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1.
They’re going to be horribly late, again, because they’ve spent an hour on the phone already, talking about nothing and everything at the same time, discussing weather, food and what to wear. Brett lies down on his bed, on the pile of clothes, and the belt buckle is cutting into his bare back. He’s listening to Eddy talking about some other party they’ve both been at, and it’s a flurry of i remember, and do you remember, and remember how we (of course, of course he does), and Brett waits patiently for him to end before saying:
“Eddy?”
“Mm?”
“Wear shorts.”
A short pause, and a click. Brett imagines Eddy standing before his closet and eyeing his messed up shelves. “Why?”
“Because you’re gonna be driving, and your ass is gonna be baked in anything else.”
A little bit of control over him, to have a little bit of his dignity back. Eddy doesn’t argue, doesn’t talk back, just says:
“I’m gonna look ridiculous.”
“Yeah,” Brett agrees.
“Yeah,” Eddy says and laughs.
And that’s how it is.
Eddy hangs up first, and as a matter of fact, Brett knows: he won’t show up for at least half an hour more. So he dresses up quickly - surprisingly, when they don’t talk, it takes him only five minutes - and looks around for his violin.
Forty minutes later his phone comes to life again.
Brett unhurriedly puts his violin back in the case, takes it and his backpack, goes down the stairs - his phone is still buzzing - and answers the call just before opening the door, because it’s their favorite thing, his and Eddy’s, this -
“Yo, Brett,” says Eddy in his ear and ten meters from him at the same time, and grins widely. “I’ve heard your scales from the car.”
Brett makes an excessively thoughtful face - a go-to when things are better left unsaid, hangs up and shoves his phone in the back pocket.
Eddy’s wearing shorts. He doesn’t look ridiculous in the slightest.
And that’s what they are.
When people ask what their relationship is, Brett usually lets Eddy do the talking. He has his reasons: first, he doesn’t like to discuss it with people who are out of their friends circle - their friends stopped asking long ago - second, Eddy’s explanation is way shorter. We don’t like to label it, he says, and smirks, and no one usually notices Brett’s barely audible chuckle after.
He tried to build his own explanation too many times; to just lay out everything he feels about Eddy and everything they say and do, combine it, explain it, make it work. The majority of things in his life are easy: he either likes them or not, needs them or won’t notice if they disappear, is fine with how things are or tries to change it. Eddy is the different kind of easy, the one that takes too long to explain.
They have each other, and it means that Brett can make Eddy laugh in ten seconds or less; that if Eddy knows a secret, Brett knows it too; that everything they own, they always share with each other.
It also means Eddy stays at Brett’s sometimes, and sleeps in his bed, drooling on his pillow, or him saying “you know, she dumped me because of you and, man, she was so right” with a thoughtful face. It means that Brett stays at Eddy’s so often that apparently half of Brett’s clothes are scattered around his house. It means that sometimes Brett enters the bathroom while Eddy is brushing teeth or shaving, and sits on the bathtub, watching him and occasionally trying to make him spit out his toothbrush laughing - just a harmless exercise. Testing waters, tugging the cord between them. Asking the same question over and over. Getting an answer this instant.
They have each other, and Brett likes Eddy, and he needs all the dictionaries, the infinitude of words to describe it. He only possesses one.
“You can’t really come late to a party,” Eddy says, tapping an unknown rhythm on the steering wheel; his driving playlist is over, and he’s seemingly lost in his thoughts. They’re stuck in a traffic jam in the center of the highway on an especially hot summer day, in their own airconned bubble, cut off from all the traffic noise, nice and cool. Brett observes him: a black t-shirt, a soft wave of black hair sticking to the forehead, and black shorts - every time Eddy shifts on his seat, they slip up a little bit more, and the sun is licking over his pale skin; Brett turns away to wait out the sudden urge to put his head on Eddy’s lap.
He looks outside; there’s a white Mitsubishi Evo by their right, it casts bright flecks all over them, and Brett doesn’t need to look to know how Eddy’s eyes fill with light and turn golden. Brett stretches and wiggles his toes in red socks - his shoes are on the backseat, along with Eddy’s shirt to change later and a bottle of wine in a paper bag. “Business socks,“ he announces, and Eddy half-smiles at him, absent-minded and unusually quiet. Ray told them this wine would be fine for the finest party there is, and Brett isn’t sure Alex’s party is that fine.
“You know that I love you, Eddy?” Brett asks, seemingly out of nowhere, looking at the drop of sweat forming on Eddy’s temple. He has a plan, and the plan is stupid, and it’s working way too well for such a stupid plan. If Brett repeats it often enough, Eddy’s going to be desensitized, and it’s gonna protect him for thinking of it more than he should; it works, and every time when Brett is drunk and serious, Eddy only hugs him and says “yeah, man, me too”, pats his back and brings him more water.
Brett doesn’t allow himself to be sad about it. He’s so good at it, he’s not even sure he ever was sad in the first place. Eddy turns to him and smiles, and Brett remembers: yes, he was, and maybe, he is now. Only a little.
“Yeah, I kind of suspect this by now,” Eddy’s face is streaked with light, and Brett loves him so much, right now, in this very moment, it takes him all his willpower not to add something to make it real. “You’ve only told me a billion times.”
“I mean it,” Brett smiles at him, with the very corners of his mouth, and, honestly, it shouldn’t be so hard to be proud because everything is working just as you intended.
Alex’s party greets them with loud and completely unrecognizable music pouring from every corner, surrounding Brett with a slightly too tight embrace. The front door slaps Brett’s ass, and Eddy laughs and nearly drops the bottle, and his laugh summons people around them.
Alex appears in the hall; he’s wearing flip-flops and trunks with small pumpkins on them; he has always hated rules. He tastes their wine straight from the bottle and only then hugs them both; then makes them drop everything and drags them to the kitchen; there’s an array of bottles of various heights and sizes, making an intricate pyramid on the bar stand. Alex puts their wine at the far right of the counter and his smile is beaming when he announces:
“Well, if it’s not my dear friends Eddy and Bretty who finally made it out of their comfortable family nest to rejoice with the rest of us!” Someone claps for real, and Brett can feel his cheeks getting hotter. Their comfortable family nest, rings in his head. “What would you like to drink?”
Eddy makes a face, then says: “Something pretty.” Brett follows his glance, and says:
“Surprise me.”
The room they drag their stuff in has a nice view of the pool, Eddy seems to like it too. “Do you think it’s possible to jump there from this window?” he asks Brett, his eyes gleaming, while he’s battling with small black buttons, slipping away from his fingers. He’s a wonderful sight, now: shorts and half-buttoned black shirt, and Brett knows it will take at least three cocktails to take Eddy out of it. “Only if you want to break something. Are you okay there?”
“Yes. No. Can you help me?” Eddy asks him with his voice defeated and crushed and lowers his hands. “Your fingers are much better for it.”
“For dealing with your clothes?” Brett scoffs as he steps closer, he just can’t help it - and Eddy’s peach colored cheeks and hands that twitch as if Eddy wants to raise them, make him want to get drunk much, much faster. The passing thought that Eddy would want to push him away crosses his mind, and Brett stomps on it, suffocates it and kicks its breathless corpse away. “I’m joking, bro,“ Brett assures him. “Can you step a bit closer? I barely see them.”
Eddy does so, obediently; his breath washes over Brett’s hair like ocean waves. He smells like deodorant and lip balm, like warmth and fresh clothes - like Eddy, and Brett reminds himself not to breathe in too deep. He works on the buttons quickly, feeling Eddy’s radiating warmth under his fingers, and maybe, he needs to be alone for a while - at least until he’s drunk enough to withstand it, to compromise with his feelings for a while, and turn unwanted and bitter into merry and joyous, just to be Brett who is happy to have such a wonderful friend by his side, if only for a night.
“You’re good to go,” Brett says, holding his breath. “Now go away, I need to change too.”
Sometimes he needs to pull the cord and test it once again, to feel a reminder that he has Eddy nevertheless, if only as a friend who is a bit too obedient for his own good. Eddy goes to the door first and only then asks, holding on a frame with one hand and on his first button with the other:
“Since fucking when you are so shy?” That’s as far as his rebelliousness goes, and he slides away, not quite closing the door behind himself.
Brett closes his eyes and sighs, then forces himself to get out of his slightly sweaty t-shirt; Alex’s cocktails won’t drink themselves. The more Brett stays sober, the more he wants it to be this way when he’s going to spill some unwanted words again, and that’s the whole premise of unwanted words: no one wants them, and if you can’t leave them unsaid, at least try to make sure no one thinks you’re being serious. He isn’t in pain, he doesn’t suffer; when he smiles and laughs, it’s sincere. His heart is not broken, there’s just a tiny fracture, the width of a single hair, going through. He patched it with constant reminders that he’s the closest to Eddy, and shoved the thought of them becoming something else as far as he could. Brett Yang is good at distancing himself, and if Eddy ever saw through his surface, he either didn’t like it or chose to never speak up.
It’s liberating, to flirt with your best friend who you head over heels with, it’s deceitful, to say you’re joking; it’s intoxicating, to win something in your own small lie contest. And that’s what he does - he changes, gets down the stairs and takes a long glass that awaits him in the kitchen. Eddy waves to him over the room: he’s slightly tipsy already. His face blooms with readiness - whatever happens tonight, Eddy Chen is going to face it, and Brett's not going to let it go to waste.
They’re going to dance. As a matter of fact, when Brett calls back for him, rolling the first syllable of his name on his tongue, sweetened by the cocktail, he knows already: Eddy won’t refuse him. He never does.
2.
Brett wakes up with an overwhelming feeling of losing something, and he knows exactly what it is even before he opens his eyes.
The phone screen screams 4 AM at his face, and it's too quiet outside. Even before he fell asleep, the party had subsided in the lounge and the kitchen. Perhaps almost everyone is drunk asleep by now; Brett feels a slight tinge of guilt for being one of them for the past - what, two hours?
The last time he got that drunk was four years ago; he and Eddy were just way too busy all the time to ever get wasted. He rubs his eyes, yawns and looks around: there’s nothing in the room but the bed he’s lying on, obnoxiously big, taking up almost all the space; no bedstand, not a single chair, only that monster of a bed and a window barren of curtains.
Brett rolls on his back, closes his eyes and remembers being way too sleepy to go looking for Eddy or to ask someone else to find him. Perhaps Eddy has been looking for him, too. Maybe he’s looking for him now; a fruitless attempt without breaking in everywhere, and Eddy is hardwired not to break in anywhere unless it’s Brett’s personal space. He isn’t malicious in the slightest and never invades Brett’s personal bubble on purpose - it’s just what he is. Eddy loves being close, it’s his way of showing the wide range of his emotions, and Brett knows all the ways Eddy touches him by heart. He savours them after a long day, lying in his bed with his head aching and his mind hollowed out.
Brett goes down the stairs and makes his way through the remnants of the dying party in the kitchen, stealing a cookie on his way. A girl with silver tinsel braided in her hair makes him drink a shot in exchange - it’s something strong and tastes like grapes and a gut punch, but does wonders and makes Brett feel hot immediately.
“Better?” she asks, as she notices his face flushing in a couple of seconds; Brett can only nod, his throat is burning. He refuses the second shot, making a joke he keeps for moments like these. He doesn’t even register it, but she laughs and says something back, something about him not wearing pants, and it’s funny, but also makes him wince at the thought of another thing he needs to search for. “Whatever,” Brett shrugs, trying to look careless, “as long as no one else is wearing them. You know...” he swallows, his mouth coloured a tart grape taste. Whatever was in that shot comes back and kicks in now, his arms feel heavy and his face is hot, and if he’s not drunk yet, he will be - quite soon. “Actually, I was wondering if I can still get a second one.”
The air outside smells like a cool night and pool chlorine, and Brett stills for a second, breathing deeply. He needs just a bit of a break from the air inside, thick and filled with smells, and then he’ll go back, he tells himself, and look for Eddy; he’s probably lurking somewhere on the second floor, or sleeping in their room. If only Brett remembered which one it was.
The night is pleasantly silent, except for the rhythmic splashing sounds from the pool at the other side of the house, as if someone decided to swim in the middle of the night. Brett doesn’t feel like swimming in the slightest, but certainly feels like dipping his pantsless legs in the pool; so he jumps from the short wooden porch, shivering when the cold grass cuts into his bare feet.
He jogs around the house and it takes him a fraction of a second to forget about the smell of chlorine, and the grass, trying to skin off his feet, because Brett sees him - Eddy, right here, sitting at the edge of the pool. He’s in his swimming trunks, but the black shirt is on, still; rolled up sleeves, two buttons undone, glittery hair. He swings his legs in water, absentmindedly, and looks at the tiny waves spreading; he holds a glass, half-full, something sparkly and layered, colorful. The pool lights illuminate him from above, and in its wavering, blue-ish reflections, Eddy looks so contemplative, almost gone somewhere in higher realm that Brett instantly itches to snap him out of it; partly because it became almost an instinct at this point, partly because he hasn’t seen Eddy for a couple of hours, and he missed him, and he wants him all for himself.
Eddy hasn’t seen him, not yet; so Brett removes his socks and glasses, and counts about a dozen steps back, then runs up to the pool and lands into the water with a loud splash.
Water is barely warm as he goes to the bottom, deafened, his eyes squeezed shut; one kick off, and Brett emerges from the water with a loud inhale; the world before him is a blur but Eddy looks at him - Brett doesn’t need to see him to know that his eyes are round and alarmed and his face is barren of thoughts.
Brett swims up to him in three wide sweeps, puts his glasses back and docks himself steadily between Eddy’s legs, resting elbows on his thighs. The drink is still in Eddy’s hand, and his black shirt is sticking to his chest where a wild wave named Brett Yang washed over him. Brett grins at the sight, and sees all Eddy’s features soften as he lets out a long breath and kicks back at water to splash Brett in return.
“Bro, you scared me shitless.” He looks at Brett from above - tall, gorgeous, luminous, drenched in chlorinated water; up close his eyes are underlined with a softest trace of a sleepless night, and he breaks the staring contest first, lowering down and smacking Brett’s shoulder.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“I fell asleep,” Brett admits and sinks down a little, so he could put his head between Eddy’s thighs. “Guilty for leaving you alone.” He nudges the soft pale skin of his inner thigh with his nose and catches and savours an inhale, barely audible. “What have you been doing?” Brett purrs, slurring words a little, and basks in the warmth he missed so much. He knows damn well he’s going to regret being this tactile tomorrow, as well as half of everything he’ll do and say, but now he’s dizzy, and a bit drunk, and Eddy is so warm - a nice contrast with the cool water Brett’s in.
“A lot of things,” Eddy says, quietly, while Brett puts his head at his soft thigh; under his cheek, the sunkissed skin fuses with a pale patch that has barely seen any sun ever; the mellow gradient is mesmerising before Brett’s eyes. “You know, talking. Alex made me try some drinks.” He puts away his glass, and Brett follows his hand with eyes; when Eddy puts it to his hair, his face is a tease and a trick, waiting to be solved. “Saw that girl that has fancied you since the first year in uni. Listened to some gossip."
He runs his fingers through his hair, ruffles it thoroughly, shakes his head over Brett, and glitter rains down on him; it’s pink and yellow. Eddy’s lips shine a gentle shimmer of lip balm and glossy pinkish remnants of his drink, and Brett decides to stop looking at his face that instant. The strip of elastic band hugging Eddy’s thighs bites into his skin slightly, and Brett thinks of pressing his lips to the edge of it, till he can taste Eddy’s skin under the sharp tinge of chlorine. He would draw back then, watching barely visible pink marks disappearing, slowly; Brett wants it more than anything, to do this and then head back where it’s warm, and drag Eddy along, and make up for leaving. The desire to be closer, to crawl under Eddy’s skin is overwhelming. How has he ever dealt with this before? Has it always been that tantalizing?
“Let’s go back,” he says and shivers; water gets cooler every second he’s in it. “I’m cold.”
“Why the fuck you jumped in this pool in the first place?” Eddy stands up and scoffs, fishing him out; it gets even colder once he’s not in the water, so Brett shudders with his whole body and clings on Eddy’s warmth, like a cat; if he could, he’d climb him.
While Eddy unhurriedly finishes his drink, Brett sniffs and slaps his wet feet on cold tiles impatiently. “What’s the girl? The one that yelled “SUCK HIS COCK YANG!” and ran away after she saw us in the practice room?”
“Yeah. I mean, unfair.”
Brett scoffs, and a taste of grapes, still lingering in his mouth, helps him not to feel bitter about it. Unfair his ass. People saw Eddy with Brett way more often than with anyone else, and rumors were just rumors, but Brett somewhat enjoyed them, as twisted as it is, and Eddy doesn’t have to know.
“Unfair,” he agrees out loud, shaking off drops of water from his glasses and battling with his wet shirt; it sticks to his skin, and it’s almost impossible to get out of it; Eddy watches him with an amused expression for a couple of seconds, then drags the shirt by its collar and it complies, sliding away. Then he takes off his own, and Brett feels it embracing his shoulders; it’s blissfully warm.
“You gotta get changed before you catch a cold,” Eddy says, concerned; Brett buries his nose in the collar, inhales the smell and nods absentmindedly. “Don’t blow your nose into my shirt,” Eddy adds, way less concerned, so Brett sniffs again, deliberately loud, and earns a bump to the shoulder, as he says:
“There’s something on your shirt already.”
“Cum stains,” Eddy says and snorts and Brett cackles in response; it’s been one of their most stupid inside jokes for so long, and created a thousands more jokes because it’s stupid, and it never fails to make them laugh. Eddy’s shirt is about mid-thigh for him, and only the perspective of occasionally getting stared at keeps Brett from taking off his wet underwear as well. He wraps himself in the shirt instead, basking in warmth.
“We need to find my things.”
They enter the house through the backyard door, the same one Brett used ten minutes ago; the girl who made Brett drink a shot is gone already, and this time, the door slaps Eddy - a little, pathetic slap, he manages to catch it almost in time. Eddy lets out a small ow nevertheless and says:
“Where’s everyone?”
“Somewhere else,” Brett vaguely gestures and shakes his wet feet. The hall is empty, there’s only a girl in a bunny suit, sleeping on the couch in the hall; she’s curled up in a ball, still wearing her heels. Eddy clicks his tongue, says “Damn these musicians, hey” in a low voice, and laughs heartily, then tiptoes to her and takes her shoes off with his fingertips, steady and careful; Brett finds out that his own are jittery, and shoots Eddy a wordless glance.
“She’ll sleep better without them,” Eddy shrugs and stands up; the sight of his fingers around her slim ankle, briefly touching smooth skin under tight fishnets - it all combines to create a strangely pleasant sight that still makes Brett shiver. He looks at Eddy’s long pale back turned to him, and it suddenly reminds Brett just how naked Eddy is, right now, in a close proximity, so he wraps himself up in Eddy’s shirt, as if trying to shield his mind from this sight, nothing new for him but still making his heart beat faster. He isn’t the type to reflect on thoughts, deeds, feelings; he just thinks, does, feels. And deciphering this feeling is the last thing Brett wants now. It stings, and burns, and it may very well be the small shot of a grape coloured miracle or a whole new feeling stemming from never having Eddy touching him like this.
He knows this side of Eddy way too well - whiteknighting around every girl in trouble, and, by gods, he manages to find them everywhere he goes. It’s not like Brett doesn’t like him being ready to help, always considerate and smiling and damn nice to everyone, it’s not like Brett is against helping people as a concept, and it’s certainly not like he has something personal against these girls. They both have their own ways around people; Eddy is sunshine, and Brett is a jokester because being nice with everyone breeds expectations and the last thing Brett wants is someone expecting something from him on the sole basis of him being known as a nice person. He is nice, with people who deserve him; Eddy’s nice with everyone, he gives himself away so readily that sometimes Brett has to intervene, glaring at people wordlessly - get lost - because it’s borderline uncomfortable, watching Eddy being unable to get out on his own. I just want to help him, Brett keeps telling himself. It's almost exclusively a party feeling, perhaps, alcohol induced, another one in his collection of unexplainable things that he feels about Eddy.
Eddy looks at him, oblivious to the flurry of Brett’s thoughts; maybe, he’s waiting for something, but Brett says nothing and does nothing as well. It’s probably not the best thing he can do - Eddy’s empathic to the point where it’s straight up creepy, the way he can tune to the wavelength; but nothing comes out, and Eddy, sensing Brett’s distress but having no idea how to address it, just shrugs, addressing no one in particular. “Let’s get you warmed up,” he chuckles, and there’s no way he’s not doing it intentionally; Brett rolls his eyes and ignores his heart racing as he follows Eddy down the hall.
3.
When Brett was just a little kid whose love for music could only be compared to his indifference to basically everything else, his parents tried their damnedest to get him into reading. Fast forward, zero success in this field, Brett was reading as much as necessary to get grades satisfying enough for his mom, but only one book managed to touch him. Frankly speaking, it wasn’t the whole book, just a sentence from it. If the success of a plan depends on more than two criteria, the plan will inevitably fail.
Brett had forgotten the contents of the book long ago, but the phrase stayed, engraved in his mind, and he acted accordingly ever since, trying to keep things simple. So Brett says:
“Let’s go find a bathroom with a dryer.”
“And your pants?”
“Pants later.”
“Alright,” Eddy agrees and looks around; spotting a plate full of canapes, he shoves three in his mouth and takes others with them. “Let’s go, before I’m even more hungry.”
They search the first floor, in a quick and efficient party manner that includes absolutely no touching closed doors; finally they find an unoccupied bathroom at the end of the long hall. It’s tiny, and looks cool with its blue tiling and two mirrors, and has a washing machine, and a big bathtub, and a dryer squeezed in under the sink. Eddy immediately sits on the floor, still too busy chewing, and occupies all the space between Brett and the bathtub; and the Grape Elixir of Flirtiness is still flowing in Brett’s blood, so he just steps between Eddy’s legs, feeling his ankle touching Eddy’s thigh, soft and warm. Eddy gobbles down one more canape, something pink, looking like the fanciest fish there is - maybe, Alex’s party is that fine, after all - and, seemingly calm, informs Brett:
“Bro, your legs are like, ice fucking cold. I’m gonna scream if you don’t move them.” He shifts a bit, so Brett can step to the bathtub, and lifts his head to look at him. “I can throw you the sickest bubble bath, do you wanna?” he asks, then raises a hand and pokes Brett’s lower stomach lightly, just above the wet rim of his underwear. It’s simple and doesn’t hold anything to it, and yet it makes Brett shiver violently.
“I’m...” Brett cuts off and sharply inhales, suddenly dizzy; “I’m fine.” His legs are wobbly and there’s nowhere to sit, and the vertigo makes him grip the sink and bend down. He climbs inside the bathtub; it’s unfriendly, cold, feels way bigger than the one he has at home. “Can you just… pour some water on me?”
Eddy is standing behind him, already; he grips Brett’s shoulders with his arm, steady. “Pour some water on you, alright,” he chuckles, but his voice is tinted by worry. “Sit down, please. You can barely stand.”
“Just dizzy,” Brett retorts but obeys, resting his head on the bathtub’s side, and the next thing he feels is a blissful warmth enveloping him, and the sound of water flows over his overwhelmed brain. The vertigo releases him just as suddenly as it has appeared, and Brett finds himself splattered at the white bottom of the bathtub in the most ungraceful way possible. Eddy pours him with warm water diligently, like he’s trying to make Brett grow and bloom and bear fruit, and Brett is suddenly aware of himself, wet and almost naked, and retaliates. “Let go,” he mumbles, and slides down. “I’m not gonna drown, man.”
“Are you sure?” Eddy looks him up and down, then reluctantly lets go of his shoulders. The water is up to Brett's waist already. “Alright. Still dizzy?”
“No,” Brett lies quickly, and slides down, to the blissfully warm embrace of the hot tub. Eddy picks a bottle from a small white cabinet and pours a good half of it into the water; it smells like sandalwood and bubbles ferociously. Then he closes the curtain between them and Brett hears him thumping down the floor; the realisation that Eddy isn’t gonna go away washes over him, making Brett exhale loudly. “Oh shit. We should dry clothes.”
“Oh fuck. Throw them here?”
Brett squirms under the water, getting out of his underwear; he crumples it with Eddy’s shirt in a ball and throws it over the curtain. It lands somewhere with a wet splat, and Eddy yelps and laughs.
“How do you turn this on?” he asks, and Brett hears him poking at buttons. “Press the biggest one,” Brett mumbles, trying not to give in to the realization of how naked he is, right now. He’s starting to get sober, little by little, and it scares him. The sound of the dryer coming to life only reminds him that the party night is almost over.
Brett reaches forward and turns off the water, and wiggles his toes in delight, feeling the warmth flowing through his body. At the other side of the baby blue curtain Eddy hums an unrecognizable tune under his nose, quiet and thoughtful, under the rhythmic noise of the dryer. It must be almost 5 AM by now, and when it’s 6, they should drive back; they have to film the rest of the charades episode they’ve been putting off, and there’s a chat with their apparel team scheduled… Everything they need to say and do piles up in Brett’s head now, and he can’t help but sigh, loudly.
“You good?” Eddy asks almost immediately, and Brett shakes his head; then, realizing Eddy doesn’t see him, says:
“I just thought of everything we need to do when we get back.” He loves what he does, that’s true; but he’s tired, and Eddy is too, and they're about to drive for two hours. “The night passed too fast,” he adds, and Eddy scoffs. “Bro, you slept through the majority of it. I’m the one who should be complaining. You left me alone for hours.” His voice doesn’t sound offended in the slightest, and Brett would know for sure if he was, Eddy is really bad at not being genuine.
He says, nevertheless:
“Yeah. I’m sorry.” He could spend these hours with Eddy, self-indulgent hours with him being so close and saying whatever, knowing that Eddy would see it as a quirk of his and that he won’t pay much attention to it; it’s as far as Brett will let himself go. He never took advantage of Eddy being drunk, or lonely, or touch-starved; as much as he wanted to, Eddy didn’t want him, and that was the truth. He didn’t want him when he was all hot from crying, curled in a ball of anguish in Brett’s arms; he was thoroughly heartbroken. His girlfriend said Eddy’s got commitment issues; you’ll never settle down, you’ll never be ready to tell everyone, Eddy quoted her with a face twisted and pained and bitter.
“It’s not true, bro,” was the only thing that Brett could say, back then; Eddy took it as some obligatory sign of a friend's solidarity and brushed it off without thinking much of it. But it wasn’t true, it was the furthest thing from the truth, and Brett thought of it over and over, that misty evening and way later; because Eddy was always the opposite of commitment issues, because he’s full of commitment opportunities. He’s full of love, and is ready to believe, and commit, and do whatever he’s asked. The thing is, Eddy just doesn’t like clear definitions, labels, signs that point out directly; they irk him in a way unexplainable. It’s not that hard to see, that’s what Brett said; it was another thing that Eddy took as some obligatory consolation. “Bro… it feels twice as fucked up. I should’ve been sad because it’s all ended. Instead, I’m sad because she fell out of love with me and had the courage to say it first,” he told Brett back then, and Brett answered quietly, stroking his back:
“Falling out of love is a thing. Happens eventually every time when the other doesn’t reciprocate. All the time.”
He knew that was what Eddy wanted to hear; he looked at Eddy’s shaking shoulders and couldn't find it in himself, to tell him that sometimes you love one person forever and ever, and there’s positively nothing you can do with it; that sometimes you have your heart devoted helplessly, pleading, waiting every day and dreaming every night. He lied to him, and so what; it isn’t even a lie if the person you try to trick is yourself.
It used to drive Brett mad, the way no one has appreciated Eddy enough, doing for him enough, caring for him enough. Knowing him like they should. Like Brett does.
“Brett!”
“Mhm?”
“Are you good there? You sound sleepy. Maybe I should pour some cold water on you.”
“Don’t you fucking dare, I’ll drown you in that pool,” and he hears Eddy laughing. What a perfect, perfect sound. “Five more minutes to your underpants.”
Five more minutes, then, Brett thinks, and closes his eyes. That’s enough to warm up without falling asleep.
Eddy speaks up after what feels like an hour; his voice is warm and steady, cutting through the steam-filled air:
“Can I ask you something?”
It’s so unlike Eddy, to ask beforehand, that Brett immediately snaps out of his dreamily warm, fuzzy state; it means that Eddy thought of it and discussed it with himself, so Brett sniffs, and says, way more attentive than before:
“Yeah, sure.” Why the hell are you even asking, he wants to say, but it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do. Eddy hesitates a bit before saying:
“Why are you flirting with me when you’re drunk?”
Oh.
Brett’s heart does an elegant somersault and apparently leaves his body for good; he finds himself short of breath when he says:
“What?” He heard the question perfectly fine, actually, he just has not a single idea how to answer - and, to be honest, all the potential answers are off limits. What can he say, even? Because I’m in love with you and it’s the only thing I allow myself to do since I know you don’t want me this way? Yeah, what a way to do this. “I don’t know, I just feel touchy. I just wanna touch people and tell shit, that’s all.”
“Yeah?” is the only thing Eddy says, and Brett isn’t quite sure what that means; he’s so used to reading Eddy’s intonations and everything he means between the lines. Right now, the panic settled in him makes him instinctively blurt:
“Does it bother you?”
“What? Bother?” Eddy laughs, and it somehow calms Brett down a bit. “Dude, shit. Okay, maybe I need to make it a bit more clear. Why are you flirting with me only when you’re drunk?”
What.
“What do you mean?” Brett’s mouth is faster than his mind, and he bites his tongue, hard, but the words are already out, and they're hanging here, between him and Eddy, and everything he was keeping for himself so long is filling him to the brim, now. Is there really a better time to break down over the way you feel about your best friend than when you’re naked and sitting in someone’s bathtub?
God, Brett is sure even in his wildest uni years he hasn't been stuck in a situation like this.
“I’m saying...” Eddy says in a strained voice, makes a pause and inhales sharply, and Brett’s mind, blunted by the sudden turn of events, only now offers him a possibility: perhaps, Eddy has something to tell him. Perhaps, it’s something he was thinking about a lot. Perhaps, this is something really important. It occurs to him: Eddy’s voice is full of barely hidden uncertainty. “I meant what I said. You...”
The mechanical chirping, disgustingly cheerful, fills the bathroom, ringing under the ceiling, and Brett curses all the machinery in the world, every piece of technology ever existed, with a fury he didn’t know he possessed.
Eddy sounds surprised and relieved when he says:
“Your clothes. All dried up. Want me…”
“Wait,” Brett interrupts him. Whatever has gone into Eddy that made him ask Brett is leaving him, now, and Brett can’t have that. “Eddy, listen.” There’s an instinct to answer “yes” to everything that Eddy suggests, but Brett suppresses it: not the time. Somehow Brett feels it in his guts: whatever Eddy wanted to say is important, and if it’s gonna make him sad once again, well, isn’t that how it’s always been? “Listen to me. Repeat what you just said right now.”
It takes a whole minute for Eddy to answer, as Brett feels the water slowly getting colder around him. “I said,” he says again, slow and unsure now, “why do you only flirt with me only when you’re drunk?”
This alone doesn’t explain anything. Eddy is a certified overthinker, a high-end intrusive thoughts machine, a person who apparently thinks ten times more than he says, and Brett feels like he’s in a minefield, carefully picking words; he needs to unravel this slowly, with utmost care.
“So you’ve been saying you would like me to flirt with you when I’m sober as well?” These words slowly crush him, with the overpowering force, as Brett grits them out; he shakes and shivers under their weight. They feel like a knife cutting him open, and his mouth is filled with a bitter taste. What’s new, right?
He was always lowkey proud of his ability to dive headfirst into scary things: it was him who called Eddy and suggested starting Twoset for real, it was him who clicked the button and posted their first ever video, and it’s his call now to talk to Eddy despite anguish ravaging him inside. That’s what he does every time, jumping from the edge, not being sure there’s gonna be something to catch you. The leap of faith, Eddy would say, because he’s the one who needs such a thing. Brett doesn’t need faith, Brett needs Eddy and that’s everything he could ever want. He could do everything while Eddy was beside him, and now, when every word he says is meant to question this, he feels scared in a way he never was before.
“I.. yes,” Eddy breathes out, and Brett hears that his voice is strained, like it’s hard to say it out loud. “You... say a lot of things. I want you to tell me what you mean for real. I want you to tell me something that is gonna stay true when we both wake up. I wanna hear it, whatever it is. So - yeah. That’s what I ask of you.“
The curtain between them makes it ridiculously close to the church confession; if not for the fact that Brett is the one who should beg for absolution. “If you have something to say to me now, then, please, Brett, do it. Flirt with me now, Brett Yang, if you dare. Tell me things I try not to think of, like you do, put your hands where they will be forever imprinted, like you do. And if you can’t, then - then, please… Please, stop, because I’m not sure I will be able to take it any longer.”
Fuck. That’s the apparent size of Brett’s vocabulary right now: he doesn’t even remember the last time he was that lost of words.
They have each other, and it means that Brett can make Eddy laugh in ten seconds or less, can make him do everything Brett says; it also means that Eddy can say a word and make Brett’s heart shatter, and rain down his ribcage in glass shards, cutting through him, and make it whole again if he says one more word.
Brett is sober, right now, and the night has almost ended, and he’s tired of pretending it never hurt.
So he gets a hold on the curtain between them: light blue plastic crumples in his hand. Then he pulls it away.
Eddy’s face in front of him is pinkish and pretty and filled with some unexplainable, unfathomable endearment. He looks right at Brett, and says, quietly:
“I’ll start. I wonder if anyone saw us going inside. You were in my shirt and I was almost naked. Do you think someone thought something?” Glitter from his hair is stuck to his face, and Eddy is blooming with hundreds of tiny, dazzling freckles; one is sitting at the corner of his mouth, and Brett can’t look away.
This time, he’s not going to tell Eddy what to do; he will ask. His lips are numb when he says:
“Eddy, if I tell you to kiss me, what would you do?”
Eddy breathes out slowly, and closes his eyes before answering; there’s glitter on his eyelids, too. “I will tell myself this is a bad idea and do as you say.” He’s unmoving when he continues:
“But you haven’t told me to do it yet.”
“Eddy,” Brett feels like he’s falling, whispering his name like that, clinging to the rim of the bathtub. “Could you kiss me right now?”
Eddy moves forward, and before Brett realises it, Eddy’s hand is in the water, sliding between Brett’s thighs, brushing the soft, warm skin with his knuckles; then Eddy anchors himself and his other hand slides up Brett’s cheek, tearing the sharp breath out of him; that one, Eddy steals with his lips. They’re cool and soft on Brett’s hot mouth; a chaste touch up his lips. Then Eddy draws back a bit, inhales and the next time Brett breathes out, Eddy catches him in a kiss.
He’s soft and careful, but Brett is suffocating with the force that was locked up in the furthest corner of him for so long; now, set free, it’s unstoppable, a ravaging storm is brewing in him, threatening to break out and crush everything, and more than anything, Brett wants to be crushed; so he sinks his teeth in Eddy’s lower lip, and drinks him up, savouring the taste. He hugs Eddy with both of his hands, and they’re both wet already, but neither of them seems to mind: Brett grips onto his shoulders, moves closer, making water splash and waver, and there’s probably a small pool of water around Eddy’s knees already, but Brett has never cared so little about anything in his life. His only frantic thought is not letting go, never letting go.
Eddy sniffles and sobs in a kiss, not letting Brett go either, and Brett is about to break down and cry when the dryer comes to life again, and then someone bangs at the door, loudly.
“What are you two doing there?” That's Alex’s voice, alternated with a gentle electric chirps, and Eddy jumps away from Brett like he’s been scalded. They look at each other, aghast, and a slightly chemical peach of Eddy’s lip balm blooms on Brett’s tongue. “Alright, I’m, like, super happy that you finally sorted your shit out, congratulations, live happily ever after, have a lot of kids and cats, but for everything that is holy, don’t you dare fuck in the bathroom!” He breathes in and out, and continues, seemingly calmer:
“I saw you two going there half an hour ago, and you were both naked, so don’t even bother making something up. Get your asses out here in five minutes.” They hear the rhythmic sound of his footsteps up the hall, and everything is quiet, deafening, almost; Brett blinks and his hands betray him, sliding away. Eddy immediately hugs him again, seemingly overwhelmed, and Brett puts his head on Eddy’s shoulder.
“Give me the towel and turn away,” he murmurs at Eddy’s neck, right over the collarbone. This is ridiculous, Eddy has seen him naked more times than Brett can count; but this kiss made him break his shell and every single wall he has built around his heart and mind over the last ten years or so; he feels vulnerable, aching all over.
“Come here,” Eddy helps him to pour some fresh water onto him and get out of the bath, then covers him with the biggest towel from the hanger. They stay there for a while, hugging each other, for a minute more; Brett feels warm and exhausted, and way too dazed to recognize how he is feeling right now. “Let’s go home,” Eddy whispers in his wet hair, and maybe, this time Brett will be okay with him letting go. Only for a while.
“Now, seriously, turn the fuck away,” he says, and his eyes are clouded with sudden tears as he smiles.
4.
When they’re in the car, the sun is setting up already; Brett is absentmindedly munching on the cookie he took from the kitchen, a giant oatmeal cookie with chocolate chips and a potentially hazardous amount of butterscotch. Eddy’s somewhere else, giving the last farewell to Alex, and his seat is already warmed by the rising sun.
When Eddy stumbles in the car and slams the door, he looks exhausted, and only now Brett realizes: Eddy didn’t sleep at all today. There’s still some glitter on him, and his hair is wet and spiky, dribbling down on his fresh dried shirt. When Brett looks at his lips, the hot wave washes over him. We kissed. It’s easier to digest the thought when it’s been divided into small blocks like these. Oh fuck. We really kissed. I kissed him.
“How do you feel?” Brett asks, uneasy; this is a new ground, and he isn’t quite sure what it’s going to be from now on; even before the last word passes his lips, Eddy grabs his shoulders and presses his lips into Brett’s mouth.
It’s nowhere as soft as it was the first time; it’s ravenous and igniting, Eddy melts into him, kissing Brett until he’s not quite sure where he ends and Eddy starts; they’re out of breath quickly.
“Sleepy. My head is gonna blow up,” Eddy mumbles in his lips, definitely not willing to pull away, and by gods, Brett shares this desire with his whole heart. He throws his arms around Eddy’s neck to prevent him from ever drawing away, and says in his mouth, with his eyes closed:
“I’ve wanted to do it for a very long time. Because I’ve been loving you for a very long time.”
“Because you...”
“Because I love you, Eddy,” and for the first time in forever these words don’t bring him pain; they wash over him, alleviating, making him shake up; it feels like opening his eyes anew. “I know I say it all the time, I know that it’s not...”
“Hey,” Eddy says in a weak voice, “I… I love you too. I think I always have. I…” Under his eager eyes Brett lights up like a match. “It surely has been long enough to come to terms with the fact you’re not gonna be with me. I feel like I’m sleeping now. Are you sure we’re not drunk and knocked out back there?”
“I’m not sure,” Brett bites and tugs on Eddy’s bottom lip, making him shiver and draw closer. His hand slides over the small of Brett’s back, making his way under the t-shirt, and the sensation of his warm palm, touching him the same as he did before, but with a new intimacy in it, beats every touch Brett has been given before. "But I think I know how to check."
***
Eddy picks up the phone the very second Brett calls him; his voice is distant, booming, echoing somewhere in the house.
“You’re calling me,” he says, and his voice is delighted beyond the imaginable. “You’re actually calling me. Hey, Brett, maybe you will send me the letter next time? It better be hand-written, I have my standards, you know.”
“What do you want to wear?” Brett interrupts him, ignoring his musings, too busy with not letting his smile creep into his voice. “We should match.”
“I’m wearing red,” Eddy informs him, and Brett can hear his clothes rustling, and how his voice sounds a bit muffled when Eddy presses the phone to his shoulder. “You should too. Brings your violin hickey out.” He snickers, and it’s so hard not to give in that Brett stops trying and indulges Eddy with a chuckle. “I forgot my red shirt somewhere in your clothes," he says. "Can you bring it?”
“Are you sure it’s here?” Brett hears more rustling, then a surprised ow combined with a loud bang of a closet door. “Oh yeah, nevermind, I found it. See ya,” he hangs up, and Brett knows: he’s going to wait for him god knows how long. At least, everyone is used to them being late already.
Five minutes later his door opens and Eddy peeks into it; his red shirt is a small fire in the room. He’s holding another red shirt, and his face is all peach and gold, lit by the sunset.
“I changed my mind,” Brett says, short of breath, and steps closer. “Give me that one you’re wearing.”
They have each other, whatever it means - the next time someone asks, it’s Brett’s turn to tell.