Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2022 10:28:59 -0600 From: Oliver Day Subject: Now He's My Brother Chapter 1 - The Incident Author's Note: This is a story about two best friends who become brothers, but also learn that they have more feelings for each other. Looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks at oliver.day.149@gmail.com Chapter 1 - The Incident Hi, my name is Evan, and everything about my life changed when I was 10. Up until then, everything was pretty normal - I had two parents and I was an only child. I didn't love being an only child since I was often lonely, but my parents both made sure to make time to spend with me, so it never really bothered me. It did mean that I tried pretty hard to make friends at school. I had a few friends come and go during elementary school, but I also had a few friends who I was close to the whole time including my best friend Gabe. We were pretty standard elementary best friends - we spent many afternoons after school together at one house or the other, and had sleepovers as often as our parents would allow. Gabe was also an only child, so he was always available, and we lived a few houses away from each other, so it was easy to spend time together. I also didn't know it at the time, but I was gay, and there was a definite bit of attraction that I felt to him, though I wouldn't realize the extend of that attraction until years later. Everything was great, but unfortunately, things changed when we were in 5th grade. Gabe was spending the night as normal, and we were at my house because his parents wanted to go out on a date night, but while they were out, the unthinkable happened. On the way home, their car was hit by a drunk driver, and neither of them survived the crash. I'll spare you the details, but Gabe was devastated. He stayed with my family for the few weeks after it happened and during the funeral. I tried to be very supportive and be there for my friend, and he seemed to appreciate it, but the whole time, I felt like I was also losing my friend. I knew all of his extended family lived in other states, so I assumed after the funeral was done that he would be moving to another state. The day after the funeral, the two of us were in my room, and I had started to say goodbye, when my parents came in to talk to us. They informed us that Gabe was actually not going to be moving away. Gabe's parents had not been very close to any of their siblings, so in their will they had given custody of Gabe to my parents. So at least even if the situation was horrible, that was amazing news for both of us. Gabe adapted to living with us really well. We had been such friends before that it wasn't a very hard transition for him, and we became closer than ever. My parents had an office next to my room that they gave to Gabe, and they moved their office to the basement. He was very grateful for how we let him into our family, and that was solidified even stronger about a year after the incident when my parents ended up officially adopting him, making the two of us officially brothers. Things between us just got better for a while. We had already been best friends, we got even closer when my parents took him in, and we got even closer when we officially became brothers. That is - at least - until an incident happened when we were in 7th grade. Over the two years since Gabe had moved in with us, we had gotten closer as friends and then as brothers, but puberty was also happening around that time and I was starting to realize that I didn't care about girls at all, but liked guys instead, and because we had not grown up together as brothers, I found myself being attracted to Gabe. So not only was I figuring out my sexuality, I was also dealing with an attraction to my brother. What made it even harder was the fact that I was getting the feeling that Gabe felt the same toward me. Obviously neither of us said anything, but I noticed lingering stares from him in the same way that I knew I was doing to him, and we had also become pretty cuddly while hanging out together, especially while watching TV. The incident occurred one weekend while we were hanging out at home watching a movie. We were each sitting on the couch wearing just a t-shirt and boxers. We had both recently switched to wearing boxers because we had to start changing for PE, and didn't want to be made fun of for wearing something more revealing, and after making that switch, it became pretty common for us to hang out wearing our boxers, especially when our parents weren't around. As the movie progressed, he cuddled up against me, which wasn't unusual for us, but it was the first time it had happened while we were just in our underwear. I felt myself starting to get hard as we cuddled, but I tried to keep it hidden. I think I was successful for a while, but as we kept cuddling, I know he noticed, but he didn't seem freaked out by it. We kept cuddling, and eventually we moved into a position where my boner had to be obvious, and couldn't be ignored anymore. Gabe made eye contact with me, and I was worried he would be weird about it, but it was actually the opposite. He smiled at me, and I returned the smile. Before I knew it, we were both leaning in and our lips met. It didn't progress past that, but the kiss made both of our feelings clear to each other, and that hurt. We eventually stopped cuddling, and were pretty quiet the rest of the night. I knew we needed to talk, but I didn't know what to say. We didn't do much the rest of the night, or talk much at all. We didn't really talk much until the next day. Gabe came over to my room and we sat down to talk. I don't think either of us felt comfortable saying what we were really feeling, but we both understood what was happening. It was clear that we both liked each other more than we should for being brothers, and in order to avoid ruining our relationship, we needed to be careful going forward. My heart hurt a lot that night, but I was willing to do anything to preserve our relationship. I couldn't ruin the relationship with my best friend and brother.