So, here it is, the final part. It doesn't get any happier, and I'm sure it's not what some people (most of you) were expecting, and that's alright, because I'm kind of pleased with the ending. There's a little bit of James/Carlos and a little bit of Carlos/Kendall, but that's not really the focus of this fic, not specifically. This gets a whole lot darker, so, so much darker, just a warning people. I like the dark, always have. ;)
Thank you to all of you who commented and read. I'm sorry to have made you wait so long, but I'm swamped with schoolwork and writing hasn't been my first priority. I hope this satisfies you all, because this is the end. I'm about ninety-nine percent sure there isn't gong to be another part of this anytime soon. I hope you like it, if you don't, let me know why, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts, because this is an unusual fic and your guys' response means a lot. I count this as a writing experiment, I'd like to hear how the experiment went.
The water is so hot it scalds him, boils his flesh raw. Steam fills up the bathroom, thick and white and unbearably warm, moist as he inhales it in, leaves his lungs feeling too full and heavy. He can't breathe the walls are too close and his skin is stretched too tight, pulled too thin. He can't take it, can't watch the grotesque flesh sit on his thighs, gleaming wet and dirty with sweat and spit and come the water alone can't ever wash away. He'll get himself clean though, he will. He's never cleaned anything more than his room in his life and it's about time he starts, about time he learns how to scrub filth away, even the stuff no one else can see.
Mrs. Knight keeps washcloths underneath the sink. He picks a navy blue one that's never been used before, brand new and soft. It turns heavy once he gets it wet, color darkening, and he rubs soap into it until the cloth is smeared white and it leaks runny white foam and suds. He scrubs himself then, imitating what he's seen his mother do, what he's watched Mrs. Knight do the times they tracked dirt onto the floors. He presses his hand down hard enough is fist trembles and moves the washcloth back and forth, scraping his thighs, abrading away the skin. It stings with a ferocious intensity, raw and throbbing, and beneath the flesh he scrubs away everything is pink and red and delicate looking. He can still see it and he thinks its soaked through the layers of him, like mold in the walls, water through the pages of a book, spread slow and thick and permanent. He has to work at his legs; pretend the washcloth is a belt sander, work through until he finds the clean.
"I really need to take a piss." James bursts in without knocking, throws the door open wide, hopping desperately, squirming. Carlos can see a vague outline his silhouette through the curtain, listens as James pisses long and loud, a relieved sigh tacked on at the end. Usually he'd laugh at that, pull the curtain back and splash James with water, but his thighs are so red they look like they could be covered in blood. "Did you drown in there or something?"
He tries to answer and his voice catches in his throat, a solid lump of clay or sand, a mouthful too sour to swallow or spit back up. "Carlos?"
He can't let go of the washcloth, can't move, stuck like a deer in the headlights as James pulls the curtain back, half grinning, no doubt expecting a mouthful of water to hit him in the face, dribble lukewarm down the front of his shirt. "Carlos." This time it isn't a question, there's nothing behind his name, desolate quiet, shock so bright it's blinding. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing." He says and his voice sounds like it's quivering, sounds like he feels inside. "Just getting clean."
James reaches over and slowly, gently, sadly, takes the washcloth from his hand. He notices that the soap has long since rinsed out.
"What happened?" James' expression already knows, the lines of his mouth give him away, the distinct creases of devastation.
"I don't want to talk about it." He wouldn't know how to talk about it even if he did. There's nothing for him to say that won't tear everything they all are apart.
"Okay." James nods, pours his Cuda body wash onto the little blue square of cloth. "Let's just get you clean then."
James is professional, almost clinical, wiping him down, not really looking, moves the washcloth carefully over his face, around his mouth, down and down, lets him scrub himself below the waist. He's imitating the independent film Logan brought home two weeks before; the one Logan thought was art and had turned out to be graphic gang-rape that left them all wide eyed on the couch, Mrs. Knight thoroughly horrified, Katie hiding her face in her hands. They aren't allowed to rent R rated movies on their own anymore.
"Thanks." His thighs are a brilliant cherry pink in the florescent light of the bathroom, contrast obscenely with the natural color of his skin.
"That looks like it hurts."
"No, it's fine."
He doesn't feel anything at all.
Mrs. Knight cooks them a post concert breakfast, congratulating them on an excellent performance. She makes pancakes and bacon and eggs. She shapes the pancakes like Mickey Mouse, she always has, and today Mickey mocks him, stares up at him with pats of butter for eyes and a bacon mouth twisted into something vicious. It says you want me, really in Kendall's voice.
"Want my bacon Carlos?" Kendall waves it at him, smiling, and he's the same as he always is, not a single difference.
"No." He stares at Mickey's laughing, taunting face because he can't look at Kendall's without something rattling inside his chest, closer to his lungs than his heart, his blood buzzing too fast at his pulse points, his heart hammering loud in his head.
"Please Carlos." Kendall squeaks in a falsetto, wriggling the bacon like it's talking. "You know you want me, really."
His stomach rolls once, blistering hot and queasy.
"You have to talk about it." James sits on his bed and watches him change out of his pajamas.
"No I don't." He straps on his helmet, breathes and breathes until he can find it in him to stand on his feet. He's got a crack in him, a line splitting him down the center, loose threads that have him unraveling at the seams. He can't do this, not if James is going to ask, poke and prod him so much that he bleeds. He hasn't bled yet, James doesn't need to make it worse, make him remember dirty and awful things.
"Who was he?" James doesn't want to know, he only thinks he does. If he knew he'd be sick, he'd puke back up his pancakes and bacon and the sick smell of bile would stink up their room forever. James would look at Kendall and see someone who's two people, a good and a bad, his own doppelganger, the negative to his own positive charge. Logan would call him a cation and an anion, but Carlos isn't that smart, so he doesn't know what to call him, only knows what Kendal is.
"I don't know." He doesn't, he thought he did. Kendall was Kendall before, now he's not, he's Kendall and Kendall hurts Carlos' heart.
"You should tell someone. You should tell your dad, he'll take care of it."
He thinks about that, the horror on his papá's face, the soothing, broken way his mamá would stroke his hair, how hard she'd clutch him to her breast, breathless and sobbing. He thinks about how they'd know every time they looked at him, the shame and the pity and the disgust.
He'd never do that to them.
"No. I'm fine." The lie tastes like he imagines puking up pancakes would, sweet and biting.
"You're not fine."
"I know." James touches his shoulder, squeezes it twice, slides the hand up to cup the back of his neck the way his mamá does, the way James has seen her do. "But I will be."
James looks like he believes him, which is good, because he stopped believing himself sixteen and a half hours ago.
"Who was he?" James asks again.
"I don't know."
A monster, he decides privately, Kendall is a monster.
"Hey." Kendall comes into his room in the afternoon and shuts the door.
"Hey." He answers, watching a lone, white cloud drift through the too blue sky. He doesn't sound as frightened as he really is. He takes that as a victory.
"Jo baked me some cookies, I brought you one." Kendall holds the treat out, some kind of peace offering, an olive branch made of sugar and dough and tastiness.
The cookie is faintly warm, completely gooey, chocolate chips melted and the edges soft. It's the most delicious thing he's had in weeks and Kendall's the one who has brought it to him.
"Thank you." Maybe this is how things are going to be. Maybe Kendall is back to being Kendall.
Kendall settles on his bed, sets a hand on his back and rubs it in small, smooth circles.
"I know you're hurting." Kendall chokes, hand stilling, such pain and emotion in his eyes it cuts Carlos raw. He understands. Sorry can never make it go away, never change the past, but sorry can make it a little better. Sorry can make it bearable.
Kendall kisses the nape of his neck, where James' hand rested warm and comforting hours before, and the world slows to a crawl. "But you wanted it Carlos. I didn't, I'd never." Only he did and Carlos gets it, Kendall doesn't want to see it that way, 'cause it'd break him apart too.
Did he? Did he want it? He doesn't know anymore, but he thinks he didn't, he's pretty sure.
"No more Kendall." He can't take it, it'll kill him, rip his heart right out of his chest. "I can't."
"It's okay." Kendall spoons up behind him, loops an arm around his waist, holds him close. Kendall just kisses the back of his neck, ruts against him gently, dick pressing into the backs of his thighs. It's rhythmic and gentle, more intimate than anything Carlos has ever known. Kendall moans about how much he loves him, how Carlos is his best and favorite friend, how he'll give Carlos the world, everything he's secretly wanted. He falls asleep there, while Kendal groans and stutters, rocks against him.
When he wakes up the back of his jeans is sticky. He strips them off, his favorite pair of pants, and drops them into the garbage.
He can't sleep most nights, his brain replaying memories over and over, an iPod suck on repeat, pause, stop, rewind, again and again. He'd prefer if memories worked like movies, just the pictures and sound, nothing more than sight and color and words. Memories are sensory and each time he relives them he feels it all, just as he did when it was happening. He knows that if he waits long enough he can forget, the same way he struggles to remember the touch of his grandmother's hands his face, the color of the house they lived in when he had just turned three. Memories are chalk on the sidewalk and they'll fade given enough rain and wind and snow.
He watches James sleep when he lies awake, the fan spinning in lazy circles above them, moving cool air around the room. James never sleeps the same way two nights in a row. He moves and he twists, turns and switches positions. His face is always the same though, carved out of something nicer than marble, perfect and serene, hidden by the lingering shadow of night. The blackness makes it hard to see and he wonders, half asleep, nodding off while James' chest rises and falls, just what could be hiding in the dark, what could slide into bed with him.
"Go to sleep." Sometimes he stares at James long enough that it wakes him up. He wants to ask how James does it, if the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, if something primal tells him there are eyes on him even in the dark.
"I'm trying." He is, he's trying so hard, only he doesn't get better, never improves, the same stupid, broken Carlos.
James shifts in bed, stretches out. Carlos feels cold and he thinks of the warmth of Kendall against his back.
"We could—"
James wants to talk and Carlos just wants him to listen.
"I'm going to go sleep on the couch." He drags his blanket behind him, floor cool beneath his bare feet. He doesn't want to think about it, mostly because he doesn't know what to think, how to deal with any of it.
The noise of the television helps him drift, go somewhere else, a tangent of space and time. He feels like the narrator from Fight Club, caught between life and sleep, never awake and always in a dream.
Katie comes out of the kitchen with a glass of water, stares at him long enough her eyes burn holes into his skin, through his bones.
"It's like three in the morning, shouldn't you be asleep?"
He doesn't know why he does, but he starts to cry, and he can't stop. He chokes on the sobs and it's all snot and big, fat tears that have been building pressure behind his eyes, behind his soul. He feels worthless and stupid and it's embarrassing and Katie sits down next to him on the couch, makes him put his head in her lap, strokes his hair. It's awkward and she's too tiny and young to get it. She's innocent and he never wants her to know, kids shouldn't be burdened by stuff like that. Katie doesn't know how to comfort him but her fingers glide silently across his scalp and his tears get her pajama bottoms damp.
"I'm sorry." He sits up, barely breathing, chest trembling deep inside himself, somewhere so, so deep.
"It's okay."
"I just—" There are hundred lies he can use to cover it up, but he picks one of the two truths instead. "I miss my mom."
Katie kisses his cheek, like she hasn't since she was four and she wore pink dresses and gave kisses to all of them, gives him her glass of water, tells him to go to sleep.
"Do you want me to get my brother?"
"No." He sniffles, wiping his nose hard, getting his sleeve gross and wet. "No one needs to know about this but you and me."
Someone needs to know about it the tiny part of his brain that sounds like Logan whispers. He ignores it for now, though, because he's tired, because he thinks he can finally go to sleep.
Katie obviously mentions the incident to Mrs. Knight, he can tell from the way she gives him a hug in the morning, tucks the blanket tighter around him while he dozes on the couch. She makes chorizo and potatoes for breakfast, which is weird because she's never made it before, and he thinks it's because his mother used to make it on Sundays after church. He doesn't know how to tell Mrs. Knight she didn't cook it right, didn't mix it with eggs, made it too crunchy and burnt. He can taste the scorch from the bottom of the pan, thick and nasty.
"I don't know what you think, but I hope my mom never tries to make Mexican food again." Kendall laughs, just outside the shower curtain, and there is the distinct flutter of clothing falling to the floor.
"It was a nice thought." He scrubs shampoo into his hair, lathers it into creamy foam that gets caught in his eyelashes, burns when he blinks.
"But poor execution." Kendall slips in behind him and it's the first time Carlos has actually seen him fully naked in a way that counts. They used to take baths and showers together when they were little, all four of them crammed into the tub while Mrs. Knight or his mom or someone's mom scrubbed mud from their faces with exasperated hands.
There's a prickle of disgust across his skin as Kendall touches his naked back, runs fingers down his spine, the long, straight line of bone under his flesh. The disgust flares away, quickly as it came, and he's left too hot from the water and on edge, hairs on his neck standing straight up, waiting for it to come. Kendall turns him around so he can kiss him; press him against the shower wall, the curve of his skull resting on the tile. It hurts and it's cold and he doesn't feel much else, doesn't focus on the slide of Kendall's tongue, slick and spit-sour like breakfast.
Kendall's hand never creeps down between his legs, never searches to probe. Kendall's hands go from his jaw to his neck to his shoulders, grip and push down, firm and demanding and somehow the action gives off the impression that it's voluntary as Carlos sinks to his knees. Maybe it is voluntary, he doesn't fight it, doesn't lock his knees in place, just goes with the flow. He's never sucked a dick, not that he needs the knowledge, Kendall pretty much does it for him, and all he has to do is keep his throat open and try not to gag. Kendall's hard and throbbing hot in his mouth, a little bitter, rocking hard and his jaw aches, lips stretched too wide, abused. Saliva dribbles down his chin, stringy and thin. As strange as it seems to him at that moment, he likes this better, because there's no way for this to retain a modicum of gentleness. Kendall rides his face hard and he breathes through his nose, swallows the gross stuff Kendall gives him. "You're not too bad at that."
"Thanks." He tastes Kendall on his tongue, the roof of his mouth, collecting in his throat.
"You want me to give you one too?" Kendall's staring at his dick and there's barely enough blood in it to keep it alive, let alone erect. He could get one, if he thought about it. He almost did think about it, about how it would make things easier.
"I don't think I'm in the mood."
"No problem." Kendall pecks him on the cheek, gives his cock a pat. "We'll work on that later."
Later turns out to be the next afternoon. Kendall grinds them together, impossibly warm and slippery, and he can't help but react to it. No one has ever, not a single one. Kendall holds him down because he fought; kicked when he thought Kendall was going to hold his thighs apart with his knees, go in for another go. He hates it and he's hard and it's so much better than his hand, than what he imagined it could feel like with someone else's help. Once his come settles on his belly, a crusting ooze, the high of arousal dissipates and he wants to cry. "Told you." Kendall laughs and his tone sounds like he's won a major battle. "Told you that you wanted it."
"I wanted it?" He doesn't know, life's too confusing, too fast and painful. "I wanted it." He repeats and his voice has a ring of conviction, so much so that when James asks him again that night he has an answer.
"Who was it?"
"I don't know."
My friend, he thinks, Kendall is my friend.
"Carlos?" James asks wearily, barely awake, strands of hair in his face, sprawled out on his stomach, blinking.
"Shhh." He whispers, pulling up the covers of James' bed and sliding in. The sheets are warm from the heat of James' body and they create a soft, pleasant friction against his bare skin. He thinks there might be goose bumps on his thighs, the curve of his back, but they're gone by the time he settles in, curls himself into James' side.
"What're you doing?" James can tell he's naked, freezes up, his hands still and voice unnaturally quiet. He answers in kisses instead of words and James makes a sound deep in his throat, a sound like he's hurt and dying. "No." James chokes, half sobbing. "No Carlos, you're, oh God, you're fucked up and traumatized and I won't. I won't do that to you."
Carlos hears Kendall then, in the back of his mind, the loving, hushed declarations. You want it really. He does, he wants it really, Kendall's told him so a thousand times. James doesn't love him enough, he sees that now, but it's okay, because he's going to fix it, he's going to make James love him enough.
"It's alright." He murmurs, his mouth against James' ear. "I want it, really. I've been asking for it for months."
"No." James repeats, with more conviction, a strained, panicked tone. "No."
He slides his hand into James' pants, grips his dick, holds it firm and solid and gentle like he remembers. James doesn't move, won't move because he'll never try to hurt Carlos, not ever, because James wants it too, everyone does, everyone wants to give him what he's been not so secretly asking for.
"You're my best friend." He says, slowly stroking. "I'm always going to give you what you want."
Let me know what you think. ;)