fic: "came out with my soul untouched"
Mar. 3rd, 2026 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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inthewildwoodTitle: came out with my soul untouched
Fandom: The Black Phone (Movies - Derrickson)
Summary: Four dates, four conversations, and a plan.
Additional Tags: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Internalized Homophobia
Rating: M
Finn goes back and forth with himself a little bit about going over to Jay's place that afternoon. On the one hand, he was invited. On the other hand, Jay was probably just trying to be nice, because he is weirdly nice all the time - at least, all the time Finn's known him, which is about three days at this point. On the other other hand, Finn said he was coming over, and it would be a dick move to just not show up after he promised. Jay might have other stuff he wanted to do that he put off because he thought he'd have a guest. So, he goes.
There's no one in the living room when he comes in, but a guy sticks his head out through the kitchen entryway as Finn shuts the door behind him. Finn recognizes him, vaguely, from the night of the party, but he never got a name. "Did you get -" He blinks. "Oh. You're not Brian."
Finn freezes in place, his hand still on the doorknob. "Uh, no." He hadn't counted on other people being here - which was stupid of him, it's Saturday, nobody has class - and now that he's caught out, he doesn't really know what to do. Jay must be okay with his roommates seeing Finn, because he invited him over and didn't warn him to sneak in, but if they guess - ? "I'm - I was looking for -"
"You looking for Jay?" the guy says, and Finn feels his adrenaline spike. Was it that obvious? Does he know? But his expression hasn't changed, and he doesn't look - pissed or disgusted or anything like that. "He's upstairs in his room. Second door on the left." And he disappears back into the kitchen before Finn can reply to that.
There's nothing for him to do but climb the stairs, so he does. He's honestly kind of glad he got the directions, because he doesn't think he'd remember, otherwise, and he wasn't about to knock on every door in the hallway until he found the right one. The door to Jay's room is slightly ajar, with music drifting out from behind it, but Finn still hesitates before rapping his knuckles lightly on the wood.
"C'mon in," Jay calls from inside, and Finn does, pushing the door mostly shut behind him.
Jay's sitting on the bed, hair damp from what must have been a recent shower, dressed in sweats and a t-shirt. He looks up and sees Finn, and his face goes - gentle. "Hey," he says, getting up. "Did your sister and her friend get home okay?"
"Yeah." Finn's not really sure what to do, now that he's arrived, but he's too jittery to sit down, so he starts doing laps around the room instead. "He called once they got back to Denver." Ernie is extremely conscientious about calling after he drives Gwen anywhere, probably because that drive up to Camp Alpine scarred him for life. Gwen, on the other hand, has no fear when it comes to driving, which Finn tells himself is probably why she wasn't the one who called. He hopes. "You have any? Brothers or sisters?"
"Kind of." The answer is enough of a surprise to make Finn pause and look over, just in time to see the wry twist of Jay's mouth. "One each, but they're both, like, ten years older, so I don't see them much. I was the accident."
He doesn't say it bitterly, but he doesn't say it like a joke either. Finn digs a toe into the rug. "Who told you that?"
Jay rolls his eyes. "My brother, about twice a week growing up." He looks at Finn, and Finn has the distinct impression an offer is being made. You showed me yours, so here's some of mine. But he doesn't say it like he's looking for sympathy, either, so Finn rolls an answer around in his head for a moment before he says, "Well - there's happy accidents, right?"
Jay's face relaxes into a grin, and Finn feels a flood of relief at having gotten it right. "So they say."
He hadn't taken in much of the room the last time he was here, so he takes the opportunity to look around now. It's pretty plain - blue walls, hardwood floor, a dresser in one corner - but there are a few touches that he suspects Jay added himself, namely the pinkish-red quilt that clashes horribly with the paint job, and the movie and band posters tacked up on the walls. He recognizes The Thing and Blade Runner and the Psychedelic Furs, before coming to a halt in front of the poster Jay's stuck to the back of the door - a shirtless guy with a wild head of hair, glaring as he points at the camera. "The Doors? Aren't they old?"
"Dude, they're choice." Jay gets up off the bed. "You ever listened? I've got a cassette."
Finn never has, so he lets Jay wave him over to the bed and watches as he retrieves a Walkman from his backpack and unplugs the headphones from it before coming back to sit beside Finn. He motions for Finn to lean in so he can hear, but Finn hesitates, glancing at the slightly-open door. "Um. Your - one of your roommates saw me when I came in. Is that - I mean, is he - ?"
"Don't worry about it." Jay's already shaking his head. "They think I'm dealing, so they figure anyone who comes over is just here to score."
"Oh." That's kind of a genius move, now that Finn thinks about it. "Are you? Dealing?"
Jay flashes him a playful smile. "Only to people I like." And he hits play on the Walkman before Finn can say anything to that.
The Doors are choice, he decides after a few songs. Not the kind of thing he normally listens to - his taste runs towards the Ramones and the Clash, anything loud enough to rattle his thoughts out of his head for awhile - but they're catchy and smooth and weird, in a good way. Or maybe it's just the experience of listening like this that makes it good: leaned in close enough that his head almost bumps into Jay's, close enough that he can feel the rhythm of Jay's leg bouncing along to the music, the heat that seems to spill from him all the time. Like creeping up to a campfire and being tugged in by the warmth.
They sit there like that and listen until the tape runs out. About halfway through, on a song that gets softer in the middle - I'm gonna love you 'til the heavens stop the rain - Jay reaches over and puts a hand over Finn's. Laces their fingers together. He looks at Finn like he's waiting for him to yank his hand away, to get up and storm out. Finn doesn't. His pulse isn't racing and his breath isn't coming fast, which seems odd, somehow. But he just feels quiet, in a way that he almost never does. He sits there and lets Jay hold his hand for the rest of the afternoon, and neither of them say a word about it.
About three weeks into this - whatever this is - Finn figures it's probably past time he started giving blowjobs.
He hasn't, yet. Jay does it a lot, and because Jay seems into it, Finn doesn't say anything about it. For the most part, they just jerk each other off. But while Finn doesn't know a whole lot about how it works with guys, he does at least know that it's a dick move to let a guy blow you and not do it back. Whether he likes it or not - and he doesn't think he will - isn't the point. A month ago, he would've assumed he would never be able to let anyone touch him like that, and then he did it anyway - that first attempt notwithstanding - so he can probably manage this. And how is Jay even going to know if he likes it? Why would he even question it? It feels good to be on the receiving end, Finn knows that, so probably he'll be too distracted to even notice.
Besides, it feels so fucking good to be on the receiving end. Better than anything else they've done (which isn't much, but. Still.) Finn wants to make him feel that good.
They're almost always in Jay's room, when they mess around. It's easier that way, fewer people around to take notice or guess what they're doing. Jay's roommates probably think Finn is smoking the pot equivalent of three packs a day, but he doesn't especially care, so long as it keeps them from looking any closer. So when he arrives at the house on a Thursday evening after class, he doesn't even flinch when two of the roommates (for all he's been coming over for nearly a month, he still doesn't know their names) are sitting on the couch. Doesn't even bother looking at them. He's got more important things on his mind, anyways. He makes it halfway up the stairs, pauses because his legs are shaking a little, then goes the rest of the way up once he's got his bearings. His hands are shaking, too. He wishes he'd smoked before he came over: it doesn't always stop the tremors, but it at least makes them manageable. He has got to get his fucking head on straight. He at least has to get his hands under control.
Jay's sitting up in bed reading when Finn comes in - Books of Blood, which he's been prodding Finn to read for weeks - but he looks up from his book and grins when he sees Finn come in and shut the door behind him. He tosses the book to one side, then swings his legs over the side of the bed and reaches out a hand to pull Finn towards him. "How was class?"
"'S'okay," Finn says, letting himself be pulled. Thursday evenings are for his computer class, which isn't his favourite, but it could be worse. He settles himself on Jay's lap, the way Jay did for him that first time in his room, and swoops in to kiss him before he has the chance to think better of it. Jay makes a little surprised noise against his mouth, but then he winds his hands in Finn's hair and leans backwards until he's lying down with his legs dangling over the edge of the bed, with Finn crouched over him. Finn had kind of figured it would be easier to kneel down between his legs with Jay sitting up - his only frame of reference is, again, the way Jay does it for him - so he scoots backwards until he can slide off the bed and onto the floor. Jay follows, chasing his mouth, and Finn lets himself be caught for a few minutes, because his hands are still shaking and so are his knees, and he can already feel his gag reflex twitching at the thought of what he's about to do. How he'll be able to breathe without choking, whether or not the taste will overwhelm him, if memories will rise up and drag him under before he can even do anything.
I heard he stuck his dick in your mouth. I heard you liked it. Actually, Rob, yeah he did, and now I think I'll never be able to suck dick and like it, ever. How's that for a funny joke?
But he knows the tension in his limbs isn't going to unwind while he puts off the inevitable, so he pulls back from Jay and settles himself on the floor, going for Jay's belt. The metal buckle is cold under his hands, and he swallows hard, eyes watering. It's fine. He can do this. It's fine.
One of Jay's hands is still in his hair, and it tightens there as Finn struggles to get his belt undone. "Are you -"
"'S'okay," Finn says again. It's difficult to talk, the way his mouth is watering, and he can't figure out if it's from desire or the urge to vomit. Might be both. He gets the belt undone, then the button on his jeans, and goes to yank both the jeans and Jay's briefs off in one motion - better to get it all over with at once - except he can't, because Jay hasn't moved off the bed, which is really fucking with his ability to keep moving and not think about what he's doing. He paws ineffectively at Jay's hip, more than a little frantic. Wonders if he should just blow him over his underwear - is that a thing people do? - or if he should maybe kiss his stomach first, which seems more manageable but would also prolong the whole ordeal, when Jay's free hand lands on his shoulder, pushing, and he hears, "Hey. Hey, stop. Stop."
He rocks back on his heels, breathing hard. His mouth feels so wet. His whole face feels wet, even though he knows he hasn't cried. Yet. He's breathing like he just ran a marathon, which is so fucking stupid because he hasn't even done anything. So why did Jay make him stop?
When he gathers his wits enough to look up, the sight is enough to make his knees shake harder. Jay's staring down at him, and he looks - not angry, not exactly, but. Not happy, either. He hasn't taken his hand off Finn's shoulder, holding him tight enough that he can't lean back in. "What are you doing?"
Finn swallows hard. His throat really does hurt. "Sucking you off."
It's apparently not the answer Jay was looking for, because the furrow between his eyebrows deepens. "You want that?"
"Yeah," Finn says, but he says it too quickly, and his voice cracks clean down the middle of the word. The only thing he can think to do is distract, so he tries to lean in again, but Jay's hand tightens on his shoulder to hold him in place.
"Stop," he says again, and oh, he's pissed off for sure now. Finn can't quite figure out why he would be, but he is. "I don't - get up."
He lets go of Finn, and Finn shuffles backwards on his knees until he's got enough space to stand. He thought maybe the height difference would settle him, but it really doesn't, because Jay is looking up at him like - oh, fuck. He fucked up. He can't keep eye contact with him, so he spins on his heel and paces instead. The room isn't really big enough to pace; it's four steps to the far wall, then three to the corner, then pivot and start all over again. His face feels numb, so he scrubs his hands over it. It doesn't help.
"Slow down," Jay says behind him, which is really not an option on the table right now, but he's not going to get himself out of this by not doing what he's told. He braces himself with one hand on the cold plaster wall, tips his head forward. He still can't do eye contact. The wall - bumpy and speckled with an uneven paint job - is much easier to look at.
"I don't want you to do that," Jay says, low, and it's not - Finn can count on one hand the times either of them have talked about what they want, besides a few breathless questions before their pants come off. It's usually perfunctory, in a way that this clearly isn't. "I don't want you to - hit me, after."
And the shock of those words is actually enough to startle Finn out of his staring contest with the wall. He turns around. Jay's mouth is set, and his hands are curled into half-fists on his legs. He still hasn't done his jeans or belt back up. "Hit you?" he echoes. "Why would I hit you? I don't -"
Except he has, hasn't he? He's hit lots of people. Maybe not exactly like this, but he has. Jay can't know about that, because Finn hasn't told him. But maybe he can smell it on him somehow. Finn got really good, when he was a kid, at knowing when to brace himself for a slap or a punch. Maybe Jay did, too. How would Finn know? He never asked.
"You might, after," Jay says. His voice is still low. "If you don't like it. Or if you do." He says that last part so quietly, Finn barely catches it. He's looking down at his hands now, and there's something nauseatingly familiar about the set of his shoulders. Something Finn's seen before, in the mirror.
"I wouldn't," he says. Three wobbly steps take him to the far side of the bed, where he sits down. Jay's back is to him, which makes it a little easier. "I'm not like that. I just thought, you do it, so I should - I mean, I owe -"
"Jesus," Jay says, and it's somewhere between relieved and exasperated. "I don't want you sucking my dick because you owe me."
"But," Finn says. His mouth fills with spit; it takes him two swallows to get it all down. "But you want me to?"
"Fucking - not that bad." Jay twists around to look at Finn. "I'm not fucking. Running a bar tab, here. That's not how t- how it works."
"Okay," Finn says. Something like relief is settling over him. "I might, um. Want to. Just not -" Not now? Not yet? He's not sure.
"It's fine," Jay says. His hand creeps across the bed to take Finn's. "It's fine. We can do whatever. Come here?"
He tugs lightly on Finn's hand, and Finn lets himself be tugged until they're sitting side by side, Finn's head tipped onto Jay's shoulder. They sit there for a moment in silence, just breathing. Jay's cheek is resting against Finn's hair, and Finn can feel a faint tremor going through him. Like he was - scared, probably. Finn hasn't considered anyone else being scared since he was a kid. He thinks that might make him kind of an asshole.
Once they're both breathing steadily and not shaking, Finn lifts his head. "You wanna - ?"
Jay turns his head to look at Finn, and Finn can't read his expression, then. He's asking because he genuinely wants to know, but also because - well, if the answer's no, then he should probably leave. There's only one reason for him to be here, and if Jay doesn't want that, then -
But Jay leans in and kisses him, and Finn lets some of the tension drop from his shoulders. He's still good for this. He hasn't fucked that up. Yet.
It's two months before he loses it again.
They're in Jay's room, like they usually are. It's late, because Jay has a night class on Wednesdays that runs until nine, so he told Finn he could just let himself in. So he did, and he dozed off for a bit - he hasn't been sleeping much, lately - before he's woken up by the sound of Jay coming in. Maybe it's the lack of sleep that's made him jittery, or maybe it's the stress of exams coming up for both of them, or maybe it's the strain they smoked the night before, which Jay got from some guy he ran into the last time he visited his parents in Albuquerque. Whatever it is, it's left him restive and impatient, so he doesn't wait to grab Jay by the lapels of his jacket and pull him down to kiss him. Jay makes an "umph," noise, then pulls back just enough to shuck off his jacket and pull off his t-shirt before he leans back down to keep kissing Finn. He's braced himself up with a hand on the headboard, on either side of Finn's head, so their chests aren't touching, but their hips knock together every time they kiss. Finn can't really reach to get his own shirt off, like this, so he just hikes it up under his armpits so that Jay can get at him. Bend his head and kiss his chest, which feels somehow gayer than anything else they've done, including jerking each other off. Maybe he just doesn't like being this naked in front of someone else, this vulnerable. He changed in a bathroom stall during gym class all through high school. Didn't like the feeling of eyes on him - still doesn't.
But he's trying to be braver, and he's trying to be less - well, less him - and besides, he likes the feeling of Jay's hands smoothing across his chest, his mouth following all the places he's touched. So the shirt is as off as he can manage. He's thinking about hitching his legs up around Jay's waist to pull him closer - they can get off like that, they've done it before without even getting their jeans off - or reaching to get Jay's belt off, or reaching down to open his own belt, when Jay shimmies backwards and grabs Finn with a hand under each thigh, yanks him so that he's flat on his back.
The room cartwheels, kaleidoscopes. Finn feels like he's rolling down a hill, the second momentum takes over and he realizes he's not in control. Oh fuck, he's so cold. The feeling of Jay's hands on his thighs is cold. Damp. The mattress is damp. The room is dark and his clothes are clammy and he's not in a dorm room anymore, he's not nineteen at college, he's thirteen and there's a grinning mask hovering in his field of vision, and he's flat on his back. Helpless.
He manages to roll over just in time, lands on all fours on the floor, and vomits. His stomach is twisting itself into knots, his arms are shaking from the effort to hold himself up, and it just keeps going and going. The chunky texture of the vomit just makes it worse, because it makes him think of scrambled eggs, and that's enough to make his whole body heave again like it's trying to turn itself inside out. There are tremors running through him now, and if he doesn't get ahold of himself soon, he's going to collapse face-first into a pile of puke.
There are hands on his back, his shoulders, pulling him upright. He slumps into it and lets Jay guide him until he's sitting up with his back to the bed. He can't catch his breath. Fuck, is this going to happen every time? As soon as he thinks he's finally got his shit together, he'll put a foot down in some hidden foxhole, and he'll be worse off than he was before? He is such a fucking useless piece of shit. Can't even handle feeling good. What is the point of any of this, when all he can ever do is fuck up and disappoint people and cry about it like a little bitch? What is the point of anybody trying with him?
He comes back to himself slowly. Jay's sitting next to him, shoulder-to-shoulder but not touching. Probably worried he's going to set him off, Finn thinks, and that thought makes him want to puke again more than anything else. Finn closes his eyes and presses his hands to his temples. It's hard to settle when he can still smell the vomit, so he tries to breathe through his mouth. His crotch feels damp, but he doesn't remember coming. Did he piss himself? Jesus.
"I hope it's not food poisoning," Jay says, and Finn can hear the hesitancy in his voice, "because I ate the same mashed potatoes you did, and we can't both be sick all night."
It's barely a joke, although it has the tenor of one. More like a tacit acknowledgement that no, of course it's not food poisoning, that much is obvious. It's an escape hatch, too: they can pretend it is, if they want. If he wants. Why are you so fucking nice to me Finn thinks, not for the first time. He scrubs a hand across his mouth and says, aloud, "It's not food poisoning." He chances a look to his side and yeah, he sure hurled all over the carpet. "'M sorry. I'll clean it up."
"Don't worry about it." Jay's hand lands lightly on his shoulder. "There's a dustbuster in the utility closet, I can grab it. You should, ah. Shower." It's a nicer way of saying you look like shit, which he undoubtedly does. He did the best to clean the puke off his mouth and chin with his hands, but he's pretty sure some of it went down his neck as well. And there's whatever's going on in his jeans. Shame laps at his consciousness like water, threatening to pull him out to sea. He huffs out a breath, and feels Jay's hand tighten on his shoulder for a second before he lets go and gets up. "You know where the bathroom is, right?"
He does. The house Jay and his roommates have rented is nicer than the dorms, but not so nice that they have their own bathrooms - there's just the one at the end of the hall. Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be anyone around at this time of night, so Finn can make his way down, shuck off his clothes, and climb in without having to dodge strange looks. He cranks the water up as hot as it can go, which doesn't make much of a dent in how cold he feels, but it's better than nothing. He lets his forehead clunk against the wall, staring at the lines of grout as the remains of the vomit and piss - he's pretty sure it's piss - run off of him and down the drain with the water.
He remembers his first shower, after the basement. They hadn't let him wash all day after he got out, because they'd insisted the doctors and the cops had to look him over before that. Because he was evidence, although he didn't know then and doesn't know now what they planned to do with any of it. He hadn't gotten to until they'd finally sent him home, and then he'd locked himself in the bathroom and sat under the spray for almost an hour because he'd been too tired to do anything else. The only thing that had gotten him moving at the time was, absurdly, the thought of the water bill. That Dad would be pissed if he ran it up. He hadn't been, hadn't said a word about it. But it had been the biggest thing on his mind, in that moment. What he was going to do to the water bill.
He's thinking the same thing now, and it's enough to get him to twist the taps off and climb out. He doesn't have a toothbrush here, so he grabs a paper cup and rinses his mouth out with water instead. When he looks up at himself in the mirror, the sight that greets him is - yeah, he can see why someone might think food poisoning. He's chalky white with bloodshot eyes, and there's still a faint tremor in his hands. He's clean, at least, but that's not much to boast about when he looks like a walking corpse. He really doesn't want to put his nasty clothes back on, but they're all he's got, so he pulls on his shirt and jeans and heads back down the hall.
The dustbuster evidently did its job, because there's no puke left on the carpet, although there is a damp spot. The smell still lingers, but Jay's lit a candle, and the birthday-cake scent is dispelling some of it. Jay looks up when he comes in, and lobs something at him that Finn catches on reflex. It's a pair of flannel pajama pants. Finn stares at them, feeling the gears in his brain crunching against each other. "Uh."
"You can borrow mine for the night," Jay says, "since you don't have any here." He's already changed into another set, and Finn wonders - apropos of nothing - how many he even owns. He's still standing there holding the ones he caught like an idiot.
"Uh," he says again. "Borrow yours?"
Jay pauses halfway through yanking the covers back on his bed to look at Finn, eyebrows raised. Not mocking - Finn doesn't think he could be even if he tried - but more . . . confused. "Yeah. To sleep in? Unless you wanna sleep in your jeans?"
He does not want that, that's true. But - "To sleep in? Here?"
"Well. Yeah." Jay straightens, hooking his thumbs in the waistband of his pajama pants. "Are you not gonna? I mean, you could go to the clinic, I guess, but -"
"The clinic?" Finn repeats, feeling a stab of anxiety just under his breastbone. Stupid, because it's not like anyone is going to drag him there, but - still. He hates hospitals, and the campus clinic isn't much better. "Why would I - ?"
". . . because you're sick," Jay says slowly. Under any other circumstances, Finn would bristle at his tone. He's not far off from it, still. "You shouldn't go back to your place alone if you're sick. You could, like. Pass out and choke."
"I'm not gonna pass out and choke," Finn says. He feels like he's running last in a race, trying to catch up. "And I'm not sick."
Jay looks at the damp spot on the floor, then looks back at Finn, eyebrows raised. "Okay. Well, you can stay anyway." His thumbs are kind of twiddling, Finn notices, though they're still stuck in his waistband. Just little minute rotations as they talk. "Unless you don't . . . want to . . . ?"
The thought of going back to his dorm is tempting, in a way. Like a wounded animal crawling into its den to die. But he's still so cold. He's cold and his stomach muscles ache from the exertion of expelling his dinner, and he knows that, if he does go back, he's not going to get any sleep. It's even odds on whether or not he'll get any sleep here, but at least here, he'll be a bit warmer. He won't be alone in the dark.
". . . okay," he says, and goes around the far side of the bed to crawl in. It's not a big bed. It fits two people, but barely. It's impossible to sleep in without one of them draping himself on top of the other, which he wants, but also it's very possible that Jay doesn't want to sleep cuddled up next to the guy who puked and pissed himself while he was trying to get laid. Finn wouldn't, if he were him. So he squinches himself as far into the corner as he can manage while Jay climbs in on the other side, then turns over and gives him a strange look. "What are you doing?"
Finn tries to cringe back further, but he hasn't left himself much room. "Going to bed."
Jay blinks at him. On anyone else, Finn would've called his expression unimpressed. "You're gonna fall off the edge. C'mere." He extends an arm and kind of rolls Finn towards him - not hard to do, in a bed this small, until Finn's sprawled half on top of him, with Jay's arm tucked around his ribs. Teddy bear style, like always. There's not much point in fighting it, and he doesn't really want to anyway, so he puts his head down on Jay's chest and mutters, "I could get you sick."
"Hm." Jay adjusts himself underneath Finn, probably getting more comfortable. "But you said you're not sick."
He did say that, didn't he. "Yeah."
Jay turns his head on the pillow. He's not looking Finn right in the eye - he can't, really, at this angle - but he is looking at him. "Then . . . what are you?"
And there's not a lot he can say to that that isn't the truth, so he keeps his eyes shut and breathes. Just breathes for a minute.
". . . fucked up," he says quietly.
And that's it, isn't it? That's it. It's all he really needs to say. Yeah, he's fucked up. He's broken. There's not much else to it. Except he knows that's not what Jay's asking, really, and he could just put his head down and pretend to sleep and this conversation will be over, but then all of this will be over. And he doesn't want that. He wants to hold onto it. It's a weird feeling, having something he wants to hold onto. Something important enough that he's willing to actually fight to keep it. Actually rip his guts out for it. Because that's what this is going to feel like, he knows. It's gonna hurt.
"Did you hear -" he starts, then stops. If he leads in with, did you hear about the Grabber, the answer's probably going to be yes. Most people have. But if he leads in with that, then he's never going to be able to climb out from under that picture, the one they used of him on the news, the one that thousands of people saw and now that's how they think of him, forever. Who he'll be forever. He doesn't want that, not here. So he starts again with, "There was this - guy. When I was a kid. He used to, um, take kids. Boys. He took them and kept them in his basement, and he'd - mess with them - and then he killed them. There were five." He keeps them all in his head: Robin, Bruce, Vance, Billy, Griffin. He could bring up the three from Camp Alpine, but that's too much for one night, Jay doesn't need to hear that story yet. Just like he doesn't need to hear about his mom. He can do that later. "And then he took me, and he kept me for a week, and he - did stuff. I didn't want him to. I didn't like it." It's important, that Jay knows he didn't like it. "But I was - I was really scrawny and weak, and I couldn't, couldn't stop him." His voice cracks, humiliatingly, at the end. He's still weak. Six years later, and he's as weak as he ever was.
Jay hasn't said anything the whole time he's been talking. Hasn't moved, either, not to tighten his grip or to edge away. But Finn can feel the change in his breathing, the slow, careful pace of someone trying to coax a stray cat into eating out of their hand. He wishes Jay would recoil from him, or say something about how disgusted he is - at Finn - or just anything that Finn could react to. But he doesn't. He just keeps laying there. He's still so warm. The basement recedes, the damp leaches away. He puts his face against Jay's shoulder, inhales the scent of soap and sweat. The Grabber never smelled like that. He always wore cologne. The smell gave him headaches, although that might have just been the drugs in the food. He's here. He's not there, not anymore.
"You got away, though," Jay says. It's not what Finn was bracing himself for, and he can't handle that. Can't process it. So he stays where he is, face tight against Jay's shoulder.
"Yeah," he mutters. "I got away." He doesn't need to tell that story right now, either. "But he, um. He did - I remember some of it, but not all of it. And he did that thing, where he pulled on my legs like you did. I forgot about it until now." Forgot isn't the right word. It's not like it had been there, then slowly floated away. It's more like, parts of the basement are so clear in his mind, and then there's other parts that are all blurry and fuzzy, and they have been since it happened. Like he took a picture, but he had his thumb on the camera lens. And then something will happen, and it'll snap back into focus. When he was a little kid, he'd gone to the county fair a few times, and they'd had a haunted house - the kind you walk through in the dark, and then they suddenly flash the lights so you can see someone in a mask jumping out at you. That's what his brain feels like, sometimes. He never knows when it's coming. It just happens. It was bound to happen here eventually. He should've known he couldn't push it down, wasn't strong enough.
Jay puts his nose against Finn's hair. "'M sorry," he says.
"Wh-" Finn would raise his head to look at him, but he's too comfortable where he is. "What're you sorry for? You didn't know."
He feels the movement of Jay shrugging underneath him. "Yeah, well. Still sorry."
"Yeah, well," Finn echoes. "So am I."
Every time they end up back here, he always wants to ask the same question - why are you doing all of this? Because it's not like he can possibly be worth it. It's not like there aren't other guys on campus, guys Jay could just hook up with and have fun and not worry about them losing their shit in the middle of it. Guys who don't need taking care of. Finn hates needing to be taken care of, and hates it all the more because he craves it. Some pathetic, wounded-animal part of him is always begging for someone to come and hold him and tell him it's okay. It's so pitiful. If he met himself in the street, he'd be disgusted. Is disgusted. He's disgusting.
He doesn't mean to say any of that out loud, but some of it must slip out without him meaning to - or else he's just making pathetic little noises, like that isn't even fucking worse - because Jay's hold tightens, just a bit. "It's okay."
Finn's eyes are burning. "You always say that."
"Yeah, I know." Jay shifts around so he's huddled a little bit closer, Finn's head tucked against his collarbone instead of his chest. "It's okay."
"No, it's not." He's angry, angrier than he should be. The burn of it is familiar. It's what he imagines his dad must feel when he drinks. "You don't have to - don't fucking lie. You're trying to get laid and I'm, I keep fucking it up. Why are you even - fuck!" He'd punch the bed if he were able to get his arms free, but he can't. He just has to lay there and seethe uselessly, like he always fucking does. Because it's the only thing he can do.
Jay pulls back a little, cranes his neck to look at him. Finn braces himself. If he finally loses his temper, it'll hurt, but it'll also be better than the soothing, pointless lies. But what actually comes out of his mouth is, "What?" He sounds genuinely confused. "I'm trying to - what?"
"That's why I'm fucking here, isn't it?" He feels ugly, saying it like that, but what other way is there? "You want to fuck me, that's - why else would you -" He can't finish that sentence. Words keep piling up at the back of his throat like crashing cars, and he can't extract what he needs out of the mess. He snaps his mouth shut, breathes hard through his nose. The smell of Jay's shirt winds him down a little bit, but not enough.
". . . I'm not trying to fuck you," Jay says slowly, like he's explaining something to a kid. A stupid kid. "I'm trying to date you. I mean, yeah, I want - but it's not like that's it. You thought - ?"
At this point in the conversation, Finn's not entirely sure what he thought. He knows there are gay guys who date, obviously, but there was no point when he'd thought he might be one of them. Dating is for people who aren't fucked in the head, and that's not him. Dating is for people who can stand to hold hands in public and talk about their feelings and make out without losing their shit, and that's definitely not him. Who the fuck would want to date him? The thought had never crossed his mind.
"I don't," he says, hears his voice threaten to crack. Swallows hard, tries again. "I didn't - you're not - how can we - ?" He has about a dozen questions, and no way to put any of them into words.
"If you don't want to, you don't want to," Jay says, and Finn thinks he might have hurt his feelings, which really solidifies his earlier suspicions about being an asshole. "But, um. I don't wanna do - this. If you're not. I mean, if you don't feel -"
"No," Finn says in a rush, "no, that's not - I want to. I do." The thought of losing this, which has occurred to him about a half-dozen times over the past couple of months - almost always when he fucks up or loses his shit, which happens often enough that he would've assumed it took him out of the dating pool - makes him feel cold all over, and dizzy. He presses closer to Jay, tucks his nose against his neck. It muffles his voice when he speaks again. "I'm just. I don't - I never - how - where can we - ?"
The last question is probably the most important, at least in the immediate. There are gay guys who date, but not any who live in Boulder. Hell, probably not even any who live in Colorado. Two guys being seen together in public isn't as much of an automatic ass-kicking as it was in the neighbourhood Finn grew up in, but it's still a real possibility. He tries to picture it, the two of them on a date downtown at a diner or a pool hall, and feels his stomach immediately cramp up with panic. Even if they didn't get beat up, everyone would look at them and know, and it would spread so fast -
His pulse must skyrocket - or maybe his thoughts are just showing on his face - because Jay pulls him closer. Not that there's much space left for him to move in, but the intent is clearly there. "There's places," he says. "There's a bar, down on Baseline. We can't drink yet, but they won't card us. Or I could get fake IDs."
"A bar," Finn repeats. He doesn't go to bars, as a rule. Doesn't drink and doesn't care to be around people who do, so there was never much point. He's heard of gay bars - well, he saw an article about Cruising in the paper once, so he thinks he's got the general gist - but the idea of actually going to one is . . . "What would we do there?"
"Uh, drink?" Jay nudges him in a gesture that's clearly meant to be playful, but Finn doesn't take the bait. He just keeps his head down, nestles into that spot between Jay's shoulder and neck, where it's dark and warm and safe. "And dance, probably. I dunno what kind of music they play. My family went on a vacation to San Francisco once, and I tried to get into this place on the Castro with my brother's ID, but they wouldn't let me past the door." He pauses. "They're into disco, I think?"
Finn frowns. "Is anyone into disco anymore?"
"Huh. Probably not." He feels Jay shrug underneath him. "You wanna go anyway?"
Finn chews on his answer for a second in silence. Does he want to go somewhere, with Jay? In an abstract sense, yes. In practice - he can't hold the image in his head, of the two of them at a bar. On a dance floor. He's never danced in his life, skipped senior prom to stay home in his room and stare at the ceiling in the dark. He definitely doesn't know how to dance without looking like an absolute dick. But that isn't even really the problem. Or maybe it is. It's part of it, for sure. The other part . . .
"I don't drink," he says against Jay's collarbone. "There was some stuff and I - I just don't." It's not something he's had to explain before, just by virtue of the fact that he doesn't go anywhere. He could get into it now, if he has to, but he's rather not. He's already scraped enough of himself out for one night.
"Oh." Jay taps one of his fingers against Finn's upper arm, clearly thinking. "There's a bookstore, too. We can go there."
"A - what?"
"A bookstore?" Jay squints at him. "Like, a gay bookstore? You ever been to one?"
He hadn't even heard of one until a couple seconds ago. "No. Have you?"
"Well. No." Jay chews on his lower lip. "But we can still go. They for sure won't card us."
Probably that's true, but this whole conversation still feels surreal. "You want to go on a date to a bookstore?"
Jay shrugs. "Well, we both like books. And we can get in without IDs and hang out there as long as we want, and no one's going to bother us. So why not?"
Finn pulls back just enough that he can prop himself up on an elbow and meet Jay at eye level. "Why not," he echoes. It occurs to him that this is the first time in his life he's ever been asked out. It was one of those things he just kind of figured wouldn't ever happen to him. But here he is.
Jay grins and leans in, and Finn thinks for a second that he's going to kiss him. Brave of him to do, since his breath is probably awful. But he just kind of bumps their foreheads together, then pulls Finn down so that they're lying face to face. This close, Finn can't really make out any features, but he can tell Jay's still grinning. He can feel himself grinning, too.
The bookstore is over on Spruce Street, far enough away from campus that Finn can feel reasonably confident that they won't run into any classmates. That doesn't stop him from looking over his shoulder as he and Jay walk down the sidewalk, making sure to keep a careful distance between the two of them. Just in case. They hadn't talked about this part. Jay seems to get it, though, because he hasn't tried to close the gap, and he hasn't said anything about it. He doesn't say anything at all until they come to a halt next to a fairly nondescript red brick storefront, and he says, "It's here."
Finn squints at the building. The marquee over the front door reads OPEN PAGES NEW AND USED BOOKS, and he's glad it wasn't something like "pervert pages," but the act of stepping through the door still feels like stapling a neon sign to his forehead. There's a window in the front, and the interior looks like any other bookstore - they're not draped in flags, or anything - but if someone looked through the window and saw him and they knew -
But before he has the chance to back away and flee, Jay pushes the door open and walks in. Finn bolts in after him, head tucked against his chest even as his eyes dart back and forth. He can feel his heart hammering, even though nobody on the street is giving him a second glance. He still doesn't feel quite safe until the door swings shut behind him, and he still makes sure to stand off to the side, away from the window.
The bookstore looks - well, like a bookstore. He's spent time in enough of them to know that they mostly all look the same. The only thing to mark it out as different is the magazine rack next to the door that's displaying copies of something called The Advocate - but even then, you'd have to look closely to realize what it was. There's a table sitting just past the front door, piled high with copies of books Finn's never heard of - Tales of the City, The Charioteer, Goodbye to Berlin - but all of them are illustrated with black-and-white covers, almost all either city landscapes or old paintings. The whole room smells faintly of wood polish and dust. Behind the table is a dark wooden desk with a cash register sitting on it, and a grey-haired man standing behind it, frowning at what looks like a balance sheet. He glances up at the sound of the door, and Finn's heart seizes in his chest, but he only gives them a brief once-over before returning to his papers. "Washroom's in the back, next to the couch. Coffee's on, but don't complain to me about it if you burn your mouth."
"The couch - ?" Finn says, but Jay interrupts him with a, "yessir," grabbing Finn's hand and pulling him along the row of bookshelves, out of sight of both the cashier and the front window. There's not more than a foot between each shelf, and they're all packed so densely, Finn's a little surprised that one hasn't come crashing down yet. That's the first thing he notices. The second thing is that, back here, the shelves are full of books with titles like Faggots, and covers featuring guys with their dicks out. One in particular catches his eye, a shadowed picture of someone with leaning against a brick wall with his dick in his hand, and he stops and stares at it until he hears Jay snort. When he looks over, Jay's grinning at him. "See something you like?"
Finn can feel himself go red. "Fuck off," he says, smiling, and lets Jay keep towing him along. They make it to the end of the row, which opens up onto an area that looks almost like a little living room - there's the couch the cashier mentioned, and a table with a coffee urn and paper cups, and a little pile of napkins. The shelf across from the couch is as overstuffed as the rest of them, but this one is more colourful than the ones they just passed. Finn grabs a book at random and tugs until it slides free from the pile. Jay, who'd been standing on his toes to try and see the top shelf, rocks back onto the balls of his feet and hooks his chin over Finn's shoulder. "What's that?"
Finn flips it over. The cover is a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge, bright red with the blue ocean spread out underneath, and the words GAY ACROSS AMERICA stamped on the bottom. "Travel book, I think. Hey, didn't you say you went to San Francisco?"
"When I was, like, fourteen, yeah." Jay peers over his shoulder and taps his finger on the cover. "We went there. Saw some seals."
Finn flips the book open. It falls open to a spread of gingerbread-style houses, all painted in varying shades of green, orange, and yellow. The caption reads, PAINTED LADIES. The whole front section of the book seems to be just San Francisco. "Show me? Where you went?"
Jay's still holding his hand - hasn't dropped it since they came in, even as both their palms grow sweaty - so it's easy for Finn to tug him over to the couch and settle in next to him. The cushions are saggy, but not in a bad way: more like a childhood couch that's been sat on and slept on and jumped on so much, it's lost any semblance of structure. Finn pulls his hand free so that he can open the book up and spread it across both their laps. Jay follows his lead, thumbing the pages and leaning his head against Finn's as he murmurs, "we stopped here - my stepdad's a fuckin' history nerd, so we had to go see all the old houses. And Mom's really into gardening, so she took us to the flower conservatory. Took a boat out to Alcatraz and saw the jail. Oh, here -" He taps one of the pictures, a rainbow mural. "That's Haight-Ashbury, where the hippies used to hang out back in the sixties. It's all painted like this."
Finn's enjoying the feeling of Jay's voice rumbling through him as much as he is the stories about San Francisco, and he'd be happy to just sit there and let him talk until they run out of pages. But he stirs himself enough to ask, "did you like it?"
"Mmm." Jay looks thoughtful. It's a look Finn's come to recognize - mouth tilted on one side, eyelids at half-mast. "I liked parts of it. Alcatraz was pretty cool, and the gardens. My brother tried to shove me into the bay, that part sucked." Finn nudges against him, companionable, and he nudges back. "There's other stuff I wanted to do, but no one else was into it. Like the Castro - that's where all the gay bars are."
"Where you got carded," Finn murmurs, and Jay elbows him with a snort. "Yeah, that. But they've got other stuff, too. Fairs and streetcars and movie theatres and stuff. And bookstores." He nudges Finn again. "We should go."
"To San Francisco?" Finn looks at him, eyebrows raised. "You think your truck could handle the mileage?"
"I didn't mean right now," Jay says, and Finn laughs a little. "But, like. This summer, maybe. We can save up for it. If you want."
Finn looks back down at the book in his lap. The page they're on has a black and white photo of two guys sitting on a stoop, kissing. It has to be at least ten years old. If that's what the city looked like then - if you could just do that back then - what could you do there now? Walk down any street holding hands, instead of ducking inside the bookstore like you're trying to get away with something? They could blend in, in a place like that. Do whatever they wanted, act however they liked, and no one would say a word about it. His chest tightens at the thought.
"Ahem."
The sound sends Finn and Jay scrambling apart. The guy from the front - the cashier - is standing in front of them, one eyebrow raised. Finn fights down panic. "We were, uh. Just."
The guy rolls his eyes. "Hey, don't let me stop you. Just keep your hands where I can see them, yeah? You want anything below the waist, you go to Harrigan's." Finn looks at Jay, who mouths, "gay bar," at him. The guy rolls his eyes again, walks past them to the bathroom and calls over his shoulder, "And don't try re-shelving that when you're done, just leave it at the counter and I'll put it away." The bathroom door shuts behind him with a dull thump, and they're alone again.
Finn looks at Jay and Jay looks back, and they both dissolve into giggles almost simultaneously. Finn leans back against him, careful to keep both his hands sitting on top of the book - no point getting kicked out, once the cashier comes out of the bathroom. He waits until both of them have wound down, then says, "How much gas money would we need to get us there, do you think?"
"Jesus, I don't know." Jay rubs his nose. "But we've got, like, six months to figure it out. If - I mean, you wanna go? For real?" His voice goes soft. Uncertain, maybe.
Finn looks back at the book in his lap, then up at Jay. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I do." He grins. "You can show me the seals."
"Can't believe you only want me for my seals," Jay says gravely, and they both burst out laughing again. Finn leans in close, letting the tremors run through them both. San Francisco's warm, he thinks. All year round, it's warm. And they can go in the summer, when it'll be bright and sunny all the time. Shake the dust of Colorado off their shoes and put their feet in the ocean, wash themselves clean and new. See what they can be, who they can be. It's six months away, and already he can almost taste it. It tastes like something he can't describe. Like hope, maybe.
Fandom: The Black Phone (Movies - Derrickson)
Summary: Four dates, four conversations, and a plan.
Additional Tags: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Internalized Homophobia
Rating: M
Finn goes back and forth with himself a little bit about going over to Jay's place that afternoon. On the one hand, he was invited. On the other hand, Jay was probably just trying to be nice, because he is weirdly nice all the time - at least, all the time Finn's known him, which is about three days at this point. On the other other hand, Finn said he was coming over, and it would be a dick move to just not show up after he promised. Jay might have other stuff he wanted to do that he put off because he thought he'd have a guest. So, he goes.
There's no one in the living room when he comes in, but a guy sticks his head out through the kitchen entryway as Finn shuts the door behind him. Finn recognizes him, vaguely, from the night of the party, but he never got a name. "Did you get -" He blinks. "Oh. You're not Brian."
Finn freezes in place, his hand still on the doorknob. "Uh, no." He hadn't counted on other people being here - which was stupid of him, it's Saturday, nobody has class - and now that he's caught out, he doesn't really know what to do. Jay must be okay with his roommates seeing Finn, because he invited him over and didn't warn him to sneak in, but if they guess - ? "I'm - I was looking for -"
"You looking for Jay?" the guy says, and Finn feels his adrenaline spike. Was it that obvious? Does he know? But his expression hasn't changed, and he doesn't look - pissed or disgusted or anything like that. "He's upstairs in his room. Second door on the left." And he disappears back into the kitchen before Finn can reply to that.
There's nothing for him to do but climb the stairs, so he does. He's honestly kind of glad he got the directions, because he doesn't think he'd remember, otherwise, and he wasn't about to knock on every door in the hallway until he found the right one. The door to Jay's room is slightly ajar, with music drifting out from behind it, but Finn still hesitates before rapping his knuckles lightly on the wood.
"C'mon in," Jay calls from inside, and Finn does, pushing the door mostly shut behind him.
Jay's sitting on the bed, hair damp from what must have been a recent shower, dressed in sweats and a t-shirt. He looks up and sees Finn, and his face goes - gentle. "Hey," he says, getting up. "Did your sister and her friend get home okay?"
"Yeah." Finn's not really sure what to do, now that he's arrived, but he's too jittery to sit down, so he starts doing laps around the room instead. "He called once they got back to Denver." Ernie is extremely conscientious about calling after he drives Gwen anywhere, probably because that drive up to Camp Alpine scarred him for life. Gwen, on the other hand, has no fear when it comes to driving, which Finn tells himself is probably why she wasn't the one who called. He hopes. "You have any? Brothers or sisters?"
"Kind of." The answer is enough of a surprise to make Finn pause and look over, just in time to see the wry twist of Jay's mouth. "One each, but they're both, like, ten years older, so I don't see them much. I was the accident."
He doesn't say it bitterly, but he doesn't say it like a joke either. Finn digs a toe into the rug. "Who told you that?"
Jay rolls his eyes. "My brother, about twice a week growing up." He looks at Finn, and Finn has the distinct impression an offer is being made. You showed me yours, so here's some of mine. But he doesn't say it like he's looking for sympathy, either, so Finn rolls an answer around in his head for a moment before he says, "Well - there's happy accidents, right?"
Jay's face relaxes into a grin, and Finn feels a flood of relief at having gotten it right. "So they say."
He hadn't taken in much of the room the last time he was here, so he takes the opportunity to look around now. It's pretty plain - blue walls, hardwood floor, a dresser in one corner - but there are a few touches that he suspects Jay added himself, namely the pinkish-red quilt that clashes horribly with the paint job, and the movie and band posters tacked up on the walls. He recognizes The Thing and Blade Runner and the Psychedelic Furs, before coming to a halt in front of the poster Jay's stuck to the back of the door - a shirtless guy with a wild head of hair, glaring as he points at the camera. "The Doors? Aren't they old?"
"Dude, they're choice." Jay gets up off the bed. "You ever listened? I've got a cassette."
Finn never has, so he lets Jay wave him over to the bed and watches as he retrieves a Walkman from his backpack and unplugs the headphones from it before coming back to sit beside Finn. He motions for Finn to lean in so he can hear, but Finn hesitates, glancing at the slightly-open door. "Um. Your - one of your roommates saw me when I came in. Is that - I mean, is he - ?"
"Don't worry about it." Jay's already shaking his head. "They think I'm dealing, so they figure anyone who comes over is just here to score."
"Oh." That's kind of a genius move, now that Finn thinks about it. "Are you? Dealing?"
Jay flashes him a playful smile. "Only to people I like." And he hits play on the Walkman before Finn can say anything to that.
The Doors are choice, he decides after a few songs. Not the kind of thing he normally listens to - his taste runs towards the Ramones and the Clash, anything loud enough to rattle his thoughts out of his head for awhile - but they're catchy and smooth and weird, in a good way. Or maybe it's just the experience of listening like this that makes it good: leaned in close enough that his head almost bumps into Jay's, close enough that he can feel the rhythm of Jay's leg bouncing along to the music, the heat that seems to spill from him all the time. Like creeping up to a campfire and being tugged in by the warmth.
They sit there like that and listen until the tape runs out. About halfway through, on a song that gets softer in the middle - I'm gonna love you 'til the heavens stop the rain - Jay reaches over and puts a hand over Finn's. Laces their fingers together. He looks at Finn like he's waiting for him to yank his hand away, to get up and storm out. Finn doesn't. His pulse isn't racing and his breath isn't coming fast, which seems odd, somehow. But he just feels quiet, in a way that he almost never does. He sits there and lets Jay hold his hand for the rest of the afternoon, and neither of them say a word about it.
About three weeks into this - whatever this is - Finn figures it's probably past time he started giving blowjobs.
He hasn't, yet. Jay does it a lot, and because Jay seems into it, Finn doesn't say anything about it. For the most part, they just jerk each other off. But while Finn doesn't know a whole lot about how it works with guys, he does at least know that it's a dick move to let a guy blow you and not do it back. Whether he likes it or not - and he doesn't think he will - isn't the point. A month ago, he would've assumed he would never be able to let anyone touch him like that, and then he did it anyway - that first attempt notwithstanding - so he can probably manage this. And how is Jay even going to know if he likes it? Why would he even question it? It feels good to be on the receiving end, Finn knows that, so probably he'll be too distracted to even notice.
Besides, it feels so fucking good to be on the receiving end. Better than anything else they've done (which isn't much, but. Still.) Finn wants to make him feel that good.
They're almost always in Jay's room, when they mess around. It's easier that way, fewer people around to take notice or guess what they're doing. Jay's roommates probably think Finn is smoking the pot equivalent of three packs a day, but he doesn't especially care, so long as it keeps them from looking any closer. So when he arrives at the house on a Thursday evening after class, he doesn't even flinch when two of the roommates (for all he's been coming over for nearly a month, he still doesn't know their names) are sitting on the couch. Doesn't even bother looking at them. He's got more important things on his mind, anyways. He makes it halfway up the stairs, pauses because his legs are shaking a little, then goes the rest of the way up once he's got his bearings. His hands are shaking, too. He wishes he'd smoked before he came over: it doesn't always stop the tremors, but it at least makes them manageable. He has got to get his fucking head on straight. He at least has to get his hands under control.
Jay's sitting up in bed reading when Finn comes in - Books of Blood, which he's been prodding Finn to read for weeks - but he looks up from his book and grins when he sees Finn come in and shut the door behind him. He tosses the book to one side, then swings his legs over the side of the bed and reaches out a hand to pull Finn towards him. "How was class?"
"'S'okay," Finn says, letting himself be pulled. Thursday evenings are for his computer class, which isn't his favourite, but it could be worse. He settles himself on Jay's lap, the way Jay did for him that first time in his room, and swoops in to kiss him before he has the chance to think better of it. Jay makes a little surprised noise against his mouth, but then he winds his hands in Finn's hair and leans backwards until he's lying down with his legs dangling over the edge of the bed, with Finn crouched over him. Finn had kind of figured it would be easier to kneel down between his legs with Jay sitting up - his only frame of reference is, again, the way Jay does it for him - so he scoots backwards until he can slide off the bed and onto the floor. Jay follows, chasing his mouth, and Finn lets himself be caught for a few minutes, because his hands are still shaking and so are his knees, and he can already feel his gag reflex twitching at the thought of what he's about to do. How he'll be able to breathe without choking, whether or not the taste will overwhelm him, if memories will rise up and drag him under before he can even do anything.
I heard he stuck his dick in your mouth. I heard you liked it. Actually, Rob, yeah he did, and now I think I'll never be able to suck dick and like it, ever. How's that for a funny joke?
But he knows the tension in his limbs isn't going to unwind while he puts off the inevitable, so he pulls back from Jay and settles himself on the floor, going for Jay's belt. The metal buckle is cold under his hands, and he swallows hard, eyes watering. It's fine. He can do this. It's fine.
One of Jay's hands is still in his hair, and it tightens there as Finn struggles to get his belt undone. "Are you -"
"'S'okay," Finn says again. It's difficult to talk, the way his mouth is watering, and he can't figure out if it's from desire or the urge to vomit. Might be both. He gets the belt undone, then the button on his jeans, and goes to yank both the jeans and Jay's briefs off in one motion - better to get it all over with at once - except he can't, because Jay hasn't moved off the bed, which is really fucking with his ability to keep moving and not think about what he's doing. He paws ineffectively at Jay's hip, more than a little frantic. Wonders if he should just blow him over his underwear - is that a thing people do? - or if he should maybe kiss his stomach first, which seems more manageable but would also prolong the whole ordeal, when Jay's free hand lands on his shoulder, pushing, and he hears, "Hey. Hey, stop. Stop."
He rocks back on his heels, breathing hard. His mouth feels so wet. His whole face feels wet, even though he knows he hasn't cried. Yet. He's breathing like he just ran a marathon, which is so fucking stupid because he hasn't even done anything. So why did Jay make him stop?
When he gathers his wits enough to look up, the sight is enough to make his knees shake harder. Jay's staring down at him, and he looks - not angry, not exactly, but. Not happy, either. He hasn't taken his hand off Finn's shoulder, holding him tight enough that he can't lean back in. "What are you doing?"
Finn swallows hard. His throat really does hurt. "Sucking you off."
It's apparently not the answer Jay was looking for, because the furrow between his eyebrows deepens. "You want that?"
"Yeah," Finn says, but he says it too quickly, and his voice cracks clean down the middle of the word. The only thing he can think to do is distract, so he tries to lean in again, but Jay's hand tightens on his shoulder to hold him in place.
"Stop," he says again, and oh, he's pissed off for sure now. Finn can't quite figure out why he would be, but he is. "I don't - get up."
He lets go of Finn, and Finn shuffles backwards on his knees until he's got enough space to stand. He thought maybe the height difference would settle him, but it really doesn't, because Jay is looking up at him like - oh, fuck. He fucked up. He can't keep eye contact with him, so he spins on his heel and paces instead. The room isn't really big enough to pace; it's four steps to the far wall, then three to the corner, then pivot and start all over again. His face feels numb, so he scrubs his hands over it. It doesn't help.
"Slow down," Jay says behind him, which is really not an option on the table right now, but he's not going to get himself out of this by not doing what he's told. He braces himself with one hand on the cold plaster wall, tips his head forward. He still can't do eye contact. The wall - bumpy and speckled with an uneven paint job - is much easier to look at.
"I don't want you to do that," Jay says, low, and it's not - Finn can count on one hand the times either of them have talked about what they want, besides a few breathless questions before their pants come off. It's usually perfunctory, in a way that this clearly isn't. "I don't want you to - hit me, after."
And the shock of those words is actually enough to startle Finn out of his staring contest with the wall. He turns around. Jay's mouth is set, and his hands are curled into half-fists on his legs. He still hasn't done his jeans or belt back up. "Hit you?" he echoes. "Why would I hit you? I don't -"
Except he has, hasn't he? He's hit lots of people. Maybe not exactly like this, but he has. Jay can't know about that, because Finn hasn't told him. But maybe he can smell it on him somehow. Finn got really good, when he was a kid, at knowing when to brace himself for a slap or a punch. Maybe Jay did, too. How would Finn know? He never asked.
"You might, after," Jay says. His voice is still low. "If you don't like it. Or if you do." He says that last part so quietly, Finn barely catches it. He's looking down at his hands now, and there's something nauseatingly familiar about the set of his shoulders. Something Finn's seen before, in the mirror.
"I wouldn't," he says. Three wobbly steps take him to the far side of the bed, where he sits down. Jay's back is to him, which makes it a little easier. "I'm not like that. I just thought, you do it, so I should - I mean, I owe -"
"Jesus," Jay says, and it's somewhere between relieved and exasperated. "I don't want you sucking my dick because you owe me."
"But," Finn says. His mouth fills with spit; it takes him two swallows to get it all down. "But you want me to?"
"Fucking - not that bad." Jay twists around to look at Finn. "I'm not fucking. Running a bar tab, here. That's not how t- how it works."
"Okay," Finn says. Something like relief is settling over him. "I might, um. Want to. Just not -" Not now? Not yet? He's not sure.
"It's fine," Jay says. His hand creeps across the bed to take Finn's. "It's fine. We can do whatever. Come here?"
He tugs lightly on Finn's hand, and Finn lets himself be tugged until they're sitting side by side, Finn's head tipped onto Jay's shoulder. They sit there for a moment in silence, just breathing. Jay's cheek is resting against Finn's hair, and Finn can feel a faint tremor going through him. Like he was - scared, probably. Finn hasn't considered anyone else being scared since he was a kid. He thinks that might make him kind of an asshole.
Once they're both breathing steadily and not shaking, Finn lifts his head. "You wanna - ?"
Jay turns his head to look at Finn, and Finn can't read his expression, then. He's asking because he genuinely wants to know, but also because - well, if the answer's no, then he should probably leave. There's only one reason for him to be here, and if Jay doesn't want that, then -
But Jay leans in and kisses him, and Finn lets some of the tension drop from his shoulders. He's still good for this. He hasn't fucked that up. Yet.
It's two months before he loses it again.
They're in Jay's room, like they usually are. It's late, because Jay has a night class on Wednesdays that runs until nine, so he told Finn he could just let himself in. So he did, and he dozed off for a bit - he hasn't been sleeping much, lately - before he's woken up by the sound of Jay coming in. Maybe it's the lack of sleep that's made him jittery, or maybe it's the stress of exams coming up for both of them, or maybe it's the strain they smoked the night before, which Jay got from some guy he ran into the last time he visited his parents in Albuquerque. Whatever it is, it's left him restive and impatient, so he doesn't wait to grab Jay by the lapels of his jacket and pull him down to kiss him. Jay makes an "umph," noise, then pulls back just enough to shuck off his jacket and pull off his t-shirt before he leans back down to keep kissing Finn. He's braced himself up with a hand on the headboard, on either side of Finn's head, so their chests aren't touching, but their hips knock together every time they kiss. Finn can't really reach to get his own shirt off, like this, so he just hikes it up under his armpits so that Jay can get at him. Bend his head and kiss his chest, which feels somehow gayer than anything else they've done, including jerking each other off. Maybe he just doesn't like being this naked in front of someone else, this vulnerable. He changed in a bathroom stall during gym class all through high school. Didn't like the feeling of eyes on him - still doesn't.
But he's trying to be braver, and he's trying to be less - well, less him - and besides, he likes the feeling of Jay's hands smoothing across his chest, his mouth following all the places he's touched. So the shirt is as off as he can manage. He's thinking about hitching his legs up around Jay's waist to pull him closer - they can get off like that, they've done it before without even getting their jeans off - or reaching to get Jay's belt off, or reaching down to open his own belt, when Jay shimmies backwards and grabs Finn with a hand under each thigh, yanks him so that he's flat on his back.
The room cartwheels, kaleidoscopes. Finn feels like he's rolling down a hill, the second momentum takes over and he realizes he's not in control. Oh fuck, he's so cold. The feeling of Jay's hands on his thighs is cold. Damp. The mattress is damp. The room is dark and his clothes are clammy and he's not in a dorm room anymore, he's not nineteen at college, he's thirteen and there's a grinning mask hovering in his field of vision, and he's flat on his back. Helpless.
He manages to roll over just in time, lands on all fours on the floor, and vomits. His stomach is twisting itself into knots, his arms are shaking from the effort to hold himself up, and it just keeps going and going. The chunky texture of the vomit just makes it worse, because it makes him think of scrambled eggs, and that's enough to make his whole body heave again like it's trying to turn itself inside out. There are tremors running through him now, and if he doesn't get ahold of himself soon, he's going to collapse face-first into a pile of puke.
There are hands on his back, his shoulders, pulling him upright. He slumps into it and lets Jay guide him until he's sitting up with his back to the bed. He can't catch his breath. Fuck, is this going to happen every time? As soon as he thinks he's finally got his shit together, he'll put a foot down in some hidden foxhole, and he'll be worse off than he was before? He is such a fucking useless piece of shit. Can't even handle feeling good. What is the point of any of this, when all he can ever do is fuck up and disappoint people and cry about it like a little bitch? What is the point of anybody trying with him?
He comes back to himself slowly. Jay's sitting next to him, shoulder-to-shoulder but not touching. Probably worried he's going to set him off, Finn thinks, and that thought makes him want to puke again more than anything else. Finn closes his eyes and presses his hands to his temples. It's hard to settle when he can still smell the vomit, so he tries to breathe through his mouth. His crotch feels damp, but he doesn't remember coming. Did he piss himself? Jesus.
"I hope it's not food poisoning," Jay says, and Finn can hear the hesitancy in his voice, "because I ate the same mashed potatoes you did, and we can't both be sick all night."
It's barely a joke, although it has the tenor of one. More like a tacit acknowledgement that no, of course it's not food poisoning, that much is obvious. It's an escape hatch, too: they can pretend it is, if they want. If he wants. Why are you so fucking nice to me Finn thinks, not for the first time. He scrubs a hand across his mouth and says, aloud, "It's not food poisoning." He chances a look to his side and yeah, he sure hurled all over the carpet. "'M sorry. I'll clean it up."
"Don't worry about it." Jay's hand lands lightly on his shoulder. "There's a dustbuster in the utility closet, I can grab it. You should, ah. Shower." It's a nicer way of saying you look like shit, which he undoubtedly does. He did the best to clean the puke off his mouth and chin with his hands, but he's pretty sure some of it went down his neck as well. And there's whatever's going on in his jeans. Shame laps at his consciousness like water, threatening to pull him out to sea. He huffs out a breath, and feels Jay's hand tighten on his shoulder for a second before he lets go and gets up. "You know where the bathroom is, right?"
He does. The house Jay and his roommates have rented is nicer than the dorms, but not so nice that they have their own bathrooms - there's just the one at the end of the hall. Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be anyone around at this time of night, so Finn can make his way down, shuck off his clothes, and climb in without having to dodge strange looks. He cranks the water up as hot as it can go, which doesn't make much of a dent in how cold he feels, but it's better than nothing. He lets his forehead clunk against the wall, staring at the lines of grout as the remains of the vomit and piss - he's pretty sure it's piss - run off of him and down the drain with the water.
He remembers his first shower, after the basement. They hadn't let him wash all day after he got out, because they'd insisted the doctors and the cops had to look him over before that. Because he was evidence, although he didn't know then and doesn't know now what they planned to do with any of it. He hadn't gotten to until they'd finally sent him home, and then he'd locked himself in the bathroom and sat under the spray for almost an hour because he'd been too tired to do anything else. The only thing that had gotten him moving at the time was, absurdly, the thought of the water bill. That Dad would be pissed if he ran it up. He hadn't been, hadn't said a word about it. But it had been the biggest thing on his mind, in that moment. What he was going to do to the water bill.
He's thinking the same thing now, and it's enough to get him to twist the taps off and climb out. He doesn't have a toothbrush here, so he grabs a paper cup and rinses his mouth out with water instead. When he looks up at himself in the mirror, the sight that greets him is - yeah, he can see why someone might think food poisoning. He's chalky white with bloodshot eyes, and there's still a faint tremor in his hands. He's clean, at least, but that's not much to boast about when he looks like a walking corpse. He really doesn't want to put his nasty clothes back on, but they're all he's got, so he pulls on his shirt and jeans and heads back down the hall.
The dustbuster evidently did its job, because there's no puke left on the carpet, although there is a damp spot. The smell still lingers, but Jay's lit a candle, and the birthday-cake scent is dispelling some of it. Jay looks up when he comes in, and lobs something at him that Finn catches on reflex. It's a pair of flannel pajama pants. Finn stares at them, feeling the gears in his brain crunching against each other. "Uh."
"You can borrow mine for the night," Jay says, "since you don't have any here." He's already changed into another set, and Finn wonders - apropos of nothing - how many he even owns. He's still standing there holding the ones he caught like an idiot.
"Uh," he says again. "Borrow yours?"
Jay pauses halfway through yanking the covers back on his bed to look at Finn, eyebrows raised. Not mocking - Finn doesn't think he could be even if he tried - but more . . . confused. "Yeah. To sleep in? Unless you wanna sleep in your jeans?"
He does not want that, that's true. But - "To sleep in? Here?"
"Well. Yeah." Jay straightens, hooking his thumbs in the waistband of his pajama pants. "Are you not gonna? I mean, you could go to the clinic, I guess, but -"
"The clinic?" Finn repeats, feeling a stab of anxiety just under his breastbone. Stupid, because it's not like anyone is going to drag him there, but - still. He hates hospitals, and the campus clinic isn't much better. "Why would I - ?"
". . . because you're sick," Jay says slowly. Under any other circumstances, Finn would bristle at his tone. He's not far off from it, still. "You shouldn't go back to your place alone if you're sick. You could, like. Pass out and choke."
"I'm not gonna pass out and choke," Finn says. He feels like he's running last in a race, trying to catch up. "And I'm not sick."
Jay looks at the damp spot on the floor, then looks back at Finn, eyebrows raised. "Okay. Well, you can stay anyway." His thumbs are kind of twiddling, Finn notices, though they're still stuck in his waistband. Just little minute rotations as they talk. "Unless you don't . . . want to . . . ?"
The thought of going back to his dorm is tempting, in a way. Like a wounded animal crawling into its den to die. But he's still so cold. He's cold and his stomach muscles ache from the exertion of expelling his dinner, and he knows that, if he does go back, he's not going to get any sleep. It's even odds on whether or not he'll get any sleep here, but at least here, he'll be a bit warmer. He won't be alone in the dark.
". . . okay," he says, and goes around the far side of the bed to crawl in. It's not a big bed. It fits two people, but barely. It's impossible to sleep in without one of them draping himself on top of the other, which he wants, but also it's very possible that Jay doesn't want to sleep cuddled up next to the guy who puked and pissed himself while he was trying to get laid. Finn wouldn't, if he were him. So he squinches himself as far into the corner as he can manage while Jay climbs in on the other side, then turns over and gives him a strange look. "What are you doing?"
Finn tries to cringe back further, but he hasn't left himself much room. "Going to bed."
Jay blinks at him. On anyone else, Finn would've called his expression unimpressed. "You're gonna fall off the edge. C'mere." He extends an arm and kind of rolls Finn towards him - not hard to do, in a bed this small, until Finn's sprawled half on top of him, with Jay's arm tucked around his ribs. Teddy bear style, like always. There's not much point in fighting it, and he doesn't really want to anyway, so he puts his head down on Jay's chest and mutters, "I could get you sick."
"Hm." Jay adjusts himself underneath Finn, probably getting more comfortable. "But you said you're not sick."
He did say that, didn't he. "Yeah."
Jay turns his head on the pillow. He's not looking Finn right in the eye - he can't, really, at this angle - but he is looking at him. "Then . . . what are you?"
And there's not a lot he can say to that that isn't the truth, so he keeps his eyes shut and breathes. Just breathes for a minute.
". . . fucked up," he says quietly.
And that's it, isn't it? That's it. It's all he really needs to say. Yeah, he's fucked up. He's broken. There's not much else to it. Except he knows that's not what Jay's asking, really, and he could just put his head down and pretend to sleep and this conversation will be over, but then all of this will be over. And he doesn't want that. He wants to hold onto it. It's a weird feeling, having something he wants to hold onto. Something important enough that he's willing to actually fight to keep it. Actually rip his guts out for it. Because that's what this is going to feel like, he knows. It's gonna hurt.
"Did you hear -" he starts, then stops. If he leads in with, did you hear about the Grabber, the answer's probably going to be yes. Most people have. But if he leads in with that, then he's never going to be able to climb out from under that picture, the one they used of him on the news, the one that thousands of people saw and now that's how they think of him, forever. Who he'll be forever. He doesn't want that, not here. So he starts again with, "There was this - guy. When I was a kid. He used to, um, take kids. Boys. He took them and kept them in his basement, and he'd - mess with them - and then he killed them. There were five." He keeps them all in his head: Robin, Bruce, Vance, Billy, Griffin. He could bring up the three from Camp Alpine, but that's too much for one night, Jay doesn't need to hear that story yet. Just like he doesn't need to hear about his mom. He can do that later. "And then he took me, and he kept me for a week, and he - did stuff. I didn't want him to. I didn't like it." It's important, that Jay knows he didn't like it. "But I was - I was really scrawny and weak, and I couldn't, couldn't stop him." His voice cracks, humiliatingly, at the end. He's still weak. Six years later, and he's as weak as he ever was.
Jay hasn't said anything the whole time he's been talking. Hasn't moved, either, not to tighten his grip or to edge away. But Finn can feel the change in his breathing, the slow, careful pace of someone trying to coax a stray cat into eating out of their hand. He wishes Jay would recoil from him, or say something about how disgusted he is - at Finn - or just anything that Finn could react to. But he doesn't. He just keeps laying there. He's still so warm. The basement recedes, the damp leaches away. He puts his face against Jay's shoulder, inhales the scent of soap and sweat. The Grabber never smelled like that. He always wore cologne. The smell gave him headaches, although that might have just been the drugs in the food. He's here. He's not there, not anymore.
"You got away, though," Jay says. It's not what Finn was bracing himself for, and he can't handle that. Can't process it. So he stays where he is, face tight against Jay's shoulder.
"Yeah," he mutters. "I got away." He doesn't need to tell that story right now, either. "But he, um. He did - I remember some of it, but not all of it. And he did that thing, where he pulled on my legs like you did. I forgot about it until now." Forgot isn't the right word. It's not like it had been there, then slowly floated away. It's more like, parts of the basement are so clear in his mind, and then there's other parts that are all blurry and fuzzy, and they have been since it happened. Like he took a picture, but he had his thumb on the camera lens. And then something will happen, and it'll snap back into focus. When he was a little kid, he'd gone to the county fair a few times, and they'd had a haunted house - the kind you walk through in the dark, and then they suddenly flash the lights so you can see someone in a mask jumping out at you. That's what his brain feels like, sometimes. He never knows when it's coming. It just happens. It was bound to happen here eventually. He should've known he couldn't push it down, wasn't strong enough.
Jay puts his nose against Finn's hair. "'M sorry," he says.
"Wh-" Finn would raise his head to look at him, but he's too comfortable where he is. "What're you sorry for? You didn't know."
He feels the movement of Jay shrugging underneath him. "Yeah, well. Still sorry."
"Yeah, well," Finn echoes. "So am I."
Every time they end up back here, he always wants to ask the same question - why are you doing all of this? Because it's not like he can possibly be worth it. It's not like there aren't other guys on campus, guys Jay could just hook up with and have fun and not worry about them losing their shit in the middle of it. Guys who don't need taking care of. Finn hates needing to be taken care of, and hates it all the more because he craves it. Some pathetic, wounded-animal part of him is always begging for someone to come and hold him and tell him it's okay. It's so pitiful. If he met himself in the street, he'd be disgusted. Is disgusted. He's disgusting.
He doesn't mean to say any of that out loud, but some of it must slip out without him meaning to - or else he's just making pathetic little noises, like that isn't even fucking worse - because Jay's hold tightens, just a bit. "It's okay."
Finn's eyes are burning. "You always say that."
"Yeah, I know." Jay shifts around so he's huddled a little bit closer, Finn's head tucked against his collarbone instead of his chest. "It's okay."
"No, it's not." He's angry, angrier than he should be. The burn of it is familiar. It's what he imagines his dad must feel when he drinks. "You don't have to - don't fucking lie. You're trying to get laid and I'm, I keep fucking it up. Why are you even - fuck!" He'd punch the bed if he were able to get his arms free, but he can't. He just has to lay there and seethe uselessly, like he always fucking does. Because it's the only thing he can do.
Jay pulls back a little, cranes his neck to look at him. Finn braces himself. If he finally loses his temper, it'll hurt, but it'll also be better than the soothing, pointless lies. But what actually comes out of his mouth is, "What?" He sounds genuinely confused. "I'm trying to - what?"
"That's why I'm fucking here, isn't it?" He feels ugly, saying it like that, but what other way is there? "You want to fuck me, that's - why else would you -" He can't finish that sentence. Words keep piling up at the back of his throat like crashing cars, and he can't extract what he needs out of the mess. He snaps his mouth shut, breathes hard through his nose. The smell of Jay's shirt winds him down a little bit, but not enough.
". . . I'm not trying to fuck you," Jay says slowly, like he's explaining something to a kid. A stupid kid. "I'm trying to date you. I mean, yeah, I want - but it's not like that's it. You thought - ?"
At this point in the conversation, Finn's not entirely sure what he thought. He knows there are gay guys who date, obviously, but there was no point when he'd thought he might be one of them. Dating is for people who aren't fucked in the head, and that's not him. Dating is for people who can stand to hold hands in public and talk about their feelings and make out without losing their shit, and that's definitely not him. Who the fuck would want to date him? The thought had never crossed his mind.
"I don't," he says, hears his voice threaten to crack. Swallows hard, tries again. "I didn't - you're not - how can we - ?" He has about a dozen questions, and no way to put any of them into words.
"If you don't want to, you don't want to," Jay says, and Finn thinks he might have hurt his feelings, which really solidifies his earlier suspicions about being an asshole. "But, um. I don't wanna do - this. If you're not. I mean, if you don't feel -"
"No," Finn says in a rush, "no, that's not - I want to. I do." The thought of losing this, which has occurred to him about a half-dozen times over the past couple of months - almost always when he fucks up or loses his shit, which happens often enough that he would've assumed it took him out of the dating pool - makes him feel cold all over, and dizzy. He presses closer to Jay, tucks his nose against his neck. It muffles his voice when he speaks again. "I'm just. I don't - I never - how - where can we - ?"
The last question is probably the most important, at least in the immediate. There are gay guys who date, but not any who live in Boulder. Hell, probably not even any who live in Colorado. Two guys being seen together in public isn't as much of an automatic ass-kicking as it was in the neighbourhood Finn grew up in, but it's still a real possibility. He tries to picture it, the two of them on a date downtown at a diner or a pool hall, and feels his stomach immediately cramp up with panic. Even if they didn't get beat up, everyone would look at them and know, and it would spread so fast -
His pulse must skyrocket - or maybe his thoughts are just showing on his face - because Jay pulls him closer. Not that there's much space left for him to move in, but the intent is clearly there. "There's places," he says. "There's a bar, down on Baseline. We can't drink yet, but they won't card us. Or I could get fake IDs."
"A bar," Finn repeats. He doesn't go to bars, as a rule. Doesn't drink and doesn't care to be around people who do, so there was never much point. He's heard of gay bars - well, he saw an article about Cruising in the paper once, so he thinks he's got the general gist - but the idea of actually going to one is . . . "What would we do there?"
"Uh, drink?" Jay nudges him in a gesture that's clearly meant to be playful, but Finn doesn't take the bait. He just keeps his head down, nestles into that spot between Jay's shoulder and neck, where it's dark and warm and safe. "And dance, probably. I dunno what kind of music they play. My family went on a vacation to San Francisco once, and I tried to get into this place on the Castro with my brother's ID, but they wouldn't let me past the door." He pauses. "They're into disco, I think?"
Finn frowns. "Is anyone into disco anymore?"
"Huh. Probably not." He feels Jay shrug underneath him. "You wanna go anyway?"
Finn chews on his answer for a second in silence. Does he want to go somewhere, with Jay? In an abstract sense, yes. In practice - he can't hold the image in his head, of the two of them at a bar. On a dance floor. He's never danced in his life, skipped senior prom to stay home in his room and stare at the ceiling in the dark. He definitely doesn't know how to dance without looking like an absolute dick. But that isn't even really the problem. Or maybe it is. It's part of it, for sure. The other part . . .
"I don't drink," he says against Jay's collarbone. "There was some stuff and I - I just don't." It's not something he's had to explain before, just by virtue of the fact that he doesn't go anywhere. He could get into it now, if he has to, but he's rather not. He's already scraped enough of himself out for one night.
"Oh." Jay taps one of his fingers against Finn's upper arm, clearly thinking. "There's a bookstore, too. We can go there."
"A - what?"
"A bookstore?" Jay squints at him. "Like, a gay bookstore? You ever been to one?"
He hadn't even heard of one until a couple seconds ago. "No. Have you?"
"Well. No." Jay chews on his lower lip. "But we can still go. They for sure won't card us."
Probably that's true, but this whole conversation still feels surreal. "You want to go on a date to a bookstore?"
Jay shrugs. "Well, we both like books. And we can get in without IDs and hang out there as long as we want, and no one's going to bother us. So why not?"
Finn pulls back just enough that he can prop himself up on an elbow and meet Jay at eye level. "Why not," he echoes. It occurs to him that this is the first time in his life he's ever been asked out. It was one of those things he just kind of figured wouldn't ever happen to him. But here he is.
Jay grins and leans in, and Finn thinks for a second that he's going to kiss him. Brave of him to do, since his breath is probably awful. But he just kind of bumps their foreheads together, then pulls Finn down so that they're lying face to face. This close, Finn can't really make out any features, but he can tell Jay's still grinning. He can feel himself grinning, too.
The bookstore is over on Spruce Street, far enough away from campus that Finn can feel reasonably confident that they won't run into any classmates. That doesn't stop him from looking over his shoulder as he and Jay walk down the sidewalk, making sure to keep a careful distance between the two of them. Just in case. They hadn't talked about this part. Jay seems to get it, though, because he hasn't tried to close the gap, and he hasn't said anything about it. He doesn't say anything at all until they come to a halt next to a fairly nondescript red brick storefront, and he says, "It's here."
Finn squints at the building. The marquee over the front door reads OPEN PAGES NEW AND USED BOOKS, and he's glad it wasn't something like "pervert pages," but the act of stepping through the door still feels like stapling a neon sign to his forehead. There's a window in the front, and the interior looks like any other bookstore - they're not draped in flags, or anything - but if someone looked through the window and saw him and they knew -
But before he has the chance to back away and flee, Jay pushes the door open and walks in. Finn bolts in after him, head tucked against his chest even as his eyes dart back and forth. He can feel his heart hammering, even though nobody on the street is giving him a second glance. He still doesn't feel quite safe until the door swings shut behind him, and he still makes sure to stand off to the side, away from the window.
The bookstore looks - well, like a bookstore. He's spent time in enough of them to know that they mostly all look the same. The only thing to mark it out as different is the magazine rack next to the door that's displaying copies of something called The Advocate - but even then, you'd have to look closely to realize what it was. There's a table sitting just past the front door, piled high with copies of books Finn's never heard of - Tales of the City, The Charioteer, Goodbye to Berlin - but all of them are illustrated with black-and-white covers, almost all either city landscapes or old paintings. The whole room smells faintly of wood polish and dust. Behind the table is a dark wooden desk with a cash register sitting on it, and a grey-haired man standing behind it, frowning at what looks like a balance sheet. He glances up at the sound of the door, and Finn's heart seizes in his chest, but he only gives them a brief once-over before returning to his papers. "Washroom's in the back, next to the couch. Coffee's on, but don't complain to me about it if you burn your mouth."
"The couch - ?" Finn says, but Jay interrupts him with a, "yessir," grabbing Finn's hand and pulling him along the row of bookshelves, out of sight of both the cashier and the front window. There's not more than a foot between each shelf, and they're all packed so densely, Finn's a little surprised that one hasn't come crashing down yet. That's the first thing he notices. The second thing is that, back here, the shelves are full of books with titles like Faggots, and covers featuring guys with their dicks out. One in particular catches his eye, a shadowed picture of someone with leaning against a brick wall with his dick in his hand, and he stops and stares at it until he hears Jay snort. When he looks over, Jay's grinning at him. "See something you like?"
Finn can feel himself go red. "Fuck off," he says, smiling, and lets Jay keep towing him along. They make it to the end of the row, which opens up onto an area that looks almost like a little living room - there's the couch the cashier mentioned, and a table with a coffee urn and paper cups, and a little pile of napkins. The shelf across from the couch is as overstuffed as the rest of them, but this one is more colourful than the ones they just passed. Finn grabs a book at random and tugs until it slides free from the pile. Jay, who'd been standing on his toes to try and see the top shelf, rocks back onto the balls of his feet and hooks his chin over Finn's shoulder. "What's that?"
Finn flips it over. The cover is a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge, bright red with the blue ocean spread out underneath, and the words GAY ACROSS AMERICA stamped on the bottom. "Travel book, I think. Hey, didn't you say you went to San Francisco?"
"When I was, like, fourteen, yeah." Jay peers over his shoulder and taps his finger on the cover. "We went there. Saw some seals."
Finn flips the book open. It falls open to a spread of gingerbread-style houses, all painted in varying shades of green, orange, and yellow. The caption reads, PAINTED LADIES. The whole front section of the book seems to be just San Francisco. "Show me? Where you went?"
Jay's still holding his hand - hasn't dropped it since they came in, even as both their palms grow sweaty - so it's easy for Finn to tug him over to the couch and settle in next to him. The cushions are saggy, but not in a bad way: more like a childhood couch that's been sat on and slept on and jumped on so much, it's lost any semblance of structure. Finn pulls his hand free so that he can open the book up and spread it across both their laps. Jay follows his lead, thumbing the pages and leaning his head against Finn's as he murmurs, "we stopped here - my stepdad's a fuckin' history nerd, so we had to go see all the old houses. And Mom's really into gardening, so she took us to the flower conservatory. Took a boat out to Alcatraz and saw the jail. Oh, here -" He taps one of the pictures, a rainbow mural. "That's Haight-Ashbury, where the hippies used to hang out back in the sixties. It's all painted like this."
Finn's enjoying the feeling of Jay's voice rumbling through him as much as he is the stories about San Francisco, and he'd be happy to just sit there and let him talk until they run out of pages. But he stirs himself enough to ask, "did you like it?"
"Mmm." Jay looks thoughtful. It's a look Finn's come to recognize - mouth tilted on one side, eyelids at half-mast. "I liked parts of it. Alcatraz was pretty cool, and the gardens. My brother tried to shove me into the bay, that part sucked." Finn nudges against him, companionable, and he nudges back. "There's other stuff I wanted to do, but no one else was into it. Like the Castro - that's where all the gay bars are."
"Where you got carded," Finn murmurs, and Jay elbows him with a snort. "Yeah, that. But they've got other stuff, too. Fairs and streetcars and movie theatres and stuff. And bookstores." He nudges Finn again. "We should go."
"To San Francisco?" Finn looks at him, eyebrows raised. "You think your truck could handle the mileage?"
"I didn't mean right now," Jay says, and Finn laughs a little. "But, like. This summer, maybe. We can save up for it. If you want."
Finn looks back down at the book in his lap. The page they're on has a black and white photo of two guys sitting on a stoop, kissing. It has to be at least ten years old. If that's what the city looked like then - if you could just do that back then - what could you do there now? Walk down any street holding hands, instead of ducking inside the bookstore like you're trying to get away with something? They could blend in, in a place like that. Do whatever they wanted, act however they liked, and no one would say a word about it. His chest tightens at the thought.
"Ahem."
The sound sends Finn and Jay scrambling apart. The guy from the front - the cashier - is standing in front of them, one eyebrow raised. Finn fights down panic. "We were, uh. Just."
The guy rolls his eyes. "Hey, don't let me stop you. Just keep your hands where I can see them, yeah? You want anything below the waist, you go to Harrigan's." Finn looks at Jay, who mouths, "gay bar," at him. The guy rolls his eyes again, walks past them to the bathroom and calls over his shoulder, "And don't try re-shelving that when you're done, just leave it at the counter and I'll put it away." The bathroom door shuts behind him with a dull thump, and they're alone again.
Finn looks at Jay and Jay looks back, and they both dissolve into giggles almost simultaneously. Finn leans back against him, careful to keep both his hands sitting on top of the book - no point getting kicked out, once the cashier comes out of the bathroom. He waits until both of them have wound down, then says, "How much gas money would we need to get us there, do you think?"
"Jesus, I don't know." Jay rubs his nose. "But we've got, like, six months to figure it out. If - I mean, you wanna go? For real?" His voice goes soft. Uncertain, maybe.
Finn looks back at the book in his lap, then up at Jay. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I do." He grins. "You can show me the seals."
"Can't believe you only want me for my seals," Jay says gravely, and they both burst out laughing again. Finn leans in close, letting the tremors run through them both. San Francisco's warm, he thinks. All year round, it's warm. And they can go in the summer, when it'll be bright and sunny all the time. Shake the dust of Colorado off their shoes and put their feet in the ocean, wash themselves clean and new. See what they can be, who they can be. It's six months away, and already he can almost taste it. It tastes like something he can't describe. Like hope, maybe.
