Work Text:
‘These are the best years of your life.’
The words that haunted Calvin.
Cal wasn’t always known as a silent boy, at one point, he was even fairly popular. This was all because of Brad Huff, the most popular boy that used to rule the school before he graduated.
Him and Cal used to be attached to the hip. Anywhere Brad went, Cal followed.
Cal was still, well, Cal. The exact same he was today, but nobody dared to pick on him back then. Being friends with a popular person in high school made you cool as hell too.
Nobody ever knew what Brad was like when it was just the two of them though. Cal carried Brad’s gross secret with him, every day, every second.
Brad Huff is the biggest faggot and loser anyone had ever met, and they didn’t even know it.
It haunted Cal, not being able to tell anyone. Not being able to mouth what happened between him and Brad. The only person who knows is his current best friend, Andre, who shared the same hatred for the jock as he did.
Andre used to get bullied by Brad, a lot. And even though Cal always watched and didn’t interfere, Andre loved him. That’s what he found so beautiful about his best friend, he could see Cal as his true self and not his past.
And to get through it, Calvin wasn’t himself anymore.
Cal knew he was gay, he had always known. But he wasn’t ready. He had never been ready to admit it. Brad knew, Calvin never knew how, he just knew.
Calvin was 14. Being friends with an older guy at school seemed awesome, a 17 year old always making Cal feel like he was the most important person on earth? It was heaven.
For a while, Cal believed it. Brad gave him a confidence that he had lacked his whole life. Which is why he felt so disgusted with himself when he started feeling like he loved Brad.
The truth was, that they could never love each other. Cal saw himself in Brad, while all he saw in the blonde was a disgusting perverted pleasure.
There was no exact moment it started, but slowly, whenever they’d hang out, there would be small things going on. Small things, easy enough for Cal to brush off as guys being guys.
Brad Huff sticking his finger in Calvin’s mouth, laughing while doing so, making it all seem so.. funny. Nothing was wrong.
Brad Huff pinning Calvin down while they were drunk, asking him if he masturbates, with a wide grin on his face. Nothing was wrong.
Brad Huff brushing his hand over Calvin’s legs constantly, not even acknowledging it while Cal felt shivers run down his spine. Nothing was wrong.
Slowly, it had started to feel normal. Cal didn’t think Brad Huff could ever have bad intentions, because Brad fucking Huff is the most awesome guy to ever exist.
He was Cal’s guardian angel. Stronger than him, more popular, more handsome, Cal felt like he could even be a god.
__
Brad slipped his arms around Cal’s drunk self’s waist. Brad wasn’t drunk, they both knew this. He had always been touchy with Cal, but so had he been with all his other friends. That’s just who Brad was.
Nothing was wrong.
He leaned his head on Cal’s shoulder, hugging him from behind. It was Calvin’s first time drinking, he wasn’t processing much.
A bottle of red wine, a few bottles of beer and a shot of vodka. It felt like he didn’t exist anymore, all he knew was that he was safe. Safe with his best friend.
“..You know, I’ve always thought about a certain thing.”
“Hm?” Cal answered shortly, feeling a sick sensation washing over his body, like his gut was trying to tell him something but it just couldn’t reach due to the alcohol.
“I wish we could die together. You’d be in my arms. We could live on like that forever.”
It didn’t sound like Brad at all. It threw Cal’s intoxicated mind off.
“You mean.. you’re suicidal?”
“It’s more than that, C. It’s.. love.”
Brad had never been difficult with saying how much he loves Cal, that had always been a thing. Nothing was wrong, because Brad Huff could never have bad intentions.
“Love? I mean, I guess it’d be.. a nice way to die. If I could choose, I’d want that.”
“You can choose. Don’t think I haven’t noticed, I know what you do to yourself.”
Cal tilted his head down, it feeling heavy, and stared down at his wrist. Brad lifted his arm a little and pulled his sleeve up for him, revealing the self harm scars covering him.
“..Stop, Brad.” He muttered softly.
Brad lifted Cal’s wrist to his face and started slowly kissing the scars. To Calvin, this felt like the most loving thing someone could do for him. His heart wanted more, his woozy mind failed to set off the alarm bells that he needed, and he just.. watched.
He didn’t watch it as if it was himself, he watched it like he had left his body. Like he was in a third perspective, watching this unfold.
Brad Huff loved him, he loved him and he understood him more than anyone else did.
Nothing was wrong.
The kissing stopped, and it felt like all the comfort Cal had been feeling got hatefully torn away from him. He wanted to feel special. He wanted to feel normal. And most of all, he wanted to feel loved.
They made eye contact. Brad hummed before speaking up. “Are you.. gay?”
Cal’s heart sank. The mellow feeling the booze had been given to him turned into panic, panic through his whole body. Like needles poking every inch. His throat closed up, and back was the silent Cal he had fought so hard to get away from.
“It’s okay if you are.” That was Brad Huff. The most accepting, beautiful and perfect thing that the world had ever birthed. The love swallowed Calvin. Everything felt amazing.
Nothing was wrong, because Brad Huff loves Cal.
Because this is the only place the boy had ever felt like he belonged. Like he could be himself, like he could vent about all his troubles and they wouldn’t get brushed off like they always were.
“..I love you.” Cal said. They’d often say it to each other, but right now it had a weight like it had never carried before.
“Cal..”
“I really fucking love you. I don’t know if I would even be here if it wasn’t for you.” The alcohol was taking over.
“Don’t say that, you’ll make me do something I’ll regret.”
“I love you. I love you more than anything. You are my best friend, my only friend. I love you so much.”
Cal didn’t mean it romantically, he meant it raw. The way it was. They had a bond nobody else could ever have. They were Cal and Brad, the two people perfectly crafted for each other. Cal lived for Brad Huff.
Cal didn’t understand.
Cal didn’t understand why his words made Brad do what he did.
He forever blamed himself for it.
He shouldn’t have led him on. He shouldn’t have muttered those words, and he shouldn’t have continued.
It was a blur, a blur Cal either didn’t remember due to the alcohol or due to his brain blocking it out, but Brad was holding a rope.
It felt funny.
It felt fine, fucking beautiful even.
Nothing was wrong.
“I tied up so many girls with this thing.” Is one of the only lines Cal remembered slipping from Brad’s mouth.
He felt his wrists being pulled forwards, he felt the pain as the rope tightened around them.
Brad Huff loved him, he loved him so much,
“Stop.”
And nothing was wrong.
“Stop, I don’t like this.”
Cal tried pulling away, tried fighting, tried laughing, tried crying. But the ropes didn’t loosen up.
“I love you too.”
Their lips crashed together. Cal froze, Brad kept going. He kept going as Cal cried and shook, still trying to loosen himself.
As Brad pulled away after a few minutes, he could feel his hand moving around, reaching for something behind the bed.
There was a gun, pressed against Cal’s temple.
“..You know, I’ve always had a thing for guns.” It sounded normal, Brad was smiling. It was a mix of comfort in between the panic Cal was feeling, as if this was normal. As if this is what best friends do.
Nothing was wrong.
Brad would never pull the trigger, because Brad is perfect.
It all happened so quickly, that all Cal could do was dissociate to the way things were just an hour ago.
Them, sat on the bedroom floor, laughing and joking around.
It hurt. It stung. And Cal watched himself from a third perspective again, and he felt nothing. Not the panic, not the love, it was all gone.
Nothing was okay.
Nothing.
Brad Huff cleaned him up, causing Calvin to be forced to exist again. He wished he could’ve stayed out of his body forever.
His eyes slowly tracked Brad, cleaning the blood from his legs with a paper towel. He wanted to be gone. He wanted to sleep, and he wanted to wake up and realise that none of this had ever happened.
That it was one of the many weird dreams he had about Brad.
Brad untied him, he must’ve at one point, but if you asked Cal how and when he wouldn’t be able to tell you. He wouldn’t be able to tell you how he fell asleep in Brad’s arms. It was all a blur.
—
Calvin was a shell of himself. He would constantly crack jokes with Andre, but sometimes he’d have these moments where he’d zone out and stare at whatever.
Andre knew that those were the moments that Brad would crawl back into the boys mind, to haunt him.
Andre cared, he did, but it bothered him to see his best friend this way. The way he’d get all fidgety when something reminded him of his past. The way he seemed both clingy and avoidant, and Andre could never pin point when and why he was either.
Calvin felt insane. Insane that he cared so much after all those years. Insane that Brad was out there, and that everyone was so fucking proud of him.
His college loves him, and his name haunted the halls that the both of them used to trail through.
Often, people would come up to Cal to see if him and Brad still talked. To see how the amazing Brad Huff was doing. It was a sick joke from the world.
It took Calvin years to accept that it all had been nothing. That there was never that mutual love, that mutual understanding and that mutual caring.
It took years to realise that Brad Huff was nothing but a loser and a faggot, praying onto people he knew were weaker. Helpless.
And still, Cal’s heart felt empty without him. He missed the feeling, the feeling that everything was perfect and that the two of them could take over the world.
He looked for their sick and twisted relationship in everyone, but it was never the same.
It took him a while to stop trying to see Andre as Brad. Andre wasn’t Brad’s replacement, he was his improvement.
Andre loved Cal, he loved Cal’s bad moments, the good ones and everything that came along with him.
When Cal needed to cry, Andre would let him. Not that he did that often, Cal was more for bottling up his emotions.
The both of them knew they had feelings for each other.
It happened one night, during a sleepover. Andre was the only person Cal truly trusted, even though it would never be 100%.
Sleepovers were difficult at the start, but Andre was so understanding that it eventually worked out. They’d sleep in separate beds, a mattress on the floor for Andre and the actual bed being for Cal.
Andre didn’t mind, he just liked knowing his best friend was close to him. That if anything were to happen to him again, he could grab a gun and blast the guys head off.
Andre wanted to kill Brad, but he never told Calvin that because he was scared it would freak him out. He knew Calvin had a sick loyalty to the guy, like an abandoned dog not willing to admit to himself that his owner wasn’t going to come back for it.
They were both laid in their beds, struggling to fall asleep due to the heat.
They had been talking for a while, about everyone and everything. It was nice, the both of them felt like they could say anything to each other.
It came out of nowhere.
“..Andre, thank you.”
“Hm? Thank you for what?”
“For.. everything. For existing. For the simple act of being born. For always helping me even though I can’t do much in return.”
“You don’t have to thank me for that, it’s what friends do.”
“If I wasn’t the way I was, I think I would’ve married you.”
Would’ve, since they had already been discussing Zero day for a while. Would’ve, because they both knew Cal was afraid of loving someone ever again.
Andre didn’t react bigly, he was never fond of stuff like that, and he knew it would probably make Calvin panic. Instead he said it the way he meant it.
“I would’ve married you too.”
That was the one and only time they said it out loud. For the rest, it was their actions that showed it. Their hugs that lasted for a little too long because they were afraid that if they’d let go, they’d loose each other forever.
It was the actions of buying each other food, going places they both loved, and the silences that other people would assume were awkward even though it was their favourite.
Sometimes, Brad would still talk to Cal. The last time was a year back, when they ran into each other at the public library.
Brad apologised, tried to start a conversation about how sorry he was. Saying that he needed closure for what he did to Calvin, that it was haunting him.
That’s the real, true moment that Cal realised that this dude was.. a fucking loser. An idiot. And it made him feel stupid too, because how could this guy make him feel all those ways he used to feel?
The answer for him that Andre landed on later, while going over the interaction, was that Cal wasn’t an idiot.
Calvin was 14.
Every 14 year old boy is stupid, and people like Brad know that.
Andre wish he could tell his friend that it wasn’t his fault, but no matter how many times he tried to say it verbally, it never flipped that switch in Cal’s head that he hoped it would.
So it went back, back to actions. Back to praising Cal when he did something clever, because Andre wanted him to know that he was.
That he wasn’t lost, and that those moments they had meant the world to him. That their moments together is what made Cal, Cal, and not everything that happened to him.
It went back to their deep conversations about family, about school, about relationships.
And eventually, it went back to Zero day.
It wasn’t Brad Huff’s arms that Cal died in, it was those that belonged to Andre.
And he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.