Chapter Text
Scaramouche let him go on for much longer than expected—he’d always known his best friend was a softie deep down—before finally snapping and attempting to strangle him. When confronted on the matter, he claimed it was because Ajax was clearly so pathetic he’d never had the opportunity to articulate his feelings on gender to anyone. So pathetic, in fact, that he had stooped to pity and allowed the conversation to carry on.
Ajax tallied it as a win in his book and moved on.
After the asphyxiation attempt, he checked the time and realized it was almost 3:00am, which meant he had been awake for almost twenty-one hours. Originally he’d held grand plans for a movie and maybe some more lazy chatting, but it was getting harder to keep his eyes open, so they decided to phone it in and call it a night.
The rain hadn’t let up in the slightest outside, but the pitter-patter against the windows felt more comforting than anything else when they shut off the lights and retired upstairs to the bedrooms. While Scaramouche puttered around in his room doing…whatever it was he did, Ajax rooted around in his bags until he procured a pair of sleep shorts, a tank top, and toiletries, then crossed over into the adjoining bathroom to brush his teeth.
He'd almost forgotten that they were due to share the bathroom until Scaramouche barged in. They had a brief but intense argument before ultimately agreeing that co-brushing was fine for the time being, but co-peeing was out of the question. Ajax was so tired that he waved off any further deliberation for the next morning; instead, he leaned against the shower door and made sleepy idle chatter while Scaramouche perched like a bird on the countertop and flossed with unnecessary ferocity.
“I’ve never slept at a famous person’s house before,” Ajax reflected through a mouthful of toothpaste.
“Then tonight will be a new experience,” Scaramouche said, offering him a sarcastic smile. “I think you’ll find that it’s almost exactly the same as sleeping a normal person’s house, except that idiots like you think it’s special.”
Hopping off the counter, he pushed his dark hair back with a headband from the countertop, then began applying skincare products with practiced ease. “Ei doesn’t spend a lot of time here, so it’s not like she has anything that sensational at this house anyway. Aside from the recording studio, I guess.”
Ajax elbowed him out of the way so he could spit out his toothpaste in the sink. Shooting his best friend the best puppy eyes he could muster with froth still at the corners of his mouth, he did his best to mimic Teucer’s pleading face, which had a near-100% success rate. “Is that the room on the other side of the hall? Please tell me we’re allowed to—”
“Don’t even think about it.”
After a few more minutes of bickering, they took turns kicking each other out of the bathroom to attend to whatever other embarrassing shit they couldn’t do together, and then Ajax took ten steps over to his bed, laid face down, and passed out into a dreamless sleep.
When he woke the next day, it was late morning and quiet. He cracked open a window and found that it smelled gloriously like post-rain outside. Scaramouche would probably be asleep for some time, so he busied himself taking his meds, replying to texts from his family he’d neglected last night, and then unpacking the luggage he’d brought to Detroit.
By the time he had all his clothes stowed away and his laptop set up on the desk, it was nearly noon. He heard the sound of running water in the bathroom, followed by the rapid rap of knuckles against the door from the other side.
“You’d better not be naked in there.”
Ajax dragged out a spare hamper from inside the closet and tossed yesterday’s still-kind-of-damp clothes inside. “I’m decent, don’t worry,” he called.
The door opened to reveal a groggy Scaramouche, clad in a delightfully oversized red and white ensemble. “But you look just as morally reprehensible as ever, Childe.”
Despite his sleepiness, that silver tongue was sharp as ever. “Ha ha. Can I use the bathroom now, or are you planning to spawncamp me until I piss myself or run downstairs?”
“As your host, I thought I would give my esteemed guest the chance to piss himself in the bathroom—you know, like a real adult—instead of in the hallway, where I would have to clean it up.”
“I could drive back to New Hampshire, you know. I don’t have to be here.”
“Your idea, not mine.” Scaramouche shrugged, but left the door open when he turned around and marched back into his own bedroom.
Ajax brushed, washed his face, and then wandered back to the chest of drawers to change out of his pajamas. He heard both doors to the adjoining bathroom shut, and then the sound of the shower turning on.
It was strange: though they’d been cohabitating for less than a day, the whole routine already felt familiar. It still felt kind of weird to picture Scaramouche as a fellow lowly human being who also had to stoop to fulfilling his bodily functions, but listening to the gentle, off-key humming coming from the shower, smelling that stupid dark rain body wash permeating the floor, Ajax thought that he could get used to this.
That pleasant, optimistic peace lasted all the way up until he got downstairs, stomach growling raucously, and rediscovered how empty the kitchen was. He shot Scaramouche an incredulous look the moment his now-housemate came downstairs, fully dressed and looking less ruffled. “How do you seriously have nothing here? What have you been eating?”
Scaramouche shrugged. “I ate most of it before you got here. I just figured we’d probably go shopping after you arrived.”
Ajax groaned. “Right, on an empty stomach. Has anyone ever told you how bad you are at being a human being?”
“Nope. They’re usually too afraid.”
They compromised by getting brunch first at a cute hole-in-the-wall on the way into town—Ajax watching in muted horror and awe all the while as Scaramouche masterfully dodged every egg, cheese, and bacon option on the menu—before his best friend all but seized the wheel and forced them in the direction of the nearest Whole Foods.
“What do you mean, you’ve never been in one of these before? You literally live in New Hampshire,” he complained, yanking on Ajax’s arm to pull him away from the car.
Fumbling with the keys, he just barely managed to lock the doors before Scaramouche dragged him forcibly towards the sliding front doors. “Yeah, and I have six siblings, Scara!”
Being the oldest son at home before he’d left for college, Ajax was well-accustomed to helping with the grocery shopping. His family usually drove down to the closest big-box store, since virtually everything else was impractical for keeping them all fed and clothed. As the family’s delegate for heavy lifting duty on every family sized bulk pack his parents had bought since he was about fourteen, he had a good idea what to keep an eye out for now.
That said, grocery shopping with Scaramouche was a whole different beast. He guessed that it made sense that Scara would shop regularly at some place like Whole Foods—veganism wasn’t exactly a low-maintenance diet, and there were certainly more options here, many of which he’d never heard of before. It was all a bit overwhelming.
While Scaramouche blazed through the store wearing a grim expression, he resigned himself to following behind his best friend, pushing the steadily heavier shopping cart through aisles and aisles of health foods and organics. Middle-aged white women gave them disdainful looks as they wandered by; Ajax suddenly remembered it was a Tuesday afternoon, and they were the only two people below the age of thirty in sight. Scaramouche was probably the only person of color aside from the store employees. He shot every soccer mom in sight his most meaningless, reassuring smile and kept moving along.
All the while, Scaramouche rattled through some kind of internal list, piling their cart with things he’d never thought to buy for himself or his family: frozen fish balls, firm tofu, oat milk, pickled plums, three kinds of seaweed. After he figured out the layout of the store on their second or third circuit around, Ajax got the gist of the thing and started adding his own suggestions. It was a fun challenge to think about what he might be able to make that would fit their combined dietary preferences, and there were all kinds of fucked-up things on the shelves of the Whole Foods that he’d never gotten to experiment on.
Into the cart went quinoa, avocado, baby spinach, dried mushrooms, and something that purported to be a meatless burger patty. After some thinking, he threw in some other staples that he figured would be good just to have in the household—flour, vegetable oil, white rice, cereal grains, potatoes, cabbage, some basic spices, and the like.
Even more consideration and then a round of light bickering later, he said “fuck it” aloud and added caviar, cashew cheese, and a package of frozen clams.
“Vegan?” asked their cashier as they checked out.
“Why do people always ask that?” said Scaramouche, to no one in particular. He barely spared her a glance, already impatiently tapping his foot as Ajax wrangled their bags back into the shopping cart.
“Sorry,” said the cashier. Her eyes lit up as she scanned the fish balls. “Pescatarian, then? My sister’s a pescatarian, she’s always raving about how much better it is for you to cut red meat out of your di—”
“Nope,” said Scaramouche firmly, and she fell silent. She didn’t attempt conversation again until it was time to pay. Ajax was ready to jump in since Scara had already paid for their lunch earlier, but he just reached into his pocket and pulled out a sleek matte black credit card. He swiped it and signed without a word, and then they were out in the parking lot.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Ajax said, as he loaded all of their purchases into the back of the car. Predictably, Scaramouche had settled in the passenger seat with his legs up on the dashboard instead of helping, which was fine. He’d probably just mess up Ajax’s packing system anyway. Handling groceries required a fine touch that some people just lacked.
“What did I tell you?” Scaramouche met his eyes through the rearview mirror and smirked. “You’re a white guy into improv who goes to school for business in upstate New York. Whole Foods was made for you.”
He let that sink in. “Yeah, alright.”
The ride back to the house was uneventful, as was unpacking the groceries. Between brunch, shopping, and driving back and forth across town, it was late afternoon by the time they had finally stowed away the last of the dry goods. Scaramouche retired upstairs right afterwards, citing exhaustion from the trip out, and he heard the sound of the door shutting moments later.
With the issue of food resolved, Ajax felt excitement settle into his skin instead—now that he was well-fed and well-rested, he could barely contain his enthusiasm at the weeks ahead.
The sunlight coming in through Ei’s big fancy windows was starting to turn pink, so he set some of that energy to work making dinner for the two of them. As he sliced avocadoes and grated vegan cheese, he let his mind wander amidst the marbled countertops and state-of-the-art appliances.
Since he had been in a single dorm for the school year, Ajax had never lived in close quarters with someone he wasn’t related to for more than a night or two. Though they hadn’t set a hard timeline for the duration of his stay in Detroit, he planned to make the drive back home in three weeks or so to come back to his old summer job—it was a small business, family-owned, so he’d be welcomed back whenever he returned. Still, they could use the extra hands on deck, and he didn’t want to leave them hanging for too much of the summer kayaking season.
Sliding a tray of mushrooms into the oven, he wondered what exactly he and The Mouche could get up to. Gaming would be fun, obviously, and it seemed like the natural thing to do; but they played together all the time, and he wanted to take advantage of the fact that they were together in person for as long as he could. Ooh, maybe they could do some movie marathons! Or play some physical, face-to-face board games—Ei didn’t exactly seem like the type of person to own Candyland, but maybe they could scrape together a copy of Scrabble (that was something a songwriter might own, right?)
By the time dinner was ready, he’d hyped himself up thoroughly about how much fun he and Scaramouche would have cohabitating. His enthusiasm must have bled through his voice as he called his best friend down to eat; when Scaramouche appeared, looking refreshed, he had one eyebrow raised in his patented What The Fuck’s This All About face.
The eyebrow remained raised even as he helped himself to salad and stuffed mushrooms, though Ajax noted smugly that the rest of his face shifted into surprised gratification at how good the food was. He was a decent cook, if he did say so himself, and he was even better when he wasn’t working solely with watery canned goods and stale pasta.
“What are you so happy about?” Scaramouche asked. It sounded like he was trying to play at being unimpressed, except the façade was mildly ruined by how many mushrooms he was putting on his plate.
Ajax batted his eyelashes. “Just thinking about how much fun we’re going to have together over the next few weeks.”
The dark-haired boy rolled his eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. If you’re expecting that we’ll be joined at the hip, I’ll go ahead and crush that dream right now.” He gestured loosely with his fork. “I’m a busy guy, you know. Just because you’re around now doesn’t mean I’ll settle.”
“What, do you have appointments lined up for all hours of the day keeping you away from me?”
Scaramouche checked the time. “Actually, as a matter of fact, I’m supposed to be streaming in an hour since it’s a Monday night. You’ll have to make yourself scarce for a few hours to avoid scaring off my viewership. I didn’t warn anyone that I would be playing a horror game tonight, so no one will be expecting a jumpscare.”
“Ha ha.” There was only one mushroom left, so he snagged it with the practiced ease of a middle child before Scaramouche could reach over to the plate. “I forgot that you’re still doing that. Afraid I’ll steal the hearts of all your adoring fans?”
Scaramouche stole the last slice of avocado from the salad bowl in retaliation. “More like I still want to have an audience after your ugly ginger mug shows up on screen.”
The joke was on him; Ajax felt perfectly neutral about avocados, but the mushrooms were to die for. Still, two could play that game.
“You won’t just have an audience when we play together. I’m charming and lovable! If people can stomach watching you play games, then they’ll be head over heels for me. I bet your view count will actually go up when I join you tonight.”
Scaramouche narrowed his eyes. “You bet, huh? Fine. What are the stakes?”
“If I win, you have to throw a party with me,” Ajax announced. “A real party, with drinks and games and stuff. You don’t have to invite anyone else, but it has to be a real party. Though,” he added, “you’ll have to buy the booze, since I’m still technically underage in the U.S.”
“What’s the occasion? Aside from celebrating your loss, of course.”
“Do we need an occasion? We can just drink to our beautiful friendship.” He mimed clinking champagne glasses across the table; Scaramouche did not meet him halfway. Killjoy. “Here, how about this: if I lose, then I owe you a favor. You can ask me to do anything you want and I’ll say yes.”
Scaramouche’s mouth twitched. “Anything?”
Ajax nodded solemnly. “Anything.”
He leaned across the table, hand outstretched. “Pinky promise.”
“How old are you again?” the dark-haired boy began, but Ajax was already reciting the childhood rhyme he’d invented with his siblings while still living in Russia: “You make a pinkie promise, you keep it all your life. You break a pinkie promise, I throw you on the ice. The cold will kill the pinkie that once betrayed your friend, the frost will freeze your tongue off so you never lie again.”
Scaramouche withdrew his finger, looking considerably more weirded out after the admittedly very fucked-up rhyme. (As if he was in any position to judge about strange childhood hobbies.) “…sure. Anyways, the game tonight is nothing we’ve played together before. Someone gifted me a copy last stream, so I’m taking it for a test run tonight.”
Ajax peered over the table at the title on Scaramouche’s phone screen as he cleared away their dishes. “Hey, isn’t that exclusively co-op? You hate playing with parties of complete randos. At least if I’m on your team you’ll know there’s one other decent player.”
“Decent implies that you’ll be any good at it on the first try.”
But Scaramouche didn’t stop him when he logged into Steam to buy his own copy of the game. Nor did he intervene when Ajax shut the doors to the hallway and their adjoining bathroom to start a call over Skype for the benefit of the viewing audience, despite their physical proximity. That sweet competitive streak was roaring to life again, and he was intent on winning as always. He really wanted to see how well his best friend could hold his liquor.
For a shut-in and a jackass, Scaramouche had amassed a surprisingly large and active audience. Ajax introduced himself to them as Childe, a friend who’d be joining him for the evening. They’d been doing this kind of thing forever now, so it was practically mindless to keep up a steady stream of conversation in the background while he sprinted around the map and teabagged corpses in the background of Scaramouche’s cutscenes.
Except that they had an audience of several dozen viewers at the same time who were, you know, watching him and Scaramouche curse out fourteen-year-olds on Xbox. In real time. Other than that, it was basically the same as always.
Maybe it was the big brother in him talking, but it was actually fun to hear people’s reactions while they were playing together. Unlike every time one of his siblings had poked their head over his shoulder, Ajax couldn’t keep up with all of the messages as he was playing, which was a crying shame considering how funny most of them were. After a few minutes of failing to tab between the game and his browser, he opened the stream on his phone instead to follow the conversation as best as he could.
Some of the chat members, probably regular watched, seemed baffled to see someone else playing with Scaramouche at all. Judging from the reactions, this was the first time another person had ever showed up on stream before.
Perhaps as a result, “Childe” was an instant hit with the chat, much to his amusement. Everyone wanted to know who he was and what he was doing on the stream—in the words of one viewer, he seemed “too normal” a guy to hang around with someone like Scara. It was funny as hell so he took it in stride, jokingly referring to his own future career as a streamer and pretending to redirect people to his own YouTube channel (which contained only privately listed clips of himself and Bryce at assorted parties he’d later sent to Scaramouche) whenever prompted.
Unsurprisingly, this approach led to a lot of questions. He did his best to indulge them without getting too personal, keeping his answers light and funny even as he was bombarded with queries about how they’d met (gaming, duh), how long they’d known each other (too long by now), and how on earth he’d managed to befriend someone like Scaramouche (he didn’t know, and if you asked Scaramouche, they weren’t friends.)
Something about the pace of his brain just seemed suited to juggling between the tracks of playing the game, conversing with Scaramouche, and keeping up with the viewers. All the better to avoid whatever horrible, embarrassing fiasco his best friend would undoubtedly force him into if he lost the bet. Ajax shuddered at the thought.
From the miffed silence on Scaramouche’s end, he guessed that his bestie wasn’t nearly so interactive while streaming alone. Not that he’d ever seen it live; he barely remembered that this was one of his best friend’s little side hobbies in the first place. He hadn’t understood the appeal before this, but it made more sense when the rush of victory at the end of every round was amplified even further by the cheers in the chat. The stakes were higher, and so was the payoff. Ajax wasn’t a gambling man, but he could get used to this.
By the end of the stream, Scaramouche grudgingly admitted that the viewership numbers had remained steadily higher than usual throughout the stream—though he refused to admit by what margin, no matter how much Ajax pestered him.
“You know what that means,” Ajax sang, spinning around in his desk chair. “I win!”
“Actually, this is my first time losing at anything before,” Scaramouche deadpanned. He yanked his headphones off his head gracelessly and scuttled like a bug through the bathroom until he was leaning against the doorway of Ajax’s bedroom. “Since you’re so well-experienced in the field, could you explain exactly how bad it sucks?”
Shaking his head, the red-haired boy tsked under his breath. “Such a sore loser. You’d think that after being put in this position so often, you’d be better at accepting my victories with grace.”
That was a blatant lie. They tied most of the time, but whenever a competition between them resulted in a one-sided victory, it was usually Scaramouche who came out on top, at least in a gaming context. To be fair, he had been at this whole thing for much longer than Ajax, and therefore had more experience, which made his triumph in the streaming field all the more sweet.
At last, between jokes about the start of his streaming career, Ajax convinced Scaramouche to host their impromptu party the following night. The sooner to celebrate, the better, he figured, and from the loser’s perspective they might as well get it over with.
Scaramouche came out of the local liquor store grimacing with an armful of bottles the next afternoon. For all his complaints, though, he followed through readily enough when Ajax started mixing drinks after dinner (he’d learned well by now never to drink on an empty stomach, damn it), and by the time the clock struck midnight, they were both starfished on Ei’s living room floor, faces flushed pink and feeling pleasantly tipsy and alive.
Ajax’s mouth always tended to run a little loose when he wasn’t sober, so it didn’t come as a surprise when he tossed one arm over his eyes and started rambling. “Man, I kinda can’t believe I made the drive out here. It’s so weird that you’re actually real and you exist in real life. Like, you’re not just a little guy that exists in my computer, you know?”
Scaramouche had won their earlier game of Never Have I Ever—as in, he had entered the game with the intent to destroy Ajax’s liver, and thus viciously rattled off a list of highly targeted statements clearly meant to cut the night as short as possible—and therefore was much less far along. Still, he had drank enough for some of his characteristic curtness to start unravelling, and he looked unusually disheveled now.
“It’s so weird that you’re real and you exist,” he retorted.
Threading one hand through his bowl cut, he half sat up and then flopped back down. “Why are you so tall. It’s fucking annoying. I hope you hit your head on a doorway and pass out.”
“Doorways here aren’t short enough,” Ajax said sympathetically. “Even with your influence dragging them down.”
He easily dodged the ensuing kick. Scaramouche’s aim was worse than he expected given how little he had drank tonight; he suspected that part of why the other boy had initially tried to avoid the subject of alcohol was to hide just how poor his tolerance was. Too bad Ajax had just finished his freshman year of college. And also was Russian.
“Russian off to where,” Scaramouche murmured, and then smacked himself. “That was bad.”
Ajax couldn’t stifle his resulting giggle, nor the full-out laughter that bubbled up at Scara’s pouty-drunk scowl from the ground. “I get why you’re so mean all the time. It’s ‘cause you’re actually stupider than everyone else on the inside, so you have to make up for it on the outside.”
His best friend waved a hand silently and turned his face away. He seemed to be winding down from the high of the night, if the steadily slowing rise and fall of his chest was any indicator; when Ajax sat up and crawled over to get a better look, he seemed almost asleep.
“Scara.”
No response.
“Scaraaaa. Scaramouche. Mouche. Mr. Mouche. Mouchemeister.”
Still nothing.
Ajax squinted. Was he supposed to send a person who had drunk enough to become unconscious to the hospital? He felt like he remembered reading something like that during the orientation presentations on safer party practices. Scaramouche really hadn’t drank that much, though, so it definitely felt like he shouldn’t be worrying that much about what was essentially only two or three shots’ worth of liquor. Right?
Scaramouche shifted on the carpet. “Don’t send me to the fucking hospital. I’ll kill you. Also, stop saying everything you’re thinking out loud. It’s annoying.”
Ah. Well. That was that, then.
Unless.
“But what if you—“
“Stop being so dramatic, I’m fine,” Scaramouche interrupted. His face turned just enough for one dark eye to glint malevolently. It felt like seeing a black cat’s eyes glowing in the dark. “No buts.”
Ajax must have made a face of some kind, because Scaramouche moved again, one hand crawling up towards his calf to give it a halfhearted slap. Drunk Scaramouche, he was learning, was touchy. He was going to have to enjoy that while it lasted. “That was a joke about your ass being flat, by the way.”
Considering how dark it was, it was very impressive that Scaramouche had even been able to parse the change in his expression. He himself couldn’t make out any of the details of Scaramouche’s face—anything he could recognize was just as likely pieced together by his brain’s familiarity with its features as it was input from what his eyes could actually see.
The parts of Scaramouche he could make out were still flushed pink from alcohol and smushed up in a funny way against Ei’s purple carpet. There was a stain on the collar of his shirt where one of the shots had spilled down the line of his throat, and he was still glaring halfheartedly even as he seemed to be half asleep.
Objectively speaking, it was not the most flattering position that his best friend had ever been in. Considering how much effort Scaramouche put towards his “effortless jackass” look, it might even have been one of the silliest ways he’d seen the other boy looking.
In all, the situation seemed completely unfitting for the sudden wave of affection that slammed into Ajax like a tidal wave, nearly bowling him over where he sat, back to the sofa and swaying slightly with Scaramouche’s hand still on his leg.
He opened his mouth and hoped Scaramouche couldn’t see the shapes his lips formed. I think I’m probably at least a little bit in love with you, he almost said. He could nearly form the first sounds. I. I think I’m.
Instead he closed his mouth and shut his eyes, finally giving into the temptation to lay down on the floor next to Scaramouche. The older boy made a snorting sound, but he budged obligingly and removed his arm so Ajax could shuffle over until the lines of their bodies were pressed together side-by-side. The contact felt good, grounding.
“Hi,” breathed Ajax.
“Shut up,” Scaramouche whispered back, and something warm and familiar bloomed in his chest, starting at his sternum and reaching up to the back of his throat. “I’m trying to pass out drunk on my cousin’s floor. You’re ruining the mood.”
He scooched over to press his jaw to the top of Scaramouche’s head. There was a tense moment where he wasn’t sure how the other boy would react, and he prepared himself mentally to be headbutted backwards across the room—but then there was a quiet snuffling sound, and the sound of a long sigh filled the room.
They were lying almost face-to-face now on the floor, Scaramouche with his limbs curled close to his body, Ajax with his long legs stretched out as far as they could go.
“You didn’t drink enough to pass out drunk,” Ajax said into his bowl cut. It smelled like…ugh, it smelled like dark rain. “This is clearly you trying to get out of partying with me.”
“Yep,” Scaramouche admitted easily, and nudged Ajax’s head with his own. “Goodnight, bitchboy. GG.”
This is enough, he thought to himself. His heart seized at the thought, and it wasn’t tragic or terrifying or tumultuous. It just…was.
Good game, indeed.
He remembered with sudden clarity the first wish Teucer had ever made on a birthday cake, as soon as he was old enough to understand the concept and put his thoughts to words. Tonia hadn’t yet gotten to the part of her explanation about how speaking the wish out loud could prevent it from coming true, so the moment that the tiny candle flame sputtered out, his youngest brother slammed his little fists onto the table.
“I wish for things to be like this forever!” he’d yelled, and teenage Ajax, still cradling his baby brother to his chest, surrounded by family and a home-cooked meal and his personal favorite honey cake (Teucer had insisted), had agreed wholeheartedly.
There was no birthday cake or candles now—Scaramouche’s birthday had passed in January, and his wasn’t for another month. The only light seeping into the room was the vague illumination of the neighbor’s porch light through the blinds. He wasn’t at home with his siblings; rather, he was laying on the floor of a strange house, in a city he’d never visited, with a person he’d never met in person before this week. His family was a few states and a full day’s drive away, and the taste of tequila still lingered at the back of his mouth.
But there was someone who loved him close by. They were celebrating his stupid little victory in one of their million stupid little games, and if he told Scaramouche that he had a crush—what did he expect would happen anyway? Scara would confess back, and they’d kiss and hold hands or do whatever other crap couples did together, and then in a few weeks he’d go back to New Hampshire?
He didn’t need any of those other things. He needed to be here, right now, feeling the idiotic magic of this warm human moment, the way his heartbeat was pounding in his ears despite how his consciousness was fuzzy at the edges and his limbs were almost too heavy to move. It wasn’t a matter of pining or one-sidedness or anything else that hopelessly romantic. It was just Ajax and Scaramouche, laying on the floor, drunk and alive.
The moment didn’t have to last forever. This could be enough.
Ajax cleared his throat and rubbed his cheek against the top of his best friend’s head in return, feeling suddenly sober. God, if only Scaramouche knew how much he felt close to bursting with happiness just by laying down on the floor at his side. He’d literally never let him live it down.
He was sure they were going to have to get up in a little bit—there was no way in hell that Scaramouche would let himself sleep the whole night here without getting up and at least brushing his teeth first, and Ajax wouldn’t mind a shower and some plain water before he slept either.
For now: “’Night, Scara.”