Take Me From This Pain, Kevin's story

Kevin looked up defiantly as the taller boys surrounded him in the school parking lot. He’d just put his backpack in Jason’s car and was about to go to the gym to watch his boyfriend practice when he was stopped. Though it hadn’t happened to him in quite some time, the scene wasn’t unfamiliar as he’d been through it many times in California.

“I asked you a question,” Eric Nevins sneered. “What’s the matter? You looking for your boyfriend?”

“He’s busy right now,” Dan Welner snickered stepping ever closer. “At least until Mark finds a way to get his ass tossed off the team.”

“That means you’re free to hang out with us, little fairy boy,” Greg Rollings added as he raked his eyes up and down Kevin’s body leeringly. “Hey, Eric. He looks a lot more like a girl than a guy to me. Maybe we should take him to the mall and buy him something nicer to wear.”

“That’s a good idea,” Pete Jenner piped in. “Something pink and lacy, to go with his hair.”

“You guys don’t scare me,” Kevin growled as he kicked Dan in the ankle. The other teen yelped and glared at him.

“You’ll pay for that, fag!”

Dan pulled Kevin forward by his shirt and punched him hard in the jaw. Kevin’s vision blurred for a second and when it cleared he could see blood on the ground. But he wasn’t. Eric was holding up against him while Dan prepared to attack again. He felt the fist in his stomach and grunted as it hit him. But he refused to scream. He wouldn’t let them see his pain.

“Come on, sweet thing,” Eric cooed in the small blonde boy’s ear seductively. “I want to hear you cry like a girl.”

“You’re kind of scary, Eric,” Pete laughed holding Dan back for a second. “Are you sure you don’t want him to do anything else.”

“Hmm,” Eric mused aloud as he tightened his arm around Kevin’s waist. “Might be interesting.”

“What?!?!” the other four attackers yelled at once.

“Well, look how pretty he is,” Eric smirked. “And I’m sure he’d be better at giving me a blow than Sara. She hates doing that.”

“And we all know little gay boys love to lick cock,” Pete added with a smirk of his own. “Don’t we, sweet little gay boy?”

Kevin coughed up some blood but refused to respond verbally, although he squirmed and kicked at Eric trying to get away. He wasn’t so sure they were bluffing anymore.

“A mouth’s a mouth,” Eric reasoned, breathing hotly on Kevin’s neck and making him sick with a sudden fear.

“And he sure is pretty,” Dan added coming closer.

“HEY!” a female screamed suddenly from a side door. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Kevin breathed a quiet sigh of relief as he recognized Marly’s voice. She screamed Randy’s name and before long he found himself thrown unceremoniously on the pavement while Joey and Randy confronted his attackers.

“Kevin?” Marly asked softly as she put his bleeding head on her lap. “Say something. Are you okay?”

“We were just having a little fun,” Eric told them. “He’s fine. Too bad he tripped though.”

“He didn’t trip, you fucking scumbag!” Joey yelled. “Get the fuck out of here before I get the principal.”

“Too late, he’s already here,” a gruff middle-aged man replied as he eyes the five boys who had attacked Kevin. “In my office NOW, Mr. Nevins. And bring your band of thugs with you.”

Eric grimaced before looking back down at Kevin. “See you around, cupcake.”

“You better not if you like walking, shithead,” Joey growled.

“What happened?”

Kevin looked up and saw Ryan peering at him closely.

“What are you doing here?” he asked weakly.

“Jay asked me to take you home while he and the others practiced,” Ryan told him as he carefully wiped some blood off the blonde’s chin with a napkin Cindy had shakily handed him. “He was worried there might be others who weren’t happy about you two. And I see he was right.”

“I’m fine,” the smaller boy insisted as he struggled up to his feet. “I’ve been through worse.”

“But you’re not alone anymore, Kev,” Randy sighed. “And what they did is bad. They need to be punished.”

“They will be,” Cindy piped in. “Mr. Hanover isn’t letting this go with a slap on the wrist.”

“Wait till Jay sees it,” Joey shook his head. “He’ll go nuts!”

“He’ll be fine,” Kevin waved him off.

“Oh, he will?” Ryan looked skeptical. “Think again.”

“I know him better than anyone,” Kevin insisted.

“You think you do,” Ryan smiled sadly. “Brian thought so, too. But when Matt went ballistic after his attack he knew better.”

Kevin regarded him silently.

“You take your bag,” Joey said, taking the keys from Kevin’s hand and going into Jason’s car to pull it out, handing it to Ryan, “and go home to rest. I’ll give Jay his keys back.”

“Don’t say anything,” Kevin asked him.

“I have to,” Joey smiled apologetically. “He’d kill me otherwise, and I’d do the same if you were Cindy.”

“But . . .”

“Get some rest,” Randy echoed Joey firmly, pushing Kevin towards Ryan’s car.

Kevin reluctantly let himself be strapped in and waved to his friends as Ryan pulled away. Then he turned to his former-nemesis-turned-friend curiously.

“Brian thought he knew Matt better?” he asked in a soft voice.

“Yeah,” the dark haired boy replied without looking over. “Brian and I talked a lot about it after the attack.”

“What happened?”

“With the attack?”

“No,” Kevin yawned, tired from the attack and the sudden loss of his adrenaline. “With Matt.”

“Well, Brian didn’t know Matt loved him at the time, or didn’t believe it anyway,” Ryan explained. “But when Matt got hold of Darren, well, you could see by the look in his eyes that if Brian wasn’t there, Darren might have ended up on a bed right next to your stepdad. He was that enraged. Nothing any of us could have said would have stopped him either.”

“But Brian?”

“Yeah, Brian,” Ryan smiled. “Matt took one look at him and dropped Darren like the sack of shit he is. And that’s all Brian needed, too. He wanted and needed Matt to hold him. Brian told me after that he clung to Matt the whole night and a few more after that, not even sleeping. He just needed Matt. But Matt told me he felt like he should have kicked more of the shit out of Darren than he did.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“He said he saw the look on Brian’s face and he couldn’t do anything else but hold him.”

“And you think that’s how Jason will react?”

“What, you don’t?” Ryan asked as he pulled into Kevin’s driveway. “You really don’t, do you?”

Kevin shrugged and got out of the car.

“That’s exactly how he’ll react, kid,” Ryan said as he shut his own door. “You’ll see.”

Kevin sighed and went for his backpack but Ryan shooed him off and grabbed his house keys to boot. He led Kevin inside and to his bedroom, stopping only to get some Bactine and bandages from the bathroom. Kevin watched with interest as Ryan dressed his facial wounds and lifted his shirt when instructed so that he could see his ribs.

“Well, they don’t look too bad but maybe we should go for an x-ray just in case,” Ryan murmured.

“No!”

Ryan looked up curiously.

“I mean, I’ve had cracked and bruised ribs before,” Kevin amended the statement. “These don’t feel that bad. Dan only got one punch in before the gang came out.” He bit his lip and looked down.

“Kevin?” Ryan asked in concern.

Kevin shrugged and tried like hell to pull back the tears that threatened to flow.

“Kev?” the taller boy asked more gently. “Talk to me.”

“Why should I?” Kevin demanded petulantly.

“I know it’s still weird for you and me, but I’m not the enemy anymore,” Ryan said softly. “What did they do?”

The tears fell to Kevin’s extreme dismay as pulled his knees to his chest and sobbed softly into them. Ryan patted his shoulder and waited patiently.

“Th-they s-s-said th-they w-were g-going t-to m-make m-me d-do th-things,” the small blonde finally choked out. “Th-that I l-l-looked l-like a g-girl s-so it d-didn’t m-matter th-that I w-w-asn’t.”

“Shit,” Ryan sighed softly. He knew he had no room to say anything either. He had said stuff like that to Kevin and even Brian in the past, before he got to know them. “They’ll never get near you,” he promised instead.

“How can you be s-s-ure?” Kevin looked up, his eyes big and swollen, swimming with fear and hurt.

Ryan knew what he was really saying, too. Kevin was asking him how he could really be so offended on his behalf when he’d done almost the same thing not so very long ago. And Ryan now knew what he could do to help atone for that.

“Because I’ll be there,” he said with certainty.

“B-but y-you h-have classes!”

“They’re all early morning classes,” Ryan replied. “Jason, Joey and Randy have you covered during the school day. I take over when that last bell rings.”

“But . . .”

“What’s the problem?” Ryan pasted a smirk on his face. “Afraid you might actually start to like me if we spend time together?”

“I like you fine as it is,” Kevin groused. “But I can take care of myself.”

“Kev, what do you think Jay’ll do if this happens again?” Ryan asked seriously.

“I don’t know,” the blonde looked down again.

“He’ll quit the team,” Ryan supplied easily. “And Tanya’s boyfriend will have a party over it. Besides, you know you want to find out why your brother thinks so highly of me now.”

“Does your ego have anything to do with it?” Kevin griped jokingly.

“Maybe. You’ll have to tune in to find out.”