SEVEN; 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒎𝒆!

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

"I'M THE LUCKIEST man alive," Bobby mumbled to himself, although it felt like it was meant for Griffin. He stole a glance at Bobby's distracted face and indeed he was right. 

"Mhmm. And what am I in this equation?" Finn teased, brushing a knuckle across Bobby's bristly cheek. 

Finn loved his sun-kissed complexion, the softness of it, the suppleness of it, and how it was always warm. It never changed shade around his body that was without a blemish, standing as an example to his upbringing. 

Bobby frowned and laid his head over Finn's lap, pushing his laptop away. He'd hated that thing since day one. Also, Bobby was a massive attention-seeker when it came to Finn.

"There's no equation, mi vida. No one can equate me and you. You're always beyond comparison. I'm just another lucky fucker."

Finn laughed earnestly—and god, it felt so right. He was the right person to laugh like this with. "What's with you? Did you do something stupid or do you want something stupid?"

"I did do something stupid. I fell so goddamn hard, right on my face... for you."

"Jesus Christ, Bobby." Finn was now in hysterics. "Can I have a hit of what you took?"

There it was: the signature, dimple-creasing Roberto Da Costa smirk. "Sure. C'mere, give me a kiss."

Finn playfully smacked a hand over Bobby's puckered lips. "Oh—wow. You're such a dork, B."

In such instances, Griffin couldn't help but feel the world fade away. It's become such a hackneyed phrase now, but he knew the surreal implications of what it truly meant. Like right now, the world outside his dorm room had fallen away, purging them of judgement, of the hardships, the burgeoning violence. And before, there was no escape from any of it. He knew the extent of the brutality the world could inflict on people like him, and he'd progressed far from the incongruous life he had to toil past. 

When he saw Bobby, Griffin didn't think about Clara or what her future was going to be like. He didn't torment himself over if his little sister was: getting by the day harmlessly; looking left and right before a crossing; eating healthy, on time, enough; making friends; just generally happy. 

He knew the pain of being a skint teenager and the angst that came with the onset of high school—he's experienced what he formulated was a version of it—but Clara never whined about taking the strain. She followed the rules, she kept to herself, understood that life for her was just taking what she could get. 

Many times, his best-friend Shaun had joked about Griffin functioning as Clara's parent, with him reviewing her report cards and always texting her before a meal. In every way, it was the truth. He was Clara's guardian. He was her brother, father, mother, best friend, all rolled into one. Till this day he could remember the afternoon the doctors had called the time of death on both his parents. He was twelve years old, and there was no exact emphasis on what he did. He'd only seen what he wanted to see, forgotten everything else. Nothing else mattered to him. The yell of the head doctor, the nurses screaming, the police officer that tried to chase after him in vain—they'd become dark blurs in his periphery. All he remembered was running. As fast as he could with his toddler sister in his arms.

Since then, Griffin's world was and was for Clara, so much that he'd forgotten about where he belonged in it. His body, these very hands had brooked their growing consequences, bruised, burned, beaten, bloodied—all so that his baby sister could have an untarnished life that he wasn't fortunate enough to have. 

For that reason, every time he held Bobby Da Costa's hand, just as though he was put on this earth for Griffin, his world felt a little lighter, quieter, brighter. He wasn't the struggling guardian Griffin in Bobby's eyes, he was simply Finn. 

Griffin got back to typing out a part of his nearly-done report on his laptop. As much as he wanted to take up his boyfriend's offer, he had to get his shit done to graduate. 

"If I start kissing you, I won't submit this document tonight. Then I'll forget to call Cee and tell her to collect cash from—"

"Ugh, always Cee this, Clara that." Bobby folded his arms across his chest. "I haven't even met your sister and she's already insufferable."

"Bobby, c'mon," Finn said, a quiet reproof.

Bobby rolled his body to one side on Finn's lap and continued to scowl his anger onto the opposite wall. Shaun had given up the room to them for the evening, heading out to meet with Sam Wilson for a training session. Not many people in the world had the liberty of saying that their best friend was a superhero (for obvious reasons), and Finn was the other half. Rayshaun Lucas was a certified Avenger, under the alias of Patriot, a crime-fighting, masked Brooklyn-based superhero. 

And neither did Griffin be so bold as to claim that he was Bobby Da Costa's boyfriend, Sunspot, the CEO of DaCosta International, an incarnation of centralized wealth. It was funny the duality between them: Finn's whole life began in the slums, Bobby's life began with a silver spoon in his mouth. But somewhere, somehow, they'd found a place to coexist.

"She's all alone in that place," Finn explained. "I hear gunshots at night, the heating's all kaput, and she's too small to fix shit. She's barely fifteen—would you leave your brother there like that?"

Bobby bit his lip, cornered.

"Cut her some slack," Finn said softly, running a few fingers through Bobby's satiny curls. "Why don't we table this, hm?"

"And this, too," Bobby said, reaching behind and slamming Finn's laptop close. "I can buy you that degree by tomorrow. You're just so priggish about it."

"Because it invalidates five years of work I put in for the scholarship. Too bad I didn't meet you all that time ago." Finn smiled and tapped his nose. "As much as I love you and how much you want to help me out, I'm not your nonprofit crusade. I've got this covered."

Bobby caught his hands between both of his and brought them to his chest. Finn felt something he hadn't felt in a long time—safety. He'd always been the buffer for his sister, but for once, he felt protected. 

"I hate that I can't hold you like this out there"—he vaguely pointed to the window, but really he meant society—"and take you around the world. Take you to my home."

"Cami still giving you a hard time?" Cami Seguro was Bobby's girlfriend as said by his parents. A transactional relationship, Bobby had once joked. Finn found it hard not to take it to heart despite his public status as Cami's boyfriend. 

"She's been sleeping around with my brother," Bobby confessed with a sigh. 

Finn widened his eyes. "Are you kidding?"

The disappointment was transparent in his ochre eyes. "They've been at it for months. I came across their texts last night and..." He struggled to continue and sucked in a deep lungful. "See, I don't care about what they did. But to think my own brother would double-cross me like this; it really hurts."

For a frantic moment, Griffin took pleasure in having a conscientious little sister (save for her new knack for thievery). She could be a pain in the ass, but never in a way that would break his heart. 

"Maybe they really like each other," Finn tried to reason.

Bobby stared at him in disbelief. "No, don't do that. Don't stand up for that marica, Finn. I mean what—qué estaba pensando? Por qué me haría eso? I never loved him any less than I love our father. Y sabes que no es algo ingrato. Just no."

Finn bared him a grin, shaking his head. He loved that Bobby was bilingual, it just made him so much more real in his eyes. Finn told him about his life in Brazil and how he made it seem like a fantasy. It was a wealthy, true-to-life home he'd been raised in and Finn was so grateful. And a bit envious.

"I didn't catch any of that. But I do appreciate it very much," Finn said. "Also, bueno."

Bobby's lips twisted to a little smile. He sighed and squeezed Finn's hand tighter. "I promise when the Seguro business cost is settled, I'll take you to São Paulo. Just you and me. Er, your sister, too, if you want."

Finn chuckled. "You mean it?" 

"You don't want an answer to that, mi vida. Take it while I'm being nice."

"Asshole."

Beside Finn's thigh, his phone buzzed. Before he flip it over to view the screen, Bobby stole it from him and silenced it.

"Bobby! Not funny, man!" Finn growled out. They engaged in a playful game of tag until Finn gave up—Bobby's supersenses were a bitch—and slumped back into his bed. 

"Tonight, no Clara and no computers," Bobby decided. He straightened up to match Finn's stunned stare with a mischievous smile, tucking his phone into his pocket. That smile itself could've been the motive for his sexual preference. 

"Give me the phone," he warned albeit unenthusiastically.

"Nope. Because we..." Bobby wrestled out a thin ziplock bag from his other pocket and flicked it a few times. He smelt it before he saw it. 

"... are getting lit tonight!" He sang it out like a melody, which made it more compelling.

Finn scoffed. "You wish."

Bobby smirked and snapped his fingers together, an amber plume of fire embellishing his nails. It was blackened at his fingertips before the flames fanned out, even as he unfurled his hand to ignite it on every one of his fingers. Like infernal flowers were blooming in very palms. 

"That's unfair," Finn protested. "You can't just show off to suck up to me."

Too late. Bobby had already lit a joint and taken a nice, long drag. He didn't have to heat it—the warmth from his body was enough to catch the spliff alight. 

In a wild, liberating moment, Griffin forgot about all the repercussions he would face in the morning. He forgot about his silenced phone and his unfinished report. He grabbed the spliff from Bobby's lips and took a potent drag; just until his eyes burned, mind suffocated, and chest scorched.

Finn smothered a cough as the purging smoke exited in his nose and mouth in curving billows. He'd done this one too many times to know that this was some good weed. The trippy high was beginning to bubble right between his forehead. The last time he had a good trip was after grappling with Clara's first period at thirteen, and while he tried to get in touch with the dwindling reserves of femininity, it wasn't without the aid of a fat spliff. After pacifying Clara and convincing her that she wasn't dying—at first he thought she was—he had to get down the gory, hemic details. See, as a twenty-on-year-old med student, it came easier. He'd studied this in-depth for a whole semester. God forbid he'd been one of those red-blooded chauvinists and made her sit through a YouTube video that brutally illustrated it to her.

Bobby whistled lowly, cheering out a hoot for him. When Finn passed it back with an inhaling hiss, Bobby shook his head dismissively. 

"Puff, puff, pass, B. It's the American way."

"Finish it. You need it more than I do."

"You're a bad, bad influence," Finn teased. 

His super hot, superheated boyfriend winked. "It's the Brazilian way."

The next thing Finn knew, his dose window opened and the flush of excitement was impossible to quit. It was like flying without having to care about the fall. He had an evicting need to appreciate everything around him. More than appreciation, he wanted to bare the very fibres of his being to the universe no matter who saw and questioned it.

Finn placed his hands on Bobby's hips and dragged him close. See, four months ago, he wouldn't have dared to get this close to a boy. He met Bobby, and something clicked into place. A piece of a whole different puzzle when he'd been looking into his own set the whole time. 

He wrapped his hands around Bobby and pressed his nose into his stomach, breathing him all in. He felt two strong hands cradle the back of his head, cradling him tight and close. 

Looking up, he saw Bobby pull out the spliff with an inflated chest. "What're you looking at?"

"You're so fucking good to me," Finn said.

As Bobby fell about laughing, the smoke eddied like a rupture between worlds. "A few can be so fortunate."

Finn pushed up to his feet and wound his arms around his neck with a grin. Not many people would be so lucky to look at and have their entire world in their arms, but here he was, doing it. 

Bobby pressed a soft kiss at the edge of his lips, teasing him to get what he wanted. "You're so fucking good to me, too, Finn."

∞

Clearly, it was a horrible idea because this was what Griffin woke up to in the morning, exclusive of a shagged-out Bobby who was curled in his arms, slumbering cheerfully:

25 missed calls from Clara
21 voicemails from Clara
2 missed calls from Home
13 messages from Clara

And Griffin was running again. He didn't bother to sober up, brush his teeth or change out of his clothes—he grabbed his phone and raced out of the building. He didn't care about if he'd awakened Bobby, if he'd pushed that boy while getting to the entrance, or if he was missing his morning class.

"Pick up, pick up, pick up," Griffin prayed out loud while he hailed a taxi. The line rang out, beeped and ended. "Shit!"

His mind spiralled to every bad possibility that was the result of such a panic. He couldn't hear his own thoughts through the fear, couldn't make the right decisions. He stumbled into people, sidestepped traffic and tried to calm down. 

Unable to pull himself together, he impatiently listened to the voicemails that Clara had left for him inside the cab.

9:02 pm - Finn, it's me again. The fatass just put... a lock on our home. I don't know what to do. I told him I had school tomorrow. He didn't let me in. I'm still outside. Can you call me back? My phone's about to die.

He heard the patter of raindrops in the background, her voiceless murmur, and he could tell she was crying. It irked him that Clara never showed what she felt, getting the worst of him as she grew up. 

Eventually, Clara picked up the phone.

"Finn, where are you!" she shrieked out the second she answered. "I was worried sick about you! And you weren't—and—hey, aren't you in class? Finn, are you outside?"

He felt his entire life shudder back into him. She's okay, she's okay, she's safe. He put his head between his knees and sucked in deep breaths. The pounding in his skull was starting to worsen, building a thin line of exhausted tears under his eyes. 

"I'm in a cab, Cee," he wheezed out, wiping his nose and eyes with the back of his hand. "I'm coming home, okay? Where—where are you? Did you eat something? Are you still outside?"

"I um..." she trailed off.

His heart pulsed faster, pumping a hot flush all over his body. No, no, no, no. "Clara, hello? Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

"I got home actually."

He couldn't afford to be shocked right now. "What?"

"This guy... you won't believe me, Finn. Spider-Man helped me up to the fire escape. Yeah, you heard me! He's like, sticky, right? It's not glue, it's some sort of polymer? But like, he's essentially a wallcrawler, Finn. So, he's climbing the walls and all—"

He began to yell—so loud that the taxicab jerked an inch to the left. "No, I don't care! I don't fucking care about fucking Spider-Ass, Clara! Are you safe?"

The line went silent. Then she quietly said, "I'm okay. I'm at home."

"You're not hurt?"

"No."

"Did you have anything to eat?"

"I didn't have dinner because I forgot. I'm having cereal right now. Extra milk, too." On cue, he heard the crackle of cornflakes against the spoon. Clara hated milk in her cornflakes, she always had them separately. 

"I'm going to be late for school today. You need to sign my reference note before I end up in detention," she said, crunching on her breakfast. Finn's stomach grumbled with it. "Also, you have all the privilege to punch that fatass's fat schnoz."

As usual, priorities first. Sometimes, he wished his sister would care enough to ask if he was doing fine, how his life was and if he was safe. It was too much to ask for, of course. But, he knew Clara loved him. 

Finn palmed his mouth to fight off a rueful smile. "Yes. I'll... sign the note."

"And the punch," she insisted. "I want to watch this time."

"You absolutely can watch. Fat fucker makin' you sit outside in the rain—I'll kick the son of a bitch in the balls."

"What balls?" Clara joked, giggling.

"Damn," he laughed along. "Vicious, Clara Rose."

∞

Yep, I had this planned for a long time now. As much as I loved Griffin, we've got a break him down to the bare essentials to see his effort. he struggles with the responsibility—just like any other superhero—but feels like he lacks his own life because of it.