Sophinisba Solis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophinisba) wrote2007-06-05 06:55 pm
sophinisba) wrote2007-06-05 06:55 pm
Homecoming part 4
I really think I might be able to finish this fic! I think it would only take 6 or 7 chapters total. All parts are tagged.
Title: Homecoming (4/?)
Fandom: The Faculty
Pairing: Casey/Zeke
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2916
Summary: Casey and Zeke go back to Herrington for their five year high school reunion.
Notes: Story concept from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
layne67
The waitress at the Perkins at the edge of town and the beginning of the highway (driving out here gave Zeke the urge to keep going, drive back to Cincinnati and hop on the first plane out) is attentive but not intrusive. She comes by to refill their coffee every five minutes or so, which Zeke thinks is probably not the best thing for his nerves right now, but he doesn't stop her.
Casey drinks slowly and his coffee is half cream and a quarter sugar. Zeke's is black and bitter, a satisfying burn in his stomach.
"If the aliens lived on coffee and not water," Casey says when the waitress is out of earshot, "I'd be suspicious. I'd be hiding under the table, actually."
"If they lived on coffee you wouldn't be able to beat them with caffeine, so you might as well surrender," Zeke agrees.
He hasn't slept well. Casey fell asleep a few minutes after he came in Zeke's mouth (in Zeke's bed, since in the end Zeke decided to leave his mom's stuff alone in its clear plastic the way she'd left his) and Zeke, who was used to Casey fading this fast, didn't mind. He'd already had his and he ought to be feeling just as sated and sleepy, but instead he was just as tense as he'd felt in the bar. Only now there was no ambient noise, no food or drink to distract him, no enemy to blame or lash out against. Just the beautiful creature Zeke was lucky enough to touch and tease and talk to whenever he wanted, just this boy sleeping naked underneath the blankets. And Zeke tried to lie still so as not to disturb him, but in his mind he was impatient, pacing like a cat in a cage (and wouldn't Casey laugh if he said that out loud). Asking himself why in hell he'd agreed to this stupid idea, why he kept letting Casey tell him it would all work out fine.
When he did sleep he dreamed he was scaling a sheer sheet of ice, with sharp picks attached to his shoes and his gloves. He had safety gear and helmet and harness and the rope was supposed to be attached to some kind of pulley above, and his buddy down below to catch him if he fell, but instead there was just a rope and a heavy weight trying to drag him down. It was cold and he was sweating and if he fell that would be the end for both of them, four hundred feet (for some reason the number kept running through his mind) down and down, and below that nothing but solid frozen icy blue.
He woke up shivering but it was easy enough to make himself go still again. No way he was going to start being the one to wake up his boyfriend in the middle of the night needing to be coaxed and coddled back to sleep. And the fact that there was a bottle of clonazepam in Casey's bag was irrelevant. Zeke would be fine as soon as they got back home on Monday. After lying there for another half hour he got up and went to check his e-mail at the computer in his mom's study. Friday night and there was nothing new from work, so he started looking for websites about ice climbing, and finally ended up rereading conspiracy sites about the Herrington cover-up until morning, when Casey wandered in from the bedroom wiping sleep from his eyes and talking about pancakes.
"These don't taste nearly as good as they did in high school," Casey says now.
Zeke shrugs. "They were never all that great. It's a chain restaurant."
"Yeah, but it didn't feel like one back then."
"It didn't?"
"No. I mean, I knew it was. My mom and dad and I would sometimes stop at Perkins when we went on road trips when I was a kid, but this one was... I guess this is where I started going around the time I started having friends again. Stan and Stokely and Delilah and me used to come here. It was nice, you know? You could come in the middle of the night, and they never seemed to mind if we stayed for hours just drinking coffee refills."
"Just talking?"
"Yeah."
"Had a lot to talk about with Delilah Profitt, did you?"
"Yeah." Casey mushes together strawberries and whipped cream. "You know, your jealous boyfriend routine is a lot more endearing when it's not directed at people I actually care about."
"I'm sorry," Zeke says immediately. He eats more bacon and the way the grease mixes with the coffee in his back of his throat is getting pretty fucking disgusting, but that's probably how it should be. "I'm sorry she's not coming. It would've been cool to see her and Stokes again. I just never really understood, you know..."
"Why she went out with me?"
"No, why you went out with her, how you could even stand to be with her, after all that shit she pulled before."
Casey laughs. "Hey, I forgave you, didn't I?"
Zeke smiles in acknowledgement, can't quite laugh at that one.
"Nah, Delilah..." Casey continues slowly, thinking. "You know, she always had one face for the rest of the school, and when she was alone with me she was like a completely different person. And both of those personalities, um, I got along with both of them. It was what we needed then."
"Public relations?"
"Well, yeah. You can rag on her for that, but it's what she's good at, right? And it wasn't a bad thing for me either, after everything that happened. If we'd handled it differently I would've been the freak, worse off than I was before, even. But it was the way she talked about it and the way she stayed with me afterwards that kept the rest of the school from getting down on me, or saying it was all something I made up."
"Or imagined when you were high."
"Right. But if Delilah said she saw the same thing, and if she put in the school paper I was the one who stopped it, and if she meant it so sincerely that she was willing to kiss me in public – "
"That's what I don't get though, it wasn't ever sincere."
"Sure it was."
"Casey."
"It was. We really liked each other."
"And the kissing was..."
"Sincere. Yeah, it was. Okay, so we figured out pretty quickly that it wasn't, you know, burning passion or anything..."
"But you kept kissing each other in public because that was what looked good."
"And because Delilah didn't like being alone and neither did I. And because my parents liked it when I had her over. And because she liked having a place to get away from her mom and her mom's boyfriend. Seriously, there wasn't a lot I had to forgive her for. She treated Stan and Stokely worse than she ever treated me."
"And you forgave her for that."
"She apologized, and they forgave her too. We all said and did some pretty stupid things back then. We grow up. We get over it."
Stokely didn't get over any of it, Zeke thinks, but he's not going to bring that up when the atmosphere is this tense already. He finishes his food.
"I'm glad you did," he says, "get over it. I'm glad you came to New York and tracked me down, even after I hadn't been in touch all that time."
"Yeah," says Casey, "I should hope you'd be grateful."
When they get back there's a message from Casey's mom on the answering machine. Her voice is polite, cautious, the message possibly rehearsed, although it falls apart pretty quickly.
"Hello, this is a message for Casey Connor. Stan's mother called me, she said Stan saw you last night and they thought you might be staying there. I hope I'm not... Casey, we didn't know you were coming home. It would be really good to see you again. Give us a call, okay? The number's the same. Love you."
The love you is quiet and quick, almost embarrassed sounding, and then it clicks off.
At first they both just stand there, staring at the phone.
"So," says Zeke.
"I should probably have been expecting that," says Casey.
"She's well connected, your mom."
"Yeah, and there were a lot of people there last night."
"You erased their number from your cell phone after that Christmas."
"Yeah, I guess I could pretend I blocked it from my memory around that time too."
"That's plausible, I guess."
Casey nods too quickly, uncertain. "Trauma, you know. I mean, yeah, it would mean I'd blocked out the memory of pretty much my whole childhood, but..."
"Trauma, yeah." Zeke pauses. "Do you want to see them, Casey?"
"I don't... I don't get why I'm feeling guilty about this suddenly. I know I don't want to see him. I don't really want to see her either except, you know, I know she wants to see me. So. I should probably call her."
"Only if you want to."
"Well, yeah." They're grown-ups, Casey doesn't have to add, obviously he won't do anything he doesn't want to do. "But I... It's not like I can say we'll just do it next week if I'm not in the mood today. I should take advantage of the time I'm here."
"Unless you wanted to take advantage to go sit by the mill pond or walk out by the caves, or all the other stuff we didn't do together back when we lived here."
Casey smiles. "But no pressure or anything, right?"
"From me, no. Just. For me seeing all those guys last night is enough Herrington socializing to last me for another five years. I want some more alone time or some alone-with-Casey time if I'm gonna get through the reunion tonight. But if you want to take on homophobic parents too – "
"They're not," Casey says, "you shouldn't say that."
Zeke just looks at him.
"They're not," he insists. "Seriously, they're just. They reacted badly at first and I didn't feel like dealing at the time. But they've had some time to think about things, and I've had some time..."
"How 'bout I call them?" Zeke grabs the phone.
"Zeke."
"No, I think that takes care of things. If they're not willing to talk to me then we know they're not – "
"Just let me handle this, okay? You need your alone time anyway." Zeke hadn't thought that sounded as stupid when he said it as when Casey repeated it in an angrier voice.
"That's not what I meant. I'm not letting you face them alone again."
Casey glares at him. "I'm not helpless without you, you know."
Zeke stops himself from shouting back. "Of course you're not," he says quietly.
"And my parents aren't monsters, so just... Give me the phone okay? And go... take a nap or something."
Zeke hadn't realized he was clutching at the phone. He holds out his hand, long loose arm across the distance between them. Casey takes it to Zeke's bedroom and closes the door.
And it's fine, all of it. She comes to pick him up. Casey can call Zeke on his cell if he needs anything. Zeke never manages to sleep during the day, so he goes for a walk by the mill pond. The white geese are just as hostile as when he was a kid, and it doesn't seem to make any difference how much taller he's gotten. They're just as good as football players or NYU students at letting him know he's out of place. They actually chase him off the path with their honking and stalking, which is not a good feeling for Zeke, especially with little kids watching. Stupid. And, paddleboats or not, wouldn't have been a very romantic scene if he'd convinced Casey to come along.
At least Casey wouldn't have been intimidated by a pack of fucking geese. Or maybe he would have, would've changed his path, gone to walk somewhere else, but he wouldn't have minded it, that's the difference. Casey's good at keeping his cool. When they were in college Casey would work on his papers and assignments steadily throughout the semester, and then during the last week he'd bring Zeke tea before going to bed, letting Zeke stress through the all-nighters on his own. He's the same way with the job he has at the paper now – he doesn't like every assignment he gets, and he's not satisfied with everything he writes, but he goes ahead and does it. Casey talks to strangers. He does yoga. He has lunch with him mom for the first time in almost three years and acts like it's a mild inconvenience but better than waiting another five. And Zeke, when he stops and thinks about it, knows that Casey's right.
He's quiet at first when she drops him off back at Zeke's place.
"How's Mrs. Connor?" Zeke asks.
"She's... fine." He sits on the living room couch (Zeke's taken the plastic off again) and doesn't bounce. Zeke sits down at the other end with his feet on the cushion, facing him but not touching. "She says family's family."
"Huh."
Casey wrings his hands. It's his way of resisting biting his nails so Zeke doesn't interfere. "You know, the last time..."
"Yeah?" Zeke sure as hell knows what time he's talking about.
"It's not like they threw me out on the street or anything."
"Right."
"They didn't even yell. They were just kind of..."
"Disappointed?"
"No. Well, a little bit, but more just concerned."
"Uh huh."
"Which is normal. I mean, any parent would be. Or, I mean..."
"I know what you mean." Casey has these moments every once in a while when he realizes he's taken having parents that care about him for granted. He's been facing forward and talking to the empty room but now he looks apologetically at Zeke. Zeke wishes he would stop worrying about it, but it's nice to have him looking at him. "So how did she seem today? Disappointed? Concerned?" Zeke thinks any parent who raised Casey ought to be bursting with pride just about all the time.
"Concerned, I guess. Nervous. But nice. She was trying really hard."
"Okay."
"So. And they want to try again. She invited us to come back for Christmas."
"Us?"
"Yeah."
Zeke's annoyed, but he's not gonna snap. He's pushed enough already today, doesn't need to add any more pressure to what Casey's dealing with. "What did you say?"
"That we've got plans already."
Zeke smiles. "Sounds like a good answer to me." When Casey doesn't react he adds, "If you wanted we could always come to Herrington and stay here, or at the hotel if my folks happen to be around. Just see the parents at whatever limited hours we want."
Casey shakes his head. "No," he says, "not Christmas. Not this year anyway. My mom said she'd like to come see us in New York sometime though. You know, just a meal or two, and maybe stop by to see the apartment." He pauses, moves a little closer to where Zeke's sitting. "Would that be okay with you?"
"Yeah, man, of course." And since he can he moves closer again, sits next to Casey and starts combing his fingers through his hair. Casey leans into it, relaxes against Zeke's shoulder. They stay like that for a while, and Zeke thinks of their "plans" for next Christmas, which are to repeat the last two years: stay at home at their apartment, watch movies, drink, make love, and fall asleep on the couch.
"Nice idea you had," Zeke says, "coming back to Herrington. I'm glad we did it. You weren't expecting this thing with your mom, but it worked out okay, right?"
"Yeah," says Casey.
"And we got to hang out at my house. Have sex in my old bed. You drank at Sally's and you talked to all those guys and got to watch them deal with the fact that we're together."
Casey starts moving as he listens, climbing on top of him as Zeke moves to accommodate him, lies back with his head on the arm of the sofa. "Yeah," Casey agrees, "that was fun. All of that." He keeps moving, balancing his weight on arms and legs and Zeke and the furniture. Pressing against him in other places too, and Casey fits perfectly there.
"So, not that I'm trying to weasel out of anything..." says Zeke, holding on to him.
"Which I wouldn't let you do anyway..."
"But what if we just said 'Mission accomplished' to the whole thing? There's no real point in going to the reunion itself, is there?" He's mostly joking, but the idea of sticking around here seems more and more appealing as Casey keeps shifting on top of him. "We could just stay in and" – keep pushing, he thinks – "hang out."
Casey with his strong arms, Casey with his tight jeans, Casey with his pretty little smirk is all Zeke can or wants to look at. He lets his head fall back, lets Casey kiss him long and deep. When it's over Casey's face hovers inches above him, looking into his eyes. "Zeke?" he says, speaking slowly and clearly and with great affection.
"Yeah?"
"No fucking way."
next part | series tag | fic index
Title: Homecoming (4/?)
Fandom: The Faculty
Pairing: Casey/Zeke
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2916
Summary: Casey and Zeke go back to Herrington for their five year high school reunion.
Notes: Story concept from
layne67 The waitress at the Perkins at the edge of town and the beginning of the highway (driving out here gave Zeke the urge to keep going, drive back to Cincinnati and hop on the first plane out) is attentive but not intrusive. She comes by to refill their coffee every five minutes or so, which Zeke thinks is probably not the best thing for his nerves right now, but he doesn't stop her.
Casey drinks slowly and his coffee is half cream and a quarter sugar. Zeke's is black and bitter, a satisfying burn in his stomach.
"If the aliens lived on coffee and not water," Casey says when the waitress is out of earshot, "I'd be suspicious. I'd be hiding under the table, actually."
"If they lived on coffee you wouldn't be able to beat them with caffeine, so you might as well surrender," Zeke agrees.
He hasn't slept well. Casey fell asleep a few minutes after he came in Zeke's mouth (in Zeke's bed, since in the end Zeke decided to leave his mom's stuff alone in its clear plastic the way she'd left his) and Zeke, who was used to Casey fading this fast, didn't mind. He'd already had his and he ought to be feeling just as sated and sleepy, but instead he was just as tense as he'd felt in the bar. Only now there was no ambient noise, no food or drink to distract him, no enemy to blame or lash out against. Just the beautiful creature Zeke was lucky enough to touch and tease and talk to whenever he wanted, just this boy sleeping naked underneath the blankets. And Zeke tried to lie still so as not to disturb him, but in his mind he was impatient, pacing like a cat in a cage (and wouldn't Casey laugh if he said that out loud). Asking himself why in hell he'd agreed to this stupid idea, why he kept letting Casey tell him it would all work out fine.
When he did sleep he dreamed he was scaling a sheer sheet of ice, with sharp picks attached to his shoes and his gloves. He had safety gear and helmet and harness and the rope was supposed to be attached to some kind of pulley above, and his buddy down below to catch him if he fell, but instead there was just a rope and a heavy weight trying to drag him down. It was cold and he was sweating and if he fell that would be the end for both of them, four hundred feet (for some reason the number kept running through his mind) down and down, and below that nothing but solid frozen icy blue.
He woke up shivering but it was easy enough to make himself go still again. No way he was going to start being the one to wake up his boyfriend in the middle of the night needing to be coaxed and coddled back to sleep. And the fact that there was a bottle of clonazepam in Casey's bag was irrelevant. Zeke would be fine as soon as they got back home on Monday. After lying there for another half hour he got up and went to check his e-mail at the computer in his mom's study. Friday night and there was nothing new from work, so he started looking for websites about ice climbing, and finally ended up rereading conspiracy sites about the Herrington cover-up until morning, when Casey wandered in from the bedroom wiping sleep from his eyes and talking about pancakes.
"These don't taste nearly as good as they did in high school," Casey says now.
Zeke shrugs. "They were never all that great. It's a chain restaurant."
"Yeah, but it didn't feel like one back then."
"It didn't?"
"No. I mean, I knew it was. My mom and dad and I would sometimes stop at Perkins when we went on road trips when I was a kid, but this one was... I guess this is where I started going around the time I started having friends again. Stan and Stokely and Delilah and me used to come here. It was nice, you know? You could come in the middle of the night, and they never seemed to mind if we stayed for hours just drinking coffee refills."
"Just talking?"
"Yeah."
"Had a lot to talk about with Delilah Profitt, did you?"
"Yeah." Casey mushes together strawberries and whipped cream. "You know, your jealous boyfriend routine is a lot more endearing when it's not directed at people I actually care about."
"I'm sorry," Zeke says immediately. He eats more bacon and the way the grease mixes with the coffee in his back of his throat is getting pretty fucking disgusting, but that's probably how it should be. "I'm sorry she's not coming. It would've been cool to see her and Stokes again. I just never really understood, you know..."
"Why she went out with me?"
"No, why you went out with her, how you could even stand to be with her, after all that shit she pulled before."
Casey laughs. "Hey, I forgave you, didn't I?"
Zeke smiles in acknowledgement, can't quite laugh at that one.
"Nah, Delilah..." Casey continues slowly, thinking. "You know, she always had one face for the rest of the school, and when she was alone with me she was like a completely different person. And both of those personalities, um, I got along with both of them. It was what we needed then."
"Public relations?"
"Well, yeah. You can rag on her for that, but it's what she's good at, right? And it wasn't a bad thing for me either, after everything that happened. If we'd handled it differently I would've been the freak, worse off than I was before, even. But it was the way she talked about it and the way she stayed with me afterwards that kept the rest of the school from getting down on me, or saying it was all something I made up."
"Or imagined when you were high."
"Right. But if Delilah said she saw the same thing, and if she put in the school paper I was the one who stopped it, and if she meant it so sincerely that she was willing to kiss me in public – "
"That's what I don't get though, it wasn't ever sincere."
"Sure it was."
"Casey."
"It was. We really liked each other."
"And the kissing was..."
"Sincere. Yeah, it was. Okay, so we figured out pretty quickly that it wasn't, you know, burning passion or anything..."
"But you kept kissing each other in public because that was what looked good."
"And because Delilah didn't like being alone and neither did I. And because my parents liked it when I had her over. And because she liked having a place to get away from her mom and her mom's boyfriend. Seriously, there wasn't a lot I had to forgive her for. She treated Stan and Stokely worse than she ever treated me."
"And you forgave her for that."
"She apologized, and they forgave her too. We all said and did some pretty stupid things back then. We grow up. We get over it."
Stokely didn't get over any of it, Zeke thinks, but he's not going to bring that up when the atmosphere is this tense already. He finishes his food.
"I'm glad you did," he says, "get over it. I'm glad you came to New York and tracked me down, even after I hadn't been in touch all that time."
"Yeah," says Casey, "I should hope you'd be grateful."
When they get back there's a message from Casey's mom on the answering machine. Her voice is polite, cautious, the message possibly rehearsed, although it falls apart pretty quickly.
"Hello, this is a message for Casey Connor. Stan's mother called me, she said Stan saw you last night and they thought you might be staying there. I hope I'm not... Casey, we didn't know you were coming home. It would be really good to see you again. Give us a call, okay? The number's the same. Love you."
The love you is quiet and quick, almost embarrassed sounding, and then it clicks off.
At first they both just stand there, staring at the phone.
"So," says Zeke.
"I should probably have been expecting that," says Casey.
"She's well connected, your mom."
"Yeah, and there were a lot of people there last night."
"You erased their number from your cell phone after that Christmas."
"Yeah, I guess I could pretend I blocked it from my memory around that time too."
"That's plausible, I guess."
Casey nods too quickly, uncertain. "Trauma, you know. I mean, yeah, it would mean I'd blocked out the memory of pretty much my whole childhood, but..."
"Trauma, yeah." Zeke pauses. "Do you want to see them, Casey?"
"I don't... I don't get why I'm feeling guilty about this suddenly. I know I don't want to see him. I don't really want to see her either except, you know, I know she wants to see me. So. I should probably call her."
"Only if you want to."
"Well, yeah." They're grown-ups, Casey doesn't have to add, obviously he won't do anything he doesn't want to do. "But I... It's not like I can say we'll just do it next week if I'm not in the mood today. I should take advantage of the time I'm here."
"Unless you wanted to take advantage to go sit by the mill pond or walk out by the caves, or all the other stuff we didn't do together back when we lived here."
Casey smiles. "But no pressure or anything, right?"
"From me, no. Just. For me seeing all those guys last night is enough Herrington socializing to last me for another five years. I want some more alone time or some alone-with-Casey time if I'm gonna get through the reunion tonight. But if you want to take on homophobic parents too – "
"They're not," Casey says, "you shouldn't say that."
Zeke just looks at him.
"They're not," he insists. "Seriously, they're just. They reacted badly at first and I didn't feel like dealing at the time. But they've had some time to think about things, and I've had some time..."
"How 'bout I call them?" Zeke grabs the phone.
"Zeke."
"No, I think that takes care of things. If they're not willing to talk to me then we know they're not – "
"Just let me handle this, okay? You need your alone time anyway." Zeke hadn't thought that sounded as stupid when he said it as when Casey repeated it in an angrier voice.
"That's not what I meant. I'm not letting you face them alone again."
Casey glares at him. "I'm not helpless without you, you know."
Zeke stops himself from shouting back. "Of course you're not," he says quietly.
"And my parents aren't monsters, so just... Give me the phone okay? And go... take a nap or something."
Zeke hadn't realized he was clutching at the phone. He holds out his hand, long loose arm across the distance between them. Casey takes it to Zeke's bedroom and closes the door.
And it's fine, all of it. She comes to pick him up. Casey can call Zeke on his cell if he needs anything. Zeke never manages to sleep during the day, so he goes for a walk by the mill pond. The white geese are just as hostile as when he was a kid, and it doesn't seem to make any difference how much taller he's gotten. They're just as good as football players or NYU students at letting him know he's out of place. They actually chase him off the path with their honking and stalking, which is not a good feeling for Zeke, especially with little kids watching. Stupid. And, paddleboats or not, wouldn't have been a very romantic scene if he'd convinced Casey to come along.
At least Casey wouldn't have been intimidated by a pack of fucking geese. Or maybe he would have, would've changed his path, gone to walk somewhere else, but he wouldn't have minded it, that's the difference. Casey's good at keeping his cool. When they were in college Casey would work on his papers and assignments steadily throughout the semester, and then during the last week he'd bring Zeke tea before going to bed, letting Zeke stress through the all-nighters on his own. He's the same way with the job he has at the paper now – he doesn't like every assignment he gets, and he's not satisfied with everything he writes, but he goes ahead and does it. Casey talks to strangers. He does yoga. He has lunch with him mom for the first time in almost three years and acts like it's a mild inconvenience but better than waiting another five. And Zeke, when he stops and thinks about it, knows that Casey's right.
He's quiet at first when she drops him off back at Zeke's place.
"How's Mrs. Connor?" Zeke asks.
"She's... fine." He sits on the living room couch (Zeke's taken the plastic off again) and doesn't bounce. Zeke sits down at the other end with his feet on the cushion, facing him but not touching. "She says family's family."
"Huh."
Casey wrings his hands. It's his way of resisting biting his nails so Zeke doesn't interfere. "You know, the last time..."
"Yeah?" Zeke sure as hell knows what time he's talking about.
"It's not like they threw me out on the street or anything."
"Right."
"They didn't even yell. They were just kind of..."
"Disappointed?"
"No. Well, a little bit, but more just concerned."
"Uh huh."
"Which is normal. I mean, any parent would be. Or, I mean..."
"I know what you mean." Casey has these moments every once in a while when he realizes he's taken having parents that care about him for granted. He's been facing forward and talking to the empty room but now he looks apologetically at Zeke. Zeke wishes he would stop worrying about it, but it's nice to have him looking at him. "So how did she seem today? Disappointed? Concerned?" Zeke thinks any parent who raised Casey ought to be bursting with pride just about all the time.
"Concerned, I guess. Nervous. But nice. She was trying really hard."
"Okay."
"So. And they want to try again. She invited us to come back for Christmas."
"Us?"
"Yeah."
Zeke's annoyed, but he's not gonna snap. He's pushed enough already today, doesn't need to add any more pressure to what Casey's dealing with. "What did you say?"
"That we've got plans already."
Zeke smiles. "Sounds like a good answer to me." When Casey doesn't react he adds, "If you wanted we could always come to Herrington and stay here, or at the hotel if my folks happen to be around. Just see the parents at whatever limited hours we want."
Casey shakes his head. "No," he says, "not Christmas. Not this year anyway. My mom said she'd like to come see us in New York sometime though. You know, just a meal or two, and maybe stop by to see the apartment." He pauses, moves a little closer to where Zeke's sitting. "Would that be okay with you?"
"Yeah, man, of course." And since he can he moves closer again, sits next to Casey and starts combing his fingers through his hair. Casey leans into it, relaxes against Zeke's shoulder. They stay like that for a while, and Zeke thinks of their "plans" for next Christmas, which are to repeat the last two years: stay at home at their apartment, watch movies, drink, make love, and fall asleep on the couch.
"Nice idea you had," Zeke says, "coming back to Herrington. I'm glad we did it. You weren't expecting this thing with your mom, but it worked out okay, right?"
"Yeah," says Casey.
"And we got to hang out at my house. Have sex in my old bed. You drank at Sally's and you talked to all those guys and got to watch them deal with the fact that we're together."
Casey starts moving as he listens, climbing on top of him as Zeke moves to accommodate him, lies back with his head on the arm of the sofa. "Yeah," Casey agrees, "that was fun. All of that." He keeps moving, balancing his weight on arms and legs and Zeke and the furniture. Pressing against him in other places too, and Casey fits perfectly there.
"So, not that I'm trying to weasel out of anything..." says Zeke, holding on to him.
"Which I wouldn't let you do anyway..."
"But what if we just said 'Mission accomplished' to the whole thing? There's no real point in going to the reunion itself, is there?" He's mostly joking, but the idea of sticking around here seems more and more appealing as Casey keeps shifting on top of him. "We could just stay in and" – keep pushing, he thinks – "hang out."
Casey with his strong arms, Casey with his tight jeans, Casey with his pretty little smirk is all Zeke can or wants to look at. He lets his head fall back, lets Casey kiss him long and deep. When it's over Casey's face hovers inches above him, looking into his eyes. "Zeke?" he says, speaking slowly and clearly and with great affection.
"Yeah?"
"No fucking way."
next part | series tag | fic index