It's rare for him to like someone he doesn't trust, but Marshall likes Wade.
He gives him no end of shit about his foray into hip-hop when they first meet, while Wade demonstrates his boneless agility with a tight double-snap jump. It hurts Marshall's knees like a motherfuck, and Wade makes him do it forty-five times to the beat of one of Quo's crappier nonhits.
He makes his point. In the practice room, at least, the great Eminem dances to Wade's tune.
He takes to insulting Wade to control his panting. "You get--much ass with that--monkey twat--haircut?" or "You could steal--a watermelon between--them skinny thighs--your boyfriend--fuck like a freight train?"
Wade just laughs at his shit, and adds some Satanic cardiovascular-endurance feat to the routine. The video producers backing his funding always love it because Wade's a Genius, and put a ridiculous deadline on incorporating it into the shoot.
He has to learn to keep his fucking mouth shut, Marshall thinks, as Wade makes him stand on his elbows in a tripod and then flow down into a full-body roll. He's supposed to be on his feet by the count of five, but his legs keep flopping over and thwacking the mat between three and four, and his recovery time's never good enough.
Wade struts around him in his stovepipe khakis with the ass-ugly red cargo strap belt and claps the beat, chanting "I don't know but I been told, Marshall Mathers is getting old. Sound off, one two, sound off, he hits the floor, five six, maybe he's sick--"
After two hours he tells Wade that his mama's crotch crickets made him retarded and threatens to send his name to a pen-pal program for violent sex offenders. He can't help it. His mouth and his brain are one single, stupid synapse. He has a thought and bzzt! it comes out and next thing he knows, he's twisted into some kind of fucking yoga pose to increase his flexibility.
"You really are out of shape for your age," Wade tells him with jolly concern, strolling around Marshall as he tries to pummel a cramp out of one of his calves. "You don't use any discipline in your exercise routine, you don't stretch unless I make you, you don't do enough cardio work--"
Marshall can't take his hands off his calf to deliver his customary dual-digit salvo, because when he stops bracing the tortured muscle, the pain makes him want to curl up and cry like a kindergartener. He doesn't have the wind to curse. As the final recourse of self-expression, he sticks out his tongue.
Wade falls down laughing.
"Shut the fuck up," Marshall snarls at Wade's trembling body. "M'mouth's too dry to spit at you."
His calf gives a spasm so sharp that he actually moans, catching his lip between his teeth. Fucking demographic research. Fucking increasing the fanbase. Fucking "cutting edge choreography". How cutting edge can anything be coming from a guy who pulls his socks over his fucking pants cuffs?
"Here," Wade says, walking over on his knees and grasping Marshall's leg with his hands. They're still unsteady with laughter, but as Wade tightens his grip, the spasm in the muscle eases. "Now point your toe."
"I can't, man, it fucking *hurts*."
"It'll stop if you do what I say," Wade says patiently. He inches his hand higher, pressing a spot behind Marshall's knee that makes him want to shrivel up in a ball and die. "Now point your toe as hard as you can."
He does. There's a blurt of liquid pain, like a flash fire in his blood, and he pushes through it. "Fuck fuck fuck--"
"Good," Wade says, unperturbed. "Now I want you to bring your foot up and flex it back, toe toward your knee."
"No--Jesus, this hurts like a--"
"Do it!"
"Ow--ah Jesus, Jesus Christ, ow fuck OW--"
"Keep it up, there you go. Work the muscle. Flex and point or it's never gonna stop--"
"Fuck fuck FUCK--" He flexes and points, flexes and points, flexes and points like he's rehearsing for Swan Lake, and it won't stop, it's worse than a fucking Rottweiler bite and he thought it was bad before but no, hell no, this is moving up the scale toward getting shot. He starts to plan Wade's funeral, on the off chance that his efforts at physical therapy are some form of pop-prodigy vengeance for underappreciation. Maybe Nsync paid him off.
"Oh...oh fuck, fuck," he pants, and the pain crests. Sweat carpets his body, a red curtain closes his eyes. "Ohhh."
"Okay?" Wade asks after a while. Marshall opens his eyes to the ceiling, his back flat on the mat. The only sound is their breathing. "You blacked out."
"Bullshit," he says, mortified.
"It's okay, man, no shame. You're not as toned as Britney. Bound to happen."
"I wanna kick your ass so fucking bad."
"Take it easy, tiger," Wade says, grinning. "You might pull something."
"You're shitting me," Marshall mutters after a second of inarticulate rage. He struggles to sit up. "I passed out."
"It's not that uncommon," Wade says, and then laughs. "For a wuss."
"Suck me." It's hard not to like Wade, with his weed-whacked hair and Clockwork Orange eyelashes and perpetual deadpan stare. It's hard not to pound his face until his lips spread open over his teeth, too. "You really make Timberlake cry?"
"That's a vicious, unfounded rumor. He didn't cry. He begged."
"I bet he did," Marshall snorts. "All fucking night."
"You have some serious issues with your sexuality," Wade notes. "That's understandable, though. You probably don't get any decent play. Just some skanky bitches who'd tell you your dick was solid gold for the chance to sell the story. It's a good thing you *aren't* gay," he goes on, wrapping a towel around a heatpack and tossing it into Marshall's lap. "Gay men are usually more...particular."
"You're saying I'm not good enough for a fag," Marshall clarifies. He stands gingerly, pain lancing to his knee, and perches on the bench. "Christ. So tell me, Wade. What does the discriminating ass-packer look for in a man?"
"How should I know?"
"You're a dancer and shit. I mean, what guy who likes pussy wants to be a choreographer?"
"You're a dancer and shit," Wade says, coming back from the minifridge with a bottle of blue Gatorade and some tablets. "Take these. Salt tabs and a multivitamin."
Marshall eyes the pills distrustfully. "What the fuck do I need that for?"
"You deplete your body of minerals when you sweat a lot," Wade says, as if Marshall just rolled off the short bus. "Just take the things, they're not gonna turn you Republican. You smoke pot that came into LA up some syphilitic immigrant's ass, but you're too pure to take salt pills?"
"Fine. Shit." Marshall takes the tablets, washing them down with Gatorade, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "Suppose I gotta stretch out now."
Wade looks surprised. "I already did some passive manipulation on you, but yeah. It wouldn't hurt to do a ten-minute cooldown."
"Passive--what? You did what when?"
"While you were checked out, I stretched you out a little. Made sure you were loose." Wade laughed abruptly. "You know, that didn't come out like I meant."
Marshall laughs too. Wade needs a wheelbarrow to cart his balls. He slides on the floor and bows over his crossed legs for the first stretch. "Fucking right it didn't."
"Yeah, can't get enough of your tight, tattooed body," Wade lisps. "Oh, Marshall, you're soooo sexy. Men with freckles turn me on--"
"I don't have freckles," Marshall says, voice muffled. His head's buried between his thighs as he eases his lower back. "Get your eyes checked."
"Do too," Wade counters. "All redheads have freckles. Bleach doesn't work on that shit."
"I don't have--" And suddenly Wade's behind him, close, close behind him. He can feel his proximity like sun from newly opened blinds. He's not sure what he expects, just knows he's been expecting something for a couple of weeks.
Wade tongue-kisses the back of his neck. It's so light, he could almost mistake it for a puff of breath, but when Wade pulls away, he can feel a spot of cool. "That was a freckle. You have a bunch more."
He stares at the scuffed places on the mat, at his wrinkled sweats, at the shifting motes of dust, at the rippled windowglass. He's not at the right angle to see Wade in the wall mirror, but he knows what he looks like, fuzzy-headed bony-wristed big-eyed kid. "Where?"
"Here," Wade says, and daubs Marshall's neck with his tongue again, closing his lips this time. They're chapped, but soft. He drags the blade of his tongue to the bone at the base of Marshall's skull. "And here."
Marshall has freckles all the way down his spine, freckles on his ears, on his shoulderblades. They're sprinkled in his hair. Wade connects them with his tongue, flags them with quiet kisses. He can't beat Marshall for silence, though; his gasps are as soundless as the arch of his back.
Wade whispers, "Closet case," his sticky hand still trapped against Marshall's stomach by the waistband of his sweats.
Marshall doesn't trust Wade, but he likes him. "You're not the first to think so."
He lets him chew on that one a little, turns to face Wade on his creaking knees.
Wade looks confused, the dawn coming slow. He's only nineteen. He smiles finally, scrubbing at his disaster of a haircut. "Nice scam."
Marshall shrugs. Folds one of his legs back and bends over the other one, stretching the hamstring like Wade showed him six weeks ago.
"Did you even have a fucking cramp?" Wade asks sharply.
"Yeah, I had a cramp. I'm not that desperate for a handjob."
Wade laughs, and laughs, and then laughs some more, holding his side. "Jesus Christ. This is...Jesus. Fuck me."
"If I do, will you lay off with the goddamn half-pikes? They make my shorts crawl up my ass."
Wade laughs himself weak, lying on his back on the floor mat. Marshall sees he's half-hard, filling out the front of his loose slacks, and wonders if he's wearing anything under there. "I think we can work out some kind of barter system."
"If I can make you come in less than five minutes, I get to sleep in til eight tomorrow." His body fucking *aches* for sleep. He never gets enough. And it'll amuse him to make Wade pant and beg for once.
Wade's eyes flare wide, and the inside of his lower lip is wet where it parts from the top one. "Deal."