Wet Hot American Summer (for obstinatrix)
Title: Wet Hot American Summer
Author's name: my_daroga
Written for: obstinatrix
Pairing/characters: Shatner/Nimoy
Rating: R
Prompt: How much, honeys, would I love a fic set in an alternative 1940s where the boys knew each other as children? I so much want a story based around Shatner's tales in Up Till Now of being hit on by older men as a teenager. And him being naive and oblivious, and Nimoy somehow being knowing, and teenage sexytimes ensuing.
Warnings: Teenage (17 y.o.) sex, hints of potential (not realized) abuse (see prompt)
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living is intentional, but not at all factual.
Leonard didn't think he'd ever seen anyone quite like Bill Shatner before. Not at his synagogue, not in his Boston Italian neighborhood, not anywhere. It was 1948 and Leonard thought someone like Bill belonged Somewhere Else, on a movie screen or captain of the football team or anyplace, really, but a run-down Jewish summer camp in the middle of nowhere, Maine. The trouble was, Leonard suspected Bill knew it.
He'd decided this pretty much the moment he arrived, when Bill greeted him without really looking in his direction in swim trunks and a golden tan that complemented his sun-bleached hair. He gathered they were both counselors, but assumed they wouldn't have much to do with one another; he was here to help the theater kids, and no doubt Bill Shatner was heading up games or sports or whatever. It was just as well; Leonard wasn't any good at sports, and something about Bill's offhand attitude turned him off. He was probably the popular kid, Leonard thought, used to being fawned over and kissed up to and ignoring people like him.
When bunks were assigned and Leonard went to stash his stuff, he was surprised to find Bill there, spread out on the bottom bunk with his stuff already spilling from one of the dresser drawers. He had a shirt on, at least, but his hands were clasped behind his head and he grinned sloppily at Leonard as he entered. There was something sort of ingratiating about it that Leonard suspected. Like he was going to ask him if he could copy his homework or something, for the price of his attention.
“Hey,” Bill said. “I hear we're both working on the camp play. You're Lenny, right?”
“Leonard,” Leonard said, because “Lenny” was for kids and “Len” was far too casual for a serious actor. “I'm sorry,” he said then, because he couldn't imagine this guy wanting to spend all day teaching little kids how to act and he didn't want to imagine himself having to deal with it.
Bill's face screwed up in confusion. “Why?”
Leonard shrugged, holding his rucksack awkwardly as he figured out where it was going. “I don't know, I guess... Less time for swimming and... stuff.”
“Maybe, but I don't want to be a professional swimmer.”
Leonard turned to look at Bill again, who smiled back at him as if the puzzled expression that he must have been wearing didn’t register at all. “So. We gonna discuss the bunk situation?”
Bill blinked. “What situation? I was here first; I get first pick.”
The fact that this was pretty standard camp logic didn’t do much to mollify Leonard, who thought that being faster or stronger or richer or whatever wasn’t much justification for anything. The fact that Bill looked to be all those things didn’t help. “Is that a camp rule, or something?”
Bill shrugged somehow while still lying down. “Do you have a better system?”
Leonard stared at him for a moment, as he debated whether to argue on this point or give it up as a lost cause and the better part of valor. Not to mention the better part of getting through the next two weeks, which he saw stretching before him filled with far too much Bill Shatner already.
“Whatever,” he said. “I like the top anyway,” which was actually true. He tossed his rucksack up before walking out to check out the rest of the camp. And leaving Bill to… whatever he was not doing. Probably contemplating how much too good he was for this place, or any of them.
So he was surprised to see Bill alone at dinner, munching on a hamburger with seeming obliviousness that only made his isolation seem weirdly vulnerable when it should have looked nonchalant and intentional. Unconsciously Leonard stopped in front of him with his tray. Bill looked up, and the smile he offered seemed so genuine and somehow grateful that Leonard found himself sitting down across from him before he could even think about it.
“So, where are you from?” Bill’s attention made Leonard feel singled out, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
“Boston,” he said. “You?”
“Montreal.”
“You're Canadian?” He couldn't keep the surprise from his voice.
“Yep. We're not aliens or anything.” Bill was smiling pleasantly.
“No, I know. I just haven't met anyone from Canada before.” Do they all look like you? , he didn't ask, because it was stupid, and because Bill was not quite as strange and out of place under artificial lights with half a hamburger in his mouth.
“Well, I've never met anyone from Boston before, so we're even.”
Leonard stirred his ketchup with a fry. “What are you doing here?” he asked, regretting it instantly because in his ears, it sounded so obvious that he didn't think Bill looked Jewish that he cringed inwardly.
Somehow Bill answered the unspoken question without acknowledging it. “My folks think there are too many Catholics in the neighborhood for me to spend all summer there,” he said.
Leonard blinked. “Mine, too.” Or something to that effect. But it was something in common, however slight, to go with the theater thing, which fascinated him as much as it seemed to make no sense.
He was distracted by a shout behind him; a camper had upended an entire shaker of salt onto his plate and was looking red-faced and just on the verge of deciding whether to throw the shaker or cry. When Leonard turned around it was to see Bill's suddenly too-innocent expression dissolve into a fit of culpable giggles and Leonard remembered the bunk bed thing and decided to hate him again.
“You didn't think that was funny,” Bill said. It wasn't a question, but he sounded uncertain just the same. Like he wanted to be contradicted.
“No,” Leonard said, and finishing his hamburger, got up to leave. He didn't speak when he came in to their room later, just climbed up into his bunk and tried to sleep, wishing he was actually doing theater instead of trying to teach kids something he didn't feel he knew himself, yet.
Especially with Bill.
But Leonard could get along with people when he tried, and there was plenty to occupy him, supervising campers and doing his best to pull the play into something resembling order for Parents' Day. It was an Aleichem thing he'd seen millions of times, but in this case that was good. It meant he knew what it should look like, and since most of the shaping of it fell to him, that was fortunate. Bill was useless. Distracted, always joking, always making suggestions that just didn't make sense.
He continued to be an annoying mystery outside of the overgrown amphitheater that served as their stage. For one thing, he kept sitting with Leonard at meals. He never even seemed interested in eating with anyone else. And he'd tell stupid stories about Montreal and plays he'd done and his plans for the future, something about $1,800 that kept coming up though Leonard didn't bother to ask whether that was American or Canadian money. He wasn't sure Bill would know the difference. From time to time, Leonard would catch him looking at him, staring intently as Leonard spoke and smiling in a way Leonard could only interpret as mockery of some sort. He wasn't sure of what, exactly, except that's what people like Bill did. Maybe he just assumed everyone was looking at him the way he was pretty sure he'd been too subtle about doing for Bill to notice. He just took it as a given, as one of the beautiful people.
How, he wondered, could someone be so obviously enamored with himself that he became totally oblivious to the feelings of others? He told horrible jokes, expecting everyone to laugh. He clowned around during assemblies and meal times, expecting everyone to appreciate the entertainment. He flirted with every female counselor at the camp, but Leonard was pretty sure (from his presence at every meal, his place in the bunk under him at lights out) that he didn't take up with any of them. Why, he could not say, except to revert to his previous conviction that no one was good enough. Because Leonard knew, for a fact, that Bill could actually be charming when he wanted. Absolutely, flat out, charming.
He knew this because as useless as Bill was at directing, and as clueless as he seemed around children, his acting was... riveting. This struck Leonard as highly unfair every time it was demonstrated, as it frequently was as Leonard moved kids around and Bill helped them learn their lines. Bill didn't seem to have any concept of the inner workings of the characters. He just spoke, and you listened, and he became someone else. Someone very Bill-like, but more so. Someone like him, Leonard reflected, didn't deserve to “make it.” Which was probably exactly why he would.
Leonard was starting to think he was thinking entirely too much about Bill Shatner. But there wasn't much else to do, and despite being oblivious and annoying and possessed of the worst pun habit Leonard had ever encountered, he was the most interesting person at the camp. And perversely, considering Leonard's conviction about Bill being too good for everyone, he'd seemed to take an interest in Leonard. At least as far as he could interpret hardly ever leaving him alone.
Then, about a week into their two-week stint, Bill Shatner attempted to down him.
They'd both been drafted into judging the swim races on the lake. There was a floating dock that extended out into the water, with a lifeguard stand on one side and a ladder to climb out on the other. With the usual lifeguard in the water, supervising, it fell to Leonard and Bill to blow the start whistle and determine the winner.
“Get up there,” Leonard said, having snagged the whistle only because he thought Bill would be too tempted to abuse his power.
“I'd rather not,” said Bill. “If you don't mind.”
“Actually, I do,” Leonard said, seven and a half days' worth of frustration coming out in his voice. “For once, Bill, you're going to do exactly what someone asks.”
Bill stared at Leonard for a moment, eyes big and mouth half-open, as if on the point of protesting. But to Leonard's surprise, he didn't. His mouth closed, lips compressed in a firm line, he turned and climbed the ladder to the lifeguard's seat, his movements jerky and purposeful. When he got to the top he turned and sat rigidly, staring out into the water at the campers lined up for the race.
“Do you know what you're doing?” Leonard asked.
Bill's eyes didn't waver from a point near the horizon. “I'm not an idiot. I call the race. It's not that hard.”
No, it wasn't, but Bill's voice held a stiffness Leonard hadn't heard from him before, and he realized that the whole time they'd been there he'd never actually heard Bill raise his voice in anger or annoyance. That he'd been surprisingly good-natured about the various inconveniences of camp life, considering the Bill Leonard's head had concocted. Perhaps he'd been too hard on him.
He blew the whistle, the race started, and he watched the kids' struggle for victory. Preoccupied once again with the problem of Bill, he did not see the white knuckles gripping the arms of the chair, nor the way Bill's face drained of color as his gaze followed the swimmers down closer to them. All he knew was that one moment, he'd been deciding to give Bill another chance and the next, he was wet with an armful of Shatner, the wind knocked out of him and what felt like half the lake pouring unexpectedly into his windpipe. He panicked, spluttering and thrashing and only dimly aware of the strong hands dragging him to the shore.
Later, he would be told that witnesses saw Bill topple, for no apparent reason, from his perch, catching him along the way and knocking them both into the water. The shock had revived Bill somewhat, who had pulled Leonard onto the beach. All he knew for now was that he was on his side, coughing up lake and being supported by Bill, the bastard who had pulled him in.
Bill's face, strained and anxious and with wet hair plastered to his brow, swam into view. “Leonard?” he said, his voice squeaky and high with alarm. “Leonard, are you okay? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean--”
Leonard pushed at him weakly, but Bill didn't budge. “You bastard,” he spat breathlessly. “What were you thinking?”
“I... I got... dizzy,” Bill said, his voice dropping to a near-whisper at the last word.
Leonard just stared at him, until a senior counselor ran up and bundled them off to the first aid station which doubled as a storage shed, got towels and juice for them, and ran off again, citing not enough supervisors for the kids and them, too.
“But you stay here and rest as long as you need,” she said, leaving them sitting on wooden chairs and Bill staring at the floor, the dingy mildewed window, and the shelves of sporting equipment rising above them by turns. Anywhere but at Leonard. Who stared at Bill, who was biting his lip and dripping on the floor.
“What is wrong with you?” he demanded at length. “Did you think that would be funny? Is this one of your pranks?”
Bill shook his head emphatically. “I'm afraid of heights,” he said, but he mumbled so it came out all one word.
“What?”
Bill looked up at him, his eyebrows lowered defiantly but his tone nervous and apologetic. “I'm afraid of heights. It's why I didn't want to get up there. I get dizzy.”
Leonard was silent for a moment. “And the bunk bed?” Bill nodded. “Why didn't you just say something?” Bill stared at him, and Leonard realized the impossibility of that. Gently, almost against his will, he started to soften towards him.
“I am sorry,” Bill said finally, and he sounded sincere enough for Leonard to believe him, or want to, however good an actor he'd turned out to be.
“Yeah, okay,” he said, and swiped again at his own hair with the towel that wasn't wrapped around his waist.
Bill grinned, and something in Leonard flipped. Maybe it was the apology, which seemed to encompass all the annoying things Bill didn't even know he'd been for two weeks. Maybe it was the fact that Leonard had enjoyed his stupid jokes and his company, all the while telling himself he hated everything Bill Shatner stood for. Or maybe it was just the dim light making its way through the dust motes of a hundred summers to play around Bill's sun-gold hair.
Maybe he was brain-damaged from the near-drowning.
Whatever it was, it was then that Leonard realized he liked Bill. And that maybe he had all along, only it was confusing when the kind of person who could near-drown you through his own stupidity could turn around and make you feel sorry for him, convinced he had no idea what he was doing.
It was easier to think Bill was faintly hapless and without malice than to contemplate the possibility that Leonard had fallen under his spell by design. Truth was, he didn't want to resist that look anymore.
Leonard thought things would get easier, after that. And they did, slightly. He no longer resented Bill's company, and he figured out ways to make working together on the play make more sense, delegating tasks instead of just letting them fall where they would-mostly on him. He was careful not to come off as the leader, instead giving Bill “responsibility,” and that seemed to agree with both of them.
But Bill was still a mystery, and if anything Leonard was growing steadily more invested in solving it. Why someone like that never snuck off to the supply shed or the woods with a girl-never mind that he never did, either, a thought that did not bear close examination. How he'd managed to charm Leonard and yet still draw incredulous looks from kids and counselors alike when he made atrocious puns or told tall tales about his life “back in Montreal” which he didn't even seem interested in denying were gross exaggerations. Why it was Bill Shatner, of all the people in all the world, he was dreaming about when he woke up with a hard-on and was too wary of the figure sleeping peacefully just below-not to mention the cabin full of kids-to do anything about it.
Now, instead of his annoyance at Bill's constant presence, Leonard felt a new anxiety. That he would be found out. That something would show in the way he spoke or looked. That there was something to this thing that had started out as annoyance and was rapidly becoming something else, none of which he'd wanted to begin with. He'd fooled around a little, okay. Sometimes there wasn't a lot of choice, girls' fathers being what they were and boys having entirely too much time and energy on their hands. But though he had no concept of what “something else” might be, he knew that he saw Bill the way he'd see, say, a pretty girl, rather than a kid in a locker room who wanted to show him something.
One thing he was certain about was that Bill would never know. And in less than a week, they'd be gone from here, never see one another again, and both he and Leonard could go back to kissing girls and being actors and forget all about this thing that didn't exist. In the meantime, there was the play.
The camp director, a man probably in his thirties who insisted everyone call him “Sam” despite being twice as old as everyone, had started coming to more of the rehearsals, standing at the back of the amphitheater. At first it made Leonard nervous, thinking that someone had said something and he was being checked up on. But Sam never said anything, just watched, and it finally dawned on Leonard that he was watching Bill. Well, lots of people watched Bill, it was sort of only natural and Leonard had stopped resenting that, for the most part. But it seemed weird to him that it was Sam, in a different way from it being weird that he himself sometimes couldn't take his eyes off Bill.
Or maybe it was the same way, and that was the problem. But there didn't seem to be any harm in it, not really, and who was Leonard going to say something to? Bill would laugh it off, say that was normal or something, and preen. Leonard had never actually seen him preen, but if any male person was capable of it he was certain Bill was.
It was the last night of camp, the night before parents showed up for the talent show (including their play) and to take their kids home, and Bill wasn’t at dinner. This was unheard of, but Leonard got his tray anyway, thinking it was stupid to worry and even stupider to feel betrayed. He wondered, idly, if the raven-haired girl he'd seen Bill chatting up in line at lunch had persuaded him to come out to the woods with her, and wondered if he could get away with pretending he was happy for Bill. Sitting alone, he toyed with his meatloaf for a few minutes before looking up and noticing the girl in question was here, chatting with her new best friends. He pushed his plate away, got up, and left.
He wasn’t looking for Bill, he told himself. He just wasn’t hungry. He’d wander, taking in the camp one last time, maybe go back to his bunk and read a little.
Evening was setting in and the cabin was dark, but as he approached Leonard thought he heard a scuffling sound coming from inside. It seemed strange for someone to be in there at dinner time, especially with no light on. Thinking maybe it was raccoons or something, Leonard approached quietly, reaching inside the door to turn on the light as he entered. Only to find Bill, eyes huge and startled and staring at Leonard over a shoulder Leonard was suddenly, sickeningly sure was Sam's. Leonard stood, frozen in place, not sure he could process what he was seeing despite it being so very obvious. His brain cycled between jealousy and absurd betrayal and wrong and when Sam turned to look at him over his shoulder and nod at him to run along, it was the small shake of Bill's head that let him settle on the last.
“Get out,” he said, suddenly realizing how tall he was, how deep his voice had gotten, and using it. Sam looked at him for a moment, his arms still on either side of Bill's shoulders. “Get out, or I'll tell every single parent what I saw.” He was fairly resolved on doing so anyway, but it worked, and with a finger pointed at him and a gruff, “He's all yours,” Sam left. Leonard shut the door.
Bill still leaned against the wall, not quite shaking but looking a little worse for wear. Leonard walked over quietly, touching his arm to guide him into sitting on his bed. “Did he do anything?” he asked quietly.
Bill shook his head. “No, I... I could have fought him off.”
Leonard nodded, sitting next to him because there was no place else to sit but trying not to sit too close. “You were surprised.”
“I was in here getting a sweater,” he said, “when the light was shut off and all of a sudden there were hands touching me. I didn't know who it was until he spoke. Said something...” His voice trailed off, and Leonard watched Bill's brow furrow in concentration. “What did he want?”
The question took Leonard utterly by surprise. “What do you mean?”
Bill bit his lip before continuing. “When men chase me around-what do they want?”
Men. Leonard tried to keep his voice steady. “What do they want when they chase girls around?” he said carefully, wondering if he'd really heard that correctly, if he was really answering the question Bill had asked. The widened hazel eyes told him that, incredibly, he was.
“I don't understand,” he said. “I never heard of... I didn't think that was possible.”
Leonard couldn't really remember “discovering” homosexuality. Considering no one talked about it, it seemed like it should have been a moment of weirdness, of revelation, of something shocking enough to imprint itself on his consciousness. But he could still remember the day in first grade that Tony Lombardi had told him how babies got made. He hadn't been entirely accurate, but the sheer absurdity of it had rendered it indelible. And yet he had no idea when he'd realized that it was something boys could do together.
“They've never caught you, then.” Leonard was having trouble getting his mind around Bill constantly besieged by dirty old men, attracting them like flies to honey with no earthly idea why or what they were after. When both were so painfully obvious. It made him feel so much older, and yet. And yet there Bill sat, looking not at all too young to know this, to be found attractive.
“No,” Bill said. “There was a famous French singer in Montreal who brought me back to his hotel room to get a jacket and chased me around the bed. I was faster. I just... ran away. He never said anything to me about it, and I never told anyone. But I never knew what he was going to do if he caught me.” The way Bill said “famous French singer” amused Leonard, suddenly, because it was so like Bill to toss in something intriguingly self-important. “But you know, don't you?” He was watching Leonard intently, as though convinced Leonard had all the answers and wanted them. Leonard wasn't sure he wanted to be the one with the answers. Not if it made him like Sam. Not when he was suddenly unsure what his own feelings meant, with Bill so wholly unaware not only of their specific existence but their very possibility.
“I know,” he said at last, when the silence stretching between them failed to offer up any convenient lie. “Let’s go to dinner. They’ll be looking for us.”
He rose, to give Bill no option but to follow, and he didn’t look behind him as he marched out of the cabin and back to the mess hall. Bill fell into step beside him and when Leonard glanced over, he thought Bill looked more preoccupied than he’d ever seen him. Probably more than Leonard might have imagined him capable. He was strangely quiet all through dinner, though neither of them ate much, and Leonard had trouble meeting Bill’s eyes, wondering what he’d see there. He couldn’t think of anything to say, and Bill seemed just on the point of saying something and Leonard didn’t know whether to wish he would or be glad he didn’t. He wondered what Bill was seeing when he looked at him, which he seemed to be doing a lot. He could barely focus as they sang the camp song and herded the campers to bed and almost jumped when Bill grabbed his hand as he readied to climb into his bunk.
“Tell me.” Leonard had to look, now, compelled by that tone, not quite a command but not a plea, either.
“Not here,” Leonard said to Bill's expression, and quietly they left the cabin and sped through the darkness the short distance to the shed. And with the door closed and the window covered, Leonard turned to Bill and asked, “What do you want to know?” in a voice that he had trouble keeping level.
“I want to know what you do with boys,” Bill said matter-of-factly. And there was that look again, intense and too personal and too full of fire to mean anything else, and whatever it was that was in those eyes it had him leaning close, their lips meeting for an instant of soft warmth before Bill startled back, hitting the door.
“I'm sorry,” Leonard said stiffly, wishing Bill wasn’t blocking the exit. He backed away, putting distance between them until he hit the shelf, feeling soccer balls bounced softly off his hands. But Bill didn't look disgusted or angry or anything but confused.
“No one’s ever kissed me before,” Bill said breathily. And now Leonard was confused.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “You've kissed girls.” Bill shook his head mutely. “But you're...” Leonard trailed off, at a loss for words. A flush crept up Bill's neck to his cheeks. “The flirting. That look you give everyone.”
Bill frowned. “What look?”
“The... the 'I'm beautiful and you should have sex with me' look.”
Bill started smiling again, his expression earnest and intense and like Leonard was the only other creature in the whole world. “You think I'm beautiful?”
“That look,” Leonard said, hating how his breath caught and made him sound like he did. And it hit him suddenly from the inside, like a sob trapped in his lungs.
Bill's look didn't mean what Leonard-and maybe these other men, and maybe the girls in line in the mess hall-thought it meant. He wasn't looking for sex or, more generally, it wasn't strictly manipulative. It was something much simpler, and yet much more complicated than that. Leonard suddenly remembered that Bill never sat with anyone else. Maybe there really wasn't anyone, and Bill never expected there to be. Like with the tall tales and the pranks, Bill wanted acceptance. He certainly didn't want men-or boys-chasing him around and kissing him.
“I'm sorry,” he said again, even though he knew Bill probably wouldn't know what for, exactly.
“Don't be sorry,” Bill said, tilting his head slightly and eying Leonard's lips even as he closed the distance. “Do it again.” He spoke like someone discovering a new flavor, asking for another bite, almost like he really liked it. And when Leonard hesitated, Bill leaned forward and kissed him, awkward and closed-mouthed. His fumblings in the locker room hadn't really involved kissing, so he drew on his scant experience with girls (which had only involved kissing) and Bill's lips began to soften against his. Of their own accord Leonard's hands rose to settle on Bill's shoulder, his waist, and it wasn't soft flesh and hard bone under his hands but muscle, firm and compact and pushing back against him suddenly. Pushing him into the shelf, which rattled ominously but held as Bill kissed him, lips opening so Leonard could tease them with his tongue, could take the lower one between his lips and suck lightly until they both gasped and parted and he tasted like root beer and Leonard couldn't remember if they'd even had root beer at dinner. Leonard realized Bill's hands were on his chest, which was heaving lightly, as was Bill's. Their faces mere inches away, their eyes met, dazed and uncertain. “Again,” Bill said, his voice breathy and pitched higher and Leonard was glad he wasn't expected to speak.
They got better each time, heads tilting to find the right angle, mouths slanting across each other as Leonard figured out the right amount of pressure, how much tongue, when to breathe. Bill was surprisingly good at this for a beginner, not that Leonard would really know the difference except in what it was doing to his body, singing in a way he'd never felt with some random kid from school jerking him off. And it was just kissing.
Was he going to be allowed more? He didn't dare hope, but his dick hoped for him, and he hoped Bill couldn't feel it pressed against his leg.
“What next?” Bill asked, face flushed. His hand was fisted in Leonard's shirt, his mouth slightly open and Leonard had to catch his breath for a moment before he could trust himself to speak.
“Um,” he said eloquently, dragging his eyes from those swollen red lips to meet Bill's own. “Are you sure?”
Bill's eyes slid away and down, and Leonard didn't know if he was staring at the floor or the bulge in Leonard's jeans. “You make me want to touch myself,” he confessed, like there was something forbidden in that, and Leonard wondered just how strict a house he'd grown up in and whether he had any brothers or even any friends to show him this stuff. To tell him it was all right.
“That's okay,” he said, his own voice shaky. “But I know something better, if you want.”
Bill looked up at him and nodded, and Leonard turned them so Bill's back was to the shelf, mouth slack and heart beating fast when Leonard pressed his hand there to steady himself for another kiss. And then he had his hands on the fly of Bill's jeans, the buttons guided through the suspiciously tight buttonholes by fingers Leonard thought should be trembling. Without a word, Bill crossed his arms in front of him, grabbing the hem of his t-shirt and sliding it up over his head. Leonard thought he should find this unspeakably cocky but since it was Bill and now he was allowed to look it seemed more like a gift.
Bill wasn't tall, but he was well-built, not yet filled out but with a man's shoulders. His skin was fair in the harsh light of the uncovered bulb, but it still had a golden sheen to it. Leonard found himself wanting to do things he'd never done-press his lips to a shoulder, run hands along ribs, lay the flat of his palm against the flat of Bill's stomach-but he didn't know what that would mean. He knew what to do with denim peeled back, revealing the white cotton briefs he'd seen of course when Bill dressed in the morning or undressed for bed but never allowed himself to think about before.
He had to look away from those eyes, those eyes that were somehow so eager and so lost at the same time and were staring at him without a hint of shame though his cheeks were flaming red. Leonard focused, instead, on the bulge straining the briefs, laying his hand over it almost reverently. It jumped at his touch, though it had nowhere to go in the restrictive environment of Bill's underwear so he freed it, letting Bill kick the layers of fabric away after he shoved them down far enough. It was bigger than he'd expected, standing in proud red contrast to that golden skin, and Leonard wanted this like he'd never wanted a boy, like it wasn't just practice or horniness. He wanted Bill to like this. To like him.
Leonard got down on his knees, and Bill said, “Don't you have to take off your clothes?”
He shook his head. “Not for this,” he said, and when he put his hands on Bill's thighs, he could feel an unseen trembling in them. “Shh,” he said for good measure, looking up at him for an instant. “You'll like this. I promise.”
The gasp as Leonard's mouth surrounded him told him he was right, if he needed any confirmation. He heard a scrabbling, probably Bill's hands catching the lip of a shelf, but mercifully for once he didn't talk, just stood there as Leonard took him further into his mouth. Bill's cock, and there seemed to be even more of it from this perspective, was warm and firm and tasted just faintly of salt. He closed his eyes and concentrated on fitting his lips around it, sliding down as far as he could before rising again, one hand steadying Bill’s cock as the other gripped his trembling thigh.
Bill’s breathing was harsh and loud in the small room, and while he wasn’t loud he was vocal. He moaned and gasped wordlessly, his hands finally settling in Leonard’s hair without any of the pushing or pulling he’d felt from the couple other boys he’d tried this on. This surprised him. In fact, everything about this was as much a revelation to Leonard as it must have been to Bill. He’d been hard before, just kissing, but he had the feeling he’d have been turned on just from this. From the rush of taking Bill in his mouth, the fingers threading through his hair, the groans he was pulling from that mouth with every suck of his own. He wanted to know if Bill’s eyes were shut, or if he had that wide-eyed, surprised look he’d seen so many times. But he couldn’t look up, couldn’t stop, and anyway he didn’t have long before the warning taste of salty warmth became a flood, filling his mouth and quickly swallowed without a thought. Something else he hadn’t done before. And he was suddenly, fiercely glad. Gratified too, by the buckling legs and the soft thud as Bill’s absurdly shapely fanny hit the floor, putting his flushed face on a level with Leonard’s. His eyes shone with wonder, something almost like worship, Leonard thought. And then chided himself. It was just a blow job.
But then Bill grabbed the back of his neck and kissed him, unabashedly sharing the taste on Leonard’s tongue, sucking on his lower lip like he’d been doing this all his life.
“You don’t have to do that,” Leonard said, almost apologetically.
Bill grinned. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said. “Just like I don’t have to do this. Take off your pants.”
Leonard stared at him for a moment, ready to protest for god knows what reason, some sort of misplaced conviction about Bill’s innocence maybe, when Bill grabbed his shirt and started tugging and suddenly Leonard couldn’t get his own jeans off fast enough. When he’d scooted out of them, Bill unexpectedly put a shirt-Leonard couldn’t tell whose it was-under his head and pushed him gently to the floor. He seemed to study Leonard for a moment and then bent his head to lick Leonard’s cock, all the way up the shaft to the head, before wrapping his lips around it. His performance was a near-perfect imitation of Leonard’s own, but it was by no means by rote. Bill’s tongue swirled experimentally around the head, and Leonard gasped, nails digging into his palms to keep him from bucking up into Bill’s mouth. Bill sucked in earnest, hands on Leonard’s hips, and Leonard opened his eyes to watch that golden head bobbing up and down and he wanted to warn him, to push him away, but he'd never felt anything like this and it was too much, too soon, and then he was coming harder than he ever had in his life, surprising Bill who looked up suddenly with wide eyes and a small trail of it spilling from the corner of his mouth. After a moment he swallowed heavily, unblinking eyes trained on Leonard’s face as a pink tongue emerged to lap the rest from his chin. There was silence in the shed for a moment but for Leonard’s heavy breathing.
“Like that?” Bill said, and somehow Leonard read both pride and uncertainty in his voice.
“Shit, Bill,” he said. “Just like that.”
And he was rewarded with that smile again, the one that maybe now, just a little, meant “I’m beautiful and you should have sex with me.”
Author's name: my_daroga
Written for: obstinatrix
Pairing/characters: Shatner/Nimoy
Rating: R
Prompt: How much, honeys, would I love a fic set in an alternative 1940s where the boys knew each other as children? I so much want a story based around Shatner's tales in Up Till Now of being hit on by older men as a teenager. And him being naive and oblivious, and Nimoy somehow being knowing, and teenage sexytimes ensuing.
Warnings: Teenage (17 y.o.) sex, hints of potential (not realized) abuse (see prompt)
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living is intentional, but not at all factual.
Leonard didn't think he'd ever seen anyone quite like Bill Shatner before. Not at his synagogue, not in his Boston Italian neighborhood, not anywhere. It was 1948 and Leonard thought someone like Bill belonged Somewhere Else, on a movie screen or captain of the football team or anyplace, really, but a run-down Jewish summer camp in the middle of nowhere, Maine. The trouble was, Leonard suspected Bill knew it.
He'd decided this pretty much the moment he arrived, when Bill greeted him without really looking in his direction in swim trunks and a golden tan that complemented his sun-bleached hair. He gathered they were both counselors, but assumed they wouldn't have much to do with one another; he was here to help the theater kids, and no doubt Bill Shatner was heading up games or sports or whatever. It was just as well; Leonard wasn't any good at sports, and something about Bill's offhand attitude turned him off. He was probably the popular kid, Leonard thought, used to being fawned over and kissed up to and ignoring people like him.
When bunks were assigned and Leonard went to stash his stuff, he was surprised to find Bill there, spread out on the bottom bunk with his stuff already spilling from one of the dresser drawers. He had a shirt on, at least, but his hands were clasped behind his head and he grinned sloppily at Leonard as he entered. There was something sort of ingratiating about it that Leonard suspected. Like he was going to ask him if he could copy his homework or something, for the price of his attention.
“Hey,” Bill said. “I hear we're both working on the camp play. You're Lenny, right?”
“Leonard,” Leonard said, because “Lenny” was for kids and “Len” was far too casual for a serious actor. “I'm sorry,” he said then, because he couldn't imagine this guy wanting to spend all day teaching little kids how to act and he didn't want to imagine himself having to deal with it.
Bill's face screwed up in confusion. “Why?”
Leonard shrugged, holding his rucksack awkwardly as he figured out where it was going. “I don't know, I guess... Less time for swimming and... stuff.”
“Maybe, but I don't want to be a professional swimmer.”
Leonard turned to look at Bill again, who smiled back at him as if the puzzled expression that he must have been wearing didn’t register at all. “So. We gonna discuss the bunk situation?”
Bill blinked. “What situation? I was here first; I get first pick.”
The fact that this was pretty standard camp logic didn’t do much to mollify Leonard, who thought that being faster or stronger or richer or whatever wasn’t much justification for anything. The fact that Bill looked to be all those things didn’t help. “Is that a camp rule, or something?”
Bill shrugged somehow while still lying down. “Do you have a better system?”
Leonard stared at him for a moment, as he debated whether to argue on this point or give it up as a lost cause and the better part of valor. Not to mention the better part of getting through the next two weeks, which he saw stretching before him filled with far too much Bill Shatner already.
“Whatever,” he said. “I like the top anyway,” which was actually true. He tossed his rucksack up before walking out to check out the rest of the camp. And leaving Bill to… whatever he was not doing. Probably contemplating how much too good he was for this place, or any of them.
So he was surprised to see Bill alone at dinner, munching on a hamburger with seeming obliviousness that only made his isolation seem weirdly vulnerable when it should have looked nonchalant and intentional. Unconsciously Leonard stopped in front of him with his tray. Bill looked up, and the smile he offered seemed so genuine and somehow grateful that Leonard found himself sitting down across from him before he could even think about it.
“So, where are you from?” Bill’s attention made Leonard feel singled out, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
“Boston,” he said. “You?”
“Montreal.”
“You're Canadian?” He couldn't keep the surprise from his voice.
“Yep. We're not aliens or anything.” Bill was smiling pleasantly.
“No, I know. I just haven't met anyone from Canada before.” Do they all look like you? , he didn't ask, because it was stupid, and because Bill was not quite as strange and out of place under artificial lights with half a hamburger in his mouth.
“Well, I've never met anyone from Boston before, so we're even.”
Leonard stirred his ketchup with a fry. “What are you doing here?” he asked, regretting it instantly because in his ears, it sounded so obvious that he didn't think Bill looked Jewish that he cringed inwardly.
Somehow Bill answered the unspoken question without acknowledging it. “My folks think there are too many Catholics in the neighborhood for me to spend all summer there,” he said.
Leonard blinked. “Mine, too.” Or something to that effect. But it was something in common, however slight, to go with the theater thing, which fascinated him as much as it seemed to make no sense.
He was distracted by a shout behind him; a camper had upended an entire shaker of salt onto his plate and was looking red-faced and just on the verge of deciding whether to throw the shaker or cry. When Leonard turned around it was to see Bill's suddenly too-innocent expression dissolve into a fit of culpable giggles and Leonard remembered the bunk bed thing and decided to hate him again.
“You didn't think that was funny,” Bill said. It wasn't a question, but he sounded uncertain just the same. Like he wanted to be contradicted.
“No,” Leonard said, and finishing his hamburger, got up to leave. He didn't speak when he came in to their room later, just climbed up into his bunk and tried to sleep, wishing he was actually doing theater instead of trying to teach kids something he didn't feel he knew himself, yet.
Especially with Bill.
But Leonard could get along with people when he tried, and there was plenty to occupy him, supervising campers and doing his best to pull the play into something resembling order for Parents' Day. It was an Aleichem thing he'd seen millions of times, but in this case that was good. It meant he knew what it should look like, and since most of the shaping of it fell to him, that was fortunate. Bill was useless. Distracted, always joking, always making suggestions that just didn't make sense.
He continued to be an annoying mystery outside of the overgrown amphitheater that served as their stage. For one thing, he kept sitting with Leonard at meals. He never even seemed interested in eating with anyone else. And he'd tell stupid stories about Montreal and plays he'd done and his plans for the future, something about $1,800 that kept coming up though Leonard didn't bother to ask whether that was American or Canadian money. He wasn't sure Bill would know the difference. From time to time, Leonard would catch him looking at him, staring intently as Leonard spoke and smiling in a way Leonard could only interpret as mockery of some sort. He wasn't sure of what, exactly, except that's what people like Bill did. Maybe he just assumed everyone was looking at him the way he was pretty sure he'd been too subtle about doing for Bill to notice. He just took it as a given, as one of the beautiful people.
How, he wondered, could someone be so obviously enamored with himself that he became totally oblivious to the feelings of others? He told horrible jokes, expecting everyone to laugh. He clowned around during assemblies and meal times, expecting everyone to appreciate the entertainment. He flirted with every female counselor at the camp, but Leonard was pretty sure (from his presence at every meal, his place in the bunk under him at lights out) that he didn't take up with any of them. Why, he could not say, except to revert to his previous conviction that no one was good enough. Because Leonard knew, for a fact, that Bill could actually be charming when he wanted. Absolutely, flat out, charming.
He knew this because as useless as Bill was at directing, and as clueless as he seemed around children, his acting was... riveting. This struck Leonard as highly unfair every time it was demonstrated, as it frequently was as Leonard moved kids around and Bill helped them learn their lines. Bill didn't seem to have any concept of the inner workings of the characters. He just spoke, and you listened, and he became someone else. Someone very Bill-like, but more so. Someone like him, Leonard reflected, didn't deserve to “make it.” Which was probably exactly why he would.
Leonard was starting to think he was thinking entirely too much about Bill Shatner. But there wasn't much else to do, and despite being oblivious and annoying and possessed of the worst pun habit Leonard had ever encountered, he was the most interesting person at the camp. And perversely, considering Leonard's conviction about Bill being too good for everyone, he'd seemed to take an interest in Leonard. At least as far as he could interpret hardly ever leaving him alone.
Then, about a week into their two-week stint, Bill Shatner attempted to down him.
They'd both been drafted into judging the swim races on the lake. There was a floating dock that extended out into the water, with a lifeguard stand on one side and a ladder to climb out on the other. With the usual lifeguard in the water, supervising, it fell to Leonard and Bill to blow the start whistle and determine the winner.
“Get up there,” Leonard said, having snagged the whistle only because he thought Bill would be too tempted to abuse his power.
“I'd rather not,” said Bill. “If you don't mind.”
“Actually, I do,” Leonard said, seven and a half days' worth of frustration coming out in his voice. “For once, Bill, you're going to do exactly what someone asks.”
Bill stared at Leonard for a moment, eyes big and mouth half-open, as if on the point of protesting. But to Leonard's surprise, he didn't. His mouth closed, lips compressed in a firm line, he turned and climbed the ladder to the lifeguard's seat, his movements jerky and purposeful. When he got to the top he turned and sat rigidly, staring out into the water at the campers lined up for the race.
“Do you know what you're doing?” Leonard asked.
Bill's eyes didn't waver from a point near the horizon. “I'm not an idiot. I call the race. It's not that hard.”
No, it wasn't, but Bill's voice held a stiffness Leonard hadn't heard from him before, and he realized that the whole time they'd been there he'd never actually heard Bill raise his voice in anger or annoyance. That he'd been surprisingly good-natured about the various inconveniences of camp life, considering the Bill Leonard's head had concocted. Perhaps he'd been too hard on him.
He blew the whistle, the race started, and he watched the kids' struggle for victory. Preoccupied once again with the problem of Bill, he did not see the white knuckles gripping the arms of the chair, nor the way Bill's face drained of color as his gaze followed the swimmers down closer to them. All he knew was that one moment, he'd been deciding to give Bill another chance and the next, he was wet with an armful of Shatner, the wind knocked out of him and what felt like half the lake pouring unexpectedly into his windpipe. He panicked, spluttering and thrashing and only dimly aware of the strong hands dragging him to the shore.
Later, he would be told that witnesses saw Bill topple, for no apparent reason, from his perch, catching him along the way and knocking them both into the water. The shock had revived Bill somewhat, who had pulled Leonard onto the beach. All he knew for now was that he was on his side, coughing up lake and being supported by Bill, the bastard who had pulled him in.
Bill's face, strained and anxious and with wet hair plastered to his brow, swam into view. “Leonard?” he said, his voice squeaky and high with alarm. “Leonard, are you okay? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean--”
Leonard pushed at him weakly, but Bill didn't budge. “You bastard,” he spat breathlessly. “What were you thinking?”
“I... I got... dizzy,” Bill said, his voice dropping to a near-whisper at the last word.
Leonard just stared at him, until a senior counselor ran up and bundled them off to the first aid station which doubled as a storage shed, got towels and juice for them, and ran off again, citing not enough supervisors for the kids and them, too.
“But you stay here and rest as long as you need,” she said, leaving them sitting on wooden chairs and Bill staring at the floor, the dingy mildewed window, and the shelves of sporting equipment rising above them by turns. Anywhere but at Leonard. Who stared at Bill, who was biting his lip and dripping on the floor.
“What is wrong with you?” he demanded at length. “Did you think that would be funny? Is this one of your pranks?”
Bill shook his head emphatically. “I'm afraid of heights,” he said, but he mumbled so it came out all one word.
“What?”
Bill looked up at him, his eyebrows lowered defiantly but his tone nervous and apologetic. “I'm afraid of heights. It's why I didn't want to get up there. I get dizzy.”
Leonard was silent for a moment. “And the bunk bed?” Bill nodded. “Why didn't you just say something?” Bill stared at him, and Leonard realized the impossibility of that. Gently, almost against his will, he started to soften towards him.
“I am sorry,” Bill said finally, and he sounded sincere enough for Leonard to believe him, or want to, however good an actor he'd turned out to be.
“Yeah, okay,” he said, and swiped again at his own hair with the towel that wasn't wrapped around his waist.
Bill grinned, and something in Leonard flipped. Maybe it was the apology, which seemed to encompass all the annoying things Bill didn't even know he'd been for two weeks. Maybe it was the fact that Leonard had enjoyed his stupid jokes and his company, all the while telling himself he hated everything Bill Shatner stood for. Or maybe it was just the dim light making its way through the dust motes of a hundred summers to play around Bill's sun-gold hair.
Maybe he was brain-damaged from the near-drowning.
Whatever it was, it was then that Leonard realized he liked Bill. And that maybe he had all along, only it was confusing when the kind of person who could near-drown you through his own stupidity could turn around and make you feel sorry for him, convinced he had no idea what he was doing.
It was easier to think Bill was faintly hapless and without malice than to contemplate the possibility that Leonard had fallen under his spell by design. Truth was, he didn't want to resist that look anymore.
Leonard thought things would get easier, after that. And they did, slightly. He no longer resented Bill's company, and he figured out ways to make working together on the play make more sense, delegating tasks instead of just letting them fall where they would-mostly on him. He was careful not to come off as the leader, instead giving Bill “responsibility,” and that seemed to agree with both of them.
But Bill was still a mystery, and if anything Leonard was growing steadily more invested in solving it. Why someone like that never snuck off to the supply shed or the woods with a girl-never mind that he never did, either, a thought that did not bear close examination. How he'd managed to charm Leonard and yet still draw incredulous looks from kids and counselors alike when he made atrocious puns or told tall tales about his life “back in Montreal” which he didn't even seem interested in denying were gross exaggerations. Why it was Bill Shatner, of all the people in all the world, he was dreaming about when he woke up with a hard-on and was too wary of the figure sleeping peacefully just below-not to mention the cabin full of kids-to do anything about it.
Now, instead of his annoyance at Bill's constant presence, Leonard felt a new anxiety. That he would be found out. That something would show in the way he spoke or looked. That there was something to this thing that had started out as annoyance and was rapidly becoming something else, none of which he'd wanted to begin with. He'd fooled around a little, okay. Sometimes there wasn't a lot of choice, girls' fathers being what they were and boys having entirely too much time and energy on their hands. But though he had no concept of what “something else” might be, he knew that he saw Bill the way he'd see, say, a pretty girl, rather than a kid in a locker room who wanted to show him something.
One thing he was certain about was that Bill would never know. And in less than a week, they'd be gone from here, never see one another again, and both he and Leonard could go back to kissing girls and being actors and forget all about this thing that didn't exist. In the meantime, there was the play.
The camp director, a man probably in his thirties who insisted everyone call him “Sam” despite being twice as old as everyone, had started coming to more of the rehearsals, standing at the back of the amphitheater. At first it made Leonard nervous, thinking that someone had said something and he was being checked up on. But Sam never said anything, just watched, and it finally dawned on Leonard that he was watching Bill. Well, lots of people watched Bill, it was sort of only natural and Leonard had stopped resenting that, for the most part. But it seemed weird to him that it was Sam, in a different way from it being weird that he himself sometimes couldn't take his eyes off Bill.
Or maybe it was the same way, and that was the problem. But there didn't seem to be any harm in it, not really, and who was Leonard going to say something to? Bill would laugh it off, say that was normal or something, and preen. Leonard had never actually seen him preen, but if any male person was capable of it he was certain Bill was.
It was the last night of camp, the night before parents showed up for the talent show (including their play) and to take their kids home, and Bill wasn’t at dinner. This was unheard of, but Leonard got his tray anyway, thinking it was stupid to worry and even stupider to feel betrayed. He wondered, idly, if the raven-haired girl he'd seen Bill chatting up in line at lunch had persuaded him to come out to the woods with her, and wondered if he could get away with pretending he was happy for Bill. Sitting alone, he toyed with his meatloaf for a few minutes before looking up and noticing the girl in question was here, chatting with her new best friends. He pushed his plate away, got up, and left.
He wasn’t looking for Bill, he told himself. He just wasn’t hungry. He’d wander, taking in the camp one last time, maybe go back to his bunk and read a little.
Evening was setting in and the cabin was dark, but as he approached Leonard thought he heard a scuffling sound coming from inside. It seemed strange for someone to be in there at dinner time, especially with no light on. Thinking maybe it was raccoons or something, Leonard approached quietly, reaching inside the door to turn on the light as he entered. Only to find Bill, eyes huge and startled and staring at Leonard over a shoulder Leonard was suddenly, sickeningly sure was Sam's. Leonard stood, frozen in place, not sure he could process what he was seeing despite it being so very obvious. His brain cycled between jealousy and absurd betrayal and wrong and when Sam turned to look at him over his shoulder and nod at him to run along, it was the small shake of Bill's head that let him settle on the last.
“Get out,” he said, suddenly realizing how tall he was, how deep his voice had gotten, and using it. Sam looked at him for a moment, his arms still on either side of Bill's shoulders. “Get out, or I'll tell every single parent what I saw.” He was fairly resolved on doing so anyway, but it worked, and with a finger pointed at him and a gruff, “He's all yours,” Sam left. Leonard shut the door.
Bill still leaned against the wall, not quite shaking but looking a little worse for wear. Leonard walked over quietly, touching his arm to guide him into sitting on his bed. “Did he do anything?” he asked quietly.
Bill shook his head. “No, I... I could have fought him off.”
Leonard nodded, sitting next to him because there was no place else to sit but trying not to sit too close. “You were surprised.”
“I was in here getting a sweater,” he said, “when the light was shut off and all of a sudden there were hands touching me. I didn't know who it was until he spoke. Said something...” His voice trailed off, and Leonard watched Bill's brow furrow in concentration. “What did he want?”
The question took Leonard utterly by surprise. “What do you mean?”
Bill bit his lip before continuing. “When men chase me around-what do they want?”
Men. Leonard tried to keep his voice steady. “What do they want when they chase girls around?” he said carefully, wondering if he'd really heard that correctly, if he was really answering the question Bill had asked. The widened hazel eyes told him that, incredibly, he was.
“I don't understand,” he said. “I never heard of... I didn't think that was possible.”
Leonard couldn't really remember “discovering” homosexuality. Considering no one talked about it, it seemed like it should have been a moment of weirdness, of revelation, of something shocking enough to imprint itself on his consciousness. But he could still remember the day in first grade that Tony Lombardi had told him how babies got made. He hadn't been entirely accurate, but the sheer absurdity of it had rendered it indelible. And yet he had no idea when he'd realized that it was something boys could do together.
“They've never caught you, then.” Leonard was having trouble getting his mind around Bill constantly besieged by dirty old men, attracting them like flies to honey with no earthly idea why or what they were after. When both were so painfully obvious. It made him feel so much older, and yet. And yet there Bill sat, looking not at all too young to know this, to be found attractive.
“No,” Bill said. “There was a famous French singer in Montreal who brought me back to his hotel room to get a jacket and chased me around the bed. I was faster. I just... ran away. He never said anything to me about it, and I never told anyone. But I never knew what he was going to do if he caught me.” The way Bill said “famous French singer” amused Leonard, suddenly, because it was so like Bill to toss in something intriguingly self-important. “But you know, don't you?” He was watching Leonard intently, as though convinced Leonard had all the answers and wanted them. Leonard wasn't sure he wanted to be the one with the answers. Not if it made him like Sam. Not when he was suddenly unsure what his own feelings meant, with Bill so wholly unaware not only of their specific existence but their very possibility.
“I know,” he said at last, when the silence stretching between them failed to offer up any convenient lie. “Let’s go to dinner. They’ll be looking for us.”
He rose, to give Bill no option but to follow, and he didn’t look behind him as he marched out of the cabin and back to the mess hall. Bill fell into step beside him and when Leonard glanced over, he thought Bill looked more preoccupied than he’d ever seen him. Probably more than Leonard might have imagined him capable. He was strangely quiet all through dinner, though neither of them ate much, and Leonard had trouble meeting Bill’s eyes, wondering what he’d see there. He couldn’t think of anything to say, and Bill seemed just on the point of saying something and Leonard didn’t know whether to wish he would or be glad he didn’t. He wondered what Bill was seeing when he looked at him, which he seemed to be doing a lot. He could barely focus as they sang the camp song and herded the campers to bed and almost jumped when Bill grabbed his hand as he readied to climb into his bunk.
“Tell me.” Leonard had to look, now, compelled by that tone, not quite a command but not a plea, either.
“Not here,” Leonard said to Bill's expression, and quietly they left the cabin and sped through the darkness the short distance to the shed. And with the door closed and the window covered, Leonard turned to Bill and asked, “What do you want to know?” in a voice that he had trouble keeping level.
“I want to know what you do with boys,” Bill said matter-of-factly. And there was that look again, intense and too personal and too full of fire to mean anything else, and whatever it was that was in those eyes it had him leaning close, their lips meeting for an instant of soft warmth before Bill startled back, hitting the door.
“I'm sorry,” Leonard said stiffly, wishing Bill wasn’t blocking the exit. He backed away, putting distance between them until he hit the shelf, feeling soccer balls bounced softly off his hands. But Bill didn't look disgusted or angry or anything but confused.
“No one’s ever kissed me before,” Bill said breathily. And now Leonard was confused.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “You've kissed girls.” Bill shook his head mutely. “But you're...” Leonard trailed off, at a loss for words. A flush crept up Bill's neck to his cheeks. “The flirting. That look you give everyone.”
Bill frowned. “What look?”
“The... the 'I'm beautiful and you should have sex with me' look.”
Bill started smiling again, his expression earnest and intense and like Leonard was the only other creature in the whole world. “You think I'm beautiful?”
“That look,” Leonard said, hating how his breath caught and made him sound like he did. And it hit him suddenly from the inside, like a sob trapped in his lungs.
Bill's look didn't mean what Leonard-and maybe these other men, and maybe the girls in line in the mess hall-thought it meant. He wasn't looking for sex or, more generally, it wasn't strictly manipulative. It was something much simpler, and yet much more complicated than that. Leonard suddenly remembered that Bill never sat with anyone else. Maybe there really wasn't anyone, and Bill never expected there to be. Like with the tall tales and the pranks, Bill wanted acceptance. He certainly didn't want men-or boys-chasing him around and kissing him.
“I'm sorry,” he said again, even though he knew Bill probably wouldn't know what for, exactly.
“Don't be sorry,” Bill said, tilting his head slightly and eying Leonard's lips even as he closed the distance. “Do it again.” He spoke like someone discovering a new flavor, asking for another bite, almost like he really liked it. And when Leonard hesitated, Bill leaned forward and kissed him, awkward and closed-mouthed. His fumblings in the locker room hadn't really involved kissing, so he drew on his scant experience with girls (which had only involved kissing) and Bill's lips began to soften against his. Of their own accord Leonard's hands rose to settle on Bill's shoulder, his waist, and it wasn't soft flesh and hard bone under his hands but muscle, firm and compact and pushing back against him suddenly. Pushing him into the shelf, which rattled ominously but held as Bill kissed him, lips opening so Leonard could tease them with his tongue, could take the lower one between his lips and suck lightly until they both gasped and parted and he tasted like root beer and Leonard couldn't remember if they'd even had root beer at dinner. Leonard realized Bill's hands were on his chest, which was heaving lightly, as was Bill's. Their faces mere inches away, their eyes met, dazed and uncertain. “Again,” Bill said, his voice breathy and pitched higher and Leonard was glad he wasn't expected to speak.
They got better each time, heads tilting to find the right angle, mouths slanting across each other as Leonard figured out the right amount of pressure, how much tongue, when to breathe. Bill was surprisingly good at this for a beginner, not that Leonard would really know the difference except in what it was doing to his body, singing in a way he'd never felt with some random kid from school jerking him off. And it was just kissing.
Was he going to be allowed more? He didn't dare hope, but his dick hoped for him, and he hoped Bill couldn't feel it pressed against his leg.
“What next?” Bill asked, face flushed. His hand was fisted in Leonard's shirt, his mouth slightly open and Leonard had to catch his breath for a moment before he could trust himself to speak.
“Um,” he said eloquently, dragging his eyes from those swollen red lips to meet Bill's own. “Are you sure?”
Bill's eyes slid away and down, and Leonard didn't know if he was staring at the floor or the bulge in Leonard's jeans. “You make me want to touch myself,” he confessed, like there was something forbidden in that, and Leonard wondered just how strict a house he'd grown up in and whether he had any brothers or even any friends to show him this stuff. To tell him it was all right.
“That's okay,” he said, his own voice shaky. “But I know something better, if you want.”
Bill looked up at him and nodded, and Leonard turned them so Bill's back was to the shelf, mouth slack and heart beating fast when Leonard pressed his hand there to steady himself for another kiss. And then he had his hands on the fly of Bill's jeans, the buttons guided through the suspiciously tight buttonholes by fingers Leonard thought should be trembling. Without a word, Bill crossed his arms in front of him, grabbing the hem of his t-shirt and sliding it up over his head. Leonard thought he should find this unspeakably cocky but since it was Bill and now he was allowed to look it seemed more like a gift.
Bill wasn't tall, but he was well-built, not yet filled out but with a man's shoulders. His skin was fair in the harsh light of the uncovered bulb, but it still had a golden sheen to it. Leonard found himself wanting to do things he'd never done-press his lips to a shoulder, run hands along ribs, lay the flat of his palm against the flat of Bill's stomach-but he didn't know what that would mean. He knew what to do with denim peeled back, revealing the white cotton briefs he'd seen of course when Bill dressed in the morning or undressed for bed but never allowed himself to think about before.
He had to look away from those eyes, those eyes that were somehow so eager and so lost at the same time and were staring at him without a hint of shame though his cheeks were flaming red. Leonard focused, instead, on the bulge straining the briefs, laying his hand over it almost reverently. It jumped at his touch, though it had nowhere to go in the restrictive environment of Bill's underwear so he freed it, letting Bill kick the layers of fabric away after he shoved them down far enough. It was bigger than he'd expected, standing in proud red contrast to that golden skin, and Leonard wanted this like he'd never wanted a boy, like it wasn't just practice or horniness. He wanted Bill to like this. To like him.
Leonard got down on his knees, and Bill said, “Don't you have to take off your clothes?”
He shook his head. “Not for this,” he said, and when he put his hands on Bill's thighs, he could feel an unseen trembling in them. “Shh,” he said for good measure, looking up at him for an instant. “You'll like this. I promise.”
The gasp as Leonard's mouth surrounded him told him he was right, if he needed any confirmation. He heard a scrabbling, probably Bill's hands catching the lip of a shelf, but mercifully for once he didn't talk, just stood there as Leonard took him further into his mouth. Bill's cock, and there seemed to be even more of it from this perspective, was warm and firm and tasted just faintly of salt. He closed his eyes and concentrated on fitting his lips around it, sliding down as far as he could before rising again, one hand steadying Bill’s cock as the other gripped his trembling thigh.
Bill’s breathing was harsh and loud in the small room, and while he wasn’t loud he was vocal. He moaned and gasped wordlessly, his hands finally settling in Leonard’s hair without any of the pushing or pulling he’d felt from the couple other boys he’d tried this on. This surprised him. In fact, everything about this was as much a revelation to Leonard as it must have been to Bill. He’d been hard before, just kissing, but he had the feeling he’d have been turned on just from this. From the rush of taking Bill in his mouth, the fingers threading through his hair, the groans he was pulling from that mouth with every suck of his own. He wanted to know if Bill’s eyes were shut, or if he had that wide-eyed, surprised look he’d seen so many times. But he couldn’t look up, couldn’t stop, and anyway he didn’t have long before the warning taste of salty warmth became a flood, filling his mouth and quickly swallowed without a thought. Something else he hadn’t done before. And he was suddenly, fiercely glad. Gratified too, by the buckling legs and the soft thud as Bill’s absurdly shapely fanny hit the floor, putting his flushed face on a level with Leonard’s. His eyes shone with wonder, something almost like worship, Leonard thought. And then chided himself. It was just a blow job.
But then Bill grabbed the back of his neck and kissed him, unabashedly sharing the taste on Leonard’s tongue, sucking on his lower lip like he’d been doing this all his life.
“You don’t have to do that,” Leonard said, almost apologetically.
Bill grinned. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said. “Just like I don’t have to do this. Take off your pants.”
Leonard stared at him for a moment, ready to protest for god knows what reason, some sort of misplaced conviction about Bill’s innocence maybe, when Bill grabbed his shirt and started tugging and suddenly Leonard couldn’t get his own jeans off fast enough. When he’d scooted out of them, Bill unexpectedly put a shirt-Leonard couldn’t tell whose it was-under his head and pushed him gently to the floor. He seemed to study Leonard for a moment and then bent his head to lick Leonard’s cock, all the way up the shaft to the head, before wrapping his lips around it. His performance was a near-perfect imitation of Leonard’s own, but it was by no means by rote. Bill’s tongue swirled experimentally around the head, and Leonard gasped, nails digging into his palms to keep him from bucking up into Bill’s mouth. Bill sucked in earnest, hands on Leonard’s hips, and Leonard opened his eyes to watch that golden head bobbing up and down and he wanted to warn him, to push him away, but he'd never felt anything like this and it was too much, too soon, and then he was coming harder than he ever had in his life, surprising Bill who looked up suddenly with wide eyes and a small trail of it spilling from the corner of his mouth. After a moment he swallowed heavily, unblinking eyes trained on Leonard’s face as a pink tongue emerged to lap the rest from his chin. There was silence in the shed for a moment but for Leonard’s heavy breathing.
“Like that?” Bill said, and somehow Leonard read both pride and uncertainty in his voice.
“Shit, Bill,” he said. “Just like that.”
And he was rewarded with that smile again, the one that maybe now, just a little, meant “I’m beautiful and you should have sex with me.”