The Boy Next Door, Chapter Three

[hotbaguettes69]

Title: The Boy Next Door
Author: hotbaguettes69
Chapter: Three
Rating: PG
Pairing: Pierre/David
Word Count: 4168
Theme Song for this chapter: Jump Then Fall - Taylor Swift
Summary: David and Pierre have been next door neighbours for as long as they can remember. They've gone to the same school, even had some classes together, but David barely ever noticed or acknowledged Pierre, until one morning that had the potential to change their lives forever...

Pierre'd showered, changed, and changed, and changed, until he looked as close to perfect as he thought he could, and was now standing at the front door about to leave when a voice came from behind him.
"Where are you going?" She asked sternly. For a moment, his mother almost sounded like a jealous girldriend. He turned around slowly, brow creased. Why was she acting so crazy all of a sudden? Like, what did she expect him to say? 'Oh I'm just on my way over to fuck David in the middle of the day on the couch beside his parents. Have a nice afternoon!' no. Why was it so bad for him to spend time with a guy he liked?
"Over to David's to hang out...?" He said, hoping his tone showed her how ridiculous she was being. Her features hardened instantly.
"I don't think that's a very good idea..." She said, raising her eyebrows authoritatively. 
Who does she think she is? David's a great guy...

"Why not?" Pierre asked, not even making the slightest attempt to hide his anger.
His mother stared at him, hard faced, for a moment, then sighed.
"BECAUSE PIERRE. I am your mother and I want what's best for you and I don't know if David's it. You slept over at his house the first time you hung out, which would be fine if you didn't have a crush on him, but you do! And the other day, I saw you walked to school leaving the car, so I bring it to the school so you don't have to walk home, and then get a call from the school saying you used it to cut class! Then, Sadie from my book club sees you and Jeff at the mall talking about finding the perfect outfit to look good for someone and honestly, I just don't want you ruining your life for this boy and it feels like it's headed there fast!" His mother said, finishing with a quick shallow breath. Pierre stared at her wide-eyed. He didn't expect the lecture, his mother wasn't the type. But now that he stood, letting the words sink in, he felt his shock turn to anger.
"Those were MY decisions." He started calmly. He was determined to stay calm, in order to apear sane and have his words taken seriously. "Not David's. David didn't tell me to sleep over, I fell asleep. David didn't tell me to cut class, I did that. You have no right to judge somebody else based on MY decisions. So I'm gonna let you get your way this time, but know this..." Pierre stared at his mother who looked utterly trapped.
"You will not stop me from seeing David." Pierre finished, and he turned to storm up the stairs.

When he got in his room, he started pacing back and forth. What am I gonna do? I promised David I would come over, and he's going to think I ditched him...
Pierre's thoughts swirled through his head... when he got an idea.
He practically jumped out of his socks when it came to him and started frantically searching around the room for something... anything... that would work. He dug through his end table drawer... nothing. Went through his closet... nothing. He started digging through his backpack...
Pencils... pens... binder... era-
Pierre sighed out loud. It would have to do. He took the eraser out of his bag along with a notebook, and sharpie, breaking the eraser into two pieces, and taking it all to the window where he sat on his end table looking at his curtains.
He took a long, deep breath, and opened them.
David's curtains were closed. This wasn't good...
How would he even be able to tell if David was in his bedroom?
Pierre inhaled deeply, holding his breath for as long as he could. He would have to take the leap of faith.
He pushed the glass in his window up, opening it. And threw the eraser.
It rebounded off of David's window with a pang, and Pierre held his breath again as he waited for David to come to his window. Pierre watched the numbers change twice on his clock, and realized David was either not in his room, or didn't hear it. So he threw the other piece, and holding his breath again, waited.
This is stupid, even if he comes to the window, he's gonna think I'm lame for even doing this...
Just as Pierre was ready to launch another self-destructive thought, the curtains across from him opened slowly, revealing the confused face of a beautiful teenage boy.
The confusion on David's face quickly melted into happiness as he saw Pierre smiling at him, and Pierre's stomach flipped, which was something he'd never felt before. And even though it scared him, he kind of liked it. He smiled wide at David and couldn't believe they were friends...
Then suddenly he remembered why they were staring at each other. He jumped slightly, and scrambled to get his notebook and marker, scrawling a quick message and holding it to the window.


Pierre watched as David's face fell, disappointed. On one hand, it was kind of a good thing that not spending time with Pierre would make David sad... but at the same time, it still hurt him to see David frown at all. Especially when he had such a beautiful smile.
David's eyes brightened a bit, not in a happy way, but in an 'I just got an idea' way, and he held one finger up to the window, and rushed to the side of the room, out of Pierre's view.
About a minute and a half later, David rushed back to the window with his own sharpie, and a notebook that he automatically held to the window.
It shouldn't have surprised Pierre, but it did, how neat and perfect and beautiful David's writing was.


If it were possible for Pierre to feel any worse, he'd done it. He pursed his lips and wrote the only thing he could think of on the next sheet of paper in his notebook. Feeling a little pressure at how perfect David's writing was, Pierre wrote neater this time...


David smiled a little at this, and Pierre couldn't help but smile back as he watched and waited as David wrote his next message.


Pierre smiled wildly at this message and even though he wasn't sure why, he felt his heart do a hundred flips as he scrambled to punch David's number into the land line that he had on his end table, sitting next to him.
He put the phone to his ear, and watched as David hit a button on his cell phone, and pressed it to his ear.
"Hi..." David said, looking into Pierre's eyes through their windows, and smiling softly.
"Hi..." Pierre said looking down, then back up at David, hunching his shoulders, and smiling, trying to control himself.
"I'd love to walk to school with you." David said, pressing his lips together in an atempt to hide his wide smile. Then he hung up and closed the curtains. Just like that.
Pierre looked across the way, stunned. But it didn't matter... David wanted to walk to school with him. As a friend at least, David liked Pierre. Pierre climbed off the end table and fell back on his bed. His moher was mad at him, he was probably going to get detention for skipping school... but he couldn't think of anything that could make life any better.
...Until his door flew open.

Pierre opened his eyes and sat up to see his mother standing with her hands on her hips, holding the second handset for their landline... and that's when he remembered they had conference calling.
"I.told.you. That you were NOT to see that boy!" His mother said, raising his voice, and also Pierre's anger level.
WHO THE FUCK DOES SHE THINK SHE IS?!?
He stood up, looked her in the eye, and stood his ground. "And I said no." He said.
His mother's eyes widened in shock and she took a step forward. She wasn't backing down.
"Pierre Bouvier you have two seconds to call him back and tell him you do NOT want to be friends with him..." His mother warned, looking angrier than Pierre had ever seen her. Did she think he was two?
As he tried to think of something to say back, he remembered something his mother used to say to him as a kid. He flashed back to the first time she'd said it...

Pierre was at the park with Jeff, playing. Pierre's mom had brought them and was watching them play pirates on the play structure. There were three other kids there, two were in the sandbox and one was playing by himself with a toy, when he put it down to come talk to Pierre and Jeff.
"Um... Hi..." the little boy said in a quiet voice, looking up at Jeff and Pierre from the ground and interrupting their game of pirates. Now, if there's one thing Pierre remembered about his childhood, it was that he HATED getting his games interrupted.
"Hi." He said, a little annoyed.
"Um..." The little boy started and though he couldn't see it back when he was a kid, the boy was really nervous. "I'm Sebastien... I live here now in this town and my brother too." He said in that cute way little kids did. But back then, it wasn't cute. It was just more to keep Pierre away from his game.
"Cool." Pierre said, and by the way Sebastien's face lit up, he could tell the boy didn't know Pierre was being sarcastic, wanting to just get back to his game.
"Yeah!" Sebastien said enthusiastically. "So, uh... that game looks really fun... can I play?" He asked, smiling and raising his eyebrows hopefully. Pierre was angry. How could this boy think he could stop the game like that and then expect them to let him play?!
"Sur-" Jeff started enthusiastically, but Pierre cut him off.
"No! We don't want you to play with us!" Pierre said. He spat the words at the boy, who's eyes got wide and filled with tears. Pierre just brushed it off, not realizing what he'd done. Then went back to the game.
"ARRGH!" Pierre said, raising his hand in a hook towards Jeff who looked, almost sad. He didn't look like he wanted to play anymore. And that's when a different, more familiar voice came from below.

"PIERRE CHARLES BOUVIER, GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW." His mother demanded. He looked over at Jeff, who didn't look confused, but Pierre knew he was, because Pierre himself was confused. He jumped down from the climber, followed by Jeff and looked up at his mother, who bent down to look him in the eye.
"WHY DID YOU TELL THAT BOY HE COULDN'T PLAY WITH YOU?" His mother asked loudly. If her voice had gone up one octave, she would have been yelling. Pierre's eyes got wide, and suddenly he was scared. Not guilty of denying the boy, but scared of getting in trouble. He didn't say a word, simply because he knew nothing he said would be acceptable for his mother.
She looked him stern in the eye, anger flaming around her, speaking quieter, but slowly, which only emphasized her words that much more.
"Since when do we hurt people's feelings on purpose?"
The way she slowly spoke the words, letting them sink into Pierre's skin, and crawling under it, made Pierre realize what he had done. He'd made the boy feel bad, left out. All he wanted to do was play the game...
Even as a child, Pierre knew that nothing he said to his mother now could compensate for making the boy cry.
So without another word to her, he slowly turned and crossed the park to where the boy was sitting on a bench with his mother, swinging his legs, looking down at his lap as she was asking him if he was really sure he wanted to go home.

"Um... hi..." Pierre said nervously, twiddling his thumbs, his eyes flipping back and forth from the ground, to the boy and his mother. The boy's head shot up, looking at Pierre with sad eyes. Pierre looked down at feet for a moment, in shame of how he'd made the boy feel.
When neither the boy, nor his mother said anything to Pierre, he knew it was up to him to speak.
"I'm sorry about what I said. I didn't mean it. I'm real sorry, and if you want to come play pirates with us, that will be really fun..." Pierre said, and even though five minutes ago he'd wanted nothing less than to play with this boy, he really wished the boy would say yes.
But why would he? Pierre was so mean to him...
But it didn't matter. Pierre knew that when he saw the boy's eyes light up, and he smiled. "Okay!" He said excitedly, jumping off the bench, and nothing else had mattered. The two ran off back to the playground to play with Jeff... to play Pirates...

That happened twelve years ago, and to this day, Pierre, Sebastien, and Jeff were best friends. If his mother hadn't said that to him, who knows where he'd be today.
Pierre's mind snapped back to reality. He took a step towards his mother, looked her in the eye, and spoke slowly...
"Since when do we hurt people's feelings on purpose?" He asked her, and as her eyes got wide with anger and shock, he pushed past her and walked straight down the stairs, and out the door.

He wasn't going to David's, but he knew his mother would think he was, which was exactly what he wanted her to think. But regardless of what she thought, he turned in the other direction and walked two streets over to Sebastien's house.

When Seb's mom let him in, Pierre greeted her, and walked straight to Seb's bedroom, where he found him hanging out with Jeff.
Jeff's face lit up with excitement, and Seb's with welcome, given that he didn't know anything about the David thing yet.
"Hey man, how was your date?" Jeff teased, nodding his head toward Pierre. Pierre smiled and rolled his eyes as he closed Sebastien's bedroom door.
Seb looked back and forth between his friends, confused.
"What?! What date?!" He asked somewhat excitedly, somewhat hurt that he obviously was left out of the loop.
Pierre rolled his eyes again. "Nothing..." He said in a dramatic voice that clearly said Shut up, you're going to get my hopes up about this.
"Oh you didn't hear?" Jeff said playfully. "P's gettin' ass!" He finished laughing excitedly as Pierre picked a pillow off Seb's bed and threw it at him. He's taking this a bit far...
"Dude, shut up, you know that's not true." He said smiling as Jeff nodded his head in defeat.
"Yet..." Jeff muttered under his breath. It was so quiet Pierre barely heard it, but he did, and so did Seb. Not that it mattered, he planned to tell his friend about what was going on anyways, he just never got a chance.
"WHAT?! Dude, what am I missing here?! Who is it, what's going on?!" Seb asked confused, hurt, and happy, all at the same time. Pierre knew Seb would be happy for him, which made him feel kind of bad about waiting so long to tell him. But it's not like he could change the past, so he might as well tell him now...
"Okay, well... his name's-" Pierre started.
"IT'S DAVID DESROSIERS, HIS NEIGHBOUR!" Jeff blurted excitedly and honestly, Pierre thought he was acting a bit childish.
He sighed. "Would you like to tell the story?" Pierre asked sarcastically.
"Well actually..." Jeff said hopefully, and Pierre rolled his eyes and tilted his head at his friend, but when Jeff only gave him a more hopefull, sheepish look, Pierre sighed in defeat.
"Go ahead..." He said smiling at his friend. He really was lucky to have his best friends be so cool with this... you know, his sexuality...
"OKAY! SO-" Jeff started, and he rambled on about everything about how Pierre'd liked David since 9th grade, to how they'd walked to school, to finding the outfit at the mall, to Pierre sleeping with David, to promising to go back to David's this morning.
"Which brings us to the present, where our best friend was just about to tell us how it went!" Jeff said excitedly, passing the figurative conversational torch to Pierre.

"I didn't go..." He said.
Pierre had barely gotten the words out when Jeff's eyes practically popped out of his face.
"WHAT?! WHY WOULDN'T YOU GO?!" He panicked, and Seb slapped him in the chest, to say 'stop yelling in my house before my mom hears you.' Jeff gave him an apologetic look, then flipped his attention back to Pierre, who was sitting in Seb's desk chair rather than on the bed with his friends.
"My mom fuckin flipped. She heard we ditched the other day and started going on about how David's ruining my life and she doesn't want me to see him, and I basically told her to go fuck herself and came over here." Pierre explained. "But I did talk to David and he said he wants to walk to school with me tomorrow."
Jeff and Seb both smiled wide, hardly controlling themselves.
"We're real happy for you man..." Seb said, making Pierre glad he had one sane friend who wasn't going to practically fangirl over his love life. Pierre smiled appreciatively, and once again, felt eternally grateful that he'd gone back over that day to talk to the boy in the park.
"Thanks man."

Pierre didn't go home that night. He stayed the night at Sebastien's, and so did Jeff. Not necesarily because he wanted to spend time with his friends, but more to freak out his mother. And it worked.
Pierre walked through the front door, and was planning to go straight to his room, if his mother hadn't come storming around the corner into the front entrance the second the doorknob turned. He immediately rolled his eyes, and tilted his head, exhaling dramatically, trying desperately to show her he didn't care what she had to say, and waiting for her to say something. What was she even doing up waiting for him at 6:30 AM?
"Do not give me that look, you directly disobeyed my orders!" She spit at him furiously.
Her orders?
"Okay, first of all, I'm not a dog." Pierre started in a bored, unimpressed tone. "And Second, I was at Sebastien's phsyco." He said, and with that, turned and left his mother standing stunned at the bottom of the stairs.

As he closed his bedroom door, and found his bed, he lay down instantly, a little stunned himself that he had just said that to his mother. Not that she hadn't been showing some pretty hurtful behaviour herself, but still...
Anyways, he didn't have time to think about it. He had to get ready for school...
Get ready to see David.

When the familiar squeek of the door in his third period class once again drifted through the room, Pierre turned his head to see David walking in. His eyes flicked to the empty seat next to him, then to the board, where he was determined to keep them. He didn't even look when he felt David slide into the seat next to him. Actually, it was tempting, given how surprised he was David even sat with him. After all, after ditching Pierre, leaving him waiting outside his house for fourty-five minutes, and making him late for his first class, sitting with him didn't seem like something David would want. The only thing that confused Pierre now, was did David lead him on... or was it all in his head?
In his peripheral vision, Pierre saw David trying to lean into Pierre's line of vision, but he didn't even flinch.
"Hi..." David asked sounding only half guilty. Pierre sighed internally and turned to look at... at the boy's sad, perfect, beautiful, eyes. And suddenly he just really hoped David had a good excuse, because he didn't want to be mad at him. He wasn't done with him.
"Hi..." Pierre said quietly, looking back at the board. He may have been hoping to forgive David, but that didn't mean he had yet. David didn't say anything for about a minute, taking a breath in every now and again to start talking, and Pierre could tell he was trying to find the right words. And oh how Pierre hoped the words would be right. Because he really was upset  siat what David had done to him, and if he didn't even have a good reason... Pierre didn't know what he would do.
"Look Pierre, I'm really sorry. I had a doctor's appointment during first period, just a checkup. But my mom didn't tell me about it until it was time to rush out the door and... and I feel terrible." David said. His tone had changed drastically and Pierre could tell he really meant it. He looked up at the other boy and smiled weakly.
"Alright, it's cool. Maybe we can hang out tonight?" He asked hopefully. Oh great, now I sound desperate and clingy. Awesome. Go Pierre.
David smiled a genuine smile at the request. "Sure, how 'bout your place?" He asked. Pierre smiled and opened his mouth to say yes, when he remembered that might not be such a good idea. The last thing he needed right now was to have David in the same room with his mother.
"Um... actually, your place would be better, if that's okay?" He asked. Pierre tried desperately to keep his mind away from thoughts about how rude and needy and idiotic he sounded. And it worked, only because David started talking again, consuming all of Pierre's thoughts.
"Yeah, it's not problem. We can walk there together after school... you know, since I missed our date this morning." David said smiling playfully. Pierre laughed and nodded his head, and was going to say something more, when the second bell rang, indicating class had started. As he sat, staring blankly at the board, pretending he was listening to the introduction to the lesson, he let his heart soar at the word date coming out of David's mouth about the two of them. Even if it were a joke.

The rest of the day was spent with Pierre's mind wandering in and out of conversations and classes, always finding it's way to David. By fourth period, his last class, he was practically jumping out of his seat ready to go meet David and walk to his house.
He was so anxious waiting for the bell to ring, that he barely even noticed when it actually did ring. But it did, and he jumped from his desk, and actually ran down the stairs to his locker, grabbing his bag, and rushing to the front of the school where David was already waiting.
Pierre slowed his pace as he approached David, so as to not look too desperate or show how much he'd been anticipating the moment. After all, even though Pierre knew David was gay, David still didn't know Pierre was gay. To him they were just friends.

"Hey!" David said smiling brightly as Pierre approached. Pierre smiled back.
"Hey..." He said tilting his head, and taking mental note of how perfectly cute David was. Then something else caught his eye. Right now, they might just be friends, but someday that door might open, and Pierre had to earn points.
"Hey, let me take these..." He said sweeping up the stack of heavy books David was carrying. David's eye got a glimmer in them then, and Pierre smiled as David thanked him, and they started walking.
They walk to David's house was great, they just talked about everything they could think of, including the CD David had leant Pierre, and Pierre told him trying to be inconspicuous about it, how much he loved the song 'wonderwall.' The one that had reminded him of David...
David responded in a way you might expect, but there was something about his response that, even if only for a second, made Pierre think maybe David liked him...
But that was ridiculous. It was just a song.
Pierre still couldn't believe he was friends with David... David Desrosiers, the boy next door who he'd liked for two years.
It felt amazing just to walk with him...
Then as they approached David's front door, everything changed. As it flew open before them, Pierre could hardly believe what happened...