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"Bill, my most esteemed friend," Ted says one sunny afternoon where the warm weather would pelt their skin and make them sweat, even though they were inside. Ted bounces up and down on the bed like he's seventeen again.
"Yes, Ted, my most trusted colleague?"
"I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox, dude," he says, causing Bill to furrow his brow and tilt his head in confusion before Ted continues. "You were probably saving them for breakfast, but will you forgive me? They were so delicious, so sweet, and so cold."
Ted extends his arms - a book Bill notices is in his hand, stops bouncing for a moment before jumping one last time and lands in a sitting position.
"What are you talking about?" asks Bill, a hint of laughter in his voice. "I don't even think we buy plums."
His friend moves to sit in front of him, crossing his legs, their knees an inch away.
"No, dude, it's a poem." Ted tosses the book over into Bill's lap, landing lightly with a thud. "Missy gave it to me. Said I'd probably like it, and I have to admit some of them are most excellent."
The two were never one for reading, so Bill finds it kind of odd. Though maybe Missy just wanted her son to do something different other than just playing guitar all day.
It seems her supposed plan is working when he skims through the pages and poems and sees underlined sentences and notes in Ted's obvious handwriting, messy and tilted.
He scans random pages until he lands on a familiar name. In an attempt at recreating some Medieval guy from England, as he imagines the author to be, he places a hand to his chest and clears his throat.
"Death be not proud, dude, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful. For, thou are not so, for those whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow," says Bill, slowly reading through the words so he doesn't stumble, and trying his best to imitate a British accent, though it ends up his usual Californian twinge with the thous over enunciated. "Die not, poor death, nor yet cast thou kill over me."
Ted watches him as he read, and Bill watches Ted watching him. "Sounds like a certain someone we know," Ted says.
"Mighty and dreadful he was not." The two laugh loudly. "I don't think this Don-nee guy even knew Death was a most proud dude."
Ted smiles, the crows feet hitting his eyes. "Can't believe that guy doesn't know that Death really is a sore loser."
Bill has to avert his eyes, that big and toothy grin that doesn't leave Ted's face does him no favors in the heat. He flips through some more random pages, reads Ted's notes on the side (make into a lyric for Wyld Stallyn?, show this one to the princesses) before his eyes land on an underlined phrase with a most peculiar note: Bill.
He pauses for a moment, taking in the title, Your Laughter, and reads the first lines of the poem. Ted must notice he's reading because he leans on the palms of his hands and shoves his head near Bill's chin to try and read.
After a second his friend jolts back as if he had touched a hot element. "Ah," he says, and Bill looks up, noticing he's avoiding his eyes. "Just, um, I thought you'd like it. To, y'know, read?"
Bill gulps, slowly down his throat, and feels his lungs burning, his face on fire, and he's not sure if he can attribute that to only the heat. "D'ya mind if I read it now, dude?"
Ted waves a hand. "Psh, go ahead."
At his permission, he glances back down and reads the poem. When he gets to the end he re-reads it, feels Ted's hands picking at the sheets they're sitting on and tries not to get distracted by how close their hands are. How he could reach out with his free hand and wrap his own fingers around Ted's as he reads poetry to him.
"Laugh at this clumsy boy who loves you, but when I open my eyes and close them," Ted starts suddenly. Bill snaps up quickly, sees a blush start to creep up Ted's cheeks, "when my steps go, when my steps return, deny me bread, air, light, spring, but never your laughter for I would die, dude."
The two stay silent, watching Ted with caution as he hangs his head, averting his gaze, and his hands eerily still on the bed.
"Woah, dude," says Bill after too long.
"Did you like that poem?" asks Ted, wringing the sheets between his hands again.
"Yeah, dude," he says sheepishly. "It was a most non-heinous poem."
The silence spreads among the room, comfortable but confining. So much so that Bill wants to jump up and open the window, but he doesn't do that because Ted looks like he wants to say something, something that was on the tip of his tongue but he didn't remember the words to. When his friend looks like that, Bill sits and listens.
"There's another one I marked for you in there. A few, actually."
Bill looks back down at the poems again, reads closer for instances of his name, finds none.
"I was never struck before that hour," Ted starts, "with love most sudden and sweet. His face bloomed like a sweet flower and stole my heart away complete."
There's a softness in his friend's eyes that Bill doesn't ever want to leave. He inches closer to the other until their knees touch, close enough to burn him through both of their shorts.
"That was John Clare," adds Ted. Bill quickly flips to a page marked Clare, John and reads through the poem even faster.
The first thing his mind does is get stuck at the poem's title, First Love, over and over like a broken record player. When he finally breaks free of the spell, trying to ignore the desperate way his heart wants to leap out of his throat, he reads through the poem once.
"Dude," he says when he's done, grinning while wiping the sweat on his palms onto his shorts. "That's a most tragic poem."
"Those John guys must keep going through some non-non-heinous stuff to keep writing such tragic things," Ted adds, nodding, eyes watching his friend's face. For approval? For him to keep reading? Bill's not too sure.
He flips through the book again when his eyes land on a title that stands out to him (and for no particular reason, he tells himself): Homosexuality. The page looks untouched with any notes, new and alive, and whether it's intentional, Bill doesn't know.
"So, dude," Bill starts.
"So?" Ted leans forward, the smile back on his face.
"We are taking off our masks, are we, Ted, my friend, and keeping our mouths shut?" he asks, continuing to read the poem. He looks up at his friend, "as if we've been pierced by a glance."
Ted's smile grows even wider, the corners of his eyes crinkled. "Having a Coke with you, Bill, my friend, is even more fun than going to the Wild West, Ancient Greece, Medieval England, Austria."
Confusion crosses Bill's face before Ted nods to the book, gesturing to turn the page. There, he can see the poem Ted is referencing, and Bill smiles a crooked smile down at the pages then up to his friend.
"I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the albums in the world," Bill says, reading the poem. "Except, possibly, Born in the USA."
Ted laughs, deep in his throat, before leaning closer to Bill with a hand on his knee burning into his skin. They stare at one another for a moment, into Ted's brown eyes and the corners of his eyes where the laugh lines were most prominent.
"Read another one to me, dude." Ted's voice is quiet but Bill can always hear him, even if they were whispering on the same bed, inches away, or on stage over the roar of the guitars that made his head ache after. Bill was always listening.
He nods once in response, flips through the poems, and lands on a poem, lines spiraling back and forth like a snake, Last Days.
"Things are changing, dude," he starts, but his voice is small. Compared to the Battle of the Bands and the general way the two have always yelled their thoughts to one another, across hallways or streets, his voice sounded like it was an atom on a pin.
He continues despite this, "things are starting to snip, snap, fly off into the blue sleeve of the long afternoon." And Bill reads, nearly a whisper, as he tries to ignore Ted's hand burning into his knee and the death grip he has with both hands on the book.
"I, too, love oblivion. Why not, it is full of second chances," he continues. "Now, hiss the bright curls of the leaves. Now! booms the muscle of the wind."
When he looks up, Ted had moved even closer, faces inches away.
"Now, dude," Ted whispers and Bill doesn't know if he's telling that to himself, psyching himself up, or telling Bill like it was a warning.
Their lips meet halfway over the poetry book, light and Bill can barely feel any pressure, but he panics anyway and throw the poetry book beside him so it won't be crushed or torn. He grips his hands into Ted's vest, balling it and wrinkling it, while they kiss gently and that damn hand doesn't move from its spot on his knee.
Bill breaks the kiss but has a death hold on Ted still. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day, dude?" he asks. "Most hot."
Ted breaks into a grin as they laugh together, moving his free hand over to Bill's cheek in a touch so gentle Bill isn't sure if he's a ticking time bomb, ready to explode.
"Seriously, dude, how many poems did you memorize?" Bill asks.
"Only the ones I wanted to show you," Ted answers, leaning back in to kiss him again, thumb rubbing under his eye.
Bill blinks once, twice, then smiles. "Well, you still have a lot more to get through." He looks at the book he threw on the bed. "Guess Missy was right about you liking it?"
Ted's mouth twists into a frown, though his smile was still evident. "Dude, don't mention my Mom while we're kissing."
Bill grins. "Do you wanna show me the other poems you said I'd like?" he asks, trying to move the conversation away from their similar relationship to Missy.
Ted leans in to kiss him once more before grabbing the book and pushing it back into Bill's hands. "Bill, my friend, it is a summer day, and I want to be read to more than anything else in the world."