Secrets Kept

*Updated June 2014 – originally chapter 6, just tweaked a bit, not much of a difference.*

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed this so far, and, if anyone who has read Evolution is reading this, thank you to the many people who have reviewed and thank you to those who continue to review. I am hoping to write a story corresponding with that one but from Gary's point of view, since Evolution was from Ash's point of view. There are actually several stories I want to write and I'm just hoping to get around to them sometime soon.

Anyway, I hope this chapter is enjoyed. This is the longest and most angsty chapter so far, so I hope it makes up for my lack of updates this past semester. I had to use personal experiences with alcohol, as well as the stupidity of my own friends, as inspiration for parts of this chapter. Poor Gary. By the way, more Tracey to come in the next chapter!

Chapter Five

"We should go to the beach."

"Did the snow on the ground escape your notice? It's twenty fucking degrees outside and you want to go to the beach?"

"I never said I wanted to go surfing, I just said I wanted to go. You don't have to bite my head off, Gary."

"I'm not biting your head off, you're being an idiot."

"What the hell is your problem lately? You don't do anything other than work in the lab and act like an ass."

At his own desk in the lab, Tracey sighed softly; it was yet another argument between Gary and one of his friends, this time it was Adrian. Bickering wasn't at all uncommon between the boys of Pallet – Gary, Darren, and Wyatt were as bad as siblings – but lately, bickering had turned into arguing, which occasionally led to fighting. Gary and Wyatt were currently not speaking and Gary still bore a visible bruise on his cheek from the fight they had gotten in the week before, on top of that, things were tense between Gary and most of his friends and the professor was very obviously angry with his grandson for his behavior as of late.

It was December and school was out for winter break, yet Gary was constantly in the lab while his friends were forever goofing off around the town. The past two months had been a bit strange and uncomfortable as Gary's mood had plummeted while the boy seemed to withdraw from everyone around him, including Tracey – something that left the pokemon watcher confused. Tracey couldn't help but wonder if he had done something wrong, perhaps by being too forward with the whole "gay situation". Yet, that didn't seem to make sense as most conversations had been triggered by something Gary had said and Tracey had always backed off at any sign of discomfort. On top of that, the most in depth conversation they had gotten in had been when Gary had asked about when Tracey had realized his own preference.

Deep down, Tracey knew that this had nothing to do with him and that Gary was simply going through a rough time. Regardless, he felt somehow responsible, perhaps by not being there as much as he should have been. He constantly felt the urge to comfort the teen, it was just a matter of working up the courage to actually do it; Gary's mood had been less than hospitable lately, doing nothing to help Tracey and the anxiety that he felt over the situation.

One of the doors in the lab opened but, being used to people constantly being in and out of the lab, Tracey ignored it until someone pulled a chair over to his desk and sat down. Recognizing the voice that greeted him, Tracey smiled and returned the greeting to Darren. "You haven't been around much lately," Tracey observed, turning away from his computer.

Darren shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. "I was letting things blow over with Gary after the Wyatt incident. Gary's really good at holding grudges," he explained. "I figure I'll judge his mood from a distance before going over there," he nodded at where Gary and Adrian were arguing still.

"Seems like a safe idea, all things considered."

Tracey's remark was met with an enthusiastic nod. "Do you know what's going on with him lately?"

Hesitating slightly, Tracey took an opportunity to observe the other boy's body language. Darren was utterly relaxed with only a slight touch of worry over his best friend reaching his eyes; oddly enough, he seemed rather confident that he knew something not everyone else was aware of. "I have an idea," Tracey admitted slowly, wondering what it was that Darren was thinking.

"Same here."

"So why don't you talk to him about it?"

"Because he's a stubborn pain in the ass," Darren replied as though it explained everything. With minimal prodding from Tracey, he continued. "I think this is something that Gary and I are on different wavelengths on. Besides, we fight too much for him to not get defensive if I were to bring it up. I have an idea of how to cheer him up though."

Tracey frowned at the grin that followed the last comment. "Professor Oak is already really annoyed with him lately, Darren," he warned, remembering rather suddenly that May had been talking all week about a party that Darren's older sister would be having that weekend. "I don't think getting him drunk is going to help matters. Not to mention the fact that May practically has to force alcohol down his throat to make him drink."

"He'll spend the night at my house, the professor will never know."

Sensing a lost cause, Tracey didn't press his point. Maybe some fun with his friends was all Gary really needed, maybe a little alcohol combined with Darren and Wyatt's presence would make him loosen up a bit. Or maybe this was simply a disaster waiting to happen. Shaking his head, Tracey pushed the thoughts from his head – Gary would do what he wanted, whether it was good for him or not, whether it was what Tracey preferred him to do or not. He just hoped everything went alright.

… … …

Why, exactly, had he chosen to do this?

Oh, of course, because Darren had some magical way of talking him into doing just about anything. Hell, he could probably figure out a way to talk Gary into making out with his own sister; that particular thought made Gary snort softly in amusement and it took a supreme amount of effort to not burst into laughter. His mood had improved a bit after being dragged over to Darren's house, though that could be attributed to the double shot of vodka that Darren had positively insisted on when they had been in the house for less than two minutes.

The alcohol had forced him to relax a bit and let down the guard that had been up for the past couple of months. It felt almost as though things were back to normal before he had realized that he was gay, Wyatt had seemed to forget about the fight they had gotten into the week before and Adrian didn't seem to care about the argument they'd had in the lab earlier that day. It was exactly like the summer, just colder – Darren spent most of the time playing instruments while Gary either annoyed him or tried to play along on Darren's drum set, Mike spent most of his time playing video games, Chase and Wyatt were talking about their experiences with their girlfriends while Brandon pointed out the places where their stories clashed with prior ones, and Adrian joined in whichever conversation appealed most to him at any given time.

Though the alcohol had helped him not to focus on it, random thoughts about the other boys would randomly pop into Gary's head. He couldn't help that Darren always looked hot when he played his dark blue Ibanez guitar, it wasn't his fault that Brandon had decided to wear such a tight pair of jeans, and it certainly wasn't his fault that Adrian had such an attractive laugh. After Wyatt and Darren had managed to get more alcohol into him, the thoughts stopped bothering him so much. They seemed natural and they weren't affecting the way he interacted with his friends – would telling them really result in some sort of Shakespearean tragedy? With some sense still lurking about in his brain, he had figured telling them when alcohol was involved was not a good idea. He would certainly regret it once he sobered; but if he had managed to pass it off as a joke, he could judge the reactions of the others and decide whether or not to tell them.

In the end, he chose to suppress the thoughts and have fun – he could tell them another time, when he was more at ease with the situation. Of course, he was likely to change his mind and not tell them at all, but what did that matter anyway? He would certainly look back on this night and regret not having told anyone, but, again, what did it matter? He was stuck in Pallet for at least another year and a half to finish school, he wasn't about to risk screwing up the relationship he had with his friends by coming out of the closet.

Somehow the alcohol had allowed him to have this drawn-out train of thought over some period of time. Unfortunately, while it brought some clarity, it also brought stupidity and that stupidity was what would change everything.

It started when May Oak came over and the other boys came to a mutual agreement that seeing the girls downstairs was more important than whatever they had been doing for the past few hours. Gary had been hesitant to leave Darren's bedroom – for one thing, May would make him drink, it was no question of if, it was a question of how much and of what. He didn't care much for alcohol in the first place – the line between having fun and being sick was much too thin; he knew this quite well after having seen Wyatt and Darren both drink themselves to point of vomiting all over themselves. Regardless, even he wasn't immune to the annoyances of peer pressure. If taking a shot or two (or was he up to five now?) would get people to back off, then Gary was up to it.

As Gary and the other boys made their way into the living room, May caught his eye and frowned before heading towards the kitchen, presumably to grab another drink. The friend that May had been speaking to, Darren's elder sister, glanced over at the boys, saw Gary, and smiled flirtatiously as she sauntered over. Gary resisted the urge to roll his eyes and tell her to get lost – he didn't feel like dealing with her flirting, or anyone's flirting for that matter. It was an annoying waste of time for any of the pathetic girls to flirt with him; though if Tracey had decided to flirt with him… Well, he wasn't quite so opposed to that situation, however unlikely it was. Unfortunately, it was rather impossible to even pretend that the blonde girl who was heading his way had been replaced by the quiet pokemon watcher.

"Damn it, Amanda, would you stop trying to get my friends to sleep with you?" Darren groaned as his sister approached Gary. He rolled his eyes dramatically and stalked off when the girl ignored him in favor of conversation.

To Gary's surprise, the conversation wasn't entirely composed of mindless flirting; for once, Amanda was interested in other things – the research he had been doing in place of the science classes at school, why he hadn't been spending so much time with his friends lately… And whether or not he had a girlfriend: a question that she already knew the answer too.

Gary knew that, despite the conversation, the end goal was the same as ever: hook up with May's attractive, smart, popular little brother and possibly secure a romantic relation with him. The thought alone made Gary mildly nauseous, though he had to wonder if that feeling wasn't because of the way the alcohol combined with the smell of recently delivered pizza were making his stomach churn. On one hand, he desperately wanted to escape the conversation, to simply brush off the charming smiles and saccharine giggles and find a way to direct Amanda's attention to any of the other males in the room. But on the other hand, some idiotic part of him wanted to take advantage of the situation by kissing the girl and maybe going a bit further than that.

Maybe being with a girl would raise his level of attraction to them, maybe being with just one of the girls would make the rest of May's friends and the girls at school stop flirting with him. Hell, maybe seeing him kiss the hottest girl in Pallet would distract his friends from the occasional lingering glance on members of the same sex.

"Eat this," May's voice suddenly commanded, cutting through the drunken contemplations. Gary glanced at his sister, slightly confused by her unexpected appearance, and saw that she was holding a paper plate with a slice of pizza on it. May sighed when he frowned and declined, "You are trashed, I can tell. Eat it and sober up before you hurl or do something stupid."

"Go away," was the irritable response as Gary shrugged off her concern. He was fine, maybe a bit drunk but definitely not trashed; why did he need to listen to his older sister? She said his name sharply and reached up to grasp his shoulder, obviously intent on reversing the effects of the alcohol. For the first time since leaving his house earlier that day, the calm demeanor that Gary usually took on around his friends cracked and he snapped at his sister to back off.

"Fine!" May's surprise and spontaneous anger were both apparent in her crisp tone as she turned on her heel and headed back towards the kitchen. "Don't bitch to me when Grandpa takes your car away for getting drunk with your friends when you're supposed to be helping in the lab, you spoiled brat," she hissed under her breath, ignoring her brother's venomous glare.

Once she was out of earshot, Gary grumbled under his breath. The thing that annoyed him was that she was the one always bugging him to have a drink and relax a bit, yet now May was scolding him for doing exactly that. There's always payback, he thought mischievously before turning his attention back to the blonde girl in front of him. Would it really be terrible to flirt back with his sister's best friend if it would annoy May? Annoying his older sister was certainly one of Gary's favorite hobbies. Now his thoughts regarding Amanda were starting to contradict the earlier ones.

Flirting with Amanda only took a small amount of concentration. When he wasn't focusing on her, Gary glanced around the room at his friends. Darren and Adrian had retreated to the couch nearby and were occasionally shooting them glances – Adrian's holding a small amount of jealousy and encouragement while Darren's were mildly annoyed, yet amused. Wyatt had disappeared from sight but Gary could distinctly hear his intoxicated laugh coming from the direction of the kitchen. Mike's girlfriend had shown up within the last half hour and the two of them were currently making out in an arm chair a few feet away from where Gary was standing. Chase and Brandon were shooting him sly looks every few moments, occasionally mouthing encouragement, rolling their eyes disappointedly whenever Gary fixed them with a glare.

The backing was there – he could easily kiss her and his friends, fools that they could be, would never question his sexuality, ever. Still, there was a feeling of impending doom; going along with the encouragement would easily be the stupidest thing he had ever done, and yet, this far into the act, it seemed like the only escape.

After awhile, Wyatt reappeared, his blonde hair mussed and cheeks flushed while he held several shot glasses filled with a darker liquid than Gary had seen any of his friends with throughout the night. One of the glasses was quickly passed off to Gary as the other boy leaned in and murmured, "Come on, man, she's the hottest babe in Pallet and she wants to fuck you." The words were slurred and the scent of rum on his breath was strong, yet Wyatt's sudden closeness, combined with his warm breath tickling Gary's ear, aroused him and made him want to drag his friend off to a bedroom and… well, the fantasies were enough to bring an embarrassed flush to Gary's face.

One final, suggestive glance from Chase was all it took. The shot was downed – the first bad idea, considering Gary had just seen Darren pointedly decline a shot of the same liquid. The strong taste of black licorice nearly made Gary choke and gag, but he managed to swallow the drink without immediately vomiting it back up, despite feeling queasy and sick to his stomach.

Amanda grinned, seeming proud of the way Gary had handled the strong drink, and slipped her hand to the back of his neck, fingers sliding into his hair as she leaned closer. Still turned on by the unexpected fantasies involving Wyatt, Gary closed the distance between them, pressing his lips to hers and barely having a second to process his actions before she deepened the kiss. Her tongue slipped into his mouth and she moaned softly, her experienced lips working fiercely against his.

A small, nagging part of his brain instantly told Gary that this had been his second mistake though it took him a few seconds longer to realize that he was in way over his head. Already nauseous, the surge of adrenaline from kissing her caused the sick feeling to intensify, and it didn't help that he could taste the same strong, licorice-tasting alcohol on Amanda. What caused the queasiness to keep rising was the movement of her tongue in his mouth; the slick, foreign appendage feeling almost snake-like in his mouth.

Eager to get past the unpleasant parts of the experience, Gary's mind brought up unbidden suggestions: Pretend it's Wyatt, Darren, Adrian, anyone else!

Gary had a sudden mental image of Mike and his girlfriend groping on the nearby armchair, except Mike was replaced with Gary and his girlfriend with Darren. The image was shocking enough to force him to pull back, and the situation was disturbing enough to send him reeling out of the room and towards the stairs, which he rushed up, heading for the bathroom in the hallway next to Darren's bedroom. He barely made it to the room in time to empty his roiling stomach into the toilet.

… … …

"What the fuck did I just do?" Gary groaned, trying to calm down and recover from everything that had happened maybe ten minutes prior.

"It's called puking. You tend not to do it too often unless –"

"Shut up, Wyatt!"

The other boy, who had just appeared in the bathroom doorway, simply shrugged off the abuse and wandered off down the hall. Groaning again, Gary leaned against the bathroom wall and closed his eyes, fighting off nausea, guilt, and some other feeling that he couldn't quite place. It felt almost as though he had betrayed himself in some way by kissing Amanda – not to mention betraying his best friend by kissing his, Darren's, sister, as well as May by kissing her best friend.

As he was trying to work out a way to deal with the situation, Darren appeared in the doorway, seeming a bit worried. "Are you alright?" he asked quietly, closing the door behind him as he leaned against the counter, his drink from earlier still in hand.

"I just want to go home right now." Gary shook his head slightly, regretting the move almost immediately as a wave of dizziness nearly overtook him.

"Hmmm," Darren appeared to think about it for a short moment but Gary could tell that he was being sarcastic. "Not happening. Your grandfather would kill me. And you, too, actually," he added as an afterthought.

"At this point, I wouldn't mind that so much." The words were out of his mouth before he had even thought about them and Gary found himself surprised. He could admit to being depressed in the past few weeks or even months, but didn't this count as a somewhat suicidal thought? He pushed the thought away; it had to be the alcohol affecting him. There was no way things had gone that far, he was simply being dramatic and was overreacting to everything that had happened downstairs.

While Gary passed the off confession somewhat casually, Darren wasn't so easily deterred. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked with a frown, unsure of what to make of what Gary had said.

"I'm fine… I just can't believe I did that."

Darren sighed and shrugged. "Heh, you kissed my sister – that's more innocent than some of the other things people do. Hell, Wyatt keeps a picture of her in a bikini on his wall –"

"Yeah, and he jerks off to it every night," Gary shot at him. It was a stupid thing to irritate him, that, he knew even if he was drunk. Still, he simply wanted to be like his friends and be able to say that he liked girls in the same way. No matter how many times he told himself that he did, it was a terrible lie and it was entirely in vain.

"More often than that," Darren pointed out.

The bitter response had thrown him off slightly but he felt as though he was starting to hone in on what was bothering Gary. He had told Tracey that he had an idea of what was bothering Gary; this was true and there was a reason behind it. The boys had grown up together and there had been more than one hint, however small, that there was a major difference between them. As much as he wanted to bring it up with Gary, he knew all too well how stubborn the other teen was – Gary was simply the type of person that had to do what he wanted whenever he was ready to do it. Talking to other friends about it was out of the question as well, considering it would be an act of betrayal. Finally, Darren sighed again; there was nothing he could do right now, especially not when he was standing in a small bathroom with plenty of alcohol in his system and even more in the cup that he had brought in with him.

"I'm going back downstairs," he announced. "Come down if you want but you know everyone's going to be asking about the kiss. If you want to change and go to bed, you know where the clothes are." With that he left, leaving Gary behind to contemplate what to do. In the end, he chose to head to bed and sleep it off. Of course, that didn't exactly go as planned.

Just changing into a pair of pajama pants was difficult enough to make Gary wonder exactly how much alcohol his friends had slipped him throughout the night. It must have been a lot more than he originally thought, considering the clock now read well past midnight when it had last read only a little past nine. What had happened to the time? For that matter, what had happened to the relaxed, cheerful feeling that had emerged earlier in the night? It had been swiftly replaced with a tense and miserable feeling that threatened to overwhelm him.

Sitting alone in Darren's large bedroom, there were no distractions from the jumble of feelings. Looking around the room, searching for distractions, only made things worse by bringing up memories from the many years of friendship between him and the other boys. The room was a mess from everyone being in there for hours and he could recall the days when the room would be filled with toys strewn across the floor from a long day of playing. He could remember the nearly-daily play-fights with plastic swords and mock pokemon battles that so often ended with even more play-fighting. If he remembered correctly, Ash still had a scar on his arm from a sword fight; it hadn't mattered back then because they had always played rough, resulting in so many scrapes and bruises. Darren's drum set sat in one of the corners, now with a few abandoned drinks scattered across the floor toms and the snare drum. He had first gotten the set when the boys were around nine years old and Gary's natural competitive streak had led him to play with the drum set, determined to become better than his best friend at it. He had never beaten Darren at the instrument but was now nearly as good as the other boy – he had once used this fact as ammunition against Ash, eventually leading to a fight that Mike and Adrian had been forced to break up. One of the walls of the room had a mural of a Charizard on it; he had helped draw it years ago, back when he and Ash were terrible rivals. Ash had been in town and had helped as well since he was great friends with Darren and the other boys as well and Gary had constantly found snide ways to pick on him until Darren became so frustrated that he had burst into tears and punched Gary for it. Few would believe it now but Darren had always been highly sensitive and it had, on several occasions, brought out a softer, sweeter side to Gary that very few people ever saw.

A feeling of betrayal welled up in Gary – he had betrayed several people close to him and it ate away at him. He had betrayed Ash, who had once been like a little brother to him, simply because of a confused crush. Poor Ash had been tormented so much by him that their friendship was beyond repair, a thought that left Gary even more miserable. He wished he could take the harsh words back and admit to Ash why he had done everything, but his pride was far too strong for that. He had betrayed Darren by kissing his sister, someone that he had grown up with, and by doing so he had also betrayed May. Flirting with Amanda was meant to be a mild annoyance toward May but Gary had gotten so caught up in the act, so pressured by the quiet encouragement of his friends, so intoxicated by the ridiculous amount of alcohol that he had lost all common sense and kissed the girl. May was certain to be pissed at him, to say the least and Gary did not fancy seeing her the next day.

He didn't particularly feel like facing anyone the next day; in fact, he felt more like crawling into a hole and dying than facing his friends and sister. Facing his grandfather with a hangover was certain to be an especially hellish ordeal, as well.

The thoughts kept swirling through Gary's head, breaking through the fog that the alcohol had created. He felt terrible and could feel his eyes prickling with unwelcome tears though he refused to let them fall – he was far stronger than this, he wasn't about to cry because he had gotten drunk and kissed a girl and then became nostalgic. It wasn't going to happen, it just wasn't. He hadn't cried in years, save for the time he had been bitten by an arbok, but that had been perhaps the most painful experience in his life, a few shed tears were understandable in that situation.

His resolve was fast abandoning him and he soon felt the first tears fall. Sighing sharply and forcing down a sob, Gary pressed his palms to his eyes, willing them to stop tearing. The gesture didn't work and more tears began falling at a faster rate. Feeling utterly lost and helpless, Gary slipped under the covers on the bed and buried his face in one of the pillows, finally allowing himself this one breakdown in the solitude of the empty bedroom. Confusion had been constantly building in him over the past months; he was confused about why he had ever pushed away his closest friend, he was confused about the way his hormones could turn innocent encounters with his friends into smutty dreams that left him feeling sick in the mornings when he awoke, he was confused about Tracey and the strange feelings he felt around the other boy…

He was finally beginning to calm down a bit when the bedroom door opened and closed quietly and soft, hesitant footsteps approached the bed. Gary stiffened, immediately worried about who was now in the room with him. He figured it was Darren or one of his other friends and quickly feigned sleep until the person sat on the edge of the bed closest to him and placed a hand on his arm. Long, slender fingers slid from his arm to his hair, gently tousling the dark strands as a soft, feminine sigh sounded from above him.

"Sweetie…"

Another sigh sounded and a warm weight was draped over him. Opening his eyes, Gary could see red tendrils falling into his face – May's latest dye job – as his sister leaned over him, murmuring soft words of comfort.

"What's wrong?" May asked after a few moments.

Gary only shook his head, keeping his face buried in the pillow in front of him; there was no way he was letting May see how upset he was, even if he was sure that she already had some idea.

With another sigh, May pressed on, "You haven't been yourself lately, anyone can see that something's up." She paused and adopted a different approach when there was no response. "You shouldn't drink so much when there's something bothering you. The alcohol will only make it worse - having a drink or two will make you relax and cheer up a bit. I know the difference between being tipsy and being drunk, Gary. You're too inexperienced to know that and Wyatt's too self-centered to understand how it can affect people other than him – I can't believe he gave you a shot of Jaeger. No wonder you got sick."

Gary sighed and wished she would stop talking. Her presence was somewhat comforting but the chatter was making his head hurt more than it had before she came into the room. Surprisingly, she seemed to understand the wish behind the sigh and fell silent, settling for running her hand through his hair and pressing a soft kiss against his temple. Somehow the motion of May's fingers in his hair relaxed Gary enough to start feeling drowsiness seep into his brain, finally chasing away some of the feelings he had been dealing with before May's appearance.

May waited until she was certain that he was asleep before kissing him again, murmuring a soft "I love you," and leaving the room quietly.

After closing the bedroom door behind her, May found herself face-to-face with Darren. "You're right, he is upset," she declared, crossing her arms wearily.

"Did he talk to you?" Darren asked.

"What do you think?"

Darren rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Too stubborn; he won't talk to anyone, I'll bet. I'm pretty sure the reason behind the kiss had absolutely nothing to do with Amanda, though." May snorted softly and nodded in agreement. "What do you think is going on with him?"

"I think he's gay," May admitted after a moment of hesitation.

It was only a slight surprise to her when Darren slowly nodded. "I think he's confused and too damn proud to do anything to make things better for himself. Tracey seems like he knows something we don't."

"I'll get him to talk to Gary tomorrow. Maybe he can get some juicy gossip out of the brat." May grinned and rubbed her hands together in mock excitement. She dropped her hands and rolled her eyes when Darren frowned. "It was a joke," she defended. "If it were true, I would only tell Grampy and that's only because I know he would talk some sense into Gary, get him to stop being so secretive."

A small sigh escaped Darren and he leaned tiredly against the wall behind him. "I'm going to bed. Hopefully Tracey can get through to him."

May simply nodded her head and headed back down the hall, intending on walking back home for some damage control. Gary was supposed to help out in the lab the next afternoon and May was under the impression that this was something that just wasn't going to happen. She also needed to somehow tell Tracey to offer her brother some sort of support without actually telling him.

This was not going to be an easy night.

… … …