Work Text:
1.)
Cooper is nine years old when he’s introduced to the dangerous world of alcohol. His mother slips a small glass full of a clear, acrid smelling beverage into his curious hand; he knows it isn’t water after it doesn’t pass the sniff test. Still, she’s looking at him expectantly and his father is casting furtive, quizzical glances in his direction, imperceptible to the few guests assorted around the dinner table.
“Go on, then,” says his mother in a tone of finality and Cooper doesn’t want the situation to escalate into something unmanageable—at least, that’s what he’d heard her refer to him as whenever he isn’t the naive, ask-no-questions type of son she and his father expect him to be. He’s working on it but he doesn’t see the point to these stuffy occasions, doesn’t like the way his collar bunches up at the nape of his neck, and how his trousers feel as though they’re spray-painted on.
He wrinkles his nose as he raises the proffered glass to his lips, the smell of asphalt and the stuff he’s used to dress his wounds in the past hitting him with the force of a natural disaster. The guests all erupt into hearty laughter and proclamations that he’s a natural after he subsequently chokes and sputters that vile beverage to the linoleum tiles beneath him, nearly dropping it out of sheer disgust.
“That’s called gin, dear. Let me fix that up for you,” his mother says, concealing a libertine smirk behind one of her gloved hands. She pours cherry-flavored sparkling water into the drink as if that would be satisfactory enough to mask the taste of burning rubber Cooper now has in his mouth. It’s enough to make him gag again, but as he catches his father’s eye, notices the proud glint to his irises that he hardly ever sees directed toward him, he musters up the courage to down the rest of the glass.
Sparkling water as it turns out is horrendous at camouflaging gin. His glass luckily isn’t refilled for the rest of the night—the guests are too engaged in their own drinks and belligerent storytelling to pay attention to him—but the rapid onset of warmth in his stomach and the unnaturally sleek reflection of bright yellow ceiling lights on monochromatic white keeps him excellent company for the remainder of the affair. The smile he adorns feels genuine for once.
Seven years later, Cooper has tasted alcohol far too many times to keep track. It’s at every social gathering the Bradfords turn up to, offered to him from strangers of all walks of life. It’s circulated through hallways in his school, supplied in the transitory period between classes from one hydro flask to another. It’s stashed under his bed currently in the form of countless expensive vodkas, gins, fancy bottles emblazoned with foreign cartography, and whiskeys though he really only drinks whiskey when the image of his parents walking away from him at the airport in pursuit of Florida refuses to leave his head, stained in technicolor vision. They hadn’t even looked back.
Oliver doesn’t know namely because Cooper has no clue how he’ll react. He regrets pitching such a huge fit over the Boosterin pills he found out Oliver had plans to take a week ago because when he harkens back to the topic, it’s not at all different from Cooper’s drinking habits. Except where Oliver has a valid reason to want to voluntarily take drugs, Cooper does not. Therefore, when Oliver poses the innocent question of if he’d ever tried alcohol before, his first instinct is to deny all knowledge of the subject. That would mean lying to his best friend, the one person he values above all else (other than the rest of the Otto clan, obviously), and he’s never been too convincing of a liar.
“I have a few times… why?” Cooper settles on replying. It seems safe enough but Cooper’s on-the-spot thinking doesn’t account for Oliver’s internal calculations. Sometimes, when Oliver fixes him with one of his suspicion-loaded looks, he’s eerily reminded of the intimidating, self-assured businessmen he has met plenty of over the years he’s accumulated on Earth. He reassures himself that it’s just Oliver, though he’s unsure of his footing with just Oliver.
“Well, I was thinking—” Oliver says, stopping to bend down and rummage through his backpack, procuring a bottle of what has to be drugstore vodka. There’s no imported-from label in sight, only a logo proclaiming it to be an award winner and a garish font informing him that the vodka originates in Austin, Texas. “I’ve never drank before and I thought you haven’t either.”
Cooper runs a skittish tongue over his incisor teeth, willing his bouncing leg to stay put. “Doesn’t matter, it’s not like it was anything special. Mostly for family stuff.” He leaves out the time he and a couple of his and Oliver’s classmates got trashed during a study period, and the time two days ago when he shakily poured lukewarm shots for himself in the darkness of his and Oliver shared living space, casting guilty grimaces every ten minutes to the other’s sleeping form silhouetted behind their room divider. He leaves out the fact that he has two honey whiskey shots in his backpack too, concealed in an otherwise empty pencil case.
“Would you want to drink with me? I mean…” Oliver trails off, raising a nervous hand to the back of his head. “Might as well try it sooner rather than later.”
You have no idea thinks Cooper as he stammers out an agreement. Oliver shrugs, screwing the cap off and recoiling as soon as the stench of hard liquor wafts into the open air. The poor boy shouldn’t have held it that close to his face. He chews the inside of his cheek as Oliver unsteadily lifts the rim to his lips, eyebrows knit together in thinly veiled disgust. Oliver tips it back and Cooper is momentarily transfixed by the bob of his Adam’s apple before a harsh choking sound recaptures his focus.
“Ach! God—” Oliver splutters, shaking his head as he does a full-body shiver. “You’ve tried this and you didn’t give me a heads up? What kind of a best friend are you?!”
“Hey man, I drink the good stuff. You’ve just gotta get a ratio going.” Cooper snatches the bottle from him as he launches himself off the couch to stake out their fridge, mentally thanking his past self for deciding to buy orange juice. Screwdriver is not his favorite combination but it would have to do—the drink’s popular for a reason, isn’t it? He retrieves two glasses from the cupboard and eyeballs two shots for each cup, taking the liberty of a looser pour as he works on his own drink.
“When you said you drank a few times, I didn’t realize you meant you also had bartending experience,” teases Oliver. He accepts his screwdriver gratefully, taking a large sip of it as Cooper rejoins him.
“Slow down amigo, you’ll make yourself sick,” says Cooper as he proceeds to invalidate his own advice and follow Oliver’s lead. He’s much more aware of his limits than Oliver, he rationalizes. It’s also his first time drinking with someone he loves likes a lot; he doesn’t want to spend the night caring for Oliver as he hunches over a toilet, not when they could be doing better things with their time. Which, speaking of. “So, any plans?”
“Plans?” Oliver asks, gulping down another sizable portion of his drink; Cooper tames the protests that so badly want to tumble out of his mouth—an argument is the last thing he needs.
“Yeah, are we just gonna sit around and drink or something?”
“Or something.” Oliver polishes off half the glass.
“Um… we can… we can play a drinking game?”
With that said, Cooper reaches for the remote stranded near the edge of their coffee table, turning the television on before he or Oliver forgets how to. At the rate they’re going, it’d likely be Oliver. “Do you know any?”
“I only know spin the bottle,” says Oliver, pausing to establish eye contact with Cooper and cracking a brusque smile once Cooper bothers to keep his eyes on him. “Although I think you need more people for that one.”
“Yeah, probably,” Cooper agrees for lack of a better response. If Oliver turns out to be a flirty drunk, Cooper may have to reconsider drinking with him. For now, he diverts his attention to his phone, on a proper mission to hunt down a drinking game to play as they watch a movie. That way, Cooper doesn’t have all of Oliver’s attention on him. Sober Oliver is enough of a minefield; he can’t imagine navigating Drunk Oliver yet.
“Hey,” says Oliver, suddenly too contiguous for comfort, nudging his empty glass towards Cooper’s somewhat filled one as his breath curls around Cooper’s ear. “Would you make me another one? I promise to tip.”
He snorts, shoving Oliver’s elbow off his shoulder as he straightens his back. The hazy afterglow of alcohol has not yet overwritten his vision, but it’s clear Oliver is already a bit woozy. He’s never been too handsy with Cooper before, preferring to keep their friendship within the boundaries of silent gestures and excessive usage of the word dude. It’s how things are and Cooper is fine with that.
Nonetheless, he fulfills Oliver’s request, keeping a wary eye over his unattended drink. He doesn’t think Oliver is the type to steal but he admits it can be detrimental to his sanity to assume the best out of people and their every action. Or, as he diligently creeps over to the collection he has lined neatly beneath the draped blankets of his bed frame, indulging in a solid swig of vodka, maybe everything’s not fine with him. But he soldiers onward, depositing Oliver’s beverage into his waiting hands and admiring how the fairy lights he’d strung up bloom a brighter white than usual.
“Are we watching something?” Oliver questions. He has his feet propped on the coffee table, top shirt button loosened. He’s already made a dent in his new drink, enough so to cause Cooper some concern. Cooper sets his phone on top of an overturned couch pillow, shutting it off as he sends Oliver a probing look.
“We haven’t found anything yet. But… are you okay? You seem a little off, hombre,” says Cooper as gently as he can manage. He stumbles a bit over the word hombre, but the subtle glassiness of Oliver’s eyes tells Cooper he won’t notice.
“No yeah, everything’s fine. You’re just… really far away. I feel like I can’t see you properly,” says Oliver in such a morose tone, Cooper can’t help but giggle at the absurdity of him.
“I’m two feet away from you, dumbass.”
To Cooper’s surprise, Oliver laughs, much louder than he’d expected him to. It’s a good thing Oliver had had the foresight to install soundproof walls; he would’ve disturbed the entire household otherwise. “That’s true, that’s true.”
Cooper sighs as he drinks some of his cocktail. At least it flushes away the putrid aftertaste of the shot he’d impulsively taken a few minutes ago. He thinks it had been a shot anyway; it’s been a while since he’s bothered to correctly measure. Oliver is strangely quiet as he resumes skimming the Internet for a movie with a decent drinking game to match. When he sneaks a glimpse at him, the other boy is staring vacantly at the blank television, fist clenched around his glass.
“We can watch South Park! The orange kid dies in pretty much every episode and that’s a guaranteed shot.” Cooper can’t claim to be that big of a fan, but the show has potential in terms of drinking.
“What else is there?” Scratch his plan of getting drunk faster.
“Also saw a good one for that clown movie that came out in 2017. It.”
“Oh, horror? Right, okay.”
Cooper nods, realizing belatedly Oliver isn’t looking, but he assumes the opening credits flickering to life are an acceptable answer. “We’re drinking every time the clown comes on screen, there’s a red balloon, one of the kids swears, and whenever someone says summer. Take a shot when Pennywise dances.”
“Sure, sounds good. Are we allowed to drink whenever the credits come on?” Oliver asks, stunning Cooper with the sunny grin he’s adopted out of the blue. He decides to match Oliver’s energy with a raised cup.
“Absolutely. Cheers!” Cooper exclaims, clinking his glass against Oliver’s own. He chugs the rest while he has time for a refill, swinging his limbs wildly over the armrest of his couch. His ill-fated phone careens to the floor as a result, unleashing a stream of profanities in his mind. He couldn’t afford to replace the screen, not without the credit card he’d given up to Mrs. Otto.
Cooper stops short at the counter, surprised at the diversion his line of thinking took. He’s never had to fret about whether or not he’d have the funds for anything he would intend to purchase; money was always just there. Perhaps living with the Ottos has taught him something new subconsciously. He makes it back to the couch just in time, flinging a careless knee into Oliver’s rigid own. Thankfully, his phone is unharmed.
“Drink,” demands Oliver as the bespectacled kid on screen swears at one of the antagonists. Oliver may have had the right idea choosing It over South Park. He says so aloud, earning a muted smile from the other boy and a silent mime of cheers.
Cooper drains the last drops of his alcohol around halfway through the movie, blissfully unaware of the shitstorm he’d have to endure in the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown a handful of scenes down the road. His arms feel disconnected from his body, his drink is gone, and he swears the television is on an axis. From his skewed vantage point, he eventually notices Oliver’s head lolling to the side once he’s quit internally griping about having to retrieve more liquor, dark eyes fixated on him.
“Sup amigo?” he asks, unable to halt the easy grin that forms at Oliver’s crumpled position. Everything is so much more radiant, breathing a little life into him and his surroundings. He enjoys this part of drinking the most; hangovers, however, he wishes he could ditch in whatever hell they’d emerged from.
“Nothing. I was just—“ Oliver stops himself, blinking slowly.
“Just?” Cooper prompts. Pennywise reappears on the screen, sending them both scrambling. Cooper eyes Oliver’s cup disdainfully, balancing himself on wobbly legs as he ventures towards his alcohol stash.
“Where are you going?” Oliver asks. “Come back, please.”
“I’m right there,” Cooper replies. He untwists the cap with a heightened sense of difficulty, congratulating himself when he hears the telltale hiss of a fresh bottle opened. He isn’t sure what the label displays but it tastes an awful lot like scotch—a beat too late, he remembers he shouldn’t be mixing liquors. What’s the worst that could happen?
“What are you doing?” Oliver questions, markedly too close to him. He whirls around, steadying himself against his bed frame as he meets the accusatory eyes of his best friend. Cooper grasps the bottle in his free hand tightly, sloshing a few specks of liquid on his jeans. “What?”
“Um,” says Cooper intelligently. “Care for a shot? It’s on the house.”
“Fuck!” A character yells on screen; Cooper almost laughs, amen to that.
“What the fuck?”
“Listen, I—“ Instead of digging himself deeper into the hole he’s trapped himself in, he elects to stand, thrusting the newly opened bottle into Oliver’s hands. “It’s a long story.”
Oliver glares at him suspiciously, causing Cooper to rock slightly on his heels. He grants himself a long, long sip, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes screwed shut in pain. “I don’t know what I just drank but I don’t want to know.”
Cooper loops an arm around Oliver’s shoulders, redirecting them towards the couch. They swerve a couple of times, barely missing barreling into a nearby chair, but they arrive at their destination in one piece. He makes no effort to remove his arm though Oliver isn’t exactly rushing to relocate either.
As the credits pop up on screen after what feels like eons and Cooper has taken his final swig of scotch, he realizes it’s because Oliver has succumbed to the vestiges of sleep at a point in the night unknown to him, curled into the right side of Cooper’s body. He struggles to recall any signs of Oliver nodding off but he could hardly remember how they’d started drinking in the first place.
It would be unfair to head to bed now but he’s exhausted. Plus, Oliver looks comfortable, peaceful for once. “Cheers,” he whispers to the quietude blanketing the basement.
He sets the bottle aside and kicks it beneath the couch, a feat nearly impossible to do when accounting for how much of Oliver’s body weight is piled against him. He manages, however, and with a flimsy note of resignation, slips his eyelids shut and buries his cheek in the velvet of Oliver’s mussed brown hair.
2.)
The sun has long since retreated to the horizon when Oliver arrives back home, stomping down the basement stairs with such vigor, Cooper wonders if he imagines the ground shaking. He moves the textbook he’d left half open on Oliver’s side of the couch, guiltily pausing the show on Netflix he and Oliver had begun watching together a few days ago. He’s only an episode ahead and he’d really wanted to know what transpired after that stressful chess game—the other boy would understand, fingers crossed.
“How was work, mi amigo?”
“That supervisor I have—“ Oliver interrupts himself to untie his shoes, kicking them in two different directions as he trudges over to his section of their basement. “She’s creeping me out more and more every day, dude.”
Cooper clucks his tongue in support, belatedly turning off the television before Oliver has a chance to notice. It seems he doesn’t, meaning Cooper now has leeway to rewind to the last episode and remove it from his account’s viewing history.
“You should seriously consider reporting her.”
Oliver groans, the same as he always does whenever Cooper suggests he be proactive concerning her harassment. At the end of the day, he supports whatever Oliver decides to do wholeheartedly. He just wishes he wouldn’t let her walk all over him because of the power she lords over him as a supervisor.
“Whatever, I can’t risk losing that job. You know that.”
“I know.”
A comfortable silence washes over them. It’s scary how fast Oliver has integrated himself into Cooper’s daily life—he only has himself to thank (or blame, he hasn’t made up his mind). The routine they obey more often than not, of Cooper socializing with the Ottos or a select few classmates after school whenever Oliver works and spending the rest of Oliver’s time away from work together, of Cooper waiting for him at home every night after Oliver’s clocked out without fail, has only served to make him that much more aware of Oliver. With Oliver’s constant insistence of heterosexuality however, he figures he’ll have to deal with himself eventually. Not any time soon.
Today, it’s Oliver who breaks their unspoken routine. “Since it’s not a school night, wanna drink?”
Cooper purses his lips. The last (and first) time they’d drunk together, he’d had to expend a huge amount of effort maneuvering himself out of Oliver’s slumbered grip the morning after. He’d succeeded without waking the other boy but the entire scenario isn’t something he desires a repeat of; he doesn’t know if he can handle waking up to Oliver that close to him again.
“Work was that bad, huh?” Cooper asks, mostly joking. He receives a reply in the form of Oliver planting his half empty bottle of the same drugstore vodka they’d drank last time in front of him, crossing his arms as he engages Cooper in a short-lived staring contest. “Dude, okay, it’s not like I was going to say no.”
He uncaps the bottle, wincing reflexively at the rubbing-alcohol scented immediate assault on his nostrils. Oliver cackles at that, earning him a playful kick to the shin. “Shut up, we’re gonna make some drinks.”
Oliver obliges with his request, leaning over the kitchen island as he watches Cooper rifle through their fridge. “Did you ever get around to setting up our Alexa?”
“No,” Cooper replies. “I thought you were going to.”
“We bought it with your money—”
“That I don’t have anymore.”
“You chose to give up your credit cards,” says an indignant Oliver. The conversation is effectively dropped by Cooper positioning two cans of ginger beer next to the cocktail shaker he’d nabbed from the back of the fridge, obscured from view behind gallon-sized soda jugs. He’s surprised Oliver hasn’t spotted it sooner, given the confused expression that clouds Oliver’s face when he picks the shaker up.
“What is that? And did we drink this last time?”
“Dude, no.” Cooper raises an eyebrow. “We drank orange juice, remember?”
“Huh,” says Oliver. “Weird.”
“Yeah…” He trails off, giving Oliver a searching look. If Oliver couldn’t recall something as simple as their mixer of choice, how much did he remember from that night? He had been pretty drunk himself at the time but he remembers every event that had transpired—including Oliver discovering him tanking shots from his stockpiled liquor. Cooper has an impulsive urge to bring the topic up, stopping himself solely on account of not wanting to remind Oliver that he has a collection of alcohol squirreled away in their living quarters.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Is there something on my face?” Oliver questions as he swipes the edges of his mouth, eyebrows scrunched in concern.
“No, I was uh, trying to remember the name of the drink we’re making,” lies Cooper so easily he has himself shocked. He supposes the years of practice of hoodwinking his teachers have amassed—and he has to be able to lie to his best friend, he rationalizes. Not for sinister reasons but because there are some things better kept in the dark, shaded and sheltered. “Moscow mule! That’s what it is.”
“A Moscow mule,” says Oliver flatly. He looks unimpressed so Cooper doubles down on the voguishness of a Moscow mule—“They’re served in an actual copper mug! Ours was personalized of course,”—but the crease in Oliver’s eyebrows doesn’t soften and the hard lines of his mouth morph into a sullen glower.
“Whatever it is, I hope you know what you’re doing,” Oliver mumbles once Cooper has conclusively regained motor control and ceased his rambling. He distracts himself with the task of preparing Oliver the best damn drink he’s ever tasted (although the bar is admittedly pretty low), grinning to himself as he tops their makeshift coffee mugs with two cocktail umbrellas he’d jacked from a kitchen cupboard upstairs. He’s never witnessed the Ottos using them—surely, they wouldn’t be missed.
“Try it.”
Oliver eyes his drink peculiarly as if it’s going to leap to life and attack him at any given moment. Cooper hides his frown behind the rim of his own drink—hadn’t it been Oliver who wanted to drink in the first place?
“It’s really good, what the hell?” says an amazed Oliver. Cooper shrugs; considering Oliver has only ever sampled drinks prepared by him, the bar for outdoing himself is relatively low. He could hand Oliver a vodka tonic and the other boy would likely still compliment him. “So I forgot to tell you earlier, but this girl in the class above us—Poppy, I think—“
Cooper leans in, his weight supported by his forearms. “I know her.” He copies Oliver by knocking back a lengthy mouthful of his cocktail, pondering what other drinks he could showcase to the other boy if they’d guarantee him the chance to see Oliver’s smile directed at him again.
“Yeah, her. She came up to our lunch table today when you were in the bathroom and asked if we—” Oliver clears his throat. “We had broken up yet?”
Cooper would roll his eyes if this had been the first time Oliver’s told him a story in a similar vein to how he thinks this story is going to go. But it’s the third time this week someone has insinuated they’re anything outside the realm of platonic intimacy and he’s well aware it bothers Oliver, so he’ll put up with hearing him bitch about the unfortunate soul that questioned Oliver’s sexuality again (and again and again) for the sake of being a decent best friend.
“Okay,” says Cooper, louder than he’d intended. “And what did you say?”
For the briefest of seconds, he thinks he sees some hint of resignation buried in Oliver’s dark eyes. He could very well have imagined it. “Told her we weren’t dating for the hundredth time—which seriously, why does everyone automatically assume that?”
He has always had a hyperactive imagination; he gives himself a mental cheers as he takes another slow sip. “Yep.” It’s the same old story, repackaged and sold as a hot take to him for a reason Cooper may never well know.
“And then she says “Oh, I didn’t know,” like how dumb is that excuse? But anyway, she wants to know if you’ll go to the Sadie Hawkin’s dance with her,” says Oliver, drilling an accusatory glare into Cooper’s side profile, as if it’s his fault some random girl wants to attend a school event with him. For someone who recurrently treats the idea of dating Cooper as repulsive, the dude is also remarkably possessive when he wants to be. Not that he’s really considered dating Oliver, although he would if—
He’s getting off track. After polishing off the rest of his Moscow mule, he utters a hasty “I don’t know, I wasn’t really planning on going. I dig the confidence though.” Having finished his drink astonishingly fast, he stalks over to their freezer in pursuit of more ice cubes. “Did you want a refill, mi hermano?”
“Yeah, um, and…” He watches Oliver clamp down on his bottom lip disinterestedly, his hands distracted with the tedious motion of shaking shots. “It’s good that you’re not going. Maybe we can see a movie together that night instead.”
Cooper very nearly drops the shaker out of sheer surprise. If he didn’t know better, he would have been confident in stating Oliver is asking him to go on a date. He’s still sober, unlike his lightweight companion (or so he’s assuming), enough to calm himself down and shake his head. How does Oliver not ever ascertain a connection between what comes out of his mouth and the rumors surrounding them? He could just be overreacting. For all he’s aware, Oliver doesn’t mean anything by his odd choice of words and Cooper is nothing more than a step above a literal faucet of money to him. At the end of the day, he’s privy to that fact. Continuing to forge his way down this path of negativity is a waste of time, he eventually rationalizes to himself. Why waste an oncoming buzz on hypotheticals? He’s also remained quiet for longer than what’s socially acceptable, judging from the cloudy expression marring Oliver’s face.
“I—” Cooper chokes on his spit, knocking the air back into his chest with a few solid fist pumpings. “I thought you were gonna be too busy studying for your SAT?” he asks as he chases the uncomfortable burning sensation in his chest away with his shot, realizing belatedly with a pained grimace that alcohol would only stoke the fire in his stomach.
“Well, I haven’t always been the best about making time for you, so I’m trying to work on that.”
When Cooper chances a glance at Oliver, his gaze is already returned, wide-eyed and a little skittish. He appears afraid that Cooper will turn him down. Irony at its finest considering he’s never declined any of Oliver’s requests, no matter how outlandish some of his schemes are.
“Okay.” He has no clue how to proceed; retreating to the safety net of his drink until he’s reached a proper level of inebriation is tentatively his best course of action. “Thanks, buddy. Muy appreciated.” Together, they make a solid dent in their second helping of Moscow mules.
“So!” Cooper exclaims as he punctuates the otherwise ambient atmosphere with an exaggerated show of jazz hands. “Wanna learn how to shake a shot?”
Oliver merely arches an eyebrow, which Cooper interprets as a resounding yes, so he pushes himself away from the counter and latches onto the other boy's lower arm. “Remember that metal can thing I was using earlier?”
Oliver nods minutely, swaying into Cooper’s side as he joins him in standing. “Right, it’s easy to use and makes me feel like I’m a high-class bartender.”
“Who knows, maybe that’ll be your calling,” snickers Oliver. He earns himself an affectionate hip bump, though that’ll have to be the last time Cooper makes that sudden of a movement tonight; the world had spun on its axis at a momentum faster than his body could match pace with. His desire for more liquor outweighs his desire to fling himself onto the couch, unfortunately for his liver.
“You’re going to be a big, bad businessman and I’ll be the lowly bartender on the side? Not exactly a life plan I can see my parents approving of.” He’s half joking but he can envision the tantrum his father would throw in vivacity. Or would he? It’s been a while since he’s had the pleasure of his parents in physicality; as relieved as he is to experience life with the Ottos, he can’t help but wonder how they’re faring without him. If they’re truly better off or if they miss him in the slightest.
“You shouldn’t care so much about what they think,” snarls Oliver. His tone catches him off guard; Cooper withdraws his hand from Oliver’s arm in case he had been squeezing too hard. “They don’t even—I'm—“
Before Oliver overheats, Cooper thrusts the metal shaker cups on the counter, impulsively issuing a truce. Whatever paltry defense had been about to spill from his best friend’s lips, he resigns himself to not entertaining any part of it. Oliver’s parents should be enough support for him. They have to be.
“Thanks, Ollie, really. It’s okay,” he whispers soothingly. “Anyway, I thought I was teaching you how to pour a shot?”
One intense stare down and an insistent siren call featuring Cooper undulating their vodka bottle by his head later, they wind up with a third specialized drink and two shots. From the grimace plastered on Oliver’s face each time he raises his mug for a sip, Cooper can gather he’s feeling the effects of their night of drinking. At least they hadn’t converged in fight territory, though Cooper figures he’s hardly given Oliver the opportunity to drop his two cents so that’s an unfair tally mark. It’s a tally toward his side all the same.
“Next time, assuming there’s a next time—”
“Why wouldn’t there be a next time?!”
“I’m not—“ Cooper stops, breathing quietly through his nose to shuffle his rapidly straying thoughts in order. “Next time, flip this smaller shaker…” He points to where it’s innocently positioned on the counter next to a cup of water. “It should go inside the glass like this when you pour a shot.”
Oliver peers at the shakers, mimicking Cooper’s instructions a few moments later with a much too heavy-handed pour at the dastardly hands of Oliver. At least Cooper is aware of the fact that he’s drinking over his limit; he hates being forced to intervene on Oliver’s behalf.
“Are we doing the shot then or saving it for our next drink?” Oliver asks.
Next drink?! Cooper thinks horrifyingly to himself. “Let’s do it,” echoes the part of him that’s lost its hold on logic.
Oh no, I’m in danger is his next coherent thought; he might have come up with that one after recalling the shot slipping down his throat like water. Oliver’s wheezy spluttering next to him makes him feel slightly better about himself. His brain catches up to the perilous situation once he sees Oliver chugging some of the ginger beer reserved for their drinks.
“Dude, don’t drink all of that. We have to save some!” Cooper says, giggling. They don’t. He couldn’t care less whether Oliver finishes their current chaser or not; there’s always the option of swiping soda from the upstairs refrigerator if called for.
“How are you not dying?”
“Call me Super Cooper.”
Cooper maintains his stoic demeanor for a grand total of three seconds—Oliver follows suit, though he cracks first with a small snort. He immediately breaks down in tears of raucous laughter; to the surprise of no one in the basement, that shot he doesn’t remember tasting hits him like a freight train. Oliver doubles down next to him, bracing himself against the kitchen counter as they struggle to contain themselves.
“That wasn’t even—“ Oliver wheezes. “That wasn’t that funny.”
“You’re just jealous nothing good rhymes with Oliver.”
Oliver doesn’t reply to that, wiping the few scattered tear tracks off of his cheeks with a rough hand as he continues grinning sunnily at Cooper. “I love you so much, Coop.”
Cooper swallows back the hard lump that has suddenly wedged itself in his throat, locking his eyes on the floor. He tries not to read too much into the situation and Oliver’s lack of friendly epithets as he murmurs a terse “love you too, man.”
3.)
It’s not as if Cooper hates Trevor. According to Oliver, the guy is quintessential for their future, and since joining their two-man company, he’s made an effort to be kind to him. He feels like that’s all he’s done to this kid—he wore a ridiculous superhero outfit to school solely to befriend him (and maybe he had an ulterior motive for impressing Oliver too but that is beside the point) and constantly ensures the basement is clean every time he comes to work on his and Oliver’s app. Since they allowed Cooper into their company, Trevor has been over much more often though, and again, Cooper doesn’t hate the guy.
He’s been steadfastly teetering on the edge of strong dislike for a long time, however, and he didn’t think it was possible for anything to change his mind initially. The world works in mysterious ways, Cooper understands that, but he has been under the solid impression that Trevor is an irredeemable douchebag since the cafeteria incident.
That is, right up until Oliver disappears to the bathroom, and Trevor glances at him from behind his monitor. The creases of Trevor’s forehead and the stark contrast of his beady eyes against the glowy backdrop of his laptop unleashes a wave of uneasiness in Cooper; he immediately thinks that he has something to hide even if the feeling is untethered to reality.
“So, you drink?” Trevor asks. It’s such a random question that Cooper is momentarily stunned—it’s also the first time Trevor has addressed him directly without the customary derogatory attitude interwoven in his interactions with the other boy.
“Sometimes. Why?”
“Let’s drink. To the success of finally figuring out where I should have been inserting some of my code,” says Trevor, framing himself as though he’s a commanding officer with a sneer that raises the fine hairs on the back of Cooper’s neck; he’s too frightened and taken aback to decline. He can’t say he isn’t the slightest bit curious to see how Trevor would act under the influence—Cooper allocates him to the mean drunk category for now.
“Cheers to that!” Cooper exclaims, perhaps too enthusiastically. The smile on his face feels foreign, stretched too thin in nervous anticipation.
Trevor procures two Fireball shots from an outside pocket on his bag, tossing one to him as he gives him a small smirk, which is... odd to say the least. He thinks that’s the closest he’s come to seeing Trevor actually smile. It’s enough to give him a case of full-body shivers, but Cooper would rather not embarrass himself in front of him. They tilt their heads back and swill it down in eerie silence, interrupted a moment later by Cooper smacking his lips together. “I can’t remember the last time I had that.”
“Fireball is actually the only alcohol I’ve ever tried.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t have to tell you.”
Cooper arches a questioning eyebrow at him, but chalks it up to Trevor being his typical douchebag self. Still, now that he’s had the initial taste of liquor today, he’s tempted to take it one step further. Even if it means Trevor’s accompanying him as his temporary drinking buddy.
“Well, do you want to try scotch? I think that’s a better choice of alcohol if congratulations are in order.”
Trevor doesn’t say anything, but he follows Cooper to his side of the basement, crossing his arms behind him as Cooper sticks a searching arm under his bed. It’s nestled between two (depressingly) lighter bottles of liquor—at $150, it’s one of his cheaper bottles, and that’s how it’s going to be if he’s sharing with someone he’s forced to like.
Cooper imbibes from the bottle directly, chortling when Trevor rolls his eyes. He does the same, surprising Cooper, but this is about the zillionth time Trevor has caught him off guard in the last couple of minutes. At this point, he’s content to cruise and go with the flow.
“What are you guys doing over here?” Oliver marches up to them, halting an inch next to Cooper. He instinctively takes a step back, skirting his eyes upward to catch Oliver tightening his jaw for a brief moment.
“Nothing much,” replies Trevor at the same time Cooper falls all over himself attempting to reply to Oliver. He watches wanly as Trevor helps himself to another sip. The scotch bottle loosely curled in Trevor’s fingers dangles invitingly; not a second thought passes through Cooper’s mind when he snatches it for himself.
“Sharing the bottle, I see,” remarks Oliver snidely. He inquisitively flashes his unfairly charming puppy-dog eyes in Cooper’s direction, a silent question if he could partake too. Spending the later part of the afternoon drinking with his colleagues—the notion itself would sound incredibly luxurious if they weren’t all, in actuality, teenagers drinking by themselves in a basement.
“And how is that any cause for concern?” Trevor asks.
Oliver bumps his shoulder as he slams what has to be two shots of liquor back at once. Cooper gapes at him, but Oliver doesn’t look back, preoccupied with aiming a malign glare at Trevor. Yet another rough day at work, he supposes. He can’t recall any arguments cropping up that afternoon, but then again, it isn’t any of his business. He’s really only here at Oliver’s insistence and now that he’s had a few shots in his system, he’s unsure of how much longer he wishes to stay cooped up in a basement with two people who are only going to bicker.
“It’s not,” says Oliver, still sidled up next to him. Cooper feels as though he’s missing something veiled behind the odd hostility of the other two boys, like it should be on the tip of his tongue. He unglues himself from Oliver altogether, deftly whisking his scotch away from Oliver’s loose grip as he nestles into a couch cushion.
Cooper occupies himself by scrolling through Snapchat on one end of the couch as Trevor and Oliver resume work (although given their current condition, he’s not sure how high quality the end product will be), searching for a suitable person to establish plans with. Maybe one of the Daniels. Or he could see what Taylor is up to. The longer he stays here, the more antsy he feels; soothing himself with a small sip of liquor isn’t the smartest idea, but he forges ahead.
“Pass that,” Oliver requests, laying an open palm on his knee. Cooper suppresses his initial shock at Oliver’s interruption and gingerly presses the bottle of scotch into his waiting hand. He sets it on the floor after having his fill, though Oliver doesn’t shuffle back towards his end of the couch.
They all work in silence and Cooper remains hyperaware of Oliver’s knee in the corner of his eye. Not that he minds the contact but he finds it uncharacteristic of Oliver to have been the initiator so frequently. Plans of fleeing abandoned, he slouches down to Oliver’s level and peers inquisitively at his laptop.
A smooth blend of cyan and white surrounding the Gyftee logo greets him, alongside a couple of YouTube tabs Cooper assumes he forgot to close. “That looks pretty cool.”
“Thanks, man,” says Oliver. Their shoulders press together as Oliver re-centers his laptop to allow Cooper easier access to the screen. “What do you think about the font? Too boring?”
“You know what you should use?”
Oliver hums to let him know he’s listening.
“Cooper black.”
That elicits a giggle from the other boy as Cooper complains that he’s not joking—the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth says otherwise.
“Cooper black is one of the most recognizable fonts out there in advertising. The idiot said something useful for once,” Trevor pipes up from the other chair. Cooper whips his head up; he’d nearly forgotten he was there.
“Thanks,” says Cooper, beaming. “I think.”
“He’s not an idiot,” retorts Oliver simultaneously.
Trevor merely rubs his temple. “Whatever. Cooper, as our snack manager, will you do me a favor—“ He pauses to rummage through his backpack, pulling out another mini shot of fireball—Cooper distantly wonders how many he has stockpiled in there. “And ice this?”
Surprisingly, Trevor is actually being quite nice to him; he doesn’t want to do anything that may ruin his current standing with Trevor, however, so he reluctantly stands up and motions for Trevor to lend him his alcohol. “Do you have another? Please?”
Trevor huffs but he tosses another fireball shot in Cooper’s direction; he barely grasps the corner of it as it ricochets toward him. Retrieving his shaker cups, he sets to work on his task, uncomfortably aware of two pairs of eyes on him. He brings a filled shot glass back to Trevor, gulping his own shot down as soon as the initial one is handed off.
“Can I have one?” Oliver asks, crossing his arms as Trevor and Cooper turn towards him.
“Sorry, Cooper and I drank them all,” states Trevor. Any further attempts at conversation are dismissed by him tapping erratically at his keyboard, likely more strings of code for Gyftee. If Trevor had only brought four shots along, why did he choose to share them with Cooper and not Oliver, definitively the more important part of the business?
One glance at the hard lines of Oliver’s frown and the clear display of apathy on Trevor’s face tells Cooper he won’t be receiving an answer to any of his poised mental questions. He drops the subject altogether in favor of propping a lazy foot up on the table, staring blankly at the slightly whirling ceiling above once he realizes he’s too tipsy to properly play a game on his phone.
Time ticks onward—Cooper migrates to Oliver’s side of the couch when the ceiling quits entertaining him and resumes watching Oliver work on his portion of Gyftee, talking quietly amongst themselves every so often. Usually it’s to garner Cooper’s opinion on varied stylistic choices, citing his excellent eye for fashion as a reason, though Cooper likes to pretend it’s because Oliver cares about what he has to contribute to the company.
Before he knows it, an hour has passed and the strong remnants of liquor clouding his consciousness have dissipated to a dull, almost imperceptible buzz by the time Trevor starts collecting his belongings.
“I hope I don’t have to see either of you any time soon, assholes," offers Trevor as a parting goodbye, dismissing the pair with a disdainful flick of the wrist as he ascends the basement stairs. Once the door shuts behind him, Oliver closes his laptop, letting loose a weary sigh as he lifts Cooper’s abandoned scotch off of the floor.
“Wouldn’t it be awesome if we had a bar installed down here?” Oliver says as he walks over to Cooper’s bed, plunking the bottle down on his nightstand. Cooper thinks of the bar his father had installed in the old Westport estate, or rather bars. There didn’t seem to be a shortage of alcohol in that house ever—a wine bottle perched innocuously on a shelf, out of place but somehow managing not to appear so, two indoor bars, an outdoor bar—but he suspects a long-winded rant on the trivialities of the lavish lifestyle he used to lead wouldn’t go over well with Oliver at the moment.
“Yeah, I’ll see what I can do, I guess,” he replies because when Oliver frames a question like that, he knows it’s a covert method of manipulating Cooper into requesting his parents to wire some money to him. He may not have his credit cards (and he only asks because he has a tough time telling Oliver no) but he doesn’t completely cut himself off the way he did when he first bid farewell to his line of credit. How else is he supposed to maintain his healthy mane of hair?
It leaves a sour taste in his mouth, the recurring thought that surfaces every so often, telling him he’s only useful to Oliver because of his parents’ money. Sometimes, he feels like a mere pawn amongst the other indistinguishable pieces in Oliver’s quest for success, but he strives to remind himself daily that he wouldn’t be literally living with the boy if he isn't a valuable friend.
Right?
“We’re going to have dinner soon,” says Oliver offhandedly. He’s encroaching Cooper’s personal space in the blink of an eye, patting an insistent rhythm on the bottom of his jaw. “Let me breath check you, the last thing I need is to deal with my mom after we eat.”
Cooper calms his racing pulse down, tightens his fist around the cushy material of his sweatpants, and obeys Oliver’s command. He thinks Oliver leans in closer than necessary, but then again, he has a biased perspective.
“You’re mostly good. Now do me, but also you have to brush your teeth.”
Again, how does Oliver never draw any form of connection between the things he says aloud? He complies anyway, careful to stray further back as he hesitantly sniffs the air in front of him. Apparently, that isn’t good enough for him because Oliver—and Cooper can legitimately claim he must be cursed or something because there is no conceivable explanation the chain of events that unfolds is the result of anything but a hex—jerks his head forward too far. Such an action wouldn’t be any cause for concern had Cooper not (idiotically, very idiotically) leaned in at the same time because he thought he should’ve moved in an inch closer, resulting in Oliver accidentally planting a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss on the corner of Cooper’s mouth. Describing it as the corner is being generous because Cooper can sense a thin line of drool that is definitely not his on his top lip, but he’s petrified, frozen in Oliver’s saucer-eyed stare. Oliver recoils immediately—the same way one would leap away from a venomous snake—and traces a disbelieving pointer finger across his top lip.
They gape at each other for what feels like years to Cooper—it’s him who decides to finally get his shit together and formulate a sentence. “Oliver, I—“
Cooper blinks and Oliver is gone, dashing up the basement steps as if his life depends on getting away from Cooper. The resounding slam of their door leaves him stunned; he zones out for so long on that door that the wood starts subtly shifting, contorting itself as if it is the gentle sway of ocean waves.
Oliver isn’t going to come back to him. It takes a while to convince his sluggish brain of that, but once he does, he shuffles to the bathroom, unwillingly armed with the prospect of many awkward nights ahead of him.
4.)
“What are you doing on Thursday?” Oliver asks. Cooper shrugs, busying himself with tidying textbooks he’ll never open to mask his bloodshot eyes. He knew his parents would forget his birthday, he knew, he knew all along, but repeating that mantra does nothing to alleviate the stabbing pain in his chest. The whiskey shots he’d thrown back with some slacker kid he forgot the name of thirty minutes ago are starting to burn.
“I’m—“ Cooper says as he sways in his spot, clearing his throat in a misguided attempt at channeling sobriety. “I’m free, probably.”
“Good enough. I need you to come over and test me for the chemistry quiz coming up, think you can stay until dinner?”
Cooper winces, laying a defeated palm on the cold, dirtied metal of his locker door. “Yeah, yeah, okay.” He wonders if he remembered to grab a pair of sunglasses before he left for school today. Probably not.
“And are you still coming over today?” Oliver questions. Ever the curious one he thinks sardonically. He’s acutely aware of the fact that Oliver hasn’t verbally acknowledged what day it is today, but it wouldn’t be the first time the date happened to slip the mind of someone he considers family.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Cooper replies dryly. Where else would he go? Thankfully, he locates his sunglasses shoved haphazardly at the bottom of his tote; he fishes them out and ignores the odd glance from Oliver.
“Uh, I wanted to be sure.” They’re quiet as they weave through the rapidly thinning student crowd; Cooper shrinks under the whispers and judgmental haze that always permeate the hallways. He is wearing sunglasses indoors, that’s a valid reason to stare, is what he rationalizes internally. It’s a better alternative to the scenario where a teacher happens to pass by and brandish a breathalyzer—who knows with some of the mentally unstable employment here.
“Not that I don’t love hanging out with you…” Cooper clears his throat, averting his eyes from the small smile tugging at the corner of Oliver’s lips. It’s sort of like staring into the sun; dangerous, dumb, but it always takes him longer than it should to look away and blink the residual shadows away from his vision. “But why are you asking me to quiz you? Chemistry and I don’t have chemistry, comprende?”
Whatever Oliver had been about to reply is cut off by the same slacker kid (Nathan? Alex? He’s still drawing a blank on the name) from earlier, giving the duo a brief salute as he stops near the edge of a row of lockers.
“Cooper! You busy?” The guy asks.
“Not really.”
“Great!” he exclaims as he waves a hand around, indicating that Cooper should follow him. He does after a moment of hesitation, steadfastly ignoring Oliver’s curious eyes he knows are drilling into him. “Without your boyfriend, please,” he adds when Oliver begins following along behind them.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” retorts Oliver automatically. Cooper sighs minutely, pushing the frames of his sunglasses further up the bridge of his nose.
There’s no response; Nathan or Alex or whoever he is merely pauses in his tracks and casts Oliver a searching look, one Cooper is sure is reflected on his face as well. Oliver visibly fidgets, straightening his shirt collar though there exists no real reason for doing so. He stutters out a goodbye as he shoves his fists in his pockets, continuing to walk to their shared class alone. A misplaced sense of guilt rises up his throat, burning his nostrils, and he registers suddenly that Slacker Kid is standing there, Cooper’s bronze hydro flask held out toward him.
“Thanks for letting me have the rest, man, I owe you one,” he drawls lazily. “Actually, my friend Olivia stole a joint off her older sister; you’re invited if you want?”
Cooper shakes his head, thanking him for the offer but he has no plans to start smoking. God already knows the damage he may be doing to himself with his infrequent alcohol habit; somehow, weed does not feel as though it is a viable solution. Plus, Oliver will kill him in cold blood if he arrives at his house smelling of weed; Mrs. Otto would lower his casket into the earth. That aside, he can’t say he isn’t curious. Maybe in college, he and Oliver…?
He stops that line of thought before it can gain any legitimate traction.
“Suit yourself,” says whoever the guy is. Cooper plods along slowly to English class, sucking in an embarrassed inhale through his teeth as all eyes dart to him upon his arrival.
“Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Mr. Bradford,” says his nasally teacher.
“No need to thank me,” he retorts, shooting her the brightest grin he can muster up, relishing in the displeased expression his teacher evidently has difficulty swallowing down. She spins around and gracefully jumps back into the topic—an analysis of chapters six through ten of the assigned reading. Frankly, Cooper hadn’t realized they’d made it past chapter three until this very moment.
He tunes the world out easily, resting his chin on his open palm and resolutely ignoring the smattering of glances thrown his way—the glasses are here to stay as long as his eyes remain tinged red, thanks. He contemplates the unopened messages he’d fired off to his parents and about how strangers on Instagram care more about what day it is than his own parents. His own best friend.
As if Oliver is psychic, Cooper’s phone pings in his pocket with a message from him.
ollie: You sure you’re feeling all right?
me: Sí. U worry too much. Lol
Cooper sticks his tongue out at Oliver once he manages to catch the other boy’s attention, and for a second, it is easier to pretend that Oliver cares. He does care for him in his own, weird, Oliver way. Cooper’s just having a hard time reconciling that if he is seeing what isn’t there.
Oliver forces Cooper to adorn a blindfold the millisecond they step foot onto the Otto property, prompting Cooper to question whether or not he had landed the starring role in a horror film.
“Should I be scared? My parents aren’t going to give you ransom money, you know.” Cooper arches an eyebrow at him before he remembers that duh, he’s blindfolded.
“Dude, shut up, just come on.” Cooper lets Oliver push and maneuver him through the door, to the right, and oh, there’s the creak of that third floorboard. They are journeying upstairs, probably into Oliver’s room if he has to hazard a bet.
Cooper begins wondering if he’s in the opening credits of a dirty movie instead, willing his bouncing left leg to simmer down once he catches onto Oliver repeatedly leaving his hand on his lower back longer than what he defines as necessary. After an eternity of stumbling around through the confusing upstairs layout of the Otto house, Oliver finally frees him from the confines of the blindfold, muttering a half-hearted “surprise,” under his breath.
On the center of Oliver’s bed is an immaculately wrapped present (seriously, does Mrs. Otto have other skills she had never bothered to let the rest of them in on?) and a card. The sight nearly makes him break down; he clamps down on his bottom lip and shifts his gaze to the uneven wooden floorboards. He wants to say thank you, to emphasize his eternal gratitude to Oliver for being there for him, to say a million other things but his mouth stays pressed in a thin line. His tears dot the peripherals of his vision.
“Happy birthday, dude! I would have brought it to school, but there wasn’t any room in my backpack, then I thought I’d rather just give it to you privately because I—um, yeah.”
Cooper hardly registers the rest of Oliver’s long-winded, awkward explanation, too elated to have a reason to silence the negative thoughts that had plagued his mind all fucking day. He impulsively scoops Oliver’s skinny frame into a bone-crushing hug, murmuring the only two words into his hair he’s capable of spouting out.
His present is revealed to be a scrapbook. Pictures of the Ottos and himself are arranged across the first half of the book, some of which he doesn’t remember being a part of but he soaks in the content, smiling faces peppering the majority of the present photos. Some candid shots that must have been submitted by Oliver are weaved in, photos of when they bowled in Cooper’s bowling alley for the first time, photos of Cooper’s side profile, staring at objects outside of the frame.
A close-up of the two pulling ugly faces at the camera, arms around each other’s shoulders concludes the first half of the scrapbook. Oliver had captioned it TWO BOYS ONE CAM, eliciting an amused snort from Cooper.
“I know I said thank you a hundred times but—“
“We know!” Oliver laughs, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. “It was mostly my mom’s idea so—“
“Yeah, yeah. Love you too. Dumbass.” He really is lucky to have such a thoughtful best friend—the accepting family that comes along with Oliver’s friendship is just the cherry on top.
“Hey!”
Cooper scans his birthday card, signed by all members of the Otto family and Trip. Trip spelled his name wrong, though he also mangled the word congratulations horribly, so he supposes it’s the thought that counts. Oliver’s message is surprisingly the shortest; namely, a borderline illegible scribble of best wishes, but Cooper appreciates it all the same. Today, though it was rocky in the initial stages, turns out to be a birthday worth remembering.
Cooper stabs his portion of meatloaf a bit too harshly judging from Anna-Kat’s startled jump. Roughly two days have passed since Oliver had kissed Cooper—if what he did could qualify as a kiss—and for all he’s aware, he may as well be dead to the other boy.
Gone is Oliver’s routine of waiting patiently for Cooper to finish getting ready, offering his commentary on the news he’d scroll through in the morning or on his wardrobe. Oliver leaves early and returns late in the evening; if Cooper hadn’t remained awake and strained his ears to catch Oliver sneaking into the house last night, he wouldn’t have heard his friend enter the basement at all.
Initially, Cooper had been angry. Why wouldn’t Oliver talk to him? Why is he taking the coward’s route and fleeing from him at every available opportunity? Then, the anger had boiled down to hurt, morphing into the current half-irritated, half-miserable mood Cooper could not escape the clutches of. He stares at Oliver from his vantage point across the dining table, watches intently as his uneasy gaze skirts anywhere but in Cooper’s direction. He’s not sure how to interpret this reaction. Honestly, he had thought they were better at communication—or were actively working on it, at least—than most other people, but Oliver is steadily proving him wrong.
Anna-Kat nudges him, her eyebrows raising in concern once she has his attention. Cooper sighs deeply, wearily, feels it spread through his bones as another wave of misery overtakes him. If he loses Oliver, he loses his family in the process. And that’s a heartbreak Cooper’s unsure he’s capable of ever recovering from.
5.)
The sweet release of sleep has eluded Cooper’s clutches for the past week; he normally isn’t an insomniac, falling asleep on the couch while watching television is a common occurrence for him. However, Oliver proves to be a steadfast barrier between him and sleeping for longer than four hours at a time which is ridiculous considering the other boy has only said five words to him since their incident. Cooper is long past feeling any sort of anger toward him, though the quiet resignation (fuck, Oliver is repulsed by him) that replaces it isn’t any better.
He wonders for the millionth time this week if he should just suck it up and move back in with his parents. Florida can’t be that horrible, but the thought of bending to his overwhelming father’s iron will is a difficult pill to swallow. Cooper likes who he is. He doesn’t want to return to stifling his true thoughts around the Bradford family, doesn’t want to return to the life of pressed dress pants and forced niceties and the saccharine sweet taste of his mother’s obscenely expensive champagne. He doesn’t want to live multiple states away from his favorite person in the universe, even if it is apparent his affections aren’t returned. Cooper flips his pillow to the cold side and grabs his phone off of his nightstand, bitterly succumbing to the fact that sleep would again elude him tonight. He doesn’t move for nearly an hour, ensnared in an endless scrolling spiral through Twitter threads concerning the Bradford business’s latest technological innovations. They seem to be doing well. The grin on his father’s face looks realer than any smile he’s ever graced Cooper with.
Cooper startles at the creak of the basement door, fumbling with his phone as he haphazardly shoves it under his blanket and pretends to be asleep, attempting to regulate his unsteady breathing.
He hears Oliver’s heavy footsteps carry him to the kitchenette and Cooper cracks a hesitant eye open from the safety of his duvet. Oliver is swaying slightly, though he has his back to Cooper so he can’t actually discern what the other boy looks like. He tampers down the instinctual worry that crops up in him, reminding himself that they’re supposed to hate each other now or something. He watches as Oliver stumbles to the fridge, chugging down a half-finished beer Cooper had stashed behind the Brita filter—and what the fuck, Cooper intended to finish that tomorrow—before he turns around, and Cooper is forced to shut his eyes again.
He expects Oliver to get himself ready for bed and leave the night at that, but he tenses as he feels something, or rather someone, roughly collapse onto the unoccupied space of Cooper’s bed. He receives a hard shove to his shoulder blade as Oliver indignantly spits out, “what the fuck is your problem?!”
Cooper, alarmed, sits up so fast, he manages to give himself a head rush. Squinting at Oliver through the blossoming pain, he grants him a brief once over and quickly pinpoints the familiar scent of alcohol on his breath. If he has to hazard a guess, he’d go with tequila. Something is extremely amiss with Oliver. Before he can open his mouth to reply—though he’s unsure of how to proceed in this conversation—Oliver’s eyes are softening at the corners, and he’s sloppily encircling his spindly arms around Cooper.
“Uh, ‘m sorry for kissing you, stop ignoring me.”
Cooper blinks rapidly in surprise, bewilderment, who knows? Not him. “I’m ignoring you? You’ve been avoiding me this entire time, dude.” As much as he desires to keep Oliver this close in proximity to him, the side of him that demands to know what exactly has been running through Oliver’s head this past week overrules the clingy part of him. He also wants to know why Oliver had shown up drunk—who was he drinking with? Why did he drink at all? He isn’t like Cooper, he wasn’t surrounded by stuffy borderline alcoholics during his formative years. Is it somehow Cooper’s fault?
He decides to tune out the tumultuous storm in his head as he refocuses on Oliver mumbling paltry excuses as to why he hadn’t been ignoring Cooper—they both know it’s all lies he’s spewing anyway. Oliver stops talking altogether, panting out a forlorn “I miss you, Coop,” as he tries to worm his arms around Cooper’s waist. Luckily for Oliver and unluckily for Cooper, he’s still Cooper’s favorite person even if they’re caught in the midst of a fight. He doesn’t quite have the energy to ignite a bigger battle with a drunkard.
“It won’t happen again, I’m sorry, I’ll do anything, I won’t do it again-“
“Oh my god,” interrupts Cooper. “Apology accepted, hombre. But if you don’t mind, I wanna go to sleep now.” Cooper resolves to be the responsible one for once; he’s positive that Oliver will be mortified to hear about this conversation in the morning and he doesn’t want to gamble on the chance that Oliver might forget they even talked at all tonight.
“Oh.” There’s an unnaturally long pause as Cooper fidgets in his bed, smoothing down his pillowcase with shaking fingers. He settles on his side, away from Oliver’s prying eyes and slips his own eyelids closed, hoping this time to genuinely nod off. Oliver doesn’t leave Cooper’s bed though, and Cooper is left painfully aware of Oliver’s shallow breathing. Seconds stretch into a couple of minutes; Cooper finally grows uncomfortable enough to resume his earlier position.
To his surprise, he’s met with Oliver’s downtrodden expression, a discontent frown marring his usually pretty lips. He’s about to ask what else could possibly be wrong, but Oliver speaks first, wringing his hands together.
“Are you mad at me?” Oliver asks quietly. Another redundant question in a redundant conversation that a redundant Cooper doesn’t want to partake in. That’s what their entire situation is. He can’t comprehend why he’s even humoring Oliver at all, it’s not like Oliver will remember. Or if anything, he’ll proceed with ignoring his existence and Cooper will recommence his newly established routine of re-opening and closing tabs of flights to Florida.
“Not anymore,” answers Cooper truthfully. He’s more so annoyed. What kind of person has to get drunk to initiate a talk with their best friend? He is aware that he should be grilling Oliver on his whereabouts, particularly on why he had made his mind up to drink at all, but Oliver’s moody demeanor halts him in his tracks.
“I’m sorry,” repeats Oliver.
“I already forgave you, ese.” The kicked puppy expression remains firmly on his face so Cooper hesitantly scoots closer, nudging Oliver’s shoulder with his own. “Maybe you should say sorry to me in the morning too though, yeah?”
“Okay.”
“Okay. Good night,” replies Cooper as he lays down. Oliver, infuriatingly enough, still does not move a muscle after a couple more minutes have lapsed. Cooper is considering rescinding his earlier statement about not being angry with Oliver; he recites mentally that the only reason he turns around and glares at Oliver is because at the end of the day, he’s Cooper’s best friend and he knows firsthand how strongly tequila can interact with one’s emotional state. “Listen, I wasn’t joking about wanting to go to bed.” He stops to remove the duvet from him, raising an expectant eyebrow.
“My bed’s really far away,” is what tumbles out of Oliver’s mouth instead of the agreement to move himself into his own bed per Cooper’s insinuation. His eyes are glassy, bloodshot, and the eerie stillness of the basement’s atmosphere keeps him further on edge. Cooper shakes his head slightly, confused as to how Oliver can somehow journey from the kitchen to his side of their room, no problem, but can’t muster up the strength to walk twenty extra steps to his own bed.
“Um,” Cooper starts. “Do you need me to help you?”
Oliver pouts; Cooper has to avert his gaze. If there’s any painfully obvious weakness Cooper has when it comes to Oliver (though the list is embarrassingly long at this point), it’s that he will yield to nearly anything Oliver requests of him once he brings out the puppy-dog eyes. His expression should be classified as a dangerous weapon under CIA standards. “But I’m comfortable. Are you? Sorry.”
Cooper thinks Oliver has apologized more in the past ten minutes than he has his entire life. He considers the ramifications of knocking Oliver off the top of his bedsheets and abandoning him to his own devices. Then he makes the mistake of glimpsing Oliver’s unfairly adorable face again and heaves a dramatic sigh. So much for his waning hope of repairing his sleep schedule.
“Just stay here then,” he grits out. It’s as if a light switch goes off in the other’s mind as Oliver is suddenly moving at Mach speed to maneuver himself underneath Cooper’s duvet, digging his icy toes into Cooper’s calves. There are a multitude of questions bouncing around Cooper’s brain, but he ultimately concludes that he won’t receive a satisfactory answer until the tequila has run its course through Oliver’s system. He passes out relatively fast, though what else could he expect from Oliver? If there are any trends Cooper has noticed over the course of the few times they had drank together, it’s that alcohol has a tendency to lure the boy to sleep far too early. Not that he’s complaining now.
He patiently waits for Oliver’s breathing to even out, biding his time by tracking all the flickering shadows vanishing in and out of his peripheral vision until he’s positive that Oliver’s out for the night. With the precision of a neurosurgeon (and not at all the idiot teenager he’s likely channeling instead), he extricates himself from Oliver’s slumbered, heavy grip around his torso and stumbles over to Oliver’s bed. It’s hardly an easy feat considering he only has the dim luster of his phone to guide him.
Oliver’s sheets are woven with the lingering smell of aftershave and the hair gel products he uses; it’s comforting in a strange way. Cooper tries not to dwell on it, instead wishing he had had the foresight to drink tonight as well. He remembers thinking to himself a few weeks ago that navigating drunk Oliver would be a minefield; he just hadn’t known how correct Cooper of the past turned out to be.
+1.)
The first thing Cooper notices as he blearily blinks himself awake is that these sheets are scratchy as hell—seriously, he’d have to do a full body exfoliant tonight to reward himself for having successfully slept in Oliver’s raggedy bed—and secondly, he squints at his side of the basement and sees that Oliver is still asleep, blissfully unaware of the events that had transpired last night. Distantly, Cooper wonders if Oliver meant any of what he had said. Something about drunk ramblings being sober thoughts?
He stands up, not bothering to make Oliver’s bed since he’s aware the other boy will just remake it to his own perfectionist standards. Retrieving a bottle of cold brew out of the refrigerator, he settles in on the couch, thanking his lucky stars that it’s the weekend. Cooper loses himself to the mundane world of scrolling through his various social media apps, replying to comments on autopilot. He has an assortment of perfunctory responses memorized: short but sweet replies for the older generations and a smattering of random emojis for the younger generations. Oliver is the only exception to his unofficial rules of social media, although he supposes Oliver is an exception to a lot of things in his life.
Oliver eventually enters the waking world with a yawn and a series of sickeningly loud cracks emanating from his back and neck. Cooper tries to sneak a peek of him without giving himself away and catches Oliver’s confused expression as it slowly dawns on him that he hadn’t woken up in his own bed. The other boy wordlessly slinks over to the couch, mumbling a sleep-laden greeting as he hungrily eyes Cooper’s drink. He grants his silent request, willing Oliver to establish eye contact with him since the fear that Oliver had simply forgotten their entire exchange is beginning to cloud the forefront of his mind.
“How much do you remember of last night?”
Luck continues to be on Cooper’s side because Oliver immediately breaks the uneasy stillness that follows Cooper’s question with a clearing of his throat, rubbing a sheepish hand up and down his arm. “I didn’t black out or anything,” Oliver finally spits out, a vague and ultimately useless reply in Cooper’s opinion. What is he supposed to gain from that?
Cooper tries a different approach, a much more direct one that Oliver would have an arduous time avoiding if he chooses to do so. “So, you remember me saying you should apologize in the morning too?” He hates being the confrontational one, despises involving himself in conflicts though he consistently finds himself stuck in a rock and a hard place since actively participating in Oliver’s fast-paced, conflict-driven lifestyle. That isn’t to say that there are no benefits in growing a spine; Cooper just finds it depressing that it’s Oliver who repeatedly puts them in these awkward positions.
Oliver winces, sending a pang of guilt ricocheting through Cooper’s body that vanishes as quickly as it comes once he says, “I’m really sorry.” He appears as though he’s gearing himself up for something important so Cooper clamps his mouth shut, choking down the indignant reply he’s sure would spill out of him otherwise. He lifts his cold brew to his lips as Oliver flounders on the spot, hands ceaselessly clenching and unclenching themselves before he finally clarifies himself. “I'm sorry I took a while to talk to you. I was… scared. I didn't know what I wanted to say, but I'm sorry I kissed you like that. That’s not how I wanted—“ Oliver abruptly freezes, cueing Cooper to avert his gaze from where he was vacantly staring at a stain on the staircase to Oliver’s reddened cheeks.
That isn’t how he wanted…? He shakes it off; Oliver has a bad habit of leaving his sentences unfinished when he’s frayed with nerves. It likely isn't important at all.
Cooper takes a moment to mull over Oliver’s words in his head, concluding that “it's fine, I just wanted to hear an apology from sober you too. Accidents happen.” Whatever he could say that would force Oliver to cease pretending he didn’t exist, he’d say it. He organizes an impromptu mental checklist to never allow Oliver near his alcohol stash and to gently steer the other boy away from the deceptively flawless world of drinking. Cooper of the past was correct; drunk Oliver is too much for him to realistically handle, not with his feelings involved.
“You aren’t mad that I kissed you at all?” Oliver asks skeptically, completely glossing over what Cooper had said. What sort of a question is that? Cooper had just forgiven him and he chooses to focus on the singular topic Cooper is content in burying forever and never putting a name to?
“No, you didn’t mean to, I guess.”
“Oh.” Oliver looks thoughtful as he props a hand up under his chin, staring at the ceiling as though it contains all the answers to the universe. As intrigued as Cooper is, he’s uncomfortable in prolonging this odd conversation they’re having (he’d already forgiven Oliver, what more could the boy possibly want from him?) and would rather spend this weekend catching up on his list of unwatched shows. The possibility of him being able to do so grows slimmer with each passing second Oliver remains infuriatingly quiet. Right when Cooper is about to vocalize his growing annoyance, Oliver elaborates. “So just to confirm, me accidentally kissing you doesn't phase you in the slightest? You're really only mad about me drinking?”
Internally, Cooper questions why he needs to fucking repeat himself and that there’re only so many times he can confirm he isn’t angry before he actually starts getting angry. Externally, he merely exhales a breath he wasn’t aware he’d been stifling and agrees that he isn’t mad about them kissing. He really isn’t. There is no name for the amalgamation of emotions he feels about that (barely) kiss and at the end of the day, he reaffirms to himself that he is more than content assisting Oliver in never unpacking the boxes surrounding their questionable friendship. It simply isn’t worth the heartache to commiserate on it; Cooper’s experienced enough of that in his short lifetime.
“Can I kiss you right now then?”
Cooper’s brain promptly short circuits. He blinks a few times, opens his mouth, then shuts it. Did he teleport to an alternate universe? “W-what?” he stammers out weakly.
“Don’t make me ask that again,” Oliver says shakily, lips pressed thinly together. He’s struck by the impulse to ask if this is a joke once he gets a grip on himself but it’s Oliver. The guy’s too serious for his own good. Cooper inquisitively leans in, dropping his line of sight to Oliver’s lips. He gets the memo, faster than Cooper is prepared for as he is pressed into a couch cushion. It doesn’t last long, but Cooper is still left dizzy, out of breath as Oliver hovers over him. There is no pretense to hide behind this time, only the heaviness of their breathing.
“… So,” says Cooper. He doesn’t comment further.
“So,” replies Oliver. A pause. “You kissed me back.”
“Was I not supposed to?”
He tilts his head in confusion, smiling as he notices Oliver’s cheeks bloom an embarrassed pale pink. It suits him much better than the monochromatic frown he’s been employing for days.
“No, I—" says Oliver as he busies himself with worrying his lip, dropping his head as his shaggy brown hair cascades over his eyes. “I didn’t think you liked me.”
“Why?” It’s a legitimate question; sometimes, Cooper feels like everyone could see how much he loves Oliver scribbled all over his being, on display for scrutiny like a giant billboard on a highway. Taylor only refers to him as Oliver’s boyfriend despite the multiple corrections; Mr. and Mrs. Otto do the same so Cooper had assumed nearly everybody important in his life had read him like an open book. The fact that Oliver has repeatedly missed this big part of Cooper’s life (though it isn’t his fault, it’s not like Cooper would have spoken up about his feelings once he’d stopped fighting them back) is laughable. He tampers the absurd urge to giggle down and focuses on petting Oliver’s knee to get him out of his own head.
Oliver blinks owlishly, transported back to reality. “Because you never stayed with me. Not even last night. And dude, we didn’t talk—I guess that’s mostly my fault but… yeah. I don’t know.”
“Ollie," he says as he grins, leaning back into his space. “You never told me you wanted me to.”
At that, Oliver is speechless. They press their foreheads together as Cooper whispers that he’s there whether Oliver wants him there or not, earning a lighthearted snort from him. His cold brew lays utterly forgotten on the coffee table as they fall back into each other, interrupted when Cooper remembers that breathing is mandatory.
“Hm,” says Oliver, lifting his thumb to stroke Cooper’s jaw as if he is some reverent being. He feels close to being one at least. “I’d like that.”