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“Can you stay?”
Jalil can do a lot of things. He’s the only junior in his advanced calculus class. He thinks in numbers and equations and formulas but he knows a thing or two about poetry and mythology and bullshit prayers whispered in the dark to someone who doesn’t exist. These days, actually, he thinks he knows more about things that he doesn’t understand than anything else.
Especially when Christopher, the hulking, sarcastic, bigoted surfer-dude-looking douchebag, looks at him outside the police station with tired, scared eyes, and asks him a question that doesn’t make any goddamn sense.
Stay?
“Uh.” Jalil turns his eyes to him without moving his head, tightening the scarf around his neck as the late fall Chicago night air chills him to the bone. “With you?”
“No, right here,” Christopher says sarcastically, and then rolls his eyes, angry at both of them. “Yeah, with me.”
“Like in your house?”
“What the hell is your problem?” he snaps. “I’ve had the shittiest day of my entire shitty life -- which seems to be a daily thing now -- and you’re acting like I’m inviting you over for a gay orgy. Eat shit, dude. I thought maybe after everything we’ve been through together, it wouldn’t be such a big deal if I told you that I’m scared. Or whatever. Not that I am.”
Jalil continues to watch him, trying to puzzle out this wilting boy scared for his life. “Huh.”
“It was just fucked up, what happened back there,” Christopher insists, but he’s getting softer, surrendering. “Those crazy assholes know where I live. They know I have a little brother. Keith said he’d hurt him, and my mom, and--”
“I was there when you gave the police your statement,” Jalil says coolly. “Because somehow, being stuck in a goddamn alternate universe with you isn’t enough; I need to get caught up in your racist real world bullshit too.”
“Look, dickhead,” Christopher barks. “We wouldn’t be here right now and my family wouldn’t be in danger right now if I was anything like that guy, okay? He thought I was, yeah, he thought I was some Jew-hating, gay-bashing, racist piece of shit like him and his buddies, and I’m sorry if that’s what I look like, but I’m not. I never was. I said stupid shit before I met you but I never would’ve hurt anyone. I’m not like him.”
“Okay, Christopher.”
Christopher breathes deeply for a moment, trying to calm down. He’s close to tears and maybe that would be enough to convince Jalil that he’s scared and he’s sorry but he’ll be goddamned if he lets him see him cry right now. “What he called you,” he says quietly, withering from the inside, “that wasn’t okay. None of it was, but especially that. It was really shitty. You didn’t even flinch.”
“Yeah, well, wasn’t the first time someone’s called me that.”
“I swear to you, I’ve never said it before.”
Jalil cocks an eyebrow at him. “Uh huh.”
A deep blush spreads from the apples of Christopher’s cheeks down to the hollow of his throat and Jalil watches his Adam’s apple jump as he swallows hard. “I mean, maybe when I’ve rapped along with like Biggie or whatever, yeah, I guess. But never, like--”
“To an actual black person,” Jalil supplies, his voice mocking and unimpressed, but his eyes almost gentle. Forgiving.
“Right,” Christopher mutters, ashamed, no matter what he says or does, because Jalil can always see through him. “Sorry. Okay? I’m sorry. Just -- come on, I’ll drive you home. Can I at least do that?”
“Beats taking the bus.”
Grumbling under his breath, Christopher leads the way through the police station parking lot to where his hand-me-down soccer mom station wagon is parked. It’s not far; he’d been too scared to park anywhere but near the front doors, and he’s sure Jalil noticed that, even if he didn’t say so. Jalil never has to say anything. He only has to look at you to make you feel cut in half.
He unlocks the doors and drops heavily into the drivers’ seat, wondering how the hell he’s going to drive right now. He’s more afraid of Jalil seeing his hands shaking than he is of getting into an accident. Both seem likely.
“Are you okay to drive?” Jalil asks, his concern coming out like an accusation.
“Fine,” Christopher says. “I got a gun pulled on me, not brain damage.”
Jalil smirks. “Fine.”
He knows they live near each other, so he just drives. They don’t speak to each other, and Jalil looks at Christopher’s hands but doesn’t comment, just tucks his own hands under his legs. They look out their windows, shadowed in city lights and rain, lost in thought. Jalil assumes Christopher’s thinking about all the ways Keith is going to kill him, and whether or not he even cares anymore. Christopher asumes Jalil’s wondering what’s going on in Everworld, plotting, scheming, solving, playing chess with gods and witches in his mind. They have nothing in common other than the fact that they’ll probably die together.
“What street do you live on?” Christopher asks as they pass the Taco Bell that means he’s almost home.
“Lakeshore Drive,” Jalil replies.
“So I take a right?”
“Yeah.” He shakes his head. “No.”
“So left?”
“No.”
“...So straight?”
“No.”
“Throw me a bone here, Jalil. Do I fucking teleport?”
“Sorry. No,” Jalil says. “Just go to your place.”
“You coming with me?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked me to.”
+
The Hitchcocks aren’t much different than the Shermans, if you go by the his-and-her minivans in the driveway, and the porch light and welcome mat waiting for you to come home, and the Sears family portraits hanging on the wall up and down the hall, promising that everything within these walls is fine. Perfect, even.
As he enters the house through the garage, careful not to cling (Christopher’s the scared one, remember, not Jalil), he takes note of the differences. Collects the data. Creates the hypothesis. Files it away for later. For what? What experiment is he hoping to perform here? What is he trying to prove?
Maybe it’s because there’s a world out there where his life lies in this boy’s hands. It’s important to know where he comes from, what makes him tick, why he broke for days on end, shattering over and over, sprawled in the dirt and wracked with sobs that Jalil still can’t get out of his head. It’s important to know why Christopher isn’t brave like David is, why he’s only brave when there’s no other option. It must come from here: this perfect upper middle class home with the two-door garage and the smiling, charming, blond, blue-eyed family.
That’s the first difference, the glaring one. Jalil’s parents make just as much money as Christopher’s do; their garage has as many doors and their throw pillows and placemats match too. But there’s a reason why Jalil gets thrown up against brick walls and frisked and grilled and shoved around and Christopher just doesn’t, no matter how much Christopher provokes and how much Jalil shuts the fuck up: pigmentation.
Then there are the little things. Christopher has a younger brother, the spitting image of each other, with their dumb cowlicks and freckled noses and laughing smiles and sad eyes, Jalil gets the feeling they don’t like each other, even if Christopher doesn't want him to get hurt. Jalil has two younger sisters. Spitting images of each other and their mother, they are happy and kind-hearted, and Jalil isn’t quick with I love you’s but not a day goes by that he lets them wonder. They are both older brothers, but they show it in different ways.
There’s a cross on the wall in the Hitchcock’s living room. A bible on the coffee table. The Shermans are devoted to nothing, except each other.
And then, the fighting.
Jalil’s parents bicker, but they don’t fight. Not like this. They don’t fight for the neighbours to hear. They don’t fight with liquor and venom in their voices. They don’t turn their children into nervous little pups hiding in corners from a storm they can’t stop or talk to. But that’s exactly what Christopher’s parents do.
So, this is Christopher Hitchcock. This flinching, embarrassed, scared, stupid kid. He may not be brave, but he’s no coward.
Jalil doesn’t pretend not to notice the yelling coming from the living room, like Christopher’s other friends do on the rare occasion that he lets anyone come over. Ignoring it would be insulting. Christopher deserves to at least have it acknowledged.
Which Jalil does, with one of his sideways looks and the arch of an eyebrow.
“Mom must want to watch Veronica’s Closet,” Christopher jokes, but knows Jalil can see he’s splintering, trying to keep it together.
“It’s cool,” Jalil tells him.
“Yeah,” he scoffs. “Come on. You can’t hear it so much in my room.”
Predictably, Christopher’s room is a pigsty. Clothes and CDs and empty food containers litter every surface. Predictable, yes, but still a problem. Jalil’s OCD. He’s okay in Everworld, but here in the real world, clever little Jalil, godless, logical, by-the-numbers little Jalil, is a slave to compulsion. His brilliant brain is broken.
It’s a lot of things, but the biggest is the hand-washing. Sometimes it’s only seven times. Sometimes it’s seven-times-seven. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know. It makes no sense. He just knows it has to be done. He needs a quiet place where he can scrub his skin bloody. He needs to do it to silence his mind or something bad will happen. He can’t explain it. He just needs to, that’s all.
Except right now he doesn’t?
“You can shove shit on the floor,” Christopher tells him. “Sit wherever.”
Jalil doesn’t want to touch anything. His thoughts are calm for now but that doesn’t mean he’s going to push his luck. He has no choice but to sit on Christopher’s bed beside him.
Christopher looks at him with surprised amusement. “Forward.”
“Yeah, turns out an evening at the police station is a great first date.”
“Score.”
“This is definitely how I hoped my night would go,” Jalil continues, so sarcastic that he’s smiling. “On my drive over to Miyuki’s house to impress her strict Korean father and win both of them over with my intellect and punctuality, I was thinking, jeez, I sure hope I stumble upon a couple of psychopaths about to murder Christopher for not joining their white power party. I’m in the mood for death threats and racial slurs tonight. So really, a perfect evening. Five stars. Would recommend.”
“Glad I could deliver,” Christopher says dryly, but is glad to be joking around. “Are you here or there?”
“Still there. I’m on watch.”
“Is it fucked that I hope I wake up over there soon?” Christopher asks. “I’m not a fan of the real world right now.”
“And you’d rather take your chances with the demon barf monsters.”
“Yeah, those were pretty gross, weren’t they.”
Jalil chuckles, nods. “Very.”
“Still.” Christopher shrugs. “I need a vacation. Bring on Everworld.”
“You’re really not good right now, are you?” Jalil asks.
“I mean, at least over there, I’m not a useless piece of shit. Not completely, anyway.”
“Save the self-pity for April, dude.”
“April doesn’t tolerate my self-pity any more than you do,” Christopher laughs.
“True,” Jalil says. “She barely tolerates any of us.”
Christopher grins wolfishly. “She wants me.”
“Nope.”
“Nope,” he agrees with a laugh. “She’s too good for any of us.”
“Most definitely.” Jalil reconsiders. “Wait, why? Because she goes to church?”
“Hell no. That doesn’t mean anything. I go to church.”
Jalil smirks in disbelief. “You go to church.”
“Just on holidays,” he says. “My mom figures as long as we look like a big happy God-fearing family on Christmas and Easter, it doesn’t matter how we look the rest of the year.”
“Huh.”
“Well, we also go if one of us does something extra disgraceful,” he says. “That’s how my dad knew my mom had figured out he was cheating. She kept dragging us to church.”
“That’s a little dysfunctional.”
“You’re telling me.”
Jalil smirks. “Were you an altar boy?”
“Yep.” He smiles back. “I imagine one of the proudest moments in my parents’ life was the time when I was 13 and got drunk on wine before mass and spewed the blood of Christ all over Father Callahan in the middle of Easter service.”
Jalil laughs. April’s jaw would drop; she would lecture and frown and scold, but to Jalil, church is no more holy than a bookstore. Show up, be quiet, be respectful, and fill your head with a bunch of made-up shit. Same thing. The idea of a gangly, thirteen-year-old Christopher puking on a priest and embarrassing his asshole parents is mildly amusing to him.
“Was that the end of your altar boy days?”
“Oh yeah.”
“At least you went out with a bang.”
“Especially when one of the old ladies in the front row started screaming that I must be possessed.”
“Amazing.” Jalil turns his eyes to him. “So the drinking started early, then.”
“You think I had anyone telling me not to?” Christopher chuckles. “Not in this house.”
“You should watch that.”
Christopher shrugs.
“So does self-destruction make you feel better about being an asshole?”
“Well, it doesn’t make me feel any worse about it,” he laughs. He stops, and then laughs again. Then sighs and smiles and it’s so sad that Jalil begins to wring his hands. “I like how you talk to me.”
“Like you’re an asshole?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Not like you’re scared of me or like you hate me or pity me. Just like I’m an asshole.”
“Well, that’s what you are,” Jalil says, not cracking a smile, just telling it like it is. “It’s just a fact. Why would I treat you like something you’re not?”
Christopher smirks. “You kind of treat everyone like they’re assholes.”
“Do I?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t really mean to,” he says with a shrug. “I guess I have a hard time getting out of my head. I don’t always notice how I might come across.”
“I hear that,” Christopher says. “I mean, you could probably go easier on April sometimes, but so could I. We’re not David.”
“Who is, though.”
“Poor schmuck.” Christopher looks up, quick to be sorry. Yes, he’s changing. “Sorry. I don’t mean to sound like a dick. I feel bad for him. Even if we win, he’ll go down with the ship just because he thinks that’s what heroes are supposed to do. He’d rather die brave in Everworld than live at all in the real world. That’s fucking depressing. I wouldn’t know what to do without him, but at the same time, I feel like shit looking to him to save the day because I know it’s like this compulsion for him. Like he’s sick.”
Jalil looks at him sharply. He wonders why Christopher threw out the word compulsion. Does he know? Did Senna tell him? Not likely. It would be like handing him kindling. Christopher makes bonfires out of weaknesses. There’s no way, if he knew, that he wouldn’t tear Jalil apart. He hopes he doesn’t know.
Why the fuck does he care what Christopher thinks? It’s none of his goddamn business what Jalil does behind closed doors.
Why does he want it to be? Does he think Christopher would save him? A racist alcoholic and a black obsessive-compulsive: there’s a match made in heaven.
“Why are your eyes doing that?”
“Doing what?” Jalil snaps, startled.
“Bulging out of your face.” Christopher studies him, curious and amused. “You look like a kid that just popped a boner in driver’s ed when they start showing all the gruesome car wreck videos.”
“I do not.”
“Did me talking about David give you a boner you don’t want to talk about?”
“No,” he barks. “God. A boner you don’t want to talk about? Who the hell are you?”
“I am hilarious.”
“Oh yeah, you’re a laugh riot,” Jalil snorts. “You almost get me shot in an alley, then I have to spend three hours talking to cops who give me the stink eye the entire time like somehow it’s my fault these guys hate black people, and now you’re making fun of my boner. Hilarious.”
“So you do have a boner...”
“No. I’m going to strangle you.”
“Touchy. Must be the boner.”
“Ughhhhhhh.”
Christopher grins. “My work here is done.”
“Blow yourself.”
“You sure know how to have a fun sleepover.”
“This isn't a sleepover.”
“It’s not?”
“No,” Jalil snaps. “I didn’t agree to sleep here. I already have to spend every night with you over there as it is.”
Christopher’s eyes light up, but before he has a chance to respond, his bedroom door bursts open, and the light goes away and his blush comes back. His little brother stands in the doorway, taking in the scene with the mocking, predatory smile that Jalil has come to know well. But this kid hasn’t almost died as many times as his older brother has; he hasn’t lost so much or tried as hard. His playful malice is unchecked. He’s still the loose cannon that Christopher used to be, and both boys on the bed quickly turn their bodies away from each other.
“Oh hey,” Mark says breezily, leaning against the frame and crossing his arms. “I was just coming to ask whose night it is to do the dishes. I didn’t realize you had company.”
“It’s midnight, you dickweed,” Christopher snaps back. “And it was your night. They’re done. I watched you do them. Dumbass.”
“Oh yeah,” Mark laughs. “My bad. Well, carry on.”
“Will do, once you get the hell out of my room.”
“All right, here I go…” Mark grins, teasing Christopher like he’s a bad dog waiting for the ball to be thrown. “Say, is this--”
“Get out, Mark, goddammit.”
“But wait, is this the black guy you were talking about?”
Jalil’s turns his whole body to Christopher and looks at him through slitted eyes. He raises his eyebrows to ask the question, to pose the challenge.
“No,” Christopher barks, then recoils, turning red all the way up to his hairline. “I mean, yeah, it is, but you didn’t let me finish--”
“What were you trying to say?” Jalil demands in a cold voice.
“He was saying I didn’t have any black friends and I said I did.”
“That’s not all you said,” Mark cuts in. “What was it? I can’t quite remember. Something about--”
Christopher whips a pillow at him, scowling deeper as Mark just cackles, and then pushes himself off the bed, takes two long strides to cross the room, and shoves his little brother out of the room.
“Don’t forget we have church in the morning!” Mark yells gleefully. Christopher slams the door and seethes.
“Tomorrow isn’t a holiday,” Jalil tells him witheringly.
“No, but--”
“But this is disgraceful, I take it.”
“Get off my dick, okay?”
“What did you tell your brother about me?” Jalil demands, watching as Christopher wordlessly saunters back to sit beside him. “So, what, I’m your token black friend? Do I give you street cred?”
“Holy fuck, get over yourself,” Christopher laughs, but he’s hurt and angry and embarrassed. “Jesus Christ. You’re more than that and you know it.”
“To who?”
“How the fuck should I know? I haven’t taken a goddamn poll.”
“What did you tell him?” Jalil snaps.
“You really want to know?”
“Depends. I’ve kind of hit my racism quota for the evening.”
“It’s not like that.”
“All right.”
“It was back when we were going through that little about-to-get-our-fucking-hearts-eaten thing with the Aztecs, so I was a little stressed out, okay?” Christopher grumbles. “When he said I only have white friends, it pissed me off. I don’t know if you think of us as friends, but I do. You’re a cynical, calculating, humourless pain in my ass, but you’re my friend, and you’ve come through for me more than anyone else ever has. More than any of my friends here, more than my brother, definitely more than my parents. All of you have, but I mean -- I guess I’ve just learned the most from you?”
“And Ganymede.”
Christopher’s eyes darken at the memory. “Yeah. There was something about him too.”
“You’ve definitely chilled out a lot since what happened with Ganymede.”
Christopher sighs. “It’s not like I loved him,” he mutters. “Obviously.”
“Okay.”
“But when it was him telling me about immortality, I was like, yeah, dude, I want to live forever. Let’s do this.” He frowns. “And then he was gone and I wanted to die.”
“I noticed.” Jalil doesn’t touch people, but he kind of wants to touch Christopher right now. Just to make him feel better. Even Christopher deserves that. “It was hard to watch.”
“Yeah, well, I assure you it was even less fun to experience.”
“He changed you.”
“Yep.”
“Minus the wanting to die thing, it’s been a good change.”
“Thanks.”
“So you got mad at your brother for thinking you’re racist and you told him you have a black friend. Did you tell him you have a Jewish friend too? Even a female friend?”
Christopher laughs, a sick look on his face. “You really want to hear what I friggen said to him?”
“Jesus, why is this such a big deal?”
“I said I was sleeping with you.”
Jalil bursts out laughing. Then he freezes, his eyes narrowing. “Seriously?”
“I said it just so happens I was going through hell with a black guy. And that I was sleeping with him right now.”
“Why in the fuck?”
“You haven’t noticed that I don’t exactly think before I talk?”
“Well, yeah, but what the actual fuck.”
Christopher shakes his head miserably. “It just slipped. I wasn’t used to the whole fall-asleep-over-there-wake-up-back-here thing yet.”
“So your brother thinks we’re in here boning.”
“Probably telling everyone he knows.”
“Your brother is an asshole.”
“Yeah, I know, I’m sorry,” Christopher says. “I was just going through some topsy-turvy identity bullshit because of Ganymede, but that doesn’t mean it was okay to drag you into it too. Especially in the real world.”
Jalil takes a deep breath. “You said you made that comment to your brother when we were dealing with the Aztecs.”
“So?”
“So you met Ganymede way after the Aztecs.”
“...What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I think you’ve been having these feelings for a long time,” Jalil says, in a voice more gentle than either of them are used to hearing from him. “But when we met Ganymede, you thought it would be okay to feel things out loud for once, because Ganymede was, like, inarguably beautiful.”
“And you’re not?” Christopher demands, and then clamps a hand over his mouth, blushing furiously. “I didn’t say that.”
“You did, and I’m not.” Jalil studies him, unnerved and understanding. “And I don’t really know what to do with that information, but it’s okay.”
“No it’s not.”
“You really still believe that?”
“I don’t fucking know.” He hangs his head. “I guess so.”
“So you haven’t actually changed,” Jalil says. “You’re still the homophobic bigot you were when this all started.”
“I’m only homophobic when it’s me,” Christopher says. His eyes are dry, but he’s hunched over, head in hands, his mouth an open sob. “When I’m the fag.”
Jalil looks down at his hands, dry and raw and never clean enough after years of countless washings, and he wills himself not to shake or flinch or recoil as he reaches out and puts a hand on Christopher’s back. Nothing bad happens, so he rubs gentle circles and speaks softly. “Christopher.”
Christopher shakes his head.
“Christopher,” he tries again. He doesn’t know where this is coming from; this desire to comfort and calm. God knows no one’s ever taught him how. “Look at me and tell me that after everything you’ve seen and done and gone through, being gay is the worst.”
Christopher looks at him, but he doesn’t tell him anything like that.
“You know how horrible things can get,” Jalil says. “You’ve been to hell. You’ve seen the fucking unfathomable. You know absolute inhumanity. And you think this is worse? You’re more afraid of love than you are of evil? Are you that small-minded? That self-absorbed?”
“It’s not worse,” he murmurs.
“Of fucking course not,” he snaps. “And you got through it all, right? After Ganymede died -- a horrific fucking death, in case you’ve forgotten -- you could have stayed curled up in that drunk little ball in the dirt crying about how the world isn’t fair and how much your life sucks and you could’ve used it as an excuse to be the useless piece of shit you think you are, but you didn’t: you got up and you kept moving and you changed. Adversity, man. Fucking welcome to it. I could talk about coal and diamonds and pressure and all that metaphorical poetic bullshit, but that’s not how I work. I state the facts, and the facts are that you’ve been through the goddamn ringer and not only have you never gotten me killed, you’ve saved my ass more times than I can repay, and you’re still an obnoxious prick but you’re our obnoxious prick and if that doesn’t mean anything to you then you can go fuck yourself.”
“UH.”
“What?” Jalil snaps. “You’re allowed to run your mouth but I’m not?”
“Dude, run your mouth all you want,” Christopher blurts, and then looks horrified, and then they both laugh. “Pardon me while I kill myself.”
Jalil doesn’t smile, because there’s nothing sadder than a comedian who makes jokes about killing himself. Christopher is achingly transparent, and Jalil isn’t sure how much more he wants to see. He understands now all too well. The alcoholic parents with their neglect and religious pretense and tragic lack of supervision and zero fucks given all add up to the predictable hopeless disaster of Christopher Hitchcock, and Jalil likes when things add up, but not when it’s people. Especially not when it’s someone he cares about. He thought he hated people. They aren’t germs you can wash away; you can’t line them up and count them and put them away neatly; they aren’t even chess pieces that can only make certain moves, only when you tell them to. People are not logical. They’re disorder and disarray. They’re chaos.
And speaking of chaos, there goes his heart.
“This got a little weird,” Christopher mutters when Jalil doesn’t say anything. “I can drive you home.”
“My car’s parked three blocks away,” Jalil replies.
“Oh. Well, maybe I’ll walk you there. Just in case. Like if Keith’s still around.” Christopher shrugs, and his laugh is weak and self-deprecating. “Unless you’d rather watch some Nick at Nite. Saturday night - what time is it, 12:30? Brady Bunch is on.”
Jalil looks at him sideways and gives an imperceptible shake of his head. Christopher nods. They both stand up and make their way across the room, dodging the debris on the floor. “Ouch,” Christopher mutters, stepping on a red Lego block.
“Did you just step on Lego?” Jalil demands.
“Haven’t cleaned my room in awhile.”
“Awhile as in ten years?”
“Give or take.”
That should send Jalil into a private tail-spin, should make him want to lock himself in the nearest bathroom for forty-nine minutes, but it doesn’t. A sense of calm wonder washes over him. What would it be like to call this home? To surround yourself in your own mess and be okay with it? To stumble over something from your childhood and laugh about it?
Jalil’s leading the way but Christopher reaches out from behind him to pull the bedroom door open. Jalil steps into the hall, and the first thing that hits him is that the yells in the kitchen have turned into heated whispers, like people trying to decide what to do with a dead body. He knows Mark told their parents, and he can tell by the sharp intake of breath behind him that Christopher knows it, too.
He turns around to find Christopher’s head hung and his hands in his pockets, a boy dragging himself down to the gallows for a crime he had been born to commit. It doesn’t make sense.
So Jalil takes a step in the direction he’d just come from, walking towards Christopher so he doesn’t have any choice but to back himself up against the wall, blinking in surprise but not saying a word. He knocks Christopher’s startled hands away with the back of his wrists and bites his lips and takes a breath and closes his eyes and stretches his neck and kisses him.
And Jalil’s never kissed anyone before and Christopher can tell so he grips his waist with strong hands and pulls him back into his bedroom and teaches him everything he knows. He doesn’t know shit about numbers or equations or poetry, but he knows how to take someone’s breath away. He knows how to be as rough as Jalil wants and as sweet as he needs and everything in between and he knows how to win and surrender and he sobs a smile against full lips as he discovers what a fast learner Jalil is.
Jalil fights back, because that’s what he does when it comes to Christopher, even if he’s the one that started it. He doesn’t let Christopher get away with anything, ever, and he’s not about to let himself pinned against a door and kissed within an inch of his life without doing a little damage of his own. In Christopher’s arms, he feels brave enough to use his hands, and he digs his fingernails into the nape of his neck as Christopher bites down on his bottom lips and rests his knuckles gently on his hips. And when Christopher sighs softly and then growls fuck, Jalil pushes him away, backing him across the room until they topple onto the unmade bed.
And then Christopher wakes up gasping so hard he chokes. He shoots up into a sitting position, coughing. Back in Everworld. April is sound asleep nearby, using her backpack as a pillow, while David sleeps sitting up against a tree, never really letting himself rest. Senna sleeps pointedly alone with her back to them, shivering in the cold night because she’s too proud to share the warmth of their fire. None of them have any idea.
“Jesus, what were you doing in the real world?” Jalil asks, eyes scrutinizing him. “Did you go home after the police station and have an orgy?”
Christopher blinks at him, breathing hard and gulping and looking at Jalil’s lips. Jalil has been awake in Everworld since before they decided to go to the police, so he hasn’t had his real world update in hours. He has no idea that when he falls asleep, he’s going to wake up over there in Christopher’s bed. Kissing him. In boner city.
“No…” Christopher says slowly. Should he warn him?
“I don’t even want to know,” Jalil mutters. “Get up. It’s your watch.”
Christopher grins. “Sweet dreams.”
+
Time doesn’t match up between here and Everworld, so by the time Jalil falls asleep and crosses back over, he’s standing in a bathroom that isn’t his, washing his hands for the seventh time. The update hits him like a punch in the stomach: this is Christopher’s bathroom. These are Christopher’s fingerprints and kiss marks all over his neck and arms and face and stomach. It’s seven in the morning. He stayed the night. For hours, he resisted the compulsion to be clean while he laid curled up in Christopher’s arms. Holy fuck.
There’s a soft knock on the door just as he’s wondering if he could get away with showering for forty-nine minutes without Christopher noticing. He turns the water off with the backs of his hand and flicks droplets into the sink. He doesn’t want to touch the doorknob, so he uses a towel and pulls the door open. “What?”
Christopher stands on the other side, head bowed, sheepish eyes fixed on the floor. He looks younger than he should, with his hair a squirrel’s nest sticking up in every direction and contradicting his proper white button-down shirt, off-centre black tie, and creased dress pants.
“You have to go,” he says quietly.
“Yeah,” Jalil agrees. Concern furrows his brow. “You all right?”
Christopher nods. “I just have to go to church.”
“Not a holiday.”
“Just a disgrace.”
Jalil shakes his head. “Out the window.”
“What?”
“Let’s go.”
“I can’t, I have--”
“Church is bullshit. Your family is bullshit. This is all bullshit.” Jalil points out Christopher’s bedroom window. “We’ve walked through hell. You’re not going to church.”
Christopher finally smiles. “Are we going adventuring?” he asks, shocked and mocking and up for anything. “In my Sunday best?”
Jalil rolls his eyes and cracks a smile. They climb out the window, snapping at each other all the way to the ground in between their laughter. None of this makes any goddamn sense.
And then Christopher kisses him and he realizes he’s lost count and he doesn’t care, so he puts his hands on his face, and kisses him back.
Stay?
Okay.