Bracken Sorenson

Cedric’s brain short-circuited slightly when the word “sex” left Bracken’s lips. Why was he a horny teenager? His hormones were starting to ruin his mind, as his mind quickly decided to replay every sexual fantasy he had ever had. What was wrong with him? He really needed to keep his penis under control. Being a teenager was probably the worst thing that could ever happen to a person. 

A small chuckle found its way out of Ced’s mouth at Bracken’s comment about bending the rules of nature. “Too bad, I was really hoping to get a ten-foot tall, blue sunflower for my next birthday. Guess I’ll have to cross that off my wish-list,” he laughed at his own joke, not caring about how lame it was. Maybe he cared a little bit. (Maybe he cared a lot).

"I would love to see the book you document everything in! Is it like, a textbook, or a notebook, or something? And how do you capture the images of the plants. Do you- do you draw them?!” Cedric was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to handle that. Nobody should be that attractive to him, it had to be impossible. 

Yet there Bracken was, licking his lips and driving Ced crazy. He really hoped his hormones would calm themselves as they talked more often. He was getting tired of the tightness in his pants every time he saw him.

"Yeah, I draw them. Maybe you could see one sometime. When I have it on me." He said cautiously, gauging the other boy's reaction. This idle suggestion was only that-a suggestion. His sketchbook was reserved for those who held his ultimate trust. Cedric didn't need to know that his sketchbook was tucked in the inner sanctum of his satchel. It was never far from him, probably rubbing against a bundle of pencils with an elastic band around them or a loose Coke cap.

A quick glance at the clock told him to start cleaning up. His hands moved to start putting things away, but his interest in what Cedric was saying slowed them to a snail's pace. "Intangibility." He muttered to himself, willing any information from Mrs. Camper's class to present itself. "That's pretty cool in itself. I don't know about useful, but...you're pretty much a superhero. Like, I'd way rather be a member of the X-Men than grow a potted plant. If given the choice."

"Yes. It says ‘I’m mad at the world for some reason, and I’m going to channel my anger through my art’. And then you become the next Van Gogh!" He let his sentence end with a grin, hoping he wasn’t weirding Bracken out too much yet. It had been a while since he had last talked to hot guys.

He let his jaw drop in shock. “You…you’re…you…have…” His mouth did not seem to want to work. No words came out as he struggled to find the right thing to say. Something that wasn’t “marry me” or “get inside me right now” would have definitely been preferable.

"Oh my GOD! I can’t believe it! Do you know how lucky you are?! Well, obviously you do, since you seem to really like plants, and all that nature stuff. Can you believe how lucky I am, that I met you? You’re like, my dream guy! In platonic way! Like, we could be really great friends. I…uh…what do you all grow?" 

He hoped his question would distract Bracken from his major screw-up there. Bracken doesn’t know how much of a creepy stalker you are, remember? He dropped his face into his hands and tried to keep from whimpering.

Wait, what did he say? Now the puppy was looking at him expectedly. The train of thought had gripped him so fiercely that he hadn't even heard the question posed. He considered covering for his lapse, letting a noncommittal hum escape him before just deciding to come clean. It was clear to him at this point that Cedric wouldn't hold him in any lower esteem for gapping out during the conversation. At least he shouldn't, with the amount of daydreaming he had done already. "Uh, sorry. I didn't-I didn't catch that." He felt the warm sensation of a safety blanket still his social panic when he heard the question, grateful to lean back on his conversational crutch: botany.

I would like to go to bed with you was what his idiot brain wanted him to say. Instead,he just smiled weakly and nodded, trying to find a way to express his gratitude. “Oh, cool. I don’t know, some people might get awkward about it, and um…yeah, especially since I just called you attractive a few seconds ago uh… thanks.”

Cedric started to reach for the pencil, but when Bracken’s hands touched his, he froze. It only lasted a second. The slightest graze of hands. Something casual. His head started to spin. Bracken had touched him! If he died today, he would probably die happy. Nothing else mattered because Bracken had touched him. 

He pinched the pencil between his index finger and thumb and he took it from Bracken, trying hard not to think of how nice their hands seemed to feel together. As if his hands had been made for Cedric to hold them. Or somebody else to hold them, he thought, bitterly, of the girl he often saw trying to talk to him.

"Oh, I just love anything to do with plants!" he answered, enthusiastically, grateful for the distraction from his thoughts. "It’s just so cool how they can take sunlight and convert it into nutrients for themselves and how they are basically the foundation of every ecosystem! My dad and I have this joke that my gift should have been chlorokynesis." 

He felt a little bit bad for geeking out at Bracken slightly. But what could he do? He really loved plants.

It was one of the rare nights that Will was actually able to sleep. Tyler could tell because 1) the gym teacher wasn’t being a pain in Tyler’s ass and 2) the tiny room seemed to be amplifying the snoring. Tyler grabbed his pillow and attempted to suffocate Will. Consequently, the key keeper quickly found himself thrown out into the hallway with only his pajama bottoms and a pillow. 

Tyler flipped his roommate the bird and shuffled along down the hallway. He was tired and irritated, but not enough to teleport back into the room and finish off Will. 

"O-oh! Sorry! I didn’t mean it in that way!" Cedric stuttered out. He had meant to come on to Bracken at some point, just not at this point. Right now, all he had wanted was to talk to the boy he’d been crushing on since ninth grade from afar. And Bracken didn’t even know his name! Ced was truly hopeless. “I-um- if I was coming on to you it would look um- a lot different. Not that I wouldn’t! You’re very attractive and I can barely believe that you’re a real person but- I’m gonna stop talking now.”

He ducked his head and smiled sheepishly at Bracken, trying to mask the fact that he was just about dying of embarrassment. “I’m really sorry I told you that! I didn’t mean it. Wait. Um. Sometimes I just sort of say things without thinking?” Oh god, Bracken was going to think he was coming onto him again.

What he meant to say was his name; what he ended up saying was, “I’m gay. Crap, I mean I’m Cedric. Well I’m gay too but, um…oh my god.” 

"Look, Ced. I really couldn't care less who you like to go to bed with, okay?" Bracken had no idea if his attempt to reassure was being successful. Making human connections was not his area of expertise. "Here's your pencil back." 

No sooner had he said the words than he promptly dropped the pencil onto the floor between their desks. "Shit. I've got it." He said absent mindedly brushing Cedric's hands away and picking it up nimbly. How does he get his hands so soft? He thought briefly, handing him the pencil. 

"R-right! Yeah. I have one!" he smiled a bit too widely in response to the question, passing one of the few pencils he hadn’t managed to chew on all semester (not exactly a big achievement, since they were only about a week into the second semester).

He decided to forego writing down the note the teacher had scribbled on the board, and decided to continue watching Bracken. He liked his handwriting quite a bit, for some odd reason. Ced shifted his focus back to the front of the room, and smiled dreamily at the thought of love-letters, addressed to him, written in that beautiful, messy writing of his. A small wistful sigh escaped his mouth. Note to self, dont let your next unrequited crush get this out of control, to the point where you’re basically stalking him.

Cedric, upon noticing the open hand dug through his pencil case quickly and finally found his eraser. “Sorry for not giving you one with an eraser… It’s just that most of the ones that had erasers, well- um- I chew on my pencils? And I don’t think you’d want to touch something that’s been in my mouth.” 

This sentence filled his mind with various images of Bracken in various different positions in which a part of his body would end up in Ced’s mouth. He licked his lips at the thought, then shook his head slightly to bring himself back to the moment.

"Aren't you supposed to ask my name before you start coming on to me?" He said casually, once again returning to the task of copying out his note. "That is what you're doing, isn't it? And I don't think it's dumb, I just don't know how to respond when I don't even know what to call you." A little white lie wouldn't hurt. Especially considering that he found 99.9% of all things in the world dumb.

He was distracted by his heavenly mouth (wow, that thing should be illegal for looking so freaking kissable), and didn’t process that he had spoken to him for a second. He blinked a few times, drawing his eyes away from those lips (those damn lips), and looked up to see an expectant face staring back at him.

Oh dear lord, Sex on Legs had just spoken to him, and he had been too distracted to even hear what he had said. But wow, he spoke to Cedric. A rush of excitement and nervousness filled him, and he felt his face warm up. Thank god for dark skin, so Bracken wouldn’t notice his blushing. Probably.

He took the pencil and immediately began scratching down the note on the chalkboard, only glancing back at him when he knew the other boy was looking away. Something about his face was appealing. Not in the way a person is appealing (he wouldn't know what that was like) but in the way a piece of art was appealing. The features of his face were arranged in an undeniably pleasing way, and were complimented by his flawless skin. From a completely artistic standpoint, he reassured himself.