[fic] In Fair Verona - 7/13
Title: In Fair Verona
Author: garnetice
Pairing: Kendall/James, Kendall/Mercedes
Rating: M
Word Count: 7,518 (part seven)
Part: Seven of Thirteen
Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Warnings: Drinking, sex, guns, death, swords, violence, homophobia, sexism, a lot of isms.
Summary: "What are we doing?" Kendall asks, taking a shaky breath. His hands hover over James's abdomen, and James arches forward until they are touching, until Kendall's fingertips press into his skin. "I don't know. But don't stop."
Disclaimer: BTR is not mine. Nor is William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet or the original R&J.
Author Notes: My eternal love to jblostfan16 for the beta.
---
Kendall comes to naked and wrapped in the hot circle of James’s arms. He can hear Carlos snoring softly from the other cot, and from the slant of thin light streaming through the window, he supposes Logan already came home and then left for work again. He wonders if either of their best friends even noticed the bare skin of his and James’s shoulders peeking from beneath the thin, ratty blanket they are sharing, or if they cared. The four of them only have two futons, and they’ve been falling asleep together, in varying orders, for years.
Kendall still flushes an ugly shade of red when he sees how their clothes from last night are strewn haphazardly around the room - is James’s t-shirt sitting out on the balcony? - and he tries not to panic. The apartment’s always a mess. There is no discernible pattern to the heap of James’s boots and pants, shucked off finally, before sleep, or to the place where Kendall’s Hawaiian button down lays at rest. Excepting the heady scent of sex in the air, which is not precisely new, there is nothing that screams of illegality or illicit behavior.
If there had been, Logan would have made a scene, probably, but trying to convince Kendall’s racing heart of that is impossible. He’s tense between his shoulders, stained by culpability, waiting for his own impending execution. He can feel James like gun powder residue all over his body, and it’s appalling, because it is James. He is safety and comfort and home. But he is also strangling Kendall with his proximity, with the play of his breath across the back of Kendall’s neck. Even though Kendall’s body aches just to the right side of painful, he ignores it, struggling free of James’s octopus embrace, shaking off his arms and his thighs and the tangle of his feet.
He dons his boxers quickly, sneaking about the room with the air of someone hoping to escape an uncomfortable one night stand. Which, okay, the guilt and wave of misplaced loyalty is helping nothing. Kendall pulls on holey jeans and something comfortably flannel and bolts from the crashpad without ever glancing down at James and how very naked and vulnerable he is under the cocoon of the thin quilt.
Carlos’s snores chase him down the stairs, thunderous and full of accusation.
Outside, dawn is still stretching over the horizon. Any other day the sky would be bright with potential, but today it is the color of graphite, full of clouds bleeding orange around the edges, leeching jaundice yellow into the vaguest hint above of robin’s egg blue. Kendall’s got work, but fuck work. He makes tracks to the beach, to sunlight that probably won’t ever make an appearance and the crash of storm-tossed water and peace.
Only, when he goes to sprawl out on the hot sand, shucking his t-shirt to the side, he notices the purple-blue imprint of fingers against his hips. A quick search of his body reveals more bruises and black marks, all suspicious in nature. Kendall resolves to keep his clothes on for the next few days, hiding his face in his arms.
What was he thinking? Kendall is choking, his throat is closing up, and that is an omen if ever one existed, the uneven weave of imagined rope cutting into his neck, vertebrae set to snap.
Human bodies are as complicated as a jigsaw puzzle, but they are also equally as easy to break. Kendall has witnessed it firsthand, time and time again, out in the wasteland of America, from the stench of rot in what were once Kansan cornfields to the bleached white bone that littered the back roads of New Mexico. He has seen violence, cold and calculated or manifested in the midst of enraged fits. Kendall hasn’t held any illusions about the softer side of mankind since he was a little boy, more concerned with dinosaurs and constellations than how to make it through tomorrow and the next day. But moving to Verona made him reevaluate evil, what it is and how it works. For Kendall, before, it had existed in the midst of riots, in the hearts of highway men, in hot, livid snatches of fury that turned the meek into murderers.
Then he witnessed his first real execution.
Out in the world, there were walls painted red with distinctive blood splatter. Bands of thieves and lunatics alike would corner innocents, rob them blind or worse, and when they were done they would line them up, little ducks in a row. Bandits do not take prisoners, after all, and survivors have very loose lips. Brain matter and fallen corpses marked the site of each death as symmetrically as headstones, and Kendall thought this was what the word execution meant; brutality, decay, and practicality.
He was part right.
In Verona, the city as fair and beautiful as justice herself, executions also mean an audience. Jeering, raucous crowds, people drunk and people solemn, people who hate and people who fear, children and geriatrics and everyone in between. No firing squad was ever so theatrical, backed by loud proclamations or a frothing mob.
The actual deed can take place anywhere. A rope strung over anything will do. But the first execution Kendall went to occurred in the middle of town, at the official Gallows. Gallows. That word is reminiscent of something very Old English, steps and a platform and a square of wood that would drop out of sight. Instead, Kendall saw a long, skinny beam of timber nearly three stories high, with this weird rope-weight contraption rigged up to it.
They call it a counterbalance gallows, and the great thing about it is that it breaks necks more efficiently than the traditional kind.
That’s what Camille told him, anyway, with only trace amounts of sarcasm in her voice. “A normal hangman’s noose doesn’t kill you right away, not always. With street lamps and platforms, a person can dangle there for hours at a time, asphyxiating slowly. This…isn’t humane, not even a little bit, but the weights take you up so fast that - well, it’s decapitated more than one person.”
Kendall hadn’t given the mechanics a lot of thought then, too occupied by the circus of flesh and death, which he wanted nothing to do with it. But now?
Fusillading still takes place in the city, in dark corners Griffin and Hawk’s men prefer not to police. Each time Kendall stumbles upon a body or three, he has to swallow back guilt and shame and infinite amounts of dread, because his first thought is always this: If it comes down to it, he’d rather die with a rifle at the back of his skull than a rope at the base of his neck.
Ideally, of course, he’d prefer neither.
Kendall wants to hate James for making him want him. He tries to cultivate loathing in the pit of his stomach, to bring it up big and strong like one of the palm trees lining the boardwalk. But he can’t escape the truth; it’s not James’s fault that Kendall can’t stop thinking about him, and blaming James for how incredible he is would be counterintuitive.
Also, hating James is kind of impossible. It’s easier for Kendall to hate himself. So he lies there, feeling sorry for himself, wondering if this has really changed anything. Probably not. Everything he’s done, from the end of the world and beyond, has been for James. And Logan. And Carlos. Everything he does from here on out will probably be the same.
Kendall lifts his head, but the sky has no answers. The city sits in a crater of clouds, about to be swallowed by the true darkness of that storm. Blue seeps through in patches and holes, the sky dotted and ragged. It is no help at all.
For a long time, Kendall watches the clouds gather black, but he is not in the least surprised when company finally finds him. He knew he couldn’t escape James for long. He is ubiquitous in Kendall’s life, in his thoughts, in his memories and his dreams. Besides, there’s only so far a person can run in a walled city. The only ways out are through Hawk’s men or into the sea, and there’s not any point. James was right last night; Kendall gave up running a long time ago.
“Hi,” he greets dully, curling his fingers into the sand. Logan told him once that the beach consists of billions of tiny pieces of crystal, of garnet and quartz, chert and topaz, but for all that rock it is soft in the lines of his palms.
James stares down at him, his figure an unreadable silhouette, haloed by the weak sunlight that deigns to peek through the gray clouds. He plops down in an inelegant pile beside Kendall, his shoulders hunched up around his ears, the line of his back painfully straight. He bunches his fists in the fabric of his jeans and says simply, “Hey.”
He does not force Kendall to meet his gaze, choosing instead to stare out at the water, the waves slate colored beneath their frothy caps as they roll rhythmically into the shore. Kendall waits.
When James does choose to speak again, he is careful, cautious. “I woke up, and you were gone.”
The words don’t ring with blame, not quite, but there is a definite surly note edging James’s consonants. Gulls cry, circling overhead, loud and plaintive. Kendall doesn’t know whether to apologize or ask if James expected him to stick around and cuddle.
Carlos wouldn’t have found that odd in the least, right?
“I wanted to watch the storm come in,” he explains, and never mind that their roof has the best view for that sort of thing.
James shrugs fluidly, from his shoulders to his wrists. “Why? It won’t rain. It never does.”
True enough. Southern California’s endless desert heat rarely breeds any kind of significant downpours. There’s none of the rain Kendall remembers from back home; relentless, harsh beauty that threatened to drown the Earth, at least not often enough that it ever makes any kind of impact.
James’s fingers unlatch from denim, tapping a beat from his knees to his thighs until they come to rest in the sand. His pinky brushes against Kendall’s and Kendall flinches, snatching his hand away.
He regrets it the second it occurs. James’s eyebrows knit together, his teeth gouging into his own lower lip, turning the skin there off-white. Helplessly, he says, “Kendall. If you didn’t want this…”
Kendall kicks his feet into the sand, toes digging down to the damp under-layer. He shuts his eyes against the barely-there sun and tries to reason out the flurry of rampant emotion tearing his insides to shreds. “Dude. Did you hear me say no?”
James lets out a held breath, a gasp of relief. It melts his posture, turns his shoulders less rigid and his limbs less stiff. He scoots down in the sand, building a pillow for his head, and leans back into it. When he peers up at Kendall, his eyes are shining glossy with the end of summer, orange-gold matte. “Then what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know what this is.”
“Since when has that mattered?” James inquires, and it’s not a bad question. Kendall’s never exactly been an advocate of the playboy thing, but he’s been with girls in an, uh, unlabeled, fancy free capacity.
Mercedes, for instance, before her father got involved, and shit, Mercedes. Kendall has barely given her any thought, and now he is sick with it.
Before Griffin passed down his royal decree, their relationship was more or less open. Kendall didn’t fool around with other girls, because monogamy is how he’s wired, but he’s pretty sure Mercedes had a fling or two going on the side. Which was fine, as long as she never read him in on it.
Or mentioned it.
…Kendall has trouble with these modern, new-fangled fuck-buddy dynamics, alright? He does not share well with others.
Still, he wasn’t going to stop her, because it was nice to have the option himself, and it wasn’t like they were for serious. But now? On top of everything else, he’s a cheater and a dirtbag, and that doesn’t sit well with him at all.
For James’s benefit, he shakes off his mental meltdown. “It matters because it’s you, and me, and we’re not something I’m willing to throw away.”
James cranes his head upright as a new group of clouds devour the remaining sun. Now Kendall can see the dark circles beneath his eyes, the red edges of a purpling hickey beneath his jaw. Kendall put that there last night while James’s dick moved rough inside him.
Is it bad that he wants to do it again, and as soon as possible?
James says, “You can’t break us, Kendall. You can’t break me,” and it is a lie, because human beings are fragile by nature. It doesn’t take very much; a rope looped around a neck, a strategically placed bullet wound. Bare hands can do the trick, if there isn’t another alternative. And in Kendall’s case, god, all he’d have to do is let a word slip to Griffin, or Mercedes, or a random stranger on the street. That’s all it would take - a single indication that James was making him uncomfortable - and he’d be broken, destroyed, dead and gone.
“Worst case scenario, somebody finds out and we die,” Kendall tells James in the flattest voice he can muster, because the idea of James dying unleashes a wellspring of complete and utter alarm in his stomach. “Best, and you’ll get bored of me within the week.”
He sounds like a heartless bastard, but only some of it is for show. James and commitment aren’t usually on speaking terms.
James’s response is outraged and immediate. “You think that little of me? That I’m enough of a horny asshole that I’d be willing to risk your life for casual sex?”
Protests leap to Kendall’s lips. Then they die quiet deaths. His nails bite into his palms. “You can’t deny that you’re impulsive.”
“No, you caught me, that’s exactly it. I thought you’d be an easy lay,” James shouts, seething, furious, loud. Kendall has to tackle him into the sand to quiet him, palm pressed to James’s lips, his breathing harsh.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up.” He glances frantically about for anyone who might have overheard, but the beach stretches empty for miles.
James’s ribcage moves updown quickly between Kendall’s knees, heaving with anger. He is glaring murderously up through his eyelashes, ready for a fight. Kendall instructs, “You can’t just yell shit like that,” settling his full weight on James’s chest.
He’s probably crushing him, but whatever, this way James can’t go running up and down the coastline screaming about how he fucked a boy. See? Impulsive bastard.
James mumbles something vile-sounding into Kendall’s skin, eyes spitting rage. It’s a completely inopportune time for Kendall to give into his childish impulses, but Kendall doesn’t let timing stop him from taunting, “I can’t hear you.”
James plants his hands firmly in the center of Kendall’s sternum and shoves. It’s hard enough that Kendall goes flailing backwards into the sand. James is on his knees before Kendall can find his balance, up in Kendall’s face. Rosy spots of annoyance burn on his cheeks, the rest of his skin blanched with anger.
“Hear this,” he hisses. “You’re my friend - my best friend - and if you think I’d put you in danger because I’m hard up, you’re an idiot.” He sounds so intense, so sorely hurt, that Kendall wants to pile every cruel thing he’s said back into his mouth and swallow it down.
Instead, his mouth seems to be intent on speaking without the consent of his brain. Hollowly, he inquires, “Then what? If this isn’t about sex, why can’t you just-“
He flounders, unsure how to finish the sentence. Leave me alone is the exact opposite of what he wants, because life without James is miserable. He barely made it through the past few weeks, driving Logan and Carlos insane while he tried to avoid the crashpad. Find someone else is all wrong; it stirs up spiny thorns in Kendall’s gut. The idea of James putting his hands on anyone else the way he touched Kendall the night prior makes him feel like retching, because James said, had promised, really; you’re mine, and you’ve always been mine, and no one can take you from me. Maybe it’s something James says to everyone, but at the time, Kendall believed it.
He’d never wanted to believe anything more.
And now he has no idea what to believe, what to do or what to say. He stumbles out, slowly, “If this isn’t about sex, then why me? You can have anyone in this city.”
James softens, palpably, warmth flooding his expression. It doesn’t chase the hurt away, but the hard edges are gone. Still, a little roughly, a lot pissed, he says, “Kendall. There’s no one in Verona I’ve ever wanted more than you.”
“Why?” The timidity in his voice is pitiful. James is the only person Kendall would ever let hear him like this, weak and uncertain, nothing like a leader. “I don’t understand.”
James takes Kendall’s hands in his without even bothering to check if there is anyone around to see. He massages his thumbs against Kendall’s knuckles until his fingers relax, flattening out and twining with James’s, however hesitantly. He forces himself not to glance wildly about the beach for spies, focusing only on the way James’s hair rustles with the wind, the warmth of his hands and the sweetness of his smile.
“Why not? You are brave, and you are good. You’re the first face I want to see in the morning, and when I’m lucky, the last I get to see at night. You’re bossy and stubborn, and you think you can solve our lives if you try hard enough. You care more than anyone I’ve ever met. You’ve been my best friend for as long as I can remember, and I’ve wanted to kiss you for as long as I can remember. If you think I’m letting you go now that I’ve finally gotten the chance to do that, you are so beyond mistaken.” James takes a deep breath, ducking his head a little, so that all Kendall can see is the earnestness in his eyes. “I l-“
Kendall can’t let him finish, can’t even dare to wonder how that sentence is going to end. He blurts, “I’m engaged, James.”
“Yeah, I know. Not super ecstatic about that.” James breathes hard, sharp. “I get why you’re going along with it. I do. But - I need you to believe me. I’m not trying to toy with you. I’m not going to meet a girl and get over this. You’re it, Kendall. I’ve been waiting, forever, for you to get that.”
He is so open and earnest that Kendall is winded by it, his heart stuttering beneath his ribcage. “You don’t do this. You don’t do monogamy, or settling down, or one person for the rest of your life.”
“Then why haven’t I ever left?”
“What? That’s not- we’re friends.”
“Best friends,” James agrees. “Forever. There is nothing you could ever say or do that would convince me not to devote myself to you, okay?”
Kendall squeezes James’s hands, still so uncertain, so very lost.
James says, “Look. At the party at Griffin’s, you said the world is tragic. And you’re wrong. The sun is shining, kind of, the waves are definitely crashing, and you’re the most breathtaking thing I’ve ever seen. What’s tragic about that?”
Kendall doesn’t know. He can’t deal with life or with James when they both insist on being so unbearably beautiful. “Uh. That was a really good speech. I see why you charm all the girls.”
“Nah, that’s all charisma and raw talent. There’s not a lot of talking involved.” James cocks his head to the side, grinning crookedly.
Kendall battles back his jealousy. Instead, he says, “I wouldn’t mind going home and not talking.”
James’s lips part. “Ah. Um. Carlos is still there.” He hesitates. “I might know a place we can go.”
---
Kendall ends up with his palms braced against concrete, his hips cocked while James thrusts into him and the sky rips open and pours. The abandoned parking garage is like a cave, every surface damp from the sudden onslaught of rain, concrete slippery beneath his feet. Each sound Kendall makes echoes back at him from a million different angles, amplified and turned alien. When he comes it is loud, his voice bouncing around him, harmonized with James’s, and both of their cries are lost beneath the pounding, endless rain.
---
They’ve barely been inside the apartment for five seconds, soaked down to the bone, when Logan cocks an eyebrow and asks, “Things going well with Mercedes?”
“What?”
“You’re humming.” He makes a face.
Kendall freezes, debating what to say. James actually flushes and goes about hanging his coat on the open door of the bedroom. Carlos is the one who saves the day, swatting Logan’s butt with a spatula of dubious origin. “Don’t listen to Logan. He’s grumpy because he never gets any.”
“When did we get a spatula?” Kendall asks out loud, too relieved and trying to hide it. “We don’t need a spatula.” He turns to James, who is very interested in the state of his sopping wet jacket. “Are we making pancakes? I cannot think of a single reason one of you would buy that thing.”
Logan whimpers about his injured ass, gritting out at Carlos, “At least I’ve had a girlfriend. The healthiest relationship you have is with your right hand.”
“Guys! Spatula? Waste of money?” Kendall tries.
“I didn’t buy it, I found it, and it’s a great fly swatter.” Carlos emphasizes his point by attempting to slap Logan’s ass, again. “And I’ve totally had relationships, okay.”
“Imaginary girlfriends don’t count,” Logan taunts, dancing out of Carlos’s range.
Indignant, Carlos retorts, “I’ll have you know, I’m seeing someone.”
“Since when?” James pipes in incredulously, finally over his embarrassment.
“For a few weeks.” Carlos’s stance shifts. He is laced with nervousness. “Her name’s Stephanie, and she’s really pretty. Really, really…”
“You know seeing someone doesn’t just mean that you can see someone from across the room,” Logan inquires, while James simultaneously asks, “Does Stephanie know you’re seeing her?”
“You guys are cruel, and I am wounded. Wounded, do you hear? This is me, injured and in pain.” Carlos clutches his hands over his heart, staggering.
Kendall’s laughing so hard that he doesn’t hear the door swing open until it hits the wall. He nearly jumps out of skin, struck by the sudden, wild idea that it is Hawk’s men, come to drag him to the scaffold, but the fear is chased away as quickly as it came.
Camille stands in the doorframe, her hair carefully curled. She’s wearing steel-toed boots and a flower-print sundress, short enough that the thigh holster of her gun peeks out from beneath the skirt. “Come on, imbeciles, we’re going to a party.”
“Not interested,” Kendall says, crossing his arms in an attempt to calm his racing heart. It doesn’t work.
Camille rejoins, “You should be interested. Arthur Griffin is putting on a fair.”
“A fair?” James asks. “But it’s pouring.”
Only, it’s not. Out the window they all can see that the rain has tapered off, although the storm hasn’t quite fled yet. A cliff of slate gray clouds stretches overhead with a sheer, dark drop-off right around where the ocean should be, though they can’t see it from the crashpad. That wall might be fluff or it might be the remnants of the monsoon, but either way it looms in the horizon like a sick fantasy waterfall.
“Yeah, no, still. I’m not feeling super festive,” Logan says, and no one is surprised. Logan’s idea of a good time involves candlelight, some watered down hot cocoa, and a thick volume of scientific theory that only about three people on earth really understand.
“You have something better to do?” Camille tosses her hair, the curls tangling on her fingers momentarily before falling across one bare shoulder. Logan follows the gesture with his eyes, dark and wanting. “Pool at L’Amour, again? Guys, this is an actual fair. There are rides and clowns and acrobats. There’s probably a freak show with a bearded lady.”
“Oh, hey, Logan’s mom,” James comments. The glare Logan shoots him could pierce Kevlar, probably, but James is blissfully oblivious.
Camille claps her hands. “Exactly. Come on guys, let’s go see Logan’s kinfolk.”
“My kinfolk aren’t circus people,” Logan grumbles, but he is not very loud. A smile is tugging at his mouth as he stares at Camille.
Carlos snorts, “Could have fooled me,” brandishing his spatula. Kendall plucks it neatly from his grip and drops it on the counter.
“I think we’ll just leave this here.”
“Hey!” Carlos protests, making grabby-hands. “How am I supposed to defend myself against Logan’s baseless accusations now?”
“Well, you do have a gun,” Kendall reasons. Logan squeaks indignantly. “Now come on, you heard the lady, we’re going to visit Loginator’s long lost cousins. Snap to it.”
“Bossy,” Carlos admonishes, but he obediently begins searching for shoes.
“Hot,” James murmurs, leaning over Kendall’s shoulder to grab…uh…something. Possibly the spatula, which is not coming to the fair with them. Either way, Kendall stills, a warning in his eyes.
James simply grins, wickedness lurking at the corners of his lips, and all Kendall can think about is James’s mouth all over his body, only a few hours before. He groans without meaning to, jostling James away with his elbows.
---
The alley leading away from their house is slick, shining, wet from the earlier downpour. The tread of Kendall’s boots slips over the grainy surface of the asphalt. Everything smells of dampness and mold, wet dirt and the distant but distinct stench of low tide, amputated crab legs and rotting kelp.
Camille is humming something from the radio under her breath, one of Gustavo’s discoveries, Kendall thinks. Although there are other studios around, Gustavo is the one with the Midas Touch. He turns every artist he comes into contact with into gold. After a beat, Kendall joins in, singing along. The bare wings of Camille’s shoulder blades flex as she breathes, and although she’s mildly off key, it still sounds very pretty. Pretty enough that James, Logan, and Carlos barge into the tune, building a melody between them, turning it and changing it until it is something all their own.
The song crashes down around their ears when they come within sight of the boardwalk lining the beach. It is transformed. More people than Kendall has seen out after dark in a long, long time line the splintered wood, clutching candles and flashlights. They are a stream of glittering golden light, veins of it like the insets of a gold mine. All of them edge towards the pier at the far end, where lanterns strung like embers burn against the length of the entire thing, an eerie carnival that definitely did not exist a few hours before.
This is life, here, at the edge of civilization.
James tugs them all forward. He always wants to be at the center of everything.
“Now where do you think they got the Ferris Wheel?” Camille asks mildly, her eyes lit blue-white-red by the giant bulbs glowing in the distance.
“Screw that, where’d they get the electricity?” Carlos demands, wide-eyed.
It’s not a bad question. Verona has a power grid of its own, tiny, and manned by Hawk’s men, for necessities only, like the radio. Even places like Carlos’s body shop and Griffin’s mansion are lit by candlelight and jerry rigged gas lamps. But this entire fair sparkles with real, live light.
“Griffin probably has generators ferreted away for special occasions,” Logan says.
Kendall’s forehead furrows. “Is this a special occasion?”
“Sure,” Camille replies. Then, “Come on, Kendall. This fair’s in celebration of you.”
“What?” His tongue feels too thick for his mouth. James is abruptly glowering, face cloaked with darkness.
“You and Mercedes.” Camille grins, glancing wistfully at the Ferris Wheel. “Must be nice, marrying rich.”
“Yeah.” James echoes, “Must be nice.”
Camille catches on quick. That, or Kendall looks really confused. “You didn’t know?”
“I must have…forgotten.” Now that Kendall thinks on it, he vaguely remembers Mercedes mentioning something about her daddy buying her a fair, but Kendall was too distracted by James’s shunning to pay attention to anything but his own mental monologue.
He’s the worst fiancée ever.
Kendall catches James’s eye and thinks that he’s the worst friend ever too.
The plywood of the boardwalk creaks and heaves when they step up onto it, giving every indication that it might cave in beneath their weight, but the shaky legs of the pier continue to hold. At the entrance, near the first brightly lit carnival booth, a hunched figure in a robe of something about as well made as burlap tries to shove a pamphlet into Kendall’s hand.
He gently pushes it back, with a stiff no thank you, and walks on. Camille says, “They’re everywhere now.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know what they’re called, but I know what they want. Legislation.”
“In Verona?”
“Haven’t you read their pamphlets?” Camille lowers her voice, and it is hard to hear her above the whir of machinery and the garish sound of jack-in-the-box music. “They’re trying to get the citizens of our fair city to take their bodies back. Their rights.”
She sounds admiring, and also scared.
Kendall asks, “How have Griffin and Hawk and the CC not wiped them out yet?”
“I don’t think they can find them all.” Camille pauses. “It’s not a bad idea, but they’re carrying it out all wrong.” Something mocking flashes over her face. “May grace light your way,” she mimics with a curtsy.
It doesn’t suit her. Not when the cold metal of her gun flashes tantalizingly against her thigh.
“Guys, is a fried sausage like a corndog?” Carlos asks eagerly, pointing to one booth that advertises all kinds of fried deliciousness.
“Let’s find out,” James tells him. He pulls Carlos along by the crook of his elbow, the smaller boy bouncing on the toes of his sneakers. Kendall watches them go, watches James. The dark corners of his eyes, heavy with lashes, the thickness of his collarbone beneath his v-neck shirt, the way his dark jeans hug his ass…that last one distracts Kendall quite a bit.
He walks the length of the boardwalk with Camille and Logan, trying to clear his head. Out in the distance, ships bob off the shore, glowing green with witch light, foxfire and will o’ the wisps in the distance. They’re probably how Griffin moved the carnival equipment up the coastline so quickly, without anyone noticing. Kendall definitely did not see the giant, skeletal structure of the Ferris Wheel this afternoon.
A voice calls out, “Kendall!” and suddenly Logan and Camille have decided to make themselves scarce. The voice belongs to Mercedes, who flings her arms around Kendall’s neck and nearly bowls him over with a wet, sloppy kiss that draws him in despite himself.
When she pulls back, she declares, “This is ama-zing,” spinning on her heels so that her dress balloons out around her, hair a dervish. She is gold and white and glittering, and maybe Kendall should be thinking about how badly he’s betrayed her, but instead he is caught by how much he still likes her.
When he doesn’t say anything, she backtracks and asks, “No? Is it too much?”
“It is, uh, pretty grand,” Kendall tells her. All around them people brush shoulders, elbows, knees, all with perfect courtesy. It’s hard to imagine that any of them would ever riot, or cheer for an execution, or mug you in a back alley. Tonight, everyone is lit from within.
Mercedes’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “Daddy’s really happy about shackling me down, I guess.”
She says it with more fondness than Kendall knew anyone can have for Arthur Griffin, and he feels stupid for it. Mercedes and Griffin might have waged a cold war over this whole engagement thing, but they’re still family. They still love each other. They have to; that’s what family does.
At that moment the deep, aching wound that is Katie and Kendall’s mom twinges. He never stops feeling their absence, not really, but times like this it is worse. “He’s happy for you, I think.”
She laughs, as self-deprecating as Mercedes ever gets, which is barely. She’s too smart to second guess every word that comes out of her mouth, and Kendall envies her for it. He tries every day to look as confident as Mercedes is. “When I was younger, Daddy used to give me all kinds of things. A Barbie dream Jeep. Diamond earrings. A puppy. I never really thought about how that would escalate. Especially not after the apocalypse.”
Kendall says, “If my mom was here, she’d be trying to throw a gigantic party every day too. We were never, uh, well off, but she tried to give Katie and me everything.”
“Who’s Katie?”
Has he actually never told her? Kendall swallows. “She is - was - my baby sister.”
Mercedes’s eyes widen, beautiful, brown, and thunderstruck. “Oh. Oh god, I’m sorry. I didn’t-“
“It was a long time ago,” Kendall says, trying to keep the sharpness from his voice. He doesn’t quite succeed.
A reply sits on Mercedes’s pretty lips, ready to fly, but at that moment, Griffin finds them, his faithful dog Jett right on his heels. He booms congratulations at Kendall and talks about getting him a taxidermy collection of his very own, which is simultaneously scary and reminds Kendall of sitting in Griffin’s office, that day of the interview, beady glass eyes following his every move. Then, as quickly as he came, the man whisks Mercedes off to the Ferris Wheel. “A father-daughter ride. For old time’s sake.”
“It’s not like I’m going anywhere, Daddy,” Mercedes says, eyes bright, and maybe a little sad. Griffin tilts his head towards her, the strangest expression on his face.
“You’re growing up.”
Kendall thinks that Arthur Griffin grows more human every day that he knows him.
The down side of Daddy and his little girl having fair fun is that they leave Kendall alone with Jett. Search as he might, Kendall can’t spot Camille, Logan, Carlos, or James in the massive crowd, most heads cloaked in the anonymity of darkness. Warily, he says to Jett, “So.”
Jett bares his teeth. “You know, once upon a time, I was supposed to marry her.”
That isn’t what Kendall was expecting at all. He tries to think up how to respond. The only words he finds are, “Do you love her?”
“No.” Jett shrugs, so casual about it that it’s grotesque. “Love is useless. It ends. You break up or you die, and either way, bodies are left on the ground.”
“That’s a pretty fucked up way of viewing the world,” Kendall tells him, scandalized.
“But it’s also true. Every love story turns into a ghost story by the end. My way’s more practical. Marry someone rich and powerful, and at least you get buried with nice things.”
“Your way’s more pessimistic. Money’s not the only way to be happy.”
“It’s the only way to be safe.” Jett’s eyes snap dark colors, oceans and ice floes. It’s hard to tell if he is serious or if he’s just trying to be intimidating. “This place is a pit of lions, and I will not be clawed apart.”
“You’re implying I will,” Kendall says flatly. He resists the urge to wrap his arms around himself, to cover his soft tissue and squishy organs. There is nothing Jett can do to him here, on this brightly lit pier where Kendall is a guest of honor. His gun reminds him of its presence, a familiar bulge beneath his arm, and he remembers learning to shoot it, shoulders squared, feet stirring up dust. He’s a faster draw than Jett. He’s sure of it.
“I’m implying that you better make sure the Princess never has any reason to throw you to the beasts.” Jett delivers his next words with unveiled menace. “I don’t love her, but neither do you.”
For the thousandth time that day, shame floods Kendall’s mouth, bitter tasting and vile. “I care about her.”
“And you think that’s enough? You’re living in a fantasy.”
“What do you mean?”
Jett beckons him to the nearest booth, a cotton candy vendor. They stand in line, not talking, for long, tense minutes on end. It’s only when they both have sticks swathed with pink that Jett speaks, and he is less spiteful than Kendall expects now, more pitying. He mumbles, through a mouthful, “If you were in love, it’d make this easier.”
“Make what easier?”
“Lion’s pit, remember? You think the people in power are happy that some nobody is snatching up the most eligible girl in this city? They’ve been throwing you parties and smiling so lifelike, so they must be overjoyed, right?”
“Uh.” Kendall brushes thick granules of sugar from his mouth. “Are they not?”
“You’re deluded.” Jett snorts and tears viciously at a chunk of his cotton candy. The strings of orange, gold, and yellow lights overhead sharpen his features, turn his cheekbones to razor blades. “You’re a pauper, and you’re marrying this city’s princess. S’not the natural order of things.”
“I work for Griffin.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’ve got a target painted on your back,” Jett replies emphatically, and when he grins, his teeth are stained pink. “Smile pretty, Kendall. The whole world’s watching.”
---
James finds Kendall moping at the far end of the pier, keeping to the shadows behind a booth painted a dark blue, with peeling sideboards and a garish clown guarding its window. Children pile over one another to see into the stall, to throw darts into brightly colored balloons. They’re not very coordinated, but every once in a while Kendall will hear a telling pop.
It makes him think of Logan and Carlos, goading one another on as they learned how to play the game at L’Amour. Logan excels at games that involve the word trajectory, while Carlos fails to hit any target smaller than a hockey goal, more often than not. Even so, they kept playing. They got better, at least marginally.
James props his elbows against the railing. Kendall knows it’s him before he even turns to look at him, his handsome profile outlined by ghostly ships and strings of fairy lights. “This is a pretty seriously rad engagement present, dude.”
“We might get a stuffed wildebeest next,” Kendall says, trying to gauge if James sounds angry or just resigned. It’s hard to tell amidst all the laughter and the noise, shrieking kids vying for prizes and vendors hawking savories of every kind.
James asks, somewhat hopefully, “Stuffed like a teddy bear?”
“Stuffed like someone shot it in the Serengeti and then ripped out its insides.”
“Oh, that’s…lovely.” A snicker rips from James’s mouth, a grin following in its wake. James is the one who is lovely. Around him, the sounds of the fair pale, fade. There is nothing but the quirk of his lips.
Someone so beautiful shouldn’t actually be able to exist in a place like Verona.
He leans close and breathes against the shell of Kendall’s ear, “I hate pretending that we haven’t been together,” and sends Kendall shuddering against him.
It’s deliberate, of course. James knows all the right things to say, all the right things to do. If every relationship ends with some kind of death, then James is a grave robber, looting what’s left behind. He takes advantage of broken girls, girls packing baggage, girls scared to love, all with his kiss-me smile, sweetness and charm.
Kendall must be so easy; he’s just like them, really. Torn up over Jo, conflicted about Mercedes, unsure of the future and what it might hold. But James said he was serious, and Kendall wants to believe him, or maybe he has to.
He cannot forsake the boy who stood by him against backyard bullies and schoolyard rebels and the end of the world.
Carefully, Kendall says, “I’m not exactly a fan either,” leaning against the solid expanse of James’s chest, the rise fall of his ribcage. He wraps one arm around his waist, his fingers working up the taller boy’s spine through the thinness of his t-shirt. Every notch is sacred, flesh over bone, the building blocks that make James real.
Kendall has to pull away too soon, ending their bro-hug before anyone notices, but it’s enough. James is wired, too focused, too intense. He pins Kendall up against the splintered railing. “I saw you with Mercedes, before.”
“What was I supposed to do? Ignore her? Griffin was there, waiting for me to kiss his boots.”
“The only person you kiss is me. Mine. You’re mine.”
“Keep your voice down,” Kendall says, frantically, flapping his hands around, but James catches his wrists.
The kids at the balloon dart booth wander away, clutching plastic toy guns and stuffed pandas, the never-alive kind. James says, “I want to scream it at the top of my lungs. I want everyone to know.”
“Do you want to die?” Kendall demands, outraged and breathless, because the way that James is staring at him hurts. It is jagged glass, depth he didn’t know existed, and an achy, fragile thing that Kendall never realized James was capable of.
“You’re mine,” James reiterates softly, and he says it just like Kendall imagines he’d say I love you. “And I’m yours.”
Kendall can’t take his eyes, liquid pyrite, flecked through with warmer tones. He stares down at the ocean instead, the waves rolling beneath the shifty legs of the pier, onyx-dark and untamed. The idea of belonging to somebody makes him hot inside, when ideally it should piss him off. He’s not a toy, but James has always been flummoxed by concepts like personal space, and if Kendall’s honest with himself, he’s belonged to James long before this ever started. He and James and Carlos and Logan are all linked, a law unto themselves, a package deal. If Kendall could ever be anyone’s possession, he would be theirs, he would be James’s.
He agrees, “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
Satisfied, James rocks back on his heels, craning over the railing to catch a glance of silvery fish playing peek-a-boo in the black. He does not let Kendall move from his position, wedged between James’s body and the edge of the pier, but it’s okay. Kendall isn’t particularly interested in moving.
“Do you remember what it was like before?”
“Of course.” Kendall clings to those memories, even though he’s beginning to think that he shouldn’t, that before is a dream. Thinking back, it’s hazy, the colors too bright, the edges too soft, and Verona is all he’s known for a long while now. All reminiscing does is get him in trouble, like before, with Mercedes and Katie. He says, “I don’t want to remember. I’m here, now, with you.”
James guffaws, loud, always too damn loud. “Look at you. The great romantic, being all…practical.”
“You think I’m romantic?” Kendall bats his eyelashes mockingly.
“Oh, yeah, sure. Let’s see. You’ve blown me off, avoided me, and told me multiple times that we’re going to end up dead.” James ticks off fingers way too gleefully. “You’re a charmer.”
“Hey.”
“I’m serious, it has been a lot of work to get into your pants, okay? Fortunately, I’m persistent.” James beams, hitching his hips against Kendall’s, and Kendall finally shoves him away out of necessity. They’re being too suspicious, acting closer than they should, and Jett’s words are a mantra in his head.
The whole world is watching.
Still, he can’t let James’s terrible accusations go without rebuke. “You threw pants at my head.”
“You deserved it.” He gives Kendall a long look that makes him think of earlier, of James nuzzling against Kendall’s neck, his hand drifting down to skim across Kendall’s dick. “It was worth it.”
Kendall shudders, wanting. He cannot hear the creak of the Ferris Wheel or the shrieks of the crowd or the crash of the waves. His own heartbeat is a roar in his ears. “Was it?”
“Yeah.” James’s lips part, hot breath and a flick of tongue that Kendall wants to feel on his tongue. He reaches out without meaning to, and then remembers.
Lion’s pit.
“James?”
“Yeah?”
“Everyone ends up dead, eventually.”
James breathes fire with a smile, at once otherworldly and recklessly gorgeous and Kendall’s best, most trusted friend. He speaks, and he is certain, more so than he has any right to be.
“Then we better make sure you don’t have any regrets.”
They are in this now, irrevocably.
Together.
---
Author: garnetice
Pairing: Kendall/James, Kendall/Mercedes
Rating: M
Word Count: 7,518 (part seven)
Part: Seven of Thirteen
Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Warnings: Drinking, sex, guns, death, swords, violence, homophobia, sexism, a lot of isms.
Summary: "What are we doing?" Kendall asks, taking a shaky breath. His hands hover over James's abdomen, and James arches forward until they are touching, until Kendall's fingertips press into his skin. "I don't know. But don't stop."
Disclaimer: BTR is not mine. Nor is William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet or the original R&J.
Author Notes: My eternal love to jblostfan16 for the beta.
---
Kendall comes to naked and wrapped in the hot circle of James’s arms. He can hear Carlos snoring softly from the other cot, and from the slant of thin light streaming through the window, he supposes Logan already came home and then left for work again. He wonders if either of their best friends even noticed the bare skin of his and James’s shoulders peeking from beneath the thin, ratty blanket they are sharing, or if they cared. The four of them only have two futons, and they’ve been falling asleep together, in varying orders, for years.
Kendall still flushes an ugly shade of red when he sees how their clothes from last night are strewn haphazardly around the room - is James’s t-shirt sitting out on the balcony? - and he tries not to panic. The apartment’s always a mess. There is no discernible pattern to the heap of James’s boots and pants, shucked off finally, before sleep, or to the place where Kendall’s Hawaiian button down lays at rest. Excepting the heady scent of sex in the air, which is not precisely new, there is nothing that screams of illegality or illicit behavior.
If there had been, Logan would have made a scene, probably, but trying to convince Kendall’s racing heart of that is impossible. He’s tense between his shoulders, stained by culpability, waiting for his own impending execution. He can feel James like gun powder residue all over his body, and it’s appalling, because it is James. He is safety and comfort and home. But he is also strangling Kendall with his proximity, with the play of his breath across the back of Kendall’s neck. Even though Kendall’s body aches just to the right side of painful, he ignores it, struggling free of James’s octopus embrace, shaking off his arms and his thighs and the tangle of his feet.
He dons his boxers quickly, sneaking about the room with the air of someone hoping to escape an uncomfortable one night stand. Which, okay, the guilt and wave of misplaced loyalty is helping nothing. Kendall pulls on holey jeans and something comfortably flannel and bolts from the crashpad without ever glancing down at James and how very naked and vulnerable he is under the cocoon of the thin quilt.
Carlos’s snores chase him down the stairs, thunderous and full of accusation.
Outside, dawn is still stretching over the horizon. Any other day the sky would be bright with potential, but today it is the color of graphite, full of clouds bleeding orange around the edges, leeching jaundice yellow into the vaguest hint above of robin’s egg blue. Kendall’s got work, but fuck work. He makes tracks to the beach, to sunlight that probably won’t ever make an appearance and the crash of storm-tossed water and peace.
Only, when he goes to sprawl out on the hot sand, shucking his t-shirt to the side, he notices the purple-blue imprint of fingers against his hips. A quick search of his body reveals more bruises and black marks, all suspicious in nature. Kendall resolves to keep his clothes on for the next few days, hiding his face in his arms.
What was he thinking? Kendall is choking, his throat is closing up, and that is an omen if ever one existed, the uneven weave of imagined rope cutting into his neck, vertebrae set to snap.
Human bodies are as complicated as a jigsaw puzzle, but they are also equally as easy to break. Kendall has witnessed it firsthand, time and time again, out in the wasteland of America, from the stench of rot in what were once Kansan cornfields to the bleached white bone that littered the back roads of New Mexico. He has seen violence, cold and calculated or manifested in the midst of enraged fits. Kendall hasn’t held any illusions about the softer side of mankind since he was a little boy, more concerned with dinosaurs and constellations than how to make it through tomorrow and the next day. But moving to Verona made him reevaluate evil, what it is and how it works. For Kendall, before, it had existed in the midst of riots, in the hearts of highway men, in hot, livid snatches of fury that turned the meek into murderers.
Then he witnessed his first real execution.
Out in the world, there were walls painted red with distinctive blood splatter. Bands of thieves and lunatics alike would corner innocents, rob them blind or worse, and when they were done they would line them up, little ducks in a row. Bandits do not take prisoners, after all, and survivors have very loose lips. Brain matter and fallen corpses marked the site of each death as symmetrically as headstones, and Kendall thought this was what the word execution meant; brutality, decay, and practicality.
He was part right.
In Verona, the city as fair and beautiful as justice herself, executions also mean an audience. Jeering, raucous crowds, people drunk and people solemn, people who hate and people who fear, children and geriatrics and everyone in between. No firing squad was ever so theatrical, backed by loud proclamations or a frothing mob.
The actual deed can take place anywhere. A rope strung over anything will do. But the first execution Kendall went to occurred in the middle of town, at the official Gallows. Gallows. That word is reminiscent of something very Old English, steps and a platform and a square of wood that would drop out of sight. Instead, Kendall saw a long, skinny beam of timber nearly three stories high, with this weird rope-weight contraption rigged up to it.
They call it a counterbalance gallows, and the great thing about it is that it breaks necks more efficiently than the traditional kind.
That’s what Camille told him, anyway, with only trace amounts of sarcasm in her voice. “A normal hangman’s noose doesn’t kill you right away, not always. With street lamps and platforms, a person can dangle there for hours at a time, asphyxiating slowly. This…isn’t humane, not even a little bit, but the weights take you up so fast that - well, it’s decapitated more than one person.”
Kendall hadn’t given the mechanics a lot of thought then, too occupied by the circus of flesh and death, which he wanted nothing to do with it. But now?
Fusillading still takes place in the city, in dark corners Griffin and Hawk’s men prefer not to police. Each time Kendall stumbles upon a body or three, he has to swallow back guilt and shame and infinite amounts of dread, because his first thought is always this: If it comes down to it, he’d rather die with a rifle at the back of his skull than a rope at the base of his neck.
Ideally, of course, he’d prefer neither.
Kendall wants to hate James for making him want him. He tries to cultivate loathing in the pit of his stomach, to bring it up big and strong like one of the palm trees lining the boardwalk. But he can’t escape the truth; it’s not James’s fault that Kendall can’t stop thinking about him, and blaming James for how incredible he is would be counterintuitive.
Also, hating James is kind of impossible. It’s easier for Kendall to hate himself. So he lies there, feeling sorry for himself, wondering if this has really changed anything. Probably not. Everything he’s done, from the end of the world and beyond, has been for James. And Logan. And Carlos. Everything he does from here on out will probably be the same.
Kendall lifts his head, but the sky has no answers. The city sits in a crater of clouds, about to be swallowed by the true darkness of that storm. Blue seeps through in patches and holes, the sky dotted and ragged. It is no help at all.
For a long time, Kendall watches the clouds gather black, but he is not in the least surprised when company finally finds him. He knew he couldn’t escape James for long. He is ubiquitous in Kendall’s life, in his thoughts, in his memories and his dreams. Besides, there’s only so far a person can run in a walled city. The only ways out are through Hawk’s men or into the sea, and there’s not any point. James was right last night; Kendall gave up running a long time ago.
“Hi,” he greets dully, curling his fingers into the sand. Logan told him once that the beach consists of billions of tiny pieces of crystal, of garnet and quartz, chert and topaz, but for all that rock it is soft in the lines of his palms.
James stares down at him, his figure an unreadable silhouette, haloed by the weak sunlight that deigns to peek through the gray clouds. He plops down in an inelegant pile beside Kendall, his shoulders hunched up around his ears, the line of his back painfully straight. He bunches his fists in the fabric of his jeans and says simply, “Hey.”
He does not force Kendall to meet his gaze, choosing instead to stare out at the water, the waves slate colored beneath their frothy caps as they roll rhythmically into the shore. Kendall waits.
When James does choose to speak again, he is careful, cautious. “I woke up, and you were gone.”
The words don’t ring with blame, not quite, but there is a definite surly note edging James’s consonants. Gulls cry, circling overhead, loud and plaintive. Kendall doesn’t know whether to apologize or ask if James expected him to stick around and cuddle.
Carlos wouldn’t have found that odd in the least, right?
“I wanted to watch the storm come in,” he explains, and never mind that their roof has the best view for that sort of thing.
James shrugs fluidly, from his shoulders to his wrists. “Why? It won’t rain. It never does.”
True enough. Southern California’s endless desert heat rarely breeds any kind of significant downpours. There’s none of the rain Kendall remembers from back home; relentless, harsh beauty that threatened to drown the Earth, at least not often enough that it ever makes any kind of impact.
James’s fingers unlatch from denim, tapping a beat from his knees to his thighs until they come to rest in the sand. His pinky brushes against Kendall’s and Kendall flinches, snatching his hand away.
He regrets it the second it occurs. James’s eyebrows knit together, his teeth gouging into his own lower lip, turning the skin there off-white. Helplessly, he says, “Kendall. If you didn’t want this…”
Kendall kicks his feet into the sand, toes digging down to the damp under-layer. He shuts his eyes against the barely-there sun and tries to reason out the flurry of rampant emotion tearing his insides to shreds. “Dude. Did you hear me say no?”
James lets out a held breath, a gasp of relief. It melts his posture, turns his shoulders less rigid and his limbs less stiff. He scoots down in the sand, building a pillow for his head, and leans back into it. When he peers up at Kendall, his eyes are shining glossy with the end of summer, orange-gold matte. “Then what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know what this is.”
“Since when has that mattered?” James inquires, and it’s not a bad question. Kendall’s never exactly been an advocate of the playboy thing, but he’s been with girls in an, uh, unlabeled, fancy free capacity.
Mercedes, for instance, before her father got involved, and shit, Mercedes. Kendall has barely given her any thought, and now he is sick with it.
Before Griffin passed down his royal decree, their relationship was more or less open. Kendall didn’t fool around with other girls, because monogamy is how he’s wired, but he’s pretty sure Mercedes had a fling or two going on the side. Which was fine, as long as she never read him in on it.
Or mentioned it.
…Kendall has trouble with these modern, new-fangled fuck-buddy dynamics, alright? He does not share well with others.
Still, he wasn’t going to stop her, because it was nice to have the option himself, and it wasn’t like they were for serious. But now? On top of everything else, he’s a cheater and a dirtbag, and that doesn’t sit well with him at all.
For James’s benefit, he shakes off his mental meltdown. “It matters because it’s you, and me, and we’re not something I’m willing to throw away.”
James cranes his head upright as a new group of clouds devour the remaining sun. Now Kendall can see the dark circles beneath his eyes, the red edges of a purpling hickey beneath his jaw. Kendall put that there last night while James’s dick moved rough inside him.
Is it bad that he wants to do it again, and as soon as possible?
James says, “You can’t break us, Kendall. You can’t break me,” and it is a lie, because human beings are fragile by nature. It doesn’t take very much; a rope looped around a neck, a strategically placed bullet wound. Bare hands can do the trick, if there isn’t another alternative. And in Kendall’s case, god, all he’d have to do is let a word slip to Griffin, or Mercedes, or a random stranger on the street. That’s all it would take - a single indication that James was making him uncomfortable - and he’d be broken, destroyed, dead and gone.
“Worst case scenario, somebody finds out and we die,” Kendall tells James in the flattest voice he can muster, because the idea of James dying unleashes a wellspring of complete and utter alarm in his stomach. “Best, and you’ll get bored of me within the week.”
He sounds like a heartless bastard, but only some of it is for show. James and commitment aren’t usually on speaking terms.
James’s response is outraged and immediate. “You think that little of me? That I’m enough of a horny asshole that I’d be willing to risk your life for casual sex?”
Protests leap to Kendall’s lips. Then they die quiet deaths. His nails bite into his palms. “You can’t deny that you’re impulsive.”
“No, you caught me, that’s exactly it. I thought you’d be an easy lay,” James shouts, seething, furious, loud. Kendall has to tackle him into the sand to quiet him, palm pressed to James’s lips, his breathing harsh.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up.” He glances frantically about for anyone who might have overheard, but the beach stretches empty for miles.
James’s ribcage moves updown quickly between Kendall’s knees, heaving with anger. He is glaring murderously up through his eyelashes, ready for a fight. Kendall instructs, “You can’t just yell shit like that,” settling his full weight on James’s chest.
He’s probably crushing him, but whatever, this way James can’t go running up and down the coastline screaming about how he fucked a boy. See? Impulsive bastard.
James mumbles something vile-sounding into Kendall’s skin, eyes spitting rage. It’s a completely inopportune time for Kendall to give into his childish impulses, but Kendall doesn’t let timing stop him from taunting, “I can’t hear you.”
James plants his hands firmly in the center of Kendall’s sternum and shoves. It’s hard enough that Kendall goes flailing backwards into the sand. James is on his knees before Kendall can find his balance, up in Kendall’s face. Rosy spots of annoyance burn on his cheeks, the rest of his skin blanched with anger.
“Hear this,” he hisses. “You’re my friend - my best friend - and if you think I’d put you in danger because I’m hard up, you’re an idiot.” He sounds so intense, so sorely hurt, that Kendall wants to pile every cruel thing he’s said back into his mouth and swallow it down.
Instead, his mouth seems to be intent on speaking without the consent of his brain. Hollowly, he inquires, “Then what? If this isn’t about sex, why can’t you just-“
He flounders, unsure how to finish the sentence. Leave me alone is the exact opposite of what he wants, because life without James is miserable. He barely made it through the past few weeks, driving Logan and Carlos insane while he tried to avoid the crashpad. Find someone else is all wrong; it stirs up spiny thorns in Kendall’s gut. The idea of James putting his hands on anyone else the way he touched Kendall the night prior makes him feel like retching, because James said, had promised, really; you’re mine, and you’ve always been mine, and no one can take you from me. Maybe it’s something James says to everyone, but at the time, Kendall believed it.
He’d never wanted to believe anything more.
And now he has no idea what to believe, what to do or what to say. He stumbles out, slowly, “If this isn’t about sex, then why me? You can have anyone in this city.”
James softens, palpably, warmth flooding his expression. It doesn’t chase the hurt away, but the hard edges are gone. Still, a little roughly, a lot pissed, he says, “Kendall. There’s no one in Verona I’ve ever wanted more than you.”
“Why?” The timidity in his voice is pitiful. James is the only person Kendall would ever let hear him like this, weak and uncertain, nothing like a leader. “I don’t understand.”
James takes Kendall’s hands in his without even bothering to check if there is anyone around to see. He massages his thumbs against Kendall’s knuckles until his fingers relax, flattening out and twining with James’s, however hesitantly. He forces himself not to glance wildly about the beach for spies, focusing only on the way James’s hair rustles with the wind, the warmth of his hands and the sweetness of his smile.
“Why not? You are brave, and you are good. You’re the first face I want to see in the morning, and when I’m lucky, the last I get to see at night. You’re bossy and stubborn, and you think you can solve our lives if you try hard enough. You care more than anyone I’ve ever met. You’ve been my best friend for as long as I can remember, and I’ve wanted to kiss you for as long as I can remember. If you think I’m letting you go now that I’ve finally gotten the chance to do that, you are so beyond mistaken.” James takes a deep breath, ducking his head a little, so that all Kendall can see is the earnestness in his eyes. “I l-“
Kendall can’t let him finish, can’t even dare to wonder how that sentence is going to end. He blurts, “I’m engaged, James.”
“Yeah, I know. Not super ecstatic about that.” James breathes hard, sharp. “I get why you’re going along with it. I do. But - I need you to believe me. I’m not trying to toy with you. I’m not going to meet a girl and get over this. You’re it, Kendall. I’ve been waiting, forever, for you to get that.”
He is so open and earnest that Kendall is winded by it, his heart stuttering beneath his ribcage. “You don’t do this. You don’t do monogamy, or settling down, or one person for the rest of your life.”
“Then why haven’t I ever left?”
“What? That’s not- we’re friends.”
“Best friends,” James agrees. “Forever. There is nothing you could ever say or do that would convince me not to devote myself to you, okay?”
Kendall squeezes James’s hands, still so uncertain, so very lost.
James says, “Look. At the party at Griffin’s, you said the world is tragic. And you’re wrong. The sun is shining, kind of, the waves are definitely crashing, and you’re the most breathtaking thing I’ve ever seen. What’s tragic about that?”
Kendall doesn’t know. He can’t deal with life or with James when they both insist on being so unbearably beautiful. “Uh. That was a really good speech. I see why you charm all the girls.”
“Nah, that’s all charisma and raw talent. There’s not a lot of talking involved.” James cocks his head to the side, grinning crookedly.
Kendall battles back his jealousy. Instead, he says, “I wouldn’t mind going home and not talking.”
James’s lips part. “Ah. Um. Carlos is still there.” He hesitates. “I might know a place we can go.”
---
Kendall ends up with his palms braced against concrete, his hips cocked while James thrusts into him and the sky rips open and pours. The abandoned parking garage is like a cave, every surface damp from the sudden onslaught of rain, concrete slippery beneath his feet. Each sound Kendall makes echoes back at him from a million different angles, amplified and turned alien. When he comes it is loud, his voice bouncing around him, harmonized with James’s, and both of their cries are lost beneath the pounding, endless rain.
---
They’ve barely been inside the apartment for five seconds, soaked down to the bone, when Logan cocks an eyebrow and asks, “Things going well with Mercedes?”
“What?”
“You’re humming.” He makes a face.
Kendall freezes, debating what to say. James actually flushes and goes about hanging his coat on the open door of the bedroom. Carlos is the one who saves the day, swatting Logan’s butt with a spatula of dubious origin. “Don’t listen to Logan. He’s grumpy because he never gets any.”
“When did we get a spatula?” Kendall asks out loud, too relieved and trying to hide it. “We don’t need a spatula.” He turns to James, who is very interested in the state of his sopping wet jacket. “Are we making pancakes? I cannot think of a single reason one of you would buy that thing.”
Logan whimpers about his injured ass, gritting out at Carlos, “At least I’ve had a girlfriend. The healthiest relationship you have is with your right hand.”
“Guys! Spatula? Waste of money?” Kendall tries.
“I didn’t buy it, I found it, and it’s a great fly swatter.” Carlos emphasizes his point by attempting to slap Logan’s ass, again. “And I’ve totally had relationships, okay.”
“Imaginary girlfriends don’t count,” Logan taunts, dancing out of Carlos’s range.
Indignant, Carlos retorts, “I’ll have you know, I’m seeing someone.”
“Since when?” James pipes in incredulously, finally over his embarrassment.
“For a few weeks.” Carlos’s stance shifts. He is laced with nervousness. “Her name’s Stephanie, and she’s really pretty. Really, really…”
“You know seeing someone doesn’t just mean that you can see someone from across the room,” Logan inquires, while James simultaneously asks, “Does Stephanie know you’re seeing her?”
“You guys are cruel, and I am wounded. Wounded, do you hear? This is me, injured and in pain.” Carlos clutches his hands over his heart, staggering.
Kendall’s laughing so hard that he doesn’t hear the door swing open until it hits the wall. He nearly jumps out of skin, struck by the sudden, wild idea that it is Hawk’s men, come to drag him to the scaffold, but the fear is chased away as quickly as it came.
Camille stands in the doorframe, her hair carefully curled. She’s wearing steel-toed boots and a flower-print sundress, short enough that the thigh holster of her gun peeks out from beneath the skirt. “Come on, imbeciles, we’re going to a party.”
“Not interested,” Kendall says, crossing his arms in an attempt to calm his racing heart. It doesn’t work.
Camille rejoins, “You should be interested. Arthur Griffin is putting on a fair.”
“A fair?” James asks. “But it’s pouring.”
Only, it’s not. Out the window they all can see that the rain has tapered off, although the storm hasn’t quite fled yet. A cliff of slate gray clouds stretches overhead with a sheer, dark drop-off right around where the ocean should be, though they can’t see it from the crashpad. That wall might be fluff or it might be the remnants of the monsoon, but either way it looms in the horizon like a sick fantasy waterfall.
“Yeah, no, still. I’m not feeling super festive,” Logan says, and no one is surprised. Logan’s idea of a good time involves candlelight, some watered down hot cocoa, and a thick volume of scientific theory that only about three people on earth really understand.
“You have something better to do?” Camille tosses her hair, the curls tangling on her fingers momentarily before falling across one bare shoulder. Logan follows the gesture with his eyes, dark and wanting. “Pool at L’Amour, again? Guys, this is an actual fair. There are rides and clowns and acrobats. There’s probably a freak show with a bearded lady.”
“Oh, hey, Logan’s mom,” James comments. The glare Logan shoots him could pierce Kevlar, probably, but James is blissfully oblivious.
Camille claps her hands. “Exactly. Come on guys, let’s go see Logan’s kinfolk.”
“My kinfolk aren’t circus people,” Logan grumbles, but he is not very loud. A smile is tugging at his mouth as he stares at Camille.
Carlos snorts, “Could have fooled me,” brandishing his spatula. Kendall plucks it neatly from his grip and drops it on the counter.
“I think we’ll just leave this here.”
“Hey!” Carlos protests, making grabby-hands. “How am I supposed to defend myself against Logan’s baseless accusations now?”
“Well, you do have a gun,” Kendall reasons. Logan squeaks indignantly. “Now come on, you heard the lady, we’re going to visit Loginator’s long lost cousins. Snap to it.”
“Bossy,” Carlos admonishes, but he obediently begins searching for shoes.
“Hot,” James murmurs, leaning over Kendall’s shoulder to grab…uh…something. Possibly the spatula, which is not coming to the fair with them. Either way, Kendall stills, a warning in his eyes.
James simply grins, wickedness lurking at the corners of his lips, and all Kendall can think about is James’s mouth all over his body, only a few hours before. He groans without meaning to, jostling James away with his elbows.
---
The alley leading away from their house is slick, shining, wet from the earlier downpour. The tread of Kendall’s boots slips over the grainy surface of the asphalt. Everything smells of dampness and mold, wet dirt and the distant but distinct stench of low tide, amputated crab legs and rotting kelp.
Camille is humming something from the radio under her breath, one of Gustavo’s discoveries, Kendall thinks. Although there are other studios around, Gustavo is the one with the Midas Touch. He turns every artist he comes into contact with into gold. After a beat, Kendall joins in, singing along. The bare wings of Camille’s shoulder blades flex as she breathes, and although she’s mildly off key, it still sounds very pretty. Pretty enough that James, Logan, and Carlos barge into the tune, building a melody between them, turning it and changing it until it is something all their own.
The song crashes down around their ears when they come within sight of the boardwalk lining the beach. It is transformed. More people than Kendall has seen out after dark in a long, long time line the splintered wood, clutching candles and flashlights. They are a stream of glittering golden light, veins of it like the insets of a gold mine. All of them edge towards the pier at the far end, where lanterns strung like embers burn against the length of the entire thing, an eerie carnival that definitely did not exist a few hours before.
This is life, here, at the edge of civilization.
James tugs them all forward. He always wants to be at the center of everything.
“Now where do you think they got the Ferris Wheel?” Camille asks mildly, her eyes lit blue-white-red by the giant bulbs glowing in the distance.
“Screw that, where’d they get the electricity?” Carlos demands, wide-eyed.
It’s not a bad question. Verona has a power grid of its own, tiny, and manned by Hawk’s men, for necessities only, like the radio. Even places like Carlos’s body shop and Griffin’s mansion are lit by candlelight and jerry rigged gas lamps. But this entire fair sparkles with real, live light.
“Griffin probably has generators ferreted away for special occasions,” Logan says.
Kendall’s forehead furrows. “Is this a special occasion?”
“Sure,” Camille replies. Then, “Come on, Kendall. This fair’s in celebration of you.”
“What?” His tongue feels too thick for his mouth. James is abruptly glowering, face cloaked with darkness.
“You and Mercedes.” Camille grins, glancing wistfully at the Ferris Wheel. “Must be nice, marrying rich.”
“Yeah.” James echoes, “Must be nice.”
Camille catches on quick. That, or Kendall looks really confused. “You didn’t know?”
“I must have…forgotten.” Now that Kendall thinks on it, he vaguely remembers Mercedes mentioning something about her daddy buying her a fair, but Kendall was too distracted by James’s shunning to pay attention to anything but his own mental monologue.
He’s the worst fiancée ever.
Kendall catches James’s eye and thinks that he’s the worst friend ever too.
The plywood of the boardwalk creaks and heaves when they step up onto it, giving every indication that it might cave in beneath their weight, but the shaky legs of the pier continue to hold. At the entrance, near the first brightly lit carnival booth, a hunched figure in a robe of something about as well made as burlap tries to shove a pamphlet into Kendall’s hand.
He gently pushes it back, with a stiff no thank you, and walks on. Camille says, “They’re everywhere now.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know what they’re called, but I know what they want. Legislation.”
“In Verona?”
“Haven’t you read their pamphlets?” Camille lowers her voice, and it is hard to hear her above the whir of machinery and the garish sound of jack-in-the-box music. “They’re trying to get the citizens of our fair city to take their bodies back. Their rights.”
She sounds admiring, and also scared.
Kendall asks, “How have Griffin and Hawk and the CC not wiped them out yet?”
“I don’t think they can find them all.” Camille pauses. “It’s not a bad idea, but they’re carrying it out all wrong.” Something mocking flashes over her face. “May grace light your way,” she mimics with a curtsy.
It doesn’t suit her. Not when the cold metal of her gun flashes tantalizingly against her thigh.
“Guys, is a fried sausage like a corndog?” Carlos asks eagerly, pointing to one booth that advertises all kinds of fried deliciousness.
“Let’s find out,” James tells him. He pulls Carlos along by the crook of his elbow, the smaller boy bouncing on the toes of his sneakers. Kendall watches them go, watches James. The dark corners of his eyes, heavy with lashes, the thickness of his collarbone beneath his v-neck shirt, the way his dark jeans hug his ass…that last one distracts Kendall quite a bit.
He walks the length of the boardwalk with Camille and Logan, trying to clear his head. Out in the distance, ships bob off the shore, glowing green with witch light, foxfire and will o’ the wisps in the distance. They’re probably how Griffin moved the carnival equipment up the coastline so quickly, without anyone noticing. Kendall definitely did not see the giant, skeletal structure of the Ferris Wheel this afternoon.
A voice calls out, “Kendall!” and suddenly Logan and Camille have decided to make themselves scarce. The voice belongs to Mercedes, who flings her arms around Kendall’s neck and nearly bowls him over with a wet, sloppy kiss that draws him in despite himself.
When she pulls back, she declares, “This is ama-zing,” spinning on her heels so that her dress balloons out around her, hair a dervish. She is gold and white and glittering, and maybe Kendall should be thinking about how badly he’s betrayed her, but instead he is caught by how much he still likes her.
When he doesn’t say anything, she backtracks and asks, “No? Is it too much?”
“It is, uh, pretty grand,” Kendall tells her. All around them people brush shoulders, elbows, knees, all with perfect courtesy. It’s hard to imagine that any of them would ever riot, or cheer for an execution, or mug you in a back alley. Tonight, everyone is lit from within.
Mercedes’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “Daddy’s really happy about shackling me down, I guess.”
She says it with more fondness than Kendall knew anyone can have for Arthur Griffin, and he feels stupid for it. Mercedes and Griffin might have waged a cold war over this whole engagement thing, but they’re still family. They still love each other. They have to; that’s what family does.
At that moment the deep, aching wound that is Katie and Kendall’s mom twinges. He never stops feeling their absence, not really, but times like this it is worse. “He’s happy for you, I think.”
She laughs, as self-deprecating as Mercedes ever gets, which is barely. She’s too smart to second guess every word that comes out of her mouth, and Kendall envies her for it. He tries every day to look as confident as Mercedes is. “When I was younger, Daddy used to give me all kinds of things. A Barbie dream Jeep. Diamond earrings. A puppy. I never really thought about how that would escalate. Especially not after the apocalypse.”
Kendall says, “If my mom was here, she’d be trying to throw a gigantic party every day too. We were never, uh, well off, but she tried to give Katie and me everything.”
“Who’s Katie?”
Has he actually never told her? Kendall swallows. “She is - was - my baby sister.”
Mercedes’s eyes widen, beautiful, brown, and thunderstruck. “Oh. Oh god, I’m sorry. I didn’t-“
“It was a long time ago,” Kendall says, trying to keep the sharpness from his voice. He doesn’t quite succeed.
A reply sits on Mercedes’s pretty lips, ready to fly, but at that moment, Griffin finds them, his faithful dog Jett right on his heels. He booms congratulations at Kendall and talks about getting him a taxidermy collection of his very own, which is simultaneously scary and reminds Kendall of sitting in Griffin’s office, that day of the interview, beady glass eyes following his every move. Then, as quickly as he came, the man whisks Mercedes off to the Ferris Wheel. “A father-daughter ride. For old time’s sake.”
“It’s not like I’m going anywhere, Daddy,” Mercedes says, eyes bright, and maybe a little sad. Griffin tilts his head towards her, the strangest expression on his face.
“You’re growing up.”
Kendall thinks that Arthur Griffin grows more human every day that he knows him.
The down side of Daddy and his little girl having fair fun is that they leave Kendall alone with Jett. Search as he might, Kendall can’t spot Camille, Logan, Carlos, or James in the massive crowd, most heads cloaked in the anonymity of darkness. Warily, he says to Jett, “So.”
Jett bares his teeth. “You know, once upon a time, I was supposed to marry her.”
That isn’t what Kendall was expecting at all. He tries to think up how to respond. The only words he finds are, “Do you love her?”
“No.” Jett shrugs, so casual about it that it’s grotesque. “Love is useless. It ends. You break up or you die, and either way, bodies are left on the ground.”
“That’s a pretty fucked up way of viewing the world,” Kendall tells him, scandalized.
“But it’s also true. Every love story turns into a ghost story by the end. My way’s more practical. Marry someone rich and powerful, and at least you get buried with nice things.”
“Your way’s more pessimistic. Money’s not the only way to be happy.”
“It’s the only way to be safe.” Jett’s eyes snap dark colors, oceans and ice floes. It’s hard to tell if he is serious or if he’s just trying to be intimidating. “This place is a pit of lions, and I will not be clawed apart.”
“You’re implying I will,” Kendall says flatly. He resists the urge to wrap his arms around himself, to cover his soft tissue and squishy organs. There is nothing Jett can do to him here, on this brightly lit pier where Kendall is a guest of honor. His gun reminds him of its presence, a familiar bulge beneath his arm, and he remembers learning to shoot it, shoulders squared, feet stirring up dust. He’s a faster draw than Jett. He’s sure of it.
“I’m implying that you better make sure the Princess never has any reason to throw you to the beasts.” Jett delivers his next words with unveiled menace. “I don’t love her, but neither do you.”
For the thousandth time that day, shame floods Kendall’s mouth, bitter tasting and vile. “I care about her.”
“And you think that’s enough? You’re living in a fantasy.”
“What do you mean?”
Jett beckons him to the nearest booth, a cotton candy vendor. They stand in line, not talking, for long, tense minutes on end. It’s only when they both have sticks swathed with pink that Jett speaks, and he is less spiteful than Kendall expects now, more pitying. He mumbles, through a mouthful, “If you were in love, it’d make this easier.”
“Make what easier?”
“Lion’s pit, remember? You think the people in power are happy that some nobody is snatching up the most eligible girl in this city? They’ve been throwing you parties and smiling so lifelike, so they must be overjoyed, right?”
“Uh.” Kendall brushes thick granules of sugar from his mouth. “Are they not?”
“You’re deluded.” Jett snorts and tears viciously at a chunk of his cotton candy. The strings of orange, gold, and yellow lights overhead sharpen his features, turn his cheekbones to razor blades. “You’re a pauper, and you’re marrying this city’s princess. S’not the natural order of things.”
“I work for Griffin.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’ve got a target painted on your back,” Jett replies emphatically, and when he grins, his teeth are stained pink. “Smile pretty, Kendall. The whole world’s watching.”
---
James finds Kendall moping at the far end of the pier, keeping to the shadows behind a booth painted a dark blue, with peeling sideboards and a garish clown guarding its window. Children pile over one another to see into the stall, to throw darts into brightly colored balloons. They’re not very coordinated, but every once in a while Kendall will hear a telling pop.
It makes him think of Logan and Carlos, goading one another on as they learned how to play the game at L’Amour. Logan excels at games that involve the word trajectory, while Carlos fails to hit any target smaller than a hockey goal, more often than not. Even so, they kept playing. They got better, at least marginally.
James props his elbows against the railing. Kendall knows it’s him before he even turns to look at him, his handsome profile outlined by ghostly ships and strings of fairy lights. “This is a pretty seriously rad engagement present, dude.”
“We might get a stuffed wildebeest next,” Kendall says, trying to gauge if James sounds angry or just resigned. It’s hard to tell amidst all the laughter and the noise, shrieking kids vying for prizes and vendors hawking savories of every kind.
James asks, somewhat hopefully, “Stuffed like a teddy bear?”
“Stuffed like someone shot it in the Serengeti and then ripped out its insides.”
“Oh, that’s…lovely.” A snicker rips from James’s mouth, a grin following in its wake. James is the one who is lovely. Around him, the sounds of the fair pale, fade. There is nothing but the quirk of his lips.
Someone so beautiful shouldn’t actually be able to exist in a place like Verona.
He leans close and breathes against the shell of Kendall’s ear, “I hate pretending that we haven’t been together,” and sends Kendall shuddering against him.
It’s deliberate, of course. James knows all the right things to say, all the right things to do. If every relationship ends with some kind of death, then James is a grave robber, looting what’s left behind. He takes advantage of broken girls, girls packing baggage, girls scared to love, all with his kiss-me smile, sweetness and charm.
Kendall must be so easy; he’s just like them, really. Torn up over Jo, conflicted about Mercedes, unsure of the future and what it might hold. But James said he was serious, and Kendall wants to believe him, or maybe he has to.
He cannot forsake the boy who stood by him against backyard bullies and schoolyard rebels and the end of the world.
Carefully, Kendall says, “I’m not exactly a fan either,” leaning against the solid expanse of James’s chest, the rise fall of his ribcage. He wraps one arm around his waist, his fingers working up the taller boy’s spine through the thinness of his t-shirt. Every notch is sacred, flesh over bone, the building blocks that make James real.
Kendall has to pull away too soon, ending their bro-hug before anyone notices, but it’s enough. James is wired, too focused, too intense. He pins Kendall up against the splintered railing. “I saw you with Mercedes, before.”
“What was I supposed to do? Ignore her? Griffin was there, waiting for me to kiss his boots.”
“The only person you kiss is me. Mine. You’re mine.”
“Keep your voice down,” Kendall says, frantically, flapping his hands around, but James catches his wrists.
The kids at the balloon dart booth wander away, clutching plastic toy guns and stuffed pandas, the never-alive kind. James says, “I want to scream it at the top of my lungs. I want everyone to know.”
“Do you want to die?” Kendall demands, outraged and breathless, because the way that James is staring at him hurts. It is jagged glass, depth he didn’t know existed, and an achy, fragile thing that Kendall never realized James was capable of.
“You’re mine,” James reiterates softly, and he says it just like Kendall imagines he’d say I love you. “And I’m yours.”
Kendall can’t take his eyes, liquid pyrite, flecked through with warmer tones. He stares down at the ocean instead, the waves rolling beneath the shifty legs of the pier, onyx-dark and untamed. The idea of belonging to somebody makes him hot inside, when ideally it should piss him off. He’s not a toy, but James has always been flummoxed by concepts like personal space, and if Kendall’s honest with himself, he’s belonged to James long before this ever started. He and James and Carlos and Logan are all linked, a law unto themselves, a package deal. If Kendall could ever be anyone’s possession, he would be theirs, he would be James’s.
He agrees, “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
Satisfied, James rocks back on his heels, craning over the railing to catch a glance of silvery fish playing peek-a-boo in the black. He does not let Kendall move from his position, wedged between James’s body and the edge of the pier, but it’s okay. Kendall isn’t particularly interested in moving.
“Do you remember what it was like before?”
“Of course.” Kendall clings to those memories, even though he’s beginning to think that he shouldn’t, that before is a dream. Thinking back, it’s hazy, the colors too bright, the edges too soft, and Verona is all he’s known for a long while now. All reminiscing does is get him in trouble, like before, with Mercedes and Katie. He says, “I don’t want to remember. I’m here, now, with you.”
James guffaws, loud, always too damn loud. “Look at you. The great romantic, being all…practical.”
“You think I’m romantic?” Kendall bats his eyelashes mockingly.
“Oh, yeah, sure. Let’s see. You’ve blown me off, avoided me, and told me multiple times that we’re going to end up dead.” James ticks off fingers way too gleefully. “You’re a charmer.”
“Hey.”
“I’m serious, it has been a lot of work to get into your pants, okay? Fortunately, I’m persistent.” James beams, hitching his hips against Kendall’s, and Kendall finally shoves him away out of necessity. They’re being too suspicious, acting closer than they should, and Jett’s words are a mantra in his head.
The whole world is watching.
Still, he can’t let James’s terrible accusations go without rebuke. “You threw pants at my head.”
“You deserved it.” He gives Kendall a long look that makes him think of earlier, of James nuzzling against Kendall’s neck, his hand drifting down to skim across Kendall’s dick. “It was worth it.”
Kendall shudders, wanting. He cannot hear the creak of the Ferris Wheel or the shrieks of the crowd or the crash of the waves. His own heartbeat is a roar in his ears. “Was it?”
“Yeah.” James’s lips part, hot breath and a flick of tongue that Kendall wants to feel on his tongue. He reaches out without meaning to, and then remembers.
Lion’s pit.
“James?”
“Yeah?”
“Everyone ends up dead, eventually.”
James breathes fire with a smile, at once otherworldly and recklessly gorgeous and Kendall’s best, most trusted friend. He speaks, and he is certain, more so than he has any right to be.
“Then we better make sure you don’t have any regrets.”
They are in this now, irrevocably.
Together.
---