Westbrook Academy for Metahumans: Forums

[[Warning: Graphic language and sexual situations]]

Wednesday, June 22

Kai stared while Ar paid for the cab. It was San Fransisco, all around him. Broadway would always be the ultimate destination, but this was still a pilgrimage he’d only dreamed of making. And it was beautiful. Even the air tasted different. He’d laughed out loud at the first rainbow flag hanging from a light pole, proudly rippling in the air. By the time the cab had stopped in front of Ar’s house, he’d lost count of the colorful banners on display on storefronts, homes, cars, and people. Not that he wanted to, but Kai couldn’t stop smiling.

Ar opened the door and ushered Kai inside, watching his eyes get just a little wider. The building had been around for a long time, most often broken up into several apartments about the size of Kai’s house in Millford Mills. Right now, it housed one family of three in a space devoid of any and all non-essential walls. The sound of Kai’s footsteps echoed in the sheer volume of space. From the front entry, he could see the living room, dining room, and kitchen sprawled across the entire level. Gleaming white furniture and walls glowed above dark wood floors. The only color was in the art on display, vintage movie-musical posters and paraphernalia under glass - Bing Crosby’s Santa hat from White Christmas, Gene Kelly’s umbrella. There was a small Golden Age museum scattered tastefully among the sparse furnishings.

“Dammit.” Standing at the security panel, Ar was a screaming shock of neon in the muted landscape, impossible to ignore. He reentered the code, waited, and then tried again. “They changed the code. When did they change the code?”

“Should we... call someone?”

Ar turned around, eyes shining red. “I just tried to 'hack' the home network. Three... two... one...”

“Congratulations on breaking in, asshole or assholes,” a deadpan voice blared through the house. The front door slammed shut while metal, grated shades started drawing down the windows. “Smile for the cameras and best of luck trying to get back out.”

“Dad, it’s me. I need the new code.” Ar spoke to the mirror hung beside the security panel, apparently familiar with where the cameras were hidden.

“Artie? What are you doing here? And who’s that?”

“That’s Kai. My boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend? Hm.”

Ar turned and smirked Kai’s way. “Dad? The code?”

“Right, right.” Ar stiffened while his eyes lit up. The grating on the windows began to withdraw. “There, you’re up to date. We’ll be out late; don’t wait up.”

Kai waited for the conversation to finish, but Ar was already collecting bags and pointing him toward the stairs leading up. “What did I tell you? Boyfriend is big news.”

Kai followed up two flights of stairs. “News? I thought they knew about me?”

“There’s knowing and then there’s knowing,” Ar answered with one of his grins, eyes still glowing red. “Trust me, knowing you exist and actually seeing you are two very different experiences. Both pleasant.”

Ar pushed open the door at the top of the second staircase and led Kai into a sunny, sprawling attic loft. “Be it ever so humble and all that shit.”

The room was big and as wide open as the rest of the house, with the same sparse, ultra-modern decor. The angled ceiling followed the sloped and pointed lines of the roof, here cavernously tall and there intimately low. It felt like a show piece, the set for some magazine’s photo shoot. Ar’s color and vibrancy were as glaring in his room as they were in the rest of the house. Kai had trouble imagining him actually living here.

“There’s the bed. There’s the TV.” Both were quite large. “Closet’s there and the bathroom is next to it. Consider the place yours. And they’re on because I’m hooked into the house.”

Ar grinned again at Kai’s blinking confusion and tucked his arms around his waist. “My eyes. You were staring.”

“They’re kinda hard to ignore,” Kai chuckled.

“You get used to it. Totally worth it, though. I can control almost everything from right here. Like the hot shower I just started, in case you felt like freshening up. By which I mean hot, wet fooling around.”

“Ar!” Kai clutched his imaginary pearls. “In your parents’ house?”

“They don’t care. Besides, they won’t even be home for hours. Speaking of, the fridge looks empty. We’re going to have to suffer through going out for dinner.” Ar patted his cheek and gave one of his better grins. “Tell you what, I’ll be in there if you wanna join me. In the meantime, you can unpack, move in, and make yourself at home. Just don’t take too long; I’d hate to finish without you.”

With that, Ar turned and headed for the bathroom, a trail of shed clothing to mark his path. Kai dutifully watched him walk away. He would probably end up joining him. Maybe. Inevitably. He just needed a minute to adjust to this new world he’d stepped into suddenly. And while he was adjusting, he could hang up his shirts before they got hopelessly wrinkled in the suitcase.

Where his room in Millford Mills was a living shrine to his life and his dreams and his passions, Ar’s was blank. It was an unmistakably beautiful and luxurious blank, but still blank. There were no photos, no trophies, no souvenirs, no mementos cluttering any surface. Even the closet was empty, save for a few extra blankets and pillows on a shelf and the rows of vacant cedar hangers. At least that made a little sense: Ar kept his clothes where he lived. Yet, where were the old, worn out, out grown clothes? Knowing Ar, cremated.

Kai finished unpacking and pushed his suitcase up onto a high shelf where it bumped against something. Up on his toes and craning his neck, he could just see a shoebox pushed back against the wall, wrapped in butcher paper and decorated like a grade school makeshift mail box. ‘ARTIE’ was printed on the side in big block letters. Kai pulled it down and lifted the lid. Inside was a child’s worthless trove of treasures. There were the usual oddly shaped and colored rocks, crinkled red third place ribbons, a well-worn stuffed Pikachu with the shine rubbed off of one plastic black eye, and snapshots of smiling children Kai didn’t recognize. One boy showed up in most of the pictures, and it took Kai several long moments to realize that if he imagined the sandy blond hair was fuscia, the slightly round nose a little smaller, the chin and jaw a little more pronounced, and the cheekbones a little higher, the boy became Ar.

“You know I’m beginning to think you’re not coming.” Kai turned to see Ar dripping in the doorway, a white towel loosely draped around his hips. “Which unfortunately means neither am... Where did you get that?”

“It was on the shelf. Is this you?”

“Put it back. Now.” The change in Ar’s demeanor was immediate. In that moment the bright red light in his eyes suited him a little too well.

“I... I’m sorry, Ar. I was just wondering.”

“Then you’re wasting your time.” Kai apparently wasn’t putting the box away quick enough. Ar plucked it out of his hands, slapped the lid closed, and threw it onto the highest shelf he could reach. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s clearly not nothing. Ar, are you okay?”

“I said it’s nothing.”

“Then why are you so upset?”

“Holy fucking third degree, Batman!” Ar shouted. “Will you just drop it?”

“Ar! What’s going on?”

Like a flash, the anger, fear, and pain left his face and he was back to being the mostly naked, wet, horny teenager standing inches away. “What’s going on is I’ve been abandoned in a steamy shower that’s much too big for one person. It’s a nightmare from which only you can save me. Please?”

Ar never said please any more than he said thank-you. It sounded strange hearing it in his voice. He wasn’t asking for sex; Kai could practically feel him pleading to let the abrupt topic change go. And so Kai let the abrupt topic change go.

[[Warning (again): Graphic language and sexual situations (again)]]

Friday, June 24

I’ve caught him staring at least three times now. Each time he lingered a little longer before turning back to that pretty blond babyface glued to his side. There’s no way either one of them is old enough to buy a beer, but I’m trying not to think too hard about ages. I wasted the years when I could have been ‘hot’ on junk food and too much TV. I’ve since come to my senses and joined a good gym. I’m well maintained enough that I don’t go home alone if I don’t want to, but it’s ten years too late to turn heads when I walk into a room. So why is there a pint-size twink staring at me like that?

As if summoned by the thought, he’s there when I turn around. Shorter than he looked, but also hotter, not a single muscle or bone out of place. He smiles at me, a slightly lopsided grin that seems to point out how perfectly symmetrical the rest of his face is, and leans in to dance. He doesn’t waste any time bouncing around and waving his arms; within seconds I’ve got every inch of him pressed up against me and those eyes don’t look away from mine. My hands start reacting and soon I know that the areas I can’t see are just as good as the ones I can.

And then he’s leading me to the back room by my shirttail. The music’s not so loud back here and the crowd’s not so thick and he’s looking at me like he’s starving and I’m a sandwich. Or a hot dog. This is all happening fast, but that’s the magic of Pride Week and Jimmy’s happy pills. He still hasn’t said a word, but my fly’s open and he’s on his knees. One of the club lights hits his eyes while he’s looking up at me, pausing before diving in, and those eyes seem to flash with this red glow.

Without warning, his face changes. The smirking smile, the hunger, all of it's gone with that flash of red and now he’s staring up at me like a scared puppy. There’s even a tear trailing down his cheek. When did he start crying? As soon as it’s there, it’s gone and the smile is right back in place. Suddenly that tear is ridiculously out of place. I almost want to laugh, but I’d much rather know what the hell is going on. The lights hit his eyes again while I’m stammering for something to say, but this time they don’t stop. The red light is coming from his eyes.

Fifteen seconds ago, I was about to get a surprise blow job from a horny twink and now I’m going to get fucking terminated. Pride or no, this is the absolute last time I take one of Jimmy’s pills. I barely notice my phone buzzing in my pocket.

“You wanna check that.” The voice floats up from my waist, from the miniature Terminator who I’m now hoping has no intention of putting anything of mine in his mouth.

I apparently don’t check it fast enough, possibly because I’m still sputtering random sounds hoping one of them gets this whole thing to start making sense. His hand dives into my pocket and emerges with the phone. He sneers - an actual sneer - when I flinch back.

“You really want to check this, Stan,” he tells me as he pushes the phone into my hand.

New picture message. Unknown name, unknown number. And there I am, dick in the breeze, with this terrified boy staring pleadingly up at me. The text reads, “I’m 16.”

“What the fucking fuck!” Finally the sounds start congealing into words.

“It’s a good shot. You look big. Much better than that Weiner guy.” He’s standing close, pressed against my side, looking at the screen. “Do you do your own manscaping? Because that is very good for a home job.”

“How did you.. You’re sixteen?”

He laughs, and cruelly. “It’s this whole crazy coincidence thing. Hilarious really. See you’re, what, second in command of the teen outreach program at your very reputable gay rights organization, Stan?” I never told him my name. “And here’s this whole big scandal - involving a very underage teen - waiting to explode, kind of like you are in that picture. It’s crazy, right? I mean, you know how us kids are with our mybooks and our faceplaces and all that. Do you think this’ll get many likes? I guess it’ll be hard to know for sure once it starts getting reposted.”

He takes a breath and I finally have time to notice that I’m still hanging out of my pants.

“I.. You.. midget bastard.”

Again with that laugh. “Now, now. I didn’t make you do anything here. I just offered the apple; you’re the one who tried to swallow it whole. Well, technically, I suppose I’m the one who tried to swallow it whole, more or less, but that’s splitting hairs. Speaking of, it really is some very nice grooming.”

“I don’t have any money. I work at a non-profit for fuck’s sake.”

“Exactly. You have precisely what I want.” My phone buzzes in my hand, another message from Unknown. “Those two names,” he says tapping the screen, “need to be on the list for your float in the parade tomorrow. You can do that, right?”

None of this is real. It can’t be. “The parade? You want to be in the parade?”

“Well, not me so much, but it’ll mean the world to someone else.”

“To be in the parade?”

“Golly, you catch on quick. If check-in goes smoothly, this whole thing is just some twisted nightmare. If not, then one or two news outlets get an anonymous tip. Can you imagine the blow it would deal to the cause? You, of all people, forcing yourself on a child.”

“For... the parade?”

“I think we’re done here. Later, Stan.” One more crooked smile and he’s gone. Gone as in fades out of sight right next to me, his eyes still glowing.

No more pills.

Ever.

___ . __ . ___


Ar decloaked as he wrapped his arms around Kai from behind.

“There you are! What kept you?” Kai spun in his arms, turning to face him.

“Forever long line at the bathroom. Mostly creepy old guys waiting to watch me whip it out.”

“Ee-heww. Gross,” the blond boy shuddered in Ar’s arms. “I hope you didn’t put on too good a show.”

“For that crowd? No chance.” Ar smiled and took Kai’s hand in his, palm up. He pulled out a pen and scribbled a number and a time.

Kai looked between the numbers and his boyfriend’s smile, which was bordering on gleeful. “What’s this?”

“That is our float number,” Ar said, pointing to the 14, “and that is our check in time tomorrow morning.”

“Ohmygod! We’re going to be in the parade!?”

“We’re going to be in the parade.”

Wednesday, September 7

There wasn’t a lot to do while he waited on the table. The anesthetic was local, as always, in case he was needed for testing. In between activating and deactivating systems on command, he was left to occupy himself, and so Ar sorted. He never deleted, just sorted. There were drives upon drives of memories filed away, neatly sorted, indexed, and relocated externally. At first they had been one more test. Then they were his story. Now it was an old habit he couldn’t seem to break.

The first to go was the last picture he had of him. Kai’s retreating form was distorted from the legs down by the wet drops clinging to the lens. It was only his back, no last glance to look at what he was leaving. Final.

The parade was a blur of color and sound and scantily clad bodies of every variety. Flags and flowers and feathers waved in the bright Summer air, all to frame one ecstatic face. He danced, free and completely unashamed, arms in the air, wide open to every wonder he beheld. The footage bounced with rhythm of the music and Ar’s laughter.

The whole collection transfers in moments. Stills. Clips. Kai singing. Kai smiling. Kai staring. Kai staring into space. Kai’s face inches away on the pillow, fast asleep. Kai’s face inching away, horrified.

• “Ar. Ar, you didn’t. How could you - how could anyone do that?” Disbelief. His expression is amazingly close to Stan’s that night in the club. Certain that what he’s seeing and hearing is some elaborate figment of his imagination.
  
  It doesn’t matter why. It doesn’t matter that the bastard made his own choice to whip it out for a minor. It doesn’t matter that nothing technically happened. It doesn't matter that it was for him.
  
  “How could you do that to me? I don’t know you.”
  
  It’s too late to talk him down. It’s impossible, but it’s true. Kai isn’t the only one having trouble believing this is really happening. There has to be a way to turn this around, spin everything back to where it belongs. The words must exist, but somehow they’re not coming. Somehow that face, his face, chokes off any attempt before it even starts. It’s too late.
  
  “I don’t know you. And I don’t want to. Not anymore.”

“Artie! Pay attention.”

“This better be good. She was about to take off her top.”

The doctors Rawlings rolled their eyes in unison. “We’re going to set off an EMP before we close up. Run a full diagnostic. You should have full power and access to all external systems. After that, start the reset. The whole thing should take no more than ten minutes.”

Ar’s dads wheeled their equipment into the next room, safely sealed and shielded. Before they flipped the switch, Ar made one last transfer. It was stupid, but he couldn’t leave all of it locked away. It was stupid, but no one had to know. While the lights flickered, his eyes were filled with that last precious, watery glimpse.

• I don't know you.
  
  And I don't want to.