Relinquishing the Kingdom

Pete could still remember the day that Ryan turned and looked at him, frowning somewhat. They'd just smoked and Brendon had gone on a beer run because he'd lost at a game of Nose Goes. "You're different now," he'd said, sighing and taking another drink of his rum and Coke.

"Different from what?" Pete had asked. Usually he knew, but this time he didn't. Unusual for the pair of them who usually understand each other in the oddest of metaphors that Patrick could only decipher half the time.

Ryan shrugged. "I don't know, like. I guess you're less . . . god-like. I remember jerking off to you when I was, like, seventeen and hoping you'd fuck me one day."

"And then you got it and it wasn't as good as you expected?" Pete asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No, it was." Ryan took another drink, leaning back in his chair. "Maybe it's me. I don't know. I don't jerk off to you anymore."

Pete nodded, not sure where this conversation had sprung from and not really liking where it was going. "Yeah, well, we're friends now."

"I jerked off to you when we were friends."

The door opened and Brendon came in with a twenty-four pack and a grin. "Dude, that check-out girl was so hot."

"I am right fucking here," Ryan snapped loudly, eyes narrowing.

And there's that, too, Pete mused silently, watching Brendon give a contrite apology and Ryan ignore it, holding his hand out for a beer.

But Pete sort of knew what Ryan meant. He didn't think about bending the boy over furniture and fucking him senseless anymore, or even having heated make-out sessions in dark corners. They'd all moved on. The spark was gone.

None of them were the gods they'd been once. Ryan was a hippie now who smoked too much and cheated on his boyfriend with hipsters that did harder drugs. Pete was growing up and not wanting to, trying to figure out when he'd gotten to be almost thirty fucking years old. Brendon was still the same though, grinning, sitting down on Pete's lap and leering at Ryan from across the table, almost mockingly.

"We should order pizza and watch a movie."

"No fucking Disney movies," Ryan said with an eye roll as he slowly stood up to follow his boyfriend who was already practically skipping to the basement to peruse Pete's extensive DVD collection.

The older of the three grabbed Ryan's wrist before he disappeared down the steps. "So if I wanted to fuck you right now," he asked, voice low, "you wouldn't let me?"

The boy frowned, looking at Pete's fingers closed around his tattooed wrist and back up. "I'd probably let you," he admitted. "But, like, it wouldn't mean anything. I don't know. You're not . . . I'm not . . . so much shit changes."

Pete sighed, nodding, letting go of Ryan's hand. "Yeah. Well, I guess--"

"Are you guys coming?" Brendon shouted from downstairs. "I am not getting drunk and watching movies by myself."

Ryan gave a small smile. "I think that's our cue." So Pete followed him down to the basement and the three of them spent the night curled up and watching bad comedies until three in the morning, when Pete went upstairs to bed and Ryan and Brendon were still kissing intently on the couch.

When Ryan was nineteen the world had been theirs. Now Pete was twenty-eight and someone else was ruling the world. He wasn't sure who, but they were welcome to the responsibility. Yet, for some reason, his fingers itched to touch Ryan's shoulder blades that night and he ended up jerking off to the sex noises filtering up to the basement.

In the morning he wrote five pages.