Secrets Kept

Sorry for the delay but here's another for ya!

Chapter Twenty-Five

The morning was surprisingly cool, which really shouldn't have been that surprising, considering it was late October. Gary ended up darting back upstairs to fetch a hooded sweatshirt while Tracey was finishing up whatever he had been doing in the kitchen for last twenty minutes. Finally the lab door creaked open and Gary looked up as he finished preparing the bowls of pokemon food to see the older teen appear. Tracey grinned as he set down the two plates he had been carrying next to Gary and quickly leaned over to press a kiss to his new boyfriend's lips.

With a smile of his own, Gary returned the kiss before turning his attention to the two plates that Tracey had carried in. "Pancakes?" he asked in surprise when he noticed the food piled on the plates.

Tracey nodded with another smile. "I figured, with both of us in the lab this early, we could afford to actually have a real breakfast," he explained, taking a sip from the cup of coffee he had somehow managed to carry into the lab with the two plates of food.

Preparation of the pokemon's breakfast was paused for a few minutes as the couple ate quietly until Gary spoke up again. "Tracey?" he asked, setting down his now-empty plate on the lab counter.

"There's more pancakes in the microwave if you're still hungry," Tracey replied, barely looking up.

"Actually, I was going to ask you... Are you really sure you want to do this?"

Tracey sighed and set his plate down as well. He'd heard the faint edge of apprehension in Gary's voice and had the distinct feeling that he was about to ask this exact question yet again. He knew it was going to take awhile for Gary to be truly comfortable with the fact that they were now dating, but Tracey had made his decision and wasn't about to go back on it. With how much the two of them had been through together in the last year, it would take more than nerves to split them up.

With another one of his small smiles, Tracey leaned in and pressed a gentle peck to his boyfriend's cheek "Gary," he started with a slight sigh. He paused, trying to decide on the best balance between gentle and iron-willed. Finally, he squared his shoulders and met Gary's eyes boldly. "I wouldn't have agreed to this if I was anything less than positive that I wanted to do it. I make my own decisions." With that, he moved in again to kiss Gary's lips. "This is what I want," he said when they pulled apart a moment later. "If we have to keep it a secret in order to be together, then that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for a little while."

Gary nodded slightly, seeming pleased with the answer. "You know I'm going to ask that all the time, right?" he pointed out. "I have to check, it wouldn't be fair to you otherwise."

"I know," Tracey agreed. "I'm sure it will drive me crazy, but I understand. Now, we should probably start feeding the pokemon before they get annoyed at us," he suggested, glancing over at the clock on the wall.

Gary followed his gaze and nodded, noticing that it was over a half hour later than the pokemon were usually fed their breakfast. It would be easy to get caught up, but they really did need to get started with the day's work. Smiling at Tracey, Gary reached out to grasp one of his hands as Tracey began to gather up their breakfast plates. He used that hand to pull Tracey close enough to kiss him again. Placing his other hand on Tracey's hip, Gary moved his lips against Tracey's, groaning softly when he felt the other boy's tongue slide along his lip.

They both knew that they had work to do, but it felt so wonderful to be able to give in to their desires and kiss each other that neither could find it in them to even attempt resisting the urge to deepen the kiss. Tracey's free hand came up to rest at the back of Gary's neck as the younger teen let him deepen the kiss by slipping his tongue into his mouth. The kiss continued, the hand on Tracey's hip moving slowly upward to smooth along his side while Gary's other hand slipped out of Tracey's only to twine in his hair instead.

After several minutes, Gary seemed to come back to his senses and pulled back slightly. "I like being able to do that," he whispered.

Tracey grinned. "Me too."

Before either of them could give into their hormones by kissing the other again, Tracey scooped up the dishes and headed back towards the house while Gary set out loading the bowls of food into the nearby wagon for distribution.

It was unlikely that anyone would be joining them in the lab for at least another hour but they avoided kissing once they were out of the lab. It would be too risky, many areas of the ranch were, after all, easily visible from the house. This didn't stop them from going about the morning chores together talking, laughing, and joking the way they usually did. Despite the unusual start to the day, so much seemed to be exactly the same and both teens were surprised by how normal it felt. Neither questioned it or commented on it, they simply accepted it and continued on like normal, just with a few more secret smiles and a couple of stolen kisses in secluded places.

They were left alone in the lab for a few more hours, which was to be expected. May was likely straightening the house while Gary's friends were most likely sleeping as long as their hangovers would allow them. However, having expected to be joined by either May or Darren and Adrian at eleven at the absolute earliest, Gary was understandably surprised when he heard the sound of crutches echoing on the lab floor around nine-thirty.

"So, I just found out that sharks have been around since before the dinosaurs," Wyatt announced conversationally, as though there was absolutely nothing unusual about his early appearance.

Gary, being busy filling in a form at one of the lab benches, barely looked up. "Did you come down here just to tell me that?"

"No, I was just getting bored reading."

The sudden 'thump' of a thick book being dropped onto the lab bench made Gary look up. An early appearance paired with the spouting of a random scientific fact could be passed off as a strange occurrence brought on by Wyatt's natural curiosity and random nature. Reading an actual book couldn't, especially not when the book was a textbook on the Darwinian evolution of sharks and sharpedos that Gary's grandfather had brought back from his last trip out of town.

Gary frowned as he glanced from the book to his friend. "Reading?" he echoed doubtfully. "Are you stoned?"

"A little."

"Wyatt..." Gary groaned, rubbing his temples wearily. He didn't care that some of his friends did it, but doing it around the lab wasn't something he felt like dealing with.

"Only a little," Wyatt reiterated, rolling his eyes. "I'm off pain meds, trust me, you don't want me totally sober - I turn into a whiney bitch."

"Fine, whatever. What are you doing reading a textbook?"

"Couldn't sleep last night and this was out in the living room," Wyatt shrugged.

"And you thought reading a textbook would help you sleep?" Gary asked, returning his attention to the paper in front of him. Somewhere behind him he heard the door open and close as Tracey returned from the work he had been doing outside.

Wyatt suddenly seemed distant as he leaned against the opposite side of the lab bench. "I've been thinking a lot lately..."

"That sounds painful," Gary quipped. He suddenly felt something strike him in the back of the head and turned to see Tracey holding a stack of papers.

"Be nice," he said playfully, setting the papers down on the lab bench.

Though Gary had smiled when he saw Tracey, he groaned when he saw the papers. They were the forms that had the details of the water pokemon physicals from earlier in the week, which still needed to be inputted. Gary was the fastest with the computers, so he assumed Tracey expected him to enter them into the computer.

Tracey left the room as quickly as he appeared and Wyatt snorted amusedly at the brief exchange before continuing with a soft sigh.

"I don't know... I've been screwing around for the last few years and now everyone's talking about colleges and you're doing your science stuff... Then the whole shark thing. I guess nearly being killed by a sixteen-foot miracle of evolution made me realize that I have to stop being such a jackass."

Gary tossed down his pen and considered the other teen. "How does all of that lead to you reading textbooks after getting drunk with everyone?" he asked slowly, trying to figure out where exactly this was going.

Wyatt shrugged. "My mom somehow got me in touch with a surfer who lost his leg to a sharpedo in Hoenn. We were talking back and forth online when I was in the hospital and he sent me this article about that tagging thing in the Orange Islands. Most of it went over my head so I had to figure it out by Googling every other word."

"You could have just asked me to translate it, you know," Gary muttered. Wyatt ignored him.

"I just kinda kept reading about sharks and stuff after that... And, I dunno… I think I might want to be a marine biologist."

This surprised Gary but didn't entirely catch him off guard. Wyatt was the most avid surfer of the group, in all of Pallet really, and he had always been interested in the ocean. There was, after all, a reason Gary relied on him to help out with the lakes and ponds around the lab instead of one of his more responsible friends. Still, this wasn't a conversation Gary could have anticipated, certainly not after a night of drinking.

"Wyatt... You do realize you kind of screwed over your GPA last year. That's not exactly going to help you out."

Wyatt grinned at this. "Yeah, that's the thing," he replied easily. "You know, one of my friends tested out of his entire senior year recently so that he could be a scientist... I kinda figured he might be able to help me out a bit."

Gary laughed and shook his head. Wyatt was smart when it suited him, but testing out of the classes like Gary had seemed unlikely.

"I'm serious," Wyatt added with a glare. "Dad actually thinks it's a good idea since I miss so much school for physical therapy. Plus I can help out around the lab! I'll enter those for you, if you want," he added, pointing to the stack of papers Tracey had set down.

"Please do," Gary replied dryly, passing them over without a second thought. He watched as his friend hobbled over to the nearest computer with the papers in hand considered the information Wyatt had just confided in him.

The possibility of having a friend in the lab constantly was a bit worrisome. It would certainly make the chores easier to get through but it would make this newest secret that much harder to keep. Still, it would be nice having a friend who actually understood the amount of work he had to do on a daily basis, maybe it would even allow him to do more research outside of Pallet – having an extra person in the lab would surely mean that his occasional absence would be easier for everyone else to deal with. Of course, this was all assuming that the extra person in the lab was competent enough to take over his chores when he was gone on research trips. His work, after all, was not easy.

"You know, it's really not the easiest thing to do," Gary began.

"Entering data on a spreadsheet?"

Gary rolled his eyes at the interruption. "Research, you idiot! It's hard: you have to read and analyze, you have to think, you have to use common sense! You can't just get completely hammered each night and expect to do what I do-"

"Which explains why you're down here," Wyatt interjected sarcastically.

"Do I look hungover to you?" Gary shot back.

"Do I?"

Gary paused at the retort and frowned, shaking his head. Aside from the dark circles under his eyes and messy hair, his friend didn't seem hungover at all. "No," he relented, taking a calming breath. "Why? I figured you would have finished off that rum last night."

The blonde teen fixed his gaze on the computer screen and absently played with the edges of the papers in front of him. "I had to sober up before going to sleep," he said quietly, after a long moment.

"That's a change." Gary crossed his arms over his chest and watched him closely. The idea of Wyatt feeling the need to sober up was, frankly, laughable. He was usually the one to drink until he passed out, usually after throwing up somewhere other than the toilet.

Wyatt rolled his eyes and turned just long enough to fix Gary with an irritated glare. "Alcohol makes the nightmares worse," he finally said, after he had turned back to the computer screen. "It's the reason why I'm not on pain meds anymore," he added in a low mutter that Gary just barely heard from his position at the lab bench.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked suspiciously, truly having no idea of what to make of his friend's words. Wyatt tended to do stupid things while drunk, even more so than the other boys. If he had done something while drunk that led to him being taken off of pain medication that he likely still needed, then Gary wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know the details.

Even so, this was one of his best friends, a brother, one of the reasons Gary feared the possible backlash of coming out so very much. If it was serious and Wyatt told him, or even hinted at it, then Gary would have to deal with it... Just as the other boy would (theoretically) have to do if (when, Gary corrected himself) he did finally come out of the closet.

"Like you said yesterday," Wyatt said with a sigh, "We all have our shit."

"If it's bad enough that you can't have pain meds after having half of your calf muscle ripped off your leg, then it's pretty serious," Gary said, crossing the distance between them to stand beside the desk. He noticed Wyatt flinch at the description of his injury but drew no attention to it. "Wyatt, if you want me to help you with the marine biology stuff, then I kind of need to know what's going on. Are you sure you're even going to be able to go in the water again after this?"

Wyatt's shoulders slumped and he turned to look up at Gary. "I'm not telling you this just because of you doing research and working in the lab," he finally said. "You said it: we all have our shit. You've been my best friend since we were seven, I know you. You disappeared after you moved home and didn't come back until after the sharpedo trip. I know there has to be a reason behind that and why you said that yesterday. I don't know that reason and you don't have to tell me. I kinda had a feeling you'd get it, and maybe understand if I don't want to talk about it."

A jumble of emotions flooded through Gary: sympathy for his friend, concern that something major was going on with the boy, and a feeling of gratitude, maybe even a touch of happiness, that someone other than Tracey recognized that he had been dealing with something difficult. The fact that one of his closest friends understood this and didn't expect him to reveal the cause of his inner struggles sent a feeling of relief through him. The thought of telling Wyatt came to mind but quickly left: this wasn't the conversation for that.

"Okay," Gary replied quietly, finally nodding his head once everything Wyatt had said sunk in. "I'll help you, just... Whatever you did to be off of your meds, don't do it again, alright?"

Wyatt cracked a smile and nodded. "And maybe don't disappear again," he replied. "I kinda hated the dick who was in your place last year."

Gary laughed and briefly thought of Tracey and how much the older teen had helped him. He didn't know how Tracey could possibly be so unbelievably patient, but he knew he was incredibly lucky to have him as a friend, much less an understanding boyfriend. "I don't think you have to worry about that."

"Oh yeah? Got a secret you're not telling me?"

"Not today," Gary replied, smiling.

"How about tomorrow?"

"Okay, now you're pushing it," Gary laughed. "I'll tell you eventually."

"Tell him what?" Another voice asked as the lab door clicked shut. "Where you disappeared off to last night?"

Wyatt rolled his eyes and glanced from Gary to their new addition. "He was traveling the nine realms again. We're gonna have to take away that Tesseract or he's just gonna keep doing it."

"And here I was thinking that I was the nerd here," Gary said sarcastically.

"You are," Wyatt deadpanned, turning back to the computer again.

"Seriously though!" Darren exclaimed, ignoring Wyatt. "Where do you keep going?"

Wyatt answered before Gary could say anything. "Cut him some slack, would you? He's running half the damn lab – he was probably down here!"

Darren glared at him. "I checked here!"

"I didn't say he spent the night down here!"

Shaking his head in what was half amusement and half exasperation, Gary moved away from the two of them, instead heading towards the door to check the clipboards. Glancing over the lists of chores, he decided it would be best to check the levels in the ponds next. He was able to slip out of the lab unnoticed while his two friends were still bickering.

As he crossed the lawn to the nearest pond, he realized that he needed to come up with something to tell others in regards to where he went the night before. He reached the pond and kneeled down, pulling a glass vial from the plastic box of equipment he had brought with him and scooping up a sample of the water as he wondered what to tell his friends. It would have been easy to say that he had been down in the lab, as Wyatt had suggested, but apparently that wasn't an option if Darren had checked there. He couldn't say that he had gone to bed because his room would have been one of the first places any of his friends would have checked for him.

Gary set the vial down in the container with a sigh: no matter what the issue was, there was still work to be done. He didn't need the distraction right now, so he tried to block it out the best he could. As he set to work testing and recording the various parameters of the water he found his mind wandering back to the worry of what excuse to give his friends. He shook his head and tried to focus as he headed to the next pond but couldn't keep himself from returning to that worry once again.

By the time he reached the third pond, his mind had latched onto that worry and was clearly not letting it go. He couldn't help the concern welling up in him over and over again. Again and again he tried to let it go, but it kept coming back. He tried to come up with something to tell his friends but kept coming up empty-handed. By the time he had tested the last of the ponds, he was frustrated, out of ideas, and couldn't stand the thought of going back into the lab where Darren and Wyatt likely still were.

As he passed by the ponyta and rapidash stable, he caught a glimpse of Tracey and was struck with an idea. Maybe Tracey would know what to tell them…

Feeling a bit more hopeful, Gary headed to the stable where he found Tracey finishing up with the pens that were due to be cleaned that day. He watched his boyfriend for a moment, setting the container of equipment down in the doorway as he leaned against the wall. He always enjoyed just watching Tracey whenever the other teen was absorbed in something: Tracey was always particularly cute when he was focused on something.

Finally, Gary cleared his throat and pushed away from the wall. "Hey, Tracey?"

"Yeah?" Tracey barely glanced up from his work as he refilled the water troughs in the pens.

"There's something I didn't think about," Gary said slowly, approaching the older teen. He dropped onto a bale of hay and looked up at Tracey when he responded.

Tracey smiled and shook his head, rolling his eyes good-naturedly as he set down the now-empty water bucket he had been using. "Gary, if you ask me if I'm sure about this one more time, I'm going to change my mind just to spite you."

Gary laughed softly, shaking his head in turn. "It's not that," he assured his boyfriend. "It's just that I kind of disappeared last night when I was supposed to be hanging out with my friends…"

"You're running half of the lab," Tracey replied, shrugging his shoulders. "There's no reason you couldn't have been there," he suggested.

A faint smile appeared on Gary's face. He should have known that would be the first thing Tracey would suggest. "That's exactly what Wyatt said."

Tracey frowned, tilting his head curiously. "Then why are you worried?" he asked.

"Because Darren apparently checked there and, since I spent the night with you, I obviously wasn't there," Gary replied with a sigh.

"So you came upstairs by me to talk about the lab and you fell asleep while you were there," Tracey suggested, leaning back against the stall door nearest to him.

Gary grimaced at the suggestion and suppressed a groan. It was starting to dawn on him just how difficult this was going to be: if coming up with a reasonable excuse for disappearing during a party was this hard, then how long could they really keep this up for? Tracey seemed confident that it wouldn't have to be a secret for too long, but Gary was wary. He had his moments of confidence but the thought of telling other always twisted his stomach into knots – he just wasn't ready, not yet.

Seeming to realize how weak of an excuse his idea was, Tracey sighed and moved away from the stall door to sink down next to Gary. "Well," he began slowly, trying to think of an alternative. "You've been working in the lab constantly, so it's safe to say you're already exhausted, plus alcohol's a depressant…" He grinned suddenly, an idea striking him. "If anyone asks, just say I was drawing and you got bored and fell asleep. I think that's pretty believable."

A faint smile curved Gary's lips but he still seemed doubtful. "This isn't going to be easy, is it?" he asked after a moment.

Tracey was quiet for a minute before shaking his head. "No, I guess not." He couldn't help a small smile; Gary had asked him so many times this morning if he was truly okay with this and here he was with the sudden urge to ask Gary that exact question. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked.

Gary gave a short laugh, the irony not lost on him. He hesitated slightly before leaning over and pressing his lips to Tracey's in a soft kiss. He nodded as he drew back and ran a hand through his hair. "I just didn't consider that we would have to lie and make excuses for this to work."

"Well, look at it this way," Tracey said, "Your friends are in school most of the time and, unless we need help in the lab or your grandfather's not around, they usually don't spend too much time here." Gary groaned and ran a hand through his hair again and Tracey had to wonder if there was more going on. "What is it?"

"Wyatt's going to try to test out of school like I did so he can help out around the lab."

"Why? I thought he didn't do well last year and he's missed so much school this year already –"

"He suddenly wants to become a marine biologist… Losing that much blood must've given him brain damage," Gary quipped, earning an elbow in the ribs.

"That's good for him," Tracey admonished gently. "That means the shark attack is doing something good for him. He needed some sort of motivation."

"Yeah, I know, but it does mean he'll be around more often so we'll have to be careful."

"I think he'd be more annoyed with you keeping secrets from him than he would be about us dating if he did find out," Tracey pointed out. He shot Gary a mild glare when his younger boyfriend rolled his eyes. "I'm not telling you to tell him right now, I'm just pointing it out."

"We've been over this a million times."

"It's worth repeating," Tracey pressed. "I wouldn't say it so often otherwise."

"I know that, it's just not something I feel like dealing with right now," Gary retorted impatiently.

Tracey wanted to press the issue a bit further but decided against it: Gary was getting impatient, which was only a step away from irritated. This wasn't the time to irritate him and, honestly, it could wait. The idea of keeping the relationship secret from the rest of Pallet didn't really bother him enough to irritate his boyfriend within the first twelve hours of their relationship.

It would just have to wait.

… … …