Work Text:
Sandra found him on the beach sitting on the damp sand, lanky arms wrapped tightly around his knees, shivering with the cold. Wordlessly, she sat next to him, as close as she dared, trying to share some of her body heat with him.
She waited.
Eventually, he turned his face towards her, resting his cheek on his knees. Unwillingly, she cried out softly at the look in his eyes—broken and hollow and hopeless. "Oh, oh, Duck—" She reached out to hold him, to reassure him, and he flinched away from her. Her hand fell to the ground between them, clenching around a fistful of sand. He'd always been someone she could touch without fear and now—now he wouldn't let her touch him at all.
"Duck—"
"I'm a fag." His voice was harsh and angry. "I tried so hard, Sandy—I was with Jane Peterson and we were making out and—it wasn't doing anything for me, but I had to try, wanted so much to be normal but—" He choked back a sob. "But the only way I could get it up was to think about her brother." The tears were streaming down his face, soaking into his jeans. "So I fucked her, thinking about her brother, and about Buddy, and when I was done, I went into the bathroom and puked." He brushed at his face with the back of a trembling hand. "I don't wanna be a fag, Sandy."
"Oh, Duck." With that, her secret nightmare fears became real. "C'mere." She opened her arms to him, like she had opened her heart to him when she was six years old. She pulled him close and held him, shaking, until the sun came up.
-fin-