RPM high school AU part 3
Apr. 10th, 2011 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drownedinlight Dillon caught sight of the lanky, short male on one of the first days of senior year. He was leaning against the lockers with some of his friends when a freshman girl was tripped by some vapid fourteen eager to get into the popular circle. The girl, who had misty blue eyes, and the longest blonde hair Dillon had ever seen, only brushed off her white camisole and skirt, and began to pick up her belongings, when he stopped, and knelt down, collecting books and papers and binders right along with her. The clearest thing Dillon heard him say was,
“Hi, I’m Ziggy,” before he dropped his voice to a whisper. A ghost of a smile appeared on the girl’s face as he talked, and they stood, still holding her things and walked off into the school. Except, when they almost turned down another hallway, Ziggy turned back, like he knew he was being watched, and looked right at Dillon with piercing green eyes.
After that, Dillon looked for the lanky boy with green eyes. Often, if Dillon saw him, he was rescuing the misfits of the school, people of the underground whose names were lost to even him, King of the Largest Outcast Army in the whole school …or so he had thought. Ziggy took in everyone; the lost little freshman like the blonde girl, the science nerds, like two, blonde chemistry brothers, and the girl who was too smart for high school, always wearing a black bowl cut and a lab coat, along with her twin followers. Dillon even saw his friend Murphy’s brother hanging around with Ziggy’s group at one point or another, most of whom Dillon knew from one humiliating point or another in the high school’s history.
Except when he saw these people now, they always smiled, they laughed, they were dressed really strangely, but they were never alone.
“Do you know anything about a kid called Ziggy?” Dillon asked his sister one night when it finally got to him. Tenaya raised an eyebrow at him, and frowned slightly. At school they did not much associate with one another as Tenaya ran the “bitch army,” as he liked to call it, and they were highly opposed to Dillon and his group’s “misogynistic” ways.
“Know of him,” she replied after a moment of staring him down. “I punched him once. The next day my locker was filled with wild flowers. Anyway, Morgana once said that she and Gwen, one of his close friends, used to be really close, but they don’t get much of a chance to hang out anymore. I know he’s in drama.”
Anakin, Merrick and Kevin were playing Assassin’s Creed while Murphy strummed at his guitar, Markus hacked away at something on his computer, and Itachi attempted to do homework, when he asked them.
“Why do you want to know about Ziggy Grover?” Markus asked without looking up from his computer.
“You know him?” Dillon asked.
“Know of him,” Markus replied, “but you didn’t answer my question.”
“I’ve just seen him around,” Dillon said, “I’m curious.” There were looks shared between them, and Anakin paused the game, and Murphy set his guitar down as they all tuned in. “It’s not that fucking big of a deal!”
“May I remind you that the last time you were interested in someone, she turned out to be blonde,” Markus said. “Anyway, I know he’s in a band. I know the drummer, Percy; we hang out and do films together on the occasion. I think his Dad might also work for the government. I remember Dad saying something about Colonel Grover in passing. I can’t say much for Ziggy as a person though.”
“I think Era might have mentioned him once or twice,” Murphy remarked with a shrug. “I wasn’t really paying much attention though.”
His lab partner spent the better part of the period glaring at him.
“I get that you have bad boy syndrome and everything, but if you could focus, that would be wonderful,” Cameron snarked at him. Dillon glanced at him, and noted the green shirt Cameron was wearing. Come to think of it, Ziggy had been wearing green every time Dillon had seen him.
“Hey Cam, do you know Ziggy Grover?” Dillon asked, taking the wiring out of the Asian’s hands to work on it a little bit. Cam frowned.
“Sure, I work the booth for him sometimes during plays and stuff. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“It’s fine. What’s he like?”
“Boisterous. He never stops talking, well, almost,” Cam said. “If you ask him nicely, or look at him the right way, he does. I’ve only met him a few times, but he seems okay.”
Apparently his thoughtful mood continued into auto shop, because he found Flynn snapping his fingers in front of his face.
“Are ye in there, mate?”
“Yeah thanks,” Dillon said, lowering Flynn’s hand away from his face.
“Anythin’ I can help ye with?” Flynn asked.
“Know anything about Ziggy Grover?” Dillon asked. Flynn looked off to his right, before he turned and called out,
“Hey Deus, com’mere for a minute, would ye lad?” A tall, not quite as gangly as Ziggy, boy with brown hair, left his partner at their car and joined them under the hood of Flynn’s SUV. “Ye’re friends with Ziggy Grover, aren’t ye?”
“Best friends, why?” Deus asked. “What’s going on?” Looking down at the other young man, Dillon could not quite articulate why exactly he wanted to know about Ziggy and instead chose to say,
“Nothing,” right as the bell rang. Like a coward, he fled the garage as quickly as he could.
It was not until much later than normal that he managed to leave the school. He had been hiding away in a dark corner listening to his iPod an hour after the last bell rang, if only to avoid his friends and the few others who wanted to come after him with questions. So when he went out into the overcast, twilight lit parking lot, he was not quite expecting to find someone sitting on the hood of his car. Someone, dressed in a white dress shirt, a vest, tight blue jeans and a green jacket, unruly hair spilling into his light green eyes (they were closed when Dillon approached, but he still knew they were green).
Ziggy was laying back against his windshield, buds in his ears and arms out stretched, singing something Dillon had never heard before, with the most powerful set of lungs Dillon had not quite expected of someone as thin and lithe as Ziggy. It made him stop for a moment and admire the smaller man, and think that if Ziggy were anyone else, Dillon might have dismissed them, but something about this man just made him curious, made him want to taste the knowledge of what made up Ziggy Grover.
He did not need to touch the green clothed man as he spent so long staring, Ziggy felt his eyes, and sat up, looking right at him. Both of them only looked for a minute, as Ziggy took in Dillon’s dark swathed form, licking his lips a few times as he did.
“You wanted to talk to me?” he said.
“How did you know this was my car?” Dillon asked. “Or did you just pick at random until you go it right?” Ziggy smiled, pulling his ear buds from his ears, and wrapping them around his iPod as he did.
“Your sister told me. Well, she told K, and K told me that I should track you down. And then Cameron found me, and Era told me that his brother had been asking after me, and I remembered the two of you were friend and then Deus told me what happened in your auto shop class. I figured you must really want to talk to me if you are asking all of these people about me.” Dillon’s mouth ran dry at the implications, and his inability to run away.
“You take in a lot of people,” Dillon remarked. “You help them when the popular crowd would want to trample them down.”
“So do you,” Ziggy pointed out. “I mean, you brought together your group, and you look after your own pretty well.”
“I just…it’s stupid never mind.” Ziggy shrugged and slid off of Dillon’s car.
“All right, if you’re sure,” he said and began to walk away. Dillon sees nothing and no one else in the parking lot and thus cannot resist asking,
“Where are you going?” Ziggy turned for a minute, but kept walking.
“Home. I carpooled today, and all of my friends had to go somewhere to do things, and I didn’t want to keep them.” Dillon’s mouth ran dry again, as he took note of the clouds covering the sky scape and the lightning flashing in the distance.
“Get in; I’ll give you a ride.”
“You sure?” Ziggy asked, stopping in his tracks.
“It’d be cruel if I let you walk home during the storm,” Dillon explained, pulling his keys from his jacket pocket. Ziggy tilted his head to the side.
“I should warn you, I live in the woods. If this storm starts up while you’re there, you might not get out for a while.” Dillon scoffed a little.
“I don’t think you’ve seen the Fury in action before,” he said.
“Has the Fury ever seen nature in full force before?” Ziggy asked as he walked around to the passenger side of the car, lifting the door handle and sliding in.
True to his words, though it was not far from the school, Ziggy really did live just off of a rocky, dirt road in the forest, and by the time, Dillon turned off of that road, onto Ziggy’s long gravel drive, the rain was coming down in full force, and he was having trouble seeing far in front of him. And maybe the mud was sticking his wheels a little. But he did not want to admit that to Ziggy when he put the Fury in park in front of the one story house.
“Well, we made it in one piece,” Dillon declared.
“Yeah, but do you think you’re going to get out in one piece?” Ziggy asked. “Or out at all even. The road’s a pretty thick mud slide right now, and the rain leaves a lot to be desired for visibility.” He smiled, “I really think you should come inside.” In a whirl, Ziggy opened his door, like he planned to get out, but grabbed the keys from the ignition at the last minute, before dashing into the house. Dillon swore and followed after him, drenched by the time he reached the front steps. “Wait there, I’ll get you some towels!” cam Ziggy’s voice from inside the house, as Dillon entered in.
The smaller man came and held out the towels to him, but Dillon did not take them.
“Where are my keys?”
“After the rain lets up,” Ziggy promised. “Do you want some clothes to change into? I can through yours into the dryer, but you look about my dad’s size.”
“I want my car keys,” Dillon retorted.
“And I would like not to be responsible for your death,” Ziggy said, shoving the towels at him. “Take off your shoes before you start wandering, please. Bathroom is to the right; it’s yellow, so you can’t miss it. I’ll be back with a change of clothes in a minute.” Dillon was tempted not to take off his shoes, just to spite Ziggy, but pulled off his boots and trotted to the bathroom, towels in hand, trying to dry off his body without removing any of his clothes. Ziggy soon returned with a pair of sweat pants and a tee-shirt, though, letting him strip and dry off in the privacy of the bathroom (which was indeed a mellow yellow, with sunflowers outlined in brown on the walls. Dillon felt a little strange, wearing the clothes of a father who was not his, stuck in a house with a person who fascinated him, though he could not explain why. Still, he was never the type to run away from anything, so when he was dry and dressed, he opened the bathroom door to face Ziggy Grover. Except, Ziggy was just across the hall, in a room painted green, not quite ready to face him, as he was completely naked.
“Jesus!” Dillon screamed looking away.
“What, are you okay?” Ziggy touched his arm, and when Dillon looked up, a pair of sweat pants were slung around his hips.
“If we should ever change in the same space of a hundred feet, ever again, close all of the doors between us, would you?” Dillon asked. Ziggy grinned at him and gripped his hands.
“I will, I just forget—my parents raised me to be very comfortable with my body, so I kind of have no problem being naked.”
“Jesus you sound like my dad.” Dillon regretted that almost as soon as he said it, because he realized just how true it was, and suddenly, he was imagining his father in just a pair of sweat pants, and it was not pretty.
“Think of beagle puppies,” Ziggy said. Dillon opened his eyes, and realized he had been squeezing them tightly shut.
“What?”
“It’s what my dad would say to me whenever I we would watch a movie where a lot of people died and I found that it carries over pretty well to disturbing images. So just think of beagle puppies.” And that did it, the image of a beagle puppy howling over nothing leaped into his head, and suddenly, everything was okay.
“Wow, that, um, really works, but could you do me a favor and never mention that to anyone, please?” Ziggy snickered a little, and walked down the dim hall away from the bedrooms.
“What, are you afraid it would ruin your bad boy image?” he asked. He disappeared into what appeared to be a kitchen off of a dining room. “Can I get you anything?”
“My keys?” Dillon suggested, exploring a little further into the house, to find the living room, with a huge TV mounted on the wall. He sank into one of the couches there, as Ziggy walked out of the other end of where he had been, and offered Dillon a glass filled with water.
“Will this work?”
“Don’t you think we have enough water already?” Dillon asked jerking his head toward the window. Ziggy snorted into the glass he was drinking from, setting it down on one of the tables as soon as he swallowed. Ziggy, then, plopped down onto the couch, folding his feet under him.
“You never did tell me what you wanted to talk about,” Ziggy said.
“I thought I clarified pretty well, earlier,” Dillon retorted, turning to set his on glass down.
“All right then why did you try so hard?” he asked, leaning forward. Even from a bit of a distance, Ziggy felts so warm, like he radiated his heat. “Why were so curious about me that you would go through all of those people and try so hard to track me down?”
“I don’t know,” Dillon retorted, getting up to get away from Ziggy’s aura. But Ziggy stood with him, taking his hand to make him look.
“Can I try something, if you promise not to freak out that is?” Ziggy said, looking down for an instant and then back into Dillon’s eyes.
“All right, I guess,” Dillon said, his voice coming out in nothing more than a deep whisper. Ziggy put his hand, his warm hand, on Dillon’s shoulder, pulling him down a bit, before he could reach up and kiss the taller man. Dillon had never before been kissed by another man, but it felt right, and like everything about Ziggy warm, and full of…It felt like everything he had ever wanted, and that scared him, not because he did not think he was worthy of everything he had ever wanted, but Dillon really did not want to be thinking in clichés. He pulled away breathing a little hard, and Ziggy’s fingers dinging into the scruffy part of the back of his neck.
“You know, you have a nose, and breathing is generally what it’s used for,” Ziggy said with a grin. Jesus, was he always smiling? “Was that okay? Or did I freak you out?”
“I promised not to freak out, remember?” Dillon asked, taking in the situation. Apparently, kisses made some people black out, because he was holding Ziggy, and he had not quite remembered doing that.
“Your face kind of says otherwise,” Ziggy told him, brushing hair behind his ear. “C’mon let’s sit down again? Did I get it right? Do you need a moment for an epiphany or would you like to reject me horribly and hide in the bathroom until the storm lets up?”
“I would not hide in your bathroom,” Dillon retorted firmly, wondering if he could wrestle his hand out of Ziggy’s grip.
“Oh of course, how unmanly of me. Let’s see, we have a weight and training room downstairs, if you would like to lift some weights or punch a bag,” Ziggy offered. Dillon could not help it and chuckled at the accommodating offer.
“No I just…I’ve never…I’ve never liked guess before, so you’re kind of a shock, because you interest me, and you’re different than I think anyone I’ve ever met before.” Dillon looked right at Ziggy, meeting the smaller man’s eyes. “I don’t know how to feel about this.”
“I would say that you really don’t know how to think about this,” Ziggy said. “You know what you’re feeling, but you are afraid to feel it, and your brain doesn’t know quite where to file it against the cars and the martial arts.” Dillon blinked, and then raised an eyebrow.
“Anything else you would like to tell me about what I think and feel.” Ziggy stuttered for a minute, realizing his misstep, but quickly caught himself, and began to grin again.
“Maybe you just need a bigger field of data for your think and your feel to compare with,” Ziggy said, pulling him off of the couch.
“First it was let’s sit, now let’s stand, and where are you taking me?” Dillon asked.
“My room,” Ziggy said, pulling him back down the hall to the green room, where Dillon had seen him naked. In the center of the room, there was a rather large bed, which Ziggy pushed Dillon onto. Dillon thought he must of looked terrified, because Ziggy, with that damn smile of his, said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be gently.”
“Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?” Dillon asked, as he let himself lay back onto the pillows.
“Do you know anything about what two guys should do together?” Ziggy asked, situating himself next to Dillon.
“…No,” Dillon admitted. Ziggy rolled onto his side, reaching out to fiddle with his hair again, and leaned forward to kiss Dillon, ever so lightly.
“Then, relax; I’ll take care of you.” As he leaned forward again, Dillon reached out and held him in place as they kissed. Ziggy teased the short hairs of Dillon’s neck by running his fingers over them. It gave Dillon goose bumps and they lay there and kissed, and slowly, Ziggy’s tongue worked its way into his mouth. And then there was more than kissing, there was touching too, Ziggy’s warm hands were running over his chest, underneath the tee-shirt, and Dillon brushed his hands down to the small of Ziggy’s back, where he held them, unsure of where else to go.
Then Ziggy was kissing his neck and his shoulders and just about anything he could touch, and Dillon could scarcely hear the rain over the thud of his own heartbeat in his ears.
“Hey Ziggy, who’s Camaro is in the drive way?” came a baritone voice, echoing inside of the house. Dillon sat up so fast, he bumped Ziggy in the face, just as a tall, dark haired man entered the room.
“Hi, Dad,” Ziggy greeted, holding his nose. “This is Dillon. The Camaro is his, he gave me a ride home from school and the rain started, and it wouldn’t have really been safe to try the road out, especially since he’d never driven it before, and so I invited him to stay until the rain lets up. Dillon this is my dad, Jakob Grover.” Mr. Grover smiled, and paced forward to hold out his hand.
“Nice to meet you Dillon.” Dillon shook the man’s hand, and Mr. Grover had a very firm grip. “Have you tried to call anyone? Sometimes we don’t get the best cellphone service during storms and the lines can go down this far into the woods.”
“Oh gosh, yeah, you should do that, I totally wasn’t thinking,” Ziggy said.
“Especially if the weather man speaks no lies, you might have to spend the night here tonight,” he said. “Zig, will you show Dillon the phone in the kitchen, while I get changed?”
“Sure, Dad, what’s for dinner?”
“We have the left over roast, so I was thinking we could make some burritos,” Mr. Grover replied, stepping out of the room, like he was waiting for them to follow. “And you might want to check the dryer for Dillon’s clothes, son.” Ziggy slid off of his bed, and Dillon reluctantly followed him into the kitchen, as Mr. Grover disappeared into a different part of the house to go change.
“Sorry,” Ziggy muttered as he dragged Dillon into the kitchen.
“How the hell is he so observant?” Dillon whispered. “I mean, obviously he knew what we were doing, but asking about the call, and the clothes?”
“He served twenty years in the military,” Ziggy muttered, handing the receiver of a rotary phone to Dillon. “Now he does things for the government we aren’t allowed to talk about. And some of it was just logic. What’s your number, it’ll be easier if I punch it.” Dillon recited his home number from memory, grateful his father had him memorize it in the third grade so he didn’t have to go hunting for his phone.
“Hello?” came a voice on the other end of the line, after the click of pick up sounded.
“Hi, Dad,” Dillon said. Ziggy smiled at him, and disappeared into a room just off of the kitchen, where Dillon assumed the dryer was, as there was a large rattling noise coming from the room.
“Hey Dill, where are you? I was starting to get kind of worried. You know it’s pouring outside, right?”
“Um, yeah, I gave a friend a ride home, but he won’t give me back my keys, because he lives out in the woods and thinks I won’t make it out alive or something,” Dillon responded.
“Have I met this friend?” his father asked.
“No, he’s a new friend. He’s name’s Ziggy Grover, but hey, you did work for the government, right Dad? Maybe you know his Dad, Jakob Grover?”
“The name sounds familiar. Is Mr. Grover there? I’d like to talk to him.” As if on cue, Jakob Grover appeared in the kitchen, opening the fridge and pulling out a large bag of what looking like roast beef.
“Dad I’m not seven anymore.”
“But perhaps for my peace of mind, you’d like to hand the phone over, son?” Dillon sighed, and took the receiver away from his ear.
“Um, Mr. Grover?” The older man looked down at him (Dillon, realized that the man was a good two or three inches taller than he was, which was a little strange considering how not-tall Ziggy was). “My father would like to talk to you, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, sure thing. You can head back to Ziggy’s room if you like, I’m sure he’ll be right along with your clothes.” Dillon gratefully escaped the kitchen as the two men began to talk via telephone.
“There is something a little…overpowering about your dad,” Dillon said as Ziggy walked into the room with his folded clothing.
“Yeah, he has that effect on people. It probably doesn’t help that the last guy I was almost physically intimate with left me for a girl, but just act respectful, and well, like you and he’ll come around pretty quickly,” Ziggy said, handing over the clothes. “Would you like to change in the bathroom again? I have to warm you; I’ll be doing the same.” Dillon flushed.
“The bathroom sounds good, thanks.” He couldn’t see it, but he was sure Ziggy was smiling as he left the room.
Dillon dressed quickly, and opened the door, to find Ziggy’s door closed, and assumed the other man was not yet dressed.
“Hey,” Jakob said, appearing at the end of the now lighted hall. “I talked to your dad. He says that he’s all right with you staying the night, and to call him if in the morning you can’t get out of here with your car. He said he’ll give you a tow.”
“Uh, thanks, Mr. Grover,” Dillon said, holding up the sweat pants and tee-shirt Ziggy had loaned him, folded as neatly as he could manage. “I think these are yours.” He swore Jakob gave almost a half-smile as he accepted the clothing.
“Yes, yes they are. Do you like burritos? Any allergies I should know about?”
“No, not unless you put strawberries in your burritos,” Dillon replied. At that Jakob gave a real smile, and even chuckled a little.
“All right then, we won’t tonight, fair enough,” Jakob said. “You know, you could probably go in there.” Jakob gestured to Ziggy’s door way, making Dillon flush a little.
“He’s probably still changing,” Dillon replied. “I can wait.” Jakob’s eyebrows furrowed, but he chuckled and nodded,
“Sometimes, I forget that not all parents raised their children to be as liberal as I raised mine to be,” he said. “Well, if you want to forgo that, there is always this crazy thing they invented called knocking.”
“Oh,” Dillon said, nodding. “Yeah, there is.” Jakob nodded along with him, until he clapped his hand and jerked his thumb towards the kitchen.
“Right then, I’ll let you do that, and I’ll get started on dinner.” Jakob walked toward the kitchen and left Dillon toward the door and position his fist above the door. He let it fall down, rapping it soundly several times before he said to the door,
“Hey, are you descent?” The door swung open to reveal Ziggy grinning in the doorway.
“Am I descent enough for you?” He wore a pair of rather tight fitting pants, which made Dillon wonder how he got into them, and a button down shirt, partial open to reveal his undershirt, but mostly, Ziggy looked fine. Better than fine really.
“Yeah, you look great,” Dillon said.
“Great!” Ziggy chirped, grabbing his hand and pulling him into the room. “You guess the password of the day, come on in.” He released Dillon after only a moment to climb up on his bed and sit in a quasi-lotus, pressing his bare feet together. As Ziggy reached to grab a deck of cards from his night stand, Dillon noticed for the first time a set of leather bands that adorned Ziggy’s wrists as his unbuttoned shirt sleeve rode up his arm.
He climbed up on the bed, sitting across from the other boy, and took his wrists as he attempted to deal out a poker hand.
“What are these?” he asked. Ziggy smiled at him, and set the cards down between them.
“Well, one of them is my watch; it’s about ten to six before you ask.” He ran his index finger over the face of an analogue clock, where a few gears showed in the background. “I made it myself. I try to make one for each of my friends, so we all have something to recognize each other by. Um… this one,” he traced the one set on his left wrist just before his watch, “is the crest of the Erdinger family, the family my dad’s mom was from. My cousin Abigail gave it to me for my sixteen birthday, and it means that I am family, no matter what. Like no matter how annoying I can get sometimes. ”
Dillon smirked, and took Ziggy’s right hand, rubbing his thumbs across the pattern of a bird branded into the soft leather band there.
“What’s that one?”
“That one my mom gave to me, just recently for no particular reason really,” Ziggy said. “Okay, well there was kind of a reason. It’s sort of symbolic of me becoming a man, in a lot of ways. The phoenix, that’s the bird on there, that’s symbolic of me, because no matter what, even when I was younger, I would always get back up, no matter what. So Mother always called me her phoenix. And when she thought I was old enough to fly, she gave me this to tell me that I was destined to be a strong man or something like that.”
“Just something like that?” Dillon asked. Ziggy looked away from him, and said in a low voice.
“It does mean more, between the two of us, but I just.”
“You don’t want to talk about it, that’s cool,” Dillon said with a shrug. “I mean, we met for the first time this afternoon, so I can’t exactly blame you or anything.” Ziggy ran his thumbs over the back of Dillon’s hands.
“Thank you,” he said. Dillon, hesitating for only a moment, reached out and kissed Ziggy’s forehead, getting some brown curls pressed against his mouth as he did. As he pulled back, Ziggy looked up, and pushed their lips together again. This time, Dillon felt more ready for what he was getting out of this slow, languid kiss, and held Ziggy in place by the back of his head as he leaned down to kiss him. He pressed forward just a little, causing some of the cards to slide beneath his knees, but Dillon really did not care, not when Ziggy was sliding his hands into Dillon’s hair, pulling him down for a better range.
Dillon sucked a little on Ziggy’s lip, and the smaller man opened his mouth with a bit of a pant, letting Dillon’s tongue in to play with his own and to suck on. Dillon pushed away the collar of Ziggy’s button down, to press a kiss into his neck, which he swore made Ziggy shudder underneath his other hand which had traveled down to his hip to hold him in place. Dillon heard the gasps, and even when Ziggy stopped breathing as he ran his teeth across the pale boy’s neck. And then he heard, “Dad! Jesus!”
“Not quite the same thing, son, unless you want to include the Holy Ghost in there and then you might have something.” Dillon’s eyes snapped open at the sound of Jakob’s voice and turned to face the elder Grover with a beat red face. “I just came to ask what kind of toppings you both wanted with your burritos.”
“The…normal kind?” Dillon replied. Jakob, in his smirking mercy, seemed to take that as an answer,
“All right then,” he said, reaching for the door knob. “I don’t suppose I need to ask you to keep the door open, seeing as you’d probably be willing to—”
“Dad! What kind of boy do you think I am?” Ziggy asked. “I would never have sex on the first date—and don’t give me the ‘well I didn’t have sex until I was married at twenty-eight,’ line, because I know it’s not technically true!”
“Is this what you’d call a date?” Dillon inquired. “Because if so I think I might just have to take my chance in the rain.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means that you stole me keys, got me to take off my clothes, and have made out with me twice already, with your father interrupting both times,” Dillon pointed out. “I’m fairly sure this was a not quite thought out seduction rather than a first date.” Jakob snickered from behind them, and Ziggy blushed as he scrunched up his face in protest.
“Yeah well, you like it and you know you want it, so just be quiet and be seduced,” Ziggy ordered. “And just the regular toppings for me too please, Dad?”
“Sure thing, son.” Jakob left the room without a word, still leaving the door cracked as he did.
“How long do you think he was watching us?” Dillon whispered.
“I don’t know,” Ziggy said. “And if you wouldn’t mind, I would prefer not to think about my dad watching me make up with someone.” Dillon gasped his hand right over his heart.
“You have limits!”
“Clearly marked in sharpie across your ass,” Ziggy said, untangling himself from Dillon to slide off of the bed.
“What the hell does that mean?” Dillon asked. Ziggy waved at him and instead of replying asked,
“So, I imagine that dinner is going to be in a short while, so I’m not sure we should get started up again. What would you like to do until then?” Dillon came up behind Ziggy, who appeared to be rearranging one of his book shelves and pulled a sheathed sword from the wall.
“Maybe we could have a sword fight,” he suggested.
“Hey! Put that back, it’s real!” Ziggy protested, trying to reach above him to where Dillon held the sword aloft.
“I just want to look at it for a second,” Dillon said, pulling the sword from its sheath. The metal gleamed and shinned under the overhead light of Ziggy’s room, and the ends did look quite sharp and functional, so he was especially careful sliding it back into the sheath. “Do you know how to use that?” he asked as he put it back on the wall mount.
“Well, yeah, Dad doesn’t let me have any weapons I don’t know how to use,” Ziggy explained, going back to his books. “Pretty much nothing in this house is purely decorative, everything as a use.”
“I would say that’s creepy,, but my dad has his fair amounts of sharp pointy things and dull hard things that can hurt people,” Dillon replied. “So what about the books have you read all of those?”
“Yeah, I have, actually,” Ziggy said. “Why are you one of those people who other people get books for that you never read?”
“Uh huh,” Dillon replied, plucking a book off of the shelf. He studied the cover for a minute, and asked, “So, what’s Ender’s Game about?”
“That’s why you read it,” Ziggy replied, switching around two titles before he looked up at Dillon. “So you can find out what the story is. Dad has been taking my books again.”
“Are you sure you can’t just tell me?” Dillon asked as he sat back down on the bed, examining the back part of the cover.
“Nope,” Ziggy replied climbing into his lap, and wrapping his arms around Dillon’s shoulders so he wouldn’t fall.
“Is there a movie?” he asked, holding the book off to one side, as he wrapped his second hand around Ziggy’s back to support him.
“Nope,” Ziggy said, pressing their foreheads together. Dillon inhaled and exhaled deeply.
“Has anyone ever told you that you are kind of highly sexual?” Dillon asked.
“Maybe you’re just repressed, and society has given you the version of intimacy you know, which happens to be highly sexualized,” Ziggy said, with a shrug. “Why, does us being here like this turn you on at all?”
“A little,” Dillon admitted. “I think most of it is you, though, just the way you are, and the way you move, and the way you sit for that matter.” Ziggy leaned in for a kiss, but Dillon pressed his fingers up to Ziggy’s lips, leaving the book to fall on Ziggy’s mattress. “I thought you said we shouldn’t start because dinner was going to be in a little while. And really, I’ve been cock blocked enough in the past hour.” Ziggy raised a slow eyebrow, shifting a little on Dillon’s lap.
“So this whole time, I’ve been making you…hard?” he whispered into Dillon’s ear.
“Please don’t do this to me,” Dillon begged. “Not right now, not when—”
“Dinner’s ready!” Jakob called, his voice ringing through the house.
“That man has fantastic timing,” Dillon said. Ziggy chuckled and leaned forward to kiss him.
“Don’t worry, all you have to do is sit through a burrito and then my dad won’t bother us for the rest of the night.”
“You swear?” Dillon asked.
“Promise,” Ziggy said, making Dillon lean forward to kiss him. They both slid off of the bed, and made their way to the small dining room table just off of the kitchen.
“Hi, I’m Ziggy,” before he dropped his voice to a whisper. A ghost of a smile appeared on the girl’s face as he talked, and they stood, still holding her things and walked off into the school. Except, when they almost turned down another hallway, Ziggy turned back, like he knew he was being watched, and looked right at Dillon with piercing green eyes.
After that, Dillon looked for the lanky boy with green eyes. Often, if Dillon saw him, he was rescuing the misfits of the school, people of the underground whose names were lost to even him, King of the Largest Outcast Army in the whole school …or so he had thought. Ziggy took in everyone; the lost little freshman like the blonde girl, the science nerds, like two, blonde chemistry brothers, and the girl who was too smart for high school, always wearing a black bowl cut and a lab coat, along with her twin followers. Dillon even saw his friend Murphy’s brother hanging around with Ziggy’s group at one point or another, most of whom Dillon knew from one humiliating point or another in the high school’s history.
Except when he saw these people now, they always smiled, they laughed, they were dressed really strangely, but they were never alone.
“Do you know anything about a kid called Ziggy?” Dillon asked his sister one night when it finally got to him. Tenaya raised an eyebrow at him, and frowned slightly. At school they did not much associate with one another as Tenaya ran the “bitch army,” as he liked to call it, and they were highly opposed to Dillon and his group’s “misogynistic” ways.
“Know of him,” she replied after a moment of staring him down. “I punched him once. The next day my locker was filled with wild flowers. Anyway, Morgana once said that she and Gwen, one of his close friends, used to be really close, but they don’t get much of a chance to hang out anymore. I know he’s in drama.”
Anakin, Merrick and Kevin were playing Assassin’s Creed while Murphy strummed at his guitar, Markus hacked away at something on his computer, and Itachi attempted to do homework, when he asked them.
“Why do you want to know about Ziggy Grover?” Markus asked without looking up from his computer.
“You know him?” Dillon asked.
“Know of him,” Markus replied, “but you didn’t answer my question.”
“I’ve just seen him around,” Dillon said, “I’m curious.” There were looks shared between them, and Anakin paused the game, and Murphy set his guitar down as they all tuned in. “It’s not that fucking big of a deal!”
“May I remind you that the last time you were interested in someone, she turned out to be blonde,” Markus said. “Anyway, I know he’s in a band. I know the drummer, Percy; we hang out and do films together on the occasion. I think his Dad might also work for the government. I remember Dad saying something about Colonel Grover in passing. I can’t say much for Ziggy as a person though.”
“I think Era might have mentioned him once or twice,” Murphy remarked with a shrug. “I wasn’t really paying much attention though.”
His lab partner spent the better part of the period glaring at him.
“I get that you have bad boy syndrome and everything, but if you could focus, that would be wonderful,” Cameron snarked at him. Dillon glanced at him, and noted the green shirt Cameron was wearing. Come to think of it, Ziggy had been wearing green every time Dillon had seen him.
“Hey Cam, do you know Ziggy Grover?” Dillon asked, taking the wiring out of the Asian’s hands to work on it a little bit. Cam frowned.
“Sure, I work the booth for him sometimes during plays and stuff. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“It’s fine. What’s he like?”
“Boisterous. He never stops talking, well, almost,” Cam said. “If you ask him nicely, or look at him the right way, he does. I’ve only met him a few times, but he seems okay.”
Apparently his thoughtful mood continued into auto shop, because he found Flynn snapping his fingers in front of his face.
“Are ye in there, mate?”
“Yeah thanks,” Dillon said, lowering Flynn’s hand away from his face.
“Anythin’ I can help ye with?” Flynn asked.
“Know anything about Ziggy Grover?” Dillon asked. Flynn looked off to his right, before he turned and called out,
“Hey Deus, com’mere for a minute, would ye lad?” A tall, not quite as gangly as Ziggy, boy with brown hair, left his partner at their car and joined them under the hood of Flynn’s SUV. “Ye’re friends with Ziggy Grover, aren’t ye?”
“Best friends, why?” Deus asked. “What’s going on?” Looking down at the other young man, Dillon could not quite articulate why exactly he wanted to know about Ziggy and instead chose to say,
“Nothing,” right as the bell rang. Like a coward, he fled the garage as quickly as he could.
It was not until much later than normal that he managed to leave the school. He had been hiding away in a dark corner listening to his iPod an hour after the last bell rang, if only to avoid his friends and the few others who wanted to come after him with questions. So when he went out into the overcast, twilight lit parking lot, he was not quite expecting to find someone sitting on the hood of his car. Someone, dressed in a white dress shirt, a vest, tight blue jeans and a green jacket, unruly hair spilling into his light green eyes (they were closed when Dillon approached, but he still knew they were green).
Ziggy was laying back against his windshield, buds in his ears and arms out stretched, singing something Dillon had never heard before, with the most powerful set of lungs Dillon had not quite expected of someone as thin and lithe as Ziggy. It made him stop for a moment and admire the smaller man, and think that if Ziggy were anyone else, Dillon might have dismissed them, but something about this man just made him curious, made him want to taste the knowledge of what made up Ziggy Grover.
He did not need to touch the green clothed man as he spent so long staring, Ziggy felt his eyes, and sat up, looking right at him. Both of them only looked for a minute, as Ziggy took in Dillon’s dark swathed form, licking his lips a few times as he did.
“You wanted to talk to me?” he said.
“How did you know this was my car?” Dillon asked. “Or did you just pick at random until you go it right?” Ziggy smiled, pulling his ear buds from his ears, and wrapping them around his iPod as he did.
“Your sister told me. Well, she told K, and K told me that I should track you down. And then Cameron found me, and Era told me that his brother had been asking after me, and I remembered the two of you were friend and then Deus told me what happened in your auto shop class. I figured you must really want to talk to me if you are asking all of these people about me.” Dillon’s mouth ran dry at the implications, and his inability to run away.
“You take in a lot of people,” Dillon remarked. “You help them when the popular crowd would want to trample them down.”
“So do you,” Ziggy pointed out. “I mean, you brought together your group, and you look after your own pretty well.”
“I just…it’s stupid never mind.” Ziggy shrugged and slid off of Dillon’s car.
“All right, if you’re sure,” he said and began to walk away. Dillon sees nothing and no one else in the parking lot and thus cannot resist asking,
“Where are you going?” Ziggy turned for a minute, but kept walking.
“Home. I carpooled today, and all of my friends had to go somewhere to do things, and I didn’t want to keep them.” Dillon’s mouth ran dry again, as he took note of the clouds covering the sky scape and the lightning flashing in the distance.
“Get in; I’ll give you a ride.”
“You sure?” Ziggy asked, stopping in his tracks.
“It’d be cruel if I let you walk home during the storm,” Dillon explained, pulling his keys from his jacket pocket. Ziggy tilted his head to the side.
“I should warn you, I live in the woods. If this storm starts up while you’re there, you might not get out for a while.” Dillon scoffed a little.
“I don’t think you’ve seen the Fury in action before,” he said.
“Has the Fury ever seen nature in full force before?” Ziggy asked as he walked around to the passenger side of the car, lifting the door handle and sliding in.
True to his words, though it was not far from the school, Ziggy really did live just off of a rocky, dirt road in the forest, and by the time, Dillon turned off of that road, onto Ziggy’s long gravel drive, the rain was coming down in full force, and he was having trouble seeing far in front of him. And maybe the mud was sticking his wheels a little. But he did not want to admit that to Ziggy when he put the Fury in park in front of the one story house.
“Well, we made it in one piece,” Dillon declared.
“Yeah, but do you think you’re going to get out in one piece?” Ziggy asked. “Or out at all even. The road’s a pretty thick mud slide right now, and the rain leaves a lot to be desired for visibility.” He smiled, “I really think you should come inside.” In a whirl, Ziggy opened his door, like he planned to get out, but grabbed the keys from the ignition at the last minute, before dashing into the house. Dillon swore and followed after him, drenched by the time he reached the front steps. “Wait there, I’ll get you some towels!” cam Ziggy’s voice from inside the house, as Dillon entered in.
The smaller man came and held out the towels to him, but Dillon did not take them.
“Where are my keys?”
“After the rain lets up,” Ziggy promised. “Do you want some clothes to change into? I can through yours into the dryer, but you look about my dad’s size.”
“I want my car keys,” Dillon retorted.
“And I would like not to be responsible for your death,” Ziggy said, shoving the towels at him. “Take off your shoes before you start wandering, please. Bathroom is to the right; it’s yellow, so you can’t miss it. I’ll be back with a change of clothes in a minute.” Dillon was tempted not to take off his shoes, just to spite Ziggy, but pulled off his boots and trotted to the bathroom, towels in hand, trying to dry off his body without removing any of his clothes. Ziggy soon returned with a pair of sweat pants and a tee-shirt, though, letting him strip and dry off in the privacy of the bathroom (which was indeed a mellow yellow, with sunflowers outlined in brown on the walls. Dillon felt a little strange, wearing the clothes of a father who was not his, stuck in a house with a person who fascinated him, though he could not explain why. Still, he was never the type to run away from anything, so when he was dry and dressed, he opened the bathroom door to face Ziggy Grover. Except, Ziggy was just across the hall, in a room painted green, not quite ready to face him, as he was completely naked.
“Jesus!” Dillon screamed looking away.
“What, are you okay?” Ziggy touched his arm, and when Dillon looked up, a pair of sweat pants were slung around his hips.
“If we should ever change in the same space of a hundred feet, ever again, close all of the doors between us, would you?” Dillon asked. Ziggy grinned at him and gripped his hands.
“I will, I just forget—my parents raised me to be very comfortable with my body, so I kind of have no problem being naked.”
“Jesus you sound like my dad.” Dillon regretted that almost as soon as he said it, because he realized just how true it was, and suddenly, he was imagining his father in just a pair of sweat pants, and it was not pretty.
“Think of beagle puppies,” Ziggy said. Dillon opened his eyes, and realized he had been squeezing them tightly shut.
“What?”
“It’s what my dad would say to me whenever I we would watch a movie where a lot of people died and I found that it carries over pretty well to disturbing images. So just think of beagle puppies.” And that did it, the image of a beagle puppy howling over nothing leaped into his head, and suddenly, everything was okay.
“Wow, that, um, really works, but could you do me a favor and never mention that to anyone, please?” Ziggy snickered a little, and walked down the dim hall away from the bedrooms.
“What, are you afraid it would ruin your bad boy image?” he asked. He disappeared into what appeared to be a kitchen off of a dining room. “Can I get you anything?”
“My keys?” Dillon suggested, exploring a little further into the house, to find the living room, with a huge TV mounted on the wall. He sank into one of the couches there, as Ziggy walked out of the other end of where he had been, and offered Dillon a glass filled with water.
“Will this work?”
“Don’t you think we have enough water already?” Dillon asked jerking his head toward the window. Ziggy snorted into the glass he was drinking from, setting it down on one of the tables as soon as he swallowed. Ziggy, then, plopped down onto the couch, folding his feet under him.
“You never did tell me what you wanted to talk about,” Ziggy said.
“I thought I clarified pretty well, earlier,” Dillon retorted, turning to set his on glass down.
“All right then why did you try so hard?” he asked, leaning forward. Even from a bit of a distance, Ziggy felts so warm, like he radiated his heat. “Why were so curious about me that you would go through all of those people and try so hard to track me down?”
“I don’t know,” Dillon retorted, getting up to get away from Ziggy’s aura. But Ziggy stood with him, taking his hand to make him look.
“Can I try something, if you promise not to freak out that is?” Ziggy said, looking down for an instant and then back into Dillon’s eyes.
“All right, I guess,” Dillon said, his voice coming out in nothing more than a deep whisper. Ziggy put his hand, his warm hand, on Dillon’s shoulder, pulling him down a bit, before he could reach up and kiss the taller man. Dillon had never before been kissed by another man, but it felt right, and like everything about Ziggy warm, and full of…It felt like everything he had ever wanted, and that scared him, not because he did not think he was worthy of everything he had ever wanted, but Dillon really did not want to be thinking in clichés. He pulled away breathing a little hard, and Ziggy’s fingers dinging into the scruffy part of the back of his neck.
“You know, you have a nose, and breathing is generally what it’s used for,” Ziggy said with a grin. Jesus, was he always smiling? “Was that okay? Or did I freak you out?”
“I promised not to freak out, remember?” Dillon asked, taking in the situation. Apparently, kisses made some people black out, because he was holding Ziggy, and he had not quite remembered doing that.
“Your face kind of says otherwise,” Ziggy told him, brushing hair behind his ear. “C’mon let’s sit down again? Did I get it right? Do you need a moment for an epiphany or would you like to reject me horribly and hide in the bathroom until the storm lets up?”
“I would not hide in your bathroom,” Dillon retorted firmly, wondering if he could wrestle his hand out of Ziggy’s grip.
“Oh of course, how unmanly of me. Let’s see, we have a weight and training room downstairs, if you would like to lift some weights or punch a bag,” Ziggy offered. Dillon could not help it and chuckled at the accommodating offer.
“No I just…I’ve never…I’ve never liked guess before, so you’re kind of a shock, because you interest me, and you’re different than I think anyone I’ve ever met before.” Dillon looked right at Ziggy, meeting the smaller man’s eyes. “I don’t know how to feel about this.”
“I would say that you really don’t know how to think about this,” Ziggy said. “You know what you’re feeling, but you are afraid to feel it, and your brain doesn’t know quite where to file it against the cars and the martial arts.” Dillon blinked, and then raised an eyebrow.
“Anything else you would like to tell me about what I think and feel.” Ziggy stuttered for a minute, realizing his misstep, but quickly caught himself, and began to grin again.
“Maybe you just need a bigger field of data for your think and your feel to compare with,” Ziggy said, pulling him off of the couch.
“First it was let’s sit, now let’s stand, and where are you taking me?” Dillon asked.
“My room,” Ziggy said, pulling him back down the hall to the green room, where Dillon had seen him naked. In the center of the room, there was a rather large bed, which Ziggy pushed Dillon onto. Dillon thought he must of looked terrified, because Ziggy, with that damn smile of his, said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be gently.”
“Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?” Dillon asked, as he let himself lay back onto the pillows.
“Do you know anything about what two guys should do together?” Ziggy asked, situating himself next to Dillon.
“…No,” Dillon admitted. Ziggy rolled onto his side, reaching out to fiddle with his hair again, and leaned forward to kiss Dillon, ever so lightly.
“Then, relax; I’ll take care of you.” As he leaned forward again, Dillon reached out and held him in place as they kissed. Ziggy teased the short hairs of Dillon’s neck by running his fingers over them. It gave Dillon goose bumps and they lay there and kissed, and slowly, Ziggy’s tongue worked its way into his mouth. And then there was more than kissing, there was touching too, Ziggy’s warm hands were running over his chest, underneath the tee-shirt, and Dillon brushed his hands down to the small of Ziggy’s back, where he held them, unsure of where else to go.
Then Ziggy was kissing his neck and his shoulders and just about anything he could touch, and Dillon could scarcely hear the rain over the thud of his own heartbeat in his ears.
“Hey Ziggy, who’s Camaro is in the drive way?” came a baritone voice, echoing inside of the house. Dillon sat up so fast, he bumped Ziggy in the face, just as a tall, dark haired man entered the room.
“Hi, Dad,” Ziggy greeted, holding his nose. “This is Dillon. The Camaro is his, he gave me a ride home from school and the rain started, and it wouldn’t have really been safe to try the road out, especially since he’d never driven it before, and so I invited him to stay until the rain lets up. Dillon this is my dad, Jakob Grover.” Mr. Grover smiled, and paced forward to hold out his hand.
“Nice to meet you Dillon.” Dillon shook the man’s hand, and Mr. Grover had a very firm grip. “Have you tried to call anyone? Sometimes we don’t get the best cellphone service during storms and the lines can go down this far into the woods.”
“Oh gosh, yeah, you should do that, I totally wasn’t thinking,” Ziggy said.
“Especially if the weather man speaks no lies, you might have to spend the night here tonight,” he said. “Zig, will you show Dillon the phone in the kitchen, while I get changed?”
“Sure, Dad, what’s for dinner?”
“We have the left over roast, so I was thinking we could make some burritos,” Mr. Grover replied, stepping out of the room, like he was waiting for them to follow. “And you might want to check the dryer for Dillon’s clothes, son.” Ziggy slid off of his bed, and Dillon reluctantly followed him into the kitchen, as Mr. Grover disappeared into a different part of the house to go change.
“Sorry,” Ziggy muttered as he dragged Dillon into the kitchen.
“How the hell is he so observant?” Dillon whispered. “I mean, obviously he knew what we were doing, but asking about the call, and the clothes?”
“He served twenty years in the military,” Ziggy muttered, handing the receiver of a rotary phone to Dillon. “Now he does things for the government we aren’t allowed to talk about. And some of it was just logic. What’s your number, it’ll be easier if I punch it.” Dillon recited his home number from memory, grateful his father had him memorize it in the third grade so he didn’t have to go hunting for his phone.
“Hello?” came a voice on the other end of the line, after the click of pick up sounded.
“Hi, Dad,” Dillon said. Ziggy smiled at him, and disappeared into a room just off of the kitchen, where Dillon assumed the dryer was, as there was a large rattling noise coming from the room.
“Hey Dill, where are you? I was starting to get kind of worried. You know it’s pouring outside, right?”
“Um, yeah, I gave a friend a ride home, but he won’t give me back my keys, because he lives out in the woods and thinks I won’t make it out alive or something,” Dillon responded.
“Have I met this friend?” his father asked.
“No, he’s a new friend. He’s name’s Ziggy Grover, but hey, you did work for the government, right Dad? Maybe you know his Dad, Jakob Grover?”
“The name sounds familiar. Is Mr. Grover there? I’d like to talk to him.” As if on cue, Jakob Grover appeared in the kitchen, opening the fridge and pulling out a large bag of what looking like roast beef.
“Dad I’m not seven anymore.”
“But perhaps for my peace of mind, you’d like to hand the phone over, son?” Dillon sighed, and took the receiver away from his ear.
“Um, Mr. Grover?” The older man looked down at him (Dillon, realized that the man was a good two or three inches taller than he was, which was a little strange considering how not-tall Ziggy was). “My father would like to talk to you, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, sure thing. You can head back to Ziggy’s room if you like, I’m sure he’ll be right along with your clothes.” Dillon gratefully escaped the kitchen as the two men began to talk via telephone.
“There is something a little…overpowering about your dad,” Dillon said as Ziggy walked into the room with his folded clothing.
“Yeah, he has that effect on people. It probably doesn’t help that the last guy I was almost physically intimate with left me for a girl, but just act respectful, and well, like you and he’ll come around pretty quickly,” Ziggy said, handing over the clothes. “Would you like to change in the bathroom again? I have to warm you; I’ll be doing the same.” Dillon flushed.
“The bathroom sounds good, thanks.” He couldn’t see it, but he was sure Ziggy was smiling as he left the room.
Dillon dressed quickly, and opened the door, to find Ziggy’s door closed, and assumed the other man was not yet dressed.
“Hey,” Jakob said, appearing at the end of the now lighted hall. “I talked to your dad. He says that he’s all right with you staying the night, and to call him if in the morning you can’t get out of here with your car. He said he’ll give you a tow.”
“Uh, thanks, Mr. Grover,” Dillon said, holding up the sweat pants and tee-shirt Ziggy had loaned him, folded as neatly as he could manage. “I think these are yours.” He swore Jakob gave almost a half-smile as he accepted the clothing.
“Yes, yes they are. Do you like burritos? Any allergies I should know about?”
“No, not unless you put strawberries in your burritos,” Dillon replied. At that Jakob gave a real smile, and even chuckled a little.
“All right then, we won’t tonight, fair enough,” Jakob said. “You know, you could probably go in there.” Jakob gestured to Ziggy’s door way, making Dillon flush a little.
“He’s probably still changing,” Dillon replied. “I can wait.” Jakob’s eyebrows furrowed, but he chuckled and nodded,
“Sometimes, I forget that not all parents raised their children to be as liberal as I raised mine to be,” he said. “Well, if you want to forgo that, there is always this crazy thing they invented called knocking.”
“Oh,” Dillon said, nodding. “Yeah, there is.” Jakob nodded along with him, until he clapped his hand and jerked his thumb towards the kitchen.
“Right then, I’ll let you do that, and I’ll get started on dinner.” Jakob walked toward the kitchen and left Dillon toward the door and position his fist above the door. He let it fall down, rapping it soundly several times before he said to the door,
“Hey, are you descent?” The door swung open to reveal Ziggy grinning in the doorway.
“Am I descent enough for you?” He wore a pair of rather tight fitting pants, which made Dillon wonder how he got into them, and a button down shirt, partial open to reveal his undershirt, but mostly, Ziggy looked fine. Better than fine really.
“Yeah, you look great,” Dillon said.
“Great!” Ziggy chirped, grabbing his hand and pulling him into the room. “You guess the password of the day, come on in.” He released Dillon after only a moment to climb up on his bed and sit in a quasi-lotus, pressing his bare feet together. As Ziggy reached to grab a deck of cards from his night stand, Dillon noticed for the first time a set of leather bands that adorned Ziggy’s wrists as his unbuttoned shirt sleeve rode up his arm.
He climbed up on the bed, sitting across from the other boy, and took his wrists as he attempted to deal out a poker hand.
“What are these?” he asked. Ziggy smiled at him, and set the cards down between them.
“Well, one of them is my watch; it’s about ten to six before you ask.” He ran his index finger over the face of an analogue clock, where a few gears showed in the background. “I made it myself. I try to make one for each of my friends, so we all have something to recognize each other by. Um… this one,” he traced the one set on his left wrist just before his watch, “is the crest of the Erdinger family, the family my dad’s mom was from. My cousin Abigail gave it to me for my sixteen birthday, and it means that I am family, no matter what. Like no matter how annoying I can get sometimes. ”
Dillon smirked, and took Ziggy’s right hand, rubbing his thumbs across the pattern of a bird branded into the soft leather band there.
“What’s that one?”
“That one my mom gave to me, just recently for no particular reason really,” Ziggy said. “Okay, well there was kind of a reason. It’s sort of symbolic of me becoming a man, in a lot of ways. The phoenix, that’s the bird on there, that’s symbolic of me, because no matter what, even when I was younger, I would always get back up, no matter what. So Mother always called me her phoenix. And when she thought I was old enough to fly, she gave me this to tell me that I was destined to be a strong man or something like that.”
“Just something like that?” Dillon asked. Ziggy looked away from him, and said in a low voice.
“It does mean more, between the two of us, but I just.”
“You don’t want to talk about it, that’s cool,” Dillon said with a shrug. “I mean, we met for the first time this afternoon, so I can’t exactly blame you or anything.” Ziggy ran his thumbs over the back of Dillon’s hands.
“Thank you,” he said. Dillon, hesitating for only a moment, reached out and kissed Ziggy’s forehead, getting some brown curls pressed against his mouth as he did. As he pulled back, Ziggy looked up, and pushed their lips together again. This time, Dillon felt more ready for what he was getting out of this slow, languid kiss, and held Ziggy in place by the back of his head as he leaned down to kiss him. He pressed forward just a little, causing some of the cards to slide beneath his knees, but Dillon really did not care, not when Ziggy was sliding his hands into Dillon’s hair, pulling him down for a better range.
Dillon sucked a little on Ziggy’s lip, and the smaller man opened his mouth with a bit of a pant, letting Dillon’s tongue in to play with his own and to suck on. Dillon pushed away the collar of Ziggy’s button down, to press a kiss into his neck, which he swore made Ziggy shudder underneath his other hand which had traveled down to his hip to hold him in place. Dillon heard the gasps, and even when Ziggy stopped breathing as he ran his teeth across the pale boy’s neck. And then he heard, “Dad! Jesus!”
“Not quite the same thing, son, unless you want to include the Holy Ghost in there and then you might have something.” Dillon’s eyes snapped open at the sound of Jakob’s voice and turned to face the elder Grover with a beat red face. “I just came to ask what kind of toppings you both wanted with your burritos.”
“The…normal kind?” Dillon replied. Jakob, in his smirking mercy, seemed to take that as an answer,
“All right then,” he said, reaching for the door knob. “I don’t suppose I need to ask you to keep the door open, seeing as you’d probably be willing to—”
“Dad! What kind of boy do you think I am?” Ziggy asked. “I would never have sex on the first date—and don’t give me the ‘well I didn’t have sex until I was married at twenty-eight,’ line, because I know it’s not technically true!”
“Is this what you’d call a date?” Dillon inquired. “Because if so I think I might just have to take my chance in the rain.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means that you stole me keys, got me to take off my clothes, and have made out with me twice already, with your father interrupting both times,” Dillon pointed out. “I’m fairly sure this was a not quite thought out seduction rather than a first date.” Jakob snickered from behind them, and Ziggy blushed as he scrunched up his face in protest.
“Yeah well, you like it and you know you want it, so just be quiet and be seduced,” Ziggy ordered. “And just the regular toppings for me too please, Dad?”
“Sure thing, son.” Jakob left the room without a word, still leaving the door cracked as he did.
“How long do you think he was watching us?” Dillon whispered.
“I don’t know,” Ziggy said. “And if you wouldn’t mind, I would prefer not to think about my dad watching me make up with someone.” Dillon gasped his hand right over his heart.
“You have limits!”
“Clearly marked in sharpie across your ass,” Ziggy said, untangling himself from Dillon to slide off of the bed.
“What the hell does that mean?” Dillon asked. Ziggy waved at him and instead of replying asked,
“So, I imagine that dinner is going to be in a short while, so I’m not sure we should get started up again. What would you like to do until then?” Dillon came up behind Ziggy, who appeared to be rearranging one of his book shelves and pulled a sheathed sword from the wall.
“Maybe we could have a sword fight,” he suggested.
“Hey! Put that back, it’s real!” Ziggy protested, trying to reach above him to where Dillon held the sword aloft.
“I just want to look at it for a second,” Dillon said, pulling the sword from its sheath. The metal gleamed and shinned under the overhead light of Ziggy’s room, and the ends did look quite sharp and functional, so he was especially careful sliding it back into the sheath. “Do you know how to use that?” he asked as he put it back on the wall mount.
“Well, yeah, Dad doesn’t let me have any weapons I don’t know how to use,” Ziggy explained, going back to his books. “Pretty much nothing in this house is purely decorative, everything as a use.”
“I would say that’s creepy,, but my dad has his fair amounts of sharp pointy things and dull hard things that can hurt people,” Dillon replied. “So what about the books have you read all of those?”
“Yeah, I have, actually,” Ziggy said. “Why are you one of those people who other people get books for that you never read?”
“Uh huh,” Dillon replied, plucking a book off of the shelf. He studied the cover for a minute, and asked, “So, what’s Ender’s Game about?”
“That’s why you read it,” Ziggy replied, switching around two titles before he looked up at Dillon. “So you can find out what the story is. Dad has been taking my books again.”
“Are you sure you can’t just tell me?” Dillon asked as he sat back down on the bed, examining the back part of the cover.
“Nope,” Ziggy replied climbing into his lap, and wrapping his arms around Dillon’s shoulders so he wouldn’t fall.
“Is there a movie?” he asked, holding the book off to one side, as he wrapped his second hand around Ziggy’s back to support him.
“Nope,” Ziggy said, pressing their foreheads together. Dillon inhaled and exhaled deeply.
“Has anyone ever told you that you are kind of highly sexual?” Dillon asked.
“Maybe you’re just repressed, and society has given you the version of intimacy you know, which happens to be highly sexualized,” Ziggy said, with a shrug. “Why, does us being here like this turn you on at all?”
“A little,” Dillon admitted. “I think most of it is you, though, just the way you are, and the way you move, and the way you sit for that matter.” Ziggy leaned in for a kiss, but Dillon pressed his fingers up to Ziggy’s lips, leaving the book to fall on Ziggy’s mattress. “I thought you said we shouldn’t start because dinner was going to be in a little while. And really, I’ve been cock blocked enough in the past hour.” Ziggy raised a slow eyebrow, shifting a little on Dillon’s lap.
“So this whole time, I’ve been making you…hard?” he whispered into Dillon’s ear.
“Please don’t do this to me,” Dillon begged. “Not right now, not when—”
“Dinner’s ready!” Jakob called, his voice ringing through the house.
“That man has fantastic timing,” Dillon said. Ziggy chuckled and leaned forward to kiss him.
“Don’t worry, all you have to do is sit through a burrito and then my dad won’t bother us for the rest of the night.”
“You swear?” Dillon asked.
“Promise,” Ziggy said, making Dillon lean forward to kiss him. They both slid off of the bed, and made their way to the small dining room table just off of the kitchen.
