BBB: Like or Like-Like (6/8)

[withoutacure1]

Part 6

The party is a blur of too much alcohol and too many bodies pressed too close together.

Spencer barely leaves his side the whole night.

It isn’t that strange, because he doesn’t really know anyone else there. But Brendon loves dancing at parties-something Spencer said is kind of a given, what with his personality and all-and Spencer isn’t usually much of a dancer. It is one of the few things that can make him look uncomfortable in his own skin.

Which is why it is something of a shock when he stays glued to Brendon’s side on the dance floor, and waves off Brendon’s offer to find somewhere to sit down. Plus Spencer seems determined to overlook personal space in a way he hasn’t since the time when their personal space was more of a shared space.

When Spencer tries something that feels perilously close to grinding, Brendon calls a timeout. He heads for the keg to get a refill. And just like every other time Brendon goes to get a refill, Spencer follows along this time, too. Spencer doesn’t even drink. It is kind of starting to freak Brendon out.

And to make matters worse, every time he catches a glimpse of Tom in the throng, the other boy’s expression resembles a storm that is ready to break. He can’t even ask Tom what’s up, because every time Brendon tries to talk to him, he disappears. It’s like he’s avoiding Brendon.

By the end of the night, Brendon is tired from more than just watered down beer and dancing. He is exhausted from trying to keep Spencer entertained and Tom in his sights.

They get a ride back to his aunt’s place with Jon. Tom is a silent sentry in the passenger seat, glaring into the night at absolutely nothing.

When Brendon and Spencer shout their breathless goodbyes, they only get a terse, “Bye” out of Tom, as they clamor out of Jon’s car.

Brendon doesn’t know exactly what is wrong, but he has a pretty good idea about what the cause of Tom’s mood is. He waits until they are safely ensconced in his bedroom before turning on Spencer.

“What did you say to Tom?” he demands.

“I didn’t say anything to Tom.”

This time, Brendon notes the extra emphasis.

“Earlier, when you promised not to say anything to Tom…” he lets his words trial off.

“I didn’t,” Spencer insists. “I said nothing to Tom.”

There it is again.

“You didn’t promise not to do anything to Tom,” says Brendon, with dawning realization.

“I did not make a promise to that effect,” Spencer confirms. He waits a beat, then adds, “I didn’t exactly do anything to Tom, just… around him.”

Brendon expels an angry breath. So freaking typical. “God, Spencer. You are such a jerk. What does that even mean?”

“I was just testing something, and it turns out I was right.”

“Well, that’s a surprise. It isn’t like you’re not always right.” It takes less than a minute for Brendon’s curiosity to get the better of him, prompting him to ask, “What were you right about?”

It is totally his business. Tom is his friend.

Spencer smirks at him, his eyes glittering with evil glee. “Oh, nothing. Just that Tom was jealous.”

“Huh?” That’s eloquent, Brendon.

“Tom was jealous,” Spencer speaks slowly, as if to a small child. “Because I was all over you, and he couldn’t stand it.”

Spencer looks entirely too satisfied by his proclamation. Brendon is simultaneously thrilled to be able to put him in his place with the truth of the matter, and deeply depressed that Spencer is so off base.

“Tom is not jealous over me.”

“Oh, yes he is. Why do you think he was pissed all night?”

“He wasn’t!” That is clearly not true. Brendon backpedals furiously. “Even if he was, he wasn’t jealous. He was probably feeling protective. I’m sure you can relate. And you do seem like quite the heartbreaker at first introduction, Spencer Smith.” Even when he’s kind of mad at Spencer, he can’t keep himself from dropping into a joking flirtation.

Some habits are hard to break.

Spencer’s look is one of disbelief. “What did I ever see in someone who is this incredibly dense?” he asks the room at large.

Brendon’s “hey!” is automatic, and followed by, “You just don’t now Tom very well, Spence. If you were around all the time, you’d know better.”

“Yeah, your friend Jon couldn’t disagree with me fast enough when I pointed it out,” Spencer remarks sarcastically.

“You leave Jon Walker out of this.” Brendon points an angry finger in Spencer’s direction.

“Fine, fine. I know what I saw.”

“What you caused,” Brendon mutters under his breath.

Spencer, of course, ignores him. “If you’re not ready to see what’s right in front of you, then I’m not about to force you to.”

“Really? Because that sounds exactly like something you would do.” It is beginning to occur to Brendon that he may have been way off base when he told Cassie that he and Spencer never fought when they were together. They seem to be doing a mighty fine job of it right now.

Spencer’s scowl can be the stuff of nightmares. If you have nightmares about fluffy kittens. “You are such a little bitch.”

Brendon’s reply of “Takes one to know one!” sounds a lot cleverer in his head. Well, maybe not cleverer, but at least not as lame. It does have the unintended effect of easing the tension some, the childish retort causing the two boys to grin stupidly at each other.

“Let’s just forget about it, okay? I don’t want to fight with you. You’ll be gone in just a few days,” Brendon says, morosely.

Spencer deflates a little at that. “I don’t what to fight either. I just want you to stop being a moron.”

Spencer’s grin is bright, breaking through the trouble frown on his face. “I guess that’s too much to ask, huh?”

“Don’t ask questions that you already know the answers to,” Brendon supplies, knowing that the self-inflicted insult will be sure-fire way to get Spencer to let it
go.

“Yeah, I should know better by now.”

“You really should.”

-- --

Brendon’s ex-boyfriend is an asshole.

“Brendon’s ex-boyfriend is an asshole.”

Jon’s sigh sounds entirely too put upon. “Yeah, I heard you the first five times. I’m still not going to agree with you. I like Spencer. He’s a funny guy.”

“Yeah, a funny guy who’s going to break Brendon’s heart.” Tom kicks at where Jon is lying at the foot of the bed, too caught up in plotting how to get Spencer to go home early to put much effort into it.

Jon flips over onto his back to give Tom a doubtful look. “I really don’t think you need to worry about that.”

That doesn’t sound any better. “What do you mean by that? Do you think he wants to get back together with Brendon?”

Jon sighs again, this time it’s his ‘how are you not getting this, Tom?’ sigh. “How are such an idiot?”

Tom’s next kick connects, and he is rewarded with a very unmanly yelp from Jon. “I’m not an idiot. I’m just worried about my friend being taken advantage of by his ex -who comes out of nowhere and is all in his space and sleeping in his room…” Tom trails off.

He really doesn’t like to think about Spencer sleeping in Brendon’s room. Sure, it could be platonic, like it is with Tom, but Tom doesn’t trust Spencer not to try to make the situation work for him.

“He didn’t come out of nowhere. He came for Spring Break. Because Brendon invited him.” Jon’s hand clamps down hard on Tom’s foot. “I’m telling you that you don’t need to be worried about Spencer stealing Brendon away from you.” Jon’s pause is deliberate. “I mean, Spencer getting back together with Brendon.”

Tom doesn’t really have anything to say to that. That doesn’t mean that Jon is right or anything. It just means that Tom sees the futility in arguing with Jon when he’s got an idea stuck in his head. Tom is just being smart.

And yeah, Spencer being in Chicago is really cutting into Tom-and-Brendon time, but that isn’t stealing Brendon away. It is just Spencer worming his way back into Brendon’s affections for God knows what reason.

As Tom continues to stew and the silence drags on, Jon seems to finally have enough. “Whatever. I’ve got to go meet Cassie.” He gets up off of Tom’s bed and heads to the door. He stops with his hand on the doorknob, and turns back to Tom.

Jon’s face is as serious as Tom has ever seen it. “You should probably think about why you’re so worried about Spencer being with Brendon. And it isn’t because you think Brendon’s going to get hurt.” Jon leaves the room with that remark.

Tom blinks a couple of times at where his friend was just standing.

He can’t be sure, but he thinks that when Tom got in his parting shot, he’d but a little too much stress on Brendon’s name.

-

May

It turns out that Tom has nothing to worry about.

Spencer heads back to Vegas a few days later, without any sweeping declarations of love, and Brendon has been moping around for a few days. But he doesn’t seem heartbroken, and Tom thinks he knows how to cheer Brendon up.

On the Friday morning following Spring Break, Tom swings by the hallway where the junior lockers are located. He’s too impatient to wait the few hours until class to talk to Brendon. He spots Brendon heading down the hall to his locker.

Tom ambles through the rush of students to meet him there.

“Hey. I had an idea.”

“’Morning to you too, Tom,” Brendon says, not looking up from the task of shoving his books in his locker.

Not cool. He jabs Brendon hard in the shoulder blade, and repeats, “I had an idea.”

Brendon finishes the morning ritual of forcing his locker closed, and then he gives Tom his full attention. “I’m all ears, but you’re going to have to tell me while you walk me to class, because I can’t be late for European History again.” Brendon links his arm through Tom’s and leads them in the direction of the history wing.

After a few steps, Brendon slows his pace to match Tom’s usually lengthier strides.

Once Tom is sure that Brendon is ready to listen, he starts. “We should go camping.”

“What?” Brendon slows a little more, and this time Tom takes the lead, pulling Brendon along down the hall.

“Remember when you said we should go camping? Well, we should.”

“I do remember saying something to that effect, yes. That was forever ago. How do you even remember that? What brought this on?” Brendon asks the questions in quick succession.

“Noting really. Prom is next week, and I figure that neither of us is planning on going, right?” At least Brendon hadn’t mentioned any huge prom plans to him.

“Right. Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Good. We should go next week while everyone is doing the whole prom thing.” It is a pretty fantastic idea, if Tom says so himself.

“So instead of being lame and sitting at home on prom night, you want us to be lame and sitting in the middle of the wilderness on Prom Night?” Brendon asks, coming to a stop when they reach his classroom.

Tom shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, watches a group of girls file into the classroom behind Brendon. “I guess? That was the general idea.”

“Huh.” Brendon swipes a hand through his hair, tugging lightly on the ends. He shuffles a step closer to Tom, smile blooming across his face. “That sounds awesome.”

“Yeah?” Tom can feel his expression changing to match Brendon’s.

“Yeah.”

They just stand there grinning at each other for a minute while other students jostle past them.

The warning bell rings, breaking the moment, and Brendon’s look turns sheepish. “I’ve got to get to class.”

Tom nods, already backing away down the hall. “Me, too. I’ll see you later, okay?”

Tom turns away with a wave and heads back down the hallway he’d just come from. He has one minute to get to his class on the other side of the building.

He’s going to be late.

-- --

“Let me get this straight-Instead of asking you to the Prom, he asked you to go camping?” Spencer sounds torn between going on a rant and having a good laugh at Brendon’s expense.

“It’s not like that. There was never any way he was going to ask me to go to the prom. I mean, yes, I have a giant, obvious crush on him, but he just thinks of me as a friend.”

Friendship has never sounded quite so awful before.

“You don’t even like camping.”

“You don’t know that. I’ve never been. I could love camping,” Brendon argues.

Spencer’s silence speaks volumes, and kind of has a point. Brendon isn’t exactly the outdoor fun type. He once got poison ivy in his cousin’s backyard. In the desert.

He’d meant it when he said it, but it had sounded like a pretty ludicrous idea almost immediately after. But Tom was really excited about it, and Brendon isn’t about to disappoint him. And it isn’t like he has anything else going on that weekend. Like the prom.

Spencer’s sigh echoes down the line. “I assume you said you’d go?”

Brendon nods his head, and Spencer-because he’s Spencer-seems to sense that.

“Okay. Maybe you could jump him in the woods. He’s the kind of guy that knows how to score alcohol, right?” Brendon doesn’t even get the chance to make fun of Spencer for saying ‘score alcohol’ seriously before Spencer is plowing on ahead. “Bring some booze and get him wasted. That seemed to work out pretty well before.”

Brendon is shocked. Shocked. That is the worst plan Spencer has ever had.

“Actually it didn’t work out ‘pretty well’ before. If you recall, it ended with me fleeing a party and leaving him passed out in Jon’s parents’ bed! That was horrible advice. What’s wrong with you?”

“Hey, don’t put this on me. You’re the one who fell for this guy. I have tried to help you, but now that I’ve actually met Tom, I really don’t know what to tell you. If he doesn’t get it by now, beyond recreating the circumstances of your last-and only-sexual encounter, I don’t really see how he will.” Spencer sounds pained to admit that he doesn’t know what to do.

“That’s just it. I don’ want him to get it. If he did it could ruin everything. I’m fine with doing the whole unrequited crush ting, so long as he doesn’t actually know about it.”

“You two deserve each other.”

“What?”

“I can’t believe I’m hatching actual hair-brained schemes here, when you could just end all of this angst with one conversation.” A beleaguered sigh, then: “Never mind. It’ll just have to happen when it happens. When you both get your heads out of your asses.”

Brendon makes a face at the receiver. “Love you too, Spence.”

That seems to brighten Spencer up dramatically. “Yeah, yeah. Love you, Brendon.”

He seriously has the worst taste in guys.

-

Brendon is actually kind of psyched. He’s actually really looking forward to the camping trip. It’ll be just him and Tom alone for the weekend. Not that he thinks anything is going to happen, he just thinks it’ll be fun. There’ll be s’mores, and a fire that they, like, build and maybe Brendon will even be able to convince Tom to sing fantastically corny campfire songs with him.

He even printed out the wilderness survival tips that Spencer had emailed him. He thinks that they were meant to be a joke, because there are some pretty funny pointers about bear attacks that would be a lot less entertaining if they were real.

His good mood lasts right up until he turns the corner to the senior locker hallway. He’d planned to give Tom the survival printouts so that he’d have something to occupy his time during his Stats class, and he’d wanted to catch Tom before he sneaked off to class in Danielle-avoidance mode.

He rounds the corner only to find that for the first time ever, Tom has failed spectacularly at Danielle-avoidance.

From between the wave of bodies of the students heading to their lockers and off to class, Brendon can see Danielle leaning purposefully against her locker, close to Tom. Tom’s back is to Brendon, and he can’t read the lines of his body from twenty feet away when the entire student body seems to be purposefully blocking his view.

Brendon knows that he should just turn around and head to his first period class. He knows that whatever Danielle is saying to Tom isn’t any business of his, even though Tom is his friend and Danielle is his friend-ly acquaintance. That doesn’t stop him from ducking against the wall of lockers and inching closer.

He never has been very good at doing what he’s supposed to do.

He gets three feet away from the pair before he can begin to hear the strain of their conversation above the noise of stomping feet and clanging locker doors.

“I… don’t know, Dani. I kind of made plans for that weekend,” Tom says. Even from where Brendon is standing, he can hear that Tom sounds tense. He really should not be watching this.

“I guess I shouldn’t have asked so last minute. I just never really thought it would get to this point.” The expression on her face is one of open disappointment. She visibly collects herself, and looks straight up into Tom’s face, her voice strong and sure even over the hum of noise around them. Her hand reaches out to gently rest on Tom’s arm. “Think about it, will you? I always imagined going to my Senior Prom with you, Tom.” With that, she turns and walks away.

Brendon is too busy trying wrap his mind around the fact that he’d just witnessed the guy he is in love with play out one the biggest romantic cliché in the entire catalogue of clichéd high school moments to even begin to feign innocence when Tom spots him standing at the lockers. Danielle had just asked Tom to the prom.

Tom’s eyes narrow a bit at Brendon. “Did you… hear any of that?”

Brendon’s working on autopilot when he gives Tom his best crooked smile, the one that got him off scott-free after he’d tied all of his siblings’ shoelaces together. “Just the last bit?” he says.

Tom’s whole body slumps at Brendon’s admission, his shoulders hunching with dejection.

The smile slides off of Brendon’s face, and he takes a step closer to Tom. “Hey, are you okay?”

Tom wilts a bit more at the question, his head hanging low, hair in his eyes. “It was just unexpected, y’know?”

Brendon moves forward those few extra inches and places his hand on Tom’s arm in unconscious mimicry of Danielle’s earlier gesture. He quickly drops his hand back to his side. “That looked…”

Tom rubs a frustrated hand along his temple. “I just-I really thought we were done with this. Whatever. It’s not like I’m gonna go.” He dredges up a half-hearted smile for Brendon. “We’ve got plans.”

At the sight of that smile, Brendon knows exactly what he has to do, and he know exactly how much it is going to utterly suck to do it.

He pastes a blinding smile on his face.

“Hey, Tom-“

-- --

The Prom sucks.

Tom can’t say he’s surprised. Anything that inspires so much angst in teen movies is bound to suck.

It’s a lot of girls in fancy dresses, top 40 hits and twinkle lights. Which isn’t even so bad, Tom could handle that. It’s the weird feeling he gets that everyone seems to be walking around waiting for something momentous to happen. He feels like the air is tinged with desperation, everyone trying to check off the last thing on their to-do list before the end of high school. Or maybe that’s just the tightening neck of his bowtie talking.

But as much as this really isn’t his thing, he wants the Prom to be everything Danielle hoped it would be. He figures that they’ve both laid waste to enough high school milestones in their relationship that she deserves to have the perfect night she wants.

Danielle’s been towing him around the dimly lit hotel ballroom all night, leading him to the dance floor and around the punch bowl to talk to people he can’t even remember the names of from classes he can only distantly recall taking. They wind up back at their table with Jon and Cassie, the girls falling into a companionable conversation about their summer plans.

Tom reclines in his seat, and has to keep himself from shoving his hands into the pockets of his rented tuxedo. He’s heard some sketchy things about tuxedo pockets. He can feel Jon watching him from across the table, and he doesn’t have to guess at the look on his face. He knows that Jon is being all judgmental. Jon thinks he knows everything.

Tom can practically feel the waves of disappointment coming off of him. Which doesn’t even make sense, Jon has always liked Danielle and he’s always been ready with a congratulatory hit when she and Tom inevitably get back together.

Tom manfully ignores him. Jon should concentrate on his own date. He and Cassie live for this stuff.

As Tom takes a sip of his (un-spiked) punch, the DJ swaps out the generic love ballad while the couples on the dance floor try with varying levels of success to bop to the rhythm of Kelly Clarkson shouting her independence.

Tom finds himself unconsciously tapping his foot to the vibrations of the speakers in the floor. He even knows most of the lyrics from when Brendon had left his best chick rockers of the 2000s mix CD in his car stereo for a week.

Brendon would love this. He’d throw himself in the middle of the dance floor, mindless of the arrhythmic duos, and find his own groove to the lady with the voice and her vow to feel a love that’s real. He’d get into the whole spectacle of the event, he’d love the lights and the disco ball, and would make lame jokes about turning into a pumpkin promptly at midnight.

He cuts his eyes to Danielle and Cassie, and tries not to think too much of the fact that they’ve exchanged more words than he and Danielle have. He wishes Brendon were here.

Brendon would probably go a long way to easing the strain of readjustment between Tom and Danielle. He has the unique ability to babble away until people are lulled into comfortable complacency. Plus, he’s friends with the both of them, he’d provide some common ground to cut through the slight tension between them.

Danielle’s fingers drop to Tom’s knee, halting his still-tapping foot. She smiles up at him from under her lashes.

“Let’s go dance,” she says, one hand pressed to the table to steady herself in her heels and the other hand held out tentatively to Tom.

The song changes, and Tom takes her hand. She looks gorgeous with her dark blue gown and silky blond hair. He really does want this to be the night that she imagines she’ll remember forever.

Which is the only reason why Tom is dancing to a Beyonce club remix while wearing shoes that pinch his toes in a freaking ballroom. At least, he’s sort of dancing. He’d never really gotten the hang of moving his body to this kind of beat. This wasn’t like playing the guitar. Usually he could fake his way through parties, but that’s because he was always pressed tight against Danielle’s body and just kind of swayed when she did.

He doesn’t know what it is about a prom dress that makes this kind of dancing feel improbably inappropriate, but he feels that just the same. And he isn’t about to try to get closer that the two inches away from Danielle that the puffy stuff under her dress allows.

It doesn’t help matters that Danielle is kind of like, glowing with contentment. It just makes him feel like more of a dick for not getting into the magic of the night or whatever.

Tom catches a break when the DJ plays a slow song. He holds Danielle as close as he can while they sway to the tinkling of piano keys. Still leaving enough room for the Holy Ghost, as his frighteningly Catholic grandmother would say.

Danielle circles her arms around his neck. The corsage around one of her wrists brushes his clean-shaven cheek. Jon had a hand in both of those things. He’d reminded Tom that an elastic band complete with dress color-coordinated flowers was expected of a Prom date.

Also, that there would probably be mandatory posed photos that would freeze the moment in time forever, and that Tom couldn’t ruin that by looking like a street urchin. Tom is positive that street urchins can’t grow facial hair, but he took Jon’s point, and he’d shaved his days-old stubble off.

He feels kind of naked

Danielle rests her head against his shoulder, and Tom begins to relax marginally. It feels good to have Dani in his arms again, even if she is a little farther away than he would like.

He moves his thumb back and forth on the small of her back, stroking the smooth skin there. As much as he liked to pretend that he hated her while they were apart, he missed her.

By the time the song comes to an end, Tom has been present at the dance for well over two hours. He still can’t bring himself to say anything about leaving to Danielle. But using the former ex-girlfriend/current girlfriend discomfort detecting sixth sense, she must feel his restlessness. She tilts her head up, her chin nudging at his collarbone.

“You’re kind of done, huh?” she asks, snuggling a little closer, as close as that blue thing she’s wearing will allow. It had seemed a lot more appealing before he realized its limitations.

His shrug is as ambiguous as he can make it. He knows what might be a trap when he sees it, and he isn’t about to admit to anything.

With a secretive grin and a brush of her fingers over the tiny buttons of his tuxedo shirt, Danielle suggests that they go up to the room she’d hinted he should rent. So that they can ‘talk’.

Judging by that grin, there won’t actually be much talking going on.

-- --

“Why am I talking to you about this again?”

“Because Spencer has finals to study for, and your issues are always kind of a time suck.” Ryan sounds faintly bored about the whole thing.

Whatever, Ryan is kind of a time suck.

“So, what’s up? What has the stalker done to leave you in a puddle of girly mush this time?”

Ryan has refused to call Tom anything other than the stalker since he heard about Tom following Brendon home. Brendon likes to think that it comes from a place of concern.

Besides that, Brendon doesn’t think that Ryan is in a position to call anyone a puddle of girly mush, not when Brendon has read some of the stuff that the fledgling poetic genius has written to his ex-girlfriends.

At the thought of Ryan’s exes, Brendon feels a renewed surge of frustration.

“He stood me up to go to the prom with ex-girlfriend.” Brendon tries to keep the wobble out of his voice. “And now he’s letting that hussy seduce him away from me!”

Brendon doesn’t really think that Danielle’s a hussy. He’s actually come to like her over the last couple of weeks, but she’s probably in a hotel room with Tom at this very moment, so he isn’t going to feel too bad about calling her that.

“Huh. Are you sure?”

“Ryan, you totally suck at being Spencer.” And talking to other human beings.

“God, I just meant that from what Spencer said, the guy was totally into you. It didn’t really sound like he was in the market for hussy seduction.”

Spencer really needs to stop telling Ryan everything. Especially when he is clearly wrong.

“He’s been hung up on her forever. This was like the eighty billionth time they’d broken up. They probably have the names picked out for their children already. This was inevitable.” Brendon sounds just about as bitter as he feels.

And Ryan sounds like he can’t believe he’s still having this conversation. “If it was inevitable, then why did you let yourself fall for the guy?”

Ryan Ross should not be allowed to use logic on people in emotional distress.

“It’s not like I had a whole lot of say in the matter. It just happened.” As Brendon’s throat gets a little tighter, he’s suddenly kind of glad to be talking to Ryan. Just the knowledge that it’s him on the other end of the line is enough to keep him from bursting into tears, if only because he knows what Ryan’s reaction to that would be.

Ryan actually sounds like he’s dredged up some kind of interest from somewhere when he speaks again. “Isn’t there a thing where victims fall in love with their stalkers? Maybe that’s what this is.” There is a beat where Brendon can practically feel Ryan ruminating over his new theory from thousands of miles away, then, “No, I’m thinking of Stockholm syndrome.”

Brendon is getting further and further away from tears by the second. “This isn’t really helping, Ryan.” Well, maybe it is a little. He doesn’t feel as depressed as he had before, now he also feels kind of annoyed.

Ryan blows out an audible breath. “I know. I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to say right now.”

Brendon knows just how to give Ryan some direction. “What does Spencer say whenever you get dumped?”

“Hey!” Ryan says. Then he takes a moment to think about it. “Spencer always tells me that maybe if I didn’t give in to my self-destructive tendencies I wouldn’t fall for skanks who sleep around.”

That actually sounds a lot like Spencer. “Then after he’d get done yelling at me about it, he’d tell me that I was worth a lot more than that, and I deserve to be with someone who wants to be with me.”

That also sounds a lot like Spencer.

“Did that work? Now I feel all gross.” Ryan’s impatient voice rings through the earpiece.

“I still feel pretty awful, but A for effort, Ross.” Brendon even sort of means it. Ryan hasn’t been a whole lot of help, but it’s nice to have someone listen and at least make an effort. Sort of.

Ryan’s voice is strangely hesitant when he says, “Hey, Brendon. Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this, but… It sounds like Tom didn’t actually dump you. It kind of sounds like Tom doesn’t even know that you’ve been writing his initials in hearts on your notebooks for the past six months. Maybe you should tell him how you feel about him.”

Brendon allows Ryan’s words sink in, then gives a small laugh. “You’re maybe not so bad at being Spencer.”

Ryan let’s out a snort of distaste. “Don’t get used to it. This was a one time deal.”

“You’re such a soft touch, Ross.”

“Whatever, Brendon.” With that clever retort, Ryan hangs up the phone.

Brendon tosses his phone somewhere near his desk and begins to get ready for bed. He catches a glimpse of the sleeping bag that he’d gotten out for the camping trip rolled up in the corner of the room.

Brendon is already sick of feeling like this.

He lies down on the bed, one arm flung over his eyes, and tries hard not to think about anything for a while.

-- --

They don’t stumble through the doorway in a wild passion the way that Tom was kind of expecting them to.

He hasn’t so much as kissed anyone since Brendon-but he’s supposed to forget about that. And that whole… thing happened almost six months ago, so Tom is pretty hard up.

But in spite of that, they walk calmly from the elevator to the door to their room. Where he calmly puts the keycard in the slot, and then calmly ushers Danielle into the room.

All things considered, he is eerily calm about the whole thing.

Even if he had insisted that this last split was really it, some part of him has been waiting for this since their breakup. It’s never really the last time, and he feels like he should be more thrown by the fact that things seem to be slotting right back into place the way they were before they called it quits.

It took the freaking Prom to get them back together. They haven’t even kissed yet.

He watches with that same odd feeling of calm as Danielle drops her little beaded purse on the dresser and then leisurely makes her way to the bed. She leans back against the mound of hotel pillows, the silky material of her dress slipping across the bedspread.

He’s at the bed in four strides, placing one knee on the mattress, his hands winding through her carefully upswept hair to tilt her chin up to meet his mouth.
She was the first girl he had ever kissed, the first one to make him realize the whole damn point of the occasionally embarrassing and inconvenient hard-ons he got when he hit puberty. She was his first love, and he’s suddenly lightheaded with familiarity of kissing her again.

Which is the reason he has to smother a curse when she pushes gently at his chest with a breathless, “Wait, wait.”

Tom sits back to regard her skeptically. She can’t be serious.

“Wait,” she says again, her hand resting on his chest. “We really should talk first.”

He wants to groan his frustration, but he’s learned well enough over the years that that won’t make this whole thing go any better for him. He could sometimes be a little oblivious, but he isn’t stupid.

“Okay, we can talk,” he says, rubbing a hand dejectedly over his clean-shaven chin. If he’s going to have to talk instead of having really awesome sex with his newly reinstated girlfriend, then he isn’t going to be the one to get the ball rolling.

“I just think that, I don’t know, we should maybe discuss what happened. We were… not together for a while,” Danielle says, gaze running over his face searchingly.

Discuss sounds even more time consuming than talk. He’s waited six months, and now he’s pretty sure that he’s never going to have sex again.

“Yeah, I guess it was a while,” he answers, eyes dropping to where his hand was picking at a loose thread on the generic hotel bedspread. That’s mostly so he doesn’t have to actually see her come on, Tom look.

“I’ve missed you a lot. It’s been so long.”

“Missed you too. I’m just glad that we finally got our shit together.” And that totally sounds like a line, but he is. He means it. Dani was one of the most important people in his life for a long time, and underneath his anger there was always this part of him that missed her like he’d miss breathing.

“I’m just glad that I finally had the guts to ask you to our Senior Prom.” Her smile is rueful, an acknowledgement of their stupidity for not having figured things out sooner.

“And I’m glad that Brendon talked me in to coming.” He leans forward to press a kiss to her lips.

“What?” Danielle stiffens against him. Uh-oh. “What is that supposed to mean?”

The last thing he wants is there to be any more of a holdup. Not when they could be naked sooner rather than later.  Tom backpedals quickly, “Uh, nothing.  It’s just that Brendon and I had plans this weekend, and he let me off the hook to be here.”

“Plans?” Danielle asks warily, clearly still prepared to kick his ass if he makes one wrong move. She’s always been kind of a ball-buster.

“Yeah, just- He was kind of down and he mentioned something about wanting to go camping a few weeks ago. He said it was cool that I come to prom with you and postpone the camping thing for a bit.” He keeps his explanation as simple as possible. He’s still not entirely sure how why they are even talking about this.

He moves forward to kiss her again, only to be brought up short by a firm hand to his sternum. Okay, it seems like things aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“You planned to go camping with Brendon?”

“Yes,” he confirms, “but he said I should go to the Prom instead.”

Danielle is shaking her head. “And I’ll be mad about that in a minute, but that’s not what I’m getting at. I meant that you planned to go camping with Brendon because you wanted to cheer him up.”

“Yes.” He is pretty sure he just said that.

“Because you noticed he was feeling down and he mentioned he wanted to go a few weeks ago,” she continues.

“Um, yeah?” He likes to think that his ‘so what?’ is implied.

“You are such an idiot, Tom,” she says, still shaking her head.

Jesus. “I’m getting kind of sick of people saying that to me.”

“Well, maybe if you stopped being an idiot, they would.” Danielle lets out a disgusted sigh and pulls up the fallen strap of her dress. “You know, I was really confused before. Nothing really changed with us, but things weren’t working out the way they always do. But I get it now.”

Tom’s really glad that one of them does.

She must read the lack of understanding in his face. She puts a pitying hand on his knee. He doesn’t like where this is going.

“Tom, in the two years that we were together, you didn’t plan a date once. I had to tell you what I wanted to do for Valentine’s Day so that we didn’t end up at your favorite pizza place.” Danielle pauses to let that sink in.

He never really understood why she had such a problem with Cicero’s. Brendon loves that place.

“You couldn’t even remember my coffee order after like, a thousand dates. Brendon mentions that he wants to go camping weeks ago, and not only do you remember, you actually planned to do it. Because you wanted to cheer him up. Because you noticed that he was sad. Are you getting it now?”

Tom is not getting it now. And he really wishes that she would stop repeating what he basically already said.

So what if Tom was going to go camping with his friend, he was trying to do something nice. And yes, Tom never was much of a plan ahead kind of guy. It’s one of the things that drove Danielle crazy. She always said that if he really cared about her, he’d make the effort to ‘take part in their relationship’.

Oh.

“Dani... Just because I was going to take my friend camping, doesn’t mean that I didn’t care about our relationship.” Tom places a hand atop hers where it rests on his knee. He really needs her to understand that.

Danielle is having none of that. She pulls her hand up from under his to slap her forehead, letting out a small scream of frustration.

Tom watches her breath in deep for a moment.

When she speaks again, her voice is gentle, “I know that, Tom. I’m not saying that. And I’m not saying that you didn’t love me.” She stops, as if to let Tom make process her speaking in the past tense. “I’m trying to say that you care about Brendon.”

Of course he cares about Brendon. They’re friends. Aside from that small blip at the beginning, they kind of get along perfectly.

“He’s my friend. I wanted to cheer him up.” Tom feels like they’re talking in circles.

The expression on Danielle’s face pretty closely resembles a glare. “If Nick or Jon were ‘feeling down’ what would go do? If you even noticed, you’d take them to a bar and get them plastered. You wouldn’t plan a weekend away with them.”

Danielle is totally missing the point. He didn’t plan a weekend away with Brendon. And yeah, he wouldn’t have done it for Jon or Nick. But that’s different. Brendon is different.

Oh.

“So, you’re saying that I did that because I like Brendon.” He hates how unsure he sounds.

“I’m saying that you more than like Brendon.”

He doesn’t. It’s just-That’s wrong. He doesn’t like Brendon. He can’t like Brendon. Brendon is his friend.

“When I met him, I kind of wondered. Because of that you and that other guy before, but I guess I didn’t want to see it.” He really hates the way she sounds when she says that. Kind of sad and tired at the same time.

He wants to protest, but for some reason he just can’t.

He has the overwhelming feeling that somehow he’s really fucked things up this time. Suddenly he sees a lot of the things that have happened over the last few months in a whole new light.

He’s an idiot.

“I like Brendon,” he says, his voice quiet and surprised.

When he meets Danielle’s eyes, they’re shiny with unshed tears. “I’m sorry, Dani. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have-“ He stops. He knows well enough not to say that he wouldn’t be here if he had.

She lets out a soft, hiccoughing laugh. “I know that, Tom. You’re not unkind, just really dense sometimes.”

He can’t really argue with that one. Watching Danielle struggle not to cry makes him want to pull her close and hold her until her tears go away, but he knows it wouldn’t be a welcome gesture.

Danielle visibly pulls herself together. “You should go fix things with your boy. I’m sure he’s feeling pretty shitty right now.” She sounds like she knows exactly what that’s like.

Tom doesn’t know what to do. Part of him wants to do exactly what she says, wants to go find Brendon right away and just talk to him. But he doesn’t want to just leave Danielle, doesn’t want to screw things up any worse. “I don’t mind staying right here. Are you sure you want me to go?”

“Yeah, go. I’m being disturbingly supportive right now and it’s kind of freaking me out.” She shoots him a wry smile, and waves him toward the door.

Tom gets up off of the hotel bed. He’d just grabbed his suit jacket, getting ready to leave, when something occurs to him. “What I said earlier… Just because I made an effort for Brendon, it doesn’t mean that I didn’t care about our relationship. Because I did care.”

“I know that. Maybe you just grew up a little. Maybe he had something to do with that.” She gives his a heartbreaking smile.

Tom takes one last look at her before going through the door. She’s beautiful, sitting on the hotel bed in her blue prom dress with her hair falling out of her carefully arranged bun around her shoulders, and her makeup is slightly smudged.

He knows that this won’t be the last time he sees her, but that’s exactly what it feels like.

“Goodnight, Danielle.”

“Goodnight, Tom.”

The door swings shut behind him.

-

“Hey, Cassie said she just saw you leaving through the lobby. What’s up?”

“Did you know about this?” Tom yells into the phone.

“…About what?”

“That apparently I’ve got a thing for Brendon!” Tom shoves one of his hands in the pocket of his tuxedo pants, not really caring that he shouldn’t. His shoes aren’t any more comfortable walking the streets of Chicago than they had been dancing in the ballroom.

“Um, yes?” Jon answers. “Cassie and I have been waiting for you to figure it out for months.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” he demands.

“Tom, it was so freaking obvious that if you didn’t get it, I thought there was probably a reason for that. I was waiting for you to work it out for yourself, and it seems like you finally have. So, there you go.” Jon says, obviously trying to placate Tom.

“No, I didn’t figure it out for myself. Danielle figured it out for me. So, you know, thanks for that.” Tom knows it isn’t really Jon’s fault, but a little bit of a warning would have been nice.

“Oh, oh fuck. But, dude, don’t lay this on me. It was like you were deliberately ignoring what was going on.” Jon sounds like he’s been holding that frustration in for a while. “Tell me what happened.”

“Danielle just figured it out and that was pretty much that.” He wishes he could get the look on her face out of his mind. “I didn’t mean to do that to her, Jon.”

“I know, Tommy.” Through the phone he can hear the faint music from the ballroom. “What about Brendon? What are you going to do?”

And that is what he has been trying not to think about, because the answer is that he doesn’t have an answer. He likes Brendon, but he doesn’t know what that means. Brendon is important to him.

“I don’t know.”

“You have to tell him,” Jon responds at once. “You have to tell him how you feel and put an end to this whole mating ritual you’ve been up to for the last few months.”

Yeah, that’s one idea. That was what Danielle had seemed to think he should do as well, but Tom isn’t so sure. This whole thing is new to him, even if it maybe shouldn’t be. He doesn’t think he’s ready to do anything about it yet. He needs to think.

Tom finally answers him, “I’m not going to do anything.”

“Why the hell not?” Jon sounds frustrated again. “You have to do some-“

Cassie’s voice interrupts him. “Is that Tom?”

“Yeah, I’m just trying to talk some sense into the moron,” Jon says, his words muffled as he talks to Cassie on the other end of the line. His voice comes back louder when he speaks into the receiver again. “Listen, Tom. I’ve got to go, but don’t think this is over. We’re going to talk about this.”

Tom can’t wait.

June

Brendon hasn’t talked to Tom all weekend. He didn’t call Tom, and Tom didn’t call him either.

When he gets to school on Monday to find the halls somewhat emptier than usual, he realizes that work on Senior Projects must have started. In all of his turmoil over Tom and Danielle, he’d forgotten that the seniors had been released from their regular classes to work on their projects. For most of them that meant spending two weeks of freedom out of school before throwing something together the night before to present to their advisors.

It was just Brendon’s luck that Tom was working on something with Jon and planned to spend most of his time in the photo lab in the basement of the school.

As the day goes on, he doesn’t exactly try to avoid Tom. He just doesn’t go out of his way to run into him.

In the course of carefully not avoiding Tom, Brendon runs into Jon Walker while taking a perfectly logical detour through the art wing that just happens to be on the opposite side of the school from the staircase leading to the dark room. It’s almost as bad as running into Tom.

“Hey, Brendon,” Jon greets him cautiously.

Brendon pastes a bright smile on his face. “Jon Walker!”

Jon’s eyes are scanning Brendon’s face. Brendon doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but whatever it is, he must find it.

“I guess you heard about Tom and Danielle.” Jon still sounds uncharacteristically cautious. Brendon supposes he isn’t hiding his feelings quite as well as he thinks.

He hates the sound of that: Tom and Danielle. No, he hasn’t heard about Tom and Danielle. Because Tom has apparently been too busy spending time with his not-so-ex-girlfriend to call Brendon and let him know that there even is a Tom and Danielle again.

Brendon completely dismisses the fact that he hasn’t called Tom either. It isn’t like he’s the one with the heart pulverizing news to share or anything. So no, he hasn’t heard anything, and he really doesn’t need to. He can picture what went down on Prom night well enough without hearing the details from a well-meaning Jon Walker.

“Um, yeah,” he says. He’s practically twitching with the need to get out of this conversation as soon as possible.

“Really? That’s-good.” Brendon doesn’t like the look that Jon is giving him, like he’s waiting for a reaction or something.

And Brendon loves the guy, but he isn’t about to break down weeping on Jon’s brawny shoulder in the middle of a hallway that is covered with the freshman painting class’ attempts at what Brendon is hoping is supposed to be abstract art.

Jon reaches out a hand, like he’s trying to comfort Brendon or something. But Brendon isn’t having any of that.

He dodges the hand, inching away from the other boy. “Hey, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you at lunch.”

With that, he turns and hurries down the hallway. And if he chooses to ignore Jon calling out his name, no one can prove it.

Part 7

Master Post