The Blame Game By Lady Arianna
	Title: The Blame Game Disclaimer: I wish I owned them. Not making any money, not implying anything, don't sue the high school student, blah blah blah. Rating: PG-13 for language, talk about m/m slash and incest Notes: I swore to myself I wouldn't write this. Dammit all, look at what I did. I also inexplicably ditched the accents for this one. I honestly don't know why. Hmm. I'm odd that way. It's mostly a dialogue piece with random spurts of narration here and there. It just came off the top of my head in the course of about twenty minutes, so obviously it's not any great work of literature or anything. For Stas, for obvious reasons. It's her idea, too. :) ****** Even at twenty-five, the best response at any stage in an argument was always, "you started it." Matt Hardy looked up from the magazine opened in his lap, raised a single brow, yawned, and turned the page. Twenty-some-odd years with his brother had taught him many things, only one of which was that Jeff said strange things at strange times for strange reasons. "I did?" Matt humored the younger man, not bothering this time to look up from the story in Entertainment Weekly that wasn't particularly interesting to him anyway. "What'd I start?" "This," Jeff replied in a huff, waving his hand about in a decidedly eccentric movement. "This whole gay thing. It's your fault." "Gay thing?" "Don't play stupid!" Matt blinked. "Uh..." "You did this t'me! Lookit me!" Jeff cried, turning the gesture-crazy hand to himself, pointing to his neon green fishnet shirt. "I used to be straight! I used to have at least *some* credibility with women! Dad doesn't even believe me when I say I'm straight anymore!" "That's 'cause you're not." "Goddammit, Matt, I hate you." Another page turned. "Whatever." Jeff stalked across the room, picking the magazine out of Matt's hands only to roll it up and smack him hard in the head with it. "You sabotaged me." "I can't sabotage you if I don't even know what I did!" "You turned me gay!" Gaping, Matt sat in stunned silence for a moment before making a thwarted attempt to grab his magazine back. "Okay, look. It was one time. I didn't think I was emotionally scarring you for life or anything." Judging by the look on his face, Jeff was rather unimpressed with Matt's pathetic self-defense plea. "Oh, no, it's never anything life-changing when your older brother seduces you --" "Oh, please, you sound like some trashy romance novel character." "--and makes you think you should be a star on Jerry Springer." Matt rolled his eyes, finally succeeding in grabbing the magazine away from Jeff's grip. "You can't pin all this on me." "And why the hell not?" "You wore nail polish and put your hair in pigtails long before I...y'know." "Stole my innocense?" "For God's sake, Jeff, stop acting like such a damn martyr. You're makin' me sound like a pedophile or somethin'." "Maybe that's 'cause you are." Remaining speechless for a few moments, Matt quickly scanned over an ad for an upcoming movie, feigning interest in it until Jeff once again snatched it away, though this time declining to use it as a weapon. "Do you have any idea how many snickers and remarks I got Monday night after the whole Trish incident? Do you? You never got that many after kissin' Amy!" "That's 'cause I don't wear platforms and paint myself to look like the Swamp Thing," Matt replied cooly, folding his arms over his chest. Jeff, seething, threw the magazine at his brother. "Fuck you, Matt." "I thought that's what you were mad at me about? Consistency, Jeff! It's all about consistency!" "Fuck you!" Angry and out of insults, Jeff slumped down on the couch and glared at Matt. Oh, how he was glaring. Matt, naturally, seemed not to notice, so Jeff shifted into a different position. And again. And again. And again, until finally the noise his track pants made by rustling together urged Matt to heave a suffering sigh and glance up, annoyed. "What?" "You're the sole reason Dad's never gonna be a grandpa. You know that, right?" "And here I thought he had such high hopes of getting grandkids from the son who wears skirts on a regular basis." "It's original." "It's stupid." "It's unique!" "Uniquely stupid, yeah." "It's fucking punk!" Matt offered a skeptical grin. "I don't remember seeing any of the Ramones wearing skirts." "Fuck you." "You're going in circles, Jeff. 'Sides, I thought that was what brought this whole conversation up, anyway?" "No, the fact that everyone laughs at me if I check out a girl is what brought this conversation up." "Jeff, people laugh at you all the time for more reasons than that." Scowling, Jeff sunk lower into the couch cushions. "I don't remember you being this mean before." Matt just shrugged his indifference. "I really can't believe you don't think you're even partially responsible for all this." "Jeff, I don't mean to be the one to shatter any image you've built of yourself in your head, but you had a giant blinking rainbow over your head before we ever did anything." "And another thing!" Jeff went on, seemingly ignoring anything Matt may have tried to say on his behalf. "You didn't think it was bad enough to turn me gay --" "Oh, for Christ's...Jeff, I didn't turn you gay!" "--but you turned me into the punchline of every Southern joke ever made!" "I think you did that yourself." "Stop trying to turn this around on me!" Exasperated, Matt smacked the heel of his hand against his forehead. "Honestly, Jeff, do you ever really think about what you're saying before you say it? Or do you just blurt out the first coherent words that pop into your head?" "Fuck you." "Stunning vocabulary, let me tell ya." A heavy silence filled the room, broken when Matt rearranged himself in the overstuffed lounge chair to get a better look at his brother. "So. Truthfully. Do you wanna be straight?" "Why? You gonna wave your magic wand and make me like women if I say yes?" "Just answer my question. Do you?" Jeff paused to think it over, sighed, and then gave a slight toss of his shoulders. "I dunno." "Which might as well be a no. I'm not a bad influence," Matt went on, smirking. "I just ... broadened your horizons." "You turned me gay." "Did not." "Did so!" "I did not!" "You got me drunk when I was seventeen and pretty much damned both of us to hell in the course of a couple hours!" "I was broadening your horizons, dammit!" A second round of silence covered them before Matt noticed Jeff smiling at him, growing somewhat unnerved by it. "What?" "Thanks." "For?" "For turning me gay." "I didn't." "Whatever." Matt drew his bottom lip into his mouth, chewing on it thoughtfully until he got the nerve to start an argument of his own. "Y'know, now that I think of it, I'm not so sure you didn't turn me gay." "Huh?" "Well, I used to like girls, and then you had to start dressing like one with a goatee and..." "Whoa, whoa, whoa," Jeff interrupted, holding his hand out. "You're not gonna blame this on me. I had nothin' t'do with it." Passion suddenly renewed, Matt straightened in his seat, eyes widening. "Fuck! You *did* turn me gay!" "I did not!" "It's your fault! Like, when you'd ask me if something was too tight on you and stuff! You little shit, you conned me!" Jeff, stunned into temporary quiet, just blinked at Matt. "Here all this time I thought I was the one corrupting you." "At least you admit it." Matt slumped against the back of the chair, floored by the new revelation. "Well, damn. That brings up a whole new question." "Who turned who gay?" "Exactly. I'm saying you." "I'm rubber, you're glue an' all that." "Go to Hell, Jeff." "Prob'ly will. Thanks t'you, we'll get to join the special incestuous gay club there with the rest of the Springer yahoos, too." "I wonder if you get badges and stuff for recruiting new members to the club? You know, like boy scouts?" "Yeah, the rainbow merit badge." "You wouldn't have enough room on your vest, though." "Shut up." Plucking at the bare threads across his knees where the jeans had worn out, Matt looked up sheepishly at the younger man. "Hey Jeff?" "Yeah?" "Still love me?" Jeff pretended to give some consideration to that, then let a lazy grin cross his lips. "Yeah, I guess so." "Cool." "Hey Matt?" "Hmm?" "Still love me?" "Not really." "Then gimme my shirt back." Laughing, Matt crossed the short distance between them and flopped down on the couch beside Jeff, looping an arm around his shoulders and toying absently with a loose strand of aqua-colored hair. "Y'know what?" "What?" "I think we turned each other gay." "I think it was more like two-thirds your fault, one-third mine." "Queer." "Queer converter." "That sounds like a superhero." "I wonder if Shane needs a tag partner. I can see it now: The Hurricane and his trusty sidekick, Queer-Converter." "For some reason, I don't think the sponsors would like that." "Maybe, but they might buy it if we said it was your idea. You come up with all the good ideas, y'know. Superhero sidekicks, ways to make your brother an even bigger social outcast than he already is by turning him gay..." With a quiet snort of laughter, Matt pulled Jeff closer and planted a quick kiss on his temple. "You're such an obnoxious little creep, you know that?" "You made me that way." "Wouldn't have it any other way."