Archive of Our Own

He knew not to touch the comics.

Unless he was desperate, he kept at least a foot between them and him. Tried not to walk closely enough to ripple the poly bags, even though anyone who wasn't stick-thin would scrape along the edges of the cardboard bins trying to get from one side of the room to the next.

But sometimes a man got desperate, and the gears in his mind would fall off track and he'd start...start acting like Brodie. Reckless and stupid. He'd run a hand over the tops of the bags; they felt like feathers, or leaves, fresh and soft and slightly warm. They'd make a fp-fp-fp noise, and Brodie would turn around and look up. His head would be tilted and he'd narrow his eyes.

"Go on," he'd say. "You don't mean it."

Sometimes he'd wuss out right then. No, maybe he didn't mean it. Maybe he was just trying to get a rise out of him or break his concentration. When things are going well with Brandi - hell, when they're peaking, when he's just had one of those fantastic morning blowjobs or something - that's when he'll come down and run his hand over the comics just to be an ass. Spread the joy and think about the things we treasure most and make fun of other people's treasures.

Other times he'd catch his eye and run his hand back. Stopping midway through a long box, he'd hover over some random issue. His fingers would creep down until they met paper. Brodie would frown, put down anything he was doing, and approach. If the issue was something important - he could tell, even from across the room - he'd put his hands out at waist-level, palms held down like a hostage negotiator.

"You don't mean it. You know what'll happen. Just put The Hulk down."

If TS got to the point where he could feel the newsprint and slick cover beneath his fingertips, he meant it. It was almost like feeling up a chick for the first time; you went slowly and waited for a reaction.

As soon as half an inch of comic was free of its polyvinyl jacket, he'd find himself on the floor. Brodie was quick, but TS always gave him time to approach before lifting the comic. He wouldn't really do anything to the issues. Hell, if he actually did something, he might actually get beaten, like a commoner.

It was a good excuse. Even Brodie knew it was an excuse. They each had an internal clock that said, in a way, when it was all right to mess around like this. Just when one or the other began to wonder if it was some sort of stupid teenage thing, it would happen. And TS would find himself on the floor, half-hidden underneath tables of comics, acting surprised as Brodie wrangled his jeans off.

They never talked about it. It was just something you did when the days were getting long and it was that or get into a fight over something stupid. Fucking was better. They'd start out fighting on the basement floor, arms tangled in loose plaid shirts, and end up without pants. Usually Brodie came out on top, helped by his height and the awkwardness of his damn threadbare bathrobe. It was hard to get that out of the way, and when TS tried he'd ended up falling over, hitting his head on a table leg as a saliva-wet pair of fingers opened him up.

Losing the fight seemed fair, at least most of the time. He started it. Brodie would say stupid shit, stuff about superhero dicks or how you never saw this in the comics, and somehow, between that and the cold floor he was comfortable.

The first time they had been fighting, full-out as much as teenagers who didn't actually hate each other could. TS tried to fight properly, but Brodie fought like a girl, and everyone knew that girls fought dirty. He pulled hair and clawed with ragged, bitten nails. He used the floor like another hand, scraping TS's face against the concrete with surprising strength. Then he'd felt it - Brodie was hard. Fifteen, a comics dork and a virgin, and getting off on beating his best friend into the basement floor.

It was infectious. He knew wasn't much different. His body stiffened in alarm and, terrifyingly, in sympathy. TS arched his back and flung his friend off. Between the rows of comics (there had been far fewer then, but still enough to be dangerous if the long boxes fell) he stood, wavering.

"What the hell?" Brodie had curled up against a leg of the table and rubbed his erection through his jeans.

"Like that doesn't happen to you."

"No! I don't get into fights with people and then get a stiffy!"

Brodie shrugged and looked up, unbuttoning his fly. "Suit yourself. But I'm not walking around like this."

TS leaned on another table for a moment, then looked down. "What are you looking at?"

"Some posters I don't put up in my room."

"Seriously?" He looked under the table, as far from Brodie as possible. Layer upon layer of glossy inserts, black and red and green and an awful lot of flesh tones.

Brodie stared upwards, his hand speeding up. "That one's..."

"I don't care," TS said. He slid underneath the table and let his eyes drift across the collage. Might as well deal with this problem here. He didn't bother asking if it was safe from interference; if Brodie was down here enough to make this table his private, geek version of Playboy, it was.

At some point, he stopped making a big deal about sitting under the opposite end of the table. On a particularly shitty afternoon, he stared listlessly at a greenish woman - not his favorite, but damned if he was going to move now - and felt nothing. His hand felt numb. TS groaned in frustration and sped up.

"Dude, switch hands." Brodie had finished and was taping a new poster over one of the marginally less sexy supervillainesses.

"I already did. It's just not working."

Brodie sighed dramatically and dropped the roll of tape. "What, you already spank it this morning?"

TS silently switched hands again. Nothing. He glared at a drawing of a gothic woman with an ill-fitting corset. She usually did it.

Once, twice and he came. He reached around with numb hands to find the box of tissues. His left hand grabbed one and he started wiping his right hand off before realizing what had happened.

"Did you just jerk me off?"

"You were suffering," Brodie said, snatching the tissue from him. "Can't let a bro suffer."

Fights got more hands-on. Brodie moved the jerking-off to inside the fight, reaching forward and into TS's pants too often for it to be a dirty trick anymore.

Then college happened, and it was weird. Girls were flightier, moodier, even more impossible to understand. Brodie just laughed and told him to stop fondling the comics as he pushed him to the ground. TS found himself trying to fight. The violence and sex made him feel alive. They meant it but they didn't mean it; it was fake and real, just like companies that made cheese orange and tv families normal. In the cold light of the basement, between Brodie and the concrete, it was comfortable.

Today, Brandi had confused him. He came over, thinking about what he needed. As they descended the stairs to the basement, Brodie reminded him not to touch the comics. It didn't even register with TS until it was too late. The moment had passed, and you couldn't acknowledge it.

As they left, he ran his hand over the tops of the bags. Brodie was already at the top of the stairs and hadn't heard the soft noise. TS bit his lip and hurried upstairs.