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From the moment Ray sits down at the piano to the moment he wakes up chained on the deck of Duke’s ship, Nathan remembers nothing. His head throbs, a dull drumbeat behind his temples that makes his vision blurry. He groans and sits up, blinking rapidly at the hazy outline of Duke standing over him.
“Look who’s awake. Ready to start giving me shit again?”
Nathan just groans and lets his head thunk back against the pillar he’s chained to. He hears Duke call Audrey, and the tone of his voice tells Nathan he’s done something very, very stupid.-
1983
It’s cold outside, and Duke has taken a break from throwing himself down the huge hill overlooking the town and sat himself down against the wide trunk of a huge pine. He can hear the chatter of various adults sitting around the one fire lit in the clearing, hears the occasional crunching gait of a parent checking on their kids before marching back through their own footsteps towards the fire. He hasn’t summoned up the energy yet to run over and grab a cup of hot chocolate. He feels vaguely sleepy, and the snowflakes floating down on him are too pretty to look away from.
He’s slid down onto his back now—lying on the sled so his clothes don’t get all wet—and he stares up into the branches and watches them shiver when the wind blows hard enough. Duke blows out a long breath and watches it mist out in front of him, and pretends he’s big enough to shake the trees.
There’s a loud thunk a ways away and Duke sits up. Someone must have crashed hard to make a noise that loud. Nathan Wournos scrambles up the hill, dragging his sled behind him by a thickly knotted rope.
And Lisa Botkee starts screaming.
It bothers him, sometimes, the way Duke looks at Audrey. Duke’s always been flirtatious—he’s attractive and he knows it, isn’t afraid to ask for what he wants the way Nathan does. But when Duke looks at Audrey…it’s like he wants more than the usual wine, dine, and lay, and that bothers Nathan more than he’d like to admit.
“So, you ever going to tell me what your beef with Duke is, or are you going to play strong and silent until I annoy it out of you?” Audrey asks. They’re at the Second Chance restaurant, sticking around until the EMT’s are on the scene before they head home. The chef’s already cleared out, so any chance of finding out if he’s the one poisoning the food has gone with him.
“I thought we’d already reached annoying.” He replies. Audrey huffs and raises her hand like she’s going to sock him in the shoulder, than seems to change her mind and points at him instead.
“That’s not an answer buddy. And trust me, you’ll know when I’m annoying you. I’m a Fed, remember?” She lets her hand drop to her side and sort of jiggles in place a little. She’s probably cold, but Nathan has no jacket to give her. He stands a little closer and shrugs.
“It’s complicated, always has been.” He says simply.
“Yeah, I can see that, Wournos. But, how? You hate him the way I hate some of my exes.” She shakes her head, doesn’t notice the way he goes stiff, “What the heck did he do?”
“Just a small town rivalry,” he makes himself shrug and juts out his chin when he hears sirens, “Paramedic’s here.”
“What where--?” Audrey looks around. It takes another couple seconds before she hears the sirens. “Sometimes I forget you’re Clark Kent.”
He smirks, and offers her a ride home before she waves him off and starts rifling through her handbag.
1992
There’s a little inlet off White Shore road that you have to swim to from the beach. It’s tucked between two areas so dense with vegetation that you can’t see it much until you’re practically on top of it, and it’s much too narrow to get to by boat. The graduating class of 1993 is told of its existence by their predecessors precisely two weeks before mid-August, when they’ll be chained to their desks for their final year of high school.
Nathan’s lounging on a tuft of grass, watching the flames from the fire lick high into the air, almost too bright against the night sky. Duke Crocker flops down next to him, brandishing two Coronas and a crooked smile. Nathan sits up and stares at him for a second, but takes the beer.
“Bottle opener?” Nathan asks. Duke’s smile widens.
“It’s a twist-off.”
Nathan gives him a blank look then deliberately drapes the end of his shirt over the cap and twists it off without breaking eye contact with Duke. He raises an eyebrow, “Want me to do yours too?”
Duke laughs out loud and nudges Nathan’s knee with his own, “Not giving an inch, huh?”
Nathan just drinks, and hears Duke open his bottle and do the same. Beer tastes awful to him, in all honesty, but he enjoys the way alcohol warms him, and the sensation of being tipsy. The first time he’d gotten all the way drunk had been an amazing experience, executed carefully in his own bedroom while his dad was on a fishing trip.
“C’mon man,” Duke says, interrupting Nathan’s reverie, “At least come out and join the party.”
Nathan snorts, “What party?” The class of ’93 is full of lightweights, and nearly everyone is collapsed together in little groups of drunk teenagers leaning on each other in the cooling sand to cancel out their drunken unbalance. The few who’ve managed to avoid inebriation are necking in the little pockets of grass under the trees.
“Man, I’ll give you that.” Duke admits, shaking his head, “But we can have our own fun, right?” Duke rolls onto his feet and jogs toward a cooler, grabbing two more Coronas and a little baggy that puts Nathan on his guard.
“Relax, man,” he says as Nathan stares dubiously at the tightly rolled joint pinched between his fingers, “It’s just weed. It won’t mess you up like the stuff Maryanne takes. It just feels…” Duke looks faraway for a second, “Like a boat on the ocean.”
“You take a hit on that while I wasn’t looking?” Nathan watches Duke set the bottles aside and dig around in his pockets for a lighter.
“Just try it, okay? Just one hit, and if you don’t like it, we’ll switch back to the brew.” Duke sets the lighter to the paper, and Nathan watches the flame dance around for a split second before it catches and the paper starts to smolder. “Wanna go first?”
Nathan takes it, takes a long, slow pull and holds it for a second.
“Now breathe out, nice and slow, through your nose.”
He does, coughs on the tail end of it and fumbles the bottle up to his lips while Duke laughs.
“It’s a little strong, I will admit. Johnny always has good stuff.” Duke’s taking his own hit but Nathan isn’t paying that much attention. He feels heavy, but also…light? Like his head’s a boulder on his neck but his arms are full of helium. He lays down flat and stares up at the stars, takes the joint from Duke on autopilot when he lays down beside him. He sees the spill of white smoke from Duke’s breath out of the corner of his eye.
“Good, right?”
Nathan nods, and just for a second, he admits to himself that likes the feel Duke’s breath on his face.
Nathan feels numb in a way he hasn’t since he fell off his sled in 1983. He can still hear Duke’s wheezing breaths, the way the air rattled in his lungs. The image of Duke, old and all but crippled, slowly dying on the lighthouse steps, stays with him for days after, until he’s forced to drive out to the Grey Gull. Nathan sees the rise and fall of Duke’s chest and listens hard to the sound of air whooshing cleanly through his body before he leaves without a backwards glance, burning the image of Duke’s face, framed by the dashes of gray in his dark hair, into his memory.
1996
Duke’s back in town for another four days before Spring break is over, and he intends to make the most of it. He drags Nathan out of his cave and onto his father’s shitty boat with a six back of cheap booze and a baggie full of weed. Nathan frowns, as per the usual, but lights up first once he’s had the requisite two beers that relax him enough to do it.
He doesn’t cough anymore, holds it in his lungs for long seconds before he lets it plume out in front of him. His fingers feel tingly as he hands the joint back to Duke.
“Can I?” Duke asks, gesturing with it. Nathan nods, shuffling back so he’s braced against the headboard. Duke slides into the cup of Nathan’s lap like he fits there, squirms around until he’s comfortable. He’s got Nathan’s thighs under his bony butt and all his weight resting on his knees but, y’know, as long as he’s comfortable. They’ve had this argument dozens of times by now, so Nathan settles for pinching Duke’s hip to hear him yelp.
“Asshole,” Duke says breathlessly, rubbing his side, “See if I share.” He takes a short pull on the joint and blows it off to the side, flipping Nathan off as he does so. The next time though, Nathan watches the slow, sinuous curl of smoke from Duke’s mouth before he drags him down to take his own hit straight from Duke’s lips.
Duke doesn’t say anything when Nathan knocks on his door two weeks later, not when it’s almost two in the morning and he’s got a case dangling in one hand.
“After the Trouble earlier,” Nathan volunteers when they’ve been drink in silence for almost twenty minutes. “Audrey, uh, kissed me. On the cheek.”
Duke has no noticeable reaction, except a tightening of his jaw and a brief quirk of one eyebrow.
“Normally, I wouldn’t have…it would’ve been nothing but—”
“If you’re trying to tell me to back off Audrey so you can give her a shot, please get it over with because this—” Duke made a sweeping gesture with his bottle, “Physically pains me.”
“I felt it, Duke.”
The bottle makes a dull thunk as Duke sets it down heavily. “You…felt it?”
Nathan nods. His grip is practically strangling the bottle in his hands, and he looks at Duke helplessly. “Her mouth was…so soft, and I just. I felt it. Her lips—mmmf!”
Duke kisses him hard, the fingers of one hand fisted in his hair to drag him forward. Duke’s biting on his lip, mashing their mouths together. Nathan can see it but he can’t, god, he can’t feel it.
“Duke,” he begs, “I want it, please, I want to feel you.”
“I know, Nate, god just let me in.”
Nathan lets his mouth fall open, watches as Duke gentles the kiss, angles his head and lets his tongue slip inside. Nathan has a sudden desire to bite down hard, taste the blood in his mouth from Duke’s bitten tongue. He shoves Duke away, shaking. Duke stares at him across the table, chest heaving as he stares back.
“I’m sorry.” Nathan says softly, stands up and heads for the door.
“Nathan, wait.” He hears the scrape of Duke’s chair against the floor and pauses, listens to the familiar tread of Duke’s feet towards him.
“I can’t.” Nathan says hollowly, “It must…must’ve been a fluke.” He sniffles wetly, realizes he’s crying when he scrubs his hand down his face and finds his cheeks wet. “I’m sorry.”
Duke turns him around, tugs him towards the bed and lays down next to him while he silently cries himself to sleep.
The morning light looks like warmth feels, Nathan thinks. It streams yellow and bright through the cracks between the curtains and spills across the room like liquid gold, painting a bright swath down the wall, bisecting the room into two halves of soft shadow.
This is Nathan’s favorite time of day. He wakes up early and lounges about his room for long minutes, letting his coffee cool so he doesn’t accidentally burn himself, and twitching the curtains open wider and wider so the sun can gradually lighten up the room.
Except that Nathan’s not at home.
There’s an arm slung over his hip, a braided leather band tied to its wrist.