「reputation」➳ garrance

「end game 」

"i don't want to hurt you.  i just wanna be drinkin' on the beach with you all over me.  i know what they all say, but i ain't tryna play"

➳ ➳ ➳

october 17th, 1973

it had been a month since laurance arrived in troy, kansas.  to say it was a culture shock would be an understatement.  laurance was from a place of tall buildings, crowded subways, and sleepless nights.  in troy, the buildings were only one or two stories tall and everyone was in bed by eight p.m..  sometimes, at night, he would look up at the stars.  maybe there weren't any subways here, but the stars never shined as bright as they did in troy.  in fact, it wasn't just the stars that shined brighter.  laurance's life seemed to be in technicolor now, all thanks to the blond boy from school.  he was kind and cool.  he appreciated the same things laurance appreciated.  what did he do to deserve this boy to come into his life?  laurance had no clue, but he always tried to repay garroth in any way he could.

the stars and the blond boy were probably the only things that shined brighter in kansas.  everything else was dull.  everyone seemed to be so insular.  they worked from nine to five, six days a week; and went to church when they weren't working.  everyone was protestant.  when garroth first told laurance that sunday mass wasn't something you could skip and that everyone went to the same church, laurance thought he was joking.  he knew garroth wasn't joking when his foster mom, zoey, woke him up early on the second sunday he was here, telling him he needed to get ready for church (the pastor went on a major rant about the roe v. wade case and how abortion is a sin, which laurance rolled his eyes at).  and the fact that everyone went to church affected the high school.  ever since english on the first day, laurance bit his tongue whenever a teacher said some stupid crap that wasn't true.  he had come to the conclusion that these people had a system of creating narrow-minded kids so that when they grew up they would be just like them, so laurance didn't want to get in the way of that.  he would be out of here the minute he turned eighteen, anyway.

laurance stared out into the open field of corn as he closed the front door to his foster home.  he used the old, banged up key zoey gave him to lock it and sat on the porch, waiting for garroth to come.

the blond came a minute later.  "hey," he said.  "sorry if you were waiting long.  my mom asked me to help vylad out with some project that's due today."

"that's fine.  i didn't wait long," the brunette smiled and walked down the driveway.  "did you do the calculus homework?"

"of course," garroth said as the walked down the road towards school.  "it was a pain in the ass, but i did it.  you?"

"yeah.  pretty sure i did everything wrong, but whatever."

only then did laurance look at what garroth was wearing.  when he did, laurance did a double take.  garroth a soft blue button-up with some brown pin-stripe pants.  his blond curls laid like a mop on his head, but it somehow made him look even better.

"laurance?" the blond asked.  "you okay, buddy?"

laurance snapped out of his thoughts.  "hmm?  yeah, i'm fine.  what's the occasion?"  laurance pointed to the boy's outfit.

garroth shurgged.  "nothing.  just thought i'd wear this today."

"you look nice," laurance said as nonchalant as he could.

pink rose to garroth's cheeks.  "thanks."

on the walk to school, the boys talked about anything and everything.  new york city, garroth's brothers, their latin teacher.  in the blink of an eye, the fifteen-minute walk was over and they were in front of the school.