Work Text:
It takes Balthazar a moment to re-acquaint himself with where exactly he is when the sound of the flat door opening rouses him from sleep. He is vaguely aware of the TV flashing at him from across the room and of the sound of rain on the windows outside, but his brain struggles to put together the facts that preceded his falling asleep on the couch that night.
His phone pokes at him from between the cushions below and as Balthazar wipes at his eyes he realizes he is wearing one of Peter’s sweatshirts. That’s right. He had grabbed the sweater thrown haphazardly across the back of the sofa when he realized Peter still hadn’t come home after the party. And then he had sat on the sofa watching reruns of Friends episodes and glancing up at the door every few moments, his nose buried in the sleeve of the sweatshirt. But then….
What?
He’d fallen asleep apparently, and Peter……
Balthazar’s eyes flash towards the sound of the flat door, and he props himself up on his elbow and squints at the figure shaking rain off of its jacket.
“Peter?” he whispers groggily, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Peter jumps in surprise and turns towards the couch, running a hand through his hair and blinking bleariness from his eyes.
“Balth? What are you doing out here?”
His face looks tired and defeated, and his shoulders slump under his t-shirt. Hair sticks up at odd angles from all over his head, and Balthazar can’t help but notice how different he looks from the boy he has come to love spending time with since the flat rules have been put into place. All it took is one stupid blow-up, one stupid fight at a party Balth didn’t even want to go to in the first place, and suddenly everything is a mess again.
Balthazar turns his head towards the clock blinking in the darkness across the room.
“It’s two AM,” he says softly, more-so to himself than the tired boy who is unwilling to meet his eyes.
“I know,” Peter whispers back sadly.
“The flat curfew is 10.”
“I know.”
Balthazar sighs, eyebrows scrunching together under his sleep-ruffled hair. He shakes his head at the figure across the room.
“What are you doing, Pedro?”
It comes out so quiet Balth isn’t sure if Peter is able to hear it, or if Balth even meant for him to be able to in the first place. Nevertheless, Peter kicks at the carpet below him and rubs at his arms.
“I don’t know,” he whispers, and Balth thinks it is the saddest sound he has ever heard come out of the mouth of this boy he has spent so much of his life caring about. How one party has managed to drag the two of them down to the state they find themselves in tonight Balth just can’t seem to fathom. The rules have been working so well. Everything has been going to plan. Peter has been getting better. It all seems to be one big mess now.
Then again, since when were things not a mess between himself and Peter? Yeah, things have been less awkward, but they are still weird. It can’t really get worse, can it? This is true Peter-Balthazar fashion, and so Balthazar figures he should be used to it by this point anyway.
“Wanna watch Flight of the Concords?” he suggests, sitting up on the sofa fully and switching the lamp on beside him.
Peter still hasn’t moved from his spot by the flat door, and his face contorts into a look of pure confusion for a few moments.
“What?”
“Flight of the Conchords? You wanna watch it? I brought both seasons with me on DVD.”
Balthazar watches as Peter’s eyes search his own and his mouth opens and closes as it struggles to find words.
“But- I mean, I…..I broke a flat rule. Don’t you get to choose a punishment for me or something?”
“Nah, consider this your flat punishment I guess. Just be glad I’m the one who caught you and not Ben or Freds,” Balthazar half-smiles.
Peter rubs at his hands nervously and considers the situation once again.
“Ok,” he says uncertainly, and before he can protest Balth has the DVD in and a bowl of popcorn on the couch in between the two of them, his eyes trained on the screen and his hands shoveling popcorn into his mouth.
Balthazar can feel Peter’s confusion from beside him, but he just keeps his eyes trained to the TV, and soon enough Peter seems to relax and melt farther into the sofa cushions beneath him. A small smile sneaks onto his face at one of the familiar jokes, and Balth feels himself let out a breath of relief. It reminds him of weekends spent at Pedro’s house before things became weird. Before Balth’s crush seemed to coincide with Pedro’s feelings and laughing at Flight of the Conchords was at the heart of what was first and foremost a friendship. He remembers how Pedro’s mom used to make cinnamon rolls and Balthazar used to laugh as Pedro turned his into mustaches and swords and whatever else existed in that imagination of his, and icing used to get stuck to Pedro’s upper lip and Balthazar would sit and wish with all his heart that if only he could just get rid of that icing….
“This really is a great episode,” Peter smiles quietly from beside him, interrupting Balthazar from his reverie. “No wonder we always watch this one.”
“Well, it is your favorite after all.”
“Yeah, I guess it is, isn’t it?”
Balthazar can feel Peter looking at him, but suddenly he feels nervous. He thinks he knows what is coming, and even though he knows that they have to talk about it, he doesn’t want to. He wants things to go back to being easy: to being a boy with an unattainable crush on another boy and being able to laugh easily with him, without weirdness or awkwardness. Truthfully, he is scared, and he isn’t sure he is brave enough to face it.
“Balthy?” Peter says softly from beside him, and Balthazar clenches his hands.
“Yeah?”
“Why did you get back with Damien?”
Peter’s voice is soft and gentle, and Balth can detect no note of anger in it, only curiosity and the hurt that makes Balth wince every time he looks at his friend. His handful of popcorn slows on its way to his mouth.
“What do you mean?” he asks, even though he already knows the answer.
“I mean-at Hero’s party…there was something there….with us…and I just thought-well, I thought we would….” Peter stumbles, and Balthazar watches his cheeks grow red as he picks at the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “But then-nothing ever did. Why?”
Balthazar feels his hands start to sweat nervously.
“I don’t-I just...” he begins, but he can’t do this. He just can’t. How can he begin to explain to this boy that Balthazar Jones is most simply put: a coward. And that the thought of finally achieving what he has wanted for so long terrifies him to the core. It makes no sense, even to Balthazar himself. No, he can’t do it…he just can’t.
“Come on Balthy,” Peter whispers from beside him. “You can tell me. It’s just me.”
“Yeah well that’s just the problem isn’t it?” Balthazar laughs softly.
Peter’s eyebrows scrunch together in confusion.
“What?”
And Balthazar takes a deep breath and turns to face Peter, eyes boring into Peter’s own.
“It’s not just you, Peter. It’s YOU. Pedro Donaldson.”
“I don’t understand…”
“I got SCARED. Ok, Pedro?” And there it is, suddenly. Out in the air.
“Scared?”
And now that the words have started flowing from his mouth, Balthazar realizes how ridiculous it all is. How crazy it is that he has kept himself from being happy and messed everything up between himself and Pedro because of a stupid fear. In fact, it suddenly seems so insane to him that Balthazar does the unimaginable: he laughs.
Peter’s eyebrows shoot high up on his forehead.
“Yeah, I got scared,” Balthazar shakes his head in amazement. “I have spent my entire life dreaming about you; thinking you were entirely unattainable; and then suddenly you
weren’t. And I got scared. I got scared, and I ran. Just like Balthazar Jones always does.”
Peter’s eyes dart around the room in contemplation and silence sinks into the darkness for a few moments. Finally, Balth turns his head towards the boy beside him, suddenly braver than he has ever been before.
“I’m sorry,” he says, whispered softly so only Peter can here.
“For what?”
“For getting back with Damien. It was a shitty thing to do.” And it was.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Peter shakes his head.
“Yes I do.”
“No you don’t. I’m the one who’s been bringing people over here all the time.”
“Yeah, that was pretty shitty of you as well,” Balthazar laughs softly.
“Alright, we’ve both been shitty. That’s officially settled,” Peter chuckles and rolls his eyes.
Balthazar smiles at the TV across from him and he doesn’t need to look beside him to know Peter does the same.
“I’m nothing special you know,” Peter suddenly says quietly from beside him, and Balthazar sighs and shakes his head.
“You are to me,” he says. And without giving himself a chance to hesitate, he finds Peter’s hand and slides it into his own.