skinner orville

Skinner orville to Kalkidan kebede ;; 8/2/26

“It’s weird. I used to really look up to you, y’know. I think we all did, in a way. Not just the guys or even just the team, but, you know. In the weird, fucked up ways we went about living, I think we all had your face in the back of our minds.

I don’t know if you meant to be that- this larger than life sort-of figure. I don’t even really know what made us see you like that. Maybe ‘cause you were captain. Maybe ‘cause you were just… you. All that bronze and confidence, hell, you could’ve convinced me that you’d bought and ruled the world. I’d have believed you.

What's really crazy about it all is where that left us. When you graduated, I mean, haha. Dude. Guys were fighting for your title like it was a key to the city. Tucker, mostly. Everyone was so sure he’d fill the shoes you left- everyone but him. The kid was still trying to prove something to you; he probably still is.

…You did a lot for him, you know. No- that makes it sound like a good thing. You fucked him up. Like watching a stray dog sniff at the feet of other homeless dudes. I think he knew he wouldn’t find you in those bleachers or in the faces of coaches, but he still looked. Tough luck, I guess. He wanted to be you so bad; like his own skin and bone didn’t matter as long as he could have yours. Morbid? Nah, you get what I’m saying.

What I mean is, it’s weird. It’s weird to see the guy everyone always talked about like this. Oh, don’t look at me like that. You know… this. You’re not exactly in your prime, man. Haha, I think you left your peak back in your senior year. Hey, not all of us can come outta that shithole prettier than when we went in.

Now that I think about it, you probably impacted our school more than anyone else on the team. Your face on all those posters and junk, you were always running those fundraisers. Those events and extracurriculars. If a golden boy ever did exist, he would’ve been you, dude. I don’t imagine that made the pressure any lighter. Hell, it crushed Tucker, and London… haha, nobody was as happy as Donnie when you left.

Still, I think he knew it, too. That you were gone and he was all that was left to show for what you left behind. Maybe he liked that, getting the chance to show you up and take your place. Maybe it was too much. I wouldn’t know, he didn’t talk to me. Hell, dude was probably intimidated by the only other pretty guy on the mat.

Did you ever think about that? I mean, you’ve had to have known about it. The people you… fuck it, the people you hurt. You don’t need me to sugarcoat it for you. You hurt people, and they- ah- dude. Chill. You tryna break skin?”

Kalkidan draws back like a mosquito having been swatted away, blowing air through his nose. He reeked of something between chlorine and gasoline. They both did, passing smoke and sharing clouded breaths.

The room is dark, illuminated only by the sun sliding through the shutters. Projecting a cast of lined light across the carpet. The ceiling fan idly slips by, spinning into a blur while doing nothing for the heat. Sweat collects at Kal’s temples and beads down the nape he latches onto. Skin damp with salt and fading cologne.

The sheets have been kicked onto the floor, tangled up below the bed’s footing. Pillows and cushions haphazardly strewn about as Kal presses his lips to skin in mock-apology. Pulse thrumming where teeth graze throat.

“Jesus, I sound like you right now,” Skinner groans, shuffling his hands under him and crossing a leg over the other. “Pyscho-analyzing shit… I dunno. Maybe it wasn’t that deep. Sure as hell felt like it, though,”

“Maybe you should stop talking, then,” Kal quips, sliding large palms over Skinner’s back until they fit into the dips of his waist. The angle is awkward; like Kal’s hands don’t quite fit into the small of Skinner’s side, and his chest doesn’t quite lock into his back. Two wrong pieces determined to create a picture.

Skinner snorts, dropping his head and letting it fall back against Kal’s shoulder. “Yeah? Did that work for you?”

“Better than running my mouth ever did,” Kalkidan grunts.

“Bullshit. You were fun,” Skinner bats his lashes and laughs, so Kal noses the crook of his neck and wills him to shut up. “You still can be. Y’know, when you aren’t being all depressed and shit,”

“That’s not something I can just turn off,”

“Uh, well it’s turning me off,” Skinner shimmies back into Kal with a groan. “Don’t you take, like, meds for that?”

To that, Kalkidan goes silent. He presses another kiss to the knob of Skinner’s spine in the effort to distract him. He raises a hand, pushes a finger to Skinner’s jaw, and beckons him to look back at Kal.

“Do you miss it?” Kal starts, breathing the words into his skin. “That’s all you talk about, all those years ago. You miss it more than I do,”

Skinner glances back, shamefaced and pink for a split vulnerable second. Before he cracks a smile. “There’s the creep I know,”

Skinner thinks he’s the shit - heavy lidded eyes, stupid-ass smile etched up his lip. Flush and thin and right there. And Kal can’t keep it together.

Forefingers fit into the length of Skinner’s neck, petted below his throat and drawn up to his jaw. Kal’s hands are cold, witted and alive. Twitching to wrap around his face and hold him there.

Skinner pulls forward. Presses against Kal’s lips and kisses into the seam of his mouth. Kal shudders, hard, breathing down like he’s grasping at control. “You don’t understand,” Kal holds Skinner’s face between his hands and clutches the curve of his jaw, eyes fixed on his lips; trembling, like he physically needs this. A substance for survival. “You don’t know what this means to me,”

Skinner blinks like a deer in headlights. “Dude?”

“You’re special,” Hands dip south and clutch the length of Skinner’s torso. Pulling him taut into Kal’s front. “You are. You know that. Like nobody else,”

Confusion gives way to something fonder, and Skinner can’t quite help the smile that presses his lips. His eyes lighting with vindication at the notion. Special.

“I didn’t know it then. I didn’t have the words or the mind to tell you it then, but I do now. I know how to love you now.”

It’s everything Skinner’s been lying in wait to hear. His hands reach up and over his head, cupping the back of Kal’s neck from in front of him. Loved. Wasn’t that the warmest thing in the world?

“If I could take it all back, I would. So much of it. Every bit of it. You deserved more than me and you should have gotten better. You deserved better,”

Pride swells in the hollow of Skinner’s chest. A soft, noncommittal noise slips off his tongue as blunt nails press into flesh.

“I can’t stand to be without you. I can’t stand your absence,”

It was more affection than what Skinner knew what to do with. In spite of his pride, he couldn’t name a time nor date where he’d been like this. Strung up via words and promises. Struck by tender hands and a loving mouth.

He deserves this. The thought hits Skinner suddenly. It was only a matter of time til he was treated the way he ought to be. He deserves this.

“I love you,” Kal mouths into Skinner’s nape like a man grappling for purchase. “I love you,” His voice breaks, arching on its axis and pitching an octave too high. “I love you, Lenny,”

Skinner flinches. “What?”

wishing

cw apply. mild spousal argument

Ruth Orville to Skinner Orville - Lenny Lokahi to Skinner Orville.

It’s raining tonight. That much hasn’t changed for the last few days. Every now and then the sun will rear into view and offer a glimpse of a UV over 3; but just as quickly are the clouds that clothe it. Skinner doesn’t mind it, not usually. If anything, the patter of rain pelleting against glass is a comfort. An inevitability amongst chance and risk.
But it’s not just raining tonight. Thunder shudders the house, striking the ground near his backyard. Skinner flinches and bites his lip hard enough to taste copper. Quiet nights he could handle, he’d spent enough time between them to know how. But it’s raining tonight.
“Never marry, Skinner, never do it. Fuck! Men ain’t worth shit! Not your time, not your energy, not your life, or even a damn prenup!”
Skinner sits cross legged, his covers pushed to the side. He’s old enough to understand the weight of her words, but still young enough to flinch at each clap of thunder. “You know better than to wind up like your father, don’t you?” Ruth crosses the room, heels padding against the carpet where she’d forgotten to slip them off. “You’re a better man than him, baby. Oh, I know you’ll be,”
Skinner steels a glance around his room. “...I like dad,”
“Ugh, right, right, I know you do,” Skinner can watch her teeth clench in real-time through the gauges in her cheeks. Molars grinding hard enough to squeak. “He’s your dad, of course you love him. Ugh, not that’d he’d know what to do about it. Your father just looves fucking over the people who love him! Like me!”
She flops onto the ledge of his bed, perching at the lip before falling backward into the mattress. Sprawled out and furious besides Skinner who can only blink and swallow.
“You know, Skinner. For the longest time, I imagined myself so much… well, more. I always imagined more,” She rolls over onto her back, staring at the popcorn ceiling. “Big wedding with a dress that’d trail behind me. Those fancy lace veils and a cake. It would be strawberry; a strawberry cake.”
Skinner blinks. “Did you get it?”
“What, the wedding?” Ruth turns to look at him, cackling at the sincerity. “Fuck no! Haha! Oh, baby, of course not! Price couldn’t do that for me. Price was never that kind of man,” Her head lolls back into place, counting the shapes in the ceiling above her. “But I knew that when I dated him. I knew that when he proposed, and I knew it when I had you,”
Skinner rolls on his side to meet her there, raising a finger to meet her hand right before it tugs away. “So what changed?”
She pauses, thinking. Considering. Her eyes go a bit wide. “Nothing,” She mumbles. “Nothing changed. I don’t know why I expected him to,”
“So… Then why are you mad at him?”
“...I don’t know,” She breathes. She sounds farther away, more distant. “I don’t want you to be like him, Skinner. I want you to have that wedding. I wish on it,”
He stares up, eyes narrowing like he’s trying to find something like a star amongst ceiling and drywall. “I wish for a wedding. With, a big veil. And a dress, for, um, the bride,”
“And a cake,” She mumbles, wrapping herself in Skinner’s discarded blanket. Curling into the foot of his bed. “A strawberry cake,”
Ruth is snoring.
It’s raining tonight.
“It’s not tha thunder that can hurt ya, y’know. That’s just thah noise,”
Lenny is on the other line. Her voice smooth where it crackles into static. “I ain’t scared of it,”
“Of course you’re not,” It sounds like she’s giggling. “I’m glad you called me,”
“Really?” He tempts, “How so?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lenny weighs the words, and Skinner can see her now. Looking off and chewing on her fingernail. “I just… didn’t imagine you’d call me for something like this,”
“I called Chase too,” Skinner blurts. When Lenny doesn’t reply, he follows up with: “But you seemed like a better option,”
Her words arch like a question, “You called Chase for comfort,”
“Sure,” He shrugs, “He can be… comforting,”
“Right,” Lenny giggles, again, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Still. Even if I’m a… second choice. I’m glad,”
“Anyone would be,” She can hear the smile in Skinner’s voice. “Hearin me at this hour? You must’ve seen a shooting star, Len,”
“Maybe,” There’s a shuffling noise as she rolls over in bed. “I would wish for you.. If there was, you know. A shooting star,”
Skinner snorts. “Good, smart man,”
“...Would you?”
“Would I what?” He blinks, owlishly.
She pauses, swallowing hard. “Wish for me…?”
Skinner barks out a laugh. It’s all the answer she needs. It’s raining tonight, and it’s the only thing occupying the silence between them.

credits

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