Reese Wilkerson woke up to the sound of heavy rain on the roof. He closed his eyes again, enjoying the rhythm of the falling water for a few minutes before crawling out of bed and drawing back the curtains on the bedroom window. It was coming down hard and he could see puddles forming in the mostly barren back yard. The lanky teen opened the window and inhaled the wonderful fresh smell, ignoring the fact that rain was now getting inside the room.
"Shut the window, dumbass!" His brother Malcolm was awake and cranky, as usual. "You're getting the carpet and the curtains soaked! Mom's gonna kill us!"
"You're such a pain, dude. I just wanted to enjoy the rain for a few minutes without being bitched at!" Reese slammed the window shut and shot his brother a filthy look. "There you go, mama's boy! Happy?"
Malcolm rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Reese grabbed his desk chair and put it directly in front of the window. He sat down and gazed out at the water coming down. He liked the rain, in fact he loved it. When he was little he would go outside and play in it without bothering to put on his rain gear, driving his mother even crazier than she was already. He didn't care if he got punished. The rain made things better somehow.
Thirty minutes passed and Reese remained at the window, transfixed by the deluge. Malcolm had gotten out of bed, gone into the bathroom; peed, flushed, washed his hands and come back inside the bedroom without Reese even glancing up. He had seen him like this before. In fact every time they got a good rain, Reese would go into some kind of trance and stare at it until every last drop had fallen.
Malcolm grabbed the other chair and placed it next to his brother's. He sat down and looked closely at Reese, studying him, wondering what could be going on inside his head. After a minute or so, he relaxed and looked out at the rain. The two of them sat together in silence, enjoying the scene outside their window and enjoying each other's company.
Just as the rain slacked off, Malcolm spoke. "Hey, man. I didn't mean to piss you off about the window."
Reese slowly returned to reality and shrugged, giving his brother an understanding look. "No biggie. It was just so beautiful, man, the smell in the air, the tiny rain drops splashing their cold little selves on my bare toes, the fierce way the sky looked; it was so beautiful. It spoke me, it spoke to my soul."
Malcolm much preferred this version of his brother. He truly liked the boy who could appreciate the beauty of an early morning rain and speak poetically about it. The other Reese, the normal one, was loud and obnoxious, and delighted in torturing his brothers.
Malcolm stood up and went behind his brother's chair. He hugged Reese around the neck, pretending to choke him. "Come on, rain man, let's eat!"
It was Saturday. To their delight, the boys were home alone. Dewey was at Cub Scout camp, their Dad was on a business trip and their Mom was working a double shift at Lucky-Aide. They took advantage of the situation by eating their breakfast cereal in their underwear. When the boys were younger, their mom had allowed them to do that but it came to a screeching halt the first time Reese had come to the table with an obvious boner. Malcolm chuckled at the memory.
"What's so funny, spazz-o?" Reese playfully flicked a piece of cereal at his brother. Malcolm looked up and erupted into a deep, full-blown belly laugh. He struggled to catch his breath and finally composed himself long enough to speak. "You remember back a few years ago, you came to breakfast in your briefs?" Malcolm giggled and continued, "And you had a boner? Mom was so freaked out!"
Both boys burst into uncontrollable laughter. Reese dropped his spoon and banged the table with his hand, milk gushing out of his mouth and running down his chin. Still laughing, he managed to spit out, "God, mom screamed at me for like five solid minutes! What did she think, that I was gonna whip it out right there at the table?" With that comment the boys broke into a fresh round of hysterical laughter.
"Thanks for the mental image!" Malcolm slowly stopped laughing as he actually did conjure up the mental image of Reese whipping his boner out during breakfast. He felt his pulse quicken and something stirring to life between his legs. He forced himself to think of something else. The laughter died out and the boys finished eating.
Malcolm washed their bowls and spoons while Reese slipped away into his private thoughts again. He sat there and watched his brother clean up their breakfast mess wearing nothing except an old pair of boxer briefs. The elastic was blown out and Malcolm had to keep pulling them up to cover his ass. The scene would be comical to most people but Reese didn't laugh. He just watched.
After getting dressed, they rode their bikes to the Cyborg's Den, the best comic book store in town. The two boys rode side by side, splashing in the puddles and playing chicken by seeing how close they could get to each other before one of them widened the gap. They were both very good at the game and had crashed into each other several times over the years because neither one of them would give way. Today, however, Malcolm had won every time. Reese seemed distracted.
The boys spayed gravel as they hit the parking lot at full speed, slowing down only when they were approaching the rear of the store. They slammed on their brakes, fishtailing to a stop inches away from the bike rack. Malcolm looked back at the deep tracks in the gravel they had caused, grinning proudly. Reese looked at his brother and smiled.
A small overhead speaker chirped as they entered the comic book store. "Greetings, humans, and welcome to the Cyborg's Den." Malcolm smiled and waited for his brother to reply but Reese remained silent and walked right for the bins full of comics. Malcolm caught up with him and grabbed his elbow.
"Hey, you didn't do it!"Malcolm could hear the disappointment in his own voice. The two boys had been coming to the Den almost every Saturday for the past five years and Reese had always replied to the recorded greeting in the same way. He would march military style over to the huge cardboard cut-out of the Cyborg in the store's name, stop directly in front of it, stomp his feet twice, spin around in a complete circle, snap to rigid attention while giving the Vulcan Salute and say in a terrible Spock voice, "Live long and prosper space friend!" He looked so deadly serious doing it everyone who saw him laughed. It was one of the weird little things that Malcolm loved about his brother.
"I guess I forgot." Reese looked oddly distant. Malcolm thought that was strange but let it drop.
They spent an hour or so looking for unusual comics, flipping through the pages of their favorites, and wishing they had more money to spend. Reese seemed engrossed in one comic in particular and Malcolm peeked over his brother's shoulder. It was a beautifully illustrated Japanese manga. He knew Reese could not read the Kanji characters in the book and wondered why he was so fascinated with it. Then his eyes fell on the last panel of the page Reese was glued to. It showed two shirtless teenage boys. They were kissing.
Malcolm acted without thinking. He made kissing sounds and said mockingly in a very loud sing-song voice, "Reese likes boys; Reese wants to kiss a boy!" Instead of laughing or telling him to shut up or even punching him, Reese turned around and gave Malcolm a look full of hurt and betrayal. The two of them stared at each other for several seconds and Malcolm could see something was terribly wrong.
Without warning, Reese burst into tears. When his brother tried to ask him what was wrong, he pushed him away, hard. Malcolm fell on his ass, taking down a Green Lantern display with him.
Reese screamed at the top of his lungs, "Go away you piece of crap! Just go away and die! I hate you! I hate your fucking guts!" He looked around the store, "I hate all of you! I hate you! Stop looking at me! Why are you stupid people looking at me? Stop it! Stop looking at me!" He pushed over a table and kicked the bins as they came bouncing to the floor, spilling comics everywhere.
Reese was crying hysterically. He picked up several of the fallen comics and started throwing them at Malcolm's head. He tried to run out of the store but tripped on the way and fell flat on his face. He picked himself up and screamed something that sounded like garbled Klingon and rushed outside. It was a spectacular meltdown. Everyone in the store was now staring at Malcolm. He ran out the door after his very weird and very strange brother.
By the time Malcolm had reached the bike rack behind the store, his brother was already mounted up and was leaving. Reese saw Malcolm and screamed at him, "Leave me alone, ass wipe!"
Malcolm shouted back, "I'm sorry, man, stop for a sec! Let me come with you, we can talk. I wanted us to have such an epic Saturday, I'm fucking sorry!" Reese flipped him off and pedaled away.
Dejected and suddenly alone, the younger boy sat down on the gravel and decided to give Reese some space. He obviously had hurt his brother's feelings. He was just teasing him, the same way they had teased each other a million times. Reese could be so incredibly funny, so loving, and so kind one minute and a total, hateful prick the next. Maybe he felt he had to hide the gentler side of his personality by being a jerk and a bully.
Malcolm felt guilty and he was worried about Reese. He rode around town for nearly two hours looking for him. He texted him, he called him, he texted him again but never got a response. He wondered if Reese had just gone home and turned off his phone. On a hunch, he pedaled over to the small city park close to their house. Reese had always loved feeding the ducks and when they were younger he would go there when he wanted to be alone. Malcolm rode down the long asphalt drive leading to the park and spotted a solitary figure sitting by the duck pond. He knew at once who it was, even from a distance.
He hopped off his bike and walked it over the wet grass and leaned it up against a tree, next to his brother's. He approached Reese slowly and without saying a word sat down next to him. The older boy's eyes were red and Malcolm correctly guessed that Reese was still very upset. Silently, he put his arm around his brother. "Reese, I'm really, really sorry."
Reese started crying again.
"I'm so sorry, man, please forgive me." Malcolm was afraid that he had somehow caused his brother's complete mental collapse. "I'm really sorry, Reese." Malcolm was about to lose it, he couldn't stand to see his brother in so much pain, his heart ached for him, and he thought he was going to start crying himself but the older boy regained his composure. The two sat together in silence until Reese finally spoke. Wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his tee shirt, he attempted to explain himself.
"Malcolm, it's ok, it wasn't your fault. It's my fault; I'm the one who's fucked up, not you." Reese took a couple of deep breaths. "Do you promise not to hate me if I tell you what's wrong?"
"I could never hate you, man. We're brothers and we're more than that, we're friends. Why would you even say something like that?" Malcolm smiled reassuringly.
Reese looked deadly serious. "You have to promise not to hate me."
Malcolm's smile faded as he became alarmed. What in the world is going on, he thought to himself, could Reese be in some kind of serious trouble? "I promise not to hate you."
"I'm gay." With that, Reese started sobbing again.
Malcolm felt about two inches tall. It dawned on him that publically teasing a closeted teenage boy about wanting to kiss other boys was probably the wrong thing to do. No wonder he freaked out, he thought his own brother was outing him in the middle of the Cyborg's Den, in front of half their classmates.
"Reese, it's ok! Lots of guys our age are gay. It isn't a big scary deal any more, not like in the old days. I was just teasing you a little in the store; I'm really, really, really, sorry if I hurt you, I love you."
Malcolm waited for Reese to calm down a bit before continuing. "You told me your big awful secret and see, I didn't freak out or hit you or run away, my head didn't explode and we're still best friends." Malcolm hugged his brother, trying to reassure him.
Reese dried his eyes again and looked at Malcolm. "There's more. I'm in love with someone and you're going to freak the hell out and hate me forever when you find out who it is; I jerk off to his picture every day, sometimes two or three times. He's all I can think about, man. I dream about him, I love the way he smells, and how he combs his hair and how he talks and how he rides his bike and how hot and sexy he looks all the time, even when he's washing dishes or sleeping."
Riding his bike? Washing dishes? Sleeping? Malcolm thought those were odd things to say, especially since he and Reese always rode together, and who the hell does he see doing dishes? Or sleeping?
Reese watched as the mental wheels turned around inside his brother's head and he waited for the inevitable explosion.
"Oh my god." He had put together all of the evidence. He knew who Reese was in love with. Malcolm took his arm away from his brother's shoulder. He jumped to his feet and stared at him with his mouth literally hanging open. Forgetting they were in a public place, Malcolm raised his voice and nearly screamed, "You jerk off to my picture? Jesus Christ, Reese!"
The older boy cringed at his brother's reaction. "You hate me! I knew you would hate me!"
Malcolm was dumbfounded. The fact that Reese masturbated while staring at his picture was all he had room for in his head, everything else had been pushed out. After a few seconds he snapped out of it. In a quieter voice he said, "I don't hate you, stop saying that!" After several more seconds, Malcolm looked around and almost whispered, "Do you really jerk off to my picture?"
Reese nodded. "You're really grossed out, aren't you?"
This time Malcolm thought carefully before speaking. "No! No, I'm definitely not grossed out, I'm just really surprised. It's kind of a compliment in a way, if you think about it." Malcolm was trying his best to process this new information. Reese brought his knees up to his chest, hugging them, burying his face in them. He seemed full of shame and despair.
A horrible thought flashed through Malcolm's brain: this is the kind of thing that can lead to a teen suicide. That realization frightened him so badly he made up his mind to take control of the situation and tell his brother the truth.
He sat next to him and once again put his arm around Reese. Right then, at that moment, Malcolm realized he loved his brother with every fiber of his being. "It's ok. I kind of suspected for a while now that you might be gay. I'm also pretty sure that I'm gay, too. But Reese, I never knew you had those kinds of sexual feelings for me, so this is all a really huge surprise, a really huge and a really nice surprise."
Reese cautiously looked up at Malcolm as he continued. "I have to be honest with you, man. I have those same feelings about you, too. I mean I really tried for a long time not to have them because sex with your brother is pretty taboo, but I do have them and I like having them. Sometimes after you're in bed, I'll sneak one of your dirty tee shirts out of the hamper and put it on, I don't know why, but it makes me feel closer to you. I even spy on you in the shower sometimes, and late at night, even though you think you're being really quiet, I can hear you jerking off under the covers and I wish I was laying there naked with you and we were doing it together, and we were doing it to each other."
His eyes still red and puffy, Reese smiled, he carefully took Malcolm's arm off his shoulders and put his own arm around his younger brother. He leaned in and gently kissed his forehead, then his cheek, and then he kissed him on the mouth. The two boys held their lips together for at least thirty seconds before pulling back. They stared at each other, smiling. Their relationship had just changed forever; they were brothers, they were best friends, and they were in love. It was an epic Saturday after all.