Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Everything about this conversation is so out of the box of normal that I barely even register what's happening. Of course I'm the type of person who can't tell when this- something so crazy and awful and stressful and honest to God what the hell is happening- is going on. In my defense, Caleb Covington has never spoken to me before. I had no reason to assume that the first time he did, it would be to blackmail me.

We're taking a water break in the bleachers when Caleb saunters over. No greeting, no introduction- just words to send my entire junior year of high school spinning on its head.

"I read your email."

I swallow my water. "What?"

Caleb raises an eyebrow at me, and there's no other way to describe it but menacing. It's funny looking back on it all; I'd always heard Caleb was a really nice guy.

"I was in the library. And I read your email."

"You read my email?"

"Not on purpose. You really should have logged out of Gmail."

There's nothing I can do but stare at him, dumbfounded. What in the name of David Bowie is happening right now?

Caleb, thankfully, stops towering over me and takes a seat in the bleachers, a foot or so away. To anyone else, it might look like we're friends. To me, it feels like I can't breathe.

"Why the fake name?" Caleb asks, and my entire soul screams a wish that he would stop being so casual about this. 

I want to tell him that the point of a fake name is to keep people like Caleb Covington from knowing my secret. Way to freaking go, Alex. He must have seen me sitting at the computer like the monumental dumbass I am.

"Would it interest you to know my cousin is gay?"

"Um. No, Caleb. It really wouldn't."

He still has his eyebrow raised and a small smirk on his face. If I focus hard enough- kind of impossible right now- I can picture Luke punching it right off his face.

"What do you want Caleb?"

This is the longest five minute water break of my life. 

"Look, Mercer, I don't have a problem with it. It's not a big deal."

Yes, it really is. It's a huge monster of a deal. This is the biggest disaster since Luke slammed his fingers in a door and couldn't play his guitar. 

"But. . ." Caleb drags out, and I can feel my leg bouncing quicker by the second. "It's pretty clear to me that you'd rather keep it all hush, hush."

I mean. Yeah. Kind of. The coming out thing doesn't scare me that much. Except it does. Because if people know then my parents will know and if my parents know then my whole family will know and if my whole family knows then I've become like a living, gay, everyone-finds-out version of If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, and I'd rather die than have that happen. So maybe the coming out thing does scare me. But the biggest problem if people found out? 

Ghost.

I have absolutely no idea what it would mean for Ghost if Caleb was going to tell anyone. The thing about Ghost is he's a pretty private person. I bet he wouldn't forget to log out of his email so people like Caleb Covington wouldn't see it. I bet there's a good chance he'll never forgive me if he finds out about this. So really, I have absolutely no freaking clue what would happen to Ghost- to us .

And I'm still sitting in these stupid gym bleachers, the pink hydroflask Reggie bought me limp in my hand, desperately wishing Carrie would call an end to this godforsaken water break. I can't believe I'm having this conversation with Caleb right now. Why couldn't anyone else have logged into Gmail after me? Why was I so impatient to see if Ghost had emailed me back that I used the freaking school computers? Why did this stupid school insist on blocking the wireless so I had had no choice but to use the school computers? But it had been one of those days where I couldn't even wait to get out of dance practice to check my phone in my car.

I'd emailed Ghost this morning, and it had been a pretty big email. I was desperate to know if he'd emailed back.

I must have been just staring at Caleb for a while because he cocked his head at me and said, "Don't worry, Mercer. I'm not going to show anyone."

I take a relieved breath. Then my hydroflask finally slips from my fingers as I freeze, and the sound echoes through the gym. I don't even look at the rest of the dancers when their laughs break out.

"Show anyone?" I ask. 

Caleb leans in a little bit, smirk wider on his face. I feel sick.

"Did you- oh my god, did you screenshot my emails?"

"Yes, see, I wanted to talk to you about that."

"You took a fucking screenshot?" I hiss out, thankful I'd put my stuff farther away from the rest of the dance team today.

Caleb has the audacity to roll his eyes. "I've heard you're in a band with-"

"What the fuck does that have to do with- Let's go back to how you screenshot my email ."

"Or you can shut up and listen to what I have to say." 

Something about the way Caleb's gaze catches you, it's hard to do anything but what he says. Fuck.

"I believe we may be in a position to help each other out."

Jesus Christ, what 18 year old talks like this?

"Why the hell would I do anything for you?"

It's a stupid question, I realize as he stares at me calmly. Calmly. Like this isn't the end of my life. Whatever he wants right now, it'll be in exchange. I do this, and he doesn't broadcast my private emails with Ghost to the entire student body.

All this time and I really thought Caleb was supposed to be this nice guy. Fuck me.

"You're going to make me do whatever you want?"

Caleb tsk'd like the condescending bastard he clearly is. "Well, now. I'm not making you do anything."

"But if I don't help you, you'll what? Post my emails on the fucking tumblr?"

LosFelizSecrets. The bane of every Los Feliz student's existence. Ground zero for more gossip than anyone in their right mind knows what to do with. A school of almost 3,000 kids but if it's on the tumblr, most people know within a day. A complete and utter hellscape disguised as a blog.

When Caleb stays quiet, I speak again. "What do you want from me, Caleb?"

He sneers. 

"Music of the Night."

Once again, I'm stuck staring at him. Music of the Night? That's what this is about?

"Your band is signed up, as is mine. The HGC lost to Dirty Candy last year, and I will not lose again this year."

Music of the Night is this competition Los Feliz holds every year as part of the music program. At the end of the year, there's this huge concert held at the Orpheum theatre in Hollywood. At the beginning of the school year, anyone can sign up. Then each band has 4 months to perform at school events, outside gigs and parties, and whenever they have an opportunity, really. During winter break, the student body votes on who the headliner of the concert will be. Last year, the headliner was Dirty Candy. Because they won last year, they're out of the running this year and are in charge of organization and things for the concert. This year, I was hoping the headliner would be Julie and the Phantoms. My band. Caleb and his band HGC have entered the competition every year, and he's never won. He's a senior, and I know this will be his last chance. I also know who his biggest competition is. 

Us.

"So. . . what? You want me to sabotage my own band?"

I feel breathless and dizzy as I ask. Caleb just shrugs casually.

"Whatever you need to do. So long as it's my band that gets the votes. Like I said, I think we can help each other out. Think about it."

Caleb winks- he actually winks- and walks away. I stare dumbly after him. No way. No, I'm not doing this. I can live with being outed. Right? 

But my thoughts travel to Ghost. Because he's a part of this, too. He goes to Los Feliz, and he's my age, and he uses a fake name, and he's not out. 

Ghost isn't out, and Caleb has my emails.

Fuck.

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Any hope I have of forgetting about that stupid conversation clearly isn’t worth it. I have an hour before dinner, and right now I’m basically willing to do anything to avoid my family. Trying to talk to my parents is exhausting. You can’t just get away with telling them your day was good or bad. No, you have to ring out every excruciating little detail. Everything that happens in my or my siblings’ life, they want to know about it. In all honesty, I used to love telling them all that stuff. Now I can’t get away from them fast enough. Especially today. I’m barely in the house long enough to put my backpack in my room before I’m slipping out the back door and leaving again. 

I try to drown out my thoughts with Axl Rose screaming into my earbuds. But my mind is stuck on Ghost, emails, and Caleb freaking Covington. Caleb wants to win Music of the Night. I can’t exactly blame him for that. Everyone wants to win it. 

Except he’s blackmailing me. And by extension, he’s blackmailing Ghost. And that makes me want to hyperventilate a little bit. Maybe go scream somewhere. 

But Axl Rose is helping. The familiar route of walking to Luke’s is helping. We don’t get much of a fall in LA, but the air feels a little crisper in mid October, and I can already see the houses that are getting ready for Halloween. 

When I reach Luke’s house, I don’t even bother going through the front door. I just cut through his backyard and head through the backdoor right next to Luke’s bedroom. I hear them before I see them. Reggie’s laugh fills the air, paired with a frustrated groan from Luke. They’re sitting side by side on Luke’s bed, facing the small tv with some video game I’ve never seen on the screen. They look like they haven’t moved in hours. Luke pauses the game as soon as he sees me, waving, and I can’t help but smile a little bit. The guy won’t put down his guitar for you, but he’ll pause a video game or movie without a second thought. 

“Great, you’re here! Tell Luke he’s shit at this game and he should let me play Mario Kart.”

I roll my eyes, “Dance was great, Reg. Thanks for asking.”

Reggie sticks out his tongue, and I crack a smile. This is the most comfortable I’ve felt all afternoon. I throw myself into the beat up bean bag chair Luke keeps in his room.

“Luke, you’re shit at this game and Reggie wants to play Mario Kart.”

Luke gapes at me, a betrayed gleam in his eyes, but I just shrug. Luke grumbles a bit as he gets up to switch out the game, and Reggie whoops in victory. I let out a soft sigh. I think I needed this. The chaos of Reggie and Luke playing whatever game, the strange mix of leather, Axe, and his mom’s Hawaiian Breeze cleaner that makes Luke’s room smell awful and entirely wonderful at the same time, and the familiarity of Luke and Reggie. Everything just fits right when I’m with them. 

As Luke sets up the game, Reggie looks at me excitedly. “Alex, Luke hasn’t heard about le wedgie.”

I snort a little, “Ah, yes. Le wedgie. C’est une histoire touchante.”

I don’t know why Reggie bothered to wait for me to tell the story; he’s the far better storyteller between us. Maybe it’s just because I’m better at French.  

Luke stares at me, “English, please?”

Reggie and I thought we’d be fancy and take something fun like French for our required language credits. Luke decided to take something actually useful and learn sign language. This story is stupid, and my reenactment is stupid, but it feels kind of perfect. Like Caleb and secrets are all things of my imagination, and nothing exists but this bedroom and me, Luke, and Reggie. Benefits of having known these dorks since elementary school, I guess. 

About as they finish the second race in Mario Kart, Luke lets out a yawn. Reggie reacts so quickly I barely realize what he’s doing. He grabs a crumpled up Hershey’s Kiss wrapper from Luke’s nightstand and throws it into Luke’s mouth. Luke sees it just in time to clamp his mouth shut. Reggie sighs in defeat, but shrugs.

“Keep yawning, I’ll get you one of these times.”

“Why are you so tired?”

“Because I party real hard. All night, every night, baby,” Luke says, slamming Reggie’s bike with a green turtle shell. 

“Alone in your room with your guitar. Some party that is,” Reggie retaliated with a bomb thrown in Luke’s direction. 

As the race finishes Luke yawns again, and Reggie’s Kiss wrapper bounces off his cheek. 

“I just keep having these weird dreams,” he explains. 

I raise my eyebrows. “TMI, dude.”

“Not that kind of dream!” Luke tosses the wrappers at me, Reggie cackling beside him. 

Luke starts explaining his dream- something about every time he started playing his guitar his cord had magically unplugged itself from his amp- and Reggie and I just share a look. We were used to Luke being in his weird, feels-the-need-to-analyze-everything moods. But even after all these years, it was almost like a movie, watching Luke get so weirdly passionate about things- music and otherwise. It made me glad that Luke was a brother to me by everything but blood. Partly because if he wasn’t, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop myself from falling for him. And I have a strict policy about not falling for straight guys.

To everyone but me and Reggie- immune to him after knowing pretty much every thought that’s ever gone through his head since elementary school- there’s this pull to Luke. Like he casts a spell that has everyone in a 10 mile radius tripping at his feet and each and every girl swooning. Poor Julie is not immune to the spell, it seems. Lucky for her though, Luke doesn’t seem immune to her either. 

It took barely a few weeks into the school year before I noticed Luke switching seats with Willie Meyers at lunch to increase the odds he’d end up right next to Julie. Then there’s that stupid, puppy-dog, love-sick look in his eyes that Luke gets every time he thinks Julie isn’t looking. And it’s not like Reggie and I haven’t put up with a pining Luke before, but everything seems a little different with Julie. It makes me think of Ghost. 

Would I look like that if I saw him in person? Would he look at me like that? 

If Caleb leaks my emails and Ghost hates me forever, I don’t think I’ll ever find out.

Chapter Text

FROM: [email protected]

TO: [email protected]

DATE: Oct 17 at 12:06 AM

SUBJECT: Re: when you knew

I’m impressed, Ghost. I didn’t think I could be beat out for most awkward “sexual awakening” moment, but you might have passed it. And I get it- middle school is an endless nightmare. Well, not endless since we made it to highschool, I guess, but it’s still a special kind of psychological torture. Ah, that merciless puberty.

Have you had to see the guy at all since the engagement party? If you have, my heart goes out to you, Ghost. Ouch.

I was sitting right next to one of my best friends when I had my stupid, obnoxious, anxiety inducing awakening. We were watching an old Backstreet Boys music video of all things. My friend asked me if I wanted to learn whatever boyband dance they were doing because he thought it would be a great way to pick up girls at the 7th grade winter dance. I didn’t even hear him ask because I was too busy imagining what it would be like if Nick Carter kissed me. When he finally did get my attention, I pretty much ran out of the room and hid in the bathroom like a freaking preschooler. 

Funny enough, I actually did pick up a girl at the dance. It was one of those middle school relationships- the one where you’re “dating” but you really don’t do anything but go around school together. We would hold hands and eat lunch together, but honestly we barely spoke to each other. Come to think of it, I’m not actually sure what happened to her. I think our middle school relationship did that fizzle out thing where you never actually break up, and I think she moved after the summer. Hm. Well, if you’re out there, happy four years, middle school girlfriend. 

Well, I think this might be the longest email I’ve ever written you, Ghost. Lucky you, you seem to be the only one who gets more than 280 characters out of me. That’s kind of awesome, right?

Anyway, I’ll say goodbye here. Honestly, it’s been a really strange day for me.

-Halen

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FROM: [email protected]

TO: [email protected]

DATE: Oct 17 at 8:46 PM

SUBJECT: Re: when you knew

I’m really the only one? That’s definitely kind of awesome. I’m glad I can be the one who brings you out of your regular character limit. Truth be told, I don’t email much, either. I definitely never talk about this kind of thing with anyone. Lucky you. 

I get what you mean about the endless nightmare of middle school. Let’s be honest here, it still gives you nightmares, right? Me, too. It makes me think of that John Mulaney bit about how middle schoolers are the meanest people ever. “That’s the thing I’m sensitive about!” They hit you right where it hurts. Remember the way people would just look at you blankly and say “Um, okaaay” after you finished talking? What the hell was that all about? It’s like middle school’s one goal was to make sure that no matter what you thought, felt, or said, you were totally alone. The worst part is I’m pretty sure we were all guilty of doing that to people; I know that I did. I hate thinking about it. 

I’m glad to hear that you and your 7th grade girlfriend are still going strong. Woohoo for middle school romances! Though I do have to ask, did you already know you were gay when you were hand holding and walking to classes with her? Personally, I never jumped on the middle school relationship train. Then again, haven’t jumped on the high school relationship train yet, either. Maybe I will someday. 

To answer your question, I have in fact seen him a couple of times. My stepmom’s family are big fans of huge gatherings, and my cousin comes to all of them with her now-husband in tow. Usually I just avoid him like the plague. It’s strange, isn’t it? Someone can trigger a full-blown sexuality crisis and have no clue they’re even doing it. Anyway, I think they’re expecting a kid now. 

Sorry about your weird day.

-Ghost

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FROM: [email protected]

TO: [email protected]

DATE: Oct 18 at 11:15 PM

SUBJECT: Re: when you knew

Oh yes- the dreaded “okaaay”. Always delivered by a raised eyebrow and a mouth twisted into a condescending little butthole. Yeah, I said it, too. We all sucked. 

As for the girlfriend thing, yeah I knew. I’d known by the time I finally made it out of my friend’s bathroom after the Backstreet Boys music video. It just sort of happened, I guess? As we’ve established, middle school was a freaking mess. My friends found out she liked me, thought I was crazy for not going for it, and then it was like I blinked and we were dating. She was a nice girl, and I did like her. Just. Not like that. 

If we’re getting deep about it, though, I think I started dating her because I didn’t want to believe I was 100% gay. Or maybe I wasn’t expecting it to actually last. 

And yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking. 

“Okaaaaaaaaaay.”

-Halen

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FROM: [email protected]

TO: [email protected]

DATE: Oct 19 at 8:01 AM

SUBJECT: Out of obligation. . .

Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy.

(Eyebrow, butthole mouth, etc.)

-Ghost