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Peter doesn’t know why Balthazar mumbles, but it’s simply a fact of life that he does.
In fact, Balthazar’s mumbling is so frequent that the first time Peter meets him, he has to ask him twice for his name.
“It’s Balthazar,” the boy says quietly for a second time, eyes cast down on his desk on the first day of class. It’s still not completely clear, but Peter is able to make out the three syllables that end up defining his future.
“Balthazar,” Pedro smiles back, rolling the name around on his tongue. It reminds him of his favorite stories when he was a kid: tales of heroes and princesses and knights in shining armor. He immediately realizes that it suits his classmate perfectly, and it sounds beautiful no matter how it’s uttered, whether mumbled or not.
“I like it,” Pedro chuckles. “It might even be up there on coolness level with Pedro.”
Balthazar laughs, and Pedro feels his face grow hot when he notices a similar red tinge work itself across Balth’s cheekbones.
“Thanks,” he mumbles back, in true Balthazar fashion, and Pedro turns around in his seat to face the board as class begins. The short, quiet mutterings are enough to keep a smile on his face for the rest of the period.
By the time he and Balthazar are living together in the flat, Pedro has come to realize that Balthazar’s mumblings aren’t exclusively reserved for shy introductions. In fact, they extend to most aspects of his life, and as one of Balth’s roommates, Peter is fully aware that mumbling is his primary mode of communication.
He mumbles quiet hellos in the kitchen when he wakes up in the morning and thank-yous when Ben hands him tea. He mumbles encouragement when Freddie panics over assignments and agreement when Rosa laughs over childhood stories. He mumbles song lyrics while washing up, study notes on his way to class, and tired good-nights as he shuffles to his room.
But he doesn’t always mumble with Peter.
Granted, Peter spends as much time deciphering mumbles as anyone else in the flat. At times it drives him insane. As student leader, he learned to speak clearly and above all make sure he was HEARD. If he has a request, it is understood. His hellos are boisterous and loud, and his thank-yous make themselves known.
There are moments when Peter wants to grab Balth by the shoulders and just tell him to speak clearly, make people understand, show the world what he’s made of. He feels like he spends so much time staring at Balth’s face trying to decipher what lies hidden behind all of the mumbles that a request to put feelings into words doesn’t seem like too much to ask.
But right when Peter feels like he can’t take it anymore, there are miracle moments when he doesn’t have to make a request.
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It’s a horrible Wednesday afternoon when Pedro learns that Balthazar never mumbles forgiveness. He stares Pedro straight in the eyes until he understands, until there isn’t a shadow of doubt left in Pedro’s heart that Balthazar is on his side and is not going back. Those mumbles disappear and so does Pedro’s breath, and he finds himself blindsided by the intimacy of a still soft-spoken, but CLEAR Balthazar.
“You shouldn’t be forgiving me,” he whispers, dragging his eyes from Balthazar’s own and staring down at his bedspread. “I was an idiot, and I hurt Hero of all people, Balth. How could I do that?”
Balthazar is quiet for a moment, and Pedro has a horrible thought that he will take back his previous statement of forgiveness and force Pedro to leave his house. After all, Pedro hadn’t expected him to let him inside in the first place.
Before he can lose every last ounce of hope, he feels Balthazar place a gentle hand on his arm, and his touch sends warmth shooting through Pedro’s body.
“You made a mistake, Pedro. It’s ok to make them. Everyone does.”
“You don’t,” Pedro sighs, shaking his head.
“That’s not true. Nobody’s perfect, including me.”
“You’re as close as anyone gets, though,” Pedro whispers softly, and he feels Balthazar’s hand tense briefly on his arm before dropping back to his own side. He appears caught off guard for a moment, and Pedro wishes he knew what was running through his head, but Balth is back on track in a matter of moments.
“You messed up, Pedro. That’s the truth. But that’s ok. All that matters is that you’re truly sorry and that you regret it.”
Pedro stares down at his hands.
“And I know you do,” Balth says with a soft smile.
“More than anything,” Pedro sighs, and Balthazar nudges him softly in the shoulder with his own and mentions something about grabbing some food and catching a movie. Things return as close to normal as they will ever be, and Balthazar resumes his mumbling.
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It isn’t until the two boys are living together in the flat that Peter discovers Balthazar never mutters checkups. He sits next to Peter on the floor of the flat bathroom after Pete finishes emptying his stomach into the toilet, lays gentle hands on his arm, and asks plainly, “Are you ok?”. The words run up and down Peter’s shoulders and hold him tight, leaving no room for confusion and plenty of space for exhausted tears.
Peter presses the cool cloth Balth has brought him to his forehead and tries to ignore the tears warm on his cheeks.
“I’m fine,” he croaks, eyes fixed on the wall opposite them.
“Pedro-“ Balthazar lays a tentative hand on Peter’s own, but Peter pushes past the sparks that shoot through his arm and pulls away.
“I told you, Balthazar. It’s Peter now.”
From the corner of his eye, he sees Balthazar’s hand remain suspended for a moment in the air, like an orphan without a home, and it takes every ounce of strength to resist taking it all back as he imagines the hurt look on his friend’s face.
Balthazar returns his hand to his own knee.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Peter watches as Balthazar stands and walks to the sink, refilling Peter’s glass of water and setting it and two aspirin on the floor next to him.
“You should eat something,” Balthazar mutters, more-so to himself than to Peter. “I-I’m gonna grab you some food.”
And then, suddenly, Peter is alone.
But not really, because a sandwich joins his aspirin on the floor only a few moments later, and he knows that Balthazar is sitting on the couch in the living room with an attentive ear turned towards the bathroom from the couch.
From then on, Peter is consciously aware of the fact that Balthazar never mutters Peter’s name. “Ben” becomes garbled and “Freddie” sinks into quiet sentences but “Pete” sticks out like a sore thumb. It rubs against Peter’s face like coarse sandpaper and crawls under his skin like an army of ants, and he can’t seem to shake the feeling of it. Oddly enough, he remembers “Pedro” floating over other words rather than screaming, and it occurs to him that Balth never mumbles this name either, but that’s only because he never says it at all.
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After the flat rules are put into place, things start to get better, and the next time Peter encounters a clear Balthazar is when he expresses his detest for the movie Marlowe in Love.
“How many times do we have to watch that movie?” he sighs from across the table after breakfast. It’s just he and Peter left in the flat at this point, Freddie and Ben having forced themselves to get out of bed after their late movie night and head off to early morning classes.
“What do you mean?” Peter says, setting his coffee down on the table and looking across at Balth with amusement.
“It’s a stupid movie. And we always watch it. Shouldn’t we switch it up sometimes?” Balthazar picks absentmindedly at his half-eat piece of toast.
Peter’s eyes widen.
“I knew it! You never wanted to watch that movie. Why didn’t you say something?”
“I dunno, it didn’t REALLY matter I guess. I just don’t get why Ben loves it so much.”
“It’s BEN, Balthy. Who knows why he does anything? I can’t figure out half the things he says sometimes,” Peter says, shaking his head.
Balthazar laughs.
“You mean like the other day when he rambled about arctic birds for like 10 minutes?”
“How about when he spent the entirety of dinner last week discussing the pros and cons of investing in a new vacuum for the flat? There was vacuum terminology involved that I hadn’t even heard of before,” Peter smiles, and Balthazar laughs a real, true, Balthazar laugh that makes Peter feel 10 times better than he did only moments before.
There is a comfortable silence as the boys return to their breakfasts, smiles plastered to their faces.
“Seriously though,” Peter says quietly, and Balthazar looks up from his toast. “Next time, just say something.”
Balthazar shrugs.
“Don’t sell yourself short. What you have to say matters, Balthy,” Peter says, eyeing the boy across from him, and he watches as a rosy pink surface on Balthazar’s cheeks.
“Thanks,” Balth replies, and that’s that.
But Peter is proud to say that after that, when it comes to talking with Peter, Balthazar never mumbles his disagreement. His quiet discontent gets washed away in a flood of loud conversation on a daily basis, but with Peter he is perfectly audible. No, he would rather not have to eat hummus with every meal. Actually, Peter’s drinking is not something he approves of (this one spoken forcefully at him from across the living room), and Ben’s punishment for almost kissing Pete crosses a huge line. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but Peter revels in the moments when he gets to see Balthazar assert who he is and what he thinks, and his pride overflows each time he sees how such a small voice can pack such a punch.
___________________
When the flat rules finally fail, Peter’s least favorite discovery is that Balthazar doesn’t mumble defeat. When Balth finally feels the rules have become too much and that there is nothing left to do, his final “I need some space” charges across the room like a spear straight into Peter’s heart. Peter is so panicked that Balthazar’s name bursts out of his mouth as if on instinct, and there’s a moment when Balthazar looks back at him with a slim glimmer of hope.
“What?” he says, pausing in the door frame.
“Please, don’t go.” Peter knows it’s his voice that’s speaking, but he doesn’t recognize it. It sounds so small and scared.
“Then come with me.”
And Peter wants to. He wants to more than anything. But there is something holding him back that is telling him to wait, that it’s not the right time, that leaving now won’t fix everything.
“I-, I can’t-“ Peter starts, but before he can finish, Balthazar has turned and left the flat. And suddenly, there are no longer any more mumbles for Peter to decipher.
_____________
While Balthazar and the rest of their friends live it up making brownies at Vegan Fred’s, Peter finds that he isn’t sure what to do with himself when he’s not occupied with checking up on Balthazar. In fact, he spends a whole night just sitting in the living room trying to figure out the answer to this question until Ben comes in and interrupts his whole train of thought with a video and a lengthy speech about the importance of Marlowe.
An angry Costa arrives and shortly after so does Balth, and by the end of the night “Peter the Great” is feeling like he is on the verge of a discovery. He spends that night and the next few days mulling things over, watching Meg’s new video, and trying to figure out a next step.
It takes a crazy Russian accent challenge, an insane play director, and what seems to Peter to be Ben and Freddie’s millionth argument for him to finally have an epiphany. Because suddenly, in the middle of all the yelling about who is at fault for the rules, he remembers.
He remembers finding Balthazar hunched over his desk after three weeks of school, papers scattered across his room and three empty coffee cups dispersed haphazardly across the surface of his desk. He remembers that it was three in the morning and Peter had come into the room because he noticed Balth’s light still on as he made his way to the kitchen for some water. Balthazar hadn’t even responded when Peter had knocked on the door.
“Balth?” he had whispered, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Balthazar continued scribbling furiously on the sheet of paper in front of him. “What are you still doing up? Don’t you have an early class tomorrow?”
“I have to finish this essay,” Balthazar had said, eyes still fixed on his paper. “The thesis still isn’t right, and I still have to add more examples. It’s just not good enough yet.”
“Can’t you just do that tomorrow?” Peter yawned, sitting down on Balthazar’s bed. “I mean, it’s not like it’s due tomorrow, right? You still have time.”
“Not really,” Balthazar muttered, and he finally dropped his pencil and ran a hand frantically through his hair. “I have work until five tomorrow, plus rehearsal for orchestra, and I still have five journals to finish before Friday, plus a huge test that I have to study for because I need an A for the semester.”
“Why don’t you just skip orchestra tomorrow? You need sleep, Balthy. I’m sure your teacher will understand,” Peter said softly.
“Don’t you get it, Pete?” Balthazar’s voice was strained, and Peter remembers him turning in his chair to face Peter full on, hair a mess and bags under his eyes. “I made a commitment to orchestra, I’m not just gonna back out now. I’m not just flying through university without caring about anything like you seem to be doing, Pete.” Peter remembered that had stung, but Balthazar had continued without stopping.
“I need to do well. I need to,” he whispered to himself, and Peter dropped his hand from his face because suddenly, he had realized something very important.
Balthazar was crying.
Not just tearing up or getting emotional, but actually crying. Tears rolled down his face in a race to his chin, and huffs of air escaped from his mouth. And Peter remembers being so surprised, because he had never seen Balthazar like that before, that it took him a moment to really register what was happening.
“Hey,” Peter said softly while Balthazar sniffled, and before he could really register what he was doing, he was pulling Balthazar from his desk chair onto the bed next to him and placing an arm around him. “It’s ok, Balthy.”
Balthazar sighed and sunk into Peter’s side like he was always meant to be there, resting his head on Peter’s shoulder.
“I don’t think I can do this, Peter,” Balthazar sighed, and it was spoken without a single stutter, clearer than anything Peter had heard in a while.
“You can do anything you want to, Balth,” Peter said, running a hand through Balthazar’s hair. “You just need a break sometimes. And some sleep.”
“Sleep sounds good,” Balthazar mumbled into Peter’s t-shirt, and by the time Peter had managed to re-position the two of them so they were lying down on Balthazar’s bed in a semi-comfortable position, Balthazar was fast asleep.
Peter remembers this episode, and the ones that had followed before the rules had been put in place, and suddenly, so much makes sense. What has he been doing? He can admit that before the rules, he had spent so much time straining to hear every muttering, watching to make sure everything was ok. Balthazar may have thought he was the one who liked to check up on people, but little did he know that since Balth’s freak out at the start of the year, Peter had spent just as much time checking up on him.
But then the rules were put in place, and Peter assumed things were better, and since then, Peter has been so focused on his own issues and quest for redemption when the reality is: Balthazar has already forgiven him. He said it loud and clear. And so have all of his other friends. It isn’t him who needs help anymore. It isn’t him who needs the rules at all. It’s Balthazar. Who he is letting down right now.
By the time he finishes his speech and the words “Fuck the rules” finally leave his mouth, finding Ben and Freddie shocked and confused, Peter is willing to do whatever it takes if it means hearing a trademarked Balthazar mumble again.
_____________________
In reality, Peter’s not sure if a simple apology is really going to be enough to fix the mess that he and his flat mates have made, but Ben and Freds seem so intent on the proposed plan that Peter figures it’s worth a shot. And so all three flat mates burst into Vegan Fred’s with determined apologies spewing from their lips, only to find their counterpart flat crew filming a video, of all things. Meg jumps up from the couch asking what the hell is going on while stupid Vegan Fred tries to calm her down. Ben and Beatrice argue from opposite ends of the room and Fred and Kit start having a loud conversation of their own, but Peter is so focused on his goal that he can only really register on one thing.
“Where’s Balthazar?” Peter says from his spot in the doorway, and all six people turn to look at him.
“Pedro-“ Meg says warningly from the other end of the room but Peter doesn’t have time for this.
“Please, Meg,” he says quietly. “Where is he?”
“He went for a walk on the beach.” It’s Vegan Fred who ends up answering, and Peter swallows down his questions of exactly why it is Fred who knows this, because he’s out the door in a matter of seconds.
And sure enough, there’s Balthazar sitting on the sand only a short distance from the house. He is tossing bits of shell in the direction of the sea, and Peter can’t help but notice that he looks significantly less happy than he did in Meg’s last video. He’d been worried, for a moment, that Balthazar was better off without him, and a small part of him is thankful that Balthazar has been having just as difficult a time as he has.
Peter walks towards his friend and sits down beside him, resting his arms on his knees and watching the waves roll in and out.
“Hey,” he says, and Balthazar looks at him for a moment before following Peter’s gaze back to the ocean.
“Hey,” he mumbles back, and it’s almost as if he was expecting Peter to come, as if he knows this meeting was inevitable, but that he isn’t sure it will really fix things anyway.
“I saw Meg’s new video,” Peter continues, running his hands through the sand at his sides. “Looked like fun. Wish I could have tried one.”
“Yeah, they were pretty great brownies.”
“Well, they were made by the Almighty Balthazar Jones, after all.”
“Meg, Kit and Bea helped. And Vegan Fred did all the work anyway.”
“Yeah, but you poured the ingredients in the bowl. That’s pretty important.”
“What do you want, Pete?” Balthazar sighs, turning to look at him full on.
And Peter knows the answer. But he’s not sure how to go about actually putting it into words. After all, he’s messed up so many times in the past that he needs to get things right this time.
But like most things in his life, it doesn’t exactly work out that way.
“I didn’t sleep with Jaquie,” he blurts out, and Balthazar looks at him skeptically.
“And I don’t know if that matters or not,” Peter goes on slowly, trying to maintain his control over the conversation. “But I just needed you to know.”
“Ok,” Balthazar says, and Peter can tell he’s waiting for him to continue, so he does.
“I-, I’ve been an ass for a large portion of this year,” Peter says, shaking his head. “And all along, I’ve been trying to change from whoever I was in high school because I thought….I thought that Pedro wasn’t any good. That none of my friends would like him anymore. That you wouldn’t like him.”
Balthazar has his head cocked to one side and his eyes trained on Peter’s face, and Peter takes a deep breath.
“I guess- I guess I just thought that if I became someone new, someone better, things would be easier. For everyone. But then Peter didn’t end up making anything better for anyone either and so I just got…I don’t know-“
“Stuck,” Balthazar says, and Peter smiles.
“Yeah, stuck,” he chuckles. “But recently I’ve started to realize that you guys forgave Pedro. That no one really had a problem with him anymore. That the rules and everyone’s issues with me weren’t because of some horrible thing I did in the past, but because you were worried about me. And I’ve been stupid for not acknowledging that.”
“Stupid, that’s a pretty good word for it,” Balthazar says, and Peter laughs.
“Hey!” he says indignantly, giving Balthazar a shove in the shoulder.
“Well, you have been,” says Balth, shaking his head. “I TOLD you I forgave you. I told you I didn’t have a problem with how you lived your life as long as it was making you happy. Hell, I even told you I love you-“
And suddenly Pedro feels like the world has stopped moving.
“No, you didn’t,” he says, breathless.
“What?”
“You’ve never actually said it,” he says, a massive smile growing on his face. “Sure, you’ve written songs, and other people have mentioned things to me, but- wow.”
Peter laughs disbelievingly.
“You just said it,” he whispers.
Balthazar’s face grows red.
“Well, I do,” he shrugs.
There is a pause while Peter takes this in, and then he takes a deep breath.
“I’m sorry, Balth,” he says. “I’m sorry for trying to kiss you. I’m sorry for bringing people around all the time. I’m sorry for making you think that I thought you were some casual thing because, of all things, you have NEVER been casual for me. I mean, fuck, I’m crazy enough about you to write a sonnet for you-“
“What?” Balthazar laughs, but it’s more like a startled puff of air that escapes from his mouth.
Peter covers his face with his hands.
“A sonnet,” Peter groans. “I don’t have it with me, and I don’t have it memorized, but I wrote it. To show how much I love you-“
“Pete,” Balth says from beside him.
“It’s not anywhere near as good as the songs you write, and it’s cheesy and sentimental, and I kind of had trouble with some of the rhyming parts-“
But Peter’s rambling comes to an abrupt stop when he feels Balthazar’s warm fingers pulling his own hands from his face. Suddenly, he is face to face with those blue eyes that he had commented on so long ago in Ursula’s video.
“I love it,” Balthazar smiles. “I know I haven’t heard it yet, but I already do.”
There is a moment when neither of them speak, and it’s just the two of them, taking one another in. Existing.
“Here’s the thing, Balthazar,” Peter whispers after what feels like centuries. His heart is beating a thousand times a minute, and his face is so close to Balth’s that he can feel him breathing.
“A few months ago, Pedro Donaldson asked you to come outside with him. And, seeing that Pedro’s making a bit of a comeback….well, he was wondering if….”
But then, suddenly, there are lips on his own and fingers in his hair and a warm face in his hands and it’s like waking up from a dream and remembering what it is like to breathe.
And Peter figures he should have known, but his favorite discovery is that Balthazar never mumbles I-love-yous. He holds them out gently in his hands for only Peter to see, and when Peter looks closely they are as loud and clear as the t-shirts that Ben picks up off his floor every day. There are no stutters, no garblings, no hiccups or pauses. Only genuine smiles, a soft voice, and best of all, a hand that fits perfectly in his own.