BBB: Like or Like-Like (1/8)
Like or Like-Like - Part 1
January
Brendon isn’t really the type of guy to hook up with a stranger at a party. Mostly he isn’t even really the type to be at a party, so when the opportunity presents itself, he figures it’s time for him to try new things.
And while Brendon isn’t the type of guy to hook up with a stranger at a party, what he is, is drunk. He’s never been drunk before, so he doesn’t have a whole lot to compare it to, but he’s pretty sure that the pleasant, warm and kind of floaty feeling is what being drunk is like. It's quite a bit different from being high.
He is surprisingly okay with it, and with the attractive blond dude that has him pressed up against the wall of an unfamiliar living room. He is especially okay with the fact that the blond seems to be intent on doing sexy things with him. Actually, from where he’s standing-leaning, really-it’s pretty freaking fantastic.
The guy, and Brendon is a little ashamed to realize that he doesn’t exactly remember his name -something short and simple, maybe Tim-seems equally pleased with the situation. Tim, Brendon’s pretty sure that’s it, breaks away from his current assault on Brendon’s neck to whisper a ragged, “You want to go somewhere quieter?” in his ear.
Before Tim had approached him, he hadn’t actually spoken to anyone aside from the extremely drunk guy manning the keg. He’d managed to stick it out for almost two hours, hanging on to his composure with determination and beer alone, and he’d been about to leave when Tom swooped in like a scruffy knight in shining armor on a quest to save Brendon from social isolation. At first Tim had seemed strangely baffled by him, but after a moment he’d offered to get Brendon a refill of beer. An embarrassingly short while later they’d somehow ended up trying to fuse their bodies through their clothes against the living room wall.
He’s still a little sad about the loss of Tim’s lips on his neck, so it takes Brendon a moment to really process what Tim is saying. But yes, yes he would definitely like to ‘go somewhere quieter’ with the scruffy blond. Though he hasn’t specifically been in this situation before, he’s almost positive that going somewhere quieter means that Tim wants to do some things to him that aren’t okay for public consumption.
To him, Brendon Urie. Awesome.
He nods his assent and immediately takes Tim’s offered hand. Tim appears to know exactly he’s doing-in more ways than one, so Brendon follows him through the crush of sweaty bodies bobbing in arrhythmic abandon to a rap song about dropping it like it’s hot. Whatever that means.
He stumbles in his effort to keep up with Tim’s longer strides as they make their way up the stairs to the second floor, catching himself against Tim’s warm, t-shirted back. He rests his head there for just a second, the t-shirt nice and soft from a few too many washings. He could seriously stay there all night. He snaps back to attention when the back in front of him jerks forward. Tim pushes open the door to a bedroom at the end of a long hallway.
While Brendon was caught up in molesting the guy’s back, they’d somehow made their way the master bedroom. Brendon fully extricates himself from Tim’s back to shuffle toward the neatly made king-sized bed in the center of the room on sneakered feet. He has the fleeting thought that he really shouldn’t be wearing his shoes in someone else’s house.
He flops on the edge of the bed, and is pleased when it gives a slight bounce at his weight. He wonders whether he should drop back on the bed or take his shirt off or something. He lets out a drunken giggle. God, he is so easy.
Before he can commit to either action-or possibly both, Brendon takes a moment to survey what looks to be the master bedroom, while Tim continues to do whatever he’s doing over by the door. The dresser is lined with photos of three dark haired boys in various stages of growth and orthodontia, beaming wide, infectious smiles at the camera. The final picture in the row features an attractive family, with the boys from the previous photos positioned stiffly in front of two glowing parents.
Brendon feels a little queasy at the sight of it. He shakes his head sharply; he isn’t going to think about that now. He is going to do something he probably shouldn’t with Tim.
His gaze swings away from the smiling family and back to the door, where Tim is apparently victorious in his task, as evidenced by a quiet “yes!” and small fist pump. As Tim turns away from the door, Brendon finally gets what’s been distracting Tim from the promise of more make-outs. “Oh, hey! You locked the door. Good thinking.”
Brendon’s eyes track Tim’s progress across the room, and he leans his weight back on his hands to wait. He is more than a little put out when Tim stops moving toward him and makes a detour to the dresser. He’s a little confused when Tim flips down the photo of the family and whispers something that sounds like, “shouldn’t be seeing this.”
Whatever, Brendon isn’t about to complain about Tim being a weirdo when it has the added advantage of covering up the most distracting thing in the room.
“Yep. Didn’t want to be interrupted,” Tim says, answering Brendon’s earlier comment. Brendon decides that he likes Tim’s voice. He has a hint of a Chicago accent, and is doing something funny to his vowels that Brendon isn’t at all used to yet. Brendon also likes the roll of his hips and his kind of slouchy walk, especially when it brings Tim right up to the bed to fit in the space between Brendon’s legs.
Tim leans down into Brendon’s space, and his arm reaches over Brendon’s shoulder, body subtly pushing Brendon down to the mattress. Which Brendon fully supports. It feels like it’s been forever since Tim stopped kissing him downstairs, and he is more than ready to get back to it.
He can smell the faint hint of alcohol on Tim’s breath before his lips come down hard on Brendon’s. He opens his mouth under Tim’s, his body shifting restlessly against the other boy. He wiggles his hand free from where it has become trapped between their chests and lifts it to graze the back of Tim’s head, his fingers twining in dark blond hair. Their bodies are pressed flush together, Tim’s jean-clad leg rubbing against Brendon’s erection.
Brendon lets out an ‘mmm’ of approval that quickly becomes a groan when Tim moves his hand to the button of Brendon’s pants. Yep, he was right, he does really like where this is going. He abandons the softness of Tim’s hair to grasp at the edge of Tim’s t-shirt. He almost lets out another giggle as Tim attempts to unzip Brendon’s jeans, even as he tries to get the t-shirt off of Tim. After a small struggle, they both accomplish their tasks, and Brendon has all sorts of newly exposed skin to explore.
Tim’s lips find their way back to Brendon’s neck. His stubble is scratchy against Brendon’s skin, and he mumbles what sounds like, “Definitely not a girl.”
“Wait, what?”
Brendon is distracted from asking further questions when Tim’s hand leaves its place on Brendon’s abdomen to grip his hips and then execute a smooth roll. It is actually kind of impressive for someone who is obviously at least as drunk as Brendon. All of a sudden Brendon is really high up and, aside from a brief grapple with what he thinks might be altitude sickness, he is really liking the view.
He breaks out in a grin as he takes in the half-naked guy beneath him. Tim’s mouth is drawn in a slight smirk, a look that says he is absolutely sure that he’s about to get lucky. And due to circumstances that actually have very little to do with him -involving Brendon’s already questionable inhibitions being even further lowered by alcohol and a desire to do something unquestionably stupid, he’s right. Tim is about to get very, very lucky.
Brendon lowers his head to Tim’s, his lips ghosting over the other boy’s. Tim cranes his neck to meet Brendon’s, his mouth wet and sure. He nips at Tim’s lower lip in response, grinding his hips down against the front of Tim’s jeans. Tim jerks his body up, his hips canting, and flips their positions. Brendon is left panting under Tim’s heavier body once again.
He is more than okay with that. In a gesture reminiscent of Tim’s smooth moves from earlier downstairs, his lips search out Tim’s neck. Brendon is just putting the finishing touches on what he is sure will be a beautiful hickey, when he realizes that Tim’s hands have dropped from his waist. He scoots back on the bed slowly, taking in the reddened skin on the side of Tim’s throat with some satisfaction.
He presses his hand to the shallow rise and fall of Tim’s chest as his gaze rises to meet Tim’s. Or his gaze would be meeting Tim’s, if Tim’s eyes were open. If Tim were awake. Which he clearly is not.
What. The. Fuck.
-
He is not at all prepared when Spencer answers the phone. He’d been gearing up to leave a truly humiliating message when Spencer spoils everything by picking up on the third ring.
He doesn’t even get the chance to utter a greeting before Spencer breaks out with an absent, “So, did ya get laid?”
Brendon almost chokes on his own spit.
It takes a moment for him to get over his abrupt coughing fit, and then another moment for him to notice the ominous silence on the other end of the line.
“Wait, seriously?” Spencer asks. And Brendon he can hear a muffled voice in the background following Spencer’s question. Great, Ryan is sleeping over.
He probably has his spindly limbs sprawled all over Spencer’s bed, reading some book he has to pretend to understand in order to maintain his status as a pretentious douchebag. He is most definitely listening in on their conversation. Brendon has to tamp down on his feeling of vicious envy at Ryan even being there.
“Well, not exactly. I mean, there was this guy…” Brendon trails off. He isn’t really sure how to say ‘I got drunk and did something totally slutty at a party with a complete stranger’ without making it sound like he got drunk and did something totally slutty at a party with a complete stranger. He’s not even sure which will bother Spencer more, the drinking or the slutty behavior thing.
He wishes than anything that he was still drunk enough to be having this conversation. Hearing Spencer’s voice has served to sober him up much more effectively than the fifteen-block walk in the freezing cold had.
“Then what, exactly? What guy?” Spencer asks, using his serious voice. It’s the voice that Spencer uses when he isn’t messing around, and he’s more than ready to destroy Brendon with a well-placed barb if he does not bend to Spencer’s will. It’s always better for his state of mind to just give in at the first sign of it.
“Tim. The guy’s name’s Tim. We kind of hooked up. At the party.” That won’t be enough to satisfy Spencer, but he’s hoping it will buy him some time to get his thoughts together.
“Tim? The guy’s name is Tim? You haven’t mentioned a Tim before, Brendon.” It’s never a good thing when Spencer starts repeating your words back to you. It usually means there’s a lecture coming.
“We met at a party. It’s not a big deal. He seemed like a nice enough guy.” From what Brendon could tell before Tim passed out on top of him in a drunken coma.
He can hear rustling on the other end, and can just picture Spencer squaring his shoulders in preparation for a verbal ass-kicking. “Brendon Boyd Urie, what the hell were you thinking?”
Spencer tends to worry over nothing, he is seriously such a mother hen. But he also knows all of Brendon’s weaknesses, and knows that Brendon won’t be able to stand up to Brendon’s mom’s patented, dreaded tactic of using his full name to get him to spill his guts. He’d once falsely confessed to chopping off the hair of his older sister’s My Little Pony because of that ploy.
The whole story comes pouring out of him in a more or less coherent jumble. He tells Spencer about ‘finding somewhere quieter’, keeps his account of making out on some nice couple’s bed as short as possible, briefly glossing over the weird moment when Tim said something about Brendon not being a girl. He then mumbles his way through an account of having to wiggle his way out from under Tim’s unconscious body after recognizing the futility of trying to push him off.
Silence reigns once again in the wake of his story. Well, it’s silent aside from the faint laughter that Brendon can hear coming from Ryan fucking Ross.
When Spencer speaks again, it is in a quiet, measured tone. “He thought you were a girl?”
That sets Ryan off again, his guffaws ringing all too clearly down the phone line. It doesn’t take Spencer long to join in with the stupid girly giggle that only comes out when he finds something truly hilarious. They would focus on that part of his story.
“I hate you both, so very much,” he states clearly into the mouthpiece. He barely stops himself from making a very ill advised comment about how Tim obviously didn’t think he was a girl for long. That probably would not have the desired effect.
“Don’t be like that. We’re kidding.” Brendon thinks it would be a lot more convincing if Spencer weren’t speaking through his laughter. “You have to admit it is pretty funny, B.”
For a while there, it actually really hadn’t been. It had seemed pretty much the opposite of pretty funny. To Brendon it was one of the most embarrassing moments of his life, something that he will be repeating to a shrink in ten years as he bemoans his continual inability to hang on to a man. It’s only as he listens to his best friends gasping for breath between giggles that he begins to see the humor of the situation. This could seriously only happen to him.
He lets out a weak chuckle and concedes, “Yeah, yeah. It was hilarious to realize I didn’t have the upper body strength to push off the 170 pounds of dead weight belonging to the guy who basically fell asleep while making out with me.”
“That’s the spirit!” Spencer says, voice full of uncharacteristic pep. Brendon can’t make out what Ryan says in response, but he can guess by the tone. Seriously, his friends are such jerks.
He misses them like crazy.
He needs to get off the phone before he starts bawling like the girl Tim had apparently mistaken him for. He thinks he might be physically incapable of handling any more mortification tonight.
“Anyway, I’ll let you get back to your little gay sleepover.” And he’s maybe baiting them a little, well baiting Ryan a little. But there had definitely been a malicious tinge to his laughter, so it’s fair.
This time he can hear Ryan clearly as he insists that, “Sleepovers are not gay.” And that’s Ryan taking the bait.
“You hear that, Brendon? Sleepovers aren’t gay.” Yep, and he can hear the smirk in Spencer’s voice just as clearly.
“It was always pretty gay when I slept over.” Brendon’s tone matches Spencer’s, adding a little eyebrow wiggle that he firmly believes helps him convey that message.
Spencer’s voice drops an octave, becoming disturbingly seductive in a heartbeat. “That’s because you’re special, Brendon.” There’s a beat of silence, then they both burst out laughing over the sound of Ryan making gagging noises in the background.
Brendon is still completely convinced that Spencer is the best thing that’s ever happened to him, but they really do make better friends than boyfriends. It helps that a pretty big part of him is convinced that Spencer and Ryan are soul mates destined to grow old together before succumbing to the first known case of death by codependence. Brendon’s been taking bets against himself over when Ryan will finally give up on his ruse of heterosexuality and make an honest man of Spencer. The odds are pretty heavily in favor of Ryan’s freshman year of college.
“I know it. I don’t want to give Ryan an aneurysm by keeping you from your pillow fight any longer. Just be careful not to break Ross. He’s delicate,” Brendon says.
He thumbs his phone off to the sound of Ryan’s squawking protests.
Brendon’s smile fades as he tosses the phone at a pile of dirty clothes and lies back on his bed. In his unfamiliar bedroom thousands of miles away from his friends.
He supposes that there’s a comfort in knowing that it can’t get much worse than this.
-- --
Tom wakes up with a pounding head and his mouth tasting like ass. Also without a shirt, which is weird.
Tom isn’t exactly sure where he is, but he is pretty sure that the sunlight streaming through the open curtains is going to be a contributing factor to his brain exploding. He draws his arms up to cover his eyes, the too-fast movement causing bright bursts of pain to reverberate through his skull. Ow.
“Oh, good. You’re up.” At least the voice is familiar. And loud. Maybe if he just lies there the owner of the voice will leave him to die in peace, or at least in a state of misery that isn’t compounded by what is sure to be a lengthy lecture.
“Come on, since you were nice enough to stay, you can help with the clean-up.” The words are followed by a sharp swat to his foot.
He slowly levers himself into a seated position on the bed, his voice hoarse and grumpy when he says, “Jesus, JWalk, give a guy a minute to regroup.” Now it makes a whole lot more sense where he is. He’s in Jon’s house. He chances a glance around, his eyes zeroing in on the photos on the dresser, one of which is facing down. He’s in Jon’s house, and has apparently slept in Jon’s parent’s bed. Again, weird.
Jon interrupts his lightning-quick series of observations with a jab to the shoulder. His head spins from jerking up to take in Jon’s beaming face. No one should look that happy right now, especially not when Tom is feeling so very, very shitty.
He scowls up at all that cheer. “How’d you even get in here? I remember locking that door.”
And oh, oh fuck. He does remember locking that door.
Jon lets out a snort, his expression growing even more gleeful, something that really should really not be possible. “Your friend probably left it unlocked.”
Tom thinks it’s actually pretty amazing that he doesn’t get a head-rush from all of the images that are bombarding his still-slightly-drunk brain. He remembers locking the door, he remembers downstairs before he locked the door, and he even remembers a bit of what happened after locking the door. He mostly remembers Brendon.
“Oh, fuck.”
“That about sums it up, buddy.” Tom is sure that Jon’s consoling pat would be a hell of a lot more effective if it wasn’t for the evil gleam in his eyes.
He swallows around the sudden lump (of what he hopes is not vomit) in his throat. “What did I do?”
Jon frowns at that, moving a step back to fully take Tom in. “I would think you’d have a better idea of that than I would.”
Tom’s hand reaches up to rub futilely at his temples. “I remember some of it. The rest is sort of, um, hazy.” Yeah, some of it. Like a really nice ass in girl jeans, pretty brown eyes, and what was most definitely a penis.
Jon drops down to sit next to Tom, his weight causing Tom’s body to slide closer to him on the mattress. He slings an arm around Tom’s slumped shoulders, squeezing him lightly. “I’ll tell you what I know.” Tom can feel Jon’s ribs expand as he takes in a deep sigh of a breath and lets it out. “Yesterday you and Danielle broke up. Again. You gave a really passionate speech about how you were through and that was it. I haven’t seen you that worked out about anything… pretty much ever.”
Tom winces at the memory that Jon’s account brings to mind. He does recall a speech about being done with Dani ‘for good this time’. He usually says something to that effect after every breakup, just with much fewer words.
It isn’t even like the breakup had been any worse than usual. They’d just been fighting a lot about nothing and had come to the point where they either had to break up or stop speaking entirely. He’d just felt really sick of it -the few months where they were okay always followed by weeks of bitching at each other. Tom’s pretty sure that high school relationships aren’t supposed to be that exhausting; that’s what real life is for.
He tunes back in as Jon continues talking. “You said you still wanted to come to the party, so I figured you’d just get wasted and get it out of your system.” Jon quirks his mouth in something like a smile, which is actually kind of alarming on someone who usually smiles with, like, his whole freaking soul. “Well, you definitely got wasted. Really, really wasted.”
“One of Nick’s asshole friends tried to console you. He had this whole big spiel about how the only way to move on was to ‘bang’ someone else.” Jon actually uses airquotes here. “That was the last time I saw you. I left for maybe five minutes to go find Cass, and the next thing I know, you’re gone. The guys said that you’d, uh, taken a liking to someone and had gone to put the moves on her.” Tom has to look away from the blatant disappointment in Jon’s eyes. He loves Jon like a brother, but he is seriously not up for what is bound to be a well-deserved guilt trip. Not when his head feels like it’s been smacked repeatedly with a two-by-four.
Jon’s tone brightens considerably as he picks up his story, “Yep, that was the last time I saw you.” He pauses for effect, making sure that Tom’s attention is fully on him. “A little while later I did happen to see someone heading down the stairs. I only noticed because they seemed to be in a pretty big hurry. Like they were trying to get away from something-someone?” Jon’s voice rises on the last, making it a question.
Damn. Tom knows exactly where Jon is going with this. “But that couldn’t have anything to do with you. Because the guys seemed to think that you were going after some chick you saw at the party. And the person running down the stairs? Yeah, totally a guy!” Jon finishes with a flourish, his hand coming down to clap hard on Tom’s knee.
It really isn’t fair that Jon can go from being all disappointed in Tom to being completely delighted by his fuck-up in the space of a minute. The asshole.
Tom’s not sure what to say. If he claims to have no idea what Jon is talking about, then Jon won’t let up. But if he admits it, then he’ll have to explain what the hell happened. Which he is still kind of confused about himself.
He can remember Nick’s ‘asshole friend’ talking up revenge sex. He even remembers being totally gone enough to think that it sounded like an awesome idea. Right about then he’d caught a glimpse of a tiny chick with short dark hair, and superbly tight jeans. From behind she’d seemed to be the opposite of his willowy, blond, recently ex-girlfriend. It hadn’t taken a whole lot of encouragement to get him across the room to try and work his rusty mojo on the unsuspecting chick.
Except it had not been a chick. At all. Tom doesn’t really think he can be blamed for making that assumption, though. The guy had been wearing girl jeans and was what Tom generally thinks of as girl-sized. He was just incredibly lucky that somehow, in spite of his rather massive alcohol consumption, he’d managed not to say the first thing that popped into his head. Which was, Oh, you’re a dude.
Tom isn’t clear about a whole lot, like what they’d actually talked about, or how he’d convinced the guy-Brendon-that it was a stellar idea to make out with him against Jon’s living room wall while a gathering of his closest friends and strangers danced to rap music a few feet away. In spite of that, he’s pretty sure that if he’d called Brendon a girl the night would have ended a little differently. Differently from what, he isn’t really sure.
“So, you dig guys now? Was he gentle with you?” Jon has apparently had enough of Tom’s totally stoic silence.
“I… don’t exactly dig guys. I mean, I guess this guy? And there was that thing with William.” Tom shifts uneasily away from Jon, needing a little distance from him for what is bound to be an incredibly awkward conversation.
“William…?” Jon lets out a sharp laugh. “Nick’s friend? Huh.”
Dani hadn’t been nearly that nonchalant when he’d told her about following their last month-long breakup. It isn’t completely uncommon for either of them to find other company in the time they spend apart. Danielle had actually seemed to kind of freak out about the whole guy thing. That had been something of a surprise, what with her being a member of the GSA at school, and all about pride marches and The Day of Silence. He guesses it’s different when it’s your boyfriend who takes a turn batting for the other team.
In his more spiteful moments, like the last month of their relationship, he thinks that she was just pissed that William is prettier than she is. William is prettier than most girls.
Tom has never really thought of himself in terms of being straight or gay. He doesn’t generally find most guys attractive, but William was pretty hot and had also been right there when he’d been feeling loose and open to a little bit of company. Brendon was definitely hot, and he’d definitely been right there.
Tom is an easy-going guy, one of the things that pissed Danielle off most during their bad periods, so once he’d figured out that Brendon was not a chick with a pixie cut, he’d just kind of shrugged and gone with it. Whatever, so he’s maybe going through his bi-curious phase a little early. Plus, at the time it had seemed to have the added bonus of Danielle being really fucking pissed off if she ever found out about it.
He figures it isn’t that big of a deal. Guys or girls, it doesn’t really matter if you want to see them naked. Which he had, wanted to see Brendon naked. A brief image of Brendon’s body stretched out underneath his flashes across.
With that in mind, he commits to the same thought process he employed the previous night, just shrugs and goes with it. “Yeah, Brendon was a dude. I guess I kind of do that now, maybe. Not a big deal.”
“Huh.” A long silence falls after Jon speaks. Tom just lets it hang, he’s always been pretty comfortable with silences that other people feel the need to fill.
Jon lets out a noisy breath, “Well, if you’re not going to be weird about it, then that kind of ruins my fun. You suck, Conrad.” Jon nudges his knee against Tom’s, the silent show of support proving, once again, that Jon Walker is seriously the best friend ever.
“Yeah, I really do.” Tom winces at the unintentional implication of his agreement. He has always had the bad habit of speaking before thinking.
Jon leaps up from the bed, spinning around to point his finger in Tom’s face. “Yeah, you do!”
Tom works up a half-hearted scowl for Jon, as the other boy leans back against his parents’ dresser. Tom’s eyes are once again drawn to the overturned picture of Jon’s family.
“So, what did happen with, uh, Brendon?” He can hear the slight hesitation in Jon’s voice before speaking Brendon’s name. Tom supposes that even if you are as awesome as Jon Walker, it still takes a minute or two to readjust to the fact that your best friend is a little bit gay.
And maybe Jon is cool with the whole Tom liking dudes thing, but there is no way he is ever going to let Tom live it down when he learns what happened. With a muttered curse, Tom picks up the story from where Jon left off, relating what little he remembers from last night. “Well, Brendon and I hit it off, I guess? We came upstairs and found an empty room.” He glances around the room in question, finally shooting Jon an apologetic look for using his mom and dad’s room for-that. “We were messing around, and then… I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? You don’t remember what happened? Did you go all the way?” Jon quirks a brow at him, superior in his ability to hold his beer and his amazing girlfriend.
“No, definitely not. We just kissed.” He crosses his arms defensively over his chest. That reminds him that he totally had his Big Gay Crisis with Jon Walker -or not so big, really-while he was only partially clothed.
He searches the floor for his t-shirt, pulling it over his head. He mumbles through the cotton, “I maybe passed out.”
Tom refuses to look up to see Jon’s expression as he pays particular attention to smoothing down his shirt.
“You maybe passed out?” Jon’s voice is too free of emotion for Tom’s liking. He nods his head slightly, waiting.
It doesn’t take long. “Holy shit, Tom! No wonder the guy ran out of here. You passed out right in the middle of the action.” Tom thinks that his sophomore English teacher would call what Jon is doing ‘cackling’.
“I know! It’s not like I meant to. I was just really, really trashed,” he says belligerently. He doesn’t think it’s fair that he sounds quite so much like a guilty five year old when talking about getting drunk and making out with someone.
“Only you, Conrad.” Jon slaps a hand on his should, smile firmly back in place. Now he maybe resents how found Jon sounds.
“Whatever. Let’s just call it another drunken mistake and forget about it, okay?” He doesn’t mean for that to sound as pleading as it does.
“Sure, okay.” Jon still looks entirely too happy about the whole situation to be trusted, but there isn’t much that Tom can really do about it.
He gets to his feet, walking past Jon to the door. “You said something about cleaning?”
Jon shakes his head, clearly not buying that Tom wants to clean his house so much as he wants to get out of this conversation. It is a testament to their friendship that Jon doesn’t call him on it. He just follows Tom down the stairs find some trash bags. He does occasionally let out quiet little chuckles to let Tom know that he is still reflecting on his friend’s humiliation.
-- --
As far as Tom is concerned, the day can’t end soon enough. And it isn’t even half over yet. Mondays always inevitably suck, but the day is turning out to be pretty fucking bleak.
After helping Jon clean up the mess on Sunday, they’d both somehow made it to band practice. Those three hours had been torture, due largely to his malicious hangover, the ribbing he got for the mouth-shaped bruise on his neck, and the little bits and pieces he kept remembering from the night before.
With everything else that was going on, he’d somehow managed to forget the whole Danielle mess for a good twenty-four hours. But when he gets to school on Monday morning, he only narrowly avoids running into Danielle talking with her friends in the hallway before class.
Having adjacent lockers is all well and good you’re in the ‘on’ phase of your on-again-off-again relationship, but when you’re in the ‘off’ phase, it seems like an exercise in masochism. Or sadism, depending on your point of view.
He’s on his way to his first ever Home Ec class, and is still caring his mammoth Stats book and camera with him. He’d decided that the way things are going, his luck will not hold out through another trip into Danielle’s territory-AKA his locker. He lets out a discontented sigh as he pulls at the strap of his bag and then readjusts the flipped collar of his shirt to make sure it’s still covering the fading mark on his neck.
Tom is all for electives. Aside from certain teachers’ lax attendance taking, they’re the only way he can get through math and history classes. But it’s an entirely different thing when you don’t exactly get to choose the elective.
He’d been more than happy to take photography for the fourth time. Sure, it wasn’t like he’d learned a lot in the class, but it had given him a whole period to wander the school just taking pictures and occasionally smoking up with Jon. Unfortunately, the school administration did not see it that way. They were actually more than a little put out by the fact that Tom had somehow taken the class three times, when there was the intended maximum was twice.
Tom still doesn’t think that he can be blamed for it. All he did was keep signing up for the class; it wasn’t his fault that they just let him. In a move that Tom believes to be wildly unreasonable, he was left to decide between taking Woodshop and Home Economics. And as he has what he considers to be a very rational and healthy fear of power tools, he chose Home Economics. He figures no one ever regrets knowing how to make flan.
He trudges down the deserted hallway, feeling oddly impotent as his camera thumps against his chest with every step. There isn’t much of a point in hurrying when avoiding Danielle has already made him late. When he gets to the door of the Home Ec Lab, he hesitates. Skipping seems like a really good idea all of a sudden. He doesn’t really think he’s up for learning how to be a homemaker right now. There will probably be aprons involved.
On the other hand, if he starts skipping today, he’ll be screwed later in the term when he really needs to take a personal day. He sighs his defeat and pushes open the door.
He keeps his attention focused on the teacher poised at the blackboard in the front as she exclaims that he must be “Mr. Conrad!” She introduces herself as Mrs. Anders and tells him that they are just so glad to have another latecomer join the class. Tom nods his head at what he thinks are the appropriate times and avoids looking at the cooking stations set up around the room. This is so not his deal.
His eyes are coasting disinterestedly over the predominantly female class, when a pair of startled brown eyes catches his gaze.
Over the sudden rush of blood in his ears, he hears Mrs. Anders, say, “And since you both decided to join us a little late, and you are the only gentlemen in the class, I though that you and Brendon could work together. I thought it might be more comfortable for you, starting coming into it a little late, and you might want a little male solidarity.” She gives a little laugh like she’s just made some great joke.
But no, lady, he would definitely not be more comfortable this way. Right now, confronted with the dude that left him passed out in bed on Saturday night, he is feeling pretty freaking uncomfortable.
Fucking Mondays.
-- --
Brendon sends up a silent prayer to a god that he no longer necessarily believes in to strike him dead where he stands. Or, barring that, he at least prays that he doesn’t look as panicked as Tom-not Tim!-does.
When Tom had caught sight of Brendon, he’d gone as still as a statue. After a minute passes and Tom makes no move to head toward Brendon’s table, Mrs. Anders finally gives Tom a push toward Brendon’s station.
Brendon watches as Tom takes the few stumbling steps to his table. He imagines this must be what a deer feels like right before a semi hits it-frozen with a debilitating mix of uncomprehending disbelief and horror.
If Brendon were any good at math, he would probably take the few moments he has left before Tom speaks (and forces him to relive the most humiliating moment of his life to date) to calculate the statistical improbability of being partnered in Home Ec class with the stranger he’d groped at a party. He bets the chances are pretty fucking slim.
As Tom drops his bag to the ground by his feet, Brendon attempts to convince himself that he is mature enough to handle this situation without turning into a babbling idiot. His whole body is tensed in queasy anticipation as he waits for Tom to say something. And then he waits some more.
Brendon hazards a look in Tom’s direction, carefully glancing up at him from under his eyelashes on the off chance that Tom is gaping at him in shock. He is oddly dismayed to realize that Tom is most definitely not gaping at him. Tom is instead staring straight ahead as Mrs. A teaches the final part of the kitchen safety lesson.
Brendon watches him in disbelief, only noticing the glazed over look in his eyes after keeping that up for several minutes. Wherever Tom is, it certainly isn’t Home Ec class. Lucky bastard.
Okay, fine. Tom seems cool with pretending that nothing happened between them. Brendon can totally do that. He isn’t exactly smooth, but he can certainly keep from acting like a spaz over some guy he was friendly with at a party.
It isn’t like Brendon has never made out with anyone before. He and Spencer used to make out all the time, sometimes for hours. And he and Kathy from his church group totally made out in the craft closet that one time. He supposes the second doesn’t really count because it made him realize that he found making the popsicle stick angels they were getting supplies for far more exciting than kissing a girl in a closet.
Still, he and Spencer had gone way further than he’d gone with Tom, so it was no big deal. Really. If Tom can ignore the situation, then Brendon can too.
It will definitely possible to work with knives and open flames without actually talking… for the rest of the school year.
-
Neither Brendon nor Tom say anything for the remainder of the hour, and before Brendon can even entertain the thought of trying to clear the air, Tom has gathered up his things and is out the door.
This whole thing with Tom has been a serious blow to his already less-than-stellar self-esteem.
Brendon takes his time getting his things together. He really doesn’t have to hurry anywhere. He has lunch right after Home Ec, and it’s not like anyone is waiting for him. He throws his back over his shoulder and heads for the cafeteria.
As far as Brendon can figure, the only way to get through lunch period in high school is to look at it as a kind of social experiment. For a while Ryan had had a not so secret obsession with the movie Mean Girls, and boy did that movie get it right. Lunch hour in an American public high school is sort of like watching The Discovery Channel, where the healthy carnivores travel in packs and weak stragglers limp along alone. He isn’t really any more into science than he is into math, but even still, he can admire the spectacle of Darwinism in action.
It helps to think of himself as an observer instead of one of the stragglers. He’s only been at the school for a little over two weeks, so he has the excuse of relative obscurity to keep himself from feeling like too much of a friendless loser.
He gets a slice of vegetarian pizza and chocolate milk, then finds a table in what he discovered, through a week of trial and error, to be the junior section of the cafeteria. He selects a table half-full of kids that he mentally equates to wounded gazelles in the Serengeti.
When it had become pretty clear that no welcoming committee would be forthcoming, and no sage guide in the vein of every teen movie since John Hughes was going to show him the ins and outs of his new high school, Brendon made the tactical decision to just keep his head down and get through the next few months of the term. He has hopes that his parents will see reason by then and he’ll be able to start the long process of forgetting this unfortunate detour in his life ever even happened.
It isn’t like Brendon is shy. If anything, he has always been a little too quick to be himself around complete strangers. Some people find it off-putting, his energy a little too much to take. He has never let that stop him before, but a big part of him needs to see his current geographical location as temporary, and the idea of actively trying to make friends makes him feel even lonelier.
He is friendly with a few people in his classes, like the pretty blond girl from his Chem class who had invited him to that disaster of a party. But for the most part, he keeps to himself and no one has really gone out of their way to try to befriend him.
Brendon settles in one of the monstrously stiff-backed chairs and peels open the top of his pudding cup. He always eats desert first; he never understood the point of putting off the best parts of things.
His spoon is just scraping the plastic bottom of the cup when the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Brendon hunches his shoulders at the distinct feeling of eyes being trained on him. He glances around the table, but most of the lunch crowd is busy with eating and chatting. No one is paying him any attention.
He still can’t shake the feeling of being watched. Brendon twists around in his seat, feeling ridiculous and not a little bit paranoid as his eyes scan the cafeteria at his back.
He’s somehow not surprised when his eyes lock with Tom Conrad’s.
Tom seems untroubled by being caught in a stare, and continues to hold his gaze. The longer he looks at Tom, the more irritated he grows. Tom just keeps squinting at him until with the guy sitting beside him demands his attention. A minute later, Tom’s friend turns to regard Brendon as well.
Brendon whips back around to face forward, his attention going back to his lunch tray. At the sound of laughter behind him, his body goes tense and his shoulders shoot up around his ears.
Maybe it really is just paranoia this time, but he can’t help but think that the laughter has something to do with him. He’s just about had it with dealing with Tom Conrad’s shit.
Brendon grabs his tray and heads for the exit. He feels stupid and out of place and oddly hurt by the whole thing.
When he shoves the mostly full tray into the trash, his pudding cup ricochets off of the lid to land on the front of his pastel hoodie. He gingerly removes the sticky plastic container from his sweatshirt, leaving a glob of gooey brown desert in its place.
He decides right then and there that he’ll never forgive his parents for as long as he lives.
Which probably won’t be very long, considering he’s due for a stress related heart attack any minute now.
-- --
Tom isn’t really one to think ahead, but he’s almost positive that even if he were, nothing could have prepared him for walking into a cooking classroom only to find the stranger that he’d wanted to get naked on Saturday night. That the whole point of messing around with a stranger at a party, you typically never have to see them again.
Tom thinks he handled the situation pretty well. He didn’t say anything that would make things any more awkward. He’d done that by not saying anything at all.
And now he’s at lunch, once again faced with the living embodiment of his drunken mistake. Fuck. He must have been freaking blind or something, because Brendon is everywhere and he’d somehow missed him before. Brendon-boy of the tight jeans and big brown eyes-is currently sitting two tables over from Tom and his friends.
He tears his eyes away from the back of Brendon’s head to concentrate on the tray in front of him. He doesn’t really know what he’d picked up as he’d been in a bit of a daze when he went through the line, mostly trusting his instincts to steer him away from anything that could make his throat swell closed.
When Jon asks him a question about their shared History class, Tom attempts to answer him and rejoin the table’s conversation. It takes less than a minute for him to resume burning a hole in Brendon’s back with his eyes. Every once in a while he tries to look away and answer questions directed at him, but he mostly just sits there, squinting at Brendon like a huge creep.
In his effort to ignore Brendon in class he had kind of succeeded in actually ignoring him, and now he has no clue what Brendon’s thinking. It really, really sucks.
As if in response to the thought, Brendon swivels his head around to look directly at Tom.
On some level, Tom knows that when someone catches you blatantly staring at them, you’re supposed to look away as quickly as possible so that you can both pretend that it never happened. Tom sometimes has trouble doing what he’s supposed to based on the rules of normal social practices. He ignores the warning thought, and just narrows his eyes and tries his best to get a read on what the hell Brendon’s facial expression means.
For a moment, Brendon looks startled, but the longer Tom watches, the more it seems like he’s starting to look pretty pissed off. Tom can’t really be sure, he’s never been very good at figuring out what other people are feeling unless they expressly tell him, “Tom, I’m pissed off.” They usually follow that up with some variation of ‘you asshole’.
Of course Jon has to ruin everything by being a total dick and waving his hand in front of Tom’s face. “Earth to Conrad. What the hell, man?”
Tom shifts around in his seat, his shoulders hunching and his eyes going back to his plate.
Jon lowers his voice, speaking directly into Tom’s ear. “Oh, I see. You’re totally checking that dude out. It’s like a whole new world has opened up for you, huh?”
Tom’s head pops up to follow Jon’s line of sight to Brendon’s tensed back. Jon lets out a laugh at the expression on his face. Tom manages a weak laugh of his own. Yeah, Jon is totally hilarious.
They both jump a little in their seats when the object of their scrutiny pushes away from his lunch table with a loud screech of his chair. Brendon grabs his tray of food and heads toward the exit.
“Huh,” is all Jon has to say to that.
Tom isn’t really good at reading people, but he’s almost positive that Brendon is pissed off.
Part 2
Master Post
January
Brendon isn’t really the type of guy to hook up with a stranger at a party. Mostly he isn’t even really the type to be at a party, so when the opportunity presents itself, he figures it’s time for him to try new things.
And while Brendon isn’t the type of guy to hook up with a stranger at a party, what he is, is drunk. He’s never been drunk before, so he doesn’t have a whole lot to compare it to, but he’s pretty sure that the pleasant, warm and kind of floaty feeling is what being drunk is like. It's quite a bit different from being high.
He is surprisingly okay with it, and with the attractive blond dude that has him pressed up against the wall of an unfamiliar living room. He is especially okay with the fact that the blond seems to be intent on doing sexy things with him. Actually, from where he’s standing-leaning, really-it’s pretty freaking fantastic.
The guy, and Brendon is a little ashamed to realize that he doesn’t exactly remember his name -something short and simple, maybe Tim-seems equally pleased with the situation. Tim, Brendon’s pretty sure that’s it, breaks away from his current assault on Brendon’s neck to whisper a ragged, “You want to go somewhere quieter?” in his ear.
Before Tim had approached him, he hadn’t actually spoken to anyone aside from the extremely drunk guy manning the keg. He’d managed to stick it out for almost two hours, hanging on to his composure with determination and beer alone, and he’d been about to leave when Tom swooped in like a scruffy knight in shining armor on a quest to save Brendon from social isolation. At first Tim had seemed strangely baffled by him, but after a moment he’d offered to get Brendon a refill of beer. An embarrassingly short while later they’d somehow ended up trying to fuse their bodies through their clothes against the living room wall.
He’s still a little sad about the loss of Tim’s lips on his neck, so it takes Brendon a moment to really process what Tim is saying. But yes, yes he would definitely like to ‘go somewhere quieter’ with the scruffy blond. Though he hasn’t specifically been in this situation before, he’s almost positive that going somewhere quieter means that Tim wants to do some things to him that aren’t okay for public consumption.
To him, Brendon Urie. Awesome.
He nods his assent and immediately takes Tim’s offered hand. Tim appears to know exactly he’s doing-in more ways than one, so Brendon follows him through the crush of sweaty bodies bobbing in arrhythmic abandon to a rap song about dropping it like it’s hot. Whatever that means.
He stumbles in his effort to keep up with Tim’s longer strides as they make their way up the stairs to the second floor, catching himself against Tim’s warm, t-shirted back. He rests his head there for just a second, the t-shirt nice and soft from a few too many washings. He could seriously stay there all night. He snaps back to attention when the back in front of him jerks forward. Tim pushes open the door to a bedroom at the end of a long hallway.
While Brendon was caught up in molesting the guy’s back, they’d somehow made their way the master bedroom. Brendon fully extricates himself from Tim’s back to shuffle toward the neatly made king-sized bed in the center of the room on sneakered feet. He has the fleeting thought that he really shouldn’t be wearing his shoes in someone else’s house.
He flops on the edge of the bed, and is pleased when it gives a slight bounce at his weight. He wonders whether he should drop back on the bed or take his shirt off or something. He lets out a drunken giggle. God, he is so easy.
Before he can commit to either action-or possibly both, Brendon takes a moment to survey what looks to be the master bedroom, while Tim continues to do whatever he’s doing over by the door. The dresser is lined with photos of three dark haired boys in various stages of growth and orthodontia, beaming wide, infectious smiles at the camera. The final picture in the row features an attractive family, with the boys from the previous photos positioned stiffly in front of two glowing parents.
Brendon feels a little queasy at the sight of it. He shakes his head sharply; he isn’t going to think about that now. He is going to do something he probably shouldn’t with Tim.
His gaze swings away from the smiling family and back to the door, where Tim is apparently victorious in his task, as evidenced by a quiet “yes!” and small fist pump. As Tim turns away from the door, Brendon finally gets what’s been distracting Tim from the promise of more make-outs. “Oh, hey! You locked the door. Good thinking.”
Brendon’s eyes track Tim’s progress across the room, and he leans his weight back on his hands to wait. He is more than a little put out when Tim stops moving toward him and makes a detour to the dresser. He’s a little confused when Tim flips down the photo of the family and whispers something that sounds like, “shouldn’t be seeing this.”
Whatever, Brendon isn’t about to complain about Tim being a weirdo when it has the added advantage of covering up the most distracting thing in the room.
“Yep. Didn’t want to be interrupted,” Tim says, answering Brendon’s earlier comment. Brendon decides that he likes Tim’s voice. He has a hint of a Chicago accent, and is doing something funny to his vowels that Brendon isn’t at all used to yet. Brendon also likes the roll of his hips and his kind of slouchy walk, especially when it brings Tim right up to the bed to fit in the space between Brendon’s legs.
Tim leans down into Brendon’s space, and his arm reaches over Brendon’s shoulder, body subtly pushing Brendon down to the mattress. Which Brendon fully supports. It feels like it’s been forever since Tim stopped kissing him downstairs, and he is more than ready to get back to it.
He can smell the faint hint of alcohol on Tim’s breath before his lips come down hard on Brendon’s. He opens his mouth under Tim’s, his body shifting restlessly against the other boy. He wiggles his hand free from where it has become trapped between their chests and lifts it to graze the back of Tim’s head, his fingers twining in dark blond hair. Their bodies are pressed flush together, Tim’s jean-clad leg rubbing against Brendon’s erection.
Brendon lets out an ‘mmm’ of approval that quickly becomes a groan when Tim moves his hand to the button of Brendon’s pants. Yep, he was right, he does really like where this is going. He abandons the softness of Tim’s hair to grasp at the edge of Tim’s t-shirt. He almost lets out another giggle as Tim attempts to unzip Brendon’s jeans, even as he tries to get the t-shirt off of Tim. After a small struggle, they both accomplish their tasks, and Brendon has all sorts of newly exposed skin to explore.
Tim’s lips find their way back to Brendon’s neck. His stubble is scratchy against Brendon’s skin, and he mumbles what sounds like, “Definitely not a girl.”
“Wait, what?”
Brendon is distracted from asking further questions when Tim’s hand leaves its place on Brendon’s abdomen to grip his hips and then execute a smooth roll. It is actually kind of impressive for someone who is obviously at least as drunk as Brendon. All of a sudden Brendon is really high up and, aside from a brief grapple with what he thinks might be altitude sickness, he is really liking the view.
He breaks out in a grin as he takes in the half-naked guy beneath him. Tim’s mouth is drawn in a slight smirk, a look that says he is absolutely sure that he’s about to get lucky. And due to circumstances that actually have very little to do with him -involving Brendon’s already questionable inhibitions being even further lowered by alcohol and a desire to do something unquestionably stupid, he’s right. Tim is about to get very, very lucky.
Brendon lowers his head to Tim’s, his lips ghosting over the other boy’s. Tim cranes his neck to meet Brendon’s, his mouth wet and sure. He nips at Tim’s lower lip in response, grinding his hips down against the front of Tim’s jeans. Tim jerks his body up, his hips canting, and flips their positions. Brendon is left panting under Tim’s heavier body once again.
He is more than okay with that. In a gesture reminiscent of Tim’s smooth moves from earlier downstairs, his lips search out Tim’s neck. Brendon is just putting the finishing touches on what he is sure will be a beautiful hickey, when he realizes that Tim’s hands have dropped from his waist. He scoots back on the bed slowly, taking in the reddened skin on the side of Tim’s throat with some satisfaction.
He presses his hand to the shallow rise and fall of Tim’s chest as his gaze rises to meet Tim’s. Or his gaze would be meeting Tim’s, if Tim’s eyes were open. If Tim were awake. Which he clearly is not.
What. The. Fuck.
-
He is not at all prepared when Spencer answers the phone. He’d been gearing up to leave a truly humiliating message when Spencer spoils everything by picking up on the third ring.
He doesn’t even get the chance to utter a greeting before Spencer breaks out with an absent, “So, did ya get laid?”
Brendon almost chokes on his own spit.
It takes a moment for him to get over his abrupt coughing fit, and then another moment for him to notice the ominous silence on the other end of the line.
“Wait, seriously?” Spencer asks. And Brendon he can hear a muffled voice in the background following Spencer’s question. Great, Ryan is sleeping over.
He probably has his spindly limbs sprawled all over Spencer’s bed, reading some book he has to pretend to understand in order to maintain his status as a pretentious douchebag. He is most definitely listening in on their conversation. Brendon has to tamp down on his feeling of vicious envy at Ryan even being there.
“Well, not exactly. I mean, there was this guy…” Brendon trails off. He isn’t really sure how to say ‘I got drunk and did something totally slutty at a party with a complete stranger’ without making it sound like he got drunk and did something totally slutty at a party with a complete stranger. He’s not even sure which will bother Spencer more, the drinking or the slutty behavior thing.
He wishes than anything that he was still drunk enough to be having this conversation. Hearing Spencer’s voice has served to sober him up much more effectively than the fifteen-block walk in the freezing cold had.
“Then what, exactly? What guy?” Spencer asks, using his serious voice. It’s the voice that Spencer uses when he isn’t messing around, and he’s more than ready to destroy Brendon with a well-placed barb if he does not bend to Spencer’s will. It’s always better for his state of mind to just give in at the first sign of it.
“Tim. The guy’s name’s Tim. We kind of hooked up. At the party.” That won’t be enough to satisfy Spencer, but he’s hoping it will buy him some time to get his thoughts together.
“Tim? The guy’s name is Tim? You haven’t mentioned a Tim before, Brendon.” It’s never a good thing when Spencer starts repeating your words back to you. It usually means there’s a lecture coming.
“We met at a party. It’s not a big deal. He seemed like a nice enough guy.” From what Brendon could tell before Tim passed out on top of him in a drunken coma.
He can hear rustling on the other end, and can just picture Spencer squaring his shoulders in preparation for a verbal ass-kicking. “Brendon Boyd Urie, what the hell were you thinking?”
Spencer tends to worry over nothing, he is seriously such a mother hen. But he also knows all of Brendon’s weaknesses, and knows that Brendon won’t be able to stand up to Brendon’s mom’s patented, dreaded tactic of using his full name to get him to spill his guts. He’d once falsely confessed to chopping off the hair of his older sister’s My Little Pony because of that ploy.
The whole story comes pouring out of him in a more or less coherent jumble. He tells Spencer about ‘finding somewhere quieter’, keeps his account of making out on some nice couple’s bed as short as possible, briefly glossing over the weird moment when Tim said something about Brendon not being a girl. He then mumbles his way through an account of having to wiggle his way out from under Tim’s unconscious body after recognizing the futility of trying to push him off.
Silence reigns once again in the wake of his story. Well, it’s silent aside from the faint laughter that Brendon can hear coming from Ryan fucking Ross.
When Spencer speaks again, it is in a quiet, measured tone. “He thought you were a girl?”
That sets Ryan off again, his guffaws ringing all too clearly down the phone line. It doesn’t take Spencer long to join in with the stupid girly giggle that only comes out when he finds something truly hilarious. They would focus on that part of his story.
“I hate you both, so very much,” he states clearly into the mouthpiece. He barely stops himself from making a very ill advised comment about how Tim obviously didn’t think he was a girl for long. That probably would not have the desired effect.
“Don’t be like that. We’re kidding.” Brendon thinks it would be a lot more convincing if Spencer weren’t speaking through his laughter. “You have to admit it is pretty funny, B.”
For a while there, it actually really hadn’t been. It had seemed pretty much the opposite of pretty funny. To Brendon it was one of the most embarrassing moments of his life, something that he will be repeating to a shrink in ten years as he bemoans his continual inability to hang on to a man. It’s only as he listens to his best friends gasping for breath between giggles that he begins to see the humor of the situation. This could seriously only happen to him.
He lets out a weak chuckle and concedes, “Yeah, yeah. It was hilarious to realize I didn’t have the upper body strength to push off the 170 pounds of dead weight belonging to the guy who basically fell asleep while making out with me.”
“That’s the spirit!” Spencer says, voice full of uncharacteristic pep. Brendon can’t make out what Ryan says in response, but he can guess by the tone. Seriously, his friends are such jerks.
He misses them like crazy.
He needs to get off the phone before he starts bawling like the girl Tim had apparently mistaken him for. He thinks he might be physically incapable of handling any more mortification tonight.
“Anyway, I’ll let you get back to your little gay sleepover.” And he’s maybe baiting them a little, well baiting Ryan a little. But there had definitely been a malicious tinge to his laughter, so it’s fair.
This time he can hear Ryan clearly as he insists that, “Sleepovers are not gay.” And that’s Ryan taking the bait.
“You hear that, Brendon? Sleepovers aren’t gay.” Yep, and he can hear the smirk in Spencer’s voice just as clearly.
“It was always pretty gay when I slept over.” Brendon’s tone matches Spencer’s, adding a little eyebrow wiggle that he firmly believes helps him convey that message.
Spencer’s voice drops an octave, becoming disturbingly seductive in a heartbeat. “That’s because you’re special, Brendon.” There’s a beat of silence, then they both burst out laughing over the sound of Ryan making gagging noises in the background.
Brendon is still completely convinced that Spencer is the best thing that’s ever happened to him, but they really do make better friends than boyfriends. It helps that a pretty big part of him is convinced that Spencer and Ryan are soul mates destined to grow old together before succumbing to the first known case of death by codependence. Brendon’s been taking bets against himself over when Ryan will finally give up on his ruse of heterosexuality and make an honest man of Spencer. The odds are pretty heavily in favor of Ryan’s freshman year of college.
“I know it. I don’t want to give Ryan an aneurysm by keeping you from your pillow fight any longer. Just be careful not to break Ross. He’s delicate,” Brendon says.
He thumbs his phone off to the sound of Ryan’s squawking protests.
Brendon’s smile fades as he tosses the phone at a pile of dirty clothes and lies back on his bed. In his unfamiliar bedroom thousands of miles away from his friends.
He supposes that there’s a comfort in knowing that it can’t get much worse than this.
-- --
Tom wakes up with a pounding head and his mouth tasting like ass. Also without a shirt, which is weird.
Tom isn’t exactly sure where he is, but he is pretty sure that the sunlight streaming through the open curtains is going to be a contributing factor to his brain exploding. He draws his arms up to cover his eyes, the too-fast movement causing bright bursts of pain to reverberate through his skull. Ow.
“Oh, good. You’re up.” At least the voice is familiar. And loud. Maybe if he just lies there the owner of the voice will leave him to die in peace, or at least in a state of misery that isn’t compounded by what is sure to be a lengthy lecture.
“Come on, since you were nice enough to stay, you can help with the clean-up.” The words are followed by a sharp swat to his foot.
He slowly levers himself into a seated position on the bed, his voice hoarse and grumpy when he says, “Jesus, JWalk, give a guy a minute to regroup.” Now it makes a whole lot more sense where he is. He’s in Jon’s house. He chances a glance around, his eyes zeroing in on the photos on the dresser, one of which is facing down. He’s in Jon’s house, and has apparently slept in Jon’s parent’s bed. Again, weird.
Jon interrupts his lightning-quick series of observations with a jab to the shoulder. His head spins from jerking up to take in Jon’s beaming face. No one should look that happy right now, especially not when Tom is feeling so very, very shitty.
He scowls up at all that cheer. “How’d you even get in here? I remember locking that door.”
And oh, oh fuck. He does remember locking that door.
Jon lets out a snort, his expression growing even more gleeful, something that really should really not be possible. “Your friend probably left it unlocked.”
Tom thinks it’s actually pretty amazing that he doesn’t get a head-rush from all of the images that are bombarding his still-slightly-drunk brain. He remembers locking the door, he remembers downstairs before he locked the door, and he even remembers a bit of what happened after locking the door. He mostly remembers Brendon.
“Oh, fuck.”
“That about sums it up, buddy.” Tom is sure that Jon’s consoling pat would be a hell of a lot more effective if it wasn’t for the evil gleam in his eyes.
He swallows around the sudden lump (of what he hopes is not vomit) in his throat. “What did I do?”
Jon frowns at that, moving a step back to fully take Tom in. “I would think you’d have a better idea of that than I would.”
Tom’s hand reaches up to rub futilely at his temples. “I remember some of it. The rest is sort of, um, hazy.” Yeah, some of it. Like a really nice ass in girl jeans, pretty brown eyes, and what was most definitely a penis.
Jon drops down to sit next to Tom, his weight causing Tom’s body to slide closer to him on the mattress. He slings an arm around Tom’s slumped shoulders, squeezing him lightly. “I’ll tell you what I know.” Tom can feel Jon’s ribs expand as he takes in a deep sigh of a breath and lets it out. “Yesterday you and Danielle broke up. Again. You gave a really passionate speech about how you were through and that was it. I haven’t seen you that worked out about anything… pretty much ever.”
Tom winces at the memory that Jon’s account brings to mind. He does recall a speech about being done with Dani ‘for good this time’. He usually says something to that effect after every breakup, just with much fewer words.
It isn’t even like the breakup had been any worse than usual. They’d just been fighting a lot about nothing and had come to the point where they either had to break up or stop speaking entirely. He’d just felt really sick of it -the few months where they were okay always followed by weeks of bitching at each other. Tom’s pretty sure that high school relationships aren’t supposed to be that exhausting; that’s what real life is for.
He tunes back in as Jon continues talking. “You said you still wanted to come to the party, so I figured you’d just get wasted and get it out of your system.” Jon quirks his mouth in something like a smile, which is actually kind of alarming on someone who usually smiles with, like, his whole freaking soul. “Well, you definitely got wasted. Really, really wasted.”
“One of Nick’s asshole friends tried to console you. He had this whole big spiel about how the only way to move on was to ‘bang’ someone else.” Jon actually uses airquotes here. “That was the last time I saw you. I left for maybe five minutes to go find Cass, and the next thing I know, you’re gone. The guys said that you’d, uh, taken a liking to someone and had gone to put the moves on her.” Tom has to look away from the blatant disappointment in Jon’s eyes. He loves Jon like a brother, but he is seriously not up for what is bound to be a well-deserved guilt trip. Not when his head feels like it’s been smacked repeatedly with a two-by-four.
Jon’s tone brightens considerably as he picks up his story, “Yep, that was the last time I saw you.” He pauses for effect, making sure that Tom’s attention is fully on him. “A little while later I did happen to see someone heading down the stairs. I only noticed because they seemed to be in a pretty big hurry. Like they were trying to get away from something-someone?” Jon’s voice rises on the last, making it a question.
Damn. Tom knows exactly where Jon is going with this. “But that couldn’t have anything to do with you. Because the guys seemed to think that you were going after some chick you saw at the party. And the person running down the stairs? Yeah, totally a guy!” Jon finishes with a flourish, his hand coming down to clap hard on Tom’s knee.
It really isn’t fair that Jon can go from being all disappointed in Tom to being completely delighted by his fuck-up in the space of a minute. The asshole.
Tom’s not sure what to say. If he claims to have no idea what Jon is talking about, then Jon won’t let up. But if he admits it, then he’ll have to explain what the hell happened. Which he is still kind of confused about himself.
He can remember Nick’s ‘asshole friend’ talking up revenge sex. He even remembers being totally gone enough to think that it sounded like an awesome idea. Right about then he’d caught a glimpse of a tiny chick with short dark hair, and superbly tight jeans. From behind she’d seemed to be the opposite of his willowy, blond, recently ex-girlfriend. It hadn’t taken a whole lot of encouragement to get him across the room to try and work his rusty mojo on the unsuspecting chick.
Except it had not been a chick. At all. Tom doesn’t really think he can be blamed for making that assumption, though. The guy had been wearing girl jeans and was what Tom generally thinks of as girl-sized. He was just incredibly lucky that somehow, in spite of his rather massive alcohol consumption, he’d managed not to say the first thing that popped into his head. Which was, Oh, you’re a dude.
Tom isn’t clear about a whole lot, like what they’d actually talked about, or how he’d convinced the guy-Brendon-that it was a stellar idea to make out with him against Jon’s living room wall while a gathering of his closest friends and strangers danced to rap music a few feet away. In spite of that, he’s pretty sure that if he’d called Brendon a girl the night would have ended a little differently. Differently from what, he isn’t really sure.
“So, you dig guys now? Was he gentle with you?” Jon has apparently had enough of Tom’s totally stoic silence.
“I… don’t exactly dig guys. I mean, I guess this guy? And there was that thing with William.” Tom shifts uneasily away from Jon, needing a little distance from him for what is bound to be an incredibly awkward conversation.
“William…?” Jon lets out a sharp laugh. “Nick’s friend? Huh.”
Dani hadn’t been nearly that nonchalant when he’d told her about following their last month-long breakup. It isn’t completely uncommon for either of them to find other company in the time they spend apart. Danielle had actually seemed to kind of freak out about the whole guy thing. That had been something of a surprise, what with her being a member of the GSA at school, and all about pride marches and The Day of Silence. He guesses it’s different when it’s your boyfriend who takes a turn batting for the other team.
In his more spiteful moments, like the last month of their relationship, he thinks that she was just pissed that William is prettier than she is. William is prettier than most girls.
Tom has never really thought of himself in terms of being straight or gay. He doesn’t generally find most guys attractive, but William was pretty hot and had also been right there when he’d been feeling loose and open to a little bit of company. Brendon was definitely hot, and he’d definitely been right there.
Tom is an easy-going guy, one of the things that pissed Danielle off most during their bad periods, so once he’d figured out that Brendon was not a chick with a pixie cut, he’d just kind of shrugged and gone with it. Whatever, so he’s maybe going through his bi-curious phase a little early. Plus, at the time it had seemed to have the added bonus of Danielle being really fucking pissed off if she ever found out about it.
He figures it isn’t that big of a deal. Guys or girls, it doesn’t really matter if you want to see them naked. Which he had, wanted to see Brendon naked. A brief image of Brendon’s body stretched out underneath his flashes across.
With that in mind, he commits to the same thought process he employed the previous night, just shrugs and goes with it. “Yeah, Brendon was a dude. I guess I kind of do that now, maybe. Not a big deal.”
“Huh.” A long silence falls after Jon speaks. Tom just lets it hang, he’s always been pretty comfortable with silences that other people feel the need to fill.
Jon lets out a noisy breath, “Well, if you’re not going to be weird about it, then that kind of ruins my fun. You suck, Conrad.” Jon nudges his knee against Tom’s, the silent show of support proving, once again, that Jon Walker is seriously the best friend ever.
“Yeah, I really do.” Tom winces at the unintentional implication of his agreement. He has always had the bad habit of speaking before thinking.
Jon leaps up from the bed, spinning around to point his finger in Tom’s face. “Yeah, you do!”
Tom works up a half-hearted scowl for Jon, as the other boy leans back against his parents’ dresser. Tom’s eyes are once again drawn to the overturned picture of Jon’s family.
“So, what did happen with, uh, Brendon?” He can hear the slight hesitation in Jon’s voice before speaking Brendon’s name. Tom supposes that even if you are as awesome as Jon Walker, it still takes a minute or two to readjust to the fact that your best friend is a little bit gay.
And maybe Jon is cool with the whole Tom liking dudes thing, but there is no way he is ever going to let Tom live it down when he learns what happened. With a muttered curse, Tom picks up the story from where Jon left off, relating what little he remembers from last night. “Well, Brendon and I hit it off, I guess? We came upstairs and found an empty room.” He glances around the room in question, finally shooting Jon an apologetic look for using his mom and dad’s room for-that. “We were messing around, and then… I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? You don’t remember what happened? Did you go all the way?” Jon quirks a brow at him, superior in his ability to hold his beer and his amazing girlfriend.
“No, definitely not. We just kissed.” He crosses his arms defensively over his chest. That reminds him that he totally had his Big Gay Crisis with Jon Walker -or not so big, really-while he was only partially clothed.
He searches the floor for his t-shirt, pulling it over his head. He mumbles through the cotton, “I maybe passed out.”
Tom refuses to look up to see Jon’s expression as he pays particular attention to smoothing down his shirt.
“You maybe passed out?” Jon’s voice is too free of emotion for Tom’s liking. He nods his head slightly, waiting.
It doesn’t take long. “Holy shit, Tom! No wonder the guy ran out of here. You passed out right in the middle of the action.” Tom thinks that his sophomore English teacher would call what Jon is doing ‘cackling’.
“I know! It’s not like I meant to. I was just really, really trashed,” he says belligerently. He doesn’t think it’s fair that he sounds quite so much like a guilty five year old when talking about getting drunk and making out with someone.
“Only you, Conrad.” Jon slaps a hand on his should, smile firmly back in place. Now he maybe resents how found Jon sounds.
“Whatever. Let’s just call it another drunken mistake and forget about it, okay?” He doesn’t mean for that to sound as pleading as it does.
“Sure, okay.” Jon still looks entirely too happy about the whole situation to be trusted, but there isn’t much that Tom can really do about it.
He gets to his feet, walking past Jon to the door. “You said something about cleaning?”
Jon shakes his head, clearly not buying that Tom wants to clean his house so much as he wants to get out of this conversation. It is a testament to their friendship that Jon doesn’t call him on it. He just follows Tom down the stairs find some trash bags. He does occasionally let out quiet little chuckles to let Tom know that he is still reflecting on his friend’s humiliation.
-- --
As far as Tom is concerned, the day can’t end soon enough. And it isn’t even half over yet. Mondays always inevitably suck, but the day is turning out to be pretty fucking bleak.
After helping Jon clean up the mess on Sunday, they’d both somehow made it to band practice. Those three hours had been torture, due largely to his malicious hangover, the ribbing he got for the mouth-shaped bruise on his neck, and the little bits and pieces he kept remembering from the night before.
With everything else that was going on, he’d somehow managed to forget the whole Danielle mess for a good twenty-four hours. But when he gets to school on Monday morning, he only narrowly avoids running into Danielle talking with her friends in the hallway before class.
Having adjacent lockers is all well and good you’re in the ‘on’ phase of your on-again-off-again relationship, but when you’re in the ‘off’ phase, it seems like an exercise in masochism. Or sadism, depending on your point of view.
He’s on his way to his first ever Home Ec class, and is still caring his mammoth Stats book and camera with him. He’d decided that the way things are going, his luck will not hold out through another trip into Danielle’s territory-AKA his locker. He lets out a discontented sigh as he pulls at the strap of his bag and then readjusts the flipped collar of his shirt to make sure it’s still covering the fading mark on his neck.
Tom is all for electives. Aside from certain teachers’ lax attendance taking, they’re the only way he can get through math and history classes. But it’s an entirely different thing when you don’t exactly get to choose the elective.
He’d been more than happy to take photography for the fourth time. Sure, it wasn’t like he’d learned a lot in the class, but it had given him a whole period to wander the school just taking pictures and occasionally smoking up with Jon. Unfortunately, the school administration did not see it that way. They were actually more than a little put out by the fact that Tom had somehow taken the class three times, when there was the intended maximum was twice.
Tom still doesn’t think that he can be blamed for it. All he did was keep signing up for the class; it wasn’t his fault that they just let him. In a move that Tom believes to be wildly unreasonable, he was left to decide between taking Woodshop and Home Economics. And as he has what he considers to be a very rational and healthy fear of power tools, he chose Home Economics. He figures no one ever regrets knowing how to make flan.
He trudges down the deserted hallway, feeling oddly impotent as his camera thumps against his chest with every step. There isn’t much of a point in hurrying when avoiding Danielle has already made him late. When he gets to the door of the Home Ec Lab, he hesitates. Skipping seems like a really good idea all of a sudden. He doesn’t really think he’s up for learning how to be a homemaker right now. There will probably be aprons involved.
On the other hand, if he starts skipping today, he’ll be screwed later in the term when he really needs to take a personal day. He sighs his defeat and pushes open the door.
He keeps his attention focused on the teacher poised at the blackboard in the front as she exclaims that he must be “Mr. Conrad!” She introduces herself as Mrs. Anders and tells him that they are just so glad to have another latecomer join the class. Tom nods his head at what he thinks are the appropriate times and avoids looking at the cooking stations set up around the room. This is so not his deal.
His eyes are coasting disinterestedly over the predominantly female class, when a pair of startled brown eyes catches his gaze.
Over the sudden rush of blood in his ears, he hears Mrs. Anders, say, “And since you both decided to join us a little late, and you are the only gentlemen in the class, I though that you and Brendon could work together. I thought it might be more comfortable for you, starting coming into it a little late, and you might want a little male solidarity.” She gives a little laugh like she’s just made some great joke.
But no, lady, he would definitely not be more comfortable this way. Right now, confronted with the dude that left him passed out in bed on Saturday night, he is feeling pretty freaking uncomfortable.
Fucking Mondays.
-- --
Brendon sends up a silent prayer to a god that he no longer necessarily believes in to strike him dead where he stands. Or, barring that, he at least prays that he doesn’t look as panicked as Tom-not Tim!-does.
When Tom had caught sight of Brendon, he’d gone as still as a statue. After a minute passes and Tom makes no move to head toward Brendon’s table, Mrs. Anders finally gives Tom a push toward Brendon’s station.
Brendon watches as Tom takes the few stumbling steps to his table. He imagines this must be what a deer feels like right before a semi hits it-frozen with a debilitating mix of uncomprehending disbelief and horror.
If Brendon were any good at math, he would probably take the few moments he has left before Tom speaks (and forces him to relive the most humiliating moment of his life to date) to calculate the statistical improbability of being partnered in Home Ec class with the stranger he’d groped at a party. He bets the chances are pretty fucking slim.
As Tom drops his bag to the ground by his feet, Brendon attempts to convince himself that he is mature enough to handle this situation without turning into a babbling idiot. His whole body is tensed in queasy anticipation as he waits for Tom to say something. And then he waits some more.
Brendon hazards a look in Tom’s direction, carefully glancing up at him from under his eyelashes on the off chance that Tom is gaping at him in shock. He is oddly dismayed to realize that Tom is most definitely not gaping at him. Tom is instead staring straight ahead as Mrs. A teaches the final part of the kitchen safety lesson.
Brendon watches him in disbelief, only noticing the glazed over look in his eyes after keeping that up for several minutes. Wherever Tom is, it certainly isn’t Home Ec class. Lucky bastard.
Okay, fine. Tom seems cool with pretending that nothing happened between them. Brendon can totally do that. He isn’t exactly smooth, but he can certainly keep from acting like a spaz over some guy he was friendly with at a party.
It isn’t like Brendon has never made out with anyone before. He and Spencer used to make out all the time, sometimes for hours. And he and Kathy from his church group totally made out in the craft closet that one time. He supposes the second doesn’t really count because it made him realize that he found making the popsicle stick angels they were getting supplies for far more exciting than kissing a girl in a closet.
Still, he and Spencer had gone way further than he’d gone with Tom, so it was no big deal. Really. If Tom can ignore the situation, then Brendon can too.
It will definitely possible to work with knives and open flames without actually talking… for the rest of the school year.
-
Neither Brendon nor Tom say anything for the remainder of the hour, and before Brendon can even entertain the thought of trying to clear the air, Tom has gathered up his things and is out the door.
This whole thing with Tom has been a serious blow to his already less-than-stellar self-esteem.
Brendon takes his time getting his things together. He really doesn’t have to hurry anywhere. He has lunch right after Home Ec, and it’s not like anyone is waiting for him. He throws his back over his shoulder and heads for the cafeteria.
As far as Brendon can figure, the only way to get through lunch period in high school is to look at it as a kind of social experiment. For a while Ryan had had a not so secret obsession with the movie Mean Girls, and boy did that movie get it right. Lunch hour in an American public high school is sort of like watching The Discovery Channel, where the healthy carnivores travel in packs and weak stragglers limp along alone. He isn’t really any more into science than he is into math, but even still, he can admire the spectacle of Darwinism in action.
It helps to think of himself as an observer instead of one of the stragglers. He’s only been at the school for a little over two weeks, so he has the excuse of relative obscurity to keep himself from feeling like too much of a friendless loser.
He gets a slice of vegetarian pizza and chocolate milk, then finds a table in what he discovered, through a week of trial and error, to be the junior section of the cafeteria. He selects a table half-full of kids that he mentally equates to wounded gazelles in the Serengeti.
When it had become pretty clear that no welcoming committee would be forthcoming, and no sage guide in the vein of every teen movie since John Hughes was going to show him the ins and outs of his new high school, Brendon made the tactical decision to just keep his head down and get through the next few months of the term. He has hopes that his parents will see reason by then and he’ll be able to start the long process of forgetting this unfortunate detour in his life ever even happened.
It isn’t like Brendon is shy. If anything, he has always been a little too quick to be himself around complete strangers. Some people find it off-putting, his energy a little too much to take. He has never let that stop him before, but a big part of him needs to see his current geographical location as temporary, and the idea of actively trying to make friends makes him feel even lonelier.
He is friendly with a few people in his classes, like the pretty blond girl from his Chem class who had invited him to that disaster of a party. But for the most part, he keeps to himself and no one has really gone out of their way to try to befriend him.
Brendon settles in one of the monstrously stiff-backed chairs and peels open the top of his pudding cup. He always eats desert first; he never understood the point of putting off the best parts of things.
His spoon is just scraping the plastic bottom of the cup when the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Brendon hunches his shoulders at the distinct feeling of eyes being trained on him. He glances around the table, but most of the lunch crowd is busy with eating and chatting. No one is paying him any attention.
He still can’t shake the feeling of being watched. Brendon twists around in his seat, feeling ridiculous and not a little bit paranoid as his eyes scan the cafeteria at his back.
He’s somehow not surprised when his eyes lock with Tom Conrad’s.
Tom seems untroubled by being caught in a stare, and continues to hold his gaze. The longer he looks at Tom, the more irritated he grows. Tom just keeps squinting at him until with the guy sitting beside him demands his attention. A minute later, Tom’s friend turns to regard Brendon as well.
Brendon whips back around to face forward, his attention going back to his lunch tray. At the sound of laughter behind him, his body goes tense and his shoulders shoot up around his ears.
Maybe it really is just paranoia this time, but he can’t help but think that the laughter has something to do with him. He’s just about had it with dealing with Tom Conrad’s shit.
Brendon grabs his tray and heads for the exit. He feels stupid and out of place and oddly hurt by the whole thing.
When he shoves the mostly full tray into the trash, his pudding cup ricochets off of the lid to land on the front of his pastel hoodie. He gingerly removes the sticky plastic container from his sweatshirt, leaving a glob of gooey brown desert in its place.
He decides right then and there that he’ll never forgive his parents for as long as he lives.
Which probably won’t be very long, considering he’s due for a stress related heart attack any minute now.
-- --
Tom isn’t really one to think ahead, but he’s almost positive that even if he were, nothing could have prepared him for walking into a cooking classroom only to find the stranger that he’d wanted to get naked on Saturday night. That the whole point of messing around with a stranger at a party, you typically never have to see them again.
Tom thinks he handled the situation pretty well. He didn’t say anything that would make things any more awkward. He’d done that by not saying anything at all.
And now he’s at lunch, once again faced with the living embodiment of his drunken mistake. Fuck. He must have been freaking blind or something, because Brendon is everywhere and he’d somehow missed him before. Brendon-boy of the tight jeans and big brown eyes-is currently sitting two tables over from Tom and his friends.
He tears his eyes away from the back of Brendon’s head to concentrate on the tray in front of him. He doesn’t really know what he’d picked up as he’d been in a bit of a daze when he went through the line, mostly trusting his instincts to steer him away from anything that could make his throat swell closed.
When Jon asks him a question about their shared History class, Tom attempts to answer him and rejoin the table’s conversation. It takes less than a minute for him to resume burning a hole in Brendon’s back with his eyes. Every once in a while he tries to look away and answer questions directed at him, but he mostly just sits there, squinting at Brendon like a huge creep.
In his effort to ignore Brendon in class he had kind of succeeded in actually ignoring him, and now he has no clue what Brendon’s thinking. It really, really sucks.
As if in response to the thought, Brendon swivels his head around to look directly at Tom.
On some level, Tom knows that when someone catches you blatantly staring at them, you’re supposed to look away as quickly as possible so that you can both pretend that it never happened. Tom sometimes has trouble doing what he’s supposed to based on the rules of normal social practices. He ignores the warning thought, and just narrows his eyes and tries his best to get a read on what the hell Brendon’s facial expression means.
For a moment, Brendon looks startled, but the longer Tom watches, the more it seems like he’s starting to look pretty pissed off. Tom can’t really be sure, he’s never been very good at figuring out what other people are feeling unless they expressly tell him, “Tom, I’m pissed off.” They usually follow that up with some variation of ‘you asshole’.
Of course Jon has to ruin everything by being a total dick and waving his hand in front of Tom’s face. “Earth to Conrad. What the hell, man?”
Tom shifts around in his seat, his shoulders hunching and his eyes going back to his plate.
Jon lowers his voice, speaking directly into Tom’s ear. “Oh, I see. You’re totally checking that dude out. It’s like a whole new world has opened up for you, huh?”
Tom’s head pops up to follow Jon’s line of sight to Brendon’s tensed back. Jon lets out a laugh at the expression on his face. Tom manages a weak laugh of his own. Yeah, Jon is totally hilarious.
They both jump a little in their seats when the object of their scrutiny pushes away from his lunch table with a loud screech of his chair. Brendon grabs his tray of food and heads toward the exit.
“Huh,” is all Jon has to say to that.
Tom isn’t really good at reading people, but he’s almost positive that Brendon is pissed off.
Part 2
Master Post