by Trisky
"Fuck! Brian! You scared the living shit out of me."
"Well if you didn't have your head buried so far back in the closet, maybe you would have heard me come in. Whatever could you be looking for in there, I wonder?" He smirks and gives me his best Sherlock Holmes smoking a pipe impression.
"Weren't you supposed to be out dropping the cake off at Melanie and Lindsay's place?" I back away from the closet, slowly, gingerly sliding the door closed as if it were made out of tissue paper and smile back.
"Already done. Did you find what you were looking for?" He blocks my escape, stepping right in front of me.
"I was just trying to find a shirt for tonight." He just cocks an eyebrow, waiting for a confession, he won't be getting. "What? I noticed you shoved my sheets way back in the corner, again" I shake my head in disapproval, when in doubt, deflect. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You can search the closet all you want, it's not in there. It's already at the munchers. Though I must say I'm very disappointed, have I taught you nothing about patience?" I want to stomp on his foot and wipe that grin off his face.
"Boatloads."
He slips both his hands down the back of my pants and I want to stay annoyed at him for catching me, but he makes it impossible. "Then you should know better than anyone that good things come to those who wait."
I kiss him, because I can, because his grinning is unbearably and effortlessly adorable and I can't stand when his mouth is so close to mine, all pink and swollen, and I'm not touching him. I pull away before he can make the entrance he wants to, though. "I wouldn't know... 'cause I'm still waiting." Aaah, that pinch and slap is gonna leave a mark.
"Why do I put up with you again?" I open my mouth to speak. "Don't say it."
I say it all the time, in a million different ways, like the one I'm using now, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing his entire face while he does everything in his power to not smile, and that just makes me smile more. And I'll keep saying it, until he actually believes it without having to be convinced that he deserves it or that it's not all a silly waste of time, and that day may never actually come, but I don't mind.
People joke that he's taught me a lot, and I agree he has, but they never mean it in quite the same way I do. They don't know all the good things I've learned from him, and I don't think he even realizes he taught me them by accident, by example, and sometimes I can't help but think that if he did, then he'd realize he's worth more than what everyone else expects of him. They say I'm a good influence on him, but I don't think I am, I just think it's been there all along. They'd never believe me if I said it was usually the other way around, him being the good influence on me. They'd probably just roll their eyes and pat me on the head, and totally ignore any suggestion that they could possibly be wrong about him, all while telling me that they're sure he is, if I believe it, then it must be true. That's what he's taught me the most, people's actions usually wind up speaking louder than their words, it doesn't matter what they all think or have to say about things, the minute one of them sits up with me at 4 in the morning and watches me puke my guts out, or forces me to go to sleep when I've been staring at the computer for hours trying to perfect some project that they've convinced me didn't need to be fixed to begin with, before I fall over from exhaustion, I'll worry about their opinions. That doesn't mean I don't try to get him to talk, I just don't get as frustrated when he doesn't, anymore. When he wants to speak, he does, I won't force it out of him.
"Because I love you and you'd be totally lost without me." I rush it out so quickly, it doesn't even sound like a sentence, just gibberish, and shove him off me, fearing my little pink cheeks, turning black and blue if his fingers were going to have anything to say about it. "And DON'T even think of saying it." He starts mouthing it, and I fix him with a warning stare, "Brian." Usually that works.
"Kano...Kanokanokanokanokanokanokanokanokano," he taunts me.
I slap my hands over my ears, I hate that word, almost as much he hates me bringing up love. "La la la la I'm not listening." If anyone saw us right now, they would think we were total freaks, and I think they'd be right. Me with my fingers in my ears, singing at the top of my lungs, drowning out him repeating some idiotic thing that I'm not even sure is a legitimate word to get on my nerves and prove his point, and boy has he proved it over and over and over again. Words are just words, are just words. "Are you done?" He has to run out of breath sooner or later. His mouth finally stops moving and he nods, proud of how easy it is for him to annoy me and totally disregard the truth, I loved him then and I love him now. He'll just have to learn to live with it.
"You should have seen the look on everyone's face when I showed them the cake, your mother was especially taken by it," he snickers.
I am immediately alarmed. "Were they surprised?"
"You could say that." Oh. God.
"What kind of cake is it? Brian?"
"It's this big old pink monstrosity, with some... white trimming. It's very life like," he laps up the look of utter panic on my face, demonstrating some vague size and shape with his hands. "It was a collaborative effort. Emmett came up with the concept, Vic found us a speciality bakery and I wrote the copy." I start taking steps towards him, and he starts backing up, continuing his explanation. "It says 'welcome to manhood' on one side, and 'please enter cautiously' on the other. You should see where we put the candles."
He might be older and stronger, but I'm quicker and I'm picturing my mother looking at this thing, which gives me about a thousand times more motivation. I pick the first thing up that I see and toss it at his head, but a pillow doesn't do much damage and it only pleases him more that he's managed to rattle me once again. I don't know why but he seems to get some kind of pleasure out of watching me squirm. I think he just likes knowing that he can still exert some control over things, and not let me get too comfortable. Which probably means the best way to react when he gets like this, is to give him no reaction, it only eggs him on further. I'm still working on how to be reasonable at all times, but that would require some lobotomy I'm not willing to subject myself to, even for him.
"Well I hope you like the cake, because it's the only pink thing of mine you'll be putting in your mouth, for a while." I can't really deny him anything else, so I have to use what I do have.
"I'm sure I'll find something else to occupy it with."
"I'm sure you will." I busy myself with remaking the bed, surprised that he's let it go unmade for this many hours. If the sheets are so much as wrinkled the wrong way, he has a heart attack. "Give me a hand." It's not that I mind the sex with other people, I've taken advantage of that out a few times of my own, and thankfully I don't have to look at it anymore. It's just that sometimes it feels like he goes out of his way to remind me, that even the one thing I do have to bargain with isn't worth all that much.
"Yeah, like all the cursing I'm going to be doing when I sit in some disgusting leftover food you leave in the jeep."
Did I say he taught me that actions speak louder than words? Sometimes I forget that I'm still learning. I could kiss him all over again, for that one. "I never leave anything in there. I'd never hear the end of it, if I did."
"You're tucking it in the wrong way." He points to the corner of the sheet I'm pulling on, and I just nod and yank. I have no idea what the right way is to tuck a sheet in, as long as it covers the bed and doesn't hang out of the sides, that's all that matters to me, he'll come over and fix it when I'm done anyway, he always does. "Well now that it's yours, I'm sure you'll make as much a mess out of it, as you do every other surface you occupy."
"What are you talking about?" I try desperately to act like the 21 year old man I'm supposed to be today, but the 16 year old in me is ready to pounce in glee. I knew he couldn't keep my birthday present a secret for long.
"I bought myself a new car. Since you're going to be doing all this traveling around, and leaving me behind, and I'm tired of having to drive you everywhere, you should have a way to get there for yourself. That way if you're late, you can't blame me anymore. They frown on that in corporate America, by the way." He just keeps making the bed like we were discussing changing laundry detergent and not him handing me the keys to his beloved toy. Sometimes I think he loves that thing, more than he loves me.
"Are you shitting me? There's no way you'd give up that car, we'd have to pry the keys out of your cold, dead hands."
He just reaches into his pocket and tosses them at me. "Now that you're all grownup, with all this money coming in, you can pay your own insurance, gas, maintenance, cleaning," he counts them off on his fingers, and I muss the sheets up, much to his consternation, crossing over to where he stands via the bed, "and all those other fun unexpected expenses. You can even buy your own drinks, but you'll have to stay sober enough to drive me home, because there's no way I'm leaving a Lexus in the parking lot of Babylon. Not that you're going to have time to drink between the diner and Rage and the new internship and school, anyway. Hell you won't even have time to give me a quick blowjob in the backseat, at that rate. You won't have time for me at all."
"Jeez, you weren't lying when you said you'd find a way to keep your mouth occupied." I cover his mouth with my hand and work my fingers through the hair on the back of his neck, it's his weak spot. "Thank you. You did pretty good, for once."
I feel his mouth move against my hand, and the wet struggle to free his tongue, from my grip, but I don't want him to ruin a perfect moment. I see the pink tip of his tongue, find a way between my fingers, and the though the notion of cupping his saliva is kind of gross, just the hint of that little bud is incredibly erotic, and I just tease him with my mouth, grazing against it with my lips and licking it with my tongue, biting gently with my teeth. He pulls my hand away, grabbing my head forcefully, and I feel heady and strong, being taller than he is while we kiss, for once. Though I know it's not possible, it almost feels like my tongue has gone deeper into his mouth, than it ever has before, from this position and I wonder if he realizes the advantage he has with his height. I'm usually shoving up, not down, he never has to fight for space, he just keeps plunging, now he knows what it feels like to dual for position. I love the slow end our kissing usually comes to, no more tangling, just a few lingering pecks. It's the total withdrawal that hurts the most.
He leans his forehead to mine, and I swear he has to be able to feel my heart pounding in my chest, from the way he strokes my neck, trying to calm my heart rate and if that doesn't tell him than the anticipation mixed with the threat of biting his tongue out of his mouth if he dares utter that friggin word, must. He's toying with me, taking his time, he knows how much it means to me, and finally he steals one last look and he speaks.
"That's still not your birthday present."