Chapter Text
There’s something wrong with Gene. Or there’s just something wrong with Laurance for liking him. This is the third time they’ve dated since knowing each other, at least Laurance thinks so. He doesn't know if a break up officially counts if they’ve only stopped talking to each other for extended periods of time before inevitably going back to the other. Not talking about it is kind of their thing, save for a half-assed ‘I’m sorry’ here and there.
Laurance frowns slightly as he sits on the floor of Gene’s bedroom. He’s glad neither Dante nor Gene’s mother are home as clouds of smoke get pushed out of the window by the fan Gene had set up.
“Cigarettes aren’t good for you, y’know,” Laurance mutters, scrolling on his phone.
“Yeah, you’ve said this multiple times, Laur,” Gene rolls his eyes as he scoffs. “You’re not my mom.”
“Right.”
The room is quiet and uncomfortable, the only noise coming from the reels on Laurance’s phone.
“When I go home Cadenza is going to have a fit,” Laurance sighs.
“Who cares?” Gene frowns before taking a drag. “Just go in through your window. It’s not that hard, I’ve done it multiple times.”
“Ah yes, my window that is magically always unlocked.” Laurance turns off his phone to look at Gene.
“Is it not?”
“No, Gene, I unlock it most nights because you come over unannounced every time you want to hang out,” he says, voice raising.
“Alright sassypants, no need to get hostile,” Gene yawns, ashes from his cigarette falling into the tray he has beside him.
“Hostile?” Laurance can’t believe his ears. “You’re calling me hostile for having concerns about your lungs and my ass?”
“Hey, it’s not like I don’t have concerns for your ass,” Gene drawls. “I have concerns about your ass’s safety every day.”
“Don’t– don’t say that right now, Gene. Stop being stupid.”
“I’m not being stupid, I do care for that ass of yours very dearly.”
“That doesn’t even make– ugh,” the groan Laurance makes is filled with annoyance. “I’m going home.”
Gene sits up as Laurance stands and grabs his bag.
“Laurance, c’mon, you know I was just playing around,” Gene reaches out for his boyfriend's arm, but misses by a hair. “Laur, babe–”
“Don’t call me that,” Laurance hisses as he walks past Gene.
Cigarette smoke follows Laurance as he walks downstairs, wrapping tendrils around his wrists and ankles as if under Gene’s control. The door opens widely in Laurance’s face, almost on command. But instead of some unforeseen force opening it, a boy with blue hair stands on the other side.
“Oh, Laurance? What’s going on, man?” Dante says, a smile wide on his face.
“Nothing much, just on my way out,” Laurance gives Dante a curt smile.
“Yeah? Well, have a good evening,” the boy responds.
“You too, Dante.”
As Laurance makes his leave, Dante’s voice stops him for a moment. “Hey, what’s that smell?”
“I dunno, ask Gene,” Laurance says, facing Dante one last time before walking off the sidewalk and making his way home.
The walk back to his house feels longer than usual. It usually is after he and Gene get into a fight, if he could even call it that. It’s more like a disagreement, Laurance tends to believe. Laurance kicks stray rocks on the sidewalk as he grumbles about nothing to himself. Tomorrow, he’ll go back to being friends with Garroth again, bickering playfully about which sport is better. He thinks he should stop cutting his friends off when he goes back to Gene, that they don’t deserve that.
As he turns the corner to his road, he prays Cadenza isn’t waiting inside for him. It’s five o’clock, so it’s not like she should be worried about his whereabouts.
Cadenza’s on the couch reading a book when Laurance walks inside. Making eye contact with each other, all Cadenza has to do is raise an eyebrow for Laurance to feel guilty.
“What?” Laurance asks.
“Where’ve you been?” she responds with a question of her own.
“I was at school.”
“You don’t have any clubs today, we both know this.”
Cadenza’s right, as per usual. It’s something that pisses Laurance off and makes him a little more annoyed than normal.
“The baseball team had practice,” Laurance says. “I went to support Garroth.”
“Sure.”
“Yeah.”
“How’s he been?” Cadenza drills.
“Fine, y’know,” Laurance shrugs.
“Mhm,” she nods, eyes travelling back over to the words on the page of her book. “Hope you had a good time.”
“I did.”
Laurance’s room is quiet as he steps into it. Unlike before, the room doesn’t feel suffocatingly awkward. If anything, there’s more of a serenity to it, something that lulls him back to peace. He falls face-first onto his bed, immediately sinking into the mattress. His phone buzzes uncomfortably in his pocket, and as he unlocks his phone to read it, his heart drops.
Laurance groans, his mood soured even more. He debates closing his phone, but instead, he opens up a different contact. His thumbs hover over the keyboard for a moment, but before he can close out of the tab, he starts typing.
Left on read, Laurance shuts off his phone once more. He’ll talk to Garroth in class tomorrow, anyway.
Laurance takes his shoes off before fully climbing on top of his bed, staring at the ceiling. For a moment, the smell of cigarette smoke fades into the background, and all he can smell is the citrus scent of the air freshener plugged into his wall. Everything crashes down on top of him, and if it was possible, Laurance is sure he would be pushed through his mattress and onto the floor of his room. Inevitably, the smoke scent comes back, creeping up his nostrils and flooding his throat.
His shower is long, the layer of grime never truly rubbing off. Coconut bodywash emanates from the shower as the smell permeates in the bathroom, the scent digging into his skin and clinging to the moisture in the air. Stuck in a loop of washing and rinsing, the water gets hotter and hotter until his skin is a color of pink that he doesn’t believe is natural. It’s a color that he hasn’t seen since the last time he did this, a couple of months ago.
Skin pink and pruney as he steps out of the shower, he stares at his reflection in the mirror. The orange dye that once covered his head only reached the tips of his hair now, grown out for almost a year. Eyebags are prominent under his eyes—no more than they are under Gene’s—that he suspects comes from the cigarettes. The cool mint toothpaste hurts his teeth as he starts to brush them, taking his time as his body runs out of anger and the adrenaline settles into something more mellow.
His bed swallows him whole as he lays face-down on it. Clean and tired, Laurance passes out almost immediately. His dreams contain nothing, darkness swallowing him whole until the next morning.
By the time he wakes up, his phone has five more text notifications.
He’s grateful for Garroth’s text.