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Author: Kiki (Hey-Diddle-Diddle)
Genre: Gen/Drama
AN: Ahem. Here we go. This is my current original works baby. I started it last November as a NaNoWriMo fic, and I'm now polishing it up, working it into something a little more finished. To date, it's approximately 60,000 words, so it will be pretty long when it's finished.
Warnings: This story deals with homosexual relations, emotional trauma, and more.
That said, I hope you enjoy my story. Please, let me know what you think. Thanks!
ETA: The story breaks disappeared mid-transit, and they've now been found and situated into place.
Kids in his classes would sometimes watch him, but mostly, they seemed to forget that he was there. He wasn’t good for a laugh, or a poke of fun. Sometimes, on extremely good days, he’d say hello, but that was about it.
Zachary was intrigued.
The day it started was the night of a football game. The Ravens had won, 21 to 13, and minutes after the call, a fight had broken out in the parking lot. It escalated, until all the boys were whooping, pushing and shoving and punching, and the girls were screaming, running and laughing hysterically. Zachary had been shoving his way through to his car, and had been blocked by a mass of bodies, flying limbs and angry faces. A body had slammed into his, pushing him off balance, and he grabbed the boy, using him to keep himself upright. The boy had shrugged his hands off, pushing, and Zachary had stepped back, wary of fists hitting flesh.
“Who’re you?” the boy asked, barely audible over the roar of voices. Zachary had shoved his hands into his pockets, slouching, and gave a slow smile.
“Zachary. Zachary Brenner.”
The boy had given him a thoughtful look, then turned, pushing his way back into the crowd. Zachary had watched for a moment, then turned, heading towards his car.
The next week, he saw the boy in the hall once, then twice. Soon, it seemed that every time he turned around, the boy was walking past him, or away from him, or just standing there, looking vaguely lost. The second week after the fight, Zachary caught the boy by the arm as he was passing him, turning the boy until they were facing each other. The boy looked at him blankly, then slowly narrowed his eyes, thoughtful.
“You were at the fight,” he stated, and Zachary let go of his arm, shifting on his feet.
“What’s your name?” he asked quickly, glancing up at the clock in the hallway. Minutes until class.
“Ian Hadley,” the boy said. He shifted on his feet as well, glancing at his watch. “I’m sure I should know your name, but I don’t, and I have to get to class, and-”
“Wanna fuck?” Zachary interrupted carelessly, smiling when Ian’s head whipped up. The boy looked stunned and Zachary made an effort to not touch him, shoving his hands into his pockets.
“The hell? I don’t- I don’t even know you.” Ian’s voice was sharp, loud, and it echoed in the empty hall. Zachary clenched his hands into fists inside his pockets, then loosened them.
“Zachary Brenner. You already said we met at the fight. You know me.”
“No,” Ian snapped, “I obviously don’t. And besides, I’m not gay.” His shoulders were pulled up high and tension oozed from his stature.
“Neither am I,” Zachary interrupted smoothly, reaching out to grab Ian’s arm, trying to ignore the way his hand was shaking. “Come on.”
He’d expected a fight from Ian, for the boy to at least throw his hands off, but Ian stumbled after him when he tugged, leading the boy out the doors. They cut across the lawn, moving towards the parking lot, and Zachary led Ian through the maze of cars, twisting and turning until they were standing next to his. He let go of Ian’s arm, fingers feeling as though they were on fire, and shoved his hand into his pocket again, clutching his keys. Two tries and he got the doors unlocked, another fumble and the doors were open, and he was standing back, watching Ian.
Ian looked lost, just like always. He grabbed the straps of his backpack, tugged at it a bit, then looked over at Zachary.
“Just like that?” he asked, voice almost empty. Zachary grinned madly and Ian looked back at the door, fingernails digging into the straps.
“Just like that,” Zachary echoed, tapping a finger against the door.
Ian hesitated, then ducked, sliding into the car. Zachary closed the door and walked around the car, legs feeling leaden. He slipped into the driver’s seat, closed his door, and placed his hands on the driver’s wheel.
“Now what?”
Zachary looked up at Ian, breathing in sharply. The boy stared back at him, eyebrows coming together in a questioning knot.
“Now what?” he repeated, a little louder. Zachary swallowed, then shoved his key into the ignition. He threw the car into reverse, turned in his seat, and began to back out.
“We go somewhere. Your house, my house, somewhere. And we fuck.” He turned the wheel and put the car into drive, pulling through the parking lot. He looked over at Ian and watched as the boy set his backpack between his legs, fiddling with the seatbelt. “You okay?”
Ian’s eyes flicked upwards for a moment before returning to his lap. “‘m fine,” he said too quickly, folding his arms, then crossing them across his chest, then laying them on his knees. “Just wondering what I’m missing in class.”
Zachary narrowed his eyes, really looking at Ian for a moment. The boy was thin, not much more than muscle over bone. Dark hair hung on his head in shaggy bunches, drooping into his eyes, and he had a lost look somewhere between his knotted eyebrows and his frowning mouth. More than that, though, he had the peculiar look of androgyny about him. Too short for a boy, too tall for a girl, he was somewhere in between the two, pretty in a way that boys just weren’t pretty. And now he was scowling at Zachary, hands clenching into fists.
“It’s fourth period anyway,” he said, turning his eyes back to the road. “You’re only going to miss the one class.”
Ian shrugged in the passenger seat, leaning his head against the window. Zachary watched him frown at the passing houses and tapped the steering wheel, impatient.
x-x-x-x
Zachary’s room was like any high school student’s. There was a makeshift desk pushed against a wall, covered in books and papers, notebooks stacked up recklessly, threatening to slide to the floor. The floor itself was covered in clothes, thrown haphazardly about the room, leading from the door to the bed. And the bed, that was the center of the room. It was shoved next to the window, lengthwise against the wall, and the sheets were skewed, pulled every which way, and Ian was kneeling on the bed as Zachary thrust into him.
Ian clutched the sheets beneath his hands, knuckles turning white. Zachary grabbed his hips, pulling Ian back, and shoved himself deeper inside, bent over the boy’s back. The boy’s muscles were standing out, taut, and Zachary wanted to lick and bite them, draw blood.
“Tight,” he grunted, but he wanted to say something else, something more. Perfect, beautiful, God. All that and more. He wanted to write his name, in scrawling letters, red as blood, all over the tight, perfect body.
He thrust into Ian’s body, wrapping his arms around the boy to hold him tighter, pull him closer. Ian made a whimpering sound, low in his throat, and Zachary gasped, head next to Ian’s ear, ducking his head to bite Ian’s shoulder. There was another noise in the back of Ian’s throat and Zachary moaned, body shaking apart as he came, hard, hips snapping forward. He dug his fingers into Ian’s hips, dug them deeper and deeper, pushed himself in deeper, and rested his head against the nape of Ian’s neck, shaking.
“God,” he groaned, letting go of the boy’s waist to put his hands on the bed, on either side of Ian, holding himself up shakily. Ian shifted beneath him, around him, and Zachary pushed himself backwards, pulling out of Ian and falling back on his ass. Ian crawled a few inches away from him and not-quite fell, and not-quite sat, and not-quite did a lot of things. Zachary watched the boy for a moment, then leaned forward, snagging Ian’s arm and pulling him closer.
“You okay?” he asked somewhere between ragged breaths, trying to slow down his heart. Ian shook Zachary’s hand off, pulling his arm back close to himself.
“I’m fine,” the boy snapped, rubbing his arm where Zachary had touched him. Zachary moved a few inches closer and Ian scooted back across the sheets, hissing when Zachary reached out, grabbing him and pulling him close. Zachary’s fingers ran over Ian’s stomach slowly and Zachary raised an eyebrow at Ian, leaning close.
“You didn’t come,” he said, dragging his fingers down Ian’s stomach to his cock, watching the boy shiver. “Was it that bad?”
Ian’s head snapped up, chin jutting out angrily. “You’re a bastard,” he spat, pushing at Zachary’s hands. Zachary wrapped an arm around Ian, tighter, and shoved his head into the curve between the boy’s neck and shoulder, lips brushing the clavicle.
“Not a bastard,” he muttered against the skin, grasping Ian’s mostly limp cock. He pulled at the cock experimentally, pausing when Ian went absolutely still. “Better?”
Ian made a sound somewhere between a whimper and a groan, hands clutching at Zachary’s, wrapping around his own cock. Zachary grinned madly into Ian’s collarbone, stroking Ian’s hardening cock, and felt like he was about to laugh.
“It’s better, then,” he said against the collarbone, running his fingers along Ian’s cock. The boy turned his head against Zachary’s, gasping into Zachary’s hair, fingers tightening around his wrists. Zachary pulled on Ian’s cock again and twisted his free hand until he could reach behind the cock, tracing a line between Ian’s balls.
“Better,” Ian panted into Zachary’s hair, pushing his hips up against Zachary’s hands. “Better, better. God, better.”
“Good,” Zachary almost growled, stroking the boy’s cock. Ian tensed beneath him, then shuddered, coming over both their hands, spurting onto his own stomach. Ian took in a deep breath and let it out shakily, head dropping back onto the bed. Zachary let the growing-limp cock slide from his fingers and wiped his hand on his sheets, rolling away from the boy. Ian was still for a few minutes, breaths slowing down, limp across Zachary’s bed, but after a while he shifted, pushing himself up.
“Gotta get home,” he muttered, not looking at Zachary. He stood up from the bed, bending to grab his clothes and shake them out. Zachary watched as he got dressed, pulling on the rumpled clothes with a little too much care.
“You need a ride?”
Ian pulled his shirt on, pulled it down his chest, then finally looked at Zachary. “I can walk, it’s not that far.”
“Where do you live?” Zachary persisted, moving towards the end of the bed. Ian sat on the ground, grabbing his socks, and began to put them on slowly.
“By Lakeside Elementary,” Ian mumbled, shoving his foot into a shoe. Zachary leaned off the bed, reaching for his t-shirt, and snagged it, pulling it on lazily.
“That’s a few miles, right? I’ll just drive you.” He grabbed his pants next, pulled them on, and looked up to see Ian frowning at him. “What?”
“Nothing.” Ian looked away, rubbing his stomach with a disgusted look on his face. “I’m sticky,” he complained softly. Zachary grinned, reaching out a hand to help Ian to his feet. Ian stared at the hand for a moment or two, then turned away, ignoring the hand as he stood up. Zachary shoved his hand into his pocket and grabbed his wallet and keys as he led the way out of the bedroom, Ian following silently behind.
x-x-x-x
Ian was standing on the sidewalk in front of the house he didn’t call home, motionless. Zachary had dropped him off a few moments before, and he’d moved slowly from the car, silent. They hadn’t said anything, hadn’t needed to. There was nothing to say, and there was nothing to do, and Ian was stuck in some moment or another. He took a step closer to the house then turned, looking down the road. He needed something, wanted something, and it’d been so long since he’d wanted something as much as he did right now. What he wanted, though, he didn’t know.
After a few minutes he turned again, swinging his backpack up onto one shoulder. Twenty nine steps and he was on the porch. A twist of a handle, a shove of a door, and two more steps. He kicked his shoes off, pushed them to the side of the entryway, and closed the door behind him. He dropped his backpack next to his shoes and started down the hallway, headed for the stairs, moving slowly.
“Ian?”
A head poked out of a doorway and Ian paused at the foot of the stairs, a hand lying on the banister.
“Ian, I thought I heard you. We had dinner a while ago, but I saved you some. I could warm it up for you,” the woman said cheerfully, smiling at him. Ian swallowed, feeling sick, and tightened his hold on the banister.
“I’m not hungry,” he said feebly, kicking the lowest step with a socked foot. There was a murmur of a voice beyond the doorway, then the voice came back, louder.
“Ian? We were worried,” a man’s voice said. Ian wanted to cry.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“You have to be hungry,” the woman started, stepping out into the hallway. “Teenage boys, they’re always hungry.” She was talking about food and boys and growing up, but he couldn’t hear the words, couldn’t understand what she was saying. He was stuck again, somewhere between her and Zachary and everything that’d happened between World Civ and now, and when she reached out to touch him, that gentle look on her face, he shied away, because the thought of her touching him, after he’d been fucked up the ass by another boy, made him sick.
“Thank you, Christie,” he said, because it was the fastest way out, and fled, clambering up the stairs and down the hallway until he reached his room. He threw himself inside, slamming his back against the door as soon as he was through, sliding down to the ground, pressed against the wood. His chest was pulled tight and he felt as though he couldn’t breathe. He took a gasping breath, then another, leaning his head back against the door, turned up so he was staring at the ceiling.
Zachary was a mistake, a mistake in a row of mistakes that made up Ian’s life. Ian closed his eyes, fisting his hands at his sides, and leaned over until he fell onto his side, lying across the doorway. He pressed his forehead against the carpet, slowing his gasps for breath, and forced his hands open, clutching at the carpet. After a few moments, he pushed himself up, crawling from the door to a set of drawers, pulling the bottommost drawer open. He pulled out a pair of pajamas, clutched them in his hands, and looked around his room blankly.
The bed was made, sheets and blankets laid over the mattress in uniform folds, like a hospital. Books were in careful piles at the corners of the desk, and pens and pencils bundle in between the books and papers. It was clean, almost bare, and looked as though no one actually lived there. It couldn’t be more different from Zachary’s, and Ian bit his lip.
“Stupid,” he hissed at himself, pushing himself to his feet. He left his room and moved across the hallway to the bathroom, locking himself in the room with a twist of the doorknob, then dropping his pajamas on the sink counter. He turned the shower water to as hot as it could go and stepped in, wincing as the burning water hit his skin. He scrubbed frantically at his skin, scrubbed and scrubbed until he was red and raw, until the smell of sweat and sex and Zachary was gone. He scratched his arms, broken fingernails catching on his skin until blood was beginning to well up, then leaned back against the tile, hot water beating down on his shoulders and head. He was boiling alive in his skin, and the places where Zachary had touched him burned somewhere inside him, like fingerprints left on his muscle and bone.
When the hot water ran out he stumbled from the shower, dizzy and out of control. He sat, hard, on the rug in front of the mirror, grabbing a towel from the rack to his right, and pulling it around himself slowly, scrubbing at the water on his skin. Slowly, slowly he dried himself off, staring at the wall, then dropped the towel as he pushed himself laboriously to his feet. He donned his pajamas with the same slow, careful movements, then moved from the bathroom, standing in the hall as the steam left the hot bathroom in a rush.
Ian returned downstairs, hair dripping on his pajamas, and turned into a doorway, moving into the kitchen. His aunt and uncle were sitting at the kitchen countertop on stools, eating ice cream out of a carton, bowls lying to the side, forgotten. They were talking between bites, laughing and smiling and waving their spoons around madly, and Ian watched them from the doorway, entranced. After a few minutes his aunt looked up and motioned to him with the spoon, pointing at a third stool.
“Sit,” she said around a mouthful of ice cream, setting the spoon down in the carton and swallowing. There was a plate of food lying in front of her, on the other side of the counter, and she touched it with her fingertips, pushing it a little closer to Ian.
“You took so long in the shower I had to warm your food up twice,” she said, but there was no bite in her voice. Her husband laughed and she smacked him playfully, smiling broadly as he tried to feed her a spoonful of ice cream. Ian watched them, almost in awe. They were perfect, young and beautiful and so happy, and he settled himself on his stool gingerly, not wanted to touch them, to mar the picture of perfection.
“Christie was worried,” his uncle said, motioning at Ian’s aunt with a wave of his spoon, “that you’d drown.”
Uncle. Aunt. Ian wasn’t their son, never would be. He was the son of people that were five years dead, five years gone gone gone, not much more than memory he wished he could forget but couldn’t. He grabbed a fork, twisting it in his hand, and stabbed at the food half-heartedly, watching his aunt and uncle from under his hair.
“Ian,” Christine said softly, leaning forward across the counter, “you alright?”
Ian froze, hand holding onto his fork tight. They knew, they knew, they knew. He took in a hissing breath, then gave her a faint smile.
“I’m fine,” he lied, stabbing a piece of chicken. “Just a little tired.” He shoved the chicken into his mouth, chewing it quickly, then swallowed, throat tight. Christine grabbed his hand, hers cold from the ice cream, his burning from the shower, and Ian felt himself break apart inside.
“Ian,” she repeated, “what’s wrong?” She felt her husband shift next to her, his leg pressing against hers, and she leaned back against him, still holding onto Ian’s hand.
Ian stared at his plate, fork forgotten. He couldn’t tell them, couldn’t let them know, because if they knew about his dirty little secret, everything would go wrong. After a long moment of silence he moved, setting his fork down next to his plate, standing up from his stool. He slipped his hand from his aunt’s, stepping back, and gave her another weak smile.
“I’m fine,” he said again, pretending as though his voice didn’t break. “I’m fine, just tired.” He turned and nearly ran from the room, stumbling through the doorway and up the stairs. His aunt and uncle watched him leave, silent.
x-x-x-x
Christine, in her own opinion, was a very successful woman. She had a husband and a nephew, and she kept both alive and healthy, and as happy as she could make them. Sometimes, though, when she thought about Ian, and how not-happy the boy was, she felt as though, somewhere along the road, she’d failed.
When Anna had gotten married, Christine had felt the loss of her older sister like a death. It didn’t matter that Anna was over a decade older, that it was inevitable that Anna would leave before Christine. They were still sisters, and it was a blow. One day, Anna was coming home from college with roommates, and the next she was coming home with a husband. Christine had been heartbroken. Then, about a year later, there was a nephew, and Christine had been ecstatic.
“His name is Ian,” Anna had said over the phone from a hospital three states over, and Christine had forgiven her brother-in-law for stealing her sister away.
Over the next few years, things slowly changed, and Christine grew up, and it didn’t seem to matter so much that her sister had another life. Thanksgiving and Christmas were spent together, and sometimes Anna would appear, husband and son in tow, for birthdays or school plays. When their parents died, Christine was seventeen, and Anna appeared with a seven year old Ian to live in the now too-large house, staying with Christine for the next four months, until Christine graduated. There was a scrambling of houses and families, and then all four of them, Anna, Michael, Ian, and Christine, were living in the now just-right house, working out shower schedules and bedtimes, trying to figure out exactly where money for groceries and college tuition would come from.
Christine had never been so happy and sad at the same time.
x-x-x-x
Ian was curled on his side in his bed, hands fisted together under his pillow, blankets kicked free of his legs. He was exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep, and he could feel hands on his body, touching him everywhere. He kicked restlessly, rolling over, and flung an arm over his eyes, pressing it against his eyelids until there were bright spots in his eyes.
He ached all over, inside and outside, and his chest felt tight, just like his throat and his stomach. Ian swallowed, letting out a puff of breath, and rolled over again, shoving his face against his pillow. There was a streetlight on the corner outside his room and it shown into his room, sliding over everything in the room, from the books and dresser to the bed and Ian. It slid over him, cold and hot at the same time, just like the hands that Ian could feel, even though they weren’t there.
“God,” he whispered, kicking his blankets further down his bed, and flopping over again, onto his back. He shoved the hell of his left hand against his eyes, because if he couldn’t see what he was doing, then he wasn’t really doing it. He slid his other hand down his body, over the threadbare t-shirt, until his fingertips, cold to his skin, slipped under the waistband of his pants. Ian bit his lip, holding it tight between his teeth, and grabbed his cock.
“God-”
School the next day was a special kind of hell for Ian. He moved from class to class, tired in a way that was far past the exhaustion of the body. His teachers gave him strange looks during his classes and he didn’t quite manage to smile back, instead pillowing his head on his arms and staring at the walls and out the windows. By lunchtime one of his teachers had held him back after class, a hand on Ian’s arm.
“Are you sick, Ian?” She was too motherly by half, plump and cheerful, and her smile was more of a worried frown now. She let go of his arm and smoothed down his shirtsleeve, a soft touch. Too motherly. “You seem like you’re sick. Do you want to call home? I’m sure someone could come and get you.”
Ian shook his head, grabbing his left arm. “I’m fine,” he mumbled, shifted nervously on his feet. “I’ll be fine.”
“If you’re sure,” his teacher said, the worried look still on her face. She gave him a strained smile then patted his arm. “Feel better soon, Ian. I’ll see you on Thursday.”
He nodded and left the room as quickly as he could, stumbling a bit on the step from the classroom to the hallway. He walked down the hall silently, sliding through the crowd. It was a long way to his locker, through hallway after hallway, turning between classrooms. When he finally reached his locker he leaned his head against it, forehead pressed against the cold metal. He touched the lock’s dial with his fingers, twirled it absently, then began twisting it to the numbers of his combination. After the third number the locker opened with a click and Ian slipped his backpack from his shoulders, opened it to exchange with the books in the locker.
“Ian?”
Ian felt the floor drop out from beneath him, felt his heart and stomach and lungs fall, and grabbed the door of his locker, the metal cutting into his palm.
“What do you want?” he asked, staring at the books at the bottom of his locker. There were piles of papers down there, crinkled and crumpled beneath the books, and he poked at them with his toe, the papers crunching under his shoe.
“You’re at lunch, aren’t you?” Zachary stood next to him, close enough for their shoulders to touch, and Ian grabbed a few of the books from the locker, shoving them into his backpack.
“Yeah, why?” Ian zipped up his backpack and swung it onto his shoulder, slipping his other arm through the strap. He glanced at the inside of the locker again then shut it, pushing it closed with a clack.
“I want you to come with me,” Zachary said, nodded down the hallway. Ian glanced down the hallway then looked back at Zachary.
“Why?”
“Come on,” Zachary said, giving Ian a small push down the hallway. Ian stumbled then straightened, whipping around to glare at Zachary.
“What’s your problem?” he asked angrily. Zachary raised an eyebrow and stepped around Ian, touching Ian’s shoulder lightly as he moved past him.
“Need to talk to you. Come on.”
Ian watched Zachary walk away then followed, a few feet behind. Zachary paused at the set of doors leading to the stairs, holding the door open for Ian, and Ian slipped in, following Zachary up the first half-flight of stairs. Zachary stopped at the landing half-way up to the second floor and Ian stopped next to him.
“Here?” Ian asked, glancing up the second half-flight leading to the second floor. Zachary sat down on a step a few steps higher than the landing and Ian stood in front of him, narrowing his eyes down at the boy. Zachary was looking up at him from under pale hair, blue eyes impossible to read. He reached out, long hands brushing Ian’s hips, and Ian stepped back, out of reach of Zachary’s hands.
“Here,” Zachary said, his hands falling back to his legs. Ian took another step back, until his back was pressed against the wall, and slid down it until he was sitting, legs crossed.
“What did you want to talk about?”
Zachary made a soft noise and his hands were tapping against his legs. “You’re a junior?” he asked. Ian wrapped his arms around his knees, shaking his head before he leaned it back against the wall. Zachary leaned forward a bit. “Then how old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“God,” Zachary muttered, bending a bit more. “I didn’t- You’re okay, aren’t you?”
Ian lowered his head, looking at Zachary sharply from beneath his hair. “I’m not a child, if that’s what you’re trying to imply. And I’m fine, so you can just go fuck yourself.”
“So angry,” Zachary said, and he sounded tired. Ian watched Zachary rest his hands on the steps, spread his fingers wide, and tap his fingertips against the linoleum. “Why are you so mad?”
“Are you serious?” Ian asked in a bark of laughter. “Are you fucking serious? You want to know why I’m so mad? You’ve just fucked up my life, and I didn’t need-” He bit his words off, pressing his mouth and lips shut into a thin, narrow line. When Zachary lifted an eyebrow Ian turned his face away, looking down the stairs. “I didn’t need this. It just complicates things.”
“Where’re the complications?” Zachary asked, straightening up. Ian gave a stiff shrug, still looking away, and Zachary sighed, standing up. “Look, I didn’t mean to mess up your life, so if I did, I’m sorry. Happy?” He took a few steps forward then fell to his knees in front of Ian, placing his hands on either side of Ian’s head. Ian jerked, turning to look at Zachary, his eyebrows coming together into a knot.
“Happy?” Zachary asked again.
“I don’t know,” Ian snapped.
x-x-x-x
Zachary hadn’t been able to sleep the night before and he hadn’t been able to think in class. All he could think about was a stupid boy, and that stupid boy was sitting in front of him, being stubborn and childish, and god, the kid was a child.
“What?” Ian asked, voice sounding irritated.
Zachary narrowed his eyes then leaned closer, pushing himself upwards and forwards with the balls of his feet. Ian flattened himself against the wall, opening his mouth again, and Zachary grabbed his chin with one hand, holding himself steady with the other, and kissed Ian. The boy went still beneath him, only his chest moving, rising and falling in a strange pattern, and after a few seconds Zachary leaned back, taking his hands away from Ian and the wall.
“You’re a sophomore?” he asked as though he hadn’t just kissed the boy. Ian licked his lips nervously and Zachary let his head drop forward, kissing Ian again. Zachary let his lips slide open, let his breath slip out, and touched the tip of his tongue to Ian’s lips. Ian’s mouth tightened at the touch, then slid open, just barely. Zachary leaned forward again, lifting his hands to grab the boy’s arms, pinning Ian’s hands to the ground. The kiss lasted a few seconds longer and when Ian tensed up beneath him, began to pull back, Zachary backed off again.
“Yeah,” Ian said, face red, “a sophomore. Why are you kissing me?”
Zachary pushed himself forward with his hands, lips touching the corner of Ian’s mouth. “Didn’t kiss you yesterday,” he muttered against skin, weight pressed down on Ian’s hands, still pinning the boy to one spot. Ian turned his head to the side and Zachary’s lips slipped onto the boy’s cheek at the movement, skidding over more skin.
“Don’t want you kissing me.”
Zachary pulled back at that, put a few inches more space between them, and moved his hands from on Ian’s. “Happy?”
Ian breathed shakily, body shuddered under the breaths. “Got to get to class,” he muttered. Zachary moved a few inches further back, sliding on the linoleum.
“Still lunch,” Zachary not quite objected, crossing his arms, hands lying on his legs. Ian relaxed a little more the further away Zachary moved and Zachary gave him a faint smile. “Lunch won’t end for twenty minutes.”
“Got homework to do,” Ian said, and he was avoiding Zachary’s eyes. He pushed himself to his feet, using the wall to hold him steady until he was standing, then grabbed his backpack. “Got to go.”
“Sure,” Zachary said as he looked up at Ian. Zachary hesitated, resting his hands on the ground behind him and leaning back on them. “I can give you a ride home.”
Ian paled, taking a step to the side, moving his weight to his left leg, then his right. “Why?”
“It’s far, isn’t it? I just thought that you might want a ride.” Zachary paused, tapping his fingers against the linoleum, then glanced away from Ian, looking up the stairs. “Just a ride, nothing more.”
The younger boy nodded, pulling his backpack onto his shoulders. “Sure,” he said, voice shaking just the littlest bit, and then he left, half-running down the stairs two and three at a time, hitting the door at the bottom of the staircase at a run. The door flew open, then closed with a loud click, and Ian was gone. Zachary stared down the stairs for a few more minutes, then slowly stood, grabbing his backpack.
“‘til then,” he said to himself, moving up the stairs to his classroom.
The rest of the day passed too quickly. Classes flew by, minutes rushing into hours, and before he knew it, the final bell was ringing. Zachary gathered his papers, shoving them messily into a folder, and left with a nod to his last teacher. He stopped by his locker, hesitating there for a few minutes, books held precariously between loose fingers, then shoved the books and folders into his backpack, swinging it up onto his shoulders. He wandered through the hallways, moving towards the hallway he’d caught Ian in the day before. Ian was standing on the side of the hallway, looking out the doorways across from him, and he looked vaguely lost, like he usually did. He looked over as Zachary approached, tugging at his bag’s straps.
“I didn’t think-” Ian began, but Zachary interrupted him.
“Said I’d give you a ride,” Zachary said, not unkindly. “Still plan to. Ready?”
Ian nodded and Zachary moved towards the door, pausing to let the younger boy catch up. When Ian was next to him, Zachary walked out the doors, cutting across the grass. He skirted a young tree, then stepped across a sidewalk, moving down off the sidewalk onto the street. He led the way through the parking lot, in between cars and trucks, and Ian was a half-step behind him, silent. When Zachary reached his car he pulled a keychain out of his pocket, the keys jangling together in his hand. He shoved one of the keys into the lock on the door and watched out the corner of his eye as Ian walked around the car, moving to the passenger side.
“How were your classes?” Zachary asked lamely as he unlocked his car door, pulling it open and sliding inside, leaning across the passenger seat to unlock Ian’s door. Ian opened the door and slipped inside, setting his backpack on the floor between his legs.
“They were fine,” Ian said softly, staring at the glove compartment in front of him. Zachary slammed his door shut, waiting, but Ian’s mouth was resolutely shut.
Zachary started the car, turning to back out of the parking spot, and tried to ignore the way the car was painfully quiet. He shifted the car into drive and began edging forward into the line of cars to get out of the parking lot and glanced at Ian. The boy was still staring at the dashboard in front of him, fingers clenched around the top of his backpack, and Zachary felt strangely uncomfortable.
The car was an old junker, a deal he hadn’t been able to pass up, and for the first time he hated his car. It was hot in the vehicle and the air conditioning was broken. Zachary swallowed then leaned across Ian, hand fumbling for the window cranks, rolling it down. Ian sighed and his shirt moved, touching Zachary’s arm. Zachary’s skin burned where Ian’s shirt touched him and he yanked his arm back, straightening up in his seat.
“You can roll down the window,” he said, lame again. He worked on rolling his own window down, ignoring Ian as the boy his window down the rest of the way. Another awkward silence fell and Zachary fidgeted, reaching out to play with the radio. He turned it on, then turned it low. After a moment he turned it a little higher and changed the channel, fiddling with it. “You can listen to what you want,” he tried, but Ian barely moved.
After a moment Ian reached out, touching one of the buttons on the radio, changing the station, and stared at the numbers on the radio’s screen. “You a senior?” he asked.
Zachary jumped on the question, grabbing at it eagerly. “Yeah, a senior,” he said a little too quickly, the car inching forward in the line. “And you’re a sophomore, right?”
Ian nodded, turning away from the radio, looking out the window. “What’re you doing after you graduate?”
“College, I guess,” Zachary said carelessly. The car moved forward a few feet, then stopped. “My mom wants me to go out of state, to the school my dad went to.”
A car honked somewhere behind them and kids laughed outside the window, loud and obnoxious. Ian put his hand out the window, hung it down the side of the car, and tapped his fingers against the car door. “Which college?”
“Illinois State,” Zachary said. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, then turned to the right, car finally pulling out of the parking lot. The car moved along slowly in the school zone, then picked up speed as they passed the high school, moving down the street quickly. The wind from the outside air was whipping Ian’s hair, whistling in the car, and Ian slowly began rolling up the window.
“Isn’t that far?” he asked, stopping rolling up the window when it was a few inches from the top of the window. The wind was softer now, and Ian’s hair was still.
“About a day driving,” Zachary said with a shrug. “I turn on 3500 to get to your house, right?”
Ian looked at his sharply then nodded slowly. “You’re just taking me home?”
“Said I’d give you a ride,” Zachary said, feeling a little sick. “Didn’t you- Never mind.”
“I just- I thought that you’d want to-” Ian cut himself off abruptly, shutting his mouth with an almost audible snap, and when Zachary looked at him closely it looked like the boy was flushing. Zachary looked back at the road, slowing down and switching on his left blinker.
“I said I was taking you home,” he said softly, car coming to a stop. He waited for a few cars to pass him, heading the opposite way, then turned left onto another street. “Besides, I have work tonight.”
“Work?” Ian asked stupidly. Zachary nodded, watching the road disappear under the front of the car.
“I work over at Rickman’s. It’s a nice job, pays good.” He shrugged, leaning back in the driver’s seat. “Besides, it gives me something to do, ya’know?”
Ian nodded, looking out the window again, and Zachary bit back a sigh, staring out the windshield. After a few minutes Ian reached out, turning the radio up, and Zachary drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. The rest of the ride was silent except for the radio, Zachary watching the road and Ian pointedly ignoring him. When they finally reached Ian’s street, it was with a feeling akin to relief.
“Here,” Zachary said unnecessarily, pulling up to the curb outside Ian’s house. Ian nodded, fumbling to open the door and pull his seatbelt off at the same time. He climbed out of the car and leaned back in, grabbing his backpack.
“Thanks,” Ian said, and Zachary gave Ian a half-hearted smile.
“Yeah, sure,” Zachary said, and he pretended like he meant it.