#hencethebravery

Wednesday, 1959

Nobody goes to Granny's on a Wednesday.

It's drive in night down at the bluff, and the young denizens of Storybrooke can almost all be found there, parked up in their daddy’s cars pretending to watch a movie while much more closely watching each other. David Nolan should be there too. As the star of the High School football team and with looks to rival any of the stars on screen he's never lacked for invites from fresh-faced girls in poodle skirts or, for that matter, their mothers.

But he has a standing appointment.

Nobody goes to Granny's on a Wednesday. Nobody except him.

Him, and his secret.

The diner seems darker than usual, Granny slouching over the counter studying the Sears catalogue and the only sound is the faint hum of the generator between the turning of her pages. At the other end of the counter sits Killian Jones, his feet crossed on the Formica as he leans back against the far wall.

“Didn't think you were coming.”

“I wasn't.”

He sees the flash of Killian's teeth as he grins before swinging his legs down and standing, his hand automatically rising push an unruly lock of dark hair out of his face. It makes David's fingers itch, so he balls his hand into a fist instead.

“You hear that Granny?” he calls. “Nolan wasn’t planning on gracing us with his presence!”

Granny looks up long enough to huff, “Either of you going to grace me with your cash?”

Killian's shoulders droop slightly, and David lifts his eyebrows in question. He knows, the whole town knows, how Mr Jones took off in the dead of night and left his two boys with nothing. Liam’s in the navy now, shipped out to somewhere humid and far enough away that the checks don't always come in time.

Sometimes they don't come at all.

“A chocolate shake,” he says, “and a soda water. Mind if we have a booth?”

She laughs, a tobacco tainted cackle. “And disturb all my other customers? As long as you're paying boys you can have whatever you want.”

Granny sets to work making their drinks, her head bobbing gently as she moves along the counter but never turning towards them as David heads to the corner booth, the one with no window and the light bulb that's on the fritz.

(It isn’t like she doesn’t know, anyway, what carries on in the dark corners of her Wednesday nights. But they say her granddaughter went out west with some girl or other, and Granny doesn’t ask, and Granny doesn’t tell.)

It's the booth most popular with courting couples, the one where, just a week or so ago, David had found himself getting a little hot and heavy over a grilled cheese with a pretty little creature called Mary Margaret Blanchard. Killian hasn't been here then, of course, but news travels all the same and he gives David a wry look as he slides into the seat opposite.

David can't help but flush slightly. “Don't look at me like that, Jones. You've done your share of petting.”

Killian's lip twitches and he sits back against the leatherette seat, his jacket squeaking as he folds his arms.

“Not nearly enough,” he says and David feels his cheeks grow hot as Killian's eyes drop to the open v of his letterman jacket. The shirt beneath is old and worn thin, and Killian's eyes linger far longer than is proper. Not that any time is proper. Not that David can bring himself to care when Killian stretches, resting his arms against the back of the seat and allowing David in turn to see the dark shadow of hair beneath his own oil stained shirt.

It's a game they play, the two of them, alone in the flickering shadows of Wednesday nights. Who can make the other crack., who's the best at playing pretend with their blood high and lust in the air.

“I'm happy to lose,” Killian had said once, that first time they’d played crammed into the back of David’s truck, his hand on David’s thigh, his breath at his ear. “Make me lose, Nolan.”

That's why they meet here now; it’s harder to lose with the tabletop digging into their bellies and Leroy singing in the distance, shadows cast under Killian’s eyes and his mouth red in the blueish lights.

Harder, but not impossible.

Granny drops their drinks on the table without a word, and returns to her catalogue. There are two straws in the milkshake, innocent red and white tubes of paper that David stares at unblinkingly before risking a glance over his shoulder. Granny has turned her back to them, and he doesn’t know if he wants to kiss her or kill her for it.

“Here.”

He pushes the milkshake towards Killian who is also eyeing the straws with interest. “You look hungry.”

Killian scoffs, and shifts himself so that he can lean over the milkshake as it sits between them. “I'm not a charity case.”

“Never said you were.”

Killian nods down at the milkshake. “Share?”

Granny turns another page, and the air grows somehow thicker, the buzz of the generator competing with the rush of blood through his veins as, just for a moment, David lets himself wonder.

Would their noses brush as he took his first sip? Would Killian's stubble be sharp or soft against his own smooth cheek? Would it be like hiding in this booth with a girl? Would Killian let him pull him onto his lap? Run his hands over his back and steal a kiss or ten? Or would he be bolder, braver, would he be the one to slip his tongue into David’s mouth? Would his prom night promises sound so much sweeter for their sin? For how much they shouldn’t, for how much they do?

He dares to look over his shoulder again. Granny's gone entirely now, and he can hear her somewhere in the back, her clattering a sure sign that she'll be gone some minutes at least, and if no one sees does it matter? If no one sees does it count?

(Had it counted that first time when no one had seen them but the stars overhead, his whole world turned upside down in a haze of cigarette smoke and calloused hands?)

Killian wraps his pink lips around the straw and sucks, his eyes fixed on David as he swallows.

It feels like a challenge.

He feels like a coward.

“No thank you.”

Killian releases the straw, a single drop of milkshake clinging to the fullness of his bottom lip, just sitting there, damp and cool and inviting and making David’s blood boil, his fingers curling against his jeans as he forces himself to look away. Killian just watches him still with those pale unblinking eyes, giving only the slightest quirk of an eyebrow as he pushes the drink another inch closer.

“Don't you want to try?”

“Fuck off,” David says, but his voice cracks on the words, his heart fluttering traitorously as the eyebrow shifts higher, and it won't do. It won't do at all.

He's a congressman’s son, his father tight at McCarthy’s side as he routs men like Killian out, and David can't, daren't, won't be one of them.

No, he needs a congressman’s wife, pretty and agreeable and silent on his arm, not this lavender lad with the haunted eyes and the leather jacket who makes his heart skip beats and his cock betray him.

He closes his eyes briefly; tries to replace him with Mary Margaret, tries to imagine the turn up of her nose, the delicate bones in her wrists, but it's Killian who leans in closer, Killian's arms that flex beneath the leather, Killian's breath that falls, hot and chocolate sweet, in the inches between them.

“Why’s that then?” he says, low enough to be a threat if Granny were to hear and query it. “Cause I'm temperamental?”

It's too close to an admittance, the truth of what he is - what they are - hanging between them and David feels like he's hanging on a precipice where any fall stings with failure and tastes like regret, where what he says next counts for more than any stolen kiss or locker room stare.

“We all know about your temperament,” David shoots back, and Killian smiles, teeth framed by stubble as the tip of his tongue sweeps out to lap up that last drop of milkshake.

“One does so love to garner a reputation.”

David winces. He's not been deaf to the whispers these last few months, that the Jones boy drove his family away by his behaviour, Killian's leather and swagger not enough to stop the hiss of faggot in his wake. He's heard the sermons against the sodomites in the church Killian no longer attends, had nodded along with the other boy’s teeth marks still purple at his shoulder.

“I didn't mean…”

Killian smiles again, soft in a way that makes David's chest hurt, and taps a nicotie stained finger against the edge of the glass.

“I think you did.”

“Killian, I -”

Killian leans down and takes David’s chin firmly in hand. “I think you mean this too.”

His lips are feather soft and oh so fleeting as they brush against David’s, the sticky sweetness of the milkshake lingering as he pulls away, his cheeks bright and his eyes brighter. David can't help but crane after him, his throat parched for the want of another morsel of that sweetness even asKillian slips out of the booth, and out of his grasp.

“One day,” he says, his own breaths a little uneven, “you might even admit it.”

“You know I can't,” David mumbles, his hands reaching out for the other boy against his will. “Killian you know I can’t.”

“You won’t, you mean. Not that it matters.”

Killian’s lip curls, and David's heart sinks as he pulls a crumpled dollar from his pocket and drops it on the tabletop.

“You can't lie to yourself forever, Nolan,” he sneers. “Until then, I'll buy my own damn milkshakes.”

--

The next week finds David parked up on the bluff, Mary Margaret at his side and his college acceptance tucked into his pocket.

He smiles and laughs and kisses her until her shirt is askew and her lips are red as blood, drowns himself in the taste of her lipstick until he's almost forgotten, until it matters. Until it’s almost real.

(Real as chocolate milkshake and the scent of leather. Real as stubble against his throat and make me lose, Nolan. Please.

He's the one who loses, he supposes, in the end.