Warning for minor character death.
Hey there, real quick, to the guest asking if Markus and co. will appear, I can say that Markus will show up for a bit, but that's about it. Also, it means a lot to me that I was your first review ever! Thank you so much, I feel very cool lol :)
Middle school snuck up on Gavin. He knew those two weeks were there and that sixth grade was fast approaching, and yet somehow, he was still surprised when he found himself getting ready for the first day of school again.
His father drove him to school like he did every day, but this time was different. This time, his dad questioned him about Connor.
"That friend of yours … Connor?" his dad said, and Gavin gulped and turned toward the window, watching aimlessly as they passed by the many trees and houses. "What happened to his mom?"
Gavin narrowed his eyes in confusion before turning to face his father. People said all the time how Gavin looked just like his dad with the dark, silky hair and the thin set of their lips. Everyone saw it, but not Gavin. He thought he looked more like his mom with her scrutinizing, grey eyes and her smooth, unblemished skin. Gavin wanted to be more like his mother, but he did act like his father more than he cared to admit—especially when Gavin decided to give someone a hard time.
"I don't know." Gavin shrugged. "She died, I guess."
"You guess?" his dad said, raising a skeptical eyebrow, eyes still on the road. "You don't know?"
Gavin flushed at the condescending tone. "I mean, Connor doesn't talk about her. And, his dad said once that she passed away, so I guess—I mean, so she must have died."
His dad hummed to himself, and Gavin faced back out the window, crossing his arms over his chest. The day hadn't even started yet and already his mood was tarnished.
"But, do you ever— Are there any—" his dad started, then he huffed, whatever front he'd been trying to put up getting lost as his frustration bubbled over. "Do you know if Mr. Anderson has a girlfriend?"
Gavin could feel his shoulders hunching in on himself, and he felt unreasonably angry at the question. "I don't know. Who cares?"
He glared at the side of his dad's head, wondering why the hell he would ask such a random question, but his father dropped the conversation as they pulled up to the school.
School wasn't much better. As it turned out, he and Connor only had two classes together, and since Connor had a last name of A, and Gavin had a last name of R, they were seated on opposite sides of the room.
But, one of those shared classes was gym, so it wasn't a total disaster. In gym class, everyone mingled freely in the gymnasium, so he was able to sit with Connor on the bleachers as the teacher explained how the year was going to go.
Gavin was careful to watch how his teachers reacted to Connor and how they treated him, and he was extremely relieved when Connor walked away from his little one-sided talks with them with a thumbs up at Gavin.
Much to Gavin's dismay, Kamski seemed to be in a bunch of Gavin's classes. They shared the first class of the day together, and the second, and the two before and after lunch, and the last one of the day. For all of Gavin's inward dislike at the kid, he ended up talking to him and catching up throughout the day, and Gavin pretty much let all that kid drama from the summer die. After all, he'd known Kamski for years, and while they always ended up throwing jabs at each other and going through bouts of radio silence, Gavin couldn't deny that they were the same. The same little troublemakers that used to wreak havoc together in elementary school.
And, Gavin didn't want to admit it, but middle school was a little intimidating. The first few months in, he'd quickly realized that he wasn't top dog here. Nobody really knew him other than a portion of the incoming sixth graders, and apparently his reputation hadn't followed him here, so when a few of the eighth grade boys had passed him by one day during lunch period and taunted him in the halls, Gavin didn't end up throwing fists, he ended up doing a lot of thinking.
"How's it going, Reed?" the freakishly tall one with the curly red hair said. Gavin was already able to tell by his tone that the kid didn't actually care a bit how Gavin was doing. "Saw your little boyfriend just now. He was having some trouble getting his words out, but don't you worry. I translated for everyone since you weren't there for him."
Gavin's entire body thrummed with anger and fear as he wondered just what had gone down with Connor. "What are you talking about?" he said, trying and failing not to clench his fists so obviously.
That ginger fuck just grinned stupidly at Gavin, the smug grin on his face making Gavin want to punch it right off. "I'm talking about how that mute kid has been giving googly eyes at Kaitlyn Marks for weeks, so I did him a favor and just dragged him up to her and told her the deal. How that kid has the hots for her, how he secretly fantasizes about touching her all—"
Gavin's throat got unbearably tight, and before he could think about the consequences of his actions, he pushed the taller kid hard into his two friends that were flanked behind him.
It was a mistake.
These kids were bigger than him, fucking eighth graders, and ginger fuck bounced back from his friends' chests quicker than Gavin anticipated. The three of them had Gavin pinned against the glass trophy case in the hallway before he could even blink.
"Who do you think you are, tough guy?" the red head snarled into his face, the other kid's minty breath sour in Gavin's face.
"Get the fuck off me," Gavin said, struggling hard against their hold, but his heart had started to drum a fierce beat in his chest as he swallowed down his sudden fear. He'd never been in a fight he couldn't win before; maybe that was why he was always so cocky.
A swift kick to the stomach was what he got in response, and he grunted at the hard bruise of a feeling that coiled there. Then, they let him go, and he fell straight to the floor on his hands and knees, struggling to breathe through coughing breaths.
"Need to learn your place, kid," that ginger fuck said, and Gavin silently seethed at them as he tried to say something, anything, but he just couldn't breathe through the pain. "Just accept your place at the bottom of the food chain and wait your turn. You've only gotta wait two more years, and then you'll be the one throwing down kids for kicks."
They left after that, snickering all the way down the hall, and once Gavin could breathe normally again, he pushed himself to his feet and glanced at his watch. It was 12:32 P.M., and Connor was still at lunch, so Gavin ran all the way down to the cafeteria with the intent of helping Connor, but once he reached the glass windows that showed inside the cafeteria, his feet stopped.
He didn't know why, but instead of running into the cafeteria and finding Connor like he'd desperately wanted to, he'd only leaned his hands against the window pane and silently sought him out.
He hadn't been hard to spot. He was the only kid eating at one of the many fully crowded tables alone, a wide berth of emptiness surrounding him as he sat at the far end of one of the rectangular tables. Gavin was close enough to see how Connor nibbled on his chicken sandwich, his face a complete mask to anyone else. But, Gavin caught the way his bottom lip wobbled very minutely, and the way he focused way too entirely on the sandwich in his hand, and the way the skin around his eyes was just a bit redder than the rest of his pale skin.
It hurt Gavin right in the chest to see such a sad sight, and he wanted more than anything to go to him and tell him whatever he needed to hear to turn that frown upside down.
But, he couldn't move.
After a minute of his silent pining, Connor cocked his head at his sandwich and gazed right over to where Gavin stood pressed against the glass.
He couldn't stand the guilt that consumed him at Connor's searching gaze.
Gavin ran.
He ran, and he was a fucking coward.
Gym class was Gavin's last class of the day, and also the next time he saw Connor. For the first time ever, he hesitated when he walked into the gymnasium and saw the other boy sitting on the bleachers waiting for him. He wondered briefly how he should play this, and once he decided, he shook his head, ashamed at himself, and then joined Connor on the bleachers.
"I'm so fucking glad this day is finally over with," Gavin said, hoping his forced nonchalance wasn't too noticeable. Maybe if he didn't bring up the incident, then Connor wouldn't either, and they could both just pretend like this day never happened to start with.
Connor didn't immediately look at him, and Gavin started internally panicking. He knew. He so fucking knew that Gavin knew, and oh fuck, what was he going to do?
But, then Connor finally did glance at Gavin, and after he endured Connor's intense scrutinization for a minute, the other boy finally gave a timid smile and nodded his head in agreement with Gavin's earlier statement.
Thank fucking god.
The next couple of months were some of the hardest. After that awful day, whenever he walked alongside Connor in the halls, he felt like he had the biggest target on his back. It wasn't something Gavin was used to, or liked for that matter, and being around Connor started to make him feel vulnerable.
So, he slowly started distancing himself. He walked faster in the mornings to avoid Connor's usually late arrival to school, and during class, he didn't look Connor's way. It wasn't like Connor would call his name out loud, so if he just didn't make eye contact with him, then the other boy couldn't reach him.
The times when Gavin would go over to Connor's house after school, Connor would sometimes complain about the fact that they hardly saw each other in school anymore. Gavin always played the avoidance off as the pressures of middle school keeping his mind occupied.
When they were alone and doing their homework together, Connor let glimpses of his day be revealed, and Gavin just felt worse and worse the more Connor spoke.
Apparently, those kids hadn't stopped their torment of Connor, and light shoves and annoying teasing happened on a regular basis when Gavin wasn't around. It was crazy to Gavin because Connor seemed fine in school, he didn't act like someone who got bullied on the daily, and Gavin never would have known had Connor not told him.
He knew he'd told Connor before that if anyone picked on him that he'd set them straight, but he just wasn't in a position to live up to his word. Those douchebags in the hall that day had been right: he was at the bottom of the food chain, and Gavin was afraid of what would happen if he tried to go up against the lions of the school by himself.
And, Connor noticed the change in him. Gavin was stupid to think that Connor would be oblivious to Gavin's inner turmoil, but Connor knew; Gavin could tell by the way Connor sometimes sat and studied Gavin when he thought he wasn't paying attention, in the way it always looked like Connor wanted to say something to him but didn't. Connor probably knew it that very first day on the bleachers when Gavin thought he'd gotten away with hiding it.
These terrible months of Gavin feeling like shit, and Connor being teased, all that tension and simmering feelings came to a head on a bright Spring day.
It was the day of the Spring instrumental concert, and Gavin was slumped with his back against the table as he sat in the cafeteria alongside the rest of the sixth-grade class as they waited for the band kids to ready up on stage. Every year, the students in band would throw a Spring concert to showcase the music they'd spent all year learning how to play. This was so boring in Gavin's mind because who the hell enjoyed classical music?
Well, Connor, that's who.
He played the clarinet, and Gavin could admit that the kid was pretty damn good, but it didn't make Gavin love classical music all of a sudden. It still irritated him that he was dragged to all the concerts Connor was in because of his mom's need to support Gavin's friends, even when Gavin hadn't asked.
On the day of the concert, the school always held a pre-show for the students during the day, which Gavin thought they did as a way to force somebody to listen to this music from the 1500s.
Gavin was sitting beside Kamski, who was obnoxiously chewing his gum as loud as he could, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
He whisked his head around and found Connor leaning across the table, his clarinet in one hand. Gavin waited for him to speak, so used to hearing him talk now, before he remembered where they were. Then, he noticed the folded paper beneath Connor's splayed fingers on the table.
Connor urged Gavin to take it, and once Gavin scooped it up, Connor shot him a quick smile and ran off for the stage.
Gavin held the note clutched in his hand and waited for the concert to begin before he opened it. He didn't want anyone noticing the note and being nosy about it.
He unraveled the paper without even looking, keeping his eyes on the band class play their orchestrated music on stage. Then, he glanced down at the open paper.
Batman & Robin
Gavin gazed at the note in confusion. There was nothing else on the front, and as he gazed on stage and sought out Connor to throw him an inquisitive glance, the note was suddenly ripped from his hands.
"Ooh, is this a love note?" Kamski said, and Gavin attempted to snatch it back, but Kamski held it high above their heads. The fucker was tall.
"No, you idiot. I just found it," he said because it was none of his goddamn business where Gavin got this note.
Kamski studied the paper amusedly, and then held it out before him to read it more clearly. Gavin took this opportunity to grab onto the note and yank on it, and the accompanying fffwwwppp that sounded had Gavin's jaw falling open in surprise.
The paper Connor had given him merely five minutes ago was now ripped, two halves fisted in both Gavin and Kamski's guilty hands.
A quick, startled laugh escaped Kamski as he tried to cover himself. "That wasn't my fault," he said, and Gavin scoffed as he grabbed the broken half of the paper in Kamski's hand up.
It was pretty sad to say that once the paper was broken could Gavin finally see its importance. On the back of one of the halves of the note, a side Gavin had failed to look at before, he finally caught sight of an expertly drawn Robin with a tiny clarinet in his hand.
Fuck.
Gavin was too busy trying to place the two halves back together (which his stomach burned with guilt when he realized the other half had an equally amazingly drawn Batman sitting in a chair below Robin) to notice that the noise from the stage had stopped. He gazed around him and saw everyone staring on stage, giggles and sharp intakes of breath breathing through the crowd.
That's when Gavin finally made eye contact with Connor. His best friend held his clarinet loosely down in his lap, forgotten about as everyone else on stage slowly stopped playing their instruments and gazed around in confusion. But, not Connor. He wasn't confused.
He looked absolutely heartbroken.
His eyes were impossibly wide, wide enough for Gavin to see the shine there even from this distance, just waiting to spill over once Connor blinked. His bottom lip was jutting out, and Gavin's heart was just ripping itself over and over at the sight. Connor saw what he and Kamski did. He fucking saw.
Gavin shot up. He didn't know what he was going to do, but he couldn't just sit there while Connor was about to make the biggest fool of himself up on stage. But, Connor was quicker. He'd jumped up from his chair at the same time as Gavin had and proceeded to run off backstage.
Gavin groaned and covered his eyes with one hand, the broken drawing tightly fisted in his other.
"Sorry about that," Kamski said behind him, and Gavin scoffed because Kamski had the audacity to apologize, like a simple, distant sorry was going to fix the weird tension Connor and Gavin had already been having. Gavin whirled on him.
"You're such an asshole, you dipshit," he said, and it really should have bothered him just how expansive his vocabulary was becoming on the negative spectrum, but Gavin couldn't bring himself to care.
Gavin didn't see Connor for the rest of the day, but his real troubles didn't start until he got home. His mother was waiting for him at the kitchen table when he got in after school, her face somber, her nails tapping against the glossy wood of the table eerily.
Of course, she would already know. Hank practically told her everything.
"Before you say anything—" Gavin started in an attempt to calm her, but she slashed her hand through the air, and Gavin shut his mouth.
"Sit down," she said, and her voice was so soft, and really, he would have preferred her yelling at him to this; to this calm that he was unable to read.
She waited until he dropped his backpack to the floor and sat down across from her before she continued.
"You've been differently lately," she started, and Gavin shook his leg anxiously. "I've noticed that frown you used to wear when you were younger has come back."
"I'm fine," Gavin said as a reflex.
"I thought Connor was able to make that frown go away, so imagine my confusion when it started coming back."
Gavin listened quietly, silently seething the entire time. He never liked being lectured, and, apparently, he wasn't as sneaky as he thought he'd been. He really didn't want to explain to his mom about that fight he'd gotten into with ginger fuck, and how it practically scared him into driving Connor away, but he didn't think he'd be able to hide it anymore.
"What happened today?" she said.
Gavin huffed, all of his mental straining spilling over as he tried to defend himself. "It wasn't my fault, that stupid Kamski snatched the note right from my hands and ripped it before I could even stop him. I didn't even see the picture on the back until it was too late, you gotta believe me."
His mother was steadily staring at Gavin with her intense gray eyes, but he didn't look away no matter how guilty he felt. He was telling her the truth.
"Did you know that a few of the older kids from school embarrassed Connor one day in front of one of the other girls?"
Gavin opened his mouth to say no, but he ended up choking on air, unable to lie to his mother.
"Because Connor thinks you do know," she continued, "and, he thinks that he's to blame for the distance you've been creating between the two of you; something I had no idea about."
Gavin was just downright confused now because did Connor really talk to his dad about all of this? Connor always said he didn't like telling his dad things because the retaliation against those who'd wronged him was more embarrassment than he could handle, and Hank never acted like he was upset with Gavin, so how could his mother know all this?
"How do you—?" he started quietly.
"Connor told me."
And, that stopped Gavin up short. His hands were flat on the table, and his eyes shot to hers. "He told you? You mean he…"
His mom was smiling at him, a real happy smile, but it was tinged with sadness, and fuck, Gavin was to blame for that bit.
"He spoke to me," she said, and she laughed once, a heavy sound that shot right through his heart. "I know now how you must have felt when he first spoke to you. It's the most amazing feeling to have physical confirmation that you mean something to someone, that your presence is a comfort to someone, and that's not something that's easily attained."
"I know, Mom. It took Connor over a year of being friends before he talked to me."
"And, he's getting better. It just about took a little less than a year with me."
Gavin gulped, trying to beat back the sting behind his eyes. He didn't know why the fact that Connor had talked to his mom made him want to cry like a punk bitch.
"Wait, Connor told you all of this today? He was here?" Gavin said.
"He is here. Hank dropped him off earlier and said Connor wanted to talk to me. He's in your room where I told him to wait for you."
"He's here?" he said, his voice trailing up a few octaves as he shot up from his seat and glanced through the hallway at his closed bedroom door.
"Sit down, were not finished."
"But—"
She shot him a look, and while he pouted, he sat down on the edge of his seat to hear her parting words, ready to bounce as soon as he could.
"Connor is very upset right now, and I urge you to be patient with him. Let him talk, let him explain to you how he's feeling, and don't get so defensive like you always do. Just listen to what he has to say, and go make up like the best friends you are."
Gavin hesitated as she finished, and he suddenly didn't know what he was going to say when he saw Connor.
"Go on," she said and reached across the table to wrap his tense fist in her hand. "I know you'll make things right."
She had confidence in him; confidence that he would do the right thing. His mother had always managed to see something in Gavin that he hadn't yet been able to see in himself.
He left the table and stood in front of his closed bedroom door for a moment, trying to let his mother's optimism flow through him.
He could do this. He could make things right.
Right?
He creaked opened the door and found Connor lying down on his bed, his back facing Gavin. He was curled up tightly in on himself, and when Gavin shut the door, he heard Connor sniffle.
Gavin didn't have any chairs in his room, unlike Connor who had a whole desk and chair set to study at, and so he hesitantly went to sit by Connor's feet on the bed.
He still didn't really know where to start, so he slipped the broken paper out of his jean pocket and held it together in his lap, studying the way Batman had his hands up in a congratulatory manner for Robin, who held a tiny clarinet in one hand and a beaming smile on his face.
It was actually surprisingly good. Connor only ever drew stick figures, and this was way more than that. It was detailed with straight lines and curving ones, the expressions on their faces so obvious to him that it made him wonder.
"You didn't draw this," Gavin said, and it wasn't a question.
Connor sniffled once more, but he actually answered Gavin. It was mumbled, hidden into the pillow as Connor continued to lie there.
"What?" Gavin said.
He heard a huff, and then Connor slowly eased himself up, twisting his upper body around to face Gavin head on.
"My friend made it for me to give to you."
"Why?"
"Because I asked him to," Connor said simply, and he finally sat up straight now, wrapping his hands around his ankles which were criss cross on the bed. "He's a pretty cool artist, and when we were in art class last week, I wrote a note asking him if he could make this for me because I thought it'd be a cool gift for you. I don't know, something you could hang up on the wall beside that picture of us."
Gavin glanced at his wall, at the picture hanging above his dresser drawers Connor was talking about. It was from that day at the pond. Gavin's mom had wanted to take a picture of their last hangout before school had started, and so she'd asked some random family if they wouldn't mind taking their picture.
Hank had his arm around Gavin's mom who was smiling brightly, her hand sliding down and resting on Gavin's chest in front of her. Connor was beside Gavin, and he had the biggest smile on his face, enough to see the gap in his teeth from the tooth he'd lost the week before. It was Gavin's favorite picture because it had all his favorite people in it. Well, it had Connor and his mom, and that about ended his list of favorite people. And, he was at his pond, at his secret place that belonged to Gavin and no one else.
Gavin flinched when he felt the paper slipping from his grasp, and he watched guiltily as Connor placed the drawing back together in his own hands.
"Why did you let Kamski rip it? Markus worked really hard on this, and I thought you'd like it."
"I do like it," Gavin hurried to say. "It's pretty rad, actually." Connor hummed noncommittally in response, and Gavin sighed softly to himself. "Listen, I didn't see the picture at first, and when Kamski took it, I didn't think too much. I tried to get it back, but he wouldn't give it, and—"
"And, what? You were too scared to stand up to your friend?" Connor said, and Gavin blinked at the harsh tone Connor used.
"No, I—"
"No, you were just scared. Just like how you tried to pretend that you didn't know what happened to me at lunch with Kaitlyn Marks."
"That— That's—" Gavin sputtered, unable to formulate a response. He had never been on this side of Connor's anger before, and it was unnerving because he never thought he would be.
"Do you think I'm stupid, Gavin? I see things most people don't, and I know that you know what happened to me, and you didn't say a word."
"What was I supposed to say?" Gavin said, flustered and unable to be scolded at like that. "What could I have done? It was too late, I came to you too late, and … and…"
And, what? I was scared? I was embarrassed for you? I was embarrassed because of you?
Connor probably already knew all of this.
Gavin gulped and tried to calm himself, tried to remember what it was his mother had said before he stepped foot in this room.
Let him talk.
Gavin shut his mouth, and he waited.
He didn't like it, his teeth were on edge the entire time, but he waited for Connor to speak.
"You probably heard about it, but you didn't see it," Connor said, his voice getting thick with emotion. Gavin thought he saw a shine in the other boy's eyes, and he couldn't tell if it was from the simmering anger or from the hurt he was feeling. "You didn't see the way that one kid slung his arm around my shoulder as soon as I walked into the cafeteria. You didn't see how he guided me over to Kaitlyn all the while talking to me like I was his friend, like he was being nice. You didn't see the look on Kaitlyn's face when he started saying those awful things, those things that weren't true, but how could anybody know when I couldn't say a word to defend myself? The strain was there in my throat, and I wanted so badly to just take off running, but then everyone just cleared away from me, and all I could do was sit down by myself and act like I didn't care."
Connor was crying now. His voice was cracking and quiet tears were trickling down his cheeks, and Gavin felt miserable because he hadn't kept his promise to his best friend. He was the worst friend in the world.
"And, then I saw you standing at the window, and I thought you'd come over and ask me what was wrong, but you just left. You left me there, and I started to think later when I saw you at gym that maybe you were embarrassed of me. I didn't want you to feel like that, so I didn't bring it up."
Gavin's fists were clenched so tight he could feel the imprints his nails were leaving in his palms. Letting Connor talk uninterrupted was so fucking hard because Gavin wanted so badly to deflect Connor's bad thoughts, to defend himself, but his mother's words still hung over his head, and so he waited.
Connor rubbed the heels of his palms tightly against his eyes as he tried to rub away the tears, and when he pulled his hands away, Connor's eyes were wide and wet, his long eyelashes so dark against his pale skin. The sight did something weird to Gavin. It made his stomach flip airily, and the only word that came to mind was … pretty.
"I think that's why you haven't really talked to me in school for months," Connor continued. "Because of what happened. But, I've just … I really missed you, and I thought if I gave you this drawing that it would remind you about our friendship. And, then I saw Kamski tear it up, and I thought you didn't want to be friends anymore."
Gavin let his eyes fall down to the bed, and he thought this was why his mother told him to wait, to let Connor talk. So, that he could be punished by Connor; because this was torture—pure, unrelenting torture to hear Connor sound so sad and to hear from his point of view what happened that day at lunch with ginger fuck.
His mother was a sly woman.
But, he supposed he deserved this. Gavin knew he was wrong. He wouldn't admit it, but he knew he was wrong for letting Connor's pain and suffering go by without a word of acknowledgment. To let Connor's bullies get off just because Gavin was scared for once in his life.
Connor was scared, too; Connor went to school every day knowing what it was going to be like, and yet he still found the will to be himself, to not let his bullies affect him in any real way that they could see.
Gavin always pumped himself up to be the hero, to be Batman, to be the protector of his friends, but in reality, Connor was stronger than Gavin would ever be.
"I remember that day you're talking about. What those idiots did to you. I know what happened because…" Gavin started and swallowed the lump in his throat down. Was he really about to let someone voluntarily know that he got his ass handed to him? That he was the prey for once?
He made the mistake of catching Connor's eye then, and even after everything Gavin had put him through, how awful of a friend he'd been, Connor was urging him on with his eyes, a slight furrow of concern touching his eyebrows.
Gavin guessed he really was doing this.
"I know because … they found me in the hall. That stupid one with the red hair started taunting me and telling me how he saw my— how he saw you, and how he lied to Kaitlyn and embarrassed you. He told me that himself, and I thought I was so tough; I pushed him right into his friends. Which, I was dumb here, because there were three of them, and they got the best of me, and that red-headed fuck kicked me in the stomach."
Connor sniffled and ran a finger under his nose, having calmed down from his quiet crying. "You pushed Adam Skitzler? And, he kicked you?" he said, voice in awe.
"I don't know, is that the red head's name? I never actually knew. I always just called him ginger fuck in my head."
Connor giggled once at that, the sound going straight through Gavin and easing some of his tension. "Yeah, that's him. I can't believe you pushed him, though. I heard that kid knocked someone unconscious two years ago right in the middle of the cafeteria. They had to call the ambulance and call security and everything, so I think you got off lucky with a kick. Why would you go after someone like that?"
And, oh, wasn't that the question? The question with an obvious answer.
At least, Gavin had thought so.
Connor had looked mildly horrified when Gavin told him he pushed that red-headed kid, and he couldn't believe that his best friend, his Robin, still hadn't figured it out by now.
"Because, I'm Batman. And, no one crosses me or my sidekick."
Connor grinned brightly at him, a smile that he'd almost forgotten the look of lighting him up.
Never again, he promised himself. Never again would he leave Connor behind just to save some face.
"I might've forgotten that during the year, but I'll make it up to you. I promise. This year sucked so bad, and Kamski is actually the dumbest person because I haven't even told you about the time we had a math quiz, and he was sitting behind Blake, and you know how dumb that kid is, and Kamski cheated off of him! And, they both got F's! It was hilarious. And, you know what else?"
Gavin went on to tell Connor another story about one of his friends that he could care less about, and they talked for so long that Gavin's mother came rushing in a few hours later because, "Connor, your concert! I forgot we're supposed to meet your dad at the school!"
Connor ran after her, but before Gavin left the room, he picked up the Batman and Robin drawing and folded the two halves together and slid them into his top drawer with all the rest of the Connor notes, right beside his Beyblades.
Connor shined at his instrumental concert that night, playing through all his songs without a repeat of the disaster pre-show earlier in the school day.
Gavin couldn't seem to take his eyes off of Connor in his uniform as he played. He was wearing a standard white button up and some black khaki pants, a blue cummerbund around his waist and a matching bow tie at his neck, and Gavin's mom had enough time to gel Connor's hair into a neat side sweep so it was up and out of his eyes as he focused on reading the sheet of music.
Gavin had never really seen his friend looking so neat and tidy, and the way his hair was patted down with just a tiny curl falling out of place was … he didn't know. He didn't really know the word or the feeling he got when he gazed at Connor throughout the night. All he knew was that he felt flushed and sweaty and couldn't stop staring at the slant in Connor's eyebrows as he blew into his clarinet, extremely focused.
It was pretty hot in the school, that was probably why Gavin felt warm and his palms were sweating.
The next week at school was the biggest relief. He waited in the mornings for Connor to show up, and they walked into school together, just like old times. It was nearing the end of the school year, and everyone was pretty swamped with their own troubles of making up class work they'd missed and getting everyone to sign their yearbooks and trying to change their D grades into C's. So, Gavin knew no one even cared who he hung out with.
There was just one thing Gavin wanted to do before the year ended.
He enlisted the help of Connor, Kamski, and Connor's friend, Markus, for this particular ruse, and it was fairly easy to get all three boys on board. Even Kamski complied with barely more than a request.
"I need your help with something. And, you fucking owe me after last time, so you can't say no," Gavin had said as he sat down in English class one morning. Kamski was already seated beside him, and when Gavin asked him, Kamski merely raised an eyebrow.
"Does it involve mild bodily harm, tears, and/or the embarrassment of some of our peers?" he'd said seriously.
Gavin had blinked. "About a third of that."
"Then, count me in," Kamski had said as he smacked an excited hand down on his desk.
Connor had asked Markus for his help, or more like brought Gavin along to speak for him, and when Gavin had initially told Markus what he needed to do, the diplomatic boy had been hesitant.
"This isn't right. It feels mean, and I'm not sure I wanna be a part of that," Markus had initially said, but once Gavin explained to him the plan, and who they were targeting, Markus had gotten over his bout of righteousness and pledged his allegiance to their cause.
"I'll see what I can do," Markus had said, more than a little cheerful, and Gavin had briefly wondered what Markus' beef was with the red head they were going to humiliate to get him on board so easily. Whatever it was, he was glad for it in that moment.
Everything came together a week before school ended. The four boys met up in the empty eighth grade hallway while class was still in session, and they went looking for the locker number Kamski had weaseled his way into finding out. That had been his job, to find out which locker belonged to Adam Skitzler A.K.A ginger fuck.
"Locker number 69," Gavin said, snickering to himself as he stopped their little group in front of Adam's locker. He didn't actually know why that number was funny, but it just seemed to be a universal joke that everyone laughed at.
Kamski cackled loudly, and Markus shushed him. "Jeez, I wonder who he had to blow to get that locker," Kamski said.
Connor raised an eyebrow at that and gazed between Kamski and Gavin in confusion, looking to Gavin for an explanation he couldn't give.
"What does that mean? Blow what?" Markus said, voicing the question Connor couldn't.
Kamski only laughed and patted both Connor and Markus' heads as if they were small children. "Ah, such innocence."
"Shut up," Gavin said and turned to Markus. "Picture," he said, holding his hand out. Markus reached into his notebook that he'd brought and slipped out the drawing he'd made and passed it to Gavin. Gavin took a minute to gaze at the very detailed and very naked woman whose boobs were filling about half the page. He didn't know if it was accurate, but it looked like what Gavin had sometimes imagined a naked woman to look like, so he was very pleased with Markus' work.
"Well done, soldier," Gavin said, patting a hand on Markus' shoulder. The other boy gave a smug, lazy smile in response.
"Give me that," Kamski said, snatching the paper before Gavin could pass it over himself.
"What are you doing? It's perfect already," Gavin said, watching as Kamski pulled out a pencil from his pocket and began scribbling something at the bottom.
Kamski raised the paper proudly and turned it around so the other three boys could see. Gavin smirked at what Kamski had written as he pulled it back into his own hands.
Mrs. Webster.
The name of one of the eighth grade English teachers. Gavin had to admit it was a better idea than just sticking the unnamed woman onto Adam's locker to get him in trouble, and another idea sparked as Gavin thought.
"We should sign Adam's name to this and slide it under Mrs. Webster's door."
Markus and Connor shared looks of uncertainty, but before either of them could protest, Kamski snatched the paper yet again out of Gavin's hands and scribbled Adam's name in what Gavin hoped was a good imitation of the kid's handwriting, and then he took off past the rest of them and turned down a corner.
"Kamski!" Gavin whisper-yelled, already taking off after the bigger kid. When Gavin, Connor, and Markus finally turned the corner at the end of the hall, Kamski was already running back their way empty-handed, grabbing Gavin along the collar of his shirt as he passed them.
"Run!"
The four of them ran back down the stairs and didn't stop until they'd reached the quiet sixth grade hall once more.
Gavin and Kamski stopped at the lockers and leaned against them as they started to laugh at what they'd done. Markus and Connor were less enthusiastic.
"That wasn't the plan," Markus said, arms folded across his chest, eyes shooting daggers at Kamski. "What if we get in trouble? I mean, it's the teacher!"
Kamski grinned smugly. "You're right. This was so much better than that childish plan of Gavin's."
"That's not what I—"
"Hey, getting Adam back at all was my idea in the first place. Show some credit where it's due," Gavin said.
Markus threw his hands up and started backing away. "Whatever, I'm out of here. I didn't agree to all this."
Connor started to follow him, gazing back uncertainly at Gavin, and Gavin huffed as he watched the two boys walk further and further away. "Aww, come on. If anyone gets in trouble, we'll just blame it on Kamski!"
"What?" Kamski said indignantly. "Screw you, Gavin, this was your idea, didn't you just say?"
Gavin turned back to him with an amused smile on his face. "We all saw you push that note under Mrs. Webster's door all by yourself, don't even deny it."
"You little shit, come here," he said, and Gavin took off running after Connor and Markus as Kamski tried to catch him.
At the end of the day, the whispers from the eighth grade hallway had reached through the seventh grade, and the sixth grade, until it finally landed on Gavin's ears.
He was at his locker, shoving the crapload of papers he still had to clear out of his locker into his backpack when his locker neighbor started talking to her friend.
"It was so embarrassing, I heard," the girl said, and really after being locker neighbors for a whole school year, he really should have known her name by now. "Adam had to be escorted out by the security because he was throwing a huge fit and screaming that it wasn't him and that whoever did it would pay."
"But, what did he do in the first place?" the other girl said.
His locker neighbor giggled and pulled the other girl closer to speak into her ear, but it was still loud enough for Gavin to eavesdrop on if he leaned his head ever closer. "He drew a picture of Mrs. Webster … naked."
The other girl gasped like it was the most offensive thing she'd ever heard, and Gavin had to bite his lip to keep from laughing.
"And, then he slipped it under her door for her. It's actually pretty stupid, if you ask me, but Adam isn't known for his smarts. He got in serious trouble for that, and now he's not allowed to go on the eighth grade trip to Hershey Park."
Gavin slammed his locker shut, the two girls beside him jumping and whirling to face him at the harsh sound.
"Man, that guy sounds like an idiot," Gavin said as he slung his backpack over one shoulder and walked away, the sound of their undignified gasps trailing behind him.
Mission completed.
Summer got off to a great start with his Robin by his side once more. Now that he had his best friend back and things were back to the way they used to be, Gavin started to wonder why he had been so scared to be around Connor during school in the first place.
So what if people had widened their bullying scopes to include Gavin? It must have not have been that bad if Connor had endured through the school year and still came out of it like a badass. If Connor could do it, Gavin could do it, too—just with a little more attitude.
He came to this realization about halfway through the summer when he and Connor were playing at the park near Gavin's house. Connor hadn't met any of Gavin's neighborhood friends, and before Gavin had brought him over, he'd made sure to tell everyone how it was going to be.
"Listen up, dipshits," Gavin had said, as he opened his eyes at the top of the castle, effectively ruining their game of Blind Man's Bluff.
All the kids who were hiding had groaned and jumped from their hiding spots. "Damn it, Gavin, it's no fun when you cheat. Now we have to start over."
"I'm bringing my friend over tomorrow, and he's a little weird, but you're not allowed to make fun of him, or else I'll beat you."
"What's so special about this kid? Is he your boyfriend?" someone had said.
Gavin had punched him in the arm, and the kid owwwed.
"He's my best friend, and he doesn't talk, so don't try to force him to. But, he's totally funny and cool, so you'll like him, probably."
Kamski had been swinging himself on the swing set across from the wooden castle, a smirk on his face. It rubbed Gavin the wrong way, but he thought Kamski could be the ally he needed in this situation.
"Don't sweat it, kid," Kamski had said as he dropped stealthily to his feet. "No one's gonna mess with your precious Connor."
Gavin had growled lowly at that, an actual growl that refused to be heard, because Kamski was a jackass, but he was possibly the only person who would back Gavin up if he had to fight someone for Connor.
So, Gavin had warned his friends yesterday, and today Gavin was trying to carve his and Connor's initials into the wood on the inside of the castle. Everyone else was playing Marco Polo, and Gavin didn't feel like playing another hide and seek game, so he just decided to mess around with the castle while he waited for the game to finish.
The wood of the castle was already covered in colorful words and drawings kids from past years had graffitied all over the castle, everything from Jen wuz here xD to crude drawings of a penis. There was a clear space of untouched wood at the top of the castle near the top of the sliding board, and Gavin was in the process of shaping the R of his last name when he heard the commotion.
"That's not fair, everyone else has already been it except for you!" someone said, voice hostile, and Gavin peered over the top of the castle to see Connor standing near the seesaw with his arms wrapped around himself, his eyebrows slanted, and his bottom lip between his teeth as one of the other boys pushed up against Kamski, who was acting as a barrier between the hostile kid and Connor.
"Lay off, Cory, you know the kid can't call out Marco, so it wouldn't be any fun," Gavin heard Kamski say, and within seconds Gavin had jumped down from the top of the castle and ran over to the scene.
"But, I hate being it! He hasn't even been calling out Polo, so why is he still even playing? He's probably just lying, anyway, so he won't have to be it. I've never seen anyone who couldn't talk—"
"Well, now you have," Gavin said, lightly pushing Kamski to the side as he faced this jerk on his own. "Find someone else to be it, jeez, it's just a stupid game."
When Gavin felt the end of his shirt being tugged on, he glanced back at Connor, who was shaking his head at Gavin miserably.
Just let it go.
"No. No, this jerk can't talk to you like that, Con."
How could Connor honestly believe that Gavin was going to sit by once again and let him get trampled on? He'd show Connor. He'd show him that he hadn't been lying when he said he'd make it up to him.
Gavin turned back to the annoying kid, Cory. "Why don't you go play with someone else, because no one wants you here."
Gavin was speaking for himself, clearly, but if anyone disagreed, they didn't say a thing.
Gavin had just turned back to join in the game because apparently he couldn't leave for two fucking seconds without some asshole taking advantage, but then he saw Connor's eyes widen in alarm, and before he knew it, he was hitting the ground on his hands and knees.
"Shut up, Gavin," Cory said, sounding so tough at Gavin's back. "Why don't you go, and take your little friend with you."
Gavin was seething, and all he could see was red, and he couldn't believe this kid had the nerve to push him. It was pretty inevitable when Gavin shot up and rammed his body into the other kid, the two boys tumbling around in the dirt as they fought to swing punches into each other's sides. Gavin was all over the kid as he twisted sideways on top of the kid, keeping him pinned to the ground as he tried to deflect kicks to the face, the kid's cries barely registering in his mind as they tousled around for the upper hand—which Gavin was clearly gaining.
This didn't last very long because he was suddenly being pulled up by many arms, and when he went tumbling backward into whoever was behind him, his mind finally cleared.
Kamski pushed Gavin off of him, because it was he who Gavin had fallen into, and Gavin glanced around for Connor. Connor was already on his knees beside Gavin, inspecting all over his face with wide eyes and wincing at what he found there.
Gavin didn't think he'd taken any hits, but he guessed he was wrong. But, whatever happened to him didn't matter because the other kid he was tussling with was crying as he got to his feet and started walking backwards, his teary eyes on Gavin.
"I'm telling," Cory said, and while it should have been funny—because only babies tattled—Gavin wasn't laughing.
He knew his mother would get a phone call later, and he knew that his father would ground him.
But, Connor was flicking the dirt and sticks off of Gavin's back and knees, and when Connor wiped his hand across Gavin's face to smudge off the dirt there—and ow, now he could feel the cuts on his cheek—Gavin couldn't find it in himself to really care what his parents did.
Because it had been worth it. Connor was worth it. And, he'd been stupid before to not stand up to those bullies because the way Connor was treating Gavin right now, so affectionately and with so much caring … well, there was no better feeling to Gavin.
Gavin actually felt worthy of the title of Batman for once.
When he got home that night, his dad told him that he was grounded for three weeks. No TV, no playing outside at the park, no swimming pool, no Kamski, but worst of all—no Connor.
His dad was really a dick sometimes.
His mother had agreed with Gavin's punishment, but when his dad left for work, and it was just Gavin and his mom hanging at home, she secretly told him how she was proud of him for standing up for Connor.
This was why, just three months shy of his 13th birthday, his mother had gotten him his very first cell phone.
It was the coolest thing he'd ever gotten, cooler than his Beyblades, better than his DS, and when he went over to Connor's house after his punishment was lifted to show him his cell phone, he was even more excited to find out that Connor's dad had gotten him the exact same one!
Connor and Gavin spent the rest of the summer on their phones, texting each other and playing online games with each other, and Gavin was super bummed to find out that school was already coming back in session in the next few days.
The day before school started back, Gavin was at the park again with Connor. They didn't come to play, there weren't even any kids there that day as the sun dipped low behind the trees. They were all inside their houses no doubt, getting ready for the first day of school in the morning. The first day of seventh grade.
Honestly, Gavin was looking forward to the new school year. That ginger fuck Adam Skitzler was long gone, hopefully about to endure a painful first year of high school, and Gavin wasn't at the bottom of the food chain anymore. He wasn't at the top, per se, but he knew the incoming eighth grade class and they knew him, so he thought he could handle whatever middle school wanted to throw at him this year. With Connor by his side and their friendship stronger than ever, Gavin thought he could endure a lot.
"What are you thinking about?" Connor asked from beside him, and Gavin glanced up from his phone to take the other boy in.
They were sitting side by side on the edge of the castle, their legs dangling over the ledge. Connor wasn't on his phone anymore, but he was leaning against the wooden post at his chest, his cheek smashed against his arms folded beneath him.
Gavin took a minute to study the soft curves of Connor's face, his baby fat still puffing his cheeks up; unlike Gavin, who had begun growing out of his child like self.
This summer had been a turning point for Gavin and Connor alike. He knew it would come since that awful fifth grade sex ed lesson, and while it had never really bothered him before—the idea of his body changing and growing and his voice getting deeper—it hadn't really touched his mind that it would be his reality until this summer.
He'd noticed the first change right after sixth grade ended. He was at the pool with his mom, and when he found Kamski already in the water, the other kid raucously pointed out that Gavin had hair under his arms. He'd never noticed before, but it was definitely there. Later, at home, he'd inspected the rest of his body and had merely raised his eyebrows at all the little fine hairs that covered his arms and legs and armpits and even down there, and how could he have missed this?
That had only been the start of it, and by the end of the summer, his voice had cracked and cracked until it finally morphed into a deeper version of itself. Connor had sometimes laughed at the crack in his voice, but Connor was still a baby because he didn't even have any hair under his armpits, so hah!
But, Connor was changing in his own way, too, and that was easy for Gavin to see. The other boy shot up through the summer, and Gavin was startled to realize one day that he had to gaze slightly up to glance at Connor. It was totally not fair, and Gavin couldn't wait until he shot up and surpassed Connor in height because surely he would? Surely he wasn't cursed to stay a wholesome five feet tall forever?
And, that still hadn't even been the end of it. Gavin had eyes, and he felt like he'd been blind his whole life because when he saw one of the neighborhood girls come down to play Blind Man's Bluff with Gavin and his friends like she always did, no longer was she just another annoying girl who didn't know how to take a joke; now all he saw was the very curve of her slightly inflated chest, her bra straps easy to see beside the thin straps of her tank top. It was simply fascinating to Gavin, and that mental image of the girl stayed with him all day, and at night time, when he was alone in the dark quiet of his bedroom, he still couldn't stop thinking about the way her long, smooth legs had moved her so fast around the playground, and when he woke up the next morning, his pajama bottoms were wet.
This kind of thing happened to Gavin on a daily basis, and while it wasn't bad, and it was actually very amazing to experience and experiment with, he hesitated about bringing it up to Connor. He didn't know if the other boy felt that way about people yet, and for some reason, he thought it would make things awkward if he brought it up, so he only mentioned it to Kamski because he was that kind of friend Gavin could be his dirty, honest self with because he was exactly the same as him. Connor was Gavin's closest friend, but he also had an air of innocence about him that Gavin didn't want to touch, didn't want to taint.
As it turned out, Kamski had already figured out this secret beauty to girls last year! So, Gavin and Kamski had yet a new subject they could spend their time talking about.
"Gavin!"
Gavin blinked, and he suddenly realized that he'd been staring at the mole on the side of Connor's neck as he spaced out like a ditz. The other boy was snapping his fingers in Gavin's face, trying to get his attention. "Did you hear me?"
"What?" Gavin said, slowly trailing his eyes back to the light of his phone screen.
"I asked you what you were thinking about?"
Oh. Right.
Gavin snorted. "Just loving how we're not gonna be the scrawny punks at the bottom of the food chain anymore. Do you know how much I've missed being the kid that people fear?"
Connor sighed wistfully and picked up his head to rest his chin on his arms as he gazed forward out at the park. "I hope you don't use this as an opening to become the new class bully. Didn't you learn anything from last year?"
"Yeah, not to wait the whole fucking year before getting revenge. Because what we did to ginger fuck was sweet, but it would have been so much sweeter if we'd done it at the beginning of the year."
Connor sighed, a painful one that Gavin smirked at. He loved teasing the kid. "I would think that you would have learned something a little nicer, like sticking up for your friends? Or, that bullying is, oh, I don't know, wrong?"
"Oh, yeah, that, too. Bullying is wrong, and all that crap."
Connor huffed. "Gavin—"
"Con, I'm just fucking with you. Do you really think I'm capable of just going around and bullying kids like those kids did to us last year?"
Even from the side, Gavin could see Connor's face crumple in guilt. "Of course, not."
"Then, just shut up," he said gently, "and relax. Seventh grade is going to be awesome. Here," he said, showing Connor his phone where Gavin had been scrolling through random pictures. "Look at this hilarious picture of this frog. It's called a meme, have you seen them? They're so stupid, and they don't make any sense, but that's what makes it so funny."
Seventh grade was fucking awesome. The year whizzed by without a hitch, and Connor and Gavin were as strong as ever during that time.
He'd been right when he said that he could handle whatever the new eighth graders handed to him because they didn't bother Gavin at all. At the beginning of the school year, rumors had started going around—which Gavin knew was 100% because of Kamski and his need to stir drama—saying that Gavin had been the one behind Adam's big takedown last year, and so he'd garnered a new reputation this year. Gavin was the one you didn't want to cross, not because you'd get bullied or smacked down in the halls, but because he had connections, and he could make things happen that you didn't want.
It was all hilarious to him because really, it was just a dumb prank he'd done last minute because some kids were bullying Connor, and now half the school treated him as if he were some prank god.
It worked in his favor, though. The younger kids were scared of Gavin and didn't really fuck around with him or his group of friends, Connor being untouchable number one. And, the older kids just treated Gavin as an equal and accepted the package that came along with him—that package being Connor, as always.
For the next year and a half, Gavin felt like nothing could stop him. He had his Robin by his side, he had the respect—and fear—of his classmates, and that was all Gavin had ever wanted.
Eighth grade came and had almost gone, had almost escaped Gavin's clutches with barely more than a victorious win.
When Gavin was little, he had always thought he had a little devil on his shoulder, a dark and mocking presence that he thought was there to punish him for his childhood bullying ways. His mother told him over and over that it wasn't true, and when he'd met Connor and his life got redirected toward a life where Gavin thought it would reward him with a friend, he finally believed his mother all those times.
Gavin had been dead wrong.
That little devil never left. It had just been waiting, creeping, and hiding stealthily in the shadows while Gavin had a taste of the perfect life, until it chose the right moment to strike.
It was the last day of eighth grade, the last day of middle school, and Gavin was so fucking ready for the summer. The librarian had just been on his ass lately about some book that he'd checked out a few months ago and had forgotten to return, and she had chased him down until the very last day of school to remind him to turn it in. He really had no fucking clue where it was, and he knew he would get fined for the missing book, but it was whatever. His dad could pay whatever stupid bill the school slapped him with.
But, Connor, the ever-loyal friend he was, had searched his own house for the book because, "I know you had Call of the Wild here somewhere, I just know it!" and, so Gavin was pretty impressed when Connor came running up to him right before the morning bell on the last day of school, a stupid grin on his face.
Connor's face was so expressive, the happiness evident from his wide eyes and big, toothy grin as he stopped right in front of Gavin who had been clearing out his locker. He turned to the other boy when Connor thrust the book in front of him and into Gavin's chest.
"Nice one, Robin. Now I won't have to hear my dad bitching at me for some stupid book," he said, grabbing the book up from Connor's hands.
He was about to turn back to his locker when Connor pulled his arm back to get his attention. Connor was biting his lip, a weird look on his face, his eyes downcast on his held-out hand. Gavin followed his gaze to see that the other boy's hand was open, a small shiny ring centered in his palm. Gavin huffed in disbelief as he slipped up the thin ring between his fingers. It was his mom's; it was her wedding ring, and Gavin smiled as he wrapped his fist tightly around it, clenching his eyes shut at the surge of relief flowing through him. His mom had been worried sick for days because she'd lost it last week, and she was going to be fucking ecstatic that Connor had found it.
"My mom's been looking for this," he said, smacking his closed fist to his lips in a dramatic kiss. "She's been such wreck. Where'd you find it?" he said, then mentally slapped himself. They were in the middle of a crowded hallway, he wasn't going to get anything concrete out of his friend. So, for now, Gavin settled with a quick, "Thanks," before slamming his locker shut and walking with Connor to their first class together.
The day passed by quickly, as the last day of school always tended to go by, and after Gavin ran by the library to toss his book into the return pile, he hightailed it out of there so fast, not even going to miss that school one bit. He'd had a lot of ups and downs through middle school, and even though sixth grade had been the worst of it, and the next two years had been better, it still held no sentimental value to him. Besides, the only thing he'd miss would be his friends, and they were all coming with him to high school in the fall, so Gavin was ready to say goodbye to his childhood once and for all and hello to his teenhood.
When he finally got into his house, his mother was standing in the kitchen near the oven as she cooked something that smelled suspiciously like cookies.
"How was your last day, sweetie?" she said without turning around, already knowing who had walked in.
"It was cool. Connor found my book that I'd been looking for," he said as he flipped a chair around and sat backwards in it, his hands patting beats onto the table.
His mother turned at that, an easy smile on her face. "What a relief. Now, we don't have to hear your father complaining about something as little as a bill for a library book."
Gavin snorted. His thoughts exactly.
"I'm making cookies. I thought it'd be nice to make for your last day and all. They should be—"
The sound of their front door opening made Gavin whirl around at the sound, the sight of his dad bustling in and brushing the sleeves of his suit causing Gavin to frown. His dad never came home early.
"You're home early," Gavin's mom said, surprise in her voice.
His dad sighed heavily as he toed off his shoes and walked into the kitchen to give his mom a quick kiss on the cheek. "Well, it's Friday, and since I finished up in the office early, I thought I'd come and see what you two were up to. Maybe take us all out for dinner. It is his last day, isn't it?"
Gavin narrowed his eyes as he stared down at the tear in his jeans up on his thigh. He picked at it as his parents talked about where to go and, "Yes, honey, today was Gavin's last day of middle school," and he kept pulling and pulling against the little hole until he finally heard a big riiip and let the tear go.
"Those are your good pants, Gavin, stop that," his mom said, and he glanced at his parents.
His dad merely raised an eyebrow at Gavin—one that made Gavin flush with embarrassment—before deftly picking up his mother's hand in one of his.
"Still haven't found it?" his dad said, running a finger over her empty ring finger. Gavin perked up, completely forgetting about the little ring in his pocket.
"I did," Gavin said as he fished the ring out of his pocket and headed to his mother. He held it out to her proudly and was a little surprised at the uneasy look that flashed across her face, her eyebrows scrunching down and her eyes getting hazy. "Actually, Connor found it. He found it when he found my book."
His mom carefully grabbed the ring up in her palm and slid it back into place on her finger, all the while Gavin's dad was staring at the side of her face, a blank look on his face.
"Thank you, sweetie," his mother said slowly, softly, staring at the ring very purposefully.
"Where exactly did your friend find this? At his house, did you say?" his father said, now focused solely on Gavin.
Gavin hadn't said where Connor had found it, but by the intense look in his father's eyes, he suddenly didn't want to say.
"Um, I—I don't know. Does it matter? Mom has her wedding ring back, so you don't have to worry anymore," Gavin said, hating the way his voice always sounded so small when he spoke to his father.
His mother sighed so very softly, like the way she seemed to do everything, and ruffled Gavin's hair. "Of course, that's all that matters."
She said it didn't matter, so then why was everything so awkward all of a sudden? His father was rapidly ticking his fingers against the counter as he stared unseeingly at the floor, and his mother had her hand curled around the side of her throat as she gazed away and toward the hallway, and Gavin was just stumped. Come to think of it, even Connor had this weird look on his face when he'd given Gavin the ring. What the hell was Gavin missing?
It was so quiet in the warm kitchen and no one was moving, so when his dad abruptly pushed himself away from the counter aggressively, both Gavin and his mother jumped, startled at the harsh sound of his shoes as he stomped away.
His mother looked after his father sadly, and when she pushed herself off the counter to follow him, Gavin said, "Did I do something wrong?"
Because it made no sense. Why was his father upset? Gavin did something good! He thought they'd be happy that she had her ring back because he knew it meant a lot to both of them. And, his dad was fine when he came in five minutes ago, but only once Gavin opened his mouth did his father storm away, so what else could it have been?
His mother stopped in her tracks at Gavin's words, and she was quick to turn back to him with firm words. "You must never think that. I never want you to think for one second that you're the reason for your father's anger."
Gavin wasn't too sure about that, and she knew it. She came back to him and pressed his head into her chest as her arms went around him. He was helpless against keeping his arms to his side, and he reached up to cling to her, the smell of her hair that smelled like green apple lingering strongly in his nose, but he didn't care. He liked green apples, anyway.
"Your father loves you just as I do, and I know that might be hard to see, but it's true," she said, her fingers combing through his soft hair like she used to do when he was little. "You're the best thing that could have happened to us, and you're never the cause of our arguments."
Gavin pulled away enough to gaze at her serious face, his stomach knotting with anxious nerves. "But, why are you guys arguing again?"
His parents had gone through a rough patch last year, a short time that was filled with awkward dinners and mumbled yelling from their closed bedroom and days where his mother came to lay with him in the middle of the night. But, they'd gotten over that. Nowadays, his parents hugged each other and kissed each other and went out on dates together, and while it still grossed him out to think about, it had just made him feel better knowing that everyone was happy.
He really didn't want to go back to that moody time.
His mother bumped him on the nose with the tip of her finger and spared a smile for him. "Don't you worry about it. You don't need to concern yourself with the stupid little arguments we get into. And, lose these frown lines, sweetie," she said exasperatedly, smoothing her finger across his stressed eyebrows. "You'll end up with wrinkles."
His mother untangled herself from him then and went off after his dad, the sound of the door closing shut resonating throughout mind.
Gavin was just standing there in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the floor, trying to make sense of a situation nobody would tell him about, when the smell hit him—the foul, burning smoke of his favorite cookies being overdone.
"Cookies," Gavin mumbled to himself and hastily went to pull the oven door open. A blast of smoke hit him in the face, and he coughed as he waved it away enough to use the oven mitt to pull out the burnt cookies.
He quickly shut the oven door and set the cookie tray on the stove top. It took a minute before he cleared most of the smoke away from his face using the oven mitt as a fan, though the smell and taste still lingered in his throat.
Gavin groaned, upset, as he gazed at his mom's forgotten cookies. They usually turned out so wonderful, and she even liked to drop in Hershey kisses into the middle of the soft cookies.
He waited until they cooled down before he grabbed one up and hit it against the stove top. It was as hard as plastic.
His parents stayed in their room for a long time, long enough to where Gavin had enough time to play on his phone until the battery was about to die, and he even had time to watch four episodes of Steven Universe before he finally heard their bedroom door creak open.
Gavin's mom came steadfastly walking from the hallway and went straight to the coat rack. Her eyes were puffy, and her lips were set in a grim line, and Gavin stood up once he realized that she was getting herself ready.
He didn't even make it over to her before she tearfully asked for him to go back to watching his cartoons. He insisted on going with her, not liking the idea that she was going for a drive so late and by herself while she was sad, but she sounded so defeated when she spoke to him, and he didn't want to make her more upset. So, Gavin slowly sat back down on the couch and watched with a heavy heart as his mother grabbed up the car keys and left the house.
Gavin didn't move from his spot on the couch, and he told himself he wouldn't, either, until she came back. He waited all night long, as long as he could, but when two o'clock in the morning hit, he had already fallen asleep curled up on the couch.
When he woke up a little later, it was just hitting dusk judging by the orangish pink colors filtering in through the blinds in the living room, but a single light was on in the kitchen, a light that hadn't been on when he went to sleep.
A choked, muffled sound was coming from the kitchen, and when Gavin rubbed at his eyes and pushed himself up to peer into the kitchen over the arm of the couch, he was startled to see multiple people standing in his kitchen, people he didn't recognize.
His heart started hammering against his chest when he realized they were cops.
Gavin's mouth went dry, and he could still hear that choking sound, and he jumped up from the couch and ran to the edge of the kitchen where he found his dad sitting at the kitchen table, his face in his hands, and his shoulders shaking as he cried into his hands.
Gavin knew something big had happened then because his dad was crying—he'd never seen his dad cry before. Not when his mother cried (because that was just sad enough to always make Gavin want to cry), not when Gavin accidentally slammed his dad's hand in the door when he was younger. Not ever.
"Dad," Gavin said shakily, and all the heads in the room turned to look at Gavin, their somber faces not helping him in the slightest.
"Son," his dad said roughly, and he beckoned Gavin closer, his distraught face enough to make Gavin comply with no complaint for once.
Gavin was finding it harder and harder to breathe as he walked closer to his dad, and as soon as he was within arms reach, his father grabbed him around the waist and pulled him to him in a crushing hug; a one-sided hug because Gavin's arms were kind of pinned to his sides beneath his father's grip.
"Where's Mom?" Gavin said, and his father only squeezed him tighter as another deep sob wrangled its way out of his throat.
His father eventually pulled away and explained to Gavin what had happened while he slept. Or, he tried to, at least. His words were broken, and he kept choking as he started and stopped, started and stopped, but Gavin got the gist of it. He caught the unspeakable words from between his father's half sentences.
His mother was gone.
And, she wasn't gone off to the store for some early morning trip for milk, or gone out for a run. His mother was gone, and she would never be back.
It was no one's fault, the cop had tried to explain, had very calmly tried to explain as he brought up some of the details about the crash his mother had been in just a mere few hours ago, but Gavin didn't stick around to hear any of it.
He'd wrenched himself away from his father and ran out the front door. He ran and he ran through the early morning fog, his vision blurry the entire way to his destination.
Connor lived about two miles away, and Gavin ran the entire way to his house until he could hardly breathe past the pain in his side and the tightness of his throat and the way his head was pounding from the force of his sobs heaving through him.
He banged on Connor's door, and it never registered one bit how it was still dusk, the sunlight barely peeking through the trees. It was too early, way too early for a fourteen year old to be out, but nothing was registering in his mind.
The door finally opened after Gavin kept on banging his fist against the door, but he was faced with the opposite of who he'd been looking for.
Hank was standing there with an annoyed grimace on his face, and he looked about ready to chew Gavin out for waking him up from the looks of his disheveled state, but once Hank caught sight of the hysterical state Gavin was in, he immediately loosened his grimace to a frown.
"Gavin? What in the hell…?" he said softly, and Gavin didn't have time for this.
"Connor," he hiccuped, his breaths stuttering as he tried to gaze past Hank. "Where's… I need—"
"Just get in here, boy, Jesus," Hank said, and once he opened the door wide enough, Gavin ran past him and went straight for Connor's room.
The other boy was still sleeping peacefully, his mouth open, and his arms flailed around his head crazily, like always. Gavin stared at him for a moment as his loud sobs turned to silent cries, and he squeezed his eyes shut as he stood at the threshold of the room and wrapped his arms around himself tightly, protectively.
He stood like that for he didn't know how long, eventually sliding down Connor's open bedroom door to wrap his arms around himself and hide his face into his knees.
His head was throbbing steadily, and his eyes felt so heavy, and he was growing tired of hearing himself cry so openly, so pathetically, but he didn't care. Nothing mattered right now. It felt like nothing would matter ever again.
Eventually, his chest started to loosen as he got everything out of him, and when his cries had dialed down to moaning whimpers, the voices around him started filtering in.
"Did she answer? Did she say what's wrong with him?"
Connor. That was Connor's concerned voice and right beside him, too. Gavin could feel the arm around his shoulder now, and he hadn't even realized that Connor was awake and holding him.
"No, that was, uh…" Hank said shakily, and Gavin could hear the roughness to it, the way he stopped talking so he could collect himself enough to speak. "It's bad, Con."
Hank sucked in a heavy gasp, and as he explained to Connor in short, cut off sentences about what had happened, Gavin tuned them out once more, focusing on the numbing sound of his whimpers once again. He'd already heard the news once, he didn't need to hear it again.
Then, it was quiet, and while Gavin had wished for silence just seconds before, he found that he couldn't stay stuck in the quiet like this forever. When he was sure Hank had gone and only Connor remained, Gavin sniffed and finally peeled his head away from its hiding place against his knees and slowly gazed at Connor beside him.
The other boy was leaning his head against Gavin's shoulder, one arm around Gavin's back to grasp his shoulder and his other hand barely gripping onto Gavin's elbow.
Connor must have felt him move because he picked his head up to look at Gavin, and the way Connor's eyes were red and puffy, his entire chin wobbling with unspoken whimpers, just made Gavin start to heave with a fresh wave of tears.
"I'm so sorry," Connor whispered, his bright eyes wet, and that finally pushed Gavin over the edge. He aggressively pulled Connor to him and grabbed onto his shirt, fisting the soft fabric up in his fists as he bit down on another sob. His face was pressed right into the crease of Connor's neck, and it was so hot in the small space, and he couldn't breathe, but he couldn't find it in himself to move.
His tears were probably soaking down Connor's neck and sliding down under his shirt, but he knew Connor didn't care.
Connor had his hands wrapped around Gavin's back and head, and when he gently urged Gavin away, it was only so he could guide them over to the bed. Gavin laid down first, lying as close to the edge as he could get as he rested his head on his bent arms. Connor got in behind him, and when the other boy wrapped an arm around Gavin's chest and held him close, he didn't even put up a fight. This was Connor, and right now, he was the only person Gavin wanted to be around.
Gavin was still shuddering, his entire body feeling shaky as he hiccuped every couple of breaths as his mind started to clear, the harsh pounding from earlier starting to make him sleepy, and when Connor started combing his fingers through Gavin's hair soothingly, he closed his eyes at the comforting gesture.
He fell asleep under Connor's gentle touch, and to memories of his mother doing the exact same thing when he was little.
The funeral was held on a Tuesday. It was bright and shining, and Gavin was pissed off as he stood beside his father in front of the freshly buried grave plot because wasn't it supposed to be raining? How could the world think it was okay to act as if the most terrible thing hadn't happened? As if anyone could see this day as a day to go out and have fun in the sun?
He couldn't help but let his mind wander to what he would be doing today if it were a normal day—what he should have been doing.
On days like this, where the sun was high and the wind was swaying breezily, his mother would take him to the pond to go feed the ducks because that was something Gavin still enjoyed to do even after being in his teen hood for two years. He probably would have brung Connor along if he wasn't busy with Hank, and they would have dangled their legs along the bridge as they tossed out bread to the ducks pooled together at their feet.
Gavin didn't know if he ever wanted to go back to that pond again.
Someone nudged Gavin's shoulder, and he wiped away the stray tears that had silently fallen before gazing at Connor.
Connor had been just as wrecked as Gavin had been during these last few days, and it had a been a selfish comfort to know that someone else could understand what he was going through. His mom always treated Connor like part of the family, like a second son to her, and so if anyone felt her loss as significantly as Gavin had, it would be Connor.
As it was, Connor was standing on Gavin's other side, his hands folded together, his wet eyes heavy with sadness, dark eyebrows raised slightly in question.
Are you okay?
And, Connor didn't really mean are you okay because of course Gavin fucking wasn't. Connor knew this, and he wasn't stupid enough to ask such a thoughtless question. No, what Connor really meant was are you here right now?
Gavin only rubbed at his nose and nodded in answer, suddenly thankful for their silent way of communication they'd long since established since they were ten years old. He didn't think he'd be able to talk right now even if he tried.
Gavin's hands were at his side, and Connor was close, so close their dress pants were brushing along each others, and Gavin didn't even notice that his hand had wandered over to Connor's clasped together hands. The other boy immediately clutched onto one of Gavin's hands, and he finally felt like he could breathe. He took in a huge, stuttering breath as he fought to keep the heavy cries in since he was surrounded by people who knew his mom, people Gavin didn't really know except for when he saw them at dinner parties or in passing at the grocery store.
Kamski was here. His parents and Gavin's parents had always been good friends, and that was why he was pretty much Gavin's first friend ever. Kamski was standing across the plot from him, and while Gavin knew this and knew that Kamski had been trying to catch his eye ever since the funeral started, Gavin still kept his head down.
He did let a few choked sounds out, but the only ones close enough to hear were Gavin's dad and Connor, and he didn't care if they heard him. It was nothing they hadn't heard from him for days.
As the funeral went on, Gavin didn't really listen to a word that was being said as the guy talked about life and passing, and he was actually relieved when the whole thing was over. He just wanted to go over to Connor's and do mindless shit with him.
And, for the next couple months of Summer, that's exactly what he did. He'd get up in the mornings, skip out on breakfast and sneak out to Connor's house where Connor would make waffles or pancakes or whatever because everyone knew better than to eat something Hank had made. And, Gavin was almost positive Connor knew the secret recipe to making sweet food, just like his mother had, because the waffles were always extra fluffy, and Gavin always ate every single bite of his.
Then, they'd spend the day hanging out at the park near Connor's house. It wasn't nearly as fun as the park by Gavin's house because this one only had two big slides and a swing set, but they didn't go there for that anyway, they just needed somewhere to chill while they talked and played on their phones.
It became another routine in Gavin's life: wake up, argue with his dad about going to Connor's, disobey his father's, "No, Gavin, I don't want you walking all the way to Connor's by yourself," bullshit excuse and leave out anyway after his dad left for work, watch mindless videos on his phone beside Connor all day long, and then head back home before his dad made it back in.
Hank would drive Gavin home sometimes if he was there and not at the precinct, and Gavin appreciated that. He appreciated how Hank still looked out for him. That was something Gavin had been confused about after his mom died because Hank hadn't shown up to the funeral. Gavin never knew why, and Connor hadn't known why, and when he saw Hank after the funeral, Gavin had been a little bit nervous. His mom and Connor's dad had always been good friends, so it hadn't made any sense why the man wouldn't show up to her funeral.
But, when Gavin saw him after the funeral, he'd seen just how miserable Hank was. How Hank had greeted him with a sad smile and red, puffy eyes. How he spent most of his time locked in his bedroom doing who knew what the fuck, but one thing Hank had done was made absolutely sure Gavin knew that he was always welcomed to come there whenever he wanted to. It was like his second home, Hank had said—and Gavin agreed.
So, Gavin silently forgave Hank for skipping out on the funeral because maybe there were other factors keeping him away. He knew the man didn't deal with his emotions very well, so that could have been it.
Either way, Hank and Connor were such a comfort to Gavin throughout the summer. He'd never felt so low in his entire life, and they didn't demand anything of him. If anything, the two of them took care of Gavin.
Gavin didn't spend the night very often during the summer because it was always an argument with his father in the morning when he showed back up. But, the week before high school started, Gavin found himself lying down in Connor's bed as he waited for the other boy to finish with his shower.
Gavin's tongue was flicked out of his mouth as he tried different filters on Snapchat. He liked the way he looked with this devilish filter, one that turned his cheeks flaming and horns sprouted out of his ears. He thought it was a good representation of himself.
When the door creaked open, Connor timidly peeked his head inside before coming all the way in. He was clad in only a blue bath towel that was wrapped around his waist and nothing else. Gavin couldn't help the way he used his tongue to pull his bottom lip in between his teeth as he stared at the other boy. Connor had always been a little self conscious about showing off his body, and the only time he walked around without a shirt on was at the pool when everyone else had their shirts off. Gavin had never cared about flaunting his own lean body, and Connor had seen his bare chest more times than he could count.
Which was why Gavin was so struck at the way the other boy shyly crossed the room half-naked and went to stand before his open closet to look for some clothes.
Connor's hair was wet, making the usually poofy mess of his hair stick slickly to his head, the strands curling and clinging to his neck. Connor was just naturally pale, and since they hadn't gone to the pool too much this summer, Connor's torso hadn't seen much sunlight, and Gavin could see the tan lines as they reached Connor's shoulder and then stopped.
It was mesmerizing as Gavin laid there and watched the way Connor's back muscles flexed as he flicked through his hung up clothes, and Gavin slowly lowered his phone down to his chest to pull an arm behind his head, the entertaining filters completely forgotten about.
Gavin had the sudden mental image of himself standing behind the other boy as he ran his fingers down his spine, every little ridge hitting the pads of his fingers like a rhythm, hard and steady, smooth and comforting, and—
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Connor said, and Gavin blinked, unaware that Connor had even turned around with clothes pressed to his chest. Defensively, and more than a little embarrassed at his own mind and the fact that Connor had caught him, Gavin frowned.
"Like what? I thought I saw something on your back, but it was just a dumb fly."
Connor nodded, and while Gavin could tell by the narrowed eyes that the other boy was skeptical, Connor nodded nonetheless and left the room once more.
Gavin let out a harsh breath as the click of the door sounded shut, and he pushed himself up in the bed, rubbing a hand through his hair, wondering why he was seeing his friend in this way.
If he were being honest with himself, this wasn't the first time he'd looked at Connor and had gotten a fluttery flushed feeling coursing through him. It usually ending up with his dick getting embarrassingly hard, and he'd have to drag out mental images of that horrendous librarian from middle school to get it to go away before anyone could notice.
He remembered the first time it had happened. They'd just been doing one of their little wrestling matches after school as they ran home together, and Gavin had tripped Connor up and tackled him to the ground after the other boy stole his last piece of gum. They rolled around twice before Gavin finally pinned Connor to the ground with his hips, and once he'd had Connor's arms pinned down by the wrists, the stolen piece of gum still wrapped tightly in his fist, Gavin had taken in the bright, humorous smile on Connor's dimpled face, and the sound of his laughter coupled with the realization that he had Connor trapped beneath him (just like in every hardcore porno Kamski had shown him in the locker room after gym class) had Gavin scrambling backwards and off the kid before the other boy could feel what Gavin had suddenly felt stir under his belt.
After that day, Gavin had kept their touching to a minimum, the scary feeling in the back of his mind that his random erections could happen again keeping himself from enjoying Connor's once comforting touch. But, it wasn't a one-sided thing. Connor, too, had been hesitating before doing something as simple as dropping his arm around Gavin's neck, and he couldn't tell if it was because Connor was picking up the weird vibes from Gavin or because of something else.
After Gavin's mom, though, they'd gone back to the simple touches, the cuddling in the middle of the night that neither of them spoke about, the handful of times Gavin had reached for Connor's hand and only wanted peace of mind. His mind was so fucked after his mom that it was hard for him to even think about anything other than the awful, all-consuming pain of her loss that was left behind. So, whenever Connor wrapped an arm around him and held him close now, Gavin only took solace in the arms of his best friend.
But, it'd been a few months since his mother had gone, and Gavin didn't know what it meant that he was having these feelings about Connor again. He tried to ignore them, tried to pass it off as him just being hornier than all the other kids and finding everyone he knew attractive. But, that wasn't quite right, though, because while Gavin could get his dick up more times than he got detention, the person who was the cause of that was usually one of the hot girls from their grade … or Connor.
Shit.
The sound of the door creaking open once more had Gavin clenching the bed sheets, startled, until Connor's shy face poked in. He was fully clothed now and found his way over to the bed as Gavin gathered his legs inward criss cross applesauce style, making room for the other boy.
"What are you thinking about?" Connor said as he scooted all the way back until he was leaning against the wall, his phone in his hands, but he wasn't on it; he was just swinging it up and catching it, a slow rhythm Gavin watched as he thought about how to answer him.
It was such a simple question, one that Connor asked him every year once he'd finally opened his mouth and started talking with his voice. The answer had always been something as equally simple, about naïve excitement for the new year, about wanting to be in the same class as Connor, about establishing a good reputation for the year.
Gavin wasn't looking forward to anything about high school. He had been. Nearing the end of eighth grade, it was all he and his friends had talked about was what kind of hot girls were going to be in high school, what kind of cooler classes they'd have, the fact that they got to take their lunch off campus and eat at the fucking McDonald's down the street from their new school.
Now, it all seemed so juvenile to him. Who gave a damn where they ate lunch? Who cared about flirting with pretty girls when Gavin's life had turned upside down during the summer?
So, no, he wasn't thinking about the trivial intricacies of school this time.
"I'm just… My mom always said that high school was going to be my time. She said it was when I would find out just what kind of person I was going to be. Setting the foundation for the future, or whatever the fuck," Gavin said.
His hands were itching as he grabbed at the bed sheets until he eventually reached into his pocket for some random paper he had wadded in there. He unraveled it and scoffed as he took in the crude drawing of boobs Kamski had given him yesterday and proceeded to rip it up into tiny pieces, just to give his hands something constructive to do other than wrinkle Connor's bed sheets.
Connor didn't say anything for a minute, but he did stop the twirling of his phone as he let it fall into his closed lap.
"She was right," Connor said, voice soft. "My dad tells me the same thing. How these could be the years I finally begin to speak in class. How the friendships I form now could help me down the road in life."
Gavin scoffed, a sly smile quirking up the side of his mouth. "What, and I'm not good enough? Your high school friendships mean something, but your childhood ones don't?"
"Of course, they do!" Connor said highly, just like Gavin knew he would. But, Connor knew Gavin by now. He knew him like he knew the sun was bright and the rain was wet. "You're messing with me," he concluded, sighing.
"Fucking with you is the word I'd use."
"And, that's the difference between you and I; I still find vulgar language trash, and an inadequate way to get my feelings across."
"No, you're only a goody two-shoes because besides me, you've only spoken with adults your whole life. They corrupted you. Or, reverse corrupted you. Whatever the opposite of corruption is, that's what's happening with you."
"Moral," Connor said, giving Gavin an unimpressed look. "It's moral, and what's so wrong with wanting to be good?"
Gavin sighed as he rubbed at his forehead and moved to sit shoulder to shoulder with Connor, his entire left side from his shoulders down to his knees connecting with the other boy. "Don't you wish you could be more rebellious? Just do something no one expected of you and say fuck you to the consequences? I bet you'd get away with it, too, since you've only got one parent. I sure get away with a lot more now."
Gavin was scratching at his knees, trying to ignore the obvious implication of how he only had one parent now. Connor was quiet beside him, and Gavin really hoped he just skimmed over the sadness of his statement.
"Something no one expects of me? Even you?" Connor said, and Gavin picked his head up at the bundle of nerves there in his best friend's voice. Connor wasn't looking at him, he was smoothing his thumb over the dark screen of his phone anxiously, and Gavin scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion.
"If you could surprise me still, I'd be pretty fucking shocked. I'm probably the person who knows you best, even those weird, cooky little thoughts you have. I know them all. And, you don't even have to open your mouth most times." Gavin smirked at him and tapped the side of his head in a knowing gesture.
But, then Connor sucked his lips in between his teeth, and Gavin had never seen the other boy look so nervous and excited and hyped up all at once. A tiny flicker of doubt began to creep into his mind as he wondered what Connor was actually capable of.
He didn't have to wonder long because in the next two seconds Connor surged to the side and pressed his lips chastely, awkwardly, and quickly to Gavin's stunned open lips that immediately mashed closed as Connor took the initiative here. Gavin couldn't think, couldn't even close his eyes by how stunned he was that those secret dreams he'd had and always pushed down were becoming a reality right now.
In his subconscious dreams, Gavin would always be the first one to initiate contact. It always started in the middle of the dream with Connor being missing, and Gavin searched everywhere for his missing Robin. He always found him in the same place: at the duck pond, with the other boy dangling his feet carelessly over the bridge, a dumb, caring smile on his face as he tossed bread over the bridge and down to the waiting ducks. Gavin would sit beside him and tell him how scared he was, and when Connor gazed back at him so concernedly, Gavin couldn't resist laying one on those pink lips of his. He imagined that Connor tasted like bubblegum, like the gum Connor loved to steal from Gavin when he thought he wasn't paying attention. It was sweet, and Gavin couldn't help but open up his lips to him because he absolutely loved bubblegum.
Reality was harsher. His first kiss was closed-mouth and over before Gavin could even blink, and once he did, a fiery light zinged throughout his entire body as he realized what just happened, and he gulped when he realized the feeling shot all the way down to his groin.
He gasped belatedly as he rushed to pull his knee up to his chest to block Connor's view of his crotch. Images of his old librarian filled his head as he closed his eyes and tried to will his sudden problem away.
Old, fuzzy hair. Glasses perched so damn low on her nose. Pinched face that sometimes reminded him of a rat. Her high voice that always squeaked his name out, he almost began to hate his name—
"Aren't you gonna say anything?" Connor said, and Gavin finally opened his eyes to gaze at him. Connor's eyes were so vulnerable, as vulnerable as they had been that very first day he'd met him and had only seen those clear brown eyes through a black mask in a Robin suit.
Gavin gulped and wasn't really sure what to say. Was he happy? He felt like he should be mad. It just felt like the appropriate reaction to being kissed by his best friend without any warning, but they were alone. No one had seen, and Gavin didn't feel mad. He was actually glad they were alone right now, though, because Gavin wasn't sure how he felt about this, and an audience would have made it worse. Would have made him react worse.
But, he could tell Connor was getting increasingly agitated by his silence, so he asked the only neutral question he could think of. "Why… What was that for?"
His voice was unusually quiet, and he hoped he wasn't giving off the wrong vibes. He was never any good at making people feel comfortable, but with Connor he'd always tried to.
"I— I— I don't know," Connor said slowly, breathily. "You said something no one expected of me, so…"
Was that what this was? Some kind of joke? Connor had always been funny, but kissing Gavin just to prove that he could still shock him?
It was slow building, but his chest started to feel full as he let the hilarity of the situation wash through him, and before he knew it, he was laughing so hard, the embarrassment and the elation and the relief all pouring out of him in a safe outlet, a laugh Connor couldn't misinterpret as anything but positive.
Pretty soon, Connor had joined him, and the two of them were laughing with their heads bowed together, tears springing from the corners of Gavin's eyes.
It was a good one.
"Okay, Con, you win. You can still shock me. Is that what you wanted to hear?" Gavin said as he wiped at his eyes, leaning back against the wall as he calmed down.
Connor didn't say anything, but he kept on biting down on a smile as he faced Gavin with his bright eyes that looked unusually happy for these somber times. It was pretty hard for them to find any kind of true happiness in their grieving period, but this was the first time Connor had looked genuinely happy in months, and Gavin, too, felt as light as he hadn't felt since before the summer.
Maybe Connor did kiss him as a joke, but it wasn't malicious. He wasn't trying to trick Gavin into thinking anything. Maybe he'd done it to loosen themselves up. Maybe he'd done it purely for shock value, like Connor had suggested.
But, it didn't feel like a joke to Gavin. It felt real, and he didn't want to admit how much he wanted it to happen again.
Soon after that, they slid down on Connor's bed like they always did the few times Gavin defied his father and spent the night. Connor was a cuddler, so that's how they found themselves tonight, like most nights: with Connor hugging Gavin from behind as they slowly drifted along the peaceful atmosphere to the sounds of nature outside Connor's bedroom window.
It wasn't like Gavin had to worry about this compromised position being outed since Connor didn't talk to anyone else. And, Gavin sure as shit wasn't going to mention anything to anyone. He knew some people at school still whispered about him and Connor being boyfriends or whatever, but it didn't bother him as much as it used to that first year of middle school. They were just close friends, and who gave a fuck what they did? Gavin felt comfortable like he was right now, Connor at his back with an arm around his chest, and he wasn't going to deny himself this.
They fell asleep, and this time, Gavin went with a smile on his face as he tried to remember the exact flavor on Connor lips.
Hi! I know I said how I was going to update on Monday, but life happened and I had to go away for a bit, and now im back and woo! its up. so yeah, that oc death was actually pretty hard, i kind of grew attached to his mom :( but like i said, life happens.
final update is saturday, and this time i promise xx
