The day had turned to dusk before Scout had finished in Friendly's. Long
shadows lay across the empty road, the trees gently rustling in the breeze,
their rusty leaves drooping in the typical autumn weather. Scout couldn't
help but glance towards the gas station. New signs had replaced the Banks'
ones, "Hunting's Auto Repairs" now adorned every available inch. Charlie,
demoted to a mere mechanic, was peering under the bonnet of a scruffy
looking blue truck, shouting instructions to an unknown person inside.
Bella no longer worked there, the position she had held was now filled by
her father. How demeaning, Scout thought, letting his glance rest upon the
older man. Automatically, he glanced towards the tiny office, remembering
how he'd used to look across at Bella, keeping an eye on her, watching her
move. But now? He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her. He knew
from Will that she had a Saturday job in one of the clothes shops on the
main street, selling mini skirts to thirteen year olds. She'd changed.
Somehow, she'd been humbled by the experience of losing her home, her
business, and the humiliating betrayal by her own mother. She was no longer
the strong independent woman that had first attracted Scout to her; she'd
lost that glow, that innocence. No longer did she join the Rawley gang for
ice cream and coke after their shifts had finished - the divide between the
groups had widened beyond recognition. Will's constant fight to prove
himself worthy had escalated into what seemed to be a twenty four hour work
marathon, only broken by his shifts at Friendly's and the once weekly crew
practice. Now the season was over, the practice was nothing more than an
exercise in keeping fit, kept on by Finn, Scout thought, just to stop Will
from hermitting completely. Even now, as night was falling, Will was
perched at the counter trawling through critical essays on D.H Lawrence,
taking brief notes on his order pad with a leaky biro.
"Don't you ever stop?" Scout asked with a half smile, pouring his roommate a coke.
Will glanced briefly at Scout, gulping back the coke, "I need to get a good mark on this essay," he explained, flicking through the last few pages of the dog-eared library book.
"You need to get some sleep," Scout was quiet, eyeing Will up and down, "You look exhausted - when was the last time you got to bed before one?" Will had dark shadows under his eyes, his skin pale and drawn. His coppery hair, once shiny, now sat lanky next to his skin.
"I'm fine," Will intoned, draining the coke. He flicked his attention back towards DH Lawrence.
Scout shrugged - he was obviously not in the mood for talking. He never was, nowadays. The days of easy camaraderie between the two were long gone - ever since the beginning of fall semester, Will had been working harder than probably ever before, the scare with his scholarship having terrified him into submission. "I thought you were meeting Sean tonight?" Scout changed the subject, "I thought you said there was a baseball thing going on?"
Will checked his watch - damn - fifteen minutes late. Chucking the books into his scruffy rucksack, he was out of the diner in seconds, throwing a quick 'see you later' to a bemused Scout.
It was almost time to shut. Only a few more minutes, and it didn't look like there would be any more customers. Scout allowed himself the luxury of an ice cream, settling down at the end of the counter to savour it. He was interrupted only by the door opening. His mouth dropped.
"Bella?" he managed, no more sound coming out. It was Bella, Bella Banks, hand in hand with a tall, dark man in dark-rimmed glasses and jeans.
"Hey Scout," she was quieter now, less faith in the world, "are we too late for a coffee?"
He shook his head. "I haven't seen you for a while, Bella," he managed, fixing the drinks. Using the machine meant he didn't have to look at her, watch her long fingers intertwined with the stranger's.
"No."
Scout could feel her eyes on his back. Still, watchful.
"I'd like you to meet someone, Scout," Scout let his gaze fall to the newcomer, "This is Billy Hampton, my boyfriend." She shot him a tentative smile, for a second, she was the Bella Scout had come to know and love again, "Billy, I'd like for you to meet Scout Calhoun, my half-brother."
Scout tried so hard to look unshaken, it almost made Bella smile. Billy held out his hand, "Pleased to meet you, Scout," zombie like, Scout let the taller man pump his hand up and down. Scout knew his hand was the clammiest.
"Billy's going to be an engineer," she confided, leaning over the counter, "he goes to college."
"Oh really?" Scout tried to show interest but all he could focus on was Bella - his sister, for Christ's sake - and her new boyfriend. Desperately trying not to feel jealous - incest was a dirty word and not one he was particularly keen on - Scout passed over the coffees with shaking hands. "Enjoy," he muttered, not making eye contact, "I've got some stuff to do in the back, closing up stuff". He was careful not to let his eyes meet Bella's.
Once in the kitchen, it was all Scout could to do to stay standing. Leaning heavily on the stainless steel worktops, he took a long, deep breath, and wondered what it was about the whole situation that reduced him to a quivering mess. From the diner, he could hear the gently murmur of their conversation, the occasional high-pitched laugh from Bella, interplayed with the deeper one he assumed to be Billy's.
He couldn't remember the last time he had heard Bella laugh.
"Scout?" Bella spoke tentatively as she stuck her head into the kitchen, "You ok?"
"Wha. oh yeah, I'm fine. Just tired." Scout managed to look as if he were drying the last of the cooking stuff, sticking spatulas into the huge drawer.
"I really like him," she said quietly, her fingers drumming nervously on the tabletop.
"Yeah, whatever," Scout still had his hands in the cutlery drawer, and for emphasis he started to finger the knives, the steel clattering against steel. "and I'm just your half-brother."
There was a very long silence, neither of them looking at each other. "Exactly." Bella said finally. "I really like him, Scout." She said once more. Scout said nothing, not looking up from the cutlery. Moments later, he heard the swing of the front door, the jangling bell signifying their silent exit.
Scout slammed the drawer shut.
"Damn," he muttered, "Damn, damn, damn."
He set off to find Will, desperately needed the easy reassurance that had come from their unlikely friendship over the summer. In St Martin, they'd talked like there had been no tomorrow, and Scout knew that the baseball season was always rounded off by the guys taking up residence on the baseball field with some beers and talking till way into the night, hitting the odd ball. though Scout had outwardly shunned the activity as strictly for the townies, and besides that, illegal; secretly he longed for the intensity and loyalty of long term friends. The only people he'd known all his life were the children of his parent's friends; Paige, Caroline, to a certain extent. No-one he could count on if the going got rough. Until Will. And even that seemed to be ending.
New Rawley was pretty noisy at night. Kids were playing in all the streets, lights streamed out of every window, noises ricocheting from one house to the next. The whole thing made Scout long for acceptance, in any stance. He'd never had a home like this - his house stood empty and secluded away from the road, in its own private grounds. As did the homes of all his friends. Previously he had loathed the idea of living so close to one another, but now, now he was faced with such a dilemma, he felt as if there was no-where and no-one to which he could turn. Jake and Hamilton -they had each other. They were insulated against the world. Paige had disappeared to Europe; Bella had removed herself from his life completely. Will - Will was so terrified of losing the tenuous grip he had on his life, he was alienating himself from everything that had the power to hurt him. A sudden, melancholic stab of terrible loneliness gripped him.
Scout scuffed leaf pile after leaf pile as he wandered aimlessly from the main street. His tentative earlier decision to infiltrate Will's evening seemed more and more ridiculous with every step. He wasn't acting normally at the moment, he couldn't think straight. Couldn't think past the haunting image of Bella with her arms round the other guy. Bella's long blonde hair silhouetted against the darkness of his shadow. Bella.
The baseball field arrived as if from nowhere. One moment he was wandering through street after street, the next he was stood by the chicken wire ring that encircled the New Rawley baseball pitch. It was a funny time of year to be playing baseball, he'd said to Will. Will had shrugged and mumbled something about tradition. Rounding the season off, or something.
Funny thing was, there was no baseball game going on. No townies hoovering warm beer and laughing. Just the thwack after thwack of ball being hit, tennis serve style, by a solitary figure. The dusk had heightened into almost pitch black, the moon hidden by the cloudy sky, meaning there were no lights to intensify the experience of playing.
*thwack *
*thwack *
Could it be Will? Scout was unsure. The figure was of a similar height to his absent roommate, but in the hollow darkness. Scout could make out nothing else. In the vain hope that he would be able to sort his head out with Will, he sank down onto the scruffy bleachers outside of the pitch.
Bella, Bella. Where the hell had she found this guy? College? Bella was only sixteen for Christ's sake - what the hell did a college guy want with a sixteen year old? He ground his fist into his palm. Stupid question. If he was a college guy, Scout knew exactly what would be required and wanted of a sixteen year old. If he hurt her, Scout swore he'd kill him. The fact that he'd never really been in a fight before was unimportant, right then. He was so busy planning the downfall of Billy, he didn't notice that the heavy thwack of bat upon ball had silenced.
In front of him, sweat pouring off every inch of skin, breathing heavily, hands on hips, stood Sean.
Sean said nothing, his eyes firmly fixed on Scout. Aggression haunted his face, his mouth pursed, his fists clenched by his side. Scout said nothing, clenching and unclenching his fists. He felt like hitting something, and if Sean started on him, there was a just cause for retaliation. But as quickly as it started, Sean's aggression was gone. Unclenching his fists with a low growl, he pulled his sopping t-shirt off, revealing a ripple of muscles. Picking up his water bottle, he squeezed it so that it soaked him like a shower, his eyes never leaving Scout's. The aggression was replaced by a desperate haunting. Like Will, it looked as if Sean hadn't slept for days.
"Have you met him?" Sean was sat on the bleacher below Scout, staring out into the darkness, his voice low.
"Just now." Scout was equally quiet. "You?"
"No." Sean drained the last of the water from the bottle. As he moved, muscles rippled across his back. Scout, envious of the incredible definition, couldn't take his eyes of them. Even in the darkness, the movement was palpable. "She came round to tell me it was over though," his fingers twisted and retwisted the cap of the bottle, "Told me it had been over for weeks, and neither of us had the courage to break it off."
This was news to Scout. Much as he hated to admit it, he had to say that he'd thought the relationship between Bella and Sean had been the result of an intense, unfaltering attraction and attachment on both sides. Apart from the mental infidelity of Bella and him, he admitted silently. Scout squashed the thought right back down, and turned back towards Sean.
"Is that what you thought as well?" any previous antagonism between the boys had seemed to evaporate with the presence of a common enemy.
Sean shrugged. "We were just the same as ever," He pulled his rucksack towards him, pulling it open. "Perhaps that was it though. Things weren't the same as always. Everything had changed, but me and her- we hadn't."
For a second, there was an uncomfortable silence; Scout unable to decide whether an offering of sympathy would be classed as hypocritical or not. It didn't feel like it would be, but then everything seemed upside down and inside out tonight. Who would have thought that him and Sean would ever be able to sit down and talk? All the time they'd known each other, their meetings had brought out the worst in both of them. They were irrational and over reacted to the simplest circumstances. They both went out of their way to promote the values that normally had them up in arms; Sean with his townie status, and Scout with his rich boy one.
"Aww, shit." Sean had managed to upend his rucksack all over the dusty floor.
He dropped to his knees in an attempt to gather together the mountain of belongings he carried around daily.
"Here, let me help,"
"You might not like what you find," Sean mumbled, with a darkened attempt at a smile. "I haven't emptied this bag in months."
"You mean your stuff will be getting up and walking away from us, then," Scout joked as he joined the other boy on the ground.
"It's a bit too dark for this" Sean muttered, as he attempted to stuff his rucksack once more, banging elbows with Scout as he did so.
"Sorry," they were both foraging under the bleachers, picking up school books, scruffy dog-eared files with bits of paper falling out, sports socks - ewww, Scout tried to smile as him and Sean both went for the same worn sock.- pencils, magazines
"How on earth did you manage to pack all this stuff into that bag?" Scout was amazed. "It's like the tardis in there,"
"Tardis?"
"Doctor Who," Scout clarified.
"Oh, right," Sean was no better off, never having seen an episode. "I don't watch much TV," he admitted, doing a final scrabble around under the bleachers, and trying to force the bag shut. "Remind me to be more organised in future," he laughed, leaning back onto the bleachers so that he could look up at the stars. Scout joined him, staring up into the cloudy blackness that surrounded them.
"Makes everything seem, kinda insignificant, doesn't it," Scout let his gaze pan across the scattering of tiny glittering beacons that littered the night sky.
"Will used to say that," for a second, Sean was lost in his own history, "Sometimes, when we were little, we used to come out here at night, look at the stars. Will said it made him realise how unimportant the stuff with his dad was. I never used to believe him," he added as an afterthought. "But now. it could be true."
Scout bit his lip, the night air cold across his chest.
"We used to name them all," Sean admitted, "Our own personal universe." He pointed upwards - "That one up there, we used to think looked like a rooster,"
"Which one?" Scout craned his neck, but couldn't make anything out.
Sean sighed. "No imagination, you," he grabbed Scout's hand and aimed it right at the constellation, making the shape with his fingers. "Now d'you see?"
Scout did. For whatever reason, the air suddenly still around them, the cloudless sky above them, neither boy let go. Neither boy flinched away from the touch of Scout's knee to Sean's. And neither boy said a single word.
"Oh, sod it," Sean muttered, grasping Scout's fingers tighter as he leant over and pressed his dry lips against Scout's. Pulling back a little so he could see Scout's eyes, he pressed their still grasped fingers down into the dusty bench.
The silence stretched on and on, their breathing audible on the silent night. "Wha. what was that?" Scout whispered, not making any move to break away from Sean's tight hold. He wedged his free hand under his thigh, desperate to quell its intention to move instinctively towards the other boy. Still he couldn't tear his gaze away from Sean's - despite the terrible darkness, every contour of his face was visible. Scout leaned up and touched his lips to Sean's, dry skin against dry skin, his tongue forcing an entrance into Sean's rigid mouth. As their tongues touched, the frisson of excitement that had overcome Scout fused into a tidal wave of attraction. Feeling like he'd been kicked in the gut, he pulled Sean tighter and tighter, plunging his tongue deeper and deeper. And Sean. Sean was responding to his touch, Sean's hand was running through his hair, pulling his head closer and closer in.
Scout felt as if he was drowning under Sean; sinking deeper and deeper in. His head, slower to catch up than his heart, was screaming inside his mind - what the hell are you doing?? Stop!! - for a brief moment, reality had stepped out of the window. Pushing away, dragging his mouth from Sean's, Scout clambered to his feet, hawking away from the bleachers. Wiping the back of his hand across his bruised mouth, he stared, open eyed, across at Sean, "What the fuck was that about?" he managed, his voice shaking.
Sean, his voice equally unsteady, was edging further and further back, "God knows," he let his fingers graze his mouth, longing for the touch of Scout's lips once more.. "It was just a spur of the moment thing. pissed off at Bella," he mumbled.
Scout knew he was lying. For a long moment, they did nothing but stare helplessly across at each other, the darkness penetrating them wordlessly.
"I'd better go. curfew," Scout muttered.
"Rawley's not all perfect then," Sean couldn't resist his typical barb.
Scout shook his head awkwardly, wondering why he was finding it so hard to leave.
"Are. are you working tomorrow?" Sean asked suddenly, scuffing the toe of his trainer in the dust.
Scout shrugged, "I'm in for the evening shift," he murmured, as the moonlight caught Sean's blonde hair in its gentle shaft. He stuck his hands in his pockets and trudged back towards Rawley.
"Don't you ever stop?" Scout asked with a half smile, pouring his roommate a coke.
Will glanced briefly at Scout, gulping back the coke, "I need to get a good mark on this essay," he explained, flicking through the last few pages of the dog-eared library book.
"You need to get some sleep," Scout was quiet, eyeing Will up and down, "You look exhausted - when was the last time you got to bed before one?" Will had dark shadows under his eyes, his skin pale and drawn. His coppery hair, once shiny, now sat lanky next to his skin.
"I'm fine," Will intoned, draining the coke. He flicked his attention back towards DH Lawrence.
Scout shrugged - he was obviously not in the mood for talking. He never was, nowadays. The days of easy camaraderie between the two were long gone - ever since the beginning of fall semester, Will had been working harder than probably ever before, the scare with his scholarship having terrified him into submission. "I thought you were meeting Sean tonight?" Scout changed the subject, "I thought you said there was a baseball thing going on?"
Will checked his watch - damn - fifteen minutes late. Chucking the books into his scruffy rucksack, he was out of the diner in seconds, throwing a quick 'see you later' to a bemused Scout.
It was almost time to shut. Only a few more minutes, and it didn't look like there would be any more customers. Scout allowed himself the luxury of an ice cream, settling down at the end of the counter to savour it. He was interrupted only by the door opening. His mouth dropped.
"Bella?" he managed, no more sound coming out. It was Bella, Bella Banks, hand in hand with a tall, dark man in dark-rimmed glasses and jeans.
"Hey Scout," she was quieter now, less faith in the world, "are we too late for a coffee?"
He shook his head. "I haven't seen you for a while, Bella," he managed, fixing the drinks. Using the machine meant he didn't have to look at her, watch her long fingers intertwined with the stranger's.
"No."
Scout could feel her eyes on his back. Still, watchful.
"I'd like you to meet someone, Scout," Scout let his gaze fall to the newcomer, "This is Billy Hampton, my boyfriend." She shot him a tentative smile, for a second, she was the Bella Scout had come to know and love again, "Billy, I'd like for you to meet Scout Calhoun, my half-brother."
Scout tried so hard to look unshaken, it almost made Bella smile. Billy held out his hand, "Pleased to meet you, Scout," zombie like, Scout let the taller man pump his hand up and down. Scout knew his hand was the clammiest.
"Billy's going to be an engineer," she confided, leaning over the counter, "he goes to college."
"Oh really?" Scout tried to show interest but all he could focus on was Bella - his sister, for Christ's sake - and her new boyfriend. Desperately trying not to feel jealous - incest was a dirty word and not one he was particularly keen on - Scout passed over the coffees with shaking hands. "Enjoy," he muttered, not making eye contact, "I've got some stuff to do in the back, closing up stuff". He was careful not to let his eyes meet Bella's.
Once in the kitchen, it was all Scout could to do to stay standing. Leaning heavily on the stainless steel worktops, he took a long, deep breath, and wondered what it was about the whole situation that reduced him to a quivering mess. From the diner, he could hear the gently murmur of their conversation, the occasional high-pitched laugh from Bella, interplayed with the deeper one he assumed to be Billy's.
He couldn't remember the last time he had heard Bella laugh.
"Scout?" Bella spoke tentatively as she stuck her head into the kitchen, "You ok?"
"Wha. oh yeah, I'm fine. Just tired." Scout managed to look as if he were drying the last of the cooking stuff, sticking spatulas into the huge drawer.
"I really like him," she said quietly, her fingers drumming nervously on the tabletop.
"Yeah, whatever," Scout still had his hands in the cutlery drawer, and for emphasis he started to finger the knives, the steel clattering against steel. "and I'm just your half-brother."
There was a very long silence, neither of them looking at each other. "Exactly." Bella said finally. "I really like him, Scout." She said once more. Scout said nothing, not looking up from the cutlery. Moments later, he heard the swing of the front door, the jangling bell signifying their silent exit.
Scout slammed the drawer shut.
"Damn," he muttered, "Damn, damn, damn."
He set off to find Will, desperately needed the easy reassurance that had come from their unlikely friendship over the summer. In St Martin, they'd talked like there had been no tomorrow, and Scout knew that the baseball season was always rounded off by the guys taking up residence on the baseball field with some beers and talking till way into the night, hitting the odd ball. though Scout had outwardly shunned the activity as strictly for the townies, and besides that, illegal; secretly he longed for the intensity and loyalty of long term friends. The only people he'd known all his life were the children of his parent's friends; Paige, Caroline, to a certain extent. No-one he could count on if the going got rough. Until Will. And even that seemed to be ending.
New Rawley was pretty noisy at night. Kids were playing in all the streets, lights streamed out of every window, noises ricocheting from one house to the next. The whole thing made Scout long for acceptance, in any stance. He'd never had a home like this - his house stood empty and secluded away from the road, in its own private grounds. As did the homes of all his friends. Previously he had loathed the idea of living so close to one another, but now, now he was faced with such a dilemma, he felt as if there was no-where and no-one to which he could turn. Jake and Hamilton -they had each other. They were insulated against the world. Paige had disappeared to Europe; Bella had removed herself from his life completely. Will - Will was so terrified of losing the tenuous grip he had on his life, he was alienating himself from everything that had the power to hurt him. A sudden, melancholic stab of terrible loneliness gripped him.
Scout scuffed leaf pile after leaf pile as he wandered aimlessly from the main street. His tentative earlier decision to infiltrate Will's evening seemed more and more ridiculous with every step. He wasn't acting normally at the moment, he couldn't think straight. Couldn't think past the haunting image of Bella with her arms round the other guy. Bella's long blonde hair silhouetted against the darkness of his shadow. Bella.
The baseball field arrived as if from nowhere. One moment he was wandering through street after street, the next he was stood by the chicken wire ring that encircled the New Rawley baseball pitch. It was a funny time of year to be playing baseball, he'd said to Will. Will had shrugged and mumbled something about tradition. Rounding the season off, or something.
Funny thing was, there was no baseball game going on. No townies hoovering warm beer and laughing. Just the thwack after thwack of ball being hit, tennis serve style, by a solitary figure. The dusk had heightened into almost pitch black, the moon hidden by the cloudy sky, meaning there were no lights to intensify the experience of playing.
*thwack *
*thwack *
Could it be Will? Scout was unsure. The figure was of a similar height to his absent roommate, but in the hollow darkness. Scout could make out nothing else. In the vain hope that he would be able to sort his head out with Will, he sank down onto the scruffy bleachers outside of the pitch.
Bella, Bella. Where the hell had she found this guy? College? Bella was only sixteen for Christ's sake - what the hell did a college guy want with a sixteen year old? He ground his fist into his palm. Stupid question. If he was a college guy, Scout knew exactly what would be required and wanted of a sixteen year old. If he hurt her, Scout swore he'd kill him. The fact that he'd never really been in a fight before was unimportant, right then. He was so busy planning the downfall of Billy, he didn't notice that the heavy thwack of bat upon ball had silenced.
In front of him, sweat pouring off every inch of skin, breathing heavily, hands on hips, stood Sean.
Sean said nothing, his eyes firmly fixed on Scout. Aggression haunted his face, his mouth pursed, his fists clenched by his side. Scout said nothing, clenching and unclenching his fists. He felt like hitting something, and if Sean started on him, there was a just cause for retaliation. But as quickly as it started, Sean's aggression was gone. Unclenching his fists with a low growl, he pulled his sopping t-shirt off, revealing a ripple of muscles. Picking up his water bottle, he squeezed it so that it soaked him like a shower, his eyes never leaving Scout's. The aggression was replaced by a desperate haunting. Like Will, it looked as if Sean hadn't slept for days.
"Have you met him?" Sean was sat on the bleacher below Scout, staring out into the darkness, his voice low.
"Just now." Scout was equally quiet. "You?"
"No." Sean drained the last of the water from the bottle. As he moved, muscles rippled across his back. Scout, envious of the incredible definition, couldn't take his eyes of them. Even in the darkness, the movement was palpable. "She came round to tell me it was over though," his fingers twisted and retwisted the cap of the bottle, "Told me it had been over for weeks, and neither of us had the courage to break it off."
This was news to Scout. Much as he hated to admit it, he had to say that he'd thought the relationship between Bella and Sean had been the result of an intense, unfaltering attraction and attachment on both sides. Apart from the mental infidelity of Bella and him, he admitted silently. Scout squashed the thought right back down, and turned back towards Sean.
"Is that what you thought as well?" any previous antagonism between the boys had seemed to evaporate with the presence of a common enemy.
Sean shrugged. "We were just the same as ever," He pulled his rucksack towards him, pulling it open. "Perhaps that was it though. Things weren't the same as always. Everything had changed, but me and her- we hadn't."
For a second, there was an uncomfortable silence; Scout unable to decide whether an offering of sympathy would be classed as hypocritical or not. It didn't feel like it would be, but then everything seemed upside down and inside out tonight. Who would have thought that him and Sean would ever be able to sit down and talk? All the time they'd known each other, their meetings had brought out the worst in both of them. They were irrational and over reacted to the simplest circumstances. They both went out of their way to promote the values that normally had them up in arms; Sean with his townie status, and Scout with his rich boy one.
"Aww, shit." Sean had managed to upend his rucksack all over the dusty floor.
He dropped to his knees in an attempt to gather together the mountain of belongings he carried around daily.
"Here, let me help,"
"You might not like what you find," Sean mumbled, with a darkened attempt at a smile. "I haven't emptied this bag in months."
"You mean your stuff will be getting up and walking away from us, then," Scout joked as he joined the other boy on the ground.
"It's a bit too dark for this" Sean muttered, as he attempted to stuff his rucksack once more, banging elbows with Scout as he did so.
"Sorry," they were both foraging under the bleachers, picking up school books, scruffy dog-eared files with bits of paper falling out, sports socks - ewww, Scout tried to smile as him and Sean both went for the same worn sock.- pencils, magazines
"How on earth did you manage to pack all this stuff into that bag?" Scout was amazed. "It's like the tardis in there,"
"Tardis?"
"Doctor Who," Scout clarified.
"Oh, right," Sean was no better off, never having seen an episode. "I don't watch much TV," he admitted, doing a final scrabble around under the bleachers, and trying to force the bag shut. "Remind me to be more organised in future," he laughed, leaning back onto the bleachers so that he could look up at the stars. Scout joined him, staring up into the cloudy blackness that surrounded them.
"Makes everything seem, kinda insignificant, doesn't it," Scout let his gaze pan across the scattering of tiny glittering beacons that littered the night sky.
"Will used to say that," for a second, Sean was lost in his own history, "Sometimes, when we were little, we used to come out here at night, look at the stars. Will said it made him realise how unimportant the stuff with his dad was. I never used to believe him," he added as an afterthought. "But now. it could be true."
Scout bit his lip, the night air cold across his chest.
"We used to name them all," Sean admitted, "Our own personal universe." He pointed upwards - "That one up there, we used to think looked like a rooster,"
"Which one?" Scout craned his neck, but couldn't make anything out.
Sean sighed. "No imagination, you," he grabbed Scout's hand and aimed it right at the constellation, making the shape with his fingers. "Now d'you see?"
Scout did. For whatever reason, the air suddenly still around them, the cloudless sky above them, neither boy let go. Neither boy flinched away from the touch of Scout's knee to Sean's. And neither boy said a single word.
"Oh, sod it," Sean muttered, grasping Scout's fingers tighter as he leant over and pressed his dry lips against Scout's. Pulling back a little so he could see Scout's eyes, he pressed their still grasped fingers down into the dusty bench.
The silence stretched on and on, their breathing audible on the silent night. "Wha. what was that?" Scout whispered, not making any move to break away from Sean's tight hold. He wedged his free hand under his thigh, desperate to quell its intention to move instinctively towards the other boy. Still he couldn't tear his gaze away from Sean's - despite the terrible darkness, every contour of his face was visible. Scout leaned up and touched his lips to Sean's, dry skin against dry skin, his tongue forcing an entrance into Sean's rigid mouth. As their tongues touched, the frisson of excitement that had overcome Scout fused into a tidal wave of attraction. Feeling like he'd been kicked in the gut, he pulled Sean tighter and tighter, plunging his tongue deeper and deeper. And Sean. Sean was responding to his touch, Sean's hand was running through his hair, pulling his head closer and closer in.
Scout felt as if he was drowning under Sean; sinking deeper and deeper in. His head, slower to catch up than his heart, was screaming inside his mind - what the hell are you doing?? Stop!! - for a brief moment, reality had stepped out of the window. Pushing away, dragging his mouth from Sean's, Scout clambered to his feet, hawking away from the bleachers. Wiping the back of his hand across his bruised mouth, he stared, open eyed, across at Sean, "What the fuck was that about?" he managed, his voice shaking.
Sean, his voice equally unsteady, was edging further and further back, "God knows," he let his fingers graze his mouth, longing for the touch of Scout's lips once more.. "It was just a spur of the moment thing. pissed off at Bella," he mumbled.
Scout knew he was lying. For a long moment, they did nothing but stare helplessly across at each other, the darkness penetrating them wordlessly.
"I'd better go. curfew," Scout muttered.
"Rawley's not all perfect then," Sean couldn't resist his typical barb.
Scout shook his head awkwardly, wondering why he was finding it so hard to leave.
"Are. are you working tomorrow?" Sean asked suddenly, scuffing the toe of his trainer in the dust.
Scout shrugged, "I'm in for the evening shift," he murmured, as the moonlight caught Sean's blonde hair in its gentle shaft. He stuck his hands in his pockets and trudged back towards Rawley.