Chapter Text
It is the middle of the school year when they finally meet. Viktor is alone at recess — as he so often is, every day surrounded by the chatter and giggles of the far off classmates who pay him no attention. His own attention is focused on the toy in his hand, the broken boat he has been trying to fix for days now. And just as the wheels begin to turn to life, the delighted gasp escaping from his lips, he is pushed from the swings entirely. Viktor grunts as he lands in the dirt, the rush of pain ricocheting up his leg, his knee. He prepares for worse — for the kicks, the screeches of glee, the teachers pretending to not notice. But instead, the same rough-housing boy rushes to his side, hands landing on Viktor’s back, panicked voice as he asks, “Are you alright? I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Viktor even lets the boy help him to his feet, holding out Viktor’s cane for him. “I thought you might have wanted someone to push you on the swing. I didn’t think you’d fall like that!”
The boy’s eyes are wide and wet, true shame on his features as he looks at Viktor. Viktor swallows down the snarky, You could have just asked. Instead, he brushes the dirt from his knees and says, “It’s okay. I forgive you.” He thinks this must be the newest student, the ones the boys were gossiping about in the hallways between the bell-dismissals of class. Here on scholarship, Viktor had overheard — something that usually is only said about him and the few other unlucky boys not gifted by wealth. Viktor politely extends his tiny hand, Jayce’s eyes widening comically as he does so. “I’m Viktor.”
The boy breaks into a big smile, grabs Viktor’s hand in his own, a rough and playful handshake like he is unaware of his own strength. “I’m Jayce. Today’s my first day and —” The boy stops himself, rushes to pick up the boat from the ground. The creaking wood of the wheels still turn slowly. “Whoa, did you make this?”
“Yes,” Viktor says shyly. All the other boys make fun of Viktor’s inventions, the gadgets he keeps in his backpack, the interests that they all refer to as too childish to do anymore. There have been countless of his toys that accidentally have gone missing — that he has found scattered pieces of later in the classroom’s trash can. And though Jayce looks at the toy with wonder, a part of Viktor cannot help but feel hesitant, to worry if the other boys convinced this new boy to humiliate Viktor once again. Dangle kindness in front of him only to wretch it away when it starts to feel real.
“You have got to show me how,” and there is no hint of playfulness in his voice. Only pure honesty, his eyes shining as he looks back at Viktor. “Can you?”
And with the simple nod he makes in reply, with the way Jayce grins at him after, Viktor ensures his fate of being Jayce Talis’ first best friend.
— — —
Jayce has never had a friend before. He supposes Ximena may be the closest thing he has to one. Their monthly mother-son excursions to Jayce’s favorite restaurant — always followed by two scoops of chocolate ice cream from the parlor — and the way she dotes and hovers over him. He tells her about everything that happens in his life — or as much as a thirteen year old boy finds it appropriate to share. When he learns a new magic trick, she claps with pride as he shows her. When he gets another 100% on a test, she ruffles his hair and praises him. When he is struck by nightmares of his father’s death or of that brutal snowstorm so many years ago, she shushes him, holds him, tells him that everything will be alright now.
His love for his mother knows no bounds. But Jayce knows that by his age, other children have real friends. Friends their age, friends who are not blood-related to them. Friends who play, have sleepovers, who share their darkest secrets with one another. It is something he yearns for. And yet every time he tries, the children give him looks as if he is some freak. They do not laugh at his jokes, do not appreciate his magic tricks, whisper behind his back about how childish he is, how emotional he is — and the bubbling tears in his eyes in the face of humility only helps to prove their points.
When Ximena has him pack up all his belongings, shoving them into the big truck, she tells him it will be good to have a fresh start. A new town, a new school. “You’ll be brand new,” she whispers into the crown of his head the night before his first day of classes, tucking him in. “The kids there will love you.” Jayce does not entirely believe her, but still, he nods obediently. She kisses his forehead, tells him to say his prayers, and shuts the door. And so Jayce crosses himself, folds his hands, and prays for a friend. Just one. Please.
And the next day, as if God himself was listening in, he meets Viktor on the playground.
— — —
Viktor has never had a friend before. Even in the group homes after his parents’ deaths, all the other children — with their endless traumas, with their own listless issues — would tilt their heads, stare down at his cane and makeshift brace, and break into fits of mocking giggles. No one had any interest in befriending a broken boy. Not when they saw he could not run alongside them in the garden, not when they saw he was holding them back when they planned their nightly escapes through the bathroom’s window. He was something strange, something weird, something wrong. A litany of cruel insults always waiting to be aimed his way.
But Singed was broken like him too. A last-ditch chance at some normal life, Singed Reveck low on the list of potential household placements for any foster child. But none of the dozens of other foster families had the ability to take Viktor in: two-story homes, winding staircases, the mothers who would purse their thin lips in a pout-like frown when the social worker mentioned the things wrong with Viktor. But not Singed — the only house with no stairs, no rocky sidewalks up the front door. Singed greets him with a cane in his own hand, a weak and drooping right eye, a patch of burn scars tracking up his cheeks.
Viktor knows the other boys would groan, scoff, throw a fit if they were placed with a man like this. But Viktor grins up at him, and Singed — slowly, unsurely — smiles back down at him. Perhaps Singed could be considered Viktor’s first friend, but he knows the word does not entirely apply. Rather, Singed becomes something akin to a father. Even from his young age, Viktor knows Singed is unused to the role. Even if the pictures of the pale and blonde child on the walls tell a different story, Viktor can tell it has been a long time since he was expected to behave like one. Still, he is not particularly bad at it. Learns Viktor’s favorite food to buy at the grocery store, learns what type of medication soothes Viktor’s aches the best and begins to experiment on making it himself at home, learns Viktor’s favorite movies so he can rent the DVDs on Friday nights for them to watch together, always popping a bag of popcorn to share between the two of them during it.
And Rio, the sweet cat of Singed’s that quickly becomes Viktor’s, might also be considered a friend. She always listens to Viktor’s complaints, always spends the night in his bed, meows and paws at him for treats and playtime. But even Viktor is not childish enough still to pretend that she really counts as a friend — at least not a human one, a real one. Viktor soon begins to accept that this is simply his fate, this never ending loom of loneliness, that no one else in the world is willing to accept him as he is.
And then he meets Jayce Talis. And suddenly, the rest of the world matters very little to Viktor at all. Not the no-good boys who scowl and try to trip him in the hallways. Not the teachers who think less of him for where he comes from, for the fact his parents are not the ones paying their salaries with the high-rate tuition. What matters now is the boy who greets him every morning with a tender Good morning! The boy who asks his mother to begin packing two cookies in his lunchbox, one for himself and one for — Jayce’s words, that echo in Viktor’s head the rest of the day — his best friend. Their schoolyard experiments in the playground’s grass, far away from the rest of their class. The way Jayce always gets dirt on his cheeks, the way he lets out a fuck! every time Viktor tells him he needs to dust it off — and promptly looks over his shoulder as if someone might overhear the unpracticed swear word slipping from his tongue. Jayce’s pulling on Viktor’s hair in the line for Communion during their weekly school mass — his innocent smile blinding Viktor when Viktor tries to glare back at him. Jayce and his comic books that he likes to lend to Viktor, that they like to read during lunch, shoulder-to-shoulder. Jayce’s whispered jokes as they wait sit-by-side in the pew for their monthly required Confessions, the teacher shushing them rudely.
When it is Viktor’s turn inside the confession booth, he feels uneasy. His breathing is shaky as he crosses himself, saying, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been a month since my last confession." And when the priest asks him to confess his sins, he almost refuses to say it at all. It is not like he even really believes in all this — the rituals, that God is listening, that God is speaking through the man shielded from him on the other side. Viktor is not even sure he even really believes in a God at all. Not the way his teachers do, his classmates do. Not the way Jayce does.
“Child,” the priest prompts, “Go on. It is okay. He is able to forgive anything.”
Viktor thinks if a God does exist, then he must be a cruel being. Capable of watching Viktor suffer, content to throw hurdle after hurdle in front of him. Still, that built-in urge to confess, to lose himself in the fantasy overtakes him. “My first… sin…” His voice lowers. Even with the doors shut, the creaky ceiling fan on the church’s roof loud as always, he worries others could still overhear. “Is that I have a crush on my best friend.”
— — —
Viktor has always been acutely aware of his attraction towards men. The way his eyes would linger on a handsome older man on the streets, the bubbling of butterfly-nausea in his stomach when his favorite teacher used to give him gentle praise, the sort of feelings he simply never feels around a woman. He thought little of it at all until he brutally learned it was not the right way to be, another broken mechanism within him. When that favorite teacher had stood tall and proud at his podium, a crucifix hanging on the wall above his head like a crown, Bible open yet hardly glanced at. The lesson on right and wrong, what God likes and hates. And Viktor — the first time anyone has ever put a word to it, these budding feelings — realizes he is on the list of things God hates.
And though he has never spoken a word about any of it to anyone, all of the schoolboys still somehow find out. Thus the word gets spit out like venom in the hallways, in the back of classrooms, down the playground’s slide. Haunts him like a ghost might, a tattoo unable to be erased. He cannot pinpoint what must give it away, has stared at himself long enough in the mirror to try to figure out what it could be.
But whatever rotten thing they see within him, Jayce does not see it. Rather, he looks at Viktor like Viktor is the best thing God has ever created. He stands by Viktor’s side proudly, has no shame in referring to Viktor as his best friend to anyone who would dare ask. And when the bullies are harshest, sneering and snarking, Jayce will turn to them and — if there are no teachers around — will tell them to shut the fuck up, emphasis always put on the swear word, willingly besmirching his already tattered reputation just to laugh with Viktor when the bullies actually do grow silent.
Jayce is the tallest of the class, perhaps even taller than most high schoolers. And while he is gangly and awkward in his ever-growing long limbs, there is a silent fear about him from the other boys. They have all witnessed his brute strength in gym class — how easily he can push someone aside on the basketball court, how easy he can tackle someone else, the way he will pick up Viktor and spin him around then and there when Viktor successfully makes a single basketball shot. All things the other boys see, take note of, whispering behind their hands. And the next day, when the worst of the boys lets out a petulant fag as he walks pass the two of them, Jayce rounds on him and punches him square in the face. And again, again, again until Jayce’s knuckles are raw-red, breathing ragged, and Viktor thinks, Finally, someone like me. Someone who understands.
But his heart reshatters when Jayce grits out, “You don’t know anything about him. He’s nothing like that at all.” The teachers dragging Jayce from the beaten boy, the blood painting the grass, Jayce’s concerned gaze as he looks back towards Viktor. Viktor is used to heartbreak by now, and it is enough to just nod at Jayce, to see the smile that blooms on Jayce’s lips when it’s clear Viktor is pleased with his actions.
In the hallway waiting for Headmaster Heimerdinger to call them in and explain their side of the story, Jayce bangs his head softly against the white wall, sighs, turns to Viktor and says, “My mom is going to want to meet you now. Since I am definitely getting suspended for defending your honor.”
“Which I never asked you to do,” Viktor replies, and Jayce shoves him with his shoulder. Viktor leans into the touch despite his better judgement. “Will she hate me now?”
“No, Vik.” And his voice is very soft, his gaze very fond when Jayce says, “I don’t see how anyone could hate you.”
— — —
Jayce gets off lucky with only a week of detention, a tedious lecture from the Headmaster, and an ear-pinch from Ximena — who, Jayce tells Viktor later, promptly forgave him once she knew the true context of the situation. And that weekend, she greets the two of them with a steaming batch of chocolate chip cookies, a lipstick-stained kiss to both their cheeks, a charmed smile at Viktor’s pleasantries and politeness.
“Please,” Ximena says to him after Viktor thanks her for baking, “Think of our home as your home now. You will always be welcome here.”
And Jayce is ecstatic over his first sleepover. Plans out an itinerary for them for the night: video games, a board game, pizza for dinner, ice cream for dessert, a scary movie before bed. Viktor is mostly happy to do whatever makes Jayce happy, whatever keeps that smile on his lips that makes Viktor’s stomach lurch to behold nowadays. And he leans into every wayward touch Jayce throws his way, melts into every smile, tries very hard to stay on his side of the bed at night even if he has no greater desire than to press himself against Jayce, to feel protected by the boy here just as he feels at school.
— — —
There are some cruel moments where Viktor is truly convinced Jayce must like him back in the same way. Where he believes that Jayce must feel that same red flush creeping up his neck when he looks at Viktor, that he also feels his heartbeat quickening with every glance, that he yearns to press himself closer to Viktor — all those little feelings that Viktor feels every day towards him. Moments where it seems so clear, the love evident in Jayce’s eyes, in the way he treats Viktor.
The moment where Viktor is so sure, so desperately sure of this, is the way Jayce huffs a laugh when Viktor is announced as being the unlucky boy to play Virgin Mary this year in the school’s yearly play. Usually the girls-only sister school collaborates with the boys school to put on the play, girls playing the angels, the townswomen, and Mary while the boys play Gabriel, the shepherds, and Joseph. But the drama teacher announces that due to some incidents last year — which Viktor happily supplies to Jayce, in whispers, that he is referring to some of the girls and boys getting caught kissing backstage — the two schools will be hosting separate plays about Jesus’ birth. The boys around them groan out in frustration, always desperate for a moment to even glance at the sister schools’ girls and their pleated skirts, their shy waves. Jayce does not seem to mind, and it makes Viktor feel just the slightest bit hopeful —
And then Jayce is announced to be playing Joseph, Viktor as Mary. A sneer from a boy near the back, Of course he’s Mary. He looks like a girl. The teacher who shushes the backtalker, who says how it is not just an honor but a blessing to portray the Lord’s mother.
Viktor does not really care why he was chosen at all. His petite frame, the shortest of the class, the skinniest too. What matters is the way Jayce laughs, throws an arm around his shoulder, teases, “So, you’re my wife now? Guess I get to tell you what to do then.”
And Viktor — through the blossoming feeling of giddiness; the nausea of nerves; rose-red flush blooming up on his cheeks — replies, “That is Jesus’ mother you’re talking about, you know.”
Jayce has the decency to look guilty, crosses himself, prays a Hail Mary in apology. Viktor watches him, smiling, and he thinks, I could be yours. If you wanted me to be.
— — —
They spend the whole of three weeks doing nothing but practicing their lines. In the hallways between classes, over Ximena’s leftovers for lunch, in Jayce’s bed in hushed tones as Ximena prepares for bed. Viktor is terrified of the whole thing — being on stage, being the center character, the reworkings the theatre teacher made to ensure Viktor is always sitting, not needing to use his cane on stage. The idea of hundreds of eyes crawling over him, scrutinizing his every action. The itchy veil on top of his head, the simple royal blue dress they want him to wear. But Jayce tells him he should not worry. That he has all his lines perfectly memorized, that Viktor is lucky to have a main role. “And besides,” he said one night, right as Viktor was on the cusp of sleep next to him, “I will be right next to you on stage. You’ll have me to rely on.”
Still, his entire body trembles when the night of the play actually arrives. And though the boy tries to hide it, he can sense the nerves within Jayce too. The way he fidgets with the faux-wooden staff Joseph is to hold, the way he keeps scratching the back of his neck. But then he looks at Viktor, his shaky leg, biting his lip bloody, and all that seemingly disappears.
“Hey,” Jayce begins, turning to him. “Are you nervous?”
“A little.” He knows that if he were to not be honest, Jayce would be able to tell in a second. His high-pitched tone that always gives him away when caught in a lie, his stuttering eye contact, unable to ever stick to it for long.
“Me too.” One of Jayce’s hands lays on top of Viktor’s knees, preventing it from shaking even more. He can feel the warmth of it through the cotton of the dress. And even though Jayce swears he is still growing, his hand already engulfs Viktor’s thigh entirely. Viktor has to tear his eyes away from it to prevent another wave of nausea, of guilt, of anxiety from rearing its head. “But we practiced a lot. You know your lines. I know my lines. We’ll do amazing, Vik.” Viktor smiles a little, hardly reassured. But he appreciates that Jayce tries, that he cares enough to say anything at all. And then Jayce’s hand is moving, fixing the veil on top of Viktor’s head that keeps threatening to slip right off. It makes him crowd into Viktor’s space. And whenever he finishes fixing the veil, he does not move back. Just looks at Viktor closely. Viktor is unsure if he wants to preen under the attention or flinch away from it entirely. “You really do look like a girl sometimes.” And he thinks Jayce meant to say it like a joke, playful and teasing. But it comes out painfully earnest, horribly honest. Jayce’s hand messes with the veil again, tilts it just so. A blink, two. “You look really pretty, I mean.”
And the dim candlelighting of the backstage gives an excuse as to why Viktor thinks Jayce’s eyes drop down to his lips. A play-trick of the flickering flame, the haunting hymn from the organ fading into the background replaced by a great buzzing inside Viktor’s head as Jayce’s hands steadies itself on Viktor’s shoulders. Viktor — if he was braver — might say, It’s okay. You can even pretend I’m a girl. When he imagines kissing Jayce, he normally thinks of them standing: Viktor would have to stand on his tippy-toes or Jayce would have to lean down. But like this, side-by-side, they are almost equals. The air feels stifling, breaths shared between the two of them, the short distance separating them seeming to grow shorter in slow seconds — though Viktor thinks that may just be a trick of the candles too, a hopeful and hopeless delusion of his eyes. The organ picks up a lighter tune, happier. Viktor thinks that if his veil was white, they could squint their eyes, tilt their heads, and pretend it is some wedding between the two of them. Sanctified here, under the weeping eyes of the stone statue of Mary next to them, a forbidden matrimony. If they both just pretend he is a girl —
A discordant note from the organ, shocking them both, and Jayce all but jumps away from him. His hands fall onto his own lap, his body facing forward. “Come on, it’s almost our scene.”
And throughout the entire performance, Jayce can hardly look at him. Despite the fact the script says to do so, despite the fact Joseph’s only real role in the manger scene is to do nothing but look at Mary, the role of a proud husband. But Viktor tries to not let it hurt his feelings, that small pinch of familiar heart-pain that is becoming more common around Jayce. The baby in his arms is a distraction enough — all swaddled in white cotton blankets, tiny and eyes-wide looking up at Viktor. His play-pretend son, Jesus, despite the fact the infant is actually a girl and Viktor is certainly no Mother Mary.
And as the Three Kings gift them the frankincense and myrrh, the swaddled baby cries in his arms, loud and boisterous. Viktor knows he cannot speak, the silent girl-bride of Mary that he must be, but he thinks, Hush, baby. Jesus wouldn’t be screeching like this. The sweet thing’s fingers wrap around Viktor’s offered finger, and Viktor smiles down at her.
And when he finally looks back up to Joseph, to his Jayce, finally, the boy is looking at him. Something entirely soft about his gaze — the way Joseph surely must have looked at Mary that night long ago.
— — —
Viktor spends almost every weekend at Jayce’s house until Jayce sits next to him one day in class and demands that Viktor needs to show him his house one day. And it is not that he is ashamed of his own house, or Singed, or even where they live. But it is not Jayce’s home. Not filled with Ximena’s sweet-smelling baking, no video game console, no huge backyard to explore. It is simply a house: a kitchen, two bedrooms, a bathroom. Singed owns a television that is probably decades old by now. Singed rarely bakes. Viktor’s bed is tiny, nothing like Jayce’s king-size bed, where Viktor can spread out his limbs and still not touch every edge.
But Jayce seems to mind none of this at all. Instead of scrutiny, there is only awe in his eyes. Awe at Viktor’s old and slightly torn space posters on his wall. Awe at the books he has, the tattered covers, all from the local half-price store. And absolute awe at Rio — who Viktor warned Jayce of, that she is unused to strangers, that she can be a bit finicky. But the traitorous thing takes to Jayce so easily, purrs and nuzzles against his leg, falls asleep in his lap when they sit on Viktor’s bed. Jayce talks to her with a baby-voice, says that she is the cutest thing he has ever seen, and Viktor tries not to feel jealous. Wanting to be the one pampered in Jayce’s lap, ashamed of the pathetic thoughts that he is unable to push aside.
And late at night, when their bodies touch from ankles to thighs to shoulders, Viktor’s tiny and suffocating bed, Jayce turns to him. Wraps an arm around him, pulling Viktor into his embrace. Viktor has never had a friend before Jayce, but he thinks that this cannot be normal. He cannot imagine the boys at school doing this in each other’s bed. Jayce’s hand settles so easily around his waist. As if he has thought of doing it before, as if he has thought about it as many times as Viktor has.
In the silence of the room, the only sound Viktor is able to hear being his own rabbit-quick heartbeat, he thinks this has to be another sign. A moment of truth. Jayce saying with actions what he is unable to say with words. Viktor — bravely, slightly — pushes his body back into Jayce’s hold. Jayce sighs in his sleep, or his feigned sleep, Viktor is unsure. But the boy’s fingers flex slightly so, tapping themselves against Viktor’s stomach. Viktor can barely breathe. Dizziness combining with exhaustion combining with that flutter of lust deep in his stomach. And then Jayce’s breathing evens out, truly asleep now.
Viktor does not move the entire night. Fear of Jayce’s hand slipping from around him, fear of moving too much, touching too much, Jayce turning on him with wicked-cruel eyes, all secrets laid bare.
— — —
Eighth grade graduation creeps up on them. Jayce is hailed as the class’ valedictorian — high praise, ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of life. Nonetheless, he half-gloats about it continuously to Viktor throughout the entire ceremony. He gives a cheesy and corny speech about growing up, about moving onto bigger and brighter things — does not mention that almost all of them will be back together after the season of summer, all stuffed into the campus’ high school building rather than the middle school one. Still, it feels like a monumental moment. Ximena gifts them both a beautiful bouquet of white roses, weeps and pinches their cheeks, You boys are growing up so fast! Singed gives him an awkward half-hug that is as loving as Viktor knows he can handle being, and he gives Jayce a harsh handshake.
At Ximena’s home, they gorge themselves on pizza, soda, the celebratory cake Ximena baked for just the two of them. There is a party about four blocks away, everyone in their class but them invited. Jayce drags Viktor out into his backyard, the edge of the forest, far away so that Ximena may not appear behind them. They sneak sips of vodka stolen from Ximena’s cabinet. The taste is gross, and Jayce pretends not to hate it despite the fact Viktor can see the way his lips curl into a disgusted frown.
There, under the dimming night sky, the shine of the stars, they talk about their plans for the upcoming school year. They vow to take all the advanced classes they can, to ensure they are in as many classes as one another. Make plans to join the robots club, maybe the chess club. Jayce gets a stupid far-away look in his eyes, gazing up at the moon, talks about how maybe they’ll even meet girls, get invited to one of the co-ed dances throughout the year, maybe even get girlfriends. Viktor takes drink after drink of the vodka as Jayce talks to himself about it, the only response being noncommittal hums from Viktor. That cruel reminder that every instance where he thinks otherwise, those fleeting moments of hope where he believes there is a chance his feelings may be requited, all fall apart under the simple fact that Viktor is not a girl, and Jayce is unwilling to pretend.
“And maybe we will actually get invited to parties next year,” Jayce muses. Viktor is polite enough to bite back his immediate doubt, the liquor in his blood making his lips feel loose in a way that borders on dangerous. Jayce takes another sip from the bottle. And then turns to Viktor, all smiles again, says, “But it doesn’t really matter. I’m happy as long as I have you with me.”
And the simple truth is: “Me too.” Because Viktor wants nothing else, seeks nothing else. Not like Jayce does. He yearns for only this, side-by-side with Jayce. This and the stars above them, the moonlight dancing in Jayce’s dark eyes, the way Jayce watches him back so intently. Viktor’s fingers curl into the grass and the dirt, afraid that if they do not, he may reach out and touch Jayce in a way that might terrify them both.