Sweet As The Punch

Author's Notes: I need to thank all my reviewers so far! And my beta! (love my beta, she deserves credits!). In response to a review, asking if the focus was going to be on the M/F of M/M pairing, I'm going to clarify that the focus will indeed be put on the M/M pairing. I just needed an excuse to pair Mitch and Adam up, and that's where the M/F (Adam/Raelene pairing, thus the bi warning) came from. More characters will also be introduced! Stay tuned, uptades may be faster than I thought!

Sweet As The Punch
Chapter 2

5:30 on a Saturday morning and Adam was already awake? It would be considered a miracle if he hadn't woken up because he fell asleep too early, fully clothed, with books spread around his bed. The radio was still blaring the station Radio Énergie. Now it wasn't such of a miracle. Such things happened so often in his family. How many times did he find his mother and father asleep in their documents... on the kitchen table? Same with his little sister, Anna.

Maybe he needed more vitamins... or to stop staying up so damn late. If his whole family opted for the second, it wouldn't happen as often. The thought of everyone behaving as they should made him grin... it could be called a miracle.

Their father, Martin, was the one who stayed at home while his wife, Emily, worked at her own business downtown Montreal. The kids at their school had always found it weird, but most had gotten used to it.

Breakfast was never exactly quiet at the Cartwright's household – Anna and Adam usually fought over everything; food, silverware used, seats at the table. Today, however, was an exception. Anna didn't show up until 10:15 or so; Adam had long finished to eat and even had cleaned the plates.

He was reading the newspaper then the phone rang, at around 10:30. He didn't get the chance to put it down and answer. Anna had it already. "Must be a friend of hers" he thought, rolling his eyes. Teenage girls were scary. Way too scary.

"Hello?" she happily chirped into the receiver, twirling a lock of brown hair with her left hand. "Yeah, sure, hold on." She then covered the mic with her hand and grinned at the brother. "It's a guy named Mitchell. He sounds hot."

"I can tell you already you don't even stand a chance" he said as he got up from the table and picked up the reciever from Anna's hands, then covered it as she had previously done. "He's gay."

The teen grinned even more and crossed her arms over her chest. "He is your boyfriend?"

If this had been a movie, the time would have stopped with a scratch-disk noise. How was he supposed to reply to that? They weren't "officially" together but at the same time, he almost felt like he had to get used to it and say that yes, Mitch was indeed his boyfriend.

He knew his family wouldn't care, his parents had already questionned his sexuality a few times and had repeatedly told him that such things didn't matter. Yet deep inside he didn't want them to admit they were "right"

"Well, kinda." At least it wasn't a lie.

"How can someone be "kinda" your boyfriend?"

Adam cringed, phone still in hand. He could hear a "Hello?" coming from it and cringed a second time. His next move was to grab a pencil and a piece of paper before turning to his mother, who had arrived a short time ago, and putting his finger in the air in a "one minute" gesture. "Sorry for that, can I call you back in a few minutes? I just can't be alone here." He rolled his eyes as he noted Mitch's phone number down and apologized again before hanging up. "Mom... he's just not... yet my boyfriend."

"Your father's gonna be on his "I told you so!" attitude for the rest of the day now" she continued, smiling. "When he's ready to meet us, bring him over. I'd love to see him."

Anna skipped to the table where Adam was sitting, head burried in his arms, and hugged him. "Aww. If he's as hot as he sounded on the phone Adam's hit the jackpot!" She gave him a kiss on the cheek – he was about to rip her throat by now – and skipped to the cupboard, taking a cereal box. "Want some?" she asked her big brother, holding the box in the air. Lucky Charms.

He sighed and shook his head. The day had started out in the weirdest way possible. He was forced to lie to his family and he wasn't sure things between Mitch and him would go that well. "Eh... no thanks sis. I ate already."

The teenaged girl pouted and served herself a big bowl, making sure she had a lot of marshmallows. "I'mma go call Melanie, gonna ask her if she can come over so we can study some for Monday's test. It's gonna be a pain in the butt." Then she turned around and sat down beside Adam. "How did you get through tenth grade?!"

"I studied... and then I got lucky" he admitted – the only reason he hadn't flunked was because he guessed some of the French tests answers correctly. Now why he was studying Japanese, he had no idea.

Anna shrugged and left the kitchen, waving at her father who had came back from outside. His shirt and pants were patched with green stains; the result of him mowing the lawn. Not even twenty seconds inside and their mother was already telling him about Adam's possible boyfriend.

His first reply was a "I told you so!", accompagnied by a smirk. "But hey son, don't go believing it's a bad thing I'm saying that. You know what we talked about so many ti-"

"Yeah yeah I know dad. I'm gonna go and call him from my bedroom's phone..."

Martin's laugh echoed in the kitchen, following Adam as he went back upstairs, to his bedroom. "Lovebirds!"

Halfway up the stairs, he realized he had forgotten the phone number on the kitchen table – he went back down, blew a raspberry at his father and took the stairs again before hearing another "I told you so!" remark.

"My parents must be the weirdest beings on Earth. I think that's why I love them" he thought, sitting at his computer. He dialed the number on the yellow piece of paper and two male voices replied – father and son, he guessed. They were very similar, but one was slightly deeper.

"I'll leave you alone with your boyfriend! Hi! And bye!" it said right before hanging up.

A short, awkward silence took place, and Adam finally said something. "So I'm guessing we have the same type of father."

"The kind who teases you a lot? I can definitely say that my dad's stronger than everyone else's regarding that. He likes making fun of me in that way, nothing offensive, but it cost me some friends."

"Ouch, that sucks."

"The good thing is as I've said before: if they ditch you 'cause you're gay, they're not true friends and you're better off without them... ... ... Dad get off the phone! Go find another man! Mine!" There was chuckle and a click, then silence.

It had been awkward as well. Adam couldn't help the next question. "Is your dad gay too?"

Mitch laughed out loud. "My dad? Nah, it's what I was telling you. He's good at teasing people. Should see what he did to my brother Frederic, once. He replaced his tall, frosty glass of water with vodka – his face was bright red from choking. He so wasn't expecting that and it was so fuckin' funny. Oh and that time where I was having some friends over and he came in the living room, jumped on the coffee table, danced on it in boxers and ran outta the room. My friends thought he was cool for doing that... but as much as I'm gay, it's my father, damnit. It's not hot!"

"Mine never did that. He just replaced our marshmallows with cotton balls a few times, decorated my rooms with porn posters and bought a PlayStation 2 memory card that was exactly like mine just so he could pretend my games had been erased."

The other man chuckled and started talking again. "I think we're in a similar situations concerning our parents. But that wasn't what I was calling about. My parents are leaving this afternoon and my bro's at his new girl's place for the weekend so I thought I'd ask you if you wanted to come over. We could huh... talk about all of that."

By "that" he assumed it was about their partnership. "Sounds good to me. Just give me your address, I've got my car so I'll head there right away."

Adam headed out as soon as he brushed his hair a bit and put his sandals on – he was surprised Mitch lived quite close to him. It wouldn't take much more than five minutes for him to get to destination.


~ ~ ~ ~

Maybe it had been a bit longer, after all. About ten minutes later, Adam parked his car not too far from Mitch's house and made sure he locked the doors with his remote car starter before ringing the bell.

He was immediately greeted by a grinning Mitchell, still wearing nothing but pajamas pants. "Hi Adam!" he said, grinning even more. He then grabbed his arm and literally clung to him, dragging him into the living room. The "couple" landed in front of a much smaller, female copy of Mitch – his mother – and the reason why he wasn't as small as his mother – his father. The woman had long, wavy blond locks, big blue eyes and very similar facial traits as her son, while the man's tall frame and muscles were very noticeable. Adam guessed his personality came from a decent mix.

"So he's your new boyfriend" the man said, tieing his shoes. He wore torn, grass-stained t-shirt and pants, probably on his way to mow the lawn. "Welcome in the family. If you have any bit of sanity left, it should be gone by the time you've left the house tomorrow" he said with a wide smirk.

Adam had guessed right; Mitch behaved the same way. "Can't lose what you never had" he replied with a chuckle.

"Fair enough. Anyways, I'm gonna go, the lawnmower needs to be fed. Too bad it's gonna throw up all around the lawn and someone's gonna need to rake it all up after."

The woman spoke. "Forget me for raking, ask Frederic. I've got a soccer game to coach at one o'clock and I need to get there at around noon to pep talk the girls and have them warm up a bit." She was the elementary school's gym teacher and during the summer weekends, coached for the local female soccer team. As for the winter, she did the same... for ice hockey. "Because Mitchell is probably going to be busy. By the way, as you go back to your room, because I know you're heading back there with..." she looked at Adam in an apologetical way; she didn't know his name. "Sorry but what's your name?"

"Adam."

"So as you go back to your room with Adam, wake up your brother please? If he's not awake.

Mitch nodded and dragged his new "boyfriend" out of the living room. "Will do!"

As they reached the stairs to the second floor, another man was climbing down – Adam guessed it to be Frederic. He was obviously older than Mitch, by a few years at most. Roughly the same height, same hair length, but Fred's was brown instead of blonde.

"Mom said I needed to wake you up" Mitch told his brother, before leaving Adam's arm and waited for his brother to be down on the last step before lunging at him and pinning him on the beige wall. Thud. "C'mon, wake up!"

"I'm awake" the other man said, pushing him back and throwing a punch at Mitch's shoulder, who replied by kicking his leg.

"You certainly don't fight like it!"

Frederic laughed and pushed his brother once again. THUD.

Their mother's voice rose, yet didn't sound mad at all. "Don't kill each other, we'll need both of you later on. Fred, your father's gonna need you to rake the lawn after and Mitch you have to cook supper."

Both sons sighed and answered with annoyed "yeah's", then Frederic grabbed Mitch in a headlock. "Have a nice day lil' bro."

The blonde shook his head and grabbed Adam's arm again. "We won't have as many troubles in my bedroom."

Mitch's bedroom was in shades of green. Forest green walls, lime green comforter and pillows, green rug with tiger stripes design. The rest of the furniture was either black, like his TV stand, or white like his computer desk and bed base. A well-decorated large room – it suited him perfectly.

Adam, however, barely noted it all. He was far too confused as why he had been introduced right away as Mitch's boyfriend. "You told them I was your boyfriend?" he asked, not knowing if he should be annoyed by it because he wasn't gay... so to speak... or getting used to it because he had to pretend he was.

"Yeah. After all we're gonna have to act like we are, and that's the whole reason why you're here today." It made some sense in Adam's head, although he didn't know what the whole big deal around it was. So he had to pretend to be his boyfriend... was that so hard?

Mitch sat at his lime green swivel leather chair and spun around a few times, while Adam settled on the bed. "You're probably wondering what's so hard about being gay eh?" he inquired, fiddling with the computer. He needed music. Mitch cringed at the loud noise created by Rammstein's Sonne guitar into and immediately lowered the volume, and finally apologized to his guest. "Sorry for that, I've got a habit of putting my music loud when I play guitar. Anyways, as I was saying... when you approach a girl you like, where do you usually look? Honestly."

Adam eyed the room, trying to remember the last time he saw some cute girl beside Raelene. If he had to be honest, he'd have to reply that he looked at her breasts, like most guys... "At her boobs. I'll admit it."

"See, that's something you gotta fix. Girls notice that thing and well, if you're a gay male, boobs won't matter to you unless they're fucking big." Mitch had a point there. If you're not attracted to something, you don't care too much for it. "Which means that when you talk to girls, look them in the eyes. They don't feel like objects... or less."

"The fact that gay men aren't attracted to women helps a lot. And no, it's not the fact we sleep with guys like they do, or that the stereotyped gay man likes fashion, to shop and girly stuff. No. It's the fact that we don't judge them based on their looks."

It made sense to Adam, but he wondered how he'd suppress the habit of looking at a girl's breasts, waist, legs, or imagine what she'd be like naked. "And I'm supposed to stop caring about that... how?"

"You're gonna need to pretend" Mitch added, shrugging. "How else? Doesn't sound like the easiest job in the world. You may find that easier than being around me as my boyfriend though – especially if we have to behave like a couple. Kissing, cuddling, trying to get in touch with each other often, all that stuff. It comes naturally to me, but since you're straight and probably aren't even remotely attracted to me, I bet it's gonna be hard to you. But I'll be gentle." He winked and turned back at the computer for a second, trying to find another song, and directed his look at Adam.

"I've never kissed a girl myself" he continued, "but I don't think it's very different than kissing a guy. Oh and I'm not gonna ask you to sleep here tonight or anything... although if you don't mind it it's gonna be nice to have company, for once." He laughed shyly and started to play with his hands. "I think it's gonna be hard for me because I know you're not gay and well, you're attractive to me. I'll probably have to watch it beside social activities."

Adam tilted his head. It was only fair that, if Mitch let him be his boyfriend... that he'd reward the guy in some way. So he smiled. "Depends. I may get used to it faster than you think and in the end, might not mind all of that even outside."

Mitch smirked and winked. "Tell you what; I'll even let you be the dominant one".

~ ~ ~ ~