Differently: A serial

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Prologue

Chase Kilbourne crossed his arms over his chest and slid lower into the backseat of the car. He was livid with his parents, but mostly with his dad's job, for transferring him to the New York office. With only three months left in the school year (four, since New York schools let out in June, and not May) they'd had to pack up and move.

The blond boy leaned heavily against the cardboard box next to him watching the houses flick past his window. They were almost there, but he wasn't caring too much about his new house, or the new friends he would supposedly make in his new school. Instead he was thinking about how he'd said goodbye to his best friend, Ryan, a few days earlier.

This wasn't fair.
****

"Oh, Jay, look!" Harriet grabbed her older brother's hand and dragged him to the front window of the living room, and pointed to the van that had pulled up to the house next door. Right behind it was another car, with Arizona license plates.

"Yes, Harri, I see. Can I go back to my homework now?" The skinny boy shrugged as two adults and a blond, teenage boy got out of the car.

"James, you are no fun."

"Yeah, Harri. I know."

"He's cute. How old do you think he is?"

With a sigh, James looked at their new neighbor properly, analytically. "Older than you, Harri. Fifteen at least, probably sixteen."

She accepted that, as she knew her brother had an uncanny knack for picking up on that sort of thing. "So he's your age! Maybe you can invite him over?"

"Seriously, Harriet, do you think I am going to go over to a stranger and invite him over because he's my age and my sister thinks he's cute?"

"You are no fun."

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Part One: Snowfall

Snowstorms in March aren't unheard of, not in New York. James actually liked them, as they offered both a chance to escape from a day at high school and made the entire world look temporarily blank and clean. He didn't even mind that he was assigned the duty of shoveling off the rest of the driveway and the sidewalk after his parents had left for work. Mike was supposed to be helping him, but he'd kept complaining about the cold, so he'd been released from his duty, if just to give his older brother some peace.

He really was at peace in the snow, humming quietly to himself as he shoveled, neat, white piles of snow building up along the edges of the driveway. That was, until someone spoke to him.

"Hey, um, excuse me."

James turned and saw the teenage boy he'd seen move into the house next door two days before. It looked like he'd been right about the age, but the blond looked miserable, wearing jeans, sneakers, a thick sweatshirt, and a lightweight jacket. If it wasn't for the hint of a southern accent in his voice, James might have questioned his sanity for coming out into the cold and walking through the snow in that. As it was, he assumed that he simply hadn't been prepared for heavy snowfall right after moving in. "Hello."

"Hi." Chase looked over the other teenager. He was tall, but skinny as a rail, even though he was bundled up in winter clothes. Behind thick glasses, his eyes were analytic. But most notably, he didn't even seem cold. "Do you have an extra shovel we can borrow? We don't have one and my dad can't leave for work..."

"Sure." The taller boy smiled and handed over the snow shovel in his hands, before adding. "I'll help you shovel him out if you'll help me finish up here, after. It'll go faster for both of us." Then he turned and walked back up the driveway, to where his brother had discarded the other shovel.

Chase had been planning on handing the shovel over to his father, then going back to bed. But once the other boy hoisted the other shovel over his shoulder, he kind of had to go along with it. He hadn't meant to be press-ganged into manual labor before breakfast. (And even if he had, he didn't even have proper clothes to wear in the snow.)

"You are going to need boots," the New Yorker said, starting to shovel the snow from the end of the driveway. He waved shyly at Chase's parents who stood in the window, watching. (They were amused that their son was actually shoveling. He hated the cold, and mornings.)

Chase grumbled, falling into step and shoveling as well, though he took much less care about how he was tossing the snow off the driveway. "I know. Own 'em, but they're packed still."

"And your winter clothes?"

"These are my winter clothes. Didn't think I'd need any others. Fucking snow." The blond continued hauling the white powder off the drive, dropping much of it as he did so. He'd never had to shovel like this before. When, and if, it snowed in Sedona, it always melted by noon. "I'm Chase Kilbourne, by the way."

"James Campbell." James replied, trying desperately to ignore how sloppily the other side of the driveway was being cleared, as opposed to the neat piles that lined the part he was working on. "You're accent sounds southern, where are you from?"

For the first time, the other teenager laughed. "Sedona, Arizona. And I don't have an accent. Not like the people up here. The movers kept talking about putting stuff on the second 'flaw' and Mom had no clue what they were talking about. Y'all talk funny."

Then James started laughing as well, his shoulders shaking with mirth. "Yes, but you just said 'y'all', which negates your point, Chase."

For a while longer, they shoveled in silence, though it seemed a bit more familiar than it had before. They quickly had Chase's father's car shoveled out, releasing him to go to his first day of work. Then they finished the concrete in front of the Kilbourne's new house and went back to finish up what James had started, earlier. As they worked, they didn't speak much, just the occasional "Excuse me" or "Do you think it'll start up again?" to fill the empty space. However, James began to notice that Chase's hands were shaking, and the blond was shivering. But they finished then, just as three kids tumbled out into the snow.

"Bye Jay! We're taking Laura sledding!" Harri yelled over her shoulder, as the twins the sleds out from where they had been buried in the snow, under the tree in the front yard. Once they had them dug out, it looked as if they were about to leave, but then, with a soft WHUMP, a snowball hit the side of James' head, knocking his glasses off.

Chase quickly scooped them up and handed them to the other boy, and it was war.

The two teenagers ducked behind the piles of snow that lined the driveway, using them for cover, as the twins and little Laura formed a united front against them. The snow flew back and forth, though eventually Mike and Harriet decided it would be easier if they took out their brother on their own and charged him, tackling him into a drift. Laura jumped on after, and Chase just stood there, laughing at their antics. Finally, the twins got up, saying that they were planning on meeting some friends at the hill by the library. Then they hauled their little sister away, leaving James and Chase standing, shivering, in the front yard.

James shrugged, "Assuming it's okay with your mom, want to come over to my house for a bit to dry off? It'll keep you out of her hair. I'll make us some lunch."

"Sure, James. But, can we go now?" The blond looked up at the taller boy and wrapped his arms around himself. It was fucking freezing, at the other teen barely seemed to register it. This was ridiculous.

"Of course, Chase."

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Part Two: Lunch, Setting, and Characters who will return soon.

The house seemed a bit smaller than his house, but Chase chalked that up to it only being him and his parents, when James also had two sisters and a brother. There were pictures hanging up everywhere in the den, showing a young couple Chase could only assume were James' parents, and four kids. As an only child, he couldn't imagine having three siblings. There was one picture he inspected in particular, of the kids in school uniforms. "You all go to private school?"

James nodded and started stripping off his cold-weather gear. "St. Anthony's. It's down the street from the public high school. I'm guessing you're going to Hearnden High?" Each piece of clothing he took off was carefully hung up on the coat rack near the door. Someone had laid out a towel under it to catch any drips, anticipating the needs of four (five) kids on a snow day. Chase shrugged himself out of his coat and pulled off his sweatshirt as well, as it was close to soaked through.

"Yeah. Supposed to start today, but not in this mess. It's fucking freezing out there." He handed his coat and sweatshirt to the other boy, shrugging.

"You get used to it," James grinned and hung up Chase's clothes as well, then led the way to the kitchen. "Tomato soup good with you?"

It was decked out in wallpaper that looked pretty old, with the kind of pattern that no one had willingly put in their kitchen since the eighties. But what really caught Chase's eye was the wall across from the stove, which was absolutely covered in children's artwork. "Whoa. Did you do all of these?" Chase asked, looking at the dozens of paintings, some which were obviously years old.

"No. Well, I did some of them. My mom started collecting them when the twins started kindergarten, and we've just been sticking them up there ever since. It's a fire hazard." James' face burned with embarrassment as he pulled things out of the cabinets to make their lunch.

Chase shrugged, "Nah, I think it's kinda cool, Like a family thing." He wandered over to watch the taller boy cook, peering over his shoulder at the sheer number of ingredients that weren't just a can of soup and water. "Are you like, actually cooking?"

James shrugged, but this time it was accompanied by a little smirk of pride. "Well, just canned soup tastes boring, so I put cheese and salsa and other stuff in it. It's pretty simple."

"Can you cook real food too?"

"Yeah, Ma's been teaching me, and I'm in home ec right now. It's pretty cool." The grin was genuine as he dumped some more salsa into the saucepan with the soup. "My partner's kind of a jerk, but he's okay on the days when we cook."

Then it was Chase's turn to smirk. "You're in home ec? Isn't that kinda gay?"

"It is not. It's useful, knowing how to cook."

"Whatever. So your partner's a jerk?"

"Well, sometimes. I mean, Cobalt's okay, I just don't think he cares much if I like him or not. He just does his own thing."