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magdalynaIt stars like this:
Jon grew up by himself with his supportive if distant father. He doesn’t know his mother. Doesn't think to ask.
His father traveled for his work and Jon would often be left under the supervision of kindly older neighbors who pinched his cheeks and kept him fed.
He meets Tom when he’s twelve, perpetually gangly and awkward. He doesn’t have that many friends in the neighborhood, because he’s usually inside doing homework or reading about places he’s never been to (One book especially sticks in his mind for a long time, this book about snakes all around the world, their different habitats, biology, myths about them. The pictures of them were close up, vivid, detailed, wondrous).
Tom is a year older – assured in his teenage body. He’s funny and knowledgeable and utterly, utterly cool.
They literally run into each other. Tom is on his skate board and Jon was out for a walk. They become quick friends bonding over music and books (Tom doesn’t laugh at him when he says he likes The Beach Boys, unlike his classmates. Tom listens to Tom Waits and The Beatles - Jon has an ally, and Tom is fascinated by the books Jon has read, even has some of his own stories about favorite books). Tom even shows him some tricks on his board.
It’s Tom who encourages him to study instruments, study music theory, ask his father for a guitar for his birthday. Parental guilt is good for a few things at least.
Jon nurses his crush cautiously for several years.
It’s Tom who encourages his blooming interest in photography and art. Tom even gives him an old camera of his. Teaches him about light and time and dark rooms.
||
When Tom is sixteen, he does something that Jon will always think was a really bad idea.
Tom’s been talking online with this guy named Nick every day for months and one day they agree to skip school and meet in real life.
Luckily for everyone involved, Nick is actually fifteen and not some gross, creepy forty year old with a white unmarked van.
Nick is tall for his age, meaning he’s slightly taller than Jon but not by much and way skinnier.
Jon goes over to Tom’s that day and meets Nick. Nick is on the couch, playing video games with Tom and talking a mile a minute.
Jon and Nick have an uneasy start, but become good friends.
||
Jon finds that the rhythm inside of him that’s quietly been plucking away erupts into melody – low and constant like the bass he hears at shows in the scene.
He learns the bass through the scene easily, watching others, moving his fingers intuitively, along in time with the sound inside of him.
Tom’s amazed at his progress, gives him a bottle of Jack in celebration when Jon plays everything he knows for Tom and Nick one night.
||
Jon’s first kiss is Nick but his second is Tom.
Nick and Tom take him to parties sometimes, when Jon can sneak away from the watchful eyes of his elderly neighbors.
Nick’s taken him to one, put a plastic cup in his hand, danced with him. Everything is dark and people are making out, the stereo system loud and thumping. Jon’s just turned to look at the band playing on the lawn, and Nick turns to him, their faces bumping and Nick doesn’t pull away, kisses him quick then slow and Jon finds himself kissing back.
Tom kisses him: Tom stumbles into Jon’s room at one in the morning through the open window Jon always leaves unlocked for Tom (and now Nick). Tom hugs him drunkenly, all hands warm and loose. Hugs him, giggling over something funny Nick had said, breathing on Jon’s neck, arms around him like a parenthesis.
Tom shifts his face when Jon turns to say something. Their mouths meet and Tom lazily slides his tongue into Jon’s opened mouth. Jon is shocked - confused - overjoyed - bitter.
They kiss for what seems forever – its anything but. Jon actually isn’t moving; is letting Tom do all the work, too surprised to know what to do with his tongue, lips, hands. Tom stops to say something but passes out on Jon’s bed (this is before they can hold their liquor). Tom still had his arms around Jon so they both fell onto Jon’s bed.
Jon lays there looking at Tom in the moonlight with a wet mouth, a confused mind and a hopeful heart. He doesn’t get much sleep.
||
In the early morning Jon slips out under Tom and gets out a glass of water and some Advil, to have it waiting. He’s pulled down the curtain, dulling the light. He sits at his desk.
Tom starts awake around nine in the morning. “Dude. M’sorry for stumbling in. Why do I have your bed?” Tom usually takes the floor with some blankets and sheets.
Jon hands him the water and pills. “You have the bed ‘cause you hugged me, kissed me and then passed out.” He says bluntly as Tom is finishing the water.
Tom pales, clammy skin and stringy hair making him look freshly dead. “I’ll just get going then.”
Jon can’t let that happen – too many selfish, needy desires have been awakened that he had been managing to keep dormant. He shakes his head.
“I kissed you back.” He lies. He needs Tom now that he knows what it could be like. Jon moves closer to Tom, knees hitting the edge of his bed.
“Don’t go now. It meant something to me.” He says, sincere as can be. Tom looks uncertain, but he’s the one who isn’t where he should be, as much as Jon needs it to be where Tom feels like he belongs.
Jon holds out his hand. Tom swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing, he considers this. He takes Jon’s hand and a smile breaks across Jon’s face like the innards of an egg.
“How long?” Tom asks, kissing the palm of Jon’s hand. The breath ghosts over Jon’s skin.
“Since I met you.” Jon says. Tom’s fingers curl around Jon’s wrist. A shiver drips down Jon’s spine.
“That’s almost five years now. We should maybe make up for lost time then?” Tom says slowly, watching Jon through the slits of his eyes. Jon nods and Tom pulls Jon on top of him.
||
Tom kisses him properly this time – hands on his jaw line, tongue slipping into his mouth, writhing like snakes, body flush against his.
Soon the kissing isn’t enough, Jon is greedy, selfish want want want. Jon grinds down with his hips, searching for friction. Tom moans into his mouth, hand slicing its way down Jon’s body to grasp his ass. The hand wanders to Jon’s crotch, slipping inside to grip him firmly, gently. Jon arches up into it.
Tom brings him off expertly, fingers playing him like a guitar. Jon is boneless on top of him for some time but Tom doesn’t push him off. Jon works up the energy to wind his way down to Tom’s boxers, slip them off Tom’s sharp hipbones, wet his lips and lick his way onto Tom’s cock.
It’s a strange series of sensations - firm, warm, spongy, salt, bitter – that overwhelms Jon. He can’t get the rhythm of breathing and licking right and coughs. Tom strokes his neck, pulls away while Jon gets himself together.
Tom comes on Jon’s neck and chest, sheepish yet in control. “My first time was awful. Everyone’s is. The technique is always wrong. You weren’t that bad. We have time to improve.” Tom says as he wipes his come off with some Kleenex.
Once they’ve cleaned up and dressed, Tom wants to go out.
||
They wander aimlessly for a few hours since Jon doesn’t have a car and Tom didn’t take his to the party he went to. It’s a bright day out and Tom blinks frequently. Jon chuckles slightly every now and then and Tom punches him affectionately.
Tom takes them to Nick’s house an hour after lunchtime. Nick opens the backdoor owlishly. Tom laughs as Nick leads them to his room. Nick’s room smells earthy and … mellow. Nick hands Tom a hand rolled cigarette, a smallish thing. Tom smokes on it before giving it to Jon next. Jon is unsure, thinks vaguely of terms like “peer pressure” and “downward spiral” he’s heard in every health class he’s ever had to take. He shakes his head and smokes on it. It isn’t tobacco.
“That’s potent, dude.” Tom says hazily to Nick. Nick is sprawled on his bed and Tom slides onto it. Jon feels soft and tired and boneless. They spread out on ach other. Jon starts thinking differently: stop motion film instead of scene scene scene.
Tom smiling widely at Nick.
Click
Nick slinks onto him.
Click
Clothes coming off their bodies like snakeskin.
Click
Their faces mash like crashing trains, lips and tongue everywhere like wreckage.
Click
Jon feels lead weight jealousy drop in his stomach. Nick is biting at his mouth, hand cupped around him. Tom is slinked behind Jon. Jon feels the dull nudged, slicked up slide of Tom against him. Nick’s hand is replaced by his mouth. Jon is saying things, unclear in the black and white haze. Tom chuckles, keeps his tempo.
Nick touches himself, comes first like a chain reaction. Jon feels it spiral from his spine winding its way through his body. Tom undulates inside of him, biting at skin.
Jon is sticky slick and weightless, pressed in on all sides.
||
He wakes up as the sun is setting. Nick and Tom are languidly making out beside him. Jon feels like lye is curling his veins into knots. Nick pulls him in, and then kisses him while Tom watches.
“I think three is a good number. It’s stable.” Tom says, lips quirked and ruby red. His tone is philosophical but his eyes are flinty. Tom’s taught him all about tripods and weight distribution and how light looks refracted: how to make the perfect picture.
Jon pulls away at this. “What? The hell is that supposed to even mean?” he spits out like a petulant child. He’s wanted Tom for so long that an interloper now seems cruel.
“Tom was my first, you know that right? You met me a few hours after we first did it. It’s ok Jon.” Nick says calmly, as if he hadn’t just shocked Jon completely. Hadn’t pulled the rug out from under him.
“We want you to join us. We can keep it simple.” Tom continues.
Jon’s head is swimming in a sea of confused hormones, thoughts, feelings and chemical let downs. He has no idea what to do now. He’s still mostly naked under the sheets. Just when he thought Tom was secured, this happens.
But.
But Nick has also been a great friend of his, stirred up all kinds of emotions. Their beat and tempo match, pure and calm. It doesn’t feel right, exactly, to exclude him so deeply from their circuit. Jon is an inherently wanting person.
Jon sits up slowly, cautiously. He leans toward Nick deliberately, hand on Nick’s jaw as he kisses him. Jon feels Nick open, warm up to the kiss, Tom breathing against his neck, kissing his back, the muscles of his shoulders.
He glances idly at the clock on Nick’s messy dresser. His father will be back soon to be greeted by an empty house. Jon weighs Nick facing him and Tom hugging him with the wash of disappointment that splashes across his father’s features on the rare occasion they see each other for more than five minutes.
Jon kisses Nick harder, tongues swirling together.
They slide into an easy triad after that.
||
Jon and Tom start 504 because Jon wants to and Tom needs to. Nick joins them because he has something more than a want and less than a need. The crappy sound qualities and venues are totally worth it for the feeling Jon gets deep in his marrow, for the look on Tom’s face after they play a show. Nick’s wolf grin doesn’t hurt either.
They meet Bill, Sisky, Pete, Joe and Andy. Jon loves his life.
Besides Pete and Andy, they’re all roughly the same age.
Bill and Sisky have been best friends since they were embryos to hear them tell it. They act like it though, all secret twin telepathy and age old inside jokes. Bill is kind but a bit of a prima donna. Sisky is mellow; funny. They compliment each other like shades on the color wheel Tom first had Jon learn when they were younger.
Joe is probably the calmest, most Zen person Jon has ever met who head bangs to Metallica and hangs out with Pete. Andy is driven, creative, idealistic and a shade ruthless. They get along alright.
Pete is … Jon isn’t sure how to categorize or think about Pete.
Pete is brilliant and thoughtful, razor quick wit one minute and spastic brash energy the next, then oscillating to depressed. He’s kind of an asshole but Jon likes him well enough.
||
Tom and Nick teach him all they know about feeling good and he returns in kind. They map each other’s bodies with eyes and fingers and mouths; learn curves, electric currents, angles and dreams.
Jon doesn’t see his father for three months. He finds he doesn’t much care when he realizes this, counting up the hours lazily when he’s bored one day. He’s fine without the man.
He plays shows, goes to school, does his homework, hangs out, gets high and has awesome sex with Tom and Nick.
Then one day his father is home early. Tom and his parents come over just after sunset. Tom looks as curious and confused as Jon feels. Their parents don’t get along.
Jon’s father sits in his arm chair, tells Jon he’s not really his father. The couch feels like quicksand. Tom’s mother produces birth certificates then. Jon and Tom are both adopted. Jon takes a good look.
Oh. Oh dear god.
Jon and Tom are brothers. Jon feels himself drifting, sliding into sand; edges of hysteria confusion disgust blur his vision.
||
When he comes back to himself, its early morning. His adopted father has coffee waiting. Apparently Tom had to go throw up the nice dinner they just had. Tom and his adopted family left after that. Such a shame. Jon’s father looks … impassive as he relates this to Jon.
Jon clamps down on the rising tide of hysteria that’s threatening to mow him down. The currents around him are charged, the music and sound inside of him dulled.
Jon goes to school in a daze.
He’s unfocused, distant. Jon sees Nick but Nick doesn’t speak to him, turns back to his conversation with some girl as if he hadn’t even seen Jon. It stings through the filter of shock, like prickly gauze, that Jon is trying to walk through.
Jon goes straight home after school, if he should even call it that, and collapses on his bed. He stays out for twelve hours.
||
He opens his eyes blearily to find Nick watching him. Jon frowns. He can’t. He can’t deal with Nick right now.
“You really need to talk with Tom right now. It’s really shocking but you two need to work it out. We need each other.” Nick says as if there weren’t a million reasons why this is such a fucked up situation. As if it’s that simple.
Jon covers his face with his elbow. The world can go die. The world is wet and slick around him, breathing on his thighs. Nick is a bastard.
“You’re a bastard. God.” He grits out as Nick licks under the head, around the tip and down the throbbing vein. Nick is a bastard with a flawless technique.
Jon bucks up once, twice, spends himself inside of Nick’s mouth.
Nick comes up to face him licking his lips. Hands on his chest and hot breath on his neck. “Go see him. He thinks since he’s older than you that somehow he took advantage of you. Which is completely stupid.” Nick continues as if he hadn’t just given Jon a fantastic blow job.
Something in Jon twists at these words.
Tom didn’t force anything on him he didn’t want but Jon lied his way into Tom’s bed, lied his way into being fucked by him, loved by him. Jon lied his way into TomandNick, forever altering their sound, beat, trajectory.
This unwanted revelation is just karmic balance being delivered. Jon deserves this, all of this. He knows Nick is right. Tom will tie himself up in knots over the issues of consent and want and need.
Jon nods deliberately. Nick’s smile is weak.
“I don’t want to stop. Anything. It shouldn’t matter.” Jon lies smoothly. Lying got him into this and lying will get him out of it. It has to.
He kisses Nick gently and then grabs Nick’s hips, shimmies down. It’s his turn. He licks his lips, masking teeth with skin as he swallows Nick, begins sucking wetly, just how Nick likes it. Nick holds his gaze. Jon doesn’t blink all through it, not even when Nick comes in his mouth. This is just a challenge he needs to win if he can ever face himself. If he can face Tom.
After, he doesn’t waste time on cuddling during the afterglow. He takes a shower, dresses, scrounges in the pantry while Nick watches tv amusedly.
He kicks Nick out and goes to find Tom.
||
There are only a handful of places Tom would go to clear his head and think. His house isn’t one of them. Jon walks because Tom was the one who drove them everywhere.
Jon finds him in Columbus Park sitting under a tree cleaning the lenses of his camera. Jon squares his jaw, sits down next to Tom. Tom doesn’t say anything, just gives Jon his bag to hold. Jon is usually cleaning his own when they’re here, so he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
“Everything we’ve done, I wanted. All of it. And I don’t want to stop, because the reason why I wanted to in the first place is still true. What we know now shouldn’t and hasn’t changed anything.” Jon says, hoping it sounds more convincing a second time.
He lets his hand rest on Tom’s, the camera, before he stands up and walks away. Tom doesn’t stop him. He wills away nausea.
||
He’s not lying exactly. He still wants them. But knowing this does change everything. It’s sick and selfish. Jon’s never had difficulty admitting to selfishness. He doesn’t know how to stop loving Tom, but now he hates those feelings because it feels wrong now. He wants them, needs them but he shouldn’t. Not after this. He just can’t muster the strength to say no, to end it, any of it.
Jon walks back to his house, emotions spiraling around him like a whirlpool.
He does some homework, plays Final Fantasy, tries to block out his thoughts on his bass playing Ramones covers. He doesn’t succeed. He sleeps fitfully.
||
Part Two- Zoom Burst ii
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