Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/9340490.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      From_Dusk_Till_Dawn:_The_Series
  Relationship:
      Richard_Gecko/Seth_Gecko
  Character:
      Richard_Gecko, Seth_Gecko
  Additional Tags:
      Porn_Watching, Mutual_Masturbation, Pre-Series, Sibling_Incest
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-01-16 Words: 3353
****** Flip The Switch ******
by geckocest_(Pye)
Summary
     Richie’s scared of girls, and Seth just wants to help him out.
Notes
     I have this tendency to hoard finished fics and I'm trying to stop
     doing that, so here's another one from the vault! Mostly just porn
     this time.
                                      --
 
On a particularly warm July afternoon, Seth is up in Eddie’s attic with Richie,
picking out any old family photos or other memorabilia they might want to keep
before Eddie hauls everything out to the curb next weekend.
 
It’s generally boring work, with most of the stuff stored up there not even
being Eddie’s, or Dad’s - it belonged to the previous owners, an older couple
who seem to have had a whole lot of boxes and weird little porcelain dolls and
not much else. It doesn’t help either that it’s sweltering with the sun beating
straight down on the roof, hot enough that Seth is starting to feel sweat
beading at his hairline.
 
So it’s a welcome break in the monotony when Seth finds the tape. It’s tucked
away in the very bottom of a box, buried under a mound of old newspapers and
Alfred Hitchcock movies.
 
Seth tugs his prize out of the pile, surprising himself with a bark of laughter
as he looks at the cover. It's a bunch of women with fake looking tits holding
schoolbags, all pouting over plumped, barbie pink lips for the camera. The
title across the top says ‘Schoolgirl Sluts V’ in big, ugly yellow bubble
letters.
 
"What?" Richie asks, scrambling over. He's got dust on his nose, glasses
smudged, hair tumbling in a tangle over his forehead. "Seth, let me see,"
Richie demands, snatching the tape out of Seth’s outstretched hands.
 
A slow grin spreads over Seth’s face as he watches Richie eyeballing the back
cover, gaze lingering a little too long on the teaser picture of a blonde girl
bent over a large oak desk, ass barely covered by a pair of thin white panties.
 
Richie glances up and notices Seth staring. “Put this back,” he says prissily,
holding it out to Seth with two fingers.
 
“No way, we are so watching this,” Seth retorts, taking the tape back from
Richie. “You gotta learn what a real pussy looks like sometime before you
graduate.”
 
Richie goes scarlet. “Seth, oh my God,” he mutters. “Just because you’ve been
screwing your way through half the girls in school doesn’t mean I want to.”
 
“Come on, it’ll be educational. You live for that shit.”
 
“Drop it, Seth,” Richie snaps. “I mean it.”
 
Seth could just leave this alone, but he knows Richie well enough to know that
his reluctance has nothing to do with abstinence and everything to do with the
fact that he’s still nervous about girls.
 
“Nope. You ‘n' me are having movie night,” he declares. “Think of it as extra
credit for sex ed, if you’re going to be such a dork about it.”
 
Richie rolls his eyes and huffs and sighs as if Seth just dropped the weight of
the world onto his shoulders, but he doesn’t say no, so Seth counts that as a
win. He makes a point of putting the tape into his ‘keep’ pile, tucking it
underneath the rest of the stuff, just in case Eddie decides to come up here
and check on them.
 
Seth can barely hide the smirk when he sneaks a glance at Richie a few minutes
later and finds him staring at the corner of the tape, sticking out slightly
from under an ancient issue of National Geographic.
 
Yeah, he’s definitely interested.
 
--
 
Eddie leaves that evening around seven with a grumble and a thermos of black
coffee and tells them not to wait up, leaving his plate still half full of
food.
 
The silence left in Eddie’s wake isn’t awkward, just thick with something, the
only sounds left in the kitchen being the buzz of the fridge and the soft whush
of wind rustling the branches of the big tree outside the window. Richie’s got
his eyes trained firmly on his plate, rearranging scrambled eggs with his fork
and never actually eating any of it.
 
Seth watches Richie fidget with his dinner for a full five minutes before he
puts him out of his misery.
 
“Wanna watch that movie?” Seth asks casually, and Richie’s head jerks up.
 
“Okay,” Richie shrugs, like he doesn’t care at all, though Seth doesn’t miss
the flush creeping across Richie’s cheeks just as he stands and starts clearing
plates.
 
--
 
Richie’s watching a rerun of Bonanza on the couch in the den when Seth emerges
from the attic with a pile of movies in his arms, Schoolgirl Sluts V sitting
pretty at the bottom of the stack like a dirty little secret. He dumps them
unceremoniously onto the coffee table and plucks a tape at random from the
pile, popping it into the VCR.
 
Bruce Willis comes into view, scowling at something off camera. Typical,
whoever was watching it last (probably them) didn’t bother to rewind it. Oh
well, they’ve both seen this movie enough times to recite it line by line in
their sleep, so it doesn’t really matter that they’re starting partway through.
 
“Die Hard?” Richie asks, almost incredulous. Seth tosses him an easy smile and
flops down on the cushion at the opposite end of the couch.
 
“It’s movie night, Richard. Die Hard is a classic.”
 
“It’s a Christmas movie, Seth, and it’s July,” Richie says drily.
 
“Hey, you know the rules. My idea, my pick,” Seth shoots back. “But you can
choose the next one, since I’m feeling generous.”
 
Richie throws Seth an exasperated look, but Seth doesn’t take the bait. He just
grins wider and shoves at Richie with his foot.
 
“Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.”
 
--
 
John McClane saves the hostages, gets the girl, and now Seth is staring at the
wooden boards of the ceiling above them as Richie sifts through the pile of
movies.
 
He’s pretty sure he already knows what Richie’s going to pick, but doing it for
him would have been too easy. This is about helping Richie get past his fear of
girls, after all, and he needs to want to do it first.
 
There’s a long pause before Richie finally makes his decision, and a second
later Seth’s folding his legs up to let him back in his spot on the couch.
 
Richie heaves a resigned sigh and leans forward to grab the remote from its
place on the table.
 
It takes a second for the tape to track, it’s obviously old and damaged and
it’s got that ugly line of static fuzz along the top. But soon enough a girl
comes into view, the blonde one from the back cover. Here, she’s wearing knee
high socks and a plaid skirt and a mostly see through button up, nipples pert
and clearly visible through the fabric, seated at a desk in an empty classroom
with her lip stuck out in a pout.
 
Seth smirks. He fucking knew it.
 
“May as well get it over with,” Richie says snidely, “since you’re so
interested.”
 
“I’m not forcing you to watch it.”
 
“You are such a brat, Seth, seriously-”
 
Richie’s interrupted by a loud, wailing moan as the tape skips and cuts to a
scene with the girl from the back cover on her knees, blonde hair curling in
ringlets over her shoulders, tits straining at the buttons of her white, gauzy
shirt. There’s a man standing in front of her, naked from the waist down,
pulling her head back by her hair as he fucks into her waiting, open mouth.
 
Richie snaps his mouth shut and stares, eyes wide, fingers curling tight into
the flannel of his pyjama pants.
 
It’s all grunting and soft, wet noises, and it’s hot in that old school kind of
way. Seth’s dick twitches with interest, chubbing up in his sweats at the sight
of the blonde pulling back and using the flat of her tongue to lap at the tip
of the man’s cock, wet and messy just the way Seth likes, strings of spit
leaking over her lower lip.
 
He’s not usually into this era of porn - not usually into porn at all, actually
- but the blonde is sweet, she looks good with a cock in her mouth and Seth’s
suddenly realizing that it’s been a while since he’s gotten any.
 
Out of the corner of his eye, Seth sees Richie shift nervously. Richie’s hands
are still fisted like he doesn’t know what else to do with them, shoulders
squared and tight.
 
And then the epiphany hits Seth like a ton of bricks.
 
This isn’t just the first time Richie’s seen x-rated porn. This is probably the
first time Richie’s seen anything like this, beyond centerfolds in the ancient
Playboy mags Eddie keeps tucked behind the toilet and the softcore stuff that
sometimes plays late at night on the fuzzy channel that fades out into snow
nine times out of ten.
 
“Richie?”
 
Richie looks sidelong at him, cheeks pink in the dim light of the TV.
 
“You wanna turn it off?” Seth asks gently.
 
A slow shake of Richie’s head.
 
“Then relax, buddy,” Seth says, in a voice he hopes is soothing. “Just enjoy
it.”
 
The guy on screen must have gotten the blonde to her feet, because now she’s
bent over one of the desks in the front row of the classroom as the man rubs
his index finger up the sopping wet strip of white cotton hiding the blonde’s
pussy from view. She whimpers, loud and exaggerated, turning her head to purse
her pink smeared lips at the camera.
 
Seth hears Richie’s breathing hitch.
 
“You like that, Richard?” Seth asks, not even aware that he’d spoken until
Richie’s gaze flicks over to him and holds. Seth rolls with it, keeping his
tone even. “You think she’s pretty?”
 
“Yeah,” Richie breathes, a little distractedly. He finally seems to be
relaxing, settling back into the couch cushions, palms lax on his thighs. He’s
hard now too, since the nerves seem to have dissipated, and it’s obvious, worn
flannel doing nothing to hide it.
 
It’s not like they’ve never had boners around each other before, not with them
having shared a room their entire lives, but this isn’t really the same as
those quiet, never mentioned times he has to to avert his eyes in the mornings
or pretend he doesn’t know when Richie’s jacking off in the bed beside his.
 
Blondie hitches her skirt up higher, flipping it up over her lower back so it’s
easier to see the shiny wet of her slit as the man finally pulls her panties
aside and shoves in. Her moan is pitched high, cunt visibly going slicker
around the thick cock inside her and the whole potent combination of it goes
straight to Seth’s dick in a hard punch of lust.
 
Seth darts his gaze back to Richie. He’s still absorbed, watching intently.
 
Maybe he wouldn’t mind if Seth took some of the pressure off. It’s pretty dark
in here, no lights except the one from the TV, and it’s not like Richie has to
look.
 
Seth chews his lip, sneaks another glance to make sure Richie’s still
distracted, then shoves his hand in his sweats. He shimmies his hips just
enough to work his pants halfway down his ass because jacking off with pants on
is a fucking nightmare and if he’s going to do this he may as well do it right.
 
He almost groans out loud with relief when he wraps his fingers around his
dick. He just keeps his hand still at first, focusing back on the TV just in
time to see the blonde shuddering out an orgasm, cunt soaked and glistening in
the close up as the guy continues to fuck her through it.
 
His own cock twitches enviously against his palm, leaking a glob of precome
over his fingers and he’s grateful for it, using it to ease the glide of his
thumb over the head.
 
“Oh,” he suddenly hears Richie gasp, and glances up to find Richie’s eyes glued
to him, wide and dilated in the dark.
 
Seth musters a grin through the growing flush on his cheeks and tries to
lighten the mood. “Like what you see?”
 
It’s mostly meant to be a joke, but Richie doesn’t seem to take it that way. He
blinks slowly, swallows. Holds his silence just a beat too long. “Yeah.”
 
Seth doesn’t expect the way all the air seems to escape his lungs at the
gravel-rough tone to Richie’s voice. Or the way his dick twitches in response,
dripping precome down the backs of his knuckles.
 
“You get really wet,” Richie says.
 
Seth huffs a laugh and momentarily pulls his hand back, holding it up so the
sticky strings webbed between his fingers catch in the low light. “‘S kinda
gross.”
 
Richie shakes his head. “It’s hot. Like, really.”
 
Seth bites his lip, hard. The admission is doing funny things to Seth’s
insides, sparking something deeper than his superficial interest in watching
strangers fuck on TV.
 
“Hey, don’t leave me to be the weird one,” Seth says, nudging Richie’s leg with
the pad of his foot. “Show me what you got.”
 
Richie hunches into himself, the nervousness back again, written all over his
face. “Seth-”
 
“Richard, I’m your brother. You think I care what your dick looks like?”
 
That’s a lie, because Seth’s starting to care a whole lot the longer Richie
leaves him hanging and he’s slowly beginning to realize that some tiny part of
him really, really wants to see what Richie’s got hiding under his clothes.
 
Finally, after what feels like a fucking eternity (but was probably more in the
ballpark of thirty seconds), Richie thumbs his waistband and pulls it back,
squirms a little and -
 
“Goddamn,” Seth says, unable to keep the note of awe out of his voice. “You’re
packing some serious heat, Richard.”
 
The red of Richie’s cheeks deepens as he gets a hand on his cock, huge in his
hand. “That a good thing?”
 
Seth’s struck by the legitimate note of uncertainty there, as if Richie has any
reason to be insecure in this department. “Yeah, buddy, that- that’s real
good.”
 
Richie smiles shyly, some of his usual bravado coming through in the way his
mouth quirks up at the corner. He’s got a finger playing absently at the tip of
his dick now, tracing lazy circles.
 
Seth couldn’t care less about the porno anymore, but he tries to keep up the
pretense and aims his gaze back at the screen, where the blonde is giving some
guy a handjob now. A different guy, not the same as before, but it doesn’t
really matter because it’s not his face they’re focusing on.
 
He fucks into the slick trap of his fingers and tries to imagine the blonde’s
hand on him instead, pieces the sense memories together from that time Amber
Prescott jacked him off behind the bleachers at school.
 
But the fantasy doesn’t stick, keeps melting away despite his concentrated
effort to keep it there. His attention drifts to Richie instead, where he finds
dark, interested eyes watching him intently. Seth squirms a little, unused to
such close scrutiny. He doesn’t dislike it though, kind of the opposite. It
makes his belly tingle with a new rush of heat.
 
Before he can lose the nerve, he leans further back against the arm of the
couch and puts himself on display, canting his hips up so Richie can see
better. Richie makes a soft, appreciative noise and draws the loose clutch of
his fist up the length of his cock as he watches.
 
“What’s it like?” Richie asks. “Fucking, I mean.”
 
Seth stops short. Fucking. The word hits him harder when Richie says it, like
there’s something extra behind it because Seth rarely hears him swear. Seth
likes it. “It’s tight,” he replies, the words coming out husky and gravel-
rough. “Really tight.”
 
Richie groans, low in his throat, never shifting his gaze from Seth.
 
“Your hand, right now, but a million times better, because it’s hot and wet and
fits like a glove.”
 
He sees Richie’s grip go tighter and hopes he’s imagining it now, what it would
be like to be buried in that slick, clenching heat.
 
“There’s nothing else like it,” Seth says, trailing his index finger up the
spine of his cock, just teasing now because he can feel that telltale tightness
in his balls and he’s not ready for this to be over yet. “Feeling her squirming
on top of you, clenching up every time you fuck into her, hearing her moan
every time you get the angle just right.”
 
Richie whines and his hips roll into a hard thrust, cock pushing past the
squeeze of his fingers. Seth likes the lithe way Richie moves, and the noises
he’s making, so much better than the muffled gasps he’s used to hearing from
the bed across from his.
 
“I bet she’d take that big dick of yours real good,” Seth says, inclining his
head in the direction of the TV.
 
Seth doesn't realize what he's saying until he’s said it, like his dick’s
hijacked his mouth and left his brain somewhere else, miles back along with
that line between brotherly guidance and something else entirely.
 
“Oh shit,” Richie breathes. “Seth, fuck-”
 
It’s like whatever filter Seth usually has in place has up and taken a
vacation, because the words just keep coming. “You’d fuck her properly too,
wouldn’t you? Get it so deep she forgets her own name.”
 
Richie’s panting now, edged by these tiny, hiccupy moans that seem to be wired
directly to Seth’s dick. He feels his own orgasm fast approaching, sweet
pressure coiling up hot in his guts as he finally gives himself the grip he’s
been craving, nudging his thumb into the slit, grip tight on the head.
 
“Lose it inside her,” Seth hisses, “give her something to remember you by.”
 
Abruptly, Richie’s breathing hitches and he hunches over as he comes with a
choked off moan. The first spurt almost hits his chin, while the rest ends up
puddled on the front of his t-shirt or streaked over his fingers in thick white
ropes.
 
“That’s it, Richard, yeah, yeah, fuck, that’s so good.”
 
It takes one last stroke up the shaft and Seth’s coming too. He honest-to-God
whimpers, hips lifting off the couch, whole body trembling with the intensity
as he spills into his palm, body-warm and sticky.
 
As if on cue, the tape skitters into an ending and the room goes darker, screen
blank. Seth shuts his eyes as he takes a second to catch his breath,
purposefully not thinking about everything that just happened because he’s
really, really not prepared to deal with the implications right now.
 
“Holy shit,” Richie says from somewhere to Seth’s right. Seth opens his eyes
and finds Richie looking down with a grimace of disgust as he tucks himself
back into his pants.
 
Seth wrinkles his nose when he realizes he’s also got a palmful of jizz to deal
with, leaning forward to grab the kleenex box off the coffee table. When he
hands the box over to Richie after grabbing a wad of tissues, he tells himself
he’s definitely not committing the sight of Richie covered in his own spunk to
memory.
 
“Yuck,” Richie says, as he scrubs futilely at the biggest stain on his shirt.
 
“You’re tellin’ me,” Seth replies. He snaps the waistband of his sweats back
up. “You come like a geyser.”
 
He tactfully leaves out the part where it’s hot as fuck.
 
“Usually I’m more prepared, but…” Richie trails off and aims a meaningful look
at Seth. “I got distracted.”
 
Seth grins crookedly, chews his lower lip. “Yeah?”
 
“It’s not every day my brother tells me that I have a big dick,” Richie says
smugly.
 
It’s Seth’s turn to go tomato red as Richie laughs and gets up, making it to
the doorway before he stops and turns.
 
“By the way, if you have any more-” Richie pauses, looking bashful all of a
sudden. “Extra credit for me, I wouldn’t say no.”

“Might have a few more things up my sleeve,” Seth says casually, pretending
like his heart isn’t ready to thump right out of his ribcage as Richie grins at
him and disappears up the stairs.
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nd presses into his mouth. He’s as
stupidly sweet to the taste as his lips hinted, and it’s not long before you
tongue flicks over the piece of gum that’s the source.
You steal it easily, and Dave’s reaction is faster than his thoughts, tongue
immediately sliding against yours to try and retrieve it before he can stop
himself. You try not to be too pleased with yourself, but you can’t help being
a little proud of how easily he falls for this.
Any urge to maintain a certain level of make out decorum burns to cinders at
Dave’s forced response. You aim to overwhelm and victory comes fast. Your
kisses turn artless and hungry and Dave wilts under them, the quiet, breathless
noises he makes lost beneath wet slurps.
Dave’s knees automatically jerk together when the hand you’ve had on his thigh
this whole time slides over his crotch. Except now the rest of you is there to
get in the way and all that happens is that his knees grip your sides.
                       [http://i.imgur.com/kec1Oyq.jpg]
You palm his half-hard dick through his jeans, and his hips rock to meet your
touch. He’s slack-jawed and pliant when you halt your kisses, your thumb wet
with saliva as you withdraw it from his mouth. The look in his eyes is glazed
over and nothing short of tame.
Dave ruts against your hand as long as you’ll let him, the denim heated and
confining. There’s no protest as you deftly undo the button and tug the zipper
down, and Dave goes so far as to use his braced hands to lift his hips,
shimmies them as you yank his jeans to his thighs.
His gasp of relief as his cock is freed is sweet on your ears, a noise you file
away for the nights you don’t rouse him from sleep.
Nothing is straightforward under this roof, and you remind Dave of that when
you turn baby’s first blow job into a lesson in patience. You leisurely run the
tip of your tongue along a defined vein, your nose filled with the scent of
heated musk and need.
The fact that he won’t last long is all the more reason to drag things out.
You swipe over the beading drop of precum, bitter as it mixes with saliva.
Fingers work their way into your hair with no apparent intention of pulling you
away or pressing you closer. He’s mooring himself to you, nails biting into
your scalp as you take him into the wet pocket of your cheek.
Dave’s hips piston erratically, table legs shaking and swaying with every
movement. You pull back and suckle the head only to take him down until he’s
bumping the back of your throat, muscles constricting and fluttering around
him.
There’s no porn star moan or mantra-like chant when he comes. It’s a choked
yelp forced past a lump in his throat as he spills into your mouth. The flat of
your tongue fits to the underside of his cock and you feel every last heated
twitch as cum spills hot into your mouth.
You swallow every drop, throat still working even after the last surges. You
keep him in your mouth as he goes soft, keep him until he’s panting weakly,
fingers leaving your hair as he squirms because the stimulation is too much.
When you stand it’s with a fond pat to Dave’s thigh, like he’s a pet that’s
done well. He fumbles to jerk his pants back up and, you’re quite sure, make a
show of not glancing at the erection you have outlined against the crotch of
your jeans. A pointless endeavor considering he’s felt it pressed against his
ass innumerous times before through the sheer fabric of his sleeping shorts─ or
less.
Dave’s gone before he gets the chance to see you tear the seal off the jug of
apple juice he brought home and drink straight from the bottle. You swish the
sweet drink in your mouth, sip at it as you stow the rest of the groceries
away.
It’s hard not to jack off right there, but you want to save it for before bed
when you can really enjoy it. In the meantime you allow yourself the friction
the kitchen drawers offer as you shelve snacks.
Dave showers.
He showers through an episode of Ghost Adventures and two episodes of My Big
Fat Gypsy Wedding. Which is weird, because that kid’s got a lifetime habit of
showering like he’s rationing water in the desert.
He finally emerges during the credits for America’s Next Top Model, hair damp
and skin pinked from the hot water. You have a bowl of Cheez Its at the ready,
and he reaches for them with pruned fingertips. He sits next to you on the
futon and watches old Maury reruns on a channel number too high to count.
It’s half past ten and even with the windows open and traffic dull in the
background, it manages to be an easy eighty in the apartment.
Dave shivers anyway.
---------------------
Your new IKEA table is named Ingatorp and you only think about crying three
times while assembling it.
------------------
 
Dave gets a boyfriend.
Not that you’re in on it, but when you come home to find a guy with wild dark
hair sitting in the groove of your futon that is perfectly fitted to your ass,
you can’t help but assume that’s the deal. It doesn’t help that he’s got an arm
slung around Dave, who’s taken to sitting with his hands folded in his lap like
some shy Southern belle.
His name is Jake, and you decide if there was a human equivalent of a barn cat,
it’d be him. Tall, dark and handsome is his MO, and the way he speaks makes you
think of middle schooler hyped up on pixie sticks trying to imitate the Geico
Gecko and the voiceovers for Outback Steak House at the same time.
He talks. A lot. When they were passing out mind-to-mouth filters he was busy
taking a piss and by the time he’d washed his hands and returned they were
fresh out. The stream of sounds that comes out of his mouth is white noise to
your ears when he’s around. The enthusiasm he shows for every topic─ from blue
chicks to bullets─ is nearly disconcerting. Half the time you think he’s trying
to sell you something.
It’s the most talking the apartment has been privy to in years.
Animal ambassador is Jake’s job. Getting bit the hell up by animals is what it
entails, what with all the marks and scars he’s sporting whenever you see him.
His work bleeds into his babbling, and as your watch from the kitchen as he
extols the importance of conserving space for wildlife and helping them adapt,
you wonder how many people he’s smacked with those over-enthused gesticulations
of his.
You give Jake and the shitty, banged up jeep he takes Dave to the drive-in to
two weeks.
                       [http://i.imgur.com/P87DPnr.jpg]
He makes it four. Four weeks of shy kisses on the cheek and brow, four weeks of
parking himself on your spot. Dave’s got a weird thing about letting the guy in
his room, far as you can tell. The few times he does, the door’s left wide
open, like he’s sabotaging his own chances of getting some age-appropriate
tonguing and heavy petting.
Watching them hold hands gives you secondhand embarrassment so hard it makes
your teeth hurt. Their fingers don’t interlock like those panned-in shots every
romance movie seems to have. Instead it’s like seeing the stiff fingers of
corpses in rigor mortis trying to be shoved together.
You know it’s over when you come home and the first thing Dave does when you
close the door is ask for Chinese.
Dave’s not an asker. Not a beggar or a taker, either. He’s learned to accept
his lot in life and expect nothing more.
Half an hour later the both of you are on the futon, laps full of white cartons
and fingers poised with chopsticks. Dave’s saddled himself with enough orange
chicken to kill a small horse, and it’s hard to find a spot where he’s not
chewing long enough to grill him.
“You tell Jake and his botherations to fuck off?”
Dave snorts, drops a chopstick to thump at his chest. You’ve done the movement
enough yourself to know he’s managed to snort some General Tso’s right into his
throat.
“Something like that,” Dave tells you once he’s got his breath back.
“Wanna walk me through the events? Tell me all about baby’s first break up?”
Dave shrugs and kicks his feet up on the coffee table, ankles crossing as he
picks at his food.
“He got his britches or trousers or whatever the hell he calls them up in a
knot.”
“And this was because?”
“Made a Steve Irwin joke.”
Air hisses through your teeth as your lips draw back. “Low blow, smalls. Let
the crocodile man rest in peace.”
Dave shrugs again and melts back into the futon, chin to his chest and licking
the orange glaze from his lips. It clicks then, slides into place like that one
Godsend of a block in Tetris that clears the entire cluttered screen.
What a smooth criminal you’ve come to raise, able to shirk his boytoy and get
Chinese on top. It’s enough to make you reach over and ruffle his hair until
he’s moving under your hand like a bobblehead.
 
Six half-eaten cartons, four fortune cookies, and two full bellies later, you
find the Patron Saint of Bad Ideas and Beasty-Wrestling hissing excitedly that
he’s about to jump a croc. You both pour one out for him─ right into your
mouths.
 
-------------------
Jake shows up at the front door three days later, one hand rubbing the back of
his neck and the other clutching a grocery store bouquet of flowers. The
cellophane wrapping crinkles as he tightens his grip, gives you a smile with
those bucked bunny teeth.
“Hey there, big daddy,” he says, but the pep and vigor in it is expired. “I’m
sure you want nothing more than to wash your hands of a ne'er-do-well such as
myself, but if you could let Dave know─”
“Are those flowers for me?” you ask.
They’re not, but you want them. No one’s ever given you flowers, and if this
chump thinks he can still show up, then you’re enforcing bridge fare.
Jake forces a laugh at your question, but it’s quick to die when your face
remains stoic. He looks from the flowers and back to you, like a child on their
first day of class unable to answer teacher’s question.
You’re a kick-ass teacher, so you decide to drop a hint.
“Pretty people get flowers,” you say seriously. “Do you think I’m pretty,
Jake?”
“O-Of course, Mr. Strider,” Jake answers. He pushes the flowers at you with a
face that says he doesn’t understand what’s happening. Like you’re a street
magician who’s tricked him into handing over his wallet.
“Thank you for making me feel pretty,” you tell Jake as you step aside.
                       [http://i.imgur.com/1XQjK4J.jpg]
He moves past you, nearly jumps out of his skin when you bark at Dave that
there’s company to be entertained.
You watch the exchange go down with the same attentiveness you give to your
soaps. Not any soap, either. You’re not talking General Hospital or The Young
and the Restless. You treat this as some choice Telemundo shit, a telenovela
for the ages.
“Oh, crumbs,” are Jake’s first words when Dave emerges from his room. He says
them not to Dave, but to his empty hands. The bare palms that have no apology
offering in them.
Dave doesn’t sit, even when Jake does. Stands over him instead, arms crossed
over his chest. He’s still and unyielding in all the wrong ways. There’s
nothing collected and in control about it. It’s stiff and hurts to look at,
like a broken body that never had the bones set right.
“What is it?” Dave asks, ignoring how Jake pats the spot next to him as though
he’s inviting a pet to join him.
Jake’s expression runs the gamut from relieved to pants-wettingly excited in a
frame of time so small and new it’s yet to be named.
“I don’t even remember what it was that got me so up in arms. I’m sure it was
something trivial, really nothing worth going so bonkers,” Jake says, leg
jogging. “Nothing really, well, you know─ worth losing you over.”
Dave takes a step back and looks at you with his very best can-you-believe-
this-guy face. You can totally believe it. You have seen too many episodes of
Degrassi not to believe it. This is a season finale, the ex coming back for a
second shot.
Dave’s response is not nearly as dramatic as what you’d see on TV, but at least
you don’t have to wait through a commercial break to see it. His expression is
tired and frustrated, like he’s just stepped in a puddle of puppy piss when he
finally thought the dog was house broken.
“Jake, c’mon. I’m not doing the break up and make up routine with you,” Dave
says. There’s no bite, only weariness.
“I hardly consider this some kind of a routine,” Jake says.
He takes Dave's hand in his and it's as terrible as ever to witness. You wish
you could lop Jake's hand off, cleave it clean from his wrist like a thief.
That's what Jake is, aware of it or not. Dave is yours. He's always been yours.
“Give me one good reason,” Jake says as his thumb eases over Dave’s knuckles,
“one good reason to call it quits and I’ll stay out of your hair for good.”
Dave doesn’t meet Jake’s eyes. That’s too direct for a kid like him. He’s all
flitting, uneven glances and sharp looks from the corner of his vision. The tip
of his tongue catches between his teeth as he goes to wet his lips.
You know what he wants to say. What he won’t say. It’s the oldest excuse in the
book, such a tired cliche even the soaps steer clear of it.
It’s not you, it’s me.
Kid’s a martyr, through and through. Soaking up all the blame like a sponge,
the prettiest scapegoat this side of the Andes. That’s right, Dave. Keep
telling yourself it’s all you. Cover up for the fact that you brother’s had one
hand up your shirt and the other down the front of your pants for years.
May as well return the favor and cover for him.
“You forgot the kid’s birthday,” you say.
Jake looks at you all dazed and dumb like you’re not supposed to be there. Like
you and Dave aren’t a packaged deal. That guy’s striking out mad fast today and
you’re ready to play bouncer if he wants to stay.
But he doesn’t.
Instead he mumbles his apologies, little quips about how he’s dreadfully sorry
and that he’s a right ass for letting such a momentous occasion slip his mind.
Deserves the doghouse, that he’ll see himself right out and that you and Dave
will have to excuse his flip frickin’ whatever the fuck botherations. You think
he makes half those words up, and his accent toes the same line.
Dave’s birthday is in three weeks.
----------------
You buy Dave an ice cream cake for his birthday. The squared edges have started
to slope by the time you get it back from Wal Mart and set it on the table. You
really don’t care what the cake looks like at this point. You got all your
brownie points already by balancing a ritzy pair of headphone on his face while
he slept and sneaking a few sweet LP records you know he’s been looking for
under his pillow.
It’s not long before he shows up in the kitchen to snoop around the bags you’ve
brought home, but you shoo him towards the table as you stock the shelves. Kid
can’t be doing thug work when he’s the birthday boy.
He drops down like a sack of old bones at the table, squints at the melted
icing words that herald this day as better than the rest. You don’t actually
bother with the whole song and dance, the lighting of the candles. This sucker
of a cake is quick approaching a melted mound and you’re on a mission to get it
on Hello Kitty paper plates as soon as possible.
Lil Cal cuts the cake, your hand over his to guide him. You make sure to get a
confectionary rose along with a few sloppy letters. Wet droplets of ice cream
splatter Dave’s shirt as you let the slab of cake hit his plate. His dabs at
the spots with his fingers, licks the sweetness from the tips.
“So little man, how’s it feel to be the big-- well, you know,” you say.
You don’t actually know how old he is these days, and you may have realized
this huge oversight when you went to buy candles and were left to stare at the
waxen numbers with no idea which to pick.
“Seventeen,” Dave tells you. “The apparently-big seventeen.”
The way he narrows his eyes says he’s more than cottoned on to your forgetful
moment.
Today, Dave is turning seventeen. Today, you find out you’ve sucked sixteen-
year-old dick and had a damn good time doing it. Today, you learn that you are
shit at judging ages, because they sure don’t make kids like they used to. Now
they make ‘em hot.
You don’t ask what he’s doing here shoving ice cream cake in his mouth for
breakfast at one in the afternoon instead of having his ass at school. Having
his ass at school hasn’t been a thing for a while. The last thing you ever
recall relating to school was signing some papers he pushed at you and figuring
it was for a field trip.
The two of you eat cake until you have to switch to bowls to contain the sweet
slop. Sugar roses crack between Dave’s molars as he eats them, and you trap one
between your upper palate and tongue to let it melt.
The rest of the day is just as lazy, spent surfing channels and draped over
furniture like throw blankets. You let Dave have control of the remote, don’t
even bat an eyelash when he turns on Desperate Housewives. At least it’s not
one you’ve seen before.
The futon’s not big enough for the both of you, and you lie together on your
sides fitted from shoulder to hip to foot. Each breath you take makes stray
wisps of fine hair ruffle on his head, fills your chest and presses it to
Dave’s back.
You trade small jokes and jabs about the characters, bodies pressed closer with
snorts of laughter. It’s easy to pass hours in thirty minute blocks like this,
in short-lived story lines and over-reaching arcs.
When you ask what he wants for dinner, offer him anything his birthday boy
heart desires, you already know the answer.
“Pizza,” he says.
“Meat lover’s?”
“With stuffed crust.”
“Aight, kid. You got it.”
Your phone is on the coffee table, and there is one solid mass of Dave that is
between you and it. By the way Dave rolls his shoulders and arches his back
until it pops flush against your stomach, that isn’t changing anytime soon.
He makes a kind of compressed noise as you reach over him, the weight of your
body on his pressing him flat into the futon. He plants a palm flat to push
back, but by then you’ve snagged the phone and you’re right back to being the
big spoon on campus.
                       [http://i.imgur.com/kEQDlqj.jpg]
Forty-five minutes later you’ve got two extra large Meat Lover’s pizzas, bread
twists and a two liter bottle of Sprite.
It’s been the birthday dinner tradition for all seventeen years of Dave’s life,
even when he was too young to enjoy it.
It strikes you wrong in the stomach when the realization of how long you’ve had
Dave hits you. It’s been too long and too short at once, so many memories and
emotions crammed into the too-small space of your mind.
Seventeen years the two of you have spent lying on the futon like lazy swine
when it was too hot to move. Seventeen years of sleeping under Craigslist
comforters during cold snaps. Seventeen years of feeding Dave chicken noodle
soup straight from the can- because who the fuck ever read the directions to
find out you had to cut it with water- when his dreams went wild with fever and
those pale lips flushed the sickly red of poisonous berries.
It reminds you that you never liked the Greeks much because those has-beens
thought they'd trundled their way through every love out there and waxed wise
like the scholars they heralded themselves to be. But they never came close to
pegging what you've had for seventeen fucking years with Dave.
They found love, sought it out like explorers, or waited with baited traps. You
reared yours though, cultivated it every second of every minute of every day
until it bloomed something sick and lovely like the corpse plant.
It’s fucked up and terrible but you are long past the nights of being kept up
by that.
Instead you gorge on pizza and soda, lick grease from your fingers and wrinkle
your nose when you hiccup carbonation into it.
Hours later and on the cusp of sleep, you remember to ask the big question.
“Get everything you want for your birthday?”
Dave grunts.
“Now, now, let’s use our words.”
Dave looks sidelong at you.
“Look, kiddo. You can’t be moping about ‘cause you didn’t tell Santa what you
wanted. It’s not like he didn’t spoil you rotten and then some. Tell ya, what.
I’ll give you a nice crisp Benjamin and you can head to the mall tomorrow to
pick whatever it is you wanted up.”
The way he doesn’t immediately accept has you thinking what he wants isn’t all
that easy to buy.
“Don’t go down the world peace route, kid.”
His laughter is dry, and though his arms are crossed against his chest, he
drops his head to rest against your shoulder.
Christ, he really is seventeen, all the awkward half-hearted moves included.
You drape an arm over his shoulders like it’s nothing. You wouldn’t call him a
runt, but he’s slight beneath your arm, fits there like he was meant to be
protected by you.
Dave’s shoulder is the next thing to touch you, leans heavy and comfortable
like he’s warming to the waters.
“You’re not gonna cough it up, are you?” you ask.
Still silent, Dave’s nearly sinking into you.
“Then I’m gonna have to ask for you to show me,” you say.
That gets Dave moving. Slow and unsteady, but it’s something. The weight of his
head on your shoulder lifts as he sits up, and your smile is natural and
encouraging as you find your lap being straddled.
Dave settles himself warm and easy on you, ass resting on your thighs as he
places his hands to your chest. He splays his thin fingers over your sternum
and stares at the tips, eyes focused and sharp as his cheeks redden. You rest
your hands on his narrow hips, push his shirt up just enough to thumb as his
sides.
He won't ask for what he wants because he still grasps how fucked up it is. How
fucked up he is. Welcome to the club, Dave. Here’s your members-only jacket,
name already on the breast and everything.
You're a trellis he's been trained to, wrapped around and entangled himself.
He's grown all wrong, vines knotted and woven until there's no room left. He
won’t grow right until someone cuts his vines and rips him from you, retrains
him to another trellis. Forces change on him. But he's not a fucking plant in
the end, and no one can take him from you but himself. And after seventeen
years, that's just too big and scary for a broken boy like him.
Jake sure drove that home.
And after seventeen years, with your hands affectionately squeezing his sides
as his arms slide around your neck and his weight shifts to your crotch, Dave
flips the switch.
End Notes
     And there you have it. For the record, Ingatorp is an actual table
     from IKEA, and those search results regarding hella mad smashed-face
     cats were real results, although they may have changed by now.
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