A/N: THIS STORY IS NOT OVER YET. I know that we may take forever to update, but people really need to start reading the author notes. I may be a huge procrastinator, but I’m giving you seventeen pages of quality shit. You’ve got to hand it to me. Yeah to (soon-to-be) 1000 reviews. Chapter title comes from “The Chemicals Between Us” by Bush.

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“Bless Me Father”

Ch. 17: The Walls That Lie Between Us

By: Evil Elf

The road was dark. Caleb had killed his brights nearly ten minutes ago and Drake gripped the edges of his seat just lightly with the pads of his fingertips. There was only the drone of the engine, the static of a forgotten radio station and the sound of Caleb breathing, chest rising and falling to a restless tune.

Drake shouldn’t have been nervous. He shouldn’t have been much of anything. They’d done this a thousand times before, been alone for more than split seconds at a time. It was natural. Drake looked over to Caleb, settling his gaze on a set profile, eyes masked by shadows. It was nothing out of the ordinary.

It was. Caleb had gotten his license just before the start of camp. He’d taken to driving the family minivan around, parking in spaces that were just a little too small and slamming on the breaks just a little too hard. Drake still trusted him, trusted that he knew what he was doing. Caleb’s fingers were wrapped around the wheel, his knuckles maybe slightly white, and Drake looked out the window instead.

He’d ridden his bike to Caleb’s house. The wind had been harsh against his face, whipping his hair around and into his eyes. And it didn’t get dark until late, not when the days were stretched out in the summer, but Drake had caught the last of the light anyway. He’d peddled into the dying sunset, leaving dark clouds behind.

To someone else, they might have been running away from something. Caleb hummed low in his throat to a nameless tune. They might have been walking away from something that they didn’t want to face. Drake tapped his fingers against the armrest. He wasn’t sure anymore.

Caleb’s parents had been home. They’d opened the door as Drake propped his bike against the side of the house, kicking the stand down. They’d smiled and asked him in, Mr. Castle patting him roughly on the shoulder, and Drake had had more than a moment to feel bad. He’d had time to feel like he was cheating, lying.

Caleb had already been halfway down the stairs. He’d looked at Drake over his parents’ head and given him an oddly stretched grin. There had been a wrinkle of worry on his forehead, a wrinkle of something Drake didn’t want to comprehend just yet. He’d smiled back instead.

“You ok?” The voice was hesitant, small.

Drake ran his top teeth over his bottom lip. They’d been driving for nearly twenty minutes, going here or there. And they weren’t running away from anything, anyone, because Drake was always running away. It was what he did. It had to stop.

“Yeah,” he answered, his voice somewhere deep inside of his chest.

Caleb had already had the car keys in hand. He’d whispered some kind of excuse, waving his parents off as he’d pushed Drake out the front door. His hands had been warm on Drake’s chest, a driving force, and Drake had felt it deep down into the pit of his stomach. Caleb hadn’t flinched, hadn’t skipped a beat, and Drake had wondered if he’d felt it too.

“We could go somewhere.” Caleb didn’t take his eyes off of the road. “Do you want to go somewhere?”

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Caleb was supposed to have a plan. He had been the one to come to Drake in his bedroom, been the one to say things that Drake had been waiting years to hear. He was supposed to be the one that knew what the fuck he was doing.

“No,” Drake said suddenly, loud in the silent car. Caleb flinched at the sound. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”

The radio was still sending out soft static, the road still dark, and Caleb slammed on his breaks hard. Drake’s hand went for his seatbelt, pulling at the strap across his chest as his entire body rocked forward. There was the screech of tires, Caleb’s hands scrambling on the wheel as he pulled off onto the shoulder. Drake’s heart was beating up into his throat.

“Ok.” Caleb said slowly, softly. He still wasn’t looking at Drake.

And it had been a whirlwind of lips and tongues and fingers and hands when Drake had had Caleb up in his bedroom. It had been what it had never been before. And it had been two days, forty-eight hours since all of that, and Drake still couldn’t get it out of his system. He couldn’t work it out in his head, piece everything together.

He’d been the one to pick up the phone and call. It had been stupid, because they called each other all the time. Caleb’s mother had been the first to pick up, her voice light, and Drake had felt his legs shake ever so slightly, his palms beginning to perspire. It had been stupid.

Drake didn’t want this to be weird. He didn’t want this to fuck up everything that they’d ever had. And Drake supposed that if he was going for that track then he should have stopped everything at camp, back when he still could have, would have, contained every little thing, all of the various pieces and scraps of their relationship. It was a little late to take it all back now.

Caleb’s words had been rushed over the phone. He’d sounded slightly panicked, maybe excited. Drake had closed his eyes, stretching out on his bed, and just listened. He’d bit his lip and remembered that all of it was real. It was happening.

“Caleb.” There were still questions that needed to be answered. There were still things that he couldn’t think about, people he couldn’t think about, not now or ever. There were things he had to remember to do. “I didn’t mean…”

“No,” Caleb broke in. The car was still running, the engine rumbling. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does.” Drake’s hand came up, his fingers almost resting on Caleb’s arm, not quite touching. “We just…” Drake paused. “It’s just that the other day, in my room, I never got to ask you some questions.”

The keys turned in Caleb’s hand and the engine cut out. The radio’s static finally faded and the air stilled. Caleb was looking at him.

“Ok.” It was the simplest of words, only the smallest admission.

Because Drake had finally found time to think everything over. He’d been able to examine things from all sides. He’d tried to cut everything out, the kiss in the infirmary and Caleb’s words in the confessional, but he couldn’t. Because words and kisses in Drake’s bedroom were one thing, were everything he’d ever wanted, but they weren’t everything all together. They didn’t explain it all away .

“At camp,” Drake could almost hear Caleb wince, “you told me in the confessional that you had kissed Christian but he hadn’t kissed you back.” Drake wanted to look Caleb in the eyes but instead he dropped his gaze to the dash, his fingertips skating over the dusty plastic. “Why?”

Caleb’s hands were clenched around the steering wheel and they weren’t going anywhere. The parking lights were on, slightly illuminating the ground ahead. There was pavement and miles and miles of empty road.

“At the party,” Caleb started and then stopped, his voice rough and mangled. Drake watched as he tilted his chin up to the ceiling, saw the bob of his throat as he swallowed. “At the party, I saw the way he looked at you. I saw the way he touched you and it made me so angry.” He was maybe grinding his teeth together. Drake couldn’t tell. “I wanted to hit him, to punch him so damn hard.”

And you did, Drake thought. You fucking did.

“And then all of that shit happened with Alex and your essay. You went to camp and Christian was there, and I thought that I had let it go but I hadn’t.” Drake took in Caleb’s fidgeting, the shifting of his foot back and forth against the carpet along with every inhale and exhale. “How was I supposed to let that go?”

You could have had me the whole time, Drake wanted to say. I was always here.

“I watched you working with him. I watched him touch you and you touch him back and it ripped something inside of my chest. I didn’t want to lose you.”

“But you pushed me away.” Drake’s words were moving, escaping faster than he could comprehend. “You pushed me into the lake and you kissed him.”

“I was scared.” Caleb was suddenly looking at Drake, his eyes all over Drake. “I didn’t know how you felt.”

“So you kissed Christian?” It was a risk. It was stupid move when they’d just worked everything out, and Drake was always doing stupid things. It was how he operated.

“I saw the two of you after I pushed you.” Caleb reached out, grabbing Drake around the wrist as if to hold him there. “You were wet and in his clothes and he was pushing you up against the countertop like he fucking owned you. And when you came later and you were still in his clothes, smelled like him, I had to show you, wanted to…”

“And what about Christian?” It always boiled down to something or the other. Drake could hardly breathe, maybe wasn’t, and they couldn’t have done this at Drake or Caleb’s house. They couldn’t do this anywhere.

“I was confused.” Caleb wasn’t shouting. “I couldn’t want you.” They weren’t quite there yet. “You were my best friend and I wanted to know what the hell all of that was. I just wanted to know what was so special about him.”

Drake turned away. Caleb’s fingers were still wrapped around his wrist. And Drake wasn’t sure if he wanted to be owned by anyone. He wasn’t something to be owned.

“I thought we were ok.” Caleb’s voice was almost pleading. “I thought the other day, in your room, we were over all of this.”

Drake stayed silent for a moment. There had been no passing cars. There had been no sign of anyone else at all. And they hadn’t run away because Drake was tired of running away. He’d given it up.

“I just keep thinking I’m going to turn around and you’re going to be gone.” Drake closed his eyes for a fraction of a second and took a deep breath. “I need to know that you actually want this.”

And they had maybe gone over all it before. They’d maybe done the loops and jumped through the hoops. Drake couldn’t be sure. Everything had happened hours, days before, and Drake was always screwing everything up.

Caleb’s seatbelt was already off. He flicked the parking lights off with the heal of his hand, the button loud despite it’s quick click. He pulled Drake forward by the wrist that he still held between his fingers until their faces were close, breaths mingling.

“You know that I do,” he whispered, his grip tight. And Drake was close enough to move, to knock their lips together, and he still couldn’t fully see Caleb’s face in the dark. “I want you.”

It was enough. It was the words that Drake needed to hear, over and over and over again. And he wanted to believe them, hear them deep down in his chest and in the beating of his heart against Caleb’s. Caleb’s lips were against his chin, his neck, and he did. His one hand was on the small of Drake’s back, burning a trail up his spine. He did.

Drake ran a hand slowly through his hair. In the mirror, it made the strands stick up on end. It could have bee the static or the drying sweat. Drake didn’t know.

His breath was still coming fast. His heart was still racing and Caleb had dropped him off over a half an hour ago. Caleb did that to him.

Drake wasn’t sure that anyone felt quite the way that he did right now. He wasn’t sure if people even came close to knowing what it was like. Because in the car, on the dark road, Drake had whispered Caleb’s name, and that had been it. That had been the strand that connected them together, slow tongue to tongue and lip to lip. Caleb had closed a set of fingers around Drake’s bicep, and it had been everything Drake could ever need.

Drake was maybe being saved. He was maybe dying slowly, a little bit at a time. The seconds moved by quickly, fell over and on top of one another like raindrops, and none of that mattered anymore anyway. This was the only thing that had to matter.

It hadn’t just been the strain of the seatbelt and the digital clock on the dash reading five after ten. It had been Caleb’s weight as he leaned over Drake, placed a hand on his thigh and tried not to shake as he touched nose to nose with Drake. It had been the shaky inhalation when Drake moved forward just enough and fingers connected to denim connected to cock and that was the fucking end of it all.

Caleb had jumped. He’d nearly scrambled and Drake had sighed as he had pulled back and away. He had counted the seconds, watched as Caleb focused his eyes straight ahead. And it hadn’t been exactly right or wrong, had been Caleb. His voice had been tight, fingers twisted around the wheel, because he couldn’t do that, not yet, when things had to be taken slow. Drake had straightened up, swallowed everything back, and that had been ok.

The phone was ringing and Drake picked up the extension in his parent’s room. They were still downstairs, had only waved him on as he entered into the door. And it had been past curfew, but he had been with Caleb. It didn’t matter if he was with Caleb.

“Hello,” he echoed into the receiver. There was a moment that he could have felt bad, could have felt like he was lying, and Drake wasn’t doing anything wrong. None of this was wrong.

“Drake?” Mackenzie said quickly. And he hadn’t been expecting Caleb, hadn’t been thinking about him at all, except that he had. In a way, he supposed he always was.

“Yeah?” He took a moment to sit down on the bed, smoothing the comforter out with hands that still shook, still wouldn’t fucking stay still. He would have to work on that.

“It’s Mackenzie.” Her voice sounded hollow, maybe a little bit alone.

“I know.” Drake’s fingers gripped slightly into the comforter. The last time he’d talked to Mackenzie, they’d been going over Christian. “Do you need something?”

And the question might have stung. His voice might have been slightly more harsh than he intended it to be. He liked Mackenzie. She had helped him out, been there for him, and she deserved better than what he dished out. She deserved so much more than everyone else. Drake just couldn’t give it.

“Just.” She was biting her nails. He knew her well enough now, could almost read her. “I wanted to talk.” There was a pause. “If that’s ok.”

“Yeah, no.” Drake felt like an ass. “I mean, I just didn’t expect you to call.”

“No.” Hell, he could hear the slight squeak in her voice. “It’s ok if you don’t want to talk or anything.” There was an edge there and he was always hurting everyone.

The jumping in the pit of his stomach had settled down now. It had settled out, stretched thin, and Drake wanted it back. He wanted the skin of Caleb’s shoulder, neck, wrist, side, back.

“I want to talk.” He was always trying to make things right again. “Really. What have you been up to?”

“In the two days I haven’t seen you?” Mackenzie asked. Her usual tone was coming back, a slight lilt to her voice. “Nothing really. I’m supposed to go to an art show tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

Drake wished he could conjure his old tone back so easily. Things had changed, he had changed, and he didn’t want to go back on that now. He didn’t want to flip or reverse anything that had brought him here, not anymore. He could still feel Caleb’s fingertips at the base of his neck, even if it had only gone so far.

“But what about you?” she asked. “After everything with Christian…”

“Nothing.” Drake wasn’t sure what he was saying, was not saying, but he couldn’t tell Mackenzie anything over the phone. It didn’t feel right. “You said you were going to an art show?”

“Yeah.” She might have sounded slightly uneasy. Drake was shifting on the bed and, even though he knew her, thought he knew her, he still didn’t know anything. “Why?”

“Maybe I’ll meet you there and we can talk about stuff.” His fingers twisted into the bedspread. “If you’re not already going with a big group of people.”

Because Drake wasn’t hiding this. He wasn’t running away. He could tell people, could tell Mackenzie, and it didn’t matter either way. It wasn’t something to hide.

“I don’t know.” She was shifting as well. “You probably wouldn’t have a good time. We can get together some other time.”

“No.” Drake stood up, the phone still in hand, pressed tightly to his ear. “I like art. I’ll come. Just give me the time and the place and I’ll be there.”

There was more than a pause. There was a pregnant bit of silence where nothing was said at all. Drake thought that maybe Mackenzie had hung up, had dropped the phone, but he could still hear her breathing ever so slightly on the other end. He waited.

“Ok,” she let out. Drake reached over and grabbed a pen from his mother’s nightstand. “Let me get you the information.”

Drake liked the taste of dark chocolate on his tongue. He liked the smell of gasoline and the feel of his own hand on his cock. It was hot like the water droplets sliding over his face, melding into his hair and his eyes, making it impossible to see. The moisture was in his lungs, going to his brain, and Drake leaned his shoulder blades back against the shower wall. God, he liked the feel of that.

He’d touched Caleb. He’d felt that tentative touch back. It had been soft, not as insistent, perhaps hesitant. And hell, it had been days. They’d been this, them for a number of hours. And Drake could wait, would wait. God, he’d been waiting for years.

He shifted, shaking his hair out of his eyes. Everything was happening slowly and quickly at the same time, and Drake hated to be confused. He’d spent too long being confused.

He’d done this so many times before. He’d closed his eyes, felt his wet eyelashes sliding together, and just put his fingers right there. He’d turned his head to the side, a little bit out of the spray, and he’d been careful to breathe through his nose. He’d been good at never making much of a sound.

He’d wondered, of course. He’d thought about what that first touch would be like, the first pop of button and drag of zipper and Caleb’s fingers on his face, his eyes on Drake’s. He’d planned out the kiss and the feel of the motion and the timing. He’d known where to lean and the angle, tilt of necks and arch of wrist.

It was silly. It was stupid, and, Drake tilted his head back a little more. He was a boy and of course he’d imagined it, dwelled on the image and, oh fuck yes, the feel. It was something everyone did, and he wondered if Caleb had thought of the two of them, envisioned them together in the car or on Drake’s bed or, hell, Caleb’s.

It was a primal motion. It was upstroke, downstroke, breath. It was a constant cycle, motion of hips and hand and Drake couldn’t take all of it in at once.

Behind closed eyelids, Caleb was there, maybe reaching out to touch his collarbone or the curve of his shoulder. Drake was moving, placing a hand on Caleb’s hip and pulling him that much closer. He was naked, felt Caleb naked against him, and he didn’t want to look because everything was just perfect and fine. Everything was anything he ever wanted it to be.

Drake could feel his thighs beginning to tremble. He pushed back against the shower wall a little harder, his breath harsh. Because things had to work out and he was almost there anyway. The water was still lukewarm on his forearm and his calf. It was falling with small pitter-patters, silencing all other noise. Drake had time.

Caleb’s mouth was meeting his. Their tongues were touching in a way that they had in Caleb’s car, pulled off onto the shoulder with dead headlights and unbroken night. Drake was humming in the back of his throat or maybe Caleb was and he could feel the vibrations deep down into the pit of his stomach. He could feel all of his muscles tensing.

And he hadn’t needed to look. He hadn’t needed to do anything but feel, but in Drake’s mind, behind closed bathroom door and shower curtain, he did. He broke the kiss, his fingers moving over wet skin, and he looked down Caleb’s body, chest and stomach and cock. Everything felt so damn tight and when Drake’s eyes returned to Caleb’s mouth, his eyes, everything was different. The features had changed, reshaped, and it wasn’t Caleb anymore.

Christian was pushing Drake against the wall. He was standing beneath the spray, the water soaking his dark hair, and he didn’t hesitate to push one thumb into Drake’s hip and slide his other hand down to Drake’s crotch, over belly button and through coarse hair just as he’d done in their cabin and that was all wrong. Drake was all wrong.

Drake took a quick breath and a halting step. His eyes flew open to take in the empty shower, the white walls and falling water. His lungs hurt, his chest feeling as if it had been punched. And that wasn’t right, because he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Christian. He wasn’t supposed to want to know what it would feel like, be like, taste like. He fucking hated Christian.

Drake’s heart was pounding. The water was going cold and his eyes stung. He blinked beneath the spray, not bothering to wipe the droplets from his face. His legs were shaking, wouldn’t stop, and he slowly slid to the floor. His shoulders were shivering along with the unsubtle quivering of his legs, and that could have been from anything. God, Drake knew it wasn’t anything.

The air had been cool as he had stepped out of his front door. It had hit him straight on in the face, blinded him for a moment and taken his breath away. And it was the summer and there would always been cool nights, sweatshirts that were tugged over the head while the grass was wet with dew underfoot. Drake should have been used to that.

Mackenzie had picked him up in her little blue car. She hadn’t even gotten the chance to pull into the driveway and work her way out of her seatbelt because Drake was already there. He’d been watching from the window, the curtains pulled back tight in his hands. His parents had still been home, and they would have wanted to know who she was. There would have been questions to ask and Drake hadn’t been ready to answer any of them. He still wasn’t, and he hated lying to his parents.

He’d called Caleb earlier. He’d told Caleb about the show and about meeting with Mackenzie. There had been a certain quality to Caleb’s voice at the mention of her name, but it had all disappeared in the space of a moment. Caleb had mentioned seeing the show advertised on the front page of the local newspaper, a picture of the hosting hall vivid against the headlines, and that had been that.

The drive had been slow. There had been enough conversation, talk, to get through the fifteen minute drive. And it had been so different with Caleb, the other night, because Drake had maybe wanted something out of it. He’d maybe waited on the edge of his seat and perhaps he had been wrong to want so much so quickly. Everyone was always being wrong.

The building was nice. It was located right down in the center of town, built of old brick and molder. Drake eyed the door as he stepped out of the car, his hand on the lock. Mackenzie had reminded him that she didn’t have automatic locks, that he would need to push the small nub down all by himself, and Drake could do that. He had joked that he wouldn’t.

He was wearing the shorts. They’d been the only clean thing that he could find, stuffed into a ball somewhere in the back of his closet. He’d paired them with a simple gray t-shirt, the only real shirt that he’d ever bought for himself. It was wrinkled, stretched out and tight on his skin at the same time, and it didn’t matter either way. It was a stupid art show.

Mackenzie was smiling at him. Her fingers wrapped slowly, carefully, around his wrist, tugging him along after her. And to someone else just there for the show, the paintings and the sketches and whatever the hell else they had displayed, they might have been a couple. They could have been Mackenzie and Drake, Drake and Mackenzie. It was a pretty picture.

She paused slightly on the stairs. Her smile faltered a fraction as she turned back to look at Drake. She was standing one step above him, just matching his height. It could have been perfect.

“We can always go somewhere else if you don’t want to.”

“No.” Drake took the next step, making their heights uneven again. “We’ll stick around.”

Mackenzie had admitted to him in the car that one of her friends had made her promise to come. Her friend had some artwork in the show, and she assured Drake that it would all be a quick thing. It would be done and over and then they could make their escape, go out and get greasy pizza and finally talk about whatever the hell they needed to. It was only the matter of making an appearance.

Mackenzie pushed the door open, her hand still on Drake’s arm. The hall was bright, full of people talking and moving and looking. Drake blinked against the sudden cadence of a hundred tiny conversations. He’d only been away from camp for a number of days, and he’d already forgotten the noise people in mass could create.

“You all right?” Mackenzie asked, pulling him a little off to the side. Drake let her drag him, his feet barely moving.

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. He hadn’t even worked up what exactly he was going to say and not say to her. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Mackenzie gave him a pointed look and then moved on. There were so many different things to look at, and Drake wasn’t sure where to start first. Hell, he wasn’t sure what to tell Mackenzie first.

His relationship with Caleb wasn’t a secret. They’d never established that it would be. But Caleb had whispered to him in the car, one hand still on the wheel and the other at Drake’s side, that they should take it slow. Fingers sliding against buttons sliding against chest, slow. Drake could handle slow.

“I’m going to go find my friend really fast and then we can go.” Mackenzie was bouncing on her heals, striving to get her eyes above the crowd. “Just stay over here and wait for me to come back, ok?” She gave his wrist a light squeeze before letting it drop.

Drake watched her slip into the crowd. He rubbed lightly at his wrist, fingers tracing the path Mackenzie’s had taken. And if things had been different, they could have been just that, different. Fingers around wrists were still fingers around wrists, and it could have meant something. It could have made Drake’s life a hell of a lot less complicated.

Mackenzie had asked him to stay put, but the crowd was moving in and Drake slipped off to the left. There were less people there, a wider expanse of open space and portraits and pictures. Drake let his hand trail against the wall as he squinted at each and every one, the names printed on neat pieces of square paper beneath the works.

He wondered if all of the artists were there. He thought it would have been nerve-wracking, worthy of biting fingernails and chewing on lips. Because to stand around, watching other people staring at your art, would have been hell. Drake wouldn’t have had the courage to show his face.

“Drake?”

Drake turned at the sound of his name. He was already scanning the room for Mackenzie, her blonde hair hanging in a neat sheet down her back, but he found dark blue eyes instead. Drake allowed himself to take one step back, his shoulders bumping into the wall behind him. His mouth had gone a little dry.

“Taylor.” The friend that had promised Mackenzie to come to the show had just arrived. “You’re here.”

“It would appear so.” She was eyeing him up, her one hand sliding out between the seams of her pocket.

Her hair was pulled back off of her face, and she looked a little different than Drake remembered. She was wearing a tight tank top, a belly ring exposed below the hem. There was eyeliner and foundation and Drake couldn’t make sense of much of any of that. He never had been able to.

“Mackenzie’s looking for you.” He took a moment to pull himself up to his full height. “I mean, I guess Mackenzie’s looking for you.”

He could already picture the scene in his mind. He could hear Taylor’s voice over the phone, her plea, and of course Mackenzie had agreed to come. He gave Taylor a once over one more time, noting the perfect polish job on her toes and fingernails. He could put the conversation together easily.

“Why would you think that?”

She was chewing bubble gum and moving a little too closely into his personal space. He could still remember her at Alex’s house, all over Caleb, and that was over now.

“She told me you invited her to come.” He carefully stepped a little further away. “I didn’t know you were into art.”

Taylor gave Drake a hard look. She could have been pretty without all of the makeup and the stance. Drake might not have been into all of that, the fluff and the smoothness and the pink, but he could still tell. He could judge from an outside perspective.

“I’m not.” And even though Drake had already taken the time to move away, Taylor took the initiative and came even closer. He could almost feel her breath on his face. “My brother is.”

Drake licked a slow line across his upper teeth. His blood was pounding a little bit in his ears and Taylor was enclosing him in. He was trapped, effectively pinned. There was nowhere to go, to get out. Girls always seemed to be doing that.

“Then why did you force Mackenzie to come?” It came out strong and heavy. Drake was proud of that.

“I didn’t force Mackenzie to do anything.” Taylor was smiling wide now. “I didn’t even know she was coming.”

Drake took a moment to mull everything over. Mackenzie still hadn’t come back and Taylor was right there, was grinning at him. Time was ticking away and perhaps it hadn’t been the best idea to come to the art show in the first place. He could have waited another day to tell her about Caleb.

“But if you didn’t,” he began, but stopped dead when her hand landed on his shoulder. It was the first time that she had ever really touched him, nails sharp even through the fabric of his shirt, and Drake didn’t like any of it.

“Did you see these?” she asked. She was looking behind Drake’s head, at the portion of the wall that she had just recently backed Drake into. “They’re really very good.”

It took Drake a moment to turn around. Her hand was still on his shoulder and he wanted to shrug it off, push it away. He wanted to go and find Mackenzie, get away from the art show and Taylor. He wanted to leave but his eyes were already finding what he had somehow known would be there all along. Because the bottom of his stomach was dropping out and of course he had known somewhere deep down. He always knew everything on some underlying level.

There were pictures of him. The lines of his face where there, were black in charcoal and graphite. There were three, were more, but he blocked all of that out. He stared and didn’t blink or breathe or even move. He just stopped everything.

There were twelve, maybe fifteen in all, and that didn’t mean anything. It didn’t change the fact that he was there, was staring out of the page right back at himself. And Mackenzie was there, a landscape and another girl that Drake didn’t even recognize. He pushed the rest away without a passing glance.

The name was there. It was right underneath it all, typed out in neat black ink on a perfectly cut square of paper. And Drake hated that in a way. He despised the perfection and the curl and the way it just stayed right there. He wanted to rip it down.

Taylor’s hand slid off of his shoulder suddenly, and Drake didn’t have to ask why. There were no second guesses. There was only a right and a wrong when it came to these things, a sense of up and down. It was devoid of an area of gray, and Drake knew he was still questioning in the back of his mind. There were a million different things going through his head and he already had his answer. He’d gotten it a while ago.

He only had to turn his head a little bit to the right. He blinked, focused, and Christian was there. His eyes were on Drake, his mouth slightly open, and Drake’s eyes traced the curve of his mouth, his teeth, the edge of a cheekbone. He connected it all to memory, memorized and then forgot it again.

He hadn’t seen Christian since he’d gone to talk to him. He’d stood on his porch afterward, watching the swing move lazily back and forth in the wind. Because Christian was seeing someone else, had a boyfriend, and Drake wasn’t a part of any of that. He’d asked to be, foolishly gone thinking Christian would want all of that back. God, there hadn’t even been anything in the first place.

And Drake knew that was a stupid notion. Because there had been something for him. There was still that base feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he couldn’t turn back to the drawings because he was feeling, was taking Christian in. He was biting his lip, feeling hand slip over shirt and under waistband of pants, a mouth hot next to and on his. He was knowing it all, inside and out and fucking on. He was hating Christian for all of it.

There weren’t any words. Drake had lost those, spilled them all over the floor with everything else he’d ever had inside of him. And if he had thought of Christian in the shower, seen his face, it didn’t have to mean anything. Drake could get over it like he’d gotten over everything else. It was possible.

Everything still seemed to be moving around him. People were going and coming, walking to and fro and here and there, and Drake wasn’t moving. Christian was still standing, waiting as everyone shuffled past. They were both just staying, not moving or god, touching, and maybe Drake wanted to. Fuck, he hated it, wanted to push him and hit him and yell. He needed to touch him.

It was a single step forward and, this time, Drake took it. He was here. There were drawings behind him, an entire life behind him, and he couldn’t turn back around. Christian couldn’t look away. He wouldn’t because he owed Drake that much.

There was a moment. There was a breath and the time of a heartbeat and Christian reached out, shuffled one foot forward, and his fingers connected to Drake’s wrist. There was a spark, hot and cold and fire and ice all at the same time, and Drake blinked, swallowed, had to look away. Because Mackenzie had held him the same way, wrapped her fingers around the same bit of skin, and it hadn’t been a burn. It hadn’t been like this.

Drake wanted to say something. He wanted to tell Christian something about hate and no love, and his lips were moving but the words weren’t coming. They were getting jumbled somewhere in the back of his head along with everything else.

“Drake,” Taylor’s voice came behind him, soft yet cutting, and Drake blinked, stumbled backward, and broke contact.

For a moment, Christian’s hand hovered out in the air, his fingers still appearing to grasp, to wait for something that Drake had already tried to give, and then it fell to his side. His eyes slid off of Drake’s and instead onto the wall behind him. It all happened in the blink of an eye, the time of a second, the sound of a name. It was all over.

“Hey,” Drake got out. And Taylor was still beside him, right there, and Christian was maybe moving away.

“Yeah.” Christian ran a hand through his dark hair. He wasn’t looking at Drake. “Why are you here?”

Something was burning in the back of Drake’s throat. He could feel Taylor’s presence at his side, a slight hovering, and he knew the whole thing must have been interesting to her. He wondered how much she’d gotten out of Mackenzie.

“I came with Mackenzie.” Drake wanted to sound as haughty as Christian. He wanted to be as in control. “She’s meeting a friend.”

Christian raised an eyebrow, just one, and it hit Drake suddenly like a kick to the chest. The telephone conversation came back, the subtle hint, the taking of the wrist as if to protect him, lead him this way and that, and Drake hated her for a moment. For a second, he wanted to rip all of her hair out.

“Really?” Drake watched as Christian slid a hand into the front pocket of his pants, fucking leather pants, and Drake turned around because there was nothing else to do.

Taylor was there. Her eyes were slightly wider than normal. He could hear her breathing, the slight hitch in her chest. She was biting her lip and he waited for her to leave, to fucking go away. Her looked her way, pushing her silently with his eyes, and she quickly slipped off into the crowd. He needed to be alone.

But he couldn’t be. Because Christian was still there, was at his back. Drake felt it in the same way that he’d felt everything else, and that wasn’t safe. Drake wanted this to be safe.

“Did she find you yet?” he asked quietly. He almost wondered if Christian would even catch it.

“No.” And of course Christian did. He always caught everything.

Drake turned his attention to the wall. His face felt hot and, God, Christian had been there with him in the shower. He had been all over his except that he hadn’t. Because Drake hadn’t wanted him to be. He hadn’t consented to the thought or the picture or the fantasy.

“They’re good,” he said slowly. And it wasn’t quite true, wasn’t honest, because he hadn’t even taken a good look at them yet. “The drawings I mean.”

He could hear Christian shift behind him. He could imagine the way that the leather pants stretched, pulled, and that was bad. Christian in leather pants, close enough to feel and touch, was bad. Drake hated Christian for what he’d done.

“You’re freaked out.” Christian might have been laughing. “You’re freaked out that I drew you.” He wasn’t.

Drake closed his eyes for a split second and then reopened them. He took a deep breath and looked at each piece in turn. He followed the lines of his face, the curve. And it didn’t look like him except that it did. And that confused him. It all just confused him.

“No I’m not.” There were still things that he wanted to know. He didn’t know if he had the right to ask anymore.

“You are.” Christian was so close behind him. Drake could feel his heat. “I drew them before camp. They survived the massacre in our cabin.”

“I didn’t mean,” Drake began, but he was cut off by a warm hand on his hip. It was barely there, almost but not quite touching, and Drake was over this. He’d gone over this.

“I met you at Alex’s party and all I had were pictures and memories to draw you from.” His breath was ghosting over Drake’s neck, his ear, and Drake couldn’t hear anything but Christian’s voice. He needed to push him away, shove. “When I saw you at camp, I realized that everything about all of the drawings I had done was wrong.” Something was preventing him from doing what was right. “I hadn’t gotten you right at all.”

“So you scribbled out my face.” It was no more than a whisper.

“I could never get you.”

Drake’s fingers were curling into the material of his shirt. His entire body was humming, on the edge, and if Christian took another step forward he would be right there, right against Drake like he had been once before. If they both just took back what had been said, done, and Christian just moved, the world could change.

“Drake!”

Or the world could fall apart. Because Caleb was there, was pushing his way through the crowd, a newspaper tucked under his arm. His hair was all over and in his eyes, and Drake’s chest was caving in. Everything was just stopping until Drake wasn’t sure if he was even alive anymore.

There was something holding him back. There was a force, a push and a shove, and Caleb broke through the mass, the mixing and mingling bodies. He caught the back of Drake’s neck with his palm, the newspaper wadded into a ball against Drake’s spine, and he pushed their lips together in one moment, without hesitation or fear. His mouth met Drake’s in the crowded hall, a room where anyone could see, and Drake let him.

It was a lingering kiss, Caleb’s thumb smoothing over Drake’s cheek. And when he pulled away, his nose brushing down against Drake’s neck, Drake felt a shiver work its way down his spine. Caleb had told him that he wanted to take it slow, easy, wait for the next step until it came, keep it all under wraps. Drake’s skin was tingling.

“Hey,” Caleb whispered. He was so warm.

“Hey.” Drake wanted to hold him here, keep them like this forever.

But when Caleb pulled away, the paper crinkling against Drake’s back, Drake remembered where it had all began. He turned to see Christian, face blank, and that was the way it should have always been. It was the way things worked out, the way Christian made Drake feel on the inside.

“After you left,” Caleb was saying, body close, “I actually took the time to read the article on the art show.”

Drake pulled a little away at that. Caleb’s fingers tugged at his belt loops, keeping him close, and in the crowd and the noise, Drake knew that was ok. Caleb’s fingers on him were ok.

“Caleb.” It was an acknowledgement, maybe a nod from Christian. It was the best that could be expected.

“I read your name in the paper.” Caleb was still close, one arm around Drake’s side. “I didn’t realize you were big into art.” Drake watched as he turned to look at the wall, the exhibit, and immediately tensed against him.

“Yeah.” Christian was keeping his cool. There was a certain edge to his voice, but nothing more. “You didn’t realize a lot of things, did you?”
It was more than a tensing. It was an entire shift, a racing of the heart that Drake could feel next to his own. Caleb’s blood was pumping, beating through his veins, and Drake was a part of that now. He was inside of all of that and this was about more than just art.

“He drew pictures of you?” Caleb asked. He took a tiny step away to touch fingers to paper. “When did he draw pictures of you?”

And Drake hadn’t told him about the photograph. He had hid the remnants of the butchered picture in a drawer next to his bed instead. And it was only Caleb and him left now, nothing more or less. There were too many missing pieces for it to ever really mean much of anything.

“Camp,” Christian cut in, and that wasn’t half of the truth. “We spent a lot of time together when we were roommates, you know.”

Something about the statement made Caleb’s spine go completely straight. Drake felt all of his muscles tighten, stiffen, and he wanted to just hold on. He wanted to go home, to get away from all of it. He had too.

“Not anymore though, right?” Caleb’s voice was harsh. “You’re back with your boyfriend now, aren’t you?”

Christian’s hands were balled into fists. Drake could feel the tension between all three of them, the air hot enough to sting. And he needed to know how things could change so goddamn fast, from Christian to Caleb and back again.

Christian smiled and gave a little nod before walking away. He turned his back on the two of them, pushing his way through the crowd. And even though Caleb was there, was touching the inside of Drake’s wrist, Drake watched Christian’s progression with his eyes.

He saw Christian approach a taller man, blonde hair long and in his eyes. He watched as Christian said something, followed the movement and reaction as the blonde laughed. There was a pause, a hesitation, and then Christian’s hand was entwined with the blonde’s, bumping slightly against his thigh, expanse of black leather, and Drake looked away.

Caleb was still examining the drawings, his fingers tight in Drake’s belt loop, and Drake’s nose, eyes, throat were burning. He pressed a finger to the back of Caleb’s hand, tracing an indiscernible pattern, and when Caleb looked up, eyes alight, Drake swallowed everything else. He had to.

It was darker than he would have thought. There were no street lamps, no lights from the surrounding buildings. Caleb was pushing him slightly on ahead, a hand splayed palm flat on his back. He was laughing about something. Drake had lost the train of thought a few minutes ago.

It was hard to think. His entire brain was clouding up, submerged in fog. Because it was difficult to do much of anything, concentrate at all, when Caleb was at his side. He’d leaned against the wall in the gallery, waited for Mackenzie to return or Caleb to change his mind and walk away, and neither had happened. Everything had been entirely different.

Because Caleb had been scared in the car. Drake had been able to see it in his eyes. He’d been afraid of just what this entailed, what their relationship would mean. So he’d said they should wait, should hold out, and Drake had went home and let loose in the shower instead. He’d accepted the position, his fingers curling into the hair behind Caleb’s ear.

Yeah, Drake had leaned against the wall. And there had still been so many people, a thick crowd, but he’d been able to watch Christian. He’d seen the way he held his boyfriend’s hand, whispered in his ear, and he’d wondered if they were fucking. He’d wondered what exactly they’d done.

It shouldn’t have mattered. He hated Christian and he didn’t care. He hated the curve of his lip and the way his leather pants fucking fit around his hips, not zipped together but tied with black laces. He hated the way that it made him feel, fucking stare, because it wasn’t right.

Caleb had been saying something, maybe humming a tune. They hadn’t been moving anywhere, wedged up against the wall near the corner. And Drake had jumped when Caleb’s fingers had loosened from his belt loops, brushed down the front of his shorts to press lightly where zipper met denim. His hips had bumped back into the wall hard, bruising, and Caleb hadn’t moved.

“We should go outside,” he’d said instead, just the right amount of weight in just the right place and Drake had felt his face go red. He’d heard the sound of his ragged exhale.

“Yeah,” he’d answered, waited for Caleb to move, to tell him where to go. He’d been waiting his whole entire life for something.

It was still dark and Caleb was still pushing. Drake was just trying to breathe, squeezed down the alley between buildings. And anything could happen, go wrong, and Drake didn’t think because for as long as it lasted it wasn’t going to matter. This was what mattered.

There was a fence up ahead separating one brick gap from the next and Drake stated to slow down, to stop, but Caleb was still driving him ahead. He was taking him somewhere and Drake hadn’t thought to question. He hadn’t considered to even ask.

“Caleb,” he started, and there was a sudden jolt, a pause.

Drake reminded himself to breathe and Caleb was flush up against him, chest pressing into his spine as one arm wrapped deftly across his chest and the other slid into a front pocket, hauling hips against hips. Caleb’s breath was hot against his neck and they were that close, Drake’s shirt riding up in the back. He could feel Caleb’s skin, the heat burning along with the rhythm of his rapid heartbeat.

“You want him.” It was rougher than Drake had ever heard Caleb sound before. It was deep, twisted as if it had been ripped out of his chest. “You still want him.”

“I don’t.” Drake wasn’t struggling, couldn’t when he couldn’t even think to do anything. And if this was what it came down to, what it was, Drake didn’t know if he would ever be able to.

“I saw you.” It was only a little more than a whisper. “I saw him and his drawings.” His grip was tight, unrelenting. “I saw you just look at him.”

“No.”

Because it was fucked up and Caleb knew that. He knew about this. And Drake hadn’t meant to do anything. He hadn’t meant to even look his way.

“Yes.” His fingers were fisted in Drake’s t-shirt, dragging the hemline halfway up Drake’s chest. “I saw.” His other hand was moving, was pressing down tightly against the bare skin above the waistband of his shorts. And Drake was sweating, was panting, because Caleb didn’t do this.

Drake wanted to yell or scream or push away. He wanted to run, hide, push back and fight. He wanted to tell Caleb that he was wrong, had no reason to be right. His back was arching slightly, his head tilted back onto Caleb’s shoulder, and he wanted to fuck him. He wanted to know what Caleb felt like.

“I can’t.” He could barely get the words out, mouth dry and lungs collapsing.

“What did he do to you?” Caleb’s temple was right against Drake’s, their mouths so close, and his voice was so thick with something, with the tears that Drake could feel on his skin or, fuck, sex. “Did he kiss you?” His nails scratched lightly over Drake’s stomach, left marks. “Did he stick his hands so fucking far down your pants that you forgot about everything else?” It was twisting, hot, suffocating, and Drake couldn’t stop the whine in the back of his throat. “Did he suck you off?”

It wasn’t Caleb. This, fingers pushing bruises into Drake’s hips, wasn’t Christian. He wasn’t the boy that had looked away in the car, kept his eyes on the road. He wasn’t the one that had masturbated in Reese’s room, all downtrodden eyes and long eyelashes and bucking hips. He wasn’t anything that Drake knew.

“What do you want me to say?” Drake asked, his lips pressing the words against the skin of Caleb’s neck. And he couldn’t be sure that he heard, couldn’t be sure of anything accept the fingers tugging on the waistband of his shorts, stretching out his t-shirt until it wasn’t anything anymore.

There was a pause. There was a moment of nothing on nothing and Drake took the time to really push back, fight it all for just a second. And, fuck, Caleb was there, was all there, hard against his back, and Drake forgot everything else.

“Tell me it doesn’t matter.” It was soft and broken, hurt. “Tell me he doesn’t matter.”

And Drake could see him. He could envision Christian, leather pants with undone laces, stretched out on the coach, on his fucking knees. And it was not a decision, wasn’t an action. The blonde was there, was pushing fingers into Christian’s hair. Because Caleb was wearing jeans, tight t-shirt and sneakers, and he wasn’t Christian. He wasn’t ever going to be.

“He’s nothing,” Drake whispered back, everything holding still as spine arched and chest moved up and down with breath.

Caleb didn’t answer. He undid Drake’s pants, his fingers moving slowly on the button and then the zip. And his hand was pulling Drake’s shirt up further, tighter until Drake wasn’t sure he could ever breathe again. There was a simple push, the parting of fabric and Caleb’s fingers on the waistband of his boxers. It was another inch and half of skin.

Drake’s eyes were closed so tightly, his nose pressed tight to Caleb’s neck. And he could smell him, tears and sweat and sex. He could feel every part of him, knew his fingers were shaking as they encountered coarse hair. Caleb’s entire body was shaking.

“You don’t…” Drake broke off, bringing one hand up to the side of Caleb’s face, keeping them close together. “You don’t need to…”

Everything was shaking and Drake was hanging, was staining. Caleb was breathing, rapid, one, two, three. And the lights were still not on, the fence still in front of them, and none of that mattered.

“I want to,” Caleb said, words hot against Drake’s skin, and slid his hand the rest of the way down.