// devenir gris //

- written with lilysaid

//

Joe dodges a group of freshman as he jogs toward the library. Across the quad, his friends are free for the day, laughing, roughhousing and shedding their uniforms as they make their way back to their dorm. He can't join them, but at least he can loosen his tie, which he does with a few hard tugs at the knot while his book bag sags heavily on his shoulder. No one in the library is going to inspect his uniform, and the guy he's tutoring sure doesn't care about things like dress codes-or algebra, or history, or biology, for that matter, which is why Joe is stuck teaching math on a sunny Friday afternoon while his friends have fun without him.

He's cranky and hot by the time he reaches the library steps, so he's not thrilled when someone jumps into his path without warning, a near-collision that makes his book bag slide all the way off his shoulder. It hits the ground with a heavy scrape against the concrete, and he glares at the jerk in his path, who he belatedly realizes is David, the junior he's been tutoring.

"Sorry," David says, crouching down with Joe to help retrieve the spilled books. The seam of his bag is torn.

"It's fine," Joe mutters, and stacks them into a pile that he's not looking forward to carrying. It's not fine, not really. Beneath his blazer and dress shirt, his back is damp with sweat.

"I just wanted to catch you before you went into the library," David says. "I thought maybe we could study somewhere else for a change."

They've only had four sessions; Joe doesn't see how David can already be tired of the library. It's probably the only time he's even been in the building. But Joe can't stand the thought of going into that dark, stuffy building, either, and why should David get to wear a threadbare t-shirt and soft-looking slacks and-okay, the black combat boots don't look that comfortable, but at least they're his-while Joe is stuck in his stiff uniform?

"I guess we could go to my room," Joe says, and David's mouth lifts on one side as he leans in and scoops some of Joe's books into his arms.

"Awesome," he says, "We can do that."

"I'm this way," Joe says, tipping his head in the direction of his dorms.

"I know." David gives that same smile and starts walking. "I've seen you around."

That surprises Joe, even though he's seen David, too, hanging around with his weird friends, the theater arts crowd, passing around comic books and headphones and, when they think no one's looking, cigarettes. They push the boundaries of the dress code, their pants frayed at the hem and pieces of color always peeking out from beneath their clothes, and they don’t seem to realize they’re not like everyone else. Sometimes David doesn’t seem to notice anything, which annoys Joe, who notices everything.

For example, he notices that David works better inside the quiet confines of Joe’s room. It isn’t perfect, but the hamper is only slightly overflowing and most of his stuff, sports gear and skateboards, is stowed precariously but out of sight in his closet. He passes inspection, and that’s what’s important.

“I couldn’t help but notice you locked your door,” David says, once Joe is changed and they’re both pulled up to Joe’s desk. “Should I be worried?”

Joe glances at the door. “Worried?”

“How can I know you’re not some kind of sociopath who lures academically challenged juniors up to his room and then…” He narrows his eyes on Joe. “You know.”

You’re safe,” Joe snorts, and slides his algebra book onto the desk in front of David. “The guys on this floor don’t really bother knocking, so I keep it locked while I’m studying. It saves a lot of time, because once they’re in here, it’s impossible to get them to leave.”

“Cool.” David says, but his mouth turns down as he opens the book, glumly turning pages as though it’s the last thing he wants to do.

“Look, it’s not that hard,” Joe says. “I think I’ve figured out your problem. You’ve missed a few things in chapter three that you need to solve the problems in chapter five.”

“Chapter three,” David says thoughtfully, but Joe seriously doubts he remembers anything.

“Let’s just start from there,” Joe says, handing David a newly sharpened pencil, “And then we’ll see.”

*

It’s Friday night, and even though they don’t talk about it, Joe can feel the tension in David’s hands, the hunch of his shoulders, the way his writing slants into a scrawl when the light begins to exchange afternoon gold for soft evening blues.

“Big plans for tonight?” he asks softly, curious but not wanting to distract David, who’s getting sloppy and teetering on the edge of a mistake. They both keep their eyes on David’s work for two more beats, and then David lets his pencil roll across the desk.

“The biggest,” David says. When he cracks his back in a lean arch against the back of the chair, Joe can see relief on his face at the distraction. “Okay, no. But it’s Friday, man, and after all this extra studying, I owe my brain some down time. Are you going into town?”

Joe nods. It’s what everyone does on Friday nights. “I’m going to The Coach,” he says with a glance at the clock. He’s still got plenty of time to get there.

“Ah. The Coach,” David drawls, his eyes all over Joe’s face. It doesn’t feel like a compliment.

“What’s wrong with The Coach?”

“Nothing, if you like video games and stale nachos.”

“Well, I do,” Joe says, thinking of the bright fluorescent lighting, the salty cheese fries, the groups of giggling girls in short skirts and purple eye shadow. They can blow off steam at The Coach, be as loud as they want, and it’s certainly better than the movie theatre or the shopping mall.

“A perfectly legitimate choice,” David says, and Joe can’t help but feel the shadow of an insult hidden somewhere behind David’s easy smile. Not that Joe should care; David’s only a junior, and a weird one at that. He’s skinny and geeky and says random things that may or may not be movie quotes, yet it always seems like David knows something he doesn’t, like Joe is being measured in some way.

“Right,” Joe says, frowning at David’s casual slouch.

“Want to share a cab?” David says suddenly, and Joe agrees just so they can call it a day.

***

An hour later, Joe climbs into the back seat of the cab that idles in front of his dormitory. David’s changed—not just his clothes; he’s changed completely—and he’s restless with unspent energy. His hands, pale and slender in frayed fingerless gloves, drum an uneven rhythm onto his knees, and his hair has been shaped into elaborate angles that Joe has only ever seen in music videos. It’s never occurred to him that ordinary people would look this way, would walk out in public as though it’s perfectly normal.

“Ready?”

Joe’s spent enough time with David to know that his eyes are bright blue, fringed with long lashes and strikingly pretty, but tonight they’re lined in black and half-hidden by shadow. He also knows that he’s staring, but he figures that’s why David dresses like this; he wants to be stared at, so he keeps watching as David’s fingers curl over the back of the driver’s seat.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

“Fourth and Market,” David says, and then slides back next to Joe. “We’ll hit your place first.”

“Sounds good,” Joe says. He turns toward the window as they leave the school grounds. “It’s probably closer than wherever you’re going.” It’s a hint; David’s supposed to volunteer his own plans for the evening, but instead he makes a sound of agreement and fidgets as though he’s about to climb up into the front seat with the driver.

“Friday night,” he says happily, when Joe turns inevitably back toward him. He’s definitely wearing eye makeup, but Joe is pretty sure his mouth looks a shade darker, too. It’s hard to tell in the dark, but there’s a shine to his lips that brings to mind the alley behind The Coach where the girls go out with pink mouths and return smudged, smeared and glowing--or the bathrooms where they emerge powdered and pressed, iridescent colors all across their lips, cheeks and eyelids.

Those things have nothing to do with David, but there’s a band of tension creeping across Joe’s shoulders and winding down across his belly that says he’s onto something, that those hush-hush after dark exchanges are directly related to whatever David’s doing tonight, which isn’t fair at all. None of this means anything except that David is into a scene that doesn’t involve cheerleaders and cheese fries.

The cab stops for a red light. To their left, the skate park is crawling with activity, its ramps and half-pipes bathed in orange industrial lights.

“I thought you might rather be there,” David remarks. “Don’t you usually…?”

Joe leans his forehead against the window. “Yeah, sometimes.” In his free time, which has been monopolized by David lately, he likes to go. None of his friends will come along; they’d all rather pick up a football than a skateboard, so it’s just Joe and a bunch of townies trying to outfly one another all afternoon, sweat and bruises and adrenaline singing through his body.

David looks past him, out the window toward the other skaters. “We walk past sometimes; I’ve seen you. I’m shocked you haven’t broken your neck yet.”

“I’ve come close,” Joe admits, and David seems pleased by that disclosure, so Joe slips his jacket off and lifts his elbow to reveal the scrape that climbs halfway up to his shoulder. It doesn’t hurt anymore, but it looks awful, and David whistles, sufficiently impressed.

“Don’t you wear elbow pads or something?”

“I wear a helmet,” Joe says. “I’ve been doing it for a while.”

“Hm. Yeah, you’re pretty good. I mean, you’re airborne.”

“That’s the best part,” he says, smiling at David, whose answering smile reaches all the way to his dark, approving eyes.

*

The Coach is the same as always. His friends have saved him a seat in a booth where his feet keep bumping against the shoes of a girl in a jean skirt and crop top. A crop top, Steve Tompkins had explained once, says that a girl wants you to put your hands up her shirt. Joe drops a glance to the hem of her top and wonders what David’s thrift shop clothes say, if there’s some secret code to the chains on his jeans that Joe is yet to decipher.

*

Joe hurries across the track and onto the infield, which is crowded with three different P.E. classes for their quarterly fitness assessment. The atmosphere is rowdy; everyone’s delirious with competition and disruption of their normal routine, so when Mr. Spartus yells into his megaphone for everyone to partner up, Joe can’t find Jennings or Tompkins or anyone in the chaos. He’s ducking through the crowd looking for a familiar face and beginning to worry he might get stuck with the leftovers, when he hears a “hey” from over his shoulder.

David, looking annoyed and impatient in his gym uniform. “Are you partnered up yet? Please say no, because if I get stuck with someone who takes push-ups too seriously then I’m going to have to ditch.”

Joe shakes his head and steps close to David to show he’s taken. “I don’t take them very seriously,” he offers. “But pull-ups, now; those say a lot about a person.”

“Yeah, it says ‘I’m overcompensating for my tiny dick by spending a lot of time in the gym.’” David waves his stat sheet toward an empty spot. “Come on; let’s get this over with.”

David, for all his disinterest in athletics, kicks Joe’s ass in the 200 meter sprint. Joe saves face in the half mile run, and beats his own situp record with David at his feet, holding his ankles and counting with increasing admiration. He keeps going as long as he can, his abdominal muscles weak and trembling with exertion until David says “Time!” and “Damn,” and then when it’s his own turn, does lazy situps at half Joe’s speed, meeting Joe’s eyes over his knees in a way that makes Joe very aware of the fit of David’s anklebone in his palm.

“Time,” he says abruptly, clumsy with the stopwatch and five seconds too late.

*

“You win, Flanigan,” David says as he heads for the locker room, and Joe follows, peeling off his t-shirt as he goes. It’s soaked through; they usually don’t get worked this hard. He usually doesn’t have this much fun, either.

“Good for me,” he says, rubbing his shirt over his damp hair. “Where do I collect my prize?”

David holds the door open for him, and then they’re inside, hot, damp air that smells of shampoo and wet towels. “Hey, yeah. Come to my room later. You can collect it then,” he says before he reaches his locker and starts stripping without a thought to Joe or anyone else.

Joe has never been shy about his body, but David doesn’t even have his towel out yet, doesn’t take any action to cover himself as he rummages through his locker for the bar of soap he finally pulls from the wreckage. Most guys keep a towel around their waist when they’re not showering, but not David. David leaves himself so open, exposed so that anyone watching can follow the pale curve of his ass, the line of his back, and everything that hangs neatly between his legs, bouncing gently against his thigh as he walks.

Joe slams his locker open as an unexpected shot of anger pours through him, because there’s no reason he should care what David does, no reason he should be any different than the other thirty guys walking around naked. Yet Joe has just violated at least three aspects of locker room protocol, all because…why? He toes off his shoes and stuffs them miserably into his locker. Maybe it’s just because he’s never seen David before. Curiosity because of the other night.

It’s a decent explanation. His nerves settle a little, but still he lingers at his locker, rolls his socks inside his gym shoes and lays out his clean clothes as though there’s going to be an inspection later. He drags his feet as long as possible, but eventually there’s nothing left to do but head through the maze of lockers toward the showers.

David’s still there, rinsing his hair under the spray. A few seniors from Joe’s dorm are along the back wall, and he gladly bypasses David and falls in line next to them. It’s better now, cool water on his skin and pooling around his feet; the only annoying thing is that even when he lets the water stream down over his face, he can still see the rise and fall of David’s hands soaping his belly. Get over it, he tells himself, turning toward the green-tiled wall, and when he turns back, David is gone.

*

The door to David’s room is covered with fliers for local bands Joe’s never heard of, barely a square inch untouched by glossy paper and scotch tape. Scattered amongst them all are a handful of photographs, and David is in almost every one of them, smiling big and bold with glossed lips and kohl-lined eyes, his arms draped around the shoulders of his friends. Joe wants to look closer, to study them, but it’s not the time or the place— not here in the hallway where any one of the boys in the pictures could walk past at any moment.

Instead, he knocks on the door, and wonders if David will even hear it over the steady thrum of bass that comes from inside. Not a song he recognizes, but then it hardly ever is where David’s music collection is concerned. No answer, so he knocks again, a little harder this time. He should just probably just walk on in, he knows—that’s what David would do, but Joe’s not—

“Flanigan. Entrez-vous.” The door swings open, and Joe forgets what he’s not, just what he is, which is totally unprepared for the sight of David, his hair wet from what has to be his second shower of the day, barefoot and in jeans, grinning at him.

Only half-naked this time, Joe thinks wryly, remembering the curve of David’s spine, the bold, unashamed way he’d carried himself in the locker room that morning. “Hey,” he says belatedly, flushing a little and hoping his face doesn’t betray his train of thought. “Am I early? I thought—“

“You’re absurdly punctual,” David says, with a smile. “But I’m running a little late, sorry. Just—over there, somewhere. Clear yourself some space.”

A vague wave of his hand toward the bed against the wall, covered in rumpled clothing, album covers and several comic books, and Joe shifts some of it aside to sit down, still clutching his textbooks in his arms awkwardly. The walls of David’s room are just like his door—covered with posters, and this time, Joe even recognizes a few: The Cure, Japan, Echo and the Bunnymen, Ultravox. He feels a glow of secret pride—maybe there’s hope for him after all.

David closes the door with a nudge of his hip, and starts sorting through yet another pile of clothing on a chair. “T-shirt,” he says by way of explanation, then, “ha!”, almost triumphantly when he pulls out something in creased pale blue cotton and pulls it on over his head. “Thomas Dolby always makes me feel academic,” he adds, patting the print on the front of the shirt, and Joe nods like it makes perfect sense, when really he’s frantically thinking, Thomas who?

“Chapter five, right?” Joe says after a moment, taking refuge in what he does know, which are the textbooks in his lap, opening one up, thumbing through the pages. “That’s what you were having trouble with?”

David nods, a wrinkle of his nose as he turns the music down to a low roar. ”Yeah. Chapter fucking five. I tell you, the saddest day of my life was when I realized that algebra—“

--“has nothing to do with actual bras,” Joe finishes for him. It’s not the first time he’s heard this sad lament, after all.

Another grin from David, and he flops down on the bed beside Joe, sending a small avalanche of comic books tumbling onto the floor. “The tragedy of math,” he says with infinite and totally fake sorrow, made even more of a lie by the brilliant curve of his mouth. “What did I do to deserve such torture, Flanigan? What?”

“Failed your midterm, that’s what,” Joe says absently, trying hard not to notice the warmth from David’s thigh where it’s pressed against his own, the clean smell of him, soap and shampoo. The ends of his hair are still wet and starting to curl, tiny damp patches around the neck of his t-shirt, and he’s humming softly as he leans closer, following Joe’s finger across the rows of numbers on the page.

For a while, it’s just Joe’s voice reading the equations out loud, explaining the patterns to David, trying to untangle the numbers into an order he can follow. And for a while, David listens intently, reciting figures back to Joe, answering his questions, a quirk of his mouth when he gets it right. Almost an hour passes and David’s getting restless, fingers on his thigh tapping out the melody to the song playing softly in the background.

“We’re almost done,” Joe says, running a knuckle down the cool center of the page, “but if you want to stop, we can—“

David shakes his head. “No, ‘s’okay. Go on.” He draws his legs up to sit cross-legged as Joe reads the next group of problems out loud, the bed shifting as he reaches behind Joe for something. “I’m listening.”

Joe continues, and even as he reads, he’s thinking of the best way to break it down, to find a way of allowing David that brilliant moment of clarity when it all falls neatly into place. If he knew more about music, maybe he could do it that way, relate it back to something David knows and understands. For a moment, he’s distracted thinking about it, and then he hears the soft snick and hiss of a lighter. Clearly David’s decided it’s time for a cigarette break, and Joe closes the book, letting it slip from his lap onto the bedcovers.

A cloud of something sweet and fragrant drifts his way, and okay, not a cigarette but something else entirely. When he glances over, David’s head is tipped back to rest against the wall, his eyes closed, a joint held between thumb and forefinger. “I was still listening,” he says on an exhale of soft grey smoke. “You could’ve kept going. I’m just getting primed for the grand finale.”

“Is that what you call it?” Joe doesn’t mean for the words to sound as prim as they clearly do, and he can feel himself flush. “I mean, I thought.” He swallows, starts again. “I thought it was called getting high.”

David opens his eyes and grins. “That, too.” He takes another long, slow toke, then proffers the joint to Joe. “And you?”

Joe’s flush deepens, and he can actually feel his heart racing in his chest, the flutter of his pulse at his throat. He starts to take it from David, then lets his hand drop back down to his lap. “I haven’t ever, uh. Before, I mean. I never have. Smoked up.”

“I kind of figured.” David’s smile widens, but it’s not mean. Just the opposite— open, friendly, genuine, and Joe feels a little rush of relief. He doesn’t think he could stand to be mocked. Not by David. Especially not by him.

“There’s this thing,” David continues, slowly, lazily, “called shotgunning. We could try that—if you want.”

“I want,” Joe says, before he even really thinks about it, but it’s true—he does want. He wants a lot, so very much, and has no idea how to go about getting any of it, but for now, this is a start. “I mean, sure. If you think it’ll be okay.” He’s talking too much, he knows, and he’s not normally like this at all, but something about David’s close, careful scrutiny leaves him feeling raw and utterly exposed.

“I think it will definitely be okay,” David says as he sits up on his haunches, leaning forward to pat the bed in front of him. “Move a little closer, hmm?”

He watches as Joe shifts, papers and textbooks being pushed aside to fall to the floor, forgotten for the moment. When they're both kneeling, touching knee to knee, he says, “I’m going to breathe the smoke into your mouth, okay? All you have to do is open up, and hold it in there. Inhale it, yeah?”

Joe swallows, nods. “Yeah, okay,” he says, in a voice that doesn’t sound like his own at all. “Okay.” A little more certain this time, because despite his nerves, he really does trust David completely.

David lifts the joint to his mouth and inhales, slitting his eyes against the curl of smoke while Joe watches, heat blooming bright in his chest, apprehension and anticipation mixing together until he can’t tell which is which. He watches until David’s eyes start to flutter, and then he’s reaching up to tap Joe’s jaw gently.

Joe lets his mouth fall open, curling his fingers into his palms, the muscles in his thighs twitching as David leans in closer. Closer yet, and Joe’s heart is racing again, because he has no idea what comes next, how this is done—and then David’s mouth is covering his, warm and soft and like nothing he’d ever imagined. An exhale and there’s smoke across his tongue, strange and wild, curving against the back of his throat, such a sweet burn. For just a moment, the tip of David’s tongue touches against his, and something hot and liquid floods through Joe’s belly. Another beat and then David’s moving back a little, his fingers warm on Joe’s face, holding his mouth closed.

“Hold it in there,” he says softly, “for as long as you can. Then let it out, slowly.”

Joe nods, his eyes already starting to water a little, a burn in his lungs. He counts to five as slowly as he can, and then he can’t hold it any more, has to breathe out, falling back onto the bed as he coughs helplessly. “I’m okay,” he manages, even though he’s still wheezing, tears of exertion streaming down his face. Another breath sets him coughing again, until he can find his voice once more to gasp out, “Really, I’m fine.”

“I can tell,” David says, one eyebrow raised, and suddenly, inexplicably, it’s one of the funniest things Joe has ever seen in his life. His wheezing eases into soft hiccoughs of laughter and then he’s smiling so wide it feels like his face might split right in half.

“You up for trying again?” David says after a while, and Joe nods, already getting back up on his knees and waiting, wanting nothing more than David’s lips against his for that single perfect moment. Not much more than the pale curl of smoke to span the tiny space between them, and this time, Joe’s able to hold it in his mouth for much longer, welcoming the soft burn at the back of his tongue, across his palate, feeling it shimmer and shift from the inside out.

“I never knew,” he says, tipping his head back, the words floating on a soft exhale, “that it would feel like this.” It’s true; he had no idea at all about this secret world at David’s fingertips, one made all the more exhilarating by the knowledge that it’s forbidden, against the rules, nowhere he has ever dared venture before. A place where all his boundaries don’t seem to apply anymore, and Joe’s head spins with this new knowledge, his body humming with waves of boneless pleasure as he moves reluctantly away to lie back on the bed, to find something safe to hold onto.

There’s so much more he wants to say, a hundred different things that drift through his mind, all of them just out of reach. David’s humming in what sounds like blissful agreement, and Joe figures it doesn’t matter that he’s seemingly been struck dumb. Not here, sprawled on David’s bed, in David’s brilliant room, surrounded by David’s music –which, he has to admit, really isn’t so weird after all.

All Joe’s lost words seem to have been gathered up by David, because he’s talking almost non-stop, about everything and nothing, his voice winding through the room, a counter-point to the never-ending music. Joe rolls over onto his stomach, closes his eyes and listens to the rise and fall of vowels and consonants, to the rhythm of his speech. His limbs feel warm and heavy, and if he never had to move from this place again, it would be just fine. This is flying of a whole other kind, and he could definitely get used to the feeling of nothing being as important as what’s happening right now.

“Falling asleep on me, Flanigan?” he hears David say softly, what seems like hours later and from forever away, somewhere beyond the sound of the song that’s playing. David’s fingers touch lightly against the back of his neck for the barest of breaths, then are gone again almost as suddenly. After a long moment where everything seems to stand completely still, Joe begins to think that maybe he just imagined it.

“Not sleeping,” he says finally, the protestation muffled and spoken into the bedcovers, because he’s not. Not really. He’s still awake and aware, mostly. Filled with a strange new lightness and unable to string together anything coherent, but still very, very aware.

“Good.” The bed shifts, and then David’s stretched out alongside him, close enough for Joe to feel the heat from his skin, for his hair to brush against Joe’s forearm as he moves to get comfortable. I’ve seen you naked, Joe thinks, images of how David looked rising unbidden, bringing heat to his face, his belly. Not what he should be thinking about at all, and yet he can’t quite let go, the memory of it a secret he holds close to his skin. Like the ghost-touch of fingertips at the top of his spine, and he opens his eyes as if he can banish the thought that way.

“Fuck, I’m still aching all over from P.E this morning,” David says, as if he’s somehow read Joe’s mind. “Aren’t you?”

Joe props himself up on one elbow, willing his heart to stop hammering so loudly he’s sure it’ll give him away. Finally, he shakes his head. “Nope.”

“Nope,” David mimics in a ridiculously high voice that doesn’t sound like Joe at all, screwing up his face in mock-disgust, and it’s both a relief and overwhelmingly, stupidly funny. Joe laughs until his stomach aches, until he can barely catch his breath, until his skin is buzzing all over.

“Fuck,” he manages, finally, struggling to sit upright, rubbing a hand through his hair, more than a little light-headed with the effort. “What have you done to me?”

David’s answering grin is smug and cat-like. “Nothing,” he says, drawing the word out, rolling over onto his back and stretching lazily, his t-shirt riding up to show smooth, soft skin.

I’ve seen you naked. Joe’s fingers itch with the unbidden urge to reach over and touch, to dip his fingers into the warm, dark hollow just beyond the waistband of David’s jeans. Another tiny frisson of heat thrills through him at the thought, and he shifts back just a little, out of temptation’s way, suddenly only too aware of how close they’re sitting.

David doesn’t seem to notice, just keeps on talking. “Yeah, nothing,” he says again, as he sits up, eyes bright and sure, then adding, “yet. But maybe—“

“Maybe what?”

David’s grin widens even more. “Friday night,” he says, decisively. “This week, Flanigan, you’re coming to the club with me.”

*

“Jennings got a keg for this weekend. Roof of The Coach,” Mike English tells Joe over a tray of tuna casserole on Wednesday. His buzz-cut head is bent in secrecy, sly smiles all around the table.

Joe nods, his mouth full of bread. He likes the guys from the senior dorms, but something about David’s invitation makes him want to say yes, to discover where David goes dressed the way he’d been in the back seat of that taxi.

“Yeah, I’m not sure I can make it,” he says casually, and averts his eyes from Mike’s flummoxed expression.

“Why not?” he demands.

“A whole keg,” Freddy Page says.

“I know,” Joe says, and takes a swig of milk. “It’s just, I’ve got other plans.”

“Other plans,” Mike repeats. “Like a date?”

“No,” Joe says quickly, suddenly uncomfortable with all the attention. “Not a date. Just…” He glances around at everyone and gauges how big a deal this is going to be before he continues. “I just made plans with someone else.”

Freddy gives a heartfelt “That sucks,” just as Mike says, “But everybody’s coming to The Coach. Who’re you going out with?”

Joe hesitates. He hates that he does it, because a hesitation can mean a million things right now, and none of them good. “David Hewlett,” he says, and takes a huge bite of his roll, chewing steadily while everyone reacts.

“What? No,” Mike says. “He’s a junior.”

“I know.” He holds Mike’s eyes this time.

“I mean, I think he’s in the computer club.”

“I know.”

“And the drama club.”

Joe swallows the last of his food, dry and tasteless on his tongue. “I know exactly who he is,” he says, and injects enough annoyance into his tone that no one says anything else until the bell rings.

*

David’s flushed, his eyes bright and wild, and Joe can almost feel the air around him crackle with something that leaves him just a little breathless. “C’mon,” is all he says, wrapping his fingers around Joe’s wrist, tugging him almost impatiently toward the small bathroom off his dorm room, and Joe can do nothing but follow.

The door swings open with a nudge from David’s hip, and despite himself, Joe is more than just a little curious as to exactly what David’s got planned now. Earlier they’d shared a joint, stretched out on David’s bed amongst the ever-present chaos, talking about everything and nothing: David’s favorite band this week, the school’s upcoming production of A Streetcar Named Desire, the new science teacher with the steely gaze and quick temper. Joe can still taste the smoke across his tongue and there’s a warm glow spreading along his limbs, bleeding heat through his chest. Everything in his world is a little softer at the edges, and he’s only too happy to drift his way through it.

“Never a dull moment with you,” he says as David grins and fumbles through a small box of fascinating things, things Joe has only seen in his mother's bathroom- brushes and paints and a thick black pencil that looks completely at home in David's quick fingers.

“Sit here,” David says, tapping the edge of the counter and Joe does, anticipation tightening his belly and quickening his pulse, and it’s taking all his concentration not to fidget beneath David’s intense gaze. “Open your mouth a little.”

“What? Why?” Joe feels heat crawling up his spine, a slow prickle of arousal that is becoming all-too familiar whenever David is near. He leans back against the cool glass of the mirror, a tiny shock of ice amongst all these flames.

“It relaxes the muscles of your face,” David says, stepping between Joe’s spread thighs and then into him as if he has every right, one hand resting lightly on Joe’s collarbone, the other warm against the curve of his cheek. “Stops you from blinking.”

“Oh”, Joe says, letting his mouth stay open on the word even as it fades away into the space between them, and then there is a soft line being drawn beneath the curve of his lower lashes. One eye then the other, David’s hands and fingers slow and deliberate, until Joe’s mouth is dry and his throat aches with something he can’t even begin to find the words for. Blood roars in his head like thunder and he thinks surely David must hear it too, it’s so unbearably loud—but David’s face betrays nothing as he scoops cool, clear gel out of a tube and works it through Joe’s hair.

It’s almost a shock when he takes a step back, and Joe can’t quite help the soft gasp he makes, curling his fingers into his palms to stop it from becoming something more.

“Are you done?“ he manages finally, even as David shakes his head, and softly says,

“Not yet. Not quite.”

He dips his finger into a pot of red gloss, and for the first time since he'd started, he hesitates. Joe can hardly breathe with David there looking at his mouth-- because he knows that slick gloss goes on his mouth-- and it's only when he shuts his eyes that David's finger slides across his lower lip.

This time he does moan, something low and needy, and for a moment, David’s careful finger falters. A bright shock of sweetness against his tongue, thick and red and dangerous, and Joe bites down into it, into soft warm skin that feels lush and slippery and wicked in his mouth for barely a heartbeat before it’s gone again. He opens his eyes and David’s right there, his colour high, his gaze dark and hot.

“Look,” he says, voice gone soft and strange, and Joe turns his head to see his reflection, the stranger he sees staring back at him taking his breath away. There are thick, dark smudges of kohl around his eyes and sticky red gloss painted across the swell of his lips, his face flushed beneath the shock of dark hair David’s worked into an artful tangle that falls across his forehead. He looks wild, somehow, like the boys in David’s beloved music videos; the ones who dance with their eyes closed and their heads tipped back, dressed in black, mouths curved into secret smiles.

Joe lifts his hand and touches his own mouth to feel the sticky kiss of gloss against his fingertips, meeting David’s gaze in the mirror and holding it, suddenly bold in this brand-new face he’s been given.

“Ready when you are,” he says, and smiles.

*

The club doesn’t look much from the outside— a faded wooden doorway, a row of colored lights blinking erratically above it, spelling out the name, a handful of people milling about on the sidewalk. He can hear the muted thump of bass from somewhere within the walls, strange music that doesn’t do anything to ease the nervous flutter in his chest. Joe doesn’t know what he’d expected, but it’s not this, and suddenly it all feels slightly ridiculous—his painted face, the snug-fitting t-shirt David has loaned him along with a slightly battered military-style jacket with soft, frayed cuffs. It smells like David, a scent that settles at the back of Joe’s throat, threatening to steal his breath away.

“Looks can be deceiving,” David murmurs, his mouth at Joe’s ear, like he’s read his mind somehow, and Joe can feel himself flush.

“I don’t —it’s just that---“

David’s grinning, his own dark-lined eyes shining, colors from the bulbs washing across his face: tiny flashes of red, green and yellow, and Joe feels a little dizzy from trying to focus, from the lingering effects of the pot they shared earlier. “Calm down, Flanigan. We’re not even in the door yet and you’re already freaking out. You’ll like it, I promise.”

“I’m not freaking out,” Joe says, because he’s not. Not really, even if his pulse is racing just a little faster than usual, echoing the steady thrum of the bass. There’s a fake ID in his pocket with someone else’s name on it, and Joe thinks maybe he should feel guiltier about that than he does, but it makes sense in some weird way, because right now, he’s wearing someone else’s face, too. “I’m okay,” he says, because suddenly he is, filled with an intoxicating buzz of anticipation that outweighs anything else he can think of.

“Good,” David says, and spins around to push the door open with his shoulder, a bright tangle of music and light and a thousand different voices spilling out like another world opening up before them.

Joe takes a deep breath and follows David inside.

*

“Here.” A bottle pressed into his hand, cool, wet glass, David’s mouth stretched into a wide smile, and Joe can feel his body heat when he leans in closer to be heard above the music. “You look like you could use it.”

They’ve been dancing pretty much non-stop for the past half-hour; or at least, David has-- Joe’s been mostly watching from the edges of the dance-floor, seemingly helpless to look away from the way David moves his hips, his hands, and now, from the curve of his throat as he takes a swallow of his beer.

Joe follows his lead and drinks too, the taste of it all the better for knowing it’s expressly forbidden, yet another broken rule in an ever-increasing list of them. He doesn’t care, because this is all worth it: being here in this place he’s only ever heard about before from snatches of conversation in the hallways between the other boys. Boys who move through the world like they’re untouchable, as if they know the answers to all the questions in Joe’s head. Boys just like David.

“God, this song,” David’s saying, “fuck, don’t you love it? I just, I gotta--” Hands held high, his head thrown back, something a lot like bliss on his face as he slinks forward, moving back toward the crush of bodies in the middle of the floor. He’s like some unstoppable force, totally in his element, more at home here than Joe’s ever seen him back at school in some ill-fitting uniform. This David is all hips and mouth and teeth, almost snake-like as he curves his way in amongst the other dancers.

The song picks up tempo and a strobe light kicks in, pulsing with the beat, turning the crowd into nothing more than glitches in a film-reel. Joe loses sight of David in the tiny moment between light and dark, finds him again a bass beat later, dancing close to a boy with short, cropped hair. Another flash and they’re gone, back again in the next pulse, and David’s mouth is dangerously close to the boy’s ear, his eyes closed, mouth curved into a smile.

Something blooms hot and bright in Joe’s belly, turns ice-cold as it slides up his spine, leaves his head spinning and his mouth dry. Suddenly he doesn’t want to see what’s going on just beyond where he stands, but he can’t look away from what the shutter-flashes of light are showing him, unfolding like some strange animation from a dream.

Flick, and David’s fingers are curled around the back of the boy’s neck. Flick, and David’s laughing, closer still. Flick, and David’s mouth is on the boy’s, and they’re kissing, right there on the dancefloor, strangely still even under the always-moving strobe, the song winding and soaring around them both. Soft, slow kisses that seem to go on forever, as if their mouths are the only things anchoring them to the ground, to each other. Kisses that make Joe’s chest ache with some phantom pain that threatens to completely take him over.

Flick, and Joe’s finally able to stop looking, to push his way blindly through the crowd, even though he has no idea where he’s going.

*

Joe’s drinking rum splashed with sticky-sweet coke, his third, procured from the tiny bar at the back of the club with the help of his fake ID. The girl serving the drinks has hair that is gelled into soft spikes, her eyes painted in shades of purple and silver, and her mouth is kind. “Slow down a little, hmm?” she says, but she pushes another glass toward him anyway, sliding his money into the till with the other hand.

“Sure,” Joe says, “sure I will,” bumping his hip against the edge of the bar, the drink spilling over his fingers a little, ice clinking softly. It’s a bit quieter back here, away from the mass of bodies on the dancefloor; a handful of people sitting at the low tables scattered around.

Joe doesn’t want to sit, he wants to toss back his drink and get another, then another after that. Enough drinks until he no longer cares that David is over there somewhere under the softly spinning lights, his hands all over another boy, kissing him. Kissing him with such intensity that it almost hurts to think about it, to remember the slow glide of their mouths, the way they stood completely still in the ever-moving crowd.

“Fuck that,” he mutters, scooping the ice out of the glass then downing the rest of the drink in little more than one swallow, feeling it burn all the way down his throat. There’s still a few dollars left in the pocket of his jeans, he’s sure, and Joe’s searching for them with clumsy fingers when someone taps him on the shoulder. He looks up, and it’s David-- David with his well-kissed mouth and flushed face, and in that moment, Joe kind of hates him. He shrugs off David’s hand, petty annoyance mixing with the sudden prickle of heat he can feel in his belly.

“You okay?” David asks, and, no, I’m not, Joe wants to say, not at all, but instead he puts his glass down on the bar. Everything’s smeared with an alcohol buzz, his skin, and the way his limbs move through the air as if the world around him is suddenly happening in slow motion. His hands are on David’s hips almost before he realises, fingers grazing over damp cotton to find the strip of warm, bare skin just below where the hem of his t-shirt ends.

“Dance with me,” Joe says, pulling David toward him as he moves in closer, too, rocking gently forward, only a little unsteady on his feet. It doesn’t matter, because even though he’s never heard this song before and he’s hopelessly out of time with the music, David’s hands are on his and for a moment they’re hip to hip and it’s all okay. Joe closes his eyes and lets his head fall forward to rest on David’s chest, feels the muted thump of his heartbeat, the rise and fall of his breath.

He’s a little dizzy, mostly from the alcohol, he knows, but that’s not all of it. Here, like this, with David close enough to feel the heat from his skin, the way the muscles in his thigh flex against Joe’s leg as they move-- it would be so easy to just tip his head back and open his mouth for David’s. To let himself be kissed, to touch David’s mouth with his fingers, and to kiss back —the thought of it sends a shot of pleasure through his belly, coming to rest hot and heavy between his legs. “I want,” he murmurs, curling his fingers into David’s t-shirt, moving restlessly, not nearly enough words for everything that’s filling his head, everything he wants to say.

“Hey,” David says softly, kindly, “hey, no,” and he takes a step back, uncurling Joe’s fingers, slowly, carefully, like he’s fragile and might shatter. “You-- this isn’t—. I think you’ve had a little too much to drink, maybe.”

Joe shakes his head, because, no. No. “I’ve had just enough,” he says, but it sounds hollow and untrue even to him, and whatever was there a moment ago has passed, slipping back into the shadows. Now he feels nothing but tired and a little sick, his skin prickling with a mix of frustration and embarrassment. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but somewhere along the way, he got it all so terribly, terribly wrong. This is David’s world, not Joe’s, and it was stupid to think that he could fit in here with his borrowed clothes and someone else’s name in his pocket. Right now, he wants nothing more than for the ground to open up and swallow him, or maybe to vanish into thin air. Anything to avoid the awkwardness he knows lies just ahead, when David realises what a mistake he’s made.

“We’ll walk home,” David says, “and let you sober up a little.” There’s infinite kindness in his voice, in the slant of his mouth, as he takes Joe’s arm and guides him to the door; out into the cool night air and a silence so vast, Joe’s ears ring with it for hours afterward.

*

He wakes in the small hours of the morning, still half-dressed, tangled in his bedclothes. His stomach is rolling, and for a long, uneasy moment, Joe fears he’s going to throw up again – surely he’s been humiliated enough already? He has only vague memories of the walk home—mostly of David holding him up while he puked inelegantly all over someone’s front lawn, and Joe groans with a wretched flush of mortification. God, what was he thinking? Drinking so much, the way he acted at the club, and through it all, David was so gracious and understanding. They barely made it back to Joe’s dorm without being caught by the duty teacher, and if they had been caught—it doesn’t bear thinking about.

Joe rolls over to bury his face into his pillow, cool cotton against his skin, fragmented bits and pieces of the night before coming back to him like a bad dream. The crowd and the music and David on the dancefloor, moving through the shadows, his mouth and how it looked when he was kissing—

His stomach clenches again, but this time it’s with a hot wave of arousal, sudden and almost as unsettling as the earlier nausea. Kissing another boy, he thinks, and then it’s in his head, all he can see behind his closed eyes, the slow glide of their tongues under the scattered lights, the way David’s fingers had curled around the boy’s neck, sure and unashamed. Not what he’d expected to see at all, but even now, just the thought of it sets a spiral of heat uncoiling through his limbs, coming to settle hot and heavy in his belly, between his legs. He shifts a little, pressing into the mattress, a long, deliberate roll of his hips that feels so good he can’t help doing it again.

This has nothing to do with anything, he thinks, even as he remembers the heat of David’s hands on his as they danced close for those few short moments, the solid warmth of his thigh, the smell of his skin. Joe groans softly as he slowly grinds his cock into the bed again, sparking little shivers of pleasure that work their way under his skin. Over and over, careful increments in the cant of his hips, until he’s flushed and damp and his dick feels slick and wet in his underwear, until he’s panting a little, tiny tremors in the backs of his thighs from the effort of holding back. This doesn’t mean anything, he thinks again, one last sliver of guilt battling it out with the steady throb of need gathering at the base of his spine. The memory of David’s mouth, the curve of his lips, and Joe feels his cock swell, his balls tighten. I wanted to kiss him, and he lifts his hips once, twice more, grinding back down into the bed harder each time, getting desperate now. God, I still do, reaching down to roughly drag the heel of his hand against the length of his cock, and then he’s coming hard, shooting helplessly in his pants, shuddering through long, hot pulses he can feel spreading all over his belly.

“Shit,” Joe says softly, “shit, shit, shit,” as he comes down, his limbs heavy with residual pleasure, underwear sticky and clammy, and sudden realization hitting like a suckerpunch to the gut. I tried to kiss him.

The memory hangs in the darkness: the look on David’s face when he’d pushed Joe away, gently, carefully, with infinite kindness, and he would give anything not to feel like he’s fucked things up so very, very badly.

*

He can forget about his stupidity for a while on the south athletic field, tag football that turns rough when there’s no faculty around. It’s easy with his friends in a way it isn’t with David. He knows the right things to say, and a good run to the end zone wins more admiration than David would ever give him. More importantly, though, he’s tumbled around with them for years without once thinking about their mouths. In the end, that’s a small reassurance, and by the end of the game, even his sore shoulder isn’t enough to fend off his unsettled feeling over his behavior last night.

No big deal, he tries to tell himself. So he won’t be hanging out with David anymore. It makes his stomach hurt to think about how the whole thing went down, but when he gets back to his room there’s a piece of paper slipped under his door—a handwritten note, and Joe recognizes the loose scrawl even before he reads past the blocky title that informs him: For Your Eyes Only! He grins as he reads on: it’s an invitation to David’s birthday this weekend, a party to be held at Gravity-- friends only!, David’s written in red, then underlined twice-- and Joe can’t help but feel a small thrill bloom in his chest at being included in amongst those numbers.

He folds the note up carefully and slips it into his shirt pocket, where it stays for the rest of the day, close to his skin like a carefully-guarded secret.

*

Riding alone in the back of a cab, his nerves almost get the better of him. This isn’t anything like last time, with David at his side, talking incessantly, cracking lame jokes and quoting random song lyrics. This time, Joe’s on his own, moving inexplicably toward a place where he still doesn’t know quite how he fits. Maybe he’s nothing but a fraud, even though he spent hours choosing what to wear, finally deciding on a pair of old, comfortable jeans, and a soft cotton t-shirt with a faded print across the front of it. Maybe, Joe thinks, it’s just his skin that isn’t fitting right, lately.

He licks his lips, a quick, nervous gesture, belatedly remembering the pale gloss slicked over them, bought on impulse and applied just before he left the school grounds, with a hand nowhere as sure as David’s had been. It’d taken forever, too, to get the soft line of kohl around his eyes just right, smudging it gently at the corners with the pad of his thumb, wishing that David were there to help.

He pats the messenger bag slung across his shoulder, checking that David’s gift—a book, one Joe knows he’s wanted for forever—is still there. It is, carefully wrapped, and he idly runs his fingers along the outline of it, imagining David’s face when he sees the cover. The thought makes him smile, and Joe relaxes a little, letting his head fall back against the seat, watching streetlights pass by overhead.

Barely ten minutes later and he’s in front of the club, the sign blinking softly in endless ripples of color, a few people gathered outside, the tips of their cigarettes glowing softly. They don’t pay him any attention as he brushes past on his way inside, boys Joe has seen hanging out with David, boys infinitely cooler than he can ever hope to be. They’re dressed just like he is though, and for a moment, that gives him some comfort and enough courage to push open the door and go in.

Once inside, there’s no one Joe recognizes, not really, and he can’t stop the tiny thread of apprehension that snakes through his belly. Maybe this is a huge mistake. Maybe he shouldn’t have—

“Flanigan! Over here—hey!”

Oh, thank god, Joe thinks and then David’s right there under the lights, grinning big and bright, surrounded by his beloved music. “Hey yourself,” he says, as David steers them over to a slightly quieter spot. It’s not much quieter though, and David leans in close to be heard, close enough for Joe to smell soap and warm skin, the faint scent of beer on his breath. His hair’s gelled up into a wild swoop on top of his head, his eyes shining beneath softly smeared liner, the quirk of his mouth highlighted with gloss that shimmers under the lights. He looks amazing, and Joe feels a prickle of envy mixed with something that feels a lot like desire.

For a moment, it takes his breath completely away, and all he can do is stand before David, aware of how very different he must look: his face, his clothes, and most of all, the way he moves in this brand-new skin. He licks his lips, not from nerves this time but from something else completely, tilting his hips, realising that he doesn’t mind David’s attention focused on him. Realising that he likes it—a lot.

“Just look at you,” David says, something a little like awe in his voice as he reaches out a hand to feel the sleeve of Joe’s jacket. “This is so cool -- and your eyes -- you, wow.” The lightest of touches against his face, David’s long fingers brushing over his temple and, “You did this all yourself?”

Joe nods modestly, but there’s a swell of pride spreading through his chest. David’s close scrutiny feels like warm honey spreading along his spine, pooling in his belly. “Yeah, I did. It’s not exactly how you did it last time, but I thought—“

“No, it’s-- it’s even better,” David says softly, tracing over the line of Joe’s cheekbone and down to the swell of his lip, before dropping his hand again, almost reluctantly. “You look good, Flanigan. Really good.”

“Thanks,” Joe murmurs, ducking his head because he’s grinning too, flushed and hot and ridiculously happy with David’s open admiration. He can still feel the ghost of David’s fingers on his skin, tiny points of leftover warmth that ground him. A beat, and then he remembers why he’s here, what this is all about, and he slips the messenger bag from his shoulder, taking the book out. “Happy birthday,” he says, handing it to David, a little giddy with anticipation.

“All this and a present too?” David flashes him another grin and then he’s tearing the paper off, pulling the book out with a soft gasp, skating his fingers over the cover almost reverently. “My god—Joe. How did you— I mean--“

“It’s the one you talked about, right?”

“It sure is.” He’s grinning so wide now, shaking his head a little in what Joe thinks is amazement, and it’s a pretty safe bet he’s right when David says, “Man, I can’t believe you remembered.”

“I pay attention,” Joe says, because he did and still does, more than David will probably ever know. Even now, he’s all-too aware of how close they’re standing, of the line of David’s hip, of how easy it would be to reach over and touch the warm skin at the curve of his waist. Instead, he curls his fingers into his palm and looks just beyond David’s shoulder to where the dancefloor is filled with a sea of bodies moving to the song that’s playing, something Joe is sure he’s heard before in David’s room.

“Let me put this somewhere safe,” David says, book cradled close to his chest, still looking absurdly pleased. “Somewhere out of reach of the rest of this riff-raff.” He grins and waves a hand vaguely toward the rest of the room, then slings an arm around Joe’s shoulders. “You wanna dump your bag, too? Kaz will mind it behind the bar for you.”

“Sure,” Joe says, “sure, okay,” even though he has no idea who Kaz is, but it doesn’t matter because he’d pretty much do anything right now, as long as it means he gets David to himself for just a little while longer, pressed close, all warm skin and secret smiles.

Kaz turns out to be the same barmaid Joe remembers from last time, the same kind eyes and rainbow hair, and he shudders inwardly at the memory of how that evening turned out. But not this time, he thinks, watching David lean against the bar as he shows her the book.

“Nice,” she says as she flicks through the pages, flashing a grin over at Joe. “I can tell someone’s been doing their homework.”

Joe flushes and shrugs, going for casual when really, he’s suffused with a warm, soft glow of pleasure, centered in his chest. Any doubts he might have had about this being a bad idea suddenly seem stupid, not important at all, not when he’s hip to hip with David at the bar, responsible for the brilliant smile on David’s face.

“Kaz wants to buy you a drink for my birthday,” David says, reaching over to take one of her hands in his, “I can just tell.” He lifts it to his lips, kissing her red-tipped fingers with a flourish. “And also because who can resist a boy with charm?”

“Charm and a very fake ID,” Kaz says wryly, but she slides them each a bottle of beer across the bar all the same, before gently shooing them away. “Go. Have fun. Party.”

“She’s cool,” David says as they wander away, knocking his bottle softly against Joe’s, then taking a drink. “Cool and hot,” he adds, wiping his mouth and beaming at his own wit. “A couple months back—“

Whatever David’s going to say next is lost when a half-dozen boys suddenly descend on them from seemingly out of nowhere, all talking over each other, one of them grabbing David in a loose headlock.

“Hewlett!” he hoots gleefully, knuckles rubbing across David’s scalp with rough affection, “the party boy himself. There’s a dancefloor over here calling your name, I believe.” A chorus of agreement from the others, and Joe can only stand and watch as David is pulled away in a spirited tangle of arms, legs and raucous laughter.

“Sorry! I’ll be back in a bit,” David manages to call out over the whoops and cheers before he’s swallowed up by the ever-moving mass of bodies, a vague shape somewhere under the spinning strobe. Joe watches until he can’t see him anymore, tipped off-balance once again, feeling more than a little abandoned amongst all these virtual strangers.

*

“I wouldn’t have picked you as a wallflower,” Joe hears, from somewhere just beyond where he stands, a dimly-lit corner with an unobstructed view of the dancefloor. David’s still out there somewhere, caught in the ebb and swell of bodies moving to the music. He turns, startled, and Kaz is smiling at him, two bottles in her hand. They clink gently as she hands one to Joe before lifting the other to her lips and taking a long swallow.

“My break,” she explains, and Joe nods, cool glass against his fingertips, not nearly enough to assuage the soft burn that sits just beneath his skin. Not that he’s counting— because he’s not, not really—but it’s been close to an hour since David left him standing here and he can’t help feeling just a little resentful.

“Thanks,” he says, and she shrugs like it’s nothing at all. “And I’m not,” he adds, a little belatedly. “A wallflower, I mean.”

A soft click and hiss as she lights a cigarette. “You’re not up for dancing?”

Is she asking him? Joe’s not sure. She’s nothing at all like the soft, pale girls he sees at The Coach each weekend. Kaz is all sharp angles and has a way of looking right at him, like all his secrets are spelled out on his face, and it’s as exhilarating as it is terrifying. He tears absently at the label on his beer, and it’s his turn to shrug. “I haven’t done it all that much,” he says, flushing a little, thinking of hands curled around his hips, warm breath against his throat, a kiss that never was. “Not with — I mean, like this. In a club.”

“Fair enough,” she says, the words wrapped in a drift of grey smoke and for a while, there’s nothing but the music filling the silence between them. It’s a song Joe’s heard in David’s room, something low and thrumming he can feel snake its way up his spine, and he can’t help but glance over at the crowd again, wanting to look even as his stomach twists as the thought of what he might see. No heads tipped together in a secret space, nothing but a tangle of arms thrown high, rippling under the strobe lights, and Joe lets out an unsteady breath, feeling a little ridiculous.

“I’d better get back,” Kaz says, a hand on his shoulder as she finishes the rest of her beer. “You gonna be okay?”

“I’m—yeah. I’m fine.” Joe smiles, hoping it looks surer than he feels. “Really,” he adds, because she’s still looking at him, one eyebrow raised.

“Okay.” One last drag of her cigarette and then she gets to her feet, dropping the butt into the neck of the bottle. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” Joe can’t help the edge of irritation that creeps into his voice, because, really. “I’m not stupid.”

“Never said you were.” She’s grinning; he can hear it. “David was right. You’re actually pretty cute.”

Joe’s suddenly thankful for the low light that conceals the rush of color to his face. He’d ask her exactly what she meant by that, but she’s already gone.

*

Joe lies in bed for a long time after he wakes up the next morning. David’s party had been exciting and sexy and all the things he likes about David, but Kaz’s words are a nagging reminder that he can’t seem to let go--wallflower, she’d said, but he’s not. Set against David he might be a wallflower, always left half-dumb with longing on the sidelines, but that’s not him. It’s new, and despite how good it feels whenever he gets that elusive shocking slide of David’s skin against his own—always accidental, never promising more than a good time—he’s tired of being left like this the morning after, morose and wrung out.

It’s barely light out, but there’s a knock on his door and David slips in, a bit disheveled, makeup smeared, but smiling. “Hey. You awake?”

Joe raises up on his elbows. “Are you just getting in now?”

“Birthdays only come once a year,” David says. Joe can’t bring himself to smile back.

“You’d better get back,” Joe says, sitting up all the way. “Somebody might see you. Jennings saw me come in,” he adds, cringing. At the time he hadn’t cared, had been high on music and dancing and the two beers he’d had, but if he’d looked anything like David does now, Jennings won’t let it go.

“Ouch. And I’m going, I can take a hint, but I wanted to thank you for the book. It was very cool of you,” he says, and before Joe can respond, he grabs Joe in a tight hug before bouncing off the bed and waving over his shoulder. “I’ll be stealthy,” he promises on his way out. When he’s gone, Joe rolls over and wonders how it’s possible to feel like a wallflower while alone in his own bedroom.

*

David had liked the gift. Very cool of you, and Joe carries his pleasure all the way across the quad until he remembers the feel of the bar against his back—how long had he stood there, waiting?—and the good feeling begins to flicker out. He can’t help it; he can’t help but see the big picture, while David gets wrapped up in single moments as though they’re the most important thing in the world.

And maybe he’s stupid for letting David’s words cancel out the disappointment from the night before, for letting one embrace erase the way David had moved from one person to the next, their hands going anywhere they pleased, while Joe always guards his own so carefully.

Hanging out with David is cool, but Joe is starting to wonder if it’s worth all the frustration. Before David, he’d been fine. He’d never second-guessed himself or left himself wide open for humiliation, but with David it’s one misstep after the next, and he’s tired of trying so hard. He’s tired of thinking, tired of talking, and he bumps past Jennings without a word on his way up to his room, where he grabs his skateboard and helmet from his closet, taking the back stairs on his way out.

He takes a left at the edge of campus, where the sidewalks begin and the grass grows a little less green. It’s not terribly far to the skatepark—just far enough that he can finally breathe when he sets down on concrete and hears the shouts of the other skaters heckling one another, cheering every risk and shouting out orders. He moves freely through the park; no one expects anything of him here, so he just gives a wave to the faces he recognizes and launches himself into the bowl.

He loves this: speed and motion and the way his reflexes take over. The impact of landing scratches the deep itch that sparks up all over his skin when he’s airborne, and it feels good to know all the moves, to be this sure about something for a change. In a way, this is like David’s music; the clack and whir of wheels in constant counterpoint to his own thread of sound, the rolling rhythm that shakes against his feet and washes out all the other noise in his head.

After a while he skids to the edge of the concrete and tosses his sweatshirt across a bench. He wants to hit the vert ramp while he’s still buzzing with this energy that’s fuelled by anger that comes from a place he doesn’t even recognize. It’s anger toward himself, which makes it even worse, burning hot through his chest with no target. Fuck it all, he thinks as he makes the first drop, and his body takes over again, pushing everything else out as he twists and turns, arms out, his fingers searching out the surface of his board.

He’s tiring, but that just makes it better, that deep muscle burn, and he’s so far into his stride he wouldn’t even think of stopping when he catches a glimpse of something from the edge of his vision that makes him break focus.

The line of David’s body is familiar by now, his slouched shoulders and heavy gaze unmistakable from where he stands watching at the edge of the concrete. Joe falters for a second before he recovers, and if he’s a bit more reckless than usual, if his turns are showy enough to get himself hurt, then it’s just that anger, not the effect of David’s eyes on him. He catches air and soars like he doesn’t know how to stay earthbound, and when he rides down to a stop, he’s damp and hot-faced and gasping for breath.

He walks it off, his board stowed under the same bench as his sweatshirt, and heads for the drinking fountains to the back, where shade trees overlook a grassy picnic area. Joe gulps down water for what seems like forever, and when he’s finished, David is there.

“Hi,” David says, and it’s suddenly like the first weeks they’d known each other, the close scrutiny of David’s attention. Appraisal, Joe thinks wearily, and nothing more. It’s obvious he hasn’t passed any of these unspoken tests.

Everything seems quiet now, the skid-stop of the other skaters just faint background noise.

David doesn’t seem inclined to say anything else, so Joe unbuckles his helmet and runs his hand through his damp hair until it sticks out all over and the evening air cools the heat all along his scalp. “Hi,” he says finally, because there’s no reason to be rude. No reason they shouldn’t be friends.

“I came looking for you,” David says, as though that isn’t obvious.

Joe nods, still catching his breath, his heart rate just beginning to level out. He’s still hot, though, and wanders toward the shady area.

David follows. “Things were kind of heavy, before. You seemed ticked off or something,” he says once they’re out of the sun.

“No,” Joe says, though there’s so much behind that denial that he doesn’t know where to begin. “No. I’m not mad.”

“Oh, good. Then I’m completely comfortable now, how about you?”

“Not mad at you,” Joe hedges, only because David seems determined to drag out all this stuff that Joe doesn’t like to talk about. “It’s nothing.”

David moves close, and he still looks hung over, shadows beneath his eyes, but he looks </i>good</i>, and so open, like it’s never occurred to him that he might be too much for Joe to take.

Joe lets his helmet swing at his side, the straps tangled around his fingers the same way his words keep tangling up before he can say them. “It’s just, last night-“

“What about last night?” David asks, all his sharp manic edges covered up for the time being. It’s considerate, and Joe hates that; he wants more of a reason to be angry.

“Nothing about last night,” Joe says, and it’s like he’s looking at himself from very far away, like this conversation is happening to someone else—someone very lame, who can’t even meet his friend’s eyes while making vague accusations. “You were, I was— I don’t even get why you asked me to come to the party,” he mumbles, wiping his face with the hem of his shirt, and it’s worse when David doesn’t say anything, just stands there looking at him with an expression Joe doesn’t recognize.

“I wanted you there,” David says after a few seconds, his mouth twisted into an unhappy shape. “I’m sorry, okay? I asked you because I wanted you there.”

“Okay,” Joe says, just as David leans into his space and puts his hands on Joe’s waist, their bodies leaning lightly together. “Okay,” he says again, into the curls beneath David’s ear, a place that makes his eyes fall shut and his face turn in toward David’s neck.

At his waist, he can feel the pressure of David’s fingers hooking into his belt loops, holding him there. “Do you get it now?” David asks. His neck is long and smooth. It still carries the scent of his late night, and Joe breathes there, his lower lip just resting against David’s skin, desperate for something to happen. But he’d tried that once, and David had said no.

“I knew you were smart,” David says in a warm, satisfied voice that drips right down into Joe’s belly and lingers there as though he’s swallowed something dark and off-limits from the bar.

“The smartest,” Joe says, and because he likes to think it’s true, pulls out of David’s grasp while he’s ahead.

*

It’s a good thing nothing had happened, Joe decides as they make their way up the long paved drive that leads back to campus. So David hadn’t curled his fingers around the back of his neck and kissed him the way he does with other guys—and girls—in the club. Joe gets other things, things like David seeking him out while stone-sober to make sure they’re still friends. That has to mean something.

The evening is cool, and heavy with a damp autumn scent. It’s Joe’s favorite time of year, but he’s too preoccupied to enjoy it. Since their talk at the skatepark, something has shifted between them, as though smart had meant something else entirely. It’s not noticeable in conversation—David chatters non-stop for fifteen minutes about the brand new Commodore 64 he got for his birthday—but they walk more slowly than usual, and when David’s fingers brush against Joe’s, he not only lets it happen, but trails them across the inside of Joe’s wrist like a question.

Near the top of the drive, David drops his half-smoked cigarette and stomps it out. The night lamps have come up like the slow rise of the moon; it’s time to go in, there’s no more putting it off, but David goes quiet as they walk the path through the quad.

“I’ve got homework,” he says reluctantly, and shifts his skateboard where it’s tucked under his arm. “Calculus.”

“Me too.” David abandons the path to cut across the leaf-strewn lawn, heading for to the cluster of trees that sit in front of the history building. Joe follows. Between the stretch of long roots, they’re not entirely hidden from passers-by, but it gives the illusion of privacy.

“So,” Joe says. He steps right into David’s space and then ducks his head, a little chagrined by his boldness. Still, he doesn’t move back. They’d stood this close back at the skatepark, and it had been David’s doing.

“Yeah, look,” David says. “I know you’ve got homework, but I just wanted to say…” He licks his lips, a quick swipe of tongue, and then, “I meant what I said before, about how you looked good at my party. But this—you look really good right now, too.” He gestures at Joe in general, and it takes Joe a minute to get it, because, now? He’s here in ripped jeans and in desperate need of a shower, with crazy hair from his helmet and a cramp in his arm from carrying his skateboard for so long. He’s more at home at the skatepark than he is in any of David’s haunts, and…oh. Oh.

“Um, thanks.” He’d thought David would never--not that he’s done anything yet, but something is happening. David’s eyes are wide and determined on Joe’s face, and his breath is uneven—everything about him is a little uneven: his voice, his restless hands and the halting way he reaches for Joe when he’s normally so sure.

“That whole…it really works for me. You work for me,” David says, but Joe is still unprepared for the tug at his waist and the moment David’s mouth tilts toward his.

It’s all so slow and easy, David’s mouth moving tentatively against his own, but Joe’s eyes slam shut with the surge of excitement that expands in his chest--David’s mouth, which Joe has been watching for months, and never thought he could have. It’s even better when he begins to kiss back, to press David’s bottom lip between his own and slide his tongue there and even inside, where David is hot and eager and makes a pleased, muffled sound against Joe’s mouth.

This isn’t the best place to do this. There are still a few stragglers jogging to where they’re supposed to be, and anyone could look out the window and see them. But being this close to David, being allowed to admit what he wants from David, makes him forget he’s supposed to care. The nearness slows his limbs and makes him heavy with arousal, keeps him from caring about anything except what they’re doing here together.

While the sound of the last dinner bell fades and dies around them, David’s hands draw lines of warmth from his waist to his back.

“Oh, man,” David murmurs with a little laugh that puffs against the side of Joe’s face. “I’ve wanted to do that for ages. But you’re so hard to read, I didn’t know if you’d-” He shrugs while Joe tries to figure out what he means, because Joe feels so obvious all the time. He’d be surprised if everyone hasn’t noticed that he doesn’t quite know how to be friends with David, but it’s always left him so flustered, the way David says “See you later, baby,” and trails his fingers across Joe’s back. Other guys don’t act like that, but until now it hasn’t seemed to mean anything other than David just being himself.

Now, in the context of David’s mouth moving slowly back over his own, it means much more. It really works for me, David had said, meaning Joe works for him, turns him on, maybe, and makes him reckless enough to do this out in the open.

“I don’t feel hard to read.” Joe pulls back just enough to speak, his lower lip clinging softly to David’s, holding his place. He’s not ready to stop. “I’m easier than you think,” he says, buzzing with heat everywhere David touches him, and hard in his baggy jeans.

“Yeah?” David says, blinking slow and pleased as he brings his hand up to Joe’s face, long fingers that send a wave of something warm and sleepy down Joe’s spine. He doesn’t seem inclined to do more than that, so Joe holds onto David’s narrow waist and takes the initiative, kisses his way into the wet slant of David’s mouth. David’s mouth, and behind his closed eyes Joe is dizzied by the closeness, the taste of David’s familiar scent, smooth traces of smoke on his tongue. When he pauses for brief, urgent breath, it’s all warm skin and the faint perfume of hair gel mingled with the damp woodsy scent of the campus at night.

Campus at night. Joe allows David one last press of teeth into his bottom lip, a soft bite that leaves him breathless, and then stumbles back a step, right into the tree where they’d stopped. “People,” he says. His mouth feels different now; sensitive; like a reflection of every raw place hidden throughout the rest of his body. “We shouldn’t do this here.”

“Right as always,” David says, and rocks back onto his heels, hands shoved deeply into his pockets. “But I have a feeling I’m going to need a lot of help with that history paper tomorrow.” Joe can’t see his face clearly in the dark, but he can hear the smile in his voice.

“My room,” he says, thinking of the lock on his door. “After school.”

“Or,” David says. “We’ve got that free period after P.E.”

“Yes,” Joe says quickly. “Okay, yes. See you then,” he says, and jogs off in the direction of his quad, skateboard clutched in his sweating palms.

*

Joe is barely aware of anything that happens during his morning classes, and by the time P.E. rolls around, he’s positive he’ll never be able to act normally again, with the prospect of David’s mouth spread out before him. It makes time pass in a pleasant blur, but on the way to the showers, the coach hands him a slip that calls him to the office.

There are two files on Headmaster Frieden’s desk. He takes his time over them, his eyebrows high behind a pair of narrow reading glasses, while Joe sits with his best posture on the unnaturally hard chair. Beside him, David is slouched into his seat as though this is as tedious as fourth period calculus. He’d been there when Joe had arrived, which had ramped up Joe’s mild case of the nerves into something more like dread.

The sounds from the corridors are muted from inside the headmaster’s office; the racket of the halls is just faint white noise, and that bothers Joe as much as the hard knot of worry in his stomach. He should have studied harder; he should have checked David’s work; he should never have let David spread that dangerous gloss over his mouth.

“Mr. Hewlett’s grades have gone up,” The headmaster says suddenly, but there’s a catch--Joe can always sense the catch in things, and there always is one. “And yet...” The headmaster pauses again, picking up the other file, a displeased expression on his face. “Mr. Flanigan, you have not been doing your best work.”

Not his best, no, but his last few tests have earned him C’s—plus one horrifying D on his history paper—which doesn’t exactly put him in danger of failing. He hopes he doesn’t have to speak; his throat is so tight he can’t even swallow, and he can’t stop looking at the huge black phone on the corner of the headmaster’s desk, convinced he’s going to pick it up any second to call Joe’s parents.

“Your teachers say that you’ve been turning in some extremely sloppy work for the past two months,” the headmaster continues, and Joe knows this is where he makes eye contact, where he nods and says yes, sir, and promises to do better.

“I’ll do better, sir,” he says, but his words are brushed aside.

“I’m sure you will. I want you to know that I accept part of the responsibility for this mess-“ Mess? What mess? Joe glances over at David, who is glowering darkly at the headmaster in a way that makes Joe’s face hot with the sudden insight that this is all very bad. “-seeing how I’m the one who asked you to tutor Mr. Hewlett in the first place. But we’ve found a suitable replacement, so you can hit the books hard. No more late nights,” he says knowingly, and Joe is about to agree to it all when the headmaster adds, “And Mr. Hewlett, I think it would be best if you left Mr. Flanigan to his studies.”

“What does that mean?” David asks, his arms folded across his chest.

The headmaster smiles at them, a surface smile that is supposed to indicate that he truly likes young men like them, and that his only wish is to better their lives. “It means that I’m not so foolish as to think Mr. Flanigan’s ungraceful—and well past curfew—return last Friday night is unrelated to your continued association. Before you, Mr. Hewlett, Mr. Flanigan did not spend his weekends drinking at underground dance clubs.”

David’s gaze whips toward him, and Joe shakes his head. He feels a little sick. “David, I didn’t…”

“Mr. Flanigan will be on academic probation until further notice, and both your off-campus privileges have been revoked indefinitely.”

“What?” David squawks, just as Joe lurches to his feet.

“It’s not his fault! Sir, it was me; I’ll stay on campus; David has nothing to do with it.”

“I’ve been doing this job for nearly twenty years,” the headmaster says. “You’ll both stay on campus and you’ll both steer clear of each other entirely. It’s the least I can do for your parents,” he adds to Joe, which turns Joe’s face stinging hot.

“Steer clear, right,” David mutters, but Joe can see he’s already shut down, scowling up at the headmaster from beneath his dark eyebrows.

“You’ll find that the entire faculty will be taking this seriously,” the headmaster says, one last lash as Joe gathers his things.

He feels betrayed, confused and stifled by his too-tight collar, and beneath it all, there is the terrible sense that he has let everyone down terribly, a feeling uncomfortably close to shame. He turns and walks numbly to the door, where he pauses long enough to hear the headmaster tell David that he’s got two days to get a haircut, or else.

*

Or else is a demerit, which Joe watches David show to his admiring friends in the far corner of the cafeteria two days later, a brief flash of yellow paper that disappears into David’s pocket while Joe stabs idly at his macaroni. This makes four demerits this semester. If David gets one more, his parents will get a phone call, and they will react with their typical fond exasperation because after all, David is just acting out a perfectly natural adolescent rebellion.

But apparently the rebellion only goes so far. David is okay risking demerits, but he must have heard the serious edge to the headmaster’s warning, because he hasn’t made the smallest effort to talk to Joe. And it’s not like Joe doesn’t deserve it, in part. He knows he’s being punished for slacking, for breaking the rules, but when he gets up and shoves his tray into the dish bin while David’s laughter rises and fades behind him, it feels like he’s being punished for much more.

*

Just in case, he lingers outside David’s dorm a few times, near enough to curfew that he figures he might catch David hurrying up the front steps. Instead, he runs into Mr. Stipesmith, the resident advisor, making rounds.

“You’re cutting it awfully close, Mr. Flanigan,” he says.

“I know, I was just…” Just looking for someone who used to be there, but isn’t anymore.

Mr. Stipesmith frowns down at Joe, but his tone is gentle. “This is my dorm; it’s my job to know what these boys are up to,” he says just as the last curfew bell sounds. “So yes, if you were wondering, I am indeed aware of the fact that you’re supposed to be far from here and nearer to there.” He points toward Joe’s dorm, and at the last moment swings his finger toward the library. “Or there. Either way, just not here.”

“Yes sir,” Joe says, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets, already turning to go, turning away because he’s late and he wants to hide the cold trickle of suspicion that’s working its way through his veins.

He hurries across the quad, a dozen troubling thoughts flitting through his mind, just reasonable enough that he can’t dismiss them, but too farfetched to believe. It doesn’t make sense that even Mr. Stipesmith would know to keep Joe away from David—hell, it doesn’t even make sense for the headmaster to order them apart, not for a few bad grades.

He can hear David now, laughing that he’s so paranoid it’s almost funny, and to relax, what are you, forty years old? He knows what David would do, too: he would comb his fingers through Joe’s hair and kiss his mouth until Joe was warm and pliant and couldn’t remember his own name, much less the impact of the Russian Revolution on twentieth century Europe.

So, yeah. Maybe it’s the grades after all.

*

“Late,” Jennings says sharply when Joe passes the common room, but when Joe pauses in the doorway, his eyes are glued to the television.

*

Before David, Joe used to study alone every day, lock himself in his room and refuse to answer the door until his work was done. Now, there’s something depressing about studying in his empty room without David knocking into his elbow or getting bored and ranting about the evils of imaginary numbers. It’s all so dull without the possibility of David’s thigh occasionally pressing warm against his own, and Joe keeps losing time to thoughts of David’s mouth, long slow kisses that they haven’t gotten to share yet and maybe they never will, because it seems like David has chosen to accept his punishment and toe the line for the first time in his life.

At first he tries to catch David’s eye when he sees him across the room, but David just looks at him, inscrutable, and eventually it’s just easier to pretend he doesn’t know David is there. It helps with the rumors, which have been whispering their way through campus faster than Joe can refute them, but it doesn’t make them go away entirely.

“Too bad about your restriction,” Jennings says when he catches up to Joe on the quad.

Joe hoists his backpack onto his shoulder and starts across the lawn toward the science building. “Yeah.”

“But man, at least they’re not hassling you as much as they’re hassling Hewlett.”

Joe slows his steps and glances over at Jennings, who looks the same as always: blonde and smug, his neatly combed hair gleaming in the mid-day sun. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He hasn’t heard anything from David in so long that he’s not sure where they stand, anymore.

“Just that he’s not exactly loving life right now. Frieden’s on his ass for grades, and he’s had two room inspections since you guys got busted. And did you see his hair?” Jennings snorts like it’s a big joke, but Joe doesn’t see anything funny about David’s new hair, clipped shockingly short to reveal a long stretch of neck.

“Since we got busted?” Joe stops Jennings with a hand on his arm. Busted, Joe hasn’t ever thought of it that way. To him, it’s always felt like more of a pre-emptive strike.

“That’s why you’re in trouble, right? Coming home wasted a couple weekends ago—I mean, for fuck’s sake, Flanigan, you used to know better than to use the front door.”

The sun is noon-bright; it cuts through Joe’s eyelashes and pricks at his eyes, burns across the back of his neck, and he tips his head so his hair, too long in front, falls forward to shield his eyes from the light. It’s suddenly very important that he see Jennings’ face. “You seem to know a lot about it,” he says in a voice he doesn’t quite recognize.

“Maybe I do. But you never had this problem when you came to The Coach like everybody else, and you sure as hell never wore makeup,” Jennings says, and the way he yanks his arm out of Joe’s grasp is like the final piece of a puzzle being snapped into place.

“You--you.” Joe exhales in a rush of hot fury that takes him by surprise because he’s usually laid back, hard to rattle, but Jennings’ face; Joe wants to drive his fist right into that smirk, and before he knows what’s happening, that same fist is shot through with pain and he’s caught in a push-and-pull of limbs that leaves him feeling a little crazy, like he’s not quite in control of anything but the desire to win this, to see Jennings laid out on the grass no matter how much it costs him.

He ducks too late and catches Jennings’ fist in the mouth, but it’s good, it means he doesn’t care about the gathering crowd or the way his books are scattered across the ground from when he’d dropped his backpack.

“You used to know better than this, too,” Jennings says, twisting against Joe, all elbows and fists. He’s not smirking anymore.

“I didn’t, I don’t,” Joe mutters, only half-aware of what they’re saying; the only reality is the press of his knees into the ground, the clutch of Jennings’ hands in his shirt, and the sun, so bright that he doesn’t even know who’s got him when he’s suddenly pulled up and up, onto his feet and away from all that hard muscle and bone he hasn’t hurt nearly enough.

“He started it!” Jennings yells at Professor Stipesmith, who still hasn’t let go.

Stipesmith looks to Joe for an explanation, but he can’t explain this. Not right now. Instead, he stands silently, flushed and panting and churning with resentment over being made to stop when he’s still wound so tight.

The moment passes. As the crowd begins to break up, kids drifting toward their classes, Joe becomes more aware of his surroundings. He’s a wreck: his hair hangs limp over his eyes and his shirt is untucked—not just untucked, but torn up the sleeve and soiled by dirt and sweat and grass stains.

“Go see the headmaster,” Professor Stipesmith sighs. “I trust you’ve got control of yourselves, now?” He hands Joe a handkerchief, a gesture that Joe doesn’t understand until he wipes his mouth with his sleeve and sees the smear of blood it leaves behind.

*

It’s supposed to be a walk of shame; Joe knows this. The walk to the headmaster’s office is meant to remind him how he looks to the others, let him see his own sorry state reflected on the faces of his classmates, but Joe can’t muster anything more than a vague regret that he’d gotten caught. Let them see him; let David see him, a thought that does nothing to settle the electric buzz in his head. He thinks that by now he knows David well enough to predict his reaction. David, an opportunist in every way, has always answered Joe’s scrapes and bumps with the gentle pads of his fingers, admiring passes of skin over soft blue bruises that had been wildly confusing right up until the first time they’d kissed.

But David is nowhere around, and Headmaster Frieden, the reason for that absence, isn’t interested in soothing Joe’s injuries.

Jennings is smooth and conciliatory with the headmaster—as much as he can be with a persistent bloody nose—while Joe slumps into his seat and picks at the rip across his right knee and lets the headmaster’s words drift right past him. It’s all so pointless, bending over backwards to make someone understand something they’ve already made up their mind about.

*

The slip Joe carries back to his room is orange, like the one David’s friend Ruben had received for painting an obscene mural on the north side of the dining hall. An orange slip, which comes with an attached appointment to see the guidance counselor. Joe folds them both neatly onto the corner of his desk before he gets undressed.

He strips off his ruined pants and stuffs them into the trash can. His shirt is in a similar state, and the blazer he hadn’t even been wearing is darkened all down the sleeve. Jennings’ bloody nose, he thinks on a shudder, but he’s only got a few blazers, so he gets dressed and carries his sad crumpled tie and blazer to the bathroom and begins to fill the sink.

It’s relatively quiet on his floor right now, a silence that feels abrupt after the relentless noise of the afternoon, a deliberate pause that Joe isn’t entirely sure he welcomes. He turns the water to warm and shakes some laundry soap across the surface, watching the flecks dissolve into hazy clouds until the water is thick and silken against his fingers. He’s pretty sure he’s supposed to use cold water, but his knuckles ache, and this feels better.

As he soaks his clothes in the sink, his gaze rises up to his own quiet expression in the mirror, and it occurs to him that he’s in a lot of trouble.

“You know, I’m starting to think you’re not nearly as shy as you claim to be.”

David stands at the edge of the doorway, half-leaning against the door frame, as though it’s as far as he’ll come.

Joe smiles faintly and rubs his thumb against the smooth wet collar of his blazer. “I have my moments.”

Now that the adrenaline is wearing off, he’s sore in a half-dozen places, and even though he’s wanted to talk to David for days, having him here makes Joe’s head ache with frustration. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Obviously. But they’re not watching you nearly as close as they’re watching me, so it was pretty easy to get in.” David pulls away from the doorway and straightens, his hands in his pockets. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Joe,” he says, and Joe looks up from the sink.

It’s just David, his quirky mouth pulled into a soft sober line, his eyes so expressive that they pull Joe into a tangle of confusion, because if they can’t have this, then why is David here? He doesn’t know what rules either of them are willing to break, and there doesn’t seem any way to ask.

“I’m fine,” he says. “My parents will be here at six-thirty. Until then, I’m supposed to be thinking long and hard about what I’ve done.”

“And doing laundry.”

“Right.” Joe dunks his hands in the water and sloshes them around. He’s wanted to talk to David for days, but the quiet has seeped into his bones and now all he can do is stand here, utterly useless.

“Okay.” David jerks at the sound of a door slamming at the other end of the hall. “Good. I guess I’d better get going.”

Joe nods. “See you later,” he says, and begins a hard scrub on polyester blend.

***

“I just want you to be happy,” his mom says that night, when they’re assembled around an uncomfortable dinner table at his parents’ hotel. The remark comes on the heels of his father’s This is all very disappointing, Joseph, and What is wrong with you?, so Joe just drags his spoon through his soup and waits for them to finish.

“Happy doesn’t get you into a good college,” his dad says, but he’s beginning to wind down, which means he’s finally taking the time to really look at Joe, razor-sharp scrutiny that could mean any number of things. “But your mother is right; you look terrible.”

Of course he looks terrible; he’s been screwed over and hurt and punished. No one would look great right now, not even David. “My grades are better,” he offers, eyes fixed on his bowl. “I think I’ll make honor roll.”

“See that you do,” his dad says, and excuses himself from the table with a short “Business,” by way of explanation and a “Take care, son,” as he leaves.

“Mom,” Joe says. He’s too tired to beg, but he feels like he owes her an explanation for why he’s sitting here in the middle of the term with a bruised mouth and an orange slip. “I’m not- it’s not that bad. Breaking curfew is like…everybody does it. And I won’t fight again.” It’s a strain to make that promise, because he still can’t think about Jennings without that swell of fury, but it’s worth it when her face relaxes, her wine colored lips relaxing from their tight clench of worry.

“I know you won’t.” She puts her napkin down and comes around the table to take the seat next to his, within reaching distance for all the fussing he knows she’s been dying to do. She’d hugged him briefly when he’d arrived, a quick impression of soft shoulders and Ralph Lauren, and if he’s honest with himself, he’s aching for that kind of contact, for someone who genuinely likes him. “Tell me about David,” she says, brushing his bangs aside as though it will make a difference.

He opens his mouth and when he shuts it too fast, a throb of pain pulses through his swollen lip. “He’s a friend,” he says slowly, even though it would feel good to say more. “Everybody likes him.”

“Headmaster Frieden doesn’t think he’s a very good influence on you.”

Joe pushes his bowl away and lets her catch his hand in her own. At least it means she’s listening.

“It’s not his fault,” he says. “David’s…he doesn’t care about school, but he’s smart. He can build a computer from scratch.”

“I want you to care about school,” she says, squeezing gently, and smiling for the first time since he’d arrived. “But I think you’re capable of caring about school and your friends at the same time.”

“I can,” he agrees, momentarily cheered. Her approval doesn’t change anything, but it echoes what he’s been thinking this whole time, and that feels a little like vindication. “Uh, about that. I don’t suppose you found out when I’ll get to enjoy them both again?”

“A few weeks after the holiday break.”

That’s over a month away. His disappointment must show on his face, because she adds, “If you’re bored, why don’t you join one of those clubs?”

“Like what? The computer club? I can’t; David’s in it, and we’re not allowed to-“ He breaks off, his heart thumping out a couple wild beats, because that’s one aspect of the situation that’s been delicately turned aside and handled with a semi-blind eye. He’s pretty sure his mother doesn’t want to know that he’s got a boyfriend—or, had a boyfriend, or whatever David is. He weighs the situation mid-sentence, trying to read the complicated lines of her face, the worry and sympathy and…no, there’s nothing else there.

“They won’t even let me talk to him,” he says, and withdraws his hand. It still feels like such a risk to take a deep breath and say, “It sucks, I miss him, and this isn’t a normal punishment, mom.”

“But it’s yours to take,” she says, smooth and unhesitating, as though he hasn’t just made a thundering confession. “So you’ll study and keep yourself busy, and when it’s over, you’ll be careful. I want you to be happy,” she says again, and this time, he actually believes her.

*

His mom isn’t entirely wrong: there are other ways to pass the time. The common room is plastered with fliers that announce upcoming events in aggressive bold font, which Joe passes every day. He knows that the International Club meets every Thursday at five and that the audition for the winter production of Streetcar is fast approaching.

It’s not his scene, but that doesn’t stop him from slipping into the drama department and picking up a script. Just for fun, he tells himself, but he likes the way the lines sound when he says them in the privacy of his room, and how they turn him into someone else entirely—someone who can express all the boiling emotion that Joe keeps tamped down, and shout his frustration without consequence.

He remains undecided for a week, the audition time glowing in the back of his mind, before he jogs up the front steps of the theater just a few minutes late, script in hand.

His excitement is edged with hesitation, but he’s propelled through the cavernous lobby by a reluctant optimism that insists he’s on to something, here. There are voices coming from inside, people talking over each other; they haven’t started yet, so he opens the door and steps inside.

A few familiar faces, and at the back of the room, David perched atop a table, legs swinging freely.

Professor Kirkling immediately zeroes in on Joe. “Hold on, young man. Are you lost?”

The boisterous conversation slows to a trickle, and Joe tries not to let on how angry it makes him that his business has spread to even the liberal arts teachers. The theater is David’s stomping ground, but it’s not off limits.

“This is room 201, right?” he says, holding out his script as if for inspection.

Kirkling squints at Joe for a few seconds before waving him inside. “Sign in here,” he says, and slides a clipboard across the table. Joe signs with one eye on the sheet while he scans the room more carefully. A few guys with the same stapled scripts are sitting on the sidelines, and a group of girls are huddled toward the back. No wonder David likes to hang out at the theater; of course there are girls here, and Joe can’t help but think of the girls at Gravity, how they’d kissed David with their hands in his hair.

It’s a depressing thought, especially when it persists even after the readings begin. A girl wearing combat boots and an overpatched jean jacket is reading with the hopeful Kowalskis. She’s already landed the part of Blanche. Her name is Tina, there’s a patch just over her left breast that says Flight Instructor in pink lettering, and when Joe steps up for his turn, she says, “Finally, new blood,” and launches right into the scene.

Joe pushes his hair out of his eyes and shifts from one foot to the other. It had been one thing to rail against an imaginary partner, but the polite, self-conscious part of him cringes at the idea of talking to a perfectly nice girl the way he needs to for this scene.

Tina gives him a strange look and then falls back into character. She repeats her lines, and it’s his turn, everyone is watching; he’s got to say something.

It’s all a huge mistake, he thinks for one desperate moment, but then she’s up in his space—too far into his space—and the lines come back to him, not just the lines, but the emotion behind them, and he wants to push. The best part is that in this stranger’s skin, he’s allowed to push, and it’s a perfect fit because he can pour all his dissatisfaction into the process of acting, and still keep it under tight control. It’s like boardsliding a ledge, speed and power under careful guidance, and the same end result. When they finish, he’s as stirred up as he’d been that day with Jennings, and Tina stumbles as she backs away from him, rosy-cheeked and exhilarated and impressed.

“Not bad,” she says from beneath the obligatory round of applause.

“You too,” he says, but he’s already looking for David.

*

“That’s quite a trick.” Tina sits down next to Joe, her legs bumping against his where they hang from the edge of the stage.

“What’s that?” Rehearsal is over, and Joe is enjoying the chance to let his mind wander. The only problem is his predictability; how it always wanders to the same place.

“How you can make Hewlett disappear.” She doesn’t go here, but she’s friends with David and all the theater kids; she’s got to have heard about them, about how they’re not allowed, while everyone else can come and go as they please. “It’s like clockwork. You go here, he goes there…”

“Just one of my many talents,” he says, curling his hands around the script that he already knows by heart. Opening night is only a few days away.

“Not. You suck at it, you know that? Look at you.” She snorts, an unladylike sound, and waves her arms up toward the catwalk, where David is flipping switches. “Hey, David. David!”

She’s too loud in his ear, but Joe likes the way she forces David to look at them, to return the wave, and when she yells, “Come down here, you jerk!”, to make his way down to the stage with only the briefest hesitation.

“You’re awfully demanding now that you’re a star,” David says as soon as he approaches, presumably to Tina, but his eyes keep blinking over toward Joe.

She kicks her boots together and frowns at David. “It’s just getting harder to get your attention. Am I right, Joe?”

Joe freezes up, because despite the ridiculous flutter of hope he can’t manage to suppress, this isn’t a conversation he wants to have in front of Tina.

He looks at David, who slouches against the edge of the stage, arms crossed as if talking to Joe is something he does every day. “Joe doesn’t have to worry about that,” he says smoothly, and Joe still doesn’t know what to make of the way David’s mouth turns down on one side when he says it, like there’s some private joke Joe is supposed to understand. He’s been watching David slink around the theater for weeks now, and this is the closest he’s gotten to him.

“I get the feeling this guy worries about a lot of things,” Tina says. She nudges at Joe with her shoulder and he shrugs her off, stifling a wave of irritation as she hops down from the stage and trots toward the exit.

Joe watches her until the door swings shut behind her, and when she’s gone, David is still there. There are still a few people wandering around, performing post-rehearsal tasks with the ease of routine.

“How’s it going?” David asks, already glancing away toward the door and the sound of laughter.

“Fine. I mean, not as great as it’s going for you, obviously.” The words spill out of the pool of resentment that he’s been so carefully sidestepping ever since Headmaster Frieden had called them to his office.

“What?”

“It’d be nice if you weren’t so good at acting like I don’t exist, that’s all. If you don’t want to, to…” Joe pauses, searching for something better than be my boyfriend, because David hadn’t made him any promises, and he doesn’t want to be lame about this; not when David is so infuriatingly cool. “If you didn’t want to be friends anymore, then you should’ve told me. Then I could…”

He’s got David’s attention now, but he’s never wanted David’s gaze on him like this, dark and narrow and so hard Joe can feel himself beginning to bruise.

“You could what?”

Joe scuffs his heels against the edge of the stage, a grating sound that scrapes his nerves every bit as much as this situation. “I could quit thinking about—“ you, but no, that’s wrong. “—about hanging out with you. I’m sick of wondering when you’re going to talk to me next, and you can’t tell me that it’s because of what the headmaster said, because I know you, and you don’t care about rules. You do what you want to do, and I’m a jerk for just figuring this out now.”

“Hey, I came to you after your fight. I don’t see you making any effort to see me.”

Joe jumps down onto the floor. “No? Look where I am, David! Where I’ve been for the past two months.” He gestures at the stage and the high ceiling. “I’m here every day, in the same building as you, in your big dramatic world of make-believe, and I like it, and you can’t even look at me.” He stops there, even though there are a dozen more accusations pounding in his chest, but he’s given away more than he wanted David to know. “So thanks a fucking lot,” he manages, and turns to go.

“I look at you,” David says, but it sounds like a rebuttal, low and angry and not at all what Joe wants to hear.

“No.” Joe deflates a little as his anger ebbs into a dull sense of disappointment.

“I’m looking now.”

Joe looks up, his shoulders still tight with a suspicion that only begins to dissolve when he sees that David is telling the truth. He is looking now—or trying, at least—and maybe he’s not as indifferent as Joe had thought, not cool and unreachable at all, because Joe knows what wanting looks like, and David’s eyes move over him as though he’s afraid to really look, and maybe Joe has been the unreachable one all along.

“But I want to do more than just look,” David says softly, and just like that everything is flipped upside down, because David is second-guessing himself and Joe, as he reaches for the warm damp skin of David’s palm, has never been more certain of what he wants.

*

Joe’s sitting cross-legged on his bed, textbooks and papers in semi-organized chaos around him when David shows up at around ten that night, a riot of colorful album covers under his arm. He grins at Joe as he slips one of the records out of its cardboard sleeve.

“Just got this one,” he says, placing the vinyl almost reverently on the turntable. “It’s the import twelve inch. I’ve only been after it for about, oh, three years and I haven’t even listened to it yet, and—you don’t mind, do you?”

Joe shakes his head, and it doesn’t matter anyway, because the music has already started, a whisper of vocals over the swirling blood-pulse of synths, a female voice murmuring softly in French. As the music swells softly through the room, for a moment it’s almost like being back at the club, in that strange half-lit world where anything seems possible. And it is, Joe thinks, because right now, his world doesn’t feel off-balance at all. For the first time in as long as he can recall, everything is exactly how it should be.

David is standing with his eyes closed and head tipped back, almost unnaturally still, listening intently. “Fucking yes,” he breathes after a moment, before falling bonelessly back onto Joe’s bed, a scatter of papers fluttering to the floor in his wake, a faraway smile dancing across his lips. “You like it?”

“Yeah,” Joe says, because he does, he really does, this lush new landscape that is washing over both of them, slipping beneath his skin and pulsing in his blood. “Yeah, I do.”

“Steve Strange is a god,” David says, fingers closing warm around Joe’s wrist, hooking a leg around his thigh, pulling him closer, and it’s so easy, so right. “You’re listening to the proof now.”

Joe can’t hide his smile. “You talk too much.”

“I’m nervous.” David says. “I always talk a lot when I’m trying to impress someone,” and he’s grinning, but his eyes are dark, intense, and Joe’s stomach flips with a sudden rush of heat.

“I should probably tell you-- I’m a sure thing,” Joe says softly, lifting his hand to touch David’s mouth gently. His algebra textbook is pressed awkwardly into his hip, his homework scattered across the floor, but he doesn’t care, because David’s mouth is hot and wet against his fingers, his hands warm against Joe’s shoulders, moving restlessly over the white cotton shirt he wears, and then, they’re kissing. Finally, Joe thinks, finally, and it’s like the first time all over again, a heady thrill that takes his breath away.

They kiss beneath the never-ending layers of music for what feels like hours, the music stopping only briefly before the needle bumps softly back to the start of the track again, over and over, until the song is something Joe has always known.

“devenir gris,” David murmurs against Joe’s lips, licking the words into his mouth, tasting of the illicit cigarettes Joe knows he carries in his pocket, and something else just underneath, wild and sweet. He moves against Joe, with him, almost in time with the snaking bassline but not quite, some other rhythm taking over until Joe’s panting into the curve of David’s neck, arching up helplessly into the steady spread and press of David’s palm across the front of his pants.

devenir gris, he thinks, the words shimmering in his head as heat blooms bright in his belly, spreading outwards, David’s teeth catching his bottom lip gently as if to coax every last sound of pleasure from him. Warmth like honey spreading along his spine, and then comes David’s soft gasp, his fingers curling around Joe’s hips as he shudders through his orgasm, and Joe can’t help but watch his face, to see the one unguarded moment he knows is his, and his alone.

*

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