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In Nick's opinion starting a new school in a new city always pretty much sucked ass, but at least his Mom had always timed their moves for the vacations so he'd never actually had to start in the middle of a semester. The middle of a semester just under six months from graduation. Ouch. Nick almost felt sorry for the guy. Only almost, because Justin Randall Timberlake had stood up there at the front of the class during homeroom, reeling off his previous accomplishments like he was God Almighty: football team, basketball team, class president sophomore year, yada yada - and the little gaggle of cheerleaders over by the windows had looked up long enough from filing their nails to switch their expressions from vacuous and scathing to vacuous and admiring. Nick counted himself lucky to fly mostly below their radar. Even if he liked girls which he didn't - he couldn't imagine that the one in a million chance of getting off with one of them could possibly outweigh the weight of her scorn every time he did something even moderately dumb. He did dumb stuff a lot. Dumb stuff like meet the new guy's eye as he strode down the aisle between the desks, which led to the new guy gracing him with a dazzling smile, and squeezing behind Nick's shoulders to slump into the empty chair next to his. The new guy was really cute. And the new guy wore cologne. Something that was sweet and musky and didn't smell like cheap deodorant from Walmart. The new guy also smirked and waved over at the cheerleaders while Mrs Schmidt was looking down at her attendance record, and Nick could just feel their eyes scraping over his skin. Really. He did dumb stuff a lot. ***** Their coach never stopped telling Nick that he was a big guy, that there was no earthly reason why he should suck as much as he did at football. He didn't want to be, like, on-the-team good, but Nick did rather wish he could at least quit with the getting hurt. At least the other week he'd been playing when Carl had kicked him in the knee, this time they'd only been doing warm up sprints and he'd managed to trip over his own feet and land on his now-throbbing wrist. The nurse had strapped him up, and Nick tripped over himself often enough that he carried a small bottle of Tylenol in his backpack, so he'd taken two of those and then snuck off campus to grab a burger and find someplace to hide out until it was time for his next class. Sitting in the lunchroom was just asking for trouble. The little mall was in full Christmas drag, but empty enough for Nick to grab a quietish corner in the food court, tune out the Christmas music with his ipod, and settle down to eating one handed while staring at his calculus homework. Obviously, then, he had a mouthful of cheeseburger, when someone standing beside him said something he couldn't make out. Nick pulled the earphones free and looked around, while he tried to swallow hastily, wiping his mouth with his bandaged wrist and leaving a smear of mustard. Justin. Of course. "I said, mind if I sit here." Justin smiled and edged his tray onto Nick's table. "Um sure. Go ahead," Nick mumbled, scrabbling his books aside, mind racing. "Thanks. I didn’t expect to see you here. How's the wrist?" Justin was unwrapping a Big Mac and took his first bite as punctuation. "Kinda sore." Nick shrugged, hoping to pass it off without drawing any more attention to his clumsiness than was strictly essential. "What are you doing off-campus?" "Man, I'm out of there as often as I can be. Anyone ever tell you that your lunchroom is a scary scary place? Dude, some of those girls are not subtle. I mean, I just got here, and woah! Plus the food's kinda crappy. At least sweet Micky D's the same wherever you fetch up." "Well, I guess it's too late in the year for them to wait for you to make team captain." Nick didn't manage to keep the sarcasm out of his voice at all. "But I hear you on the food front." Justin gave him a 'huh' look as he chewed, and Nick plowed on. "I've moved around a fair bit too my mom keeps getting transferred with her job. Like, five times in the last six years? It's like one of those internet quiz things - you know you've got it bad when you envy the military brats the stability they have." Justin nodded. "Tell me about it. Well. Only the last couple of years, but yeah." He put the remains of his burger down and looked up at Nick. His eyes were brilliant blue, sincere and captivating. "My dad left. When I turned fifteen. Couldn't handle having a gay kid on top of the fights him and Mom had, I guess." Nick swallowed and ducked his head and ummed, lost for a reply. He was sure his cheeks must be flaming red. "I, um, that's." Way to go with the communication skills, dumbass. "Hey." Justin waved his hand airly. "Just forgot I ever said that, if it's easier, okay? I was just - you know - making conversation. It's time for me to get back to school anyway." As far as Nick could tell Justin sounded ok, but the way he slammed the rest of his lunch into the trashcan and the set of his shoulders as he made for the exit just made Nick feel like Kentucky fried shit. It wasn't like he was adverse to cute guys inviting themselves over and coming out to him, it's just he hadn't been expecting it, in any way, shape or form. Although the second thought, that obviously Justin could somehow tell that Nick was gay too, wasn't entirely a happy one. Getting through High School alive, and moving out of home before anyone found out and threw him out was the best game plan he had going for him. ***** Justin was surprisingly hard to find. Seeing as Nick shared homeroom and two different classes that afternoon with Justin, it was pretty damn apparent he was being avoided. Nick even hung around at the end of the day to see if he could catch Justin on his way out to the parking lot after the last class of the day. Either he'd already left or Justin just really didn't want to be seen. The next morning Nick came in early, he felt that guilty. He slumped low in the seat of his beat-up Ford, sipping on a can of cola and watching the school gradually get busier in his rear view mirror. He almost missed Justin, sliding out of a silver Audi outside the gates, waving the car off which is when Nick spotted him, all golden hair and carefully casual hoodie and then heading for the main doors. Nick had had Justin pegged as the kind of kid who got a brand new car for getting his license. Then again, he'd also had the guy pegged as prime cheerleader dating material, so go him and his powers of perception. Nick also had to scramble to get himself and his book bag out of the Ford and across the lawn in front of the school in order to grab Justin before he vanished inside. He was out of breath and flustered before he even began speaking. "Justin! Hey, um can I talk to you?" "It's a free country." Shit. Shit, Justin was pissed at him. Nick dropped his hand from where he'd tapped Justin on the shoulder, stuffing his hands into his pockets to keep from fiddling, and plugged on with it. "I wanted to, you know, apologize? Yesterday? I was you just kinda took me by surprise, is all, I'm not all.... I mean. God. I'm screwing this up." Nick took a deep breath and made himself look up. Justin hadn't moved any, but he was waiting, not laughing. "I'm sorry. Lord knows you must think I'm a total asshole, but I'm not. Dumb as shit sometimes, but I'm not some phobic redneck, really, in fact kinda the opposite, which, by the way, no one knows, and yeah. I'm sorry." Justin's little half smile was just about the best thing Nick had seen in a while. Justin's broad hand resting heavy on his shoulder for a second was even better. "I appreciate that, man. I guess I should give folks a little processing time when I come out with that, huh?" "Maybe?" Nick agreed, cautiously. The school steps were starting to get real busy, and Nick's foot was jiggling on the concrete. "You wanna go sit in my car for ten, before homeroom? Kinda hard to talk here." "S'okay, Carter. We're square. See you in class." Justin waved and hitched his backpack a little higher, slipping back into the increasing crowd and vanishing into school. Nick shut his eyes, cursing himself for screwing up again, before dragging his fingers through his hair, shaking the bangs back in front of his eyes, and heading for homeroom, just like it was any other morning. ***** Fridays were math, which Nick sucked at, a lot: American history, which wasn't a whole lot less painful: and then art, which was his favourite subject. The teacher, Miss Cara, even went so far as to say he had talent and to pick out a bunch of his sketch pages to put up for parent's evening, which had made Nick blush something chronic. People sometimes ragged on him for being Miss Cara's favourite, but mostly art was dorky enough to be ignored, and not dorky enough to really catch crap, like the drama department, or chess club or something really sad. Nick already had his sketchbook open, carefully inking a cartoon of a skateboarder, mid-jump. He was pretty absorbed in it, so Justin pulling up a chair along side made him startle. "Hey Nick. I didn't know you skated?" "I, um, I don't. Dude. I sprained my wrist running the width of the field - I'm not quite dumb enough to jump on a death trap with wheels." "Defensive, much?" Nick colored. The guy was just trying to make nice, after all. "Sorry," he sighed. Justin nudged his arm. "S'okay, man. I'm just teasing. The drawing's pretty neat though." "You think?" "Yeah! Like, the motion and everything? It's neat. Way better than anything I can draw. I'm telling you I'm going to flunk my senior year 'cos of this class. I'm getting better grades in biology, and y'all are following this whole different syllabus than I did at my last school. I'm like stick figure guy." Miss Cara called the class to order before Nick had a chance to reply, summarising the chapter on Futurism they'd had to read as homework, and then setting them their project for the day. Nick was drumming his pen on his pad, already eager to start, but he could feel Justin deflating next to him. Miss Cara finished setting up the projector, and the whiteboard was taken over by a looped bit of footage of a Labrador bounding across the screen. "Okay, students, remember what you've read, and follow in Balla's footsteps. Once I've seen your responses to this, you can work on whatever subject you like." 'what's up?' Nick wrote quickly on the edge of his sketch pad, nudging it a fraction closer to Justin to get his attention. 'so going to flunk.' Justin wrote back, blue ink and neat print under Nick's black scrawl. 'no way. this is easy.' Justin just shook his head to that one. Nick turned the page and drew a rapid sketch on the blank page. It was scrappy, but clearly identifiable as a bouncy dog. He slid the book over to Justin, who rolled his eyes, and offered his own sketchbook over as explanation. Nick's turn to shake his head slightly. In Nick's opinion Justin would be doing better if he'd just relax about it. The sketch wasn't bad, but it was painfully careful, and correspondingly static. Checking over his shoulder to be sure Miss Cara was busy someplace else, Nick leaned closer to whisper to Justin. "Dude just relax, yeah? You're worrying about drawing 'A Dog' instead of what you see." "I'm trying," Justin hissed back, clearly frustrated. "Okay, okay." Nick considered for a moment. "I know watch the screen and just draw the movement, not the dog, yeah?" Justin's look was eloquent. Nick rolled his eyes, and demonstrated with a long sprawling line across the page, following the jumps the filmed puppy made and ending with the stick-man impression of an outstretched front leg and a bean shaped head. Justin chewed on the top of his pen, considering, and then pulled his own sketchbook closer to his chest. When Miss Cara came around she gave Justin a smile and a 'that's good!', which made Justin grin, first at her, then at Nick. Nick looked up from his sketch of Justin sketching, and beamed back. ***** "So, that offer still open?" Justin materialised alongside Nick at the end of the school day, falling into pace with him like that was in some way normal. Nick almost tripped over his own sneakers trying to make himself act natural. "To talk, I mean," Justin elaborated. "Um, yeah. Sure." Nick pointed across to his car, dark red with rust accents. "You got anywhere you gotta be, or you want to just drive around or..." "Just drive, I guess. Or sit here - whatever's easy, man." "You been out to beach much since you got here?" Nick offered. "Not really Mom's been pretty busy setting up the house and all, and I don't have a car down here. I've mostly been trying to get caught up with school work and figuring out how to get around the neighbourhood, to tell you the truth." "Yeah? We should fix that. Hop in." Nick unlocked the passenger door, and then slid across the hood over to his own side, chucking his backpack onto the back seat before tugging at the seatbelt. When he flipped the ignition the radio staticked its way back to the local radio station, some cheesy Christmas song. "Cool!" Justin smiled across at him. "Where are we off to, then?" "Nowhere special. Just this stretch of beach I go to sometimes, away from the main strip. It's real pretty, though, and. I guess I go up there to think, you know? Good place to talk away from everyone?" Lord, but he was chattering away, nineteen to the dozen. Nick shut up and concentrated on backing out of the crowded school parking lot without dinging his bumper again. "Sounds good, man. Sounds good." ***** He'd thought about Justin that way, sure. The night after his first day at school, beating off, kinda trying the new guy on for size, and then last night, after he'd just up and told Nick he was gay, Nick had tossed and turned, imagining Justin's long lean body wrapped around any number of guys, Justin's full lips kissing football players and film stars and the guys from the bands Nick had up on posters around his room. He'd kind of shrunk away from thinking about Justin kissing him, and now that it was happening, Nick was pretty certain nothing he'd ever have imagined would have come close. They'd sat on the cooling hood of his car for ages, watching the sea come in and the light drain out of the sky, huddled inside their jackets, sharing garage coffee and crappy donuts. They'd talked some, well, a lot, and Nick had been feeling pretty good about his first real coming out adventure when Justin had squeezed his fingers and said something like 'I get why you wanna make sure no one finds out, so you want maybe to hop back in the car, before I do something dumb, like kiss you out here in front of god and nobody?', and then Nick's brain had kind of frozen, and Justin had tugged him by the arm, bundling into the broad backseat of Nick's car, tangled up and breathless, and then Justin had kissed him. Kissed, and squeezed, and maybe licked, a little, too, and Justin's breath was bitter sweet from the coffee and his mouth was hotter than anything, and it ought to have been awkward, but it wasn't, just close and Justin's hand wandered down to Nick's ass, and squeezed, catching Nick's squeak with more kissing, and if Nick had been able to move his hands without collapsing on top of Justin and crushing him, he would have, but the full body rolls Justin was doing against him more than made up for it. This wasn't just kissing, this was full on making out, and Nick's head was spinning, and he was going to explode with a mixture of joy and sensation if they kept on doing this. It seemed like maybe that was something it would be important to say out loud, but then again, Justin's hungry lips, and the sweet breathless moans he was making, made a pretty strong argument for just carrying right along. Afterwards, panting and messy, neither of them could keep the smiles off their faces. Justin's fingers traced Nick's lips, rough and warm, and Nick playfully snapped at them. Justin giggled, and Nick did it again. He'd thought a lot about what his first time getting off with a guy would be like, but he'd never figured on there being laughter. At least, not in a way that was good, close and happy and not sharp or hurtful. They were both laughing before they got untangled enough to survey the damage. "Ohh. Gross," Nick concluded, as his shorts squished. "Eugh. Yes." Justin moved and evidently had much the same problem. "Here's hoping Mom's out when I get home." Nick blushed. He hadn't even thought of that. There was, like, no chance at all of him making it to his room without some member of his family spotting him, and he couldn't remember if he had his gym sweats in the trunk or not. "Still really really worth it," he mumbled, carefully shifting so he had a hand free to pull the damp denim away from his crotch. Justin's smile flashed in the dim light and Nick was tugged down for another kiss. ***** Nick edged out of Mr Burnstein's classroom, checking the hall both ways before heading for his last class of the day. He screwed up, though, because when he rounded the corner he almost tripped over Justin and a posse of guys Nick recognised as football players. Being in school with Justin was sweet torture. Every minute he got to spend with Justin was a good thing, sure, but Nick felt like every time he even looked at Justin there was this big flashing sign over his head, and it made him tense. He'd dropped his lunch tray the other day, thinking what would have happened if he just went over to Justin's table and kissed him. Justin had kinda more than made up for the embarrassment later, though, on the beachfront, after school. Right then Justin was leaning against Mickey Smith's locker, smiling and nodding and probably talking football. Nick tried to make himself look casual, walking over to the water fountain where he'd be able to hear. It was probably a good thing none of them turned round. "....about power, man. I tell you. Power and planning. That's what Coach swears by, and we're doing pretty good on it." Mickey, laying down the law. "Yeah, you are doing good, but that's not the pure thing. I mean, when you're actually playing it's really about anticipation, yeah? You have to look at someone, and know exactly what they're gonna do, how they're gonna move, what play they're gonna make, what they're gonna try and do to you. Anticipation, that's what wins." Justin looked right at him on the word anticipation. Nick tried to breathe in cold water, sputtering, and when heads turned to check it wasn't anyone worth taking notice of, Justin flashed him a quick grin. Nick ducked his head to hide his reaction. So maybe he could deal with the sweetness of the torture for just one more semester. ***** Nick drove past Justin's house for the fourth time since school had let out for Christmas two days ago, only this time Ms Harless's car was gone. Nick parked, and jogged up the driveway, trying to ignore the butterflies in his stomach. Possibly this was a really really dumb thing to do, but he hadn't talked himself out of it yet, and the little paper bag was taped up and safely in his jacket pocket. Nick'd seen them while he was shopping for his family and thought straight away that Justin would probably flip over the token. Nick rapped on the front door, not quite sure if he was hoping Justin would be in or out. In, and greeting Nick with a wide open smile was pretty damn good though. "Hey!" "Hey, yourself you home alone?" "For right now, yeah. My mom's only gone to the Circle-K though." "Wanna go for a drive? Maybe tour the lights?" Nick offered his carefully thought out back up plan. "Cool!" Justin's hand twitched like he was about to hug Nick and only just remembered. "Let me leave her a note, and then yeah." Nick drove, and Justin's hand crept across to rest on his knee, and they sang along to cheesy Christmas songs, and laughed at the expressions of stuck-up people in SUVs when they pulled up at lights, still bellowing their way through the Twelve Days of Christmas, and laughed some more because, oh my god, some people have more money than sense when it comes to eight foot inflatable snowmen and the like. Nick paused outside one real gem of a light up Santa-themed nightmare, just looking at Justin, head tipped back, giggling like a maniac, flashing lights tinting his hair and the soft skin of his throat red, blue, gold, green, red, and thinking that Justin was just beautiful. He pulled over at the next Starbucks. "I? Am getting us stupid coffee- eggnog or gingerbread?" The seatbelt swooshed through his fingers, and he checked for the millionth time that the small packet was still safe in his pocket. "Gingerbread." "Cool, stay here." Nick ducked out of the car, and then leaned down before he closed it. "And Justin? Merry Christmas." He tossed the gold wrapped packet to Justin, and made a run for the coffee shop before Justin could reply. Coming back he had to juggle two hot paper cups and the door handle, but Justin didn’t say anything till he was in and the door was shut. He'd swapped out the earrings though - the silver with little chips of fake-diamond looked pretty cool - and there was no way that smile was a thank you just for stupid coffee. Nick could feel himself smiling already. Justin made a 'go on then' gesture, and Nick wedged his coffee in the cup holder, and switched on the ignition. Justin shifted in his seat, until he was sitting facing Nick, one long leg drawn up under him, and under cover of the DJ's chatter, he leaned in to say 'I fucking love you, man.', and Nick just smiled. ***** End *****