#stephen's

They worked for a man with a lot of connections and money he couldn't always explain the origin of. The younger boy, who was named Edwards, always called their boss "sir" or "mister" even though the boss told him not to. The older boy was named Max and was much more casual with their boss. This wasn't because he respected him less or was that much older so much as it was because his boss told him to call him Stephen, and Max followed directions and rules. Max was often afraid to make decisions, and rules made it easy to figure out what to do.

Most days, they worked at Stephen's general store. Sometimes they did other jobs around town or travelled to other cities to help some of Stephen's many connections. They lived in an apartment with indoor plumbing and electricity that their boss paid for. He paid for his two idiot employees to live in air-conditioned, electrified comfort while his own family sweated and used fire hazard lamps. Sometimes Stephen's generosity got ahead of his sense; in that way his employees were a lot like him.

The town was on a river, and surrounded by forest. It had a railway station with regular service. The river was too shallow and narrow for big boats to go up or down, but it was convenient for the townspeople to splash around in, and more than adequate for powering water mills. Further out from the town, upriver and down, mountains rose above the treetops.

One thing that set these idiot boys apart from their contemporaries was the depth of the ignorance and fumbling they went through. One beautiful sunset, Edwards, the slightly less idiotic one, confessed his love to Max. Max, who had managed to fall in love with Edwards without ever realizing what was happening, displayed no reaction and led Edwards to believe he had made a mistake and ruined their friendship, even though anyone could have seen the feeling was mutual.

Through the grace of God, or possibly the gay smut they had been reading together, Max realized his mistakes as well as his feelings, and powered through his reluctance to instigate conversations or make decisions to tell Edwards his feelings were requited after all. They kissed, and presumably cried even if they wouldn't admit it, and went on living basically the exact same life but with more kissing. I'm told they pushed their beds together, which was probably overdue since they had been sleeping in each other's arms for months, even before the confessions of love.