Left 4 dead sideblog

The sound of the brunet’s voice, low and flat, surprised him. Keith was too busy despairing to hear the subtle shift of fabric as Ellis turned his head.

“Ain’t it just like… A tablespoon’uh warm sugarmilk by now?”

Blearly, Keith’s neck jerked his head upright, and his eyelids blinked sluggishly, brows raised to the sky. When he saw Ellis looking apathetically toward the cup in his hand, his head lolled to look, too.

The skin under his chin bunched up in the slouch, lip pouting out as he took in the sight at the bottom of the styrofoam vessel.

“I mean… Yeah, kinda…” He sheepishly admitted, before looking up at the other man through wheat-gold eyelashes, glancing back and forth between Ellis and the cup. “Might be two tablespoons… Yuh want it anyway…?”

Blue eyes locked onto him under lowered lids, assessing. When one of Ellis’ arms eventually came out of its embrace to reach out across the couch, open-handed, Keith felt hope punch straight into his chest. Dejection had not fully been removed from that space, but at least it now had competition.

He hurried to rock upward, lurching into range to hand over the peace offering.

With one arm still curled around his knees, Ellis assessed his gift, and looked a little amused underneath the chilly distance that had taken residence on his face. He rocked the cup back and forth, staring into the bottom with a leisurely air.

He closed his mouth around the straw, taking a sip which drew brows into an unimpressed arch. Melted peanut butter shake wasn’t the greatest, if the gentle downward twist to his lips as he smacked them was anything to go by. Since he kept slurping until bubbles of fluid were popping loudly throughout the straw, it also mustn’t have been the worst.

Ellis sighed then, palming his face with his spare hand and letting the cup dangle loosely from the fingers which were gripping around the ridge of the lid. A single fingernail plucked at the rough-cut edge of plastic, while Keith’s own nails resumed fiddling with textures on the fabric of the couch.

It looked like Ellis was thinking hard, though how much was actually going through his head was a mystery, especially with how liberally Keith had spiked the man’s dessert. Keith wanted so badly to jump up and bark and bang on whatever glass pane was keeping Ellis’ thoughts to himself, but the recent failure of one of his knee-jerk reactions had cowed him. He managed to wait, at the expense of a scab on his forearm.

Another tired sigh rasped out from his friend before he seemed to find something he could gradually put words to. True to form, it was vaguely shaped like a story.

“He invited me to his place a few times. We’d just, like, make food, ‘n’ sit on his couch’n’watch movies’n’shit… It was nice.”

“First time he had me over, he made this real nice Italian stuff. Like, there was an awesome meat roll-up thingy, and he hand-made some spaghetti from scratch-”

“Wait– hand made? Seriously??” Keith couldn’t keep himself from blurting, much as he may have liked to the moment after it came out. He was genuinely shocked.

The gently amused chuckle it drew out of Ellis kept him from berating himself over his perpetually insufficient self-control.

“Yeah, man. Ain’t it crazy? It-” the man’s head suddenly dipped low, “Shit, dude, it made me feel so special… Like, he just… Put in all that effort just tuh… Be nice. Fer me.”

Keith felt his whole face pinch up tight, and he had to harshly bite down on the inside of his lip to keep himself under control.

“He could’uh just used some shit from a box’n’I wouldn’t’a noticed, but there was a pasta thingy right there on the counter when I got there. Turns out that shit’s amazin’ fresh...”

“Another time, he made chicken, uh… Catch-a… Sumthin’r’other… I don’t remember, the-” the sentence slowed in his forgetfulness, and he waved his hand around limply. “Whutever. Anyway, he let me pick a side, so I showed ‘im how tuh make red beans’n’rice proper.”

“A’course, I made some, like, full meals, too. Fried up some catfish for ‘im. Offered tuh take him noodlin’ some time, but uh. Surprise surprise, he wasn’t intuh that, haw.” A fond little hum drifted out from him, into the living room.

“I don’t think he’s never deep fried anything before. Pan fried, sure, but not deep fried. Had tuh get his biggest pot out fer the fish,” he explained, gesturing out roundly with his arms, “and I think there was some ice left on the okra, ‘cause when we dumped that in there-” a drowsy, but delighted giggle bubbled up from Ellis’ belly as he recalled the memory, and his loose drawl began pitching upward as affection continued to take hold of his throat “-you should’a seen his face, man. I don’t think I ever seen him spooked like that before. Gawd, it was adorable…”

“Couldn’t help but joke about you’n’yer turkey in-ci-dent, though - heh, sorry, man. Think it made him a lil’ bit scared’uh hot oil… He, uh, said it was good, though, even though I think we might’uh used up more oil that day than he uses in a year...”

“Made the mistake’uh makin’ jambalaya the way we like it, y’know?” Ellis gestured between himself and Keith. He’d relaxed into resting his face against a forearm that he’d wrapped around his knee, squished-up cheek squinting an eye nearly closed.

Keith scrunched his brows, confused. Their jambalaya was awesome. “Mistake?” It had fallen out of him thoughtlessly. Fortunately, Ellis didn’t seem to mind. He nodded and grimaced a little.

“Ah– yeah, so uh… It was a couple months back? Well, heh, it smelled great, ‘n’he looked like it tasted good, ‘til he, uh…” Ellis cleared his throat and winced, mildly self-conscious.

“Well, he jumped up’n’start shovelin’ cheese in his mouth straight from the fridge-”

Laughter - honest, hysterical, cackling laughter - had Keith punching his fist into the cushion supporting him and kicking his feet into the air. It could not be helped. He didn’t mean anything by it. Really! It’s just, he and Ellis had gotten so used to hot sauce-chugging contests that he’d kind of forgotten how warped their spice tolerances had become. The idea of Ellis’ mysterious, goofy lil city guy being subjected to a dish that passed as pleasantly spicy to the boys…

Well.

“Hahahah, oh, NO, that poor sum’bitch!” he howled, smacking a palm onto his forehead. “Ellis, yuh done poisoned him!”

Ellis fumbled over his words for a moment. Distress was loud and clear on his face, but it possessed an undercurrent of the good humor of recalling a memory that was stressful at the time, and kind of embarrassingly funny in retrospect. His shoulders were raised, and his hands helplessly shrugged palms up.

“Man, I didn’t even think it was gonna be that spicy! He looked at the jalapeños all funny’n’I decided tuh scrape the seeds outta half! I barely felt it at all!!”

That renewed Keith’s laughter.

“Keith, I was shittin’ muhself, thinkin’ I went’n’fucked up too bad. I mean, he ain’t never been mean tuh me none, but I was still thinkin’ he might yell at me or throw me out, y’know? But… Nah. He even laughed a lil’ bit once it wore off, even though his face was red’n’his eyes were watering’n’he was coughin’ a little. I still felt kinda bad about it, but…”

A gentle shrug touched his shoulders as he trailed off, a couple goofy little jabs both vying for attention and clogging up his flow in their eagerness.

They make ‘em weaker up north, heh.

He ain’t born’n’bred Dixie, that’s for damn sure.

What did come out of his mouth next started slowly and ended slower, and as Keith watched Ellis’ face rapidly fall, he felt his heart do the same.

“I, uh… Told him I’d cut out all the seeds, next time. Or use poblanos’r’sumthin’ instead…”

The brunet sighed.

“Next time…”

Directing a vulnerable, pleading look to the heavens, Keith felt like this whole afternoon was turning into a goddamn agonizing see-saw. One minute Ellis wasn’t talking, the next he’d get happy, and the next he’d get sad… And repeat forever, a-fucking-pparently.

Ellis rubbed his face harshly with both hands, then shoved the cap off his head and curled fingers into his hair, close to the scalp. His knees returned to their tuck close to his chest.

“I… I’m sorry man, I don’t wanna be so fuckin lame…”

“Oh, fuck off with that shit,” Keith scolded with a sigh, compassion and affection evident in the softness of his voice, sorrow evident in the creasing of his forehead and downturn of his lips. “Yer awesome all the damn time, brother, you can be a little lame for a day.”

When Ellis turned damp and hazy eyes at him, chin wobbling, Keith thought he made yet another mistake. Watching his friend’s face screw up in anguish before burrowing into the arms crossed around his knees, the taller man felt his stomach undergo a stuttering descent, as if it only had so much pained seizing left in it before it would stop trying.

He could only watch, exhausted, as sobs wracked his friend’s body for the second day in a row. They were gentler today, less wildly out of control, but that didn’t really make Keith feel any better on his friend’s behalf.

Chest heaving, Ellis’ voice was simultaneously loud and broken, like he had to push out every unsteady word with all his might, or no noise would have come out at all.

“I… I’m sorry, Keith, I– I just miss him so bad! I miss him and I love him and I love him so much and ImisshimImisshimImisshim!” Sorting wetly, Ellis cradled his head, white-knuckled grip tugging at his hair. When Keith grazed his foot against Elis’ thigh again, one hand locked that grip back onto his ankle.

Apparently, it was enough.

“A-and every - time I hafta see him again it just, hurts all damn over again… Keith, I - I just don’t know whut to do. C-’cause it ain’t like we wanted tuh - tuh stop seein’ each other, right? We had to, but -” A calloused thumb dug roughly into Keith’s skin as Ellis shook his head and tried to breathe.

“A-a-and it ain’t just that I miss him, Keith - I’m worried about him, too! I mean, he practically - well okay, he didn’t say it, but he practically told me he don’t really got any friends. We’re like, the closest thing tuh friends he’s got, I think, and every time I look at him he just looks so sad’n’lonely and, and I just wanna grab his hand’n’tell him everything’s okay’n’I’m here for him, but I can’t and it sucks.”

Keith’s eyes lost their compassionate focus and began jolting around in alarmed thought halfway through the stream of words that had found an escape route. If Ellis had been paying attention, he would’ve found Keith mouthing to himself, ‘Wait, I know this guy...?’

“Keith, I just wanna be there for him’n’have him back… That’s all I want, man. I just - I just want -” Fingertips wrapped around Keith’s foot, digging into his arch with a pressure that could have felt nice under other circumstances. Ellis sniffed against the gunk in his sinuses again. “All I want’n’it ain’t that goddamn much tuh ask for, but I can’t have it anyway.”

He made eye contact with Keith, and he looked miserable, like a kicked dog.

“No other guy’s made me feel this way, Keith. I had breakups before, ‘n’guys who I thought liked me who I liked back, but it was always… They weren’t ever real, yknow? It was always just some fling, or they were nice in the moment but never really meant any of what they said, or the both of us kinda went into it knowin’ it’d never amount to anything, ‘cause like. Why would it? Two closeted country dudes runnin’ around in secret? Only occasionally meetin’ up tuh screw’n’then fuck off to live our lives away from each other?”

The bitter scowl that took up residence on the shorter man’s face made Keith uncomfortable for the moment it was there.

“That ain’t a real relationship, man. It’s bullshit, is what it is.”

“But with him, it just… It was always different. It always felt different.” Fresh anguish took up residence in bleary blue eyes. Curled in on himself, Ellis wiped tracks of moisture off of his face with his free palm. “It… Really felt like we actually had somethin’, brother. Like we could’uh had somethin’ real if he weren’t him’n’I weren’t me. If - if we just went up north’n’disappeared into a city somewhere, it could be different. We could just… Not have tuh worry about all this, stupid… Everyone findin’out garbage…”

Keith worked his jaw, thoroughly at a loss. Firmly tonguing the bare spot of gum at the top of his mouth, his brain eventually connected enough bewildered wires to get out a question rife with uncertainty, and it was as good as any other.

“... Remind me why y’all broke up again…?”

Ellis wiped his nose off against his shoulder.

“It’s ‘cause I– I–,” palming the back of his neck self-consciously, the shorter man sighed. “Well, y’know, I’m - in the closet…” he muttered with something resembling shame. “So it’s not like I can just go out with a guy all out in the open, or whutever… And if anyone finds out and gets the idea tuh report that we were datin’, he could lose his job.”

Ellis corrected himself after a despondent moment. “He would lose his job… And that ain’t - I wouldn’t wanna do that to ‘im. If that happened, I’d lose him fer good’n’ he’d… He’d be pretty damn screwed.”

Keith’s spine straightened in surprise, and his brow quirked in doubt. “He’d seriously lose his job if someone found out you were datin’?”

Ellis nodded, certain and upset. “There’s whole policies against it’n’everything. No question, he’d lose everything’n’he’d prob’ly have to skip town, too. Find somethin’ else to do, somewhere else.”

No way. No way a guy could lose his job just for dating another guy. That couldn’t be right. It didn’t make sense! It sounded so absurd to Keith, almost too absurd to acknowledge the tragedy of the circumstance, and he said as much.

“Well that sounds stupid.”

Ellis choked out something that almost resembled a morose chuckle before slouching forward in angst. “I think so, too, but it’s… It’s the way it is… I don’t even know why I’m complainin’ so much, man. I mean, a-at least I have you, now, I guess. He's got no one pullin’ for him back home…”

“Well, I think you’re complainin’ so much ‘cause there’s some major league bullshit keepin’ you from your guy!” Keith declared, cuffing a hand up in performed outrage. “I’d be complainin’, too! Hell, I’d be ignorin’ all that bullshit’n’runnin’ him down, anyway! Fuck the rules! Pick up yer pretty city boy in your big truck’n’mow down any fucker who looks at’cha funny! Show him how we do it out in the sticks! Whoo!”

The bright vibrance of Keith’s enthusiasm was terribly out of place in the room as he aggressively gestured around the place and then pumped a fist in the air. While Ellis apparently didn’t mind it, it was also clear that Keith’s energy battered impotently at the miasma of heartache that had enveloped his friend. Ellis’ thumb rubbed against the side of Keith’s shin, and he bent to the side, toward the taller man.

Eventually, he groaned his way fully downward, heavily collapsing onto Keith’s leg. Sturdy, tan arms enveloped the scarred limb like it was a teddy bear. A bony, burnt teddy bear. Keith couldn’t imagine it was comfortable.

It’s not like he minded, of course. Verticality was probably difficult for the other man to maintain, by now, and their friendship involved plenty of physical affection even under normal circumstances.

“I wish it was that simple, man, but - I don't got it in me to be the guy who ruins his whole life just ‘cause I… Want him so bad it makes me stupid.” Ellis shook his head and stared through the blanket on his lap. “The one… Fuckin’ chance I had at somethin’ real’n’it was doomed from the start, anyway…”

Keith didn’t know what he could say to help.

He huffed. “Well, that still sounds like bullshit tuh me.”

Sadly whining out agreement, Ellis ground a nod into his shin. It was frustrating, to not know how he could help. He wanted to come up with some scheme, some way around the rules that’d let Ellis chase his man down, but there was a haze where his brilliant ideas should’ve been.

Was there even a risk Ellis would be willing to take, if it meant never seeing the guy again? He was enough of a daredevil in his own right, but there were lines he’d draw that would surprise Keith, sometimes.

Feeling impotent fucking sucked.

The sound of the shorter man smacking his mouth dryly caught Keith’s ear, and it gave him a directive, one he could actually fulfill. He patted Elllis on the shoulder and received a disapproving grunt.

“Hey, lemme get up, I’m gonna get us some water.”

When his friend groaned - nearly growled - in protest, and gripped tighter, he started violently shaking his leg. “Giddoff me, yuh tick, I’m tryna save you a hangover!”

Ellis just moaned again, but the vigorous jostling must have made the room spin just a bit too much, because he sluggishly threw himself backwards to bury his whole torso into the crevice between the couch’s back and cushions.

As Keith lurched upward to forge his way to the kitchen, a middle finger was lazily raised to see him off. He snorted.

The finger wasn’t even pointed upward properly.

It is possible that Keith could have navigated the room without being intercepted by stationary objects, but that would have taken effort, and he hardly put in the effort when he was sober, anyway.

He bumped his way off of a wall or two that vaguely directed him into the kitchen, filling two plastic cups mostly full of water.

Managing to get back to the couch, having only spilled a little on the way, he plopped back down and coaxed the pliable, but uncooperative, Ellis into drinking nearly a full glass. It was good enough.

Keith scooched back into his spot, and pushed his leg back into his friend’s space. It was gladly, if slowly, taken up into the man’s arms, and they sat there for a long, peaceful moment - ellis motionless, and Keith staring at the top of the guy’s curly-haired head.

… Until the human disaster couldn’t help but try for a little bit more information, the least tactful way he knew how.

“So…” Keith started, waiting until Ellis tilted his head and hummed a question in acknowledgment. “... Was he good in the sack?”

A quick, shocked laugh barked out of the shorter man, followed by another, and then more as he descended into weak, unstoppable giggles that followed up his initial surprise. Keith was almost surprised when he actually got an answer this time.

“Heh… Yeah, man. He was good in the sack,” Ellis drowsily slurred out with a long, wistful sigh. “The fuckin’ best… Hottest sex I ever had in m’life. Christ… That guy…” Stiffly, the words stopped, like he held his breath to keep them in. Keith was sure he saw some pink creep into the man’s ears. “‘N’, like, of course he was good, ‘cause he’s a fuckin’–”

Another stilling of Ellis’ chest, and another shockingly abrupt cut-off. Keith couldn’t be sure what Ellis was going to say. All he heard was the sound of a tongue curled to the top of a mouth with the beginning hum of a sound. It could have started with a ‘d’ or an ‘n’, or maybe even a ‘t’ or something else, given the sloppiness of his speech.

“He’s a whut?”

“Mmm… Nuthin’.”

“Seriously?”

Ellis simply blew out a raspberry in response, and held up his finger again.

Even half drunk and half asleep, the guy managed to keep his fucking secrets. It made Keith need to loudly expel frustration out his nose.

He leaned his head back on the couch arm and heaved another sigh. The desire to push and push for more information remained. He’d gotten so much value out of the whiskey he’d used, both in terms of what he got out of Ellis, and what Ellis clearly got out of being able to just talk to someone.

More details, more tidbits, more stories, more memories, more grieving - real, proper grieving if Ellis was actually going to give up on this guy. Keith wanted more.

But it had been a lot. So much in so short a time. Ellis was practically drooling on his leg, too tired to keep talking and too reticent with what little he could get himself to say past the fatigue.

And Keith was fucking tired. Mind full to bursting, and emotionally exhausted, and he’d just gotten a text from Paul that the older man was tired of waiting and gonna be home in twenty.

While he wanted to know more, he also just wanted to veg out like a lazy ass, same as Ellis.

So that’s what they did.

Keith hauled Ellis up to rest his head on his stomach, and grabbed the TV remote to put something on at low volume, determined to keep them both awake. He jostled Ellis a few times, trying to keep him from falling asleep but even that didn’t stop the guy from conking out in five minutes.

Just before his friend tapped out of consciousness, Keith was struck with an idea, just one more little ounce of intel to test the man’s honesty if approached directly.

“So, uh, your boy toy,” he had asked, flexing his abs to jolt Ellis’ head. “Do I know this guy?”

Ellis had hummed. And then he lied. “Mm… No. Naw. Maybe you seen ‘im around,” he groggily mumbled, “but you don’ know ‘im.”

He must have forgotten, or not realized, that he’d let the exact opposite of that slip earlier. Keith felt his heart rate jump, and a silent prayer rippled across his mind, thanking God for gifting Man with whiskey.

“What’s he look like?”

He could feel Ellis’ chest shift with a huff, probably frustrated at being kept awake. Nevertheless, the man managed to mumble out, “Pretty... ‘N’ tall.”

Keith chuckled, unable to help himself. “Everyone’s tall tuh you, short stuff.”

Ellis jerked his head, probably as hard as he could - though it was pretty damn weak - into some kind of impact on Keith’s stomach.

It made Keith smile, and he finally allowed the both of them some rest.

When Paul came home, he found both boys passed out on the couch, Keith having been lulled into sleep by the warmth and comfort of contact with his lifelong best friend. He eyed the mess they’d left on the coffee table, deciding it was most certainly not going to be his problem to clean up, and took a moment to stare exactly how much fluid had been drained from the whiskey bottle he knew they didn’t own the previous day.

The young men stirred sometime in the deep embrace of the night, Ellis’ head splitting open and Keith’s feeling fine enough to drive him home. Ellis had paused after they pulled into his mom’s driveway, taking a moment to push past the ache in his skull and give Keith a firm, sincere thanks.

He didn’t specify what for, and he didn’t need to.

A gentle punch on the arm and some soft words of affection saw him ushered out. He had to take a moment in front of the door to take a deep breath, and accept that he had to keep living life, same as always, with all the people in his life who cared about him and knew him. One of those people now knowing him more than he ever was prepared for.

And that person still loving him just as much as before. Apparently.

Only when he passed into the house did Keith move his car to head back.

His mother was relieved at his return, even though he had texted her at the start of the drive to her place. When pressed for how his days went, he told her about the dirt biking, and dinner, before saying he and Keith got drunk and played video games, and that’s why he came home so late.

She didn’t grill him, thankfully. Drunken gaming must have been believable enough, what with the very real hangover he was minding.

Retreating to his room with a glass of water after slurping some juice out of a pickle jar, he nearly dropped straight onto his bed to give tomorrow’s Ellis his first proper rest in days. But a blue and white bass guitar caught his eye, sitting there in its corner, and it pulled him from his course.

He laid there in bed, plucking at it gently, careful of the ache in his head. Ideas and emotions began to come forth, intolerable things he’d so desperately suppressed coming to a foggy head and tentatively felt out in clumsily-picked chords.

Looking at all that mess felt tolerable now, and it had been so long since he’d felt like creating anything…

He fell asleep curled around the instrument.

The next day, he awoke with a fresh bassline repeating in his head, and the hazy outline of a lyrical mood pushing at his consciousness.It was such a relief.

===========================================

Author yaps: ~300 words

Jesus Christ, I've never creatively written something this long in my life.

The jamaican restaurant and Skip’s are actually real places. Skip’s Grill is a little southern home cooking place up in Winchester, TN that I’ve been to with a friend a couple times. Those burgers tasted divine after hiking for multiple hours; I highly recommend. The fries needing seasoning thing is real, too, unfortunately >_> Now, I know Winchester is not, in fact, anywhere near Savannah, but that doesn’t matter because I needed a name for a burger joint and including it made me happy. I couldn’t figure out the name of the jamaican place to shout it out, even using google maps, because there are *two* jamaican places near Hunter Army Airfield, and I went there in uhhhhhh early 2020, which is long enough for me to forget how to ID the right place. Was good af though. I picked up a piece of chicken by the bone and the meat just slid off into the jerk-seasoned stewing juice pooled in the foam takeout box. Incredible.

I have a handful of ideas remaining for later scenes in this AU, but who knows if anything will come of them. We’ll see.

Rubbing his thumbs on the half-empty foam cup in his lap, Ellis turned his face away again. Pensiveness touched his brow, but his eyes held a kind of determination, made fuzzy by booze. His jaw twitched open. His tongue darted over his lower lip.

“First date, huh?” He took in a sluggish deep breath, and sighed, letting the air noisily flap his lips. Perhaps if Ellis had been sober, every word he tried to speak would have been caught somewhere behind his teeth, regardless of whether or not he actually wanted to talk. As it was, the world sloshed around like a thin syrup when he rocked his head from side to side, and his tongue seemed loosened enough to work, albeit slowly.

“We, uh. He took me to a… Pizza place. Up that’a’ways, a bit,” he started, flopping a hand in the direction he thought was north-ish. Rolling his neck around, he searched for the next thing to say, and found that there wasn’t really much that needed saying. The realization came as a huff of air from his mouth, and a wry feeling just barely twitched one corner of his mouth upward. “Nothin’ really happened. Not interestin’ like your shit, anyway, heh.” 

Skip the car bj, skip over the car bj. 

“Ah- We just kinda… Talked. About stuff. It was real nice, gettin’ to learn some stuff about ‘im. Gettin’ to know him better. Um…” He pushed a shoulder into the couch cushion behind him, letting his head nestle against the plush, stuffed fabric. It was cozy, and soothing. Pleasant tingles danced across his scalp as the pressure shifted the curls underneath his cap. He sighed, savoring the feeling, and a drowsy weariness added itself to his reticence.

Caving into the insecurity that still had a tight hold on his chest, Ellis found himself glancing over to where Keith was situated on the other end of the couch. His friend was looking at him in the way one would watch a mildly interesting movie. Attentive, but not intensely focused - there was a distance to his expression that Ellis had difficulty interpreting. Was it boredom? Apathy? The booze? Was it simply the fact that Ellis continued to keep him waiting?

The accident-prone man was idly rolling the base of his milkshake around on the arm of the couch and picking at fabric pills with his other hand, blindly flicking them away when one tore off. One of his eyebrows slowly drifted upward above slightly-lidded eyes.

Ellis followed the compulsion to avert his gaze once more. He also felt compelled to continue.

“I was… So fuckin’ scared, man… God, I was so nervous. I hadn’t been on a real date in a long-ass time, and definitely not with…” Someone I already cared about? Someone who… actually might stick around? Or like me back? Every approach he took to finishing that sentence ended up sounding some degree of pathetic, so he gave up on it. “I dunno… I just really really wanted it to go well.”

“A - and it did, y’know?” Looking vaguely up at the ceiling, a loose shrug drew his shoulders upward. “It… It actually went real well. He…” A gentle laugh escaped him, then, and the mild disbelief that had been pinching his brows just a moment before melted. Warm affection pulled at his lips and tried to soften his eyes, but it could not do so fully. Sorrowful longing oozed its way up from his gut, and dampened the happiness that would have shone on his face otherwise.

“He could tell I was nervous. Did a kinda shit job’uh hidin’ it, honestly, but uh… He was real nice… And patient, with me…”

Dizzying shadows cast by stippling on the ceiling coaxed his eyes into losing their focus, staring somewhere far past the solid surface. A memory wanted to rise up in him - he felt it trying - but he had lost what little momentum he’d forced himself to accrue. Sitting there, having fallen silent yet again while attempting to recall stories that he simultaneously cherished and could not bear, he kind of just felt lame.

Nevertheless, that memory pushed at his consciousness just enough to put a curve on his lips, twitching upward without his permission. It persisted there, in spite of all the other emotional gunk that was gathered in his chest, eventually culminating in a quiet huff of air out his nose that might have been the ghost of a chuckle.

Hardly a moment after, a terrible squeak pierced the air nearby. Ellis whipped his head around to look, and saw his friend looking at him with an expression that was… somehow still difficult to parse. The end of the thick plastic straw was in Keith’s mouth, gnawed into a pulverized mess while Ellis was looking away. He was still actively chewing on it, and when Ellis silently stared a bit too long, he jerked his neck and made another two awful sounds, plastic sliding against rough-cut plastic in a painful skrrrk-skrrrk.

Keith slowly, deliberately dragged the straw against the opening of the milkshake lid again, narrowing his eyes in a way that read as threatening.

Ellis sighed, and rubbed a palm against the back of his neck.

And then he capitulated - both to his friend and to himself.

“Um… It’s… A little silly, but… He, uh - he… Kept yammerin’ on about all the different kinds’a pizza. And how all’uv’em were shit except the kind he liked, heh.” The joy that had only danced at his lips before was now reaching his eyes as he allowed himself to recall the memory in earnest. “I think he just kept on for my sake, honestly.”

He was quite certain that was the case, in fact, though an open admission of that felt more than a little daunting at the moment.

“He likes the, uh, the big, flat kind,” Ellis explained, gesturing awkwardly with the milkshake still in hand, making a big, vaguely triangular shape in the air. He spared a glance over toward Keith, avoiding eye contact while darting over the form of his friend nearby.

The man had bitten the flattened straw’s end open again to slurp some melty shake through. When Ellis allowed himself a cheeky little smile and said, “You should hear whut he said about deep dish,” a tempered disdain twisted at the man’s mouth. It only made his tentative grin widen. “Could never have a pizza party with you two together, though, that’s for sure, hah. Y’all’d be at each others’ throats. Two stubborn sons’a bitches…”

Tilting his head back and closing his eyes, the fantasy that Ellis had been inhibiting rose up to fill his mind, freed by alcohol.

He saw it clearly - his two favorite guys bickering over their food. Keith would be bounding around in agitation, limbs going every which way as he defended the honor of his sauce-laden favorite. Maybe he’d shake a chair, or start hopping around in a ‘friendly’ aggression, hooting out peeved half-laughs that were tempered by the value Keith placed in his relationship with the Northerner.

Nick would probably start off trying to be cool and composed, rebutting anything Keith said with something resembling an argument. Keith would inevitably press one of his buttons, though. Nick would hear something that’d pull his thin lips back to bare gritted teeth, eyes narrowed, gesturing in sharp, fiery movements that would snap along the crisp material of his dress shirt. Maybe a dark lock or two would jostle loose from its gel, if Ellis was lucky. Nick was alarmingly handsome when he was a little disheveled.

Awareness of his surroundings, of his situation, vanished as he lost himself to the fantasy. There was nothing except the coveted image of domesticity. He felt nothing but the sensation of the bickering in his mom’s kitchen.

It seemed so real, then, Ellis and his mom laughing at the spectacle, uninhibited by the foul influence of reality. Nick showing his personality, his real personality, sharp and interesting and delightful in a prickly-pear way that never shone out from under his professional veneer - only allowed to be seen when he and Ellis were alone.

Ellis wanted everyone to see him, to delight in the man the way he himself did. And in the warm glow of incandescent bulbs, scattered softly by decades-old glass shades stained yellow-brown from age, he had it.

It was perfect.

It also hurt.

The sandy buzz of Keith’s low tenor hit his awareness slowly. For a moment, it was simply incorporated into the fading scene that had lulled Ellis into that pleasant and painful place. Something in his mind recognized that it was an external input - one that he cared about hearing. And so slowly, as he was torn from the scene he'd invented, he managed to pull his head upright. The world swayed around him when he blinked in the direction of the noise.

Keith might have felt bad for interrupting whatever had made Ellis float off with that little smile on his face, if he hadn’t also seen the man’s chin start to wobble. As it was, he wanted to hear more, needed to know more about the guy who was sooooo special that his absence damaged Ellis so severely. And, not to be rude or anything, but one nice pizza date really didn’t cut it, in Keith’s mind.

Only when Ellis seemed attentive, blue eyes only slightly hazy and confused, did Keith repeat himself.

“Where else did’juh go?” When there was no hint of comprehension in the expression that met him, he clarified, “For dates.”

“Oh. Um…” Ellis turned his attention to his milkshake, seeming surprised and disappointed when a hollow blurbling sound indicated how little fluid remained. Sighing, he dumped the rest directly into his mouth, placed the cup on the coffee table, and pulled an old throw blanket into his lap. His tone was casual, distant, and thoughtful when he began.

“Well, we went to Tybee once. He ain’t never been before, if you can believe it. Been here for years, but ain’t bothered seein’ the island. We walked around, had some food… I got cotton candy and made him try pralines. Managed to get to the candy kitchen right when they were pourin’ out some peanut brittle, too, so I got him tuh try that fresh’n’warm for the first time.”

A hissed breath of envious approval snaked out from behind Keith’s teeth, but Ellis didn’t seem to notice.

“We hit up a nice bar, too. I ain’t been tuh the one we went in, we just went ‘cause he thought it looked nice. Turns out he’s crazy good at pool.” Vague astonishment passed over Ellis’ face, as if he couldn’t believe the memory despite being there for it. “Like– man, I don’t think I ever seen someone trounce a table like that. ‘N’ he was all, throwin’ sly little smiles at me over his shoulder when no one was lookin’. Cocky bastard…”

Ellis had sunk into the couch and wrinkled his nose like he tasted something sour. As he pouted, Keith swore he saw the pink flush, put on his friend’s face by alcohol, creep outward to envelop the brunet’s neck and ears. A hand pulled down across the brunet’s cheek, and he cleared his throat.

“Ohhh, whut else… We went to a couple nice restaurants, nothin’ any’uv us would go to,” he casually explained, waving a hand around as if to encompass their two tight-knit families, or perhaps the entire community. “Showed him the, uh… He didn’t actually wanna bushwhack to our fishin’ spot - no surprise, kinda knew he wouldn’t - so I just showed ‘im the spot where we park tuh get there. Just sat there on muh truck bed’n’chatted. Till the skeeters found us, at least.”

Now that starkly seized Keith’s attention. The fishing spot was special. Knowledge of its location was something reserved only for their combined family, and that exclusivity had been vehemently upheld by both Keith and Ellis in equal measure. When Keith had mused on taking one of his longest-running girlfriends there, Ellis had hemmed and hawed. He only granted Keith his blessing after he was assured that this girl was special, and worth it, and would treat the spot with the proper respect it was due.

Honestly, acknowledging her importance to him via The Spot had kind of spooked him off of the whole relationship. Commitment was scary.

It didn’t matter that the fishing spot was inactive, more often than not. It wasn’t about the fishing. It was about it being theirs. No other non-family had ever been allowed into that place.

That muddy riverbend was practically sanctified ground. For Ellis to have taken his boy toy there, even just to the place where they would park and unload their fishing gear… Well. That took the mystery man far beyond ‘boy toy,’ he reckoned.

Who the hell is this guy…

Ellis shrugged to himself and smiled, oblivious to the intensity that had taken root in gold-flecked eyes. “I had a good time, anyway.”

Suddenly wringing the blanked in white-knuckled hands, his expression plummeted.

“That was… Real recent, actually… Not long after, we uh…” Ellis trailed off with a tense breath.

When Ellis’ chin began wobbling and his throat visibly flexed, Keith understood. As much as it pained Ellis to recall, it also hurt Keith to see, beyond the irritation rising as the blond man processed his exclusion from the whole thing. Especially in light of what that trip had to have meant about the magnitude of his friend’s affection for the unnamed man, compassion pinched blond brows together. Keith shifted his socked foot to rest gently on his friend’s thigh, curling toes to emulate a steadying, reassuring grip.

Taking in a shuddering lungful of air, the brunet rested his hand on Keith’s ankle, rubbing a thumb there to stabilize himself. When Ellis puffed out his next words, it was clear he was grasping for composure and for a different memory. He hadn't looked at Keith’s expression, and that was probably a good thing.

“I took ‘im to the restaurant– the fuckin’-- Jamaican one, just outside’uh–” he frantically snapped his fingers and waved a hand around in Keith’s direction. “Dammit, why can’t I… Keith, c’mon, you know the, the-”

“Hunter?” Keith supplied.

Ellis perked up and pointed in energetic confirmation, trailing off into amused embarrassment at himself. “Yes! That’s– Hunter! Yes! The one outside Hunter! Gawd. Hah, can’t believe I couldn’t- hoo, boy!” Under his baseball cap, a hand scratched at brunet curls self-consciously.

“So- so I told him, right, ‘cause it can get real messy, y’know? I told him tuh not wear any nice clothes - the man wears dressy shit like, all the time, man. Real sharp-lookin’, but not what’cha wanna wear tuh eat shit whut that place got, right? So I told him to dress casual, somethin’ he’d be fine gettin’ meat juice on’n’whutnot.”

The hand that wasn’t on Keith’s ankle was now flying around in gestures. Ellis had launched into the new story, accelerating as he drove on with an enthusiasm that seemed halfway forced. The presence of any genuine enthusiasm at all, though, was kind of a relief to see.

“Well, I just wore, like, my reg’lar work clothes, a’course. But this guy-” Ellis giggled, suddenly “- he shows up in a fuckin’ - Okay, so it was dressin’ down fer him, right? But he still wore a nice, like, heavy button-down thing, flannel-like, but it was nicer’n’whut we got, had some embroidery on it, with some classy-lookin’ jeans and I just–” Smiling to himself, he scoffed, and then looked directly at Keith with a blurry wonder.

“Keith, his dressin’ down is my dressin’ up. Ain’t that nuts? He wore nice long sleeves tuh eat jerk chicken.” The brunet palmed his face and closed his eyes and, after squeaking out an enraptured giggle, muttered mostly to himself, absolutely dripping with infatuation, “Gawd, he’s so cute… Prissy lil’ city boy…”

… Flabbergasted. Keith was absolutely flabbergasted. His jaw hung slack, lips loosely parted and turned down. Tiny muscle twitches flickered across his face chaotically as he stared holes into the side of his friend’s face.

He had never seen Ellis wear that expression, or speak in that tone, or… Behave that way. He had never seen Ellis look… Undeniably, all-consumingly, irrevocably lovestruck. He’d never really seen the guy have a crush, either, but this was… Well.

In his astonishment, Keith reflexively breathed out an accusatory, “Gayyyy…” and he couldn’t even blame the alcohol. He probably would’ve blurted it out sober, too, but he’d managed to keep it so quiet that Ellis didn’t seem to notice. Probably would’ve gone horribly if he’d been any louder. As it was, Keith’s brain had time to chug and sputter its way into a different response while Ellis was busy being… Like that.

“... You were datin’ a city boy?”

Blue eyes swiveled to meet Keith’s in surprise, like Ellis had forgotten the other man was there. “Ah - Yeah, I, uh. I’m just as surprised as you, man.” The grin Ellis wore was sheepish, but still delighted, a hand dragging heavily on the back of his neck. His voice started out at a normal tone, but gradually pitched up at the end as emotions tightened his throat. “I didn’t expect ‘im tuh go fer a guy like me, neither, but, uh… Y’know. He did. He… He really did…”

Blond eyebrows suddenly scrunched downward in a harsh pinch, nostrils pulling upward, dragging a lip in the same direction to bare front teeth. There was an implication in the tone, there, and it was one that immediately brought Keith’s temper to bear in the wake of an initial shock of confusion. That is not what he meant when he asked his question. A single thought took to Keith’s mind, and it fell out of his mouth uninhibited with immense vitriol.

“The fuck’s that supposed tuh mean?” It wasn’t a question. It was a demand - a challenge. One charged with fire.

Defensive uncertainty met him from across the couch. The other man had jumped in his seat, flinched away, looking both hurt and lost. “Huh…?”

Aggression had suffused him, and he had neither the wherewithal nor the will to check it.  His knuckles were white as he clawed at the upholstery, and heat bloomed across his face. “‘Wouldn’t go fer a guy like you,’ what the fuck does that mean?” When Ellis just sat there with his alcohol flush, looking shy and stricken, Keith tacked on a barked, “Huh?? I’m waitin’!”

Ellis was clearly lost. He was floundering and stuttering, failing to come up with a response to Keith’s sudden hostility. To be fair, the outburst had come from nowhere, and its intensity could have been alarming to anyone. But also, Keith was Keith. He was a headstrong motherfucker, and he didn’t much feel like being “fair” when his best buddy had implied something so personally offensive to his sensibilities.

“W-well, I dunno, I… I never really, uh… It’s just - I’m, y’know - ” he gestured weakly up and down along his person, voice dipping low with reverence. “And he’s… Sooo classy…”

That was not good enough. Keith’s shoulders squared further. He leaned forward, and jerked his chin upward to glare down his nose at his friend.

“So? So what if he’s ‘classy’? Whut’s that matter?”

Ellis began rigidly curling in on himself as his own shoulders began rising up to his ears. Swaying slightly, he pulled the blanket in his lap ever higher, as if it could shield him.

“It’s just… Y’know… I’m… not, ‘n’... We can get up tuh some dumb shit sometimes, ‘n’ I didn’t… Know if he’d think less’uv me for it, is all… I didn’t know if he thought I was… Stupid’r’whatever…”

Tension spasmed across Keith’s face. His mouth was primed to spit out more rage, but he was too angry and too tipsy for the proper neurons to generate words. The fact that he was panting and his nostrils were flaring didn’t really register, nor did God grant him the wisdom to stop when he ‘decided’ to wield Ellis’ sentiment against someone he wouldn’t disparage.

“You think I’m stupid, then?”

“Whuh-??” Ellis whipped his head around to lock eyes with Keith, shocked for a moment, but angry now, jaw rigidly falling open. “Oh, screw you, man, you know I don’t think yer stupid! Don’t pull that shit! You know that’s not what I meant! It’s just, some people might think that’n’I didn’t want him to! That’s it! Whatever you thought I was sayin’, it ain’t like that.”

Soft folds of fabric were pulled taut in his grasp. He glared down at the blanket instead of looking at his friend, and instead of timidness or uncertainty in his posture, his shoulders raised like a hewn stone fortification. His anger was frigid, not fiery, and its presence felt wrong.

Keith sucked in a breath to retort, to carry on the dispute he started, but Ellis beat him to the next move.

“And he ain’t like that, either.”

The firm disengagement disoriented Keith into a stall. Ellis had said it with a kind of harsh finality, wrought iron bars brought to a slamming close between them. Keith’s natural instinct was to grab them and shake them, howling challenges to the sky like a madman until he got somewhere.

Keith hadn’t thought Ellis would just… Shut down like that. Granted, he hadn’t thought at all before saying what he had said, but that was usually how he operated, and the point still stood. He had expected Ellis to fight back. They would argue, sure, but the expectation (as far as any expectation existed) was that Ellis would eventually acknowledge the idiocy of his statement and brush off the feelings that made him say it. That was how that was supposed to go.

This confused him, and in his confusion he could only sit there rigidly in his corner of the couch, watching the dark look on his unmoving friend’s face.

Hell, even just a dismissive eyeroll and a scoff would’ve been workable.

He did not like how this made him feel.

It made him feel guilty, but that was stupid because he didn’t do anything wrong. Ellis had said some dumb shit, and Keith challenged him on it. Rightfully so! The combined feelings of self-assured vindication and uncomfortable culpability churned violently within him, boulders spinning in his gut and lodging themselves in his heart valves.

Why did he feel so damn guilty all of a sudden?

He hated the feeling because, despite everything, he could not soothe himself out of it.

One minute turned into a handful, turned into two handfuls as neither man engaged with the other. Ellis continued to stare off with low eyelids and lower brows, unblinking, sulking in a direction that was noticeably away from the man across from him.

Bending under the weight of his feeling of fault, Keith’s spine gradually curved forward over time, eventually causing his neck to dip low between his still-tense shoulders. His jaw was still clenched, and his free hand was still gripping at the couch. Over those several minutes of silence, as his eyes slowly drifted downward to follow his hanging head toward the ground, he caught sight of the styrofoam cup in his hand, squished out of form by the force of his temper.

It was cheap, white junk with a shitty plastic lid and some hasty scrawling on the side. Mostly drained of its contents, an unappetizing slurry of ice cream and peanut butter chunks swished around at the bottom.

The words formed slowly, came out softly, but they fell out of his mouth, nonetheless.

“D’you want the rest’uh my shake…?”

There was a weighty delay between his question and Ellis reacting. The brunet’s knees shifted under his biceps, which were currently hugging the man into a tight ball. Curled in on himself just a little bit more than he was before, eyebrows just a little more furrowed, he did not respond, nor did he look at Keith.

Keith’s stomach sunk, and the nauseated sensation bubbling there wasn’t just from booze or greasy fast food.

They sat in silence some more, long enough for Keith’s mouth to get restless and the pressure in his chest to drive action.

“Whut else did’juh guys do?”

Had he been more present, he would have hated how small his voice sounded.

“C’mon, man, keep talkin’.”

He was staring straight into his friend’s averted eyes. A mournful sigh escaped him as he slouched forward farther.

“Keep talkin’, please…?”

The bare beginnings of a hairline fracture formed in the mortar of his friend’s stone wall, Keith could see it in the squint of his eyes and the shift of his brow. It did not soothe him. It just made him feel like grasping harder. Hanging his head and shaking it, Keith’s voice settled low and remorseful in his chest before he returned his gaze to the other man.

“We’re already in this deep, brother, misewell keep on.”

Another minute. Another two.

Nothing.

Keith let his head hit the cushion behind him. Grimacing, he drove the heel of his palm into his eye socket and kept it there. This fucking suuuuuuuuuucked.

God fuckin’ dammit, Keith, you stupid, stupid fuckup.