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“Hey, do you think getting an ice cream making machine is a good idea?” Reggie asks, head in Bobby’s lap and hand playing with Luke’s hair, who’s sat on the floor in front of the sofa, playing on a shitty nintendo with the same intensity he saves for song writing.
Alex hums, laying on his back next to Luke, cheek pressed against his calf. “That would be cool. I love ice cream. Good idea, Reg.”
“A great idea until Luke and Reg try to make sock ice cream,” Bobby jokes, brushing their thumb along Reggie’s cheek the way they always do when what they say could be taken to heart.
Reggie sticks his tongue out. “We wouldn’t make sock ice cream.”
“Unless Carlos asks us to,” Luke interjects, not looking up from his nintendo. “I have future-brother-in-law responsibilities, and Reg has actual-big-brother-by-everything-but-blood responsibilities.”
“That’s true,” Reggie agrees, grinning at Bobby, who just rolls his eyes fondly. That’s a new thing, being able to read Bobby’s expression like that. For so long, Bobby had been some great, unreadable mystery, especially in comparison to Luke, who sings every feeling he can’t fit into the tapestry where his sleeves should be, and Alex who tries his hardest to contain his feelings, but can’t even pretend to like a plant pot for more than five minutes. Even when they started dating, Reggie couldn’t always tell how much Bobby was doing because she wanted to, and how much she did out of a sense of obligation. Lately, though - and Reggie doesn’t know if Bobby is just more comfortable, or if their feelings are stronger, now, or if he’s just learning to express himself - it feels like they’re suddenly speaking the same language. Bobby’s smiles are soft and his eyes are warm and he opens his arms to Reggie with an easiness that Reggie hasn’t seen in him before, a level of comfort he still doesn’t have around Alex and Lule, although Reggie knows it isn’t because he loves them any less.
“Of course,” Bobby says, twirling a strand of Reggie’s hair around his finger, “I know where your priorities lay.”
“You’re such a bitch, Bobbington,” Luke complains, finally looking up from his game to shoot a baleful look at Bobby. “Just because your sibling and future sibling in law would sooner sacrifice you to satan than make you cool ice cream doesn’t mean you have to begrudge us for being awesome.”
“Yeah, Binbag,” Alex chimes in, always happy for a good excuse to rag on one of them. “Don’t be a bitch.”
Bobby makes a fake shocked noise, awful at making his expression look hurt, but surprisingly good at making her voice conform. “You’re on my side, right, though, Reg?”
Reggie snorts, grabbing Bobby’s hand to kiss the side of his wrist. “I’m sorry, babe, but maybe you just shouldn’t be a bitch.”
Bobby sticks his lower lip out in a ridiculous imitation of Luke’s pout. “Wow, i see how it is,” they say, and Reggie knows, logically, that they’ve probably just forgotten how sensitive Reggie is to tone, that he’s probably just forgotten to turn the fake hurt off, but the odd streak to it that always makes him sound so believable collides directly with Reggie’s sternum until frost is spreading out from the point of contact, and Reggie has to frantically fight their limbs to stop themself from standing up and running out. “Good to know you’ve got my back, not.”
Reggie forces a laugh, and they know Bobby can hear how awkward it is, they know Luke is hypersensitive to fake laughs and fake happiness, they know Alex is near constantly tuned into the way Reggie feels, but alarm bells are blaring in his mind like he’s taken a wrong turn and stumbled into a burning building, and his whole being feels so freezing that his mind starts playing on repeat a memory of Luke telling him about how sometimes things burn so hot that your body stops being able to interpret it, and you start feeling cold.
“Reg-” Bobby starts, fake hurt gone and voice heavy with concern instead.
Reggie shakes his head and sits up, dimly aware that this is the kind of thing that the therapist Ray got him in with would tell him to talk about. Instead, he’s already planning backup escape routes incase one of the guys tries to stop him. “I need… um. I need to go grab something from the kitchen.” It’s a shitty excuse and they all know it. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Logically, they know the others aren’t stopping them because he’s told them about how much he hates feeling trapped, but all he’s aware of is the weight of their gazes on his back, and the sudden thought that maybe they’re glad to watch him go.
—
Alex insists all the time that the way Reggie takes things to heart all the time isn’t a sign that he’s stupid or too sensitive, but sometimes - not usually, not when the warmth of Bobby’s arms wrapped around him bleeds through and heats him up from the outside in, not when Luke presses so close against him that he’s aware of every single inch of skin that’s in contact with him, not when Alex reels him in for a hug and kisses his forehead for no reason other than he loves him - when his words echo around Reggie’s mind, he can’t make himself believe them the way he usually can.
On those days - the hard days when Reggie remembers how much Bobby used to talk about not liking kissing that much, when Luke is on edge and lets his tone get sharp, when Alex forgets that no matter how soft his expression is when he says it, if he calls Reggie stupid too many times in a small space in time, Reggie’ll believe him - Alex’s words aren’t echoing like their music echoes off of stadium walls, they echo more like screaming alone in a cave, an awful, distorted reminder of just how fucking alone you are.
It’s awful, feeling his friends hate him.
Not just because he loves his friends, and losing them would quite possibly ruin his life, but because they’re a symbol of who he is now, of who he’d been and how far he’s come, and he loves them so impossibly much because they’ve taught him to love himself, admins the second he fucks that up he slips right back into the kid he’d been before they’d met them, who knew nothing about themselves except that they hadn’t been good enough for mom and dad, so how could they possibly be good enough for anyone else?
And the worst thing about it all, way worse than how Reggie’s ribs ache, and how the weight of Bobby’s thick winter jacket feels impossibly heavy on his collarbone, even worse than the horrible sinking feeling in his chest, like someone hooked a fishing line around his heart and started reeling it in, dragging it down to his stomach, is the knowledge that mentioning it would probably just make things worse.
They don’t take criticism well, is the problem. Alex’s face crumples at the realisation that he’s fucked up, and Reggie can’t keep going past that, can’t push until Alex reassures Reggie the way they need it, so they just let it circle back to making sure Alex know it isn’t a big deal. Luke gets it, so he’s a little better, but he gets it, so he’s also a little worse. He knows exactly what Reggie means when Reggie tells him that the way he didn’t say anything when he gave Reggie’s suggested baseline an approving nod has been plaguing Reggie all week, but he also knows exactly how awful he’s made Reggie feel, and so as well as he knows logically not to blame himself, he gets caught up easily until he’s sinking in guilt anyway, and then the pair of them dissolve into an awful feedback loop of blaming themselves for hurting the other, until they’re curled up on the garage floor, all cried out. Bobby’s a bit different, because Bobby is Reggie’s boyfriend, and because Bobby doesn’t really feel things like guilt until things get bad, and because Bobby hides his feelings so well that Reggie doesn’t even know how much it affects them, knowing they’ve hurt Reggie, somehow, but that not knowing terrifies Reggie, really. The idea of telling Bobby something that might keep her up at night, that might be taken the wrong way, but will definitely be taken with a quiet, solid understanding that if Reggie’s gotten to the point of saying it, then it needed to be said.
He knows he needs to talk to Bobby, needs to explain it’s their dumb brain again, not really much of a fault on Bobby’s part, but they know it’ll be difficult, too.
The constant communication is one of Reggie’s most and least favourite parts of being in a functioning romantic relationship, to be honest.
He’d quite like to be in a functioning queerplatonic relationship with Alex and Luke, if he’s even more honest, but the constant communication that keeps him and Bobby working as a couple would probably be required there, too, and at the minute, talking just to Bobby, who sits silently and waits until Reggie is finished talking, who never interrupts, and who always does her best to make sure Reggie feels comfortable talking to her, feels like a herculean task right now, and he can’t imagine much worse than having to do it with three people instead of one.
It’s not even that he thinks Bobby will take it badly. It’s not like the time Bobby couldn’t read Reggie’s expression and kept teasing after it stopped being fun, or like the time a phrase Bobby picked up reminded Reggie viscerally of his dad. It’s just a dumb mistake about tone, and Reggie knows that Bobby is far too rational to blame himself over something like that. It’s more that Reggie knows that if Bobby did take it badly, Reggie wouldn’t even know about it until Bobby thought himself into a funk. Right now he’s not really even sure that Bobby would want to talk to him, too wrapped up in a whirlwind of thoughts that insist that he’s too much and too dumb and too sensitive, a fun product of knowing it was a stupid thing to get upset about, of knowing it’s kind of a thing, for him, getting upset about stupid things.
“Hey, Reg?”
Reggie whirls around to see Bobby leaned against the kitchen door frame.
He exhales heavily, forcing a smile quickly. “Bee, hi.”
“You wanna talk about it?” They ask, never one to fuck about with nicities and bullshit.
Reggie shrugs helplessly. He wants it resolved, and he doesn’t want to fuck up, and he wants to defend his stupid sensitivity to stupid things, and he doesn’t want to sound like a bumbling idiot who can’t take a joke from someone he knows loves him. “Maybe.”
Bobby nods, like they get it. They don’t, Reggie knows they don’t get all caught up in his thoughts like that, but they appreciate the silent support. “Do your ribs hurt?”
“A little bit,” he admits. “Not too bad, though.”
Bobby nods again and moves forward so he can sit on the table, legs apart and leaning back a little, like he’s trying to say that there’s room for Reggie to move forward into his space when they’re ready to take it. “I’m sorry for fucking up with my tone. I know that’s a big thing for you.”
Old Reggie, little Reggie who didn’t have friends who’d made entire powerpoints about how cool he was, probably would’ve tried to diffuse it. But Reggie does have friends like that, and a family that came to all their shows, and a ridiculously awesome boyfriend, who usually knows just what to say. It’s so much harder to listen to the little whisper in the back of his mind that insist he’s still thirteen, a dumb kid riding the coattails of other kids who aren’t even a fraction less dumb, but who clearly don’t want him around, when he’s surrounded by people who try their absolute hardest to show him how much they love him. It doesn’t stop the voice, they're sure nothing will ever stop the voice, not when all it’s really doing is adding a new layer to a chorus that had been playing in Reggie’s brain since they were old enough to understand the lyrics, but it’s just a fraction easier now, to ignore it. To insist to himself that the chorus was his dad’s favourite song which means it’s automatically dumb and not worth listening to.
“Thanks,” he says slowly, edging just a fraction closer. It probably isn’t even visible to the naked eye, but it feels like a big move. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay to talk it out, that was childish, and I know communicating is important and I should be more open to it.”
“Nah,” Bobby disagrees easily, but somehow not dismissive. Reggie’s never understood how he does that, but having watched her talk to Luke in the same way, they figure it’s just a Bobby quirk. Just like always, despite his comfortable stance and blank expression, her eyes are sharp, watching every breath Reggie takes to analyse it for a sign of pain or upset. “I know you always wanna run. I guess it’s just a good thing I like chasing you, huh?”
Reggie rolls his eyes. They aren’t entirely sure how it’s become their thing, Reggie running and Bobby following, but it is sort of cute.
Well, it’s probably because they’d met by Reggie racing through the whole school after accidentally spilling a full pot of Indian ink on Bobby’s new shoes, and Bobby chasing after him until she could tackle him on the school field, coincidentally in front of Alex and Luke, who decided they wanted to take on both idiots covered in ink and mud, even though Reggie had expected Bobby to demand they chose, but Reggie isn’t entirely sure how Bobby manages to make all of their situations conform to it.
“You just like watching my ass,” He jokes weakly, wincing at the feeling of the counter digging into his rib.
Bobby shrugges lazily. “It is a nice ass.”
“You’re ace, you don’t even care about asses,” they complain, inching forward again until they’re close enough for Bobby to hold a hand out on the table, palm up.
“Yeah, you’re right. I’m just in love with you.” Bobby says it easily, as though it hasn’t taken so long for her to be comfortable saying things like that, as if they don’t still have days where they couldn’t. “And getting to hold you is worth a short run, you’re not exactly a master of endurance.”
Reggie reaches out enough to lay his hand down on top of Bobby’s lightly, revelling in the burst of warmth that starts to chase away the awful cold feeling when Bobby links their fingers. “I love you too,” they say cautiously. Their chest still feels weird, and their ribs still hurt, and Bobby’s jacket still feels too heavy on their collarbone, but the fishing line around their sternum isn’t anywhere near as taut anymore, and the cold is finally starting to recede from his fingertips. “I’m sorry for overreacting, and getting upset over nothing. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”
“You didn’t overreact, bro, or get upset over nothing. I know how you are about tone, and I know I need to be more careful,” Bobby promises, tugging him forward gently by his hand until Reggie’s stood in the V of her legs, looking up at her. “I know your brain is a little screwy. It’s not anywhere near as screwy as Luke’s, though, and we still love him.”
Reggie laughs, leaning forward until his forehead thuds against Bobby’s collarbone lightly. “I love you,” he says again, smushing himself further forward until he can wrap his arms around Bobby.
“I love you too, peanut,” Bobby promises, kissing their forehead. “Even when your brain is screwy and insists I don’t. I don’t think I’m capable of not loving you at this point. It’s like exposure therapy. I’m just too used to you.”
“Which is a good thing, right?” Reggie asks, because even though they feel warm again, their ribs still ache and the chorus still hums, just a little. “It’s good that you’re used to me?”
“Fuck yeah, Regifer.” Bobby rubs a slow circle on their back with his hand. “It’s the best thing.”
“M’kay,” Reggie mumbles. It always feels so dumb, getting upset over things like this, after the fact. He knows he has things that are reasonable to be upset over, like the sound of breaking glass - Alex explains that just because his home wasn’t physically violent doesn’t mean it wasn’t violent at all, which was a fun crisis, and breaking glass is apparently linked to violence in Reggie’s mind - and the way Alex and Luke take arguing too far, but this isn’t linked to anything like that. This isn’t about his trauma or his past issues, it’s just… it’s just Reggie being stupid and sensitive.
“Hey, no, don’t make that noise,” Bobby coaxes, and Reggie guesses he must’ve been doing that weird not-yet-crying-whimper thing he does when he’s upset. “Talk to me.”
“You hate talking about feelings,” Reggie protests.
Bobby makes a concerned sound. “This is more important, babe. You gotta know that.”
Reggie sighs. “I just… you don’t think it’s dumb when I get upset like this?”
“Of course not,” she promises immediately. “It’s like… you don’t get upset when I can’t say the L word, right? Or when feelings get uncomfortable and I can’t talk about them even when you need to?”
Reggie shrugs. “I’d be a dick if I got upset about that.”
“Exactly. It’s just a Reggie thing. And a Luke thing. And I’m pretty sure sometimes it’s a Willie thing.” Bobby rests his chin on the crown of Reggie’s head. “We’re good.”
“Okay.” Reggie kisses their chest lightly. “Love you.”
“Yeah, man. I love you too.”