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Andre lets the phone keep ringing, and ringing, and ringing, the monotone warbling of his call not being answered burns a hole into his patience. He’s three unanswered calls in and it’s getting old fast. He drums his fingers against the wood-textured laminate of his desk. The audio clicks, and for a second he thinks his call is finally being picked up. “C-“
“Hey. This is Calvin. I probably can’t come to the phone right now. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you later, okay?” The phone lets out a long beep.
“Ugh,” he says aloud, over-pronouncing each letter. Andre hangs up and calls again, listening silently to the artificial trilling coming out of his phone's little speaker. “God, Cal, would you-“
Right on cue, the trilling stops - replaced by Cal’s quiet, inquisitive “Hmm..?”
“Stop fucking ignoring me, man. Do you wanna come over?” he says quickly before the other can hang up. He’s sitting up a little straighter now, secretly excited by the maybe-prospect of having anything to do for the afternoon.
There's a pause. “To your house?” says the soft voice from the other end of the line, punctuating his question with a quiet breath.
“No, to the moon.” Andre pauses, waiting for a response that doesn’t come. He sighs loudly into his heavy brick of a cell phone, hoping the sarcasm hanging thick in his voice makes its way across as he intends. “Yeah, dipshit, to my house.”
“I’m not supposed to be going out tonight. Mom says she doesn’t want me walking around outside in the rain. Something about low visibility.” Cal sounds meek and uncomfortable, his voice distant despite speaking directly into the phone next to his head. The ends of his words trail off into the air, disappearing into faint, half-hearted whispers.
“You’re full of shit! She didn’t say that,” Andre barks loudly, a humorous tone exuding from his angry-sounding words. He fiddles with a small hole in the hem of his threadbare t-shirt, picking away loose threads absentmindedly. “Since when does she care? What about all those times you trudged over here in the snow?” He gestures with his hands to no one.
“Am not! She just changed her mind, I guess. I don’t know?” Even now, getting defensive, he sounds tired. He takes little breaths between words, like whatever air surrounds him isn’t quite enough.
“Should I call her? Use my charm and convince her to let me kidnap you?” Andre smiles to himself, imagining calling up Cal’s mom, whose number he doesn’t really have, and childishly begging her to let them have a playdate. ‘Pleaaaase….?’ hypothetical-child-Andre would say, ‘I promise we’ll still do our homework!’
“No.” Cal says flatly, pulling Andre from his daydream. It’s a harsh contrast between the airy, breathy voice from just moments earlier. “No…” he repeats again, softer, “Don’t, uh… don’t do that.”
“And… why not?” Andre lifts his eyebrows, like the question he asked isn’t hypothetical. Like Cal can even see his face right now. “‘Cause you’re just making shit up, that’s why. Come over. I got a movie we can watch.” Andre laughs into the receiver, his voice crackling far too loudly into the quiet air on Cal’s end.
“I-” He pauses again, breaking the silence only with the sound of a loud, irritated exhale. “Fine… Fine. No chance you’d come pick me up?”
“Nah,” Andre chirps. “ I don’t feel like going anywhere. Get here quick, yeah?”
“You’re such a dick,” Cal groans dramatically into the receiver. “See you in a few, I guess.”
“Byyyeee,” he sings.
Cal hangs up.
Andre just sits and smiles.
Cal was only half lying about the rain. Yeah, his mom didn’t say anything - but fuck he didn’t feel like getting his clothes, hair, and skin soaked with the cold, dirty water of the suburban sky around him. The sidewalks are cracked and uneven, gathering wide, deep puddles of earthworm-filled mud. Not to mention he really doesn’t feel that well today - his stomach aches, filled only with water and two packs of long-expired peanut butter crackers. The marks on his arms sting from the cold, one thin layer of cotton fabric separating his best-kept secret from the world. His head is spinning.
His feet feel heavy and disconnected from his tired body - like he’d just run a marathon, not slowly walked a few blocks to Andre’s neighborhood. He figures he looks pretty stupid right now, his hair all damp from the rain, his arms hanging limply by his sides. It’s too windy to use the umbrella he stuffed into his backpack before he left. I probably look like a lost child.
He flicks his feet out in front of him as he walks, trying to make contact with the things littering the walkway - hoping for any kind of distraction. He kicks a crumpled beer can, watches as it skitters across the wet ground.
A growing noise reminds him too late that cars around here don’t slow down much for pedestrians, let alone swerve around the lakes gathering on the sides of the road. Cal flinches as a gray minivan whips past him, tires roaring against the wet asphalt, sending up a sharp spray of water that hits him like a wall. A wall made of stinging needles of ice-cold liquid. Staggering back - he can feel the little bits of loose pavement hitting his cheek. The driver cheers at him from the window as he speeds away. He curses himself for deciding to put on clean clothes at the last minute before leaving, looking down at his (now muddy) jeans-and-hoodie combo.
“Come on!” He calls out to the car, already long gone - he’s too drained to be truly angry. Any ideas of having semi-dry clothes he once had floating around his mind melt away, to be replaced by the freezing drops of dirt-flecked rainwater rolling through his hair, down his body, into his sneakers. “Is it even worth going over at this point?” he thinks, but then, yeah, of course it is. It’s Andre he’s doing this for, not himself. If it were up to Cal, he’d be back home, alone, laying with his back flat against the cool tiles of his bathroom. Dead maybe. Or asleep. Probably asleep. But it’s not up to him, he tried to stay home and that didn’t work. He realizes, stupidly, he could’ve just stayed home regardless. Andre wouldn’t come to get him, no one would be that mad at him - but there's something compelling about Andre’s voice requesting Cal’s presence, not anyone else's. Never anyone else's.
The walk to Andre’s usually doesn’t feel so long, but being freezing-cold and wet will do that. He knows the way like the back of his hand, all the hundreds of times he’s walked from his house to Andre’s, from school to Andre’s, from work to Andre’s. From just about anywhere he could ever be, to Andre’s. He could probably make the walk blind, he knows from experience he can do it in
the pitch black. That rain excuse was stupid, but he’s starting to wish he stuck to it.
By the time Andre’s place is in sight, Cal is shivering and miserable. The bug-covered porchlight serves like a lighthouse against the darkening sky, pairing perfectly with the lost ship of himself. He cuts through the grass, stumbling up the steps to the front door as the wet soles of his shoes fail to gather any traction on the equally soaked wooden stairs. He doesn’t bother to knock, rather, unlocks the faded wooden door with the spare key he knows Andre keeps in a nearby half-dead potted flower. He pockets the key, he’d been meaning to get one for a while. The blond stops just inside to toe off his still-tied, muddy converse. They’ve been cracked and faded for months, the rubber turning yellow and wearing thin, but this is the worst they’ve looked in a while. Probably. At this point he can’t be sure.
Cal wobbles his way through the house to Andre’s room. This, too, he could do with his eyes closed - and he practically does, his eyes still burn from the cold wind outside. He feels almost guilty about tracking water all over the worn rugs in the hallway. Almost. Andre’s door is a welcome sight. The paint is chipped and damaged from being slammed shut a few hundred too many times. He used to think it looked trashy, but nowadays it’s just one of those things too uniquely Andre for him to have any disdain for. Cal once again doesn’t bother knocking, instead choosing to barge in, nearly tripping over a few boxes of who knows what, to slump unceremoniously onto Andre’s messy couch.
Andre jumps up in surprise at the weight falling onto him. His face melts from one of surprise into a smile when he realizes it’s just Cal.
“Get off me! Fucker!” he laughs, kneeing the much lighter boy onto the other end of the couch with ease. He sits up on his knees to stare at Cal expectantly. They used to play-fight a lot, but for the past few months Cal just lets himself get pushed around. “It’s kinda pathetic,” Andre would think when it first began, “But he weighs all of ten pounds, so I guess it makes sense.” These days it’s just sad. “What part of ‘Get here quick’ did you get confused about?”
Andre’s smile fades away when Cal just turns his head towards him tiredly. Like this, he can see the dark gray-purple semi circles under his light blue, red rimmed eyes. He can see the way his face seems more sunken than it always has. “Calvin…? Are you okay?”
“Mm…” Cal hums in response, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. His chest rises and falls in slow motion. His hands clench against the too-long sleeves of his zip-up, and he shrugs. “Tired.”
“You just look kinda shit right now, is all.” Andre mumbles, realizing too late how rude it probably sounded.
“Ouch,” Cal says. “I guess I feel pretty shit too.
“Is your brain being weird again?”
“Don’t say it like it’s just me.”
“I’m not saying it like anything. Are you back in a bad place?”
Cal just exhales quietly, shrugging again. His body quivers with small, shaky movements. They’re so minor they’d be easy to miss if Andre didn’t know him as well as he does. He reaches out to touch Cal’s sleeve, to playfully shake him, or push him, or something. His hand comes away damp and cold.
“Shit- I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how cold you were.” Andre tugs gently on Cal’s oversized hoodie. “Take this all off, I’ll find you something dry.” He swings his legs off the couch, standing to turn to his dresser. Andre wordlessly thanks the universe that he did laundry a few days ago. He’d probably die of humiliation if he had to make Cal wear some sticky, sweaty band tee from his floor. He rifles through the top drawer of unsorted clothes - fishing out an old, faded black hoodie and a pair of gray sweatpants that were always too long for him. The two are the same height, roughly, but Cal has longer legs. He hopes. “This stuff should probably fit?” Andre states uncertainly, turning back to face Cal again.
Cal still sits silently on the edge of the couch, twisting his sleeves methodically, arms drawn tightly across his chest. Andre stares, holding out the bundle of dry clothes to him.
The blond reaches out gingerly, taking the articles with his soft, thin fingers. The brunette turns away as Cal slips into the sweat pants, eventually turning back to watch as he places his carefully folded jeans and boxers onto Andre’s messy floor.
“So, are you gonna, like…” Andre gestures up and down at Cal, then to the worn pull-over folded in his lap. He’s seen Cal like this before, but he usually ignores it. They’d be playing games or doing homework, and the blond would get this look in his eyes. After that he was no good. He’d hardly talk, he’d hardly move. It was like spending time with a zombie.
Cal retracts again, pressing the hoodie against his body. “Yeah, yeah. Maybe in a little while.” He smiles awkwardly, pressing his lips into a thin line, drawing his eyebrows together. It’s more concerning than comforting.
“No. No, none of that shit. If you get a cold or something you’d probably like, fucking die or whatever.” Andre steps closer to tug at the zipper of Cal’s hoodie. “And if you’re dead, then who am I gonna invite over when I’m bored?”
“I can do it, I can do it. Andre, I’m fine. I can do it on my own.” Cal tries to push the other away, to shove his hands off, but Andre is stronger than him. Especially now. He huffs, surrendering and allowing Andre to peel his hoodie away. “Really- I can change my clothes on my own,” he objects, squirming away before the other can try to reach for the soaked, white T-shirt clinging to his thin figure. He draws his arms into the shirt, trying to slip out and into Andre’s hoodie in one fluid motion.
“Hey,” Andre reaches out to stop him before he can get the hoodie on. “What the fuck is that?”
Cal wrenches out of his grip, “Nothing, please just let me get dressed.”
Andre snatches Cals left arm away. The blond hisses through clenched teeth as Andre’s fingers press against his cuts. “Calvin, what the fuck!”
Cal’s skin feels cold and clammy under his touch, fingers wrapping all the way around his wrist.
“I tripped.” He tries again to pull his arm away. He can feel his face getting hot. His vision clouds as his tear ducts start to betray him.
“Like hell you did! Are you fucking crazy?” His face is hard to read, like this. Anger, or shock, or confusion. Or pain. Maybe all four. He releases Cal’s arm like it’s burning him, as hot, humiliating tears begin spilling down Cal’s flushed cheeks. He slides onto the floor as he finishes putting on the hoodie, curling himself into a ball, knees drawn up towards his chest. He looks so small.
“I’m sorry,” Cal chokes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m fucking stupid, I’m sorry.” His chest heaves and his shoulders shake. His messy, damp hair hangs in thick clumps over his face, doing nothing to hide his shame. He looks pathetic. Like a kicked puppy from one of those slow-motion sad-music animal shelter ads. Today has just been too much. Too much by far.
“I’m not mad at you. Cal, look at me. I’m not- Hey, look at me. I’m not mad at you,” Andre breathes. “I’m just… what the fuck, man. What the fuck.”
Cal doesn’t say anything, but he’s far from silent. Little hics and sobs escape his lips every few moments. He tries to wipe the tears from his wet cheeks, he can feel them running across his face and falling against the front of the hoodie. Andre continues to watch him, flicking his gaze away uncomfortably. He shouldn’t be seeing this, it’s none of his business, but the thought of leaving Cal like this makes his stomach churn.
Cal. Smart, sweet, fragile Cal. Cal, who he’s known since middle school. Cal, his only solace in this world. Cal, who he’s skipped days of school to stay with when he’s sick. Cal, the most powerful person he knows. Cal, who’s currently sobbing on the dirty floor of his bedroom.
Andre crouches down on the carpet, his knees bumping Cal's shins. He reaches, hooking his fingers under Cal’s own. Cal freezes, melting into the touch. His head rolls forward to hide his face in his sleeves, tumbling his hair across their linked hands.
Andre rubs his thumbs in hopefully-soothing circles across the back of the blonds cold hands.
Cal is still crying, but he seems less frantic. His breathing is less erratic, his body stopped twitching.
“Do you want a hug, or something?” Andre mumbles, he can feel the heat in his skin making his face red. This isn’t the time to be getting flustered and embarrassed, but he can’t help it. Cal nods.
Andre pulls up on Cal’s hands, taking care not to touch his arms. He stands - lifting Cal until he’s seated on the edge of the couch, hands in Andre’s, head against the other's chest. “Put your arms around my neck,” Andre says softly, guiding Cal’s hands.
“Wh-“ Cal starts, looking up at Andre through wet eyelashes, confused. He does as he’s told, though, interlocking his fingers behind Andre’s neck. They’re close like this. Inches apart.
“We’re gonna sit over there,” Andre says, cocking his head towards his bed. It’s strewn with pillows and blankets, discarded clothes and the occasional magazine. “I’d just feel bad making you get up. You seem, uh… wobbly?”
Cal jolts when he feels Andre’s hands snake under his thighs, lifting until he’s completely off the couch, entirely supported against the other. He can only imagine how they look right now, his legs wrapped around Andre, his head in the crook of Andre’s neck, but it’s anything but sexual. The guys at school would have a field day if they could see them now.
Cal turns slowly, leaning back to keep Cal from having to hold himself up. He‘s over to the bed in a few steps, setting Cal back down onto the side of it. They both flop back onto the soft mattress.
“Sorry if that was weird,” Andre whispers.
Cal smiles lightly, the first genuine one of the afternoon. “I think… nothing you can do is freakier than what I do.”
Andre laughs, genuinely. “You’re not a freak, Cal,” he shuffles until his back is to the headboard of his bed, “You’re just fragile. The universe doesn’t know how to handle you.” He reaches his hands out to Cal, who twists around to take them, crawling forward to Andre.
The blond inches his way forward, sinking to lie between Andre’s legs, to lay his head on his best friend's chest. He can smell Andre around him, and it’s all summer and warmth and cigarette smoke. He wraps his arms around Andre’s waist, tangling his fingers into the loose fabric of the back of his shirt. They breathe together, and Andre thinks his heart might stop. They’ve never been like this before. They’ve slept in tents together over summer vacation, they’ve seen each other undress in gym class, but here the air here is different. They aren’t surrounded by the violent urgency of school, or the bug tuned music of the forest. It’s just them. Their breath. The hum of the ceiling fan, the occasional truck on the road, the sound of the pipes in the ceiling. The creaking of the walls that barely contain them.
“Cal…?” Andre whispers, placing his left hand on the blond's lower back. “Do you wanna tell me what’s been going on? I think I should’ve asked sooner, I could tell something has been wrong.”
Cal shrugs, turning his face farther into Andre’s shirt. He makes a noise of uncertainty halfway between a hum and a mumble, something that neither of them are sure is even words.
“Please, Cal. I’m so fucking worried about you, you don’t even know. Please.” He threads the fingers of his other hand into Cal’s hair, gently combing through and twisting the locks between his fingers. He’s wanted to do this for years, and now he barely realizes it’s happening. They stay like that for a few moments, letting the comfortable silence fall around them again.
“I don’t know,” Cal starts, leaning his head into the touch. “I can’t eat anymore- literally can’t. I know you’ve noticed that. I get sick, it’s been making me sick. And, I’ve been feeling like I’m spiraling. And- and… I need to hurt something, and if it can’t be someone else it has to be me. I get to look down and know that’s damage I did, that no one can control. Just me. It sounds so cringey, and- and weak, and pathetic.” The words spill out in jumbled, loose syllables.
Andre looks through him. He thinks for a moment to say, ‘Hurt me then. Anything but yourself,’ but he knows that would be too far. Too obvious. It would be overstepping a boundary, he’s just not sure which one. They’ve broken a lot of boundaries tonight.
“I feel so lost, Andre. So fucking lost. I’m stupid and broken and I have no place in the world. It’s like I’m sinking, you know? All that cliche bullshit. Like, I just don’t know why I’m here. It was just you and me, and zero day - and then it didn’t happen, and now I don’t know what to do.”
“There’s still you and me,” Andre offers. “You know why I bitched out on zero day? I don’t give a shit about all those losers at school, I don’t give a shit about myself, but I give a shit about you. I started getting nightmares Cal, about you dead on the floor. I was seeing you, and your perfect self all broken and it made me fucking sick.”
“I’m not meant to be here,” Cal whispers. “That was my out.”
“But you are. What do you think the chances were of us meeting? It’s like one in a thousand billion whatevers, that means we were meant to happen. You and me. This is how things are supposed to be. Zero day didn’t happen because you’re so fucking important, Cal. The world would fall apart without you.” He brushes Cal’s hair out of his face. Cal looks up at him. “We’re two halves of a whole. We’re the most perfect things ever made.”
Andre’s long fingers cup Cal’s face, and then he’s crying again. Not the frantic, scared tears of earlier. This is calm, his breath barely shakes, and they stream down his face like he doesn’t even notice them. Andre takes both hands to wipe them away. Both hands to hold Cal like he’s about to shatter.
But he doesn’t shatter, he leans up on his hands, and connects their lips in a single, feather-light movement, then pulls back.
The world shatters instead. Everything they’ve built shatters - but the pieces don’t break into sharp, violent messes. The fragments of the past few years fall all that once, coming together into a mosaic that holds all the light in the universe. The context of the day twists, revealing the once-hidden things that should’ve been so obvious for so long.
But right now none of that matters. Not zero day, not school, not the years they wasted doing anything other than this. All that matters is Cal and Andre, and Cal’s bright eyes and Andre’s shocked expression - and how this time it’s Andre kissing Cal. Andre kissing Cal like this is the only thing he’s ever wanted, like it’s keeping them both alive. Cal thinks it might be.
Cal’s body fits against Andre’s like they were cut from the same stone. Whatever the fuck all that just was is gone from Cal’s mind because Andre. Andre, Andre, Andre. He thought the two of them were the world before, and now he knows the two of them are everything. Cal thinks he can almost feel time stopping around them - because all his life there's been something missing. Something just out of reach, so close he could almost taste it - some longing rooted deeper than the loneliness and the depression and here it is, in beautiful technicolor and it’s kissing him. And he’s kissing back. Cal feels Andre’s lips against his and he just can’t believe he’s really here right now. He just can’t quite wrap head around it, so he stops trying and just presses harder against Andre.
Andre realizes he’s always known he wanted this, it was surface level as far as feelings go. He’s spent the last few years (Which, he figures, is the only part of his life where he’s ever really been alive) pining for Cal’s company over all else. He would find himself getting jealous so easily - like with prom. He’d been at work, distracting himself, planning for the day, but internally he’d wanted nothing more than to be there with Cal. Or for Cal to be there with him. Prom never even crossed his mind, just Cal - wearing a suit, with his hair brushed, in a car full of pointless strangers. But when Cal came back to his house afterwards, it was like everything he’d ever wanted had just dropped onto the floor in front of him. (Probably because it had.) Andre, too, forces himself out of the past and back into the moment.
They both know they aren’t going to go very far, but neither of them want to. It’s enough for their tongues to be in each other's mouths, and for their bodies to be pressed together like they don’t know how to be apart. Cal climbs up to straddle Andre, one hand clenching the soft fabric of the other’s shirt, and one grasping the back of his neck - he knows his nails are digging into skin but Andre hasn’t stopped him so he doesn’t let go.
Andre’s hands travel under Cal’s borrowed hoodie, he smooths his palms against the sharp angles of Cal’s hips, sliding his hands to tightly hold his waist, thumbs pressed into the small amount of fat present on his stomach.
The two continue to move together, sliding their bodies against each other. Cal arches his back into the hands on his hips, forcing his chest down harder against Andre’s, pushing their heads back into the gray caseless pillows littering the mattress. His knees dig deep impressions into the bed on either side of Andre’s body, his thighs wrap tightly around the brunette under him. They’re both far from skilled - their teeth keep clumsily clicking together, Cal keeps forgetting to breathe, but neither of them would change anything about the moment.
Andre’s hands feel warm on Cal’s cool skin. Cal’s cool body feels hot on Andre’s. It doesn’t make sense, but none of this really does. Andre’s lips are soft against Cal’s, he kisses him slowly and gently. He takes Cal’s bottom lip between his teeth and Cal shudders. They both taste like cheap mints and cigarettes.
Andre pulls back to let them both catch their breath, looking up at Cal he can see his cheeks are still wet with tears. Cal smiles though, eyes still closed, head tilted to the side. His face is red from blush and adrenaline, his lips are bright pink and swollen. He looks like a mess in the best way possible.
“You’re beautiful, you know that?” Andre whispers. He brings his knees up, sliding Cal forward a bit. He removes his hands from the blonds sides, reaching up to hold his face with two hands - the same position they were in when this started. “You’re the most precious thing in this dimension.” Cal's face flushes an even deeper shade of red. He collapses down next to Andre, head propped up on Andre’s shoulder.
“Can I spend the night?” Cal says softly, tilting his head to look at the other.
Andre nods quickly, cheeks a dark shade of cherry, smoothing his hair back off his face.