Flux - 1. Chapter 1

May 31, 2002

Escorial, CA

I walked down the hall, trying to fight my somber mood, but it was so hard. So fucking hard. It had been eight and a half months since I’d lost Robbie, eight and a half long, miserable months. During the entire time, I’d have moments where I’d be doing fine, thinking that I finally had a handle on things, that I’d finally managed to adapt to his loss, and then the grief would attack me from out of the blue. Sometimes it would be triggered by something, but sometimes it would just blindside me.

Yesterday I’d been hit with it pretty hard, because they’d announced an official end to the cleanup efforts in New York City. The cleanup itself had been an amazing undertaking. They’d hauled away more than 108,000 truckloads of debris, some 1.8 million tons of steel and concrete, and deposited it at the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island. They’d managed to complete it three months sooner than predicted and at a cost of $750 million. All of that was good news, but it had just emphasized the finality of Robbie’s loss.

I’d tackled that, taking two steps forward and one step back, knowing that he wasn’t coming back, even as my brain played games with me and told me to hold out hope. I didn’t really believe there was any hope, but in my subconscious mind, that hope was there, and it was persistent, like an insect infestation that couldn’t quite be eradicated. Yesterday’s news had finally killed the last remnants of my hope.

I stepped into the bathroom and dried my eyes, trying to get my composure together. I thought I managed to do a pretty good job of things. I’d just come walking out of the bathroom when I ran into something, or more to the point, stepped in something: a can. The can contained a liquid of sorts, one that smelled awful, but I didn’t have time to really process that because I was too busy falling. I landed on the hard floor with a thump, then looked back to see the trail of carnage behind me. “Fuck!” I heard a male voice yell, and saw a guy start grabbing towels to wipe up the mess.

I must have knocked over a can of solvent, and it had spread across the floor, and all over my pants and shoes, while some had even splattered on my jacket. I managed to pull myself up, even though my hip hurt where I landed on it, and stared down at my Savile Row suit, which was now all but ruined. “What the hell? That shit is a hazard!” I shouted at the guy.

“I know it’s a hazard,” he said, barely looking up at me as he wiped up the floor. “That’s why I put out the orange cones to alert people.”

“I didn’t see any orange cones,” I said, although as I looked over toward where I’d spilled the solvent, they’d been there, along with some caution tape. “You ruined my fucking suit. This thing cost a fortune!”

“Yeah, well you cost me a gallon of stripping solvent, and probably fucked up the floor as well, and that’s not cheap either,” he said.

“It’s not my fault you were careless with your shit!”

I guess I’d pissed him off enough that he stopped wiping up the solvent and stood up to face me, although that wasn’t quite accurate. I’m about six feet tall, but this guy was at least two inches taller than me. He had brown hair, with a day’s growth of beard on his face, which was long and thin, but slightly pear-shaped. Angry brown eyes glared out at me, over a nice straight nose. I let my eyes trail down briefly to look at the rest of him: at his fit body, the body of a man who worked with his hands for a living. He was wearing a white T-shirt that bulged in the arms from his big biceps, and in the front where his pecs pushed it out. The painter’s pants he wore hung on his body perfectly, almost making me laugh to think how much I’d have to spend on tailoring to get clothes to look that good on me. “I wasn’t careless, you were, and you don’t have to be a dick,” he said.

“And just what is going on here?” JP asked, as he came into the room. He was the man who had raised me, and one of the men I considered to be my father. Escorial, this massive house that sat on top of twenty acres of land in the Palo Alto Hills, this palace that we called home, belonged to him. He was still fit, even for a man who would turn sixty-six in less than a month, and he had naturally youthful skin that had always made him seem younger than he was. A professor at nearby Stanford University, he was one of the smartest men I’d ever known. Perhaps even more important than his intelligence was his demeanor, his calm and even manner that was rarely ruffled.

“Look, if you don’t want me to do this job, that’s fine,” the guy said, tossing a towel down on the floor.

“That certainly is not the case,” JP said, looking at me.

“He left his solvent out in the middle of the hallway, and I stepped in it, ruining my suit, and these shoes,” I said. It bothered me that I sounded like a five-year-old, tattling.

“And just like I told you I would, Dr. Crampton, I put out warning cones and tape so people would notice I was working here,” the guy said to JP. JP looked back at the cones and tape, and then looked back at me.

“I’m going to go change,” I said in a huff.

“And after you are done, I would like to speak with you in my study,” he said coldly. I guess if I was going to tattle, it made sense that I would get scolded too. I didn’t acknowledge him; I just went back to my room. I’d planned to come home, have a late lunch, and go back to the office, but I was too fucked up to do that, so I called in and cancelled the rest of my day. Then, with a comfortable pair of jeans on, I headed to JP’s study.

“You wanted to see me?” I asked acidly.

“I think that when you make a mistake, you should apologize for it, instead of blaming someone else,” he said curtly. “And I think that is even more important when it is someone who works for us.”

“But…” I started to argue.

“Ben had cones and tape out marking his work area. You are at fault here,” he said adamantly. Ben must be the guy’s name, the guy whose solvent I’d spilled.

I sat down with a thud and sighed. “Fine,” I relented, caving to the fact that he was right. Then the anger started to fade, and I knew what would come next. Something else Will and I had in common. And the tears started at the worst possible time. There was a knock on the study door.

“Enter,” JP said.

“Dr. Crampton, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but the solvent ate into the floors. I think I can spot repair them, but if you want them to really look good, they’re going to have to be re-done,” I heard him say.

“I do not remember ever refinishing them, so they are probably more than due,” JP said calmly.

“I think they could use it, and you’d be pretty happy with them once they’re done,” he said. “If you want me to handle that, I’ll try to get a crew in to work on them. I’m not sure if we can get it all done by the party on July 14th.”

“It is vital that we do,” JP insisted.

“Let me get some guys in here. I’ll see if I can work around them,” he said. “If something has to give, I’m thinking the panels in the dining room are in the best shape. I can work on those after the party.”

“I agree,” JP said. I’d had my head in my hands the whole time, trying unsuccessfully to stop the tears, but JP must not have noticed my struggle. “I do not think you have formally met my son, Bradley, even though you’ve run into each other.”

I stood up and wiped off my face with my sleeves in a pretty crass gesture, then held out my hand. “Brad Schluter.”

“Ben Carter,” he said, and took my hand, shaking it firmly. He had a strong grip, but not crushing. He looked at me and saw the fucking tears still around my eyes and got concerned. “Dude, don’t worry about the floors. We’ll get them fixed.”

It took me a second to figure out that he thought I was upset because of the floors and the solvent, and that made me smile, then chuckle. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. It’s not your fault I was clumsy.”

He gave me a slight grin, one that was lopsided, and absolutely adorable. “You just weren’t paying attention. I’ll try to put tape higher up so you see it.”

“Has anyone else run into your solvent?” I asked.

“No.”

“Then you did what you were supposed to do,” I told him. “It’s my fault, not yours, but now that I know you’re there, I’ll make sure to pay better attention.”

“Undoubtedly,” JP said, his double-entendre obvious to me but not to Ben. To cover his slip up, he changed the subject. “Ben is an expert carpenter, and specializes in wood restoration.” There were so many horrible jokes I could make about that, but I refrained.

“So what are you working on?” I asked him.

“The Great Hall,” he answered. “Those panels are beautiful. They’re over five hundred years old, and they’re in great shape.”

“As you know, I won’t let Stef redecorate the Great Hall,” JP interjected. Stef was his partner, and the other father figure in my life. He would turn fifty-seven this July 14th, but he refused to talk about it. Stef hated aging more than anything; we’d never had a birthday party for him, or any kind of celebration. His birthday was on Bastille Day, and every year we hosted a huge party here to celebrate that French holiday. Most of us just assumed we were celebrating Stef’s birthday as well, but we didn’t risk his wrath by saying anything. Stefan was not only younger than JP, he looked younger. Part of that was the cosmetic surgery he used to fight back against the ravages of time, but the other part was his naturally effervescent and bubbly personality. One of the richest men in the world, Stef prided himself on his taste in clothes, décor, and men. And he detested the dark wood décor in the Great Hall. He loved to redecorate, and he had been yearning to redo the Great Hall ever since JP had bought Escorial in 1968. But JP had insisted that he leave that room alone, thriving on it’s traditional but gothic feel.

“That’s been an ongoing argument for as long as I can remember,” I said to Ben. He chuckled.

“It appears that Stef’s biggest complaint about that room, that the walls are dark and dreary, can be remedied by returning the paneling to its natural oak color. That’s what we’ve engaged Ben to do.”

“You think you can lighten them up that much?” I asked Ben.

“I can, but I have to be careful to strip off the finish without hurting the carved wood,” he said.

“That’s pretty exciting,” I said, trying to visualize the Great Hall with walls that weren’t dark brown. “I really am sorry I messed up the floors, and spilled your solvent.”

“I’m sorry I upset you,” he said, in a very gentle way.

“You didn’t upset me, you pissed me off,” I joked, getting that grin back. “I was upset for a different reason.”

“I’ll leave you guys alone,” Ben said. “I have to make some phone calls for that floor.” I watched him as he walked out of the room. There was something about this guy: a serenity that intrigued me.

“I’ll think of a way to make it up to him,” I said, referring to my rudeness.

“Perhaps if you would just keep Will away from him, that would be a good enough service,” JP joked. “And Stef. I think those two spend most of their free time flirting with him.”

“Hard to blame them,” I said. “He’s a handsome guy.”

JP looked at me blankly for a bit. “I will see you at dinner,” he said, all but dismissing me, so he could get some work done.

I was going to try to track Ben down and figure out a way to make it up to him for being so rude, but he was talking on the phone, so I left him alone and went back to my room. I did something I rarely did these days, something that was slightly restorative: I took a nap.

I woke up in time to get ready for dinner. Dinner at Escorial was at seven o’clock, unless there was some unusual circumstance. JP was the lord of the manor, and he thrived on organization and punctuality. If you were late, it would get you a very unpleasant look, and possibly an unpleasant comment. Such was the respect we all had for him; it was rare for the inhabitants of this veritable palace to be late.

I walked into the big dining room and, after the encounter with Ben, looked at the room as if for the first time. The walls were covered with beautiful paneling, although not as ornate as the panels in the Great Hall. Those had been imported from Europe, from an old monastery. The huge dining room table dominated the room, but it had been scaled back for this Friday night, where a smaller crowd gathered around it. Beautiful crystal sparkled on the table, while the tasteful china and sterling silver utensils all but gleamed.

None of those ornaments sparkled and radiated as much as Will did. He was in the middle of a conversation with JP. “I am done! Last day of classes! The start of summer!” he said enthusiastically. “Next year, I’m a junior!” He would turn sixteen in September, but looked like he was already eighteen, at least. He’d been an early bloomer, and his rapid maturation had caused us some unpleasant conflicts. We’d put those behind us, for the most part, and in addition to being my son, he’d become an indispensable part of my support network. He looked like me, with dark brown hair and green eyes, but he was more handsome than I was, even at that age. And he was taller than me, pushing 6’2” after this latest growth spurt.

“I fear you are ahead of me,” JP said. Stanford was on the quarter system, so they ran a bit longer, going until mid-June.

“And what are your plans for the summer?” Stef asked Will.

“I’m going to stick around and make sure Wade graduates,” Will said, smirking at Wade, “then I’m taking Zach to Hawaii.”

“I’ll graduate,” Wade said confidently, as well he should. He wasn’t related to any of us, but we included him in our family, and treated him as such. He was going to graduate on Father’s Day, June 16th, from Stanford. He was an excellent student, so there was no real risk he wouldn’t finish up. “But you should stay for the party.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Will said.

“So while you’re kicking off your summer, I have to finish off the rest of this semester, and then finals start,” Wade said glumly.

“Classes conclude on the 5^th, and finals start on the 7^th,” JP augmented.

“Sucks to be you,” Will said to Wade. I tended to agree with him.

June 5, 2002

Stanford University, CA

“Thanks ladies,” I said, as we walked into the A-Ho house.

“Giving those two beers is a total waste of money,” Nora said. She was this hot chick, but in a bookish kind of way. She was minoring in economics, and I’d taken a bunch of classes with her.

“No shit,” Carissa said, rolling her eyes. She was Nora’s bitchy brunette friend.

“And you know that’s not true,” I said to Nora, winking at her. “You got an hour for me to prove it to you?”

“An hour? Right,” she said, flirting with me.

“I like to take my time,” I said, moving a little closer to her, and lowering my voice. We were getting to this party late, and most of the people here were already hammered. It was entirely possible for Nora to take some time away from the door for some fun.

She swallowed slightly, inadvertently showing me how she so wanted me. Carissa cleared her throat, and gave Nora a contemptuous look, being a total cock-blocker by non-verbally telling Nora not to even think about fucking me. Nora looked at her, and then turned back to me with a sneer. “Have fun, Matt.”

I chuckled as we walked away. “Dude, we just got here and you already got shot down,” Tony said, giving me shit.

“Dude, we’re here at this party, drinking their booze. I so did not strike out,” I said, shoulder bumping him. Tony and I got along pretty well. The only time we fucked around was if we were drunk, or when one of us brought someone home. If we did that, brought someone home, we were planning a threesome. For the most part, we were like two wolves on the prowl, sometimes together, sometimes alone. As a roommate, he was an easy person to live with. He was neat, but not obsessively so; he did his thing, I did my thing, and we didn’t get in each other’s way. It was a very relaxed, masculine relationship.

I got a big shock when we walked out onto the patio. There, tossing back a shot, and chasing it with a beer, was Wade. The semester had just ended, and finals started on Friday, yet here he was, partying. That was so unlike him. Wade was always responsible, and always together. “You sure you want to be here?” Tony asked, as he spotted Wade too.

“Why the fuck wouldn’t I want to be here?” I snapped.

“Whatever,” he said. “I’ll catch up with you.” He strutted off, probably chasing after someone, or maybe just giving me space to deal with Wade.

I stood off to the side, watching Wade, admiring how refined and handsome he was. And how charming. God, how I missed him. There were times like this where I yearned to be with him again, but that wasn’t happening: we weren’t happening. I’d gotten that. I’d tried to apologize for what happened at Christmas, but he just blew me off, telling me to forget about it. But every time I’d seen him, he’d get really apprehensive and uptight, and he’d do what he did when I first called him out for being gay. He’d run away and avoid me.

I knew Wade so well, and I knew that the only way I’d ever be able to be a part of his life was to just be his friend, and before I did that, I had to convince him that I wasn’t in love with him. Such a passive approach was incredibly hard for someone like me, who usually takes the bull by the horns, but I’d done it. When I saw him at Tressider, or the library, I’d just nod and keep my distance. Gradually, he’d been able to relax around me, realizing that I wasn’t going to try and corner him and have some meaningful conversation with him, professing my undying love for him, and begging him to take me back. I may have felt all those things, but it was stupid to admit it, when all it would do was widen the gulf between us. My pride should have stopped me too, but that really wouldn’t have mattered. For Wade, I would swallow my pride.

My efforts had paid off, to the point where we’d actually say ‘hi’ to each other in passing. And just last week, I’d actually had a brief conversation with him, asking him about law school. He was going to Harvard. He was the only one who was nervous about his getting admitted there; the rest of us knew it was a done deal. Who could turn down a guy who was from one of the richest, most powerful, and oldest families in the country? What institution would reject a guy like that who was a great student with a kick-ass LSAT score? Not Harvard. They were smarter than that.

I stopped daydreaming and focused on Wade, and on the party. There was a creepy dude next to the keg, the kind of guy who looked like a predator: someone who waited for people to get really fucked up then took advantage of them. How the fuck he got in here was beyond me; probably because he was only creepy with other dudes, so the sisters didn’t notice. He handed Wade another shot. Wade took it, and now I was getting a little worried about him. He was pretty fucked up already, and he’d just done two shots in quick succession. He wasn’t a lightweight, but he’d obviously already had a lot to drink. I watched him chug a beer, then he started to sway. Wade never let himself lose control like this. I’d gone from looking at him in a longing kind of way, to just studying him, to getting pretty worried about him.

This was the time when he needed a friend to save him. He wouldn’t want to deal with me when he was like this, so I looked around for someone else, one of our buddies who could help out, but they weren’t around. That was typical, I thought with a frown. He probably came here with a bunch of the guys from the team, and they’d found chicks to fuck and had bailed on him. It was ironic that I’d stayed on the hockey team while Wade had quit, but at the same time, he hung around with those guys socially more than I did.

“What’s with Wade?” Tony asked, surprising me by coming up next to me suddenly.

“He’s fucked up. I’m gonna help him. I’ll see you later.”

He nodded. “See you back at the room.” He turned and left, because he must have figured out he wasn’t going to find what he was looking for at a sorority party, unless he wanted to blow a straight dude who had just been rejected by a sister. Now that Tony was out of the closet, he was gay, totally gay. I still enjoyed being with women sometimes, so these parties offered me some potential. Tony was totally disinterested in women.

I braced myself, and walked up to Wade. “Hey,” I said to him.

“Matt!” he said enthusiastically, and then remembered that he wasn’t supposed to like me, and kind of froze up.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“I’m busy,” he slurred. He was nervous, because he thought I wanted to have the ‘I still love you’ conversation with him, and he knew he was too drunk to deal with that. It irritated me that he thought I was that pathetic.

“Just for a minute,” I said. “Please?” As much as Wade didn’t want to have that conversation, if I asked him like I just had, I knew he’d do it. No way he’d turn down my direct request to talk to him; he was too polite for that. I could see Wade wavering, about to agree to go have a conversation with me; but so could the guy who’d been feeding him shots.

“He said to fuck off,” the creepy dude said, getting in my face. That was laughable.

“Dude, I will kick your ass all over this fucking house,” I said to him firmly. “Get the fuck out of here!”

It was like he looked at me for the first time and now that I was pissed, my nose was flaring and my muscles were bulging, he backed off. “I’m fine,” Wade slurred at him to keep us from actually fighting, and then he walked, or more accurately, staggered away from the keg, dragging me with him. “What?”

“No matter how I say this, it’s gonna piss you off, so I’m just gonna say it. You’re really fucked up, and you’re starting to make an ass out of yourself.”

“Seriously?” he asked, all pissed off. “You wanted to talk to me to tell me that? You pull me aside to be a fucking buzz-kill?”

I made him look into my eyes. “If I was at a party, and I was totally fucked up, and I was making an ass out of myself, and I was being hit on by some creepy guy who kept forcing me to take shots, would you help me out?”

He blinked at me, some sober logic piercing through his drunken veil, and smiled slightly. “Probably.”

“Come on,” I said, chuckling. “This buzz-kill is going to drive you home.”

“You don’t have to,” he objected.

I put my arm around his back to hold him up, making sure I did it like a bro would, not like I used to. “Come on,” I repeated.

He let me lead him out of the house, and unfortunately that caused a bit of a buzz, as people saw us leaving together. They probably thought that meant we were together again, or that we were going to hook up and that would be the big gossip story flying around our groups of friends. I’d get all this gossip attention, and I wouldn’t get laid, I thought with a rueful smile. “I can call for a ride,” Wade said, after we were about a block away from the house.

“It’s no big deal,” I said.

“I don’t want you to have to leave the party for me,” he said, then got this alarmed look on his face and staggered into the bushes, where he started puking. I stood there laughing at him. “Asshole!” he shouted, then he puked again, and I laughed harder. He finally gave me a wry smile. “I’ll probably puke in your GMC.”

“Then I’ll get it steam cleaned,” I said philosophically.

“Did I really make an ass out of myself?” he asked me, letting down his guard a bit.

“No. But that dude kept feeding you shots, and it was going to get ugly.”

“Thanks,” he said, and hugged me with his arm, then got all nervous again. “But really, you don’t…”

I cut him off. “I’m going to drive you home, I’m going to take you to your room, I’m going to strip off your shorts and your shirt, I’m going to toss you in the bed,” I said, in a rising crescendo, like I was building up to some big seduction. “Then I’m going to kiss you on the cheek and leave.”

He laughed. “On the cheek?” he taunted, flirting back with me like he used to, then he seemed to realize what he’d said and freaked out.

“That’s my limit,” I told him. “You just puked. I’m not kissing your nasty mouth.”

“Whatever,” he said, pretending to be annoyed. We got to the GMC and I helped him in, and pulled the seat belt around him. His shirt had ridden up when I put him in the SUV, so when I went to buckle the seat belt, my hand brushed against his smooth skin, sending tingles up my arm. I was worried that even drunk, he’d see through me, and see how into him I still was. But he was oblivious, and passed out almost as soon as the vehicle started moving.

I drove up to Escorial, stealing glances at him, marveling at his handsome, chiseled features. I was the biggest fucking idiot in the world, letting him get away. Maybe there was a chance. Maybe he still cared about me. I shrugged that off. He cared about me, but that was it. We were over. I had to deal with it. Doing this, being with him, was just torture. But even though I knew that, I knew I couldn’t resist him. He was toxic: he drew me in and hurt me.

I hadn’t been up to Escorial for a couple of months, and even then I’d been careful to avoid everyone and just go see Stef and JP. They’d looked at me and I could see the disappointment in their expressions, sad at how badly I’d fucked up my life. That had been too much to bear, so I’d avoided them too, staying away so I didn’t have to face them, and face myself. As I drove up to the entrance, I was almost surprised that my transponder still worked; the gates swung open for me like they always had. I drove up and parked in the front, since it was closer to Wade’s room if I went through the entry foyer than if I parked in the back.

I got out and opened his door, then undid the seat belt. I pulled one of his arms around my neck and used that as leverage to heave him out of the GMC. “Help me out, Wade,” I said, but he was pretty out. It was all I could do to drag him along. I was just about to open the front door when it opened for me. As bad as my luck had been lately, it just got worse, as I found myself eye to eye with Will.

Will was probably the equivalent of my stepbrother. His father, Brad, and my biological father, Robbie, had been partners before Robbie died during the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York. We’d never really gotten along all that well, and last year, when he’d been helping Tony climb out of his closet and announce his gayness to the world, Will had declared him off limits. And in what was one of the most stupid things I’d ever done, I took that as a challenge, and I fucked Tony. It would be more accurate to say Tony fucked me, as he was a total top. He’d never bottomed, at least as far as I knew. That was fine with me, because I enjoyed a good ride, and boy did Tony know how to do that. But as good as sex with Tony had been, and as good a friend as he’d been to me, it hadn’t been worth it. I’d given up everything for a bunch of wild nights of sex with him, or with him and another dude we’d brought home. Looking into Will’s eyes, and seeing his contempt, just reminded me of how much that error in judgment had cost me.