A/N: Oh yes I did!
It is the glare of the streetlight coming through the window that wakes Jay up, but it is the thought of a cigarette that keeps him up. He eases out of the bed quietly and slowly, careful not to wake Charles – who appears to be completely dead to the world – and pads out onto the balcony. The air is perhaps warmer outside than in, and Jay listens to the incessant song of the cicadas as he lights up a cigarette and takes a long drag. Whatever Charles says, the feel of that smoke going into his lungs feels so damn good, and how can something that feels so right be so wrong? Jay shrugs and looks up at the stars, trying to take in their magnificence but feeling as though the sky were a painting placed in front of him. Tomorrow is their last day of classes – Jay doesn't know what to feel. In front of him is the long stretch of summer, the baking afternoons, the trips to the beach, the fucking prawns and cold meat for Christmas lunch.
Jay finds himself apathetic to the fact that the first chapter of his life is coming to a close – he feels ready for the world, he wants to get the fuck out of here, see the world, do everything, live, for crying out loud. But…but there's his sister to think about, his parents, and how he'll miss them. The independence thing isn't a new one for Jay, but they've always been there for him, when it came down to it. Then…there is Charles. Charles who watches him with a thou-art-insignificant gaze, even when they're having sex. Jay drags a hand through his hair, irritated, and is confused for a second before remembering that he has chopped it all off. He misses it, terribly – what a stupid thing to happen. He would never forgive Metis for that.
As if on cue, Jay hears the balcony door slide open and Charles' light footsteps pad towards him. He feels familiar arms wrap around him, warm and comfortable, and Jay almost smiles, almost relaxes…Until a hand snakes up and grabs his cigarette.
"This?" Charles murmurs from behind him, holding up the cigarette in front of his face, "No." He crushes it on the railing and throws it over the balcony.
"Fuck, Charles," Jay says, watching it fall, "You're going to start a bushfire." Charles smirks into Jay's hair.
"Better than lung cancer, right?"
Jay frowns, annoyed, and pushes away from Charles to go back into the bedroom. He sits down on the bed and starts flipping through a magazine idly. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Charles still out on the balcony, leaning on the railing and looking maddeningly calm and condescending. After a while, Charles comes back inside and starts collecting his things.
"Where are you going?" Jay asks, confused.
"Home," Charles says shortly as he pulls on his t-shirt. Jay throws the magazine on the floor and stands up.
"What?" he asks, "Why?" Charles looks up at him, all-knowing expression that pisses Jay off so much firmly in place.
"You're pissed off at me," he states with a smirk, "I don't imagine you want me in your bed."
"Charles…" Jay starts, trying to grab Charles' arm, but he is too quick, wrenching it out of the way and opening the bedroom door.
"No, no, it's all my fault," Charles says, suddenly bitter, "I don't know what I was thinking, feeling worried for you. It must have slipped my mind that I wasn't allowed to feel anything for my…whatever you are."
Jay doesn't say anything – because really, there is nothing to say to that – so they stand in the doorway for a beat and listen as silence settles over them, heavy and oppressive. Then Charles practically snarls and barrels down the hallway and out the door. A few moments later, Jay hears a car start up and pull away. He plonks himself down on the bed and sighs, running a hand through his hair. The expression on Charles' face was almost expectant, but Jay has no idea what he should have said. He flips open his phone and sends Charles a text:
You're not my mother.
Then he flops back down onto the bed and tries to go to sleep, determinedly not thinking about the warm body that he had awoken to.
---
At school, Charles successfully manages to ignore Jay for the entire day. It's not until the final bell rings and the hallways are suddenly filled with exuberant and now free teenagers that Jay finds Charles leaning against his locker, smirk firmly in place.
"So," he says, having conveniently placed himself so that Jay can't open his locker, "Want to take me and Metis to the party tonight? I don't really feel like driving." Jay stares at him for a few moments, before shrugging internally and figuring that this must be Charles' idea of a peace offering.
"Sure, I'll drive," he says, shoving Charles aside so that he can empty his locker. Charles watches him for a while until Jay starts to feel uncomfortable.
"Well, I'll go and tell May, then," Charles says suddenly, pushing off the lockers and merging into the sea of people in the hallway. Jay just blinks, shrugs, and walks to his car – he has never been one for confrontations, and if Charles wants to act like nothing has happened then Jay will go along with his whims. He's a doormat like that, but he knows it and admits to it, so it's all fine, really.
As he drives home, Jay puts all the windows down and turns the radio up loud – he can feel the wind on his face and the afternoon sun is fucking sweltering, and it's all so damn great that he can't help but smile. His mum hugs him when he gets home and congratulates him for finishing. His little sister just flips him off when he goes into her room, but he can see her smile in the reflection of the mirror, so that's all right too.
Jay picks Metis up first, which means Josh as well, and he is simultaneously horrified and thankful when the two of them get into the back of the car.
"So, I'm a fucking taxi driver now?" he murmurs, looking at Metis in the rear-view mirror. Metis just beams back, and leans his head on Josh's shoulder.
"I just figured Charles would want to sit there," Metis says with that stupid innocent expression on his face. Jay doesn't say anything to that, and he catches Josh whispering, "what's up with them anyway?" softly into Metis's ear.
Charles is sitting on the pavement outside his house when Jay pulls up. He sends Jay an unreadable look as he slides into the front seat, before turning back to the front and stretching out theatrically.
"Who's ready for a night of fun?" Charles asks. Metis makes encouraging noises from the back, but Jay just snorts. Charles looks at him incredulously. "Seriously," he says, "As of tonight, my friends, we are free men. This is the beginning of the rest of our lives."
"And so we celebrate by doing the exact same thing we've done for years?" Jay asks sarcastically, feeling absurdly proud of himself when he hears Josh chuckle quietly behind him. Charles just tuts at Jay disapprovingly and turns to look out the window, the revolution of the night lights sliding down his neck one by one. If Jay wasn't driving, he would be masturbating. Or kissing Charles.
…whatever.
The party is everything Jay expects it to be – that is, mountains of drunk teenagers with newly attained freedom under their removable belts. The music is too loud – is that MCR, for crying out loud? – the girls are out on a fucking mission (or a mission of fucking) and the booze is in steady flow. Jay looses sight of the other three as soon as they step inside, so he just sighs, grabs a beer, and sits himself down on a couch. He watches no less than 12 hook-ups, 7 something-more-is-going-down-tonights, and 3 this-really-should-be-happening-in-privates. Eric and Sam come by at some point and start talking about Xenu or something, but they leave again when they realise that they would much rather have their tongues down each other's throats than be talking with Jay.
Charles reappears at about 11:30, with a shit-eating grin on his face and a wild look in his eye. Jay allows himself to be yanked into the bathroom, where Charles locks the door, turns out the lights, and shoves Jay into the bath, fully clothed. Charles proceeds to ravish him mercilessly, and it's not until after Charles has finished going down on him that he is able to pant out an apology for the night before.
"What?' Charles hisses, pulling away from Jay abruptly.
"I'm sorry," Jay says helplessly, unsure why he is even apologising in the first place, "for…I don't know, actually. I'm sorry you didn't stay in my bed." Charles is silent for a beat, two, and Jay can only imagine his expression in the moonlight. Then –
"You've just killed my boner, did you know that?"
Jay can't help it: he lets out a massive guffaw and is infinitely relieved when Charles joins in, even though it's probably only because he's drunk. Charles leans back in the tub so that his eyes glisten eerily in the half-light.
"You want me to get it back again?" Jay asks after a while, more confused than anything else and unsure of what else to say. He sees Charles' eyes flick to meet his, and he hears a low chuckle, but then Charles is up and out of the tub and opening the door.
"Other fish to fry, and all that," Charles says, and then he's gone, leaving behind him the ghost of lips and a waft of bitterness. Jay just sighs, contemplates life for a while, and then decides he's too drunk to go home, so he falls asleep in the bathtub.
---
Jay wakes up to a foul taste in his mouth and a sharp pain that goes all the way from his tailbone to his head. A snore from behind him makes him turn around, and he sees some girl he vaguely knows lying facedown on the floor next to the toilet, looking for all the world that she passed out and then fell off. He chuckles, but only briefly, because her skirt is around her waist and her underwear around her ankles and he's not the kind of guy that enjoys other people's embarrassment. Not like Charles.
Jay frowns slightly and throws a towel over the girl; to protect whatever dignity she may or may not have left. Then he brushes his teeth using someone else's toothbrush and uses someone else's deodorant and sets off to find his car, hoping with all his might that it's still in the same state he left it in last night. He is somewhat surprised when he finds two prone forms in his backseat – after a bit of prodding, Jay discovers that it's Metis and Josh. Josh blinks up at him blearily, while Metis does not stir at all, and Jay informs him that he's going to take them home. Josh makes some noise of assent before flopping back down next to Metis.
After kicking Josh and Metis out of the car, Jay drives home and flops down on his bed with the intent of reclaiming his lost night of sleep.
---
Jay awakes to see someone rummaging around in his cupboard.
"What the fuck?" he mumbles, and tries to restrain a groan when he sees Charles' stupid face emerge from his sock drawer.
"Oh good, you're awake," Charles says, throwing something onto the floor behind him where he has created a pile of…oh, my god.
"Charles," Jay says, sitting up and rubbing his eyes, "They're my emergency ones. You know, for emergencies."
"Shut up," Charles says, not unkindly. He does not, however, stop looking through Jay's cupboards. After watching him for a while, Jay flops back down on the bed and pulls the covers over his head.
'Whatever," he says, "I'm too hung over for this." He hears Charles chuckle quietly, and listens to him move around the room. He almost squeals in surprise when the bed dips suddenly and Charles slides under the covers, cold hands and feet thrown languidly over Jay's.
"Umm…" Jay begins, but is cut off by another non-venomous "shut up". So he does. And they lay there for a while, in bed. Jay falls asleep easily with Charles' warmth next to him without really meaning to, that steady breath on his neck almost hypnotising. When he wakes up once more, it's early afternoon and Charles is gone. So are his cigarettes.
'Fuck!"
---
Later that evening, Jay finds himself sitting on his balcony, at a loss of what to do. He hasn't been able to concentrate on anything all afternoon, his thoughts revolving around Charles and his stupid, pretty face. Jay sighs, and goes to light up his last cigarette before pausing, sighing once more, and throwing it off the balcony. The trouble was he never knew what to do when it came to Charles – he never has. Charles is one big mystery in Jay's mind, and Jay is wary of showing any sort of emotion in case it's thrown back in his face as soon as Charles gets bored of him.
After a few moments of deliberation, he goes into his room and picks up his keys, calling out something vague to his mother as he walks past. Jay only realises its raining when he gets into the car and has to turn on the windscreen wipers – it's that sort of light mist type of rain that looks more like snow than anything else. It makes everything become layered in a sort of fine, web-like sheen of droplets.
When Charles opens the door, he looks a little surprised to see Jay. He looks like he was just about to go to bed, dark rings around his eyes that Jay had missed that morning. He gives Jay a questioning look, his left eyebrow communicating effectively the "what the fuck are you doing here?" aura.
"Metis was busy?" Jay offers lamely, the lie spilling out of his lips before he really thinks about it. Charles' eyebrow stays where it is, but Charles himself turns around and walks back into the house, leaving the door open. Jay assumes he has been accepted, so he closes the door and follows.
"I was about to go to bed, you know," Charles says when Jay enters his room, watching Jay with an unreadable expression.
"Sorry," Jay replies, going straight for Charles' bed and making himself comfortable. Charles turns back to his computer and they sit in silence for a while, Charles typing away at something.
"What did you do with all my cigarettes?" Jay asks, more curious than angry. He is surprised, although really he should have seen it coming, when Charles' body stiffens and he whips his head around.
"Is that why you came over?" Charles spits, "For your fucking cigarettes?" Jay curses his big, stupid mouth internally.
"No, I –"
"I smoked them all," Charles interrupts, getting up from the chair and coming to stand at the end of the bed. Jay feels his mouth fall open in surprise.
"What?" he yelps, "Really?"
"Of course I didn't, Jay, don't be stupid," Charles says, rolling his eyes, "I threw them in the trash."
"Oh," Jay says, almost sagging with relief. Charles is still watching him irritably.
"You can go, then," he says tonelessly, pointing to the door, "Now you know what I've done with your precious cigarettes, there's no need to stay."
Which makes Jay absolutely furious, all the emotions and bloody angst from the past few days coiling almost painfully in his stomach.
"Why are you so fucking stupid, Charles?" he demands, positively gleeful when he sees the shocked expression on Charles' face, "Why do you have to make everything a fucking test? Can't I just come over to your house because I want to see you?"
"No, Jay, you can't!" Charles says bitterly, turning away from the bed and from Jay and from all the fucked up emotions that govern their 'relationship', "Of course you can't. Now get out; I'm tired."
Jay stares at the back of Charles' head for a few moments, before crossing his arms angrily.
"No," he says, "I won't."
"What do you mean you won't?" Charles spits, whirling around to look at Jay once more. Jay shrugs, seemingly unconcerned.
"I'm not leaving," he says, slowly taking off his shoes and socks, "I'm staying here tonight."
"No you're not," Charles says bluntly, "I told you to get out."
"Nah," Jay replies, taking off his shirt and jeans before climbing into bed in his boxers. If he couldn't have Charles by choice then he'd damn well have him by force. Jay smirks internally at the look on Charles' face – he could never have foreseen this coming, especially from Jay, and so now he has no idea what to do.
"Jay…" Charles says uncertainly, looking to the door and then to the bed and then back again, causing Jay to sigh loudly and jump out of bed.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, Charles," Jay says, grabbing a rather surprised Charles and ripping his shirt off him, "Just come to bed."
Surprisingly, Charles allows himself to be stripped and pulled into bed, but when he lies down next to Jay it's with none of the affection that had been present earlier that day. He rolls over so his back is facing Jay, and there is an unmistakable aura of malice wafting off of him. And instead of backing down, instead of being the doormat, Jay shifts so that he can through an arm over Charles' stomach with ease, his legs intertwining comfortably with the other blonde's.
"Jay, what are you –" Charles begins, but Jay cuts him off with an infinitely smug "shut up", giving Charles a taste of his own medicine. After a while, Charles' breathing evens and he relaxes under Jay's embrace, shifting closer to Jay's body. Jay smiles softly into Charles' thick hair, and he falls asleep soon after, pleased to have won at least one battle with Charles.
---
Jay awakes to a mouth on his cock.
"What the fuck?" he yelps, sitting up abruptly, before remembering where he was. And with whom.
Charles looks up at him languidly from between Jay's legs, an eyebrow raised.
"May I continue?" Charles asks, oddly smug. Then again, he's always smug when he's going down on someone. What's the expression? On your knees, but in total control. Jay used to mistake it for affection.
"Umm," Jay replies, but it is quickly cut off when Charles' talented tongue continues its efforts on his dick. When he has successfully brought Jay off, Charles gets out of bed, leaving Jay to doze contentedly for a while. By the time Charles comes back, he is fully dressed and looking at Jay expectantly.
"I'm going out," Charles states as he pulls the covers off the bed. Jay rolls over in return, burying his head further into the cocoon of pillows.
"Thanks, I was hot anyway," Jay mumbles, smirking internally when he hears Charles' snarl. The blankets settle back over his legs.
"I'm going out," Charles continues, "ergo, you must leave."
Jay ignores him. After a few minutes, Jay hears Charles sigh melodramatically.
"Fine," he says, "But you'd better be gone by the time I get back." And with that, Charles sweeps out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Jay is not gone when Charles returns, much to Charles' chagrin. Instead, he is sitting at the computer, eating a sandwich that Charles' mother made him, and watching a movie. He doesn't even turn around when Charles bursts into the room.
"What are you still doing here?" Charles demands, throwing a paper bag onto the bed, "Don't you have cigarettes to be smoking somewhere?" Jay turns himself on the chair using his foot so that he is facing Charles.
"I quit," he says, before turning the chair back to the screen. He hears Charles inhale sharply and longs to turn around to see his expression, but appearances are everything here.
"Cat got your tongue?" Jay asks when Charles makes no reply. Charles sends him a dirty, glowering look from his position on the bed.
"You'll just start up again when the cravings get too bad," he scoffs, pulling out a book from the bag and settling back to start reading it.
"Oh, ye of little faith," Jay chastises, getting up form the chair and longing on the bed at Charles' feet, "I'm quitting. Permanently." Charles looks up from the book when he hears the sincerity in Jay's voice.
"I figure all the things you said about it were right," Jay continues, sliding up the bed so that he's lying next to Charles, "Cigarettes are bad for me." Charles is watching Jay suspiciously, as if he doesn't believe that Jay will really do it this time.
"Trust you to only realise cigarettes are bad for you now," Charles sneers, returning to his book with a sniff. Jay waits patiently, but nothing else comes.
"That's it?' he asks incredulously, pulling Charles' book out of his hands and throwing it onto the floor, "No thank yous, or I'm proud of yous?"
'God, what do you want, Jay? A fucking trophy?"
Jay mutters under his breath and sits up so that he can straddle the other, poking him in the chest violently.
"Yeah," Jay says, "That's exactly what I want." Charles just sneers again and looks away.
"I quit for you, you know," Jay insists, "But now I'm not so sure I should've. You obviously don't give a shit." Charles turns back to face Jay so fast it's a wonder he didn't get whiplash.
"Now who's being stupid?" Charles mocks, managing to look simultaneously hurt and superior, "If I really didn't care, why do you think I would've gone on about it for all this time? Do you think I enjoy sounding like a broken record?" There is a pause as Jay processes what Charles just said. Then –
"Did you just say you cared for me?"
The look on Charles' face will stay with Jay for many years to come: dropped jaw, slack mouth and blushing cheeks. He mumbles something indistinct, looking intently at the ceiling.
"Oh my god, I don't believe it," Jay says gleefully, "You did! You actually admitted to having feelings! For someone other than Metis! Metis won't believe this when I – mmphf!"
Jay is cut off by Charles' lips crashing down on his rather painfully. Charles kisses him hard, probably the only course of action he could think of to shut Jay up.
"Ow," Jay says when Charles pulls away, looking accusatorily down at Charles' smirking face. "Oh no – if anyone is on the moral high ground here, it's me. Don't think this is going to go away quickly and quietly."
Charles grimaces slightly, then looks up at Jay from under smoky eyelashes.
"If you promise never to breath a word about this to anyone," Charles murmurs in a low voice, hands running up and down Jay's thighs lightly, "Then the next five times we have sex, I will do anything you want."
Jay opens his mouth a couple of times like a fish, finally managing to blurt out "anything?" in a shaky voice. He is thinking about his fantasy involving a pool table and several blow-up dolls.
"Anything," Charles confirms, smiling a beautiful, wholly too-innocent-to-be-Charles smile, as he brings their lips together again. Jay kisses back enthusiastically, thinking of all the new possibilities that have suddenly been made available to him, but cannot shake the distinct feeling that he has been played.
---
A week later finds Jay at Metis' house, where he is having a get together. Metis has always been one for breaking boundaries, and thus, Charles is being forced to mix with both scene kids and jock kids. Jay watches amusedly from the couch as Charles asks loudly to have another hotel added to Mayfair, prompting an incredulous look from Josh.
"Where are you getting all this money from?" Josh squawks. Sarah tries hard to stifle a giggle, and Eric kindly decides to inform him.
"He's been stealing from you ever since we started playing, Josh," Eric says, earning a glare from Charles.
"Gee, thanks a lot, Eric," Charles mutters sarcastically, eyeing Josh warily. While he may not be as violent as some of the other jocks, he is still a lot bigger than Charles, a fact that Charles is painfully aware of. Josh seems to be in shock, or perhaps silent rage, as his eyes flick from his pile of cash to Charles'. His left eye begins to twitch.
"YOU CHEAT!" Josh exclaims, as Sarah and Eric fall into silent hysterics, "You little shit! Some of us are just trying to play an honest game, and you come along and…"
Jay stands up and goes out to the balcony before Josh is finished, his roars dimmed as Jay slides the glass shut. He watches absently as Metis and Odette splash about in the pool, Sam stretched out comfortably on a deck chair. Normally, a chance like this would have Jay reaching for his cigarettes and lighter. Instead, he pulls out a Chuppa Chup stick sans Chuppa Chup from his pocket and starts to chew. He's starting to think that it wasn't the nicotine; rather that he has something of an oral fixation.
The door slides open suddenly, and then shut, and Charles suddenly appears in front of him, hands on his arms to keep him in place.
"Escape is futile," Jay offers helpfully, grinning at the expression on Charles' face.
"You're supposed to be on my side," Charles hisses, letting go of Jay's arm momentarily to yank on one of his bangs.
"Ah, but I'm not," Jay says mournfully, "You see, as I'm not allowed to tell anyone of how deeply and passionately you care for me, it would seem strange to others for me to defend you so readily."
Charles looks at Jay strangely, about to open his mouth to speak, when Jay interrupts him.
"Oh look, there's Josh in the pool. You can relax, then." Charles turns to make sure, not trusting anything but his own eyes, before collapsing onto a chair theatrically. Jay flops down next to him. They sit in a comfortable silence for a while, watching the clouds puff lazily by.
"I got an offer from UNWS," Charles says suddenly, not looking at Jay, "My parents want to take me down in a few weeks to look at the halls of residence." Jay breathes slowly, deliberately, and focuses on a cloud that looks peculiarly like his kindergarten teacher.
"So, you're going to accept, then?" he asks, attempting at nonchalance and failing miserably. The best that Jay could hope for was TAFE, but he was thinking about taking the year off to travel anyway. He had an itching to see New York. Charles still isn't looking at him.
"I don't know," he says evenly, "Do you want me to?" Jay vainly tries to control his heart rate as moves his chair so that it's in front of Charles'. He takes a deep breath, wondering absently at what point it had gotten so out of control.
"No," he says, "I don't want you to, Charles. I want you to stay here. With us." When he says 'us', Jay gestures vaguely behind him to the pool, where Sarah, Eric and Josh have joined Metis, Sam and Odette.
"And what about you?" Charles asks quietly, now looking keenly at Jay, "Do you want me to stay with you?"
"Yes."
When it comes down to it, it's not that hard to say. Not as hard as Jay expected it to be. Charles watches him for a while longer, in silence, his eyes hard and searching. Then, suddenly, he puts his arms behind his head and closes his eyes.
"Good. I've already accepted Griffith's offer, anyway."
Jay does not remember distinctly, but later Charles informs him in his habitually elegant way that Jay's expression reminded him of a baby about to take a really big shit.
"Did you just…Did you just trick me into confessing how I feel?" Jay asks slowly, turning the Chuppa Chup stick around in his hand in case he had the urge to plunge anything into Charles' chest. Charles leans forward in his chair and plucks the stick from Jay's hand, throwing it over the balcony.
"Very bad for your teeth, you know," Charles says mildly of the Chuppa Chup stick in favour of answering Jay's question.
"You little shit," Jay says, moving to grab the front of Charles' shirt. He has half a mind to finish what Josh started, but the other half of his mind is telling him to do something that he is almost 99% sure Josh was not thinking. He decides to go with the latter idea.
Later, much later, when everyone has retreated into Metis' living room out of fear of mosquitoes, Sam finally brings their attention to the fact that Jay and Charles were missing. Metis is sent to look for them, naturally, as he is the host, so he grumblingly makes his way around the house, expecting to find them arguing over something or other as they usually did. He did not, however, expect to find them in his bedroom, on his bed, Charles' legs up around Jay's shoulders and clothes other than his strewn haphazardly on the floor. He shuts the door again quickly, breathing heavily.
"Umm…," Jay's voice carries loudly through the door, making Metis wonder how they hadn't heard them in the first place, "We'll clean the sheets afterwards?" Metis thinks he hears Charles snicker.
'Don't bother," Metis mutters darkly, storming back down the hallway, "Don't even fucking bother."
Inside Metis' room, Jay is still frozen in place, looking down at Charles' with wide eyes.
"So help me, Jay," Charles growls, shifting his hips to emphasise his point, "If you stop now just because Metis walked in on us, I will call up Griffith and change my" –"
"No you won't," Jay interrupts suddenly, "You won't, because you lllooooovvveeee me."
The scream, when it comes, is absolutely deafening. Back in the living room, Josh casts a worried look over to Metis, who shrugs back. Both are surprised when Charles streaks suddenly through the room, clutching at the sheet that is tied around his waist. They are more surprised, however, when Jay also emerges from the hallway, boxers barely pulled on and keys dangling triumphantly in his hand, shouting "I've got your keys, you fucker!"
Metis, Josh, Odette, Sarah, Eric and Sam listen in silence as they hear the sounds of a scuffle emerge from the open window.
"Ummm," Josh starts, but Metis cuts him off.
"Just…don't."