Venturing Out (Gideon)

[Marcoh Kinsley]

Marcoh had been holed up in his room for the majority of the weekend, too spent to do anything but lie on his bed and try to convince himself not to think of Zeke, of everything but Zeke, but that'd failed and just forced him into a deeper state of depression. It'd been so completely amazing, the mere weeks they had together... the conversations over the phone, the dancing at homecoming, the kisses in the hallways... it all made him ache and want for everything to be all right again.

He could pretend. He could pretend he didn't see what'd happened; Zeke didn't know he'd seen it, so it could all blow over without any problems. But he wouldn't, because for once in his life, he was tired of pretending. Besides, for all he knew, Zeke and Caleb could've been dating the whole time, and Marcoh wouldn't have been the wiser.

Whatever the scenario, he decided to try and move a bit, get himself prepared for Monday when he'd have to face Zeke again. So, with a little bit of difficulty, he managed to make himself decent and wandered outside on a whim, ignoring the surprised stares at his appearance from his mom and sister as he walked through the kitchen.

There wasn't much of a backyard, but there was a large tree that was home to a half-rotted treehouse and a tire swing. Deciding to pass on the chance of destroying a sentimental piece of his childhood, Marcoh settled for the reasonably intact swing, hooking his legs through the center and swinging himself gently with his toes.

He tried to focus on the pleasantries of the weather and the nature around him, but his mind, as it always seemed to do, wandered back to the matter of Zeke.

[gideon]

Gideon was bored. He knew that he should have been practicing his figure skating, but things had been getting a little repetitive lately. The competition he was going to this coming week wasn’t nearly as difficult as the ones he was used to, it was merely there to boost is résumé… and so he didn’t feel the need to practice every single hour of his waking life like his mother would have wished.

It was a decent day outside. The weather had been threatening to rain, though it hadn’t yet. Soon, he figured, but not that night. Gideon realized that this was the first time he’d been home with nothing to do in such a long time that he honestly didn’t know what to do with himself! It was kind of pathetic, since he was still a 17 year old boy, a teenager… he should have known how to have a little fun, or at least keep himself busy.

Looking out of his bedroom window and out into his meager little back yard, he spotted Marcoh outside, sitting on his tire swing. That brought a small smile to his face. The two of them had grown up living next door to each other, though Gideon had been so busy lately with school and his practicing that he barely had time to speak to his neighbor and friend. And, though it was hard to tell from such a distance, Marcoh seemed to be a little upset; pensive, maybe.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Gideon went down the stairs of his house and out the back door, walking up to the fence that separated their houses. It wasn’t a very tall fence, just something small because when he’d been growing up they had a dog that would always wander off of their property.

“Hey there,” Gideon said, staring at the back of Marcoh’s head as he swung gently. “It’s been a while.”

[Marcoh Kinsley]

“Hey there. It’s been a while.”

Marcoh used his toes to tilt the swing to the right, spotting his neighbor Gideon - though he knew him by voice alone - and attempting to smile, an effort that was severly in vain; he'd never really been one to do it often, and, well, given recent events...

"Yeah, it has." he agreed, taking the time to think about it. It actually had been a while; Marcoh had a distinctly difficult time remembering when they'd last talked. As childhood friends, they spent hours playing together, sometimes with other neighborhood kids, sometimes by themselves. However, skating had always been a part of Gideon's life, and as they got older, his mother had higher and higher expectations, leading to less time spent running around and more time with skating and schoolwork respectively.

It'd been saddening, but a bit relieving at the same time; Gideon had been the object of Marcoh's first desires, and he'd been terribly confused later on in their friendship, around the time when they'd begun to grow apart. Luckily he didn't harbor any unrequited love - that would've made the moment much more bothersome and awkward. Not that he wasn't entirely cute, but that fact didn't really cheer Marcoh up much.

Not sure of what to say next, Marcoh settled for something vague and predictable, allowing Gideon to take the conversation wherever he wanted it to go. He didn't really care either way - well, it wasn't that he didn't, but he felt almost exhausted in a sense, like it was too much effort to try and be deep or meaningful.

"So, how's your skating doing?"

[gideon]

"Yeah, it has."

Gideon felt guilty about not making more time to talk or hang out with Marcoh. The two of them had been rather close friends at one point in time, and while he'd still trust the younger boy with pretty much anything it was quite obvious that the two of them had grown apart. He still saw Marcoh around school, but it was usually just a wave or a quick 'hey' in between classes. The crowded halls and minimum time to get from place to place always left an air of rushed insincerity in any hallway conversations.

“So, how’s your skating doing?”

Gideon cringed slightly. “Actually, it’s going so well that I’ve given myself a day off,” he said, laughing a little. He should have expected the question, as unwelcome as it was since he had come out here to forget about skating for a little while. He should have known that it would be the first thing to come up.

“I have another competition this weekend, but it’s nothing big. I’m starting to hate it, though. It’s way too much work. I want to play other sports, hang out with friends, Christ, I should be hanging out with you! Look at you, you can barely smile,” he pointed out. “And I have no idea what’s wrong. What kind of a friend and neighbor am I?” he asked, jumping onto the fence and sitting down, balancing on the top. ((ooc- no, not one of those pointy fences…))

Gideon had never really been one to beat around the bush, and he did sense that something was wrong with Marcoh from the moment he saw him out there. He wasn’t going to push the subject too far if he didn’t want to talk about it, but he did want to be there to help if Marcoh needed it.

“But enough about me, how about you? How’s school, and your life?” he asked, leaving the question very open to interpretation, given his previous statement.

((ooc- lame, but it's something!))

[Marcoh Kinsley]

“Actually, it’s going so well that I’ve given myself a day off."

Marcoh watched Gideon's response to his question and felt a bit bad; his mother did seem like the type to push the Aislin children, but he hadn't thought of the extent they'd trained. It would explain the long hours of practice (more noticeably, the lack of long hours for hanging out).

"Oh, well, that's good then. I mean, taking time off. I'm certain you're well off enough to take a week for yourself at this point." he replied, trying to offer a compliment without being obnoxious, like he just had.

“I have another competition this weekend, but it’s nothing big. I’m starting to hate it, though. It’s way too much work. I want to play other sports, hang out with friends, Christ, I should be hanging out with you! Look at you, you can barely smile and I have no idea what’s wrong. What kind of a friend and neighbor am I?”

Noticing the shift in conversation toward his moody demeanor, Marcoh couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable. First of all, he didn't think he was really being so outwardly melancholy, but it appeared to be obvious. He'd never really been good at disguising his emotions, he supposed, spare the terror he felt during his period of questioning, but he would've liked to spare Gideon the trouble of having to worry about him.

Secondly, he'd never even revealed to Gideon that he was gay, which might've made explaining his unhappiness awkward. Sure, Gideon was a nice guy and all, but even nice guys got uncomfortable with the whole gay thing.

"You should try talking to your parents, see if you can get some more time off." he suggested, knowing full well that doing was harder than saying, and that Gideon had probably already tried reasoning with his parents. Marcoh had little knowledge on what to say, since his parents had never really forced anything on him and were accepting of whatever he chose to do.


“But enough about me, how about you? How’s school, and your life?”

Marcoh sighed a bit and gave a rueful smile. He was actually really tired of avoiding his sexuality, what with how much he'd done it as a kid and preteen. Who cared if it made things weird; if it did, well, Gideon still had his skating and their lives would resume, and their brief encounter, being as rare as it was, would pass by unmemorable.

"School's fine, it's always been fine, y'know, just school. Life's... not so good. I... I caught my boyfriend cheating, so things have been really, really... bad."

The hesitance in his explanation came not from his waryness about his sexuality, Marcoh realized, but from the fact that it was difficult to say what'd happened out loud, in such simple terms. And hearing it, he discovered, made him tear up as he began to feel streaks running down his face.

And to think he'd thought he was done with crying. Rubbing at his eyes quickly, he tried to laugh off the unwelcome tears and instead found himself crying more and more.

"Sorry, it's just... I'm just having a bad day, is all." Marcoh said shakily, trying to convince Gideon of his tears' unimportance. God, he was such a drama queen... but he just couldn't seem to hold it in.

[gideon]

"Oh, well, that's good then. I mean, taking time off. I'm certain you're well off enough to take a week for yourself at this point."

Gideon smiled at the fact that Marcoh was reassuring him that he was a good enough skater when he hadn’t seen him skate in months, probably more like over a year. It was hard to keep track of the time anymore. Just the same, he appreciated the supportive remark. At least he had somebody on his side.

"You should try talking to your parents, see if you can get some more time off."

Gideon laughed at this, hopping down from the top of the fence so that he was on Marcoh’s side. This done, he proceeded to lean against the enclosure, crossing one leg over the other in that typical ‘I’m cool’ stance that the high school kids usually took when smoking a cigarette against the wall of the school or something.

“I’ve tried, but they only hear what they want to hear, you know? One of these days I’ll just quit, and then it’ll get through to them. But until then… I don’t know. I mean, I’m good at it now, so I guess it isn’t all that bad,” he said, not wanting to sound like he was complaining too much. After all, he was rather privileged to have parents who would pay to get him the lessons he took, and the practice time he used, even if they did get out of hand some times.

"School's fine, it's always been fine, y'know, just school. Life's... not so good. I... I caught my boyfriend cheating, so things have been really, really... bad."

Gideon’s eyes widened a little. So Marcoh was gay. He had seen his neighbor walking the halls with Zeke, a senior, and had suspected that there was something going on between them. Zeke was openly homosexual, and while Marcoh had never said anything he had been wondering a little as of late. And so his shock wasn’t at the fact that Marcoh had a boyfriend so much as the fact that his boyfriend had cheated on him. Why would anyone do something like that to Marcoh? He was pretty much the nicest kid in the world!

“I’m sorry…” Gideon said, pushing himself away from the fence. “That really sucks, because you’re a great guy.” Gideon hoped that his comments didn’t sound too awkward. It was strange talking to Marcoh about another guy in a romantic way, but it was something he tried to ignore for the sake of his friend, who was obviously in pain.

And then Marcoh started to cry. Well, he didn’t cry so much as tear up, but then he really started to get upset. His shaky words weren’t very convincing at all. In fact, the more he said that he was really okay the more Gideon was convinced that he wasn’t okay at all.

"Sorry, it's just... I'm just having a bad day, is all."

”Don’t apologize… we all deal with this sort of stuff,” he reassured Marcoh. “I can safely admit that I’ve cried over a relationship in the past,” he added, hoping that this would comfort the younger boy. Just the same, Gideon had never really been too good at emotional stuff. He mainly bottled everything up, if only because he didn’t have any real friends left to talk to any more.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Gideon insisted. He paused, trying to think of what to say. He wanted to be comforting, but not condescending. “Do you want to talk about it, or would you rather pretend he never existed?” Everyone reacted to things like this differently, and it was impossible to tell how Marcoh would want to deal with the situation now that it was out in the open.