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Light
by Kate ElizabethThe sequel to Dark. Bright/Ephram angst, post-"Home." Rated R for sexuality and swearing. Many, many thanks to uhmidont for the most fabulous beta work ever. This will also be posted at my site when I have the time to code it.
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After school he follows Ephram home. He doesn't intend to. Bright rarely intends to do things. He makes plans, sometimes, but they don't usually work out the way he wants. Things just happen. His mouth moves and words come out and breath goes in and he generally makes an idiot of himself. But he doesn't usually worry about it afterwards; not like this.
So his hands turn the wheel and flick on his signal and his foot hovers carefully over the brake. He's a careful driver now. He goes a mile above the speed limit, that's all, but it keeps him several carlengths behind Ephram, who has a head start and is rushing fast on his bike. He looks thin and furious in the afternoon light and Bright's palms slip a little on the steering wheel. But he can't let Ephram get away. They avoided each other all day and now they have to talk. Or something.
Bright parks. Carefully. When he gets out, Ephram is standing by the Browns' front door, backpack slung loose from one arm, staring. His expression means something, Bright knows it, but he can't figure it out. Ephram is as incomprehensible as poetry.
"What do you want?" Ephram says. He's not yelling, but his voice cuts strong and sharp through the afternoon air.
Bright closes the door of his truck. He looks down at the pavement as he walks toward Ephram. He will look up when he gets to the door. And if Ephram is gone, then he'll do the smart thing and leave. Like he should be leaving, right now.
"Did you follow me?" Ephram's voice cracks. Bright's never heard him this flustered, not even last night.
"We all get out of class at the same time," Bright says. His voice is hollow and cheery. Frat guy voice. He hates it, but it keeps coming out of his mouth. "Maybe I just drove home this way."
"What are you doing here?" Ephram says, and suddenly closes his eyes, a fast little flicker of eyelashes. Bright knows why. Swallows hard around a thick memory of Ephram's smell, the texture of his skin.
"Nothing," he says. "I just. I don't want to go home yet, you know?" Amy left at lunch with a hand pressed hard to her mouth, shepherded out by their mom. Bright watched people turn their heads away as she walked by, bored and fake-polite. It's been less than a week and the school is tired of watching Amy cry.
Ephram watches him silently for a few moments. Finally he makes a face and hitches the backpack up over his shoulder again. Bright waits for him to say something. When it comes, Ephram's voice has gone icy and clear, a creek in winter. "You get caught last night?" His eyes are slitted. Ephram narrows his eyes a lot when he's angry.
"Did you?" He narrows his eyes at Ephram in return.
Ephram tilts his head a little, surprised. "My dad didn't say anything," he says after a moment. "And he totally would've if he thought you'd tried to rape me in my room last night." He is not talking quietly.
"Jesus christ, Ephram," Bright says in a harsh whisper. "I did not try to rape you."
"Did I say you did?" Ephram leans against the wall beside the door. His body is one long elegant questioning line and Bright feels big, heavy, stupid.
"Don't fuck with me like that," he says. "Ephram." He hears the begging tone of his own voice, dragging low and rough out of his throat.
Ephram sags a little. Melting and softening like a girl, the way Colin never would. "Come in," he says, and his voice is husky as if he's just woken up. Bright listens to it, turns it over inside his head. When he looks up, Ephram is standing there with an eyebrow raised, holding the screen door for him.
"Shut up," he says, and steps through.
Inside the kitchen is dirtier than he remembers it. No dishes in the sink or anything like that, just mess and clutter, paperwork on the kitchen table and a pile of Delia's books on a chair.
"We've been eating in front of the TV," Ephram says shortly. He drops his backpack by the kitchen table and leaves it slumped there. "You want something?"
Again the hot awkward flash of their eyes meeting. "Uh, no," Bright says. "I'm okay."
"That's debatable," Ephram says. Nods toward the stairs. "So is this the part of the afterschool special where our shared grief leads us to have ill-advised sex in my room?" Razor-edge voice, but his eyes are shining. Bright stares at him.
"What is it with you?"
"I don't know, Bright," Ephram says. "You want a list?"
"I just came to talk," Bright says. Ephram is leaning against the counter now, hands curled around the edge. His eyelashes are dark and spiky with moisture but he's smirking, wearing that confident New York face like a mask. Like a wall between them. The kitchen has gone silent except for the hum and click of the refrigerator. Bright can hear himself breathing. He does not sound calm.
"So talk," Ephram says finally. "Go on. I'm interested."
Bright's chest heats with anger. "Fuck you," he says.
"Already tried that. You hate me, remember?"
He finds himself shaking his head, disbelieving. Angry. But he sees it now: the crack in the wall where light comes through. "Ephram," he says, and this time he doesn't sound like he's begging.
Ephram looks suspicious. "What?"
"I don't hate you, okay?"
"We've had this conversation before, and I didn't believe you then either," Ephram snaps. He crosses and uncrosses his arms, fidgety. Bright keeps watching him. He looks restless, like a ball player about to make a break for the basket. If he freaks out, Bright will just leave. He tells himself this several times while waiting for Ephram to do something.
After a moment Ephram crosses his arms again, stares at the floor.
Bright takes two steps. Pushes Ephram back against the counter with one hand at his hip, the other wrapping around the back of his neck. He plans to kiss Ephram right away, to be forceful and overpowering, but Ephram's eyes flash up to his and they are brilliant blue-green, just like Colin's. Bright stops. Their noses are maybe an inch apart. He can feel Ephram's breath on his open mouth, sliding between his lips. He closes his eyes. Doesn't let go.
"Bright," Ephram whispers. "You don't-"
But he doesn't want to hear what Ephram is going to say. It's going to be something soft and sympathetic, something understanding. Poor Bright, never could admit he loved his best friend and now it's too late. Then they can cry on each other's shoulders and eat a whole carton of ice cream and fall asleep innocently on the couch and Dr. Brown can cover them with a blanket when he gets home.
Bright kisses Ephram with his eyes open and his mouth open and his hands tight on Ephram's warm skin. Ephram's mouth goes soft and surprised under his. He makes a little noise and Bright swallows it. This part is easy. This is what he should've done last night.
Ephram tastes like spearmint, clean and cutting. But his body is as warm and fragile as Bright remembers it. Bone just under skin, no soft curves like Gemma, no heavy muscle like Colin. Ephram is all sleek taut lines, ligament and tendon, the connections Bright usually only notices if something snaps. Lean and wiry. Easy to push, easy to flip over last night, to bend at the waist. Their hips are pushing together already and the room is heating up. Ephram is heating up beneath his hands.
Bright gasps against Ephram's mouth, pulls back just slightly. His mouth lands on Ephram's cheek, slides to his neck. Little crisp bits of stubble on Ephram's jaw. And Ephram's saying something now, but it slides into a moan when Bright licks at the soft place just below his ear.
"What?" he asks Ephram's skin.
"You're such a shit," Ephram hisses, wriggling in his arms. "Stop it." He says the last part because Bright is kissing his throat again, bending his head back with one hand curved around Ephram's skull. Finally Bright draws back to look at Ephram's face, lit clearly by sun from the kitchen window.
His eyes don't look like Colin's anymore. They never really did. Ephram's eyes, when he's not crying, are blue-grey. Colin's were sort of a weird bluish-greeny hazel. If Bright closes his eyes he will see Colin squinting and smiling in the early-summer sun, which makes him freckle across the bridge of his nose and the stretch of his shoulders. Made him. Made him freckle.
So Bright doesn't close his eyes. He looks at Ephram's unfreckled skin and stone-blue eyes. Ephram's mouth is slick with kissing. He's breathing hard. Each breath pushes him against Bright, brings them closer together. He tries to move back a little but Bright won't let go. After a moment he relaxes and his forehead falls onto Bright's shoulder.
"You can't do this kind of thing," Ephram says quietly. Bright thinks: I can't kiss you? But Ephram continues, "You can't follow me home."
Bright puts his hand on Ephram's back, shoves it down past the counter to toy with a belt loop on his jeans. Partly to see if Ephram will let him. Partly because it's nice to touch. He thinks about following Ephram home every day until Ephram gives in and puts his bike in the back of the truck after school, lets Bright drive him home like he drove Colin. "Why not?"
"Somebody'll see," Ephram says. His hands flutter against Bright's sides, twisting nervously into his shirt. "People talk, it's like the national pastime around here."
"People already talk about you," Bright says, and Ephram laughs, jerking in his arms.
"Fuck," he says, "fuck," and pushes his head into Bright's neck. "This is so stupid. I'm so stupid. You can't be here, you should go home. I bet Amy needs you. You should go be a good brother or whatever."
"You really talk too much," Bright says. He shifts Ephram's head off his shoulder.
Ephram laughs again, raggedly. "Yeah," he says. "I really do." He goes silent for a moment, breathing, licks his red lips. Bright waits. "You're not," he says, pauses. "You're not scared."
"'Course I'm scared." But after Bright says it he begins to wonder. Is he? If he were scared like Ephram is, scared of people finding out, he wouldn't be here. He wouldn't be making out with Ephram in the kitchen, probably in full view of the window. He would've driven home without stopping. He would've cornered Ephram in the hallway or the bathroom and warned him to keep his mouth shut. Instead he spent most of math class thinking about Ephram's mouth, how close it had been in the night, how he had nearly kissed it.
What would he be doing at home? Lying on his bed in his room, probably, staring at the wall or out the window. His mom off working and his dad sitting quietly in the living room and Amy buried under so many blankets that he couldn't hear her cry. Everybody thinking about Colin. Nobody thinks of anything else.
This morning he woke up with leaves stuck to his feet, a bruise where his wallet and keys had shoved into his thigh. He woke up and thought about Ephram and it was a sick and wonderful freedom. He thought about leaving Ephram's room before dawn, climbing down the wobbling ladder. The world had smelled cool and clean, the world had smelled like Ephram. His clothes had smelled like Ephram.
Ephram is quiet in his arms now. He bends down a little, pushes his nose into Ephram's hair. Breathes in.
"Freak," Ephram mumbles. His arms slide around Bright's waist, lock them together. Bright lets Ephram move closer. They twist a little against the counter and sunlight strikes Bright's face, stabs at his dry eyes. Blinking, he ducks his head to escape it. He rests his chin on Ephram's shoulder, the same height as Colin's. It takes him a moment to realize how easy and familiar the gesture is. When he does, his stomach falls. Frightened as when the steering wheel spun loose beneath his hands.
"Ephram," he says.
"Yeah?" Ephram sounds sleepy, drained, but he lifts his head from Bright's shoulder and squints into the sun. Bright looks at Ephram's face in the clear yellow light, white-gold and glowing. He wants to turn away. His stomach still leaps and falls. But there is something else uncurling in his belly, something small and hopeful and uncertain. Something he will have to be careful not to crush. Bright is not always careful, no matter what he tells himself. But he would like to try.
"I don't hate you," he says, because it's suddenly very important that Ephram understand this. He says it again. Ephram's hands come up, curl around his shoulders like they curled around the edge of the counter. He is smiling a little. No mean outsider smile, no bitter curve to his mouth. The smile changes his face, softens the angles. Makes him strange, pretty, new.
"I got that," Ephram says, and his voice is gentle and light.(c) everfic. cue edna's voice: i don't own squat, private.
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