It's really getting closer and closer to the end... Wow. I've got tears in my eyes (how lame).
Thank you for everyone who's read, who's reading, and who is still to come I guess.
Oh, and the picture on the side would be of Freddie and Joey :3
Chapter Twenty
Broken Once, Twice, A Thousand Times Part Three
Freddie +
After we’d eaten, Joey and I retreated upstairs. It was strange, because I actually felt a little uncomfortable once in my room. Of course I had all these rather erotic thoughts in my head the second he bounced a little and threw himself onto my bed, facing upwards, arms and legs splayed out, head lifted a little and eyes closed. Despite having given him a blow job already, I didn’t want to take Joey further than he was ready for -again, anyhow.
I knew I should have told Joey about moving then- that was why I’d wanted him to come home with me after all- but again I was chickening out. I was too scared of what his reaction would be… Whether he’d be that upset at all. And despite the two of us only being official for not even two days, I was still going to miss him a hell of a lot, wherever I went. Would he miss me as much as I’d miss him?
I stalked over to my bed and flopped onto it, belly up. Joey placed his hands behind his head. I looked across at him, his pensive features intriguing me. “Hey,” I called gently. He turned up and glanced at me.
“Yeah?”
“What are you thinking about?”
Joey turned back to facing the ceiling and didn't answer for a moment, looking as if he, himself, wanted to know the answer to my question. Eventually, though, he sighed. “Just how much I've changed and stuff, I guess. Like, I was thinking back to when I was a kid. Before I thought- well I never really thought about it, but I assumed I was shy and... Insecure, I guess. Like I am now-”
“You're not!” I protested, more out of shock than disagreement.
“I am,” Joey smiled a little. “I'm just really good at hiding it, at this point.” Oh. I couldn't quite comprehend that. He'd always looked so self-assured around his friends, and confident. He wasn't the loudest- and come to think of it, he didn't talk as much as half of them. But I'd still never imagined he was insecure.
Though... When we'd started working together -just us two- Joey had been a little less sure of himself. I'd thought that was just because of my being... Gay.
“I miss being a kid,” Joey stated. It was wisftful.
“You preferred life then?” I asked him.
“Yeah.” He turned onto his side and looked up to face me. My duvet was covering one of his cool blue eyes a little, so I reached a hand over and pushed it down.
Joey was beautiful.
“Don't you?”
“I...” didn't really know. My childhood was a mixed up stage in my life. It was pretty uneventful most of the time. “I was a quiet, shy and fairly obedient kid.” I began with the quirk of a lip. Joey looked on. “Yeah, it was boring. I do remember, though, that whenever I was upset about something, instead of throwing a fit and screaming the house down I would go inside the cupboard opposite the stairs and just sit there for the longest time.”
“What did you do in there?” Joey asked, watching me with wide eyes. I grinned. For a moment there I was so tempted to yell masturba-ate! Instead, I shrugged and closed my eyes for a moment. The last thing I remember doing in there was thinking about Dmitry and cutting myself for the first time. That was just before I started at the school, before I'd decided to just accept everything that had happened to me, and accept who I was. I hadn't been in there since I'd started there, met my friends, come out officially. I guess it was as if I'd literally come out of the closet.
But what had happened before the whole Dmitry situation? It was so long ago...
“I guess I just thought about food and stuff. I liked food. Fish fingers,” I decided.
My boyfriend laughed at me and rolled his eyes. “That's it? Boring kid, Freddie.”
“But exciting teenager, right?”
He glanced back at me and squinted into my eyes for a long while... “Nope! Boring teenager too.”
“Oh, ha, ha ha. You're so damn funny,” I replied dryly.
“That I am, are you going to show me this cupboard?”
“I wasn't planning on it,” I replied with a grin, but I took him out of my room and lead him by hand to the landing and we paused at the top of the stairs, where I turned Joey around and we stared at the door in the wall. I hadn't really given it much attention in a long time, and seeing it now, the door looked pretty small. Joey would fit fine, but I'd probably have to squeeze. We'd be comfortable once in though. I remembered it had been bigger on the inside than the undersized door suggested.
Joey stepped forward and took a hold of the rusty gold knob (dear Lord) and twisted (forgive me). It opened outwards to reveal a dark, empty, pretty average, store cupboard. When Joey looked to me, I strode forward and reached my hand in, feeling the wall for a moment before coming in contact with the string that would illuminate the small room, and tugged. The bulb flickered a while, struggling with itself, before remaining on, and as soon as it did I felt nostalgia hit me. It had been a little over two years that I'd been in here. I hadn't needed to for so long- having met Tom and Jenny... And Sherry. At the time.
Joey got in first. He had to duck his head down and stooped a little, but that was it. I, on the other hand, had to crouch, and when I was finally stepping in, I tripped on nothing and fell in. Onto Joey. We both laughed, but my chuckles were more stemmed from embarrassment than anything else.
“A little Alice In Wonderland,” I said apologetically, leaning up so I was supported by my arms, looking down at Joey. “Are you okay?” I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to lean down and feel his lips against mine, but I felt way too guilty about the fact that I was leaving -and hadn't told him yet- to do that. Even when his gaze on my lips told me he wanted exactly what I did.
“I'm good. Close the door?” Joey shuffled from under me and sat up so that he was leaning against the wall.
“I'm beginning to wonder about your motives, Mr. Hartman, Sir,” I teased, but complied. “I'm only a minor, after all...” The door clicked shut.
“You're not sixteen?” Joey asked, crossing his legs.
“In a few months,” I replied. I furrowed my eyes brows, crossing my own legs too with some difficulty. “Are you?!”
Joey smiled, looking incredibly proud of himself, “I am! That's strange-”
I laughed, “Yeah, I would never have imagined...” And we faded to silence. Joey was older than me. Hadn't seen that coming.
“So... this is what you did?”
“Almost. The light was always off.”
“Was it,” Joey stated. His eyes flicked to the flimsy string hanging from the ceiling that controlled the light. I was about to turn it off myself, but then Joey rose from his crossed legs. He moved forward and reached. Not quite. A quick glance at me, before his free hand rested on my lap, and he used that to push himself upwards a little and grabbed. With a single tug we were engulfed in darkness.
Everything felt different instantly.
Joey's hand was suddenly closer to my crotch than I'd realised. I could feel his face had lowered from looking up at the naked light bulb and could just make it out in the dark, a centimetre from mine. The whites of his eyes stood out like lighthouse signals to those lost out at sea. And I was lost. As Joey leaned in, and his lips touched my own- already open and waiting- it was as if I saw the beam of the lighthouse and I could come home. Or- or as if I was a light bulb and he the switch- I was on.
Hardly seconds had gone by before I was pushing Joey's unnecessary blazer off his shoulders. We were grabbing at fabric and stroking skin.
“Freddie,” did the dark make voices huskier? Because Joey had suddenly made the sexiest sound, and my mouth was thanking his throat by kissing, and kissing, causing him to gasp and- “Freddie!”
“Mmm?” Don't tell me to stop... My hands were unbuttoning his shirt when he lowered his hips and brushed himself against me. Joey breathed an “Oh” that did dangerous things to my frantically beating heart. I liked kissing him. A lot.
My hands were working against the buttons of his shirt quicker, and soon enough he was shrugging the item of clothing off his shoulders. I could tell, though, when he grew suddenly tense that he was worried. I kissed him again, nipping his bottom lip before slipping my tongue into his mouth. Joey liked this. He let out an unstable breath and pushed his bare chest against me, arching his back, and threw his arms around me neck. I allowed my fingertips to trail across his collar bones lips and he flinched a little, bringing his hands back round to hold my face, brushing faintly over my cheeks, when we pulled apart. I opened my lidded eyes fully and, having adjusted slightly to the dark, could see Joey's face a little better. He breathed in slowly through his nose and straightened up. I was only vaguely aware that I followed the movement of his body, as if we were tied by an invisible string and I couldn't allow him get too far from me. Hesitantly, wary of his nerves, I kissed his neck, and smiled against it when he gulped and his Adam's apple bumped against my nose.
“You're so-”
“What?!”
We both froze, Joey's hands holding my face gently, while my arms were wrapped around his torso. “Was that Lou?” I whispered.
Joey shrugged his shoulders, voice low; “I'm not sure.” There was a commotion coming from somewhere downstairs, and I swear I could hear Lou shouting- though what she was saying wasn't as easy to decipher.
“I think it is,” I murmured after I heard another shout, and a series of voices and footsteps coming closer, padding up the stairs. They -the voices- didn't sound happy.
“What's going on?” Joey asked, putting more space between us. I closed my eyes, though, because his fingers were moving -ust small, supposedly insignificant actions- in my hair. I pulled my boyfriend, my hands slipping up along the skin between his shoulder blades as out lips crashed again, too briefly.
“I don't know,” I whispered when we'd pulled apart.
There was something strange in the air as we sat in the dark, staring. All I could see where his eyes, really, but I still felt like he was conveying every emotion he felt to me. Nervousness, apprehension, embarrassment... And there was pleasure in there too, but the fact remained that he was nervous.
“Hey,” I said softly, tugging him gently onto me and leaning my back against the closet door just as it was opened.
A group of men -who looked vaguely familiar and I immediately guessed were from dad's company- stood staring, probably shocked at the fact that the son of their close colleagues had fallen out of a closet with another topless boy. I honestly wondered, for a moment, if they'd be congratulatory at all had Joey been a girl, or maybe they'd have had less hostile or disgusted facial expressions. I only glanced at my mother, Cath and Lou. The other men eventually faded to the back ground too. In the end, it was just my father and I.
+
And that's it for this chapter. I hope it's long enough, Freddie's updates hardly ever seem to be :/
Also, the next chapter... I think I'll warn you now, and unfortunately it's not R rated for sexual content.. But I don't know how far I'll go yet. Let's just say there might be some self harm of some sort. Okay.