Chapter Text
Tony never stopped thinking about Maxxie. Not his beautiful blonde hair (ever so slightly fried from bleach but Tony never minded that), not his strong, toned arms (what? Tony can appreciate that in a man just as anyone could, it doesn't make him gay), not his fluidity and flexibility (although the tries to not think about that too much).
Michelle is over two hundred miles away, and although they video-called as often as they could, they slowly began to drift. It wasn't a shock to anyone, not with the state their relationship had been in anyway. No couple had as many problems as they did and lasted long distance. Maybe in the future, they'll get back together. Maybe they're meant to be. Maybe they'll get married. But not right now.
Maxxie isn't awfully close either, so Tony often wonders why the fact that he is closer than Michelle makes him a better... friend... in his eyes. Maxxie is about a hundred miles closer, but it's still a trek of a journey. Not that Tony would know, he hasn't made it yet.
And so, when Maxxie hasn't come to visit him, and he hasn't gone to visit Maxxie, is the fact that they are so close so important to him? Why is Maxxie on his mind all the time? Tony swears he didn't think about Maxxie this much when they were in college, but maybe that was because he just didn't have a chance to miss him.
Miss him? He missed all of his friends, of course he did, but it didn't feel quite the same. Tony didn't want to think too much into that.
XX~•~•XX
"It's Tony's birthday soon," Anwar says one morning, peering over the top of his porn magazine. Maxxie is sure that he has to be overcompensating for something, there's no way anyone can genuinely be reading a porn mag at nine in the morning on a Monday.
Tony's birthday is on their calendar, the one James left after he'd packed up and moved out. Maxxie was upset for a while, but he always knew that James wasn't the one he'd end up with. He wasn't the final boyfriend, it just didn't seem right. And so, as soon as he found out James had a little slip-up with the guy from the pub down the road, he was done.
"Do you reckon he'll say anything?" Maxxie asks. "Like, maybe he'll want us all to go down or something. Michelle and Jal might not be able to make it, what with uni and all, but I'm sure the rest of us can. How nice would that be, all getting together again?" He'd missed his friends. Being in London, even with Anwar, had felt like the loneliest time of his life. The constant dance classes with other students who think they're too good to socialise, the endless auditions at the same few theatres with the same few actors and the same few rejections, all his hard work and time and energy being spent down at the local Subway just to make ends meet. He didn't feel like himself, and yet, he also felt like this was the closest to the real him that he would ever be able to find. That one audition, that one breakthrough, it would come in its own time. Maxxie simply has to wait it out.
Anwar nodded as he chewed on his slightly burnt toast coated in far too much strawberry jam that made Maxxie's wallet quiver. "I'll bet he plans this whole big bash with every girl in the uni. Probably has the biggest room there too, we can probably raid it for a spliff."
The thought of Tony having made millions of friends and had millions of shags sounded right, but it didn't feel right. Maxxie knew how he felt about Tony, but he thought he was over it. But still that disgusting, acidic feeling lingers in his stomach as Anwar fantasies about this overtly sexual life Tony must be leading in Cardiff, and his face turns a little green.
XX~•~•XX
He didn't have many friends. Maybe he wasn't ready for this. Even now, he can admit he wasn't fully over the accident - no way could someone get over that in a year. Was it a year? Time blurs now. He's not as smart as he once was, as witty, as cunning, and though in some ways he likes to think it makes him a better person, in others he feels like a shell of his former self.
His former self is someone he mostly knows through stories, and none of them are good. He doesn't particularly want to get back to that stage again, being this awfully horrible manipulator that everyone says he was. How could they stand him? How could they stay? How could Maxxie stay?
His thoughts drift as he walks to his lecture, the date written largely on the board (his eyes still taking time to read it). It's nearly his birthday. He didn't know what to do for it, if anything. Maybe he'd go home, see if anyone is still around. It's not too far to go home; it's probably the best option. See what Effy's up to, knock on Sid's door to find out if he's still in the US or not.
He hadn't heard anything from Sid in a while, their friendship turning into one you tell other people about, one that doesn't exist anymore. 'Oh yeah, I did that with a friend a few years ago, what a laugh. Pretty sure I've been there, this lad I used to know drove me. I used to watch that all the time at my mates house.'
He got messages from Anwar from time to time, mostly drunken videos from expensive nights out on the London streets. Jal is always up for a phone call, though he knows she's busy (she won't admit she's been keeping herself too busy, doing too many things, trying to ignore that one moment poisoning the back of her mind). Maxxie will call, send him a handwritten letter or two with a picture he's drawn. Tony didn't know people still did that, not with all the technology around today. Handwritten letters? Surely that's too much effort for just a friend... though that was not something he liked to delve too much into.
Will anyone even call? He misses his friends far more than he'd like to admit. Being apart from them feels like he's lost a part of himself. His confidence came from being surrounded by people he could trust, his humour built to satisfy his friends, his love saved only for one...
"Tony, you're still coming tonight, right?"
He looks up to see this gorgeous blond, tall and thin, with brown eyes like melted chocolate. He'd forgotten he'd started talking to her.
"Yeah yeah, of course..." He wasn't going to lie and tell her that he didn't know what she was talking about. More often than not, she would forget to invite him someplace and would be so shocked when he didn't turn up. Sometimes he just didn't listen and yet she assumed she'd forgotten anyway. She was nice enough, but Tony has very little interest in her. She wasn't his sort of friend, his sort of anything.
"Hailey? What are you doing over there?" A hand shoots up in the corner of the lecture theatre, far away from Tony, and Hailey gasps. Of course, she has other friends. Other friends who have nothing to do with Tony. Other friends who don't approve of her obvious crush on Tony.
"Remember: seven thirty." And she was gone.
Tony rarely had anyone to sit by. He'd been told by Hailey before that he just looked really bitchy; maybe it was his natural resting face. He just looked mean. Was that why nobody talked to him? Nobody put in any effort because they just assumed Tony would give nothing back?
His life back in secondary school and college had been beautiful - he was the king of everything. Turns out, that sort of social currency doesn't work at university. People make their own small groups in the beginning and then those are the ones that are set for the year. Tony must have missed the memo.
XX~•~•XX
December 7th. His phone shines brightly onto his face as a picture of Effy with a saucepan on her head from when she was five lights up. Tony answers.
"I'm so sorry we couldn't come down to see you, Mum and Dad have just been so busy with work recently."
Tony doubts that, but he lets Effy speak.
"Anyways, any plans for today? Parties? I bet its way more exciting having your birthday at uni when you don't have to worry about Mum and Dad nagging."
Not quite.
"It's pretty chill, gonna call my mates later. Still got lectures and shit on, which is a fucking joke. There should be some kind of rule: birthdays are days off. It's like my fullest day today," Tony rolls his eyes, glancing across at the timetable he had pinned to his corkboard.
"That's rubbish, but I'm sure you'll be fine. You've made friends, yeah? I bet the ones in your classes will cheer you up."
Yes Effy, all those many friends he's made.
"Alright, I've got to go to college now or Mum'll have a fit. Talk soon?"
Tony nods, although he knows she can't see him. She hangs up immediately anyway, but she knows him well enough to know what he's doing. She knows him well enough to know he's not doing great right now, and honestly, the space is what he needs. The last thing he wants to do today is answer dozens of calls from people he hasn't spoken to in months, pretending like its not the most awkward conversation ever.
He has no plans of calling his friends, doubts he'd be able to get them all online at the same time. A group call would've been nice, but Sid and Cassie aren't even in the same time zone, it's too much work. Clearly, if it takes up more than he's willing to give, maybe these friendships aren't work it anyway.
Fuck it, there's no point in going to all of these lectures. Surely the lecturers don't expect everyone to turn up to everything. With that thought in his head, he rolls over and drifts off back to sleep.