A/N: I'm awful, seriously. Band and advanced chemistry have taken over my life. Ew.
When our heating system broke, my mom insisted on asking Mrs. Chambers if I could stay over there for a night or two. The only reason the furnace was busted was because my dad took it upon himself to tinker with it because the bathroom's vent wasn't working.
So there I was sitting in-between Chris and another one of his siblings listening to his dad rant about his job. That was the weird thing about Chris' house, sitting across from a violent alcoholic who used to beat his kids and wife. Now he was just taking his rage out on the pot roast on his plate. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the knife hacking through dried meat, and feeling slightly terrified. I swallowed hard avoiding his plate.
Thoughts buzzed through my head, thinking about how hostel he'd get if he ever found out his son was a fag. I began to push corn across my plate, biting my lip hard. A long time ago I'd conquered the fear of Ace, that hood was harmless compared to the man across the table. I glanced over at Chris. He was telling his mom something. I almost half expected once everyone was settled his hand would make its way over to my knee, if not my lap but it stayed put.
After dinner we, well Chris was stuck on dish duty. I was sitting on the counter drying, and he was elbow deep in soapy water. "This is the first time you've been over here since this summer." He gave a sly smile. I didn't know if he was going to try something or lay down the law. It wasn't like my house, where my parents went out most of the night, or just left you alone. "You kno-" His dad came into the kitchen on a mission to the fridge, I hoped off the counter and grabbed another dish before he could make a comment about how my ass doesn't need to be on the counter.
He snatched a beer out and banged the door close. "Look at you two, doin' women's work." Chuckling he left.
"Well then." I said picking up another dish.
"Sad thing is, he'd bitch if we weren't washing them." He shrugged.
Later that night I was laying on the floor with a lumpy pillow, Chris was hanging upside down on his bed. The door was closed and we hadn't heard anyone in hours. "All the blood's going to rush to your head." He batted my comment away with his hand and laughed.
I stuck my tongue out. "You put that tongue back in your mouth, Gordo." He teased in a mocking tone. I leaned in and kissed him. We stayed there until what was the house settling, a few creaking noises hissed around us, he jerked upright eyes locked on the door almost head-butting me in the process.
"Jesus, Chris calm down." He shot me a look.
"Shut up." He snapped.
"We're fine." I tried to reassure him.
"Right, remember when we were all hot and heavy and someone went to the bathroom, you were scared shitless." He whispered quickly, lying on his stomach.
"If you remember, we hadn't had sex yet."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"I was nervous."
"Being nervous and almost getting caught here are two different things." He frowned eyes back on the door again. "Your old man would throw me out and scream at you, my old man would strangle us both and think later."
Getting caught was the main concern to us it was the biggest fear. He was dead serious too, looking down at me from the bed. He'd lived with it his whole life. Chris knew the fury of his father; on more then one occasion had him or Eyeball come to school sporting a black eye.
I nodded solemnly, and took a seat on the bed, we waited for more noise, but nothing came. "I fucking hate sneaking around."
"Yeah, but there's nothing we can do about it." He rolled over, hands on his stomach.
The thing was back in October we were at a costume party. It was crazy everyone was drinking. My head was buzzing; neither of us were sober enough to hold any judgment. We stumbled out into whoever's backyard and made out in the shadow of the house.
Good thing the sound of the screen door banging against the cheap metal siding sent us flying apart. Patting our pockets for cigarettes, talking and acting as if we weren't playing tonsil hockey. We were so close to being caught by a bunch of jocks, they'd come out to smoke and throw up. The sound of wet vomit hitting the frozen ground almost made me lose it.
We slumped against the house until we were sober enough to make our way home, he almost left me as we passed the turn up to his house. Briefly letting go of my jacket and then realizing he still really couldn't stand.
Chris attempted to climb the tree, jumping and catching the first branch only to have it pass through his fingers and him to land on his ass. He groaned and looked up at me, muffling my laughter with the joint on my elbow.
When we got to my bedroom, from the front door, being as quiet was a bunch of drunks could be. The snoring pattern still going strong, we were already half naked when I remembered to close the door.
Once awake, and extremely hung over we agreed that would never happen again, we couldn't risk it. It was just too dangerous. So sitting next to him I reached for his hand. This was like then. Any one could bust in that door and expose us. Squeezing it momentarily, I slid off the bed and lay back down on the floor with my lumpy pillow.
"I can't wait until we're out." Chris said.
"Me too." I murmured into the fabric.
And after the heat was fixed and the weekend was over I really couldn't wait until we were out. I came out of my science class to see Chris cornered by a brunette. Flicking her hair and batting her eyes, I had to force myself to be calm, to will every part of me not to stomp over there and do something I'd regret, something both of us would regret.
He was smiling at her, the look in his eyes made me worry. I came up beside them. "Oh hi." She turned flashing me a beam, she was in our math class, and "You have Chris' notes, right?" I almost said yes, seeing as he copies them from me after school.
I force a smile, "He'll have them tomorrow." She looked over to him and gave a wink with a laugh.
"I'll just get them from you then." She made quite a show of walking off. Wagging her hips, and tossing her hair, habits like that made me dislike women more then I already did and he was watching with a quirked brow of interest. I wanted to vomit.