Acceptance Ch 19

**Yaoi Warning**

Jerry huddled in the stands, Rene on one side of him, September on the other, his eyes glued to the ass of the cutie standing two rows down from them. Man, what was in the water here? He thought, casting his eyes around. I’ve never seen such a concentration of hot men all in one place.
     Jerry blinked. Damn, he thought with a twist of his lips. I’m starting to sound like September.
     “There must be a high dosage of hotnase in the waters here,” September commented, right on cue.
     Rene cocked her head. “Hotnase? You mean hotness?”
     “No. Hotnase.”
     Jerry waited a moment, then prompted “And what is hotnase?”
     “Enzyme in the water,” a voice behind them commented.
     “Yes,” September agreed. “We learned about it.”
     “In…Biology…”
     Jerry turned to see Tim settling onto the bench behind them, shoving aside two of his friends so he could wriggle onto the already overflowing strip of frostbite-inducing metal.
     “Damn, this bench is cold,” Tim muttered. “What is it, 30 degrees lower than the air? Fuck.”
     “Uh, Tim,” Rene said after a moment. “You aren’t in biology. And…we never learned about anything called hotnase…And…what are you doing here?”
     “I’m watching the football game, like everyone else,” Tim said, easily dodging the first question. “It’s going to be exciting. We’ve got a pretty good team this year, but Andrew gets kind of flustered if they aren’t winning, and Devon-”
     “Tim,” Jerry cut in. “How do you and September both know about this enzyme hotnase? Which, by the way, I highly doubt even exists.”
     “Of course it exists,” September said calmly. “The internet told us so.”
     “The internet also told me I could make me penis two times bigger by investing my money in a Dutch bank account,” Rene commented dryly. “Somehow I don’t think everything you read on the internet is true.”
     “Well, maybe your penis won’t get twice as large, but I’m sure it would grow, Rene. Otherwise the internet wouldn’t have said so.”
     Rene turned and stared at Tim, who gave her a bland smile, his eyes bright with restrained laughter.
     “Exactly,” September said, as if that settled the matter in everyone’s mind. “I’m going to go get some food. Maybe it will have hotnase in it. Anyone want anything?”
     Rene just shook her head and handed September some money, rattling off a surprisingly large list of food and telling the other girl to hurry back before the game started.
     Jerry waited till September had edged out of the bench and was making her way down the stands before commenting. “That’s quite a lot for one person,” he said in a neutral voice, eyeing her slender figure a moment.
     “Yeah, well, I’m hungry. I’m allowed to eat, aren’t I?”
     “Uh, yeah,” Jerry said, raising his hand in a placating gesture, surprised by Rene’s sharp tone. “I was just making small talk.”
     “Talk to Tim,” she muttered. “I’m sure he would be glad to tell us about hotnase and how he and September managed to discover it. Together, apparently.”
     Jerry eyed her a second and turned away with a sigh. Years of living with his sister had taught him when a girl was ready to rip his throat out if he said another word. Men were much more reasonable.
     “So,” he said, turning to Tim, who glanced up from his cell phone with an expectant look. “What’s up with you and September and hotnase?”
     Tim’s lips curled into a smile small, his eyes flicking to Rene with an understanding expression. “I was helping Tember out with her Bio homework, and-”
     “Whoa, wait,” Jerry interrupted. “Tember? She’s letting you call her Tember?” Tim nodded. “Man, she hates nicknames. Jos tried one in freshman year and she tried to connect his balls to his spine. Why does she let you use one?”
     “Because she cares more about keeping Tim’s balls intact and in working order than she cared about Jos’s.” Rene muttered under her breath, tugging at a piece of her hair. “Now ask about the damn hotnase.”
     Jerry and Tim both stared a moment, surprised again, then gave each other identical looks of confusion.
     “Hotnase,” Jerry said after another wary glance at Rene. “Explain.”
     “It’s an enzyme that Tember found,” Time said after a similar glance. “It makes people hot. Thus the name.”
     “Hot as in overheated?” Jerry asked after a moment of trying to wrap his mind around the idea.
     “Hot as in sexy.” Tim blushed slightly. “I didn’t believe it existed at first, but she managed to convince me…”
     Jerry stared. “Convince you. Right. Why do I have a feeling that I do not want to know how she did the convincing?”
     “Because you don’t,” Rene said, glancing at the field, then at her watch. “She probably gave him a hand job or something and told him how sexy he was. When is this damn game starting? It’s cold out.”
     Tim and Jerry both eyed Rene, taking in her irate expression, and edged away, earning them both a glare. “Its still a few minutes till the kick off is scheduled to start,” Jerry said warily. “And if you’re cold just huddle up against the people on either side of you. It works well.”
     “Ignore Rene,” September commented, shoving her way back to her seat, hands empty. “She’s just all moody. PMSing.”
     Tim and Jerry both winced. “I did not need to know that,” Jerry muttered. “Part of the reason I like guys is so I don’t have to deal with that.”
     Tim shook his head and caught September’s warning look and wisely kept silent. September smiled at him and settled down again. “Food’s coming,” she said, staring toward the scoreboard. “There was too much to carry so I’m having it delivered.”
     “Delivered? And why did you order so much food?” Jerry asked, glancing between the four of them. They were all skinny. He glanced around them. Everyone was skinny. “Who’s eating that much food?”
     “Well, I offered some worker an extra five bucks to carry it up to us and he said yes. And Jos told me to order him a bunch of stuff yesterday, so I did.”
     “I thought Jos was sitting somewhere else,” Time commented, glancing around. “He isn’t sitting over here, so I assumed he couldn’t find you guys or something.”
     “He’s not here,” Rene said, finally glancing up from her hair. “I talked to Jessica before we got our seats and she hadn’t seen him at all, and he hasn’t come in the gates yet. I was watching.”
     September cocked her head to the side. “Is Jessica stalking Joscelin? She seems to have a great store of knowledge about his movements.”
     “Probably.”
     Everyone was silent a moment, Rene brooding, September satisfied, Tim and Jerry both confused.
     “Women,” Jerry sighed, reaching into his pocket and digging around for his cell phone. “Never understand them. This is why men should fuck men. It all makes sense. And I’m calling Jos to make sure he isn’t just sitting somewhere else.”
     “Where else would he be sitting,” Rene asked, looking at him out of the corner of his eye.
     “…I don’t know,” Jerry hedged. “Somewhere else. Maybe he couldn’t find a seat or something.” He quickly looked down at his phone, ignoring Tim and September’s equally curious stares as the recognized a dodge. He flicked through the numbers on his phone until he reached Jos’s, dialing just as the home team streamed onto the field to the roar of the crowd on the opposite side of the field.
     “Hey sexy, where you at?” Jerry asked the minute Jos picked up the phone.
     “Jerry, thank God,” Jos hissed back, voice barely audible over the answering cheer as the Fenwick teamed took to the field from the locker rooms, lights casting long shadows behind them across the deep green turf.
     “Jos, can you talk a bit louder man? It’s getting noisy here.”
     “No, I can’t. I’m hiding the damn bathroom to answer this, and I only have like four more minutes.”
     “Hiding in the bathroom? Where the fuck are you?” Jerry asked, alarm running through him at Jos’s words.
     “I’m at church. My parents decided that we were going to have a Bible thumping night. The only reason I am even on the phone now is because I said if I didn’t go to the bathroom I could end up desecrating the house of the lord.” Jos’s voice was bitter and strained, his anger palpable.
     “What! Didn’t you tell them you had plans? Tonight is the football game! Dev’s playing! Everyone’s playing! It’s like…an event!” Jerry exclaimed, wincing at his hasty attempt to hide his mention of Dev’s name. “Dude, you can’t miss this.”
     “It looks like I am,” Jos said, a soft thump making Jerry wince as he pictured his friend dropping his head back against the side of the stall. “I told them that this was happening. I told them weeks ago! It’s on the damn calendar!”
     “And they’re making you do a Bible night anyways? Why? Don’t they only save those for when you’ve been like, especially sinful or something?”
     “Normally,” Jos said, annoyed. “I think they did it this time because of the game. They said that anything that took such precedent could not be good for me, because it was distracting me from the ways of the Lord,” his voice was mocking as he recited the words. “And I think…I think they might be suspecting something. With me and Dev.”
     Jerry sucked in a hard breath, his eyes at that instant picking Dev out on the field, warming up and furtively sneaking glances at the stands, scanning for a familiar figure that Jerry knew he wasn’t going to find. “Shit,” he breathed. “Why?”
     “They started making a lot of off hand comments about lying being a sin, and lying through omission being just as bad, and things like that,” Jos sighed, voice dropping lower as if he didn’t want to risk being heard. “And they were making me look at a lot of admonishments to lustful actions, and stuff like that. Not the normal love God things I usually get shoved at me.”
     Jerry was silent a moment, his eyes glued to Dev below him as the male gave up all pretence of doing anything productive and blatantly searching through the bleachers. “Did they say anything specifically about…it?”
     “No,” Joscelin answered after a pause. “It was just normal hetero stuff, or focused on lust in general. Nothing…nothing to say that they know that much. I think they just suspect me of making out on my bed, or getting to third or something with some girl. I don’t think they can even comprehend the idea of their son in bed with another male.”
     Jerry let out a relieved sigh, Dev growing more and more agitated down on the field, subtly drifting closer to the stands. “They don’t know that, then. And I think that can be hidden from them.”
     “Yeah. Fuck! Someone’s coming. Man, I’ve got to get going. I’ll try to get away again, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to manage it. Just, make sure you remember everything. Tell Dev that after this is over he can do whatever he wants, even the marshmallow thing. And…tell Dev…” His voice trailed off.
     “I know what to say,” Jerry said softly, knowing Jos didn’t want to tell Dev he loved him yet, even if he could admit it to himself. He was too afraid of what the reaction would be. “Don’t worry. I will.”
     “Thanks,” Jos breathed, voice relieved. “You are a life saver, Jerry. I’ll make this up to you somehow.”
     “It isn’t me your going to have to be making it up to,” Jerry whispered to himself as he shut his phone, rising to his feet and ignoring the curious stares behind him as he dashed down the bleachers.
     Dev immediately caught sight of him and began to move toward him, leaning over the fence as Jerry reached the raised walkway in the front of the bleachers, bending over as far as he dared to talk.
     “Jerry, where’s Jos at?” Dev asked, voice tense and worried.
     Oh shit. Jerry took a deep breath. “He isn’t here.”
     Devon went completely still. “He isn’t here?” he repeated, voice sounding confused and wounded. “Why not? He said he would be.”
     “His parents…” Jerry trailed off, not knowing how to explain a Bible day to anyone who hadn’t been to one.
     “Oh God,” Dev sucked in a hard breath. “They found out? Is he ok? Did they-”
     “No, no.” Jerry hastily said. “They didn’t find out. They made him go to church.”
     “…On a Friday night?”
     “Yes.”
     “When he already had plans?”
     “Yes.”
     “…Why?” Dev’s voice was incredulous.
     “They decided they needed to have like, a commune with God night, is the best way I can explain it. Basically, they’re going to keep him at church reading Bibles and praying until they are satisfied that he has recovered from whatever streak of sinning got him sent there in the first place.”
     Dev was silent a moment, staring down, then he asked without looking up “So he’s not going to be here at all?”
     Jerry winced at his dull tone. “No,” he said gently. “But it’s not for lack of trying, believe me. The only reason I even know where he’s at is because he was hiding in the bathroom. I don’t think he’s going to be able to sneak out.” Jerry hesitated, eyeing Dev’s dejected expression. “Dev, he wishes he were here, he really does. Sometimes, though, its best to give his parents what they want without a fight, or else he’ll make them more suspicious.”
     Dev nodded without a word, a soft sigh leaving his lips.
     “He told me to tell you that he missed you, and that he wishes he were here to cheer you on, and that he’ll make it up to you. Anyway you want. Even the marshmallow thing?”
     Jerry blinked at the sudden shift in Dev. He went completely still a moment, then his head jerked up, his eyes bright, a small smile tugging at his face. “He said I could do the marshmallow thing?”
     “Yeah,” Jerry said slowly, frowning slightly. “Do I want to know what this is?”
     “Nope,” Dev answered cheerfully, glance over his shoulder at his slowly gathering team. “You don’t. You’ll probably find out, anyways, just not now.”
     “God, its some weird sex thing, isn’t it?” Jerry asked, shaking his head at the grin he got in response.  “You’re right, I don’t want to know right now. And you probably shouldn’t be thinking about it. Looks like you need to get going. Good luck.”
     Dev nodded and ran back to his team, trying to wriggle into the huddle without drawing attention to himself. Jerry watched him go a moment, then shook his head. Things between him and Jos were certainly going well, if he could cheer up so fast at the mention of some sex game. Then Dev’s dejected expression came into his mind. Then again, maybe not, he thought wryly as he made his way back to his seat. Anyone who can look like that when they find out their lover isn’t at their football game has to have some other reason to be upset.

     Rene stared blankly at the marching band parading across the field as half time began to wind to a close. September had been wrong, she thought idly. She wasn’t PMSing. She was just…pissed. Annoyed at herself, annoyed with Dev, annoyed with the world in general.
     How hard could it be, she silently asked herself, to just do what you promise to do? You promise you’ll take out the trash, you do. You promise you won’t steal, you don’t. You say you’ll take someone to the dance, you don’t tell them only days before that you’ve changed your mind, that you’ve found someone better.
     Rene winced. She didn’t like where her thoughts were going. She seemed to be spiraling down, then spiraling up. Moments of sadness, moments of hope, with no rhyme or reason to which came when. And right now she was going down. Jessica’s news that Jos had driven Dev home after football practice, and that one day they had stayed longer in the locker room talking, were not sitting well with her.
     How could he be spending more time with a friend, than a girlfriend, she wondered. How can he not have one? He has to, because otherwise his only reason for dumping me is because he doesn’t like me, not because he found someone he likes more…And why Jos? What had suddenly made Jos and Dev such good friends?
     Shaking her head she tried to distract herself by filling her head with images of the game, Devon’s beautiful body streaking across the ground, the ball sailing into his fingers, his muscled legs twisting and turning as he gained yard after yard. He was playing well, though he had seemed a bit off in the first quarter. That had quickly been shaken off, though, with his first touchdown of the night.
     They were only behind by six points, and they could easily make that up. They would win.
     “We are so going to lose,” September announced beside her, startling Rene out of her thoughts.
     “Why do you say that?” Tim questioned, sounding only curious, not incredulous as Rene would have expected. How much time have they been spending together, she idly wondered, where he is at the point where nothing she says fazes him anymore?
     “The dice told me,” September said matter of factly. “It’s gonna be bad too. I got bad numbers all around. We will lose, and badly.” Silence greeted her statement. “I say we celebrate afterwards with pancakes.”
     “You want to celebrate the horrible loss?” Jerry asked, shaking the distraction that had been dimming his normally insane sports game behavior.
     “No, I want to celebrate our successful ploy against the other team.”
     Rene frowned. “What ploy?”
     “The one where they think they won.” September sighed as she took in Rene and Jerry’s uncomprehending looks. “Tim, explain please.”
     “It’s like this,” Tim said, leaning forward to address his audience. “The other team, they are going to kick our ass. Horribly. It’s going to be bad, fans dejected, players down, all that good stuff. It’ll probably hang over our head for years.”
     “And this is good how?” Jerry asked when he didn’t elaborate.
     “Well, see, it’s all really a big plan for next year. The couches have totally been working on it for years. Year one, we win by a lot, year two by a little. Year three, we need to totally get our asses kicked, because it’s going to lull the other team into false complacency.” Time explained, hands waving around to articulate his words, September ducking at the right moments to avoid being hit. “And then year four? Bam! We are going to come roaring out and grind their faces into the turf. It’s gonna be great.”
     “If you say so,” Jerry said with a shake of his head, earning himself a sharp shut up from Rene as the players began to line up on the field, watching the ref for the signal that the clock was starting. With a suppressed grin he settled in to watch the game, eyes flicking to September every so often as he began to idly wonder just how accurate her dice really were.

     Dev could barely stand still as adrenaline spiked through him, his muscles tingling and twitching as he balanced on the balls of his feet, listening for the sound of the snap, eyes scanning the field in front of him, already plotting his course, counter paths forming one on top of the other as he anticipated the defense’s response to the play.
     They needed to get this right. Forty-five seconds left in the third quarter, and they were down by ten with sixty yards left to go. They needed to stick this, to boost the morale of the team and of the fans, to get them back in the game, to rejuvenate their crumbling offense and tiring defense, to-
     Ok, Devon. Stop thinking now. Thinking will only distract you from what’s happening, and if you’re distracted you won’t be able to—oh shit. There’s the snap.
     Dev took off, racing over the turf, cleats digging deep into the ground as he outpaced his defender, swiftly counting off in his head. Looking over his shoulder he saw the ball soaring through the air, a perfect spiral, and in a burst of speed and surged forward, ball bobbling a moment on the tips of his fingers before he pulled it in close to his body and took off, heading for the end zone.
     The roar of the crowd faded to the background, everything moving in slow motion, a perfect dodge around him, and pivot and switch back to dash around him, and-oh shit. Jackson Allard. Star of the team, best tackler in the conference, possibly the state, barreling toward him, angle perfect to cut off any options he had.
     Putting on a last burst of speed Dev shot forward, trying to gain as many yards as he could before he got slammed to the ground, getting ready to try every trick he knew to get past the Allard.
     He could hear the other man’s breath, a low growl getting louder and louder as he tightened his grip on the ball and braced himself for the barreling hit that sent him slamming into the ground, head snapping back, the impact forcing the air to leave his lungs in a desperate heave as Allard’s body came crashing down on top of his.

     Jos could barely sit still. His mother was watching him, grey eyes taking in his every motion, movements cool and precise as she turned a page in her Bible and nodded after a moment’s reading as if she had just read one of the most profound statements she had ever encountered.
     Jos wanted to slam his head against a wall. Again.
     His thoughts were completely centered on Devon, on how his boyfriend would react to him not being at the big game, on the winter dance that was coming up soon, when they would finally come out, on what they had done this week on the locker room bench, when Dev had ridden him like-
     OK. Stop it. Now. I do not need an erection right now. Not in church, in front of my mom and dad and various Sunday school teachers. I do not need to have to explain that, or sit through another lecture on the sins of lustful thoughts.
     “Joscelin dear, are you finding that your reading is not holding your interest?”
     Jos stilled his fidgeting at his mother’s cool, falsely concerned words. He knew this game. Shame him into good behavior, punish him into proper actions for next time, warn him against the consequences of too much insubordination.
     “I was just thinking about what I read,” he said softly, trying to keep his posture and tone non-confrontational, aware of the eyes that were suddenly watching him.
     “Really? Would you care to share with the group, dearie? I am sure they would love to hear your thoughts on lust and fornication and other such bodily sins.” Mrs. Vera smiled, eyes fixed on her son as she watched him closely for any hint of a betraying reaction.
     “I don’t think I should interrupt-”
     “No, please, speak,” Mrs. Maydon broke in, voice polite and so smooth it could have only been planned between her and Mrs. Vera. “We would love to have a younger perspective on the teachings of our lord.”
      “Well,” Joscelin began slowly, quickly dragging his thoughts together, trying to think of something acceptably profound to say. “I was considering how God made man, and in the process must have created his nature as well. And we learned in school that it is in the nature of all living things to survive, and part of survival is having sex to reproduce.
     “The idea of marriage must not have existed in the beginning, though. It had to have been invented at some point, not just appear out of no where, which meant that all unions before that point were sinful in the eyes of God. But if He had created human nature, which demands sex, why would he make the act of following that nature a sin?”
     Jos wished he hadn’t spoken as silence filled the room.
     “Very…interesting,” Mrs. Maydon said, seeming to struggle around her indignation to find suitably appropriate words. “The young these days certainly think in a…fascinating manner.”
     “Yes,” Mrs. Vera agreed, voice somewhat brittle, Jos wincing as he recognized the signs of later punishment for embarrassing her. “They certainly do.”
     Jos let out a sigh of relief as the conversation launched into a lengthy discussion of the faults of the young, each person citing every specific instance she could remember of when a child was rude or behaved badly in front of or in the general proximity of her. It would be boring, and make him want to stick up for his generation, but at least the disapproval was not directed specifically at him.
     Jos was just falling into his mind-numbed blank stare state when he felt vibration in his pocket. Shifting to try to avoid notice he slid his hand down and ended the call, his phone immediately starting off again. Jos frowned, and checked the number, getting ready to be pissed at whoever was calling him.
     Jerry?
     He frowned. Jerry knew where he was, what he was doing. He knew not to call…not unless it was urgent.
     Jos felt his chest tighten as the phone went off a third time. Something was wrong. He had no reason to think it, but he just knew. Something was wrong. Jerry normally had tact around his parent’s religious idiosyncrasies, and this surprising lack meant that something had happened.
     Jos slid out of his chair and slowly edged away from the table, trusting that the adults were too engrossed in their small tirade against anyone under the age of thirty to notice him leaving. Just as he was about to make it halfway across the room Mrs. Maydon looked up, her eyes meeting his with shock, then anger as she opened her mouth to alert everyone what he was doing.
     Ms. Elna shoved a Jesus vase off the table.
     Jos gaped a moment at the blatant move, then took in her meaningful look and the hand flap in his direction and took the out she had given him, moving as quickly and as quietly as he could from the room while the other women began to rip into Ms. Elna for destroying Jesus. Once he left the room Jos sprinted down the hall, bursting outside and scrambling to open his phone as it went off for the fifth time.
     “Jerry! What’s wrong? What happened?” he asked, breathless with the tension and worry coiling inside him.
     There was a moment of silence on the other line, then Jerry’s voice, strained and forcibly calm, “Can you get away from the bible night?”
     “Yeah, if I really need to,” Jos said, already heading toward the parking lot. “Why? What happened?”
     “You need to come to the hospital.”
     Jos nearly stopped breathing, his steps halting in shock. He tried to speak, then cleared his throat and licked his suddenly dry lips. “What…what happened?”
     A whisper, small and barely carrying over the background noise on the other end of the line, as if he didn’t want to be the one to break the news. “Dev got hurt.”