Not My Brother - 3. Chapter 3

The house was still full of boxes, though there were indeed curtains hanging in Damien’s window, and his desk had now been reassembled, albeit rather poorly. Damien unpacked the box in the middle of his floor labelled “art stuff” and began to lay out all of his studio equipment. He had invested in an excellent cold-light desk lamp a few months back and was pleased that it, along with everything else he owned, seemed to be intact. Intending to simply sit at his desk and get a few things in order in the drawers before returning to the long job of unpacking, Damien smoothed out a fresh page of thick cartridge paper, picked up a pencil, and became lost in his art. Two hours later and with the light outside waning fast, he sat back, and looked at what he’d done.

The ink work was excellent, a combination of thick blocked sections, undulating yet hard lines and frenetic cross- and triple-hatch, and Damien was happy with what he’d done. The shape of Dallas, captured exactly as he had looked as he glanced over his shoulder in the school corridor, his shape half hidden and half accentuated by the folds of his clothes. The squeak of his door opening alerted Damien to Dallas’s arrival. He never knocked.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Damien spun around on his chair. “Thank you.”

“Huh?” Dallas paused, half way to flopping onto the bed. “What did I do?”

“I liked your message.” Damien smiled softly. “Thank you.”

“Oh…” Dallas dropped down onto the bed. “Y’know, I never noticed before how much more comfortable your mattress was. I hate my bed.”

“Dallas, we should really talk about this…”

“Dinner! Damien! Dallas!”

“It’ll have to wait.” Dallas shrugged. “Everything OK, Dame?”

“Yeah.” Damien closed the sketchbook and abandoned his desk. Everything he wanted to say to Dallas would have to wait, because now they had to pretend to be normal in front of their parents.

Dinner was take out again, only this time they sat on the newly purchased stools around the breakfast bar and ate Indian food out of half a dozen different containers. Damien’s mother was no great cook, but already Damien was beginning to miss actual home cooked meals. Before Graham turned up, his mom’s pasta and meatballs, and macaroni cheese, had been staple favourites of his diet. Dallas gave him a quick smile as they sat down and Sandra instantly opened with the standard mom-question.

“So how was your first day of school honey?”

“It was fine. We have homeroom together.” Damien smiled ruefully. “The art department is really nice, my teacher likes my sketches.”

“That’s because they’re really good.” All three glanced up in surprise at Dallas’s voice. “Some guy on the swim team is gonna commission him for some art.”

“Really?” Graham looked surprised for a moment, frowning at his son. “That’s big.”

“How do you know August is on the swim team?”

Dallas shrugged.

“His email address is ‘gus-swims’ at Hotmail, doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. Plus if he’s the tall guy I’m thinking of, he was one of the few decent human beings wearing a letter jacket I met today.”

“So how was your day Dallas?” Damien’s mother asked gently. “The principal was disappointed that you didn’t want to go full-athletic.”

“It was OK. Media Studies is good, and the coach begged me to stick with the basketball team. The other jocks don’t like me very much.”

“And why is that?” Graham asked carefully over his tandoori chicken and rice.

“Because by-and-large they are a bunch of homophobic jerks who I’d rather not associate with.” He glanced at Damien with a grin. “I bet they’re all really repressed.”

Damien bit his lip and stifled his giggle.

“Did you guys have a nice day?” Damien smiled at his mom.

“Yeah,” Dallas stuck his thumbs in his pockets. “Are there any bits of furniture we should avoid from here on out?”

“DALLAS!”

They finished up, and Damien offered to help his mom with the dishes. As he took Dallas’s empty soda glass he muttered:

“Five minutes,” before following his mother into the kitchen proper. They stood at the sink washing and drying the few items they had used, and Damien though it might be a smart moment to broach the subject of his sexuality. “Mom?”

“Yes honey?”

Damien took a deep breath.

“You do know I’m gay, right?”

“Since you were about six, yes darling.” She handed him another glass to wipe clean of suds and drips. “I’m surprised it took you this long to tell me, to be honest.”

Damien stared, slack jawed at his mother.

“You’ve known for ten years? I haven’t even known for ten years. How could you know if I didn’t?”

“Well, eleven years darling, you’re seventeen now.” Damien rolled his eyes. For about a month he had pretty much forgotten he’d had a birthday and kept getting his age wrong. Six months later his mother teased him about it whenever she could. “It’s a mom thing. I knew I’d never have grandchildren.” She smiled at him and mussed his hair softly before pouring the dishwater down the sink. “Why now? Is there some boy I should know about?”

“Umm…”

“Hey Dame, hi Sandra.” Dallas grinned as he wandered into the kitchen. Damien took a deep breath and stepped backwards, knocking against Dallas’s strong muscular chest. “Easy there bud.”

“Sorry Dallas, could you give us a minute?” Damien’s mom smiled sweetly at him. “We have family things to discuss, you understand.”

“Sure.” Dallas grinned. “It’s not like he’s my brother or anything.” As he moved to step away, Damien grabbed his sleeve and held on tightly.

“Mom…” Damien adjusted his grip and Dallas laced their fingers together. “Dallas and I are…”

“Together.” Dallas finished the sentence for him. “You know I should probably tell dad I’m gay before he hears this.”

“Dallas!” Damien turned to look up at him in a combination of shock, horror and a little bit of awe. “When I said we should talk about this, that wasn’t exactly what I meant.”

“Together?” Damien’s mother echoed softly. She blinked dreamily and then fixed Damien with a hard stare. “I thought you hated him?”

“Yeah, well…” Damien smiled and allowed Dallas to pull him back into his lazy embrace. “Common emotions are very powerful. We don’t hate each other anymore.”

“I think we might all need to talk about this… as a fa-”

“I swear if you finish that sentence I might just have to move out.” Dallas’s chest vibrated against Damien’s back with the strength of his words. “I like you plenty Sandra, you make dad really happy; but we are not a family.”

“Oh…”

“We’ll be upstairs, I’ll let you and dad have a discussion about all this.” Dallas tugged gently at Damien’s wrist. “C’mon Dame.”

“It’s OK, mom; really, it is.” Damien hugged his mother quickly, and then turned to follow Dallas upstairs. As soon as the door was closed behind them he rounded on the taller boy. “What did you do?”

“I thought you were going to tell her.” Dallas frowned, looking rather taken aback. He sat down on Damien’s bed heavily, discarding his light sweater. “Weren’t you?”

“No! No, I was not going to tell her. I was going to tell her that we were good friends, y’know, let her get used to idea of us hanging out before she walked in on us kissing one day. Dammit Dallas!” Damien rounded on his not-stepbrother. “We haven’t even talked about what this is. You were the one who said it was too early to define it.”

“Well maybe I was wrong!” For one terrible, horrible minute, Damien felt his blood run cold. Here it was, the moment when Dallas’s jest was revealed and he left Damien feeling broken and alone, the butt of every joke to be made for the rest of his life. “Maybe I don’t want this to be undefined. Maybe I just want to tell people you’re my boyfriend!”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Dallas began to calm down, breathing deeply through his sudden rush of emotion. “Yes. Dame, I’ve cared about you for months. I want you to be mine and I want to be yours.”

Damien smiled, because how could he not?

“Yes.” He stepped towards the bed; standing in the space between Dallas’s parted knees. “I want you to be mine too.”

“Damien…” Dallas looped his hands around the back of Damien’s thighs, creeping up to cup his ass. “Can I kiss you?”

Damien leant down, placed his hands on Dallas’s shoulders and bit his lip softly. One of them laughed breathlessly into the warm space between their lips, and then Dallas titled his head up and planted his lips on Damien’s. The slender young man sighed and melted, suddenly relaxed and boneless, into his arms. They ended up lying prone on the bed, tangled and cosy, Dallas’s muscular arms wrapped around Damien’s smaller frame. Every other heartbeat was punctuated with the sorts of feathery kisses that were doing interesting things to Damien’s anatomy, and the fluttering nervousness in his stomach was settling down nicely when the door banged open.

Damien didn’t think he’d ever moved quicker in his life: leaping off the bed, getting tangled in Dallas’s impossibly long legs, stumbling, and trying to straighten his rumpled shirt while Dallas did pretty much the same thing, nearly head butted him before aborting his attempt to stand, before they both looked guiltily at the combined unit of their parents.

“Hi dad,” Dallas smiled through gritted teeth. “About that…”

“Walk with me?” Graham did not make it sound like a question to which there was any other response. Dallas got up, touched Damien’s shoulder ever so briefly, and followed his father from the room.

Damien backed up and slumped into his desk chair.

“Mom…” he hated the whimper in his voice, the plaintive note of fear and longing. He hated to think Dallas was getting chewed out by his father, and he wasn’t there for him.

“Hold up there kiddo. You’ve no idea what I’m gonna say yet.” Damien’s mother sat herself on his bed, smoothing out the quilt and automatically fluffing the pillows. “Don’t jump to conclusions. You’re so good at doing that.”

“Oh mom!” Damien huffed, folding his arms across his chest.

“That’s better. Now tell me how this happened between you and Dallas.”

“I’m not going to break up with him!” Damien snapped.

“Did I ask you to?” Sandra quipped back. “God, teenagers!” She sighed, rolling her eyes. “Give me strength… No Damien, it’s not quite what I had in mind when I hoped the two of you might become friends, but I’m not angry with you.”

Damien blinked.

“You’re not?”

“No sweetie. I’m your mother. All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy. Does he make you happy?”

“Yes.” Damien bit his lower lip, feeling himself start to blush. “He does.”

“So you wanna tell me when this all happened?”

“On the drive over.” Damien held up his hands in supplication. “I know it’s all really quick, but it’s good. It is.”

“OK, OK. I trust you.” Sandra shook her head in faux-despair. “This sort of trumps the announcement we were going to make. I bought ice cream and everything.”

“I think I can guess.” Damien stood and went to his mother’s side. “Am I going to have to get a suit?”

“Yes…” Now it was her turn to become shy. “Graham and I are getting married.”

“Congratulations mom.” Damien hugged his mother hard. The news had hardly been unexpected, and from the moment Dallas and Graham had come to live with them, Damien had dreaded being the only Kestler left in the world. “Please don’t make me hold flowers or something.”

Sandra laughed, and hugged her son hard.

“I have enough friends to be bridesmaid’s thank you! Cheeky sod.” She let him go, and scooped up a discarded shirt from the floor. Her thumb ran over the name tape sewn into the back of the neck. Damien hadn’t grown much in the last few years, and though she hadn’t sewn any labels into his clothes since he was a sophomore, there were still a few lying about. “I was thinking I might stay a Kestler too. Go double barrelled.”

“Kestler-Novick? Bit of a mouthful isn’t it?” Damien smiled. “Mom, are you really OK with me and Dallas being together?”

“Yes. It’s if he breaks your heart that I worry about.”

“Mom…” No teenager liked to be reminded that most relationships ended, and a lot of them ended messily.

“I know, I know!” His mother raised her hands, palm outwards to hush him. “And it may not happen. Lord knows I never want to see my boy hurt. But I am marrying Dallas’s father. If the two of you ever break up, you’ll have to continue to be civil to each other. Is that clear?”

“Yes mom.”

She stood, brushing invisible crumbs from her jeans.

“At least for now, I want you two in separate bedrooms.”

“But-!”

“You can have too much of a good thing Damien. If I think you two are sneaking around, I’ll fit cameras in the hall.”

Damien folded his arms and sulked.

“That’s so unfair.”

“That’s life kiddo. I’m your mother, not your friend.” She hugged him again quickly. “Good luck sweetheart.”

Damien watched as she left, then turned to look out of the window at the gloom. The nearest streetlamps were on the other side of the park and the road, so it was actually pretty dark outside his bedroom window. Dallas’s room, on the other side of the wall, looked out over the scrap of land on the south side of the house and over to their next neighbour. Damien wondered briefly what their neighbours were like, and if they’d mind having a couple and their two gay sons living on their street. He looked down at the little play park in the brown-green of the summer grass and sighed. The swings were still now, and the roundabout didn’t creak, there wasn’t even enough breeze to make them move. Damien wished they were out there now, alone in the dark, and able to do whatever they wanted. He took his small, daily sketchbook from his desk, and began to draw the scene in his head in a continuous line of pencil.

“Looks fun.” Dallas’s voice was soft in his ear, much closer than Damien thought someone could get to him without being noticed. The other boy’s breath was warm and faintly cola scented. “What are we talking about?”

“The future maybe?” Damien kept his eyes on his page, where the sketch figures of him and Dallas sat on the swings, touching and talking. “Or maybe about school.”

“I’m wearing a letterman jacket.”

“You look good in them.” Damien took his pencil from the line and stroked the drawing gently. Dallas’s hands crept around his waist. “Don’t give up basketball, please.”

“Dame?”

“You love it.” He put down the sketch pad and pencil and turned in the cage of Dallas’s arms. “Even though there’s more to you than only being a jock, you love playing sports. Don’t ever change, especially not for me.”

Dallas frowned.

“You want me to hang out with homophobic jerks? I don’t want to pretend to be one of them again.”

“Then don’t. They aren’t all like that. August was nice, and he knows we’re gay.” Damien smiled. “He worked it out and he’s cool. There will be others who are cool too, maybe they’re just a little afraid of Tyler right now, but I think you can fix that.”

“When did you get so smart?” Dallas’s chest vibrated against him, and Damien hugged him back tighter.

“We could ask you the same thing.” He tapped two fingers against Dallas’s temple. “How was talking to your dad?”

“It went OK. I think he’s less concerned about me being with you than he is about me being gay. It was a bit of a shock.” Dallas shrugged. “I know he’s hoping I’ll get over it and fall for some girl, but deep down he knows that isn’t gonna happen. He’ll come around.”

“Mom doesn’t want us sleeping together.”

“Yeah, she collared me on my way up here and threatened to castrate me if I broke her rules.” Dallas chuckled. “You’d so be worth it.”

“Dallas…”

“Yeah, yeah…” Dallas sounded casual and offhand about the possibility of losing his balls. “Come on, be less serious. What do you wanna do tonight?”

“Do?”

“Yup, we could watch a movie or something.”

Damien looked around his room, much of which was still filled with cardboard boxes.

“I think the moving-in might need our attention first.”

“I can deal with that. You have more stuff than me, we’ll start in here.”

*

They spent the rest of the evening in and out of boxes and in and out of each other’s rooms; finding boxes that had been put in the wrong room in their hurry to be unpacked from the U-haul. Dallas spent ages looking through Damien’s old sketchbooks, a task which was interrupted repeatedly as Damien tried to put them away, and then halted when Damien opened a box which he thought would be art supplies to find all of Dallas’s sporting trophies.

“What’s this one for?” Damien sat back and leant against Dallas’s broad chest, the other boy’s long legs either side of his own, holding the bronze coloured metal cup. Damien’s fingers traced the words ‘Star Player’ which preceded Dallas’s name on the metal base plate.

“That was the under sixteen county finals cup. We didn’t win, but the head coach said if my team had even one other player on it like me, we would have wiped the floor with the opposition.” He lifted a blue single pillar trophy with a little statue of a basketball net on the top. “That was my middle school’s award for best team player.” He fished out another similar one with a figure of a man running. “And I got the one for best athletic contribution too.”

“You’re a star.”

“Nah.” Dallas hugged him tighter and nuzzled softly into Damien’s hair. “I’m not that good.”

“What this?” Damien took a large gold medal out from the bottom of the box. The ribbons were wide, red and white, and the medal bore a soft relief of a man in the air, scoring a basket. He flipped it over and read. “National High School Basketball: Colorado State Championship.” Damien blinked. “You won?”

“Yeah we won.” Dallas sounded smug, and rightly so. “It was one of those nail biting games, could have gone either way right down until the final line.” He took the medal softly and held his hand against Damien’s. “Dad put off moving in with Sandra so I could stay at John. F. Kennedy and compete.”

“Do you wish you had stayed there?” Damien asked softly.

Dallas dropped the medal back in the box with a shrug.

“Yes and no. It was easier to pretend there, because I didn’t care about anybody my so-called friends picked on. I hated dating girls though, that blew.”

“You’ve dated girls?” Damien twisted around to look up at his companion. “You never actually er…?”

“Had sex with any of them? Hell no.” Dallas chuckled, wrapped his arms tighter around Damien’s ribs. “I wasn’t mad keen on kissing, let alone any feeling-up type stuff. I’m not good at all that.”

“Are you sure?” Damien queried, feeling Dallas’s hand slide down to the small of his back, pause and then reach lower for his ass. “You seem pretty good to me.”

“That’s ‘cause it’s you.” Dallas ran the tip of his tongue over his teeth and pressed Damien against his chest before leaning suddenly backwards. Damien yelped and ended up in his lap on and his chest, their lips mere millimetres away. “You’re beautiful Damien.”

Damien didn’t argue with him, and claimed the warm kiss that waited behind Dallas’s smile.

“This is not getting us any closer to unpacked you know.”

“But it’s so good.” Dallas purred.

“Come on.” Damien jumped up. “I’m not so keen on getting yelled at by your dad or my mom on the first day they know we’re together.”

Dallas sighed.

“You really know how to give a guy blue balls Dame.” Dallas rolled his eyes and reached for another box. “Hey, what’s this?”

Damien craned his neck to see.

“Oh, those are old photos and stuff. They’re mum’s, they should be downstairs.” He held his arms out for the box. “I’ll take ‘em.”

“Are there any of you?”

A look of horror flashed across Damien’s features.

“Oh Dallas, please don’t.”

“Why not? Were you like a super chubby kid or something?” Dallas was already pulling an album out at random. He flicked it open and grinned. “Aww! Look how cute you are.”

Damien blushed as Dallas grinned from ear to ear. He held out the album page, and Damien found his six year old self-looking back out at him from the slightly blurry photograph. He was sitting on the back of a pale grey pony at what had probably been the county fair, wearing spider-man sneakers and a pale yellow t-shirt.

“I’d never been on a horse since.” Damien blinked. He’d practically forgotten that whole day, but he remembered it now. It had been the first time since his father had walked out that he’d been truly happy. After that photo had been taken he’d ended up with chocolate ice cream all down that t-shirt. “That was a good day.”

“Can I keep it?” Dallas slipped the photograph from the album. “Please?”

“Why?”

“Because your smile is the same.” Dallas bit his lip and smiled, looking down at the photograph in his hands. “You were smiling just like that the first time I saw you, all happy and hopeful. Then you saw me.”

“Oh…” Damien felt his heart tighten painfully.

“I figured you might never smile at me like that again.” Dallas glanced back at the photo. “I’m glad I was wrong.”

“Keep it.” Damien wanted to wrap himself around Dallas and never let go. “I gotta take the rest of these to mom, ‘kay?”

Dallas took his hand and kissed his wrist gently as he passed, and Damien wondered how on earth he had missed Dallas’s sweetness for so long.

*

It felt suddenly wrong to be alone in bed, and Damien lay on his back, staring at the ceiling without really seeing it. They been sent to bed by their parents around eleven, and for the first time, Damien had enjoyed Dallas’s lack of personal space. They had shared the sink as they did their teeth, and Damien had flicked his eyes up and down his boyfriend’s body, trying to remember exactly how he looked nearly naked. Dallas had hugged him quickly, kissed the back of his neck, which had made Damien shiver with excitement, and wished him goodnight in a rueful tone. Their parents had come up to check on them, and Damien realised his mom popping in her head to say goodnight was probably going to turn into a nightly ritual.

It was extra-dark in his room with the curtains closed, and Damien tried to let his mind settle on anything other than Dallas. He was just the other side of the wall, so far away and yet so close. Damien swiped him arm over the empty space to his left, and sighed softly. It wasn’t even that he was super horny, though he had been nursing a semi for ten minutes or so, it was more that waking up in the warm, safe cage of Dallas’s arms was so pleasant. He thought vaguely about the idea of jerking off, but he hated that Dallas might hear him, and assume he was thinking of someone else. Damien hadn’t thought of anyone else, hardly at all anyway, in months. He sighed, and rolled over away from the door.

Just as his brain was finally beginning to slow down, starting to allow his body to think about sleep, the soft pad of feet on the carpet attracted his attention right before Dallas tripped over a box and swore quietly.

“Shit!”

“Dallas?”

Hands found him in the dark, pulled back the covers and Dallas slipped in beside him. Damien instantly snuggled against his larger form.

“I didn’t realised how fucking uncomfortable my mattress was compared to yours.” Dallas whispered against his hair. “Or how empty. And a bed without you in it is a bed missing a vital ingredient.”

“If mom catches us…”

“We’ll be careful. Don’t worry.” Dallas sounded very sure of himself. “I heard them go upstairs, I doubt they’d come down again to check on us.”

“Cocky bastard.”

“Yup.” Dallas’s lips curved into a smile against the soft skin of Damien’s throat, and his hand slithered down against the smooth skin of Damien’s abdomen and cupped his thickening erection through his boxer-briefs. “You too apparently.”

“Dallas…” Damien titled his face up to kiss the other boy again, and they got lost in the act, exploring each other with tongues and hands; and when Dallas slipped his fingers beneath the waistband of Damien’s shorts, his only resistance was to moan. Screw not labelling things or moving too fast, because they’d sort of already burnt those two bridges. Damien wanted to be touched almost more than he wanted to touch Dallas. Half a second of undulating pleasure later, he had found his way into Dallas’s remaining clothing, and the bigger boy growled in pleasure.

They got used to the dark, and Damien looked up to see his not-stepbrother smiling, his eyes shining as they touched each other. Damien panted, lips damp and parted, between every kiss. He pressed himself up against Dallas’s chest as best he could. Half his brain tried to make a plan, to find a way of showing Dallas how much he cared about him, how much he wanted him, but by the time he had decided on how best to get Dallas panting and groaning, his boyfriend had other ideas.

Dallas rolled him onto his back, kissing him hard, his hands pushing Damien into the soft mattress. Damien whimpered as Dallas’s lips left his and began to travel down his body. He wanted Dallas’s mouth back, wanted him to slow down, speed up, touch him more, less. He bit his lip, trying to stifle the pleasure as Dallas eased his underwear down, breath hot and damp against his aching erection. He groaned, and Dallas took that as an invitation to slurp along the length of his dick before swallowing him as best he could. Damien grabbed for the headboard, the pillows, anything; and clenched his grip as Dallas hummed his pleasure along his cock.

He should have been embarrassed to be lying prone and exposed on his back with his legs spread for his lover, but Damien was more turned on than he’d been in his entire life, could think of nothing past the idea of wet constricting heat around his cock. He wanted it to go on forever, and at the same time couldn’t stand it.

“Dallas please…” Damien had no idea what he was beginning for, only that he didn’t mind he was indeed begging for it. “Please… no…” When Dallas released the length of him from the warm confines of his mouth Damien hissed and growled. “Want…”

“Uh-huh.” Just then, Dallas wasn’t particularly good at full sentences either, and he crawled up the bed and kissed Damien, with his desperate mouth. He had at some point shuffled out of his boxers, and knelt between Damien’s legs, breathing hard. “Want you.”

“Yes.” Damien’s hips bucked of their own accord and Dallas gripped him, pulling him closer so that Damien’s thighs spread farther and rested over his own. He wrapped one large hand around both their cocks, each of them groaning as velvet-smooth quiveringly-hard flesh was brought into contact.

Damien didn’t think he’d ever felt so aroused in his whole life. He didn’t care about being exposed, or vulnerable, or whimpering and desperate; because one look in Dallas’s eyes told him the other boy felt the same way, his fist moving over them both in a jerky blur. Dallas was panting in breathless barks, and Damien closed his eyes and bit his lip as his orgasm started. He moaned, crying out for Dallas to join him in ecstasy, and just as his come began to splatter over his chest, Dallas’s member swelled against his own as he too came strong and messily all over Damien’s taut abdomen.

Dallas let them go, and then draped himself over Damien in a slightly controlled fall, his head over the smaller boy’s heart.

“You’re amazing.” His words were lust drunk and post-coitally dreamy. “That was awesome.”

Damien moved his fingers through Dallas’s messy hair gently.

“Yeah it was.” He replied breathlessly. “Thank you.” He smiled to himself. It might’ve all gone horribly wrong, it still might do, but for now, Damien couldn’t be anything other than blissfully happy. He and Dallas had found each other, and that was enough. Damien was brought back to the moment as Dallas chuckled. “What’s so funny?”

“I was just imagining what it would have been like if we’d been nice to each other from the beginning.” He raised his head and smiled, tracing Damien’s lips with his thumb. “We would’ve hung out and got along just like our parents wanted; and that would have sucked.”

“Yeah?” Damien smiled, slightly confused as to where Dallas’s train of thought was taking them. He was grinning though, so it was probably good.

“Yeah.” Dallas hugged him harder. “I’m so fucking glad you aren’t my brother.”

Damien laughed softly.

“Me too, Dallas. Me too.”