Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2019 02:43:07 -0600 From: Armando F Subject: New Adventures with Older Brother Part 25 Disclaimer – This story is a work of fiction, and depicts incestual sexual action between teen boys. If you are uncomfortable with that, or live in a community where that material is forbidden, please stop reading. Don't forget, Nifty is a great resource, so please donate! http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html I really appreciate all the new years and Xmas wishes, everyone. It's so uplifting to hear from y'all, even if I had a bummer winter. I always love hearing from readers, no matter what about. Just talking and hearing from you gives me a real joy. army.mando9@gmail.com Chapter 25: Call Me By Your Lie... Riley texted me the details a few days after our phone call, letting me know they'll be in around 2 weeks from now. I was a little antsy about it... I hadn't seen them in about a month or so since I... suddenly left, but hey, making up for the missing time should be fun. I still don't know of any fun shit to do around here, but I assume Harry will have an itinerary of weird shit like some record store that used to be a mental hospital or some kooky stuff like that. "You know, I've been over here like 4 times already, and I've never seen you actually clean something. This 'Harry' must be something special... Is he your ex?" Leslie said with all the snark of a bitter wife, sitting on my kitchen counter as I washed some dishes, messing around with a sub she brought along. "Nah, he's just a very close friend of mine, and... y'know..." "You wanna make a good impression, let them know you aren't falling apart, I get it." She smiled as she took a bite. Leslie had been coming by my place a ton since our date, partially because she and I have been really getting along great, and partially to get away from her grandma, who sounds exactly what an old bossy HR lady would act like at home. I'm surprised Leslie doesn't have a uniform, honestly. "I mean, I'm not falling apart..." "No, but the Taco Bell bag o' trash from last week looks like it's close to becoming some kids science project." She nodded to a dark shape hiding around the counter. "Hey, maybe I like my chalupa with some extra... veggies." I grimaced at my own comeback. "Ewww." She giggled as she took another bite, some of her meatball sub marking her face. More red on red just does not do her justice. Eventually her tongue found it, and she made a big show of cleaning her face as I watched, never breaking eye contact... Like a sassy cat, defiantly cleaning herself on the kitchen table, trying to establish dominance. We've become a lot closer since that... sad excuse of a date, but honestly, it seems like what we both needed was someone who gets each other. No romance, no drama, just 2 people wanting to hang out, vent, and watch some classic shitty action movies while we eat junk food and laugh at each other jokes. I never met a gal who took a burp as a challenge, but she... she has me beat. "So are you and Harry gonna hook up?" "No? What makes you say that?" I raised my eyebrow at her, and saw as she quickly stole my phone from my jacket pocket with her non-sandwich hand. "Hey!" "I saw something last time I looked through your phone..." "Last time!?" "Yeah, you were in the bathroom too long and I got bored staring at the pause screen for Die Hard..." She kept scrolling ,the quickly passing flashes of pictures of time past flicking against her eyes, till finally... "Was it this guy?" She pressed my phone into my face, showing me a group picture of me, Harry, and Riley from my graduation. Surprised she chose that one. "Yeah, that's him and his sister." "His sister's hot too, but yeah, the guy is cute. Could do with a haircut, but yeah... I thought he was your ex, honestly." "Nope, sorry, he's not." "Then it's this... other guy? " Her fingers flipped up a few pictures to one from Army's birthday... Ma took that one, smiling right before I smushed his face into his cake. He was pissed... A small smile cracked on my face remembering his cries for help. "... Umm... " I wasn't sure what to say. The picture looks like a sweet couple, but also looks like family... The truth is still kind of hard to accept. The Venn diagram of incest isn't a pretty picture. "Ben, don't try and lie to me. You aren't very good at it." "Ha, other girls say I'm a great liar." "Probably because they wanted into your pants so badly. Me? Can't snake charm me with your dick." She giggled again and looked back at the picture. "I mean, he's cute too, but I don't know. I like the other guy more. Seems more self-confident." "Yeah, Harry is very self-assured of himself... But Army wasn't like that. He was confident around me, and that's what mattered..." Leslie kept silent, going through more picture. A picture of us at our little lake, a picture of him asleep with a book on his face, a picture of me goofing off with some game controller, one of us before a concert with our tongues out, one of me taking a bite of pizza with a super long string of cheese stuck to my face and smiling like a fool... Maybe I imagined it being so good. Man, it seems like everything I remember doing... We were in a cloud and... I can't tell if it was in my head... Or was it just the disappointment with how it all fell apart? I shook my head. Now it feels like the present is trying to rot the past, like the present trying to rot that chalupa... "You okay?" Leslie leaned over and looked deeply into my eyes. "Do you ever look at old pictures of you and your ex, and think... Was it a waste of time? 'Look at that fucking idiot in that picture, stupid stupid idiot, can't see how it'll fall apart...'" She smiled, but the pain in her eyes said the real truth... "Yeah, but so what? Does that take away from the shit they put you through? Sometimes... I just still get so damn pissed. Like, seeing red kinds of pissed." I know what she meant... Deep at night, sometimes I just toss and turn, replaying the shit Army spit in my face, so eager to burn everything down. Like a sassy gay arsonist. And... It hurt to feel like what we had meant nothing to him, for him to fucking throw it all away without a care about my feelings or my own gawd-damn life. "What did you do? After y'all broke up?" Leslie slid over to the pantry and searched for another snack, but came back empty. "What any girl does. I slashed her tires, I sent her awful texts, I hacked her facebook and just posted 'I'm a two faced slut' over and over." "Wow..." "Yeah, not my prettiest moment. But what was I supposed to do? How do you just..." "Throw all that away?" I finished her sentence, my voice ringing hollow. "Exactly. We meant so much. She was the first person I ever told how I really felt. She saw the real me..." Leslie took a deep breath, a little shaky. "Fuck, even worse, she saw me at my worst. Paranoid about 'Oh fucking fuck Satan in his hairy fucking ass, it's cancer, I'm going to die before I can fucking legally drink.' And after all that?! Just throws it all into the trash, like it never mattered... Like I never mattered." I wasn't sure how to respond, but she fucking put the right words into my mind. "I'm sorry, Leslie." "Don't feel sorry for me, Ben. It's cute, but I'm... okay. I try at least. But that anger? I still can't let go... I'll sit in my car at an intersection, a red light takes way too damn long, and I just... scream and hit my fists against the steering wheel, like a fucking lunatic." She sighed, and walked to the living room, and collapsed on my couch. "I saw that smile when I pulled up that birthday cake picture. You still care. You still feel happy about that. Don't let him taint how you felt. Don't let him take away that, at least." I laid next to her, letting the silence take over between us. Leslie words echoed in my mind, long after she apologized for bumming us out and left. I felt bad, leaving on that note, but... I'll make it up to her, and to myself. You can feel the fucking pain in the room long after we broke off. Aired out our dirty laundry, covered in shit and blood and mud, and it felt... stagnant. Suffocating. I stared at the ceiling for hours, till I saw it was 3AM on my phone, just... stuck in this couch. Stuck in this apartment. Stuck in this life. Stuck in this loneliness. Stuck... Even after moving thousands of miles away, I still feel... anchored by the shit I didn't do. I couldn't do. Will I always feel trapped? . . . . . I parked my truck outside the airport terminal, waiting for arrivals from Texas. The bees in my guts would just not stop buzzing. My nerves felt like it was an old wooden roller coaster with a termite infestation, just rickety and completely unsafe, waiting for it all to go wrong. I wasn't even sure what could go wrong. Just meeting a friend I hadn't seen in a while. But it's like Leslie said, he's the first person who's gonna see what I've done with the choices I've made. Maybe deep down, I just want him to relay the visual news to Ma... and to my brother. I want someone who has stone cold proof that I'm doing okay. Right on cue, I get a text from Riley saying to meet them outside. I pull my truck closer to the main doors, and see an instantly recognizable bitchy cuteness of Riley... and an almost complete stranger standing next to her. Holy hell. "HARRY! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR HAIR!" I call out from my window, shocked by Harry's radical new "do." He blushed a little and his free hand instinctively brushed his new bangs a little out of his eyes. No longer does he wear the long elf-like mane of a metal head, but the proud short clean cut of a guy who actually wants to attract non-punk kids. Pretty short on the sides, kept the bangs a little long to cover his forehead and poke a little into his eyes, giving him a mix of that little emo-style but still... masculine? It's totally weird seeing his ears! They are so white! He looks so dang cute though, rather than someone who would growl about Asgard while a guitar shreds in the background. "So you notice my brothers gay ass haircut, but nothing about me? The girl you've been missing since you ran away?" Riley gave me her biggest shocked face, but it looked more like she had a stomach ache. "What, are you pregnant? No surprise there." "Ha ha, you fucking asshole." Riley rolled her eyes, but her smiled. She missed our cute bitchy banter. Both of them tossed their luggage in the back of the truck and climbed in. "Where's your parents?" "Oh, dad got sick from the airline food. We told him to not eat the fish, but ugh, just had to try it. So he and mom are taking a shuttle to the hotel so he can puke his guts out. So we got left on our own." Riley pulled out a little compact from her purse and started fixing her make up. "Who are you trying to gussy up for?" Harry mocked from the back seat. "What if I meet one of those cute blonde surfer boys. Shirtless, tan, sexy..." "Ha, want me to drop you off at the beach? I must warn you about the sand... It's coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere." I heard Harry snort in the background, catching the reference. "Ugh, no... I gotta go find a better outfit. This is cute for an airplane, but not the beach." "No one is cute on an airplane, darlin'." I laughed at the idea of her making do-me eyes at some Air Marshall. "Oh shut up and drop me off..." She pulled out some map of the city and pointed, "here!" "Whatever you say, Miss Daisy." I scoffed and pulled onto the highway. "What about you, Harry, wanna chill with your ol' buddy?" "Fuck yeah. I wanna see your new place!" I smiled. At least Harry and I will get some alone time to hang out... . . . . . We made it back to my place, and Harry just looked in awe. "Your own apartment, Ben!" He rushed in as soon as I opened the door, like a dog desperate to find a treat. "Holy fuck, this TV is nice! And you got some new games! We gotta play something." "Ha, you hungry?" "Nah, those airline peanuts were enough for now." Harry dropped down to his knees and looked through my little growing game collection, pulling out whatever he wanted to play. I took a seat on the sofa and turned on the tv to some comedian stand up special while Harry wandered around, checking out the place. "This is pretty nice, Ben. I can see why you moved over here. You're doing great for yourself." "Thanks. But its kind of tough too. Got so much time to myself, you know?" "What, your hand sore from jacking too much?" Harry sneered at me. "Ha, maybe. Get's kind of lonely!" "What, no cute guys and girls around here for you?" "Ehh, I haven't really looked. Been busy with work." "How's that going?" "Pretty nice. I've learned a lot, my supervisor says I'm a natural and that I'm super good with my hands." "Must be all the practice!" "Shut it! But yeah, just kind of don't have much time for a new person in my life." "Tell that to Army. Ever since he and Lee got together, I've been hanging out more than ever with him." My heart dropped a little bit at the mention of my brother. Lee? What kind of name is that... "How... umm... How's he doing?" Harry laid back on the couch and sighed. "He's happy. It's kind of annoying, being the only single one of us two. Always feel like a 3rd wheel when we hang out." "Sorry about that, Harry." I laid back with him, side by side, staring at the ceiling... "It's fine. It's kind of funny. Your bro is a little bit of a horn dog. It's kind of hot... Glad to see him finally get real serious action." I took a deep swallow, my mouth feeling a little dry. I don't really like this conversation... But part of me was morbidly curious, like seeing a dead body under a tarp. You just gotta see it... "What's Lee like?" "Super cool. A little shy, surprisingly. He opens up around Army, but when it's just us in a room alone... He sort of clams up. Probably just weird around people he doesn't know well. But he plays drums like a pro, and likes the same games as we do, so he just gels with us. Plus he treats Army well, so you don't have to worry about it. I know you got that papa bear instinct to protect him," Harry giggled to himself as he punched my shoulder, standing up and heading to the kitchen. "That's... good... I guess." That is a huge worry off my shoulders. I know Army and I are in a... shit mess hole or whatever, but the idea that someone is hurting my brother would make me fly back home and start killing fuckers. Still got that duty to family, no matter what. I coughed, trying to find the words to approach the next topic... Maybe Lee is just a fuck toy for Army? Maybe he's being used? Or I'm just a sucker for hurting myself. "Do they... fuck a lot?" "According to Army, yeah. He keeps telling me stories... Well, I keep asking, because I'm a bit of a perv." Harry gave a small giggle again as he grabbed a bag of chips. "Like what?" "You... want to know about your brothers sex life? Weirdo. Uhh... "Well... I-" "Ha, kidding, you're a perv too, I can tell." Harry popped a cheesy poof into his mouth with delight, preparing himself like a bard before an epic tale. "So like, apparently they like to get it on in tons of places, or just like to drive out and try new things. I'm super jealous. Apparently that bunk bed sees a lot of action..." I saw red for a second. Fucking in... our place. It feels gross. Tainted... How could he? Like pissing on a grave level of disrespect. Gawd fucking damn it... Bet he smeared his cum on my pillow too, out of fucking spite. That just seems so like him. Fucking asshole, I'm gonna strangle him. Harry continued, oblivious to the rage, the wrath, the anger, the hate stewing a few feet away from him. A broth of just pure bitterness with the meat of resentment and fury soaking the juices of madness to make a dinner of violence. Also I'm hungry-angry... hangry? Whatever. "Like apparently last week, they hooked up in the shower and they were making out, and they both accidentally slipped and fell out of the tub. Or this other time, he apparently asked Lee to dress up as a cowboy. Totally didn't know Army had a thing for dress up. Or just the other date, Lee accidentally shot Army in the eye with cum. That just sounds bad." ... Wait a minute... "And like, they had a real romantic night at some lake in the country. I actually kind of felt jealous. Closest I got to fucking in the serene outdoors was a blowjob at a park... Too many mosquitoes though. Felt like I was getting sucked all over... And not in a good way." I smiled to myself. There's only 2 ways I can take this new info. A) he's trying to replace me by copying our whole relationship. It makes sense, but damn seems like a lot of work for him. Or B) He's just telling Harry our old fuck stories because he has none with Lee. Suddenly I lost all my anger. Now all I feel is a righteous pity for my baby bro. Harry walked back and laid next to me again, super close this time. "Honestly, I think he's over compensating. It's always 'Lee this, or Lee that' and I'm like 'We get it, you got a boyfriend, shut up.' Surprised he hasn't said the L word yet." "Do you think he loves Lee?" "It's been like 3 weeks since they started dating, who knows. Army is quick to fall into feelings though. Same reason he gets pissed super fast. But they get along super great. Always finishing each others sandwiches." "... You mean sentences." "I wish. Apparently Lee loves to make food for the both of them and they share a lot!" Ugh... Now they are sounding like a gross married couple. I'm not sure which is worse; the fake sex stories, or these gross real stories about food. I just imagined Army slurping up spaghetti with some generic punk kid, ending in a kiss like those dogs from that movie. "Are you okay?" Harry turned to look at me. "Yeah?" "Hmm..." He looked in my eyes for another long moment, but went back to laying down. "Army misses you." "... W-what? How do you know?" Harry's lip curled into the smallest smile. "Just the way he acts sometimes. He keeps pretending you stopped existing, like you went to Narnia and got stuck there, but it's the little things. He has your bed made with your sheets still, he has all your old music playing in the room sometimes. Just... He's hurting... Just like you are." Damn it, Harry. Perceptive little fucker. "Was it obvious?" "A little," Harry laughed as he grabbed my hand and held it. "You're not as much of a stoic badass as you think. What happened between you two? Army tried to tell me, but it was... it sounded super one sided." His fingers laced themselves in mine, not in a lovey way, but... It was comforting. Warm. Like a nice blanket that just got out of the dryer. I held back tight, just enjoying sharing a moment with someone from home... "He's so... so fucking pissed at me. He took something tough for me, and made it a whole shit show because he's a... narcissist asshole. I had a giant insecurity about my future, I did something about it, and he just blew up." "Totally, he can be very self centered, and he needs to fix that. But, and I know it's cliché to say it, it's a hateful thing that came from a place of love in him. You just barely moved back in with your mom like a year ago, right? He wasn't ready to lose you again." "That isn't an excuse though!" I was getting a little defensive. I did what I felt was right, why does Army get to be the one who has to forgive me. That's total bullshit. I'm the one who got fucked over by him. "Of course it's not. But we're all just dumb kids still. And he lashed out because he didn't know how to actually process his feelings." Harry held my hand tight... Damn this kid has got a grip! "You made the hard choice and stuck with it so far, Ben. I'm proud of you. Doing something for your own damn future." "... Thanks Harry." "You're welcome. But you should call him soon." "Why?" "He needs to hear you. That much is so fucking obvious. And I think, deep down, you need to hear him too. It's obvious you miss him a lot." "Obvious?" "Yeah. Almost all the games you got here are splitscreen stuff, some we used to play together. All the movies here are ones we watched together." He points towards my little DVD display. "There's Alien, there's some Lord of the Rings, there's some Star Wars. What I'm saying is, even if he's gone and you're pissed off at how he acted, how you really feel? It's written on the walls." "What did he say about that night?" "That he was blind sided, just barely got someone special in his life, fixed that friendship, and to see you just up and run away at the first chance for freedom, to be an adult. He's wrong, super wrong. I know how you felt about it, how hurt and conflicted you were when you told me and Riley the news. But Army can be delusional about how other people feel. That doesn't make him a bad person, just... a bad friend. Something bad went down, he handled it wrong. The best thing we can do is learn from it." Hmm... I never really thought about it that way. Maybe I'm being childish too, just... in a different way. Not calling him, being withholding, trying to punish him and myself because of the choice I made... The adult thing to do is try and mend it, rather than let this bad thing keep tainting it. "Plus I'm tired of my best friends fighting with each other over dumb shit. Like, come on guys." "When did you become so smart, Harry?" "Bitch, I've always been smart. No one ever listens to me." . . . . . Harry and I spent the rest of the day playing games and catching up on stuff. I really missed the little fucker, he's so smart and suave but still a little goofy. Like Army if he had an ounce of coolness in his veins. I held the little tid bit of info close to my chest the whole day, waiting to look at my hand later for this really annoying game of emotional poker I'm playing with my ex. But he suddenly revealed to me that all he has is an Ace, and I got a... Whatever a good hand is. I'm not great at poker. His parents eventually passed by and picked him up, but he promised to see me again before they leave back home. Lookin' forward to it, buddy. But for now... I rest on my couch. I stare at the ceiling again, confronting the talk I had with Harry in my head. Partially, like Leslie said, I'm still pissed about how Army could just so quickly throw everything away over one dumb thing, and just kept doubling down on being an asshole. My anger is justified . But Harry was still right too... I miss the little bugger. He had a right to be angry, but not a right to lash out at me. Maybe this is why we fucked up. We took everything so personally. We should want the best for each other. But it's hard to want him to be happy as my brother, because it can conflict about wanting to be happy as my boyfriend. I want us to be happy together, whether we still have that chance or not. I told us that I would continue to fight for us... Maybe that's what this whole thing is? A boss fight for some experience to level up our relationship. Deep down, I still feel angry. But should I continue to let that anger ruin everything? Should I continue to let Army's bad choices continue to ruin me? Or us, for that matter. Bad choices... Maybe viewing them as good or bad is the real problem. We made choices, and we have to own up to them. Blaming it on each other won't get us anywhere. The only way to get us past this is to engage it, head on. Like a baseball, coming at me at 90 miles an hour. If I hesitate, I can hurt myself hard. Get knocked on my ass. Or I can confront the shit and knock it out of the park where it belongs. And Army needs to as well. That's why I need to call him. Set him straight... Set myself straight... Set us straight... No matter what the result is, I gotta tell myself that I tried. I owe us at least that. End of Chapter 25 Thanks for reading.