Title: The Sharp Edge in the Silk
Author: Kelandris the Mad
Fandom: View Askewniverse, somewhen around Chasing Amy
Pairing: Jay/Silent Bob
Rating: R for themes of homosexuality, implied sex, male-male 
kissing, references to prostitution and adult themes.
Status: New; posted to the list 23 Septus, 2002
Archive: The traditional places. If you don't know what the 
traditional places are, you might want to write and ask. And here's 
how:
Feedback: kel@crazysheep.net
Series/Sequels: Think this is the last of it, and starla, I'm very, 
very sorry I didn't sequel this sooner. This is the third in the 
set, the first two being "Razors" and "Ribbons". (Dear. Gods. She 
wrote a *TRILOGY*??? Is she feeling okay?)
Disclaimers: Jay and Silent Bob belong to Kevin Smith's fevered 
imagination. What I do with them belongs to mine. Nobody this end 
of the screen's getting paid for this and no copyright infringement 
is intended.
Notes: Same song that started this off is going through my head even 
now--Sisters of Mercy's "Ribbons". That's been the guiding force 
behind all three of these pieces. And I've still got vampire sex 
floating through my head, so it influenced this a bit. And then for 
some reason, it *still* got sappy at the end, I have *no* idea why!
Warnings: Language. Angst. Limited boy torture. Sex 'n love n' pain, 
the big three.
Dedication: This one is again, to starla, who has more than enough 
pain to deal with in her young life. Remember, you get the best 
fruit on the tree only when you trim the best blossoms from it.

"The Sharp Edge in the Silk"
by Kelandris


It's a long ride home. Bob wants to say so much less than even his 
usual nothing, he can barely look at Jay. Jay alternately trembles 
and twitches next to him, his hands moving in his lap, washing over 
each other, white-knuckled and shaking. Once the cab drops them off, 
they walk up the stairs, Bob moving through his own field of nearly 
visible quiet. Jay's generating nearly visible sparks in the air all 
around him, but holds his tongue. 

Bob would thank him for that, if he had words. If he had any words 
at all.

By the time he slides the key in the lock his throat has locked up, 
and he's having a little difficulty breathing through it. He walks 
inside, knowing Jay will follow, and sits on the leather couch. 
Suddenly, the events of tonight finally hit, and he collapses into 
the soft padding of the couch back, tired beyond all reason. He's 
too tired to move; too tired to kick off his shoes; too tired to take 
off his trench.

Jay sits uneasily next to Bob, looking at him. He holds his hands 
folded between his legs, and he's actually sitting still. Bob looks 
over and Jay immediately looks down, for a moment just there, frozen 
in the act of inhaling. The wheat-sheaf gold of his hair glimmers 
under streetlight reflections from outside.

And Bob has no idea what to say to him. He doesn't know what he 
caught, if anything, of what he said to Tom. He doesn't know what 
Jay thinks he knows. He doesn't know if honesty is his best bet, if 
outright lying would be good here, if subtle misdirection would be 
enough. He honestly doesn't know. The future, the *present* beyond 
this single moment, is a grey blur to him. There are no visible 
paths that he can see.

And then Jay looks up again, tucking a section of hair behind his ear.

"Lunchbox?" he says, his voice sounding far younger than his 
seventeen years.

Bob looks over. **Come on, brain,** he thinks. **Work with me, 
here.**

He opens his mouth to speak, and nothing, not even carbon dioxide, 
comes out. His throat is stoppered shut from the work of his fists 
on a man who richly earned everything he got, and more, even. He 
watches Jay, eventually closing his mouth, and wonders what Jay's 
going to say next.

Jay surprises him. He slowly crumples against the couch, breathing 
as if he's been punched in the gut.

"You hate me," he says painfully.

Bob shakes his head violently, and then realizes Jay couldn't 
possibly have seen him, with his face pressed against the couch like 
that. He touches Jay, trying to articulate, trying to say something, 
*anything*--

--and Jay rears back, scrabbling to the far end of the couch.

"Don' touch me, don' touch me, fuck, *don't*, I know you don't want 
to, I can't, an' I, you don' know, I can't tell you, and you--you--
you'd hate me if you knew, you would so fuckin' hate me, man, you'd 
just *kill* me--"

"No," Bob says, his throat unfreezing. "No, never, I would never--"

But it didn't seem to matter, Jay's spilling out words, spilling out 
denials, spilling like a valve has opened in his heart and he's left 
spraying blood over the entire apartment--

And not thinking, not even stopping to reflect, Bob reaches for Jay, 
pulls him into his arms, shuts up the moving mouth against his 
shoulder. Jay shudders, twitches, tries to pull away from him, but 
he holds on, he holds Jay fast, he holds him close.

And finally, Jay stills in his arms, and it's just breathing now. 
His breathing. Jay's breathing. Just breathing.

"Bob?" Jay says. His voice is very small, and shaking. Bob looks 
down.

And Jay reaches up for Bob with his long, long fingers and tangles 
them in Bob's brown hair and pulls Bob towards him, pulls him down. 
And he kisses him. 

It's like the first time Bob saw fireworks. He heard them go off 
before he saw them, and wondered what the great muffled *thud* had 
been, and then the first spray of color filled the sky. He still 
remembers it--a great chrysanthemum blossom, filling half the sky, in 
bright actinic white and gold. When it fades from view, it fades to 
puffs of smoke, trails, as if a bomb had gone off in midair and these 
were the charred fragments of the casing, falling to earth.

It wasn't until much later that he realized, he'd been absolutely 
right.

Jay kissing him is like that: the shock of contact between them 
while he's still trying to figure out what happened, and then the 
burst of sparkling stars over his consciousness. 

**Jay's tongue is in my mouth. Jay's tongue is in my mouth and I'm 
kissing him. Jay's tongue is in my mouth and I'm kissing him and 
he's kissing me *back*...Oh, man...**

And it seems like time speeds up, then, time speeds up and races away 
from them. They can't get their clothes off fast enough, scrambling, 
falling, moving quickly to the first bed they happened across, which 
happened to be Bob's. And every time he separates himself from Jay's 
mouth he thinks he's going to die from lack of oxygen. And then 
Jay's mouth is on his skin and Jay's mouth is on his belly and Jay's 
mouth is on his *cock*--

And it's nothing like watching him with Tom. Nothing. It's so much 
better than the furtive back-alley assignations he'd seen. It's so 
much better than his imagination.

And when the frantic rush is over, when their bodies are sated from 
kisses, and sucking, and licking, and coming...he holds Jay securely in 
his arms, feeling the ashes of his consciousness drifting towards 
sleep. There's only one more thing to do. Only one more thing to 
say.

"I love you," he murmurs against Jay's shining hair.

"Shit," Jay says, mumbling, half-asleep. "Like I din't know that..."

***

Five weeks later.

Bob taps out a new cig from the pack, slides out his red Nails 
lighter and flicks it open, sending a three-inch spike of flame into 
the air for a split second. He closes the lighter. He opens it 
again and the flame's behaving as he sticks the end of the cig into 
the center of the burning, and inhales. He scans the crowd for Jay.

Over on the dance floor, as usual. Talking up some dark-haired 
girl. Nothing's changed.

It hits him, in that moment. Nothing really has, has it? After that 
night, he and Jay are just...suddenly lovers. It almost feels 
completely accidental. The past few weeks have been strange, too. 
They still hang out. They still deal. They still run from the mall 
cops and the real cops and have grand adventures, very few of them 
imaginary, though very few of their small circle of friends believe 
the stories Jay tells.

And Jay still calls him a fag and a homo and taunts him with the body 
he would never have, in public. While in private...shit, he's 
learned some things on the street. And he's steadily working through 
the manual, night after night, sending Bob into states of ecstasy he 
thinks only *gods* can achieve. Jesus.

He watches Jay as he walks back with tonight's girl. Yeah. And 
that's another thing, Jay's still picking up girls. It irks him 
slightly--Jay throws a fit every time some attractive young thing 
shows an interest in *Bob*--but he doesn't want to lose Jay, he 
doesn't want to put too many rules and restrictions on him. He is 
the walking wounded, still: bad memories on parade and more on tap. 
Bob does *not* want to dredge anything up.

Tonight's girl is pretty enough, but nearly swallowed in a long, 
black coat. Sparkling, dark eyes peek out over the high collar, and 
her little pixie's face is bright and animated. She has a little 
round figure and shoulder-length brown hair and she's smoking a clove 
cigarette that she dangles between black-nailed hands and Bob sees 
red as they step up beside him.

He tosses the cigarette into the table's ashtray, and fights the 
growl back as Jay's hand encircles her waist.

"This's Robin, Lunchbox," he says.

Bob says nothing. He clenches his fists, trembling.

**I will not hit Jay I will not hit Jay I will not hit Jay I will not 
hit--**

Something of this internal struggle must have communicated itself to 
Jay, because he excuses himself from the girl and pulls Bob off to 
one side.

"What is it?"

Bob says nothing. Bob doesn't trust himself to speak. He watches, 
eyes burning, as Jay lifts one of his clenched fists, stroking over 
his wrist, over the back of his hand.

"You're crazy jealous, my man," he says softly. Bob's eyes fly to 
his, searching for the answer he so desperately needs. Did he set 
this up, the stoner fuck? *Did he*?

"You don't like her," Jay continues.

Bob inhales slowly, counts to ten. When he speaks, his voice is 
equally soft, but there are edges in the silk.

"I don't like her," he repeats back.

Jay looks at her, looks at Bob, and shrugs.

"She's gone."

Bob looks at the girl, standing at the table. He watches as she 
checks her watch irritably. He watches as Jay walks over, tossing 
his head towards the back of the room. The blond makes some gesture 
indicating Bob, and the girl frowns, but shrugs, walking back into 
the crowd. Well. That's easy enough.

His eyes narrow. That's *too* fucking easy, actually. *Had* Jay set 
this up?

Jay comes back, staring at him. He folds his arms against his chest, 
leaning back in a cocked-hip, streetwise pose that Bob knows for a 
fact now, he's practiced against the mirror in his room.

"You don't fuckin' trust me," he says. Bob's still searching for the 
trap in the wire. He doesn't respond until Jay taps his face, 
leaning in.

"You gotta fuckin' *tell me* you don't like somethin', you silent 
fuck. That means *talk to me* `bout this shit once in a while. 
Think you can do that? Will it break your motherfuckin' Jedi cool?"

Bob glares, and Jay only looks at him.

"Need the words, crazy man," he says. "Need the words or I go pick 
Robin back up and you gets to listen to us on the other side of the 
wall as I pound her sweet ass into jelly."

Red haze rises behind Bob's eyes again. He feels like he's breathing 
smoke, not air. His lungs feel charred.

"When I could be poundin' *your* ass, sweetness," Jay says. He leans 
forward, pecking Bob on the cheek quickly, and pulls back, 
embarrassed and slightly angry himself.

All the jealousy drains out of Bob in a sudden rush. PDA from the 
stoner. Who the hell saw that coming?

"Okay," Bob grates. It's all he can say. It's the only thing he can 
force out of his lips to make the red haze drop. Apparently it's 
enough.

"Okay. Oh-fuckin'-*kay*, Lunchbox. So, `nen, let's go home, huh?"

Home. Home with Jay. Absolutely. Bob follows the string of 
spattered metal words that fill the air in front of him, riding the 
crest of Jay's wave, all the way home.

END
******************* 
Kelandris the Mad
saltpeter in the spices, chicken bones in the incense drawer