Chapter 39: Honeymoon Part 1.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Foster.

AN: The next chapter. Please leave lots of reviews. If I can hit 175 reviews, I'll try to upload next time with two chapters instead of just one. This is the first actual chapter of the honeymoon. Sorry if the portrayal of Mackinac Island isn't entirely accurate. While I have live in Michigan my entire life, I haven't had the pleasure of going to the island in almost half a decade. Also featured is a flashback to a certain scene that was never filmed or aired, which takes place in a certain tent between two certain people...

Connor's POV:

After we got checked in at the Hotel, Jude and I ventured down to downtown Mackinac Island in a horse drawn carriage, one of the only methods of transport allowed on the island.

"Maybe we should rent bikes." He commented, his head leaning on my shoulder, "I don't want to stare at a horse's ass every time we go somewhere."

I laughed and kissed the top of his head.

As we stepped out of the carriage, the first thing Jude did was drag me into a restaurant.

"Hungry are we?" I asked.

"Ravenous." He said, "And I don't want to eat at the Hotel. The restaurant there is ridiculously expensive. And I think it's shirt and tie only, and neither of us brought any formal wear. Besides, I'd rather pay ten bucks for a big ass burger and fries than thirty for some fancy piece of steak."

I nodded in agreement.

"What else do you want to do while we're down here?" I asked.

"I want to get some salt water taffy, and I want to try some of the fudge this place is so famous for."

"You've never had salt water taffy?" I asked, aghast.

Jude shook his head as we stepped up to the counter to order.

"That's tragic. You will love it, I promise." I said, "It's delicious."

"What'll it be?" The old lady at the register asked.

I surveyed the menu. It had a variety of dishes on it, ranging from classic American food to Mexican food.

"I'll have a quarter pound burger, hold the pickle and onions, with a side of fries." I said, "He'll have the taco platter, no tomatoes, with a bottle of ketchup on the side."

"Okay, that'll be $9.47." She said. I handed her a twenty dollar bill, the smallest bill I had in my wallet, and she accepted it, before glancing down at mine and Jude's intertwined hands, "You guys together?"

Jude and I shared a quick look.

"Yeah, we're here on our honeymoon." I answered.

"Great choice of destination." She said, "You guys make a cute couple. You remind me of my grandson and his boyfriend."

She started to hand me back my change, but I waved it off.

"Keep it. Consider it a tip." I said with a wink.

Jude and I moved off to the side to wait for our orders.

"Well, she was friendly." Jude said.

"You sound surprised." I said, "It's 2020. Nobody really cares anymore."

We fetched our orders and ate, playing footsie under the table while we did. After we finished, I immediately sought out a candy store, dragging Jude along like an over excited child.

"What are you doing?" He asked, his voice thick with laughter.

"Getting you some taffy and fudge." I said.

We went inside. There were so many flavors of taffy, that it left Jude gaping. I bought two huge bags of taffy, and the same amount of fudge. When we exited the shop, we were fifty dollars poorer, and Jude was staring at me as if I had completely taken leave of my sanity.

"I cannot believe you just spent that much on candy." He said.

"I've always wanted to do that." I said, laughing, "Spend a ton in a candy store. Yay for fulfilling childhood fantasies."

We walked around to a few of the shop, in which I bought a deck of playing cards for Jax's collection, as well as a small stuffed polar bear for my baby brother. Afterwards, Jude and I walked up and sat down in the grass in Marquette Park. I withdrew some fudge from its bag and handed it to Jude.

"Go ahead, you get first bite."

He removed the block of fudge from its packaging, broke off a small chunk of it and popped it into his mouth. His eyes widened.

"Oh. My. Fucking. God." He said.

"What?"

He shoved the rest of the block into his mouth.

I started laughing uproariously at my husband's adorableness.

"That is fucking delicious." He said, muffled by a mouthful of fudge.

I leaned over and kissed his fudge coated mouth.

He swallowed the fudge and returned the kiss. After we separated, we cracked open a bag of salt water taffy. Jude took a small orange and white one and started to unwrap it.

"What flavor is this one supposed to be?"

"Orange and white is orange sherbet I think." I said, taking a grape one for myself.

Jude popped into his mouth and chewed.

"Why don't we have this kind of shit in San Diego?" He exclaimed, "I swear there is no justice. We may have to move here. Permanently."

"We probably do have this in San Diego." I said, chewing my own piece, "You just have to look to find it. It probably wouldn't be as good either. And no. We aren't moving out here. We'd have to sell the cars."

"Good point." He said, reaching into the bag and grabbing three pieces of taffy, "Damn shame, but good point. I wonder if we can buy boxes of this stuff to bring back home."

"We have enough money for it." I commented jokingly.

Finally, after three hours of shopping and adventure, we returned to the room. We sat our purchases next to table, and threw the empty taffy bag in the garbage. The first thing we did was undress to our boxers.

"I cannot believe how beautiful it is here." Jude commented, staring out the window of our room in the Grand Hotel. It was called the Carleton Varney suite. It overlooked the Straits of Mackinac, and Jude was staring at the massive bridge that suspended across it.

I closed my freshly unpacked suitcase and joined him at the window, wrapping my arm around his waist and resting my head on his shoulder.

"Kind of reminds me of the Golden Gate in San Francisco." He commented, pointing out over the water at the Mackinac Bridge.

"Yeah, except it's white and green instead of orange." I said, "I'm glad my Uncle suggested this place. I don't think I could have picked a better place."

"It's so beautiful." He said, "I still can't believe there are no cars, though."

"Nope. It's been that way since the 1890's." I said, "Only transport is by bike, horse drawn carriage or walking. No pollution."

Jude looked at me curiously.

"How did you know that?" He asked.

"I do read, you know." I deadpanned jokingly.

"*Gasp*. You, Reading?! My heart can't take the shock." He joked.

So I did what I usually did when Jude got sassy.

I started tickling him.

Jude shrieked and leapt away.

"GAH! CONNOR!" He laughed.

"Aw, is the Judicorn still ticklish?" I purred mischievously, "I'll have to remember that."

"Don't even think about it, Connor Adams Foster."

Naturally, that's exactly what I did. So, I gave chase.

After ten minutes of wrestling around the room, laughing exuberantly at our sport, we ended up on the bed, Jude pinned below me, staring into each other's eyes. I leaned down and placed a kiss to his lips, which he returned with enthusiasm, our tongues dueling for dominance. Time faded away, as did our surroundings, as we became absorbed in each other.

I pulled away first, panting for breath. Jude's lips were puffy, and he was also breathless. His eyes drifted lower to my chest, and he reached his arms out to run them across my abdominal muscles. I caressed his cheek with my right hand

"I love you."

"I love you too." He said.

I place a soft kiss on his forehead and laid down next to him and pulled the covers of the bed over us. He snuggled up to me, laying his head on my chest, exhaling a content and happy sigh as he place a kiss on my chest.

"I never thought life could be so good." I admit, "I used to look at my future like it was a death sentence, but here, now, I've never been so happy in my life. I'm on my honeymoon, married to my best friend and boyfriend of seven years. I'm in a decent band that's releasing an album the day after tomorrow and already has a top 40 single. My whole family accepts me. Seven and a half years ago, a future like this was a wild pipe dream, and now it's a reality."

After a minute of happy silence, I looked at his face, and I could tell he was remembering something.

"Penny for your thoughts?" I said.

"Just remembering where this all started." He said.

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"Back in seventh grade, in the tent on the school camping trip." He said, "The night of our first kiss.

I sunk into the memory.

Flashback:

Jude and I were sitting on opposite sides of the tent, reading comic books. Every couple of seconds my gaze would flick up to survey my best friend as he sat on his sleeping bag, reading a copy of the newest issue of the Walking Dead.

It was the third day of the school camping trip, and I had insisted that Jude and I share a tent. Jude had warned me, multiple times on the bus on the way to the campgrounds, that it was a bad idea, but I was persistent and eventually he gave in. The first day of the camping trip, we swam or most of the day. The second day, we swam some more, and hiked for a while in the woods. The whole time, Jude acted a little distant with me.

It hurt. A lot. But it was nothing I didn't deserve. It seemed to me like the only thing I'd done since becoming friends with him was fucked stuff up.

"Jude?"

He didn't look up.

"Jude?" I said a little louder.

"What, Connor?" He said, sounding a little testy.

I sighed and got up from my spot and walked over to him, plopping down next to him.

"You're still mad at me aren't you?" I asked.

He sighed and finally raise his head from his comic and made eye contact with me.

"No. Not really." He said.

I slid closer, now sitting with our knees touching.

"I'm sorry, Jude." I said.

He looked at me, his brow furrowed in confusion.

"For what?"

"My dad. How he's been lately." I said bitterly, with a large sprinkling of anger, "You gotta know that if I could change anything, I would. I miss how things used to be. I missing coming over to play games, staying the night. But because my dad saw you pat me on the back at the batting cages, your automatically gay, and I can't hang out with you anymore. I don't care if you're gay, he shouldn't either."

"I don't really know what I am." Jude admitted with a sigh, "I've never thought about it before."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Foster care. Too busy surviving to think about it." He said.

"My dad has no right to try and label you anything." I said, starting to get furious.

"It's okay..." Jude started to say, but I interrupted him.

After months of keeping everything bottle up, and keeping everything inside, my long dormant temper, held at bay by an iron will and an extraordinary amount of patience, finally snapped

"THE HELL IT IS! I've missed you so much lately, and it's all his fault." I ranted, "If he wasn't such a homophobic jerk, none of this would be a problem. I shouldn't have to sneak around to spend time alone with my best fucking friend!"

"Connor!" Jude hissed, "Keep your voice down."

I ignored him.

"But no... that would be too easy, though." I continued ranting, my voice rising and tears starting to leak down my cheeks, "I can't have something GOOD in my life, no that's too much to ask! Can't hang out with my best friend, or spend the night at his house, because my father is a worthless piece of fucking SHIT AND HAS TO RUIN EVERYTHING!"

I couldn't contain the sobs any more, and Jude pulled me into a hug.

"I-I'm SORRY, J-Jude. I'm s-s-so fucking s-s-sorry." I sobbed.

"Shh. It's okay, Connor." He said, rubbing my back to comfort me, "I'm not mad at you. I know it's not your fault. It's okay."

I relaxed into the embrace. I felt warm, welcome, comfortable. At the same time, my heart dropped.

I had been questioning my sexuality since I caught myself checking another boy out in gym class a year previously. When Jude and I became friends, my first thought was that he was cute. I had tried desperately to push the thoughts away, because I knew that any possibility of acting on the feelings would end in disaster, again courtesy of my father.

I pulled away and wiped the tears from my eyes, and looked into his eyes.

I stared into his eyes.

I never realized how hypnotizing his brown eyes were. They were the same shade as my favorite kind of chocolate.

I leaned in quickly and pressed my lips to his.

It only lasted for perhaps three seconds. But in those three seconds, every question I ever had about myself was answered.

It was all finally clear, and it was the scariest feeling I had ever felt in my entire life.

I didn't know if Jude was actually gay, but it was now ridiculously clear that I was.

I was gay.

I had a crush on my best friend.

I was kissing my best friend.

If my dad found out about this...

With that thought, I pulled away.

Jude stared at me, his eyes wide, his mouth agate. He was doing an impression of a goldfish, unable to form a coherent sentence.

He looked shocked, and in his eyes I could see a small amount of fear. It was barely noticeable, but it was still there.

My heart shattered.

"I-I'm s-sorry." I croaked, my tears renewed as I collapsed backwards onto his sleeping bag.

Jude snapped out of it and crawled up to lay next to me. He wrapped his arms around me.

"Never be sorry." He whispered to me.

No more words were said that night as I cried myself to sleep in my best friends arms.

The next morning, when I woke up, I returned to my own sleeping bag. When Jude woke up, I acted like nothing had ever happened. When Jude tried to bring it up, I told him that he had to keep it a secret and that my dad could never find out.

But something in the air between us had shifted. It had set us hurtling down a new path into an uncertain future, and at the time, I was terrified to find out what that future held. For the both of us.

End Flashback.

"That was the greatest night of my life." I said.

"Mine to." He said, "Everything that led us here, to this moment, was worth it."

We kissed again, and I felt Jude's hands start to venture south. I responded by doing the same. After five minutes we pulled apart, our hearts beating fast.

"Did you bring any condoms?" I asked.

He shook his head.

"No." He said.

"Damn it." I swore, "We should have got some when we were shopping."

"Do we really need them?" He asked, shocking me, "I mean, we know we're both clean, and we've only ever done it with each other, so is it really necessary?"

"Um. I guess not. Are you sure?" I asked.

He nodded, and leaned back in to recapture my lips with his.

"I'm sure. I need you." Jude said, sounding out of breath, "Now."

So my husband asked, so he would receive.

That night was the best night of my life.

Jude and I had had sex before, but this time was different. This time was our first as a married couple.

It was nothing less than magical.

AN#2: Okay, so that's that for this chapter. I hope my readers like it. Please leave lots of reviews, I crave them. Like I said above, if I can hit 175 reviews, I'll upload two chapters the next time I update. Please and thank you.