Timeless: Through Time - Garcy

The Stonewall Rebellion (2)

"Wait-"

"Is it not?"

"No, look."

The smiling man, dark-haired and short, was approaching them. Flynn straightened. "What's he doing?"

Wyatt's hand subtly crept towards his gun. "I don't know."

Flynn's first thought was that this might be one of the plainclothes cops, and he too was reaching for his weapon. But... Oh.

He started flirting with Wyatt.

He couldn't understand the appeal, but alright then.

"You gay?" Flynn heard him ask in a thick New York accent, though sweetly enough. Flynn could hear the rusted little cogs in Wyatt's brain smoking and grinding together.

"Bi," he replied. Flynn sipped his watered-down beer.

"Bye?"

"Bisexual. I swing both ways."

He nodded. He'd heard of that, then, though they were clearly not modern enough to know the shortened version.

Then the guy seemed to take in Flynn, who smiled completely without his eyes. It wasn't that Flynn meant to be intimidating, but he was gratified when the man withdrew.

"Oh, sorry. You together?"

Wyatt leaned back into Flynn's outstretched arm. It took every ounce of will not to take it away. "Yeah, sorry."

He then mooched away. Wyatt took a swing of his drink despite not touching it since he'd gotten it in a supposedly poor-me-lying-is-so-stressful kind of way.

But the thing was, Flynn didn't think Wyatt was lying at all.

Flynn picked at his napkin, debating if he should even bother, and carefully looked at him sideways.
"That was convincing."

Wyatt took a deep breath. He was smart, and he knew Flynn was, too. "Well, if we've got some time to kill... You never wondered why my dad hated me so much?" He asked. Flynn slowly shook his head. "There are a few reasons why a dad in the deep south hits his son so bad that some of his injuries never really heal. One is cause he was a drunk bastard, but one is because... He once caught his son kissing a boy behind the garden shed."

Flynn stopped short. "You're queer?"

"I don't like that word," Wyatt said quietly, and Flynn immediately apologised. "That's what he'd call me when he tried to beat it out of me. I am bisexual."

Flynn leaned back in his seat and regarded Wyatt with a new set of eyes. "I never knew that."

The only person he'd seen Wyatt take any substantial interest in was Jessica, a woman. To be perfectly honest, Wyatt had never been on his mind long enough to consider the possibility.
"Growing up in '90s Texas with the dad I had, you learn to keep it quiet."

Flynn trusted if Wyatt wanted him to shut up he wouldn't be shy telling him so. So he asked tentatively, not really sure if he wanted to hear the answer,
"What happened when he found you both? Behind the shed?"

"He had this dumb look on his face. I was too scared to say anything, but," he laughed lowly, "the other boy panicked, got up and started shouting that it was all me. He told my dad that I forced him. And he believed him."

"I'm sorry."

He shrugged it off, and Flynn thought he saw the ghost of a wince as he did so - like he could still feel the pain. "Nothing I can do about it now."

"How come nobody else knows?"

Wyatt shrugged. "It's not easy to shake off years of abuse that forced me to believe I was wrong inside. Jessica knows, but... I dunno. I didn't want to open myself up to that."