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Good Ol’ Bessie, that’s the halfway broken-down Ford Galaxie 500 Rand drives with an odd amount of pride. She’s beaten up to hell and back; the hubcaps don’t match and one is so rusted it’s fit to break at any moment, the passenger side window is missing entirely, the trunk doesn’t close (he has it haphazardly strapped down as a semi-permanent solution) and she sputters and creaks so loud that even with the music full blast it can’t be ignored.
Rolan always shakes his head upon seeing him pull up to his house. Mutters something about safety hazards, remarks on the scratches across Bessie’s side (always something about his car being keyed; Rand calls them her battle scars) and says she sounds like she’s going to explode. Rand tells him to not talk about the way Bessie purrs like that.
The same happens as Rand pulls up to his house now. The usual bickering over his choice of car- which Rand thinks is an excellent one, thank you very much- and then Rolan tugs open the door to slide in next to him. The usually tattered leather seats are covered by an old rug Rand had swiped from amongst his dad’s things in the garage (and prayed he wouldn’t miss it).
“What’s with this?” Rolan asks, pulling at the rug in question.
“The seam’s ripping,” Rand says, motioning with his hand to map out the path of the rip they both cannot see. “Figured you’d have my head if I didn’t try and do something about it.”
“Buy a new car, Rand.”
“Hey!” Rand slaps him on the arm, not hard enough to hurt. “Bessie’s great . Don’t insult her.”
Rolan rolls his eyes like always and pulls the door shut with a resounding thud. His seatbelt clicks into place with a forceful shove into the faulty buckle. Rand, as per usual, doesn’t wear his, instead kicking the car back up into gear to peel away from the curb.
It’s a warm Saturday in Galloway. School finished two weeks back, and Rand pointedly ignores that he flunked all his exams by rolling his window down and feeling the fresh air hit his face. They speed down the road faster than they legally should, and Rolan tells him as such. Rand’s response is full pedal-to-the-metal, enough to make Bessie jump in speed so Rolan spasms like he’s been struck before he hits the brakes to bring her back down to a regular cruising speed.
They’re not headed anywhere in particular. He and Rolan usually are; it’s Kian that Rand often does this kind of thing with. A long, high speed ride in a car that sounds like it might fall apart at any given second. Sometimes they find a cool spot to hang out, atop a hill or in the forests.
More often than not, they just drive until Kian demands he stop, and then they smoke, and Rand delves the deepest into unholy sin he will let himself- that is to say, it usually results in him and Kian making out down some back-alley dirt-road on the hood of his beat up car.
Rolan doesn’t smoke, though. And Rolan doesn’t ride the waves of air with his hand out the missing passenger window, and he doesn’t cheer and yell for Rand to drive faster. It’d be stupid of Rand to expect the same rush of pleasure and sin from this drive.
(He hopes regardless.)
“Slow down ,” Rolan hisses, gripping his seatbelt so tightly his knuckles turn white. “You’re going to kill us!”
“Lighten up, dude,” Rand says, jostling him to try and make him relax (it does the exact opposite). “I haven’t killed Kian, have I?”
“Not yet.”
Rand rolls his eyes. “You’re safe with me. Bessie’s been through worse.”
He taps the dashboard affectionately. Bessie’s engine sputters louder than ever, and jerks under his hands.
“Easy, old girl,” Rand mutters. As if to spite him, Bessie jerks under him again. The speedometer drops drastically, at a rate that worries even Rand, and so he veers to the side of the road and slams the brakes.
Both boys jolt forwards in their seats; Rolan makes a choked noise as his seatbelt digs into him. Rand’s forehead slams into the steering wheel, and he hears the crunch of the bridge of his sunglasses.
“Well-”
“ Shut up ,” Rand snaps, his head still pressed to Bessie’s steering wheel. It almost looks like he’s praying, and then he starts muttering under his breath, and it’s certain that he is.
Rolan unbuckles his seatbelt with a soft click. The sound reverberates around the inside of the vehicle. Rand lifts his head, finding his glasses miraculously in-tact despite it all, and flexes his grip around the steering wheel.
Rolan’s gaze is trained on him. Even out the corner of his eye, Rand can see it. His expression is stupidly smug, one eyebrow quirked up in an unspoken question. Rand has the urge to kiss it right off his face.
He just shifts his grip on the steering wheel again. Traces the outline of it reverently until his hands slip off it and only the pads of his thumbs are still settled on the cracked leather, sun-bleached and so old it clearly needs replacing. “So. We’re stuck here.”
“Because someone wouldn’t listen when I said it wasn’t roadworthy! I literally study law and you didn’t listen!”
“You’ve been telling me that shit since eighth grade,” Rand says dismissively. “She’s always been fine.”
“Well, now she’s not.” Rolan pauses. “And we’re stuck here until either of our parents come looking.”
Rand sinks down in his seat self-consciously, as if it can magically hide him from Rolan’s line of sight. “Yeah.”
Rolan sighs. “You got a cigarette?”
“I didn’t think you smoked,” Rand says, fumbling in his jacket pocket for the pack and lighter he always keeps on hand.
“I don’t.”
“Oh.”
Rolan takes the items from him, and pries one cigarette out of the pack before handing back the box. “But if I’m stuck here with you, I might as well.”
He lights the cigarette. Rand holds out a hand to take back the lighter. Rolan inhales deeply and doesn’t hack his lungs up right after. It’s a detail Rand silently notes to himself.
Silence falls heavily between them as Rolan takes another drag. Rand adjusts his grip on the steering wheel and sighs. Conversation, Rand , he thinks to himself. Make conversation.
“Got any ways to pass the time?” Rolan asks suddenly, saving him from trying to find an appropriate conversation starter. It’s too bad he responds without thinking a mere second later.
“Kian and I-” and then Rand pauses, adjusting his sunglasses to try and hide his embarrassment as he realises exactly what the next line of conversation would reveal. “Well, we go for a lot of aimless drives. And we found a way to pass the time.”
“Oh?” Rolan raises an eyebrow. “So you guys are finally hooking up?”
Rand sputters, his breath and spittle lodging his throat and drawing a full cough out of him from the shock. “What- Rolan - how-”
“You’re not slick, dude.”
Rand’s cheeks burn. He stays silent.
“But,” Rolan continues, “If you were suggesting we do the same…”
He chances a glance back at Rolan, surprised to find the other boy leaned back in his seat comfortably. Like the conversation they were having was normal .
Surely something in Rand’s face gives that away, under all the panic and feverishness. Or maybe Rolan’s just known for a long time now, and has finally caught his opportunity to back Rand into a corner for his own amusement. That sentiment all too quickly becomes real as Rolan rolls his eyes, flicks the still-lit cigarette out the window and leans across the seat to crowd Rand back up against the driver’s side door and kisses him rather violently.
Violently in the sense that Rolan doesn’t take things slow. He kisses Rand like they’ve done this a million times before, with a kind of feverish passion Rand is fighting to keep up with. Rolan’s lips are so soft , and he tastes like cigarette smoke. There’s a hint of those stupid toffee candies he likes so much in there too, and the mix of it is oddly addictive.
His hand slides up to cup Rand’s jaw, and all Rand can manage to do is notice the details. Like how Rolan’s palms are so much smoother than his own, which are calloused and covered in scrapes and cuts. There’s the way Rolan’s other hand settles just barely above his waist, putting pressure on his ribs in a way Rand should not like this much.
The drag of Rolan’s lips against his own is downright maddening. Rand can’t believe they haven’t done this before now. It burns like wildfire where they touch, pressed into one small corner of Bessie’s front seat. Rand’s sunglasses dig into his skin under the force of it all.
“Wait, dude-” Rand manages to break away just long enough to toss his sunglasses into the back seat, with little care for where they land and if it’ll damage them.
“You good?” Rolan says, and it’s breathlessly that Rand’s heart stops in his chest for a moment. His voice sticks in his throat; he’s helpless to do anything but violently nod. Rolan smiles, that slight, shy smile he’s always had, then catches Rand’s lips with his own again.
Kissing Rolan isn’t like kissing Kian. Kian’s all passion mixed with tenderness, the true definition of a future rockstar as one’s momentary lover. Rolan’s touch burns , like holy fire or a cross pressed to the body of a demon, and it’s a searing brand of a thing. That heat is in all of him, from his lips to his hands to where his thighs bracket Rand’s own.
Rolan is the flame and he is sin. He is the temptation in the Garden of Eden, and you can call Rand Eve. There’s religion in every second of it, or at least by Rand’s count, because it’s the only explanation for how blank his mind goes.
Religion demands devotion. The full attention of the student, the disciple, the follower. Rand’s attention is on nothing but Rolan, on the intensity of the way they kiss, the warmth of his skin, the place where Rand’s hand rests on Rolan’s chest. If that isn’t akin to religious devotion, then he isn’t sure what is.
Rolan’s hand slides up to rest along his jawline, his pinky and ring finger splaying down onto the side of Rand’s throat. The touch burns more than holy fire. Rand’s mind seems to spin in his skull, twisting upside down and shaking loose any last remnants of coherent thought. Something about religion? He can’t remember through the burning feeling and the slide of Rolan’s lips against his own.
Maybe less religious and more animalistic, then. Simple desires and the press of skin to skin. Rand feels so warm. Despite the missing window of the car, in fact, it all feels warmer. And Rolan’s still kissing him fiercely, so much so that his nose is slightly crushed into Rand’s cheek. Rand’s probably isn’t any better, but he’s in no place to really think about that.
His heart thrums against his chest. He can feel the blood coursing through his veins. It’s so much more than he thought this could have been, and so much more than his first kiss with Kian was (though in all fairness, that kiss was followed by considerable panic on Rand’s end and a full sexuality crisis that they talked through in about twenty minutes).
Rolan breaks away a second later, breathing laboured and a grin easily curled across his face. “So, how was that for passing the time?”
“Dude,” Rand says, equally breathless, “I can’t believe we made out in my grandma.”
“ It’s a fucking car ,” Rolan hisses, flushing red and looking as mortified as humanly possible. “Don’t call it your grandma .”
“It’s old enough to be-”
Rolan shuts him up with his lips on Rand’s. Though the foggy way his mind seems to spin in his skull again, Rand thinks it’s a rather effective strategy.
“You do this with all the boys?” he asks playfully when Rolan pulls back, reaching up to tangle a hand in his hair.
“No,” Rolan replies, “Just you. Well, and…”
“And?” Rand prompts.
“Never mind.”
Rand goes to speak, to press the question further, but Rolan leans back in and Rand’s form is melting into the seats under the force of it all. He couldn’t get away if he tried, with Rolan’s lips on his and Rolan directly on his lap and the cracked leather seat behind him that he’s pushed back into by Rolan’s hand on his chest. It’s lucky Rand likes it.
All coherent thought leaves him the moment Rolan’s other hand begins to wander, creeping up under his shirt. Fingertips trace his spine reverently in a way that makes Rand’s head spin, and he can’t quite remember why he was so concerned over Bessie breaking down in the first place.
The sudden noise of tires over dirt makes the two jump apart. Rand scrambles to try and spot who it is, fear rising in him for a moment at the prospect of it maybe being his parents and-
The licence plate reads FUKIN-HARD . He could almost cry with relief (he doesn’t, though).
“Kian, thank fuck ,” Rand says, climbing out the car through the missing passenger window. “Bessie’s dead.”
Kian’s barely out of his own car, but his expression falls all the same. It looks like he’s going to say something, but Rand decides to kiss him before he can. Kian melts into it like he always does, his right hand coming up to settle on Rand’s waist and his left cupping Rand’s cheek like the romantic he is.
“Oh, yeah, go ahead,” Rolan says loudly, startling them apart. “I’m not here. We don’t have places to be.”
Kian smiles, wide and charming and easy, and says, “C’mere, babe.”
It’s a little pathetic how quickly Rolan hauls himself out of Bessie (or rather her corpse, in Rand’s mind).
Kian sweeps Rolan into a dip and kisses him like the cheesy, overdone end to a romantic movie. Rand makes retching sounds, and both Rolan and Kian manage to flip him off without breaking the pose.
“How long have you been doing this?” Rand asks when they break apart, gesturing between the two of them.
“A few weeks,” Rolan says sheepishly. Kian just flashes a blindingly charming grin, lacking the decency to have any shame about it.
“Well,” Rand says, “None of us are getting into heaven.”
Kian laughs, high and loud. “Let’s get out of here. First to give me a kiss gets shotgun.”
If Rand breaks his nose in his haste to comply (and to beat out Rolan), none of them speak of or acknowledge it. Well, beyond Rolan passing him tissues to stop the bleeding, anyway.