a/n: characterization of preston taken from ThexOdds' "ABC." ( s/7350706/1/ABC)
featuring: foster-child preston x autistic martin vs conservative parents and midwest expectations.
warnings: ableism, abuse mentions, eating disorder mention, queerphobia mention, slurs. warning lists will be updated as necessary.
"living is easy with eyes closed - misunderstanding all you see -
it's getting hard to be someone, but it all works out. it doesn't matter much to me."
The record hummed and crackled as "Penny Lane" came to a fizzy end.
The general rule in the house was no music over half volume after nine, but he never played anything louder than that anyway. He'd gotten used to being quiet when his dad was still around – less of a house rule and more of a safety precaution that gets internalized over time.
The Andersons were much more lenient with those kinds of things. As long as it wasn't the Grateful Dead or Jimi Hendrix – which it usually turned to after a certain period of time – they wouldn't give Chris or Preston much flack about the radio. It was 11 o'clock and the sound was hardly up at all.
He lazily flopped over, half-asleep, to flip the record and drop the needle again.
A familiar synthline whistled between the soft snap-crackle-pop of the vinyl. The base twanged softly and the drums clicked quietly. The melodic guitar line played on.
The song first got radio play when he was two years old. It was one of his earlier memories, and a pretty fond lullaby to boot.
When he was around five years old, he'd begun rummaging through his parents' – his mother's – measly record collection, and discovered the A-side single still in the plastic.
He never liked "Penny Lane," because it reminded him too much of his old house on Pine Street, where his mom and dad and sister and Chris and he used to live, before his dad was arrested and his sister went to Strawberry Fields forever.
The B-side reminded him of his mom.
The social workers allowed him and Chris to grab a few things to take with them to the youth home while the Andersons set up. Preston made a beeline for the record box; his twiggy arms could only grab about seven, and lots of them dropped on the floor, but a Doors record and "Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever" remained.
It was his one solace during the dank weekend at the youth home. At least it gave him the chance to learn all the words. They get internalized over time.
He rolled over on his back, his hands on his stomach, staring at the ceiling, absentmindedly mouthing the words.
'Let me take you down, 'cause I'm goin' to . . . Strawberry Fields . . . '
' . . . nothing is real . . . with nothing to get hung about . . .'
The walkie-talkie buzzed on the corner of the table, interrupting the quiet melody.
"M'outside."
He sat up groggily, three-quarters-asleep, and pawed around in the dark for the small black box. His hand hit the antennae, which was good enough. He fumbled for the button.
"'Kay. M'on my way down."
"A'right."
He flipped the small side switch to off and the small green light flickered to red.
' . . . Strawberry Fields forever.'
He let the first verse come to a slow stop before lifting the needle and dropping it carefully on the corner of the record player. The LP spun lazily to a soft halt, and he left it there.
His shoes were already tied a little too loose and set by the door. An old, dirty peach pair he never wore anymore, because apparently in high school wearing pink makes you a fag.
The stairs were carpeted and creaky, and he'd perfected stepping on the corners and over bent steps for as long as he'd been perfecting his curveball. Anthony and Marietta were dead asleep from a business trip, and he gave up halfway down the steps.
He nearly slipped on the rug in the kitchen before making it to the front door.
"Hi."
"Hi."
Martin wasn't wearing his glasses.
"You're tall enough to see through the door window now."
"I know."
There was a cricket in the planters.
"Where's your truck?"
"In front of the garage door, like you said."
The door didn't lock behind them. It didn't need to.
"no one, i think, is in my tree; i mean, it must be high or low.
that is, you can't ... you know, tune in, but it's all right. that is, i think it's not too bad."
"So what're you gonna do about it?"
"I . . . I don't know."
The two of them were seated in the bed of the green truck, parked in the gravel outside the garage door. Crickets were the only things you could hear for miles around.
"I don't want to have to keep meeting up in the middle of the night, that's unrealistic and . . . and ridiculous."
Martin looked at him and smiled. "Thanks."
He'd asked him to stop using words like 'stupid' and 'dumb' not too long ago – a hard habit to break, but a request his companion seemed to heed. His vocabulary accounted for it without a problem.
Preston gave a knowing nod.
"But, like . . . we can't keep doing this, we're not . . . nocturnal creatures. We need sleep because we have to go to school, and . . . and you're gonna have to work, and I have baseball, and . . . and you're gonna have football next year, right?"
"Yeah, but how else are we gonna see each other outside of school?"
He got quiet.
"We might not be able to."
"You think so?"
"Maybe, I don't know . . . we can't go to each other's houses, that's for sure."
"Well, not when our parents are awake, at least. Did you hear what they said to me?"
"You didn't tell them we were dating, did you?"
"What, no." He paused. "But they were still really horrible."
"D'they say something?"
Martin didn't respond.
They'd treated him like he was half his age and didn't know what they were saying. It was the same speech he got when he met anyone's parents. 'I'm so glad he has a friend his age, you seem very nice.' "Kind" parent speak for confusion over why their child picked him over all the other normal kids in his class.
Just because he was used to it, doesn't mean he was okay with it. Few people understood that; Preston, thankfully, did.
He continued.
"Well, I mean, we could meet up here again, but what good does that do? All we can do is sit around and talk to each other and stuff."
Martin shifted. "Well . . . that's not . . . so bad."
Preston looked up at him. There were a few inches between them, not so bad; 5'9" and 6' even. They sat on opposite sides of the truck bed.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I mean, it's . . . better than having to put up your mentalist parents."
"Well, to be fair, most things are better than having to put up with my mentalist parents."
Martin shrugged. The two of them sat in silence for a minute. Neither wanted to look each other in the eye.
They'd decided to start dating a few months ago. They'd been friends since kindergarten, when they met each other in the ice cream line the day before school started, but that was two educational institutions ago and they were still stuck together. They both knew quietly that it isn't too often someone stays in your life that long without a good reason.
Sometimes they questioned the fact that one of the only reasons they were still friends was being forced to see each other five days a week, but they didn't complain about it too much – school was fine as long as they had a class or two, but you took that away from them and only one of them really knew how to swim in the deep end.
Preston moved to the other side of the truck.
"If they find out about us, what do you think they're gonna do?"
Neither of them wanted to answer that question, but Martin tried. "I . . . I don't know, you'd probably get in a lot of trouble, I guess."
"Yeah, I know that, but . . . really, what would happen?"
"What, if they found out you were gay?"
He sighed. This was not the first correction to be made.
"I'm not gay, I'm bisexual, you know that. It doesn't matter, it's all the same to them, long as they find out I'm not the good straight Christian boy they think I am."
"Why do they even care, you guys don't even to go church!"
"I know!"
They laughed. It was almost an inside joke, but it wasn't very funny.
Every time, something got blamed on something else which got blamed on something else with them.
Preston's eating disorder was blamed on his depression, was blamed on his sexuality, was blamed on his depression, which was blamed on his eating disorder, and the whole cycle started over again.
Martin's emetophobia was blamed on his autism, was blamed on his sexuality, was blamed on his autism, was blamed on his emetophobia, and the whole cycle started over again.
"Do your parents care?"
"What?"
"About you being gay?"
"They don't know."
"I thought you said you told them."
"I, uh . . . I kind of chickened out."
"I'm not surprised, I would've too. Your aunt's a scary lady."
"Hey, don't drag my aunt into this."
"Martin, if there's a homophobic Christian in this town, it's your aunt and you know it."
"Yeah, I do. I mean, I was gonna tell my parents until . . . she showed up and kind of, ruined the operation."
"I know."
He slumped over and hugged him.
"Martin, what are we gonna do?"
He took a deep breath before answering.
"I don't know."
The sprinklers woke them up eventually.
"let me take you down, 'cause i'm going to strawberry fields; nothing is real and nothing to get hung about . . . strawberry fields forever."