Into The Fold
Title: Into the Fold
Author: fedradiowires
Pairing: Tim Kasher/Conor Oberst
Rating: R
Summary: You don't understand why he trusts you so much.
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own, too poor to sue.
Thanks: sparkfactory for betaing, so_thoughtless for putting up with me.
Approximately 1200 words. May be one of a series of loosely bound vignettes.
But all that hair...and porcelain.
You swear it's more than mere lust. Into the fold. Into the fold.
You meet him on a September afternoon, hiding out in his parents' basement with his brother and a few of your friends, drinking and trying to relax after a rough week of classes. He traipses down the stairs after his brother, sitting across from you. This kid, with his too-big glasses and awkward smile, he's intriguing. Endearing. Pretty. And that last thought shakes you up, and you take as big a sip as you can manage from your beer.
His brother says, "Hey guys, you should check out his record."
The poor kid blushes, shaking his head fervently. But his brother is a pushy fucker - you've known him long enough to know - and so, in the end, the small handful of you who are there at one in the morning get to hear this album. He alternates between watching everyone, gauging their reaction, and watching the floor.
You watch him. The stereo crackles.
His voice, in the recordings, sounds like he's trying too hard to make himself sound older and mature, but you don't think his voice has even broken yet. He looks up and smiles at you.
***
"You see," he says, and you wonder just how this fragile kid is staying warm. There's snow on the ground, and he's drunk with his coat unzipped and flapping in the bitter wind. It's February, a Tuesday afternoon. "The problem is. I. I'm too old. Too old for high school and for... for anything!"
You want to give him a skeptical look, it's making your eyes itch not to do it, but he looks so painfully sincere that you don't. "You're seventeen," you remind him.
"I'm too old," he mumbles, "and it's killing me."
He's shaking, you realize with a start, and there's this part of you that thinks maybe it's not the cold. You reach out and zip up his jacket anyway, pulling him a little closer to you, and maybe this isn't such a good idea, having him this close to you, because it makes you think of taking him home and taking off his coat, then his shirt, then his jeans, and god only knows where sinners like you go.
It's not that you think there's anything wrong with wanting boys. It's just. It's not you. It can't be. And it can't be that the one you want is him.
"I don't belong in high school," he blurts, looking up at you with wide eyes.
You pause, for a few long seconds, fingers still on the zipper of his coat, resting near his neck. You lean over, kiss his forehead. "You belong at home. With your guitar." Your voice is slurred, because that's what drinking does to you, but he gets it.
"Thanks."
You don't understand why he trusts you so much. He's still shivering. "Come on," you say, maybe your twentieth word of the day. He picks up the half-empty bottle from where it's been sitting in the snow and follows you out of the abandoned playground.
***
You move into your new apartment sometime in April, and it's raining when you try to bring your desk up the narrow staircase, his brother carrying one end, and you carrying the other, and him following behind with a box of your things. You have this bizarre and irrational fear of losing your grip on the water-slick veneer, that his brother won't be able to hold it, and he'll go tumbling down the stairs like a ragdoll. And break his neck.
You roll your eyes at yourself. That's not going to happen.
As soon as you've got everything out of the tarp-covered bed of the pick-up truck, his brother is off, with a promise to swing by later in the week, maybe with some beer. You've offered him drinks, but he's off meeting your girlfriend's friend on some blind date or other.
You wonder how slow your girlfriend really is.
(That thought is to be followed up by months and years of fighting with her over your attachment to him, your drinking, the coke problem you'll develop, and the fact that you're more interested in your records than her. You just don't know it yet.)
He stays and helps you get the mattress into the portion of the apartment that passes for a bedroom, then starts stacking up your milk crate shelving unit along the wall across from it.
"How do you know I'll like it there?" You ask idly, a little unsure of the placement as you start to get your blankets laid out.
He shrugs and smiles at you. "You just will."
You laugh, and go to move the couch where you want it to go, and he starts putting your records in the crates. The scene is oddly domestic. "You staying tonight?"
He gives you a look. "What the fuck do you think?" He asks dryly, and he's right. He's slept at your place a lot of nights lately. You smile and straighten the couch out.
***
You and him, you can sit for hours, drinking and smoking and talking - well, usually, he talks, and you listen. His voice is thin and wavering, and yours is different, rougher. His hair falls into his eyes when he gets too excited. You've cut yours too short for that now, after your girlfriend told you you should.
You usually end up with him curled against your side, and your arm around his body, fingers stroking over a hipbone or a wrist. You think maybe it's wrong to feel the way you do. You've known him since he was fourteen, and you... you must have been nineteen or twenty. You knew him when his songs were all about hot chocolate and... and fucking Sweden of all places, not alcohol and the wilds of his own deep, dark imagination. That's what his songs are about now.
You press a kiss to his hair, the summer heat of Omaha rendering both of you mostly motionless, and he's quiet today, but you don't ask why. He glances up at you. "Can I put on a record?" He asks.
You nod a little bit, speaking only when you realize he's shifted, no longer looking at you but at the bottle he's reaching for. "Of course."
He leans up, kisses your jaw, before taking a sip. He's eighteen now, and you still think of him as a kid. Kids shouldn't be drinking whiskey. You've never called him on it. He gets up, and puts on some Daniel Johnston record, skipping to right to his favourite track.
He wanders back, takes another sip, straight from the bottle - you two are pretending that you're not middle-class assholes whose parents would be shocked at the daring of drinking without a cup - and then he offers it to you. You take it. He lays down and puts his head in your lap.
He looks too delicate not to touch.
Your fingers slide through his hair. He's let it grow out lately, long enough to fall in his face, obscuring his eyes like his glasses used to - he got rid of those a couple years ago. Now, you almost never see him without contacts, or maybe his vision is just not that bad.
You make a note to ask him some time.
He starts humming along and you go quiet, just listening.
In another couple years, he'll be different again.
Author: fedradiowires
Pairing: Tim Kasher/Conor Oberst
Rating: R
Summary: You don't understand why he trusts you so much.
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own, too poor to sue.
Thanks: sparkfactory for betaing, so_thoughtless for putting up with me.
Approximately 1200 words. May be one of a series of loosely bound vignettes.
But all that hair...and porcelain.
You swear it's more than mere lust. Into the fold. Into the fold.
You meet him on a September afternoon, hiding out in his parents' basement with his brother and a few of your friends, drinking and trying to relax after a rough week of classes. He traipses down the stairs after his brother, sitting across from you. This kid, with his too-big glasses and awkward smile, he's intriguing. Endearing. Pretty. And that last thought shakes you up, and you take as big a sip as you can manage from your beer.
His brother says, "Hey guys, you should check out his record."
The poor kid blushes, shaking his head fervently. But his brother is a pushy fucker - you've known him long enough to know - and so, in the end, the small handful of you who are there at one in the morning get to hear this album. He alternates between watching everyone, gauging their reaction, and watching the floor.
You watch him. The stereo crackles.
His voice, in the recordings, sounds like he's trying too hard to make himself sound older and mature, but you don't think his voice has even broken yet. He looks up and smiles at you.
***
"You see," he says, and you wonder just how this fragile kid is staying warm. There's snow on the ground, and he's drunk with his coat unzipped and flapping in the bitter wind. It's February, a Tuesday afternoon. "The problem is. I. I'm too old. Too old for high school and for... for anything!"
You want to give him a skeptical look, it's making your eyes itch not to do it, but he looks so painfully sincere that you don't. "You're seventeen," you remind him.
"I'm too old," he mumbles, "and it's killing me."
He's shaking, you realize with a start, and there's this part of you that thinks maybe it's not the cold. You reach out and zip up his jacket anyway, pulling him a little closer to you, and maybe this isn't such a good idea, having him this close to you, because it makes you think of taking him home and taking off his coat, then his shirt, then his jeans, and god only knows where sinners like you go.
It's not that you think there's anything wrong with wanting boys. It's just. It's not you. It can't be. And it can't be that the one you want is him.
"I don't belong in high school," he blurts, looking up at you with wide eyes.
You pause, for a few long seconds, fingers still on the zipper of his coat, resting near his neck. You lean over, kiss his forehead. "You belong at home. With your guitar." Your voice is slurred, because that's what drinking does to you, but he gets it.
"Thanks."
You don't understand why he trusts you so much. He's still shivering. "Come on," you say, maybe your twentieth word of the day. He picks up the half-empty bottle from where it's been sitting in the snow and follows you out of the abandoned playground.
***
You move into your new apartment sometime in April, and it's raining when you try to bring your desk up the narrow staircase, his brother carrying one end, and you carrying the other, and him following behind with a box of your things. You have this bizarre and irrational fear of losing your grip on the water-slick veneer, that his brother won't be able to hold it, and he'll go tumbling down the stairs like a ragdoll. And break his neck.
You roll your eyes at yourself. That's not going to happen.
As soon as you've got everything out of the tarp-covered bed of the pick-up truck, his brother is off, with a promise to swing by later in the week, maybe with some beer. You've offered him drinks, but he's off meeting your girlfriend's friend on some blind date or other.
You wonder how slow your girlfriend really is.
(That thought is to be followed up by months and years of fighting with her over your attachment to him, your drinking, the coke problem you'll develop, and the fact that you're more interested in your records than her. You just don't know it yet.)
He stays and helps you get the mattress into the portion of the apartment that passes for a bedroom, then starts stacking up your milk crate shelving unit along the wall across from it.
"How do you know I'll like it there?" You ask idly, a little unsure of the placement as you start to get your blankets laid out.
He shrugs and smiles at you. "You just will."
You laugh, and go to move the couch where you want it to go, and he starts putting your records in the crates. The scene is oddly domestic. "You staying tonight?"
He gives you a look. "What the fuck do you think?" He asks dryly, and he's right. He's slept at your place a lot of nights lately. You smile and straighten the couch out.
***
You and him, you can sit for hours, drinking and smoking and talking - well, usually, he talks, and you listen. His voice is thin and wavering, and yours is different, rougher. His hair falls into his eyes when he gets too excited. You've cut yours too short for that now, after your girlfriend told you you should.
You usually end up with him curled against your side, and your arm around his body, fingers stroking over a hipbone or a wrist. You think maybe it's wrong to feel the way you do. You've known him since he was fourteen, and you... you must have been nineteen or twenty. You knew him when his songs were all about hot chocolate and... and fucking Sweden of all places, not alcohol and the wilds of his own deep, dark imagination. That's what his songs are about now.
You press a kiss to his hair, the summer heat of Omaha rendering both of you mostly motionless, and he's quiet today, but you don't ask why. He glances up at you. "Can I put on a record?" He asks.
You nod a little bit, speaking only when you realize he's shifted, no longer looking at you but at the bottle he's reaching for. "Of course."
He leans up, kisses your jaw, before taking a sip. He's eighteen now, and you still think of him as a kid. Kids shouldn't be drinking whiskey. You've never called him on it. He gets up, and puts on some Daniel Johnston record, skipping to right to his favourite track.
He wanders back, takes another sip, straight from the bottle - you two are pretending that you're not middle-class assholes whose parents would be shocked at the daring of drinking without a cup - and then he offers it to you. You take it. He lays down and puts his head in your lap.
He looks too delicate not to touch.
Your fingers slide through his hair. He's let it grow out lately, long enough to fall in his face, obscuring his eyes like his glasses used to - he got rid of those a couple years ago. Now, you almost never see him without contacts, or maybe his vision is just not that bad.
You make a note to ask him some time.
He starts humming along and you go quiet, just listening.
In another couple years, he'll be different again.