14. telepathy Duncs and Seabs have been telepathically bonded for years and years, ever since Seabs had said - "So I knew this guy who said he could - like - him and his D partner did this thing and then they could hear each other's thoughts?" and it involved a weird-ass ritual with setting shit on fire and mystical knives and ritual bloodletting but Duncs is a weirdo who would do that shit for fun anyway. So they went out in Brent's backyard and each wrote down something they had never told anyone, dropped it in a pot, walked around it counterclockwise, cut each other's left palms and let the blood drip onto the paper, added the dirt from their hometowns (that was a little weird to ask their parents to ship, but Brent had made something up about a new superstition, and Duncs' parents gave up on questions a long time ago), poured the lighter fluid on it, simultaneously lit matches - the hardest part to sync up, but they got it on the fourth try - and threw them in with a satisfying whoosh of flames.
Then came the weird part (lol, the weird part), where they had to stare into each other's eyes until the fire went out, and Brent started to feel awkward and stupid and wanted to look away, but Duncs was committed, hardly even blinking, and fuck if Brent was going to lose a stupid staring contest. Plus Duncs' eyes looked kind of cool in the dark with the fire reflected in them, and then Brent blinked and had this sudden feeling of his lungs expanding, like he'd just gotten a good whiff of smelling salts, and also he knew that Duncs secretly wanted to take ballet as a kid and was still pissed off that he didn't get to, and he doubled over laughing. Duncs tackled him, yelling, "Hey, you don't get to laugh at mine, asshole, yours is pretty fucking stupid too," but Brent was thinking of Duncs in pink tights and a tutu and it was seriously the most amazing mental image, and Duncs started laughing too, and said, "Okay, that's pretty good," and Brent realized Duncs could see that and holy shit, it worked? it worked! And they spent hours laying in the grass, staring up at the few stars making it through Chicago's light pollution, occasionally cracking each other up without saying anything at all, and it is still one of the best nights of Brent's life, up there with winning the Cup or getting married.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2013-07-06 02:15 am (UTC)Then came the weird part (lol, the weird part), where they had to stare into each other's eyes until the fire went out, and Brent started to feel awkward and stupid and wanted to look away, but Duncs was committed, hardly even blinking, and fuck if Brent was going to lose a stupid staring contest. Plus Duncs' eyes looked kind of cool in the dark with the fire reflected in them, and then Brent blinked and had this sudden feeling of his lungs expanding, like he'd just gotten a good whiff of smelling salts, and also he knew that Duncs secretly wanted to take ballet as a kid and was still pissed off that he didn't get to, and he doubled over laughing. Duncs tackled him, yelling, "Hey, you don't get to laugh at mine, asshole, yours is pretty fucking stupid too," but Brent was thinking of Duncs in pink tights and a tutu and it was seriously the most amazing mental image, and Duncs started laughing too, and said, "Okay, that's pretty good," and Brent realized Duncs could see that and holy shit, it worked? it worked! And they spent hours laying in the grass, staring up at the few stars making it through Chicago's light pollution, occasionally cracking each other up without saying anything at all, and it is still one of the best nights of Brent's life, up there with winning the Cup or getting married.