And Bingo Was His Name-o [closed] [Rated M]

[Evan Brackett]

There were many reasons for the spring in Evan's step as he moved across his house's porch and towards his garage. First off, school was out for the summer, which also meant no power training for several weeks. Second, he was going to be entering his senior year when he got back, and since he had already taken most of the state required courses, the rest of high school was going to be a breeze. Thirdly, he was home for the first time since April, and that always made him feel better.

The only problem with going home for summer vacation was not getting to see friends as often. Which brings up the fourth and most important reason for his excitement--his best friend was visiting for the weekend. He had gotten the idea of inviting Levi over just a few days before his last exam, and was ecstatic when he called up his mother and she okayed the visit. In fact, Evan had practically pounced on Levi when issuing the invitation, and did pounce on him when he said yes.

When he got back from picking the other boy up from Hammel, Van hurriedly grabbed some of the boys things and pulled him out of the car. He lead him into the house and gave him a quick tour, introducing Levi to his younger brother along the way. The last room he brought him to was his bedroom. "And this is my room here," the phaser said as he opened the door at the end of the hall. It was small, no bigger than the dorms at school, with just enough room for a bed, a dresser, and a bookshelf. The pale blue walls were covered with drawings of plants and animals, all torn out of one of Evan's old sketch books, and there was a single window that looked out into the woods.

Van had walked about halfway into the room when something darted out from under his bed and scrambled up his pant leg. "Spider! There you are!" He dropped the things he was carrying in the middle of the floor before prying the feline off his leg. Although she had grown substantially since his parents had picked her up from Hammel back in February, she wasn't quite adult size yet, and fit nicely in his arms. The cat nuzzled into his chest, purring softly.

"You can put your stuff down over there for now," he said to Levi, gesturing at the pile he had just dropped. "Do you want to sleep on the floor or bed? It's up to you, I don't really care which. Unless you really want to sleep on the livingroom couch or something, but it's kinda old and not very comfortable. The floor is better, really." He sat on his bed, placing Spider down next to him so she could curl up on the comforter. She opted for his lap instead, mewing loudly as she sprawled herself across it.

"So," he asked while scratching Spider behind the ears, "Do you want to see the rest of the farm now, or later?"

[Levi Xu]

It had been his father's idea for him not to come to Portland over break. He'd gone home in April for Passover (and then had spent the next two weeks catching up on the work he missed) and plane tickets were expensive. The next time he'd go home was probably going to be August, and until then, he was at Hammel.

It was okay for the first day or so, but he quickly started to miss his friends who had gone home, particularly Evan. He was just so used to having him there to eat with and to hang out with when they weren't doing homework. He missed the older boy. Luckily, they already had the plan in place. Levi was going to visit the Brackett's farm.

Levi dropped his backpack on the floor of Evan's room, grinning. So far, everything had been pretty cool. He'd never been to a farm before, though so far it looked pretty much like pictures in books. They'd even passed some cows on their way in.

"I'll take the floor. It's cool." Levi refrained from saying that neither of them had to sleep on the floor, because even a twin-sized bed could hold two people who didn't care too much about personal space. But since Evan had Sam he was straight, he figured that probably wasn't the best idea. Granted, he only knew how well they could fit because of falling asleep in Sam's room a few times.

And since he couldn't get his best friends to get along, Levi just wasn't going to mention Samuel Rixon at all this weekend.

"Spider!" He couldn't help but grin at the not-quite-so-tiny-but-still-pretty-little cat in his friend's arms. He sat next to Van on the bed and gave Spider's back a good scratch. "Did you miss me? Hammel's not as fun without you around." There was a twinge of jealousy there, because at least Evan got to see Spider sometimes. Levi had no idea where Jake and Buccaneer were.

"Sure, whatever you want to do." Seeing the farm sounded good, maybe he could get a better look at those cows. "Do you have chores and stuff?"

[Evan Brackett]

"Okay, we'll walk around the property and I can show you all the animals," Evan said with a grin. He picked Spider up and dropped her on the bed, this time getting up before she could crawl back on his lap. As he walked back to the front of the house, he answered Levi's question. "When I'm home I have to help clean and stuff. My mom just tells us what she wants us to do, and we have to get it done before she gets home." He figured that Levi was talking about farm-related chores, but he wanted to mention that first. It seemed pretty normal for any household. Of course, normal for him was doing things like milking the cows or collecting eggs from the hen house, but he didn't think to mention that.

"Other than that, I also have to help David feed the animals twice a day. You can help if you want, but we get up at 4 in the morning to feed the horses. Then after breakfast I have to make sure all the water barrels are full and refill any that aren't. Sometimes I have to muck stalls, but not everyday. That's about it. My parents pay farmhands to do most of the work, although David helps sometimes." The last bit was accompanied by a shrug. He had helped his dad harvest a few times when he was younger, but other than that he didn't spend a lot time doing actual farm work. That suited him just fine, really.

Taking Levi back to the front porch, Evan leaned against the wooden railing that ran around it's edge. With a smile, he explained the layout. "Over there is the horse barn, and a little bit farther down is the cow barn. There's a pig pen there, but you can't really see it because the chicken coop's in the way--the wooden building with the chicken wire on top and around it, not the pens. The pens are where we keep the sheep, but I think they're out in one of the pastures with the cows right now. The pastures are on the other side of the corral, where that hill is there, see? And then the rest is just the fields." The words came out in a rush, and even though he pointed at each location as he spoke, he didn't actually expect Levi to remember it all. "What do you want to see first? We could always go to the field and work our way back towards the house from there," he suggested.

"We're growing corn this year, and we'll probably run a maze in October. You can come back and try it if you want," Van added on, even though he really had no idea what his parents had planned. He'd only just found out about the crop himself when he had arrived back from Hammel earlier that week.

[Levi Xu]

Levi just grinned and nodded as his friend pointed out all the cool parts of the farm. Yeah, he was a little excited because it was almost like a zoo, with all those animals. But mostly he was glad to just be hanging out with Evan again.

He'd really missed him. Out of nowhere, Levi had the sudden urge to tell the older boy everything. No one knew about his massive, unrequited crush except for Sam. (And Sam had proven to be a good friend, not saying a word about it.) But he couldn't. He'd freaked him out enough when he'd confessed that he knew he was Spider-Man. He didn't want to seem like a creepy fanboy or anything.

Particularly not after the debacle of meeting Superman JD.

"Yeah, that sounds cool. I want to see the animals. Are they friendly? Do they bite?" He grinned up at Van, before a rather unpleasant thought struck him. "Wait, do you eat them? Do they have names?" He could eat anonymous beef or chicken from the store, but he wasn't sure if he'd be able to eat something that he'd seen alive. (That was why he never ordered fish at restaurants back home. One experience of seeing a big, pretty fish swimming in a tank and then on his father's plate had been enough for him.)

Corn, on the other hand, was fine. "That sounds awesome. I've never done one of those. Do you make them when the corn is still on the plant?" What were corn plants called again? Cornsticks? That didn't sound right, even in his head.

He let the older boy lead the way out to the field, suitably impressed by how--despite there being so much space and so many things going on--everything seemed to have a purpose. "Does Spider ever go outside and hunt mice or anything?" Okay, perhaps a bit too much of his knowledge of farms came from watching Charlotte's Web when he was in elementary school. "Do animals make friends with different kinds of animals? "

[Evan Brackett]

With that decided, Evan pushed off the railing and headed over to the porch stairs. "Ah, well," he began, not really sure what to say. It wasn't like they kept wild animals, but not all of them were trained in the traditional sense either. The last thing he wanted to do was scare Levi away, though, because for the most part, the animals weren't dangerous. "They're mostly mild, um, behaviorally. My parents wouldn't buy stock that wasn't, and they'd have to sell any babies that were like that too." There. That seemed like a safe answer. "As long as you don't, um, harass them, they shouldn't try to bite you." He brought Levi over to the run that connected the barns and pens to the pastures, and walked along the fence.

Maybe it was rude, but he laughed when Levi asked him if they ate the animals. The fact that he was worried about it was kinda cute. "No, not usually. That's a different kind of farm. We just have animals because my parents like 'em, and besides, people don't really eat dairy cows or egg-laying chickens. There's different species that are raised solely for meat. My parents make most of their money from crops." He shrugged. "Sometimes they sell animals too, but none of ours are the meat kind so I don't think they go to slaughter houses." At least he was smart enough not to bring up glue factories and other uses for farm animals. If Levi thought eating them was horrifying, then he certainly wouldn't like to hear about that. "So, yeah, we name them. Even the chickens."

"Actually, they plan it out ahead of time and plant it in the maze shape," he explained. "You'll probably be able to see a bit of it, since the corn's not fully grown yet." If they were doing the mazes that year, anyway.

"Spider's allowed outside, but she most sticks to the house. The dogs don't really like her." Spider was fine with dogs until Evan's dad's farm dogs decided she was fun to chase around. She decided she liked Evan's room better than the rest of the farm after that. "Mom yelled at me because she left a sparrow on the porch once, but it's not like she hunts more than any other housecat."

The last question through him off a bit. He'd never considered that kind of thing before, so he had to take a moment to think about it. "Well, we let them graze together and stuff. So, I guess. Yeah." He was actually glad that Levi was asking so many questions, because it meant he was genuinely interested in it all. It made Evan feel like he was actually cool, and not just some lame, clumsy quiet kid.

[Levi Xu]

"Okay, that's pretty cool. I just don't think I could eat something when I knew its name." Yeah, it was probably for the best to keep Levi in the dark on glue factories. He didn't want to become a vegan; he liked chicken too much. (And though he couldn't guess what other use there was for pigs other than meat, he didn't ask, since he wouldn't be eating any bacon anyway.)

A visit to the Bracketts again during the fall sounded good to him, and it would have even if there wasn't going to be a maze. He was pretty bad at them anyway, but since there was little chance he'd be going in without Evan inside anyway.... Levi shook his head, trying to clear some inappropriate thoughts from his head. He was hanging out with Sam too much.

Is it bad that he wanted to stop and pet one of the animals? Because just the discussion of pets made him want to cuddle something. "I bet Buccaneer would like her." Granted, Levi believed that his puppy loved everyone. (And he was pretty much right, in that regard.) "He's an Australian Shepherd. He'd probably love it here." Of course, the puppy was probably in a different country by now, and probably not Canada, for that matter. He'd told the older boy that he'd been forced to give the dog away before enrolling at Hammel, and that was actually less of a lie than most of the other things.

Levi nodded at Van's explanation, "Cool. I just figured, all those goofy movies about talking animals had to get inspired somewhere, right?" It was nice that the older boy wasn't questioning the strange places Levi's mind took the conversation. At this point, they were kind of just used to each other.

[Evan Brackett]

Evan ran his hand along the top of the fence as they walked across the farm, glancing over at the nearby tree-line every now and then. "Well, I think the animals protect each other from predators and stuff. The horses keep coyotes away, and I'm sure the cows do the same. I bet the dogs talk to them when they have to heard them back towards the run, in their own animal-y way." He actually didn't mind most of the weird things Levi said, because sometimes (sometimes) they actually made sense. The talking also helped the time flyby, which made the walk seem shorter than it really was. The phaser even almost missed the spot he had been looking for, but caught himself before they had gone too far past it.

"Hold on," he said, stopping suddenly and backtracking a bit. "There's something else I want to show you." Grabbing for the other boy's hand, Evan quickly turned and walked over to the fence that separated the property from the woods. He slid between two rails and continued straight into the forest, with no beaten path to follow.

The walk wasn't far, but it did take them beyond site of the farm. Van stopped in front of an old oak tree, and resting about twenty feet up between three of it's large branches was a tree house. It was weather worn, made of old panels and rusting nails, with a blue tarp slung over the roof to help protect it from the snow and rain. A rope ladder hung from a trap door on the underside, the only access point.

Evan moved to stand next to the ladder, and turned around to address Levi. "My dad and I built it just after we moved here. It was our little project, my brothers don't know about it--at least, I don't think they do. I still come here whenever I'm home to read and draw and stuff. It's kinda like my own secret lair." His grin widened as he looked down bashfully, and then he climbed a couple rungs on the ladder. Pausing, he looked back down at his friend to ask, "You're not afraid of heights, are you?"

[Levi Xu]

"A symbiotic relationship?" Levi grinned, proud that he'd actually remembered one of the terms from his biology class. He hadn't done too well in it, but most of that could be blamed on coming in during the middle of the year, after a year of not being in a proper school. (The rest could be blamed on Levi just not being a very good student, with little interest in remembering the relationships of organisms.

Pulling him into the woods surprised him, but Levi didn't really mind so much, and quickly got over the novelty of Van holding his hand like that. It was just nice. Plus, tree fort. "That is so cool. It looks like something out of that one book..." Nope, couldn't remember the name of it, sorry Levi's fifth grade teacher. "The one where the two kids had a secret imaginary world and then the girl dies. I had to read it in elementary school, and it was cool...up until her dying." But on a lighter note, "But it can't be your lair. Lairs are for villains, not heroes. They get bases, or Fortresses of Solitude, or Batcaves."

"No, I'm not." The younger boy wasn't afraid of much, other than rejection and being useless. He was the one who could shoot a gun and had seen the aftermath of some pretty terrible things at the compound, and the one time he'd gone on a "field trip" with Jahel. So as soon as Van was up the ladder, Levi scrambled up behind him. He couldn't keep the grin off of his face if he wanted too when he sat down next to his friend. "Dude. This is just awesome."

[Evan Brackett]

Evan smiled, also proud that Levi had been able to recall something from one of his classes. He was well aware of the other boy's poor school performance. "Yeah, something like that. I'm not sure if it's mutualistic or commensalistic, though. I don't think the sheep could do much to help out." Fortunately, he stopped talking there, instead of rambling on about scientific concepts.

He laughed at the correction. Maybe he wasn't a villain, but he definitely wasn't a hero either. "Heroes are brave and save lives. I can't even walk through a wall," he reminded Levi with a frown. "I'm no hero." He looked up at the tree house as he ran his hand over the ladder. "But anyway. It's just a treehouse, regardless of what we decide to call it."

His faltering smile brightened right up. If he had any clue what the other boy had been through, he wouldn't have bothered asking. "Okay, cool," he said before climbing the rest of the way. Once at the top, he pushed the trapdoor open and pulled himself inside. In the center of the room was an old blanket, and Evan moved to the far side and sat cross-legged on it. There was a small shelf that held various books and art supplies, with sketches not unlike the ones in his room pinned to the wall above it. The only light came from two cut out windows at opposite sides of the shack, but there was a battery powered lantern on the shelf for when it got dark. While one of the corners did sport a rather large cob web, the fort was reasonably clean. Evan had obviously been there several times already since school had let out.

The side of his mouth twitched up in a smile when Levi sat next to him. "Thanks." He scooted a little bit closer and slung his arm around the other boy's shoulders. Nervously chewing on his lip, he said, "I've never brought anyway else up here before, so that's good to hear. Sorry I, um, don't really have games or anything. We'll have to think of something else to do."

[Levi Xu]

"Of course you're a hero." Unfortunately, there was one thing that consistently bothered him about Spider-Man--and he'd been doing his research and reading up, just in case--and that was that the hero tended to get depressed about being a superhero. But really, when that was the worst thing that could be said about someone, that's a good friend. "It's no good whining about it. You've powers and you're awesome. You don't need to save people yet to be a hero." Simple as that. "That can come later. I can be your sidekick." Of course, that was ridiculous. He didn't have cool powers.

He watched the older boy climb up and open the trapdoor, then rolled his eyes slightly. "Hey Van? Do you ever use your powers to get in?" Weren't spiders supposed to be fast climbers? And since he could phase, he didn't need the door at all.

The treehouse wasn't big, but it didn't seem cramped with both of them in it, just cozy. And everything seemed so typically Van, what with the sketches pinned up all around. Levi impulsively leaned against his best friend. It still felt like a stupid idea to tell him, but it was Evan. Evan always understood him. Or, at the very least, would never hate him. "Can I ask you something?" Levi tugged at a knot in his shoelace, trying to figure out how to say it. When he did decide, though, his words came out in a rush. "What would you do if you liked someone--like, really liked them--but you knew there was literally no way they could like you back?"

Once he started, he couldn't stop. Levi just kept talking, the small bit of relief of telling a little quickly drowned by the anxiety of admitting it. "Because I like someone, and the thing is... it's a guy. And he's straight." There. God, Van wasn't stupid. He was going to know it's him.

[Evan Brackett]

"Um, no," he said, looking down at his friend. Didn't this just come up? "I can't get through a wall. What makes you think I could get through this?" The planks used for the floor were old, but they were obviously solid. It wouldn't have been safe to use them as panels otherwise. At this point, he was barely able to get his arm through a tea tray, let alone something like a floor.

It wasn't unusual for Levi to lean on him whenever they sat next to each other, but Evan couldn't help feel more comfortable when he did. And while talking wasn't what he was hoping for when he left the opening for suggestions, he didn't actually expect anything more. "Yeah, of course. You can tell me anything." He just smiled as Levi fiddled with his shoelace, blissfully unaware of what he was about to learn.

Van waited patiently for his friend to finish speaking, but he wasn't prepared for anything that he said. At first he thought this was a confrontation, that Levi had noticed that he was thinking about coming on to him, and he quickly withdrew his arm. Then there was a moment, just as Evan realized that it was actually a confession, where he did think Levi was talking about having a crush on him, but the last statement quickly crushed that small hope. There was no way it could be him, because he thought Levi already knew he was gay.

His mouth hung open briefly the first time he tried to speak, but no words came out. It made sense in a way. Levi had asker him to show him what it was like to be gay (of course Evan hadn't forgotten), which meant he had to have been harboring this crush for a while. But that was just it. He had been curious because he had liked some other guy, some straight guy. It bothered him. Not because Levi liked a guy--that would be silly--but because he didn't like him. The jealousy boiled up instantly. "Who is it?" Van asked, suddenly needing to know, as if that would help any. "Oh, God. Please tell me it's not Sam." Wouldn't that just be salt in a wound.

Then he regretted saying that, because Levi had just asked for advice and he had completely ignored the question. "No, never mind. I guess that's not important." It was probably better not to know anyway, because it wouldn't be fair for him to be angry at someone who hadn't done anything wrong. Evan moved so that he was facing his friend instead of sitting next to him. "What would I do? Nothing." That wasn't a dick move, it was the truth. Wasn't that exactly what he had done since he realized he liked Levi? Nothing. Much good that had done him, and he had thought that Levi was straight too. Yes, what Van had just learned about his friend upset him, but he still cared about him and wanted to help. "But that's crap. Are you sure he's straight? Did your power tell you that, like it told you about me?"

[Levi Xu]

When Evan dropped his arm from around Levi's shoulders, the younger boy cringed and didn't look at him. He'd been so sure that Van would accept him, no matter what, so the sudden loss of contact was devastating. He'd fucked it up.

He was a creep, wasn't he? All those times he'd curled up next to him on the couch, or leaned against him when they were sitting, it was just him taking advantage of Evan being friendly. Levi bit the inside of his lip, waiting for the rest of the older boy's reaction.

...

Okay, so maybe Van was just clueless enough to miss the entire point of the confession. Even after the older boy said never mind, Levi had to clarify it. Sam was a great friend, but just....no. "No, it's not Sam. He's..." Hyperactive? Addled? A complete pothead? "too sparkly. And he's the only other one who knows." He felt a little guilty that he'd kept this from his best friend, but he felt even more anxious about it almost being out, now. (No pun intended.) If he could, he'd have modified Evan's memory by now, and erased the entire conversation from his head.

When Evan moved again, Levi turned his head, still avoiding him, still believing his friend didn't even want to sit next to him. But...it almost sounded encouraging, what the other boy said next. He looked up a little, finally meeting his eyes.

"No," Van was going to figure it out eventually, so Levi might was well tell him now. It was awkward, and terrible, but finally, there wasn't going to be any more secrets. "It really doesn't work like that. I picked up on you being Spider-Man, but it really doesn't tell a bunch of details about people." He didn't want to talk about his power either, so he just continued, actually answering the question. "So Sam offered to ask, and he told him he was straight."

There. For the second time this conversation, Levi had confessed. Now he just had to wait for Evan to reject him--gently, please--and then force himself not to get upset until he was alone.

[Evan Brackett]

A sense of relief washed over him when he heard that it wasn't Sam, but that didn't make any of this less confusing. "Sparkly?" he repeated, a quirk in his brow. What was that even suppose to mean? It couldn't be that Sam was too clean, because that was ridiculous. Evan was pretty sure he didn't shower everyday like a normal person, and his clothes were rarely washed. He was disgusting.

What was more, he had been tormenting the phaser since Levi had let his secret slip. "And I can't believe you told him of all people," he said with a scowl. Part of that was disbelief, but a great deal more was due to him being upset that Levi had told Sam about it first. "Especially after all the shit he did to me." He still didn't know that all of that had come after Levi told him, and was really a direct result of it.

It killed him to see the anxiety on his friend's face, to watch him turn away. Shit, he had been too angry, making Levi feel bad about it and messing up everything. Van tried smiling in an encouraging way, so that he wouldn't seem so angry when he did finally look at him.

In favor of currently ignoring things that didn't make sense, Evan initially over-looked the comment about him being Spider-man. "Letting Sam do it was a bad idea. He practically mauled me when he asked me, that's why I told him I was..." he said, trailing off. That's when things began to click. When Levi had first told him that he knew who he was, Evan had just assumed that he was talking about homosexuality, but that wasn't it at all. All those silly Spider-man references--the cupcakes, Spider's name, even the mention of wicked ass webs--had all been because Levi's power made him think Van was Spider-man. And when Sam had asked him if he liked boys, he had said no.

As he realized all of this, his heart start to pound. "Wait, are you talking about me? You have a crush on me?" He had to ask first before saying anything else. With all the miscommunication going on in their relationship, he needed to make sure that he was actually right this time. The grin that followed could have split his face in two. "Oh my God, Levi," he breathed, pulling his friend into a hug. "You should have just told me." That would have saved him a lot of trouble, and he'd feel like less of a moron. But things don't work that way.

[Levi Xu]

"Yeah, sparkly. It's not his fault though." A lot of Sam's flaws were his fault, but he probably hadn't asked to be turned into a sucky vampire. If he'd asked, he would have asked to be a badass vampire.

Levi cringed again at Evan's reaction to having told Sam first. Of course he wouldn't go to Van, and Sam wasn't a bad guy, despite all his bad habits. "I didn't know about the stuff with your pants until after, and all--most--of that was Vincent anyway!" Fuck. Even if it just made the other boy more pissed at him, he was going to defend Sam. He'd done nothing but try to help him, why didn't Evan get that?

But it was just then that Evan got the other part. The important part. Levi nodded slowly, waiting for whatever inevitable discomfort was coming. Yes. He was talking about Evan. Yes. He had a crush on him.

....what.

The younger boy froze for a moment, processing it, this hug, and the grin that had broken across Evan's face. This did not compute. Evan...had a reason for saying he was straight? Evan lied to Sam. He wrapped his arms around his best friend, clinging tightly. "You're my best friend. I didn't want to screw that up, and you said you didn't like guys." At this point, Levi was pretty sure he wasn't misconstruing anything, and his grin was just was wide. But he had to be sure, because if he was wrong, and he misinterpreted that hug, he was going to just jump out the window of the treehouse.

Levi pushed back a little so he could look his friend in the eyes. If he was right... "What...what would you have said, if I told you that before? That I like you?"

[Evan Brackett]

He squeezed his friend as he spoke. "I know I said that. I'm sorry. When you came to me in March, I thought you had realized I was gay, and Sam was just being a jerk." Now he felt guilty about that, because he had been leading Levi on as well as Sam. Even if he had been doing it without knowing it, he still felt like he spent that entire time lying to his best friend.

Van let Levi out of the hug when he pushed away, albeit a bit reluctantly, and muttered to himself, "What would I have said?" His eyes searched the ground for answers that weren't there, then he took a deep breath and looked the other boy in the eye. "Levi," he choked out, his eyes starting to water. As one could imagine, that didn't make him feel very cool at all. Don't cry. Whatever you do, don't freaking cry. He took Levi's hands in his own as he fought back tears of joy. Which was pretty damn difficult when his heart was practically exploding with happiness, but he managed.

With a hard swallow, he continued, "I would have said, 'I like you too.' Which is true, I do. I have a massive crush on you. I didn't want to tell you for the same reasons. Well, except the part about me saying I didn't like boys. I kinda just assumed you didn't, since you hadn't said anything before." He had to laugh at himself, slightly embarrassed by the awkward confession. "I'm sorry I'm such a moron.

"But if you do like me that way, and if you don't mind," he said as he glanced at Levi's lips, "There is something I would love to do." Then Evan leaned in and kissed him.