were going to hardly be able to contain themselves before tearing each other’s clothes off and having sex for the first time, well, that added to his sense of frustrated impatience. He wished he could just skip the rest of the week and be at Thursday already, but time continued to march on at its own slow pace and as each day got closer he felt that he was losing his sanity a little bit more.
He looked over at Hunter with a smile, his mouth open to say something, but he lost his train of thought as soon as he took in the other boy. Something about him seemed off, and David thought he looked unhappy. He hadn’t seen him at school that day because he had been delivering costumes to the theater department during lunch and ended up eating with them so he couldn’t speak to how he had been during the day, but the last time he had seen him had been Saturday night at the show and he had seemed excited and happy then. What had happened in that time to cause this change?
“Are you okay?” David asked, leaning toward Hunter a bit over the table with a look of concern.
Hunter’s eyes darted over to his and for a moment he looked surprised, then his usual laid back smirk was on his lips and he leaned back in his chair a little. “Yeah, why?”
David blinked at him a few times, his brow furrowed and his lips downturned in a slight frown. “I dunno, you looked… I dunno.”
Hunter just shrugged and flipped open his math textbook and a notebook and made no further comment, though again David thought this was odd. No witty comeback? No sarcastic banter? He continued to stare at the other boy, feeling that something was off but unable to identify exactly what. After a few more seconds Hunter seemed to realize that he was staring at him and he looked back up, still hunched over his textbook, now with a skeptical look on his face. “Seriously, what?”
“I dunno! You just seem… off somehow,” David explained in a whisper.
Hunter raised an eyebrow and shrugged again, saying, “Well I’m not,” before moving his attention back to his work.
David regarded him for a few more seconds before he figured he should let it go, not wanting it to turn into a pointless fight but also knowing without knowing how that something wasn’t right. If Hunter didn’t want to talk about whatever was bothering him, it wasn’t David’s place to force him. He turned back to his history homework and together they worked in silence. Still, David’s mind kept pulling his eyes back up, thinking it was strange how quiet Hunter was being, and how he wasn’t interrupting or bugging him at all, and how no matter how many times he found himself looking at the other boy without meaning to, never once did he catch Hunter looking back at him. It was just unlike him.
They had worked in silence for almost forty minutes before Hunter said anything to him at all, though when he did his voice was light and casual as if nothing was bothering him. “Is your dad gonna be home for Thanksgiving?” he asked out of the blue, surprising David and drawing his attention up from the science homework he had just started on.
“No, he came back a couple weeks ago so he won’t be back again until January some time,” David replied quietly. “He usually avoids the holidays since my mom…” David trailed off, not able to finish the thought and looked back down at his notebook. He felt that familiar pricking sensation in his eyes and he took a deep, slow, steadying breath, unwilling to cry in front of Hunter in the middle of the library. He talked about her so little, however, that anytime he brought her up he had this physical reaction. He hadn’t allowed himself to get to the point where he had gotten enough of that pain out so that he could talk about her without getting emotional. He also realized he had never actually talked to Hunter about his mom dying and wondered if he even knew.
Suddenly he felt Hunter’s hand on his and he knew that he knew, even though he’d never talked to him about it before. The offer of comfort started to break David’s ability to keep his emotions in check and he kept his eyes down on his paper, though suddenly the words he had written were swimming in his vision and he swallowed hard, telling himself he was not going to cry. Stupid Hunter asking about stupid Thanksgiving. Stupid him for talking about why his dad never came home for holidays. Stupid, stupid…
“I heard about what happened,” Hunter said, his voice uncharacteristically soft. David swallowed hard again, his hand under Hunter’s gripping hard to his pencil. “My mom used to work with yours sometimes at the hospital before she went off to Doctors Without Borders and she told me when she found out… She remembered we used to be friends.” Hunter’s grip on David’s hand tightened a little but David couldn’t bring himself to say anything or to look at him. If he did, he knew he would break down and that was the last thing he was willing to let happen. “I wanted to call you but… I knew you didn’t want to hear from me.”
David blinked out of necessity and against his will two tears fell from his eyes and landed on the paper below him, dimpling the page and blurring the words he had written. He felt Hunter’s hand lift off of his and David took a deep breath in again, holding it hard in his chest, tightening his eyes, trying his hardest to push his pain back down his burning throat and into the pit of his stomach where he could go on ignoring it. Then he became aware of Hunter sitting in the seat next to him, and hands on his shoulders, and Hunter’s soft voice in his ear saying, “Come on,” as he pulled him into his arms and against his chest.
David lost the battle against his emotions and he curled into Hunter’s embrace, his arms moving to wrap around his middle, his hands pressed flat into his back, his fingers digging into the cotton of his black hoodie as his body shook with silent sobs. “It’s okay to let yourself cry about it,” Hunter whispered, his hand finding the back of David’s head and cradling him into his neck. David could feel his tears against Hunter’s skin and soaking the collar of his t-shirt but he was powerless to stop it now that Hunter had hugged him. He had cried more hours than he could count over his mother’s death but those tears had been alone in his bedroom into his pillow. He had kept these feelings squished down inside of him at all times, ignoring them until they randomly burst out of him when he was alone and he could handle falling apart.
David had never allowed himself to demonstrate his pain to another person, not to his father, not to Jenny, not even to Pierre. Whenever his mom’s death had started to come up as a topic around anyone else and David had started to feel those emotions come on, he would simply shut down and stop talking about it. Everyone else in those situations had always held back, not pushing him to continue where he clearly didn’t want to, not wanting to make him cry, not wanting to force him to talk about something he didn’t want to, but Hunter was different than anyone else he knew. Hunter was forceful and stubborn and he said what he thought and did what he wanted. His unsolicited words and comfort had drawn out those emotions from David, pulled them up from the depths inside of him where he had buried them, and now they were spilling out of him raw and uncontrollable.
He didn’t know how long he sat there in Hunter’s arms crying as silently as he could manage but he didn’t have it in himself anymore to force himself to stop. He simply continued until his head started to clear, his chest felt lighter, and he suddenly became aware that tears weren’t falling anymore and his body wasn’t shaking. For a while he just sat there breathing, his eyes gently closed, his fingers digging lightly into the material of Hunter’s hoodie. There was part of him that suddenly felt so exhausted that he thought he could fall asleep and he didn’t want to move. Hunter just continued to sit next to him, silent and gently holding him, his hand still on the back of his head and the other wrapped strongly around his back, his chest rising and falling with deep, slow breaths that David found oddly comforting.
Then the reality of where they were and what they were doing came back to David and immediately he thought of Pierre and what he would think and feel if he saw David hugging Hunter like this. Though he hadn’t meant for it to happen, though he hadn’t reached out to Hunter for support, and though there were no romantic or sexual feelings tied up in this for him, he knew Pierre would hate it and he understood why. He dropped his hands and began to pull back, wondering for a brief second if Hunter would let him go, but he was able to pull back without issue and he felt Hunter’s hands slide away from him and back to his own sides, allowing the contact to be severed completely the moment he had signaled for it. He had to admit, for his part, Hunter had been doing really well at respecting his boundaries and not forcing David into any situations or contact that he didn’t want.
He moved his hand to wipe his cheeks but felt that they were stiff and dry, and suddenly he wondered how long he had sat in Hunter’s arms after he had stopped crying, just allowing the other boy to hold him. His eyes moved down to the collar of Hunter’s shirt which was wet with tears and he bit down on his bottom lip, unable to look into the other boy’s eyes, suddenly feeling embarrassed by what he had just allowed to happen. “Sorry,” he whispered, shrinking into himself a little.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Hunter replied, his voice soft but still strong somehow. “David, look at me,” he demanded, though still sounding gentle. As if unable to deny the command, David’s eyes flicked up to Hunter’s gray ones, staring up at him sadly. “Don’t apologize for having feelings.”
David swallowed hard and gave a nod before looking off to the side again. “I’ve never… cried about her in front of anyone else before,” he said quietly.
“Never?” Hunter asked, and David shook his head, keeping his eyes down. “Not even Pierre?”
Again David shook his head, saying, “The couple times she’s come up I almost started crying and I just clammed up and stopped talking, and he didn’t push, and I just shoved it down again. I didn’t want to cry and he didn’t make me.”
“You’re gonna have to get it out before you can move forward,” Hunter said softly.
“I just don’t want other people to see-”
“Your pain? How much you’re suffering?” Hunter cut over him quietly and David began to chew on his bottom lip again. “David, how can he really know you if you don’t share every part of yourself with him?” David looked over at the other boy, surprised by his words. Hunter just stared back at him seriously, though he could see sadness behind his eyes. “If you really love him as much as you say you do, you kind of owe it to him to show him every part of you, even the parts that make you feel weak, or the parts you’re not proud of. You’re gonna have to trust him with all of you, or there’s always going to be this one thing that separates you.”
David felt compelled by a sudden, deep affection and gratitude as he stared at Hunter and without knowing what he was doing he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around the other boy’s neck, hugging him tight, his eyes squeezing closed. He felt as Hunter’s arms hesitantly snaked around him again and he held him much more gently, almost as if he was afraid to reciprocate. “Thank you,” David whispered, his grip not loosening. They sat like that again for several minutes in the gentle lighting and relative silence of the library late at night on a Monday. He was suddenly glad that they were up on a higher floor and that no one else was around to see what had happened, though honestly someone could have walked by and he wouldn’t have noticed, too consumed in his grief.
When he pulled back, again Hunter followed his lead and let him move away, bringing his own arms back to his own sides and not prolonging their contact past David’s signal that it should end, though when he looked at him again he thought there was more sadness behind his eyes than there had been before, and a yearning for something more. Suddenly he felt guilty and the overheard conversation from Saturday replayed in his head, of Ezra clearly accusing Hunter of being in love with David and Hunter not denying it but instead saying it didn’t matter. What was he doing? His stomach twisted and he realized what he had just done to the other boy, and the way he must have been tearing apart inside. David turned back to his homework and tried to move on, telling himself for Hunter’s sake he needed to pull himself away before he hurt him any further.
Without another word Hunter got up and moved back to the other side of the table, sitting back down to his own homework and continuing to work in a silence that felt heavier somehow. They had sat there so long that the sun had long since gone down and he knew they would have to leave soon as the library would be closing, but his guilt over his selfish behavior continued to eat at him and he found it difficult to focus on his work. He was visited by the strong urge to apologize to Hunter, to tell him that they should stop being around each other, that it was unfair of David to continue to enjoy his friendship while he knew the other boy’s feelings were much deeper and stronger, but he also knew that Hunter would never accept it and it would only cause him to try harder, to insist that he could just be his friend; he was stubborn and forceful, after all. He wondered what Hunter would do if he just started gently pulling away, more and more until they hardly saw each other at all. If David slowly faded away from his life, would it be easier for him to accept?
“Why don’t you come over to my house for Thanksgiving?” Hunter asked him suddenly, pulling David out of his guilt ridden thoughts to look up at the boy across from him with cheeks tinted a soft pink. “Since your dad won’t be home, and Pierre’s in Anchorage… My mom’s a pretty good cook, she actually manages to make the turkey taste good,” he continued, a hint of his usual crooked smile on his lips though David thought he still looked sad. He wondered suddenly if the other boy’s off mood when he first sat down earlier that night had been something to do with him, as well.
“Oh, I actually really appreciate that,” David told him, though he knew his tone was that of a gentle denial and he could see the immediate registration of that in Hunter’s eyes. “But I’m going to see Pierre on Thanksgiving, and I’m gonna be there until Sunday afternoon when I fly back.”
The reality of what that meant settled obviously over Hunter and he stared at David for a second, his face blank but that pain still registering behind his eyes, before he nodded and looked back down at his homework. David looked back down at his own work, his guilt tearing at him again, but Hunter’s voice drew him back up. “Where are you gonna stay when you’re there?” Hunter asked, his voice sounding a little forced though David could hear that he had been going for casually interested.
“Um… In his dorm with him,” he responded hesitantly, his voice not wanting to come out of his throat to further hurt the other boy.
Hunter remained leaned over his homework but his gray eyes snapped up to David’s hazel ones suddenly and a look of comprehension passed between them. David couldn’t help the way he blushed and he feared what he was revealing, unable to tear his eyes away from Hunter’s. Then after several seconds Hunter looked back down at his homework and he saw the other boy’s throat move in a hard swallow, before he stiffly said, “Have fun.” He could tell that Hunter had tried to sound genuine but it didn’t work; he could hear the unspoken thoughts behind his words and how badly he wanted to say and do something else, but the other boy didn’t speak again and he didn’t look up again.
David didn’t feel right responding and just looked back down to his own homework, feeling worse than ever and knowing that without ever meaning to, he was hurting Hunter more than he had ever realized by not having feelings for him and by truly feeling nothing for him but friendship. He suddenly found himself wishing he could go back to himself in October and tell himself to hold strong and to refuse to be Hunter’s friend, that he would end up hurting the other boy beyond measure and would regret it. When they finally packed up their bags and headed their separate ways for the night, it was without much else spoken between them and David felt quite possibly the most selfish and awful he ever had.
His phone call with Pierre that night was difficult for him and he felt that he should tell his boyfriend about what had happened at the library but he couldn’t make himself do it. He knew his feelings for Hunter were clear. He knew he wasn’t in love with him, he knew his feelings were nothing more than platonic, and he didn’t even have sexual urges toward the other boy; about that his conscience was clear. There was something about the idea of sharing Hunter’s private heartache with Pierre that just felt wrong and invasive, and though he didn’t want to hide anything from his boyfriend he also couldn’t bring himself to reveal Hunter’s pain like that. He hadn’t said anything, after all, and he hadn’t done anything. He was keeping his word and acting as a friend and nothing more, but David could see him, and he could see how much he was hurting. Unless Hunter tried to do something that crossed a line and was inappropriate, for the time being David felt it was okay to keep Hunter’s deep feelings a secret; they weren’t his to share, and he wasn’t the one that was suffering because of them. Still, he knew he was going to have to change something for Hunter’s sake, and he knew it was going to have to be quick before it all became too much to turn back from and the other boy did something stupid. For Hunter’s own good, he knew he would have to try.