Not My Brother - 1. Chapter 1

“You can’t eat the view Damien.” Damien turned to look at his brother, or rather, his stepbrother, grinning across the car at him, eyes mostly fixed on the road ahead.

“It’s better than just sitting staring at your ugly mug.”

“Fuck you too.” Dallas replied casually. “Look, we’ll stop at the next gas station and get something to eat, alright?”

Damien turned away and resumed staring at the view. There was a lake not far from the highway, or possibly it was a river, and the water flashed in bright moments from between thickly leafed trees. The world was in the full joys of spring, and everything was growing. It was the perfect time, as his mother had said, for a fresh start.

Damien already missed the little apartment he had spent his whole childhood in, or rather, all of the childhood he could remember from the time he was five and his father left home one day, never to return. It hadn’t been very big, which had been the reason they left. Dallas and his father had lived in another, much less lovely apartment. And who, Damien often wondered, would name their kid that? After nearly a year of dating and a couple of truly awkward dinners where Damien had to sit in fancy restaurants and pretend that he actually liked these people, Dallas and Graham had moved into their apartment.

Right from the outset it hadn’t worked, because they had one, very small, bathroom; Dallas got the tiny box room next to Damien’s, which meant his stuff was forever all over the rest of the house; and Dallas had no sense of personal space. He would wander into the bathroom to wash up while Damien was trying to brush his teeth or shave, or shower. He would amble into his room while he was trying to do homework, flop down on his bed and talk about things that Damien didn’t care about at all. Worse, he transferred to Damien’s school when he moved, instantly became involved in the uber popular jocks and cool-kids clique, and made Damien’s life hellish.

After four months of this, Graham got the opportunity to transfer out of state to a better position, a bigger office and more money. Damien could never remember what it was his stepfather actually did, but it involved money, formal suits and apparent brown-nosing. His mother had gone with Graham to check out the town, the local high-school, and had returned full of smiles to announce that they had put an offer in on a lovely little house and would be moving before the end of the semester. When asked for his opinion, Damien had replied “thrilled” in a deadpan tone, and shut himself in his room.

The gas station Dallas pulled into was a little, slightly bland mom and pop style place and while his stepbrother checked the fuel gauge and called their parents, Damien wandered into the little shop to search for things that would keep him occupied.

He had wanted to go with his mother in the jeep.

“But mom, why can’t I come with you and Graham?” Damien had managed to corner his mother away from where Dallas and his father were loading boxes into the U-haul trailer. They had decided not to use a moving company, a decision that, three beds and a sofa-set later, they were regretting.

“Because someone needs to keep Dallas company. It won’t be fun having to drive the whole way by himself.”

“He said if I even try and drive his car he’ll break my wrist.”

“He did not.” Damien mother sighed. “You two need to get along better. For god’s sake Damien, he’s your brother.”

“He is not my brother`.” Damien snorted. “I’ll be miserable if I go with him.”

“Take your sketch book and some Jolly Ranchers, and you’ll be fine.”

Except that he’d forgotten the Jolly Ranchers, Dallas had stolen and then drunk his entire bottle of coke, and his stepbrother had this habit of throwing the car unexpectedly around corners which made any sort of focused drawing totally impossible.

Damien took a red plastic shopping basket and wandered around the store. Gatorade, which he didn’t actually like, but Dallas did, more Jolly Ranchers, a roll of mint Life Savers and a packet of mini Reese’s cups. They still had at least another four hour drive ahead of them, so Damien got cola, some assorted chips and next to the cash register he found a little stand of foam ear plugs. He paid for everything, including the fuel top up that Dallas had put into the car, and wished there was any way of getting to the new house without getting back into Damien’s red Camaro.

“You didn’t have to buy the whole damn shop Dame.” Dallas grinned. “Come on, time to get back on the road.” As Damian approached the car, cursing his stepbrother in his head for his appropriation of such a hated nickname, Dallas grabbed the bag of goodies. “Ooh, Gatorade. Thanks.” He reached in and fished out the orange foam earplugs. “And what the heck are these for?”

“So I can sleep without having to listen to that crap you call music.” Damien went to snatch the item back, but Dallas was too quick. Being all-round sporty and a basketball star gave him exceptional reflexes. “Give it back Dallas.”

“Say please?” Dallas was grinning, teasing his fractionally older but much shorter stepbrother by holding the foam earplugs just out of reach.

“Dick.” Damien growled. “Fuck off.” He walked around to the passenger door and clicked the handle. “Oh come on Dallas, let’s just go already.”

Dallas replied by throwing the car keys across the roof at him.

“Sure. Your turn.”

Damien looked across the roof of his stepbrother’s prize possession cynically.

“You said I was never allowed to drive your car. I remember the threat of violence.”

Dallas shrugged, like it didn’t matter.

“I say a lot of things.” He muttered. “Just drive.”

Damien switched sides of the car and unlocked it so they could both slide into the black leather interior. On ignition, the car with filled with the deep guitar of country rock and Damien punched the off switch on the stereo. Dallas had a ‘my car, my music’ rule, but Damien figured he might have some freedom now that he was driving. He could feel Dallas watching him, the guy was super possessive about his car, and Damien concentrated on his driving, made sure the gear changes were smooth and the clutch didn’t whine at the upper reaches of the tachometer. After a while, Dallas reached over and put the radio on low, then dialled for a station that wasn’t country, or hip-hop-rock, and settled on something nice and safely generic.

Damien didn’t dare take his eyes off the road, but when he looked in the rear view mirror, the angle of the glass let him see Dallas, and his stepbrother was watching him. He looked away quickly.

There were two very simple reasons why Damien hated his stepbrother, and didn’t want to move to Witchita to live permanently in the same house as him. First was the fact Dallas was a total jock, and seemed to genuinely enjoy the company and humour of other total jocks. The second was that from the first second Damien has seen him, he had fancied the other boy rotten. Being in obvious lust with his hetero meathead stepbrother was not something Damien figured would give him a lot of prosperity, so Damien had made the decision not to like the guy, and from the second Dallas had opened his mouth, that had been getting easier and easier.

*

“Well look who dressed as Edward Scissorhands.”

“He doesn’t always wear just black.” Damien’s mother had started to apologise for him, and Damien had wished he could simply hide himself inside his jacket and give up right then and there. “Damien, this is Graham’s son, Dallas. He’s a junior too.”

“Hi.” Damien had so hoped the boy who had followed his mom’s boyfriend into the restaurant had somehow magically belonged to someone else, and therefore been a welcome eye-candy distraction during the Dinner From Hell. He was obviously running short on luck. “What school do you go to?”

“John. F. Kennedy. Let me guess, you go to Denver Arts?”

“No.”

“I told you Dallas, Damien goes to East High.”

“Do I get to go there? I kinda always wanted to be an ‘Angel’. Red and white’ll suit me too.”

“Why would you be moving to my school?” Damien had taken a physical step back from the beautiful, brash, confident boy.

“Cause our parents are in love. Co-habitation is unavoidable. I guess we’ll be brothers, or something.” Dallas had looked down at him, and Damien had the very clear image that Dallas probably picked on guys like himself all the time. “This should be fun.”

Damien had tried to get two minutes of peace in between courses by retreating to the men’s bathroom, but Dallas had wandered in while he was washing his hands and stood leaning against the counter with his thumbs in his pockets. When Damien had moved to walk past him, Dallas had blocked his path with a shoulder in his sternum.

“Excuse me?”

“What’s with all the black anyway? Are you one of those scene-kids or what? Please don’t tell me you normally wear fuckin’ make up or something.”

“What?”

“I’ve seen those kids in eyeliner with their stupid falling-in-your-face hair.” Dallas made some rude and dismissive gesture with one hand. “They wear those stupid skinny jeans like you do. You’re not a girl, your legs are supposed to be thicker than your damn wrist.”

“Oh like you would know anything about fashion?”

“Like you would know anything about girls!” Dallas grinned. “Your mom might not have realised yet, but I know you’re a faggot.”

“Meathead.” It occurred to Damien that goading a boy who could easily use him as a punching bag for the next few years might not have been a smart move. “You are not my brother.”

“Uh-huh.”

Damien walked around the other boy, and as he tried not to hurry for the door, he could feel Dallas’s bright green eyes burning a hole in the back of his head.

*

“You alright there Dame?” Dallas leant back in his seat to watch his stepbrother drive, looking smug. “You’re gonna get frown lines if you keep concentrating that hard.”

“Will you not fucking call me that?”

“Sorry Dame.”

“Seriously Dallas? Could you be any more of a total douche right now? I will wreck your car if you call me that again.” Damien wiggled the steering wheel just enough to change direction, but nowhere near enough to even have the wheels touch the white line.

“Fine, fine. Don’t get your panties in a twist Damien.”

“Fuck you.”

“Have it your way.” Dallas leant over and switched the radio back to full on country. Damien hated that he’d heard enough of the stuff now to recognise it as Tyler Farr’s latest album, and even more annoying was that he now knew most of the words. “You know, I don’t hate you nearly as much as you think I do.”

“Yeah sure.”

“Yeah, actually.” Dallas rummaged around in the grocery bag, took the top off the cola bottle and handed it over to Damien.

“You and your knucklehead jocks have made my life hell every single day this semester. They never used to take much notice of me until you showed up.”

“And do you know how many times I’ve defended you?” Dallas growled.

“Like you would.” Damien changed gears without flooring the clutch and the mechanics under the floor crunched noisily.

“Pull over Dame.”

“I said don’t call me that!”

“PULL OVER!”

“Fine!” Damien glanced in the mirror then wrenched the wheel hard and killed the engine with a harsh jolt. “Drive your own fucking stupid car!” He threw the keys at Dallas and scrambled out of the red Camaro even as his stepbrother reached for him. Dallas practically snarled and threw open his own door.

“What the fuck are you gonna do? Walk the rest of the way to Witchita?”

“Better than being in there with you!”

Dallas exhaled violently, clenching his fists.

“For fuck’s sake Damien; I’ve been in more detentions for getting into fights over you than even my dad knows about. Why do you think no one had ever tried to beat on you, even though you make yourself such an easy fuckin’ target?”

Damien pushed his fingers through his hair with a snarl.

“Just because I don’t wear a letterman jacket and play sports does not make me your personal punch bag!”

Dallas glared at him, and for the first time, Damien worried his stepbrother might just pass over that last dividing line into genuine violence.

“You wanna think the worst of me, go ahead. You can walk back to Denver for all I care.” He slammed the door as he got into the Camaro, gunned the engine and pulled away with a flash of tail lights.

Damien watched him go, for about two hundred yards, and then Dallas slammed on the brakes and stopped the car. Damien ran after him.

“You wouldn’t actually leave me.” He closed the door and reached around for his seatbelt.

“Yeah, I’m not a total dick.” Dallas’s ordinarily confident tone had vanished, and Damien stopped to look at him. Another thing he did was never really to look at Dallas too closely, lest his imagination take hold of the rest of him, but now he really looked at his stepbrother. Dallas looked like a man on the verge of tears. “You don’t always have to be so damn spiky y’know Damien.”

“Just drive.” Damien wrapped his arms around his torso, because the way Dallas was looking at him made him feel like all of his secrets were exposed. “C’mon Dallas, let’s go.”

Dallas took a deep breath, lent over the distance of the car, and kissed him. It should have been wonderful, and even as it was happening Damien reflected that he should be enjoying the texture of Dallas’s lips and the tangy-sweet Gatorade flavour of him, but he was too busy with the idea that this must be some new and humiliating prank. He pushed Dallas’s greater weight off of him.

“What the fuck?”

Dallas shook his head, started the engine, and pulled cleanly out onto the highway without saying a word.

“Dallas! What the fuck was that for?” Damien was winding himself up to be well and truly angry with the other boy. That had been, well not quite his first kiss, but certainly one that he had looked forwards to and doubted he would ever get. And now he was too angry to enjoy it.

“Why did you think I was so keen to move Damien?” I thought East high was going to be a fresh start, but I already had a reputation. We’re going to a place where no one knows us, no one has ever heard of me and I’ve not played against any of them. It’s my opportunity to be different.”

“How different?” Damien stared at his stepbrother with a disbelieving expression.

“Very different.” Dallas exhaled, finally. “Now hand me the map and put something else on the stereo. And none of that scene shit you’re so fond of.”

Damien thought of retorting, but decided against it. There were still more than two hundred miles between them and their destination, and that was the last thing either of them said for several hours.

*

“Damien, why don’t you help Graham start building some of furniture upstairs? Dallas, you can help me with the last few boxes from the trailer OK?”

Damien nodded at his mother, and began to follow his stepfather upstairs. She was always looking for ways for them all to bond with each other. “Did you have a nice trip with your stepbrother?”

“He’s not my brother.” Came Damien’s standard reply. Graham was waiting at the entrance to his new room. His and Dallas’s were next to each other, and they shared a bathroom across the hall. Damien would have almost preferred to move into the box room which his mother was going to have as her home-office just so he wouldn’t have to share a wall with Dallas. Their parents got the third floor.

“Let’s start in your room shall we champ?” Graham held up two of the legs that would make up Damien’s double bed. “You know if we’d hired a moving company, they’d have done all this for us.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, where would be the fun in that, eh?”

Damien rolled his eyes.

“Indeed.”

His mom and Dallas returned from dropping off the trailer around ten, thankful that the U-haul had an after-hours drop policy, and they had Chinese takeout and satay chicken. The four of them ate at the breakfast bar, standing up because they couldn’t reach any of the chairs from behind a wall of boxes.

“We don’t actually have to go to school tomorrow?” Dallas asked, fighting with his chopsticks. Damien, who had never mastered whatever art you needed for Asian culterly, passed him a plastic fork.

“Yeah mom, no one will know if we’re a day late. We can unpack everything and build the rest of the furniture.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Sandra…”

“No. They are both going to school. I’ll drive you boys in, and we have a meeting with your new principal at nine am.”

“But-”

“No buts mister. Except you two need to get your butts upstairs and into bed. Big day tomorrow. Make sure you know where your school clothes are.”

Damien decided to avoid his stepbrother’s immediate attention, brushed his teeth and dug through a box looking for something for the following day.

“Those are mine.” Dallas threw his shirt across the room, running his fingers through his damp hair. He’d obviously had a quick shower before invading Damien’s room in only his open flied jeans. “I think labelling the boxes ‘D’s clothes’ wasn’t such a great plan.” Dallas grabbed for a box and opened it up. “I think these are probably yours. Please don’t wear skinny jeans tomorrow.”

“I wasn’t going to.” Damien sighed and took his clothes. “What the heck are you doing in my room anyway? Don’t you have your own?”

“Yeah, but there’s no furniture in it. I’m sleeping here.”

“You are not.” Damien stared at his bed. “No. No way.”

“Get over it Damien.” Dallas hit the light switch and shucked out of his jeans. “I am not sleeping on the floor just ‘cause you and my dad are crap at putting furniture together.”

Damien climbed into the bed, shuffled firmly to one edge, and tucked the quilt along his side. He had tried to avoid thinking about everything that had happened since Dallas had let him back in the Camaro. Events like having his stepbrother, who he hated, Damien reminded himself, kiss him and make some big speech about being different, were not things that Damien had ever predicted. And now here they were in the dark, and the guy Damien despised and spent his time trying not to imagine naked, was getting into his bed. And his body was having a very predictable reaction to this.

“Damien?”

Damien didn’t answer him.

“Damien?” Dallas sighed. “I know you’re not asleep already… Dame!”

“What?” Damien hissed into the dark without turning over. There was no way he wanted to reveal what the presence of Dallas, so close and so undressed, was doing to his anatomy. He was not prepared for the heat of Dallas’s hand on his shoulder.

“Can we please talk about this?”

Damien rolled over making very sure the quilt was still hiding his body.

“What? We don’t need to talk about anything.”

“Oh…” Dallas looked genuinely shocked, and his expression faded rather quickly into a blurry space between anger and upset. “Night then.”

“Goodnight.” Damien rolled over, and wondered how he was ever going to get to sleep.

*

When Damien woke, it was pitch black, so he grabbed his phone on the way to the bathroom and checked the time as he relieved himself. It was four in the morning, which way too early to be up, and as he yawned he realised he wasn’t awake yet anyway. Damien flushed, washed in a cursory sort of manner, and abandoned his phone by the sink as he returned to his room. Bed was soft and comfortable and warm, and Damien snuggled into his pillow as he started to drift off again. Dallas wrapped his free arm over his stepbrother’s waist and pulled him close.

Dallas.

In his bed.

“That’s not my pillow is it?” His reply was a sleepy murmur, but Damien managed to roll over and look directly up at Dallas. The other boy was still lying with an arm wrapped around him, and Damien was indeed using his shoulder as a pillow. Gently, he tried to back away, but found Dallas’s grip tightening automatically. “Dallas? Let go.”

“Comfy.” Dallas was apparently keen on staying as asleep as possible. “Stay.”

“Uh-huh…”Damien took a deep breath, praying that he was imagining all the blood rushing towards his groin. He wasn’t. “Dallas, please…”

As his eyes began to adjust to the dark, Damien saw his bed-mate open one eye and smile softly. It was not an expression he generally associated with his stepbrother, and there was no cool calculation, or loud pride, or anger, annoyance, cockiness, or smarm to his gesture. Just a soft happiness Damien found beautiful and endearing. Before he’d really stopped to think about it, he found his hand cupping Dallas’s cheek, and he leant up to kiss him gently.

“Mmmm…” Dallas brought Damien closer in his arms. “Tasty Damien.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah…” Dallas kissed him back, slow and wet and Damien found it easy to simply open up when Dallas did, both of them moaning softly as they explored each other. Kissing Dallas was like the sweetest dream he’d ever had.

Damien let his hands roam over the other boy’s chest, delighting in his developed musculature. Dallas’s hugging arm drifted lower, and when Damien scooted forwards, he felt the hard heat of Dallas’s arousal against his stomach. Dallas smiled in the dark and rolled Damien onto his back. Half hauling him up so that his head was back on the pillows and somehow negating their height difference. When his weight settled, his erection was pressed alongside Damien’s own.

“Dallas?”

“Mmm?” The other boy wrapped his arms under Damien’s neck and shoulders.

“Kiss me?”

“Yes.”

Damien put his fingers into his stepbrother’s messy hair and kissed him back. It was easy, warm and wet and soft, each of them taking turns to concede territory and invade, building heat and pleasure between their bodies. When Dallas began to grind gently against him, Damien groaned into his mouth, because the sharp pleasure was the perfect counterpoint to the stoked embers that were setting a fire in his crotch.

“Damien…” Dallas was panting, and his arms either side of Damien’s head were tense. “Oh Dame…”

Damien kissed him again, holding his jaw, pushing himself into his partner. He told himself it was to stifle Dallas’s moans, so their parents would not hear, but really he wanted the pleasure which Dallas was feeling, wanted to be absorbed in the hot raw joy of sex. When he felt the first warm, wet pulse of Dallas’s orgasm seep through two layers of cotton boxers, it was enough to make him let go. He kissed the other boy as he came.

They fell apart panting, suddenly hot and sweaty in their post-orgasmic bliss, and for a moment Damien was appalled by what they had done and equally petrified that Dallas would simply roll over and go back to sleep as though none of it mattered. Ten seconds later, he found himself pulled back onto Dallas’s chest and shoulder. It was surprisingly comfortable position, and Damien smiled to himself as he heard and felt Dallas’s speedy heartbeat begin to slow in time with his own.

“Damien?”

“Hmm?”

“You were so busy being spiky…” Dallas yawned like a lion in the middle of his sentence. “…I never got a chance to tell you how hot you are.”

“Dallas?”

“Mmmm?” They were both already losing their tenuous grip on consciousness.

“I’m glad you’re not my brother.”