Chapter Text
the last time brendan saw thomas in his corporeal, normal human form, he was being pulled away from the epicenter of the party by a (frankly terrifying) gang of girls in black. matty had given him a thumbs up and a ‘good luck’ wink before he disappeared into one of the girls’ rooms.
they’d thought little to nothing of it other than that thomas was having the time of his life, so they waited. hours, actually, in matty’s car parked out front.
“one of us has to go in and get him,” kent complained for the fifteenth time, “or he’s never gonna make it out in one piece.”
“if you’re so impatient, why don’t you get him?” brendan snapped. he was curled up in the passenger seat, mad comfortable, and didn’t plan on moving for the next three hours. he could care less about how long the goth girls were going to take with bords.
“can’t move,” kent shrugged, gesturing to owen. he’d pregamed too hard and followed it up with strictly shitty margaritas, so he was completely incapacitated and almost seven feet of deadweight on kent’s lap. jacob wasn’t looking much better, but at least he was, like, visibly breathing.
“check if his heart’s still beating,” brendan ordered, “and i nominate matty to go in and get bords.”
“then i nominate brendan.” matty grinned wildly.
“me too. jacob agrees.” kent nodded and kicked the back of brendan’s seat to urge him out. brendan shot matty his best puppy-dog eyes, and when that didn’t work, he just flatout glared. after a few seconds, he accepted defeat because he wasn’t a dick. it was chilly out, way colder than it had been when they’d left to wait in the car, and he shoved his hands into his pockets, cursing bords and his irresistible sexiness.
the house was still relatively loud when he walked in, but only because the speaker system was blasting some agonizingly slow lana del rey song. there were only a few stragglers left, halfheartedly dancing to it, and one dude was facedown on the kitchen counter with his head in the sink. brendan ignored him and shuffled, reluctantly, to the door thomas had disappeared behind. it had a plastering of mod pizza stickers, a stolen street sign that said Swallow St., and a biohazard sign. their theme seemed to be channeling rodrick heffley.
he lifted his hand and knocked twice.
it creaked open an inch, as if one of them was waiting behind it for him. they probably were. one perfectly smoky eye stared out at him, eyebrow raised.
“you want your boy back?”
“uhh,” brendan wiped his palms on his sweats, “yes. that’d be cool.”
“there was a complication with the spell,” she said, and brendan had no idea what to say to that, so he just went along with it. maybe they were, like, medieval witch roleplayers like the dnd kids in the library who dressed up and really committed to the bit. anyway, it was something brendan didn’t know bordy was into. he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to know that bordy was into roleplay, but it sort of checked out when he thought about it. unfortunately, thinking about it conjured images of bordy in one of those medieval french ball gowns with the exaggerated boobs, and he looked so good in it that brendan actually felt offended. mental princess bordy also had loads of blush on, because for some reason brendan’s mind was detail-oriented only when it came to imagining his homies in dresses.
“oh no,” he managed, sounding completely unconvincing. “that’s not good. can i have him back, though?”
“are you allergic to dandruff?” the incorporeal eyebrow raised again. brendan shook his head.
“he fucking bit me!” someone shrieked, muffled, from inside the room, and that raised a lot of questions. bords didn’t usually bite people unless he was In A Mood. “he’s such a dick! jasmine, hold him down.”
“what’s happening-- let me in.” brendan was very much not into letting anyone hold bordy down. the eye disappeared from the little gap of the open door and they had a conference. they pretty obviously thought he couldn’t hear them.
“should i let him in?” the owner of the eyebrow stage-whispered. she was answered with a chorus of no’s at varying volumes. “sorry, man, you can’t come in. democratic decision.”
“i really need him back,” brendan said, panicking more, because bordy was still in there and not making any noise, which was, like, the biggest red flag ever. bordy was never not making noise, even when everyone told him to shut the fuck up.
brendan felt what he thought was parental anxiety. or brotherly love, or maybe just the feeling you get when some admittedly hot goth girl roleplayers are keeping your best buddy trapped in their bedroom.
“he’ll be okay,” the eye said, completely unconvincingly. “come back in five minutes.”
“but--” the door slammed in his face with a surprising amount of force, and he ran back out to the car. everyone appeared to be asleep. they all jolted awake when brendan slipped and fell into the glass pane of the window, mashing his entire face against it. matty rolled the window down a bit.
“what the fuck, man?” he had a bright red indent on his forehead from resting it on the steering wheel.
“they’re kidnapping bordy. and, like, holding him down, and probably roleplaying,” brendan panted, and everyone was getting out of the car before he could finish. owen and kent and jacob climbed out of the backseat one after the other, not unlike a clown car that pregamed way too hard for a birthday party.
“where is he?” matty stomped up the front walk, already straightening up to look all menacing and dilfy. it no longer worked on any of the boys, but it scared the shit out of everyone else. the kent-owen-jacob ensemble stumbled behind them, obviously there for moral support more than anything else. the lana del rey song had restarted. maybe it was on an infinite loop. it was starting to grow on brendan, terrifyingly enough.
he shuffled back to the door and knocked twice more. the door opened on the first knock, and the eye made a repeat appearance. matty stared at the eye, then at brendan, who shrugged.
“i’m here for my friend,” matty said, loudly enough that even jacob perked up on instinct. the eye, however, was unfazed.
“there was a complication with the spell,” the disembodied eye repeated, like she’d memorized her script for unwanted visitors inquiring about a roleplay-gone-wrong. matty stared at the gap in the door with his patented ‘what the fuck did you just say to me’ look.
“what the fuck did she just say to me?” he asked brendan, as if he was supposed to know.
“i dunno, man, i thought they were just, like, roleplaying or something,” brendan whispered. the door creaked open a little more. the muffled discussion of the rest of the girls was more audible this way, and brendan was a nosy motherfucker at heart, so he eavesdropped.
“--quit hogging him,” one girl hissed, and sounds of a minor scuffle ensued. matty and brendan exchanged a look. “--oh my god, he’s so cute. take a picture.” brendan couldn’t necessarily disagree with that. “--you’re just a wittle baby, arentcha?” someone babytalked, sickeningly high-pitched and in a key that brendan hadn’t thought the human ear could even register.
“do you mind if we keep him overnight?” the eye asked.
“yes, yes we very much mind,” matty said, pressing closer to the door but not opening it forcefully, “please give him back, or i’ll call the admin office.”
the eye behind the door widened. “okay, jeez. no need to go there.” they had another conference, more successfully quiet this time, while brendan took matty’s place in front of the door. owen had slumped over and pinned kent to the wall, and jacob was actually standing upright on his own. small victories.
“come in. leave them, though,” the girl who possessed The Eye nodded to kent and owen. jacob seemed to have passed her on-sight sobriety test, and he blearily shuffled in after them. the rest of the girls were in various states of undress. some of them were just in their underclothes, and the boys were suddenly extremely focused on the wooden paneling on the ceiling. “you can look,” the owner of The Eye scoffed, “nobody’s tits are out.”
the boys very cautiously stopped inspecting the ceiling. the girls were in a tight circle formation, passing a tiny white cat from person to person. “here’s your little boyfriend,” one of the girls, in a slipknot t-shirt so big that brendan had to wonder if it was custom-ordered, proffered the cat. matty hesitated a minute before picking it up.
“uh.”
“where’s bordy? the--the real dude. like, ye high,” brendan raised his hand to his shoulder, and the girls immediately took issue with that.
“dude, he’s way shorter than that,” one of them laughed.
“he’s, like, five eight. lucy is taller than him.”
“he has bigger tits, though,” a girl who brendan guessed was lucy said.
“fair point.”
“does that, like, outweigh the height, though?”
“i think it should.”
“yeah, it’s only fair.”
“but he had bigger tits than most of us,” one girl piped up, and all of the others turned to glare at her. outside, the lana del rey song ended. a pinkpantheress song came on, which he supposed was a step up.
“shut up, miya.”
“can you guys sort this out later?” matty asked, still holding the cat at arms length. the cat did not seem pleased with this treatment.
“you already got him. you can leave.” the owner of the eye said, shooing them to the door.
“that’s not bordy, silly,” jacob laughed, and the slipknot t-shirt wearer narrowed her eyes.
“is he drunk?” she accused, as if they were at sunday mass instead of a house party in ann arbor at three in the morning.
“a little,” jacob giggled. he was immediately ushered out into the dead-end of the hallway, which had turned into a receptacle for intoxicated boys. brendan could only see kent’s bare foot sticking out from under owen, and he had no idea when or where he took his shoes off.
“back to business,” Slipknot Shirt Wearer clapped her hands, “that’s your buddy. we were kinda gonna fuck, and then like halfway through we tried to do a saturday night seance, but it didn’t really work out, which is kinda obvious. he was sweet though! he had no idea what happened to him, the little lamb.”
“he’s… the cat,” matty mumbled. he was staring at the cat. the cat was staring back. not a thought was behind those big, blue eyes. it was disorientingly familiar.
“matty,” brendan said, appropriately numb, “i think he’s actually the cat.”
“well. okay. very cool,” matty said, still holding The Bordy Cat at arms length, “shit. this is so not cool.”
“can we say bye before you take him?” the owner of the eye asked, already making grabby hands. matty didn’t move, so she just leaned forward and grabbed him on her own. The Bordy Cat made a displeased, rumbly sound, but allowed himself to be passed around the circle again.
“oh, little baby,” miya cooed, pressing him to her cheek. The Bordy Cat looked like he was melting, having gone completely limp under the attention. “i’ll miss you. you’re just a little lamb, aren’t you? huh? yeah?” she pressed a big, noisily wet kiss to the top of his head, leaving a glossy, glittery lip-print behind. brendan could tell it would be a pain in the ass to get off.
“you’re hogging him again,” the owner of the eye scolded lightly, reclaiming The Bordy Cat and pressing a kiss to his forehead too. she was wearing the new matte, non-transferable kind of lipstick that everyone was going batshit insane about, though, so brendan relaxed.
“here you go. take care of him,” she warned, as if they were just going to let him run into the street or eat the daffodils on the kitchen table. brendan felt vaguely offended, for some reason, and clutched The Bordy Cat to his chest.
“thanks,” matty said, although brendan wasn’t quite sure what for.
the pinkpantheress song restarted as they were leaving.