Work Text:
Alex’s the weird kid who sits in the back of Jay Merrick’s classes. Both of them take AP Honors, which means that they’re bound to interact at some point, but nothing about him says I’m an honors student heading for university and a successful job. Maybe it’s the way he shouts the answers without raising his hand, deliberate-like and sarcastic, or how when it’s time for group work he shrugs on his headphones and hunches over the scribbled desk.
Something tells Jay he’ll drop down an academic level before the year ends.
Alex’s the junior who sings an obscure indie song at the Charity Fest, something grunge on the tip of Jay’s tongue that tastes bitter as the lyrics go down. He’s silenced off the stage, aught an awkward cough here and there. After all, people came to Charity Fest for sweet performances by their grandkids, rather than a 17 year old rasping out Teenage Dirtbag. Jay makes a note to find him on MySpace later before getting dragged away by his parents to the Ferris wheel.
“Hey,” he bumps into Alex a day later in the hall, and for the first time, Jay can see his teeth. They’re menacing and yellow as he points them into a confused smile.
“Do I know you?”
“I liked your song,” Jay blurts the words while he fidgets with his fingers. “At Charity Fest.”
There’s something bittersweet coating Alex’s expression. “Thanks, man.”
He thinks, as he watches the boy melt into the swarm of students, that for a first interaction, an initiation, it didn’t go that bad.
Socializing Alex is a challenge. There’s something about the kid so off that Merrick soon gives up on introducing him into his own social circle. If the boy notices, he says nothing and instead enjoys spending time with Jay alone.
As predicted, he drops out of AP Honors when the winter semester rolls around, and that means that Jay only has P.E with him left. Which is a right shame because half the time Alex doesn’t even show up to the class anyways. Or if he does, he spends his time in the stalls and avoids actually going to the gym.
The winter is especially wet that year, and Jay finds himself standing at the window a lot, brooding over the floods in the front yard.
(“Can I get your number?” he asks Alex on the last day of school. It’s gotten so hot since the winter, and the taller boy glares down at him, shading his eyes.
“No.” It’s firm, and sullen.
“Oh.”
“See you around, Merrick,” he calls, before he steps into the road. Jay blinks and after a while, he loses track of Alex’s ratty blue shirt in the peachy shades of summer.)
Jay gets a job at McDonald’s over the summer, because his parents get tired of him moping around the house and tell him to get a hobby. It’s surprisingly quiet in the location he chooses to work at, which means that most of the time he’s moping anyways, staring off into the distance and resting his elbows on the register like he’s some main character in a badly written YA novel.
The bell jingles one day in July, as the door opens and Alex walks in. Jay’s scrambling to look professional but he thinks that the boy doesn’t even notice as he’s staring intently at the menu. There’s a pause between the two of them where it feels like time’s traveling through mud, and everyone else is looking at them.
“Can I get a hot fudge sundae?” the boy asks.
“One twenty-nine,” is Jay’s automated reply. Alex’s hand brushes against his when he’s exchanging the money and he gives him an odd look, like he knows what’s going on in Merrick’s brain.
Jay writes his number all small and questioning on the bottom of the cup and spends the rest of the day checking his cell, like Alex would ever give him the time of day.
Something about autumn feels different, however. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s senior year and this is the last moment of their lives where they’re still considered kids, or maybe it’s the way Alex’s new adam’s apple bobs when he shoots Jay nasty glares at lunch.
(“Hey, Merrick,” he says as he pulls up to the shorter boy’s side with a juice box clenched in those long fingers of his. The straw’s chewed through, multiple holes leaking blobs of apple juice as he takes it into his mouth firmly and takes a long sip.
“Kralie,” Jay says back respectfully.
“I got cancelled on for a party but I got booze already so do you wanna get drunk after school? My parents are out of town again.” The offer is so casually said in the halls of a school, like it’s nothing, like it’s legal.
“Yeah,” Jay takes the sentence said to him and nitpicks it to pieces, filing everything away in his mental folder centering on Alex. His parents leave town often, he must have some friends, and he has a fake ID that he must have used to get alcohol. It’s mysterious but it’s so, so Alex.)
When Alex extends the invitation to get drunk at his house, Jay feels a little nervous, but heart betrays him by thumping wildly to spread blood to his cheeks.
It's still an unbalanced relationship, one which Alex finds Jay on his own terms and never on the other’s, which is a drastic change from last year, but Merrick tells himself he doesn’t mind. After all, he’s going over to Alex’s house after school—
“Wait,” he calls out, “What’s your address?”
“Meet me at the doors!” is what he gets as a response.
It’s 3 pm and the boy’s waiting at the overhanging doorway, scanning for the familiar frown, for Alex’s gangly hands clutching at his backpack straps. The soft breeze does nothing to eradicate the stifling humidity causing Jay to dribble sweat onto his shirt. For a second he think he’s been duped, and Alex is off somewhere laughing at how he screwed with his head, but he spots a familiar shaggy haircut and waves.
“Hey,” his friend (can he even call Alex that?) says. His tone is cool per usual.
“Hello,” Jay responds, and he lets Alex take lead down the sidewalk.
The neighborhood slowly changes to one of poverty. There’s a scent in the air that Jay wrinkles his nose at, and Alex only scoffs. It’s just the mattresses and dirty clothes in the alleys, he explains, which horrifies the boy.
“People do that?” he asks. It’s an incredulous idea to him, and one that almost makes him sick.
A laugh.
Alex’s house is no better. There’s mold in the corners, and a sense that it wasn’t a home at all. The boy himself seemed ill at ease, accidentally showing off his jagged canines in a smile. “Let’s sit on the back porch.”
In the back, there’s a singular oak tree, with bottles on some of the lower branches. Jay sits down on the rickety wood, hoping to god it doesn’t break beneath him as Alex drags a cooler of beer from seemingly nowhere.
“Won’t the neighbors see?” Jay asks nervously. He’s holding the beer in his hands covertly, hunched over to hide it from prying eyes.
“Like hell,” Alex pops the tab of his and throws it back, a bitter expression on his face. His friend follows suit, coughing a little at the acrid taste. But he says nothing, because being a senior and being unable to tolerate a beer would be social suicide.
The sun’s slowly turning orange to pink to red to purple as they go through the cooler, getting stupider with each drink. Jay’s feeling a little nauseous at this point but he braves the last Coors and puts the empty can down on the porch, a drowsy grin on his face. Alex is staring.
“You wanted this, right?” he licks his lips.
“Wanted what?”
There’s no response, but suddenly Jay’s being pushed back towards the floor, on his elbows as Alex is aggressively climbing onto him with his gangly limbs sprawling everywhere drunkedly as he’s dipping his head down, as he’s suddenly kissing Jay, as his beer soured tongue slips into the other’s mouth. He’s bad at this, they both are, but the shorter boy’s got a hand tangled in Alex’s stupid scene hair to tug him down because he’s fucking drowning.
“Won’t the neighbors see?” Jay whimpers again as Alex sinks his jagged teeth into his clavicle. He feels a warm sort of pain and turns his head to see a smear of red on Alex’s chin.
“Nah,” is all the boy says before making Jay taste the iron fountain welling from his collarbone.
It’s three bloodied bites later when Jay’s whispering “I want to suck your cock,” like he’s in some porno and the taller boy is pulling away disgustedly, laughing that bitter hyena’s laugh he does and collapsing into the wood with a loud crash.
“I don’t fuck with that,” it’s said in a bitter sort of delirium. “Sorry.”
The two of them pass out on the back porch among the crushed cans and Jay wakes up shivering in the morning. The only things warm are his hands, which had been holding Alex’s in the night.
It’s not that different after. The weather gets colder and wetter in a way that’s autumn-soggy-predictable, and Alex skips gym in a way that leaves Jay feeling sad-confused-intrigued. He never asks, even during their lunch hour when he’s all sweaty and Alex is pristine but leans on his shoulder anyways.
He sees their friendship in unlockable levels, such as when Alex tells him about Fight Club being his favourite film, about how it hits toxic masculinity on the ironic head in just the best way possible.
(Jay wonders if Alex is so self aware because he’s into men, and wonders whether by liking Alex, he too, is self aware. He realizes later that he sounds stupid and is relieved he never vocalized his thoughts.)
And he still doesn’t have the boy’s number, but he knows where Alex lives, knows the shape of his hands and the crevices of his mouth, which is worth more than a set of digits plugged into a cell.
Jay’s parents notice that he’s stopped moping as much and congratulate him, asking what changed. He shrugs and offers a lame excuse about growing up and having more freedom now, which they lap up like dogs. They’re proud, they’re happy, and they offer him some cash to spend as a treat.
He uses it to buy roses for Alex, even though he knows that they’ll end up lit on fire, one by one, or tossed out because the boy hates flowers, hates affection, borderline hates Jay except he loves him back in his freaky manner.
“Wanna go to Rosswood?” Alex asks Jay one day as they’re walking out of school. Rosswood’s the park on Watermelon Rd, which is a funny thing to name a street, especially one with a thick forest at the end of it.
“I have homework.” Exams are in a week and Jay knows he’ll pass them, but he wants to aim for at least an 80 this year. It’s his last shot to look good on paper, to hope a college takes him and his shitty dreams of being a filmmaker.
Alex takes Jay’s cold hands in his and spins him around the sidewalk. “Cmon, I have something to show you.” There’s something dangerous in his voice and it makes Jay so, so aroused.
“Alright, fine,” he laughs, but only because he loves his friend so much.
The walk to Rosswood is long but they fill it up with comfortable half-sentences about their life and about school. To anyone else it would have been awkward but there’s a safety in how short their voices reach. Jay’s hand finds Alex’s for a brief moment as they drag their feet down the dirt path. The fields gradually turn into shrubbery as the lanky senior tugs his friend deeper and darker into the trees.
They stop by a stream, and Alex kneels down. His voice is almost reverent in tone as he points into the shallows. “Look.”
Jay can’t tell what he’s looking at, at first, but gradually feathers meld into wings form into joints turn into a swan brokenly spilled in the stream, neck limp as water burbles over it. He feels something rise in his stomach, uneasy. There’s a snicking noise behind him and he turns to see Alex with a switchblade. “Hey—”
“No, no, no, I’m not gonna hurt you, just—here, help me down.” The boy scrambles down the side of the bank, getting his Vans soaked as he splashes down and kneels by the crumpled bird. “I found her a couple days ago and she looked so angelic lying here—needed someone to witness her.”
“I’m witnessing,” Jay murmurs, and watches Alex angle her wings, press the blade against the place where bone connects to sternum. “Hey, wait—”
Metal cuts through flesh as easily as the water droplets falling from her wings and soon Alex holds two severed swan wings. There’s love in his eyes as he turns towards Jay.
“Alex!” he’s shocked, disgusted. There’s something deep within him that dies with the gory sight and he stumbles back. A nervous laugh bubbles from his throat.
“You’re gorgeous.” Alex has his fucking priorities straight, doesn’t he? Jay’s hands tremble as he watches his friend (fuck--) crawl up the bank again, rummage through his backpack as casually as if he wasn’t chilled to the bone from the stream and covered in grit and blood. He pulls a ball of twine from the depths and glances up. “Jay, I fuckin’ love you.”
He pauses. “Oh.” There’s not really much to say in the moment.
“Do you trust me?”
“Alex..” the boy says helplessly. He takes a step back.
“Do you?”
A resigned yes drops from Jay’s lips and he rubs at his eyes. Alex takes his hands and walks him closer to the swan wings, sits down with the knife and twine in his lap. Jay lets him manhandle his arms, gently looping the twine through the feathers and then around his sleeves, till the two are melded together in a grotesque combination of man and beast.
“You look like an angel.” The boy’s voice is high, unnaturally so, and his eyes are fever-struck shiny. Jay glances down at his arms and takes a shuddering breath. Alex is right, he does, and it’s so, so fucked up and it’s so, so pretty.
(Alex’s hands suddenly find themselves in Jay’s junk and he’s asking him if this is okay and of course it is, this is what Jay has wanted for a really long time but he doesn’t have the words to say that so he returns the favour. And even though Alex doesn’t exactly have a dick to touch he has a pink warmth in his cheeks and a droplet of sweat rolling down his temple and god if that’s not the hottest thing Jay’s seen all week as he lets the boy buck into the palm of his hand.
His hand is slick from the heat between Kralie’s legs and he’s wincing as the boy’s teeth find themselves buried in his shoulder. There’s some sort of strangled noise coming from his friend’s—no, boyfriend’s throat as he shudders because the boy talks mad shit about dismantling toxic masculinity but Merrick fucking knows he’ll never let himself moan. They’re both sticky and hot and at some point Jay finds himself bleeding again because Alex’s teeth are as sharp as they are rotten and he has no doubt that he’ll have to disinfect the bites again.
He's crying, they’re both crying, because first love hurts, and sex hurts, and it’s so relieving to finally fuck Alex, even if only with his hand.
The boy falls asleep in Jay’s arms after, numbing them so he can barely feel the swan’s bones poking into his skin, and he’s stuck with his nausea and his adoration and his sick, sick thoughts.)
Jay gets home late and throws up in the kitchen because he couldn’t make it to the toilet. His parents fuss and ask if he needs a doctor and he gives them some half-assed excuse about stress which they swallow up like fish because they’re too trusting; why didn’t they sense that something was up? He sleeps for two whole days after, only dragging himself out of bed to piss. Alex doesn’t contact him.
(How could he, even? Jay never invited him over, never officially exchanged numbers.)
He goes back to his summer job at the McDonald’s, where he spends the days in a muted trance. There’s something relieving in how mindless the work is, how easy it is to memorize orders and prices and his hands shaking the fry tray every so often.
The bell rings one bleary day in August and Alex walks in, grimy and emo as ever, and he’s at the counter, deliberate this time, order concrete in his mind. “Can I get a hot fudge sundae?”
“One twenty-nine,” Jay slurs, turning away. He hears a sound of coins clattering against the plastic counter as the boy-turned-man counts out change. By the time he’s gotten the ice cream in his hand, Alex is organizing the coins by size, all in neat little towers. Of fucking course it’s paid in nickels and quarters.
Jay counts out the coins agonizingly to make sure Alex didn’t undercut him (though he never would), and finally sweeps them into his hand to dump in the register.
He looks up. “Why are you still here?”
“I’m sorry.”
The simple apology rips his insides apart and stitches them back together with barbed wire. “Accepted.”
Alex crinkles his eyes as he gazes the shorter man up and down. It feels like hunger and it twangs deep within Jay’s gut. “Can I kiss you?”
He really should know better as he dips forward over the counter. He doesn’t have the capacity to muster up a verbal answer so he leans in, leans in, knuckles pressed against the counter, turning white—
Actually, he does know better. Jay pulls back, shaking his head. “I don’t fuck with that,” he quotes Alex’s words, almost with a bittersweet passion. A grin slowly cuts his jaw in half. “Sorry.”
(It’s so relieving and painful to see Alex’s face contort briefly, to see him shake his head with a laugh.
“See you around, Merrick,” he calls as he walks to the front, ice cream dripping down his hands.
“Kralie,” Jay says back respectfully.)