Then
*
"So, I finally got an answer out of Angelo."
Pete looked up, startled. Jubilee was standing a few feet in his room, and he hadn't even noticed her come in. "You must be fairly damned pleased with yourself then." There was *no* way he was going to give anything away by admitting to a smug Jubilee what had been going on.
It had only been ten months, after all. She was bound to get the drift sooner or later. But this meant...
Bloody hell. He'd better start packing now. Emma was going to have to *do* something about their affair, if Jubilee had found out. She'd been ignoring it thus far, since Pete had been out of the country for weeks on end, coming home to change, shower, and fuck her student. But now that Jubilee had proof--
God. He'd better be ready to get summarily kicked out of the state.
Jubilee watched the tight expression on Pete Wisdom's face, and tried to find a sign of guilt hidden in it. There was none present; the only thing there was pain, and flat acceptance. She wasn't sure what he was accepting, but his features were showing definite signs of a tenseness that hadn't been there before.
Who was she kidding? His face was more than haggard; it was positively pinched. He looked about forty years old.
Always one to cut to the chase, Jubilee stuck her chin out, on the offensive again. "Y'know, I knew you were, like, dirty and stuff, Wisdom. But I didn't think you'd actually sleep with Ange. Man! You're at least thirty. At LEAST. And he's only fucking EIGHTEEN years old. That's, like--"
"Like what, Jubecita?"
The voice was quiet, but also icy. And coming from right behind her. She turned around slowly, refusing to take the angry expression off her face. Angelo was just as guilty in her mind, though for completely different reasons. She was not letting him off the hook, not being any kinder to him than Pete. "You know what, Espinosa."
He was very still, very quiet, for a whole thirty seconds, before turning around and walking out of the room. His neutral expression hadn't even twitched the entire time, and it took all of her self control to send a *paff* after him. He was so damned... damned...
"Happy, Lee?"
She whirled on Pete, being the only one to take her anger out on. "You're a bastard, y'know. He was... I dunno! But now he's not."
***He answered, "Look, just because I'm a teacher doesn't mean I'm not a bastard too. Don't forget it, Lee. And get me some goddamned coffee."***
She stared at him, fuming. "Get you... get you -- I don't believe you."
He sighed inaudibly, feeling his whole body going limp in weariness. Good -- she was mad enough to run off in a snit, and leave him the hell alone. "No, I bet you don't."
***She followed Angelo, who was slapping oversized runners down the hall and around the corner. Pete heard her call, "Ange, mi amigo, yo todavia estoy enojada contigo."***
Pete had only a faint grasp on Spanish, and the few curses that Ange had taught him, mostly hissed through teeth that were clenched against passion, couldn't really be considered breaking the language barrier. Jubilee's tone, however, transcended verbal communication, and really needed no literal translation.
He shut his door firmly, and only then felt safe to put his face in his hands like he'd wanted to for the whole day of listening to Jubilee patronize him -- loudly -- in front of all the other students. Tonight, he was going to ask Angelo to come to his room, and he was going to actually take the time to make sure they were both tender, for some damned reason. It was to make sure Ange didn't get out of this feeling used and abused. That would...
He was trying to protect the boy's ego, that's all. Tenderness is only needed desperately when you're young, and Pete's teaching resignation tomorrow, and consequent move across the ocean, was going to hit Ange hard.
Pete hadn't felt this old in a long time.
*
Angelo crept through the halls, making sure that his footsteps were silent and tread nowhere. He knew the path to Pete's room off by heart, every dip in the carpet, and every place the floor creaked. He'd been used to hiding his midnight rendez-vous for so long that he'd almost forgotten Jubilee.
There was light streaming under her door, and he took special precautions to make sure he was quiet down that hallway. The confrontation that would come out of this, he just didn't feel up to dealing with.
Pete's door. He turned the knob, and slipped inside. Pete had only a pair of training pants on, and Ange moved to embrace his chest from behind. Pete jumped, startled.
"Bollocks! Don't scare a bloke like that."
Angelo grinned. It was hard to get one up on Wisdom. He whispered back, "Sorry."
Pete leaned into the arms holding him, promising himself that this would be the last time. It had to be. This was just--
"Mi amigo, listen, we gotta--"
Pete leaned his head back on Angelo's skinny shoulder, and then resolutely broke away. The last time, he told himself. "Look, Ange, don't. Just... come to bed."
***Angelo's face turned down in the darkness, but Pete had already moved away, towards the mattress and the sheets and the silence. Ange realized that it wasn't the time to talk. Not tonight.***
Pete sat down, and pulled Angelo to him. He tasted with his hands, his lips, his eyes, his ears... because Pete knew that, come morning, he'd never get another chance.
"You sure you want--"
Angelo put his hand over Pete's mouth, not being able to help himself. "Por favor, mi amante, mi... mierda, whatever you are; just don't say it."
Pete was silent.
***more sex?***
Finally, after the sighs, and the touches, and the moans, and the orgasms that seemed like sobs to both their ears, Pete rolled over and did what he always did -- lit a smoke. Ange looked up at the ceiling, like he always did, then whispered, "Hombre, you think maybe I could stay tonight?"
Pete opened his mouth to object, on instinct... and then shut it again. What difference would it make? Everyone knew anyway, and he couldn't fear anything worse than what was already coming. And it would be so less lonely in the bed with the two of them.
"A'right. Just scram before Frost comes and drags us out."
Ange smiled a little bit, and then hesitantly put an arm around Pete. He was out in seconds, comforted by the warmth beside him.
Pete didn't sleep all night-- just felt the weight of Angelo's limb, and heart, and mind.
* * *
"You're leaving."
It wasn't a question. Were Angelo to have phrased it as a question, there would be some doubt as to whether he was really leaving.
There was no doubt.
It wasn't a question.
No matter how much he'd thought about it that morning -- and it had been a hell of a lot -- he still couldn't quite grasp this. Ange had gotten quite used to having Pete around...
He couldn't distance himself from the fact of Pete going enough, either. He'd been trying for the last hour and a half, hiding out in the Biosphere looking for Penny.
She had known something was wrong, and came out to sit with him.
"When's your flight?"
That question, too, had no answer, and Angelo began to get a little angry. "So, what, we're both 'grounded'?"
He spoke to Pete's back, because the other man was facing his window, taking things out of one drawer and putting them in another. Angelo had barged in, without knocking. So far, Pete hadn't even acknowledged he was there.
Now, Pete said, "You only ground kids. I'm no kid."
Ange stayed in the doorway, staring at Pete's back. The very same back that last night, had been the very borders of his world. This was just too, too much. "I'm a kid, though, right? I'm just a kid."
This made Pete turn around. "God, I hope you're still... Listen, just get outta here, okay?"
Ange was blunt. "Why?"
Pete put some things in a duffel bag, and turned to his desk next. He mumbled, "Y'know, you're acting like a kid, at least."
Ange closed his eyes, trying to fight against the anger, and intensity, and the all-over *fear* that was gathering deep in his gut. "That's all you think of me, of course. Right, hombre."
He whispered, "That's why you don't mind goin', isn't it? You wouldn't have left your girl like this, unless she told you to."
Pete spun around again. "You don't want to bring her into this, Ange."
He threw up his hands, giving up control on his anger. "Why? Because I'm not as mature as Kitty? I'm not as pretty? God forbid -- don't look at me like that -- maybe I didn't *fuck* as good as she did?"
Pete stood rigid, and answered coldly, "Actually, no! Sometimes you're not as mature as Kitty was." He wanted to step back with each word, even more so because he knew exactly *why* Ange was saying them. The best defense was a good offence, and Ange attacked mercilessly. Pete had never wanted to gather him up in his arms more, but of course, that wasn't an option.
Though Angelo been expecting it -- deep down he *knew* it -- the words still stung sharply. He covered it up by muttering, " 'Least I'm not bent and cynical and too old to care."
Pete stared at him, finally having run out of things to say. When Angelo saw it, he stalked out, hands trembling with a mesh of things he didn't even want to begin to sort out.
* * *
Ange held a huge, battered suitcase by the handle, with both hands. He stood in front of Pete, waiting for the taxi, outside the school. It gave them an illusion of privacy, even though they knew that everyone was staring at them through the blinds of the math classroom. "You're really gonna just up and go, Pete?"
He hadn't wanted to say that.
He really didn't want to say anything else, like, "Just like that?"
Pete hadn't looked at him all morning. It was starting to hurt. In defence, Angelo had taken to a lot of staring off into space. And examining of his feet, and other people's feet; there was a lot of things you could learn about a person from their feet.
Pete's shoes were always scruffy. He said, "Look, you know I gotta."
Ange kicked a rock down the path, and stared after it. It looked like all the other rocks. "No, I don't know, hombre. But whatever."
Pete looked up into the sky, imagining he could see the movement in the clouds overhead. The world kept spinning at a pace fast enough to make him dizzy. Without much imagination, he felt the day's end approaching.
*Don't end this like such a bugger.*
"Look, mate... Ange... love--"
The last word said made both of them flinch, for all the things said and unsaid within it. Angelo kicked another rock, and Pete lit a cigarette, his immediate and eternal reaction to discomfort.
Neither of them wondered whether it carried more meaning than the normal slang would. Now was not the time; they'ed left it far too late.
Angelo opened his mouth to speak, only a gust of wind stole his breath away, and he could but stand there.
A taxi drove slowly up the drive, and they both watched it in dread. Once it parked, Pete took a breath, and finally looked into Angelo's eyes.
God, but he couldn't do that again. He'd never leave. Pete stepped farther away.
Ange looked at the driver, who was focused on his paper. He spared the window a casual glance, but really didn't care. He'd heard Jono creep to the side of the house and stop, and was suddenly grateful in a thousand ways he didn't want to think about.
Jubilee, for sure, was staring out that window, and he was strangely grateful in a thousand other ways.
Pete moved to take his suitcase, feeling the twitch starting in his jaw. He clamped down on it, tightly, and snatched the case away from its protector. In the process, he grabbed a cold hand, and it made him jump.
With great effort, he dropped it again, though it killed him to do so.
Angelo, still staring at his laces, mumbled, "I... uh... oh Dios, Pete..." He raised his eyes enough to stare at a raspy chin, and couldn't help but lean in to--
Pete whispered, "You're gonna get in major shit if you kiss your boyfriend goodbye, kid. Ain't gonna be pretty."
Ange knew the words for a mask; a wall behind which it was safe to retreat, when things were harder than Pete could handle. He mumbled back, "I know. But fuck'em. I can't do this."
Pete dropped the case, and it banged, unheeded, against his shin. He walked a few paces, behind a concrete pillar, and leaned against it, finally letting his face pinch up as much as it wanted. Angelo grimaced, and kissed him fiercely.
His lips were cool with the morning's breeze, and his mouth tasted of all the things it always did and a million other. As he leaned into the kiss, frevently, helplessly, he could taste the desperation in the other's breath. His tongue was scented in sorrow, and when he touched his own tongue to suddenly strange teeth, he could feel the want all the way down to his toes.
But there was some exhilaration in that touch, too, a joy he couldn't turn away from in the hand cupping his jaw, in the lips trailing his own like they wanted to keep the memory of their shapes. The joy of the caged bird running free, the joy of one retreating to his small island where he was safe, leaving the ocean behind.
The trembling in them both grew.
Pete was the first one to pull away, and as he did, he knew he was imagining those things in Angelo. He knew, he told himself silently, they were his own feelings reflecting at him from the boy's mirror eyes.
He could drown in those mirrors, he thinks, and breaks away sharply; even though his back was to the concrete. "I gotta go, Ange. I gotta."
He stepped out again, and cleared his face. With a shaky breath, he stepped back to his bag and into the car.
He couldn't look back, corny as it was. The kid's face was gonna be his undoing... and he couldn't look back, and see it pull him in again.
***bit more from Ange?***
Jono stood in the shadows, frowning, as Pete's taxi drove away in the traditional abandonment. Ange didn't have tears on his face, and he didn't lift his eyes up for a second as he walked into the house. As he stumbled up the steps, past Jono, he mumbled to the pillar, "Y'know what? I think I'm gay."
He added harshly, "Not that it matters anymore."
~*~
Now
*
"How long are you in the city for, then?"
Ange looked up from the pillow, actually raising his head a little bit. The question surprised him, obviously, and it hurt Pete to think that he was honestly surprised that Pete would ask.
"A while." Ange laid back down, and shifted his legs under the sheets. Carefully, he asked, "Why you asking?"
"Because I am." He opened his mouth to say something more, but couldn't.
Ange felt his hesitation. "That's not much of an answer, hombre."
Pete chuckled sadly. "It's not much of a question, either, really."
Angelo rolled over and kissed him on the shoulder, tucking a hand around after his lips. He sighed comfortably, and replied, "No, guess not."
Pete listened to Ange's regular breath for a few minutes. He said, quietly enough that, if Ange were asleep he wouldn't disturb him, "Would you rather I hadn't asked?"
There was the muffled answer, coming from somewhere near his collarbone. It was a definite negative.
Though he wouldn't admit it to anyone, it made him smile.
* * *
There is no ending to this, Pete thinks to himself. There is no ending, no finished thoughts, no neat little closure. There is no period like a sentence, or headstone to mark where the body lies.
Their bodies are entwined in the morning, tied into knots, and pushed together to mold like clay. He can feel the pins and needles starting, but moving is not an option. Disturbing his lover's slumber is not an option.
They are finally lovers again, Pete thinks, frightened. He doesn't know what it means. He could ask, he thinks. He could open his mouth and spit out the words in a halting voice, unsure of what he wants to say or hear.
"Ange... do we talk about it?"
It is the safest question, and the only one that matters, in the end. His heart isn't racing, because it has had years to slow down. Pete Wisdom is not a young man anymore.
He was never a young man, but he doesn't dwell on this now. He waits to hear the breathing of his lover -- yes, they are lovers again -- speed up, or pause, or falter in some form that will show his hesitation.
Pete is tired of hesitation. He wants to live.
When Ange says quietly, "Only if there's no bullshit involved," Pete smiles. It's a fair enough request.
"I'll try, Ange." It's a fair enough reply, and Ange knows.
Pete pillows his head on an arm, and stares at Angelo's face. He is relaxed for the first time in lifetimes. He doesn't want to let the feeling go. Angelo is smiling, just a little, and Pete stretches, without realizing, to wrap his legs a little more firmly around Ange.
Just a precaution. Angelo appreciates it, and says, "I get you." He shuffles the sheet over them more, as they lay, curled up on the dirty couch. He is pressed into Pete's body, and they are face to face. He has nowhere to put his head except on his lover's chest.
They both think about how they are lovers once again. Ange is amazed, and his gentle tone has a little bit of wonder in it. "I wasn't really planning this, y'know. I didn't even know if I'd find you."
Pete stroked a hand down one bare shoulder, getting reaquainted with all the skin, and so much more, that he'd been missing. His voice was quiet, and still. "But you did."
Ange tucked an arm around him comfortably, and closed his eyes. "Well yeah, Pete." A pause, in which they both took a breath, and things seemed to -- change. "I wanted to."