Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
CERTAIN places on the Southside were hallowed ground in the eyes of its people. These places were a refuge, a reprieve, for Southsiders to ignore the societal pressure that beat them down on a daily basis. Escape was their religion—going to the Whyte Wyrm bar downtown standing equal to going to church on Sundays.
One such place was the home of Benny Bayford. The old Bayford Manor provided much more than just a roof over some heads every so often. It was a house of worship for the God of freedom. It was the only God that most of the Southside teenagers would ever pray to.
On days such as this one, they would gather together after school and travel to the edge of town to attend service in Benny's living room.
The group of teens was piled on top of each other on the various couches, loveseats, and chaise lounges, having decided to spend the night inside in favor of going out to a bar. The company that evening of course included regular residents Benny and Mack, along with their inner circle of Fangs Fogarty, Toni Topaz, and Sweet Pea. However that evening they were also joined by several other friends—most notably of which was Joaquin DeSantos.
Benny had been pulled onto the couch to sit in between Mack and Sweet Pea, the latter of which had been pulling him slightly closer to his side all evening. The closeness of the two boys had long since stopped being strange to the other Serpents, but it had taken a while. It was well-known in their friend group—and outside of it—that Sweet Pea was not a person to be trifled with. Not only was the boy physically imposing, but he could also be terrifying in several other ways.
But not towards Benny.
Every boundary Sweet Pea had ever set he allowed Benny to cross without a word spoken. When Sweet Pea had made it explicitly clear that he didn't enjoy being touched and Benny fell asleep on his shoulder one night, the poor boy had been upset to no end, spending an entire hour apologizing after he'd woken up. The other Serpent kids had expected the friendship to go nuclear right then and there, but quite the contrary happened.
"It's all good, dude. You were pretty tired, anyway."
After that, it had become a regular occurrence for the two boys to be tangled together; on the couch, at the quarry, anywhere possible, they would be touching in one way or the other. If it had been anyone else, the Serpent kids would have teased the absolute hell out of them, but not with Sweet Pea. Not if they valued their lives, anyway.
Though that evening Joaquin seemed prepared to risk a limb if it meant tearing Benny away from the person that was holding him back from a hook-up.
"You guys seen the news lately?" Toni spoke, lowering her phone away from her face. "Apparently Pop's got robbed and some dude got shot."
"Which dude?" asked Flynn Hamada, one of the other regular residents of Bayford Manor. He was a little younger than Benny and his friends, and he often paid for his stay by fixing up Mack's truck when it would inevitably break down every couple of months.
