Maybe We'll Die, Maybe We Won't

They met when they were thirteen. It wasn't one of those 'and we knew we would end up together, even though we were only kids' things. It wasn't even a 'we became close right from the beginning'. They barely even spoke to each other when they first met, being pushed together by their parents as they could 'make a friend outside if school'.
"Hi." Kellin had said, nodding casually to the shorter, tan boy in front of him. His brown hair was straight, but Kellin couldn't tell if it was natural or not, and he had wide, dark brown eyes. While their parents were sitting at the patio table, deep in conversation while the two of them stood by the open door of the back garden.
"Hi." The boy said in response. His younger brother was playing with his phone next to his mother, cut off from the conversation the adults were having. The boy with Kellin looked as though he wished he was there with them.
"I'm Kellin." Kellin continued when the other boy made no attempt to introduce himself.
"Vic." Was all he said, not meeting Kellin's eye.
Kellin sighed and leant back on the wall, watching the leaves of the trees rustle in the autumn wind.
____
After that meeting, their parents let them dutifully ignore each other as they had intended from the beginning. The boys just didn't want to talk to each other, and the adults simply decided that it was down to 'teenage angst' and left them to their own devices.
But it wasn't teenage angst. It was just Vic. Because when the Bostwicks went to the Fuentes house the next weekend, Mike spent the whole afternoon talking Kellin through all the plot holes that he had managed to find in the 'Harry Potter' series.
"I mean, if Basilisk venom is used to destroy horcruxes, shouldn't the piece of Voldemort in Harry have been destroyed in Second year, when Harry got bitten by the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets?" He posed proudly.
"Hmm..." Kellin nodded for a moment, considering the twelve year old to be right. "But remember in the prophecy Trelawney said 'either must die at the hand of the other'? Voldemort had to kill the part of himself in Harry himself, if that makes sense. And besides, Harry didn't die in the Chamber. In Deathly Hallows he died, and then the part of Voldemort got destroyed. Maybe it couldn't happen unless Harry was dead." Kellin suggested enthusiastically.
Mike looked at him, smiling. "Good argument. That's what Vic said as well."
"Your brother?" Kellin glanced across the room to see the other teenager scribbling notes in a tattered notebook, furiously crossing out lines of words and then starting again.
"Yeah. He loves Harry Potter almost as much as me."
Kellin simply nodded and shrugged, tearing his eyes away from the older boy and turning back to Mike. "Okay, give me another plot hole."
____
Once Kellin turned fourteen, and started at high school, his parents began to give him more freedom. They didn't drag him along with them whenever they went to the Fuentes' house (although he still sometimes went, if he wanted to talk to Mike again) and he was finally allowed to go to parties with his friends.
Which eventually lead him to become reacquainted with Vic.
____
In freshman year, Kellin ended up becoming friends with an array of different people, which also ended up being a vast majority of the year. He just ended up being popular. He didn't try, he was just a nice guy that most people seemed to take a liking to.
Apart from one. Vic didn't dislike him, per say, but he didn't dote on him like the rest of the year group. And Kellin found himself wondering why. It wasn't that he was cocky, and felt as though everyone had to like him, he just wanted to know the reason for one person not to. He didn't care. He was just curious.
"What are you looking at?" Jesse asked, following Kellin's line of vision to see what he was staring at during lunch.
"Hmm?" Kellin blinked and tore his gaze away from Vic, who was talking in quiet tones with his friends. "Nothing."
"Were you staring at Vic?" He asked, frowning when Kellin began to blush.
"No!" Kellin insisted.
Jesse narrowed his eyes at his friend before shaking his head. "Alright..." Jesse shrugged and turned back to his food.
Kellin shook his head and did the same, not thinking about Vic at all.
____
The two started talking again (he said again, it was more they spoke for the first time) at the party Kellin's friends had thrown him for his sixteenth birthday.
As much as Kellin liked parties, and as much as he appreciated what his friends had done for him, he wasn't really in the mood.
He did brighten, however, when Mike walked through the door, his brother in tow.
Vic didn't approach Kellin, he didn't really look as though he wanted to be there, but Kellin was content watching him from across the room. Which he convinced himself wasn't creepy at all. And after about ten minutes of being there, Vic slipped out into the back garden.
And, unthinkingly, Kellin followed him.
"Hey." Kellin greeted the other boy once he got outside, watching him as he leaned against the wall that he had done three years ago.
"Hi." Vic didn't look up, but Kellin was sure he knew who he was anyway. The moon was bright and full up ahead, illuminating the otherwise dark sky. And Vic, he seemed to shine even brighter than even that. What?
"What are you doing out here?" Kellin asked in an attempt to distract himself from cheesily comparing Vic to tacky, overused objects.
"Got a bit noisy." Vic shrugged.
"It's a party." Kellin pointed out, leaning on the wall next to Vic.
"Didn't want to be here anyway..." Vic muttered.
"Then why are you here?" Kellin couldn't help but ask.
"Someone had to drive Mike. But it isn't like anyone else wanted me here."
"I want you here!" Kellin couldn't help but blurt out, feeling his cheeks turn red as Vic scrutinized him.
"We don't even talk."
"I'd like to though. I always wanted to, you know, get to know you." Kellin mumbled.
"Really?"
"Yes. Since we were thirteen. I guess I just thought you didn't want to."
Vic didn't deny not wanting to speak to Kellin, but gestured to the grass. "We can talk now."
"We could go out. Talk somewhere quiet."
"This is your party." Vic said with a raised eyebrow.
"They won't miss me for an hour." Kellin shrugged and reached for Vic's hand. He thought better of it at the last minute and simply began to walk back through the house, pushing his way through the kitchen first and pulling out a six pack.
"Where are we going?" Vic demanded as Kellin led him to his car, opening the door and letting the other boy in.
"Just for a drive." Kellin laughed and pushed Vic forward a bit, so he stumbled into the car.
Kellin drove for a good ten minutes, taking all the back roads he knew to a secluded road, only one way, surrounded by large, terraced houses, all with the lights off at half past eleven at night. All these houses, with their perfectly trimmed hedges, children's toys lying in the front yard, some sprinklers on in the late April heat to keep the lawn looking decent.
"Sit outside." Vic said, drawing Kellin out of his reverie and opening his door. Kellin nodded and stepped out of the car, carrying the bottles out and sitting next to Vic on the curb. The clouds were thinner here, a few stars visible in the inky blue sky.
"Here." Kellin handed Vic a beer and pulled one out himself, preparing to drink to his heart's content in another valiant attempt to forget how much brighter Vic's eyes shone than the stars.
"Did you bring an opener?" Vic asked, frowning at the bottle top.
Kellin slumped his shoulders and shook his head, mentally cursing himself.
"It's alright." Vic dug around in his pocket and pulled out a Swiss Army knife, stabbing the cap and creating a large hole.
"You have a Swiss Army knife?" Kellin said bemusedly, handing Vic his bottle as well.
Vic shrugged. "You do remember you're driving, right?"
"I'll only have a couple." Kellin promised, taking a swig of the beer. It was already warm, from being in the humid car, and felt flat on his tongue, but it was beer none the less, and Kellin wanted to hide from his feelings.
"So," Vic started. "We should talk."
____
The two remained on the curb for almost an hour and a half, talking about nothing at all and finding out almost everything about the other.
Vic told Kellin about his dreams, and how they all seemed to tell him the same thing (although, what that thing was, Kellin did not know) and Kellin, in return, explained to Vic how he thought he was one of two things: gay, or insane.
Vic simply nodded at that confession and stood up suddenly, tossing his bottle across the road and watching as it smashed on the opposite pavement.
"What are you doing?" Kellin questioned, throwing his own bottle. It went further than Vic's did, landing on the front lawn of one of the perfect houses.
"Come and lie in the road with me." Vic offered, stepping into the road and falling onto his bottom, then lowering his head down so his back was pressed against the tarmac. He spread out his arms and legs, smiling dreamily to himself and humming under his breath.
Kellin bit his lip but nodded, too desperate to be around Vic to not do as he asked. He stood above the other boy, looking down at him and smiling at the way his hair splayed across the road, surrounding his head like a halo, almost.
Kellin sat on the road and then lay down next to Vic, their knuckles brushing each other as Kellin stretched out his own arms.
"Do you smoke?" Vic asked suddenly, reaching into his pocket and pulling out something.
Kellin had tried one of Jesse's cigarettes once and hated it, but he figured he could smoke another one, only because Vic was offering.
But what Vic offered him wasn't an ordinary cigarette, but a thin, papery one, twisted at one end, with no marking of the butt.
He had, also, seen his friends smoking weed, but had never done it himself. He could drink as much as anyone, but other drugs...
However, doing it with Vic somehow made it feel right. So Kellin accepted the joint, letting Vic light it for him and inhaling deeply. He barely managed to supress the cough he felt rising in his throat, spluttering unattractively to stop himself. Vic, however, either ignored or didn't notice Kellin, too busy exhaling smoke to call him up on it. Kellin shrugged and took in another deep breath.
____
"Why don't you like me?" Kellin found himself asking, maybe ten minutes later. They had long since finished smoking, and Kellin felt a light buzz, caused by the alcohol and weed together.
"I don't dislike you, Kellin." Vic replied. "We just don't have anything in common. There's no point in us talking to each other."
Kellin nodded defeatedly, because it was true. They were extremely different. All Kellin knew was that Vic liked Bring Me the Horizon as well.
"What do you think will happen if we stay here forever? What if a car comes?" Vic asked suddenly, still staring up at the sky, drawing patterns in the air to make up constellations.
"I dunno. Maybe we'll die, maybe we won't." Kellin shrugged.
"Mmm." Vic hummed.
Kellin watched Vic earnestly for a minute before sitting up and pressing his lips to Vic's, desperately and sloppily.
Vic didn't resist, instead responded by tugging Kellin down by the neck so their chests were pressed flush against each other. Kellin slipped his tongue into Vic's mouth, their tongues dancing with each other as they continued their embrace.
____
They had sex that night, right there, in the middle of the road. It had been messy, both of them simply with their trousers and pants around their knees, Vic sitting on Kellin's lap as they moved together, finishing within ten minutes of starting.
But it had been, by far, the best sex Kellin had, or ever would have. The tight, warm feeling of Vic around him, with no condom to seperate them, the sound of Vic moaning his name as he came had provided Kellin with substantial jerk off material for years to come, and had been the cause of one too many wet dreams.
But that was as far as their relationship had gone. Vic had been quiet in the car ride back, ignoring Kellin and his giddy smile in favour of staring out the window. As soon as Kellin pulled up outside his house, before he even managed to park Vic leapt out of the car, rushing into the house and reemerging not up to a minute later with his brother, who looked confused and thoroughly put out.
The next week at school, Kellin had attempted to speak to Vic, but the other boy was even colder than usual, completely ignoring Kellin's attempts to speak to him (which ranged from desperate to pathetic).
"Why are you so intent on getting Vic to speak to you?" Justin asked as Vic hurried past him as they crossed paths when Kellin was on his way to geography and Vic to maths. He had taken a look at Vic's timetable once or twice, just to see which lessons he would be in without him. He wasn't stalking him or anything.
"He just seems like a cool guy." Kellin shrugged. And he's amazing in bed. Well, in the middle of the road. Kellin couldn't say he was proud of that.
"Okay. Whatever." Justin rolled his eyes and led Kellin to their geography classroom, where Kellin spent the entire hour thinking about Vic.
____
But Vic was a lot better at avoiding Kellin than he gave him credit for. Whenever the Bostwicks visited the Fuentes house (or vice versa), Vic somehow managed to avoid speaking to the dark haired boy, pushing him to his brother instead and even participating in the adults' conversation.
In school, Vic surrounded himself with his friends, who promptly dragged Vic away whenever Kellin tried to approach him.
And so, only halfway through their junior year, Kellin gave up. He just had a stupid crush on Vic, which he would get over soon enough, and it was probably just freaking Vic out, him always appearing wherever he was. The other boy probably just wanted to forget what happened thinking it a drunken mistake that was never to be repeated. But Kellin didn't think it was a mistake. And Kellin wanted to do it again.
But he had to respect what Vic wanted. And so he left him alone.
____
Kellin held his phone in his hand, staring at the numbers on the piece of paper he held in his other hand. He didn't know if he should call. It had been three years. Three years since he last spoke to Vic. Was it worth trying to pick up their relationship where they left off? Did they even had a relationship?
He was just lucky that he had remained such good friends with Mike. He never would have gotten Vic's number.
Why was he doing this? They'd left high school a year ago. Vic probably didn't even remember him. But he was in love with the other boy. Kellin had long since determined his feelings for the Mexican.
So, without really thinking about what he was doing, Kellin dialed the number, heart beating so hard he could almost feel it rising into his throat. What if Vic hung up as soon as he began to speak? What if Vic didn't want to talk to him? What if he had a boyfriend? What if-
"Hello?" A voice made Kellin snap back into reality.
"H- hey, Vic." Kellin cleared his throat, palms sweating.
"Kellin?"
"Um, yeah." Kellin agreed, praying that Vic wouldn't hang up.
"Haven't spoken to you in a while." Vic said cooly. That voice.
"Yeah." Kellin repeated.
"So... What did you want?" Vic asked, not unkindly.
"I was wondering if you wanted to, er, maybe meet up for coffee?" Kellin suggested nervously. He was met by silence. Why would he think that Vic wanted to meet up with him again? He avoided him for a reason, of course he didn't want to meet up for coffee.
"Sure. Okay."
"W- what?" Kellin asked. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, Kellin. I... I guess I'm sorry. I want to talk to you." Vic said, almost sheepishly.
"You are?" Kellin asked again. Vic actually wanted to speak to him again? But-
"Yeah. I... Where do you want to meet up?" Vic asked instead.
"That Starbucks closest to your parents' house?" Kellin suggested, possibly feeling even more nervous than he had before. He was meeting up with Vic again. And this time he was going to make them work.
"I'll see you there in fifteen minutes?"
Kellin smiled to himself. "Definitely."