@};--;---

Idle Hands
By Rayna
Pairing: Joey/Corey
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Underage drinking and smoking
March, 2005
-Written to Idle Hands, by Stone Sour-

Peel back the layers and see what I've become
Satisfied? Now I feel nothing; stay away
I swear it wasn't me!
Run - It doesn't matter
I need all the miracles that I can gather
Run - I can't pretend
I put myself in idle hands again

Corey appeared to be completely normal on the outside. He kept his auburn hair cut short, just off his shoulders, dressed in the not-yet popular rock style of torn jeans and T-shirts with his favorite bands' logos on the front, and didn't do anything to make him stand out from a crowd of high school students. If anyone were to inquire about him, they'd never find out his name simply because no one ever talked to him long enough to learn it. He was a loner, only in school because he was forced by law to attend until he was of age to drop out, which he fully intended to do once the time came. Until then, however, he kept to himself and got his work done, just barely passing with a 'C' average.

While he may have seemed normal on the outside, inside, he was anything but. His homelike had taken a toll on his frame of mind, keeping him constantly down, depressed. He felt contempt toward anyone who was happy, and equal hatred toward those who had it off as bad as him. For himself, he held only disappointment that he couldn't bring himself to make better grades so he could get out of such a bad time in his young life.

A failed junior--he should have been a senior and would be old enough by the time he got there to drop out--he knew all the work going in the second time around and did much better than the previous year. He recognized most all of the kids, because while no one ever remembered him, he did a lot of watching and could place nearly everyone he'd seen, even if he'd only seen them once. It was an interesting gift he had--a photographic memory, to be correct--but it made every day he endured seem even more repetitive than it would have if he saw a new face every once in a while.

There came a day in the second semester of school when a new face did show up, and it caught Corey's rapt and full attention. It was at lunch, one cold, rainy day in March, that he noticed the boy standing in the hallway that led to the cafeteria. He wondered what the boy was doing, just standing there by himself, and even though it wasn't much in his character, he walked up and stood a few feet away from him.

"Why're you out here in the cold?" Corey asked, looking down the other end of the hall as if expecting to see someone else.

The boy took a moment before responding, as if surprised that someone might be speaking to him. "I'm not so into the big crowds of people. It's not that cold out here."

Corey turned back and looked at him. The boy was short--maybe just over five feet, and was wearing a style that much resembled Corey's, except Corey didn't take the glam part quite so far. His hair was jet black, straight, and reached nearly mid-chest. It framed a pale, thin face with a broad forehead, ice-blue eyes, and lips that were nearly blue pursed into a scowl. Lunch had started only five minutes earlier, and it was clear by the way the boy's teeth were chattering that it was, indeed, very cold out.

Frowning, Corey dug into his pocket for his car keys. "Do you wanna come sit and warm up in my car? It's probably not the greatest idea to just stand out here for thirty minutes." The kid didn't even have a heavy jacket, just a hooded sweatshirt that had practically no insulation at all.

The boy shrugged one shoulder noncommitedly and followed behind Corey as they went into the student parking lot. Corey's car was nothing special--just a little black Chevrolet with a cassette player and, thankfully, a good heating system. He unlocked the doors and the two of them got inside, where he cranked the engine and turned the heater on. They both cringed as, for the first few excruciating moments, the air was freezing, then relaxed as it warmed up.

"Thanks," the boy said, crossing his arms tightly over his chest.

"Sure thing. I always come out here anyway with my lunch, but I heard they were serving chicken and rice today, and that's never any good."

The boy muttered, "Huh," like he didn't think it sounded good, either. "So, uh, you're sixteen?"

"Seventeen, actually," said Corey. "I'll be eighteen this November. How old are you?"

Again, there was a pause. "Fifteen. I'm a freshman." He sniffed once, considering what to say next. "My name's Joey," he added quietly after a second.

"I'm Corey."

They shook hands, and Corey was surprised at how cold the boy still was. The heater was up as much as it could go.

Tucking his hands back under his arms, Joey supplied, "I'm just a naturally cold person. It can be the middle of summer and I'll still be cold."

"That's cool. I'm hot-blooded, so I'm the other way around."

"Huh."

There was a long moment of silence in which neither boy spoke, then Joey asked, "How long did you say lunch was?"

"Thirty minutes."

"And how long has it been?"

Corey checked his watch. "Maybe eight."

"Oh."

"Got plans?" Corey asked sarcastically.

"No. I was just wondering how much longer I'd be able to enjoy being comfortable. My mom told me this is supposed to be the best time of my life. If that's true, I guess the rest of my life is going to be total hell." Idly, Joey played with his hair while watching the windows fog up.

Corey shrugged. "It's not much fun for me, either. Can you imagine some people spending twelve years in school, then going to college for another five or ten, or whatever? That's just totally wasting your life."

"Heh. Yeah. So what are you going to do when you graduate?"

"I dunno yet. You?"

Joey opened his notebook and showed it to Corey. Filling every page were intricately drawn musical notes; Corey only recognized the quarter notes, and stared with an impressed expression on his face as Joey flipped through the pages. "I want to be a musician, but I can't find any people I'd like to hang out with long enough to make it work. I may just end up being a drum tech, or something like that."

Corey smiled. "Sounds like you've got it all planned out, huh?"

Joey nodded. "I have a lot of free time when I get home in the afternoon, so this is what I do: write songs down. I do lyrics, too, not just music."

"See, that's a talent. I can't do anything like that."

Frowning just a little, Joey asked, "Isn't there anything you're good at?"

Corey shrugged and said, "I can remember nearly everything I see. Before my mom got hooked on drugs and stopped communicating with me, she said it was called a photographic memory. Sometimes I feel like my head's going to explode, there's so much inside it... I wouldn't call it a talent, just a curse."

"That's really interesting. Even if it's just a passing glance, you'll still remember it?"

"Yep. It's kind of hard to explain, but it drives me fucking crazy."

The bell rang just then, signaling the end of lunch. Corey shut off the car and the two boys got out and started walking back toward the school building.

"So, uh, I'll see you around?" Joey asked quietly, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear as he raised his eyes to look at Corey.

"Sure." He nodded his head and started to go in the opposite direction, where his class was, but Joey seemed reluctant to leave. A few steps later, he noticed the boy was still beside him. "What's wrong?"

The smallest hint of a blush tinted Joey's cheeks. "I don't know where my next class is."

Corey laughed. "So you're just going to follow me? What's the teacher's name?"

Joey reached into his pants pocket and took out his schedule. "Shafer. Room 226 in Building 3."

"Okay." Corey turned them ninety degrees and began walking toward the smallest of the four buildings that made up their high school. Joey kept close at his side, wincing at all the people who brushed beside him, pushed at him. Instinctively, he clutched his hand in the material of Corey's shirtsleeve and let himself be guided along by the older boy. Corey looked down at him with a perked eyebrow, but kept walking.

They reached the building and Corey showed him upstairs to the right room. "Here you go." He waved his hand toward the door.

"Thanks," Joey said, blushing again. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

Smiling, Corey nodded. "Okay. Later." He had to hurry to get to his class before the late bell rang, and barely managed it. He found that he couldn't concentrate, though, and hardly got any work done at all for the rest of the day. He couldn't stop seeing Joey's face, when he closed his eyes, when he opened his eyes and let his vision blur. It made his head hurt.

At the end of the day, Corey sat in his car and waited for the hoards of people to get out of the parking lot first. He hated trying to fight his way out, especially when it was cold and the roads were slick; it was dangerous, and knowing his luck, he would be the one to get in a wreck. So he sat, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel and watching the familiar people who were oblivious to him walking around, getting in their vehicles, and stampeding away from school. It was different for him, though--he didn't want to leave.

Squinting his eyes, he felt his pulse pick up at seeing the one person who had plagued his thoughts since lunch. Joey sat on one of the benches, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket, watching everyone leave with a sad expression on his face. Corey frowned and wondered if he was waiting for his mom to pick him up. He began to feel bad, being in his toasty-warm car and watching the petite boy sit there and freeze. The people had thinned to a tolerable amount, and the roads were drivable, so Corey pulled out of his parking space and went around the loop to talk to Joey.

Rolling his window down, he called to the boy who wasn't paying attention to him, "What's up?"

Joey eyes brightened when he recognized Corey and he sprung off the bench over to the car window. "Oh, I'm so glad you haven't left yet! My mom has to work late and I don't have anyone to take me home... Could you please give me a ride?"

Corey rubbed his chin and pretended to think. "Now, I don't know."

Shivering, Joey bounced up and down in an attempt to keep warm. "Please?"

"Yeah, yeah. Alright. Get in."

Joey got in and huddled down in the seat. "It's so cold. God, I think I'm frozen." His lips were bluer than they had been earlier and he looked almost dead.

Corey was glad the car was already warmed up. "You'll thaw soon. Which way do you live?"

"Are you taking me home right now?"

"Well what did you want to do?"

Joey shrugged. "I don't know. I thought we could... I mean, my mom won't be home until late tonight."

"Wanna grab a bite to eat?"

"Okay."

Corey made a point not to look at him, already having his face permanently imprinted in his mind. He could see him sitting there, even when his eyes were completely focused on the road ahead. Hands gripped the steering wheel tighter until he had to flex them and let the knuckles crack. He was starting to think that maybe he didn't need friends, if this was all they were good for: making him uncomfortable and on-edge; unsure of what to do next, or where to go, wanting to drain one of his stolen cigarettes in one long puff, but not knowing whether or not Joey would care for the smoke. He dragged a hand down his face and looked for a decent place to eat.

"Is this okay?" he asked of a shabby little hole-in-the-wall bar that he always went to. It was nice there. It was dark there.

Joey was obviously not sure whether it was okay or not, but he nodded anyway. "I don't think I've ever been here before. Is it good?"

"Yeah. Good burgers."

Inside the bar was small, hot, and a thick cloud of smoke hung around the ceiling. Corey inhaled deeply, almost able to get his fix from the second-hand smoke alone, but not quite. Joey gagged and stuffed the sleeve of his jacket over his mouth and nose, eyes watery and narrowed in the dim lighting. Corey took him to a booth, his booth, as he liked to think of it. It was always empty when he came in, and he had his initials carved on the underside of the table.

They sat down, Corey in his usual spot, and Joey in front of him. It felt different, and Corey wasn't sure the change was welcome yet. Besides, he didn't really know Joey yet, not well enough to know if he liked him or not. The boy seemed okay, if a little shy; if he'd allowed himself to be dragged into such a shit-hole, then he was overly-trusting, for sure. Maybe that was what he needed, Corey thought to himself: someone who was okay with doing anything. That was an interesting thought, and he decided that maybe he should look more into it.

A waitress, one Corey recognized but who he'd never spoken to directly, leaned on the table and, flashing them a lazy smile, asked, "What can I get'cha, boys?"

Corey nodded to Joey, whose eyes were red and a bit swollen. The smaller boy took his sleeve out from over his face and muttered, "Coke," then put it back.

"I'll take a Screwdriver," Corey said with the air of a grown man.

The waitress didn't look twice at him before sleazing away to fetch the drinks.

"What's a Screwdriver?" Joey asked, seeming to finally be able to breathe properly. He took a deep breath, wrinkled his nose a few times, then exhaled it and looked okay.

"Orange juice and vodka. I'll let you taste it."

"But aren't you supposed to be--"

"As long as they don't ask, no, I'm not." Corey smiled at him. "I wouldn't try to do that any time soon, if I were you. You look about ten."

Blushing, Joey shrugged. "You could get into trouble. And I wouldn't try to pull anything like that off. I tasted beer once, and it was totally gross."

"You say that now," Corey said, pointing a finger at him, "but when you get a little bit older, you'll wonder where your brain was all those wasted years you didn't drink it. Beer isn't the best drink out there, but when you're upset, it helps you out."

The waitress came back and slid the drinks onto the table. "Ready to order?"

Joey hadn't been able to find a menu of any kind, so he looked to Corey for help, who said, "Yeah, two medium-rare burgers with everything on them, and an order of cheese fries." He looked at Joey. "Okay?"

Joey nodded his agreement and they were left alone again.

"So you wanna try it?" Corey asked after taking a sip of his drink.

"I guess so. Is it good?" He got no answer, but the drink was slid over to him and he looked at it, swirling it with the straw experimentally. It looked like plain orange juice to him. He sniffed it. There was something definitely different in the smell, but he took a small sip of it anyway and felt the warmth of the alcohol burn his throat and stomach as it went down. His face contorted and he put the drink down on the table. "That's..." He put his hand on his stomach. "It's hot!"

Corey took a long drink of it and sighed. "Yeah. See, that's the alcohol in it. You should have a taste of Jack Daniels. That's a little harder and it warms you up quicker. Anything that burns going down is usually good."

Joey took to nursing his Coke instead, not caring overly-much for Corey's choice of drink. Some strange kind of music, like warped, thunderous techno-meets-death-metal growls and screeches, poured from unseen speakers and made the entire room vibrate. It was something like Joey'd never heard before, and it was giving him a bit of a headache. "So you come here all the time?" he asked.

Corey nodded. "Yeah, mostly at night, though. Hardly anyone ever comes in and it's nice to just sit here and think." He had wanted to say drink but think had come out instead.

True to his word, there was only one other person in the bar at the moment: a middle-aged man sitting on the other side of the room, with countless beer bottles and shot glasses in front of him. It was apparent that he hadn't had a good day.

"Were you at school in the beginning of the year? I've never seen you until today," Corey said, unable to keep his eyes from roaming to Joey. He found it especially difficult since the boy was sitting directly in front of him.

Joey shook his head. "No. Actually, today was my first day. We just moved here from the other side of town, and I got the counselor to show me where my first class was. The teacher there showed me where the second one was, but I forgot to ask about the third before lunch. I would have been totally screwed if you hadn't said something to me."

"How come you couldn't just ask someone?"

Shrugging, Joey pulled on his hair. "I just don't like... you know, people." He said the word like it was some kind of deadly disease, like cancer or AIDS. A small smile painted his lips right after he said it. "I mean, you know what I mean? You're not like them. Everyone I saw today was totally fake. Do you see that when you look at them, or am I just weird?"

Corey was having trouble seeing anything but him at the moment, but blinked his eyes quick two times and nodded. "Yeah. Hardly anyone at that school will be honest with anyone, or themselves. People like that are..." Well, he didn't really know what they were. Popular? Happy? People like that were a number of things, and a lot more than he would ever be, he knew. Frowning, he drained the rest of his drink.

Joey had a feeling he should change the subject and cleared his throat. "So you just live with your mom?"

At the look that came over Corey's face, that apparently wasn't a very good subject to be discussed, either. "No. She has a boyfriend." His voice was tight, strained, almost pained, in a way.

"S-sorry," Joey said quickly. He slumped down a little in his seat and took to sipping his Coke again.

"Why are you sorry?" Corey asked, eyes clearing their clouded look and focusing back on him.

"I didn't mean to upset you..."

Corey hadn't realized how he'd acted and immediately tried to cheer up. "You didn't upset me. I just don't think very much of my mom, or any of her friends. I don't spend a lot of time at home." He poked his straw and thought about how bad he needed another drink; no more alcohol, though. He didn't want to endanger himself or Joey on the ride to Joey's house. "How about your family, then?"

"My parents are divorced and I live with just my mom. That's why we moved, actually. He was seeing someone else while she was at work, and when they got divorced, he ended up having the better lawyer and got us kicked out of our old house." He shrugged. "Anyway, so we moved into this little apartment and it's..." He stopped midsentence. "Jesus, I don't even remember what number our room was!"

Corey's eyes widened as Joey raised his voice and buried his face in his hands. Joey was pulling his hair and muttering to himself when the waitress came back with their food. She gave the boy an odd look, but Joey didn't see it, then whispered to Corey, "Is your friend alright?"

Corey nodded quickly. "Yeah, thanks. Can I get a Coke?" He pushed his empty glass at her.

She took it and left, and Corey leaned across the table to touch Joey's shoulder. Joey jerked up and Corey yanked his hand back. "Fuck, dude, are you okay?"

"No!" Joey whispered harshly, still pulling on his hair. "I don't know what I'm going to do. My mom's such a forgetful... such a stupid..." He waved his hands around, unable to find a suitable word. "She didn't give me a key, didn't tell me the room number. How am I supposed to...?" He looked at the food on the table and stuck his finger in the little bowl of cheese sauce. Sucking his pinkie, he looked no longer frantically upset, but sad again. "I hate her sometimes, you know? She doesn't trust me with anything."

Eyes still bulging slightly, Corey nodded dumbly. He wasn't sure quite what to say, and hadn't been expecting such an outburst from someone who seemed as put-together as Joey had appeared. Looks were deceiving, obviously. "Well, there's no need to worry about it. What time does she get off work?"

"Eleven tonight," Joey murmured around a french fry. "I haven't eaten all day," he said, dunking four fries at a time into the cheese sauce and stuffing them into his mouth.

Corey's new drink arrived and he took a gulp of it, then started eating his burger. When Joey bit into his, he stared at the inside of it like it was something foreign.

"I don't think they cooked mine," he said, tilting the sandwich to show Corey the red inside.

"That's how it's supposed to be. It's medium-rare," Corey explained, showing him his own, identical, sandwich.

Joey's eyebrows lowered and he took another bite. "What if I get food poisoning, or something? Isn't it supposed to be brown inside?" He put the sandwich down and started eating fries again, mostly dunking his fingers into the cheese, oblivious to the way Corey was staring at him.

"Dude, I eat at least four burgers every week, cooked exactly like this, and I've never gotten food poisoning. It's fine." He watched the way Joey sucked his fingers, the way his lips pursed and his tongue came out to lick the remaining sauce from his fingernails. Corey's eyes filmed over slightly, and he had to shake his head to clear it. The image was fixed. He squirmed and took another bite of his sandwich, trying to focus on anything else--the wall behind Joey, the ceiling, the waitress, who was giving him a sickeningly interested look. He didn't look at her again. His eyes came back to fall on Joey, who had a bit of mayonnaise smeared at the corner of his mouth.

"I guess this is pretty good. I've never had a burger that wasn't done all the way, but you know, it's actually juicier. I think I like it better this way." Joey rambled on for a few more minutes about his past burger-eating experiences, but Corey wasn't really listening anymore. Finally, Joey looked at him and said, "Are you going to eat these?" pertaining to the fries that were almost gone.

Corey shook his head. "No, go ahead." Please, he thought, watching hungrily as Joey swirled his fingers around in the sauce. He still had that bit of mayonnaise right on the side of his mouth... Corey's left eye twitched just the slightest bit. He was disappointed when Joey wiped it away.

They finished up their food and Corey pulled his wallet from his back pocket. Joey put a five dollar bill down on the table and pushed it in Corey's direction, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "This is all I have..."

Corey pushed it back at him. "Don't worry about it."

That made Joey blush and he stuffed the money back into his pocket. The waitress gave them the check and Corey paid, left her a reasonable tip, and he and Joey went outside to the car.

They waited in the parking lot while it warmed up. Joey burped much louder than was expected from someone of his size, and he grinned when Corey gave him a surprised look. He giggled, and Corey decided that sound suited him better.

"What d'you wanna do now?" Corey asked, flexing his fingers.

Joey checked the time on the car's clock and it was only five. "Well, we have six hours until I can get into my room. What do you usually do?"

Corey was reluctant to say what acts usually made up his normal afternoon out of school. What didn't include pick-pocketing, drinking, and sneaking into places he had no business being was usually taken up by sleeping in his car when he should have been in his warm house with a mother who loved him and a father he could be happy to see. That was how it should have been. He had no idea what to do with Joey.

"Um..." Corey looked around, though there was really nothing legal or decent he ever did that he could think of. "We could maybe go hang around a shop I usually go to. There's a lot of cool stuff there." It was probably a bad idea, and he could almost guarantee that Joey wouldn't like it, but the place he had in mind did have a lot to keep one occupied for a long amount of time.

"Okay," Joey said, always trusting. Too trusting. It made Corey's stomach hurt.

It was getting dark and the temperature was dropping steadily by the minute. By the time they got to the store, it was raining again and when Corey got out of the car, he felt like he'd been slapped in the face by the blast of cold that hit him. Joey wrapped his arms around himself and hardly gave a look to the place he was walking into; to look up would have meant getting little shards of ice-cold rain water on his face, and he would have rather looked down.

They went inside and huddled next to the door for a few moments, shivering, until Joey shook himself off and took a glance around. His innocent eyes didn't know what they were really seeing until it dawned on him that he was in... some place he had never been allowed to go into. He turned to Corey, who had gone to the register to talk to the guy behind it, who looked no older than Corey did.

Joey walked off to have a look at things. There were two stories to the building, and a staircase behind one of the shelves that held a vast array of various condoms, lubricants, and other protective appliances. He climbed the stairs and was surprised at the amount of familiar things he saw on the second floor. Most of it, the leather chaps, for instance, and the spiked necklaces, he had seen his favorite music performers wear. He stepped up and poked around, having always liked the smell of real leather. The price tag on most of the items was outrageous, though, and when he saw how much things were, he gingerly put the thing down to avoid breaking it. There was a swing in the corner, he noticed, that was hanging down from the ceiling. It was a strange thing that he had to look at from all angles to understand how it worked, but when he thought he had it, he took a seat.

Right when Corey's head appeared above the stairs, he lost his footing and fell backwards.

Corey had to laugh before he came over to help. Joey had found one of the bondage swings and had gotten in it the wrong way entirely. He helped the boy up and, tears from laughing so hard still blurring his vision, he asked, "Are you okay?"

Joey didn't fully understand what was so funny, but he nodded. "Yeah." He got over his confusion quickly and waved his hand at the leather devices, "This is awesome! Look at those pants, and this hat..." He kept naming things off that he thought were neat, and talking so fast his voice became a constant string of words with no spaces between them.

It was amusing how Joey had no idea about anything. Corey had to bite his lips to keep from laughing, and even then, he couldn't keep a straight face. He had thought Joey would be weirded-out and at a loss of what to do, but he was more excited seeing all the bondage goods than Corey could have ever imagined. It really was funny.

"...I can't believe I've never been in here before. This must be, like, where Rob Halford gets his clothes! That's so cool."

"Joey," Corey said at last, holding a hand up to silence the boy. "You do realize you're in a porn shop, right? Porn, dildos, fake pussies, videos...? It's not a candy store."

Joey was quiet for a few seconds. "Oh," he said quietly. "You mean..." He looked at the swing. "Ohh, that is so nasty. Ohh, God, I sat on it."

For a second, Corey thought Joey would have another little meltdown and get into the fetal position again, but he didn't; just stood there, looking around with an entirely new view on everything. Corey gently kicked the toe of his shoe and Joey looked at him. "None of this stuff has been touched, so don't freak out. I just thought you should know what it was meant for."

"Uh huh," Joey said, nodding. He sighed. After another moment of quiet, his face scrunched again. "I sat on it," he mewed.

Corey laughed. "Come on downstairs and I'll show you where I sleep most of the time."

"You sleep in here?" Joey asked, horrified at the thought.

There was a room that had a sign above it that read 'Adults Only,' and the curtain in front of the door was made of hanging plastic beads and cheap pieces of fake silk. Corey parted the curtain and pushed the door open, then led Joey into the dark room. Joey stayed close to the wall, keeping one hand on it at all times. He felt the same thrill of going into a fun house at a carnival: just knowing something was going to happen and feeling the suspense right before it did was always better than the actual event.

Corey flicked on an overhead lamp and flooded the room with light. Joey's eyes shut for a few seconds before he could reopen them and look around. The room was about the size of a large walk-in closet. Its walls were painted black and there was a TV and VCR in the far corner. The floor was lined with pillows of every size and material, and there were also a few blankets. It didn't look so uncomfortable to Joey, but the mere idea of what else might have gone on in the room made his stomach turn.

"You're aloud to sleep here?" he asked again. He expected to smell the nasty, sweaty smell of sex, but all he smelled was the slight linen aroma of freshly-washed laundry.

"Yeah. Only when things are so bad at home that I absolutely can't stay and it's too cold to sleep in my car. Like tonight, I'll probably stay here."

Joey frowned, looking at him. "That's horrible. You can spend the night with me."

Corey shut the light off and slid down in the pile of pillows. "I don't think your mom would appreciate that very much: you bringing some boy she doesn't know home and letting him stay over for the night. She'll think something weird is going on." He stretched out on his back and hugged a pillow to his chest. "You can sit down if you want. All this is clean."

There was a moment's hesitation before he felt Joey sit next to him. It was pitch black in the room, but he could see Joey's face still in his mind. He could see Joey wriggling around, a disgusted look on his face even though he'd been told the pillows and blankets were clean. Corey was taken by surprise when Joey's hands blindly touched his head, and moved down to his eyes and nose and lips. "What are you doing?" Corey asked.

"Just seeing where you are," Joey replied, and laid down on his back. "What if I fall asleep?"

"I'll wake you up when it's time for us to leave."

Joey let out a big yawn and pulled a blanket up to his chin. "Okay. Aren't you tired?"

Corey dragged his hand over his face. "No, I'm not tired. You go ahead and rest. Pete won't let anyone come back here, so you don't have to worry about that."

"Thanks."

It was clear by the way Joey was breathing that he wasn't asleep. Corey could tell. Corey's heart was racing, thinking of how close they were at the moment. All he would have to do was reach out a few mere inches and he would be able to touch, would be able to feel... It was all he could do to keep still and not get closer. Joey was facing him; he could feel the other's breath, smell it as it ghosted sweetly into his nostrils.

"Corey?" Joey asked quietly, voice sounding awkward in the strained silence of the room.

"Yeah?"

Joey sniffled and the blankets rustled as he repositioned himself to be more comfortable. "You're not planning to pull some horrible prank on me, are you? Don't take it the wrong way; it's just... no one's ever really cared enough to do anything nice for me before. I've known you for a few hours and you've already done more than people who've known me for years. You're not going to totally diss me tomorrow, are you?"

It made Corey frown to think Joey didn't trust him. "Of course I won't diss you tomorrow, or pull a prank like that. I don't get along with anyone, and you're the only person I've been able to tolerate for any amount of time. I actually like your company."

Corey couldn't see it, but Joey smiled in the dark. "That's good. I like being with you, too." He wriggled closer, until he was pressed against the pillow Corey had a death-grip on. "How long do you think we'll be friends?"

Until you realize what a complete nutcase I am, Corey thought sadly. "Until you're sick of me," he said instead. "What's with all the questions?" He was starting to get anxious; could feel Joey's body heat through the pillow. He regretted having grabbed it, since Joey seemed to want to get closer to him. They were fine the way they were, though, and Joey could hold the other side of the pillow if he wanted to.

"I was just curious, is all. I've never really had a friend before. I'm not entirely sure how it's supposed to work."

Corey pulled at a loose thread in the stitching of one of the pillowcases to occupy part of his mind away from the conversation at hand. "It's not something you can plan out. You just have to go with it and see what happens."

Joey's breathing had evened out and Corey knew he was finally asleep. An audible sigh of relief escaped him as he wondered what Joey had been trying to get at. It discontented him, not knowing the other's motives, if there was a motive at all. He doubted there was; thought he was probably looking too deeply into pointless, sleep-fueled conversation. There was always just a faint glimmer of hope, though, that Joey might be aware of the turmoil he harbored in his mind.

Corey didn't have a hard time staying awake. All he had to do was concentrate on counting Joey's breaths. Each inhalation he counted in ones, and each exhalation he counted in twos, so that by the time four hours had passed, he had a set of two lists. The numbers were quickly forgotten as he sat up and nudged the still-sleeping boy beside him.

The T-shirt he touched was hot with Joey's body temperature, and as he pressed his hand down a bit, Joey's soft arm yielded to him. Joey groaned and blindly swatted at Corey's retracting hand before lacing their fingers together, palms touching, and squeezing. The act made Corey cringe and try to pull back, but it was only Joey waking up disoriented, not knowing where he was or how he'd gotten there for a moment. When he woke up more, he let Corey go and yawned.

"What time is it?" Joey asked drowsily. He stretched, pressing his hands flat against the pillow and nearly rolling Corey into a wall.

Corey pressed the glow button on his watch and squinted at it. "Nine thirty."

"We should go to your house and get some new clothes for tomorrow."

"How come?"

Joey sat up and leaned against the wall. "Aren't you staying over with me tonight?"

"Your mom--"

"My mom won't care," he cut Corey off. "As long as we stay away from her so she can type her doctor reports and whatever, she won't care what we do. I saw the apartment this morning; her room's all the way upstairs. It'll be better than you having to stay in here."

Corey sat up, too, and cracked his joints. "If you're sure, then we had better go."

"Okay."

They stumbled out over the pillows, and Joey almost fell, but grabbed onto the doorknob before he toppled over. The light was bright and stung their eyes outside the room, and they had to stand there for a moment before they could see properly. The man behind the counter gave Corey a suggestive wink, to which Corey didn't respond. He acted like he hadn't even seen it, though his ears may have reddened just a little bit.

Corey thanked his sort-of friend who owned the store for letting them rest for a while, and he and Joey went outside to the car. It was still freezing, but the rain had stopped and that made it much more bearable. They got into the car and waited for a while until Corey felt like driving; he hated to drive, especially at night, because he was always cautious of other people.

Joey had finally woken up all the way and was drumming his fingers on his notebook. The outside lamps from every dingy bar, strip joint, and fast food place provided enough light for Corey to be able to see his passenger, and he didn't think he'd ever seen anything more perfect than Joey at that very moment in time: the boy's long hair was tangled and the areas around his eyes were puffy from having rubbed them so much to wake himself up. Joey's eyes were bright and flitting everywhere, everywhere but in Corey's direction. Corey might have wondered why, but was too preoccupied with his deranged thoughts of the boy than to really care whether or not Joey was looking at him; it was probably better he didn't.

Corey's house wasn't far away. It was back behind the shopping plaza on the next road, back in the cheap, salary-based homes. They were like the project houses, but had a few more amenities. He and his mother's house was alright, he supposed, pulling beside the mailbox. His stomach turned to see his mom's boyfriend's car parked near the tree, and gave Joey a look like he'd rather not go inside.

"I'll go with you if you want," Joey offered, shrugging. He didn't understand the situation.

Shaking his head, Corey opened his door. "You just sit right here and don't move, and don't be seen." He looked around and saw a few suspicious men walking not far down the road. "And if anyone says anything to you, tell them you're not interested. Okay?"

Joey frowned, but nodded. "Okay."

Corey took his keys and looked at his watch again. It wasn't even ten o'clock... maybe they hadn't gotten out the booze yet. He could only hope as he went up to the door and knocked four times.

Nearly two minutes later, his mother opened the door, dressed in a skimpy nightgown with a cigarette hanging out from between her lipstick-smeared lips. She narrowed her eyes at him and sneered. "So you decided to come home, huh? Always crawling back home. Someday I won't be here to let you in."

"I just need some clothes," Corey muttered, unable to look her in the eyes. He hardly recognized her anymore.

She turned her back on him, swinging her arms out angrily. "Why don't you take the rest of your shit with you? I don't want anything to do with it. Fucking magazines and cassettes... always tripping over your shit..." She kept shouting things out to him, but he ducked past her and hurried to his room. Her boyfriend was in the living room and hadn't noticed Corey's entrance, but Corey knew it would only be a matter of time before he was confronted.

He grabbed an armful of clothes that were laying in the middle of his floor, not caring what he got, just hoping there was a complete outfit in there somewhere, and practically ran to get out of the house. When he had gotten to the front door, though, a calloused hand came down hard on his shoulder. He winced and slowly turned around.

At six foot two, his mom's boyfriend towered over him. The man had enough strength in one hand alone to crush Corey's windpipe, and Corey cowered before him.

"Where you goin', boy?" the man thundered, pressing his thumb into the hollow in Corey's throat.

Corey swallowed and tried to reach behind him for the doorknob. "Out," he whispered, squirming under the intense glare that was being directed at him. He couldn't seem to find his voice, and it came out as more of a whimper. "Please."

The man laughed and Corey gasped as he was shoved hard against the door. "You beg just like you used to." He caressed the boy's exposed Adam's apple almost tenderly, but the dangerous twinkle in his coal-black eyes told of anything but tenderness.

Face scrunched with painful recollection, Corey leaned his head farther back against the door. "Let me go," he said louder.

Suddenly, the door fell out from behind him in such a hurry that Corey slipped out of his abuser's hands and went falling backward into Joey. Joey caught him in unsteady arms and they continued to stumble back until they both fell onto the grass. Corey recovered first and regripped his clothes, then yanked Joey up by the hand and dragged him back to the car. They collapsed inside, both through one door, and Corey wasted no time in cranking the engine and driving as fast as he could away from the house.

Once they were a good distance, he put the car in park and took a deep, shuddering breath. He rubbed his neck, feeling sick and disgusted, then looked at Joey. "What did I tell you?" he asked miserably. "He could have gotten ahold of you, and then what?"

Joey chewed his fingernail nervously. "I'm sorry. There were some people coming, and you were taking a long time... Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"Corey?"

"What?" Corey looked at him.

"You're bleeding."

"What?" Corey asked again, then took a moment to relax and tasted the bitter, metallic flavor in his mouth. "I bit my lip," he realized, touching the wound. He'd bitten it hard, but didn't even remember doing it.

Joey reached out and wiped the thin trail of blood from Corey's chin. "Our apartment complex is called Shadow Grove. Do you know where that is?"

Corey nodded and sucked his lip into his mouth. It was throbbing. He buried the pain like he buried everything else and started driving again. The moon still hadn't come out, and they were a little ways out of town, so there weren't any lights to show them the way. Corey knew where he was, though, and the road wasn't crowded. He wanted to close his eyes for a while and think things over, calm himself down, but he couldn't at the moment. Joey's apartment complex was on the other side of town, and it was nearly a quarter to eleven.

They were silent, both contemplating the events that had just occurred. Joey was still chewing his nails, feeling guilty for having made Corey go back to the house. It was obviously a horrible place to be, and he wished he would have understood that better.

Neither of them said anything else until they got to the apartment. They waited at the bottom of the stairs that Joey was sure led to the right room, but he just didn't remember which one it was. His mom got there maybe twenty-five minutes later and, from what Corey could tell, she seemed like a nice lady, if a little preoccupied with her job.

She had a briefcase nearly as big as her under one arm, and in her other arm she held her purse and her key, which she handed to Joey. Corey offered to take her briefcase, and she gave it to him before she even knew who he was.

"Mom, this is Corey," Joey said once they'd climbed the stairs. He waited for her guidance as to where their room was.

She looked the boy over and then turned to Joey. "He's a friend of yours?"

Joey nodded. "Is it okay if he stays over tonight?"

She hesitated and leaned her weight on the door of what Joey supposed was their room. He turned the key and the three of them went inside, Joey's mom turning on lights. "I have a lot of work to do, so just keep it down, okay, honey?" she told him, taking the briefcase back from Corey and starting off to her room.

"Okay, Mom," Joey said and pulled Corey by the sleeve into his bedroom. He pushed his door shut and flicked the ceiling light on, then turned to Corey, who was still standing by the door.

Corey looked around the room. It was medium-sized, and there were stacks of boxes everywhere. The only thing that was put together was the bed, and it was just a box spring and a mattress pushed into a corner. There was a TV, but it was sitting flat on the floor and wasn't plugged in. Joey spread his arms and grinned at him. "Home sweet home."

Corey smiled, but it felt strained. "Nice," he said. "Want me to help you unpack?"

Joey shrugged. It didn't seem to matter that it was eleven thirty at night; he'd slept a lot already. "Do you want to? You don't have to. We could order a pizza, or something, because I don't think we have any food, if you're hungry."

"Whatever you want to do."

"Okay." Joey nodded decisively. "You go get some of your clothes from your car and I'll go order the pizza. Pepperoni okay?"

Corey nodded. "Pepperoni's fine."

They stood there for a moment more, staring at each other, before Joey blinked and moved to the door. He went to the kitchen and there was a loud thump as he threw the telephone book onto the unsturdy kitchen table. Corey watched him for a few seconds before he went outside to get the clothes he'd left inside his car. There was no one out, and most of the lights were off in the rooms Corey could see. He wondered for a fleeting second how people could go to sleep so early, then went back through the door he'd come out of.

Joey was back in his bedroom, dumping out boxes. He looked up when Corey came in. "Shut the door. Pizza'll be here in twenty minutes, the guy said."

Corey did as he was told and slid down to the floor next to Joey. He emptied his arms onto Joey's bed, then looked at the mess he had to work with. Inside the box Joey had overturned were posters, books, magazines, and other musical paraphernalia. Corey saw some of the magazines he had in his own collection, and smiled at that. "Where do you want to put this stuff?" he asked.

"I was just going to stack the magazines against the wall, then hang some of the posters up. The walls are really plain in here, you know?"

"Yeah." Corey took a handful of magazines and pushed them against the wall in a neat stack while Joey took a few of his posters and tacked them up beside his bed. There were a few of Ozzy Osbourne, one of Venom, one of Judas Priest, and then several movie posters from films like Phantasm and Night of the Living Dead. Corey was impressed with the mix.

"What kind of music are you into?" Joey asked, looking up at the posters once he'd hung them. He sat down on his bed and watched Corey finish stacking the magazines.

When Corey was done, he turned around and stretched his legs out in front of him. "Heavy metal. It looks like we're into pretty much the same scene. Even in the movies; I like them, too."

Joey smiled. "That's awesome. I wish I clicked with everyone like I do with you." He blushed when he said it, and even more when Corey returned his smile. Giggling nervously, he stood up and opened the door. "I'm gonna go get some money from my mom, okay? I'll be right back. You can sit on the bed if you want."

Corey watched him leave and climbed onto the bed. It had been moved from wherever Joey had been previously; it smelled like him. Corey laid down and buried his face in the pillows, inhaling deeply Joey's scent. It was a musky, boyish odor that Corey masked in himself with cologne. It was different, smelling someone else. He liked it, the animal quality that the action held.

A knock on the front door made Corey jump, and he came into the next room where Joey was paying for the pizza. Joey brought it into the kitchen and put it on the table. "I don't know where the plates are," he said apologetically, "but wherever they are, I'm sure there's glasses with them." He opened the refrigerator and pulled out two canned Cokes, handing one to Corey. He carried the entire pizza box into his bedroom and the two boys sat on the floor with it between them.

"I love pizza," Joey said through a mouthful. "I could live off it if I had to. You know, like, if I was deserted on an island somewhere, all I'd need would be a guitar and some pizza and I'd be good to go for years."

Corey laughed. "I guess you'd be set, huh?"

"Yep. What would you want if you were deserted on an island?"

"Hmm..." Corey thoughtfully bit into his pizza and chewed it up to buy himself some time. "I'd probably bring a couple magazines and some kind of music player; then whatever food I could get. I'm not too picky when it comes to food."

"What about company? Like, would you rather be by yourself or have someone with you?" Joey leaned forward a little as he waited for an answer.

Corey shrugged mildly. "I'd only want someone with me if I got to choose who it was. If it was some stupid person who got shipwrecked with me who I didn't like, I'd probably end up eating them. If it was someone I liked, though, I guess having company would be better than being alone."

"Would you eat me?" Joey grinned at him and the two of them laughed.

"There's not enough meat on you to feed a single rat. It wouldn't be worth the time it took to gut you."

"Oh, that makes me feel better," Joey said sarcastically, grinning. "Do you know the possibilities of us being stranded on a deserted island--living in the middle of Iowa, which is in the middle of a continent? Any day, we could be lost at sea."

Corey nodded solemnly, lips twitching at the serious expression on Joey's face. "The possibilities would be at least infinity to one. Did you remember to bring a compass?"

Joey grinned and flicked a pepperoni at him. "Okay, quit making fun of me. It would be pretty cool, though, don't you think? You could really get to know someone out there, because they wouldn't care what anyone else thought and wouldn't be afraid of stereotypes. Do you think you live up to people's expectations of you?"

Corey couldn't help but snort at that. "Expectations of me? And whose would those be? Not even the teachers know who I am, or care enough to expect anything from me."

"Really?" Joey was on his third slice of pizza and was steadily slowing down his food intake and talking more. "Don't you ever get lonely, then? From what I can tell, you don't really have much to do with anyone."

Corey didn't know whether he should answer honestly or not. The way Joey was looking at him, he thought he may be able to, thought it might be okay... to open up a little bit. What could happen? Joey's eyebrows were raised in question and Corey shrugged his shoulders. "Well, sure... I mean, of course it gets lonely sometimes, but I get over it. When it comes down to it, I think I'm better off without being close to anyone. Like right now, I've never talked to anyone like this."

"Does that mean you trust me?"

There was a long moment of silence. Corey's ears rang. He looked hard at Joey and saw nothing but compassion in those blue eyes that were so blue they could have belonged to a porcelain doll. "Yeah."

If possible, those too-blue eyes lit up even more. Joey smiled and bashfully tugged on his own hair. "I'm glad. You know, we've only known each other for about half a day and I feel like I've known you half my life. Is that weird?"

Corey perked a brow at him. He shrugged. "I don't guess so."

By the time they were finished with the pizza, having eaten nearly the entire thing, it was well past midnight. Joey proposed checking out the shower because he hadn't actually been inside the bathroom yet to see it. He and his mom had their own separate bathrooms; hers was upstairs and his was right down the hall a little from his bedroom. The showers were nothing special, but instead of one dial that he could turn one way and have hot water, then the other to have cold water, there were two dials instead. The shower head was different than he was used to, as well, mainly because there was no shower head.

"Um..." Joey stuck his finger into the hole where the shower head should have been connected. "I don't think this is going to provide a massaging, cell-stimulating shower."

Just to hear the word stimulating pass Joey's lips made Corey have to lean against the sink for support. He did it casually, of course, and watched with mild amusement when Joey tried to pull his finger out of the hole--and found it to be stuck.

Joey twisted his head around to look at Corey. "Little help?"

"What do you want me to do?" asked Corey, laughing.

"I don't know! But don't just stand there and laugh at me!"

Corey started opening drawers and looked into the medicine cabinet. Everything was empty. "Do you have any mineral oil... or butter, or something slick?"

"Not that I know where is. Come help me pull."

Corey wiped a hand down his face and pushed the curtain back to get into the shower behind Joey. He tried not to think of the many assorted ways the position they were in was wrong, but instead tilted his head and wondered how they were going to get out of the present situation. "Maybe spit would work..."

"Yours or mine?" asked Joey.

Chuckling again, Corey shook his head. "I don't think it matters, dude."

Joey spit into his hand and rubbed the saliva around his stuck finger. Behind him, Corey had a serious fit of the giggles and they were starting to infect him as well, so much that he had to stop and laugh for a few seconds before he could concentrate on his stuck finger again. "What d'you think would break first: the pipe or my finger?"

"Your finger."

"That's great. Are you ready to pull?"

Corey sighed and reached around Joey's body to hold onto his wrist. "Yeah, I guess so."

Joey braced himself and said, "On the count of three. One. Two... Three!"

They both tugged, and Joey put his foot against the wall to get better leverage. Unexpectedly, he hit the cold water dial and it turned on, just as his finger slipped out and the two of them went slipping down into the tub. Corey managed to not hit his head as he fell, but gasped loudly and coughed at the force of Joey colliding with his chest. They lay in a heap, being sprayed with the cold water that gurgled from the pipe above them. Coughing, once Joey had overcome the shock of what had happened, he kicked the dial off and the water abruptly stopped pouring down on them, reduced to a scant few droplets.

Corey leaned his head back against the tile wall behind him and sighed. "Are you okay?" he asked, reaching around and taking Joey's hand to see his finger.

"Uh huh," sighed Joey. "You?"

Despite a red ring of rust, there was nothing broken or hurt about the finger. "Yep. That was fun. Why don't you try sticking a toe in there now?"

Joey laughed and sat up, snapping his hair out of his eyes and right into Corey's face. "Well, we're both wet. Do you want to take a shower first, or me?"

"I don't care."

"Okay." Joey slid himself off Corey's chest where he'd landed and got to his feet. He looked down for a moment at Corey, whose breathing was still faster than normal. "Sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," Corey said, offering a smile. His pulse was hammering in his temples, just to see Joey's clothes sticking to him like they were. The boy's long hair was wet and matted to his face, making him look for all the world like a half-drowned rat. Corey wanted to look at him forever, to know every pore of his body personally, to taste every drop of sweat those pores could produce...

But the moment was over and Joey was climbing out of the tub. Corey stood up, caught his balance, and got out, as well. He saw Joey's wet footprints in the carpet leading to the hall closet, and when the boy came back, he was carrying two towels and a bottle of liquid soap.

"You can just put your wet clothes in the sink and I'll wash them later. You're leaving a puddle," Joey pointed out, nodding to the wet floor around Corey as he shut the door.

Corey pulled his T-shirt off over his head and, after balling it up, put it in the sink. No sooner had he done that than he felt the uncomfortable prickling of the hair on the back of his neck. He turned around and saw Joey staring at him. "What?" he asked, looking down at himself.

Joey blinked. "You have... hair... and," he came a little closer, "oh my God, are your nipples pierced?"

"Um, yeah. You don't have hair on your chest?" Corey jerked back as Joey's cold fingers brushed through the auburn curls adorning his chest. Joey's fingernails were belyingly sharp despite how much he gnawed on them; they were short, but had jagged edges and needed to be filed. Corey watched the fingers as they played in the hair on his chest, and then looked up at Joey, who was fascinated.

"No," Joey replied in answer to Corey's question. "That's awesome. It's red." He looked at the hair on Corey's head and laughed. "I guess it should be, huh?" Then he delicately touched the barbell through Corey's left nipple. "Did it hurt?"

Corey shook his head. "Not bad. Could you..." He gently pushed Joey back to get out from where he was wedged between him and the sink. "Could you not touch me like that?"

Joey took a few steps back. "I'm sorry. I'd just never seen... I mean, not so close up..."

"It's fine." Hands trembling just the slightest bit, Corey crossed his arms over his chest so they wouldn't be so noticeable. He knew he'd hurt Joey's feelings, and had an idea that Joey didn't even know what was wrong. To be so na�ve, so unaware of everything, made Corey wonder whether Joey had been living under a rock for fifteen years.

Joey got into the tub and undressed there, throwing his clothes out through the shower curtain and leaving them in a wet bunch on the floor. It took about thirty seconds for him to figure out how to get the water at a temperature he could handle, after playing with both the dials for a while, and even when he pulled the plug to make the shower come on, he wasn't fully satisfied with how it felt. The water from the open pipe came down hard, like many buckets of water were being dumped on him continuously, and he nearly drowned trying to get his hair wet enough to soap up.

Corey listened to him gurgling and coughing and almost pulled the curtain back to see what was going on, but Joey finally spit loudly and muttered, "And again I say: this is definitely not massaging. Not one I'd like to have again, anyway."

"Is it cell-stimulating?" Corey couldn't help but ask as he looked himself over in the mirror. He pushed the barbell in his nipple back to the center, because it'd been moved to one side when Joey'd touched it.

"No... Do you think it's okay to use hand soap as shampoo?"

Corey perked his eyebrow with thought. "I don't see why not. I doubt it has conditioner in it, though."

"Huh. Whatever; it's too late now."

"What if I had said it was toxic and would make all your hair fall out?"

There was silence on the other side of the curtain, then Joey's sud-covered head stuck out from behind it and he looked at Corey. "You aren't serious, are you?"

Corey laughed and shook his head. "Of course not. Now, hurry up. I'm freezing out here."

"Okay, okay." Joey closed the curtain back and finished washing.

Corey made faces at himself, ruffled his short hair to make it stick in every direction, and tried to amuse himself for the long time it took Joey in the shower. Ten minutes later, Corey was bored. "What are you doing in there, man? How long does it take to soap up and rinse?"

"I sat in that swing, though. Who knows what kind of germs got on me from that?"

"Through your clothes?"

There was a pause. "Maybe."

"Come on. I'm going to catch pneumonia." He wasn't in immediate danger; the house was warm inside, but Corey was still chilly from that blast of cold water earlier. He regretted letting Joey take a shower first.

Finally, the water shut off and Joey pulled back the curtain a little. "Can you hand me one of those towels?" he asked, nodding next to where Corey's hand was rested beside them on the sink.

Corey picked one up and handed it in to Joey, who shut the curtain back. He didn't dry off, but wrapped it around himself and stepped out. Small wisps of steam came from behind him and he heard the soft inhalation of Corey's breath. He offered Corey a smile, but Corey was staring at him like he was starving. It made Joey's belly feel warm, like he'd drunk an entire gallon of that Screwdriver drink.

Corey blinked twice before trading places with Joey in the shower. He bathed quickly, taking maybe a third of the time Joey'd taken. He tried not to think while he was in there, because thinking in the shower always managed to make him do improper things... and it was definitely improper to do those things with someone standing right outside the curtain, in the same room with him. He focused on a song that had been circulating in his brain for a while and kept the lyrics up while he rinsed himself off.

As soon as he shut the water off, Joey had stuck a towel through the curtain for him. Corey smiled and took it. He dried himself off in the shower before wrapping the towel around himself and getting out. He found Joey brushing out his hair. It draped over his shoulders like a curtain, down his chest like a black waterfall. Joey's skin was so pale, he really would have appeared dead if Corey didn't know better. It was flawless, creamy, and Corey could tell just by looking at it that it was soft. The way the towel just barely draped over his hips... Corey tried not to stare at it, tried to keep his imagination under control, but Joey wasn't paying attention to him; his full concern focused on taming his massive amount of hair.

When Joey was tangle-free, he leaned forward over the sink to get a good look at himself from the low, fog-free portion of the mirror and tried to make an even part in his hair. He brushed it straight down his face, then put the comb in the middle of his head and pulled one side over. He was oblivious to the eyes that were watching him curiously. When he had achieved hair perfection, he turned around and smiled at Corey.

Corey felt like he could have melted right then, from the sheer warmth in Joey's eyes. They showed something that could have been affection, friendly affection that made Corey feel sick.

Joey held the brush up. "Can I brush your hair?"

"Uh..." It may have possibly been the least-masculine suggestion Corey'd ever heard, but he didn't really see anything wrong with it. "I guess if you want to."

"Okay. Let's go to my room." Joey led the way, talking as he went. "I'm going to have to find all my clothes. I don't even know where any are. It's going to take forever to get my room set up right." He looked over his shoulder at Corey, who was making a point to stare at the ceiling. "What are you looking for?"

Corey's eyes shot back down to Earth, back down to Joey. "Nothing," he said quickly. "I was just... I dunno. Thinking?"

"Oh. Okay."

They went into Joey's bedroom and Joey dropped to the floor in front of a box labeled 'Clothes'. He dug through them while Corey looked through his own clothes that were sprawled over the bed. Corey was distracted, so he didn't see Joey slip into his boxers. When he turned around, though, Joey was already in them and he felt a sort of disappointment that he'd missed the act. He found his own clothes, though, and put his boxers on underneath his towel, just for dignity's sake, and because Joey was looking at him.

Joey didn't look for long, though, before going back inside his box. "Do you mind taking me to school tomorrow, or would you rather me get a ride with my mom?"

"I can take you. I do expect a nice tip, though, as I am your chauffeur." He nodded an invisible hat.

Joey grinned. "A tip? I don't even have enough money to buy my own lunch, much less give you a tip."

At that moment, the door Joey had only bothered to crack opened and his mother came in bearing an armful of blankets and a few pillows. She didn't comment on the state of undress the boys were in, only looked at Corey and said, "Here's some extra blankets and pillows for you." Then she turned to Joey. "You boys get to bed, now. It's late."

"Okay, Mom," said Joey, tilting his head toward the door.

She seemed to take the hint and began to close the door, but stopped and asked, "Do you need me to wake you up before I leave in the morning?"

"No, we'll be up. Goodnight Mom."

"Goodnight. Goodnight Corey."

Corey nodded to her and she shut the door all the way. The boys listened to her footsteps as they climbed the stairs, then Joey scoffed.

"I like how she tries to pretend to be a good mom now. I don't see her all day, hardly any at night, but someone comes over and she bothers to check up on me."

Corey shrugged and pushed a few boxes out of the way to clear a space for him on the floor. He spread the blankets out and laid down, still wearing just his boxers. "She's just busy. If she didn't work, you wouldn't have any money."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. It's okay. I'm just glad I'm old enough to be able to take care of myself." He sat behind Corey on the edge of his bed and gently pulled Corey's head back until it was nearly in his lap. He sculpted the hair with his fingers because it was just long enough to pull into all kinds of interesting designs, then said, "Your hair is so different from mine. It's a lot softer. Mine's kind of... I don't know... stringy, I guess. I wish it was more like yours."

"When you see it in the morning, you'll change your mind."

"Scary, huh?" Joey combed his fingers through the thick, damp curls and smiled at the way Corey purred quietly. It was a nice sound, one he'd never heard a person make. "Can I ask you a question? Kinda personal?"

Uh oh. Corey's mind raced. Personal? "I guess so," he said slowly.

"You're seventeen... so you've been, you know... with someone, haven't you?"

"How do you mean?" Corey had a feeling, but needed to hear it said.

Joey fidgeted behind him. "You know... sexually?"

Corey focused most of his attention on a crack he saw in the wall and tried not to think about his past experiences. None of them had done much of anything for him except warp his mind and destroy what little pride he once possessed in himself, but he answered, "Yeah."

"How was it?"

"I'd rather not talk about it." Corey leaned forward out of Joey's grasp and slid down to the floor so he could lay down.

"That bad? I was under the impression that it was something good."

"I had a bad experience. It's only good with someone you care about."

Joey had a feeling he knew what had happened, and dropped the subject right there, but not before saying, "I'm sorry, Corey. I'm just, you know, curious about stuff. You seem to know a lot more than I do."

"You're just young. Enjoy it while you can." He looked up at Joey, who was watching him. "Are you ready to turn off the light?"

"I guess... I don't have any idea where any of my lamps are, though."

"You sleep with lamps on?"

"I kind of have this thing about the dark. It's really immature, but if I lay here awake and think about it, it really scares me. You can turn it off, though."

Corey got to his feet and pulled the string to turn off the light but keep the fan on. "There's nothing in the dark that can hurt you, you know. All you do with the light on is see the danger coming. Would you rather be able to see the monster sitting right above your chest, or not and be able to relax?"

Joey squeaked quietly, a sound that was close to a sob. "That's not funny." He tossed uncomfortably, eyes wide in the darkness. "Turn the light back on." His voice was no more than a whisper.

"I'm already laying back down," Corey lied, still standing in the middle of the room.

"Corey, please."

Corey came over and kneeled down next to the bed. He reached out and felt for Joey's body, smiling when he felt the trembling bunch of nerves that he was after. "You're perfectly fine. C'mere."

Joey crawled down onto the floor with him and huddled close, pressing himself against Corey's side as they sat and stared into the darkness. "I could never be doing this by myself. It was the same way in that little room we went in earlier to take a nap... It was horrible in there, but I was able to sleep."

"Maybe because you weren't by yourself. You were talking to me." Corey could feel the vibrant beating of Joey's heart. It was hypnotic. He smoothed his hand down Joey's chest and found out that Joey had been telling the truth: he was as hairless as the day he was born. Corey stilled his hand directly over Joey's heart and kept it there, feeling the beat, relishing it.

"What are you doing?" Joey asked, breathing just a little bit faster.

"Seeing if you really didn't have any hair on your chest," Corey replied.

"Is that bad?"

Corey chuckled. "No. It just means you won't have to worry about shaving it."

"I like yours, though. It's soft." Joey sighed. "Do you want to sleep in my bed? It'll be more comfortable than laying on the floor."

Corey didn't answer for a second. He wasn't sure if he could handle that particular situation. What if he did something? What if his body--still unfulfilled from the shower earlier where he would have normally lessened his need--took control and overpowered his will to be normal? He didn't want to feel like he did, didn't want to have the sick desires that wound into his mind at times. "I don't think that's a good idea," he said quietly, and pulled his hand back to end the bodily contact.

"Why not?" asked Joey, unaware of the inner battles that were an ongoing occurrence with Corey.

"I dunno. I don't want to crowd you, or anything." Corey winced at such a horrible excuse.

Joey shrugged and got back into his bed. "You wouldn't crowd me, but you can sleep wherever you're more comfortable. If your back starts hurting, though, you can always get up here."

How could Joey be so casual about it? It was sharing his bed with another guy, someone he'd known for less than a day. Corey stayed sitting with his back against the bed, thinking things over. He couldn't understand how things could go from casual acquaintances to bed-buddies in such a short amount of time. He'd never really watched a relationship develop before, always having been used at whatever moment he was needed. Could it really happen so fast?

"I'll keep that in mind," he said, pulling the blanket over himself and curling beneath it. "See you tomorrow."

"'Night," Joey answered quietly.

Pretty much the last thing on Corey's mind was sleep, but he stayed as quiet as he could so he could tell when Joey had dozed off. He'd known Joey wouldn't snore; the boy just looked like he didn't, but just like in the video room earlier, he heard it slow down and deepen. Corey laid there a moment more, staring at nothing in particular and tapping his fingers where they were rested on his belly. His mind began to wander, and it wasn't long before he was reminded again of his body's state of need. The main source was so hard it felt like it might explode at any moment.

He sighed as he stole his hand inside his boxers and wrapped his hand around the solid piece of flesh there. His cock pulsed with sympathy of his situation, when all he had to do was think of those cold little fingers playing over his chest to bring on a quick and painless orgasm that he wiped all evidence of on the inside of one of his T-shirts that was laying beside his head. He felt better, if a little guilty, but shrugged it off and went to sleep.

____________________________________________________________________

The next morning, Corey opened his eyes to find the sun beaming in, bright as a search light, through the window and right into his face. He squinted into it, groaned, and blindly pulled for something to cover his eyes with. Joey snorted softly as he woke up and rolled over to look down at Corey, who was laying face-down with both hands over his head.

"You awake?" Joey asked, turning onto his stomach and resting his chin in his hands as his feet tapped against the wall behind him.

"No," came Corey's muffled response.

Joey got out of bed, stretched, and went over to his box of clothes where he pulled out a pair of black jeans and a T-shirt with a band logo Corey didn't recognize, once he'd managed to turn over. He didn't ask about it, though, because once he'd gotten his own clothes and had gone to the bathroom, he'd forgotten all about it. Corey wasn't much of a morning person.

Neither of them said much in the time it took to get dressed. Usually, they would have wanted to take a shower in the morning, but it was such an unpleasant experience that they opted to let it wait until someone bought a showerhead. Corey made sure he got to the bathroom first so he could brush his hair, a chore that took the best part of thirty seconds, and get into his clothes. When he was out, he noticed it took Joey triple the time it'd taken him, and wondered what someone could do to themselves that took up such an enormous amount of time.

It was worth it, though, because when Joey came out in those clothes and with eyeliner smeared on perfectly, Corey was absolutely entranced. He couldn't help but stare at the petite, beautiful little thing that wasn't even looking at him, but standing in the middle of the bedroom like he'd lost something.

"Do you remember where I put my notebook yesterday?" Joey asked, turning to look at Corey.

Corey nodded and said, "Yeah, you left it in my car."

"Oh. Okay, then."

They stood there a moment more before Corey checked his watch and said they should probably go.

It was a nice day outside, when they both stepped out of the apartment and went to get into Corey's car. It was a lot warmer than it had been the day before, and instead of dreary clouds, the sun was out. The drive to school was uneventful, and when they arrived, they still had about fifteen minutes before the bell would ring.

"I didn't make you miss breakfast, did I? I don't usually eat it, and I guess I forgot that some people might..." Joey said, biting his fingernails as he watched the students standing outside in their little clusters, talking.

"No, I don't eat breakfast," replied Corey.

"My mom left a note saying she could pick me up today, okay? Do you have a phone number or something where I can reach you after school?"

Corey blanched. "Um. Not exactly..." He thought fast. Pete probably wouldn't mind him using his telephone number for the store, but he really only slept there sometimes and didn't actually spend much of the daytime hours there. His home phone was out of the question, indefinitely. "No," he answered finally.

"Oh." Joey frowned a little. "Well, I guess I can at least give you mine in case you ever want to hang out."

Corey didn't say anything as Joey took a piece of paper from his binder and wrote a number down, along with his name, in surprisingly good handwriting compared to Corey's own. Corey took the paper, folded it, and put it in the change compartment of his car.

"We should go," said Corey, shutting the car off. "It's almost time for the bell to ring and it's better to get there before everyone else is thinking the same thing."

Joey got out and offered Corey a smile. "I guess I'll see you later."

"Later." Corey saw that Joey wasn't going to leave first; the boy was standing there watching him, making Corey feel weird. "Do you know where you're going?"

Joey blinked the dazed look off his face. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, sorry." He turned around and walked toward one of the buildings, and Corey watched until he was sure Joey wouldn't turn around. Once the boy was through the doors, Corey went to his own class.

They say Hell is different for everyone--their own self-made misery that they'll have to endure for eternity. Even before the day had officially started, Corey would have agreed with the theory. He thought that he was surely in Hell, minus the fire and brimstone and whatnot. His teacher assigned him work that he couldn't focus his eyes on to copy, and when everyone else had finished, they had about thirty minutes where everyone could talk, during which Corey slumped in his seat and stared at nothing in particular. I wonder what he's doing. I wonder where his first period class is. Did I do anything last night that may have made him want to stay away from me? Does he know how I feel about him? Was he awake when I... Jesus Christ, I didn't even pay attention to whether or not he had woken up before I fell asleep! What if he knows? What if he knows?

"Mr. Taylor?" came the teacher's voice from beside him.

Corey looked up and blinked several times to focus properly on the squat little woman who was addressing him.

"Are you alright, dear? You look ill."

"I'm fine," Corey muttered gruffly, and cleared his throat. He swiped a hand down his face and sighed, wishing she would go away.

She gave him a worried look, but nodded and went back to her desk. No one had seen the exchange of words, and if they did, no one commented on it. Corey felt horrible, nervous, on-edge, nauseous... every bad emotion one could feel all bottled up into one. He was thankful when the bell rang so he could leave, and that meant that lunch was only thirty minutes away. Will he be there? Will he want to see me? Has he found someone else to talk to? Corey didn't really know why Joey would still be interested in talking to him. He was sure that anyone would talk to Joey; the boy was adorable, perfect, just like Corey thought. Even if Joey didn't like the attention, he was sure people noticed him. He'd noticed him, Corey realized, and knew he'd never felt such a strong attraction to anyone else before. If it wasn't fate, he didn't know what it was, but he knew he'd find out as soon as the lunch bell rang.

Almost loathe to walk the hall, he went out of the classroom and toward the student parking lot, the same route he always took for lunch. He wasn't very hungry and wasn't looking forward to the cafeteria crowds Joey seemed so against, as well. Corey rounded the corner of the building and felt his stomach knot immediately at seeing the petite form of Joey, leaning against one of the pillars that held the school up and reading a magazine. Corey's knees actually weakened at the sight. He swallowed and decided to walk close enough for Joey to hear him, but then turn toward the parking lot if he didn't seem interested.

He'd taken no more than three steps when Joey's eyes raised. "Corey!" the boy exclaimed and pushed himself off the wall, walking quickly over to where Corey was dragging his feet.

Well, I guess I'm not as obvious as I thought. That, or he's totally unaware of who he's dealing with. Corey couldn't keep the smile off his face. "What's up?" he asked calmly as Joey was all but bouncing up and down.

"Nothing," Joey answered after a deep breath. "I was just waiting for you."

"Waiting for me?" Corey asked, having not really intended for that to be spoken out loud, but unable to take it back.

"Yeah. I missed you."

Corey's eyes widened a little. "You missed me?" Really? Me? Corey had to laugh. He knew he was probably blushing like a lovesick girl, but it was funny. "That's so cute."

Joey blushed, too, significantly more than Corey, though it was hard to tell due to how tan Corey's skin was. "Okay, stop laughing! I didn't miss you that much... I would just rather be with you than by myself." He kicked Corey, who was still laughing into his chest, in the toes and said, "Shut up!"

"Okay, okay. I'm done." Corey's lips twitched, but he managed to keep a straight face. Joey'd waited for him, missed him. He was ecstatic, hysterical, but he kept it under control from then on. "So what are we doing?"

"Can we go to your car?"

"That's where I was headed," said Corey, leading the way.

Joey didn't stray far behind, not as far as he had the day before. When Corey turned around to say something, the boy was right on his heels and he had to hold his hands up to avoid being bumped into. Joey hadn't been looking where he was going. Corey raised his eyebrow and shut his mouth because he realized he'd forgotten what he had wanted to say.

In the car, Corey rolled his window all the way down and, unable to fight the urge any longer, took a pack of cigarettes out from under his seat. He only had one pack, but it was untouched and contained everything it should. He lit the tip and inhaled deeply, blowing the smoke out the window and sighing. "Mmm," he mumbled, "arsenic."

"Isn't that... Aren't you supposed to be eighteen?" Joey asked, watching him with uncertainty.

"What's a year?" Not even a year. More like a few months...

"Is it good?"

Corey laughed. "Oh, yeah. About as good as sex."

Joey rolled his window down, too. The smoke stunk, but he didn't mind so much since it was Corey smoking and not some old drunk. "Can I try it?"

Corey's brows lowered. "No. You can't." He took another long drag and blew it out the window.

"Why not?"

"Because not only would you get in trouble, but I would, too." When he looked back at Joey, those blue eyes were focused directly on him with such an intensity that Corey almost choked on the smoke in his lungs. He let it out of his nose and perked a brow. "Don't look at me like that, man."

"I won't tell anybody. Please." Joey stuck his bottom lip out and Corey's scowl deepened.

"If you tell anyone, I swear to God..." But the cigarette was already out of his hand and between Joey's lips. "You probably shouldn't..."

It was too late. Joey inhaled deeply, filling his lungs to the brim, and in a matter of seconds he was doubled over himself in the floorboard, gagging and choking. He blindly thrust the cigarette back at Corey, nearly scorching him in the arm, but Corey managed to catch Joey's wrist and take the cigarette before anyone got hurt.

"I tried to tell you," Corey said, tucking Joey's hair behind his ear. "You okay?"

Joey stopped coughing about twenty seconds later but stayed bent over. "If I ever insist on doing something like that again, be sure to punch me."

"Sure thing," Corey smiled. He distractedly flicked the cigarette out the window because it was mostly gone, anyway. Then he found that his hand was still in Joey's hair and he pulled away.

It was then that Joey looked at him. Blue eyes bleary and red, with the fewest of teardrops still welled there. "How can you be so grown up?" Joey asked, sitting up and leaning his head back on the seat. "You're two years older than me and you make me feel like I'm a little kid."

"And you make it sound like it's something good." Corey frowned and picked his fingernails as he spoke. "I had to grow up too fast, and it's like I said before: you shouldn't be in a hurry. Do you have any idea the responsibilities I have? I have to find my own place to sleep, my own way of making money, my own food. It's not fun, and if I could go back to being a little kid, I would."

Joey's face fell. "You're right. I guess I just thought... I dunno, if I were older..."

"What makes you want to be older than you are now?" Corey looked up at him.

But the bell rang before Joey even opened his mouth. Joey didn't answer the question, just hurried off without another word, leaving Corey feeling like a bad guy. He had to question what was so great being seventeen. There wasn't much, and he didn't want to lie to Joey, so why did he feel so bad? Joey looked back at him once, a sad expression on his face, and that made Corey feel even worse. He was sure it had been him who'd done something wrong, but he couldn't piece together what. Rather upset, he finished out the rest of the day with strained tolerance, trying not to think about Joey.

Needless to say, that was easier said than done, especially at the end of the day when he spotted the boy getting into his mother's car. Corey thought his heart was breaking. He stayed in the parking lot longer than usual, until no cars were left but those in the other parking lot, the ones that belonged to the teachers. He slowly pulled out and drove around with no real place to go, but eventually went back to 'Pete's Porn' and hung out there for the rest of the night.

Corey left the store at around one in the morning and went out to his car, where he locked the doors, parted the windows, and stretched out in the back seat. It was when he didn't find a pile of laundry, dirty or otherwise, that he remembered with a crashing sense of reality that he'd left all his clothes on Joey's bedroom floor. He groaned loudly and banged his head against the seat. "Damnit, damnit, damnit," he repeated, then laid face-down for a while. "That's just perfect. As if I wasn't screwed already, now I have to go get my clothes back. That means I'll have to call him..." He stopped talking to himself and checked his watch. It was way too late, so he hoped he could get by with wearing the same outfit two days in a row.

The last thing his exhausted mind conjured up before he fell asleep was that last painfully sad expression Joey had directed at him before going inside the building.

____________________________________________________________________

Corey didn't bother going to school the next day. He was upset and didn't feel up to it, so he slept longer than usual and had an altogether uneventful day. It was a lot easier being by himself, only having to worry about himself, but he couldn't help but miss Joey's company. To know someone for such a short period of time and feel so attracted to him was something altogether new and unusual, especially since Corey couldn't remember the last time he'd ever felt attracted to anyone. He may have had passing crushes, but somehow, this felt different. Maybe it was different because Joey seemed to return the feelings and not be disgusted with them. Corey had to wonder if maybe he'd ruined any chance he'd had with Joey by not going to school.

The phone number Joey'd given him was still in his change compartment. He took it out and read it, storing it to memory like everything else. He remembered exactly where Joey lived, and the room number, and pondered going over just in case someone was home. He really did need to get his clothes back because he wasn't sure how much longer Joey would want to put up with him. The last thing he needed was to be stuck without clothes and not having the money to buy anymore or the guts to get some from his mom's house. No, he definitely wouldn't be going back to his mom's house anytime soon.

It was getting late in the afternoon and school was finally over. Corey almost went to wait in the parking lot, just to get a glimpse of the little boy who'd caused him so much turmoil over the past few days. He refrained from doing that, though, and drove around with no real sense of direction for maybe another hour before he finally had to go to Joey's apartment.

By the time he got around to getting there, it was storming. Thunder, lightning, the whole bit. He didn't see Joey's mom's car out front, and wondered for a moment if they'd gone out to eat together. Once he'd climbed the stairs and was able to hear the ear-abusing rock music blasting from behind the door, he knew that the apartment was all but empty. He knocked on the door, hard and loud to be heard over the music.

A few seconds later, the door opened and Joey, with a half-drawn star around one eye simulating that of a member of KISS, met him. "Corey!" the boy enthused. He stepped back to let Corey in. "Where were you today?"

Corey felt a hundred percent better seeing Joey smiling at him again. He had to cross his arms to keep from touching the body he so wanted to touch. "I overslept." He took another look at Joey's makeup and couldn't help but laugh. "Playing dress-up?"

Joey went to the stereo and turned it off. The room was suddenly encompassed in silence, until Joey turned around and asked, "What?"

"I asked if you were playing dress-up."

"Oh..." Joey smiled. "Yeah, I guess so. I like pretending, you know, that I'm in a band because I can play most of the tapes I have on guitar. Could probably drum them, too, if I had a drum set." He went to his bedroom, where Corey could tell he'd been before he had gotten interrupted. Joey took the black piece of lipstick-looking makeup and smoothed it over the skin around his eye.

Corey carefully sat down on the bed and watched. "You do that like a pro," he said.

"Yeah," said Joey, glancing at him, then back to the mirror. "I like makeup."

You look good in it, too, Corey thought silently. Jesus, a boy wearing makeup. But he's adorable. He sighed at the voice in his head and tried to concentrate on anything other than how sweet Joey looked at the moment. He tried to distract himself with conversation. "So this is what you do everyday? Just sit here by yourself, listening to music and getting glammed up?"

"Yep," Joey replied with no hesitation.

There was all quiet until Joey finished and put everything down on the bed. "How do I look?" he asked, smiling.

Gorgeous. "Cool."

"Want me to do you?"

"Huh?" Corey's eyes abruptly shot back to Joey from where they'd strayed to the poster behind him. Oh... makeup. Right. Christ, use your brain. "I think I'll pass," he said. "Takes too long to wash it off."

Joey shrugged. "Yeah. It's fun, though."

"I'd rather watch you do it." At the way Joey blushed, Corey felt like smacking himself. Shut up, shut up, shut up! Keep your mouth shut. "I mean, it looks fun when you do it, but I don't think I'd... I mean, you know..."

"I know," Joey said, smiling and purposely smearing the makeup around his eye with his fingers. "You probably think I'm, like, the most childish person you've ever met, huh?"

Corey shook his head. "No way." It's not his fault he's been sheltered so much. "I used to hear that copying someone was the best form of flattery, or something like that. It doesn't mean you're childish, just because you like to have fun." Doesn't it? What the hell are we talking about? "So what do you have planned for the rest of the day?"

"I dunno. I should probably do my homework, but..." He shrugged. "What do you wanna do?"

"When's your mom get off work?"

"I don't know. She got a page from the hospital and had to leave. Told me she didn't know when she'd be back and gave me some money for food." He raised both eyebrows. "And unless I'm getting pizza for the second night in a row, she forgot that I have no car and no number to reach my chauffeur ."

Corey smiled. "Hey, man, you said you could live off pizza."

Joey kicked him. "I know what I said, but I didn't actually think I'd have to. I just said I could," he looked pointedly at Corey, "if I had to."

"Right." Corey cracked his knuckles and sighed, trying not to stare too hard at Joey, who had leaned back onto the bed in a very... inviting way. His eyes betrayed him and went straight for the package stuffed into the tight pants Joey had on. I want to seeee, his inner voice whined at him. He pulled his eyes away just in time before Joey looked up at him.

"Sorry my place is so boring," Joey said, tucking his toes under Corey's thigh because they were cold. "We could try to get the TV to work, but right now the only thing that works is the stereo. We still don't have a showerhead, either." He laughed quietly at that.

Corey laughed, too, though it was a little stressed due to the contact they were making. "That shower is horrible, dude. I don't know how you managed not to drown last night."

"It's a good thing I didn't, too. You wouldn't have been there to rescue me."

"That's true." Corey smiled and wiped his hand over his face to hide it. I've known him for three days and I'm already in love with him. He remembered what Joey had said... 'We've known each other half a day and I feel like I've known you half my life...' Think he meant that? Corey shrugged to himself.

"Do you like me?" Joey asked suddenly, and Corey stared at him open-mouthed. Joey sat up and looked at him, not accusingly, just a simple look of curiosity. "I mean, you aren't, like, getting tired of me, or anything, are you? The last person I used to hang out with said I was annoying, but that was at my other school and I didn't really like him very much, anyway."

Corey didn't answer, just looked on blankly.

"So do you?"

"I like you," Corey finally said. What a weird question. Who couldn't like him? "Why do you think I don't like you?"

Joey shrugged and his toes moved nervously beneath Corey's leg. "I don't know. You just seem really on-edge and I can't figure out why. I just thought maybe you were getting... I dunno, bored, or something."

"Of course not," Corey said a little too forcibly. He gave no insight as to why he was so on-edge, though.

Joey's face lost its almost-sad expression and he smiled. "That's good."

It was at that moment exactly that, with an almost ear-shattering clap of thunder, every light in the apartment went out. Joey's harsh intake of breath seemed to echo as they were surrounded by silence. Pure, untouched black was all that could be seen and Corey felt like he was at the bottom of the ocean, drowning in the dark.

"Oh my God," Joey whispered. "It's never been this dark before. Oh my God, Corey, where are you?"

Corey felt hands patting around for him and blindly reached for them. Joey clung to him almost desperately. "Calm down. It's okay. Just a little darker than before."

Joey squeaked at that. "A little darker? God, I don't think I can breathe."

Me either. "Just take a deep breath. Relax." Joey's hands were squeezing so tight Corey thought his fingers were going to crumble in the grip. "You're killing me, man. Chill out."

"I hate the dark. What if something happens?"

"What could happen?"

"Anything! A bomb could go off; a bolt of lightning could strike through the window and set something on fire; a mass murderer could break into our room and kill us both; Freddy Krueger could come out of your dreams when you fall asleep and get me--"

"Joey," Corey cut him off, fighting out of his grasp and then gripping his forearms. "Nothing like that is going to happen, ever. For one, it's raining, so even if the building did get set on fire, it wouldn't stay on fire for long. Secondly, the dead bolt is locked; I checked on the way in. And third, Freddy Krueger is a character from a movie. Now I want you to chill out and relax, okay?"

Joey was quiet.

"Okay?" Corey asked again.

"Okay," Joey whispered.

Corey let out a deep breath and laid down on the bed. If anything traumatizing were going to happen to anyone in the world, it would definitely either happen to him or someone he was with, and Joey seemed to be completely freaked out. By the way Joey was breathing, and the poor boy was nearly sobbing with the will it took to restrain his feelings, it was safe to say that he would break down at any moment. When it happened, Corey didn't know what he'd do.

"How long do you think they'll stay off?" Joey asked, meaning the lights.

"I don't know. Hopefully not long."

"Should we maybe call someone to come fix it?"

"Even if I knew what number to call, I doubt anyone would come see about it until morning, or until it stops raining. I'm telling you, there's nothing in the dark to be afraid of. If you had a flashlight right now and turned it on, you'd see nothing there that wasn't normally there." He felt Joey move beside him, closer than before, and had to try and clear his mind of every impure thought it conjured up. He sat up so his back was against the wall and hesitantly wrapped his arm around Joey, who nestled next to him.

"How can you be so calm about everything?" Joey asked, twirling the hairs on Corey's arm up into small steeples and then smoothing them back out.

"Because I know there's scarier things in the world than the dark," Corey replied.

Joey didn't say anything and there was quiet for a few long minutes. It wasn't a strained silence, but one that was comfortable. The rain made for a sort of lull, but it was punctuated by sudden shouts of thunder that made the very walls of the apartment building tremble. To Joey, who was on-edge anyway, when he felt the shuddering of the wall against his back, he thought for sure the entire building would collapse. Nothing like that happened, though, and he actually found himself calming down in Corey's sort of half-embrace.

Corey broke the silence by bringing up something that had been bothering him. "You never told me why you wanted to be grown up so bad." The bell had rung before he'd gotten an answer.

"Oh," Joey said, remembering the conversation. "I guess I didn't."

"Do you mind telling me now?"

Joey shrugged and stalled. "You'd think it was stupid."

"Come on, no I won't." What could be stupid about it? He's just worried about your response.

"Promise you won't make fun of me."

Corey could have laughed at the precautionary procedures, but held back. "I promise."

There were several moments of silence where Joey pulled out of Corey's grasp and repositioned himself a few times, like a speaker at a podium would rearrange his tie, clear his throat, et cetera. Finally, he sighed and said, "I just thought that if I were older, you know, I could... I dunno, that I could be with someone..." He shrugged again. "You know what I mean? Someone mature that knew what he, err, she... uh, they were doing. You know?"

Huh? "So you think that if you were older, you could meet someone who knew how to take care of you?"

"Yeah! Because kids my age, you know, in ninth grade... they're all so stupid. I don't mean academic-stupid, but they make fun of everything and I just don't like that. I wish I could find someone... well... someone I could..." He sighed and repositioned himself again. "Forget it."

"No, tell me." We're finally getting somewhere! Don't stop now! "Please?"

"Well, someone like you." Joey's face felt so hot he feared it may have been glowing. At the silence that met his confession, he pulled his hair down over his eyes even though he couldn't be seen. "I'm really sorry. It's just that you're so... you're so nice and funny, and we're into the same stuff, and, well, I think you're... I like you." He stopped talking, feeling like an idiot, and apologized again.

Corey's brain was doing somersaults nearly as quick as his stomach was. Oh my God, he likes me. He likes me! Me! Jesus, what do I say? What do I do? I think I'm going to puke. "You like me?" he couldn't help but ask again, just so he'd know that his ears hadn't deceived him.

"Yeah, but not like you think. I mean, you said you like me and that's good, but it's different. God, you must think I'm so sick..."

"I don't think you're sick." I think you're a teenaged boy with so many hormones they're coming out your ears and you don't know how to handle it. "There's nothing wrong with that." He felt like laughing, he was so happy, but knew Joey would take it the wrong way and bit his tongue.

"There's not?"

A streak of lightning made contact with some metallic object outside the window and the night was lit up with quickly-dying sparks. Joey's entire body jolted at the noise, and then again at the thunder, and Corey smiled to himself.

"Of course not," he replied.

Joey let out an audible sigh and laughed quietly. "God, I feel a lot better. I should have probably told you sooner, but you know, I didn't know you very well and didn't want to scare you away..."

Good job, Corey, you've been ass-backward this entire time. He liked you from the start. Couldn't you tell by the way he was always avoiding your eyes, trying to get you to sleep with him, touching you for no reason? Corey hadn't noticed; he'd been too busy trying to get control of his own feelings. It was a fascinating turn of events that he couldn't have been happier with.

"So are you staying over tonight? It was really bad last night in here because I still couldn't find any of my lights except the big one and my mom made me turn it off because it was wasting electricity. I don't think it'd be a good idea for you to drive in the rain, and the car may get struck by lightning..." All that was said in one big breath, and when he paused to breathe, Corey cut in.

"I don't have anything to do. I can stay if you want."

"Thanks. I hate being alone when it's storming."

Corey was still reeling with the newfound information he'd gotten and was so happy he felt like he might black out. You've been telling him to calm down all night. Take your own advice and breathe. He took a deep breath and let it out, then another, slowly bringing his lungs back to their normal capacity.

"So how many people have you been with?" Joey asked suddenly, and Corey could almost feel his poor lungs shrivel back up.

"Uh..." Fuck, I don't know! "A few." So few you can't remember?

"Boys or girls?"

"Jesus, do you sit there and try to think of the wildest questions you can ask me?"

"No." Joey frowned. "I was just wondering... I read in a magazine that it can be more stressful having to worry about pleasing girls because they're so difficult to... well, I don't really know; I didn't read all of it, but I was just wondering if the bad experience you had was with a boy or a girl."

Corey's face was a mask of disbelieving pain as he thought about whether or not he should answer that. He finally did, though, "It was with a guy, so your information must not be as accurate as you think."

"Oh."

"You don't keep all the shit I tell you written down somewhere, do you?" You're so paranoid. Of course he doesn't.

"Of course not! I wouldn't do that."

There was a sudden loud noise, like the whirl of a giant fan, and every light in the house came on. Both boys groaned loudly, covering their eyes. The electricity was back on.

Joey recovered first and got off the bed. "I need you to come with me so we can turn the lights off upstairs. Mom'll be all angry if she comes home and sees everything still on."

Corey squinted, feeling like he was inside the blinding flash of a camera that wasn't dimming. "Why do you need me to come?"

"Moral support."

"Moral support?"

Joey smiled sheepishly. "It'll be dark. I can't go by myself."

Corey grudgingly obliged, getting to his feet and walking, a bit blearily at first, behind Joey up the narrow staircase. In the bedroom they went into, Corey saw that Joey's mom had managed to unpack all of her belongings and everything was in perfect order, except a desk in the far corner that was completely covered with papers. Corey inched over and took a peek at a few of them, but they were all in doctor's gibberish that he didn't understand. He saw that Joey was standing beside the door, looking expectantly at him.

"What?" he asked, looking around like maybe there was someone behind him. Joey's paranoia was starting to make him have similar thoughts about whether or not they were really alone.

Joey nodded his head to the light on his mom's bedside table. "Turn it off."

Perking his eyebrow, Corey switched the light off and the one attached to the fan, as well. "You should really see a shrink about this fear of the dark thing you have," he said when Joey nearly stuck to his side as they turned the bathroom light off. "It doesn't seem very healthy."

"I know... It's fine, though, as long as I can have a light on."

"You shouldn't need a light on, though, Joey. You're fifteen." He shut the final light in the hallway off and left them in darkness, save for the faint glow from downstairs. He put his hand on Joey's shoulder to stop him from going back down the stairs.

"What?" Natural instinct made Joey lean against the wall with the weight of Corey's hand pushing him.

"What'll it take to get you over that fear?"

Lightning struck again and another circuit blew, plunging them into the dark again. Joey's gasp caught in his throat. "Not this!" he cried in response to Corey's question.

Great, he's freaking out again. Do something to help him. "Joey," Corey said calmly, and put both his hands on Joey's shoulders. "There is nothing here. It's just a new apartment; no one died here; there aren't any ghosts floating around, or we'd have seen them by now. There's nothing to be afraid of. How can I make you see that?" He was getting exasperated with the situation.

"I can't breathe," Joey whispered.

Corey let go of him and sighed deeply, swiping his hand down his face and wondering what to do. You're not a very good adult figure for the kid, that little voice in his head told him, and he frowned. "I'm going downstairs," he said, stepping over to the stairs and gripping the handrail. He felt Joey behind him, not holding onto him like the previous times, but his presence was right there.

Joey didn't say anything, just followed behind Corey, being sure not to run into him or slip on a step he couldn't see. Thankfully, there wasn't a crack of thunder to make him jump; that would have probably sent them both hurtling down to the floor.

At the bottom of the stairs, Corey had to think about where Joey's room was, because he couldn't quite remember in the dark and he was coming from a different direction than the front door. He ran a hand through his hair contemplatively, then went to the left until he found a doorway. As soon as the toe of his shoe hit a box, he thought for pretty sure that they were in the bedroom.

Joey sat on the bed and pulled his knees to his chest. He listened, but he couldn't hear Corey. Heartbeat quickening just a bit, he whispered, "Corey?" and got no answer.

Corey was standing in the doorway still, smiling to himself, listening to Joey slowly freak out more and more. It was how he'd learned to deal with the dark, when he was still four years old and that was the most he had to worry about. Joey just needed to learn for himself that there was nothing there. Judging by the small whimpers coming from the bed, it probably wouldn't be a quick or easy lesson.

"Corey? Where'd you go?" Joey's voice sounded so broken, so much like a scared child, that Corey almost had second thoughts, but he stood where he was. Thunder rolled and Joey made a noise similar to that a lonely puppy would make in the middle of the night, then he tried calling for Corey again.

Completely silent, having slipped out of his shoes when he'd run into the box, Corey crawled forward toward the bed. He could tell exactly where Joey was by the labored breath and the constant squeaking of the mattress springs as the boy tried to get farther back against the wall but found it was solid. Corey took a hold of Joey's blanket and tugged it gently, slowly pulling it down to the floor. Joey was nearly sobbing and threw the rest of the blanket down on top of Corey's head. Stifling laughter, Corey took the blanket and put it down beside him, then moved to where Joey was sitting.

With one quick, well-calculated movement, Corey grabbed both Joey's ankles and, meeting an ungodly shriek, yanked the boy down with him. Joey twisted desperately in his lap, not actually fighting, but surely struggling. Corey grabbed two handfuls of Joey's hair and brought their faces close together, so close Joey's panting breath could have condensed on his face. "Are you still alive?"

Joey's body went slack and he melted against Corey's chest, face buried in the crook of his neck. "That wasn't a very nice thing to do," he mumbled, lips hindered by being so close to Corey's warm skin. He inhaled the musky scent and sighed quietly.

"Yeah, but you were alright the entire time, weren't you? No monsters took you away."

"I wouldn't have mattered to them anyway if you'd given me a stroke."

Corey laughed. "Always an excuse."

"You smell good," Joey said, completely changing the subject.

"I haven't bathed in two days, dude," Corey replied, still laughing.

"Really? Maybe that's why."

Jesus, maybe he likes you a little too much. He's starting to sound kind of infatuated... Corey still found it amusing, even if a bit creepy. His brows lowered as Joey spread his legs to settle more fully on his lap, and his look of consternation grew more pronounced at every pulse of Joey's cock against his stomach. It wasn't completely hard, but it was there and Corey felt it. God help me, he thought silently, closing his eyes.

Joey pulled back and let his fingers play in Corey's hair. Meeting no resistance, he pushed himself even closer to Corey's body, until their bellies were pressed flush together. "Would it be okay..." He bit his bottom lip, then started again, "Would it be alright if I... If I... Um..."

"What?" Corey asked, voice thick with suppressed need.

"If I could kiss you? J-just to see, you know, how it feels? Would you mind?"

"I guess if you want to." Oh, you're so smooth. But Corey wasn't listening to himself anymore, not after Joey pressed those cold, soft lips against his own. It was like ice, but he melted with it all the same. The kiss wasn't really a kiss so much as it was a gentle colliding of lips; there were no tongues involved, no movement. When Joey broke it, his hands were quivering just the slightest bit.

"Show me how."

Corey grinned. Finally, he could do something he was good at. He once again entwined his fingers in Joey's hair and brought him closer, and their lips met again. It was different this time, though, because Corey was doing the work. He was in charge; he would pull away when he was through. Joey's mouth seemed hesitant to open, but the more insistently Corey licked his lips, he seemed to finally get the hint and opened up. Joey gasped as their tongues came into contact and Corey felt some of his breath get stolen. He was lost in the sweetness of Joey's mouth--it was like sugar-syrup, and in the deeper recesses, nothing but warmth and honey.

Joey's hands were restless, running over Corey's shoulders and chest as his mouth was violated. He wasn't entirely sure what to do, but Corey was making him feel... incredible and nervously ill at the same time. His head was light, like he would faint at any moment, and his stomach felt like it was filled with snakes. He whimpered as Corey pulled his hair and arched his back the deeper the kiss became. It was difficult to remember to breathe through his nose, and just when he thought he was starting to get the hang of it, Corey suddenly pulled away.

"I thought you said it didn't feel good," Joey whispered.

Did I say that? "Just if you don't care about the person." Corey was breathing hard, every nerve on end. He lifted Joey easily and put him on the bed, gently coaxing the boy's legs open and crawling between them. He resumed the kiss, hungrily devouring the other's mouth with his eyes closed and his cock pulsing madly in his pants to the point of being painful. It was nearly unbearable, and he whispered needfully against Joey's ear, "Can I touch you?"

Joey tilted his head to the side and closed his eyes at the feeling of Corey's lips on the sensitive skin under his ear. "Uh huh," he breathed, arching up and grinding himself against Corey's toned stomach. He moaned softly when he felt Corey's prominent erection meet his own, but lapsed into silence as he felt two hands push his shirt up and move beneath.

Corey rolled Joey's nipples between the pads of his thumbs and forefingers and allowed the boy to rub up against his stomach. He left the shirt pushed up around Joey's neck while he kissed his way down over soft, smooth skin, all the way down to Joey's navel, where he swirled his tongue around it. Joey's cock was poking him in the collarbone, and he rubbed it gently through the thin material of Joey's jeans, loving the way the boy's muscles jerked.

"Oh," Joey sighed fitfully, pushing his hips up. "Please..."

Corey kept massaging him through the jeans and pressed his lips against the skin below Joey's belly button. "Do you like how it feels?" he asked, increasing the pressure of his hand slightly.

"Yeah. God, Corey... it's so good." He sounded like he was near tears.

Corey unbuttoned Joey's jeans, peeled them off, and tossed them to the floor. Then he helped the wriggling boy out of his boxers and threw them down, as well. Jesus, how far should I go? What the hell am I supposed to do with someone who's never done it before? He paused, hands splayed and rested on the inside of each of Joey's thighs, trying to imagine what he had wanted the first time.

Just when Joey was opening his mouth to ask what was wrong, Corey spit in his hand and started jerking him off, sliding his hand roughly up and down. He leaned down and kissed the inside of Joey's thigh, nipping the soft skin there and feeling the muscles ripple as Joey shuddered. Go ahead and fuck him. He has no idea what you're supposed to be doing. Corey turned down that thought, insisting to himself that it wouldn't be good to do everything in one night. When he slowed his hand, Joey's hips continued to pump upward, and he had to pull away completely to keep the boy's orgasm at bay.

"Please, don't stop! Corey, please... Oh, please..." Joey whimpered in desperation, pleading, pulling Corey down onto him. Corey let himself be tugged down and took Joey's kiss which, he smiled to himself, was much improved from the one he'd received earlier. Joey's hands wound into his hair and Corey found himself unable to move--and that was fine by him--as Joey's legs wrapped around him. "Aren't you gonna take off your pants?" Joey asked, feeling the coarse material against his skin.

The task was done in record time and Corey was back on top of Joey, working on getting their T-shirts off. At last, they could both sigh at the sensation of their bare flesh being able to finally meet completely. Corey pushed his hips down as Joey tilted his up and they both groaned at the friction of their stiff pricks being ground together. Corey's stomach was tightening already and he hadn't even done anything yet. He wasn't ready, but God, Joey wouldn't stop moving, wouldn't stop writhing beneath him and he was just so turned on that he thought he might explode.

"Does it feel good for you, too?" Joey asked breathlessly, eyes closed to the darkness and moving in time with Corey.

"Fuck," Corey moaned, burying his face in Joey's neck. It was too much for him to handle. He could feel Joey's hands on his back, jagged fingernails scratching, digging in and pulling him closer. He rolled them over so they were on their sides and brought Joey into his arms, where their legs entwined and hips moved of their own volition.

Joey gasped sharply and suddenly got very still, as if he were frozen in time. Corey held tight to him and felt the warm, pulsing streams of liquid fire shoot onto his stomach. Kissing him hungrily, Corey reached between their bodies and gripped himself, pumping roughly, fueled by the knowledge that Joey had just come all over him. His eyes that were so tightly shut shot open when he felt a much smaller, softer hand gently tug his away and take its place around his dripping cock.

"Oh my God," Corey groaned, throwing his head back as he felt Joey grow bolder and tighten his grip. All it took was four strokes and Corey melted, coming so hard he thought he would black out. He clung to consciousness, pulling Joey close and running his hands through the long, sweat-soaked hair, pushing it out of the boy's face and kissing him tenderly.

"You care about me?" Joey asked quietly as he was being petted.

"More than you'll ever know." Or understand. He felt Joey smile.

After several minutes, Joey asked, "Can I tell you something?"

Corey yawned, having come down from the adrenaline rush. "Sure."

Joey wriggled closer and took Corey's hands, lacing their fingers together. "Remember the first night you stayed over, and you slept on the floor?"

"Uh huh."

"I... I don't want you to get angry."

"What is it? I won't get angry." He could feel Joey's body get warm as he blushed.

"I heard you... touching yourself, and I..." Joey sighed, then blurted, "and I got off on listening to you. It made me feel so bad, though. I thought you should know, you know, because I guess I sort of violated your privacy, and stuff."

Oh my God. That's so fucking hot... and so fucking embarrassing. "That's not so bad," Corey muttered. "Was I that loud?"

"No. I could just tell by the way you were breathing, and I heard your hand moving."

"Do you feel better now that you've told me?"

"Yeah." Joey sighed, wiping a hand through the come splattered on his stomach and mixing it with that on Corey's. "I hope the power comes back on soon. I'm sticky."

"Me, too."

"Corey?"

"Mmhmm?"

"Do you think we could do this again? When-whenever you want." Joey blushed deeper and waited for an answer.

Corey smiled. "Yeah, we can." This is so perfect, almost too perfect. No, it's not. It's just perfect. How does it feel to be happy, for once?

They fell asleep wrapped in each other's arms.

____________________________________________________________________

Four in the morning and a few scattered lights were on. Every clock in the house blinked twelve o'clock, a sign that the electricity had come back on. Corey was awake, staring at the boy who was curled around him, feeling his heart beat calmly. There was no feeling in the world that could compare with total contentment, and for the first time in his life, Corey felt it. He felt good, needed, and like he had found a piece of himself that had long been missing. To go along with all those wonderful feelings, there was also the thick, cold come that was still plastered to his stomach. He grimaced and tried to think of a way out of Joey's grasp, but it was impossible.

"Joey," he whispered, moving the boy's hair out of his face and then gently shaking him. "Wake up."

"Mmmn," Joey sighed, pushing himself closer to Corey's warmth.

Corey shook him a little harder and smiled when those crystalline blue eyes opened. "The lights are back on. Wanna go shower?"

A few seconds of rubbing his eyes later, Joey was more than ready to shower. He blushed to see that he was still nude, and turned even darker when he saw Corey looking at him. Self-consciously, he reached for his blanket and covered his lower-half. "Do you think my mom's home?" he asked, listening close to see if he could hear her doing anything.

"I dunno. I've been awake for a while and haven't heard anything."

"Oh."

Corey got out of bed and made his way to the bathroom, where he turned the light on and looked at himself. Wow, you look like a fucking whore. He laughed at the way his hair was sticking in all directions, then let his eyes drift down. "Shit," he muttered, pulling at the dried come in the hair on his torso and wincing at the pain. He saw Joey appear behind him in the mirror, looking rather lost and even younger than usual, and he turned toward him. "You see this?" he asked, motioning to his matted chest hair. "This is exactly why you should be glad you have no hair here."

Joey's lips trembled with restraint because he didn't know whether Corey was being funny or not, but he saw the sparkle in the other's eyes and started laughing. "Sorry," he apologized, wiping his eyes. "Hey," he said, looking into the mirror at himself, "my star's still there." The outline of the KISS star he'd drawn over his eye was still somewhat decipherable, though it was faded almost to the point of disappearing.

While Corey would have loved admiring himself and Joey in the mirror for longer, he really wanted to get clean first, so he stepped into the tub. "Damnit," he sighed upon seeing that the showerhead was still missing, and then he remembered Joey telling him that earlier.

"Is it okay if I come, too, or did you want to go by yourself?" Joey peeked timidly around the curtain.

He's so precious. You've got to keep him. "Come on in." Corey ran the water and waited for it to warm up before pulling up the plug that would, on any normal shower, make the spray come on. Instead, he was met with a heavy downpour of water that was most definitely not massaging or cell-stimulating.

"I've never really ever had the chance to look at another guy before," Joey said, tilting his head to one side. "It doesn't bother you, does it?"

Corey shrugged, with his eyes still closed as he was under the current of water. He moved forward and slicked his hair back out of his face, focusing on Joey, who was watching him, enraptured. "What do you see that's so interesting?" he asked, looking down at himself and seeing nothing overly-special or out of the ordinary.

Joey met his eyes in awe. "Are you kidding? You have the most amazing body I've ever seen, even on those models in magazines. It's like... so mature already... and so hard. You must work out, like, all the time..."

"Okay, shut up," Corey muttered, getting flustered. He reached for the bottle of hand soap that was sitting on the edge of the tub and lathered his hair up with it. You've created a voyeur. Very nice. Corey tried to convince himself that he'd had absolutely nothing to do with what Joey saw in him, and hadn't done anything to really make Joey want to watch him. It was only curiosity, after all, wasn't it? Right? He shrugged to himself and slid past Joey so the boy could wash his hair.

"How are you gonna get that out?" Joey asked, pointing at Corey's chest and laughing.

Corey scraped his fingers through it, but quickly got exasperated and sighed. "It's your fault. You should be made to stand here and pick every bit of it away with nothing but your teeth."

Joey's nose wrinkled. "I'd rather not."

"Uh huh. That's what I thought." He slid down into the bottom of the tub and bent his knees so he wouldn't interfere with Joey. "You may as well sit down when you're done. We're gonna be here a while." He took the soap and squirted a bunch onto himself, then lathered it up and went about the tedious task of cleaning the come out of his hair. "You know, if we hadn't let it dry, this wouldn't be happening."

"It wasn't my fault the lights went off," Joey said as he rested his back against the opposite end of the tub, having to lean more to one side than the other so that he wouldn't drown under the water.

"You jinxed the electricity with your phobia," Corey accused, kicking him in the calf. When Joey kicked him back, Corey narrowed his eyes. "You do not want to start a fight with me right now."

"You're right; I don't."

Good boy. He knows who's right. Corey laughed triumphantly as he started making progress. "Yes! It's coming off!"

Joey started laughing again. "That's so funny."

"And I'll say again: it's your fault."

"Can I see your dick?"

Startled, Corey's head shot up. "What?"

Joey blushed and shrugged idly. "Can I see it? I mean, I-I felt it, but I just wanted to... to, uh, know what it looked like... if that's okay."

"Jesus Christ, Joey. You come up with the craziest shit to ask me." He looked at Joey, who was so innocently avoiding his eyes and chewing his bottom lip, then sighed. This is what you get for fucking with a virgin. Deal with it now. "Alright."

"Really?" Joey scooted closer and Corey tried to keep his concentration on his chest, but Joey had crawled between his legs with his face a mere few inches away from his cock. Joey raised his eyes and asked, "Is it alright if I touch it?"

Corey laughed just because of the awkwardness of the situation. "Yeah, why the hell not?" Ever think maybe you're corrupting him? What normal kid asks shit like that? He bit his lip to keep quiet when he felt Joey wrap both hands around him, carefully inspecting the crown and tracing every vein with his fingertips. "Fuck, Joey," he breathed, unable to keep his body from reacting to the touch.

"Have you ever watched it get hard before? It's so awesome," Joey said, running his thumb over the head of Corey's dick.

"Not since I was, like, twelve," Corey replied, brows furrowing. He tried not to watch what Joey was doing because he really wanted to get himself clean, and it was coming off, but he was having an increasingly hard time concentrating on the task at hand.

Joey pushed Corey's dick up out of the way and slid down farther in the tub so he could get a better look. His fingers played in the dark, wiry auburn curls that dusted Corey's thighs and around his cock. "How come the hair on your balls doesn't feel the same as it does everywhere else?"

Corey's head hit the tile wall, again in exasperation. "How the fuck am I supposed to know? Do I look like God?"

"I don't know," Joey said. "You might."

"I don't have the answers to all your questions."

"He doesn't either; none that I've heard, at least." Joey sighed and rested his head against the inside of Corey's thigh. "Can I try something?"

Oh fuck, what's he want to do now "What do you have in mind?"

Joey chewed his lip and started stroking Corey's cock again. "Well, I've never done it before, and if I screw up, I don't want you to get mad at me... I was wondering if I could give you head?"

Oh my fucking God. Corey stared at him in utter disbelief for a few seconds. "Um..." Speak, idiot, speak! Before he changes his mind. "Yeah."

Joey smiled, held his hair back out of his face, and gingerly wrapped his lips around the head of Corey's cock. He kept his hand tight at the base, and sighed through his nose as he took a bit more into his mouth. Corey was in a state of complete shock, sitting with his arms resting on each side of the tub, jaw slack, unable to do anything more than watch the most arousingly obscene thing he thought he'd ever seen.

Joey brought his eyes up to see Corey's face and flicked his tongue playfully over the small hole in the head of Corey's cock before coming up and smiling at him. "You know, I saw a girl doing it to a guy in a movie once. Does it feel good? It's kind of salty..."

Wordless, Corey nodded.

"I don't think I want to do what he made her do, though. She choked."

"Whatever you want," Corey said, letting his head rest against the tile wall. "You're killing me, Joey. Do something or move so I can."

"But, look. It's purple."

Corey groaned. Oh, come on. He's so cute. Let him have fun. "Joey, please."

Joey took to sucking gently on the head again, mainly because he didn't yet know how to open his throat and go down, and didn't want to choke like he'd seen in the movie. He started to move his hand and kept a steady rhythm with his mouth, while keeping his eyes locked on Corey's face. It made him feel warm inside to see the strained emotion distorting Corey's face into a look that closely resembled pain. He almost wanted to ask if he was doing okay, but he tasted a spicy, almost sour liquid in his mouth and decided to keep sucking instead. Corey was moaning quietly and raking his fingernails down the porcelain tub, chest heaving.

"God, Joey... that feels so fucking good," he moaned, propping his feet against the far end of the tub so he wouldn't slide down and bust his head open. "Can you... can you use your tongue some more?"

Joey traced his tongue beneath the mushroom-like head, then swirled it continuously over the tip. His hand quickened its pace, and Corey's moans became more vocal, echoing around the bathroom. He again took the head into his mouth, sucking harder than he had before, and was rewarded with more of the fluid he'd tasted moments earlier. Corey's hips jerked up unexpectedly, and he gasped the best he could at how surprisingly deep Corey's cock went into his throat. Joey pulled back completely and licked his lips.

"Jesus, Joey," Corey panted. "I'm so close. God."

"Okay..." He took a deep breath. "Here we go." Joey braced himself, repositioned his hair again, and went back down. He tightened his fist as much as he dared to, surprised as how rough Corey liked it, and jerked him hard. Corey was moaning so loud that it was all he could hear, and he sucked so hard his cheeks hollowed. He could tell by the spasmodic bucking and desperate whimpers that Corey was right there on the edge, and when he swiped his tongue meaningfully over the tip, then sucked it back into his mouth, Corey's hands found their way into Joey's hair and he arched up with a loud groan of satisfaction.

"Oh my fucking God," Corey moaned, holding Joey's head down so the boy couldn't pull away as he shot his seed into his mouth. He felt Joey's throat muscles working to swallow, and that made his stomach tighten impossibly more and he came until his body had nothing more to give. He released his grip on Joey's hair and the boy pulled back, gasping and coughing, eyes watering.

Joey made a face, then turned toward the drain and gagged a few times. "Oh, it's awful," he groaned, coughing.

Corey watched him through heavily-lidded eyes. "It's an acquired taste," he said, echoing words that had once been told to him. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Joey washed his mouth out before looking at him. "Sorry," he said, blushing shyly.

"Practice makes perfect."

"Do you know how to do it?"

Corey shrugged one shoulder. "I've never had anyone complain."

"Will you show me sometime?" Joey's eyes were bright, hopeful.

"Yeah, I guess I could." Why not? It's not like he has much work to do. That was fucking amazing. "I got most of it out," he provided weakly, brushing his hand down his now-clean chest.

Joey smiled. "That's good... I'm hungry. Do you think Denny's is open?"

Corey couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, they're open twenty-four hours a day. Come on and let's finish bathing, then I'll take you."

"Okay."

It took a few minutes more for Corey to get his legs to start working again, but when the blood was circulating the way it should, he stood up and rinsed himself off. He still felt Joey staring at him, and found that it didn't bother him like it used to. He wasn't entirely comfortable with it, but it gave him a certain thrill to know someone was actually interested in him enough to stare. When he met Joey's eyes, the boy would turn the sweetest shade of red and quickly look away, embarrassed. That was what made Corey feel so strongly for him: he was the most na�ve, innocent little thing he'd ever seen. Let's face it. You're completely in love with the kid.

They got out of the tub and dried off, and just like before, Joey spent an enormous amount of time in front of the mirror, brushing out his hair. Amused, Corey watched him pull all that long hair over his eyes, then part it, and if it wasn't parted perfectly, he would start over again. At last, Joey seemed satisfied with it and, offering Corey a startlingly charming smile, started off for his bedroom.

Feeling weak in the knees again, Corey followed him. He cringed when he realized the bedroom reeked of sex, and it was clear by the expression on Joey's face that he noticed it, as well. Thankfully, though, there was a bottle of Febreeze on the kitchen table, and Joey spritzed it around over everything. While it didn't mask the stains in the sheets, it did lessen the smell.

"That's going to take some explaining," Corey said, turning Joey's sheet over so that the stained side was hidden.

"There's washers and dryers downstairs. Maybe we can take it down there. Do you know how to wash clothes?"

"Don't you?"

Blushing, Joey shrugged. "Not really."

Corey laughed, but refrained from making fun of him. He has a mom who loves him enough to take care of him. Why would he need to know how to wash his own clothes? "I doubt the building's open right now, so we can do it sometime tomorrow." He saw that his clothes were right where he'd left them, on the floor near the foot of Joey's bed. He picked out a pair of pants and a T-shirt, put them on, and by that time, Joey was dressed, too.

"I guess my mom had to work the late shift again... Should we leave her a note?" Joey was running his fingers through his damp hair in the middle of the room, trying to find something to look at other than Corey, because he'd seen pretty much all there was to see, but still found his eyes drawn there.

Corey shrugged mildly. "You probably need to. If she comes home and finds you gone, she'll think someone's kidnapped you." Now there's a thought. He chuckled to himself.

"Okay." Joey tore a page out of his notebook and wrote down where he was going, who he was going with, and that he'd go to school, so not to worry about him. He put the note on the kitchen table and put his shoes on. "Come on, I'm starving."

"Wait, how are we gonna get back inside?" Corey remembered what'd happened last time, and that Joey didn't have a key.

"There's a spare key over here somewhere," muttered Joey, digging through a stack of papers beside the phone book. He let out a triumphant, "Ha!" and put the key deep into the pocket of his jeans. "Okay, we're good."

The roads were practically abandoned as Des Moines slept. A late-night driver rarely passed the two boys on their way for food, and silence reigned in the car because neither could think of anything to say. Denny's was empty, save for the cooks and three waitresses who were leaning tiredly against the counter.

Corey and Joey picked a huge, round booth made to seat up to ten people and stretched their legs out on the seat. A skin-and-bones waitress with fried blond hair and bleeding lipstick handed them their menus and asked what they wanted to drink. Joey got High C Fruit Punch and Corey got a Coke, then they were left alone to decide what to eat.

"What are you getting?" Joey asked, looking at Corey over his menu.

"I dunno. Grand Slam?"

"Okay. I think I'm getting the club sandwich. Yeah... Well, wait, this country omelet sounds really good, too. God, I wonder whose bright idea it was to serve breakfast the same time as dinner?" Joey sighed, resting his cheek on his hand and looking over the entire menu again. "Maybe I should just get some cheesecake and call it a night."

Corey laughed. "Yeah, that's just what you need. What kind of authority figure would I be if I let you eat dessert in the place of a real meal?"

"Do they have cheese fries here? Do you see them on the menu anywhere?"

Before Corey could answer, the waitress returned with their drinks and Joey asked her if he could get a cup of cheese sauce with his fries. Despite his indecision as to what he wanted, he ended up ordering the club sandwich like he'd said in the beginning, and Corey got breakfast. She left to put in their orders.

"What is it with you and cheese fries?" Corey asked, not looking forward to seeing such a lascivious act as Joey eating take place again. He was brought back to that day in the bar when all he'd been able to concentrate on was Joey sucking cheese sauce off his fingers.

"It's just so good! You don't like it?" Joey tried to take the paper off his straw and ended up breaking it. He sighed, knocked the entire straw with paper still attached onto the floor, and took to gulping the drink down.

Corey smiled because there was just something so childish about Joey that amused him. "Yeah, I guess it's okay."

"I don't want to go to school today. You wanna do something?"

"You have to go to school. If anyone found out, I'd totally get in trouble for helping you skip."

Joey crunched on an ice cube thoughtfully. "Do you think we could go back to that store? The one you sleep in sometimes?"

Corey was immediately suspicious. "Why?"

"I dunno... To look around?"

"But why?"

Joey shrugged and took another sip of his drink. He spoke directly into it, letting the warmth of his breath fog up the glass. "I didn't really look at anything except the leather stuff last time, and was just wondering what else was in there. Actually, I wanted to see the jewelry. Like, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a shelf that had hoops and stuff, like the ones through your nipples." He set the glass down and rubbed his eye, where tears had dried in the corner. "I like learning about stuff like that."

I'll bet you do. "It's just jewelry. It wasn't the best idea for me to take you in there to begin with..."

"Why not?"

"Well, for one, it's illegal."

Joey smiled. "It's illegal for you, too."

Corey tried to scowl at him, but couldn't hold it. He sighed, shaking his head and grinning. "You're exactly right. It's illegal and neither of us should ever go in there again. Right?" He gave Joey a pointed look.

"...Okay. I don't see what's so bad, though. It's just--"

"I'm not taking you back, Joey, so you can stop." That's right. Haven't you done enough already to completely warp the kid's fragile mind?

"Alright," Joey sighed, nodding his head and accepting defeat. He wasn't quiet for long, though, before looking around to make sure no one else was in ear shot. He leaned forward closer to Corey and asked, "Have you ever had sex in a car?"

Corey stared at him for a moment before bursting out laughing. "Where in the fuck do you come up with this stuff?" he asked loudly, then lowered his voice because he'd attracted the attention of the waitresses, who were giving him puzzled looks. He turned back to Joey and shook his head, almost like he didn't plan on answering, and finally said, "Why do you want to know that?"

"I'm just curious," Joey replied, looking down at his lap with his hair obscuring the view of his face.

"Yeah, I did once." Or twice. Was it twice? "Actually, I think it was twice."

"Really? In your car?" Joey's eyes seemed to be even bluer when looking out from the spaces in his jet black hair.

Corey nodded.

"You... you did clean it, didn't you?"

Laughing again, Corey nodded his head. "Of course I cleaned it. It's not as messy when you shoot into something." Shit! Watch what the fuck you're saying!

"Oh," Joey said, then it dawned on him what exactly Corey'd said and he turned red. "Oh." He searched for words, but all he could settle on in the end was, "Huh." He hid his face back behind his glass and kept it there, taking tiny, slow sips and breathing through his nose.

That explanation deserves a round of applause. Corey frowned, but couldn't deny Joey's reactions were hilarious. He lost track of the conversation and got quiet, listening to Joey slurp his drink.

Five minutes or so later, the waitress returned bearing two plates of food, which he set on the table in front of them. She left the bill face-down out of the way, and went back to standing beside the counter. Once the food was dressed in salt, pepper, ketchup, and hot sauce, the boys started eating.

"Hm," Joey said after he'd tasted the cheese fries. "The ones at the other place were better. These are, like, not fried enough and get soggy." He turned his attention to the club sandwich, which was enormous and way too big for his mouth. Looking it over, turning it in his hands, he finally opted to just tear the thing apart and eat it piece by piece. He took the slice of bread in the center of the sandwich and ripped it in two, then made two smaller sandwiches by piling it all back together. He noticed Corey watching him with a vaguely interested expression and grinned. "What?"

Corey just shook his head and shoved scrambled eggs into his mouth, unwilling to even make a comment. He concentrated on eating, doing everything in his power to keep his eyes away from Joey. His will was weak, however, and his eyes betrayed him by staring directly at those lips, watching the boy lick his fingers clean. Why does he eat like that? Do normal people eat like that? It was a d�j� vu he had thought he could live without, but the things that had happened between them the night before only served to make the act even more erotic. Get a hold of yourself. He's just eating, for Christ's sake! He sighed and gulped down the rest of his drink, then tried to find something to look at as he waited for Joey to finish his meal.

"What do you think about?" Joey asked suddenly, and Corey's eyes darted back to him.

"What?"

"When you zone out. What do you think about?" Joey was looking at him inquisitively, and Corey didn't know any way to stall.

What, are you gonna lie to him? Corey shrugged. "Nothing in particular." You. "Just random stuff." Only you.

Joey nodded, but didn't seem satisfied with the answer. He had a good sense of telling whether or not someone was telling him the truth, and while Corey was harder to read into than most, he still managed to do it. He didn't try to wring any more information out, though, because he had a feeling Corey got tired of his endless questions.

"If I asked you half the things you ask me, would you answer them?" Corey'd been wondering about that for a while.

With no hesitation, Joey replied, "Yeah, I would. I've never had anyone to talk to and I like talking to you, because you seem to know a lot about stuff."

"Have you talked to your mom about some of the stuff that bothers you?"

"No." Joey's nose wrinkled in distaste. "We're not very close. I mean, she's hardly ever there to spend time with me, and pretty much all she does is wash clothes, give me money so I can eat, and then trust me to take care of myself. I don't think she'd know what to do if I asked her the stuff I ask you. It doesn't make you uncomfortable, does it? Because I can stop..."

Don't tell him how uncomfortable it makes you. Wouldn't you rather him learn it from you than someone else? "No, it's fine. Some of them just take me by surprise, is all." He smiled. "I mean, out of nowhere at all, you suddenly come up with, 'So how many people have you been with? Girls or boys? Have you had sex in a car?' It's insane."

Joey laughed nervously and twirled his fingers in his hair, embarrassed. "Yeah, I guess it's pretty random." He shrugged. "So are we going to school today?"

"Yes, we're going to school. I can just hear what your mom would say if she ever found out I kept you from going to school. She'd totally call the cops for truancy."

"Yeah. I wouldn't want to get you in trouble..."

He drinks alcohol, smokes, sucks your dick, and he doesn't want to get you in trouble. Three crimes, and probably a load more you're forgetting. Corey frowned, wishing he wasn't so negative in his mind. He knew the things he'd done were really bad, but the problem was he didn't resent a second of it. He'd pretty much gotten what he had been after, and it was good, but unlike his past--and the term loosely applied--relationships, he didn't want to be rid of Joey. He wanted to keep him, to love him, and have him forever. It was a feeling that made him sick to his stomach; it made his chest hurt. Lovesick would have been a more appropriate term.

Corey dug into his pants pocket and pulled out his wallet, which somehow always managed to get into one of his pockets even when he didn't remember putting it there. Grabbing a twenty dollar bill, he left it on the table, cracked his knuckles, and asked if they were ready to go.

"Yeah. Are we going back to my house? We can probably sleep another hour or two before it's time to go to school."

Corey nodded. "We can go back if you want."

The sun was just coming out and the sky was a mirage of pastel colors. Joey stared out the window, eyes to the sky, entranced. "I've never seen this time of the morning," he explained. "It's beautiful."

"Mm," muttered Corey in response. He'd never been one for the beauty of nature, or the beauty of anything, really. He didn't categorize himself as a lovey-dovey type, but if Joey liked it, he guessed the morning sky was alright. It hardly compared with looking at Joey, and if he had to choose, he would definitely choose the boy over the sky. His train of thought was going nowhere and was really rather stupid when he stopped to think about it, so he popped a cassette into his cassette player and let the music distract him.

"Hey!" Joey exclaimed, and Corey winced. "This is Skid Row! I love them!"

Corey watched, amazed at how Joey could bang his head so early in the morning. Maybe he's on speed. You never know. Smiling, he let himself get lost in Joey's singing voice until they got back to the apartment complex.

"In the backseat of my Chev-rol-et..." Joey was still singing as they climbed the steps. "...Where the radio would play-yay yeah, and all the world would fade away-yay." He swung his hair back and then looked at Corey, who was waiting by the door. Joey stared blankly at him for a few seconds.

"You have the key." Corey raised his eyebrows, amused.

Joey grinned. "Oh, yeah." He reached into his pocket, took out the key, and unlocked the door. His mom still wasn't home, so he crumpled the unread note he'd left on the table and threw it in the trash can. Slipping his shoes off by the door, he went to his bedroom and collapsed onto the clean side of the blanket. "I'm so tired," he said, yawning.

Corey stretched, popping his back, and laid down beside Joey. He buried his face in the pillows and sighed. "Me, too."

No more words were exchanged as they fell asleep.

____________________________________________________________________

At a quarter to noon, Corey woke up. The clocks still hadn't been set, and he had no idea what time it was until he looked at his watch. Damnit. He turned his head to the right and saw that Joey was still sound asleep, curled tight on his side, facing Corey. His pale face was relaxed with sleep, lips parted just the slightest bit. Corey's stern expression softened at the almost angelic expression on the boy's face. My God, he really is beautiful. Makes you want to just rip him open, doesn't it? He wouldn't care... He's said it a million times: he's just curious. Maybe doing something like that would squelch the curiosity for a while, huh? Curious... Corey wondered what else Joey may be curious about. Again, all he could picture was Joey sitting in a bedroom, doing nothing but listening to music and looking at posters. He hadn't even lived at all, really, from what Corey knew about him. It was sad, but it kept him safe. Safe. Corey could have scoffed at the word.

He touched Joey's eyelid softly, then smoothed out the slightly mussed brow above it. Joey's skin was cold, but if he kept his hand there long enough, he could feel the heat of the blood running beneath it. It wasn't fair--the way he wanted him. The desire was so strong that he had to clench his fists together to keep from doing anything drastic, and all the while his mind was screaming at him: He's right there. Right there, inches away from you. Do it now. Fuck him. Take him. He's yours. Cringing, Corey got out of bed and went to the bathroom, where he splashed water onto his face.

"You're out of your mind," he muttered to himself, pulling his eyes down and inspecting the whites that were rather bloodshot due to lack of rest. "Completely fucking insane." He sighed and thought it'd be best to take a shower, to maybe--hopefully--cleanse himself of the warped urges for at least a little while. He felt bad for letting Joey skip school. It hadn't really been his fault, at least as far as he could figure. Joey should have had an alarm set, and also shouldn't have been hungry at four in the morning. Then, he would have rested properly and been able to wake up early enough to get them in the classroom by nine o'clock. And now what if his mom comes home and finds the two of you here? You're screwed. He groaned, scrubbed his hands over his face, and stepped into the shower.

Memories flooded his mind of what he and Joey had done only hours before. He turned the water on, pulled the tab so the downpour could begin, and let himself get lost in those thoughts. God, his mouth, his tongue... so inexperienced, but so GOOD. Wetting his hair, he let it fall over his face, hanging in wet tendrils. His cock was so hard that when he changed positions, it bobbed up, slapping against his stomach, begging for attention. He lathered his hair and, with soap still on his hand, he slicked it over his cock and began stroking. Can't compare to his hand, though, can it? Nothing compares. Not even masturbation--the one thing you have complete and utter control over to bring you pleasure--isn't as good as him. You're ruined. Even if it wasn't as good, it was still good enough to make him arch his back against the water and close his eyes in bliss. Joey was all he could see: Joey's face, those lips, blue eyes that shimmered with trust and were completely oblivious to what they saw. You could have him so easily. So fucking easily. He wouldn't stop you. He wouldn't make you stop if you'd just DO IT. He groaned lowly and had to lean back against the wall, breathing turned shallow. He quickened his pace, his hand making a slurpy smacking noise on the wet flesh it beat, and that turned him on even more. His face... those lips... blue eyes that shimmer with trust... It'd be so easy. His eyes rolled into his head and he gasped, head arched back against the wall as his come splattered into the tub. Fuck. He sighed, slicking a hand down his stomach and splashing water on the spots of white with his foot to make it go down the drain.

Relieved, feeling like a little chunk of the world had been lifted off his shoulders, he finished washing. When he got out, he used the towel he'd used the night before and wrapped it around his hips, then wrung his hair out once more before heading back toward the bedroom.

Even before he looked inside, he could hear what was going on. Oh, God, don't go in there. Just go back to the bathroom. You won't be able to handle the sight. He rested his forehead against the wall right next to the door and listened to the tiny cries and muffled whimpers coming from the room. So hot. You came just minutes ago and you're already hard again. Quite the stamina. Ignoring himself, he wondered if he should risk just a peek around the corner. He wondered if Joey had his eyes closed or open. Just a quick peek won't hurt. You know they're closed. He nodded in agreement and slowly looked around the corner, into the room.

Joey was still fully dressed and on top of the covers, with just his pants undone, and his eyes were indeed closed. A few strands of hair were hanging over his face, and with every labored breath, they puffed up a few inches before falling back into place. His hand was moving frantically over the length of his cock, which Corey couldn't stop staring at for the life of him. Clutching the doorframe with both hands and leaning heavily against it, he watched Joey's hips wriggle, watched the boy's hand getting slick from the precome oozing between his fingers. His brow was covered in a light sheen of sweat that made him appear even more shimmering and ethereal than normal. He had to have been masturbating since Corey'd been in the shower, because a mere few minutes since Corey started watching, his toes curled in the blanket and his hips shot up. Corey's mouth fell open as he watched Joey's come pulse out in streams of liquid pearl, and the boy caught it in his left hand, then wiped it on the sheet beside him. Droopy blue eyes opened and Corey found he was still too stunned--that, and his cock felt like it'd been nailed into the wall--for him to even consider moving.

Joey flushed even redder than he'd been before and there was a long moment where the two of them simply stared at each other, breathing hard, completely speechless. Then Joey smiled shyly and averted his eyes, self-consciously tucking himself back into his pants.

He knows what he's doing to you! Look at him--he's enjoying making you crazy for him. You should go in there right now and-- but Corey cut the thought off before it could finish, because he didn't want to hear it. He knew what he wanted to do, and he also knew that what he should do was go into the living room and stay there for a while. For once in his life, he went with his better half and left the doorway for the kitchen, where he took a soda out of the fridge and held it against his aching erection. Breathing deeply, he waited for the excess blood harbored there to flow out to other places--like his brain--where he needed it. Then he laid down on the couch and tried to relax. He closed his eyes, and his mind began to drift.

To Be Continued...?

@};--;---

Site

>>Home
>>Close Your Eyes and Settle
>>Idle Hands
>>The Leper Affinity
>>Sordid
>>Scissors/The Trauma
>>Na�vety is Bliss
>>Smile
>>Nekromantic, Not Quite Romantic
>>Corkscrews and Chokeholds
>>Watch Your Mouth
>>Boredom and Bloodplay
>>Backstage Battlefield
>>Illustrate Your Life In Romance
>>A Synonym for Acquiesce
>>Don't Feel Better
>>I Guess It's Okay
>>If It's Good For You
>>Look Natural
>>Blurred Edges of Reason
>>Asmodeus

Owner

My name's Rayna. I'm eighteen years old and I live in Florida. I've always had an interest in creative writing, and my works turned homoerotic after I read The Vampire Armand many years ago. I write about what I love, with characters I adore.

Disclaimer

I am in no way affiliated with anyone involved with SlipKnot, Wednesday 13, Cradle of Filth, Children of Bodom, Taking Back Sunday, or My Chemical Romance, these stories are based entirely in fiction, and I am making no profit from the publication of this website

Exits

Myspace
Deviant Art

Dates

Credit

Lay by Vintage Fairy

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws