Hard Feelings

"I got your note."

Francis Ottoman looked up blankly. Yes, he was in for it this time. But the joke was so diabolically hysterical. I mean, Brent Sienna, asleep, with a note taped to his forehead, proclaiming, "I kiss dudes". There weren't many things funnier than that.

Unless they involved a giant panda. But Francis was running short on cash.

"Heh," Francis half-laughed. "No hard feelings, right? A prank is a prank."

It was true. After all the times Brent had nearly killed Francis, the least he could do was forgive him for this – the best prank ever not involving indigenous Chinese mammals.

Brent cupped Francis' face. Francis narrowed one eye in confusion, thinking that, at worst, he was going to end up clocked in the face. Ah well. This was Brent Sienna. He could expect some sort of retribu –

Brent planted a kiss on Francis. On his lips. Francis, needless to say, did NOT expect that one. Nor did he expect something akin to a tingling sensation to erupt in his cheeks. Brent pulled away quickly, revenge taken, and said some things. Francis couldn't respond. He was still in shock. He heard Brent take some tape from his tape dispenser. Francis couldn't move. His eyes were glued into a perpetual, wide stare of shock, one that bored into the side of his cubicle. Brent finally shuffled away, thudding something against the cubicle door. Probably the note. 'I kiss dudes'. Francis finally felt his hand move up to his lips. He touched them gently, tenderly, trying to catch something that couldn't be caught.

Then Francis came to his senses. He threw his hand down and slumped onto the floor, cross-legged. He stared at his shoes – why his shoes? Why not his knees? – then his knees.

Funny how someone's life could change so quickly. Before Brent Sienna came tromping into his little box, he was having the perfect day – Marcy was being exceptionally kind to him, Brent was stuck looking after a baby all day, Jade was running around doing work (hah! Imagine!), and Cole was musing over Max Powers. Francis had gotten free rein to do whatever he wanted.

But now this.

Something odd was bubbling up inside of Francis. It made him want to puke, but at the same time it made him want to grab hold of Brent's stupid black shirt and kiss him right back. But one wasn't supposed to mix revenge with pleasure.

Pleasure.

Pleasure?

Francis shot up off the ground. The security camera winking at him probably taped the whole thing. How badly Francis wanted to rip that stupid thing out of its socket. It was always there. Staring at him when he was playing videogames, or writing for the magazine, or getting revenge served to him in the most psychologically toxic way possible.

It was. It was completely toxic. Or intoxicating. The words were interchangeable. Weren't they?

Francis sank into his office chair. No. The words were NOT interchangeable.

"Francis, why is this taped to your door?" That was Jade Fontaine's voice. Usually she was a calming presence. Now Francis felt like puking even more. There she was, Jade Fontaine, Brent's girlfriend. Normally, talking to Jade was therapeutic. At this point in time, confessing that her boyfriend had kissed him and awakened feelings –

Francis gaped at his computer screen. Awakened feelings.

And then he screamed.

-

"For God's sake, Francis, the next time you see a mosquito, just KILL IT for us."

Brent wasn't pleased, but in all fairness, neither was Francis. Francis crossed his arms, pointedly looking away from Brent. His long brown hair was sticking to his sweaty forehead, but that was normal.

Francis didn't notice that Cole, his boss, wasn't exactly pleased either. "Your scream traveled up to the fourth floor, Francis. They thought someone was being raped."

Mind-raped, Francis thought with a slight bitterness. Mind-raped by Brent Sienna. Ugh. Terrible.

In so many ways.
The portly Cole stared Francis down. When it was clear that Francis was lost in thought, the balding boss gave up, moving on to Brent. "Brent, PLEASE take down the 'I kiss dudes' sign from Francis' cubicle. The UPS man nearly killed us."

"What else is new?" Brent wondered sarcastically, sipping some coffee and looking thoroughly superior to all life forms.

Francis rolled his eyes, but inwardly he was starting to question even this normal behavior. Was it bad to roll your eyes at someone you…? Francis' whole body heaved with a violent chill. Whether it rejected or accepted his thought, he couldn't tell.

Jade rubbed Francis' back confusedly. "Francis, you okay?"

"…Fine." Francis shot a withering glare at Brent, who was busy torturing Skull the blue troll. It was hard to see through Jade's curtain of red hair anyway. "I'm perfectly fine."

"You know he was just trying to get you mad with that sign," Jade said unemotionally.

Francis' mouth shut on its own. The sign. That sign! That rotten, crappy, amazing, beautiful, ridiculous, no-good, sensual, miraculous, abominable sign! Francis wretched himself from Jade's grip and tromped down the hallways of PvP, leaving a completely flabbergasted motherly figure behind him.

Jade scratched her head confusedly.

"What is with that kid today?" Jade wondered.

"He probably thinks he's gay," Brent muttered.

"Brent, what did you do?"

"Put the sign on his door. He reads too much into things."

"So you're just torturing him?"

"Hell yes."

Jade kissed Brent quickly. "Good to know that you're still an insufferable asshole."

"I love you too," Brent responded, his voice slightly loving.

-

Francis stared at the puddle of drool leaking from his mouth. No work done today, as usual, but Francis couldn't remember the last time he'd unknowingly spent four hours pondering his inner emotions. Oddly enough, his inner emotions were offering a conflicting image of him, Brent and Marcy skipping around like lunatics on a hillock.

Bizarre mental image.

Francis wished that he had a cup to scoop all the drool, but it was too late for that. It was a pristine little pond, where little bubbles lived out their short lives. Francis couldn't believe he was referring to drool as a living organism, but things were just off today.

Ever since Brent kissed him, that is.

It was as if every kiss he'd ever shared with Marcy was emotionless, meaningless. He couldn't recall a reason for being in love with her. There were reasons, and he tried to dredge them up, desperately tried to bring them into his head. The reasons refused to surface.

"I need her."

One clear thought amidst all the post-modernist acid-trip mire. Francis sat up immediately. This was a test. He'd never been religious, but he knew that God tested people sometimes. Tested their faith. And Francis would be DAMNED if he let Marcy get away because of Brent Sienna and his stupid prank!

Francis slammed his cubicle door open, ripping his sign off of it as he walked. He tossed it in the trash can, shutting the door on that chapter of his life. Nothing was going to stop him. He was going to find Marcy and make everything right in his head, for GOOD!

The power went out.

"Oh for God's sake!" Cole's voice screamed angrily.

Francis knew he was trapped in a walkway. And thanks to his own random brand of fixated psychosis, he had absolutely no idea where in the office he was. Reservations flooded into his system. It was a bad idea to pursue this. Chances were he'd never be able to find Marcy in this mess. But Francis Ottoman was not a stupid noob boy! He had better night vision than most armed service members! And off he went again. He knew Marcy's office wasn't far from his own – on the left side, to be exact. Francis took some tentative steps, tracing the wall near him with his fingers. The next door he came across should be Marcy's.

His hand wrapped around a doorknob. Success! Francis barreled into the room and saw the faint outline of a person.

"Marcy! Don't say anything!" Francis begged.

"Wha -?" was the response Francis got before he cut her off with a kiss. It felt right. Like before. Relief flooded Francis' system, and after he got kneed in the groin, pain met the relief.

A flashlight's beam shot into Francis' face. He covered his eyes as they adjusted to the sudden stream.

"What the HELL is wrong with you?!" a male voice hissed. "Marcy's next door, genius!"

Francis pulled his arms away and stared in disbelief at the person he'd just kissed. "…Who did I just kiss then?"

"Me," Brent Sienna's voice muttered. "I understand that you want to one-up me, but calling me Marcy is just ridiculous."
"I thought you were Marcy!" Francis gasped.

"…Oh. THEN we have a problem," Brent mused.

"No shit, Sherlock!" Francis cried in a low voice. "If anyone finds out that we've been running around kissing each other, we're both screwed!"

"It's a good thing you thought of that before you wrote the sign," Brent nodded in sympathy.

"I didn't KISS you, though!" Francis frantically shot back. His feelings were back, back with a vengeance, there was no God, the world was collapsing about his feet, and the only light in the office was coming from Brent's flashlight. Where was everyone else, anyway? With the screaming Cole?

"So what was that just -?"

"NO! YOU STARTED THIS!"

Francis couldn't believe that something so juvenile-sounding could come out so powerfully, and with such a world of meaning. It was as if everything that had been going through his head that entire day came blasting out.

Brent picked up on this. The flashlight dropped to the floor.

"Why were you looking for Marcy?" Brent asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

"To get my mind off of YOU," Francis spat.

The flashlight rolled towards a western wall. If Francis was right in his thinking (which was debatable at the moment), it hit the casing of his iMac and lodged into a groove in the carpet, worn down by the previous owners of the office.

Brent sucked in a shaky breath. Francis stared him down, angry, confused, and besotted.

"That didn't work," Francis clarified.

"Yeah I got that, thanks," Brent snapped.

Silence resumed, save Brent's quivering breaths. Francis was dwelling on how bad things had gotten. There was no chance for him now. If he'd just found Marcy, this wouldn't have happened, he kept telling himself. If he'd kept put!

"Where's the other three?" Miranda Fontaine's voice carried over the general mutterings of the office. Francis ignored her, as did Brent. If the others wanted to find the two of them, they could do it themselves. He and Francis weren't leaving, that was for sure.

"…Nothing I say can make this any different," Brent finally said.

This was not what Francis wanted to hear. "It's you're fault, now help me!"

"Help you with what? There's nothing to help!" Brent protested. "For one thing, you're sixteen and you're a dork. Wow, desirable."

Francis narrowed his eyes. "I wasn't asking for –"

"And another thing, I wouldn't risk my relationship with Jade for anything or anyone," Brent spat out. "That's all the help I can give you, Francis, whether you like it or not. There's nothing else to say."

Francis glared at Brent so heatedly that it was almost violating. Francis wasn't sure how he intended the look to come off. His shoulders trembled angrily.

"Thanks for the rejection, slick," Francis muttered darkly, "but I asked for HELP, not a personal attack."

Brent sighed loudly. "For God's sake, Francis, pull yourself –"

"Yeah, okay, that's easy!" Francis exploded as his brain shut down. "Yes, I'm gonna just walk out of this office like nothing ever happened, act like nothing ever changes, just like at the end of every week! I'm sorry, Brent Sienna, but that's not going to work this time!"

Francis ran out of the cubicle, walked down the hallway, sat down in what he presumed was his own cubicle, and resumed drooling on it.

The lights finally came back on. Francis had fallen asleep, all of his energy shaken from him. Brent and Cole stood uneasily in the askew door, both of them a bit out of it.

"At least he found his own office this –"

"If you make one crack right now, I will fire you," Cole threatened.

"But I actually do work," Brent murmured before taking one apprehensive step into Francis' office. Cole followed him, feet shuffling with much less anxiety and more worry.

"I don't understand why I'm here," Brent protested. "He'll throw something at me."

"And you won't recover," Cole retorted sarcastically. "Brent, you're a part of this too. …Is he drooling?"

"That's a disgusting amount of drool," Brent agreed. He took his empty coffee mug and tried to push some of the watery stuff into it, hoping to wash it away from Francis' face. He got close to Francis and began pushing drool into his cup with a pencil.

He hit Francis with the pencil.

Francis shot up, screaming. He looked at Brent, screamed again, and fell, tipping his office chair over and landing with a thud on the ground. Francis pressed himself against the wall, fearing that he'd been caught. Then he realized that he wasn't anywhere near a river. The dream wasn't real.

"What the hell are you -?!" Francis begged to know before his eyes widened. "Brent!" Francis chucked a potted plant at him, hitting him square in the forehead and knocking him out.

Cole sighed. "…He'll recover."

"Yeah," Francis scoffed. "Kinda why I threw it with no qualms."

Cole rolled his eyes. Francis hadn't fundamentally changed; that was a good sign. Maybe there was hope for this intervention yet.

"Francis… Brent told me everything," Cole admitted.

"Yeah, well, he doesn't know about the dream I just had," Francis said rather apathetically. Francis grimaced. "Thank God."

"Okay, this has gone far enough," Cole said. He didn't want to know. "Listen, Francis, this is not going to be what you want to hear… but you're going to have to do the best you can to keep this out of your mind."

Francis snorted.

"It sounds ridiculous, but there is honestly nothing I can do to get you to get over your… feelings… for Brent. Except remind you that he's my age," Brent added as an aside.

"…And why are you reminding me of that?" Francis clarified before his eyes widened. "Oh. Jailbate."

"My GOD, Francis," Cole shook his head angrily. "No. To show you how pathetically out of your league Brent is."

This, if possible, was an even harsher reality. Francis' eyes became downcast as he thought over this simple truth. He WAS out of his league. WAY out. It was him versus Jade. And Francis had to admit that the record showed, besides his revenge-seeking kiss, he was straight. Rigidly straight. Francis took a deep breath, straightened up, and looked at his desk.

"I'll clean that up," Francis assured Cole. "Where are the mops?"

And for whatever reason, Cole trusted that Francis wasn't going to be flipping out anytime soon.

What's wrong with that? Francis shrugged. I can always keep my mouth shut. I've done it before.

Francis extracted his crumpled-up sign from the company trash can after hours. A musty glow emitted from the one working florescent light in the PvP offices, bathing Francis in an ethereal light. Why he was taking this sign, he didn't know. I mean, it was juvenile scribbles. 'I kiss dudes'. Honestly.

They don't have to know that I'm bisexual.

Francis folded the note into his pocket, patted it once, and set off for home, whistling something from the eighties.

fin

A/N: There are no PvP fictions. I didn't know that when I started this, but knowing it now, I'm a little apprehensive. I hope that people don't react in a totally negative way to the fact that this story is, at its core, pedophilic one-sided slash. But the strip I reference in the beginning (from February 5 2007) was totally begging for it…

And so, I bring my first true slash-fic. Have fun.

DISCLAIMER: God, you think I own PvP? After writing THIS?! Oh Christ people.