Testament

The sidewalk was hot from the sun, but Simon and Nick sat on it anyway. They didn’t say anything for a long time, just watching the sun make its downward swing towards the horizon, slanting the shadows just slightly. A few people passed, but for the most part the park was empty except for them, the two of them. Drinking his Orange Julius, Simon slumped lazily into Nick with a sigh and shucked his jacket. Nick appreciated the closeness, the comfort of his friend’s lean body against his own, but didn’t like the smell of pot in Simon’s hair, strong, recent, acrid.

“You aren’t hot?” Simon mumbled.

“Huh? Nah,” Nick replied with an easy shrug. He didn’t like to take off his hoodie even when it was hot; he felt lost when he couldn’t zip and unzip the front, his favorite nervous habit. Presently, he was thirsty, wanted some of Simon’s Orange Julius, knew that Simon would share when he asked, and yet he didn’t ask. He squinted up into the sky.

“I ran into a teacher at the mall today… I forgot to tell you.” Simon smiled bashfully, tugged on Nick’s hood as an indication of his embarrassment. “He was…”

Nick glanced at him, saw the look in that big hazel eye. He sat bolt upright. “You don’t.” Then, spotting an approaching figure in the distance and ignoring them for now, “Who was it?”

Smiling his timid smile, Simon whispered, “Mr. Silverstein,” and Nick shook his head in astonishment.

“Silverstein? You’re kidding.” He shuddered at the thought of his friend mooning over him, of all people – it wasn’t right. “But he’s so… old.”

Simon lowered his gaze as if wounded, and then, sipping his drink, he mumbled, “No… he’s… mature.”

“M… Mature!” Nick laughed, and then cringed at the thought, feeling freshly ill. “Oh, God, Simon… He’s like, sixty! And, he’s like… Jewish.”

“He’s more like fifty. And just because he wears a skull cap doesn’t make him Jewish,” said Simon petulantly, fumbling with his drink cup.

“Does fuckin’ too.”

“Nick…”

Realizing that he was being a little harsh, Nick offered an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry.”

The figure Nick had seen coming was a girl, and she approached the bowl now and thrust down her skateboard, taking off. Nick considered skating now, as well, but at the same time, he was endlessly curious about what sort of exchange with Silverstein of all people would get Simon all flustered and twitterpated.

“What did he say to you, anyway?” Nick asked, scratching at some dirt on his shoe.

Simon tugged uneasily at his eyepatch. It was probably getting uncomfortable in the heat. “Nothing, just that he was making this telescope… Oh, God, Nick, it’s just the neatest thing. And he asked me to help. I’m so excited.”

“You and your inventions,” Nick muttered, but he couldn’t stop himself smiling affectionately. “You know ‘building a telescope’ is just code for ‘getting in your pants.’” He nudged Simon playfully to show that there were no hard feelings, but Simon had the presence to look mortified anyway.

“I’d bet he’d let you help, if you wanted to…” Simon said, though from his tone it was clear that he secretly didn’t want Nick around – not that it was a warning tone, or anything, more of an obligatory invitation, because Simon did care about his friend, after all, and would give up some one-on-one with his crush to make Nick happy.

Appreciating the gesture and deciding to return the favor, Nick smiled. “No, it’s all right, go ahead and have fun. Take pictures when you start making headway. And can I see the stars, when you’re all done?”

“I’d like that,” Simon said, and smiled.

The girl on the skateboard wiped out, scraping up her elbows. She didn’t cry at all, though, just stood back up and dusted herself off and got right back on her board. Nick looked her over thoughtfully – a curvy girl, really… not in the boob department (that was strictly B-cup material), but her hips were a mile wide. Her legs and arms were muscular and lean, scarred just about everywhere from various scrapes. Her skin was pale, her hair blond. Most of her shape was lost under a baggy tank top and an equally enormous pair of cargo shorts. A giant belt sat on the natural curve of her hips like an equator.

… She was probably a dyke.

Bored, Nick looked back to Simon, who was frowning into the open mouth of his cup.

“All of the ice melted,” he commented sadly.

“Sorry, man.”

Simon just sighed. Glancing up, he saw the girl barreling towards them, let out one of his yelping screams and crowded close to Nick. She stopped just short of them, though, and cocked her head.

“Hey. What are you doing sitting around? You’ve got boards.”

“Depth perception problems,” Nick said, grinning and thumbing towards Simon, who was hanging onto Nick’s arm in a death-grip.

“Nice eye patch,” the girl said. Her smile was benevolent. She had earrings that dangled and swung when she moved her head. Maybe she wasn’t a dyke.

“Th-Thank you?”

Sighing, she picked up her board and thrust it under her arm, sticking out a hand to shake. She had a black wristband with a rock band’s logo stamped on it, and band-aids on three of her fingers. Her nails were unpainted and stubby, chewed down to the quick, like Nick’s. “I’m Maxine. You can call me Max. Nice to meet you.”

Nick shook immediately, smiling. “Nick. This is Simon.”

“I’m Simon,” Simon echoed, and shook her hand, too. He sometimes forgot to introduce himself.

“Well, hi there, Nick and Simon.” She planted her hands on her hips and looked between them thoughtfully. “Just out of curiosity, are you two…?”

“Huh?” said Simon.

“What!? God, no!” said Nick.

They looked at each other, and comprehension dawned with a tint of horror on Simon’s face.

“No! Oh, no! God, no!” Simon blurted, and his face turned red.

Max threw her head back and laughed. When she was done, she set down her skateboard and got up on it, looking down at them through her eyeliner-rimmed eyes. “Well, come on, you pansies, are you skating or what?”

She took off without them and Nick, not about to back down from a challenge, got up, pulling Simon with him.

“Let’s do it,” he said.

“We’re not,” Simon mumbled, still blushing furiously. He dropped his cup and some diluted orange liquid seeped onto the pavement. “We’re not.”

--

Simon was handsome guy, really. He wasn’t like, movie star handsome… just basic handsome. He had a strong jaw, a kind of blunt chin that made his face look rounder than it really was, full cheekbones, and a wide, sweeping, expressive mouth. His creamy cheeks were dusted with freckles, and he had a tendency to burn in the sun. His hair looked red most of the time, but was actually more brown than anything, and it was wavy and sometimes kind of crazy and when they spent the night at each other’s houses, slumped over each other in a chair, falling asleep, Nick liked to run his hands through it.

He used to have two eyes, before he started smoking the joints. They were punctuated by two small, curved eyebrows, which usually registered “surprised” somehow – it was the wide-eyed curiosity that made it so, and their natural shape. Before the drugs, his hazel eyes used to be so bright and clear. Now, the one that remained had dark bags under it most of the time, and his gaze was usually more pensive, cloudy, downcast.

Simon liked buttoned-down shirts. Presently they were shopping for them. Simon kept stopping every two seconds to remember what he was saying. He was high off of his mind. Nick didn’t care, so much. He was glad he could be with Simon to keep him out of trouble.

“You got to tell Rod to stop selling you this stuff.”

“I know, I guess I’m getting kind of stuck on it.” Simon threw Nick one of his shy little smiles, and a bit of him showed through the mask.

It was Wednesday, and even though it was summer, the mall was relatively quiet. Between shirts, Simon would munch on a giant pretzel Nick had given him to get him to shut up about his munchies. Simon wasn’t a complainer by nature, no – but when he was doped up, he sometimes forgot he had said something, and would continue to say it over and over. Usually it was “I’m hungry” because this subject cropped up a lot. A lot.

It was a wonder he was so skinny, really. Not skinner than Nick, but close. He had too broad of shoulders to ever be quite as thin as Nick.

“Do you really need a new shirt?” Nick asked, feeling kind of bored of listening to Michael Jackson and Cher over the stereo system. He zipped and unzipped his hoodie. Zip, unzip.

“… We were looking for a shirt?” Simon frowned. “Huh.”

“What was that thing you needed for that camera you were building?” Nick asked, not quite losing his patience.

“Copper wire. Cheap stuff. We can get it at the hardware store. I’m hungry.”

Nick gestured to the pretzel, which Simon bit into, and then that wet, hurt expression came over his face.

“What would I do without you, Nick?” he said quietly, and Nick felt distinctly uncomfortable. “Why didn’t you tell me I was…?”

“It’s all right. Don’t worry about it.”

They tried to skate home, and Nick lost his balance, landed on his face and made his nose bleed. They didn’t buy any shirts.

--

Around 10:00, Cyril called up Nick and Simon and invited them over. He had parents, somewhere, but they were never home. Like, literally never. Sometimes there were signs that they had been there – empty food cups, bills lying around, a pair of his father’s sneakers. He told stories about them, sometimes, but Nick had only seen them once at Cyril’s birthday party, and now their faces just seemed blotchy, vague, blurry… unreal. They were shadow-people.

Maybe that explained why Cyril was so weird. Really, Simon and Nick didn’t mind him, but sometimes he even got a little funky even for them. He had written 666 on all of his shirts, which were all, weirdly, striped. Most of the things in his house were colorless or tinted blue. His drawings hung all over the walls.

When they got there, he smiled nervously and thrust soda into their hands. Nick tasted it and, finding it wasn’t spiked, drank it willingly. Some screamo band was going in his bedroom, but he went and turned it off. The air smelled like cigarettes, but Nick never saw anybody smoking them. Maybe it was incense, or something.

“I got some movies,” Cyril said in that soft voice of his. He fidgeted before he pushed them across the floor towards Nick and Simon. He had chairs, but they almost never used them.

“Hey, cool,” said Nick, smiling.

Their choices were typical of Cyril’s parties. Super Zombie Bloodbath, Attack of the Shrieking Slug-Men, and, of course, their favorite, Ninjas Versus Vampires in Amityville III: Bloody Gut-Jitsu.

Nick couldn’t remember what they had watched, after they watched it. Cyril and Simon both fell asleep in his lap, and after his third soda, he really had to pee, but didn’t have the heart to move them. He fell asleep soon after that.

--

He woke up when the twins texted him, when his phone blasted its designated ringtone, which Simon had set to Barbie Girl as a practical joke. They did it at the same time, having coordinated it, because they got a kick out of waking Nick up at 5:00 in the morning.

Val said: WHATEVER MAURICE SAYS IS A LIE!

Maurice said: VAL IS TELLING THE TRUTH!

They thought they were clever. Nick appreciated the humor anyway.

Simon, being a heavy sleeper, was making a puddle of drool on Nick’s crotch, and Nick still had to pee. Cyril was nowhere in sight.

-- to be continued

I don't really know what to say other than this is something I wrote. Don't let this throw you off, but this actually used to be a fanfiction, though the characters were non-human, before I realized it could easily sit as an original story. The characters are very much their own, so this is not infringement or anything - though there are some strong similarities between the characters and their original counterparts. If you can guess what fandom, you win a cookie. :3

Please do let me know what you think, and if I should go on. Thanks so much!