It is indeed a fanfic update.
Title: Tango for Three
Author: asphyxiate_muse aka. ryukoishida
Part: Standalone
Challenge: Prompts
Genre: Romance, drama, teensy bit angsty
Rating: PG-13 (for swearing)
Characters / Pairing: Dougie/Harry, Frankie/Dougie
Summary: When she saw them, she knew. She also knew that it was almost over between them. She was the odd one out in this tango routine meant for two.
Word count: 1,150
Disclaimer: I don’t own the McFly boys (unfortunately). I do own the plot bunny.
A/N: I haven’t been writing as much as I should, but alas, the life of a uni student (yeah, right). In this one-shot, I want to play with the point of views a bit. And I’m horrid at interpreting picture/photo prompts. So, without further ado…
***
FRANKIE
Sitting on the bed - their bed - she heard laughter, leaking gleefully from the opened window. It was almost cruel, she thought. One was a familiar timber of boyish giggles she had grown so used to these past two years, and the other was deeper, gentler, and they weaved together like a kind of nameless melody that saturated the summer air, now almost too thick and heavy for her to breathe in.
Her heels clicked on the hard wood floor as she walked to the windowsill. Click. Click. Click. Like the ticking of a clock that signified the everlasting continuum of time. Like the cold shots of a handgun that ended lives of the broken-hearted. She settled on the sill, metal digging into her skin but she could hardly feel it. She only wondered, ‘How long?’
Brown, restless eyes searched and they rested on the two figures still lingering at the front door of their house: the two men - one with chaotic blond locks and the other a contrasting dark auburn shade - were facing each other, grinning, their bodies leaning subtly towards each other without their notice, but she saw. She saw that there was more in the way they were almost careful with their postures (like they were trying extra hard to control their limbs from extending towards the other), and she knew.
DOUGIE
He had to hide his smile from Frankie that was beginning to spread on his lips when the doorbell rang. Almost flying out of the room with a childish yell of, “I’ll get it”, he rushed down to meet his best friend. ‘No,’ he stopped himself mentally, but his hand was already on the knob, twisting it and yanking the door open when a rush of warm, humid air caressed his skin. ‘Not friend anymore.’ They hadn’t been friends for the last couple of months; they were something more now.
HARRY
On his way to Dougie’s place (he had to stop thinking the house as Dougie and Frankie’s place because it would just give him a stab of pain deep inside - well-deserved, perhaps, with the way he was handling this relationship, but pain nonetheless), he was debating with himself. Not an unusual activity for him these days, but he wondered if this was worth it.
Then his thoughts let go, betrayed his conscience and all kinds of reason he thought he still had, and his brain was filled with images of a blond, tiny bit crazy at times, bass player whom he used to call his best friend. The cold mist that had been blurring his judgment for the longest time had lifted, and he could see. He could see what he wanted and he wanted it - him, a future with him. His lips tucked into a fond smile without much of his noticing, and he suddenly found himself at the door, finger pushing the buzzer.
The clanging of electronic bell shattered the haze of his chaotic thoughts. He broke through to the present, eyes and mind suddenly clearer than before.
DOUGIE
What would he categorize them as? ‘Boyfriends? Lovers?’
He decided that he didn’t care as he gave Harry a brief hug - one they always had before any of this had happened, one that would not lead to any suspicious questioning should anyone look out the window. Swiftly, he planted a small kiss by the sensitive patch of skin just at the hollow of his ear. He heard Harry stuttered a breath (he knew he would), and he took a small step back, still grinning up at him as if something was amusing and Harry was not getting the joke.
HARRY
He raised an inquisitive brow, placing a finger right at the spot where Dougie had touched his lips, and he could still feel the pleasant burn of the contact.
God, he wanted it again.
“What the hell was that for?” He asked instead.
Dougie shrugged, stuck his tongue out like a five-year-old would (Damn it, was he deliberately teasing him now?) and replied, “No reason. Just wanted to.”
“Someone might see us,” he told Dougie quietly. He meant Frankie. Dougie knew that, too.
“Let them.”
“Dougie…” He actually didn’t know what he was going to say after that. What could he say? Let’s not do this anymore? Let’s get the fuck out of this place so we didn’t have to hide anymore? Let’s not lie anymore.
DOUGIE
“Don’t,” he interrupted Harry before the man could go any further with his words. He wasn’t sure what Harry was going to say, but he didn’t want to risk it - whatever ‘it’ is, this thing, this relationship they had.
‘And what kind of relationship is that?’ A snarky, sly version of his own voice asked, as if already expecting an answer - or lack of one. ‘A cheating kind?’ the voice offered, ‘A disastrous kind? A kind that wouldn’t last?’
He opened his eyes, shivering slightly and suddenly feeling cold and heavy.
“Don’t,” he said to him again like a chant.
HARRY
“We can’t lie to her anymore,” it had to be said, and he said it.
“I know.”
As if on cue, both of them looked up at the opened window and saw Frankie, with her quiet smile and fluttering brown locks framing her face, waving down at them.
“Hey Harry. It’s nice to see you again.”
He might be seeing too deeply into this, but he thought her smile looked strained. How long had she been sitting there? Did she hear their conversation? They were speaking in fairly hushed tones but the gnarling guilt in him just kept twisting and turning in his abdomen.
“Hey Frankie,” he waved back, a half-second later. His arm felt useless - weak.
“Come on in. Dinner is almost ready.”
He nodded, letting Dougie pulled him by the arm to the direction of the front door, but she didn’t see him as she melted into the darkness of the room.
FRANKIE
That smile was getting more and more difficult to uphold. She wondered when she would break. She stepped away from the window, into the shadow where she could breathe again.
She didn’t know this before, and so she was scared - confused - of what had gone wrong in their relationship. But now that she did know, she wondered why she wasn’t as jealous, or angry, or whatever other emotions she was supposed to feel when your other half cheated on you, as she ought to have been.
Maybe deep down, she already understood. She just didn’t want to admit to herself that she wasn’t the one for him - didn’t want to give up on him, on them, yet. That cold miasma of unknown that had been tricking her into seeing a happier illusion of their future for the past few months finally thinned out and she could see again.
She knew what had to be done.
She was only waiting for him to speak the final words.
***
More A/N: This is not the best work I can come up with, but consider that I have to finish 2 books and my blog assignment before next week (and I didn’t want to give up this challenge either), I rushed for this one. Hopefully, people have enjoyed it.