t o . s p e a k . i s . t o . l i e

To Speak Is to Lie
[by victoria p.]

Rating: PG-13

Summary: "Touch is just another language Finny speaks -- the one he's most fluent in, and the one Gene doesn't quite understand."

Notes: Thanks to Mousapelli for pushing me to write this, and then looking it over when I did. Title from William Burroughs.

Date: April 4, 2005

The thing about Finny is, he's very physical. It's not just how he's the best athlete at Devon, or how unconscious it is for him, how effortless and elemental. It's not that Gene can stare at him sometimes for what feels like hours, drinking in that natural grace Finny wears like other people wear clothes.

It's that Finny's always touching him, and when he's not, Gene wishes he were. It's that he wishes he could be as free and easy, that he could touch Finny and it wouldn't mean anything. Because the arm around his shoulders, the hand against his face? They don't mean anything more to Finny than, we're pals. Touch is just another language Finny speaks -- the one he's most fluent in, and the one Gene doesn't quite understand. And it's so frustrating, because he wants to know what Finny's saying, even though he knows it's not what he wants to hear. But there is no Rosetta stone, no Finny-to-English dictionary that will translate these touches into something Gene can comprehend.

Yet Gene knows if he touches Finny in return, it will mean all sorts of things he doesn't want to think about, can't even articulate to himself in the silence of his own mind.

Gene loves Finny. He knows this down to the soles of his feet and the marrow of his bones. But he'll never admit it, not in those words, not even to himself. Because he also hates Finny, for making him feel this way, as if he's suffocating, choking on love and need and fear and envy all tangled together like a hard knot caught in his throat, with no way to loosen it.

Yet for some reason, Finny has chosen him, has finally translated all those touches into words.

Lying there in the sand, Gene finds himself unable to answer. He thinks maybe there are no words for this feeling -- it's choked them off by rising up in his chest and throat until he can't speak, and by the time he's able to, he can hear Finny's breathing, soft and in time with the waves.

Gene needs words, and Finny has taken them away, made them superfluous. Just one more way Gene can't compete. He's not even in the same race.

They're standing there in the tree, stripped down to bathing trunks, Finny's skin almost glowing in the evening light, his eyes flashing a green even brighter than the leaves around them. Gene wants to touch him so badly, to speak in this language Finny's mastered, the language Gene is desperately trying to learn.

He hesitates a moment, nothing more -- the space between one heartbeat and the next -- and his body speaks, though Gene will never after be sure what, exactly, he was trying to say, and whether it was the truth.

Finny falls, awkward and graceless for the first time since Gene has known him. In that endless moment, Gene has no desire to touch him at all.

When Finny's in the hospital, Gene tries to tell himself that he didn't do it, and if he did, he didn't mean it, the same way Finny doesn't mean for the way he touches Gene to make Gene hard, make him want things boys are not supposed to want from other boys.

Gene would like to write it off as simple hormones -- sixteen-year-old boys walk around with perpetual hard-ons -- but there's a difference. Because he also gets that tight feeling in his throat like he's going to cry when he thinks about Finny lying in the hospital, and he gets that surging feeling in his chest when he thinks about Finny's laugh, and--

Shit. He's so far gone he can't stop himself. He couldn't control his body, now he can't control his thoughts or feelings. Finny's taken over everything, and Gene hasn't got the will to fight him.

He dresses in Finny's clothes, sleeps in Finny's bed, wakes up covered in Finny's scent. He convinces himself they are the same person, and that the hand wrapped around his prick as he jerks off is Finny's.

He tells himself it doesn't mean anything at all.

Unfortunately, he never quite believes it.

It's easy to fall into everyday routine with Finny gone, and no notion if (when, he corrects himself, when) he'll return. Brinker speaks a language Gene can understand, even if he knows, after Finny's phone call, that he is irrevocably Finny's, and the mundane drudgeries of wartime could never flourish in Finny's world.

He lets himself be lulled into believing he's no longer part of that world, which is why it's such a shock when Finny appears in their room, and everything is the same as it used to be, except for the monstrous cast defacing Finny's supple body, and Gene's knowledge of what it has cost him.

He undresses under Finny's critical eye, and though they've lived together now for nearly four years, this time is different. He doesn't recall Finny ever watching him like this, intent barely masked by careless banter, and he doesn't recall ever being so aware of Finny's presence; Gene's skin is too tight, every inch of his body is tingling and his nipples are hard (luckily, he can blame that on the lack of heat in the room) beneath the sweat-stained undershirt Finny is mocking.

He feels light-headed -- the air is too rich for him, full of Finny's exhalations -- and he takes a shuddering breath, trying to find his balance, more precarious now than it ever was on that tree limb. They stare at each other, and Gene thinks he might finally understand everything Finny's ever tried to tell him with words and looks, and yes, even touches. He feels like maybe he finally understands himself, that Finny always has and he's just never known it.

Gene flexes his fingers, prepares to reach out and touch Finny, still holding that same breath, but he cannot make himself do it. His body doesn't respond. He exhales and drops his gaze, confused, and the moment is gone.

Only later does Gene recognize that Finny considers him an extension of himself, and he is both warmed and vaguely frightened by what that means.

Finny makes the best of his situation, and Gene practices denial -- he's become good at it, what with pretending there's no war on, pretending he didn't jostle the tree limb, pretending he doesn't want and love and hate and need Finny, that when he jerks off to the steady rhythm of Finny's breathing at night, he's really thinking of Betty Grable or Rita Hayworth instead of Finny's lithe body and brown hair and green eyes.

He pretends that everything is all right, that nothing can touch them here at Devon (ignoring that it already has), that his silence will protect his secrets, until Brinker's words bring his carefully built walls crashing down.

He manages to salvage something -- Finny has always wanted to believe, and Gene has always wanted Finny to believe in him. This time when he speaks, he knows he tells the truth. And the truth, he tells himself, bitterly aware of the irony, shall set you free.

When Dr. Stanpole tells him Finny is dead, Gene doesn't understand him. He cannot understand him. Once again, Gene feels that language has betrayed him, that he is adrift in a world where all meaning is lost.

With time and distance, Gene realizes that while Finny knew him, probably better than anyone else ever had, his words were as foreign to Finny as Finny's touches were to him. He wonders if Finny had ever really understood him at all.

end

~*~

Back to Other Stories Index

Back to Main Stories Index

~*~

Disclaimer: A Separate Peace and all its characters belong to John Knowles, his estate and his publishers. This fan-written fiction intends no copyright infringement.