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Kenny is clicks, Martin thinks with a victorious, poet's smile, swinging on his boyfriend’s desk chair as the clicker vents his frustrations to the bedroom ceiling. The clicks of his pen. The bloody clock he keeps, even though it’s annoying, tick-ticking all hours. The clicking spokes of his bike wheels, turning over and over as he pushes it along the pavement while Martin ambles.
He blows out a frustrated breath and clicks his tongue. (Mmm, would make a good poem...)
‘Man! Fuck, look at that.’ He points out the window. Martin looks with a hum. Oops, he’d properly zoned out there. ‘It’s dark already. Ranted for wayyy too long.’
’S’alright,’ Martin shrugs, even though the whole complaint was definitely a ploy to get out of revision.
‘Nah babe.’ Kenny rolls over onto his front and dials his focus in. Clicks his pen some more. ‘Your turn.’
Martin eyes him cautiously, even as he struggles to keep his mouth from twitching into a smile shape. ‘I’m fine.’
Kenny shakes his floppy head. ‘Go onnn ,’ he goads, ‘can be anything. Maybe a certain someone...’
Well now he’s just being obvious. He knows he needs to do better than that if he wants Martin to give the situation with his mum more than a cursory mention. He gets a rolling of eyes that show him just how lame that attempt was.
Martin thinks for a moment of something else he can offer to change the subject, then says, ‘Oh, Ms Bright was moaning again today. She’s a cow. And I don't think she leaves early cos she's pregnant, I think she just hates us.’
It’s funny enough that Kenny lets him off the hook, reaching for Martin’s hand and kissing the pink, virgin skin where he’s promised to one day put an inky original. He makes a suave face from under his fringe as he tries to kiss up Martin’s forearm, and Martin giggles.
‘You're getting distracted.’
‘Mmm,’ his boyfriend says, ‘you’re distracting.’
‘Covalent bonds,’ Martin reminds.
‘I’d love to bond covalently with you.’
‘After you pass this mock.’
Kenny flops back dramatically on the bed with a groan. ‘Can’t you like... strip for every answer I get right?’
Martin pretends to think about it. ’Sure.’
‘Really?!’
‘How many electrons in boron?’
‘What you call me?’
‘Ha ha.’
‘Uhhhh five?’
‘Hey!’ Martin clicks his fingers victoriously. ‘You were listening!’ He watches his boyfriend’s eyes go wide with anticipation, and sneaks his hand down... to pull off one sock.
‘For fuck’s sakeeee,’ Kenny whines. ‘I fucking hate chemistry.’
‘But you’re so good at it,’ Martin winks. And it’s true: he is. They both are, apparently, if Martin is now the kind of guy who winks.
Kenny seems to forgive him. He rolls over once more and leans his chin on his hands expectantly. ‘Ask me another.’
Martin considers the revision guide before him, with its rigid squares and equations. He was never much a fan of chemistry either, too much the poet. Both of them seem to combine now. He’s never had a boy who combined them before. He looks back up at Kenny, metal in his face catching the light from his megawatt smile. Wait, why is he revising right now?
Playing dumb, he purposefully picks an easy one. ‘What is the atomic number of hydrogen?’
‘One,’ Kenny answers, then immediately points an accusatory finger. ‘Not the sock.’
Grinning, Martin instead pulls his shirt over his head, braving the shivers of the bedroom, where the weak old radiator can't quite push its heat past its skeleton. Exposed now, he swings a little on the chair.
Kenny grabs his bare foot and tugs the chair closer. Tugs Martin half off the chair in the process. ‘You’re dead fit, you know that?’
One kiss turns into two which turns into the chemistry revision guide being tossed sideways to the floor with a thump. Martin clambers awkwardly onto the bed with their lips still locked.
It doesn’t take much to produce kinetic energy, what with so much gravitational potential. The dam broke early with them, and as soon as tongues collide it’s explosive fission.
Kenny pulls his shirt off and hugs them close together. Warmth inside radiates through still chilly skin. Spreads like the solid touch of a hot stone. Martin strokes over his fuzzy tattoos, meaningful shapes and silly words practised and captured in dragged out dots. His skin is traced too in return; fat that he’s always daydreaming of shedding squeezed and pawed at in a way that he’s embarrassed to admit enjoying, but leans into nonetheless.
‘Stay here,’ Kenny whispers between kisses. ‘C’mon baby... Stay.’
Martin groans. He desperately wants to - falling asleep cuddling is a rare luxury for them - but... ‘She’ll kill me.’ It's more complicated and painful than she'll kill him but it's a workable shorthand. The threat is the same. She frightens him.
‘I’ll resurrect you.’
‘With-‘ Martin glances at the past paper his knee was just on top of, ’46%? Sure Doctor Frankenstein.’
‘Mmm,’ Kenny tugs him back and squeezes to make his point: ‘smart arse. Get your kecks off.’
Martin doesn’t need to be told twice. It’s not a coercion thing, it’s just that Kenny always gets him too horny to want to go anywhere. He couldn’t walk straight right now. Even the anxiety and persistent image of his mother’s face doesn’t dull the feeling. This time, it’s bonafide teasing when Martin acts like there’s better things to do than touch each other. He’s just playing, because he doesn’t have to hide how much he wants, here. He’s wanted back. He’s not just the weird, silent loner at the back of the classroom who slyly watches the boys play class clown and blushes. Here he’s an active participant in not just the physicality, but the erotic, without persuasion. Why pretend when you can flirt?
‘Fine,’ he says, ‘then I’m going.’
He shoves his trousers down to relieve some of the pressure and hisses with the immediate contact from his boyfriend’s cold hand.
‘Exactly, then you’re going.’
‘Then I’m going.’
The drawer rattles next to them. Kenny rips the condom packet with his teeth, which is silly but also super hot. It’s hot that he can’t spare his hands for even two seconds longer than he has to.
‘C’mere,’ he growls, though they’re already as close as two people can be. As if he can never keep Martin close enough.
Afterwards, they weave themselves tight in sticky cuddles. The darkness turns proper black, piercing the condensation their sweat has frosted up on the window.
‘I have to go.’ Martin whispers it, keeping a hand over his favourite tattoo to placate the fight he’s instinctively fearing.
But instead of arguing, Kenny nods. He pats Martin’s hand. Then he hauls himself off the bed and tugs on a jumper.
‘What’re you doing?’
‘You think I’m letting you get the 192 alone?’ He relents at Martin’s expression and sighs. ‘I won’t let your mum see me.’
‘Okay, fine.’
They are mostly silent on the bus. It’s late, and it’s rough, so they always keep companionably quiet. It’s good to be safe even if no one is afraid. Hands stay in laps. This is routine, so Martin’s anxiety shouldn’t be obvious, and yet, he can tell by the way Kenny’s pressing his shoulder, by the way he lays his palm on Martin’s knee for a moment when the top deck clears, that he’s radiating it like a tube of buzzing neon.
The wince as the bus squeals into his stop is a dead giveaway. They pause at the end of Martin’s road: Kenny hovering, Martin unwilling to turn his back on him.
‘Well. See you tomorrow.’
‘If I live,’ Martin mutters.
Kenny huffs and kicks the pavement. His expression is dark in the dim orange streetlight. ‘Maybe I’ll kill her one of these days.’
‘Hey...’ Martin says, his heart falling. Suddenly she is an angel again, a suffering lamb to pray for.
His tone is apparently as unsuccessful at calming boyfriends as it is for calming mothers. ‘Nah, for real.’
‘Why’re you angry?’
Kenny scoffs and tosses his hands. ‘Martin you know why.’
‘She’s sick , Ken. She might die! Actually die!’
A shocked moment of pause. Neither of them quite ready to hear that. Then Kenny relents. He sighs apologetically. ‘Hey-’ But Martin shakes his head, not prepared to listen or forgive him just yet. He shoves Kenny in the chest when he comes close. ‘Woah.’
‘No, shut up.’ Cruelly, he hopes Kenny realises now what he knows: that it’ll be like this until she dies. This but worse and worse until she eventually dies and leaves him with no one.
‘I’m kidding.’
‘It’s not funny !’
Kenny holds his hands up, genuine shock on his face. ‘Okay. Okay.’
Someone heckles them from across the street. On instinct they step apart, then flounder. There is no previous experience of to draw from, either of sick relatives, of grief, or of Martin yelling. Martin puts a hand to his chest and feels his heart in a throng, blood hot. His throat feels jagged. All unfamiliar.
Kenny treads cautiously too. ‘Look, I'm sorry. I'll walk you to the door.’
‘No.’
‘Martin-’
‘I'm fine . I can take five fucking steps on my own.’
It turns out, when you’re angry, it’s very easy to do so. And there go the click, click, click of his boyfriend’s retreating shoes. Martin silently yells as he slowly pushes the door closed.
Clearly not silently enough. A voice behind him makes him jump with a gasp.
His mother stands hands on rapidly thinning hips. ‘Martin.’
‘Oh. Hi,’ he says, stalling for time as he tries to gauge her energy, mood, lucidity. ‘Sorry, I didn't think you’d be-’
‘Was that you screaming in the street like a crackhead?’
‘Um.’ Martin cringes. Was he screaming? He’s sure he wasn’t quite screaming. Great. Now he’s the kind of person who has a domestic in public. He hopes she didn't hear the details. Not even to save his own skin - no one needs to be reminded of the likelihood of their death when they’re trying to recover.
‘Jesus,’ mum scoffs, ‘what the fuck for? At this time of night? People are trying to sleep.’
She means herself, and he twists his thumb guiltily. She needs as much as she can get. ‘Sorry.’
‘And where have you been?’
‘Nowhere...’ She glares at him, imposing still in all the anger her fragility has given her. ‘Moss Side...’
‘Hmph.’ She storms up and demands Martin’s jacket. ‘Give me that. Reeks of skunk over there.’ Turning away, she says, ‘suppose I’ll just put another wash on, shall I?’
She stumbles as she goes. Martin unfreezes and follows, quickly reaching for her elbow to catch her. ‘I’ll do it, mum- mum, please-’
She ignores him. She goes into the kitchen muttering, slurred and woozy. Martin sticks at her heels, watching her swaying cautiously. Mum seems to make it halfway to the washing machine before faltering in her resolve.
She says under her breath, ‘That boy .’
No name for the boy she’s railing against, and Martin wonders if she even remembers it. Not that there’s been many. That’s how much her memory suffers with the medication and the heavy sleeps.
‘You should go back to sleep.’ No answer. ‘I’m sorry.’ Still none. It’s worse than her shouting. ‘Do you need anything?’
‘No,’ she spits. She bends with a creak to the washing machine and Martin winces. He rushes forward, trying to take the jacket from her, to help her up-
‘I can get that-’
She slaps his hand away. ‘Just fuck off will you? Fuck off. Don't touch me,’ she snarls, standing now with a lurch and pushing Martin off when he goes to catch her. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
‘Nowhere,’ he says, gulping like a fish. ‘Upstairs.’ He feels guilty for it. For testing her, taking advantage... but it's worth a try.
Her face turns mean. ‘You lying shit.’
‘Mum-’
‘Leave it,’ and now she's the one shouting, and probably hopped on more drugs than their neighbours she’s always suspecting based on nothing but their postcode. ‘Just leave it!’
She throws his jacket down on the kitchen floor. Stumbles back when Martin picks it up, and wobbles from the counter to the door, all the while grousing and hurling insults and flapping her hands at the boy trailing behind her.
‘Mum please,’ Martin implores, voice low and calming even as tears sting his eyes, ‘you're not well.’
‘Oh and isn't that just so bloody convenient for you,’ she hisses. ‘I’m sick. Sick and you treat me like-’
‘Mum,’ he begs, ‘shh, shh-’
She rounds on him, unsteady in the centre of the living room, dressing gown and unwashed hair bristling. ‘Don't you dare tell me to-!’
‘Okay, okay.’ He holds up his hands, and tastes sick in the back of his mouth when he realises he’s swapped places with Kenny. Mums stills for a moment, and Martin knows his moment. Gingerly, without quite touching her, he puts his hands over her shoulders. ‘I’ll put the kettle on, yeah? You sit down.’
She is silent when tea is left at her elbow.
Martin closes the door to his bedroom carefully, silently, holding the latch down so it doesn’t click. Then he screams silently into his arm.
Shivering in bed, he flips up his phone.
Sorry xoxo
Srsly
Hope ur alive
And now he feels twice as bad. He rubs the heels of his hands forcefully against his eyelids.
He wants to reply that it was as bad as he’d predicted and let the comfort and noble anger wash over him. He dreams of a midnight rescue. It’s happened before, but there’s no hope after an argument like this, where he’s chased his white knight from the grounds. Martin rolls over and groans. He should apologise. In a restless sleep, face down into his pummelled pillow, he dreams of the tap of a stone against his window and the clicking spokes of bike wheels.