BRIAN’S POV

“You always said there’s only two kinds of straight people in the world… the ones who hate you to your face and the kind that hate you behind your back. And you know what?” he asks, arms straining in my grip, fingers clenching and unclenching tightly, legs wrapped hard around my waist, pressing into my sides painfully. I squeeze harder on his skin, almost able to wrap my fingers completely around his slender forearms.

“What?” I grunt back, actually feeling the exertion, the tension in my arms and legs, the pressure of his body against mine, his cock fucking hard, pressing against my pelvis. Everything all mixed up, the effort, the arousal, everything, making me lose my breath just the slightest bit.

Doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that I’ve got 12 years on him. Absolutely not.

“You were right,” he says, and slides one knee around my neck and the other beneath my chest, punctuating his sentence by twisting me off him, throwing me to the ground. I hit the floor fucking hard, my shoulder crushed beneath me, my head hitting the hardwood with an unexpected *thunk*.

I bite back the groan, the grunt of pain, the stuttered breath.

He’s quickly on top of me again, pinning me to the ground, and I writhe beneath him to try and release his hold. Wrench my arm free from his grip, and our hands fly back and forth, grabbing and twisting and holding and blocking and the little fucker *has* been learning a few things.

I finally push him off me and try to stand up, but he grabs my arm and pulls me back to the floor, and I don’t get my hand out fast enough and I land chin first. It fucking hurts, and I can feel it inside, feel that fucking defense mechanism kicking in, really getting started, ready to just…

I stop holding back, stop being careful, stop pulling away. He sits on my back, but I roll over and throw him to the ground, his shoulder slapping hard against the floor and he barks out a sharp yelp. Twist my legs around him and wrap my arm tightly around his neck and pull his wrist high up on his back. He keeps squirming and sucking in breaths, wriggling in my grip and I know he thinks he’s playing, know he thinks this is all a big fucking joke, but this needs to fucking stop now.

Now.

He bucks hard in my arms, but I tighten my elbow and he gasps out my name.

“Brian, I can’t breathe,” he whispers, and I release my hold just a little – but not enough to let him go. He wriggles again, trying to ease my grip.

“Justin, stop,” I say, and he squirms again. “Stop!” I raise my voice in a way that I rarely do and he relaxes suddenly.

I loosen my arm and feel him tense and I tighten it again, holding him still.

My lips find his ear and I breathe on him for a few seconds, debating my words. Torn between pleading with him to please just fucking stop and telling him to go fuck himself.

“Justin…” I say quietly. “Not like this.”

That’s all I can say and I let him go, easing his arm back slowly and letting him down onto the hardwood.

He stops struggling, moving, and lies still on the ground.

“You wanna fuck someone, go to the backroom,” I mumble. I don’t really mean that, but maybe I do. Then again, this isn’t really about fighting to fuck anymore. Really isn’t.

I climb to my feet and pace away from him, heading into the kitchen. I feel shaky, like deep inside shaky. Playing is one thing. But I fucking hit him. He hit me, and I hit him back.

Didn’t like that.

I buried that. Keep it buried.

But it was instinct. An instinct I’ve tried to get rid of, an instinct that keeps rearing it’s fucking ugly head, an instinct that should *never* have come into play around him.

I take a deep breath.

I’m more than a little angry that he pushed me that far.

“Brian,” I hear his voice and his soft footsteps coming towards me. “I was just fucking around.”

I don’t look at him. I know it’s playing and fun and games and he’s just fucking around. Of course he is.

But he’s fucking around with me, and he’s fucking around on the streets and he’s getting too fucking cocky for his own good.

“Yeah, well just remember that *I’m* not supposed to be the one you’re fighting against,” I say and shake it off and his arms come up around my waist. I feel myself tense and wait for the punch, the throw, the pain.

But of course that’s not coming.

He wouldn’t do that.

This is Justin.

So I take a deep breath and turn around in his grasp and put my hands on the side of his face and look at him and see if I really hit him hard. I felt my knuckle connect with his nose in a way that made it go *crunch* just a tiny little bit, and it made feel like puking.

“What?” he asks, staring at me. I don’t look at his eyes, just focus on the bridge of his nose and his cheekbones.

“Nothing,” I say and smooth my thumbs across his cheeks, feeling his soft skin under the pads of my thumbs.

“It didn’t hurt, Brian,” he says and rubs his fingers across his nose. “Cody hit me way harder at the gym yesterday.” He laughs a little then stops.

“Justin, why…” I start to say, but stop when I see the look on his face. That angry defensive look boiling up inside. He tenses beneath my fingers and I drop my hands from his face.

“Why am I doing this? Why am I learning how to fight? Standing up for what I think is right?” He barks out these words at me, squeezing my sides beneath his fingers and it starts to hurt. 

“Forget it,” I say quietly. “Just fucking forget it.” I grab his wrists from around my waist and pull him off me.

I swallow and turn away and slowly walk back towards the bedroom. I’m too fucking tired to deal with this. I don’t want to deal with it. I can’t control it or stop it or make it go away. I can’t do anything. He won’t let me do anything.

“You taught me, Brian,” he says sharply and I stop my ascent to the bedroom.

I turn around and look at him. “I never fucking taught you *anything* like that,” I say and point at the floor where we were just fighting.

“I thought you’d be pleased,” he says. “I can look after myself. Kick some straight ass.” He punches his fist into his palm hard.

“And what if Gus grows up to be straight?” I bite back at him. “You gonna hate him too? What about Debbie? And Daphne? And your fucking mother?”

“What about them? They’re different.” He says, looking at me, as if that makes perfect sense.

“Different why? Because you fucking know them?” I argue back.

He laughs a little, but I honestly don’t think anything is funny. “Listen Brian, it’s not like we’re just fucking randomly going out and picking on straight people,” he says, and walks up the stairs to the bedroom.

I turn my back on him and fall into bed. I fucking *hurt* from fighting with him. I’d rather have bruises from sex, thanks very much.

“Really? Because that’s what it sounds like to me,” I say, and sit up, leaning against the headboard. I rub my fingers against my shoulder, trying to ease out a sore muscle from when he knocked me over. He’s a lot stronger than I gave him credit for.

“It’s like the other night… me and Cody went out to the pub district, you know? And some asshole guy just called us faggots, like it was okay,” he sits down on the bed beside me and looks down at his hands.

“Just out of the blue, he looked at you and Cody, standing there on the sidewalk, buzzcuts and everything, and called you a faggot.” I repeat back the story to him quickly. Something sounds pretty off to me.

“Well… I mean, we weren’t just standing there,” he fidgets a little and looks up at me. Looks sheepish.

“So…” I watch him. “What were you doing then?” I try and ease the information out of him, because it’s obviously not going to come easily.

He lifts his shoulder and tips his head a little. “Well, he started kissing me, and this guy walked by and made some comment, and Cody followed him into the alley—“

I put up my hand. “Wait a second. You went down to the straightest fucking neighbourhood in Pittsburgh and started making out. With Cody.” I get this deep pain in the pit of my stomach.

“We weren’t making out, Brian. It was just… like bird-hunting, Cody says,” he shrugs his shoulders.

“Jesus Christ, I don’t fucking care about the kissing, Justin,” I shake my head and scrunch up my face. “I care that you were setting yourself up. What the fuck did you think was going to happen?”

“Brian, you don’t get it. Cody and I followed the guy into the alley and he pushed Cody and called us faggots and Cody grabbed him, and the fucking guy—you won’t believe this—the fucking guy actually says, ‘all you fags should get AIDS and die’. The same fucked up thing that Hobbs said to me at the hospice,” he’s looking at me all incredulous, like it was some fucking quote out of Shakespeare or something.

I’ve heard that line far too many times myself. It’s not original.

He’s watching me for some reaction, but I honestly don’t even know what to say to him. I just lock eyes with him and wait for the rest of the story.

He pauses then looks down again. “So… I hit him. Just fucking punched him. Took him out.” The corners of his mouth raise in a small smile, but then drop again.

“You fucking sucker punched him, is that what you’re telling me?” I ask, not really expecting an answer.

“It wasn’t like that,” he says, but his words are quiet.

“Sounds like it was. That’s fucking crazy, Justin,” I say back.

“You don’t understand, Brian,” he says and stares at his hands. “I’ve never won a fight before. I’ve never even really fought before, except like, once at school with fucking Hobbs. I punched him then and I wish I fucking bashed his brains in.” His voice gets progressively quieter. “Asshole.”

“Justin, every straight guy walking down the street isn’t Hobbs. Every straight guy isn’t going to come after you with a baseball bat. Isn’t going to hurt you, or even hate you.” I drop my hands to my lap.

“You always say…” he starts then stops. He knows even I can be full of bullshit sometimes.

We sit in silence for a moment.

“Justin,” I reach out my hand and he comes closer to me, crawling across the bed, and curling up beside me, pressing his head into my shoulder. I wrap my arm around him tightly. Tough guy façade or not, he’s still Justin.

He’s still mine.

“I want you safe. That’s it,” I press my mouth against his head, his short hair brushing against my lips.

He sucks in a breath like he’s going to say something, then stops, letting the air leave his lungs slowly. He nods a little and puts his hand on top of mine, resting against my thigh… he traces his finger along mine, trailing across my skin softly, light caresses up and down each of my fingers, the back of my hand.

He’s thinking… he’s quiet and running shit over in his head, and I know there is absolutely nothing more I can say to him.

I get that he’s 19. I get that he’s angry. I get that there are things he has to do. Okay. Got it. Done.

But I’m surprised at myself at how hard it is to let him do these things. How hard it is to bite back my words, to let him walk away, to let him make these mistakes.

It’s stupid and ridiculous. But it’s how I feel.

His fingers close over my hand and he squeezes just a little, pulling my fingers together. Slides his thumb beneath my palm and turns my hand over, sketching out a circle on my skin. It tickles, but I don’t flinch, don’t move, just watch him, watch his slender hand tracing out over my own.

We slide down on the bed till our heads are resting on the pillows and he looks at me, those blue eyes that can’t lie and I know that he’s holding things back and I don’t even really care now. I don’t want to know anymore. I really don’t.

He kisses me lightly again and I kiss him back, letting my fingers run down his sides, touching him so lightly, torturing him with tickles and caresses instead of pinches and bites. He reciprocates, barely skimming his hands across my skin and soon we’re both breathing heavily and his cock presses up against my belly and mine is trapped between his legs… he rolls me over onto my back and climbs down my chest, licking at my nipples, my stomach as he moves further down…

Then his lips wrap around my cock again and I sigh deeply… feels so good, this is what I wanted, what I needed… fuck…

And… I touch his hair… and…

Oh… God… it’s good… and…

Oh…

I put my hand over his and pull him up to me… his face in mine and I know that this is exactly where we were an hour ago, before this night took it’s unexpected turn…

But this time I direct the action. I roll him over onto his back, sliding between his legs, rubbing our cocks together… kiss him softly, hands on his face, short hair prickling my fingers, stubble on his chin brushing against mine…

He raises his hips, lifting his knees higher, an invitation to fuck him… not that I’ve ever needed an invitation…

But I lean really close into his ear and whisper…

“Tonight it’s your turn.”

Kiss him softly and slide off him, lying face down on the bed. I bunch the pillow under my head and close my eyes.

“Brian,” he says and I turn my head over to the other side and look at him. He cocks his head a bit and smiles at me, putting his hand on my wrist.

I grab a condom and press it into his fingers. Don’t say anything. Just smile.

He laughs a little, more a loud sigh punctuated with a broad smile and I know he’s happy… and right now, that’s good enough.

I close my eyes and hear the condom wrapper tear open and then his fingers on my skin, his body pressed to mine, his face between my shoulder blades, lips dancing across my skin, kisses covering me…

His breath pushes against my neck and he climbs up my body, resting his cock between my ass cheeks, starting a nice rub that feels good and makes me want it even more… he sucks on my earlobe and I can’t help but gasp, can’t help but start grinding my hips into the sheets, pushing my cock into the bed, rocking up against him… feel him lift up then the head of his dick rests at my hole and I pull in a breath of air and slowly let it out… as I do, he starts to push inside me, God, his cock filling me up, pressing on me inside and it does feel so good, and I do like it, and his body sticks to mine, flattened against my back and suddenly I don’t really care about anything else anymore… just him pushing into me, and me taking him.

His fingers slide under the pillow beneath my head and find my hands… he wraps his fingers all in mine and presses his face into my neck and all I hear are his breaths over and over… long sighs that turn into shorter pants… deep stuttering gasps of air scattered with little moans with every push inside me…

I listen to him and respond… his body overwhelming me, flattening me to the bed, cock sliding in and out and I get that deep inside warmth and slow burn that quickly escalates into something more.

There aren’t really any more words to say to him, aren’t really any more lessons to teach, or battles to win or lose. There’s just this… it’s what we’ve always had, always will have, I know.

We both go to the edge and back too many times to count… both hold back and hold on and I start to get sore, but Christ, I don’t even care. It just feels good to have him inside me, honestly. Feels good to give him this.

And then we cum and he slides out, but stays lying on top of me, wrapping his hands up in mine again and he breathes deeply and drifts to sleep and I feel like I’m holding him up and I like that feeling.

Feel like I’m carrying him.

I hope he lets me carry him through this.

Funny how things look different in the daylight.

I woke up this morning and looked in the mirror and saw me again.

Just plain old me.

Nothing special.

Me with a buzz cut.

“You coming?” Brian’s voice drifts into the bathroom and I spit out my toothpaste and rinse my mouth quickly.

One last glance to make sure I was still there.

Yeah, still there.

Brian drops me off at the diner on his way to the office and I work through the day, feeling like myself again, flirting a little to get better tips, laughing with Ramone in the backroom on our smoke break, listening to Debbie discuss all the things she’s been doing now that Vic has moved out. Listening to her try and convince herself and everyone else that she doesn’t really miss having him around.

Everything seems kind of normal and kind of like it was and I start to think that… well… maybe I should think about what I fucking should be doing with my life…

And then I get off shift and go see Cody at the used bookstore he works at and we talk and he takes me to this fucking church and we sit there and listen to this fucking asshole tell us, and fucking tell me that I’m wrong and that I’m a sinner and an abomination and that I’ll fucking burn in hell. I don’t even know what else it was he said, I couldn’t focus on it, couldn’t feel anything else except like there was a huge spotlight shining down on my head, a sign posted to my back, the words faggot written all over my face… I felt like an outsider, I felt different, and I felt anger at the words he said. I felt uncomfortable, and preached at, and helpless to say anything back. I felt like I had to listen and couldn’t argue back that it was wrong.

It made me angry. Really fucking angry.

So when Cody asks me to go back downtown and do some more bird hunting, hell yeah, I’m ready to go.

We walk down to the club district, it’s Wednesday, so not that busy, but it’s not long before we see a couple of straights making out on the street, the girl with her ugly fingers up into the guy’s greasy hair and Cody and I stop beside them and start kissing, nothing serious, just little kisses, because honestly Cody doesn’t do anything for me, not really. It’s like kissing at Babylon on the dancefloor, it’s like kissing the guy you want to suck your cock, it’s like kissing a friend.

And when the girl says we’re disgusting, I actually look at her, my lips shiny with Cody’s spit, and grin a little and ask her if this is what she doesn’t like and turn Cody around and kiss him again, harder this time, open my legs a little and let Cody lean between them…

So they walk away and we follow, doing it all just like we planned, Cody making the insults, because let’s face it, he’s fucking good at them, and me coming in to take out the guy. Wasn’t really gonna do anything to the girl, except maybe try and spit on her for her stupid remark, and I swing and my fist connects with the asshole’s face and *yeah* that feels good, and I grin and put the ministers head on the jerk’s face as it goes flying backwards and he rolls over the trunk of the car, and I get ready, fucking ready, fists up like Cody taught me, ready to really fight, to take this guy down, to show him that I’m not some little faggot. To show him that he can’t laugh and call me names. To show him that I’m just as tough as him, that he can’t fucking push me, or anyone like me around. Stand up for the ones that won’t stand up for themselves.

But holy fuck, he reaches into his jacket and I hear the blade before I see it, before it comes waving in my face. This bolt of fear just jolts through me, feel it in the soles of my feet, in the palms of my hands… I hold both hands up and take a couple steps backwards, ready to fucking run away as soon as Cody gives the word.

Instead I hear this *click* which sounds entirely too much like something I’ve heard on TV and I look over and see Cody with a fucking gun in the asshole’s face.

A gun.

We never talked about this. Never, ever talked about this.

And suddenly I think of Brian and hear his words in my head and I think about running, about getting out of here right now, about bailing on Cody and leaving him here in this mess, this fucked up situation he’s dragged me into, which is so not what I signed up for.

But all I can do is stand there and stare at him. And think about the words he’s said and the hatred he has that is much stronger than my own.

And I wonder who will end up saving who tonight.

I say his name, but he doesn’t hear me, just keeps pressing the gun to the guy’s temple and telling him to drop the knife, over and over till the guy finally does, and Cody keeps pushing it and I can’t move. I know I should move, should do something, hear this voice in my head screaming at me to get out, to move it, that this isn’t TV, that this is real, this is actually happening and nothing good can come from this, nothing at all…

But I can’t move.

And then Cody lets them go and yells at me, hitting me on the shoulder and I snap out of it and chase after him down the streets and the alleys and finally we stop, hear the sirens in the background and I wonder fleetingly if there’s any chance they could be looking for us, because this was…

Not right.

I yell at Cody and tell him that he freaked the shit out of me and I want to fucking bail right now, but I remember him asking me that in the bookstore, giving me that look like he expected me to leave him too, to take off and dump him and his ideals like everyone else. To run away with my tail between my legs because things got a little more exciting than what I bargained for. I wonder if this was a test, if Cody didn’t tell me about the gun because he wanted to see how I’d react, to see if I still had some of that fear left inside me.

Maybe he is trying to test me, trying to push me, to see what I’d do.

Do I want to prove to him that I’m still a scared little faggot that runs home to his boyfriend every night?

No.

I want to prove to him that I can stand up for myself. That I want to protect the streets. That I want to stop shit like what happened to me and happened to Darren and happened to a thousand others and will happen to a thousand more if we don’t start fighting back.

He shows me the gun isn’t loaded and I keep looking at it. It’s weird, you hear about guns and people having them at schools and at clubs and that there’s shootings and crazy shit happening all the time… I mean, you watch movies and TV and it seems like people just have them and like it’s no big deal, and that they don’t really mean anything.

But to see one up close… is different than seeing one on TV. To look at this piece of metal and know it has the power to kill… to think that if Hobbes had a gun instead of a baseball bat, I’d be dead. To think how easily one could’ve been replaced by the other.

Cody gives me the gun and it feels heavy and cold and it’s not just the metal, but also the weight of what it symbolizes. The way it made that guys face just stop, the way his girlfriend started sobbing the instant she saw it, the way even my heart just started hammering when I saw Cody holding it to the guy’s head.

Yeah, it’s power and I know that sounds stupid. I mean, I can see what the power is, can see where the emotion is coming from, I can see that it’s a complete false sense of security, because this does nothing to stop people from hating me.

But it feels good in my hands, feels good to hold it. Also feels weird and I don’t like it really. Feels funny in my stomach and kind of makes my dick hard in a way like when Brian presses on my throat and cuts off my air, makes me kind of hard in that masochistic way that feels a little kinky and usually just ends up making me harder when I really think about it.

I give it back to him, almost relieved to get it out of my fingers. Cody looks at me kind of funny, a little smile on his lips.

“Did it make you hard?” he asks, knowing full well that it did.

It makes me a little embarrassed, I guess, like he’s exposing my little kink or something, but still I tell him, maybe… because I’m honestly not sure if he’s going to laugh at me or what.

But he tells me that it was the same for him, and presses the gun up against my cock.

Fuck, that feeling just intensifies, getting that hard press of metal against my pants, and I get a rush through me, making me a little dizzy… I suck in a breath and hold my hand over his, pressing the gun against my dick, my balls, rubbing it against me, and I wonder how fucking good it would feel pushing up against my skin. That cold metal skimming across my cock, the power behind it, and just playing with it, fooling around with it, capturing that power and fucking around with it. Literally.

Cody keeps staring at me, and I know he’s getting off on how much I’m getting off on this. He asks me if I want to play with it, and I tell him yeah, because I do, I want to release this, right now, want to cum and get it out of me, because I don’t really know how this makes me feel, but I don’t think I like it very much. Only know that I do feel it and that it’s there inside me, vibrating and like an itch deep inside that I can’t scratch.

He puts his hand on my shoulder, the gun at my ear, I can hear the click of the barrel as it shifts in his grip, feel the cool metal so close to my neck, the brush of it against my skin… we open each other’s pants and grab our dicks and jack off quickly. I know I’ll cum in two seconds like this, and I think about jacking off Chris and jacking off guys in the backroom and just focus solely on Cody’s warm hand on my cock and getting off and getting him off. His dick is really hard too, and I grip him tightly, pulling on his cock until I feel him tense up and then I get there too and we both cum, letting it spill into our hands.

He brushes the gun against my neck, the barrel touching my skin and it spikes through me, I jerk a little under his touch and he laughs, pulling his hand out of my pants and flicking my cum onto the pavement.

I take a deep breath and shake Cody’s cum off my fingers and wipe my hand on my pants.

But that feeling is still there, inside me. Still rattling beneath the surface. It’s like nervous anxiety and tension and just not a good feeling. Cody’s smiling at me, sucking on his lip, and I can tell he’s looking for something more, but I don’t really think he wants it from me.

“Listen, um…” I start and stop because I don’t really know what to say.

He sticks the gun in the waistband of his pants. “Yeah, I’m gonna go to Liberty and pick someone up… I’ll see ya tomorrow,” he says and takes off, leaving me standing there in the alleyway. Standing there feeling shaky and nervous and fucking weird.

I get on the bus and go home to me and Daph’s. She’s not home when I get there, and honestly I’m kind of glad. She’s been pretty annoyed with me with this whole Cody thing, but I can’t help it if she doesn’t understand it.

Just sucks that nobody else understands it. Nobody else seems to care that I’m doing all this because it’s right, and someone has to. Makes me feel isolated and alone.

I get into the shower, and scrub at my skin, then relax against the tiles and let the hot water beat down around me, and think about Brian and last night. I grab my cock again and stroke myself lightly, then faster, sliding my hand over my dick quickly until I cum, holding my hand up against the tile for support.

But somehow I don’t feel satisfied still, don’t feel like it’s enough, don’t feel like I can ever get enough. I climb out from under the water and dry off, debating calling Brian to see if he’s at home, but it’s late now and… I can’t always go running to him.

I know he doesn’t agree with what I’m doing, and I know he thinks I’m taking it too far, and if I go over there tonight he’ll find out what happened and get more pissed off.

It’s not that I care about him getting pissed off… fuck knows I have no fear about pissing Brian off – I’ve done it enough in my life. But I don’t like having to defend myself around him. I don’t feel like I should have to. He’s always told me to do what I want. And this is what I want to do.

So I won’t tell him about this tonight. And I’ll try and go to sleep and not think about it. Not think about the gun and how it made me feel. Not think about the look on the guy’s face when Cody pressed the barrel to the guy’s temple. Not think about that shit.

Nope, I won’t think about it at all.

I close my eyes and try to go to sleep.