Chapter Text
Out of all of his numerous siblings, he and Bobby are by far the closest.
They’re five years and three sisters apart, just enough to make a terribly good duo for causing mayhem. The teamwork started small, both in offense and stature, with John sneaking into the pantry to grab handfuls of candy while Bobby stood in the hallway as a makeshift watch guard. Should someone get too near the kitchen, Bobby would distract them with wide eyes and the typical ramblings of a toddler until John (ever the perfect big brother) could take him by the hand with promises of putting him down for a nap. When “naps” really involved sitting on John’s bedroom floor and dividing up their spoils, well, the adults didn’t need to know.
They became each other’s confidants early on since Joseph Jr. thinks spending time with his little brothers is for pansies and Joseph Sr. thinks his sons spending too much time with their sisters will make them pansies. Usually, this involves trading stories and secrets that aren’t appropriate for the dinner table, Bobby complaining that he’s “too small” and John telling him with a laugh that he’ll catch up someday (he never really does).
March of 1938 marks a turning point in their dyad, as Bobby sits on his bed with his hands folded in his lap, sniffling every few minutes and punctuating it with a mumbled: “ I’m not crying. ” He’d knocked softly on John’s door at an hour too late for either of them to be awake. “Can you come to talk to me?” He’d asked, so quietly that it hurt, and John followed Bobby across the hallway into Bobby’s own room and settled on the carpeted floor.
“It won’t be all that bad,” John tries to tell him, but Bobby shakes his head in protest.
“I don’t wanna go to London,” he says, hiccuping over his words. “I won’t know anyone in London.”
It’s one of the things Bobby complains about most: how strangers sometimes make him nervous and meeting new people is hard. Their father says the change of scenery will shock it out of his system. John’s protests of “He’s only seven, just give him some time” had fallen on deaf ears, and now half of their family is being shipped across the ocean for God knows how long.
As much as he hates it, things are already said and done, so all John can do is try and comfort him. “That’s not true. You’ll know Pat and Jean.” Bobby doesn’t react. “You can talk to Teddy if you need to.”
“Teddy’s a baby.” Bobby wrinkles his nose at the suggestion, and John laughs at how offended he looks. Teddy isn't really a baby, he’s just turned four, but that’s still too young by a seven-year-old’s standards.
They fall into silence again. John watches his brother pick at his hands until they’re red and irritated. “I’ll miss you while you’re gone,” he says quietly.
Bobby looks at him, wide-eyed, before sliding off the side of the bed to join him on the floor. He sits up onto his knees to look John in the eyes. “We’ll still tell each other everything, right?” He says it like a question, but he’s already extending his hand between them with his pinky outstretched.
“‘Course,” he says, meeting Bobby’s hand to complete his half of the promise. His throat aches like he’s going to start crying, but he has to keep up a strong face. He’s not the one moving to England.
John doesn’t go back to his room until Bobby has crawled back into bed and fallen asleep. Closing the door behind him feels painfully final. He finds far more trouble falling asleep, as a stone of dread had settled into the pit of his stomach as soon as Bobby had made them pinky promise that they’d still be close. He’d looked so grateful they weren’t going to shut each other out, and John knows deep-down that there’s something he can’t as easily share.
— —
To his own credit, John keeps it quiet for a long time.
He starts to realize something is wrong just before half of his siblings and their father leave. The rest of the boys in his grade start grouping up to talk about which girls they have their eye on and which girls are off-limits, and, sure, the girls look nice, but the boys don’t look awful either. No one else says anything, though, and John decides to keep it to himself.
The problem only worsens when his parents decide on shipping him off to Connecticut, where he’s supposed to attend the same prestigious all-boys school Joseph’s been at for the last two years. Joseph spends most of his time pretending his brother doesn’t exist and occasionally tracking him down between classes to harass John, but the former outweighs the latter enough to make it livable.
The majority of his experience at Choate is surprisingly bland. Joseph was immensely more popular during the two years that their schooling overlapped, letting everyone know that his kid brother isn’t someone to be associated with in any way if they want to be in his good graces. The figurative sign on his back leads to people generally steering clear of bothering him which proves to be more of a blessing than a curse, at least academically. The ban on relations lightens when Joseph graduates, though, and he fades into simply being another pupil instead of the ostracized younger brother of the student council president. John dedicates enough time to get good enough grades and spends the rest finding new ways to continue being a menace to his parents. His mother warns him against the dangers of joining the football team while he’s home for the summer before his junior year, so it’s the first thing John does once he’s back in Connecticut. The Larry Hart Pool, nearby Wharton Brook, and Maher Field become staples in his routine as the hours not consumed by coursework become consumed by sports.
It’s during the practices at Maher Field that John notices an oddly familiar figure hovering around the sidelines. Coming to watch the football team run drills isn’t exactly a favorite activity of the student body, so the lone splotch of white-blond in the off-field stands out against the dark wood of the bleachers. It takes almost a week’s worth of evening practices to catch who the person is; John recognizes him as Charles Weiss, the son of one of Eastern Massachusetts' most lauded lawyers. The Weiss family had moved into one of Hyannis Port’s most upscale homes a few years prior, though John admittedly hadn’t talked to them as much as he heard his father talk of them.
When asked, Charles- “That’s so formal- you can call me Charlie.”- tells him he’d been watching the football team practice out of boredom. “My evenings are free until archery starts up in November. And I’d rather be out here than stuck inside the dormitory.” On the walk back from practice, they find out that both of their rooms were in West Wing. Even though he’d been at Choate for two full years, Charlie was proving to be the first consistent friend he’d had.
The more time they spent together, the more time they wanted to spend together. John realizes that he’s actually enjoying the change in monotony he’d grown so accustomed to.
Charlie is different in wonderful ways. It’s a rare occurrence for him to be completely serious, preferring to approach anything and everything with humor. He’s open and completely unlike the jaded facade John has gained among his peers. Charlie encourages him to be more, do better. It’s refreshingly new, as is the feeling starting to twist in his gut.
Charlie excels in their shared math and science classes but speaks far more passionately of linguistics and his dreams of travel.
“I’d like to go to Greece someday,” Charlie says to the sky, laying on the lawn of the St. Andrew chapel on a Saturday where neither of them has class nor practice. “Or maybe Switzerland. At least I could use French there.” The gold of his hair is striking against the grass; it reminds John of the stained glass halos surrounding the saints in the windows.
“My family went to Switzerland a few years ago,” John mutters. “We learned how to ski in Zermatt.”
Charlie sits up to shoot John a lazy smile. “Then you’ll just have to take me with you next time, won’t you?”
If his face has heated up as much as John thinks it does, he hopes Charlie will have the deference not to mention it.
— —
Fall fades into winter, and the backdrop to their extracurricular talks changes from grass and goalposts to the slick tile of the on-campus pool. Charlie has archery practice every weekday from 4 to 5:30 and John’s diving is from 4:15-6, allowing them the perfect schedule to walk from the dorms to the recreational building (where John leaves Charlie), then the pool (where Charlie meets him again after he’s finished), then back to the dorms.
Diving, more so than any other sport he’s been a part of, is a chance to clear his head. He has teammates, but he doesn’t have to act with them to succeed. Up on the board, 16, 25, 33 feet above the surface of the water, John is alone with his thoughts.
His thoughts usually take the form of running through the stages of a dive, but he’s not on the junior varsity team anymore- he can do forward dives in his sleep. It’s times like these, as they’re still in the process of warming up, that John allows his mind to deviate.
Lately, they’ve been herded towards Charlie.
More specifically, Charlie on the grass in front of the chapel, illuminated by the glow of the setting sun.
John continues his ascent up the ladder to the top of the diving board with the echoes of travels to Europe and endearing, slow smiles weaving through his head.
From what seems like miles below him, the diving coach yells up instructions. “Start working on those twisting dives, kid. You’re warmed up enough.”
The words loosely register in John’s head as addressed to him, so he gives a vague nod.
Life from the top of the diving board is still and quiet and John laughs to himself as his mind stitches it to standing at the peak of the Swiss mountains he’d told Charlie about. He jumps.
It takes just under one and a half seconds to fall from the 10-meter-board to the surface of the water (they’d timed it religiously, though the buttons on the old stopwatch stuck more often than not). One of the first things John learned when he joined the diving team was just how long one and a half seconds can feel, especially when he has to be tracking six movements that look like one movement in the time that gravity enacts itself. The first thing John is supposed to do after propelling himself off the board is twist so he enters the water facing the same platform he came from.
However, he thinks more of the smell of autumn and a golden halo more than the motions necessary to enter the water without a splash, only remembering all those things John is supposed to be doing when he’s 15 feet above the water. He gives a desperate effort to arrange his body into where it’s supposed to be - half a second too late.
A ripping pain tears its way through John’s right side as the loud SMACK! of his body hitting the water rings through the room. The water is bone-chillingly cold against the bite from striking its surface but serves as a harsh wake-up from the daze John had sent himself into. He squeezes his eyes shut, caught between wanting to quick to the surface for air and stopping moving altogether just to stop the soreness blooming from his spine. John gives into the latter, letting buoyancy run its course.
“Good God, Kennedy, you alright?” Coach Adler yells once he’s resurfaced.
“Yeah.” John floats on his back and keeps his eyes closed while he waits for the pain to subside. “Doing just fine.” The stinging laced over his skin fades, but the ache in his spine continues. His heart races.
Someone tugs on his wrist, pulling him closer to the edge of the pool. “You need to get out of the water, kid.”
John opens his eyes and squints at the fluorescent glow of the overhead lights. Behind him, crouched on the tile decking, are the concerned faces of his coach and teammates. “It’s fine, I’ll be fine,” he says through gritted teeth, but it aches even worse as he pulls himself out of the pool, and one of the divers behind him whistles low when they see the brunt of the damage he’d done.
“Jesus,” Adler remarks. “You’re done for the day, maybe the week.” He slings a towel around John’s shoulders and herds him toward the locker rooms. “Go get changed, kid. You can sit out the rest of practice.”
“Why?” John protests, even as an action as simple as breathing too deeply causes a sharp pain in his side. “I said I’m fine. Let me have 20 minutes and I’ll be back on the board.”
Adler levels him with a stern glare, and any resistance John had left in him starts withering away. “You’ll take it easy and let that muscle heal. I’ll be shocked if you can walk easily tomorrow, much less swim.”
“But I’m not done; I still can’t get the dive right.” John gives it one last effort. He’ll go insane with the knowledge that not only had he failed at mastering a twisting dive, but he’d also torn himself apart in his failure.
“You can take notes from the bench if that’s what it takes,” Adler says, herding him farther towards the locker room. “No one here will take less of you for taking time to heal. Now go shower and dress down; mind that strain.”
The short walk to the locker room feels impossibly long, only amplified by the echoing shouts and splashes coming from the pool behind him. The adrenaline from the initial fall wears off, and the ache in his back grows until it becomes nearly all-consuming.
He has half a mind to lay down on the cool tile until someone takes pity and carries him back to West Wing.
The promise of being free from the acrid smell of chlorine outweighs it, though, so John grits his teeth and stands under the cold shower spray until he’s dripping with tap water instead of pool water.
— —
To say he’s not annoyed is generous, but once he’s sitting in the stands wearing clean, warm clothes, John can appreciate that at least Adler had the sense to keep John from getting back into the pool.
Though, that doesn’t make it sting less when his teammates mutter to each other after shooting glances in his direction.
It’s probably nothing, John reasons, and it’s not like the other divers are cruel. He’s not particularly close to them, sure, but every person on the team is above gossiping: the coaches see to that. He knows his performance today was out of character. The kind of carelessness that leads to injury was out of character, especially for him, and it had to have shown to the others. Hopefully, the exact reason had escaped observation.
The reason is so infuriating, too, because it shouldn’t be an issue at all.
Charlie is a friend- a good friend, and his closest friend, but still just a friend- and entertaining this idea where they’re friends who do more than work on school assignments and chew the fat. It's ridiculous, dangerous, even, to pretend there’s a possibility for something else.
He stares out at his teammates. They’re all attractive, but surely that can’t just be him thinking so, right? Swimming has sculpted them all into living Hellenistic idols- he can’t be the only one that’s noticed.
Someone lands on the bench next to John, snapping him out of the trance he’d fallen into from watching his teammates methodically dive into the water.
“What’re you doing out on dry land?” Charlie teases. Bits of snow are stuck to the soles of his boots, melting into small puddles where he’s tracked them in.
John shoves him lightly. “I pulled a muscle; Adler benched me.”
“Doing alright, now?” Charlie asks lightly. He’s never been one for more serious conversation.
The will to constantly be light-hearted has its downsides, but John appreciates it more than ever right now. “I’ll be fine.”
Charlie gives a satisfied nod.
“Shame I missed the show.”
John starts, then immediately stills. He nearly turns to stare open-mouthed at Charlie, but schools his expression into something more neutral and watches Charlie out of the corner of his vision. “Pardon?”
“I know you aren’t blind, John. You’ve surely seen that way I look at you,” Charlie pauses, tilting his head to watch John, who keeps his gaze firmly on the pool in front of them. “I’ve got two working eyes. I’ve seen the way you look at me.”
The spark in his chest that first ignited in front of St. Andrew’s chapel flares, whether from fear or excitement, John doesn’t know. “Those are dangerous words.”
“Why?” Charlie retorts sharply. “Why do they have to be? Everyone else is down there- they can’t hear us.”
It’s not what he means, Charlie must know it’s not what he means. This isn’t the same as inadvertently meeting a nice girl at the park and asking her to the movies that weekend, picking her up at home to get a good first impression from her parents. It’s deliberate and wrong- it’s illegal- and John could never formally introduce Charlie to his mother and father, not like that. It could spell disaster should anyone find out. It would ruin their lives, their futures, even their families could be brought down if the word really got around.
But, it doesn’t have to get out. If John has learned anything from Charlie, it’s that people are better than he’s inclined to think: themselves included. Risks don’t always have to end in collapse.
He exhales through his nose, gives himself one last chance to back out of this. “I was thinking about you while I was diving. That’s why I screwed up.” John offers it as an olive branch.
Charlie’s smirk returns, bright and challenging. “Would you rather I distract you while on solid ground?”
He’s gotten closer, or John has gotten closer- someone has gotten closer and he can’t really bring himself to care who. But suddenly all he can see, all he wants to see, is the dark blue ring around Charlie’s irises, a smear of talc on his cheek leftover from shooting, a small, faded scar cutting through his cupid’s bow.
“We should probably wait until the rest of the team is gone,” John says without looking back at the pool.
Charlie laughs, curling his fingers into the fabric on John’s shoulder. “They left ages ago. You really shouldn’t let me take up this much of your attention, Johnny.”
You have no idea, John thinks as Charlie closes the gap between them.
From when he was younger and still living at home year-round, John remembers his sisters talking all about what they wanted their first kiss to be like. Rosemary and Kathleen shared the room next to him for years, and on nights when he couldn’t sleep, John found comfort in sitting on the floor in his closet, where the wall between them was thinnest, and listening to them talk. Rosemary would chide their younger sister for her dreams of grandeur and rebellion ( Why would you ever need to elope, Kick? ), trying to convince her that something private was more appropriate than exciting proclamations of love and liberation in the living room.
Now, in the echoey, concrete bleachers on the campus swimming pool, John can’t help but think that maybe they both got it wrong. Maybe a first kiss shouldn’t be partnered with the scent of roses, but with the spearmint gum, the kind Charlie insists on chewing while he’s at practice. Maybe John didn’t need to put on cologne beforehand, and the chlorine he can never fully manage to wash off does just fine. Maybe he didn’t need to find a dime-a-dozen girl; maybe Charlie Weiss was just as good. Maybe Charlie Weiss was better.
“You don’t have a roommate, right?” Charlie asks between breaths.
John shakes his head. “I’d ask for cash or check, but you seem to have made up your mind.”
“I have expensive tastes,” Charlie grins. “You’ll have to accommodate for both.” He holds out a hand to pull John up with him, but the movement reignites the stabbing pain in his back. He hisses in discomfort, Charlie accommodating for the injury and offering a solid arm instead. “Lucky for me, it looks like you’re free for the next while.”
Nearly hobbling out of the building on Charlie’s arm, John’s attitude flips. For a fleeting moment, he’d been both wanting and wanted, only for it to end as abruptly as it started, needing to be escorted back to his room like an elderly relative.
“I don’t know if you noticed, Charlie,” he begins, “but I’m not particularly mobile right this minute.”
Charlie’s step falters slightly, but he doesn’t stop walking. Instead, he tightens his grip where their arms are interlocked. “If you want to stop, I’ll stop,” he says seriously. “But clearly you didn’t notice that I’ve been watching you- not your team- you for months. I can be mobile enough for the both of us.” He adds with a sly wink.
John flushes against his own will, and quickens their pace with a stammered “Walk faster ”.
— —
Although the arrangement with Charlie cannot be the sole blame for why John’s back refuses to heal correctly, it is by all means playing a role. Adler refuses to let him back into the water for a week after John’s accident, and while the stakes are much lower, John can’t help but feel annoyed when his mind continues to wander back to that place.
There’s no purpose in imagining scenarios when experiencing them is a very real possibility, he reasons with himself.
Regardless of how John spent practice, he wasn’t committing to Adler’s demand of bed rest, and lots of it is only partially fulfilled. He’s spent plenty of time on the bed, though the “rest” half left something to be desired.
After a week of fidgety bench-sitting, the first plunge into water feels like heaven on earth. John tests his limits immediately and is pleased to find that most movements can be done free of pain. Reaching above his head, stretching too far causes a twinge, and any rotation done too fast forces him to stop for a moment and recuperate. Once, somewhere, he remembers being told that micro dosage can help build a tolerance. In his excitement and desperation to make himself useful, John hopes the same hypothesis applies to pain.
The change in his athletic experience reflects a change in John’s personal life, too.
Suddenly the routine they’ve developed has been altered- Charlie no longer bids him adieu when they reach John’s dorm, more often than not choosing to join him until quiet hours are called. Sharing the space so often is new, but not unwelcome.
In all honesty, the lack of real, serious conversation worries John more than he lets on. His family had always emphasized the importance of planning, of tying together rules and regulations and schedules into a compact little package, until each hour has a purpose and a goal to be completed. But Charlie doesn’t feel the need for planning, nor does he have the same upbringing. He’s an only-child- a far cry from John and his seven siblings- and was left to his own devices for years until Mr. and Mrs. Weiss sent him to Choate. He doesn’t feel the same sense of necessity for organization.
They only talk about it once, in passing, after practice has finished and they’ve settled in John’s room for the evening. In a turn from what had become the new norm, Charlie is the one working at the wooden desk, muttering to himself about diffraction and collisions as he works through their most recent physics assignment.
“Charlie,” John starts from his place on the bed where a well-worn copy of The Thirty-Nine Steps lay forgotten on his stomach. “What are we doing?”
Charlie pushes himself back from the desk until just the back legs of the chair remain on the ground. “I’m doing physics work,” he says, letting the chair fall back onto its four legs. “You were reading, but I see things have changed.”
“Smartass,” John mutters fondly. He throws his arm over his face to block the last of the day’s light filtering through the wood shutters, and to block out the parts of him that wish he’d never brought this up in the first place. Hidden in the darkness he created, John continues. “I meant what are we doing, what is all of-” he flicks his hand to gesture at their surroundings “- this ?”
“I don’t see that it has to be anything at all.” The old bed frame creaks as Charlie sits down; he pushes John’s legs out of the way just to annoy him. “I don’t need to be the one to tell you that this, whatever it is, won’t last. We’re both headed down different paths after graduating- at least, I know my folks want me shipped off to Yale.” He taps on John’s arm twice in encouragement to move it. “For now, this is just... enjoying the other’s company.”
“Are you sure law school is the right route?” John chuckles, obliging Charlie’s request to move his arm. “You could be quite the philosopher.”
Charlie snorts and shifts to lean over John. “Aw, dry up. Creating a new Vienna Circle is far above me.”
The small scar John had first seen back at the pool continues farther down Charlie’s face, he now notices, curling through the left side of his lips and down under his chin. John lightly traces the line with his thumb. He’d like to think he has gotten rather familiar with Charlie’s mouth in the last few weeks.
“This color is good on you, by the way,” Charlie murmurs, picking at John’s lavender sweater. “Brings out the green in your eyes.”
“Flattering will get you nowhere, Charles,” John says dryly, but he knows it isn’t true. Flattery, especially from a certain blond-haired lawyer’s son, will open up plenty of doors.
Charlie, well aware of this and more than confident in his abilities, knocks John’s hands off his face and leans farther forward. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
Claiming he’d learned more from Charlie in the last few weeks than he had from his teachers is almost certainly untrue, but it doesn’t feel like it during moments like this. From the people around him, John had been taught that nothing can compare to a first kiss and the magic fades quickly. They scoffed at the movies that preached everlasting enamorment, but after a month of doing... whatever this is... enjoying the other’s company, the charm has yet to wane.
“I don’t think the others are enjoying the company the same way,” John pulls away, just enough for a fraction of space between them, to mumble.
He feels Charlie’s lips curl in a coy smile against his own. “Well they don’t know what they’re missing, do they?”
— —
In retrospect, it’s strange how little any of it changes their relationship. He mulls it over during moments of silence and solitude after quiet hours have been called and the only person left in the dorm room is himself.
A small part of John feels that he should be offended by Charlie’s nonchalance, but it feels just that- casual. Their arrangement, as he’d come to call it, is good, better than good, but if Charlie decided to stop right now, John could go on. He cares for Charlie, sure, and values their friendship over all else. There exists an absence of love that doesn’t feel wrong, doesn't leave him unsatisfied and aching.
In his head, he can hear the echoes of the nuns that taught his Sunday School warning of the dangers of the flesh, of succumbing to temptation. Preaching to love God above all, love thy brother, love thy wife, and be loyal to her.
He hasn’t gone to Mass in years.
This is ridiculous. John frowns. I’m happy, so why can’t I leave it at that?
The doubt is easier to quell during the day when most of his waking moments are spent with Charlie, or at least with people. He finds that it is easy to work off of the energy of others instead of cloistering himself away to work in isolation. Charlie harnesses this even more so than John, and they create a feedback loop just by interacting.
Eventually, the biting cold of Connecticut winter blooms into the forgiving temperament of spring. John, and much of the diving team, transfer their skills over to Wharton Brook for crew. Archery has wrapped up too, so Charlie now works and waits along the bank, waving cheerily whenever John and his boat row by.
Choate releases its students in mid-May, leaving plenty of time for John to be settled back into Hyannis Port by his birthday. Despite being the second oldest child in the family John lands squarely in the middle of the spray of birthday celebrations, so they rarely come to be more than a family dinner. This year especially, it doesn’t bother him; Charlie keeps hinting at giving John a gift of his own.
Charlie’s gift doesn’t come until days later, into June, when John is shocked out of the half-sleep he’d fallen into while reading by the sound of something tapping on his window.
At first, he thinks a bird has landed on the sill and started pecking at the glass, but the noise doesn’t stop after a few minutes. Grumbling to himself, John gets up to inspect the window and doesn’t find a bird. Instead, he sees Charlie wearing an incredibly smug grin and holding a handful of pebbles down on the lawn.
Unable to hold back a smile of his own, John cracks open the window. “We have a front door, you know!” He yells.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Charlie’s attitude is infectious, as per usual.
John shuts the window and starts pulling on his shoes to get outside faster. “You could’ve broken the glass,” he chastises once outside, but there’s no real malice behind it. The last few weeks had been rather boring without Charlie nearby. In a strange turn of events, John found himself missing the atmosphere at Choate more than he wanted to be at home.
“Nah, I wasn’t throwing them hard enough,” Charlie says, looking up at the windows of the house. “Your folks home?”
John shakes his head. “They all went into town.”
“Good.” Charlie shifts his gaze back to John, smug as ever, and pulls him closer by the collar. “C’mere.”
He’s gotten bolder, the both of them have, moving past the stumbling hesitance that characterized the beginning of their relationship. They’ve gotten good at keeping away from strangers, keeping to themselves, curating this careful thing between them.
Charlie hardly has to tilt his head to meet John’s mouth: they're so close in height, all long limbs toned from different sports. John has noticed Charlie gets softer as archery fades further and he loves it. He’s still undeniably strong but the muscles in his arms and hands aren't as hard and sculpted as they are in the winter. John says it makes him more like a big teddy bear; Charlie says it’s embarrassing.
“This isn’t my entire gift, is it?” John pulls back to say, amused at the look of faux-indignance on Charlie’s face. He loops his arms around Charlie’s neck to keep him from pulling away any farther.
“I was going to take you into town, but if you’re so ungrateful...” Charlie trails off.
John laughs and presses a kiss against Charlie’s cheek. “I can be grateful. Just give me a reason to be.”
“Ridiculous.” Charlie rolls his eyes but pulls John towards his car all the same.
— —
He makes good on his promise, escorting John through the meager village he’d called home for the last dozen years as if they were tourists, dragging both of them from storefront to storefront and ignoring the glances from people who had lived in Hyannis for longer than they had. It’s nice and feels like the birthday celebration John’s family didn’t give him. They eventually wind up in an old bookshop laden with the smell of ink and paper. Though John first tries to peruse the shelves, Charlie is more inclined to pull him towards the back of the store, under an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign, and through a back door that opens into a small alcove.
“No one ever comes back here,” Charlie tells him, extremely satisfied with his surprise if the upward tick of his mouth and the way he’s bouncing on the balls of his feet are anything to go off of.
“It’s lovely,” John says. It’s true- the niche is patterned with sea lavender and beach plumb, accented by brick walls laced with Virginia creeper vines and a single, arching black cherry tree. The air, laden with the scent of flowers and sea salt, drifted as casually as the fat little bumblebees flying from flower to flower. The walls of the bookstore extended for a way in both directions, offering the illusion of privacy. Surrounded by nature at its most brilliant, John wonders how he ever could have overlooked this place.
Being so focused on the scene of the alcove, John starts at the feeling of Charlie sliding up next to him, nudging him back until his knees hit the edge of a bench John hadn’t noticed before. “Not as lovely as you,” Charlie smiles. He pushes John until he’s seated on the bench. Charlie wastes no time in bracketing John’s legs with his own and leans in to kiss him, properly and without rush, for the first time in weeks.
John can’t help the way he presses back against Charlie. Everything about him is addictive, the way he kisses being not at all an exception. John lets himself be wanted, let’s himself want, until the vignette of reality creeps into the rose-colored lens.
“We’re in public; there are people,” he protests, using the hand he has pressed against the buttons of Charlie’s shift to put some distance between them.
Charlie wastes no time recapturing John’s mouth, and John, ever the traitor when it comes to Charlie’s attention, lets himself be taken. “As I said, no one comes out here.” Charlie grins. “Just try to keep it down, all right?”
At that moment John decides Charlie’s smart mouth is better when occupied. He lets the distance between them diminish until it’s practically nonexistent, and moves farther down to the long column of Charlie’s throat. He hesitates, uncertainty gripping his mind for a moment until Charlie says “It’s fine, just be mindful of leaving marks.” That, John can do, and he dives back into drawing pleased sounds from Charlie.
He hears the crunching gravel of someone rounding the corner too late. John makes eye contact with his brother over Charlie’s shoulder, knows there’s no way to hide what’s happening, that he can’t explain away why he has a boy sitting on his thighs and his own teeth marks printed red into Charlie’s neck. For the first time in his life, John feels really, truly stuck.
The world seems to dull and narrow around him, the panting in his ear fading into a faint murmur until John can only focus on his brother’s astonishment. John’s thoughts race a mile a minute, and though seconds pass, the exposition seems to last an eternity. Bobby blinks once, painfully slow, and levels him with a firm look- We’ll talk later - before schooling it into something more casual, slipping back around the corner he’d come from.
It’s so easy to think they’ve fallen back into their typical routine where Bobby stands guard while John does the dirty work, that this is completely normal and expected. But it’s far, far from the norm.
He breathes a heavy sigh of relief into Charlie’s neck, who he’d forgotten was there at all.
— —
That night, fueled by stress and spontaneity, they steal Joseph’s car.
It’s been sitting unused in the driveway for weeks while Joseph is on another trip, this time to somewhere out west as Europe gets blown apart.
He’d approached Bobby just after dinner, asked if he wanted to get away from the rest of the family that evening, something they hadn’t done since he’d come back from England nearly nine months earlier. The reason for getting away hung unsaid between them, and Bobby agreed with a crooked smile.
Besides the initial exhilaration of stealing the keys, sneaking outside, and getting the car away from the house, the drive is quiet and calm. The last drags of sunset reflect in the mirrors as they push farther east, and, after 20 minutes of driving, Bobby asks where they’re going.
“The lighthouse at Chatham,” John tells him. It’s an hour away from home but not far enough to prevent them from getting back that night. With five other kids in the house and their father still working, no one will notice they’re gone.
— —
Though the light has stayed active, the beach isn’t technically open to civilians while the Atlantic is considered a battleground. All of the windows of nearby houses have the curtains drawn tight to block out any extra light, ensuring he and Bobby’s safety from wandering eyes.
John finds a clearing to park the car in, a few hundred feet away from the beach, and stretches languidly in the driver’s seat before turning to face his brother.“Ready for part two?” He grins.
Bobby cracks his knuckles- a habit their parents constantly nag him about- and gives John a toothy, slightly nervous smile, and John’s half-tempted to ruffle his hair just to annoy him. Bobby gets out of the car before he can, though, so he makes a mental note to do it later.
They pick their way through rocks and sand and low brush, only the light of the nearly full moon to aid their path. The beach, like the rest of the town, is empty. John finds a clear spot where the small stones transition into fine sand and the two sit side by side.
“Nice night,” Bobby mutters, pointedly staring out at the waves.
“Yeah.” John takes a deep breath. “Listen, Bobby. I’m sorry you found Charlie and me, but you can’t tell anyone about it.”
Bobby turns to face him for the first time since they got out of the car, his nose scrunched up in insult. “Do I look like some yuck to you? Of course, I won’t tell anyone.”
The unease lingering around them dissipates with the receding waves, and John laughs in surprise. He’d been terrified Bobby would be mad at his actions, not his words.
“I don’t forgive you yet, though,” Bobby says, “because I was just trying to go for a walk. I don’t want to see you being gross. ”
John laughs again, quietly. The reminder that Bobby is still so young blooms under his skin, especially after not seeing him for years.
He takes the opportunity to tousle his brother’s hair, much to Bobby’s chagrin.
After attempting to smooth down his hair, Bobby starts making small piles of sand on the beach in front of him. “Are you and Mr. Weiss’s son going steady?”
“What?” John looks at him like he’d grown another head. “No, ‘course not. Charlie and I are... playing the field, I suppose.” Charlie had made it very clear he wasn’t looking for anything long-term, not that there was much of an opportunity to branch out, anyway. “His family is changing their last name,” he offhandedly adds. “‘Weiss’ sounds too German now.” It serves as yet another reminder of how out-of-kilter everything is right now.
Bobby, being the definition of their Catholic mother’s son, wrinkles his nose. “Don’t you want to start a family?”
“Christ, Bobby, I know you’re not stupid. You know me and Charlie couldn’t get hitched even if we wanted to.” For someone teeming with youthful innocence, Bobby spends a lot of time worrying about the future, John’s included. “Besides, I still have another year at Choate. There’s plenty of time to find someone.”
He hums, goes back to piling sand. “I won’t bother you anymore,” Bobby says, “and it’s none of my business what you do, but I hope you know that I only want you to be happy.”
John looks at Bobby, really looks at him, for the first time since they’ve both been home in Hyannis. He’s changed since the last time they talked like this- when Bobby was a wide-eyed seven-year-old whose biggest worry was starting at a new, English school. Now he stands a handful of inches taller and isn’t so scared of the world around him, and John feels a swell of pride at how far his little brother has come.
“You’re a good kid, Bobby,” John tells him, reaching over to pull him into a side hug and moving to mess up his hair again.
Bobby catches his hands and bats them away with a muffled “Hey!”, giggling as he rolls around in the sand to avoid John’s grabs.
“We should leave before it gets too late.” John holds out a hand to Bobby and pulls him up. “Can’t have anyone notice that we’re gone.”
Bobby brushes the sand off of his clothes before straightening up and turning toward John.“I’ll race you back to the car,” he grins. He doesn’t wait before taking off toward the road.
“You’re on,” John laughs and falls in step behind him.
— —
His senior year at Choate School was, like the prior three, largely uneventful. Charles Weiss-turned-White’s visits back to John’s room become more and more spread out as his parents encourage him to take on the honored family tradition of graduating from Yale. The cycle of classes, football, classes, diving, classes, crew repeats for a final time, and although Joseph remains physically off-campus, word of his efforts to become the first Roman Catholic president spread like a disease.
Privately, John thinks the title is better suited for Bobby, the only one out of them to regularly attend Mass in the last four years.
And while Joseph still seems to be the family’s pride and joy on the outside, John knows there’s more tension than ever between Joseph Jr. and Sr. Their father wants nothing more than a handful of American soldiers bearing the family name and a coat full of medals and ribbons. Joseph wants nothing more than to take no part in it, saying it isn’t his war to fight nor win.
So, it comes as no surprise to anyone that May 31st, 1943 rolls around with little fanfare besides a folded enlistment form, the car keys John had stolen with Bobby a year prior, and a muttered: “It’ll look good on campaigns” from his father. If Joseph refuses to take up arms, his brother won’t be given the option to refuse.
— —
The Hyannis Recruiting Station on the intersection of Main and South is devoid of customers when John arrives, much like it had been since it first opened. The people of Hyannis live in big houses to accent their bigger wallets, either being too old or too wealthy to spend time on petty things like personally fighting in a war. The establishment of an enlistment office seems to be an act of wishful thinking at best.
A small bell tinkles as John shoves the door open and the only other person in the building, a short balding man who looks to be halfway to falling asleep, sits up behind his desk. John makes out a plaque reading “SPC. F. MILLER”, and the man the title belongs to asks “What can I do you for?”.
“I’m, uh, enlisting?” John says, shuffling forward to pass over the filled-out paper.
SPC. F. Miller looks at him with mild surprise before turning his attention to the paper. “List your name, date of birth, and desired branch of service if you please.”
“John Kennedy; May 31st, 1925; U.S. Navy,” he rattles off. Although he hadn’t been given the choice to opt-out of military service, John had been allowed to choose the branch. The Navy seemed like the obvious choice as he’d been living a dozen yards from the ocean for years. He didn’t miss his father’s disappointment at his decision, though, nor did he miss the faint muttering that the Air Force was for real men.
“Happy birthday, then,” Miller remarks, drawing John from his thoughts. He scratches something on the notepad next to him. “Any history of a criminal record I should be made aware of, Mr. Kennedy?”
“No, sir,” John says. The room has a low ceiling and dark walls, making it all feel far more stuffy than it actually is. Somewhere behind him, a mantle clock rhythmically ticks away the seconds.
He gives the same, negative response when the man asks about any history of alcoholism, then drug use. Miller writes some more, then asks some more questions, then, finally, tears his sheet of notes off the pad and clips the page onto the one John had brought in.
He taps his pencil against the desk a few times and squints up at John. “You know, we usually have to wait before sending recruits to a medical exam, but I know Dr. Lindberg is back there waiting ‘til the clock says he can leave.” He stands up, motioning John to follow him as he turns into a hallway on the other side of his desk.
They stop in front of a door featuring another metal placard, and Miller raps on the wood with his knuckles. “Got a walk-in for you, Henry.
The door opens to reveal the green walls and typical sterility of a doctor’s office, as well as a lanky, salt-and-pepper-haired man wearing thin wire glasses and a white coat. The man, John assumes, is the aforementioned Dr. Lindberg.
Miller passes off the papers to the doctor and makes to leave the room, but not before telling John that the exit is the same way he came, and he’s free to leave once the exam is over.
Dr. Lindberg seems more interested in the papers than John, who sits on the exam table, waiting for something to happen. The room has no windows, only white fluorescent lights that make John’s eyes burn. Everything about it screams clinical professionalism that reminds him of yearly checkups as a child.
Eventually, the doctor looks up from the forms, peering at John over the rims of his glasses. “These mention a history of illness and injury- ‘weak constitution, susceptible to common sickness’… ‘untreated sports-related injury’,” he reads off the notes on John’s medical record. “To be honest, I should stop this examination now.”
John scowls. The ‘weak constitution’ was never as dramatic as it sounded. He often got the flu when he was younger and his mother got paranoid, that’s all.
He’s about to explain it when Dr. Lindberg sighs heavily and gives a long look up at the clock on the wall. “Humor me, John,” he says, dragging a tired hand down his face. “Why are you here?”
For a moment, he feels horribly out of place. He opens his mouth, then closes it, and puts enough coherence together to answer. “My father told me to come.”
Dr. Lindberg looks at John, then down at his medical file, then back at John. “You don’t happen to be one of Joseph Kennedy’s kids, do you?”
John nods, confused.
“Damn it,” the doctor swears and turns on his heel to stalk towards the phone on his desk. He picks it up angrily and spins the rotary dial until a switchboard operator asks for a destination. “Put me through to Senator Walsh.”
John knows that name, he’s heard it before. Where has he heard it before?
“Senator, I have one of the Kennedys in my office and he’s not fit to serve.”
John bristles at that. He could be in the Navy, he’s just fine! He hasn’t been sick in ages, and the back injury was over a year ago, it’s surely healed by now. John tries to hear more of the conversation, but all he can hear on the other end is quiet, tinny speaking.
“Yes, those Kennedys, who else do you think I’d be calling for?” Dr. Lindberg looks exasperated, and John starts to feel bad for even coming. “Look, it’s not completely inexcusable, but you know how Joseph is- he’ll have our necks if we don’t let him in.” Walsh must protest to that because the tinny sound gets louder. “Of course you have a part in this, you are head of the Naval Affairs Committee. If anyone has the power to authorize his entry, it’s you.”
It’s like a lightbulb clicks on then. Senator Walsh means Senator of Massachusetts, David Walsh, a man who has undoubtedly eaten dinner in John’s dining room during one of their socialite gatherings.
“For God’s sake, just approve him when I send the paperwork through.” Lindberg slumps against the desk. “Joseph will want him somewhere with low risk, anyway.” There’s a final bout of grumbling on both ends before he hangs up, scrawling a note on the top of John’s page.
“Congratulations,” he says without emotion, and hands John a pamphlet laden with small text. “You’ll receive further instruction for enlistment within the next week.”
John is all but herded out of the office, Dr. Lindberg shutting the door behind him before John can even thank the doctor for his time, or piece together the last 20 minutes.
Slowly, he leaves the Hyannis Recruiting Station, feeling as if the doctor has stuffed his head with cotton as he tries to understand what had happened in the office. His status as a recruit had gone from completely impossible to likely improbable to already affirmed in what had seemed like a handful of minutes, and apparently, his father had been much more involved than he’d let on.
John stares down at the stoic sailor on the flier in his hands. That’ll be me someday, he thinks distantly.
It isn’t until he’s sat in the driver's seat of the car that John realizes the doctor never even performed the medical exam.
— —
Joseph Sr. is close to ecstatic when the call-up letter arrives, a fancy government postmark establishing its legitimacy. He’s announcing it to the whole family in the living room when John comes downstairs, with enough excitement to think his father is the one receiving a new title, not John.
“‘Notice of summons for John Kennedy, U.S. Navy Lieutenant, junior grade,’” he reads and shoots a look at John. “Lieutenant, that's good.”
“Not a real lieutenant,” Joseph Jr. corrects from where he’s slumped on the couch next to Kick and Teddy.
She elbows him, careful not to dislodge Teddy in her lap. “Hush, you didn’t even enlist.” Kick smiles at John, who hasn’t moved from his spot at the foot of the stairs. “John is gonna start pulling rank on you if you keep running your mouth.”
Joseph scoffs. “I’d like to see him try.”
Kick’s eyes narrow, ready to start in on him, but she’s cut off by their father clearing his throat. He gives Kick a disapproving look that she only raises her nose to. She’d always been the one to challenge rules, challenge tradition, even though it usually ended in a lecture about being more lady-like. It strikes John, then, how much he’s missed his sisters while they’ve all been sent to different corners of the Northeast. And now he’s leaving the country for God knows how long.
“They’re stationing you in Panama,” their father continues, nodding to himself. “Good, good...”
It’s mildly infuriating how tightly his father has a hold on this entire situation. He’d thought that this would be an opportunity to finally have free will, but no, his father’s word still triumphs 5,000 miles away. At that moment, John decides he’s going to do everything in his power to be reassigned.
“When does he leave?” Bobby, who he hadn’t seen standing in the entryway to the kitchen, asks quietly. There’s a furrow between his eyebrows and he’s wringing his hands like his knuckles won’t pop.
Their father evidently doesn’t pick up on his worry. “In five days,” he says firmly. Striding towards his office, he adds “You better start packing,” and presses the paper into John’s hands.
John nods blankly, staring down at the letter as Bobby sneaks up the stairs behind him.
— —
“You’re coming back, right?”
Bobby is already waiting in John’s room when he comes back upstairs. He’s hardly gotten inside the door before his younger brother starts asking questions.
John blinks, taken aback. “Of course.”
“Because,” Bobby paces, and keeps talking before John has finished, “some people enlist because they don’t want to come back, and if you’re like that, you should just tell me.”
Slowly, slowly, the pieces start to come together- “I don’t have a death wish, Bobby.”
“Okay.” He doesn’t look or sound the least convinced. “I just... I wish you would tell me things.”
I do tell you things, John wants to say, and it’s true but not in the way Bobby means it. He can read between the lines- see the fine print where Bobby really means “I wish you would tell me important things.” But Bobby was gone for so long, there’s still a part of John’s mind that sees him as a nervous seven-year-old whose greatest fears are new people and new places. He’s nearly 13 now and has more confidence than any of them, John included, give him credit for.
John knows where this distrust stemmed, though, despite his efforts to quell it the moment his secret was discovered. “Is this about Charlie?”
“No,” Bobby says quickly, then backpedals. “Yes. I don’t know, it’s about everything.” He finally stops pacing the carpeted floor and turns to face John. “You don’t talk to any of us anymore, not me, not Kick and Rosie and Jean and Patty, even Ted says he never hears from you. We only ever see you when you’re home during breaks and you still don’t talk to us. And now you’ve finally come back only to leave again?”
It sounds eerily similar to his own line of thought.
The defensiveness John carries rises then.“I’m sorry, but it wasn’t exactly my choice to leave,” he says harshly.
“No, it’s not all that.” He looks to be grasping for words that won’t come. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at, I don’t know,“ Bobby rakes a hand through his usually well-kept hair and shrugs. “Everything.”
The worst part, John thinks, is that Bobby is entirely right. He hasn’t really talked to his siblings in ages, not with all of them being sent to different schools. They’re rarely all at home for long periods. Even then, it’s easier to fall into the habits he’d grown accustomed to while at Choate- keeping it to himself unless worthy of sharing with Charlie. Though Charlie hasn’t been around much either these days, so mostly everything gets pushed into the “keep it to himself” box.
If John only has five days to make it up to Bobby, he’d better start now. So he crosses over the room to sit on his bed, patting the space next to him where Bobby hesitantly sits down.
“I’m gonna come back,” John says. “I promise.” He holds out his hand as they had years ago on Bobby’s floor, a mirror of what had seemed like the end of the world in March of 1938. “If you want me to tell you more-” Bobby looks up hopefully from where his gaze had lingered on their hands- “I’m going to apply for reassignment, away from Panama.”
Bobby’s hopeful expression falls almost as quickly as it arrived. He picks at the seam of his shorts, a small scowl creeping onto his face. “I... Okay.”
“You don’t like that,” John observes.
Bobby shrugs again.“Panama is supposed to be safe. But if it’s what you want...” He trails off, clearly unhappy with his brother's decision.
But John has had enough of decisions being made for him. “It is,” he says firmly.
They lapse into silence again, with only the faint scratching of Bobby running his nails over the pleat in the fabric of his pants. “You’ll be great,” he says eventually, quietly. “You’ll be fine.” It sounds more as if he’s telling it to himself than he is to John.
“‘Course I will,” John reassured him. “Now,” he stands, pulling his younger brother up with him, only to be met by surprised protests. He grins, only to be met with Bobby rubbing at the place where John had grabbed his arm. “Come help me pack. I’ve got a boat to catch soon.”