TW for single use of the f-slur; TW/CW for marijuana use.
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Sören arrived at Anthony's house just in time for it to start raining. Anthony hadn't checked the weather forecast that week - he rarely checked it, because over thirty years of living in New England had taught him the weather report was often wrong - and he frowned as he held the door open and Sören dashed inside.
"There's gonna be some thunderstorms," Sören said. "You sure you want to do this?"
Anthony nodded. "Neither hell nor high water is going to keep me from watching Jeremy Hannigan, Mike Tamburelli and Nathan Malinowski shitting bricks." He was amazed he still remembered those names after twenty-five years, but then they still sometimes haunted his nightmares; time had lessened the severity of the wounds but they hadn't completely healed.
Sören bit his lip and Anthony tried not to find it adorable. "You know, I don't even know your surname."
"Ah, OK." Anthony took out his wallet and handed Sören a business card for the clinic - a beige texture over a faint photo of the clinic building, with a small sketched portrait of Solly and Dr. Wexler's Shih Tzu named Gordon in the top center above the contact info. "Hewlett-Johnson."
"Two surnames?" Sören tucked the business card into his wallet.
Anthony nodded. "It's a double-barrel surname." He cringed as he remembered being mocked in school with "Faggot-Johnson", even though he knew Sören wasn't mocking him. "I considered taking my stepfather's surname - Levin - but I had concerns people might be angry about it because he was Jewish and they might see me as some sort of impostor. My mum converted, but he didn't ask me to convert. I did seriously consider it but I knew I would be lax with observance at best and thought that would be disrespectful if I converted just to slack off most of the time... but it's complicated - like I still celebrate Hanukkah as well as Christmas and that gets weird to explain to people." Then Anthony caught himself, feeling sheepish. "Infodumping, sorry."
"It's OK. I like hearing about your background, it's interesting. ...You on the spectrum?"
"Probably." Anthony gave a nervous laugh. "That or ADD. Or both. It's why I do meditation and yoga."
"Maybe I should do it with you sometime." Then Sören looked off to the side, as Anthony's mind immediately went into the gutter, thinking about Sören riding his cock in the meditation room.
"Definitely," Anthony muttered, face on fire. He thought about taking the opportunity that had presented itself and telling Sören he was very, very interested.
Then Anthony looked out at the rain - he usually liked rainy days, especially in summer, but this was the absolute worst, most annoying timing. He checked the time on his phone and scowled, and his inner crisis manager kicked into gear, pushing ahead of his libido, thinking of the road conditions as they drove from Maine into New Hampshire to Massachusetts. "So my original gameplan was to drive down, check into whatever hotel we're staying in to get changed into our suits, and then go to the event - it's being held at that same high school in the gymnasium. But even with us leaving early, I expect Massachusetts drivers to be their usual selves so as much as I absolutely hate asking you to do this because I know you've got fabric texture issues..." Anthony put his hands together in a pleading gesture. "I think it would be better if we got in our suits now, so we don't have to take the extra time and potentially be late. We might be late as it is."
Sören sighed, but then he nodded. "OK."
"All right. I'm sorry." Anthony hugged him, and the feel of Sören's body against his made him go half-hard. He had a feeling he was going to be in agony even more than Sören was for the trip down.
It didn't help once Sören was in his tuxedo, with his curls hanging loose to his shoulders. Anthony felt that awkward giddy-flustered feeling like he was a hormonal teenager again. He tried to focus on the highway and for the most part he succeeded - defensive driving skills put to work in the pouring rain and reduced visibility with fog - but every now and again he stole glances at Sören, and when they hit the New Hampshire state line, Anthony noticed Sören digging in his messenger bag. Sören took out a pouch with strawberries and kiwi fruits on it.
"Oh, is that candy?" Anthony asked. He had a bit of a sweet tooth.
Sören chuckled. "It's gummies." Sören looked over at him, smirking. "Edibles. I was going to wait until we got to the reunion, but if I have to wear this thing all day then I need something to take the edge off." Sören opened the pouch and took out a square gummy that smelled sweet but a little skunky. "I would offer you one but you're driving." Sören pulled the gummy into two halves, put half in his mouth, and the other half in the pouch. "Shit, I should have asked you first if this would be, like, triggering, like if you're in recovery or -"
"You're fine. I haven't toked up since my college days - it wasn't legalized here in Maine till comparatively recently and I keep forgetting it's legal now. Maybe after the reunion is over and we're at the hotel and I don't need to be on the road, I might let loose a little." Anthony thought to himself that the weed might be a boon with giving him the confidence to tell Sören he was crushing hard.
Sören put the gummies back in his messenger bag, gave the thumbs up, and then he looked out the window at the rain and said, "This takes about an hour to start giving a buzz and it'll peak in about four hours or so."
They would be at the reunion in four hours. And despite wanting to appear suave to his bullies, Anthony found himself looking forward to possible antics.
"Hell or high water, jæja?"
Anthony grimaced at the tree blocking the road. He pulled over and fiddled with Google GPS to give an alternate route to the high school - just as thunder boomed.
It wasn't merely raining, it was now thundering with lightning, close enough intervals to make Anthony concerned. Then hail began to fall.
At first Anthony was determined to power through the storm, telling himself it would pass soon enough and they would get to the high school and everything would be fine, but when it became apparent that GPS was sending them on back roads and there was hail the size of golf balls to contend with, Anthony turned to Sören and said, "I hate to say this when we came all this way and you had to wear that for hours, but -"
"You don't want to play Fuck Around, Find Out."
Anthony shook his head.
He reset the GPS to take them to the nearest place for lodging, which was closer than the high school. Unfortunately, eggs of hail continued to drop down and Anthony wondered if they would get to the motel without his windshield or windows getting broken.
The nearest place was a ranch-layout single-floor motel. A vacancy sign was lit, and as soon as they parked Anthony and Sören made a mad dash for the lobby, splashing all the way. A nugget of hail hit Anthony on the shoulder just before they ducked inside, and Anthony let out a string of expletives which made the middle-aged woman behind the desk give them a dirty look.
"Hi," Anthony said, trying to regain his composure as he and Sören made their way to the desk. "You have rooms available, hopefully?" He felt himself cringe as he caught the faint whiff of cigarette smoke and looked around at the burnt orange wall-to-wall carpet, threadbare brown paisley rugs here and there, pale gold damask wallpaper that looked older than him. He hadn't been planning on expensive lodging, maybe a mid-priced name-brand hotel chain, but this looked straight-up horror movie sketchy.
"There's one single room left," the clerk said in the familiar nasal honk of the region. "Take it or leave it."
Anthony and Sören looked at each other. He'd been hoping to give Sören a choice about rooming with him or not, but it was either this or take their chances with the lightning and hail.
Mercifully, the inside of their room looked better than the lobby. The walls were grey, the white door was clean, no paint was peeling, the bedding looked freshly laundered.
...There was exactly one bed in the room. There was also nothing in the room like a couch that one of them could sleep on while the other took the bed. Just a single-seat armchair.
Anthony gulped.
He turned to Sören. Sören busted out laughing, then calmed down and gave him a stoned smile. "I guess we're having a sleepover," Sören said.
"I guess so." Anthony grinned.
The room had a microwave, a mini-fridge, and a coffee pot. Of course, neither of them had anything to put in it. Then Sören made a "wait here" gesture, walked out, and a few minutes later he came back with two bottles of Pepsi and some bags of junk food from the vending machine down the hall.
"If the storm passes while places are open maybe we could get delivery, like pizza," Sören said, "but I figure this will tide us over before then."
"Thank you." Anthony sighed and accepted a bag of Doritos. "This is... not what I planned. At all."
"Life is what happens when you're making other plans."
"True."
Before Sören started to work on his Fritos, he took the pouch of gummies out of his messenger bag and offered it. "I would suggest a quarter if you've never done edibles before. I usually do a half but I'm experienced."
Anthony trusted Sören's judgment, and pulled apart a gummy into fourths. The musky skunky taste of the gummy was more obvious once it was in his mouth, but the sweetness balanced it out.
Their room came with cable and wi-fi; there was also a stereo system that amazingly still had a radio and a CD player, looking like a relic. The old stereo looked even more out of place next to a flat-screen HDTV. Anthony felt rattled enough by the ordeal of driving in the storm - and losing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to one-up the assholes who'd tormented him for years - that he let himself zone out to Doctor Who... still sitting in his tuxedo on the bed.
By the time they'd finished two episodes, Anthony started to feel like he was coming out of a fog and colors were brighter. All the tension seemed to melt out of his body. He leaned back and laughed at nothing.
"Oh hi," Sören said. "Or should I say... high."
"Yes." Anthony nodded, grinning like an idiot. "Dank you very much."
Sören groaned and facepalmed. Then he said, "It's still raining but it sounds like it's calming down out there. You want to order a pizza or something? My treat."
"OK."
Sören looked online for pizza restaurants, and once they'd agreed on what kind of pizza and Sören placed an order, Sören looked at himself in the mirror, still wearing the tux. "Holy shit, we should probably change out of these, since the reunion was a bust. Though..." Sören turned back to Anthony. "You want a dance or two?"
"They won't let latecomers into the reunion past a certain time," Anthony said.
"I didn't mean at the reunion. I meant here." Sören glanced over at the old stereo system, then at Anthony.
Anthony got up and Sören turned on the radio. It was set to Springfield's classic rock station, and after a bumper from the station, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" started. Anthony felt that mixture of nostalgia and feeling ancient that the anthem of his troubled teenage years was now on a classic rock station.
He didn't get to dwell on it long. He and Sören began dancing together as if they were in a ballroom, circling each other, twirling, shimmying. At the end Anthony dipped Sören, and when Sören rose back up they hugged, giggling together madly.
Anthony thought about kissing him, but the song that immediately followed was "Rock Me Tonite" by Billy Squier. It became apparent quickly that Sören was familiar with the much-mocked video, doing Squier's dance routine of skipping, swinging his arms back and forth, dramatically pulling off his tuxedo jacket, doing jazz hands with raised arms as he pranced around, crawling and writhing on the bed, giving exaggerated pelvic thrusts. Anthony had to sit in the armchair, sides heaving, eyes tearing up from laughing so hard.
When it was all over, Sören licked his thumb and forefinger and ran them over both eyebrows at once. "Cha cha real smooth," he said.
Anthony doubled over - and then there was a knock on the door. Anthony was afraid the clerk was going to tell them to keep it down, but the voice came: "Pizza delivery."
Sören got up, took the pizza box and gave the guy a tip. Anthony found he was ravenous between the driving stress and the weed, and the pizza smelled heavenly. But he also knew he didn't want to make a mess on his tuxedo and get charged an extra cleaning fee.
He got changed in the bathroom, and when he came out, Sören was wearing a heather grey T-shirt and darker grey boxers. Anthony couldn't help but notice Sören was missing his usual bulge, and deduced Sören felt relaxed enough - or just tired enough - to remove his packer.
Anthony was also wearing a T-shirt and boxers, though his T-shirt was white and his boxers were blue. He climbed on the bed next to Sören and they looked through a selection of movies, deciding on Encanto since neither of them had seen it. Then they got to work on the pizza, which had mushroom and sausage and bacon and jalapeno peppers, with extra cheese.
Normally Anthony couldn't eat more than two or three slices in one sitting, but the two of them finished the whole thing and laughed about it. Full and continuing to feel the tension melt away, Anthony leaned back, enjoying the movie... and realized halfway through that Sören had kept a careful distance during Doctor Who but now he was positioned a lot closer to him than before. Right after that realization, he and Sören looked at each other, and then the thunder started up again, making Sören startle.
Anthony instinctively pulled Sören into his arms, and Sören curled up on his chest; Anthony held him and pet him, making soothing noises. He got back into focusing on the movie - just holding Sören felt wonderfully cozy - but towards the end, feeling Sören snuggled against him was driving him out of his mind with sexual frustration.
As the credits rolled, Sören got up, went down the hall to the vending machine - in his boxers, no packer - and came back with two bottles of ginger ale and two bottles of water in his messenger bag. He put the water in the mini-fridge and handed a ginger ale to Anthony.
"Here," Sören said once he'd opened his bottle. "A toast to surviving... whatever the hell today was."
"I'm really sorry that I dragged you all this way for... this."
"Ah, this isn't even in the top 10 of unpleasant experiences I've had. We still had fun." Sören cracked a smile. "I've never danced to Nirvana before."
Anthony's laughter rang out. "And I've never seen the live-action version of 'Rock Me Tonite'."
"Cheers," Sören said, and they knocked bottles together before taking a first sip.
"Truth be told, I feel worse for you than for myself," Sören went on, reaching out to put a hand on Anthony's shoulder; Anthony felt himself stiffen even more. "You went to all this trouble for nothing."
"Not nothing. I had really good company."
Their eyes met, and Anthony's heart skipped a beat. He told himself, It's time. "Sören..." Anthony cleared his throat. He chugged on his ginger ale like he was taking a shot of courage, even though it was non-alcoholic, and then he leaned in closer. "I'm not a chaser or anything, but I really... really, really like you. It's not the weed talking. I've had a thing for you for weeks, before I knew you were trans, and... it's totally cool with me. I don't want to creep you out, and it's OK if you say no, but -"
Sören put a finger to Anthony's lips, then he gave that stoned, smartass smile and said, "Hi Not A Chaser Or Anything But I Really Really Really Like You -"
Anthony facepalmed and groaned at high volume, but couldn't help laughing. Sören almost choked on his drink, then he put it down, threw his arms around Anthony, said, "Thank fuck," and kissed him.
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