They talked and laughed, and Jasper was impatient. He wanted Edward to leave, so he asked him to go set up his new game system. When Edward was up the stairs, finally leaving Jasper alone, he brought his wrist to his own lips and copied Edward, stealing a phantom kiss that left him feeling exceptionally giddy.
He prayed that Edward might hurt him again—and very soon.
—
All the boys sat huddled around the top bleacher, a couple of them shifting in a fashion quite familiar to Jasper. He shifted too, but not because of the pornographic magazine that sat between Edward and Tyler.
Edward was horny, Jasper could tell.
His cheeks were flushed with the most beautiful rose-colored hue, frosting the tips of his ears in a fervent pink. Jasper mentally dubbed this shade of Edward, “Pretty Porno Pink,” and he inwardly snickered. Edward’s green eyes were gaping at the image of a woman—a leggy, large-breasted brunette woman—and his hand was hidden suspiciously deep in his cargo short pockets. Jasper couldn’t shake the vision of Edward possibly touching himself, right in front of him.
“God, she’s hot,” Tyler sighed, pursing his lips as his head dipped closer.
“Smokin'” some of the boys echoed, but Jasper didn’t much care about their assessments.
His eyes were trained to Edward, hoping that he’d find the image as repulsive as he did.
Sadly, Edward was clearly excited, stuttering, “W-where did you get this?” There was brief, subtle movement under Edward’s short fabric, and Jasper desperately needed to get home and loosen his own.
“My brother,” Tyler replied, tongue darting out to lick his lips. Even that small gesture, from someone like Tyler, had Jasper’s erection throbbing so badly that his hips bucked.
His mind was wildly creating fantasies with both Edward and Tyler now. Then again, Jasper was so frustrated that even the disgusting woman in the magazine could have gotten him off.
Edward shifted again. “Send him my thanks,” he chuckled, low and husky and Jasper grew impossibly harder. He scooted a little closer to Edward, under the ruse of wanting a better angle in which to view the picture, and Edward, noticing, gave him the space necessary to nestle his body closely.
Edward always saved Jasper the seat closest to him.
His arms were warm, and the one nearest to Jasper still had its hand shoved deep into his pocket. Jasper imagined all these other boys leaving so that he could get closer and whisper in his ear, “I can help with that…”
He’d never felt so brazen and so unforgivably turned on, by just watching Edward’s arousal nonetheless. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep this secret from Edward. They spent so much time together, alone and intimate, and the opportunities they might have to explore were so incredibly appealing to Jasper.
But then Tyler was watching Jasper with narrowed eyes, and Jasper realized that his own stare hadn’t been on the magazine, but instead, on Edward’s subtly shifting crotch.
Jasper gulped and quickly looked away, ignoring the accusation in his gaze.
“Hey, Jasper,” Tyler suddenly said, and all heads snapped to him, most of the faces flushed and blank. Tyler smirked and wondered aloud, “I’m guessing this isn’t your type of material.” Then Tyler pulled out a sports magazine, full of sweaty men and athletic advertisements, and slapped it down on the bleachers, in front of him.
The other boys were silent for only a moment before their eyes widened, and then they were laughing uproariously, Edward stock-still and staring at the sports magazine in bewilderment.
Jasper stood, indignant as he glowered at Tyler’s ridiculously greasy hair, and wished that he could pour bleach into his brain, just to dissolve the momentary fantasy he’d just had of him, sullying Edward’s solitary perfection.
“Shut up,” Edward eventually defended as Jasper stalked away to the restrooms, hoping they might go home soon.
Jasper couldn’t wait to curl up to Edward and dream of that hand, lost in the depths of pocket fabric.
—
“What do you mean?” Jasper asked, leaning against his headboard with one knee tucked to his chest. The soft glow of his bedside lamp illuminated Edward’s face from below as he stood, and it accentuated his eye sockets—made them look sunken. His lips looked bigger. The lines of his fifteen-year-old body were almost visible through his old, sheer t-shirt.
“This isn’t a joke,” Edward whispered, but Jasper wasn’t laughing. In fact, Jasper was very close to weeping, but he wouldn’t let Edward see that. He clenched his teeth and wound his finger tightly around a loose thread of his bed sheet. It cut off his circulation and turned his fingertip blue.
Jasper pulled harder.
“Come on,” Jasper pleaded softly, one last time, nodding his head to the space at his side. He was doing his best to play it off, uncertain how transparent he was being.
Edward’s eyes stared at the void, blankets all rumpled and shoved back for the promise of his warm body.
Jasper hadn’t wanted to ask. They’d never needed to and this new necessity confused him. Their beds had been open to one another for six years.
Edward’s eyes were lifeless now, his posture indifferent. He shifted his weight. “Never,” was his quiet answer and he turned, stalking from the room with his head down.
When the door finally closed, Jasper let the cancer of his absence invade him. It was crimson and bare—like his bedroom at midnight. The red walls were covered with marker and sketches and doodles and poetry they’d once been capable of sharing. The lamp illuminated little and Jasper scowled at the scant scrawlings he could decipher.
His finger was now numbed.
He wondered why Edward was doing this—denying Jasper his comfort. But he already knew. He’d heard the whispers around the house that floated to his ears like an evil, hissed chanting.
“Aren’t they a little old to be sleeping with one another, Carlisle? Shouldn’t you say something?”
Jasper had ignored them and would wait for Edward to come. If ever he failed to, Jasper would go to him. That was how gravity worked. Even during evening dinners, they’d shift together, like a graceful dance. Edward had been so oblivious and uncaring for so long. It had been the sweetest little abomination—this secret longing Jasper had kept hidden.
Jasper was apt at hiding.
But Jasper also knew that Edward’s Aunt’s and Uncle’s displeasure had nothing to do with this. Jasper knew that this was his fault. He’d been careless and stupid—had allowed Edward to feel his morning erection and had reacted in an untoward way.
That had occurred earlier that morning and Jasper knew he had ruined it all with one, half conscious thrusting of his hips. Edward had opened his eyes and furrowed his brows, and when Jasper had realized what he’d done, he hadn’t scrambled away. Instead, he’d held his hips there and had wanted to do it again. Their eyes were droopy from sleep, and Jasper’s mouth felt fuzzy, but he’d been groggy and still enveloped by the euphoria of the dream he’d had about Edward.
Edward, who’d looked so confused and tired beside him.
Jasper had leaned his face closer to Edward, grinding his erection into his warm thigh.
Somewhere deep down, Jasper had convinced himself that Edward would feel the same things. He’d hoped that they could keep it secret and explore each other. But Jasper should have known better. Jasper often heard Edward doting over certain girls at school and knew he’d been attracted to them. Not Jasper. Edward liked their brown hair and petite frames, kept magazines hidden beneath his mattress with naked women in them. These were the things Edward dreamed about. Not Jasper. Never Jasper.
Edward had shoved him away with an aggressive haste.
Jasper wanted to plead with him as Edward flung himself out of the bed, aghast and horrified. He’d wanted to explain that he couldn’t help it and that Edward had the softest, palest, most beautiful skin. He wanted Edward to know that he would gladly deny those reactions if he’d simply stay with him.
He wanted Edward to know that he meant so much more, that Jasper’s curiosities and reactions were not the cause, but the effect of his connection to Edward.
Now, Jasper needed Edward at his side to make him feel safe and loved and valuable. To give him a place in the world. He craved the light buoyancy that often invaded his chest when Edward was near, touching him in little, affectionate gestures. He ached to place his head in Edward’s lap, to feel his lithe fingers stroke his hair and stare into the green eyes that drove the darkness away.
He pulled the thread around his fingertip tighter, little tingles prickling the flesh. He was close to springing up and running to him. He wanted to catch Edward by the wrists and slam him against a wall in a violent, appalling way. He wanted to tell him that he couldn’t survive without him—tell him to open his eyes and see how much they belonged together, in that way—tell him to open his mouth so he could finally taste the sweetness of his forbidden lips.
Jasper didn’t sleep, and he never turned off the lamp.
—
Jasper eventually heard the terms that summer, in the locker rooms, on television, and coming from the dirty mouths of the neighborhood boys.
Gay. Fairy. Faggot. Queer.
They spoke of boys, like Jasper, who were attracted to other boys—though the way in which they spoke of it was far more vulgar and demeaning. Jasper had never thought his attraction to another boy as wrong and found it difficult to comprehend why it necessitated its own term. He so badly wanted to ask someone to explain it to him, but found Edward to be evasive of his company.
With no school to occupy him, Jasper followed Edward around the house. He sank at his side on the plush, white sofa. He tried to watch their favorite shows with Edward, but they never talked. Jasper would then follow him outside, wordless and lost, as Edward sought the group of boys he’d come to call friends. Jasper was rarely referred to as a “friend.”
He hated it when Edward called him his “brother.”
It didn’t take long for Edward to grow annoyed with Jasper’s persistence. “Stop following me,” he finally snapped one day. Jasper had been trailing behind him, counting their steps as they traveled the sidewalk. Edward’s infuriated spin caught Jasper off guard.
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