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He remembers the day they moved in across from his parents house and how he had felt so giddy with excitement he had hardly been able to quell at the prospect of having another boy in the neighborhood. Needless to say, the disappointment when it turned out that said boy was eight years younger than him had been even worse.
Still, his mother had lovingly shoved him through the door back then and he had overlooked the fact that Lee had been five at the time and people looked funny at them when they saw them strolling down the streets side by side.
His mother also was the One to give him a stern talking to that one time he punched Gregory Epson right in the jaw when the idiot made some comment about it.
A lot has changed since then and he doesn´t really know why he thinks about that very first meeting or why he is frozen in shock, feeling like someone has doused a bucket of ice over him while looking at Lee on the other side of the fence separating their houses.
He counts the years that have passed in his head they spent living next door to another, coming up with twenty four long ones and nearly chokes on the sheer amount of time that is in the end. Sometimes he wonders why he never bothered to move out anyway like his siblings but in his heart he knows it all too well. Still he cannot admit it to himself, not right now. Maybe not ever and that , well – that hurts.
“Hey Rich.”
Lee greets warmly, a box in his hands, held tightly to his chest. It´s nothing special, he tells himself, people move every day and if Lee thinks it is time to move on, back to America to chase his dream of acting who is he to tell him to drop it? God knows he had been one of Lees greatest supporters when his parents had not.
No good deed, he thinks to himself, scoffing finding the lawn very interesting for a minute or two there. It cannot end like that. So he straightens his shoulders, feels the crick in his neck and plasters on a smile.
“Hey, having trouble hiding your porn?”
Lee nearly drops the box of things that will go into storage until he is settled in New York with a muffled curse . Not everything has changed then, Richard notes with a mix of satisfaction and something else he cannot really put his finger on. Maybe he is angry but why would he be angry at Lee? Maybe he is worried. Worried that the other man chases a dream only to end up on the street or working at a Diner, not making it. That´s just that. Lee isn´t chasing a dream with no money in the bank, with no future or no plan. No, Richard knows Lee better than that. Knows that Lee has managed to do fine for himself, got a full ride to Julliard. He should be happy for his friend.
“Rich! I was trying to take this serious you know.”
For a moment Richard wants to imagine that Lee is Sixteen again and drunk off his ass, declaring the world is rooting against him and that everything sucks anyway. Sometimes he feels that way himself even now at Twenty-Nine. He is not really that unhappy being a lawyer. His income is good , more than so. The flat he lives in nowadays that once was the top floor of his parents house is always clean and would have room enough for someone else there if he would wish for that to happen. There would be enough people in line, he is not blind, gets the looks thrown his way and the more blunt ways of flirtation that once included a key shoved down his pants.
He shudders at the memory of that, instead trying to follow the rather dangerous road his thoughts take him whenever he thinks of someone else in that space, living alongside him , for he knows where those will lead him.
Really, he tries to chase the images away as soon as they come to him but he cannot as hard as he tries.
It is his damn imagination counteracting with his rational brain which leaves him standing frozen on his the aforementioned lawn or so he likes to think. Being a lawyer however makes him recover quickly.
“That would be a first for you Pace, but keep telling yourself that.”
He jokes although it doesn´t reach his eyes. Lee notices. Like he has always noticed the changes in his moods throughout their time together as – well, as whatever they were , whatever they are. Friends, brothers -something in between neither of them dared to put a name to.
“I will miss you and your snark, Rich.”
It sounds so sad that Richard feels it settle in his chest like lead. He knows that tone as well from countless times.
“I´ll call.”
He says with a smile that wobbles on his face, tries to slip into a frown or worse into something that will make him break down and cry. Not for the first time he wonders if they are past the point of no return. He has a well paid job now and he tells that to himself over and over again. He isn´t the rebel anymore that jumps naked in a lake, just to prove a point – getting chastised for being a bad example by his father although after Lee had done the same. Lee on the other hand had claimed that he would have done it anyway and who could know that he, despite being a good swimmer would land on his arm and break it. That´s life. Or was life as they knew it.
“Won´t be the same, though.”
For this time of the year the air is humid, not long now and it will rain. He knows that from living in these parts of the world for all his life and he knows that Lee can sense it as well when he finally stows the box away in some old contraption he has the nerve of calling a car.
The sky overhead them is still sunny but it will not stay like that much longer. Now, Richard is no fortune teller but he does know that from the screws drilled into his knee after an nasty Bike accident.
That has been nearly nine years ago and still he remembers it as clear as if no time at all would have passed. Come to think of it it had been the worst and best time in his life so far.
The good part had been limited to the fact that he got granted every wish no matter how ridiculous it was and he may have used the opportunity to have his brother fluffing his pillow just to get back at him for all the pranks he had been dealt in his entire life back then.
The bad part he remembers just as clearly. Maybe even more so .
The faces of the people he loved and the look on them once they came to visit him – that was the worst. His mother, his father – his siblings. Hell, he would drop a coin into a Wishing Well for the rest of his life if he never will have to see the naked panic and the heartbreaking sadness on those faces again, if he could undo it although he knows he cannot.
Lee had been twelve then, but that also had been the summer he hadn´t been a child anymore and he did have enough brains to know that life wasn´t always kind. Far from it.
Richard thinks of that now because Lee looks at him like he had done in that summer. The same dark and pained expression with haunted eyes and a smile that just wouldn´t fit.
Sure, they both have grown since then and Richard never would have thought that Lee would have a few inches on him growth wise one day. Again , that was life and he wonders why in gods name his mouth seems to stop working together with his brain whenever Lee is concerned.
The voice in his head sounds very much like his brother.
That´s because you´re scared shitless of admitting you´re in love with him after all these years. You think he will laugh at you, say something nasty although you know he won´t. In that crippled little thing you call a heart, you know. He´s not one of those others. You´re afraid of being in love, knowing that you are.
“What?”
He says, the hurricane in his mind settling to a dull and distant thunder. Lee just chuckles.
“I said I wanted to talk to you.”
Lee is nervous, he can tell from the twitch in his hand, the ticking in his jaw.
“We are talking.”
Richard says and all of a sudden Lee laughs. A sharp , ugly sound that is a far cry from the happy laughter he has had so many occasions to hear. Suddenly he wants to go back in time and relive those moments over and over again but he knows those times are past.
“Richard.”
Lee says like he always said when he finally lost that angelic patience of his.
“Yeah, hold your bloody horses.”
It comes out harsher than he wants so he quickly closes his mouth before more can come out the wrong way.
“I am not good at this.”
Richard hears himself say and for a moment there he really doesn´t have the slightest clue what he means with that anymore. Naturally that also has to be the moment it starts to pour down on them. It isn´t romantic like in the movies. It´s sort of disgusting because they are soaked to their skin in mere minutes, their shoes are muddy. Nothing about that is romantic in the slightest.
“Come on.”
Lee all but shouts over the sounds of nature, tugging on Richards arm until they reach the old barn behind both houses. The clap of thunder overhead them makes Lee jump and Richard chuckle.
“Still not funny.”
The younger man grumbles and Richard takes a step closer.
“I know. So, look, before you start to talk..I like..to talk.”
Lee just raises his eyebrows at that.
“Wow – and here I thought lawyers are supposed to use their words.”
Richard swats him upside the head for that but Lee laughs none the less.
“Shut it, Pace. It´s just..I´ve been thinking and I have to get it out now before I think better of it.”
Lee says nothing, just watches him with curious eyes. Apparently he wants to make Richard work for that and Richard isn´t about to blame him. For all he knows, Lee might think he has finally gone off the deep end.
“I.. well, I wish you all the best over there. Although I will miss being woken by your off key singing. ”
Richard says and groans inwardly when Lee´s face closes off for a moment but then he starts to talk.
“Yeah, well about that. You wouldn´t have to worry about that if you came to New York with me, would you? You don´t have to, it´s your choice and I am not asking you anything or even saying anything you don´t already know. We aren´t children anymore Rich.”
Richard just nods. He knows.
“Why would you want that? I am always moody, I hate your choices in music and absolutely hate the way you drink your coffee.”
Lee just smiles at him, noticing the way he counts down on his fingers all the reasons why he shouldn´t follow his heart. It´s a defense mechanism.
“Yeah, but you love me more. Just like I love you.”
Richard blinked. Under different circumstances it might have come over as funny, that
shell shocked expression on his face. Here they were, standing in the barn like guilty children, hiding from the world. Well, Richard is done with that, thank you very much. He says nothing because there aren´t enough words in the entire world that would allow him to describe what he feels when he finally draws Lee in for a kiss.
A slow, thorough thing that leaves no doubt that they are not brothers, not friends.They are it, no matter if it took so long to figure it out, no matter that Lee will leave soon. He will follow him, just like Lee has always followed him. They had it a long time coming.
“I do.”
Is all he manages to say, the sound of rain drowning out everything else, but it doesn´t really matter because Lee smiles against his lips.
“Took you long enough.”
He has absolutely no come back to that but he is alright with it either way. For now.