Flux - 2. Chapter 2

It seemed that since 9.11 just won Best Hosted Story, the least I could do is post the next chapter of Flux a bit early!

June 6, 2002

Escorial, CA

Will’s contempt changed to anger and outrage when he saw Wade hanging off of me, unable to support himself. “What happened to him?” he demanded.

“He got trashed at a party, so I brought him home,” I said, hoping to calm him down with a simple, factual response. I wasn’t surprised when it didn’t work.

“You brought him home,” he mused, as if I’d never done anything nice for Wade before.

He was seriously pissing me off, but I put that aside and got my mind working quickly, for once. I figured that getting him to help me would at least stop him from being mad at me for a few minutes. “Just give me a hand, will you?” I snapped. “Grab his other arm.”

He did what I told him to, and we started walking Wade down to his room. “What did you do to him?” he accused.

“I didn’t do shit to him. I went to a party at the A-Ho house and he was there, getting drunk, and some creepy dude was feeding him shots.”

“No creepier than the dude who brought him home,” he said, with real venom in his voice.

“Yeah, well this creepy dude left the fucking party, and dragged Wade’s puke-breathed ass back here.” I replied, not quite as viciously but much more sarcastically. “That creepy dude would have probably bare-backed him.”

He didn’t say anything for a few steps. “Thanks for doing that.” I didn’t respond, because it made it seem like I was going out of my way to help Wade out, when I’d done that lots of times; and that I was doing this for Will, when he didn’t factor into it at all. Instead, I just focused on getting Wade to his room. We dragged him to the bed, and I maneuvered him into it so he was sitting up, then I pulled off his shirt. “What are you doing?” Will demanded, acting like I was going to molest him. If he weren’t really bugging me with his attitude, it would be cute the way he was watching out for Wade.

I tossed Wade’s shirt at his face. “Smell it.” Wade had gotten some vomit on it when he’d thrown up.

He wrinkled his nose. “Gross.”

I laid Wade on the bed, on his side, because that’s how he liked to sleep when he was drunk, and covered him up. I gave him a kiss on the cheek, and thought I saw him smile slightly. “Night,” I said. Then I walked out of the room, with Will right behind me. If I were leaving Escorial, I would have turned right and headed back up to the foyer, but instead, I turned left.

“Where are you going?” Will asked me, as I left Wade’s room, and walked into his. I ignored him and went over to his sitting area and plopped down on one of his chairs. “What the fuck?” he demanded.

“I want to talk to you,” I told him.

“Well, I don’t want to talk to you. Since it’s my room, I win,” he said. I knew I needed to talk to Will, to break the ice with him almost like I’d been doing with Wade. Everyone had told me back in November that when Will was done being pissed at me, he would approach me. It had been six months now, and that hadn’t happened. I wasn’t sure if this was the right time, at 1:00am on a Thursday morning, but I figured it was worth a try. I rationalized my decision by noting that I hadn’t really been around for him to approach me, even if he’d wanted to.

“Look,” I said. “It bugs the shit out of me that you hate me. And I don’t blame you. But I want you to give me a chance to just explain shit to you, so then if you go off and hate me, I’ll know you have all the facts.”

“Facts? How are you going to explain away that you fucked Tony? You going to try and convince me that was a good thing to do? That aliens threatened to blow up the planet unless you fucked him?” That actually made me smile slightly, because it was kind of funny.

“No, I’m going to admit that it was a shitty thing to do, and I’m going to tell you how sorry I am for doing it,” I said sincerely. He looked into my eyes, in his deep way, trying to figure out if I was telling him the truth. I knew what would come next, and I was right. He was going to poke at me, to try and make me mad, to see if I was sincere. Will was actually pretty predictable.

“Goddamn right it was shitty. I’m dealing with just as much shit as you are, and you decide to dump more crap on me. One guy I ask you not to fuck and you couldn’t even do that. It’s not like you can’t get fifty other guys to grab their ankles; No, you have to pick the one dude I happen to like.”

“I did it to piss you off,” I said candidly. “And to make everyone hate me.” He blinked when I said that, a sure sign that I’d surprised him, but he got his attitude back fast enough.

“Score a big success for you,” he said, in a smart-ass kind of way.

“I like to win,” I said with a smile. “Sometimes that doesn’t work out so well for me.”

“Why do you give a shit what I think? You don’t like me. You never have.”

“You’re probably guessing I’ve spent some time in therapy over this,” I said with a rueful smile.

“God, I hope so,” he said, not cutting me any slack. “I’m surprised you didn’t get committed.”

“I almost did,” I told him honestly. “They were worried that I’d hurt myself. That was around Christmas.” That was after the thing with Wade. I’d been so despondent; the psychiatrist had almost demanded that I spend some time in the hospital. I’d managed to convince him that I would be fine, and he helped me out with some happy drugs.

“That sucks,” he said, relenting a bit. He’d dealt with mental illnesses with his mother, so he was sensitive to them.

I shrugged. “I struggled through it, with the help of some good counseling and some good anti-depressants.”

“Those don’t always work,” he said sadly, no doubt remembering the battles his mother had fought.

“No, they don’t, but they did for me,” I said. “I haven’t told anyone about that, especially Wade, so I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell him.”

“I’m not going to make that promise,” he said, going from calm to angry all over again. “If you can’t talk to me in the open, on the record, I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Then I’ll just have to trust your judgment,” I said philosophically. I leaned back in the chair for a bit, to compose my thoughts, then I told him what happened. “I pushed everyone away, and then I felt like I had fallen off a ship, and I was watching it sail away from me. I wanted so badly to just be alone, and then when I was, it was so horrible it was unbearable.” I could tell that he understood that kind of pain and I was guessing it resonated with him, even though I wouldn’t know it by his demeanor.

“All this shit you’ve done is about the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” he pronounced. “The only way I’m making it through this, through losing Robbie, Mom, and Hank, is by hanging onto the people around me. I haven’t fucked them over like you did. I don’t get how you can do that. What kind of moron thinks it’s an easier go if you’re alone?”

“This kind of moron,” I joked slightly. “Like I said, it wasn’t smart, it wasn’t logical.”

“You’re doing the same stupid shit Robbie did,” he said, freaking both of us out. “He’d get all fucked up, then do crap like this and make things even worse.”

“He did,” I agreed. “I did too. I’m his son. What did you expect?”

He got up and walked over to his fridge and grabbed two sodas, then came back and handed one to me. I thanked him, but he seemed to ignore that. “I’m really having a hard time understanding where you were, and what you were thinking.”

I sighed. “I didn’t want anyone close to me. I didn’t want that kind of pain again. Everyone who I cared about was a huge risk to me. If something happened to them, I was fucked.”

“So you got rid of them before they were taken away from you?” he asked. He’d nailed it, and his simple summary just emphasized how idiotic I’d been.

“Dude, I can’t explain it. I told you it was stupid, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time,” I said.

“So what did your shrink say?” he asked, since I’d blown his mind with how whacked I’d been.

“The same thing,” I said. “He said it’s not uncommon for someone to do that, but he did mention that what I did was pretty extreme.”

He gave me a wry grin. “Join the club. Zach says everything that happens in my life is extreme, so I guess I can at least understand that.”

“I’ve been trying to dig down, to figure this out, and I think I’ve got some of it down, like the reason I didn’t like you very much,” I said.

“You really didn’t like me?” he asked, shocked that despite his posturing about it, he’d been right. I guess in his mind, he’d been tossing it out there like a challenge, assuming that I actually felt positively for him.

“No, I really didn’t,” I said honestly.

“That just shows how fucked up you are,” he said, smiling slightly. “Everyone loves me.” I laughed because it was funny, and because I knew that when he started joking with me, he was listening, and on his way to forgiving me.

“The doctor thinks I was jealous of you.”

“Seriously?” he asked, stunned yet again. “You were jealous of me? Dude, I don’t get that at all.”

“I was jealous of how tight you are with Wade, and how he’d drop everything, do anything for you. I thought he loved you more than he loved me.”

He shook his head. “He loves me like a brother, not like his lover.” Just like I’m supposed to, he wanted to say but didn’t.

“He thinks that by sleeping with Tony, I was trying to not just piss you off, but to really set Wade free, since Wade sticks up for you.” I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration. “I got to drive both of you away and get laid at the same time.”

He stared at me, blinking. “Dude, you are seriously fucked up.”

I actually laughed at that. “I’m a little better now.” I could feel him relenting, then I could see him recoil at that, and letting go of this thing that had obviously been festering for so long.

“So you come up here, tell me you’re sorry, explain this shit to me, and we’re supposed to hug, and be best friends?” he asked.

I wanted to smile at how easy he was to read. “No. It’s supposed to make you feel better, because you know for sure you were right. So you get to look at me like Brenda Hayes looks at sinners.”

“You’re accusing me of being judgmental like her?” he asked, missing my point.

“No, I’m not saying that at all.” I took a different tack. “I’m saying that you were right, that you won. I’m like the soldier on the field who just surrendered and handed you my sword.”

“Dude, I’m not touching your sword,” he joked, smiling at me briefly.

I shook my head. “Look, I’m not saying we have to hug, and sing Kumbaya together. We don’t have to be tight; you’re just not supposed to hate me.”

“I’m not supposed to hate you…” he mused. “That’s not easy to do.”

“I really am sorry,” I said meaningfully, as I looked into his eyes. He looked back and I could see him letting go of his anger, or some of it, and he nodded, more or less accepting my apology. “I’d like to be around, especially with graduation coming up, and I don’t want there to be a bunch of tension between us. So if you can do that for me, I’ll be happy.”

“It’s not like I haven’t been civil to you,” he said.

“Civil?” I asked, challenging him. He frowned at me. “You don’t talk to me, and it’s so obvious, it makes everyone uncomfortable. You call that civil?”

“For me, based on what you did, that was being civil,” he said in a nasty way, then relented a bit. “The alternative was to torch your truck.”

“If it would have meant that you wouldn’t hate me, and that you’d forgive me for fucking Tony, I’d have rather you torched it,” I said honestly. I had things in so much better perspective now. The GMC was just a thing. I could get another thing.

“You know what’s really fucked up about this?” he demanded, pissed off again. “That you’re still fucking him. That you’re fucking living with that piece of shit.”

“We’re friends. We share a room, and we go to parties together,” I said. “We only fuck around if we’re really drunk, or there’s another guy involved.” It was funny to see how that got him a little turned on.

“Friends,” he snorted. “Tony doesn’t know what that means.”

“He’s been a friend to me,” I said. “He let me stay with him. He propped me up when I was down. He’s had my back. Not saying he had yours, just saying he had mine.”

“That doesn’t make it any better, to know that he picked me specifically to fuck over.”

“Dude, it’s not right that I have a conversation with you about what Tony thinks. Your deal with him is between you two. That’s something you should talk to him about.”

“That’s not happening,” he said firmly.

“And that’s your choice,” I said. He waited to see if I’d elaborate on Tony, but I didn’t. I meant what I said about Tony. He’d been a good friend to me, and really helped me out when I hit rock bottom in December. He’d fucked Will over big time, but I’d been the accomplice. I got that, but Will’s issue with Tony was different than his issue with me, and having seen how fucked up Tony was, and knowing how volatile Will was, there was no way I was jumping into that minefield. “Thanks for hearing me out. I was going to wait to talk to you until you seemed ready, until you came to me, but that didn’t seem like it was going to happen.”

“I wasn’t going to talk to you about this, and I’m still not very fucking happy with you, as long as you’re with Tony,” he said.

“I don’t get that,” I said. “I mean, it’s over. You hate him; you don’t want him around you. What do you care if I’m rooming with him?” I truly was clueless about that. I could understand why he was mad before, but now that he’d written Tony out of his life, why did he care what Tony did, or if I was with him at all? Now his anger just seemed petty and manipulative.

“I’ll be right back,” he said. He walked into his bathroom, while I just stared after him, waiting to hear the sound of him peeing or water running. When he came back in, he totally shocked the shit out of me. He was stark naked, and his dick was fucking huge, even though it wasn’t even fully hard yet. “You want me to forgive you? Fuck me.” I took a brief second to chide myself for thinking this kid was predictable. Christ!

“Dude, I cannot do that,” I said. Everything about it seemed so wrong. The only thing that didn’t really bother me was the age thing, that he was only fifteen, and that was because he didn’t look that young. His body was easily as mature as some of the college sophomores I’d fucked.

He moved closer, so his cock was pointing at my mouth, no more than six inches away. He was so sexy; it would be so easy to take him on a wild ride. “Fuck me!” he ordered. I was so tempted to give in. I could probably show him a thing or two, I thought smugly. But that wasn’t happening.

“I can’t,” I repeated.

“Why not?” he demanded.

“Because you’re family,” I said.

“Dude, you fucked Stef, you fucked Grand,” he said. He turned away from me and bent over slightly, showing off his gorgeous ass. I couldn’t resist at least touching him: I ran my hand across his ass cheeks, letting my fingers flit across his hole.

“Because it would really hurt Wade,” I said. “He won’t admit it, but he would be disappointed in you, and he’d be even more angry at me, as if that were possible.”

He turned around, smacking my hand away. I was trying to figure him out, but he was acting so fucking whacked, it was beyond me. “That’s why it pisses me off that you did what you did, and that’s why it pisses me off that you’re still with Tony!”

“I don’t get it,” I said obliviously.

“I’m throwing myself at you to make a point,” he said in a condescending way. “You knew that if you fucked Tony it would hurt me, but you didn’t care about that, you didn’t even think about that. But your brain managed to function, and you figured it out when it came to hurting Wade.”

“Go put your clothes on before I change my mind,” I growled, to give myself time to think this through. The brief respite didn’t help me get any additional clarity, since none of what he said was really a surprise. I knew he was mad at me, and I knew why.

He came sauntering back out in his boxers. “Every time you fuck him, every day you spend with him, it’s like you’re saying to me that you don’t give a shit about me and how I feel,” he said. “So you want to know why I didn’t hunt you down and try to make things better between us? That’s why. Because you just keep driving the knife in and twisting it, every single fucking day.”

“You still care about Tony?” I asked cluelessly.

“No, I care about you,” he said, and seemed annoyed that he’d admitted it.

“Cool,” I said, and winked at him.

“When I told you not to sleep with Tony, and I told Tony the same thing, I did it because I thought Tony was important to me, and I needed him. I was grasping on to whatever I could, trying to keep my sanity after those fucking attacks!” He paused to wipe a tear away. “Only when he fucked you, I realized that it wasn’t Tony that I needed in my life, it wasn’t Tony that was important to me, it was you. We’re supposed to be family; we’re supposed to be brothers. It would be so easy to write you off, and God knows I’ve tried, but I can’t. Know why?”

“Because I’m hot?” I joked, trying to get him to calm the fuck down. It didn’t work.

“No. Besides, I’ve been with dudes way hotter than you,” he said arrogantly. I acted like I was wounded. “Because of Robbie.” That seared into me, and really did wound me.

“Oh,” I said.

“So here’s the deal. You go back and you fuck that piece of shit, and you live with him for as long as you want. While you’re doing that, you’re dead to me, because it just fucking shows that you don’t give a shit about me. It shows that all this bullshit about you being sorry is just that.”

“That’s not true,” I objected. “I just never thought about it like that…” He cut me off because he was on one of his rolls.

“You’re not sorry for treating me like shit. You don’t really care about me or how I feel. The only reason you’re here, telling me you’re sorry, is because you succeeded in pushing everyone away, and now everyone thinks you’re an asshole. You did the math, and figured out that if you talked to me, and I forgave you, you’d be able to work on everyone else and fix things with them.”

“I wasn’t thinking about it like that,” I said lamely, since that strategy had crossed my mind.

“Right,” he said sarcastically, calling me on it. “I’m your fucking gatekeeper. You know it, and I know it.”

“Let me talk,” I insisted, so he’d give me the floor. “I can see what you’re saying, and I understand why it bothers you. I didn’t get that before. You told me, and now I do.”

He calmed down a bit, but he was still agitated. “So here’s the deal. When you’re done stabbing me in the back, you come up here, we’ll talk, and I’ll forgive you.”

“You will?” I asked, stunned. That blew me away. He was basically telling me that even if I went back to the dorms and spent the last few weeks partying with Tony, and fucking around with him, he’d still forgive me and welcome me back when I graduated. I stared at him, just blinking, not expecting that depth of thought in him, and not expecting him to reach out that far to me.

“I will. Not because you deserve it, not because I think you’re sincere, and not because I think you’ve had some big fucking change of heart. I’ll forgive you for one reason and one reason only. I’ll forgive you for Robbie. Because even if you don’t think we should be brothers, and even if I hope you move to China so I don’t have to be around you, he would have wanted us to be at least cool with each other. That’s why.”

He stood there, hands on his hips, waiting for me to leave, but I just sat there, and for the first time probably ever, I understood him, and how he thought, at least about this thing. And for the first time, I finally got how badly I’d hurt him. I tried to stop the tears, but I couldn’t; they just frustrated him, since it bothered him that I was hurting, but he was too mad at me to do anything to help me. So we hung there, frozen in time, with him standing there staring at me, and me sitting in the chair, crying like a pussy. I finally got my act together, stood up and wiped my eyes. It was a sign that I was returning to the rational world from the emotional one. “I want to know if you’ll help me do something today.”

“You’re asking me for a favor?” he asked, incredulous at how ballsy that was.

“I am,” I said boldly.

He wanted to tell me to go fuck myself, and it was so obvious that it was funny. “What do you want?”

“I’m going to go get my stuff and move back up here. Can you help me organize it?”

“You’re moving back here,” he said dubiously, not believing me.

“You told me that it hurt you when I was with Tony. I didn’t know that, I didn’t get that before, but now I understand. So I’m moving. I can come up here, or get a hotel room, but I’d rather be here.”

“Oh, so now you’re leaving him, and that’s supposed to be some big gesture on your part. What a huge deal, now that you only have a week left there anyway,” he said sarcastically. He was calling me out for not really making much of a sacrifice.

“It’s June 6th. I can’t go back in time. I can only fix the things I’ve fucked up going forward. So tell me what else I have to do so I don’t hurt you, and I’ll do it.”

We stood there, two feet apart, not saying anything as our intense emotions receded. “I’ll help you organize your shit,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling at him, then frowned. “I guess that’s assuming I’m welcome here.”

He looked at me like I was an idiot. “You are so fucking stupid. You were always welcome here. You’re the only one who thought you didn’t belong here. Well, and me.”

“I’d better make sure Wade’s OK with it,” I said. “Probably should wait until he sobers up.” I made to walk out of the room but he grabbed my arm to stop me, and I almost sighed at how much fire he had in his eyes. His moods could really wear a person out.

“You’re supposed to be my brother; Wade actually is. I would fight to the gates of hell for him. You hurt him again like you did these last six months, and we’re going to have an issue again.” He was posturing in a really aggressive way, almost challenging a fight. It was actually pretty cute.

“Because I was a fucking dumbass, I lost the man I love, the one man who is probably my soul mate,” I said, and had to pause to wipe away a tear. “Nothing you could do or say would make that any better or worse. And no one loves Wade more than I do.”

“I’m not buying that, but I’m not going to argue with you about it,” he said. “You know where I stand.”

“I do,” I said, letting that moment pass. “I know that you were too mad at me to talk to me, but I wish you would have explained this to me before. If you would have, I wouldn’t have stayed with Tony.” He stared at me, as if trying to decide if I was telling the truth.

“It’s all good,” he pronounced, which was his way of saying he could work his way through things. I shot him my biggest smile, and since it was sincere, it was hyper-charged.

“Thanks,” I said, and leaned in and gave him a kiss, not a ‘fuck me’ kiss, but a sensual one. “And for the record, you’re smoking hot, and you were really fucking tempting.”

He grinned and blushed, then got irritated that he had that reaction “Duh,” he said, playing it off, and making me snaugh. I walked out of his room, and turned toward Wade’s, when he stopped me. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to check on Wade, and then I’m going back to campus.”

He looked at me for a second, in a considering kind of way. “You should just grab one of the guest rooms.” He’d said that in a casual way, but it signified so much. He was inviting me back, and he was showing me that he cared enough about me that he didn’t want me driving around tired, this late at night.

“Maybe I will,” I told him with a slight smile. I went back into Wade’s room, and turned off all the lights except the one in the bathroom. That was on a dimmer, so I set it to the low level that he liked. I walked back over to the bed and sat on the edge, next to him, and gently rubbed his back. “I’ll see you around.”

“Thanks for bringing me home,” he said, surprising me. I thought he’d passed out.

“I didn’t mean to wake you up,” I said, pulling my hand back. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he said.

“I should get back,” I said, but I didn’t move, because I didn’t want to go.

“Can you help me to the bathroom?” he asked.

“Sure.” I pulled him up, and helped him maneuver through the room, trying not to enjoy how good it felt to touch his bare skin again. He was doing much better now. Puking, and then passing out for a bit, had sobered him up considerably, although not completely. I left him alone to pee, and after he was finished, I heard the water running as he washed his hands and brushed his teeth, probably to eliminate the taste of vomit more than anything. When he came out, he paused to lock the door to his room, which I thought was strange.

I helped him back to the bed, and was about ready to leave, but he held onto my shoulder, keeping me there. “You can stay if you want.”

“Here?” I asked, referring to his room.

“If you want,” he said. Part of me thought that the smart thing to do was to be strong, thank him, and go home. The other part of me said that I should fuck his brains out. I looked into his eyes and could see how vulnerable he was, and how much he needed me at that moment. And he was almost begging me to stay, so if I refused, I would hurt his feelings, and damage his pride. I picked the middle ground.

“I want,” I said with a smile. I pulled my shirt off but left my shorts on, so we were dressed in a similar way. I lay on my back, knowing that he’d roll over so he was sprawled on top of me, and he did. His head nestled against my neck, fitting there perfectly, as if both of our connecting body parts had been designed to perfectly mesh together. This was my favorite position with Wade, the same one we’d been in the night I’d fallen hopelessly in love with him. I gently stroked his back with my hand, and felt his body relax as he sighed contentedly; his warm exhaled air blowing against my skin and making me tingle all over. I held him tighter, cherishing this time with him, wondering if this would be the last time I’d ever share an intimate moment with him, and determined to make it last in case it was.

“I missed you,” he said, and that really surprised me. I kissed his forehead affectionately.

“I missed you more.” I could feel him chuckling.

“That’s probably true,” he joked. I smiled, knowing his mood, this mood, and it was one of my favorites. He was sober enough that he was being honest; the alcohol was like a truth serum for him at this point. At the same time, he was still drunk enough to be playful. “I lied to you.”

That surprised me, because he’d said that seriously, and because lying wasn’t something Wade did, or admitted to very often. “What did you lie to me about?”

“I told you that I didn’t love you anymore.” He buried his face in my neck briefly, before going on. “Part of me will always love you.”

I pulled on his chin, forcing him to look at me. “I will always love you,” I asserted firmly. “Always.”

“I don’t…I can’t…” he stammered, trying to say something. “We can’t be a couple.”

That sliced through my skin and cut right into my heart, and he knew me well enough, even when he was drunk, to probably read me. “I know,” I lied. “So what are we?”

“Really good friends, that care about each other,” he said. “A lot.”

“Really good friends that love each other,” I corrected.

“Yeah,” he said, smiling at me. “That works.”

“Really good friends that love each other,” I repeated, “and fuck.” I ran my hand down his back, underneath the band of his shorts, and let my fingers explore his ass, much like I’d done to Will, only with real purpose.

He whimpered and thrust against me, letting himself go, giving himself permission to bond with me. “Make love to me,” he all but begged. So I did.