Fucking Fag
That douchebag didn’t look quite so tough right then, reeling back away from Zac and clutching at his face. In fact, he looked equal parts confused, embarrassed and angered. The anger won out, I suppose, because he soon turned his raised hand into a fist and launched it at Zac.
I was rooted on the spot, unable to even believe what was happening in front of me. Zac dodged the first punch, somehow, but I knew that I couldn’t just stand there and let Zac fight this guy. I had to break the fight up. If not me, then someone definitely needed to put a stop to it.
When the guy actually did manage to land a punch to Zac’s face, I snapped out of my trance. I leaped forward and wrapped my arms around Zac from behind, pulling him back with as much force as I could manage. At the same time, some of the other venue staff seemed to materialize out of thin air, and they restrained the other guy.
“Let me go!” Zac growled, turning his head to glare at me. He didn’t even seem surprised that I was the one to come to his rescue – just angry.
He struggled to get free of my grip, and I knew I wasn’t strong enough to hold him if he really wanted free. Seamus appeared by my side – I guess the fight had been loud enough to attract some attention – and placed his own hand firmly on Zac’s shoulder. It wasn’t much, but I greatly appreciated any help.
“Zac, just chill out,” I said. “Whatever it is, it is so not worth fighting over.”
I had a feeling I knew what it was, though. I just didn’t want to give a voice to it. I had naively hoped that those homophobes would stay relatively civil, but I supposed that was just too much to wish for.
“Yeah, whatever,” Zac finally said, jerking free of us and stalking off.
At least he wasn’t going back to finish the fight, I decided. The other guy was still fuming on the other side of the stage, surrounded by his coworkers. Zac was probably going to have an impressive black eye, but this guy looked like he had been run over by a truck. That was my little brother for you. I was pretty sure Zac hadn’t lost a fight since he was about twelve and still slightly smaller than me. He might not have finished this fight, but from the looks of things, he had still won.
“Can’t believe you got your ass handed to you by some fucking fag,” one of the other guys mumbled.
Some fucking fag? That took me by surprise, for some reason. It shouldn’t have, though. All three of us had been called plenty of names over the years just because of who we were – or rather, who people thought we were. Maybe their animosity tonight hadn’t had anything in particular to do with me after all.
Shay’s hand on my shoulder reminded me that he was still there by my side. I turned to face him, offering him an apologetic smile. I hated that he had stepped into the middle of this fight with Zac. It certainly couldn’t have improved his opinion of my little brother, and it probably didn’t do much for the animosity Zac was harboring for both me and Seamus.
“Sorry about that,” I said, letting Seamus steer me off the stage and away from the scene of the crime, as it were. “Zac has kind of a short temper… I may have mentioned that. Or you may have noticed.”
“I think I’ve noticed, yes,” he replied, smirking. “Don’t worry about it. We all survived.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, we survived this one.”
“I’m sure it’s out of his system by now,” Shay said, holding the side door to the venue open for me.
I hoped he was right. Maybe kicking that guy’s ass would make Zac feel better and fix whatever he was so upset about. I knew part of the problem was me and the way I had confronted him earlier. I had been a major asshole. But when wasn’t I an asshole? He couldn’t beat me up for that every single time it happened. He had probably considered it, though.
Seamus and I walked onto the bus together, and as much as I wanted to just cuddle up with him somewhere, I knew I probably needed to talk to Zac first. I dreaded it, but it seemed unavoidable. Once the bus door was closed behind us, I gave him another apologetic smile and maybe just a hint of puppy dog eyes.
“I’m gonna go check on Zac, okay? But I promise I’ll be back soon…”
Seamus looked a little upset, but he nodded and kissed my cheek. “Yeah, go on. I’ll be here.”
I ignored the jeers and requests to “get a room” from the various others scattered around the front of the bus and walked away, leaving Seamus to deal with them. I knew none of them really meant anything by it.
No one in our band or on our crew was really homophobic. It wasn’t a requirement to work for us, but my… habits… tended to weed out the close minded ones over time. Whatever they said to Seamus in my absence wouldn’t be anything more than a harmless joke or possibly a genuine question about when our relationship had started. It occurred to me that I hadn’t really told anyone about him, aside from Isaac and Zac, but I supposed he was probably more prepared to field questions about it than I was. He could handle himself while I attempted to handle Zac.
As I expected, Zac was in the back of the bus, already plugged into one of his video games. I guess he didn’t plan on going out to greet any fans that night. I couldn’t say that I blamed him; if I’d had an obvious black eye forming, I would have stayed hidden on the bus, too, and avoided their questions. As soon as I locked eyes with him, Zac sprang up from the couch and lunged toward me.
“What the fuck is your problem, Tay?!”
Well, that wasn’t the reaction I was expecting from him, although perhaps it should have been.
“What’s your problem?” I countered, instinctively backing away from him even though he hadn’t thrown a punch yet. “You didn’t need to fight that guy.”
“I disagree,” Zac said, gritting his teeth. “And I don’t really care what you think I should do.”
“People are always going to talk shit about us. You can’t beat them all up,” I said, trying to sound steadier and braver than I felt.
“I can try.”
I rolled my eyes. I knew Zac was capable of rational thought, but there were times when he seemed to be ruled by nothing but his temper. Why couldn’t he see that it didn’t fix anything to just beat people up? Especially if I was part of the reason he had started this fight. Nothing says “he’s a fairy” like your little brother defending your honor.
“But what’s the point?” I asked, my voice somewhere between a growl and a whine. “Douchebags like him are always going to talk about us. You think I want to beat up every guy who calls me gay?”
“I don’t really care whether you do or not.”
“Yeah, well you should! I don’t need you beating up guys just because they saw me holding hands with my boyfriend.”
Zac cringed at that last word, his face turning sad for just a second before flashing back to anger. Lots and lots of anger. I had a feeling that somehow, I had chosen my words really poorly.
“You really think that’s what happened?” Zac asked, but didn’t even give me a chance to reply before continuing. “I don’t know what they saw your dumb ass doing. I know this might be shocking, but not everything in the world is about you.”
“I didn’t say that everything was!” I practically screeched. It really wasn’t one of my manlier moments, and it probably did nothing toward proving that I neither needed nor wanted Zac to defend me.
“You sure as hell implied it,” Zac replied. “I don’t know what that guy saw you do, okay? All I know is what he said to me, and I didn’t appreciate it. He was insulting all of us. What, did you really think I was just defending your honor or some shit?”
“I didn’t—” I stopped myself before I could finish the sentence, because it would have been a complete lie. That was exactly how I had thought of it in my mind, wasn’t it? And wasn’t he? I was suddenly very confused. I thought back to what the other guy had said after the fight. “Look, Zac… it’s not the first time someone has called us fags, is it? What’s the big deal?”
He stared at me as thought it should have been obvious, but it just wasn’t. What was I missing? What had caused Zac to snap tonight, of all nights, when he usually hurled a few insults back and then promptly forgot he had been insulted in the first place? He might have had a temper, but he usually knew how to pick his fights and how to just let some things go.
“What is it, Zac?” I asked, unsure what I was even asking, but knowing that I needed answers.
“Tay… he wasn’t exactly wrong about me.”
I blinked. He wasn’t wrong about what?
Zac just stared back at me. “Tay, I am a fucking fag.”
I still only blinked dumbly at him. I’m not sure why that came as such a shock to me. It made a certain kind of sense; after all, he had given me head just the day before. That sort of thing hinted at a guy not really being straight. But how could I have just not known that my own brother was gay?
“Like I said,” Zac said, pulling me out of my trance. “Not everything in the world is about you. If you realized that, maybe you’d notice other people’s problems, too.”
He turned his back on me then and busied himself with his video game, effectively ending the conversation and, as usual, ensuring that he had the last word. Not that I had any words for him right then, anyway. It was one of those rare moments when something actually managed to render me speechless.
I turned around and slid the door open, then began the not nearly long enough walk back to the front of the bus. How was I going to explain this to Seamus? No. It wasn’t mine to explain. Zac could come out when he was ready; it wasn’t my place to force, or even nudge, him out of the closet.
The closet. Come out. It felt so weird to apply those terms to Zac. He was my little brother. And, apparently, he was gay.