Stan's room was cold, oh so cold, because his father's last adventure destroyed the broiler in the basement. It doesn't stop him from running shivering fingers under his best friend's ugly sweater and seeking the warmth beneath the itchy wool.
He could feel Kyle's heart beating at the tips of his fingers. It doesn't skyrocket the way it does when he touches Wendy. For her, it was always the hesitation, the thrill. For Kyle, it was comfort, as natural as breathing. Desire only simmered beneath the skin; it didn't turn him into a twitchy mess like her.
Stan made sure he touched every bit of skin he could. This wasn't the most important part, not really. It was in the way Kyle looked at him in the dark and the way his mouth would part in a content sigh when Stan impulsively kissed him.
Kyle doesn't whisper sweet nothings in his ear. There's nothing to be said. They've known each other for so long they didn't need to be vocal about the need to be touched and loved.
Death had claimed Wendy, the Gwen Stacy to his Peter Parker - and like Peter Parker, Stan couldn't save her from the flames. And Stan, oh poor Stan , was sensitive enough as it is.
If only the burns down his back had festered. He could have chased after Death and apologized to the girl he truly loved. Instead he was out of faith. Faith and fucks. And like the day he wheeled Kyle's gurney as a child to breathe life back into him, it was Kyle's turn to return the favor.
Stan can't remember the months that passed in the burn ward, but he remembered every moment Kyle spent at his bedside, then physical therapy, then psychological therapy, and now where he was bare and the scars were still here, but Kyle didn't flinch like his mother had dressing it up.
The burn salve medication rolls off the bed when Stan pushes Kyle down. A hand gingerly presses against his chest and stops Stan from going any further.
"I wasn't finished," Stan said.
Those green eyes strips Stan down. "Neither was I." His other hand stops the clean bandages from falling after the salve.
Stan doesn't relent. "I don't care."
"The cold makes it worse."
"Do you hate seeing them?" His words are pained, almost hysterical. No one wants to see the multiple skin grafts, the third degree scarring. His back was a literal masterpiece of horror, but it's a brand of his failures. Failure to protect her, failure to keep his best friend.
Kyle rolls his eyes and sits up. "Does it matter?"
It doesn't. He just wanted validation, a reason to push Kyle away. It doesn't hold water. Kyle's hands turn him back around and Stan hates this part. His teeth grit together when Kyle plucks the salve from the floor and steels himself for the worse.
A strangled hiss bleeds through his teeth when slick hands carefully burn across his shoulders and then straight down to his lower back. Kyle is thorough, but relentless, and made sure every inch was rubbed down until the pain turned into a tenderness Stan could tolerate.
When his back was blissfully dry, Kyle winds his arms around Stan's torso and holds him close. Stan shivers when a warm kiss presses against his neck. They grieve together for Wendy. She was his heart.
And when Kyle turns him back around and gives him what he needs - the tender kisses and the warm touches when Wendy was no longer able to - Stan realizes that without Kyle, there would be nothing worthwhile left in this shitty town and its shitty people.
Everything would be black and white without those vivid green eyes, those sharp red curls.
It had nothing to do with being gay or straight or whatever. There was no such thing as soulmates. But if there was, this was probably the closest they could ever get to it. Kyle was the other part of his soul. Two halves of the same coin.
He thinks he could live without his heart, but he wasn't sure if he could survive without his soul.
"Love you," Stan breathes because it's true. It wasn't romantic, or familial, or even friendly. Everything that encompassed his life was shared with Kyle. For every stumble, every argument, every bit of happiness shared. He can't describe the soul searing kisses or the fact that Kyle was a boy. It didn't matter anymore.
It was just Kyle. Everything and anything was just normal, even this. Even if he stripped Kyle of any hope to find love of his own, because he was selfish and desperate to not lose him like he lost Wendy.
Kyle considers his words. His hands tighten around Stan's stomach. "I know. I got you, don't worry."
It wasn't right. He shouldn't be held like this. He wanted to do the holding like he did with Wendy and feel her back pressed protectively against his chest, but Kyle flips the script and changes the dynamics because he's not Wendy. He won't ever be Wendy.
He won't be a replacement for Wendy. He wouldn't allow it. Slowly, but surely, Stan has to remember that they're not the same.
But they are in so many ways.
"What do you want?" Kyle asks. Stan answers by sliding his palms behind him until Kyle sits and gives him access to his thighs. The rough denim doesn't remind him of Wendy and that's a start.
Just Kyle. Kyle, Kyle, Kyle…
"In the bed." Stan's voice is hoarse. His hands rolls down Kyle's knees. "I want you in the bed with me."
"Sure." Just like that. So easy. They were so easy. Kyle shirks off his sweater and tugs Stan backwards until he feels nothing but overstuffed pillows and the hard planes of Kyle's stomach.
He wasn't soft like Wendy, but the attraction remained. Stan wanted to devour and take everything of Kyle that was offered. He wanted to feel alive and loved again. Most of all, he needed to protect something. Anything.
"Stop thinking," Kyle warned before taking his lips again. An empty school of grief, the closed casket, the endless rain out the window, a march of black umbrellas - all of it melted away if only for a moment. So long as Kyle was here, would always be here, he could maybe live again. Start over. Make her death mean something other than an end.
Kyle wasn't his Gwen Stacy, but maybe he was his Mary Jane.
hope
dangles on a string
like slow spinning redemption