You're Worth It

Author's Note: Zach's his step-brother, so technically they aren't related. It's not incest, mm'kay? It is, however, a one-shot, short story, etc. There will not be any more after this, so enjoy it while you can.

"Can I help you find anything?" I looked up from where I was browsing the movies and looked into the face of the person I'd been waiting for. "Kerr" according to his nametag, was tall and thin, with short black hair and horn rimmed glasses.

"Uh," I said, "I was thinking of getting a new DVD player," I blurted, seeing the sign for DVD players right behind his head. He smiled at me and I couldn't think straight. As we walked over to the DVD players, he asked me questions about what kind of player I was looking for, and I kept saying "I don't know".

We got to the display, and he explained which players were good for this and that, and I watched him talk, though I wasn't actually listening to the words coming out of his mouth. He stopped talking and looked at me expectantly.

"That one looks good," I said, pointing to one at random. Kerr smiled at me again and I melted.

"That's a good choice," he said, "are you looking for a warrantee as well?" Before I could answer, he started telling me about the warrantees they had and I found myself agreeing to buy one.

I bought everything and left the store. The DVD player went into the backseat of the truck and I drove home, wondering who I should give it to, or if I should just try to hide it from my mother. I wasn't sure if people working at Best Buy got commission for things that they sold, but if they had, I'm sure Kerr would be the top seller or something. In the past three months, I'd bought a new digital camera (it still hadn't been opened and was in the back of my closet), a laptop - complete with a wireless mouse and a headset, two different mp3 players, eight pairs of headphones, and an untold number of DVDs and CDs. I have a problem, but it isn't that I like to shop. I hate shopping, and I don't care about electronics all that much. I just have a geek fetish or something. Maybe it's not really a geek fetish, because I don't really care about the other guys that work there. It's Kerr that I have a crush on, can't keep my eyes off of.

The first time I saw him, I was with my younger step-brother (he doesn't have his own car, so I have to drive him when he wants to go places) and he was trying to find a video game or something. Kerr asked if we needed help, our eyes met, and I was infatuated. I went back in a week later and he was there. He didn't seem to recognize me when I asked him for help with the digital cameras, but just listening to him talk and having him so close that I could smell his Old Spice was enough for me.

I'd been back every week since. Sometimes he wasn't there, and I left without buying anything, but I've still spent a lot of money at that store, just for a crush on some guy that doesn't even know my name – or recognize me. My mother didn't seem to mind that much, because we were kind of rich. I mean, we had a pool, a tennis court, and a huge house, with a maid that came to clean it once a day. So it's not like me buying all this stuff is really affecting our money or anything. The only reason I end up hiding most of it or giving it away is because I don't want my mom, step-dad or step-brother to start asking why I have two digital cameras, or why I bought a new DVD player when our old one works fine.

My mother's car wasn't parked in the garage when I pulled it, so I considered it safe to bring in my bags. I walked into the kitchen from the garage. Only, just my luck, Zach (my seventeen year old younger step-brother) was sitting on a stool at the bar, eating chips straight out of the bag.

"What do you have there, Andy?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Nothing," I said, making a lousy attempt to hide the bag and leave the room.

"It's porn, isn't it?" he asked, giving me a conspiratorial wink. He hopped down from the stool and tried to peek at the bag.

"No, it's not porn," I answered, pulling it away from him.

"I'm gonna tell Mom you have porn!" he shouted.

"I don't have porn!" I exclaimed.

"Well then let me see!" he argued. I rolled my eyes and opened the bag to show him what was inside. He looked.

"A DVD player? What the fuck, Andy?" he asked, "Why were you hiding that? Besides, we've already got one." He looked up at me, and I was definitely blushing.

"Oh my God, Anderson Blake, you're fucking kidding me!" he exclaimed, "You're still going on about that geek from Best Buy, aren't you?" he asked. I knew it had been a mistake to mention to Zach that I thought Kerr was cute the first time we'd seen him. How could Zach even remember that? I mean, it was three months ago!

"I don’t know what you're talking about," I mumbled, and made another attempt to bring the bag up to my bedroom. Zach blocked the staircase for me and gave me a look. Some days, I almost wished that he didn't know that I was gay. He always made this huge deal about me getting a boyfriend, like it was his responsibility or something. That didn't make any sense, since the guy was not even eighteen and had already had six separate girlfriends break up with him.

"Are you going to ask him out?" he asked me. I tried to push past him, but Zach is stronger than I am. This is probably due to the fact that he was six feet, almost two hundred pounds, and practically solid muscle. He got his looks from his father, who was also tall and muscular. If I had been Zach, maybe Kerr would remember me. But no one's going to remember a shrimp of a guy with brown hair and no distinguishing features.

"Are you going to ask him out?" Zach repeated, looking down at me, eyes boring into my head, like he was going to read my thoughts or something.

"NO!" I answered, and sighed angrily.

"Why not?" Zach asked, his tone still light, despite the outburst of anger I had just released on him.

"Zach, move the fuck out of my way," I said, trying to keep my voice calm and even. He moved out of the way and let me pass, but he followed me up the stairs and down the hall to my bedroom. I opened up my closet and put the DVD player in the back with the rest of the electronics I'd bought but not used or even opened.

"Holy shit Andy," Zach said upon seeing all of the things I'd bought. He made himself comfortable on my bed, and I didn't bother moving him, because I really wasn't in the mood. Besides, I had to start writing my paper for Human Sexuality. I had to write five pages on the differences between sex and gender and I hadn't even started yet. I turned on my laptop – yes, it was the one I'd bought from Kerr. At least it was one thing I'd used so far.

"So how come you're not going to ask him out? Does he have a girlfriend or a boyfriend?" he asked me, kicking his shoes off and propping his feet up on my pillow. I was definitely changing the pillowcases before I went to bed, because that's just gross.

"Why do you even care?" I asked him, "I think that I'm old enough to worry about my own love life, thank you very much," I replied, sitting down in my computer chair.

"You don't even have a love life," Zach said, "I mean, you've never gone on a date with anyone. You've never had a boyfriend or a girlfriend or anything. You barely even have any friends!" he exclaimed.

"I have friends!" I argued, and Zach raised his eyebrows again.

"Name five of them," he asked me. I was silent, and Zach grinned, clearly happy that he was right. And he was right. My life was pathetic. How many twenty-one year old guys still live with their mom and brother? I did, and was taking classes at the community college, mostly because I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and partly because I was horrible with people, and going away to some big state college, or even a private one with a bunch of rich kids didn't appeal to me at all.

"I told you so," Zach said, "next time you go there, I'm going with you and you're going to ask Kerr out if I have to do it for you." He sat up, and his black tank top had ridden partway up his stomach. His stomach was smooth and muscular, and mine wasn't.

"He doesn't even recognize me, Zach," I said, "I've been in there more than ten times and bought stuff from him and he doesn't even recognize me." I looked back at my computer and brought up an empty document.

"How can he not recognize you?" Zach asked. I shrugged and didn't reply. Didn't he see? I wasn't attractive in anyway, didn't have anything to make people want to look like me. Not like Zach did. He had the black hair, bright blue eyes and perfect smile. I was too skinny to really be masculine, too short, too boring.

"People don't like me. I'm not good looking like you are." I started typing something for my paper but it didn't sound right. I heard Zach stand up from the bed and move across the room. He was standing behind me, but I didn't acknowledge him. I didn't want to talk about this.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he said, I still didn't turn, afraid of his anger, "stop with the self pity already." His hand was on my shoulder, and he turned me around.

"Get up," he said, and when I didn't comply immediately, he repeated the order. I stood up, and he grabbed my arm, making me follow him down the hall into the bathroom. There, he stood us before the full length mirror, and I saw him standing behind me. I looked puny and weak next to him, and I couldn't look.

"Look at yourself." He put his hand under my chin and lifted my head up. I looked, but I didn't see anything different. It was the same pale, weak face and limp brown hair.

"There's nothing to look at." Unless, of course, I wanted to look at Zach instead. He filled out his black t-shirt with his muscles, the fabric tight stretched across his chest. Why couldn't I look that good in a t-shirt? Through the mirror, my eyes drifted down to his jeans and the way they hugged his hips. I could see the outline of his package and the size of it was something to be jealous of. I slid my eyes back up and met his in the mirror. I realized that he'd caught me looking at him.

Why had I even been looking at him in the first place? Zach was my brother, even if it was only because my mother had married his father and there was no biology involved. Still, he held my gaze, his face expressionless. Then he put a hand on my shoulder.

"Here's the deal, Andy. We're going to go talk to that guy." He grabbed my car keys off the desk and threw them at me. I caught them and set them back down on the desk.

"I'm not going anywhere. I have homework to do." I sat back down in the desk chair and looked at the one sentence I'd written already. I had to turn in the paper in two days and I didn't want to wait until the very last minute to do it.

"Fine, we'll go tomorrow." Zach shrugged.

"No, we're not. Besides, it's none of your business anyway." I thought for a moment and managed to write a whole starting paragraph before Zach spoke again.

"Goddammit, Andy, if this Best Buy geek is that special to you, you should say something to him instead of spending all that money on shit you don't need. And if he doesn't like you, move on." He spoke as though it were the easiest thing in the world. I ignored him and kept working on my paper. Eventually, bored with the lack of conversation, he left the room.

I managed to write the rest of the paper before dinner. Of course, dinner turned out to be just Zach and I. Mom was probably out shopping, and Stanley, Zach's dad, was still at the office, as usual. Zach and I were usually the only ones in the house most of the time. He'd called out for pizza and was helping himself to a slice when I came downstairs.

"Wanna watch some television with me?" He piled his slices onto a paper plate and looked at me. I found myself momentarily startled by deep blue eyes. When I realized what I was doing, I looked away and busied myself getting some pizza.

"What's on?" I asked.

"Stargate." Well how could I refuse that? My geek fetish wasn't just with Kerr, but the geeky archaeologist on Stargate: SG1, known as Daniel Jackson. I followed Zach into the living room, pretending that my eyes weren't straying to look at his ass.

Zach made himself comfortable on the couch, propping his feet up on the coffee table and balancing his plate of pizza on his lap. I sat next to him and grabbed the remote, flipping to the Sci-Fi channel. The show was just starting.

I lost myself in my favorite show, completely forgetting for a little while, at least about Kerr, about Zach, and anything else that was bothering me.

"You know something," Zach said, as the show broke for a commercial, "I think there's some kind of, like, sexual tension between those two." He gestured at the screen. Currently it was displaying a commercial for Charmin toilet paper.

"The bears?" I asked, confused. Zach snorted laughter.

"No, not them. The guys in the show. Daniel and Jack." He glanced over at me, "I get the feeling that there's something between them. Don't you?" I shrugged. I never really thought about it.

"There could be, I guess." Of course, the thought of Daniel and Jack together – the nerdy, but attractive archaeologist and the tough military colonel – made me think of Zach and me, and this only served to make me more uncomfortable.

It wasn't that I'd never thought about Zach that way before. But he was five years younger than me, never mind the fact that he was technically my brother. I wasn't supposed to think about him like that.

Suddenly I'd lost my appetite and I couldn't bear to be down here another minute. I got up and threw my remaining pizza away.

"Hey, what about the rest of the show?" Zach called.

"I don't feel good," I lied, and walked upstairs to my room. I fell down on my bed and sighed deeply. When had my life become so fucked up that I was buying things I didn't need just to get an opportunity to talk to a guy that didn't even know I existed?

I fell into a restless sleep, plagued with dreams that didn't make any sense.

.&.

Three Days Later

"Anderson Blake, it's time to get your ass out of bed before I come in there and make you!" Zach yelled through my door and pounded on it at the same time, enough to wake even the deepest sleeper. Though he couldn't see me, my face was warm with embarrassment. The dream I'd woken from had left me with a hard on. That wasn't abnormal, but the fact that Zach had featured prominently in the dream was. How was I going to face him at all today?

"Anderson, are you up yet?" He hollered again. Oh, something's up, I thought, then realized how dumb that sounded.

"Leave me alone," I mumbled back, pulling the covers over my head and rolling over. Not even a moment later, Zach burst into the room.

"Get out of bed. We're going shopping!" He sounded uncharacteristically excited about this. I kept the blankets over my head, but it didn't make a difference because Zach grabbed the top of the blankets and pulled them down.

"Leave me the fuck alone!" I shouted, trying to pull them back up without Zach seeing my morning wood. Too late.

"Oh, so that's the problem. Havin' a nice little dream about your geek?" The teasing didn't bother me as much as the way his eyes swept over me. I only wore boxers to bed because of how warm it got in my bedroom. And Zach was looking at my body like he wanted to eat me. I didn't know what to think about that, but my dick sure did. This was embarrassing.

"Get out of my room." I climbed out of bed and walked over to my bureau, pulling clothes out.

"Take a shower and get dressed. We're going to see your geek today. And don't tell me you're busy. You don't have any classes today, and neither do I." He didn't even give me a chance to argue before he left my bedroom, shutting the door behind him. I resisted the urge to throw something at the wall and instead found something halfway decent to wear. Not that it would matter, because it was highly unlikely that Kerr would even remember me in the first place.

I took a cold shower, not wanting to risk the other way to take care of my problem, especially with Zach lurking around the house. Once dressed, I went downstairs. Zach was twirling around on one of the barstools, but slowed to a stop when I walked in. He threw my keys at me, only this time I couldn't catch them and they fell to the floor near my feet and I bent down to pick them up.

"All ready to go?" He grinned and I wondered if I honestly had any choice in the matter. I knew I didn't though. Zach hadn't left me alone for the past three days, and I knew he wasn't going to until I finally agreed to this stupid trip.

So I drove the stupid car to Best Buy, my stomach twisting into more knots as we got closer. I had tried not to think too much about this moment, but I knew that I would most likely not get the reaction from Kerr that I wanted.

"We're not going to sit in the parking lot all freakin' day, are we?" Zach sounded amused, like this was something fun he was doing. I didn't want to do this at all, and I reached for the keys, ready to put them back in the ignition. Zach grabbed my hand and pried the keys out of them.

"I don't think so, buddy. Now let's go, or I'm going to carry you inside." And I got the idea that he probably meant it, too. I sighed but got out of the car and followed Zach inside, my stomach doing flips. I walked behind Zach, but looked around the store, nervously, a large part of me hoping that Kerr had not shown up for work today.

"There he is!" Zach exclaimed, gesturing towards the video game section, and promptly strode over in that direction, leaving me with two choices: follow him and hope he doesn't say anything, or run and hide. Against my better judgment, I followed Zach.

I reached him before he'd caught Kerr's attention, and grabbed Zach's arm.

"Do we really have to do this?" I hissed, wishing like hell that Zach would change his mind and let me go back home and wallow in self-pity.

"Yes, we do." He grinned an evil grin and stepped over to Kerr, tapping him on the shoulder. Kerr turned and looked at us, me nervous as hell and probably sweating, and Zach, smiling like there was nothing out of the ordinary.

"Can I help you?" Kerr smiled and I froze. Zach was really going to do it, wasn't he?

"Actually you could," Zach said, grabbing my arm and pulling me forward. "My brother here wants to say something to you." Both boys looked at me and I wished that I was invisible. When a long moment passed and I hadn't spoken, Zach nudged me.

"Andy, if you don't tell him, I will," he threatened. It wasn't much of a threat, because even if I wanted to, I couldn't speak. Kerr hadn't even shown the slightest sign of recognizing me at all, and I got the feeling that he didn't remember who I was.

"Okay, fine. This is my brother, Andy," Zach began, sighing in an annoyed way, "He's been coming here for like three months because he has a crush on you. So, do you like him back?" He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at him. Kerr looked at Zach for a moment and then turned his gaze to me. After a long moment, he broke into laughter and I felt my face turning bright red. This could not be happening.

"What the fuck's so funny?" Zach asked, taking a menacing step forward. Kerr caught his breath.

"Why would I like someone like him?" Kerr raised his eyebrows and looked at me as if I was a cockroach on the floor. I wanted to cry.

"You want to say that again, asshole?" Zach grabbed Kerr's collar and looked down at him. I managed to snap out of my embarrassment enough to grab Zach's arm.

"Zach, don't do that!" I whined, feeling very much like a girl. Zach released Kerr's shirt and backed up. "Let's just go." Kerr straightened his shirt and looked nervously at Zach. But my brother had apparently listened to me for once in his life and we left the store. Once in the car (Zach had taken the keys to drive), I took several long, deep breaths, thinking about what had happened.

"I'm sorry, Andy," Zach said, putting a hand on my leg that was meant to be comforting. Despite the disappointment at Kerr's rejection, the dream from last name was still hanging in my mind, and the hand wasn't helping matters at all.

"I'll live," I said, my voice strained, "Let's just go home." And home we went. Once there, I tried to escape up to my room to be in peace. Tears were threatening to fall, and I didn't want Zach there while they did. However, he caught my arm before I'd even made it halfway up the staircase. The touch sent electricity shooting up my arm and I almost lost my breath.

"Are you sure you're okay?" His voice was soft and kind, completely unlike the teasing and authoritative tones I was used to from him. It was disarming.

"Of course I'm not okay, asshole!" I wrenched my arm out of his grip and stared at him, breathing heavily. "I knew he was going to say no, but you made me go and embarrass myself anyway! Why don't you go and ruin my life some more?" And before he had a chance to say anything in his defense, I stormed up the stairs into my bedroom, slamming the door with as much force as I could muster. I threw myself onto my bed and cried into my pillow. I cried because I wasn't attractive enough. I cried because I might have possibly been falling in love with my step brother and I cried because I was never going to experience the sweet taste of a first kiss or wake up to someone lying in bed beside me.

A soft knock came at the door, disrupting me from my self-loathing. I ignored it, but as usual, Zach didn't care and came right in.

"Andy, I'm sorry." He was apologizing again, but hell if I knew what for. It wasn't his fault I was so unattractive and unworthy. I wiped my eyes and refused to look at him. He sat down on the bed.

"Can you at least look at me?" His voice was still soft and gentle and I wanted to believe he meant no harm. I turned to face him.

"I'm sorry I made you talk to him," Zach said, "I didn't know he was going to be an asshole about it." He put a hand on my cheek, thumb brushing away tears. My breath caught in my throat and I couldn't speak.

"He was just being honest. I'm not worth him anyway." I couldn't keep Zach's gaze any longer, and my eyes flicked to the blanket on my bed. His hand was still on my cheek.

"Don't say that." His voice still kept that gentle tone as he spoke to me. "He's the one who doesn't deserve you." I looked up at him when he said this, shocked that he would even think I was better than someone like Kerr was.

"That's not true! Kerr is handsome, and smart and –" Zach's finger on my lips wouldn't allow me to continue.

"Shh. I don't know about Kerr, but you're about as close to perfect as anyone has ever been." The corners of his mouth turned up in a smile, a little one. Between his smile and his finger on my lips, it took me a moment to realize that Zach was talking about me. He was calling me perfect. His intense stare was making me nervous.

"But Zach, I … " Even though I was the elder, he was more confident and assured at the moment than I ever was or would be.

"I would never lie to you." His words were but a breath on my lips and he closed the tiny distance, covering my mouth with his own. The taste of a first kiss truly was sweet, and warm and everything I had never expected it to be. It was gentle and strong at the same time, and I found myself returning the kiss even without knowing how.

Zach broke off the kiss and looked at me, hand still resting on my cheek. I thought of the way he'd looked at me that morning when he'd come into my room. I thought of how he'd always been telling me that I deserved a boyfriend and that I wasn't ugly. And I thought that maybe, at this very moment, I could finally believe him.

"I love you, Anderson, and I don't think you're worthless." He waited a moment, I think expecting me to say something, but the words stuck in my throat. I just wanted to kiss him again. He seemed to understand this and gently tipped my back until I was lying on my back on the bed, and he covered me.

Then he was kissing me again, harder, fiercer and more passionate, his lower body grinding against mine. I moaned into his mouth and arched up, wrapping my hands around his neck. If a first kiss was sweet, a second kiss was dark, rich, and strong. His tongue was in my mouth and shooting electric bolts down my spine.

He continued to slowly grind his hips against mine in a circular motion, making it hard for me to string two thoughts together. I grabbed his shoulders, not wanting to have to let go, ever. Zach pulled back a little, smiled at me, and started kissing my throat, at the same time pushing my shirt up. He moved back again, this time to push my shirt all the way over my head and off. Then I was sitting there with my bare chest for him to see. Self-consciously, I tried to cover myself with my hands, but Zach moved them out of the way, gazing appreciatively at my skinny hairless chest.

"Like I said, perfect," he breathed, running a hand down my chest until his hand reached the top of my jeans. Then his eyes searched mine, clearly waiting for approval before he continued. All I could manage was a nod, and he slid the zipper down.

…

I woke a while later. It wasn't morning yet, but something had woken me. It took me a moment to realize it was Zach, snoring. For a moment I thought to wake him up and ask him to stop. Then I realized … Zach had stayed in my bed. We'd fallen asleep together. I'd woken up with someone in bed beside me. Maybe I was worth it after all.

I slid closer to him, lifting one of his arms and draping it over my body. Then I leaned against his chest and closed my eyes, falling into a peaceful sleep.

The End

Author's Note - Can you tell I wrote the first half or so a long time ago and the second half more recently? Well... if you couldn't, now you know. Hope you liked it.