A Love Like Fireflies

Pete was actually relieved to hear the shouts of recognition, because he knew Nick would not be able to resist the urge to press the flesh with his admirers. He'd start doing his slutboy act, and Pete would slip out the side door. And then go somewhere and die quietly of embarrassment.

But Nick didn't stop. He followed Pete. And the crowd followed him. Soon they were all heading into the food court.

"Pete, here!" Nick called, gesturing to a restaurant called The Teddy Bears' Picnic. Due to its child-focused theme, it was deserted at this hour. Pete ducked in, Nick followed, and they were far enough ahead of the crowd that no one saw them disappear. The mob rushed through the food court and ended up in the parking lot, wondering where the models went.

Pete and Nick huddled under a table until they were sure that the crowd had passed. They climbed up into chairs and sat panting for a moment. Nick was just about to say something to Pete when the counter attendant, wearing a teddy bear costume, asked if they were going to order anything.

Pete, thinking it rude to hide from a rabid mob in a restaurant and not order something, asked for a small Fancy Fries and a Cheery Cherry Slush. They returned to their table with their food, and sat in silence for a couple of minutes.

"So, was I right about that picture, or was I right? Center stage, baby! Pretty awesome." Nick was clearly pleased with himself.

"Nick, they just unveiled an eight-foot-tall billboard that reads, 'Peter Dorsey is gay, and Nick Goodman is the gay man whose gay kiss made him gay.' How does that qualify as awesome, would you please explain to me?"

"Dude, it's us. Up there. In every X&Y in the whole country. We're set, man."

"This is a fucking disaster. My life is over. Your life, apparently, was already so fucked up that this latest bit of fucked-up-ness doesn't even register."

"I have just one question for you. Who the hell cares? It was a job. It's not us up there, it's roles we were playing. Everyone knows that."

"No one knows that, Nick. They see two guys kissing, and they think, 'Hey, those two guys are kissing--what do they call guys who do that? Oh, that's right: gay.' This time tomorrow everyone in this town will know for certain that you and I are gay, and are totally into each other."

"Again, I ask, who the hell cares? Why does it matter what people think about you, Petey?"

"Because it's not true, that's why."

"What isn't true? Nick asked.

"I'm not gay!"

"Well, duh, You're Straight Pete, remember?"

"Fuck you."

"Fuck me? You want to fuck me? You're the one who's all concerned about people thinking you're gay, and now you want to throw everything off the table and fuck me right here? Talk about mixed messages." Nick was enjoying this, too much.

"I'm serious. This is a nightmare."

"I'm serious too. You need to lighten up on the whole sex thing. It's giving you wrinkles. Stop worrying and just relax about it."

"That's easy for you to say. Look, I'm not like you, okay? My body isn't an amusement park that the whole world is invited to."

Nick fixed Pete with a quizzical look.

"Have you even had sex? I mean, with another person? I know you jerk off on Tuesdays and all, but, damn. You should really try to find an outlet."

"What, like Imre and Karvaly and their love nest in the mountains?"

"Sure, why not? Or maybe one of the, oh, I don't know, twelve thousand chicks who are going to be on your tail once they see your picture at X&Y?"

"What makes you think that women are going to want me, when the photographic evidence clearly shows that we are--well, into each other?"

"Because sexy is sexy, no matter what. Trust me on this one."

"You sound like Karvaly."

Nick was silent for a moment.

"So, about that. What the hell happened to you up there? I talked to Mr. Patronus when we got back to the city, and he said you weren't feeling well and had to leave on an earlier flight. That's all he would tell us, even though I asked him--hard." Here Nick winked at Pete, to convey just how hard he had asked Mr. Patronus. "But no details. So, what happened?"

"I wasn't feeling well."

"Yeah, I got that part. But look, Petey," Nick said, his hand brushing Pete's on the table. "Look at me. Something happened up there. Something bad. Now, what was it? Did one of them do something to you? I swear to god, if they did..."

Pete was astonished, both that Nick would say this, and that his saying it made Pete feel so tight in the chest. Nick really cared for him. That made Pete feel somehow lighter than he'd felt in weeks. He hoped his face didn't betray what he was feeling.

"No, it wasn't anything they did ... not to me at least. But after we swam that morning, they went off on a hike, and I followed a few minutes behind them. You were asleep, so you weren't much company, so I thought I'd just take a walk. Well, they took a little detour, and I saw them by the stream. They were ..."

"Oh my god, Petey, were they smooching again? Damn them, damn them to hell!" Nick giggled and slurped his drink.

"No, they weren't smooching. They were buttfucking, okay?"

Nick's eyes widened. "Please tell me that Imre was the fucker and Karvaly was the fuckee because ..." He saw Pete's head slowly shake side to side. "Oh god. Imre took that thing?"

Pete nodded.

"Whoa. He's more of a man than I ever imagined. That's some serious bone."

"I know!"

Nick closed one eye and looked at Pete.

"How? How do you know? Every time anyone got naked you freaked out and would only look at your feet. When would you have had a chance to see how Karvaly's hung?"

Pete blushed. Nick noticed. Pete expected him to open up with all kinds of razzing, but he just sat, considering.

"Pete," he said quietly. "Did you and Karvaly ...?"

"No! No, nothing happened. It's just that when I came back to the tent from my little walk in the snowstorm, I was so cold that he wrapped me up in his sleeping bag."

"Ah," Nick nodded.

"With him still in it," Pete continued.

"Oh," Nick nodded again.

"And he was naked," Pete whispered, looking down at the table.

"Uh-huh."

"And so was I," Pete mumbled, barely audible.

Nick looked at his friend for a moment.

"Are you all right? This seems like it's crushing you," he said softly.

"I don't know if I'm all right. I don't know anything right now."

"When you were in the sleeping bag with Karvaly, was it okay? I mean, did it freak you out?"

"Yeah, when I woke up I freaked out a little. I could feel that monster of his pressed right against my back. It was all I could do to keep from screaming and running away."

"But you didn't. Why?"

"Because ... because I thought of you. I thought of what you would say if I did, and that made me stay. I didn't want to be the person you kept teasing me about being anymore."

Nick took a deep breath. "Pete, I don't know what to say. I hate to think that I made you do something you didn't want to do."

"I did want to do it. I mean, part of me wanted to be there with him. At least I thought I did. Oh, I don't know. Once I got out of the tent, I thought everything was going to be okay, and then I saw the two of them fucking, and then I came back and saw you sleeping by the lake and I was watching you and then I felt like I was watching myself watching you and wondering why I wasn't freaked out by you anymore, by your naked body anymore, and then you had this wet dream and I saw you cum and I smelled your cum and I just fucking freaked out and had to get away from it all and now I'm here with you and it's all too fucking much, Nick, too fucking much!"

Exactly when Pete started crying he wasn't sure, but his cheeks were now wet and his voice trailed off into a faint refrain of uncertain regret.

Nick reached his hand over to cover Pete's, and though Pete pulled his hand back it was not as violently as when he had nearly thrown himself out of the car, and Nick reached out further and took it again.

"Petey, listen to me. Stop beating yourself up. None of this is any big deal. You have to stop doing this, or you're going to kill yourself with it. You enjoyed being in a sleeping bag with a naked guy. So what? It was cold, and Karvaly was hot--very hot, I might add, dude was a racehorse--and you pressed up against him and it was nice. Good for you."

"But, I'm not gay," Pete choked out.

"I'm not saying you are. And honestly, I don't even know what that word means. Imre and Karvaly, our eastern European butt pirates, kept talking at the baths about women, and who they might ask to marry them. I've only slept with women, but the idea of me and Karvaly in a sleeping bag together? Hot."

"How can you say that?"

"Because I take pleasure where I find it. It feels good to press my naked body against another naked body--or two, in the case of the Marshall twins, those girls know how to ... anyway--what does it matter who that other naked body is? Karvaly is hot. Imre is hot, for that matter, and you? You're smokin'. Of course, I'm hotter than the rest of you bitches put together, goes without saying."

"So you'd do anyone, anytime, no matter what?" Pete said, a note of accusation in his voice.

"No, of course not. They'd have to be hot."

"So that makes you, what, then? Bisexual?"

"No, Petey, it makes me sexual, okay? I'm just sexual. We all are, even if you don't want to admit it."

"But what does that mean?"

Nick grew exasperated. "It doesn't mean anything, it doesn't have to. Sex doesn't define who you are, and it isn't defined by what you do. It doesn't matter who you do it with. Sex is sex, and it is what we are here for--if you think about it for a sec, it's why we're here in the first place. Don't analyze it, don't try to label it, just do it, Petey. Just do it."

So Nick's favorite philosopher is Nike. Good to know.

"It has to mean something. It has to. When Imre and Karvaly decided to start fucking each other, they became something different than they were before. When you kissed me--"

Here Pete gasped, shocked that he had started that sentence, but he was too emotionally drained to stop it now, so he just pressed on.

"When you kissed me I became something different than I was before. I need to know what that is, because it scares me not to know. I don't know who I am anymore."

The tears were flowing freely now, and his shoulders were shaking. Nick put down his teddy-bear shaped cup, got up, and came over to Pete's side of the table. He put his arms around his shuddering friend, and pressed his cheek to his the top of his head. "Come on, Pete, let's get out of here."

Pete rose, allowing himself to be guided by Nick, who put his arm around him and held him tight as they walked out of the restaurant and to the exit. Standing between them and the door was a knot of X&Y fanatics who immediately recognized them. Their hormonal screams made Pete turn his face into Nick's chest, away from the noise.

"Back off!" Nick growled as he charged with Pete through the middle of the group. "Leave us alone!"

Nick pushed through the doors and out into the late summer dusk. His car was close by, and soon he had Pete settled into the passenger seat. He started the engine and roared away from the mall.

They had been driving for fifteen minutes before Pete thought to ask, "Where are we going?"

"I want to show you something," Nick replied, with a smile.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The car rolled on through the countryside that separated the small, boring city that Pete lived in from the small, boring city that Nick called home. Pete had never been this way before, and as the clouds of queasy emotion from the store unveiling began to part he wondered just where Nick was taking him. He looked over at his friend--he had to call him that now, though he had never used the word before, even in his mind--and felt safe. He trusted him, was confident in his goodness, and was content to let Nick take him wherever he wanted to go. He turned to watch the dying of the late summer sunset, the pinks and oranges giving way to a starless blue of deepest calm.

Nick steered the car off the highway onto a small, winding road, and after following that a few minutes he turned onto a dirt road that Pete hadn't even seen as they approached. The ride was a bit bumpy, but Nick seemed to know the location of every significant pothole, and he steered smoothly through the slalom of disrepair. They reached a gate of sorts, a chain stretched across what was by this point little more than a two-track path through the woods. Nick slowed, and then carefully steered around the chain, his mirror barely clearing the large oak that stood guard at the path's edge. Around another bend, up a rise, and he brought the car to a stop.

The sky had nearly finished its slide to inky blackness, and with the headlights off Pete could make out only the outlines of the trees that surrounded the car. Nick opened his car door, so Pete did as well and stepped out into the warm, still evening. He heard Nick walk around to the back of the car, open the trunk, and pull something out. When the trunk closed they were left in complete darkness.

"So, this is it?" Pete asked of the darkness.

"Not quite," came the answer, Nick's voice almost in his ear, startling him. "Follow me," he said, and turned on a small flashlight. Pete followed as Nick climbed up the hill, through the trees and undergrowth, until finally he stopped.

"Now, this is it," Nick announced. He spread on the ground the blanket he had pulled from the trunk, sat down on it, and switched off the flashlight.

"What is?" Pete asked, unable to see much of anything as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

"Give your eyes a minute," Nick replied.

Pete blinked several times, willing his pupils to widen.

"Here, sit down," said Nick, patting the blanket. Pete sat. "Now," Nick continued, "Look up."

Suddenly Pete could see. They were in a meadow ringed with trees; in the sky above them were more stars than Pete could ever remember seeing at once. There were so many that they couldn't be counted, not in any one lifetime, Pete thought.

"Oh," was all he could think to say.

"I know, right?" said Nick, also looking up at the sky. "This place is surrounded by the hills, so there's no light. Amazing, isn't it?"

"I never knew the sky could look like this," Pete said, wonder in his voice. "How did you find this place?"

"I used to bike all through these hills when I was into cycling. I got completely lost late one day, and ended up here. I was too tired to keep going, so I just laid down right here. When I woke up, I saw this."

"It's amazing."

They stared at the stars, in silence, for several long minutes.

"I'll bet you bring girls here all the time," Pete finally said, breaking the silence.

"No," Nick replied simply. "I only come alone. You're the first one I've ever brought here."

That twisting feeling in Pete's stomach returned, but this time it was also warm, and a little shivery, and he had no idea what it was or what it meant. But he knew, this time, he kind of liked it. Kind of a lot.

"Why? I mean, why me?"

"Because, Petey," replied Nick, making the name sound like a term of endearment rather than a teasing diminutive, "I wanted to share it with you. You're the only person who's ever needed me, who ever needed my help. Lots of people want me--which I love, not gonna lie--but you are the first person I have ever met who needed me. I could tell from that day at the photo shoot. It was like you were brought into my life for some purpose, because there was something I needed to give you. It wasn't until tonight that I realized what it was."

Pete was overwhelmed. He'd never heard Nick be so serious, and so genuine, and so--human.

"So, tell me, then," Pete began, not at all sure he wanted to know the answer to this question, but more certain than he'd ever been that he needed to know, "What is it that you were brought into my life to give me?"

"You'll have to wait for a little bit longer," Nick said, a note of excitement in his voice. "Come over here." He gestured for Pete to sit in front of him.

Pete did, wondering as he did so why his legs were shaking. He sat in front of Nick, both of them facing out into the meadow, and then Nick wrapped his arms around Pete and pulled him back until he was resting on Nick's chest.

"Um, Nick?"

"Shhh."

"What am I--"

"Shh, wait for it."

Pete took a deep breath, and waited. For what he didn't know.

Then--he saw it. At the edge of the meadow, near the trees that ringed the clearing, a sparkle of light. It lasted only a second, but it was soon joined by another. And then another, and another, and a few more. As Pete stared in wonder, the meadow was filled with fireflies, dazzling yellow-green streaks and spots of light surrounding them. It was like they were inside a snow globe filled with stars.

"Oh, my god, Nick," whispered Pete.

"Yeah, I know," Nick whispered back, his lips brushing the top of Pete's head.

The fireflies danced and glittered around the two of them, alone on a blanket in a meadow, and the world beyond the trees ceased to exist. Pete turned back to look at Nick, who was haloed by a hundred surging and drifting points of light. He was beautiful, Pete knew that now, now that he had seen the beauty inside.

"When I woke up here that first time," Nick continued, "I just stared at the stars and thought about how people have done the same since the beginning of time, and I felt connected somehow to something larger than me. But I was kind of frustrated that I didn't know the names or locations of more than a couple of constellations."

Pete nodded, his head resting against Nick's chest, his eyes dazzled by the floating lights all around him and the stars above.

"And then these guys showed up, and it was like the stars had come to play. With me! And it was like they brought me a message: that the beauty of the stars, of their refusal to fit human rules--stars don't want to make a stupid bear shape, they want to shine into the infinite!--is the beauty of all life. I sat here, surrounded by stars in the sky and stars shooting around me, and I saw it."

Nick tightened his grip around Pete's chest.

"This is why I brought you here. If I told you this you wouldn't understand me, so I had to show you. Life is random, and it is beautiful. The stars are immortal, and fireflies live a few weeks, and we fall somewhere in between. We live long enough to forget we aren't going to be here forever, and we let other people shape us, tell us what we mean, who we are. You can't do that, Petey. You have to embrace this--this is life. Your life, and my life, and the life all around us."

Pete was astonished. And he was grateful. And, he thought, maybe a little in love with Nick right now.

He turned around again, to see the fireflies dancing around Nick's hair, giving his entire being a luminous glow, and he knew, right then, that he would do it.

He brought his face up to Nick's, and he kissed him. And Nick kissed him back. A sparkling web of light surrounded them as they kissed, and the heavens shone.

Finally, finally, Pete broke the long kiss. He looked at Nick, into his eyes, and knew.

"I love you."

Nick smiled, shook his head just slightly.

"I've never told anyone this," he whispered. "I love you too."

They kissed again, and again, until the meadow darkened as the fireflies tucked in for the night. There was a chill in the air now, as the hour grew late.

"I should get you home," Nick finally said.

"Yeah," replied Pete, with a sigh. "It's been kind of a big day."

They walked back to Nick's car, and both, somewhere inside, wondered if they were returning to the world changed.

CHAPTER TWELVE

When Nick pulled up to Pete's house at nearly 1 in the morning, Pete was surprised to see the lights on in the living room. As he was about to start college, his parents no longer waited up for him at night. Tonight--or rather, this morning--was different.