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1.
Gregg was panting, wiping off the back of his mouth and he groaned. He was in this super cramped bathroom of some random kid’s party, Casey standing behind him as he threw up.
“You really can’t hold yer liquor, can ya?” Casey asked him, a teasing note in the thick Southern drawl of his voice.
Gregg turned and glared at him over his shoulder. “You don’t have to be in here, you know,” he shot back. “People are gonna think you’re giving me a blowjob or something.”
He laughed, clearly not much bothered by the implication. “Not while you’re gonna puke on my head,” he decided. “C’mon, Greggie. Don’t be all pissy just ‘cause yer a lightweight.”
Gregg rolled his eyes, interrupted by throwing up again. “Okay,” he announced. “I’m going home now. Also, I’m never drinking again.”
“Like Hell you’re not,” Casey said, clearly not believing him. “And you’re not goin’ home neither.”
“Casey,” Gregg complained. “Look, man, I don’t feel good, I wanna go home. You’ll be fine, you’re better at these things than I am anyway.”
“I mean you’re not goin’ back to your house.” Casey wrinkled up his nose—he wasn’t a fan of Gregg’s parents, never had been. “I’ll take ya back to mine.”
“Casey.” Gregg was trying not to be embarrassed. “You don’t have to do that, man, alright? Just go have fun, play Spin the Bottle, kiss twelve more girls.”
“I ain’t kissed twelve,” Casey corrected him. “And yeah, I don’t have to do anything. C’mon, lesgo home.”
Gregg sighed. Arguing with Casey had always been a completely futile endeavor. “Fine,” he acquiesced, letting Casey open the bathroom door and lead him out of there. The brisk night air felt good on his skin, cooling off some of the sweat, but his head was still woozy. “Ugh. I didn’t even drink that much!”
“You really didn’t,” Casey agreed, but he didn’t sound as amused as before. Somewhere below his seven layers of disaffectedness, his concern for Gregg was rising to the surface. He managed to make Gregg wrap an arm around his shoulders so he could carry him a bit better, slinging his own around his back. Casey lived by the train tracks; it wasn’t a super long walk.
The two walked in silence for a while, though Gregg broke it eventually. “Thanks,” he said quietly. “For taking care of me.”
“Don’t mention it. People’ll think I’ve gone soft,” Casey joked, easily enough. Not like he wasn’t always soft when it came to Gregg.
Gregg snorted, coming up on Casey’s house. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, walking in. Angela, Casey’s Mom, was sitting on the couch watching TV, clearly trying to pretend she wasn’t waiting for her son to return. “Hi, honey,” she said, turning to him. “How was your party? I didn’t know Gregg was sleeping over tonight!”
“Hi, Ma,” Casey greeted her. “He wasn’t gonna, but yeah. Lemme just put him in my bed, then I’ll come talk to ya.” Gregg didn’t say anything. Casey’s parents were extraordinarily permissive, but he was still nervous about getting in trouble for drinking. He didn’t think they’d call his parents, but…then again, they’d have to, right? He was like fifteen years old.
“Okay, sweetie,” Angela said, going back to the TV. He led Gregg upstairs, dragging the trash can by his desk next to the bed for him. They had a guest room, but Gregg always ended up sleeping in his bed when they had a sleepover, so this was no different. Besides, he could watch over him better here.
He came downstairs to get him a glass of water, and Angela looked over at him. “Is he alright?” she asked. “Should we take him to the doctor?”
“Nah, I don’t think he’s that bad,” Casey told her. “Just overdid it a lil’. He already puked his guts out, so I think he’s good. I’ll watch him, make sure he’s alright.”
“Good,” she approved. “Make sure he sleeps on his side, Casey. Wake me up if we need to go to the hospital. I won’t be mad.”
“Will do, Ma.” He nodded, finishing filling his water. “Night.”
“Night, sweetie. You drink some too,” Angela told him, going back to her TV show.
He went back upstairs, finding Gregg asleep already—or at least he assumed he was based on the way his breathing had evened out. He left the water on the bedside table and pushed Gregg more onto his side like Angela said, trying to find space for himself in the area Gregg had left for him.
“Night, Greggie,” he muttered, watching him for a while before he eventually passed out.
2.
The unmistakable sound of a police siren rung out in the neighborhood; it was so quiet, so it was even louder. “Shit,” Casey swore. “The fucker called the cops?!”
It was senior year of high school and he, Mae, and Gregg had just egged Mr. Penderson’s house—the neighbor to the right of Mae. They were halfway to Casey’s house, having escaped, but it looked like they were gonna be caught.
Mae looked afraid, Gregg more resigned. “What do we do?” she whispered, clutching at Casey’s arm, her claws coming out as she did. Gregg had already been picked up by the cops twice; once when he and Casey were doing some mild vandalism, and Casey told him to run and he ran the other direction. He got away; Gregg didn’t. The second time Casey didn’t even remember what for, but Gregg, having been arrested once, tried to get out of there and free himself, so what Casey mostly remembered was how he looked when the cops got done working him over. Mae had never been arrested, so she was a lot more afraid.
Casey thought about it. He could tell Mae to run one direction and Gregg to run another; split off again. For all he knew the cops didn’t even know he was involved, and he could get away with it, save himself the humiliation of being arrested and the damage to his reputation.
But he knew how he felt about Gregg getting caught instead of him. He couldn’t live with himself if he let that happen again, especially if there was a possibility that the cops would rough him up. He wouldn’t leave Mae, either, though the guilt of abandoning her once was nonexistent in her case. “Nothin’, Pipsqueak,” Casey said, equally resigned. “Just stay calm ’n I’ll try an’ talk our way outta this.”
Casey, as you might imagine, was not successful in talking their way out of this. He was successful in getting handcuffed with actual, steel handcuffs and put in the back of the police car, looking over at Gregg the whole time to make sure he was okay. Gregg wasn’t resisting at all this time; apparently he too had the memory of having a black eye and a bloody face and didn’t want that to happen again. Sitting at the station by himself while Molly gave him a piece of steak to put over his eye, telling him she was sorry and she’d talked to the other cops about the appropriate amount of force to use on a teenager. It was all cold comfort, but Molly meant well.
They shoved Gregg next to him, Mae on the other side. Gregg, though unharmed, was shaking; the trauma from last time clearly hadn’t worn off. “Hey,” Casey whispered, trying to be comforting. He could only use his words now, not his hands. “Greggie. It’s gonna be okay.” He looked over at Mae too. “It’s gonna be fine.”
Mae nodded at him, face pale. Casey being the most popular of the three made him the de facto leader, so she tried to trust his reassurances. She was pretty sure her parents were gonna kill her.
The three of them ended up in a holding cell being processed; Mae was in a separate one, naturally, because she was a girl, all Casey’s arguments about separating them aside. “It’s okay, Gregg,” Casey promised him. “I’ll get my folks to take you back home this time.” Gregg just nodded, not ruining it by mentioning to Casey that he didn’t believe him.
Casey called his parents when they gave him a phone call, and Mae called hers, shaking though she was for the whole conversation. When Molly offered Gregg a phone call, he just declined it, the same way he had the second time he was arrested, holding a steak over his black eye. She sighed, but she couldn’t really force him to call someone, so she just left.
The Hartleys arrived first, Angela exclaiming in concern when she saw her son. “Oh, Casey!” she said, pulling him into a big hug and kissing his face all over. “Ma! Ma, I’m fine,” he insisted, squirming out of her grip. His parents were signing some of the discharge paperwork to get him out of there. “You guys are gonna take Greggie too, right?” he asked, impatiently bouncing on the balls of his feet.
John looked up. “Oh, Molly, we’d be happy to take Gregg home too,” he agreed, looking at her. “I can sign and take responsibility for him.”
“It’s Officer Molly here, Mr. Hartley,” Molly said, voice grave. “And I’m sorry, but I can’t. Gregg is still a minor—there are regulations. I can’t send him home with someone who isn’t his legal guardian.”
“What??” Casey blurted out. Gregg didn’t look surprised about this—he wasn’t expecting to get out of here. “But his parents never come pick him up! That’s not fair! Last two times he had to stay in here all night because those two pieces of shit wouldn’t come get him, even when he was hurt, all thanks to your fucking—”
Molly cut him off. “Casey. That is enough,” she said sternly. “You’re in plenty of trouble already, young man, you don’t need to be in any more. I offered Gregg a phone call last time, you may recall. He didn’t take it.” Which was true—he hadn’t bothered. He knew his parents weren’t gonna come get him from how that first phone call went and he’d be stuck in that holding cell until they released him in the morning. Part of why he’d resisted so hard the second time.
John put a hand on Casey’s shoulder. “I understand there are regulations,” he said, addressing Molly again. “But surely you can make an exception in this case. I’m hardly a stranger, M—Officer, and I’ll even drive Gregg back to his home if you prefer. I'm sure the state wouldn’t rather him stay here all night over some petty teenage misdemeanor, it’s not safe for him.”
Molly shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hartley, but again, rules are rules. It doesn’t matter if I know you, or don’t know you, all that matters is that you aren’t his legal guardian. I can only release him to his legal guardian, and that is for his safety. You must understand why I can’t send a minor home with just anyone.” She stacked her papers on her desk. “Take Casey and go.”
Casey nearly had to be dragged out by both parents at that point, John sighing in resignation. “No! No!” he insisted. “Come on!! You can’t just leave him in here all night, you fucking pigs—”
Gregg watched Casey go, happy for him at least but knowing it was gonna be a long night. He tried to get comfortable leaning against the wall, hoping Mae was doing alright wherever she was. It was a small police station, but he still couldn’t see her. Molly, especially, was looking very aggravated that Casey’s words had somehow got to her—and she looked at Gregg, leaning against the wall. He was looking indifferent, or trying to, but he was a kid, and he was obviously scared and sad. And she did, privately, think his parents were making a big mistake by just leaving him here—it wasn’t “teaching him a lesson,” it was cruelty and neglect. Well, if Gregg wouldn’t call his own parents, she’d get on the phone and call them herself, try to persuade them to come and pick him up.
Meanwhile, the Borowskis showed up to get Mae, who met her parents a lot more sheepishly than Casey did. “Kitten, are you alright?” asked Stan, obviously concerned. He sighed with relief when she appeared to be unharmed. “We’ll talk about this when we get home,” he said, voice more stern, and Mae hung her head. Candy looked up from where she was signing the paperwork. “We can take Gregg, too,” she told her sister. “I know we’re not technically supposed to with the regulations but, I really don’t feel good about leaving him here—”
Molly cut her right off. She’d just had a very frustrating conversation with the elder Lees, and right now regulations could go to Hell. “Go ahead and take him,” she snapped. “At this point, I’ll send him home with anybody who promises to give him some actual discipline so he’ll stop ending up here.” Gregg’s ears perked up. He was going to get out of here…? On the exact same night that Molly told Mr. Hartley she couldn’t send him back??
Stan laughed at this. “Don’t worry, M—Officer Molly,” he corrected himself. That’s an officer, not his sister-in-law right now. “We’ll talk to both of them about it.”
Molly nodded, and handed him the discharge paperwork for Gregg too. “Come on, pup,” Stan said, still talking to Gregg in his stern tone of voice. “Let’s go home.”
“Okay?” Gregg said, unexpectedly nervous. His parents had never cared about disciplining him—they never cared about him one way or another, whether he did anything good or bad, and when he did something that made them “look bad,” they simply pretended he didn’t exist, hence not picking him up from the police station. Still, there was a kind of warmth in his nerves—like someone cared enough to stop him from doing something wrong. No one ever had before. “Um,” Gregg said. “Mr. Borowski—sir. Can you call Mr. and Mrs. Hartley when we get back? They, um. I just wanna tell Case I’m okay.”
“We’ll tell him,” Stan promised. “Come along, now.”
3.
Gregg was standing against the wall of the school smoking when he felt someone shove him in the shoulder. “Faggot,” one of the other students said, walking past him.
“What?” Gregg snapped back, not about to let that go without a fight. He put out his cigarette so he could have his hands free.
“You heard me, cocksucker,” the other one snorted. “I can’t believe we gotta share the locker room with the likes of you. Like, I can’t go in the girls’ locker room but we gotta creep like you looking at our dicks every day?”
“What dick?” Gregg snorted. “Ain’t got nothin’ for me to look at.” He started taking his leather jacket off and tossed it on the ground. “You know I can kick your ass, right?”
“Just cause you beat up a couple pussies here ’n there doesn’t mean your luck’s gonna hold out that long, Lee,” Steve said. He looked like he’d happily take Gregg’s challenge for a fight.
The thing was, Gregg didn’t really lose fights, but he didn’t expect Steve to be as good as he was. While Gregg had gotten a couple hits in, Steve was quickly gaining the upper hand, and one particular blow to the face knocked Gregg right on the ground. He was there, dazed, and trying to recover, when suddenly someone was standing in front of him.
“What’s going on here?” Casey snarled.
Steve took a step or two back. “Nothing,” he said quickly. “Gregg and I were just messin’ around—”
“Yeah, looks like it,” Casey snapped. “Well guess what then, pal? You and me are about to ‘mess around’ too.”
Gregg stood up, wiping his face off. “Casey, I can handle it—” he tried, but Casey was clearly too pissed to listen to him right now.
“Come on,” Steve said, looking much less sure of himself than he had goading Gregg. You didn’t wanna fuck with Casey on the social hierarchy, but also, he had never lost a fight. Never. “Two on one isn’t exactly a fair fight…”
Casey snorted. “Yeah, one on one ain’t gonna be a fair fight for you either, buddy,” he reassured him, voice low and dangerous. He didn’t even give Steve the chance to run away. He might have, but hurting Gregg was Casey’s own personal red line.
Once he was the one who was beat up and bloody, Casey let him go and Gregg went back to sit on the ground. The crowd of people around them dispersed; Casey fights were legendary, and then they were over. He was waiting for Casey to yell at him about how reckless and stupid he was and how he shouldn’t try to do all these fights himself.
Instead, Casey sat besides him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go find yer boyfriend, alright? Angus’ll getcha patched right up.”
Gregg looked over at Casey. Not a scratch on him. He really had to get better at fighting.
4.
A knock sounded on Casey’s door, and he was there to open it. Gregg was there, sheepishly smiling, and Casey had been expecting him.
“Hey, man,” Casey said, pulling him inside and closing the door behind him. Gregg had his backpack with him; he’d just brought some clothes and whatever cigarettes he had—plus an old picture of him, Casey and Mae that he pulled off his desk. “Why don’tcha put your stuff down, alright? Dinner’s gonna be done soon.”
“Thanks for letting me stay,” he said. “I just didn’t wanna stay at Mae’s all week, bother her parents—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Casey said seriously. “You’re always welcome here, you know.” He brought Gregg back to his bedroom so he could put his bag down.
Gregg tried to smile at him teasingly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You say that now,” he said. “What if they never let me come back? Then you’re stuck with me in your bedroom forever.” Gregg seemed to realize, as he said that, that there was a possibility that his parents never would let him come back.
Casey’s expression darkened. “When I get my hands on that fucker, I’m gonna—”
Gregg dropped his stuff and went up to Casey, grabbing his arm. “Casey, don’t,” he pleaded. “I need you to leave my Dad—Jason—alone.”
“Why the fuck would I do that??” Casey demanded. “I haven’t done anything about him for years and look what happened to you! No. Someone’s gotta do something about that guy. Sheila, too. Fuck the both of them.”
“Casey, you can’t,” Gregg said desperately. “Please, he threatened to send me back to my uncle, you can’t—”
His eyes widened. Casey knew the full story of what happened when Gregg’s parents sent him to his uncle’s for the summer—and unlike what he said to Mae, he hadn’t just left it at “My uncle hit me a bunch,” but rather given him actual details.
Casey cursed under his breath. “Piece of shit,” he muttered. “Fine. I won’t do shit, alright? I won’t. But just tell me if ya change yer mind.”
He exhaled. “Thank you,” he said. “Should thank your parents, too, for letting me stay.”
“My folks wouldn’t even notice if you moved in here,” Casey said, saying something without saying it.
Gregg nodded. He got it, and he’d felt a lot of emotions this past week, so he just hugged Casey. “Thank you,” he said. “Just…thanks.” God, what would he do without this guy?
5.
First day of seventh grade, and Casey had heard all about the new kid. The school never got a new kid, he had been stuck with the exact same bunch from kindergarten on, so as much as he felt bad for someone else getting stuck in this podunk town, he was eager to see who it was.
He got his answer pretty quickly. Fox guy, yellowish-orange fur, kind of blond but not quite. Casey knew for a fact he’d never seen that guy before. He would’ve remembered him.
The second thing Casey knew was that he just…had to be around this guy. He wasn’t really sure what the feeling was or how to name it. Maybe he just…wanted to be friends with him really, really bad? Either way, he found himself gravitating toward him, and basically made up his mind that the two of them were gonna be friends whether New Kid liked it or not. Something deep inside his chest tingled.
“Hey, New Kid,” Casey said, brazenly leaning against the locker next to his. “Where’d you come from, huh?”
Gregg looked up from what he was doing over to Casey, who now noticed he had navy-blue eyes. Casey filed this information away for later. Gregg, meanwhile, looked him up and down. He’d already heard of Casey Hartley—hard not to, he was the most popular kid in the school, even back then. And now here he was, douching up the whole area next to him. This guy reeked of slimy straight-guy homophobia, and his voice made him sound like the complete douche he probably was. Gregg rolled his eyes, shutting the locker. “Fuck off.”
“Aw, come on,” Casey said, brushing that off. “Don’t be like that. You’re gonna be my new best friend and I’m gonna make you my sidekick and we’ll be ruling this town together an—”
Gregg was already walking away. “Please stop talking to me.”
“Hey, wait up!” Casey called, running after him. “Hey—cheer up, New Kid! The whole rest of your life is gonna start today! Can’t get rid’a me!”
+1
“Oh, my god,” Mae said, as the realization hit her. “Casey…”
Gregg felt like his heart was gonna stop, standing behind her in the underground mine. For some reason, this was the first statement that made him feel real, true fear. But no, they couldn’t have taken Casey. It wasn’t possible. Casey…Casey was indestructible. Right? He’d never lost a fight, there was no way these people could have…no…he just hopped that train like he always talked about doing…
“You mean the Hartley kid?” one of them said, and Gregg felt like he might actually pass out. “Only thing he woulda contributed to the this town—‘cept a rap sheet a mile long—was a buncha kids with no Dad.”
He felt himself raising his crossbow. “Which one of you did it?!” he hissed, waiting for one of them to cop to it. His ears flattened, and behind him, he vaguely heard—not the voice of his boyfriend, like he expected, but Bea. “Gregg…” she said very softly, because Bea…understood. She had never liked Gregg before and pretty openly looked down on him in the past, the two of them only reaching tolerance for one another recently, but at this moment, she understood him completely. The pain, the rage. Two or three years had passed already since her mother’s death and Bea still felt she could kill someone over her any day. If she could point a crossbow at cancer, she would. But Bea didn’t want to see him die.
“He was my friend!” he insisted. At this point, none of those cowards were owning up to it, but he could at least shoot the one who’d said that about Casey, who talked about his life so disdainfully. But before he could, two of them at least had their guns pointed at him.
“You guys brought guns down here?” That was Angus’s voice, for sure. Gregg would’ve laughed, in a lot less serious situation, that even in a situation like this, his boyfriend was essentially making fun of them for doing something that was so unsafe. Unhinged.
“Heh,” Gregg said. His fingers weren’t even shaking on the crossbow. It was steady as ever. “What if I got you first, huh?” He was smiling as he said this. Grinning, even. “Bolt stickin’ right outta your eye. Bang. Baaaaang.”
“Put it down, son,” one of them said. “Don’t make this our time.”
“Gregg,” Bea said, quietly, a second time.
Angus said nothing, still. As worried as he was, he must have known that this was important to Gregg. That he needed this.
He could avenge Casey. He could do it right now. He could kill at least one of them who was responsible for killing a kid who wasn’t even twenty yet. They’d probably get him after—but at least he would have done it, right? Casey would do it for him. He couldn’t let him down now.
But right in front of him was Mae. Mae, who was shot at, ended up in coma, and then walked to his apartment, post-coma, before escaping and he had to save her from one of the cultists that she’d gone to confront in the woods herself, because she was so stupid and so self-sacrificing and she was the only best friend he had left. The other one had been tossed into a mine shaft.
She was his last best friend. The only one he had. And one of these sick fucks could just kill her instantly. And what about Angus? His boyfriend who was, right now, letting him put his life on the line and not saying anything because he knew how much Casey meant to Gregg. How could you get more selfless than that? What if they killed them too? Shit, Bea had even been trying with him lately, joining the band to cheer him up after…Casey left. And even if she was still treating him like shit, he wouldn’t want her to die.
“Aw, shit,” Gregg said, but he dropped his crossbow. Angus didn’t say anything, but he heard him breathe out in relief.
Casey wouldn’t have done that. If Gregg was the one who the cult killed, he would have managed to kill whoever was responsible and still keep Mae and the others safe. The irony was, Gregg’s parents wouldn’t have even given a shit about whether or not Casey avenged him, but he would’ve done it anyway. Casey’s parents actually cared. They put up missing person posters.
But Gregg wasn’t Casey.
He never would be.