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tennesseewilliamshakespeare · 4 years

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this too shall pass (i couldn’t know what’s in your mind) - forrest x kyle

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Planet 7 doesn’t really do open mics like the Wild Pony but it’s almost one and there are maybe six people here and the manager likes Forrest well enough, always has. As much as he was telling Alex the truth about it being fun pissing off the homophobic locals, the words in his notebook on the stool beside him that he’s too nervous to sit on are a little more vulnerable than he’d take the chance of any of them hearing.

He shouldn’t need the notebook. The words were in his head long before he wrote them down. He’d even waited longer than normal, because writing something down makes it real and sometimes making it real makes it hurt. He gave up on waiting when he realized it already hurt anyway. The upside of writing it down is once you make something real you can finally start to deal with it.

It’s not even about Alex. Alex and Guerin finally got their shit figured out, and that’s a good thing, and they’ve known each other forever so Forrest didn’t really have a chance to begin with. The song is about stupid fucking towns and stupid fucking families and how sometimes they take away things that you wouldn’t have given a shit about either way and sometimes they take away things that were just starting to look like they could’ve been really, really good. So it’s a little bit about being in the Wild Pony with Alex at the end of their first date. But that conversation didn’t create that situation, it just… helped Forrest hone in on what he wanted to say about it.

He’s not saying anything right now. He’s just up there with his old guitar, two weeks back from a far too long hiatus. That’s not helping his nerves. He whispers a sorry into the mic but it’s not like anyone is listening or, to be completely honest, cares.

He can’t do this.

Can’t sing his song, at least. There are a couple things he definitely can do. He can leave. He can go get another drink and then come back and try this again. He can calm the hell down. All wonderful options.

Instead, he looks down at his hands, which seem to have started plucking out something without his permission. He lets them continue until he remembers the name of the song and some of the lyrics. It’s from the fucking Hunger Games soundtrack. He starts to sing because there isn’t really anything else to do.

“And oh this too shall pass… this loneliness won’t last… for long…” And that’s where his knowledge of the lyrics ends. Fuck.

Some guy at one of the tables in the back pipes up. “Is that a cover?”

“Uh… yeah,” Forrest calls back.

“Do you want to use my phone to google the lyrics?” The guy offers, walking towards the makeshift stage area.

“Uh…” what the hell? “Thanks, but I’m good. I’m just gonna… go.” Forrest takes his guitar and picks up his notebook.

The guy doesn’t really move to stop him, but the look of disappointment on his face is almost enough. “Your voice is amazing. Seriously, though, what’s the name of the song? I wanna listen to it later.” He’s got glitter all down one side of his face. He probably got it from the guy who came in here a couple of hours ago with a bunch of the stuff and gave it away to anyone who wanted it, but it looked like everyone who had been there when that happened had already left with someone else. Which begged the question, why not this guy? To make matters worse, Forrest is absolutely positively sure he’s at least seen this guy around, but the name is completely escaping him, something that points to him being less sober than standing behind a mic woefully unprepared for and terrified of what he was trying to express made him feel.

“I’m Kyle, by the way.”

Of course. Valenti, surgical resident, sheriff’s son. Friends with Liz Ortecho and therefore probably Alex too. Lovely. That might be a little too much to know about someone he’s never met, but he deals with people the same way he deals with History. He’s always had this inner need to piece together the little details.

“Forrest Long.” He can see his last name giving Kyle pause, which would be a shame because Kyle is cute and also possibly the most earnest person Forrest has ever met in Roswell. Well, maybe besides… nope, Kyle. He’s talking to Kyle and definitely not thinking about anyone else. “Oh, and, uh… I was singing Gale Song, by The Lumineers.” Kyle actually pulls out his phone right there, looks the song up, and saves it. Then he gives Forrest a small smile.

“Hey! You two!” the bartender yells, “everyone else left so I’m closing early. Wrap it up, maybe?”

“It’s a nice night,” Forrest comments, “wanna head outside?” Kyle nods.

They sit in the bed of Forrest’s truck and talk in ten minute walls of information about things they’re passionate about (Lyudmila Pavlichenko for Forrest and Laparoscopies for Kyle) which then devolves into just making shit up to try and make each other laugh which then devolves into just laughing.

“Why are you so into history?” Kyle asks after a beat.

Forrest shrugs. “I mean, I grew up here. This town has nothing but history.”

“I disagree,” Kyle says. “It’s got… like… people.”

“Very astute observation. I guess… I wanted to find something that would let me deal with other people without actually having to, like, deal with them, you know? I used to get a lot of shit, growing up.”

Kyle gets quiet. “I… used to be like that.”

“You used to get bullied?”

Kyle shakes his head. “No, I, uh… I used to bully. One kid in particular. Our dads were best friends, and then we were best friends, and then… ninth grade, I wanted to fit in and he didn’t. That’s what I told myself for years, but the truth is… he liked guys, and I liked guys, and I couldn’t tell anyone. My family was awesome, I had more friends than he did, and I was just… scared. It was like everything was stacked against him, but it couldn’t shake him. I think… I wanted to be like him, but I didn’t know how to do that so instead I tried to make him like me. Ashamed.”

That’s not anything Forrest would’ve expected. He can understand it, sure. Shame makes people do fucked up things, especially kids. And Kyle does seem genuinely sorry. “Are you still in touch?”

Kyle nods. “I don’t know if we’re friends, but I’d like to be. He’s gotta be the strongest dude I’ve ever met.”

The sun is coming up and Forrest is falling asleep. It’s unlikely that either of them are safe to drive, so he calls a rideshare. They get to the Long farm first and Kyle gets out too. “Listen, Forrest,” he says. Forrest turns back around as Kyle gets closer until he’s right there. “I’m trying to be braver than I was in high school.” With that, he puts a hand on the side of Forrest’s face and kisses him slowly.

Forrest finds himself smiling into the kiss. When Kyle pulls away, he asks, “wanna come inside?”

#forrest antifa long #kyle valenti #forrest long #forrestkyle #rnm #rnm fic #roswell new mexico #roswell new mexico fic #roswell nm #roswell nm fic

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aokayinspace · 4 years

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Do you ever just sit and think about Kyle Valenti, high school homophobic dick who somewhere along the way realized how awful he was as a teenager and decided to make a change for himself and then set out to become a doctor and help people.

Sometimes I imagine he went to college in a more liberal environment than he grew up in Roswell. Maybe he was still dickish in college because it seems like his dad getting sick was kind of his catalyst, but he was still learning and growing. Then he gets to med school. First year is brutal. Kyle spends more time in the library than his apartment. But at least he’s not alone. Nope, he’s got his study buddy that he met on the first day of orientation and just bonded with instantly. And because of the craziness that is being a first year med student and trying to do well in his classes and not flunk out or burn out like they warn so many students do before they get to become doctors, he doesn’t realize at first that maybe his feelings toward said study buddy are edging past the point of platonic. He doesn’t have time to unpack that because he has anatomy and pharmacology and biochem and biology and more to worry about so he just pushes those feelings down. He keeps pushing those feelings down until finals are over. He’s survived his first year of medical school. His whole class has taken over one of the local bars to celebrate being done for the summer. He’s had a few drinks. He always gets more touchy-feely when he’s been drinking. He finds his study buddy in the bar and gives him a big hug, and thanks him for being his rock through this first year because Kyle really didn’t think he would have survived without him. And then there is a moment, as Kyle pulls out of the hug, and his eyes flick down toward the other guy’s lips. It’s just for a split second, but long enough for some of those feelings he pushed deep down to start to surface. He’s a little thrown, because he’s not gay. Maybe he hasn’t dated in a while because he’s been too busy with school, but he still knows he likes women. He pushes those feelings back down and locks them away for another time and goes back to celebrating with his classmates that they survived first year. Maybe Kyle doesn’t go home to Roswell that summer. No, instead he got a fancy internship at a cancer research center. Sure the job was just doing data collection and he didn’t see much outside of an excel sheet for days at a time, but this was the kind of thing that would look good on his resume when he would be applying for residencies and he wanted to make sure he was the best candidate he could be to get whatever placement he decided he wanted to pursue. Without the stress of classes and the banal work he was doing, his mind started having more freedom to unpack some of those things he pushed down. He still wasn’t sure if those feelings for his study buddy were real or if he was just conflating attraction with a combination of alcohol, elation, stress, a year of sleep depravation, and whatever else surviving first year med school can do to one’s brain. He didn’t really have anyone to talk to about this. Briefly his mind drifted to Alex and he felt that gut punch for how awful he treated him in high school. But he and Alex weren’t friends, and as far as Kyle knew, Alex was in Iran or Afghanistan or some other war zone. So he turns to the internet. He does some research. He learns some new terms. But he’s still no closer to giving himself any answers. In his searches he comes across a gay bar not too far from the apartment he’s subletting for the summer. No one really knows him here. He’s only here for a couple months anyway. So what’s the harm in checking it out? He sits at the bar nursing a beer, watching but not interacting. He’s out of his element. He doesn’t know why he came. He decided he was just going to finish his drink and leave until someone sat down in the stool next to him and started talking to him. “First time?” the man asked. Kyle didn’t know how to respond. He wasn’t used to anyone approaching him while he was sitting alone at a bar with a drink. Well at least not men anyway. His face must have reacted before his words could because next the man was saying “Relax. Didn’t mean to freak you out. You just looked like maybe you could use someone to talk to.” And yeah that was exactly what Kyle needed. When Kyle finished the beer, the man bought him something strong and fruity with one of those paper umbrellas in it, and Kyle started talking. The man told him it was okay to be questioning and not have the answers right away but also that straight men didn’t usually seek answers from gay bars and walk away finding the answer is heterosexuality. Kyle wasn’t any less confused by the end of the night, but he was feeling better about it all. A few weeks later, he kissed a boy for the first time, and he liked it! It was almost like there was a weight he didn’t even realize was there was lifted from his chest, and he was feeling free. When the local Pride festival happened, he let his new friends paint pink, purple, and blue stripes on his cheek. And that is the story of how Kyle Valenti figured out he is bisexual.

#kyle valenti #rnm #i've just been having a lot of thoughts and feelings lately about kyle realizing he isn't straight during his time away from roswell #but maybe then once he came back he reverted back into parts of his old self #obviously he's not a dick anymore but roswell isn't exactly an open welcoming place for those who are different #and maybe this is why he hangs out at planet 7 sometimes #even if he came out to himself and maybe he was out oustide of roswell he's still learning how to be that person in roswell #and lowkey but i imagine forrest being someone who can help him merge those two worlds #but my forrestkyle thoughts are thoughts for a different post

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