Archive of Our Own

Finally, Holden was ready to go. He stuck his cap on his head, pulled on his jacket, then headed out into the cold. 

"Hey, Holden!" James was right outside the building -- still wearing Holden's turtleneck sweater he had borrowed -- and Holden panicked. "Sorry I startled you. I wasn't expecting you to be here."

"Well, here I am!" Holden said faux-cheerfully, and instantly regretted it. James raised an eyebrow at him. Holden looked like he was about to faint. He forgot for a second that he wasn't supposed to say this to a guy, but he said, "You look pretty today." And he meant it. 

"Thanks," James said, not taking any offense to the comment. He actually seemed to like the compliment, smiling a broken smile. His teeth still hadn't been fixed since he jumped out the window and nearly died, so most people didn't compliment him much anymore. "You look very handsome yourself."

Holden had no idea why he was suddenly thinking of telling him he loved him but he was. He didn't, but he definitely thought about it. Something about everything just... he didn't know. He was crazy. 

During the movie, Holden whispered to James, "This movie's terrible." He couldn't keep his mouth shut. Great, he was going to start a fight. 

"I know," James replied, to Holden's surprise, "The actors always seem to know they're famous. There's something unnatural about how they act. Some are pretty good at masking it, but you can always tell."

Holden sat back in his chair, staring at the boy next to him. "You mean... you don't find my comments weird or anything?"

"No," James said quietly, watching him in the dark, "You're talking about the stuff I think about during movies. Doesn't ever happen that people know what I'm talking about. It's nice to not feel alone all the time."

Since they were already talking, Holden leaned over again and asked, "James? When I asked you to go to this with me, did you think I was taking you on a date?"

"Wait, this isn't a date?" James said, looking a little dejected. "I thought it was."

"Oh, no! I did mean it like that, if you wanted me to mean it like that -- I mean, I wanted to take you on one, but I didn't know what you would want to do because I don't know you that well--" Holden stammered, but someone hushed him from behind. 

"Shush yourself," James said to the people behind them, then whispered, "I mean, it wouldn't make sense if you hadn't asked me as a date and you're holding my hand."

Holden jerked his hand away. He didn't even know he had done it. How long had he been doing that? "Sorry..."

"It's fine, no one can see in here," James assured him, grabbing his hand back. He smirked when Holden went into a panic again. "I'm not hurting you, am I?"

"No..." Holden said. He hadn't ever held hands with a guy before. He had held hands with all kinds of girls but never a guy. At least James's hand wasn't sweaty or anything. It was sort of nice, especially since Holden didn't have gloves and James's hand was warm. Apparently he had brought his gloves. 

Once the lights turned on, though, they were as separated as strangers. Somehow they both knew that was how it had to be, least now. Maybe one day things would change, but not today. And not likely for the next fifty or so years...

Holden's hands were freezing when they got outside; James noticed this and tried to give him his gloves, but Holden refused. He didn't want to look wimpy, but James was insistent. "Put the gloves on, Holden. You won't have fingers if you don't."

"You sound like my mother," Holden grumbled as he reluctantly pulled the gloves on his hands. The gloves were still warm. 

"Does it look like I care that I sound like your mother?" James replied, "And you're smirking, so you're clearly enjoying it." 

Holden walked with him to the restaurant, and James put his arm over his shoulders, as if it would keep him warm -- it didn't help, but Holden appreciated it anyway. They sat down, and it was awkward for a few minutes, sitting there, drinking their drinks and staring at each other while the band was playing some poorly done rendition of a popular song. Holden found himself staring at James's face, still bruised and sort of broken-looking. The doctors had been able to put his jaw and all his other bones back together. Miraculously, James hadn't seemed to have changed in the head even though he got a major concussion; he was just confused and disoriented for about a month after the incident -- he had dropped out of school because he fell behind and the teachers didn't bother trying to catch him up. He had several scars remaining from when he'd hit the pavement, but Holden liked how he looked. 

James looked over at the band, sipping his beverage, then looked at Holden with a mischievous grin. "What are you thinking about?" Holden asked cautiously, half-wondering if he even wanted to know. 

"You want to dance?" 

Holden looked around. "I don't see any girls we could dance with." There were a few girls across the room, but they had dates, and they were making it pretty obvious. 

"No, silly, I meant the two of us. Dancing together." James raised his eyebrows, as if hoping Holden would get what he meant. "You know what dancing is, right?"

"Of course I do," Holden said, sounding offended, "But... together? Here?" Holden was getting very confused. "But..." 

James looked a little embarrassed. "I mean, I just... I, um... I really..." Holden and James stared at each other. They were both messes for another. 

Holden looked at the dance floor, then grinned. There wasn't anyone up there, so if they went up, they had pretty much have a spotlight on them. He looked at James. "You want to?" James's eyes lit up, and he nodded shyly. "Then come on!"

They had no problem getting to the dance floor. They did, however, have no idea how to lead and follow at the same time. They didn't even have couples to copy. Holden was nervous and was afraid to touch James, but James eventually just grabbed Holden's hand and put it on his waist, so impatiently he almost missed. At least they both knew how to dance, though it was in a very tight little area, since suddenly everyone else had the same idea as them and got up to dance too. The others definitely did seem to notice that there were two guys struggling to dance, however, and continuously gave them odd looks. They were probably wondering if the guys were drunk, goofing around, or if they were serious. Or perhaps they were wondering what the heck had happened to James's face, which he would've gladly explained. They were having fun, though, trying to twirl around in such a tight space, so tight there was zero space between them. No one would've guessed that a half an hour before they were trying to look like they didn't know each other in the theater

After the song ended, they sat down, thoroughly tired out and claustrophobic, laughing. "Did you see their faces?" James snorted, "They couldn't figure out what in the world we were doing."

"Honestly, I don't know what we were doing," Holden laughed, ordering them both another drink. 

"Well, you should've had some idea, you were leading, Holden," James sighed, then looked at the group of girls sitting across the room. "It almost seemed like... never mind," he said when he saw he had gotten Holden's attention. 

"I want to know what you were going to say," Holden said, leaning forward. He hadn't enjoyed himself this much on a date before in his life. 

"It almost seemed like we were some ice cubes in water and everyone went cold around us," James said softly, "They didn't seem to like sharing a dance floor with two... I just wish people weren't like that, that's all."

"I mean, it could've been worse," Holden offered, "We could've gotten beaten to a pulp."

"Yeah..." James said, "but I still wish people didn't care that much. I wish there was somewhere in the world that they didn't care." 

Holden suddenly got an idea, and it was stupid. "There could be."

"What are you talking about?"

Holden looked around, then leaned forward and whispered, "We could run away."

"Where?" James's eyes had lit up so fast.

"Wherever you want. Texas, Alabama, California, Vermont, Massachusetts -- heck, we could even live on the road for a while," Holden explained excitedly, "We can do whatever we want. I've got a lot of money in the bank, and when that runs out, I can get a job--"

"We both get jobs," James said, "I want to help. But shouldn't we tell our parents or something, just so they know?"

Holden shook his head. "You know what they'd tell us, that it's stupid and we need to wait and finish school. And they'll tell us where to go and what to do, it'll be like we never left their houses."

James nodded in understanding. He looked completely invested in this idea, then his face fell. "You know we'll still be fighting people who think we should be settling down and getting married if we're going to live with someone, unless it's some kind of bachelors' flat. I just wanted to make sure you knew that."

Holden found this kind of reality check much more pleasant than when he had done this kind of thing to Sally that one time. She was flat-out telling him no; James was just trying to sort out the details. "Well, if they do that, I'll tell them I'm planning on getting married whenever the government gets around to letting guys marry each other."

James's face was a little flushed, and he was completely flustered and excited. Neither of them could tell if they were drunk or just happy. "Really?" 

"There are laws against it, but there's no law against hoping there won't be laws against it," Holden replied, grabbing James's hand from across the table. "Do you want to?"

His face lit up as James nodded, saying, "I'm going to want to get some stuff from home -- I've got some money, and a few other things -- then we can take my car and hope it doesn't bust on me; it's so old--"

"You've got a car?"

"Yeah, my parents got a new car, and they told me if I could fix the old one I could keep it," James explained, "I hate the stupid thing, but it runs -- sort of. It's loud and the front left tire was flat last I checked."

"That'll work," Holden assured him. He looked up at James's eyes, which almost looked like they were watering. "Oh no, what did I say?"

"If the government decided at this very moment that guys can marry each other," James replied quietly--they had suddenly gotten very loud in their excitement and a few tables were looking at them, "I'd be first in line."