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Pete’s grounded for two weeks. A full two weeks, not a business two weeks. He used that loophole precisely once, when he was twelve, and then it closed forever. It had been worth it though. He’d used his stolen time to go to a basement party. He’d talked to the drummer, Silver MacGuff for almost two hours after they’d finished playing. Original Outing is pretty big now, they’ve even had a few music videos on MTV. They have fans tweet them all the time, most of which go ignored out of necessity, but Silver remembers him. Silver always answers him. So far it’s the closest Pete’s gotten to big name fame, and he likes it.
Normally it would be more than two weeks, but he’d managed to convince them he was too drunk to realise he was having sex right in front of them. It had been hard to emasculate his protest like that, but better that than being grounded for a month. Pete’s pretty sure he’d go insane if he was stuck inside his bedroom all evening for thirty days.
He’s grounded, which according to Wentz law means come directly home from school, go directly to your bedroom, and don’t come out until it’s time to leave for school. It’s better than some -Jon’s version of grounded means all technology is dismantled and placed in a pile in the living room- and worse than others -Carden’s parents both work double shifts to pay for their ridiculous medical bills, so even if they punish him they’re never home to follow through- but it’s calculated pretty specifically to torture him. Pete’s not good at alone, he’s not good at confined, and he’s not good at waiting to eat until they put a plate of lukewarm leftovers outside his door. And though he’d never admit it, and he’s pretty sure only Mikey, Gabe, and Sisky would guess, he’s not good at knowing his parents don’t like him. That the whole family seems to run better when he’s stuck in his room really sucks.
Grounded doesn’t mean he’s alone. He was for Saturday and Sunday. Weekends are always the worst during a grounding. Weekends mean being inside his drywalled, postered cell for sixty four hours before he can run for the sidewalk Monday morning. It would drive him mad even if he lived in a mansion and had a room as big as his back yard. By the middle of the evening Monday though, Mrs Siska -Sisky’s Mother, not Mom- was on the phone to his parents, talking about how important it was to her son to have a rulegiver to follow. Somehow she pulled off the impossible; she made an argument his parents actually listened to. They’d told him a million times that it wasn’t about rewarding him for bad behaviour, it was about not punishing innocent strangers. Pete had nodded his head, aiming for contrite, though it was unlikely he made it there. In the end they’d agreed to as much as Sisky spending the evening in his bedroom with him.
It’s strange, Pete thinks as he sits on his bed reading, watching Sisky match his socks and ball them into pairs. Technically speaking Sisky’s taking up space in his small bedroom. It’s a basic volume based physics problem; Sisky’s displacing the air with his body, or something like that. Still, with him there the room feels bigger, almost like the walls aren’t closing in on him.
Sometimes Pete thinks he doesn’t want enough things from Sisky. Most of the things Sisky does are standing orders, like waking him up and carrying his stuff at school. It’s harder than one would think to find tasks for Sisky to complete. Most of the time he does things without realising he could have demanded Sisky do them for him. That makes him a pretty shit dom, Pete’s self aware enough to know that. But he can’t just release him now.
When he met Sisky the kid was subbing to a drug dealer. It didn’t take a genius to see how that would end; Sisky getting arrested for smuggling heroin from fucking Columbia or something. So Pete had punched the guy until he’d stayed down, and then he’d told Sisky to never listen to anyone again, except for him. He’d bought him a chainmaille collar he’d known would snag, and he’d said Every movement you make, this will remind you to think of what you’re doing, and how you can best serve me with that movement. In hindsight it had been fairly false advertising. Pete’s not nearly that eloquent or that good at dominating.
Pete wants to give Sisky what he needs; a set of standard procedures to follow. He’s just not wired that way. He’s more spontaneous, in slant and in his non-sexual life. He’s the kind of guy that agrees to go to a concert three towns away because the bassist was the lead guitarist in a band he heard opening a few years ago. And he likes having a double handful of doms to go to depending on how he wants to hurt. He’s not Mikey, he doesn’t need someone different every time, but variety is nice. Or maybe he just hasn’t found the right dom yet. Maybe he’ll get his happily ever after, bruised and limping like he too accidentally left a hobble on the prince’s staircase at midnight.
He gets up and goes to his adjoining bathroom. He doesn’t need to close the door, but he does. Sisky’s seen him naked before, but that’s either when he’s gone to bed without bothering to put boxers on, or everyone is intoxicated, or they’re at a club. Taking a piss is different. Pete flushes the toilet, washes his hands, and heads for his computer instead of going back to his book. It only takes a second for him to log on. As always, the first thing he does is turn his iTunes on shuffle, and the second is opening his bookmarks folder.
It’s not until he’s got a post new entry page up that he realises this is something Sisky can do for him. He scrambles out of the computer chair back onto his bed. He waves in general to the desk, Sisky catches the movement and turns to face him without being called. “I’m gonna talk, you type.”
“Yeah,” he answers, all but sprinting to the computer chair.
“You’ll have to back-date it, I’ve got a post set in twenty fifteen. October twenty fourth. Four, shit, what time is it?”
“Five oh seven, actually.”
“Five oh seven, then.” He can hear the mouseclicks of Sisky using the drop down bar at the top.
“I had this dream,” Pete says and pauses. He hears ten keystrokes and wonders if Sisky used a comma or a period. Probably whatever’s better grammar. If he does it consistently his flist will notice and wonder what’s going on. All his comments will be about his sentence structure and use of capitals instead of musing on his prose. He almost wants to stop Sisky just thinking of it. But Sisky needs a task as much as Pete needs comments. He’s the dom, it’s his job to make his sub feel needed.
“Writing by hand was illegal, pens and papers were banned. You could still use Works or G-docs or whatever, but no paper. But everyone knew that the great composers used paper, so I set off to find some.”
Pete keeps talking and Sisky keeps typing. What they have might not be perfect for either of them, but Pete’s happy, and he’s sure Sisky is too.