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He finds him by the schoolyard.
The brick wall is cheap and faded, crumbling against the icy winds. He's slumped against it, his foot propped up behind him. He has a cigarette between his tattooed fingers, and pulls it to his mouth with so little care that Gavin can't help but watch.
His leather jacket has worn down studs on each shoulder, and the jet black hair on his head blows haphazardly in the wind.
Gavin's mother warned him about punks. They were sinners. They were dangerous.
He pulls a rusted zippo to the end of his cigarette and sucks in deep, his lips wrapping around it tight, like a lifeline. He smirks at Gavin like the devil himself as the smoke wisps out of his nose and into the bleak October sky.
He knew he’d caught another one.
"Let's go, asshole," Michael groans. He pulls on the boy's knitted cardigan, and the British lad stumbles after him. "What's gotten into you?"
"Nothing," he mumbles, readjusting his tie. He tears his eyes away from the mystery boy and follows after Michael. "Will you give me a ride home? I have church study tonight."
"Sure thing, freeloader," Michael says.
He glances back at the punk. He's still staring at Gavin.
-
-
He doesn't see him for another month.
Michael and Gavin leave the gas station with an armful of Red Bull and candy with the intent to pull a Halo-fueled all nighter. It took 15 minutes of convincing his mother, but she reluctantly agreed, so long as he promised to show up for church the next morning.
He trips on the curb and right into his chest.
He looks up to mumble out an apology, but finds himself at a loss of words when he sees who it is.
There were a few things that Gavin didn't notice before.
He has a ripped Black Flag muscle tank on. His arms are covered in intricate tattoos, and his ears are double pierced with carbon black rings. He reeks of cigarette smoke and weed, and smirks that evil smirk again.
"Watch where you're going, kid," he hums, looking Gavin up and down. He takes a drag from his cigarette and blows the smoke in the boy's face.
He wants to cough and jerk his head away, but something stops him. He feels goosebumps rising up arms, and the smoke tickles his throat. That's gotta be a sin, he thinks to himself.
He doesn't say anything and shuffles away in embarrassment after the already retreating Michael.
He still could feel his eyes in the back of his skull and the smoke dancing in his nostrils.
-
He sits in the middle of the football field - soccer, he reminds himself - where he and his friends usually eat lunch together. But Michael and Lindsay were off on their own friendly lunch date, Ryan was at some theater club, and Jeremy was out sick.
He finds the mystery boy without a cigarette this time, leaning against the flag pole, and he instantly knows something's wrong. He locks his eyes with Gavin and doesn't smirk - just turns towards the baseball field and walks away.
He knew exactly what was expected of him. He should've run, like his parents told him to when there was a sinner. But it was exciting, and he scolded himself for it. He rises with shaky knees and brushes the grass off his butt before taking small, nervous steps after him.
They end up behind the bleachers, Gavin's hands stuffed into the pockets of his slacks. The man pulls out a pack of Marlboro, sliding one out and placing it between his lips.
"What's your name, kid?" He spoke around the cigarette like it wasn't even there. He pulled out another one and offered it to the boy.
"Gavin," he says, reaching for it with shaky fingers. He should've refused, but he knew what he was getting himself into when he followed the man.
"Gavin," he tests out, bringing a lighter to the cigarette sticking out of his mouth. He lights it and sucks in. He exhales and there's that damned smirk. "I'm Geoff." Gavin shuffles awkwardly, holding the cigarette as far away from himself as he can. "You've never smoked."
He shakes his head. "It's a sin."
Geoff laughs. "Then I guess I'm a sinner," he says. He wraps an arm around Gavin and pulls him closer. "And you are too."
He tells him to bring it to his lips, and he does it with a fire in his stomach that he can't quite explain. It was so wrong, so wrong, and it gives him a thrill. He was about to smoke. Geoff tells him to suck in, and he flickers his zippo over the end of his cigarette.
It burns his lungs and he bends over coughing with tears in his eyes. "That's awful," he groans.
"Try it again."
So he does. He does it again and again, and he still coughs, but he's expecting it this time. He can feel the pleasant buzz in his lungs and the burn in his throat. It feels cloying and heavy and downright sinful. He can't get enough.
He can't ignore how Geoff's arm is still wrapped around his waist.
He finishes three more with Geoff when the man turns to him again. He hands him the rest of the pack and his rusted zippo. "You'll need it," he says. "You won't wanna stop now."
He doesn't stop. He sneaks out in the middle of the night to the park by his house and finishes all but one, coughing the whole time.
He ends up enjoying that last one.
-
Geoff convinces him to ditch his Geometry class.
They're driving in his '87 Turbo, blasting Bad Religion in the shitty stereo. They share a cigarette, laughing the whole drive. He finds out that Geoff is a senior - though he hasn't gone to a class after the first two weeks of the semester. Gavin blows his own smoke into Geoff's face, and he just grins.
They make it to a hill, and Geoff lets the old beater cool off while they sit on top of its hood. He pulls out a pipe from the pocket of his hoodie, and Gavin would be stupid to not recognize the scent.
"I don't know," he says when Geoff offers it to him. "Smoking is one thing, but..."
"Do it for me," he grins, bringing it to his own lips and covering the carb with his thumb. He blows the smoke into Gavin's face and he rolls his eyes at the smell. But he does it anyway. He does it for Geoff and it brings a calmness to him that he hasn't felt since the semester started.
They're kissing now, he realizes. Geoff is moving on top of him and Gavin lets him. He grips onto the punk's hoodie and lets himself sigh into the kiss, while the older boy claims his mouth with his tongue.
He slips a hand under Gavin's shirt and he should tell him to stop but the thrill is too much so he grinds up into Geoff instead. He moans and Geoff bites his lip.
It was Gavin's first kiss.
-
Geoff gives him his hoodie. It smells just like him. Gavin asks why, but he just shrugs and wraps an arm around the boy. "Just thought it was something couples do."
A couple. He’s never said that before.
-
He was a mean person, but never mean to Gavin.
They'd stay up until 3AM, kissing lazily and talking about the universe, and no matter how much Geoff hated Gavin’s religion, he'd just listen and smile and nod.
He would grab Gavin’s hand at the most random times, and brush his thumb across his knuckles.
He would press him against the wall when they were walking, and grab his hands and look into his eyes. Gavin would blush, and Geoff would kiss him so sweetly that it made his head spin. When he asks why, Geoff shrugs. “I just really like you.”
Gavin decides that the butterflies in his stomach were starting to get violent.
-
His friends are starting to notice, and so is his family. When Michael asks him where he goes each lunch period, he doesn't tell him that he's behind the bleachers with Geoff, making out and getting lit. He doesn't tell him that he's high during the classes he still attends, because he thinks Michael already knows.
But he can't hide the origin of the smoke stained hoodie anymore, so he comes clean. "I met someone," he finally says to the concerned boy.
"You met someone?" His eyes light up. "Who is she?"
Gavin shakes his head and feels the pack of cigarettes in his pocket thump against his leg as they start to walk. "Not she."
Michael stays quiet after that.
-
His parents definitely notice. They're furious. They ask him if he's been going to church, because he hasn't gone with them in a while. They trusted that he was going, because he's gone every week since he was 8; but now they weren't so sure.
"Fuck off," he snaps, and his eyes widen when he realizes what he said. He opens his mouth to apologize, but his father is slapping him in the face.
It's okay, though, because he’s running to the park and now Geoff is there to calm his tears. His face is illuminated by the cherry of his cigarette in the night sky as he swings back and forth on the swing set, his feet dragging against the ground. He gives Gavin a new pack of cigarettes.
Gavin thanks him with a handjob in the middle of the park.
-
It was always them now. No one ever sees Gavin without Geoff, or Geoff without Gavin.
When Michael meets him, he hates him. He hates the way that he winds his fingers with Gavin's, and how he wraps a possessive arm around his waist.
He wishes it was him holding him and murmuring sweet nothings in his ear, and not this disgusting creature corrupting his boi.
Gavin doesn't bother to pretend that Geoff is the reason he smells like smoke anymore. Especially when he pulls out a cigarette, and Gavin does the same, and Michael wonders if he even recognizes the boy.
Michael knows it won't last. And in his rage, he promises he wouldn't be the one to pick up Gavin when he falls.
-
They're at a party now. They're all Geoff's friends, hardcore punks with mohawks and piercings. But they get on well and he makes friends with a lot of them. He's drunk, for the first time in his life, and he doesn't refuse when they invite him and Geoff to a room farther back in the house.
They're sitting in a circle now, passing around a plastic bag. He sees one of them shake out a few of the pills and pop them back into their mouth before laying back and staring at the ceiling. Geoff does the same, so Gavin does too.
He's never felt better.
They somehow got thrusted back into the party, and the effects of the pills take hold of Gavin. He's so sensitive, and every person that brushes against him feels like fire on his skin.
"Do you believe in God?" he finally asks Geoff later with a red solo cup in his hand. His eyes are dilated. "Do you think he's real?"
"I don't believe in anything," he growls, taking Gavin's mouth into his own. "I believe in myself."
Gavin didn't know what he meant until Geoff was fucking into him 20 minutes later to the beat of I'm The One by Black Flag. He wraps his legs around the man and pulls him closer, whining when he feels a tug in his hair.
Geoff isn't gentle, and neither is Gavin. There's angry red scratch marks down both of their backs, and it doesn't occur to him that Geoff didn't wear a condom until he's coming inside of Gavin.
His own orgasm rips him apart, and he can get behind the idea that there is no God, and Geoff is the Devil himself.
-
His grades are bad. They're really, really bad. He hasn't been to school in a few weeks, opting out to smoke with Geoff and his friends instead.
They made him his own jacket, and it's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for him. It's rough cracked leather, with studs on each shoulder. It smells like cigarettes and weed, but that's okay, because that's the only thing Gavin ever smells like anymore.
It looks good, with his old ripped jeans. He never ended up buying new ones when his old ones ripped.
-
He starts gelling his hair up. Geoff says he likes it, so he keeps it.
-
His first tattoo is on his calf. It's a cross, upside down and pointing towards Hell below.
-
-
He comes home one day with a double helix piercing that matches Geoff's.
His parents are furious. "Something's gotten into you," they say. "We didn't raise a boy like you." His father threatens therapy, his mother says he's going to hell.
He grins wickedly and flips both of them off. "I'm already here, motherfuckers," he spits.
They gasp. "Gavin David Free, you apologize to your mother," his father barks.
He gives them a faux innocent look. "But I am going to hell, dad," he smirks. "I'm a homo and I'm getting fucked in the ass by the devil himself."
He gets slapped again and kicked out.
That's okay. He has friends he can stay with.
-
He hasn't talked to Michael in a while. But when Gavin tries to walk up to his friends in the school courtyard of their school day, they just sneer and turn the other direction. He ignores the sting in his chest at Michael’s hurt - longing - stare.
That's okay, he decides. He has other friends he can stay with. He doesn't need Ryan, or Kerry, or Jeremy, or Lindsay.
He doesn't need Michael.
-
He's fucking himself on Geoff's cock in the backseat of his car, grinding on it lazily while Geoff takes another drag from his joint. He grips Gavin's hip while he rides him, and thumbs over his protruding hipbone.
"I think I love you," Gavin mumbles out without thinking, moaning like a wanton whore when he finds the sweet spot within himself.
Geoff just hums and takes another drag from his joint. "I think I love you too."
-
He wasn't ready to get his heart broken.
Geoff found a girl, a pretty blonde girl by the name of Griffon. She's a square, just like Gavin was before he found Geoff. "It's just not the same anymore," he says with a frown. "You changed too much."
"I changed for you," he whimpers, fighting the tears welling in his eyes. He refuses to cry. "I changed because of you."
"Sorry," he said, flicking away the ash of his cigarette. He finally drops the butt to the ground and stomps it out with the heel of his combat boot, the last embers of the cherry slowly burning away.
"I thought you loved me." He shakes his head in disbelief and turns to leave the man without another word.
He rummages through his pockets; $3 in change, half a pack of Marlboros, a glass pipe and a zippo, with nowhere to go.
He'll make due.
-
-
He doesn't make due.
-
-
It's snowing now, and all he has is his cigarette-stained hoodie. He left his jacket at the pit with some guy named Joel who promised to give it back. It still smells like Geoff, and it makes his heart ache. He's hungry, and he has been for a few days now. He finds himself at Michael's house, and knocks once, twice, three times on the door before the boy opens it with a groan.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" He snaps.
"Hey," Gavin drawls awkwardly with a shiver. "I was wondering if I could crash here tonight."
He could feel the heat from the house warm his cheeks. He hears his family behind him gathering for their Christmas dinner.
Michael rolls his eyes and starts to slam the door when Gavin stops it with his foot. "Please," he whimpers. "Geoff broke up with me."
"Boo-fucking-hoo," Michael barks. "Didn't see that one coming. Maybe you should've thought of that before you ditched all your friends for him."
"I'm sorry." It doesn't sound very sincere to either of them. "Just one night," he pleads. "I'll get out of your hair after that."
Michael just shoves him back with a grunt and slams the door. "You're fucking dead to me." It doesn't sound like means it and they both know it.
He slumps against the closed door and and lets his head hit the wood. He shivers, and all he can think about is how tired and hungry and cold he is. "What would you do if I killed myself on your doorstep?" He croaks. "Would you care?"
"You're better off dead." There was a pause. "Go home, Gavin."
His heart sinks. Michael doesn't know that he doesn't have a home. He doesn't know that the only reason he's alive is because of the awning of his front porch, keeping him out of the snow. He doesn't know that Gavin doesn't have anywhere to go, because he couldn't - there was no way for him to.
And he wasn't about to tell him, either.
So he just sits and lets himself cry against the door until the blizzard subsides.
-
-
-
He's cold a lot lately.
-
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Hungry, too.
-
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Maybe Michael was right. Maybe he was better off dead.
-
-
He was definitely better off dead, he decides as he holds the gas station clerk at gunpoint.
He looks in the bag and smiles to himself. It's enough money for food and cigarettes, which is all he needs.
-
-
He should've been dead.
But here he was in the hospital, staring up at the bright fluorescent lights they put him under. His wrists still sting from the razor deep in his flesh.
A nurse calls his mother. She doesn't come pick him up. Suddenly he's back on the streets again, with a heavy set weight in his chest and he just feels like nothing.
-
-
The seasons come and go.
He forgets his own birthday. He's 17 now, he realizes.
-
-
It's been a year since he's seen Michael.
He misses him.
-
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-
-
He leans against the faded brick wall, crumbling against the harsh autumn breeze. His filthy blonde hair whips against his face, his worn leather jacket barely warming his body. His eyes scan the crowd of students trying to enter the school, when his eyes finally settle on a boy.
He's young. Hair tucked under a beanie, bushy eyebrows, purple hoodie. He's obviously a freshman; he has a 3DS in his hands and he struggles to push his glasses up his nose. He stumbles when he makes eye contact with Gavin, nearly dropping the device.
Gavin just smirks and brings his cigarette to his lips. He lights it with his rusted zippo and sucks in, letting the smoke trail up to the icy October sky. The boy looks intrigued.
He lets out a chuckle at the irony of the situation.
Guess I caught one.