Another Sid/Andy fic
Title: Under the Table and Dreaming
Pairing: Sid/Andy
Rating: NC-17
Words: 15,000
Warning: Adolescent fumblings, nothing graphic or penetrative until they're in their late teens. Spoilers for the new movie.
Summary: Andy met Sid when he was four years old, and while some things change, a lot of things stay the same.
The first time Andy saw Sid, he was four years old. His father had just run away to California, and his mother had moved Andy and his sister into a new, smaller house. She put up blue wallpaper with fluffy white clouds to make Andy feel better about the fact that his dad was gone. Andy spent most days feeling confused, increasingly losing himself in his imagination, playing alone in the backyard. One day, a shadow fell over his toys, and he looked up to see a boy in a black t-shirt scowling at him.
“What are you doing?” the boy asked. He seemed angry about something.
“Playing,” Andy said, blinking up at the boy, who was pale and dark-haired.
“Duh,” the boy said, though he was the one who'd asked. “How old are you?”
“Four years.”
The boy scoffed. “I'm five,” he said. Andy sat down and stared up at the boy, holding Woody the cowboy in one hand and Rex the dinosaur in the other.
“Want to play with me?” he asked, not sure what this kid wanted if not that. Sid gave Andy's toys a once-over.
“No,” he said, but he sat down with Andy and watched him play for awhile, his eyes narrowed as if he was trying to translate a foreign language. Eventually, he grabbed Rex and made him into a mad rampaging dinosaur who ate everyone in town.
“That's not fun,” Andy said, pouting. “If everyone's dead then it's like they can't play anymore.”
“Yeah, well, this game is dumb anyway,” Sid said. He stood up and kicked at the dirt. “Have you ever lit fireworks?” he asked.
“No,” Andy said.
“I have,” Sid said, looking up at the sky wistfully. “It was awesome. I wish I had some fireworks.”
Andy didn't really know what to say. He picked up Woody and the others, brushing dirt from them.
“You're a big dork, kid,” Sid said, and Andy glared at him.
“Shut up,” he said, and Sid stomped off, disappearing through a loose plank in the fence that separated his yard from Andy's. Andy huffed in annoyance and turned back to his toys, but he couldn't really concentrate on imaginary games for the rest of the day, his heart still beating fast from his encounter with the neighbor boy, whose name he'd forgotten to ask.
*
Sid started showing up on a regular basis after that, and if he didn't show, Andy would slip through the loose plank and kick around Sid's messy backyard until he emerged from the back door of his house. Sid's games mostly made Andy mad, and he wasn't sure why he bothered playing with him at all. Sometimes they would get in bad fights and avoid each other for weeks. Sid went to Andy's school, but among the other kids he ignored Andy, who mostly played house with the girls. They would always fight over which of them got to be Andy's wife before eventually deciding that they would rather have him be the baby. Andy was terrified of them, so he went along with whatever they wanted.
Sid's favorite games were doctor and interrogation. They were both played in the very back of his yard, underneath the rotting old picnic table, which was shaded by a tree with purple leaves that Andy liked to climb when Sid allowed it. Sid was bossy and even mean, but Andy would show up anyway, to see what sort of mischief Sid was getting into, even after Andy's mother forbade him from going over to Sid's house. Sid's father was a 'bad man,' according to her, and a 'drunk,' according to Sid, who didn't have a mother, only a step-mother and step-sister, both of whom he hated. Andy didn't have a problem with Hannah, Sid's little step-sister, but his step-mother was mean during Andy's few encounters with her, once making a rude remark about his cowboy hat.
By the time Andy was eight and Sid was nine most of their games dissolved into wrestling matches. Usually Sid won, and on some days Andy wouldn't bother putting up a fight, would just lie there under the picnic table while Sid sat on top of him, threatening to spit into his mouth if he didn't divulge the secrets of whatever government agency Sid's terrorist organization was planning on bringing down.
“Hand over those blueprints,” Sid would say, mostly using tickle torture until Andy's eyes were watering, his sides aching. Andy would get so angry, trying to push Sid off, mad at himself for thinking that playing with Sid would actually be fun for once. Trying to struggle free was always hopeless, Sid's thighs pinned tightly around Andy's hips and his hands pressing Andy's shoulders down. He always looked frighteningly happy when he had Andy trapped like this, pretending to be his sadistic doctor or ruthless captor.
One day when they were playing interrogation, Sid threatening to shove a beetle that he'd trapped in a glass jar up Andy's nose if he didn't give him the access code to a government computer, the back door banged open and Sid went as rigid as a startled squirrel, turning toward the house.
“Sid!” his father shouted, sounding furious and unwell, stumbling a little as he came out onto the cracked back patio. “Where the hell are you?”
“Don't say a word,” Sid whispered, dropping down over Andy, the jar with the beetle rolling away. Sid clamped both hands over Andy's mouth and stared down at him with his eyebrows pinched, as if Andy wanted to be found. Andy was afraid of Sid's father, who was rarely awake during the day but never in a good mood when he was.
They stayed like that while Sid's father paced around the patio, ranting and kicking Sid's broken toys out of his way. Sid was breathing hard, his eyes locked on the patio as he crouched low over Andy, hiding from his father. Andy was afraid to even look at the patio, so he kept his eyes on Sid, watching a thin bead of sweat run from his temple down to his chin. Finally, Sid's father banged back inside, muttering a string of curse words that made Andy's heart pound. Sid let out a huff of breath and looked down at Andy, unable to hide the fear in his eyes quickly enough to keep it from him.
“You're lucky you don't have a dad,” Sid said, removing his hands from Andy's mouth but still leaning over him, his back hunched and his elbows in the dirt beside Andy's ears.
“No, I'm not,” Andy said. He realized that he could issue a surprise attack and knock Sid off of him, but the game seemed to be over, anyway. They both just laid there for awhile, their chests pressing together as they drew panted breath, wind rustling through the purple-leafed tree.
“What's your problem, anyway?” Sid asked when he finally sat up. “Why do you come over here just so I can beat up on you?”
“Maybe I won't anymore,” Andy said, surprised to find that he was hurt by this. Sid scoffed and slid off of him, flicking at the jar with the beetle in it. Andy got up with an indignant sniffle and crawled out from under the picnic table, heading for the loose fence plank without looking back.
*
For a couple of weeks, Andy didn't go over to Sid's yard, and Sid didn't come to his. Andy tried to be glad about this, because he didn't miss Sid's tyrannical games or stupid insults, but something about playing by himself wasn't as fun if he hadn't just recently escaped the grip of Sid, feeling like he'd barely made it out with his life. Still, even at eight years old he had pride, and Sid had called him on something he'd worried about for some time. Why did he go over there when he knew Sid was just going to tease and overpower him, eventually dragging him under the picnic table to sit on him while he wore himself out with attempts to get free? Andy decided that he'd just been dumb before, and that he was smarter now.
A few nights after he'd come to this conclusion, Andy was awake in his bed, trying not to be afraid of the thunderstorm that he could hear rumbling in the distance, moving closer. He heard a tapping sound and jumped a little under the blankets, afraid to look at the window, which was where the sound had come from. He gasped and pulled his blankets up to his chin when he saw a dark figure crouched outside the window, sitting on the roof of the back porch.
“Open up, dummy,” the figure said, and Andy let out his breath when he realized it was only Sid. He tossed his blankets aside and went to the window, his heart still pounding. When he opened the window he could smell the rain in the air, though it hadn't started yet. Sid pushed his way inside without waiting for an invitation.
“What are you doing?” Andy asked in a whisper. “I'm supposed to be in bed - I'll get in trouble!”
Sid was agitated, breathing hard and pacing around the room. Andy wanted to tell him to get out, but that thing that drew him to Sid despite his better instincts was growing inside his chest, making him curious.
“My stupid fucking dad had the cops called on him,” Sid says. “I just need to lay low here so they don't - take me away or anything.”
“What?” Andy said. He went to the window, which was still open, the wind blowing that rain-smell in hard. He could hear voices from the front of Sid's yard, and he could see a flash of blue light. When he turned around to gape at Sid in disbelief, he saw that Sid was sitting on the floor with his back to Andy's bed, his knees pulled to his chest and his face buried in his folded arms.
“Who - who called the police on him?” Andy asked, feeling disoriented and nervous. He thought of calling for his mom, but she would just get mad at him for letting Sid inside. Andy wasn't supposed to talk to him, let alone have him in his room.
“Who do you think?” Sid asked, his voice broken as he lifted his wet face, trying to scowl but only managing a sob. “His dumb wife, my step-mother. I hate her - and him. They're so worthless.” He sobbed and hid his face again.
Andy was dumbstruck. He never, ever thought he would see Sid cry, no matter what happened. He walked slowly across the room, moving with caution, afraid to set Sid off but unwilling to let him sit there crying all by himself. Sid seemed so much smaller than he usually did, curled in on himself as his shoulders shook with sobs.
“It's okay,” Andy said softly as he sat down beside Sid.
“No, it's not,” Sid cried, the words trembling as he pushed out more tears. Andy scooted closer, patting Sid's back very carefully, afraid that Sid would snap up and tell him to get away. When he didn't, Andy slid his arm around Sid's shoulders, resting his knees against Sid's side. Sid was wearing pajama pants and his usual black skull t-shirt, and he didn't have any shoes on. The fight between his step-mother and father must have woken him. Andy moaned a little at the thought of how scary it must have been, bad enough to involve the police. He hugged Sid to him, and to his surprise, Sid didn't push him away, just leaned down to hide his face against Andy's chest, clutching at him.
“It's okay,” Andy said again, because he didn't know what else to say. He pet Sid's hair and hugged him tight, which was what Andy's mother always did when he cried. It seemed to work on Sid, too, his crying quieting to just a few sniffles, and eventually he went quiet, his fist closed in the front of Andy's pajama top.
“I hate them,” Sid said after awhile, the thunder outside getting louder. The wind was making the branches on the trees toss wildly, leaves thrashing. Andy began to feel glad that Sid was safe inside with him.
“You can stay here,” Andy whispered. “If you're quiet.”
Sid didn't say anything, just scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. He looked unrecognizable, soft and scared, and though Andy had indulged some fantasies about making Sid cry, giving him a taste of his own bullying medicine, he wasn't enjoying this at all. He went over to shut the window as the rain arrived outside, pelting the roof of the porch. When he turned back to his bed Sid was climbing into it, turning toward the wall. Andy sighed and climbed in behind him, pulling the blankets up over Sid first, then arranging them over his own legs. He settled down onto his pillow, watching Sid's back as he continued to sniffle and rub at his face.
“Are you okay?” Andy whispered as thunder crashed loudly outside, the kind of thing that would scare him if he wasn't so distracted by the fact that the neighborhood bully was crying in his bed.
“Yeah,” Sid said, his voice smaller and squeakier than Andy had ever heard it. He rolled over, not looking at Andy, just pressing his face to Andy's chest, worming into his arms. Andy wrapped Sid up tightly, thinking he might cry again, but Sid was quiet, his wet eyelashes tickling the hollow of Andy's throat.
Sid never thanked Andy for letting him stay that night, or for holding him while thunder rattled the windowpanes and rain pelted against the house. Andy stayed awake for a long time, petting Sid's short hair while he slept. He'd always liked the idea of caring for someone who needed saving, being a hero, and he also liked the way the short spikes of Sid's buzz cut felt as they tickled against his palm. He fell asleep with his hand cupped around the back of Sid's head, and woke to the feeling of Sid climbing over him, rubbing his eyes and heading toward the window. Andy turned to watch him go, wondering if he should ask Sid to stay, though he knew that wouldn't be a good idea. Sid stopped when he had one leg on either side of the window and looked back at Andy. He seemed like he wanted to say something, then just looked down at his hands and left without speaking. Andy could hear the wet thump of Sid's feet hitting the muddy the yard as he jumped from the roof of the porch.
A couple of weeks later, Andy's family moved to a new house. He didn't see Sid on moving day, too preoccupied with making sure he had all his toys, but he did think about him as the car pulled from the driveway for the last time, and wondered where Sid would go to if he needed shelter from another storm.
*
Andy was zoned into a new elementary school after the move, even though the new house was only a few streets over from the old one. Making friends wasn't easy; Sid seemed to have been right about Andy being a dork. It didn't take him too long to find the school's other dorks and join their ranks, and soon he had some pretty good buddies among them, guys who were considered weak or babyish by the cool kids who used curse words and held hands with girls.
Andy didn't care much about being cool, though sometimes he and his friends pretended they were, cursing and trying to act tough around each other. This charade usually ended when one of the cool boys walked by and smashed the offending dork into a wall before strolling causally away. Aside from these social complications, Andy liked school, especially math and history. He hated grammar, and science could go either way. In fifth grade he decided he wanted to be a geologist and started collecting cool rocks. His friend Tim showed him how to play Dungeons and Dragons, and his friend Paul helped him make a skateboarding ramp. Life was pretty good.
Middle school changed everything. Suddenly their school was three times the size of their elementary school, with three sets of elementary kids all dumped together, the firmly established social hierarchy completely screwed up. Tim almost immediately got a girlfriend, a dorky girl who played an elf mage in their weekend games of D&D, and this horrified Andy, who still had no interest in girls. Paul somehow got cool over the summer and was suddenly smoking cigarettes with his older brother, rolling his eyes at Andy when Andy wanted to pretend they were pro skateboarders who were competing for the world championship. It was like everyone was suddenly infected with a disease that made them try to act older. Tim was talking about first base and second base in a way that didn't relate to baseball, and Paul wasn't talking to Andy at all.
Andy refused to take part in his former friends' attempts to seem cool. It was dumb, and pointless, because the eighth graders still laughed at them and called them babies on the school bus. One day, Andy decided to rebel by wearing one of his faded old Buzz Lightyear t-shirts. He hoped that some of the kids would get a kick out of it and remember what it was like when they weren't pretending to be grown-up all the time.
His masterful shirt plan didn't really work out. Instead, it made him a target at the bus stop and again in the hallways at school, girls laughing loud and boys shoving his shoulders and asking him if he was five years old. Andy was on the verge of calling home sick as he headed for the boys' bathroom after lunch, and when someone grabbed his t-shirt and yanked him backward, he knew he was in for more humiliation at best, a beating at worst.
The last thing he expected when he turned and raised his red-rimmed eyes was Sid. Andy's mouth fell open, and goosebumps rose all over his body. Just looking at Sid made his stomach feel heavier, like Sid was sitting on it the way he always used to. Sid laughed, shaking his head.
“Gimme that,” Sid said, grabbing Andy's bookbag.
“Don't,” Andy said lamely, knowing that he couldn't stop Sid from doing whatever he wanted. Sid had gotten bigger and taller since the last time Andy saw him, and his eyes were just as mean as they'd always been as he threw Andy's bookbag to the ground and grabbed the hem of his shirt.
“Hey - don't!” Andy said, struggling feebly as Sid pulled his shirt off. Andy moaned and crossed his arms over his naked chest, his bottom lip trembling. Everyone else had filed into their classrooms and the hall was empty, but if Sid made him go back to class with no shirt, the laughter would never stop.
“Here, dummy,” Sid said, turning the t-shirt inside out. “Lift up your arms.”
Andy hesitated, then did as Sid asked when he narrowed his eyes. Sid slipped the t-shirt back on him, the smiling Buzz Lightyear hidden on the inside now. Andy was relieved for a moment, but he sucked in his breath when Sid pulled a knife from his back pocket and flipped it open.
“You need to develop some basic survival skills or you'll be dead by Thanksgiving break,” Sid said. He turned Andy around and used the knife to saw off the tag that was poking up against Andy's neck.
“Everyone's going to know I just turned my shirt inside out,” Andy said, his face burning red when Sid turned him around to face him again. “It's like they won or something.”
“Big deal,” Sid said. “If you think you're going to get far in middle school by trying to make a statement or go against the crowd, you're dumber than I thought.”
“I hate you,” Andy said softly, but it didn't feel true, and only made his face burn hotter. Sid grinned, still holding Andy by the shoulders. His braces were gone, and his buzz cut had grown out. His hair seemed darker than Andy remembered.
“Are you in seventh grade?” Andy asked, taking his bookbag when Sid handed it to him.
“Sixth,” Sid said. “For the second year in a row.”
Andy huffed, imagining that Sid had gotten himself held back just so he could torment Andy. This was only Andy's third week at school, and things just kept getting worse. Except that, in a strange way, he was kind of glad to have Sid around again. He wondered if Sid smoked cigarettes and had girlfriends. Probably. He'd always liked lighting things on fire, and he'd gotten kind of good-looking, the sort of boy who girls would have crushes on.
“Do you want survival lessons?” Sid asked as the bell rang, warning students to get into their classrooms.
“What do you mean?” Andy asked, though was pretty sure he understood what Sid was offering. It was embarrassing, and stupid, but Andy had been lonely since he lost his friends to coolness.
“I'll be at Pizza Planet after school,” Sid said. “Meet me there if you want to learn how to not act like a loser.”
Later that night, Sid slapped his forehead and gave Andy his first pro tip: don't show up at Pizza Planet with your mom and your baby sister.
*
With Sid on his side, middle school got better. Sid showed Andy how to dress in looser jeans and cooler t-shirts, and told him which shoes he should beg his mother to buy. The crowd Sid hung out with was mostly comprised of seventh graders who were way too cool for Andy, but they tolerated Andy because Sid vouched for him. Andy wondered all the time why Sid was being nice to him, and all he could come up with was that Sid was still secretly grateful for that night when Andy let him sleep in his bed. When Andy thought about it he got that heavy feeling in his stomach, the same one he got when he watched Sid blow smoke rings. Sid smoked cigarettes, but he didn't have a girlfriend, though one of the girls who hung in their crowd seemed to want him to ask her out. Her name was Jill, and she wore dark eyeliner that made Andy nervous.
“Do you like Jill?” Andy asked one day when he was walking home from school with Sid. Apparently the bus was for losers.
“No,” Sid said without hesitation, and Andy had to chew away a smile. He was glad.
Sid was still a jerk. He made fun of Andy for not knowing anything about music, and brought Andy over to his house after school to play mp3s for him. He showed Andy how to download music for free, and impressed him by finding downloads of movies that had just been released.
“Isn't this stealing?” Andy said one afternoon when they were lying on their stomachs on Sid's bed, watching the newest James Bond movie on Sid's laptop. Sid just laughed. Andy had learned when to drop certain subjects, and he put his chin on his folded arms, feeling guilty as he watched James Bond jump off an exploding yacht.
“When you're ready, I can show you how to download porn,” Sid said after they'd both moved up to the seventh grade, Sid barely passing and Andy on the honor roll.
“Gross,” Andy muttered. There were jokes about porn told at school, but even the jokes made Andy feel queasy.
“I knew you weren't ready,” Sid said. They were walking home from school, Sid twirling his lighter between his fingers like a magician, waiting until they'd gotten far enough from the main road to light a cigarette. “I bet you don't even beat off.”
“Shut up,” Andy said. He did, actually, but this was a very recent development and he didn't want to discuss it with Sid.
Seventh grade was better than sixth, the social hierarchy reestablished. Andy was still friends with Tim, but Paul was long lost to them, a druggie who hung out with high school freshmen on Friday nights. Tim had broken up with his girlfriend and gained about twenty pounds. He was usually pretty depressed and annoying during their D&D games.
“Why do you hang out with that loser Sid?” Tim asked Andy one night when Andy was spending the night at Tim's house, in a sleeping bag on the floor of Tim's bedroom. It was an old sleeping bag with Buzz Lightyear on it, but Tim would never make fun of Andy for such a thing.
“Sid's not a loser,” Andy said, though he knew this wasn't true. Sid smoked, which was stupid, and he didn't care about school, which was going to cost him. He lived alone with his dad now, the step-mother and Hannah long gone. Their house was never clean. At school, Sid outranked both Andy and Tim, but in the real world, Sid was the track to loser-hood.
“He's a freak,” Tim said. “He's always setting stuff on fire, and Jake Vale told me that he told his math teacher to fuck off and got suspended for two days.”
“Yeah.” Andy knew about that already. The math teacher was mean to Sid; she made fun of him for not being very good at math, and made the honor kids twitter with laughter, which made Sid want to burn the whole school down. The walk home from school hadn't been pleasant that day.
“How'd you even get to be friends with him?” Tim asked, and Andy smiled a little in the darkness, because Tim sounded kind of jealous. Andy was officially cooler than Tim now, mostly because of Sid, but also because Tim had bad acne and Andy's face was still clear.
“We lived next door to each other when we were little,” Andy said.
“Well, everyone's going to think you're a freak, too, if you keep hanging around with him.”
“I don't care,” Andy said. “Good.”
It worried him, though, and sometimes Sid didn't seem to fit into his life at all, unless it was just the two of them, alone together in Sid's room after school, staring at the glow of Sid's laptop. Sid stole almost everything he owned, laptop included, and Andy got itchy when he thought about it, feeling bad for the victims of Sid's thefts. Andy was in the science club and played on a rec basketball team, and Sid rolled his eyes when Andy talked about extracurricular activities of any kind. Andy still liked to play make believe, with his D&D friends and sometimes just in his own head. Sid had never liked that, unless their games involved him pinning Andy to the ground and laughing evilly.
“Remember when we used to play doctor?” Andy asked one afternoon when they were in the comforting dark of Sid's room, the shades pulled while Sid scrolled through Youtube videos of people setting off homemade bombs.
“Yeah,” Sid said, muttering, his eyes still on the screen. Andy rolled onto his side and tucked his hand under his cheek, bored by the videos and tired from school. He shut his eyes and marveled at the fact that he was here with his childhood tormentor, who had somehow become his best friend. He fell asleep thinking about those old games of doctor, when Sid would make him do the breath-holding test and the pain threshold test, which involved Sid flipping Andy onto his stomach and twisting his arms behind his back until he screamed. When he opened his eyes Sid was staring at him, his eyelids lowered like a calculating Bond villain. He was pulling at his bottom lip, seemingly lost in thought, and he startled a little when he realized that Andy was awake.
“You fell asleep, stupid,” Sid said, turning back to his laptop, which had faded to the screensaver.
In eighth grade, the gap between Sid and Andy widened. Andy was less scrawny and awkward than he'd been the year before, and was starting to get attention from girls. He also had more friends, boys from his basketball team who were already training with hopes of making the team next year in high school. His grades were good, and he liked watching TV and eating ice cream with his mom and his sister on Friday nights. Sid had started getting stoned with Paul's crowd on Friday nights.
By Thanksgiving, Andy had stopped walking home from school with Sid, instead taking the bus, where he and his friends ruled, occupying the seats at the back and laughing about whatever had happened during the school day. Andy had agreed to go out with a girl named Katrina who was pretty, but he was afraid of her and stammered whenever they were alone together, coming nowhere close to kissing her. The only fun part about having a girlfriend was holding her hand while everybody waited to go to the buses at the end of the day. It made Andy feel envied and cool, and he liked not having to come up with things to say to her; they could just laugh along with their friends.
A couple of days before Christmas, Andy woke up early and padded downstairs in his pajamas to play video games, snow falling outside and the house cozy with heat. He heard voices in the foyer and figured his mother was talking to a repairman or something. When he came to the bottom of the stairs he started to skirt past his mother and the guy she was talking to, and stopped in his tracks when he realized they'd both gone silent and were staring at him. He turned toward them, an eerie sense of semi-recognition passing through him.
“Andy,” the man said, and that's when Andy realized it was his father.
They had an awkward conversation, standing there in the foyer. How was school? Fine. Was he playing any sports? Yes, basketball. Did he still have that old cowboy doll that he'd loved so much? Yes. Woody had been a gift from his father, the last birthday present Andy got from him. As they talked, Andy's mother stood beside him stiffly. Andy could tell that she was mad, that his father wasn't supposed to be here, but that she didn't want to say so in front of Andy.
While his father had a similar awkward meet and greet with Molly, who had no memories of him at all, Andy sneaked up to his room and dressed in his coat and boots, pulling on a hat and scarf. He had to get away before his mother cornered him and made him talk about his feelings or something. His heart had been slamming since he realized that the man downstairs was his father, and he felt like he might throw up as he wondered what this sudden reemergence meant, if he would have to visit that guy on the weekends, if he would have to pretend to love that stranger who'd left them. He climbed out the window and landed in the yard as quietly as he could, muffled by the snow.
He had tears frozen in the corners of his eyes by the time he got to Sid's house, snot under his nose. No one ever came to the door at Sid's house, so Andy didn't bother knocking. He got the key out from under the front mat and let himself in, creeping up the stairs to Sid's room as quietly as he could. They hadn't even spoken in over a month, but Andy figured Sid owed him one.
“Sid?” he whispered as he pushed into Sid's room. Sid was in the bed, turned toward the wall under a pile of blankets, fast asleep. Andy shut the door behind him and wiped his nose and eyes on his gloves, pulling them off along with his boots, coat, and scarf. He left his knit hat on as he padded over to Sid's bed, still wearing his pajamas.
“Wake up,” Andy whispered, pulling on Sid's shoulder. Sid rolled onto his back and glared at him, making Andy regret his decision to come for a moment. His face softened when his eyes focused on Andy, then hardened again. Andy hiccuped a sob and Sid sighed.
“What the hell is this?” Sid said.
“My dad,” Andy said. Sid moved aside as if he didn't need to hear any more, lifting up the blankets for him. Andy let his face pinch up with tears as he climbed under the blankets, the heat trapped underneath them making him think of hibernation, bears sleeping through winter. These were the same unclean sheets that Andy had spent hours on after school, and the slightly dank smell of them was a tremendous comfort as Andy hid his face against Sid's chest and cried hard, ready to turn his whole bloody heart over to Sid as Sid's arms wrapped around him.
“He just s-showed up like I'm supposed to - ” Andy choked out before breaking into tears again. Sid put one hand on the back of Andy's head, his other arm tight around Andy's waist.
“Fuck 'em,” Sid said. “Five more years and we can forget they ever existed.”
“I should have stayed,” Andy said. “Molly - poor Molly, she doesn't even know him.”
“Calm down,” Sid said, his thumb moving on the back of Andy's head. “You're alright.”
“And I miss you,” Andy cried, everything pouring out of him, liquefied. Sid laughed.
“Jesus, Andy,” he said.
Andy stopped talking then, humiliated by that admission and by his crying. Sure, Sid had done this once, but they'd been much younger then. Andy couldn't imagine Sid crying now. He sniffled and squirmed closer, pushing his leg through Sid's, which were bare. Sid was in boxers and a t-shirt, and Andy tried not to think about how good and warm and solid he felt, but it was impossible. He closed his eyes and let out his breath against Sid's shirt, which was damp from his tears.
He didn't mean to fall asleep, but he was so comfortable, and Sid's heartbeat seemed to pull him under. When he opened his eyes they were crusty with salt, his eyelashes stuck together. Sid seemed wide awake, and he shifted back a little as Andy rubbed his eyes clear.
“What time is it?” Andy asked. It was still dark in Sid's room, only a faint grayish glow coming from behind his closed blinds.
“Almost noon,” Sid said.
“Shit.” Andy sat up. His mother would be frantic, Molly panicked. His father would feel rejected, and Andy knew he shouldn't care about that, but he did. “I have to go.”
Sid didn't say anything. Andy slipped out from under the blankets, shivering as he pulled on his boots and coat, then his gloves. He looked back at Sid, who was watching him from the bed.
“Thanks,” Andy said, blushing.
“For what? I didn't do anything.”
Andy rolled his eyes. He stood there in the middle of the room for a few seconds, staring at his shoes.
“I guess I'll see you later,” he said when he could think of nothing else.
“Whatever,” Sid said, rolling back toward the wall. Andy wanted to yell at him, to make him not act like this, but he knew Sid was never going to change. He left through the front door, and the relentless white of the snow had never felt more cruel than it did as he walked back toward his house. He thought of Sid under the blankets in his bed and wondered if he'd gone back to sleep. Probably he was just lying there, scowling at the ceiling. Andy wanted to go back, but he didn't know what he would do or say if he did, so he kept walking, closing his eyes when the wind pushed against him, snow blowing from the trees like pieces of shattered crystal.
As soon as Christmas was over, Andy's father disappeared again. Molly wrote him a few letters that went unanswered, but Andy didn't bother. He was nicer than usual to his mom for awhile, and even tried to be polite to her boyfriend, a douchebag real estate guy named Steve.
School started up again, and instead of going to the bus stop, Andy went to wait for Sid in their usual place. When Sid didn't show, Andy figured he'd just missed him, or maybe Sid was cutting class. He walked to school alone, kicking at the dirty snow. He'd spent a lot of time thinking about Sid over winter break, because even that was easier than thinking about his father. At night, in bed, he pretended that Sid was there with him, under the blankets.
As soon as he returned to school, these feelings stuck out as dangerous and frightening, and Andy tried to get rid of them. He didn't wait for Sid again, taking the bus instead, and he tried kissing Katrina for the first time. It was awkward and weird, and when he reached into his pajama bottoms at night he didn't think about her, or any girls. He thought about the weight of Sid on top of him, how he'd seemed like the heaviest thing in the world when they were kids, and the way Sid's eyes darkened when he smiled. Sid's name was always on his lips as he finished, but as soon as he was done he would feel guilty and weird and determined not to let himself think about Sid that way ever again.
Eighth grade seemed to grow more serious as everyone prepared for high school, and Andy broke up with Katrina around springtime, when he decided he needed to spend more time practicing his basketball. None of the girls in his homeroom would talk to him for awhile, but he didn't really care. It was a relief when Katrina started dating someone else and everybody seemed to forget that she'd ever been with Andy.
He saw Sid in the halls sometimes, usually hanging out with his druggie friends, smirking like he was the only who knew that none of this mattered. Andy's chest tightened whenever their eyes met, and he began to wonder if he was a jerk for avoiding Sid, or if Sid really didn't care. He certainly didn't act like he did, his eyes passing over Andy easily in the halls at school.
When summer finally came, it was a relief to be away from school. Andy spent most of his free time with his friend Brian, who was obsessed with basketball, and with Tim, who was obsessed with anime pornography. He ended up being the one who showed Andy how to find it on the internet. Most of it made Andy feel vaguely sick to his stomach, and he avoided it until he felt desperate to get off on something that didn't involve Sid, that picnic table, the smell of dirt and the sound of those purple leaves rustling.
He was riding his bike by himself one day when he ran into Sid, who was wandering around aimlessly, looking stoned. He grinned when he saw Andy, then jumped out in front of him so he'd have to brake hard on his bike.
“What's up, dork?” Sid asked. His eyes were red and he looked pretty out of it. “Enjoying your summer?”
“Yeah,” Andy said, narrowing his eyes at Sid. “What's wrong with you?”
“Huh? Oh, nothing, I was just smoking with Jimmy Wills.”
“Jimmy Wills is a sophomore.”
“Yeah? So? You know I was always mature for my age.” Sid grinned slickly and Andy recoiled.
“What's that supposed to mean?” he asked, blushing.
“Nothing, man, forget it.” Sid walked over and sat on top of a sewer cover, rubbing at his eyes, yawning. Andy knew he should ride away, but he never wanted to get away from Sid, and would probably never figure out why. He dropped his bike into the grass and sat beside Sid, not looking at him. They both stared at the house across the street.
“You shouldn't be smoking with Jimmy,” Andy said, knowing that Sid would just laugh at him. One of Sid's sneakers was untied, and Andy wanted badly to kneel down and tie it so he wouldn't trip. Sid moaned and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“Jimmy's an asshole,” Sid muttered, and something about this statement made Andy laugh. Sid grinned at him like he was glad he'd gotten the joke.
“All of my friends are assholes,” Andy said, maybe just trying to impress Sid, though he had been thinking about this all summer. “My friend Brian, he thinks he's Kobe Bryant or something, he's so full of himself. Every time I outplay him he acts like it was just a lucky shot, and then he won't look me in the eye until he's taken the ball from me. And Tim, God, Tim is a disaster. He doesn't know anything about sex but he's always talking about it like he does, he's so gross.”
Sid laughed, letting his shoulder slump against Andy's, which made Andy sit up straighter, though he didn't move away. Sid was a disaster, too, but there was something more honest about him than any of the other guys Andy knew.
“Nobody wants to play your innocent little games, is that it, Andy?” Sid said. “Shit, you're a real piece of work. Nobody's good enough for Andy.”
“Fuck you, that's not what I meant.”
“I got a game for you, Andy, you want to play a game?”
“What?” Andy asked, his heart pounding. He could smell Sid's sweat, and feel the heat of his skin through the shoulder of his t-shirt. Pathetically, this was the most exciting thing that had happened to him in months.
“It's called gay chicken,” Sid said.
“What the hell is gay chicken?” Andy asked, still so far away from applying that word to himself that his guard wasn't up yet. He was fixating on the 'chicken' element, imagining that stupid dance that people did at weddings.
“It's where we act like we're going to kiss each other, and whoever balks first loses,” Sid said.
“That's stupid,” Andy said. He stared down at his hands.
“You're just saying that 'cause you know you'd lose, 'cause you're an innocent little flower.”
“I am not!” Andy scowled at him, half-ready to tell Sid that he jerked off almost every night now.
“Then let's go,” Sid said, his face already close to Andy's. “Let's play.”
“Fine,” Andy said, his hands curling into fists. The street was quiet and empty, a sprinkler running in the yard across from them. Sid's eyes were boring into Andy's like this was a staring contest, too. Andy didn't let himself blink.
“Ready?” Sid said, moving closer. Andy nodded, staring at Sid's lips, determined not to lose. He moved closer at the same rate that Sid did, both of them checking each other's eyes before looking down at each other's lips again. Sid licked his lips and Andy did the same. He could feel Sid's breath, hot against his mouth, then Sid's wet lips were pressing against his, firm and unafraid. Andy pressed back, pinching his eyes shut, his hands closed tightly over his knees. Sid licked Andy's bottom lip, his tongue stroking against the tip of Andy's when Andy's mouth opened around a shocked little gasp. They pulled back, not far enough, and looked at each other. Sid seemed as stunned as Andy, his eyes suddenly wide and clear.
“I guess we both won,” Sid said. Andy nodded slowly. His lips were buzzing. He wanted Sid to kiss him again. They sat there for awhile, fidgeting as the sun beat down on them.
“Want to go to the pool?” Andy asked, desperate to stay close to him. Sid smirked.
“No,” he said. “Want to go back to my room and make out?”
“No!” Andy said, scowling.
They ended up doing both, the pool first, wrestling each other for a plastic football in the shallow end, then walking to Sid's house in silence, the sun drying them as they went, their towels hanging around their shoulders. The house was empty when they got there, and Andy was shaking by the time Sid shut his bedroom door.
“It's okay,” Sid said, and it was, because Sid held his face while they kissed, backing off when Andy got nervous about how hard they were kissing, and how hard he was inside his bathing suit. All he could think as Sid licked into him was This is the best thing that's ever happened to me, right now, the best thing, nothing will ever be better than this. His chest was fluttery with nerves and he had a death grip on Sid's sharp hipbones, just over the waistband of his bathing suit.
“What do you want to do?” Sid asked as they caught their breath. His hands slid down to Andy's shoulders, squeezing over his sunburn.
“Would you s-sit on me?” Andy asked, and Sid grinned.
Andy spent the rest of the afternoon stretched out on his back in Sid's bed, Sid sitting on his hips and leaning down to kiss him. It was like they'd been practicing for this all along. Maybe Sid knew that the whole time, but Andy didn't, though it was hard to believe now that he seemed to have found exactly where he belonged: pinned under Sid, his head framed by Sid's elbows, Sid's hands in his hair, tongue in his mouth, belly pressed flat to Andy's. Andy pretended not to notice when Sid came inside his bathing suit, his whole body going tense and then incredibly loose above Andy's, his breath ragged. Andy hugged Sid's shoulders and wondered if Sid had only been pretending not to notice when Andy did the same thing.
*
Part II
Pairing: Sid/Andy
Rating: NC-17
Words: 15,000
Warning: Adolescent fumblings, nothing graphic or penetrative until they're in their late teens. Spoilers for the new movie.
Summary: Andy met Sid when he was four years old, and while some things change, a lot of things stay the same.
The first time Andy saw Sid, he was four years old. His father had just run away to California, and his mother had moved Andy and his sister into a new, smaller house. She put up blue wallpaper with fluffy white clouds to make Andy feel better about the fact that his dad was gone. Andy spent most days feeling confused, increasingly losing himself in his imagination, playing alone in the backyard. One day, a shadow fell over his toys, and he looked up to see a boy in a black t-shirt scowling at him.
“What are you doing?” the boy asked. He seemed angry about something.
“Playing,” Andy said, blinking up at the boy, who was pale and dark-haired.
“Duh,” the boy said, though he was the one who'd asked. “How old are you?”
“Four years.”
The boy scoffed. “I'm five,” he said. Andy sat down and stared up at the boy, holding Woody the cowboy in one hand and Rex the dinosaur in the other.
“Want to play with me?” he asked, not sure what this kid wanted if not that. Sid gave Andy's toys a once-over.
“No,” he said, but he sat down with Andy and watched him play for awhile, his eyes narrowed as if he was trying to translate a foreign language. Eventually, he grabbed Rex and made him into a mad rampaging dinosaur who ate everyone in town.
“That's not fun,” Andy said, pouting. “If everyone's dead then it's like they can't play anymore.”
“Yeah, well, this game is dumb anyway,” Sid said. He stood up and kicked at the dirt. “Have you ever lit fireworks?” he asked.
“No,” Andy said.
“I have,” Sid said, looking up at the sky wistfully. “It was awesome. I wish I had some fireworks.”
Andy didn't really know what to say. He picked up Woody and the others, brushing dirt from them.
“You're a big dork, kid,” Sid said, and Andy glared at him.
“Shut up,” he said, and Sid stomped off, disappearing through a loose plank in the fence that separated his yard from Andy's. Andy huffed in annoyance and turned back to his toys, but he couldn't really concentrate on imaginary games for the rest of the day, his heart still beating fast from his encounter with the neighbor boy, whose name he'd forgotten to ask.
*
Sid started showing up on a regular basis after that, and if he didn't show, Andy would slip through the loose plank and kick around Sid's messy backyard until he emerged from the back door of his house. Sid's games mostly made Andy mad, and he wasn't sure why he bothered playing with him at all. Sometimes they would get in bad fights and avoid each other for weeks. Sid went to Andy's school, but among the other kids he ignored Andy, who mostly played house with the girls. They would always fight over which of them got to be Andy's wife before eventually deciding that they would rather have him be the baby. Andy was terrified of them, so he went along with whatever they wanted.
Sid's favorite games were doctor and interrogation. They were both played in the very back of his yard, underneath the rotting old picnic table, which was shaded by a tree with purple leaves that Andy liked to climb when Sid allowed it. Sid was bossy and even mean, but Andy would show up anyway, to see what sort of mischief Sid was getting into, even after Andy's mother forbade him from going over to Sid's house. Sid's father was a 'bad man,' according to her, and a 'drunk,' according to Sid, who didn't have a mother, only a step-mother and step-sister, both of whom he hated. Andy didn't have a problem with Hannah, Sid's little step-sister, but his step-mother was mean during Andy's few encounters with her, once making a rude remark about his cowboy hat.
By the time Andy was eight and Sid was nine most of their games dissolved into wrestling matches. Usually Sid won, and on some days Andy wouldn't bother putting up a fight, would just lie there under the picnic table while Sid sat on top of him, threatening to spit into his mouth if he didn't divulge the secrets of whatever government agency Sid's terrorist organization was planning on bringing down.
“Hand over those blueprints,” Sid would say, mostly using tickle torture until Andy's eyes were watering, his sides aching. Andy would get so angry, trying to push Sid off, mad at himself for thinking that playing with Sid would actually be fun for once. Trying to struggle free was always hopeless, Sid's thighs pinned tightly around Andy's hips and his hands pressing Andy's shoulders down. He always looked frighteningly happy when he had Andy trapped like this, pretending to be his sadistic doctor or ruthless captor.
One day when they were playing interrogation, Sid threatening to shove a beetle that he'd trapped in a glass jar up Andy's nose if he didn't give him the access code to a government computer, the back door banged open and Sid went as rigid as a startled squirrel, turning toward the house.
“Sid!” his father shouted, sounding furious and unwell, stumbling a little as he came out onto the cracked back patio. “Where the hell are you?”
“Don't say a word,” Sid whispered, dropping down over Andy, the jar with the beetle rolling away. Sid clamped both hands over Andy's mouth and stared down at him with his eyebrows pinched, as if Andy wanted to be found. Andy was afraid of Sid's father, who was rarely awake during the day but never in a good mood when he was.
They stayed like that while Sid's father paced around the patio, ranting and kicking Sid's broken toys out of his way. Sid was breathing hard, his eyes locked on the patio as he crouched low over Andy, hiding from his father. Andy was afraid to even look at the patio, so he kept his eyes on Sid, watching a thin bead of sweat run from his temple down to his chin. Finally, Sid's father banged back inside, muttering a string of curse words that made Andy's heart pound. Sid let out a huff of breath and looked down at Andy, unable to hide the fear in his eyes quickly enough to keep it from him.
“You're lucky you don't have a dad,” Sid said, removing his hands from Andy's mouth but still leaning over him, his back hunched and his elbows in the dirt beside Andy's ears.
“No, I'm not,” Andy said. He realized that he could issue a surprise attack and knock Sid off of him, but the game seemed to be over, anyway. They both just laid there for awhile, their chests pressing together as they drew panted breath, wind rustling through the purple-leafed tree.
“What's your problem, anyway?” Sid asked when he finally sat up. “Why do you come over here just so I can beat up on you?”
“Maybe I won't anymore,” Andy said, surprised to find that he was hurt by this. Sid scoffed and slid off of him, flicking at the jar with the beetle in it. Andy got up with an indignant sniffle and crawled out from under the picnic table, heading for the loose fence plank without looking back.
*
For a couple of weeks, Andy didn't go over to Sid's yard, and Sid didn't come to his. Andy tried to be glad about this, because he didn't miss Sid's tyrannical games or stupid insults, but something about playing by himself wasn't as fun if he hadn't just recently escaped the grip of Sid, feeling like he'd barely made it out with his life. Still, even at eight years old he had pride, and Sid had called him on something he'd worried about for some time. Why did he go over there when he knew Sid was just going to tease and overpower him, eventually dragging him under the picnic table to sit on him while he wore himself out with attempts to get free? Andy decided that he'd just been dumb before, and that he was smarter now.
A few nights after he'd come to this conclusion, Andy was awake in his bed, trying not to be afraid of the thunderstorm that he could hear rumbling in the distance, moving closer. He heard a tapping sound and jumped a little under the blankets, afraid to look at the window, which was where the sound had come from. He gasped and pulled his blankets up to his chin when he saw a dark figure crouched outside the window, sitting on the roof of the back porch.
“Open up, dummy,” the figure said, and Andy let out his breath when he realized it was only Sid. He tossed his blankets aside and went to the window, his heart still pounding. When he opened the window he could smell the rain in the air, though it hadn't started yet. Sid pushed his way inside without waiting for an invitation.
“What are you doing?” Andy asked in a whisper. “I'm supposed to be in bed - I'll get in trouble!”
Sid was agitated, breathing hard and pacing around the room. Andy wanted to tell him to get out, but that thing that drew him to Sid despite his better instincts was growing inside his chest, making him curious.
“My stupid fucking dad had the cops called on him,” Sid says. “I just need to lay low here so they don't - take me away or anything.”
“What?” Andy said. He went to the window, which was still open, the wind blowing that rain-smell in hard. He could hear voices from the front of Sid's yard, and he could see a flash of blue light. When he turned around to gape at Sid in disbelief, he saw that Sid was sitting on the floor with his back to Andy's bed, his knees pulled to his chest and his face buried in his folded arms.
“Who - who called the police on him?” Andy asked, feeling disoriented and nervous. He thought of calling for his mom, but she would just get mad at him for letting Sid inside. Andy wasn't supposed to talk to him, let alone have him in his room.
“Who do you think?” Sid asked, his voice broken as he lifted his wet face, trying to scowl but only managing a sob. “His dumb wife, my step-mother. I hate her - and him. They're so worthless.” He sobbed and hid his face again.
Andy was dumbstruck. He never, ever thought he would see Sid cry, no matter what happened. He walked slowly across the room, moving with caution, afraid to set Sid off but unwilling to let him sit there crying all by himself. Sid seemed so much smaller than he usually did, curled in on himself as his shoulders shook with sobs.
“It's okay,” Andy said softly as he sat down beside Sid.
“No, it's not,” Sid cried, the words trembling as he pushed out more tears. Andy scooted closer, patting Sid's back very carefully, afraid that Sid would snap up and tell him to get away. When he didn't, Andy slid his arm around Sid's shoulders, resting his knees against Sid's side. Sid was wearing pajama pants and his usual black skull t-shirt, and he didn't have any shoes on. The fight between his step-mother and father must have woken him. Andy moaned a little at the thought of how scary it must have been, bad enough to involve the police. He hugged Sid to him, and to his surprise, Sid didn't push him away, just leaned down to hide his face against Andy's chest, clutching at him.
“It's okay,” Andy said again, because he didn't know what else to say. He pet Sid's hair and hugged him tight, which was what Andy's mother always did when he cried. It seemed to work on Sid, too, his crying quieting to just a few sniffles, and eventually he went quiet, his fist closed in the front of Andy's pajama top.
“I hate them,” Sid said after awhile, the thunder outside getting louder. The wind was making the branches on the trees toss wildly, leaves thrashing. Andy began to feel glad that Sid was safe inside with him.
“You can stay here,” Andy whispered. “If you're quiet.”
Sid didn't say anything, just scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. He looked unrecognizable, soft and scared, and though Andy had indulged some fantasies about making Sid cry, giving him a taste of his own bullying medicine, he wasn't enjoying this at all. He went over to shut the window as the rain arrived outside, pelting the roof of the porch. When he turned back to his bed Sid was climbing into it, turning toward the wall. Andy sighed and climbed in behind him, pulling the blankets up over Sid first, then arranging them over his own legs. He settled down onto his pillow, watching Sid's back as he continued to sniffle and rub at his face.
“Are you okay?” Andy whispered as thunder crashed loudly outside, the kind of thing that would scare him if he wasn't so distracted by the fact that the neighborhood bully was crying in his bed.
“Yeah,” Sid said, his voice smaller and squeakier than Andy had ever heard it. He rolled over, not looking at Andy, just pressing his face to Andy's chest, worming into his arms. Andy wrapped Sid up tightly, thinking he might cry again, but Sid was quiet, his wet eyelashes tickling the hollow of Andy's throat.
Sid never thanked Andy for letting him stay that night, or for holding him while thunder rattled the windowpanes and rain pelted against the house. Andy stayed awake for a long time, petting Sid's short hair while he slept. He'd always liked the idea of caring for someone who needed saving, being a hero, and he also liked the way the short spikes of Sid's buzz cut felt as they tickled against his palm. He fell asleep with his hand cupped around the back of Sid's head, and woke to the feeling of Sid climbing over him, rubbing his eyes and heading toward the window. Andy turned to watch him go, wondering if he should ask Sid to stay, though he knew that wouldn't be a good idea. Sid stopped when he had one leg on either side of the window and looked back at Andy. He seemed like he wanted to say something, then just looked down at his hands and left without speaking. Andy could hear the wet thump of Sid's feet hitting the muddy the yard as he jumped from the roof of the porch.
A couple of weeks later, Andy's family moved to a new house. He didn't see Sid on moving day, too preoccupied with making sure he had all his toys, but he did think about him as the car pulled from the driveway for the last time, and wondered where Sid would go to if he needed shelter from another storm.
*
Andy was zoned into a new elementary school after the move, even though the new house was only a few streets over from the old one. Making friends wasn't easy; Sid seemed to have been right about Andy being a dork. It didn't take him too long to find the school's other dorks and join their ranks, and soon he had some pretty good buddies among them, guys who were considered weak or babyish by the cool kids who used curse words and held hands with girls.
Andy didn't care much about being cool, though sometimes he and his friends pretended they were, cursing and trying to act tough around each other. This charade usually ended when one of the cool boys walked by and smashed the offending dork into a wall before strolling causally away. Aside from these social complications, Andy liked school, especially math and history. He hated grammar, and science could go either way. In fifth grade he decided he wanted to be a geologist and started collecting cool rocks. His friend Tim showed him how to play Dungeons and Dragons, and his friend Paul helped him make a skateboarding ramp. Life was pretty good.
Middle school changed everything. Suddenly their school was three times the size of their elementary school, with three sets of elementary kids all dumped together, the firmly established social hierarchy completely screwed up. Tim almost immediately got a girlfriend, a dorky girl who played an elf mage in their weekend games of D&D, and this horrified Andy, who still had no interest in girls. Paul somehow got cool over the summer and was suddenly smoking cigarettes with his older brother, rolling his eyes at Andy when Andy wanted to pretend they were pro skateboarders who were competing for the world championship. It was like everyone was suddenly infected with a disease that made them try to act older. Tim was talking about first base and second base in a way that didn't relate to baseball, and Paul wasn't talking to Andy at all.
Andy refused to take part in his former friends' attempts to seem cool. It was dumb, and pointless, because the eighth graders still laughed at them and called them babies on the school bus. One day, Andy decided to rebel by wearing one of his faded old Buzz Lightyear t-shirts. He hoped that some of the kids would get a kick out of it and remember what it was like when they weren't pretending to be grown-up all the time.
His masterful shirt plan didn't really work out. Instead, it made him a target at the bus stop and again in the hallways at school, girls laughing loud and boys shoving his shoulders and asking him if he was five years old. Andy was on the verge of calling home sick as he headed for the boys' bathroom after lunch, and when someone grabbed his t-shirt and yanked him backward, he knew he was in for more humiliation at best, a beating at worst.
The last thing he expected when he turned and raised his red-rimmed eyes was Sid. Andy's mouth fell open, and goosebumps rose all over his body. Just looking at Sid made his stomach feel heavier, like Sid was sitting on it the way he always used to. Sid laughed, shaking his head.
“Gimme that,” Sid said, grabbing Andy's bookbag.
“Don't,” Andy said lamely, knowing that he couldn't stop Sid from doing whatever he wanted. Sid had gotten bigger and taller since the last time Andy saw him, and his eyes were just as mean as they'd always been as he threw Andy's bookbag to the ground and grabbed the hem of his shirt.
“Hey - don't!” Andy said, struggling feebly as Sid pulled his shirt off. Andy moaned and crossed his arms over his naked chest, his bottom lip trembling. Everyone else had filed into their classrooms and the hall was empty, but if Sid made him go back to class with no shirt, the laughter would never stop.
“Here, dummy,” Sid said, turning the t-shirt inside out. “Lift up your arms.”
Andy hesitated, then did as Sid asked when he narrowed his eyes. Sid slipped the t-shirt back on him, the smiling Buzz Lightyear hidden on the inside now. Andy was relieved for a moment, but he sucked in his breath when Sid pulled a knife from his back pocket and flipped it open.
“You need to develop some basic survival skills or you'll be dead by Thanksgiving break,” Sid said. He turned Andy around and used the knife to saw off the tag that was poking up against Andy's neck.
“Everyone's going to know I just turned my shirt inside out,” Andy said, his face burning red when Sid turned him around to face him again. “It's like they won or something.”
“Big deal,” Sid said. “If you think you're going to get far in middle school by trying to make a statement or go against the crowd, you're dumber than I thought.”
“I hate you,” Andy said softly, but it didn't feel true, and only made his face burn hotter. Sid grinned, still holding Andy by the shoulders. His braces were gone, and his buzz cut had grown out. His hair seemed darker than Andy remembered.
“Are you in seventh grade?” Andy asked, taking his bookbag when Sid handed it to him.
“Sixth,” Sid said. “For the second year in a row.”
Andy huffed, imagining that Sid had gotten himself held back just so he could torment Andy. This was only Andy's third week at school, and things just kept getting worse. Except that, in a strange way, he was kind of glad to have Sid around again. He wondered if Sid smoked cigarettes and had girlfriends. Probably. He'd always liked lighting things on fire, and he'd gotten kind of good-looking, the sort of boy who girls would have crushes on.
“Do you want survival lessons?” Sid asked as the bell rang, warning students to get into their classrooms.
“What do you mean?” Andy asked, though was pretty sure he understood what Sid was offering. It was embarrassing, and stupid, but Andy had been lonely since he lost his friends to coolness.
“I'll be at Pizza Planet after school,” Sid said. “Meet me there if you want to learn how to not act like a loser.”
Later that night, Sid slapped his forehead and gave Andy his first pro tip: don't show up at Pizza Planet with your mom and your baby sister.
*
With Sid on his side, middle school got better. Sid showed Andy how to dress in looser jeans and cooler t-shirts, and told him which shoes he should beg his mother to buy. The crowd Sid hung out with was mostly comprised of seventh graders who were way too cool for Andy, but they tolerated Andy because Sid vouched for him. Andy wondered all the time why Sid was being nice to him, and all he could come up with was that Sid was still secretly grateful for that night when Andy let him sleep in his bed. When Andy thought about it he got that heavy feeling in his stomach, the same one he got when he watched Sid blow smoke rings. Sid smoked cigarettes, but he didn't have a girlfriend, though one of the girls who hung in their crowd seemed to want him to ask her out. Her name was Jill, and she wore dark eyeliner that made Andy nervous.
“Do you like Jill?” Andy asked one day when he was walking home from school with Sid. Apparently the bus was for losers.
“No,” Sid said without hesitation, and Andy had to chew away a smile. He was glad.
Sid was still a jerk. He made fun of Andy for not knowing anything about music, and brought Andy over to his house after school to play mp3s for him. He showed Andy how to download music for free, and impressed him by finding downloads of movies that had just been released.
“Isn't this stealing?” Andy said one afternoon when they were lying on their stomachs on Sid's bed, watching the newest James Bond movie on Sid's laptop. Sid just laughed. Andy had learned when to drop certain subjects, and he put his chin on his folded arms, feeling guilty as he watched James Bond jump off an exploding yacht.
“When you're ready, I can show you how to download porn,” Sid said after they'd both moved up to the seventh grade, Sid barely passing and Andy on the honor roll.
“Gross,” Andy muttered. There were jokes about porn told at school, but even the jokes made Andy feel queasy.
“I knew you weren't ready,” Sid said. They were walking home from school, Sid twirling his lighter between his fingers like a magician, waiting until they'd gotten far enough from the main road to light a cigarette. “I bet you don't even beat off.”
“Shut up,” Andy said. He did, actually, but this was a very recent development and he didn't want to discuss it with Sid.
Seventh grade was better than sixth, the social hierarchy reestablished. Andy was still friends with Tim, but Paul was long lost to them, a druggie who hung out with high school freshmen on Friday nights. Tim had broken up with his girlfriend and gained about twenty pounds. He was usually pretty depressed and annoying during their D&D games.
“Why do you hang out with that loser Sid?” Tim asked Andy one night when Andy was spending the night at Tim's house, in a sleeping bag on the floor of Tim's bedroom. It was an old sleeping bag with Buzz Lightyear on it, but Tim would never make fun of Andy for such a thing.
“Sid's not a loser,” Andy said, though he knew this wasn't true. Sid smoked, which was stupid, and he didn't care about school, which was going to cost him. He lived alone with his dad now, the step-mother and Hannah long gone. Their house was never clean. At school, Sid outranked both Andy and Tim, but in the real world, Sid was the track to loser-hood.
“He's a freak,” Tim said. “He's always setting stuff on fire, and Jake Vale told me that he told his math teacher to fuck off and got suspended for two days.”
“Yeah.” Andy knew about that already. The math teacher was mean to Sid; she made fun of him for not being very good at math, and made the honor kids twitter with laughter, which made Sid want to burn the whole school down. The walk home from school hadn't been pleasant that day.
“How'd you even get to be friends with him?” Tim asked, and Andy smiled a little in the darkness, because Tim sounded kind of jealous. Andy was officially cooler than Tim now, mostly because of Sid, but also because Tim had bad acne and Andy's face was still clear.
“We lived next door to each other when we were little,” Andy said.
“Well, everyone's going to think you're a freak, too, if you keep hanging around with him.”
“I don't care,” Andy said. “Good.”
It worried him, though, and sometimes Sid didn't seem to fit into his life at all, unless it was just the two of them, alone together in Sid's room after school, staring at the glow of Sid's laptop. Sid stole almost everything he owned, laptop included, and Andy got itchy when he thought about it, feeling bad for the victims of Sid's thefts. Andy was in the science club and played on a rec basketball team, and Sid rolled his eyes when Andy talked about extracurricular activities of any kind. Andy still liked to play make believe, with his D&D friends and sometimes just in his own head. Sid had never liked that, unless their games involved him pinning Andy to the ground and laughing evilly.
“Remember when we used to play doctor?” Andy asked one afternoon when they were in the comforting dark of Sid's room, the shades pulled while Sid scrolled through Youtube videos of people setting off homemade bombs.
“Yeah,” Sid said, muttering, his eyes still on the screen. Andy rolled onto his side and tucked his hand under his cheek, bored by the videos and tired from school. He shut his eyes and marveled at the fact that he was here with his childhood tormentor, who had somehow become his best friend. He fell asleep thinking about those old games of doctor, when Sid would make him do the breath-holding test and the pain threshold test, which involved Sid flipping Andy onto his stomach and twisting his arms behind his back until he screamed. When he opened his eyes Sid was staring at him, his eyelids lowered like a calculating Bond villain. He was pulling at his bottom lip, seemingly lost in thought, and he startled a little when he realized that Andy was awake.
“You fell asleep, stupid,” Sid said, turning back to his laptop, which had faded to the screensaver.
In eighth grade, the gap between Sid and Andy widened. Andy was less scrawny and awkward than he'd been the year before, and was starting to get attention from girls. He also had more friends, boys from his basketball team who were already training with hopes of making the team next year in high school. His grades were good, and he liked watching TV and eating ice cream with his mom and his sister on Friday nights. Sid had started getting stoned with Paul's crowd on Friday nights.
By Thanksgiving, Andy had stopped walking home from school with Sid, instead taking the bus, where he and his friends ruled, occupying the seats at the back and laughing about whatever had happened during the school day. Andy had agreed to go out with a girl named Katrina who was pretty, but he was afraid of her and stammered whenever they were alone together, coming nowhere close to kissing her. The only fun part about having a girlfriend was holding her hand while everybody waited to go to the buses at the end of the day. It made Andy feel envied and cool, and he liked not having to come up with things to say to her; they could just laugh along with their friends.
A couple of days before Christmas, Andy woke up early and padded downstairs in his pajamas to play video games, snow falling outside and the house cozy with heat. He heard voices in the foyer and figured his mother was talking to a repairman or something. When he came to the bottom of the stairs he started to skirt past his mother and the guy she was talking to, and stopped in his tracks when he realized they'd both gone silent and were staring at him. He turned toward them, an eerie sense of semi-recognition passing through him.
“Andy,” the man said, and that's when Andy realized it was his father.
They had an awkward conversation, standing there in the foyer. How was school? Fine. Was he playing any sports? Yes, basketball. Did he still have that old cowboy doll that he'd loved so much? Yes. Woody had been a gift from his father, the last birthday present Andy got from him. As they talked, Andy's mother stood beside him stiffly. Andy could tell that she was mad, that his father wasn't supposed to be here, but that she didn't want to say so in front of Andy.
While his father had a similar awkward meet and greet with Molly, who had no memories of him at all, Andy sneaked up to his room and dressed in his coat and boots, pulling on a hat and scarf. He had to get away before his mother cornered him and made him talk about his feelings or something. His heart had been slamming since he realized that the man downstairs was his father, and he felt like he might throw up as he wondered what this sudden reemergence meant, if he would have to visit that guy on the weekends, if he would have to pretend to love that stranger who'd left them. He climbed out the window and landed in the yard as quietly as he could, muffled by the snow.
He had tears frozen in the corners of his eyes by the time he got to Sid's house, snot under his nose. No one ever came to the door at Sid's house, so Andy didn't bother knocking. He got the key out from under the front mat and let himself in, creeping up the stairs to Sid's room as quietly as he could. They hadn't even spoken in over a month, but Andy figured Sid owed him one.
“Sid?” he whispered as he pushed into Sid's room. Sid was in the bed, turned toward the wall under a pile of blankets, fast asleep. Andy shut the door behind him and wiped his nose and eyes on his gloves, pulling them off along with his boots, coat, and scarf. He left his knit hat on as he padded over to Sid's bed, still wearing his pajamas.
“Wake up,” Andy whispered, pulling on Sid's shoulder. Sid rolled onto his back and glared at him, making Andy regret his decision to come for a moment. His face softened when his eyes focused on Andy, then hardened again. Andy hiccuped a sob and Sid sighed.
“What the hell is this?” Sid said.
“My dad,” Andy said. Sid moved aside as if he didn't need to hear any more, lifting up the blankets for him. Andy let his face pinch up with tears as he climbed under the blankets, the heat trapped underneath them making him think of hibernation, bears sleeping through winter. These were the same unclean sheets that Andy had spent hours on after school, and the slightly dank smell of them was a tremendous comfort as Andy hid his face against Sid's chest and cried hard, ready to turn his whole bloody heart over to Sid as Sid's arms wrapped around him.
“He just s-showed up like I'm supposed to - ” Andy choked out before breaking into tears again. Sid put one hand on the back of Andy's head, his other arm tight around Andy's waist.
“Fuck 'em,” Sid said. “Five more years and we can forget they ever existed.”
“I should have stayed,” Andy said. “Molly - poor Molly, she doesn't even know him.”
“Calm down,” Sid said, his thumb moving on the back of Andy's head. “You're alright.”
“And I miss you,” Andy cried, everything pouring out of him, liquefied. Sid laughed.
“Jesus, Andy,” he said.
Andy stopped talking then, humiliated by that admission and by his crying. Sure, Sid had done this once, but they'd been much younger then. Andy couldn't imagine Sid crying now. He sniffled and squirmed closer, pushing his leg through Sid's, which were bare. Sid was in boxers and a t-shirt, and Andy tried not to think about how good and warm and solid he felt, but it was impossible. He closed his eyes and let out his breath against Sid's shirt, which was damp from his tears.
He didn't mean to fall asleep, but he was so comfortable, and Sid's heartbeat seemed to pull him under. When he opened his eyes they were crusty with salt, his eyelashes stuck together. Sid seemed wide awake, and he shifted back a little as Andy rubbed his eyes clear.
“What time is it?” Andy asked. It was still dark in Sid's room, only a faint grayish glow coming from behind his closed blinds.
“Almost noon,” Sid said.
“Shit.” Andy sat up. His mother would be frantic, Molly panicked. His father would feel rejected, and Andy knew he shouldn't care about that, but he did. “I have to go.”
Sid didn't say anything. Andy slipped out from under the blankets, shivering as he pulled on his boots and coat, then his gloves. He looked back at Sid, who was watching him from the bed.
“Thanks,” Andy said, blushing.
“For what? I didn't do anything.”
Andy rolled his eyes. He stood there in the middle of the room for a few seconds, staring at his shoes.
“I guess I'll see you later,” he said when he could think of nothing else.
“Whatever,” Sid said, rolling back toward the wall. Andy wanted to yell at him, to make him not act like this, but he knew Sid was never going to change. He left through the front door, and the relentless white of the snow had never felt more cruel than it did as he walked back toward his house. He thought of Sid under the blankets in his bed and wondered if he'd gone back to sleep. Probably he was just lying there, scowling at the ceiling. Andy wanted to go back, but he didn't know what he would do or say if he did, so he kept walking, closing his eyes when the wind pushed against him, snow blowing from the trees like pieces of shattered crystal.
As soon as Christmas was over, Andy's father disappeared again. Molly wrote him a few letters that went unanswered, but Andy didn't bother. He was nicer than usual to his mom for awhile, and even tried to be polite to her boyfriend, a douchebag real estate guy named Steve.
School started up again, and instead of going to the bus stop, Andy went to wait for Sid in their usual place. When Sid didn't show, Andy figured he'd just missed him, or maybe Sid was cutting class. He walked to school alone, kicking at the dirty snow. He'd spent a lot of time thinking about Sid over winter break, because even that was easier than thinking about his father. At night, in bed, he pretended that Sid was there with him, under the blankets.
As soon as he returned to school, these feelings stuck out as dangerous and frightening, and Andy tried to get rid of them. He didn't wait for Sid again, taking the bus instead, and he tried kissing Katrina for the first time. It was awkward and weird, and when he reached into his pajama bottoms at night he didn't think about her, or any girls. He thought about the weight of Sid on top of him, how he'd seemed like the heaviest thing in the world when they were kids, and the way Sid's eyes darkened when he smiled. Sid's name was always on his lips as he finished, but as soon as he was done he would feel guilty and weird and determined not to let himself think about Sid that way ever again.
Eighth grade seemed to grow more serious as everyone prepared for high school, and Andy broke up with Katrina around springtime, when he decided he needed to spend more time practicing his basketball. None of the girls in his homeroom would talk to him for awhile, but he didn't really care. It was a relief when Katrina started dating someone else and everybody seemed to forget that she'd ever been with Andy.
He saw Sid in the halls sometimes, usually hanging out with his druggie friends, smirking like he was the only who knew that none of this mattered. Andy's chest tightened whenever their eyes met, and he began to wonder if he was a jerk for avoiding Sid, or if Sid really didn't care. He certainly didn't act like he did, his eyes passing over Andy easily in the halls at school.
When summer finally came, it was a relief to be away from school. Andy spent most of his free time with his friend Brian, who was obsessed with basketball, and with Tim, who was obsessed with anime pornography. He ended up being the one who showed Andy how to find it on the internet. Most of it made Andy feel vaguely sick to his stomach, and he avoided it until he felt desperate to get off on something that didn't involve Sid, that picnic table, the smell of dirt and the sound of those purple leaves rustling.
He was riding his bike by himself one day when he ran into Sid, who was wandering around aimlessly, looking stoned. He grinned when he saw Andy, then jumped out in front of him so he'd have to brake hard on his bike.
“What's up, dork?” Sid asked. His eyes were red and he looked pretty out of it. “Enjoying your summer?”
“Yeah,” Andy said, narrowing his eyes at Sid. “What's wrong with you?”
“Huh? Oh, nothing, I was just smoking with Jimmy Wills.”
“Jimmy Wills is a sophomore.”
“Yeah? So? You know I was always mature for my age.” Sid grinned slickly and Andy recoiled.
“What's that supposed to mean?” he asked, blushing.
“Nothing, man, forget it.” Sid walked over and sat on top of a sewer cover, rubbing at his eyes, yawning. Andy knew he should ride away, but he never wanted to get away from Sid, and would probably never figure out why. He dropped his bike into the grass and sat beside Sid, not looking at him. They both stared at the house across the street.
“You shouldn't be smoking with Jimmy,” Andy said, knowing that Sid would just laugh at him. One of Sid's sneakers was untied, and Andy wanted badly to kneel down and tie it so he wouldn't trip. Sid moaned and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“Jimmy's an asshole,” Sid muttered, and something about this statement made Andy laugh. Sid grinned at him like he was glad he'd gotten the joke.
“All of my friends are assholes,” Andy said, maybe just trying to impress Sid, though he had been thinking about this all summer. “My friend Brian, he thinks he's Kobe Bryant or something, he's so full of himself. Every time I outplay him he acts like it was just a lucky shot, and then he won't look me in the eye until he's taken the ball from me. And Tim, God, Tim is a disaster. He doesn't know anything about sex but he's always talking about it like he does, he's so gross.”
Sid laughed, letting his shoulder slump against Andy's, which made Andy sit up straighter, though he didn't move away. Sid was a disaster, too, but there was something more honest about him than any of the other guys Andy knew.
“Nobody wants to play your innocent little games, is that it, Andy?” Sid said. “Shit, you're a real piece of work. Nobody's good enough for Andy.”
“Fuck you, that's not what I meant.”
“I got a game for you, Andy, you want to play a game?”
“What?” Andy asked, his heart pounding. He could smell Sid's sweat, and feel the heat of his skin through the shoulder of his t-shirt. Pathetically, this was the most exciting thing that had happened to him in months.
“It's called gay chicken,” Sid said.
“What the hell is gay chicken?” Andy asked, still so far away from applying that word to himself that his guard wasn't up yet. He was fixating on the 'chicken' element, imagining that stupid dance that people did at weddings.
“It's where we act like we're going to kiss each other, and whoever balks first loses,” Sid said.
“That's stupid,” Andy said. He stared down at his hands.
“You're just saying that 'cause you know you'd lose, 'cause you're an innocent little flower.”
“I am not!” Andy scowled at him, half-ready to tell Sid that he jerked off almost every night now.
“Then let's go,” Sid said, his face already close to Andy's. “Let's play.”
“Fine,” Andy said, his hands curling into fists. The street was quiet and empty, a sprinkler running in the yard across from them. Sid's eyes were boring into Andy's like this was a staring contest, too. Andy didn't let himself blink.
“Ready?” Sid said, moving closer. Andy nodded, staring at Sid's lips, determined not to lose. He moved closer at the same rate that Sid did, both of them checking each other's eyes before looking down at each other's lips again. Sid licked his lips and Andy did the same. He could feel Sid's breath, hot against his mouth, then Sid's wet lips were pressing against his, firm and unafraid. Andy pressed back, pinching his eyes shut, his hands closed tightly over his knees. Sid licked Andy's bottom lip, his tongue stroking against the tip of Andy's when Andy's mouth opened around a shocked little gasp. They pulled back, not far enough, and looked at each other. Sid seemed as stunned as Andy, his eyes suddenly wide and clear.
“I guess we both won,” Sid said. Andy nodded slowly. His lips were buzzing. He wanted Sid to kiss him again. They sat there for awhile, fidgeting as the sun beat down on them.
“Want to go to the pool?” Andy asked, desperate to stay close to him. Sid smirked.
“No,” he said. “Want to go back to my room and make out?”
“No!” Andy said, scowling.
They ended up doing both, the pool first, wrestling each other for a plastic football in the shallow end, then walking to Sid's house in silence, the sun drying them as they went, their towels hanging around their shoulders. The house was empty when they got there, and Andy was shaking by the time Sid shut his bedroom door.
“It's okay,” Sid said, and it was, because Sid held his face while they kissed, backing off when Andy got nervous about how hard they were kissing, and how hard he was inside his bathing suit. All he could think as Sid licked into him was This is the best thing that's ever happened to me, right now, the best thing, nothing will ever be better than this. His chest was fluttery with nerves and he had a death grip on Sid's sharp hipbones, just over the waistband of his bathing suit.
“What do you want to do?” Sid asked as they caught their breath. His hands slid down to Andy's shoulders, squeezing over his sunburn.
“Would you s-sit on me?” Andy asked, and Sid grinned.
Andy spent the rest of the afternoon stretched out on his back in Sid's bed, Sid sitting on his hips and leaning down to kiss him. It was like they'd been practicing for this all along. Maybe Sid knew that the whole time, but Andy didn't, though it was hard to believe now that he seemed to have found exactly where he belonged: pinned under Sid, his head framed by Sid's elbows, Sid's hands in his hair, tongue in his mouth, belly pressed flat to Andy's. Andy pretended not to notice when Sid came inside his bathing suit, his whole body going tense and then incredibly loose above Andy's, his breath ragged. Andy hugged Sid's shoulders and wondered if Sid had only been pretending not to notice when Andy did the same thing.
*
Part II